Your digital campaign represents your company, it’s the public face of your company. Just like your website, your store, your packaging, your employees, your phone tree (Let’s hope you have none.) Your digital campaign might be the first encounter of a prospect with your brand. Or it might be a visit with an old friend. Have you ever looked at the personality of your digital campaign?

All brands and their agencies design campaigns with best intentions. Sometimes they succeed. Often they fail and end up where they never wanted to go. I’ve been part of those and I’m not proud of my personal train wrecks. Advertising intends to motivate behavior change. Can you be motivated by an unlikeable person to change behavior? Shouldn’t we all try to be more likeable to customers?

Well, let me introduce you to a few of these people brands create every day.

The cheesy salesman

His perfume is cheap and strong, his clothes outdated and loud, and his pitch is annoying and even louder. Whenever you see him, you try to run away as fast as you can. He tries to sell and upsell anything, as long he profits from it: He doesn’t care.

That’s the digital campaign with huge “Buy” or “Click” buttons, takeovers, pop-unders, scams to make you”like” the brand: Any trick in the book is good to make you buy. Or at least to make you show some interest. That’s the least you can do to keep the cheesy salesman employed.

The creepy guy

You meet him at a party, have a brief chat with him and he believes you want to get married to him. Wherever you go, he’s there: At the gym, at work, in your home. He continues to ask the same question: “Why don’t we close the deal?” He’s the guy that makes you feel uncomfortable, a Big Brother always watching. If you could, you would punch him in the face but he might take that as a sign that you want to close the deal.

As a digital campaign, these are the re-targeting slaves. Yes, I showed interest in your airline 1 week ago but that doesn’t mean you need to remind me on every page I visit, thanks to your massive ad network/retargeting buy. A friend might have sent me a link to your offer, I checked it out and didn’t care. Make me care even less by retargeting me 5,012 times. Maybe it works at the 5,013th impression. Who knows?

Paris Hilton

Ok, she looks good. But, ask her what time it is and she needs an assistant because her brain is permanently turned off. Ask her to do anything and she’ll answer with a frozen smile. She’s stupid, she can’t do anything, the world adored her at one point. Oh, did I mention she’s pretty?

As a digital marketing campaign, that’s the flashturbation campaign. So much Rich Media, you can pay the global debt with it. Too bad it doesn’t work on all devices, crashes your computer and serves no conversion purpose. Oh, did I mention it looks pretty?

The cheerleader

Who doesn’t love cheerleaders? Your team sucks, no one in the stands, it’s raining, they ran out of beer and the cheerleader is still smiling, yelling: Go team. They don’t understand why you don’t like their team, why you don’t share the same level of enthusiasm. No matter, in their mind the own team will always be the best. Even though they haven’t won a game in 10 years.

As a digital campaign, this is the campaign that doesn’t get why you wouldn’t “like” their Facebook page even though there’s no reason for you to like it. No value proposition. Why wouldn’t you follow a Twitter stream brimming with promotional messages? Why do you need motivation to change your behavior? Isn’t our presence  motivation enough?

The cheapskate

He’s the guy occupying the parking lot of Best Buy the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He’s the guy that occupies the coffee shop for hours with an order of a miniature coffee. He’s the guy sitting next to toilet, the guy that gets the worst seat in the bar. He doesn’t care. As long as it’s cheap, he’s happy.

The digital campaign you don’t see. Cheap inventory equals invisibility. Banner ads below the fold on sites you don’t dare visiting because they look like malware-infested 1990 designs. The cheapskate loves the cheesy sales guy on the publisher site. It’s a mutual feeling: the sales guy sells garbage and the cheapskate sifts through it, filled with happiness.

Thank you, Dr. Seuss.

Think about:

Make the board happy.

Make the shareholders happy.

Make the R&D department happy.

Make the customers happy.

Make the employees happy.

Make the sales department happy.

Make the marketing department happy.

Make the focus groups happy.

Make the stakeholders happy.

Make the audience happy.

Make your career happy.

Everybody wants to be happy. Everybody has a different definition of happiness.

If your business is about keeping many different audiences happy, how can a brand have a meaningful and touching point of view?

Happiness used to be a by-product for many brands. Now, it has become the main goal. Is that why most marketing has become ineffective and so bland?

Most brands are like toddlers: If you don’t give them guidance, they’ll just end up eating candy all day. Just to be miserable at the end of the day.

When you need somebody that listens to you without an agenda, who do you ask for an open ear?

When you feel like there’s nobody in the world besides you, who do you call to get out of this solitary confinement?

When you need somebody to set you straight, who do you call?

I’m pretty sure the majority of you will answer this way:

Best friends and family.

Not acquaintances.

Not weak ties.

Best friends and family.

People you trust.

People that saw your good and your bad side.

People that have your best interests on their mind, not their selfish desires.

It’s a mutual experience.

You would do the same for them.

Because you love each other.

Because you deposited over the years in their trust fund.

There were some withdrawals.

But the trust fund is strong and filled with trust and love.

Think about the opportunities for brands.

Imagine your customers not being targets you need to hunt down.

Instead, consider them as best friends and family.

Can you imagine the trust you could build?

The honest conversations you could share?

The collaborative awesomeness both of you could create.

When we treat people like users or consumers, we limit the relationship potential dramatically.

Why not regard your customers as best friends and family?

Have you even imagined the potential?

Why not?

A short movie produced by the Dutch producers Joep van Osch and Casper Eskes asks good questions: What the hell are we actually doing on Facebook? Does it make any sense? Should we “friend” people we barely know? Are we creating a virtual character just to please your Facebook friends?

Rethink your personal Facebook Strategy

A Facebook strategy, really? I thought it’s about sharing  whatever you want to with your friends?

No, it’s not.

You’re developing a virtual brand. Don’t think you can be real on social networks. You shouldn’t be. You don’t want to air your last fight with your spouse on Facebook. Have a serious discussion about your relationship on Twitter.

You gotta be careful.

Never say anything about your clients. Ever.

Never say anything real about your relationship. Ever.

Never be real.

Be Facebook real.

Showcase your strength. Showcase what you want to stand for. So many people talk about authenticity. It’s all garbage. You don’t want to be real on Facebook. You want to be Facebook real.

Don’t share everything. Especially the negative parts.

Share enough. Especially the negative parts.

Don’t convey the Unicorn world.

You’re better than that. You’re real. Just be real in the limits Social Networks put you in. Don’t go all out.

The semi-reality of Facebook

Nobody is a real person on Facebook.

You push your all-time-best pictures in albums. Or on Instagram.

You showcase your best thinking, your best information you gather.

It’s not enough.

You have to refine your Facebook strategy even more.

Don’t define authenticity as a picture from a party.

Define it as new way of thinking, ideas you want to share with people.

Make your own Internet better than just a reunion-stirring-memories-hurting platform.

Make it a platform to define yourself. You can change any day and become some other person. (At least, we in Los Angeles can.)

Why not change your presence on social platforms. Try to be the person you want to be.

More helpful.

More value-adding.

Just a better person.

You don’t become a lesser person because of this.

You become a better person.

Because you are aware.

Because you are.

That’s enough.

What about brands?

The same applies to brands.

Authenticity and transparency doesn’t mean you have to share everything with everybody. People don’t really care about all the customer complaints you field each and every day. They don’t want to hear about the tiny details of your production process.

They want their problems solved.

And they want to find out if your brand matches up with their Facebook persona.

How does your brand fit into their Facebook being? How does it make them look better?

No wonder so many people click on or “like” charity/CSR initiatives. It makes them look better. (”I care. I’m not one of these mindless consumers. I’m a responsible customer.”)

Highlight things and initiatives that make the customer look better. That’s what Social Media marketing is all about.

Make the customer look better.