Research indicates that peer reviews – recommendations made by friends or family – are extremely influential to a buyer’s decision-making.  A thumbs-up sign from someone who’s bought from Company X or Brand Y is like the Everyman’s Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

Those reviews, that word-of-mouth, isn’t enough though.  Some folks will want more.  Others will have never encountered another one of your customers and remain in the dark about your company’s greatness.

Your Web site is the single most important opportunity your company has.  I’m not kidding.  For fetal companies, it’s an inexpensive way to tell your brand story to potentially millions of target customers.  To project a polished, successful image even if as CEO you’re still chief cook and bottle washer.   For more established companies, your Web site is a way to engage existing customers with content and news from a trusted source.  You’re steeped in accomplishments and tradition, a veritable “Trust Us.” corporation.

So why does your Web site suck? Don’t tell me you didn’t realize.

There are broken links, missing pages, and references to your soon-to-be-launched new gizmo.  You know, the gizmo launched two years ago?  The site loads slow, can’t be viewed on a smart phone, and requires an inordinate number of clicks to complete a faulty form page.  Did I mention the lack of substantive information?

Yeah, that pride and joy you paid $10,000 for three years ago sucks.  Here are some things you can do about that (and you’ll want to do them quickly):

1. Follow The Leader.  Humans are predictable, and we follow linear patterns. While a breakout product may put you ahead of the competition, take caution when approaching your Web site.  Keep the main navigation in traditional placement along the very top or near-top of the page.  The site search box goes in the upper right quadrant.  Sometimes convention is a good thing.
2. Discover Your User Experience.  With two days, $100, a computer, WiFi connection, and benevolent volunteers (representing your target demographics) you can host your own non-scientific user testing. Ask individual testers to complete specific tasks, observing the routes they take to completion and the obstacles they encounter along the way.
3. Get A Second Opinion.  And a third.  Use in-page analytic tools like Userfly and Clicktale to gain insights about browsing session behavior. The information you gain can help inform the reconstruction of your site.
4. Put Yourself In Their Shoes. All too often, site visitors bounce (i.e., terminate a session prematurely) because they can’t figure out where to find the information they want.  Or they don’t understand where to start, where the intended point of entry is.  Determining your site’s navigation and the naming convention for category and sub-pages are often missing pieces of this very important puzzle.  Label items using plain language.
5. Back Away From The Flash.  Those cool banners and cute walk-on talking heads are weighing your site down, causing long load times.  They do nothing to further your organic search placement, and auto-starting animation (particularly if there are no user controls) is intrusive and presumptuous.
6. Make Quality Somebody’s Job One.  Someone should be thoroughly testing and reviewing the site at least once monthly.  Where do the emails from completed “Contact Us” forms go?  What happens to them? You know the kick you get when you find a mistake in the paper?  Flaws stand out more online.  Plus, what does a misspelling say about your company besides carelessness?
7. Get Moving.  It’s your reputation.  What are you waiting for?

——–

This post originally appeared as an article in local business journal the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Business Monthly, a publication focusing on small business.

Nick believes that multimedia tells a story, appealing to a consumer’s multiple facets through sound, visuals, intonation, and context simply not available in traditional, static print media.

Watch our interview here (admittedly, it’s longer than the advertised 10 minutes by double.  But he’s worth it.) or watch it on my Motionbox channel here.

As always, your comments and observations are appreciated.  Next month I’ll interview entrepreneur and Web-based software developer Eric Engelmann of Geonetric.

Nick Bergus – Adjunct Instructor, Multimedia at U of I and Production Coordinator, NLTV

1. You hold a BA in Religious Studies and an MA in Journalism and Mass Communication. How do those two tracks work to further your career objectives?
2. How well do you feel academic institutions are preparing communication students for today’s work force?
3. What skills and experiences do you think are must-haves for college graduates and entry-level workers of tomorrow?
4. What’s it going to take to turn the publishing industry and journalism craft around?  From a financial standpoint?  From a consumer consumption standpoint?
5. Do you think the adoption of social media on a business level can help or hurt tomorrow’s media industry?
6. Tell me about multimedia content and journalism.  Can they truly combine in a meaningful way that drives value through experience? Beyond simple execution?
7. You’ve won several scholarships and awards.  Would you describe yourself as a competitive person?  And you believe those types of pursuits are critical for an aspiring communicator in today’s market?
8. Define ‘convergence journalism’ and ‘nonlinear multimedia stories.’
9. From my perspective, you seem to have a strong creative/expressive side to your personality as well as a strong intellectual side.  Has this always been true?  And how might your two careers advance those needs?
10. Tell me about your affection for food.  Certainly the blog title “Death of a Pig” is intriguing. An Iowa transplant myself, I’m still trying to understand this ag-focused culture even after years of living here.

As disorganized as some people are, as seemingly random and unintentional as some of our choices may be, our minds inherently operate mostly linearly. We make quick assessments based on first impressions and related experiences.

Another way of putting it is that we’re most comfortable sorting the people and pieces of our lives into similar profiles.  And once they’ve been placed and new (often validating, sometimes self-selected affirmation) bits of data layered on top, it’s difficult if not impossible to reassociate them.  They’re stuck.  They’ve been labeled.  Same thing happens with brands (after all, those that matter to us have an emotion-based appeal, just like people and the ‘things’ in our lives).

Trouble is, sometimes we do the sorting when we’re having an off day.  Or without all the important information.  We make choices and set predictive patterns sometimes based on a flawed observation or misunderstanding.  Not only do we miss out, but remember all that stuff you’re read about personal endorsements and peer reviews and such?  Well our screw-ups can actually mean someone else misses out, too.

The lesson here is three-fold:

• Think before you speak.  That extra moment may be all you need to see clearly and without prejudice.  Leave the raised eyebrows and pursed lips out of your voice.
• Speak the facts, not the drama.  If you’re fortunate enough to have people who value your opinion, they’ll think more of you for being circumspect.  For pointing the direction without navigating turn-by-turn.
• Be receptive to conflicting opinions.  Be self-aware enough to process that your position may not be solid.

1. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”
2. “Do you have anything new going on?  That’s what we need to focus on.”
3. “It’s okay that the folks in <xyz department> don’t ‘get’ social media. We don’t need them.”
4. “I can have <your brand> up and running in no time.”
5. “Once I’ve set everything up, its pretty minimal upkeep from there.”

First, the terms {“expert,” “guru,” “maven”} and the like just don’t belong in a job title.  Those terms may be how peers and the media choose to describe someone with notable accomplishments or credentials, but those are not positions we can claim for ourselves.  My brilliant sister is not an Accounting Expert or even a CPA Expert, although she certainly knows her stuff.  Ever heard of a CEO Expert? Bah. Plus, “long time” can, at the max, be like 3 years. Thinking in terms of a recent college graduate, 3 years job experience would place them in an entry-level role, yes?

Second, “new” may be sexy. “New” may be enticing, or even innovative.  But what’s new has limited power until considered in context with a brand’s history, its product lines, target audiences, year-over-year sales trends, competitive activity, focus group findings, and sales or share objectives.  I think my grandma called it “flash in the pan.”  You must take the time to do your homework, intelligently laying a framework of trust and value in order to build sustainable relationships with customers, irrespective of the communications channel (online or off).  You gotta have more than just ‘new’ to have staying power (and if your brand isn’t in it to stay, why be in it at all?)

Run away if you hear number three, far and fast.  Not only does setting up social media platforms – using the plethora of tools – require help from marketing, design, procurement, customer service, product management, even IT – but given the cultural impact and downstream effect of becoming a socialized business, it’s imperative that every member of the organization from warehousing to accounting understand the master plan (and you better have one!).  Confusion or ignorance can lead to dissention which affects attitudes and…you get the point.

Number four is tied to number three and clearly not a quick&easy endeavor.  Social media is not free, and it ain’t easy…unless you’re having a go at it without a master plan,  just clicking around on Facebook.

Fifth is connected to four and three (funny, this is starting to sound like something organized and intentional, like <gasp!> a plan).  Unless your strategy is along the lines of Woot (and hey, nod to them for what looks to be segmented sales-oriented channels and a conscientious decision to not attempt community with a transaction-driven brand), its going to continue to require a lot of work.  Monitoring sentiment, customer service, reputation management, awareness-building, etc. – whatever the focus, maintaining a social brand is hard work.  It’s like that all-in-one knife, and the tools are all being used at once.

Any more lies you’d add to this list?

If you notice the brand’s wall, you’ll see a host of comments and announcements by the page’s fans.  All kinds of people are shouting out their love for the apparel maker. But the brand doesn’t seem to use the wall as an opportunity to engage directly with its consumers.  Miss. Nor could I find an instance in recent history where PINK representatives used the review or discussion to initiate or pursue related topics.  Another miss.  I imagine that things like garment care and cleaning, recommendations for certain types of body styles, etc. would be useful to fans.  Have the folks at PINK given any thought to adding more value to this experience, creating a stronger opportunity for sales and – dare I say – affinity?  Maybe that’s not their goal.

Despite silence from the PINK peanut gallery, fans are talking with one another in the discussions tab.  A conversation I checked out was between one female fan and a male fan centered around PINK’s foreign manufacture policy.  The two people exchanged several comments and finally the male lost his decorum.  The female retained her composure and stayed on point.  But the whole issue concerned my colleague, who felt it very risky to “allow” customers to interact online, on a forum hosted and maintained by the brand.  Wouldn’t it be smarter to disable the discussion tab and avoid potential conflict (as well as deny dissenters a platform)?

This situation is a single instance, and enabling/disabling a Facebook page tab is generally a tactical question.  Only six tabs can appear in the nav at one time, anyway.  But both speak to much larger issues of systemic concern for consumer-facing organizations in an increasingly connected, accessible, always-on, and public world:  moderate, or manage?

Consumers have witnessed (and borne) the past three years’ socio-economic events and emerged more curious and conscious about the brands they select.  Diminishing disposable income will do that to a fellow.  Money matters more, and we want more in return for the precious green we hand over.

Brands – perhaps more so makers of non-essentials like PINK – should be making very deliberate decisions about policies which might interest their core audiences, and the transparency with which they present relevant policy information.  Companies might not have historically viewed Facebook (for example) as a platform for reaching significant numbers of their audience about topics more weighty than sale dates or promo codes.  Increasingly, I think brands should consider every consumer touchpoint as an opportunity to share their story.

Chances are, PINK’s fans aren’t on the distro list for the company’s press releases.  The information the fans receive – and share – stem from other sources, and the degrees of separation can weaken or even misinform.

to be continued…

The plus-sized model isn’t aspirational enough for the brand. We need someone attractive, but not too.

The target for our dog food product is a married female, and in the photo you’re using there’s no wedding ring.

All the copy must be in French and English. Disclaimer sections, too.

We won’t have the focus group results for another 4 weeks but need you to begin concepting now.

Can you make it Christmas-y without using red? Or using the word ‘Christmas’?

A friend shared this hilarious post from The Oatmeal, covering the cliche (yet accurate) dynamic that is the client-agency relationship.*  This ‘toon describes Web design specifically, but I find it easily applies to all creative development processes netting out in the forms of press releases, postcards, drip email, fact sheets, annual reports, radio spots, video, you name it.

Everyone has an opinion, and everyone is a consumer of a host of brands while being the target of three dozen more (that’s a lotta noise, folks).  All this general and repeat exposure (Bob receives direct mail) coupled with personal, subjective preferences (Bob likes orange and doesn’t watch TV)  lead many to think this marketing stuff is easy (Bob wants to launch the new product using direct mail only and the look should include lots of orange but not be mistaken for ING.  We don’t have a list but need 40,000 units sold and have $4,000 total budget and a two-week timetable. I’ll be away from the office for a few days but we can stay in touch by email).

And sure, marketing is not rocket science, there is no gold-level certification. I know that.  But good marketing relies on instinctive decisions honed from experience (successes and failures) strengthened by insights drawn from an insatiable desire to learn:  learn about client business history, a brand’s evolution, consumer viewpoints, data trends, competitive activity, political/economic/cultural/societal factors and events, and technology-driven communications channels.  That’s before you even touch the less glamorous side of marketing and brand management – creative talent caliber, technical expertise, efficient project management, and timely execution and budget reconciliation.

All of a sudden, good marketing isn’t as simple as using the corporate logo and including a pic of the CEO’s cat (because that’s…cute??) along with that tome of descriptive product copy the brand manager (or legal) insists is required. Something’s gotta give.  And usually it’s the A) message B) compelling, remarkable factor C) simplicity D) relevance.

So the next time there’s rumor of a new project, have your brief document ready.  Make sure the client can articulate their offer, their position, and their objective. Agree on a process and handling protocol. Hold each other accountable throughout.  If he mentions orange, ask him if there’s profile data to corroborate that choice. If he goes more than 2 rounds of revisions, re-estimate the project to account for the unanticipated billable hours.  Before you hit SEND, it’s fine to get some feedback (and hopefully good proofreading!). But no piping up from the neighboring cube farm allowed. They have their own work (and presumably, specialize in).

Stay on task. Let your expertise drive. The end result will be a much more clear, focused body of work.  A real, distinctive flavor instead of plain ‘ole vanilla.

* Hey you there. Yeah, you. The one who said “That’s not true! We get along with all of our clients! They respect our expert opinion! That’s why they hired us!” Drop the official-speak and think back to that last ad you created. How long from briefing to release? How many approvals were required? What were the number of revisions? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Run along now.

For awhile now, I’ve been mulling over this idea about featuring video interviews of interesting local folk with backgrounds in journalism, new media, marketing communications, and the arts. I’ve been fortunate to come to know (or know of) so many talented people in the east-central Iowa (Waterloo-Cedar Rapids-Iowa City) area and love the idea of introducing my readers to the passion and skills these people have to offer their community and employers.

My goal for 2010:  Ask ten unique talents a set of ten questions (and get their responses) within ten minutes.

First Up:  Research and Brand Development

Lynn Manternach, Ph.D, President of MindFire Communications was kind enough to visit with me in her home recently.  I’ve known Lynn for about a year now and was ecstatic she agreed to help me pilot this series.

Watch my interview with Lynn below.  Or view the video directly on Motionbox.  A written list of my questions follow. My interview actually lasted a smidge over 11 minutes, but that’s not bad for a first installment, eh?

Interview Questions

1. You hold a Ph.D. That means you’re likely good with data, statistics, and analyzing information. How do those skills benefit you and your clients?
2. Where do you think MindFire’s growth will come from (verticals and service areas) in the next 1-3 years?
3. The inevitable economy question – how has MindFire fared in the last year? How do you feel your company compares to its agency peers?
4. MindFire is a little over two y ears old. In small business terms, the start-up and incubation periods can be grueling. How would you characterize or compare Year One and Year Two? How might Year Three evolve?
5. There are behemoth, publicly-owned communications agencies with signature roster clients, and there are a huge number of boutique shops and specialty firms. What did you and your partners (Mike Smith and Erik Meade) strike out to create with MindFire Communications?
6. What’s the toughest (or most demanding) aspect of owning a small business?  Operations? New business development? Scale? Talent management?
7. I’ve read the official MindFire post covering reccommendations for businesses in 2010. Do you have any professional predictions or goals you’d care to share?
8. Do you think your early career days in broadcast have provided you with an advantage in new business development, public speaking, and client relationship development?
9. You are personally involved in a number of public speaking and business writing engagements. How do those projects fit in with MindFire’s marketing and promotion initiatives?
10. Describe MindFire’s brand, and the concept of Personal Brand as it applies to you.

What do you think?

My apologies for the unsteady hand and lackluster video enhancements. I hope to twist the arms of other local luminaries soon, and commit to improving my video game as the series evolves.

Meanwhile, please let me know your thoughts in general. What do you think about questions specifically tailored for the interviewee (like Lynn, above)? Or do you think an interview centered around a predefined, single topic is more interesting? Let me know!

As we close one year and breathe a collective, fortifying breath before propelling into the next, its important that we take measure of pressures, events, and developments across a spectrum of input areas shaping life and business: economic, political, technological, philosophical, cultural, and social. When you read these posts, consider the myriad of influences shaping the world around us, the world we live in. And tomorrow, after the libations wear off?  Make a little commitment to yourself to squeeze the most out of every single moment.  We get a do-over.

Happy New Year!

A great consolidated list from my friend @futurescape may be found here: http://bit.ly/8Wg0Na

Content

Content and Social Marketing Predictions for 2010 by Joe Pulizzi at Junta42

Why 2010 Will be All About Content by Chris Dannen at BNet

10 New Media Content Trends in 2010 by Vadim Lavrusik for Mashable

Online Marketing

10 Web Trends To Watch In 2010 by Pete Cashmore for CNN

Where Digital Marketing Is Heading in 2010 (Part One) – AdAge

7 Social Media And Web Analytics Predictions for 2010 by WebMetricsGuru for Social Media Today

9 Digital Marketing Mistakes I Won’t Make Next Year by Judy Shapiro for AdAge

8 Predictions for SEO in 2010 by Rand Fish at SEOmoz

2010 Predictions by Richard MacManus at Read Write Web

Marketing in 2010 – It’s All About The Data by Josh Jones Dilworth for Mashable

Digital Shines In 2010 Forecasts – DM News

10 Tactics That Will Dominate Digital in 2010 by Drew Neisser for iMedia Connection

2009 Year In Review by Jack Aaronson for ClickZ

Alterian Predicts A new Decade of Marketing Trends – Yahoo! News

The Year SEO Isn’t Important Anymore – Robert Scoble

8 Experts’ Opinions for 2010 from iMedia Connection

Internet, SEO, and Technology Predictions by A.J. Kohn on Blind Five Year Old

Marketing

BNet – The Corner Office

10 Must-Do Marketing Tips for 2010 by Ivana Taylor for OPEN Forum

Resolutions from MindFire Communications

Look Back At 2009 Before Leaping Into 2010 by Christina Kerley at CK’s Blog

7 Ways To Get  Your Marketing Back On Track by Heidi Cohen at ClickZ

2010 Loyalty Marketing Predictions by Mark Sage at Carlson Marketing

10 Things Changing Marketing in 2010 by Joe Marchese of Social Vibe for MediaPost

Opportunities for Packaged Goods Growth by BrandWeek

2010: The Year Marketing Dies by Augie Ray for Social Media Today

Email Hopes for the New Year from the Email Experience Council

Retail/E-Commerce

Retail Outlook: Discounters Poised To Thrive – USA Today

Wrapping Up 2009 – Get Elastic

Social Media

6 Social Media Trends for 2010 by David Armano for Harvard Business Review

Marketing in 2010 – Social Media Becomes Operational from Valeria Maltoni at ConversationAgent

Predictions: Social Marketing in 2010 by Chris Kieff on 1 Good Reason blog

5 Sure-Fire Ways to Operationalize Social media by Jay Baer at Convince and Convert

2010 – The Year Of Listening by Brandon Sutton

What Are Your Social Media Plans for 2010? by Michael Stelzner for Social Media Examiner

The Year Social Marketing Gets Serious by Media Post

7 Ways To Get More From Social Media in 2010 by Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media for Small Business Trends

8 Social Media Keys for 2010 by Joe Pulizzi

50 Social Media And Marketing Predictions by Ann Handley for MarketingProfs

CMOs Will Spend More On Social in 2010 – DM News

Social Media Predictions for 2010 – Inventors Spot

Community

I Am Possible – My Wish For You in 2010 by Danny Brown

Business

70 Words of Unconventional Wisdom for 2010 by Bill Taylor for Harvard Business Review

Trends in Business Credit Cards for 2010 – Small Business Trends

The Year In Ideas by Jeremy Victor at BtoB Bloggers

10 Customer Service Trends for 2010 – Small Business Trends

5 New Years Resolutions for SMB’s byJennifer Van Grove at Mashable

40 Trends That Might Matter For Your Business in 2010 by Ann Handley at OPEN Forum

2009 Annual Review by Chris Guillebeau at The Art of Nonconformity

Intrepid Goals for 2010 by Todd Schnick at Intrepid LLC

Get Up For 2010 by Chris Brogan

Top Ten 2010 Predictions for Entrepreneurs by Ken Kaufman at CFOWise

Our Top Predictions for 2010 – Newsvetter

Top 10 Lists for 2009 – Nielsen

15 Predictions and Trends for 2010 – Entrepreneur

Technology

Ten Technologies that Will Rock 2010 by Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch

Top Ten Digital M&A Deals for 2010 by Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch

Trends

Vision of the New Consumer – Wall Street Journal

Top Consumer Goods Spending Trends – BrandWeek

The Year 2010 in Food by the Gaston Gazette

Trends To Watch by eMarketer

Back-To-Basics Leads Food Trends in 2010 – MediaPost

Trend Predictions in 140 Characters by TrendsSpotting

Bring On The Funny

Biggest Douchebags of 2009 – eSarcasam

The 10 Best Viral Videos – Entertainment Weekly

I’ll Spell It Out

Trust:  a relationship of reliance.

Relationship:  “…is managing and nurturing a company’s interactions with its customers…The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new customers, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former customers back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and customer service.”

Reliance:  “…a system’s ability to maintain its functions in routine circumstances, as well as unexpected circumstances.”

Trust Is To A Relationship Like Glue Is To…

Two-part epoxy is strong stuff!

Trust is like an adhesive; it takes time to set and cure. Test a bond too early and the joint can be stressed and fail. But waiting until it cures – has had time to properly mature through its developmental stages – results in a strong bond.

That’s my analogy, and I think it’s really very applicable to business/customer relationships.  Maybe even more so given the tenuous state of the global economy, set in motion by big business subterfuge and the banking world’s poor judgment.

Failure To Communicate

Consumers are skeptical of “newspeak,” and miss the personal nature of yesteryear’s account transactions.  Consumers are frustrated at the lack of swift and sure recourse (has automation, the IVR, and the form letter taken things too far?).  And consumers are outraged at what amounts to the complete and total absence of any application of rational, intelligent discretion when the applicability of policy comes into play (just because GE Money *can* increase a customer’s interest rate by 20% when payment is received one day late doesn’t mean that they *should*).

Hello benevolence. Hello valued customer. Hello accessibility and empowered front-line employees.

The Have And The Have Nots

I believe these “big business” mindsets to be polarizing. The indiscriminate application of sterile policy, the distancing of consumers from the human profile of the brand (emotion drives even the most practical and basic-need purchase decisions; the association of memory and related experience influences brand choice at the onset), and complicating the back-end details to dissuade customers from dispute, return, or issue resolution all work to segregate customers into similar-looking groups that can be  managed swiftly and dispassionately.

Dispassion. Wait a minute. Isn’t customer passion – engagement, affinity, loyalty, stewardship – the holy grail of brand marketing?  Don’t companies pay for passion, real or feigned? I’m talking about the passion that drives testimonials, product reviews, endorsements, word of mouth, fan-ning, retweeting, forwarding, logo-wearing….So passion is okay provided its the right kind, from the happy customers. The rest can eat cake.

Which Came First, The Chicken…

Circle back around to trust. You can’t be passionate about anything without being vulnerable and vested (hey! we’re talking emotions here!).  And you won’t ever willingly be vulnerable without having trust and confidence.

Buzzle.com author Don L. Price says it best:

“Trust is the true differentiating feature for any company in a world of increasingly commodity-like products and services. A relationship, founded on trust, is the only genuinely sustainable competitive advantage a company has.”

When there’s trust, when a brand truly recognizes transparency as an opportunity to get closer to its clients and chooses vulnerability (its mutual, you know) over cover-up, gobblety-gook fine print, and power games, good things happen. Like forgiveness. And an appreciation for respecting its consumers so much that being honest wasn’t really a choice at all. It was simply the obvious next step.

The Moral Of The Story

Your customers have trusted you to make good on their $19.99 or $1,999.99 investment. Don’t screw it  up. We’ve already lost too much already.  Another disappointment just might jade us.

Now we think more about views, clicks, friends, and followers.  We think about sharability, portability, and usability.

As a brand, the bottom-line objective is still to convince (and convert) a group to your worldview.  To divert the Pepsi fan to the Coke community.  To offer the kind of experience that touches a personal value and strikes a strong emotion.

The tactics and tools have changed, and so have the metrics.  We now have the kind of the profiling data to predict user habits and more precisely target activity. We now share control. And we’re expected to not only listen, but respond.

The very foundation of the brand-consumer relationship has changed dramatically in the last 5 years. Truisms are being challenged and transparency is the new cost of entry.

Just what more do you think is in store for us (and them) in the next year or so? Junta42 readers share a few enticing opinions (read it on the big screen, not the ‘berry).  There’s no question that good content holds the potential to wrap people with brand stories in every fathomable channel, touching them throughout their day via a host of devices and mediums.

Has there been a better time to be a [brand] storyteller?  I don’t think so.