23 Jun How To Turn Brand Critics Into Brand Ambassadors – Sustainable Branding
The age of twitter and social media has opened up a whole new world for individuals and companies. Anyone can criticize or take shots at the integrity of your brand and millions of people could hear about it. This raises a very important question: Are those who criticize your brand your enemy or can you use it to your advantage and turn them into brand ambassadors?
In this video, I share how you can turn your critics into brand ambassadors for your company.
Brand Ambassadors Story
A number of years ago, Clorox purchased the license for Brita Water Filters in North America, which is more sustainable than buying bottled water. One customer in particular of Brita Water’s was an accountant in the Bay area, her name is Beth Terry and she was an environmental activist at heart. She decided to speak up to Clorox about the fact that the filters were not recyclable and she was forced to throw them into the landfill. Beth wrote a letter to the CEO of Clorox at the time to share her concerns about the plastic garbage the filters were creating. She later received a form letter saying that the recycling system in North America was not equipped to recycle the water filters at this time. To make a long story short, Beth became a real critic of Clorox. She started raising awareness around the issue using social media, getting thousands of people to send letters every week to the CEO of Clorox and eventually she started mailing their offices with thousands of used water filters.
Instead of seeing Beth as a critic here’s how Clorox turned this negative publicity to an advantage and started thinking about social responsibility as an organization.
In the comments below, I’d like to hear from you. How have you collaborated with someone who was a critic? What do you think we can do to more effectively take criticism and make it our friend?
No Comments