Discusión general

The provision of trade union membership is essentially the provision of a service, hence it is important to understand how to create effective service branding (Gray, 2006).

Services marketing places great importance on personnel as both the face and the core of a service brand; in essence personnel bring the brand to life. Additionally the heterogeneous nature of service delivery makes the realisation of a brand promise all that more difficult and again the solution is in professional, consistent and reliable customer service delivery (Wallace & de Chernatony, 2008). The service experience relies on its personnel and this is the case in the provision of union membership; it is an education experience (which involves people processing) and offers intangible actions toward

possessions. A strong brand association is an important consideration for progressive unions that are responding to membership decline and other internal union factors by shifting from a servicing model, in which industrial union staff are the main interface with members, to an organising model, in which ordinary members also become the face of the union.

Trade unions by their continued use of outmoded icons and images, may be undermining their own marketing efforts, a concept discussed by Medway et al. (2011) in relation to what they call place de-marketing. Mainstream communications about unions (often generated from employer interests or from anti-union media sources) often

portrays unions as almost the opposite of their espoused intentions and their actions. This creates confusion for consumers, who are receiving this somewhat anti-community message about unions, when in fact unions are more positively aligned with supporting community. Areas of alignment of union views with consumers’ views is in the main unrecognised, for example, consumers’ increasing concern for ethical issues and the natural environment (Freestone & McGoldrick, 2007) are areas of long standing interest to trade unions. Additionally unions do not tend to take the credit for hard won

achievements in pay and conditions (Peetz, 2010b) which if known could create a more favourably disposed public.

De-marketing is discussed by Bailey et al. (2010) specifically with regard to trade unions’ outmoded attempts to approach young people, for example, their continued use of ‘daggy t-shirts and badges’. Bailey (2010) suggests using the concept of an ‘unsought, experience good’ because this has strong parallels to trade union membership, and this view is also supported by Bryson et al. (2005).

However, there has been recently efforts by the ACTU to modernise their web sites and run campaigns that address issues faced by workers such as the Your Rights at Work Campaign, which commenced in 2005 and ran for four years. This campaign involved the community and unions campaigning to restore rights lost by workers under a Coalition government (led by John Howard) and as a result, to ensure that workplaces operated under fairer industrial relations laws (Australian Council of Trade Unions, 2005b; Muir, 2008). It was the first time organised labour through the ACTU utilised modern marketing techniques including a clear positioning strategy (that strategy was the preservation of fundamental Australian rights), the appointment of a public relations agency to run the campaign, the application of marketing research to inform the

advertising (Oliver, 2008). Notably the campaign for the first time used voter database profiles to selectively target individuals and the campaign did not solely concern itself with current members but also swinging voters.

This application of fundamental marketing techniques significantly contributed to the Coalition Government’s defeat in 2007 and signalled to unions the power of market segmentation, engaging the target market with fitting messages and appropriate media vehicles. Contemporary marketing though, is characterised by more sophisticated

approaches to communicating with increasingly fractured and changing markets. In part, the solution for the NTEU is to locate the incoming employees of the tertiary education sector in the overall context of their generational group which is variously called Gen Y, the Millennials, Echo Boomers and several other titles (refer Appendix E for a more complete list).

Generational marketing is the process of creating appeals and communications that appeal to a particular group of people, born and living at around the same time, and who have therefore, experienced similar life events and social and economic changes that have influenced their view of life. The appeal of creating a generational marketing strategy is that the marketer can leverage well known and commonly held characteristics about a large cohort. “Each generation has unique expectations, experiences,

generational history, lifestyles, values, and demographics that influence their buying behaviors” (Williams & Page, 2011). Generational marketing is widely supported in the literature and applied to consumer marketing (Elsinger, 2007), social and economic debate (Fishman, 2016) as well as workplace management (Arsenault, 2004). It is readily recognised that there are some overlaps between generations (Littrell, Ma, & Helepete, 2005; Soulez & Guillot-Soulez, 2011) and that there may be sub-segments within generational groups (Soulez & Guillot-Soulez, 2011).

A brand model developed by Van den Bergh and Behrer (2011) details Gen Y’s universally shared attribute preferences with regard to brand identities and the connection between those identities and brand leveraging. It is unsurprising that Gen Y should have a common set of attributes that they favour and message appeals (the same eight

attributes are universally shared across international borders). They are the first generation to grow up with the internet and mobile ‘phones and rely heavily on these communication tools to create and reinforce their cultural identity (Twenge & Campbell, 2009). This is described by Van den Bergh and Behrer (2011) “The omnipresent

future youth generations”.

Van den Bergh and Behrer (2011) formulate their understanding utilising what they refer to as the CRUSH model of branding which has the following characteristics; must be cool (C), be real (R), be unique (U), have self-brand identification (S) and convey happiness (H). Each of these is likely to be a challenge to a movement engendered from an ethos of struggle for basic human rights and grown from serious and life changing issues. Application of marketing principles carefully sculpted to mould with and impinge upon Gen Y’s awareness is a large part of the answer. The CRUSH model is based on a

generational view of marketing and recognition to the wide use of such approaches in marketing and related literature is widely accepted approach. The CRUSH model basically presents a systematic and practical model to effectively market to Gen Y and arises out of the existing understandings of the marketing literature of how to effectively communicate with Gen Y. Various aspects of Gen Y are captured in the concepts of appropriate media vehicles to market to them.

When discussing the narcissistic nature of Gen Y, Twenge and Campbell (2009) indicate that major aspects of Gen Y are their concern that happiness, things being ‘cool’ and ‘real’ are of utmost importance as well as Gen Y’s need to have multiple outlets for ‘self-identification’. Gen Y, identify with brands that exhibit these characteristics.

COOL REAL UNIQUE _{IDENTIFICATION} SELF- HAPPINESS Togetherness Democratic & _{Open, No Elites} Place In Line with My _Values Togetherness International

Feeling Classic Occasion The Real Thing Aspirational Indulgence Story

Generating Simple & Consistent Heritage Helps me to Express Myself Excitement Experience Naturalness/ _{Environmental} Unique Concept This Brand _Cares Linked to Perfect

Occasions Quality Real Emotion Art Spoiling a _{Loved One} Newness Building on Existing

Environment Design

Comforting/ Security Limited &

Hidden Heritage/ Culture

Memories/ Stories/

Experiences Experience

Unexpected History People

Table 4.1 The CRUSH Model - components and descriptors. Source: (Joeri Van den Bergh, Veris, De Ruyck, & Sbarbaro, 2015)

The successful application of the CRUSH model to develop effective messages can be seen firstly with the overwhelming success of the European Commission’s ‘Ex- smokers are Unstoppable’ campaign, launched in 2011, in which the last of the CRUSH elements – happiness – is used to present the benefits of not smoking rather than the dire outcomes of not stopping. The happiness attribute can also be conveyed by humour appeals (Williams & Page, 2011)

Happiness used in marketing to Gen Y include that of the MIBT/Deakin radio advertisement targeting the tail end of the Gen Y cohort. The radio advertisement runs: “If you’re feeling flat and low because you missed out on a place at uni. now you can feel pumped and excited because an MIBT diploma gets you into the second year at Deakin Uni.” (Kitching, 2016). There is no information about the structure of the course instead the entire appeal is feelings based and this is followed by the call to action which is to enrol now.

Another notable example is that of the AAMI TV advertisement variously titled ‘The Cat In the Tree’ or ‘Trevor’s In the Tree’(Ogilvy & Mather, 2015). In this example what can be a very serious topic, traffic accidents, is handled with a cheerful humorous message. This approach has also been attempted by the NTEU with their short video entitled ‘10 Good Reasons Not To Join A Union’ (National Tertiary Education Union, 2013a). This video was not related to a specific campaign such as opposing recent academic sackings (at the University of Western Australia) or in response to staff enforcing the Fair Work Rulings on their respective universities, but was a generic promotional video that was shown to individual members and was located on the union’s website for the public and members to view. The overwhelming message to advertisers is to load the communication with positive emotion, act fast and, because of the fast pace of the internet community’s brand recommendation dialogue, follow up quickly on changes in audience temperament.