On Saturday, March 6, my neighbor Bill and I were standing in my front yard, admiring my new car (new to me, anyway). It was a generically-colored, 2005 Subaru Outback. I was proud of the new purchase.

I spoke highly of the dealership’s buying process and the wagon’s features. In fact, as I pointed out the multi-function roof-rack, I recounted the ease of the sales process in great detail. I talked of the twist and turns of the negotiation and the willingness of the dealership’s very capable staff to bend to our needs. Just as I’m getting to the part where the dealership threw in four, new, all-season tires at no cost, my fiance hops in the Subaru to run some errands. As she backed out of the drive-way, the wagon emits a loud and shrill squeal.

Bill then turns to me and says, “Where’d you say you bought that car?”

Do you see what happened? Until the moment the car, with a loud squeal, cast a negative light on the car dealership, Bill wasn’t even really paying attention to the details of my story. It wasn’t a priority for him. In the grand scheme of things, the story didn’t affect his life in the least. He was merely passing a pleasant moment with a neighbor. There was no real relevance to him.

The loud squeal set off an alarm bell inside of him. It triggered his evolutionary threat-avoidance system. Suddenly my story did have relevance and the details of the tale became a roadmap for avoiding a potential hazard. Not only did he feel the details relevant to himself but, he felt them relevant to others as well.

Despite only mentioning this to Bill, in the days following this exchange, my neighbors Pat and Pete asked about the situation and the dealership. In my small, Maine neighborhood, negative sentiment went viral right before my eyes.

I contacted the dealership about the squeal. The dealership picked the car up from my house, replaced a slightly rusted brake rotor and returned the car to me a day later with very sincere apologies.

The evening the wagon returned, my neighbors, one-by-one, meandered over to check on the outcome of the situation. Each was pleasantly surprised by the no-hassle, no-questions-asked manner the dealership employed to satisfy my issue. The dealership gained themselves three, maybe more, new admirers that night.

As the situation illustrates, negative sentiment often has a greater potential value than positive. It has an uncanny ability to awaken people’s attention. It can create a strong and immediate relevance where previously there was none.

Negative sentiment also presents brands with an amazing opportunity that positive sentiment sometimes lacks. It provides an often well-attended forum to display genuine concern, a desire to listen and a willingness to act. It allows brands engage with customers on previously unavailable dimensions, those of humility and humanity.

Tags: Customers, Engagement, marketing investment, marketing measurement, marketing metrics, Sentiment Analysis, Social Media, Social Media Measurement, Social Media Strategy

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 10:46 PM by MattC and is filed under Strategy and Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.