THE SOCIAL MEDIA ISSUE
crafting a
Community
COMPANIES CAN CORRAL AS MANY
CUSTOMERS AS THEY LIKE, BUT ANY
TRUE COMMUNITY HAS TO TRULY BENEFIT
increase audits and testing of all its products. While the press
ITS MEMBERS—CUSTOMERS AND conference might have quelled questions from the mainstream
COMPANIES ALIKE / BY LAUREN McKAY media for the moment, Mattel recognized it had another
important audience to face—parents, and perhaps more
imperative and intimidating, mommy bloggers. Mattel part-
nered with online-community vendor Communispace and,
soon following the ordeal, launched The Playground, a private
In June 2007, parents, grandparents, teachers, and caregivers community of 500 moms, with the ultimate goal of listening
could be found digging through toy chests, examining con- to parent feedback to craft the company’s next step in climb-
tents of doll houses, and throwing away seemingly perfect play ing above the PR nightmare. Not only did this group of highly
items. The international recall of more than one million toys engaged and highly influential parents help in educating Mat-
left families up in arms and worried that the lead-paint con- tel on what kind of steps to take, but they boosted the com-
tamination would cause harm to children. How in the world pany’s reputation as an entity that listens and cares about what
could something as harmless as a Thomas the Tank Engine its customers have to say. Although it’s difficult to know
toy bear such potential harm? whether the community was directly responsible, Mattel in-
Unfortunately for toy company Mattel, the majority of its creased sales in the fourth quarter of 2007 by 6 percent over
products were manufactured in China, the primary source of the previous year. And from 2009 to 2010, sales rose 8 percent.
the lead-paint contamination. Mattel’s Fisher-Price subsidiary This may seem a dated example, but in many ways Mattel
recalled almost one million Chinese-made toys because of was far ahead of its time. The Playground demonstrates how
potential lead-based hazards, including Thomas & Friends toys effective a community can be in restoring consumer trust, fos-
and figurines from the popular Pixar animated film Cars. tering loyalty, and ultimately making a company more success-
Mattel, soon after the fiasco made national news, issued a pub- ful in the way it engages with customers. Although forums and
lic announcement, apologizing to consumers, and promising to message boards have populated the Web since the mid-’90s,
24 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JUNE 2010 www.destinationCRM.com
www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JUNE 2010 25
THE SOCIAL MEDIA ISSUE
enterprise use of organized communities is more nas- the Web projects. “Little by little, companies realized,
cent. Matthew Lees, a consultant and vice president ‘Hmm, I guess I need to be there,’” Lees says. “It be-
at the Patricia Seybold Group, studies communities came imperative that you need to be in this space and
and likens their evolution to that of the Web. At the there were advantages and benefits for cos