What Kellogg’s Stands To Learn From a Little Listening

The recent blowup over Michael Phelps’ recreational activities has taken the world by storm. Dozens of articles, hours of network TV footage, and an apology to the world’s most populated nation later, and we’re all still wondering how to feel about this big to-do.

As always, at bigMETHOD we’re thinking of this in terms of its relation to the world of social interaction.

Across the board we’ve really boiled our outlook on new media strategy down to a simple concept. We like to say “Listen. Create. Connect.” In a nutshell this means that companies ought to listen to what people are saying, create something based on that feedback, and then connect directly with their target audience.

Only time will tell, but my gut feeling says Kellogg’s would be in a much better position right now if they concentrated on the listening part before taking any action. HuffPo sums it up best in saying that “Firing Phelps Might Cost Kellogg’s More Customers.”

The appropriate knee-jerk reaction to Phelps’ activities for any company 20…10…even 5 years ago would be to drop him like a bad habit. But this is 2009. Publicly available statistics tell us that a large segment of the US population doesn’t think Phelps’ has done anything wrong. Publicly available commentary on the web tells us that a lot of influential voices are against the company’s decision to chastise him for what he’s done. And the company’s decision to make discussion of the controversy the number one choice on their answering machine tells us that a lot of people are reacting strongly.  So we know now that they didn’t wait to listen and consider what their constituents actually thought before acting on what they assumed their constituents thought.

This is a fantastic lesson to be learned by any and all.  In the world of data overload there’s clearly enough information out there to keep you in the loop on what your audience is thinking and saying.  So be cognizant, as failing to do so could lead to acting in a way that’s contrary to what your audience actually wants.

Essentially - before you create, before you connect, and before you do just about anything, make sure you Listen.

UPDATE (2/18): A good friend of the bigMETHOD family just passed on a great article that really puts this in the bigger picture. Check it out here.