Post One: Thoughts on the 95 Theses

What I took away from reading all “95 Theses” is that in today’s day and age in which our lives are saturated with technology, social media, and new ways to get information out into the world faster, businesses must try to keep up. The consumer holds so much more power now than they have in the past, especially with their ability to rate products on websites, start threads online, tweet about things, or post links on Facebook. That means that we as consumers have the power to either give a brand a great name, or trash it. That is what I think the “95 Theses” is trying to get across: it is up to businesses to start listening to the consumer about what they want, what their issues are with their products, what they like about the products etc. It is not enough anymore to have a great marketing team; a brand needs consumer feedback in order to be successful. My favourite of the 95 theses would therefore have to be:

76. We've got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we'd be willing to pay for. Got a minute?

We as consumers have all these ideas, thoughts, opinions etc. We know what we want way better than those people working in the company. If we are buying a product, we want it to satisfy our needs. If companies took the time to sit and converse with their audience, chances are they could create a better product and market it in a way that appeals to their audience. 

In class we have talked a lot about different companies that are following the advice of these 95 Theses. For example, McDonalds has done a wonderful job in incorporating the voice of their audience. The McDonalds website features an entire section called “Our Food. Your Questions” in which consumers can ask any questions they may have about their food. Some of the questions up on the website include: “Does your Egg McMuffin use real eggs? They look too perfect”, “why does your food look different in the advertising than what it is in the store?”, and “Do you put sugar in your happy meals?” Instead of straying away from such questions, McDonalds has embraced the fact that in a social media world, regardless of whether or not they choose to answer these questions, people will be posing them and getting their opinions out there for the world to hear. McDonalds has taken what could be something very detrimental to the reputation of their brand and has used it to show that they care about their customer’s opinions and needs and that instead of sending them back some anonymous automated response they are conversing with each consumer who asks a question individually.

Here’s the link to the page on the McDonald’s site. If you take a look at the answers you’ll see how McDonald’s has taken the time to really personalize their answers, and even have added some humour to them.

http://yourquestions.mcdonalds.ca/