Part II of my blog series on my experience at BlogHer features case studies from Prego and Fiskars.

The Fiskars case study focused on building deeper relationships with their customers. They recruited customer advocates to be “Fiskateers”, leaders and evangelists online and off. Fiskars Director of PR Suzanne Fanning, Brains on Fire agency account advocate, Carrie Woodward and Fiskateer Angela Daniels  shared why the program worked and how Fiskars defined success:

• Brands need to have an emotional connection with their consumers: research target demographic and learn their likes and dislikes

• Find your passionate audience:  leverage your passionate audience to become your brand evangelists

• Be transparent:  build relationships w/ your consumers, invite them to share their work, ask for their opinion

The Prego case study was an example of how Prego encouraged unfiltered conversation around core brand values of its product. Through this campaign, Campbell was able to support women in their quest to find and share value with one another during these tough economic times, which ultimately improved the image of its brand among the consumers who took part. Not only was Campbell able to reach millions of consumers, but it was able to interact with them in a way that was authentic, not forced. Prego’s takeaways included:

• Don’t overdo it with your brand: people don’t like to have brands constantly in their faces

• Incentivize consumers to participate

• Make sure to engage your audience with the right topic: you don’t want to offend your consumers

• Let it happen naturally: don’t force consumers to talk about your brand, let it happen naturally by asking them to participate