 November 20, 2008
I’m wondering if the makers of Motrin are thinking about their tag line, “We feel your pain,” in an all new way this week. In case you’ve blinked and missed this lightening-fast marketing fiasco (it’s technically old news today, 3 days in), Motrin launched a new campaign that upset a lot of women. The crux of the idea is that moms who wear babies (carriers, slings and wraps) may experience various types of pain that Motrin can fight. But that wasn’t really the message women heard. The primary offense was basically that women wear babies as a fashion accessory. My personal cringe line was the one that read, “It’s a good pain, a worthy pain. And it totally makes me feel like an official mom…” Subject matter aside, as a marketer you need to look at the enormity of the response. And if you’re one of those marketers still scratching your head over Twitter, listen up. How much damage can you do in 140 characters or less? Well, a lot if you’re offended, and a lot more if you’re networked. Twittermoms, a group of about 4,500 moms who twitter about kids, fashion, technology, politics, travel, unleashed a twitter-storm of feedback. Here’s just a sampling, pulled together into a 9-minute video on YouTube by blogger Katja Presnal. By the time that it hit the ad mags and even USA Today, Motrin had already yanked the ad (that was running on its web site but can still be viewed on YouTube ) and issued an apology front and center on its home page. There’s also a group on Facebook called, “Babywearing isn’t painful. Boycott Motrin for saying it is.” This group has more than 1,000 members and a topic on the discussion board titled, “Showing your disgust.” Thank goodness Motrin was listening when thousands of consumers didn’t just throw up their arms in disgust, but threw down their thoughts on the web. Maybe now they’ll keep listening to their target audience, or better yet, sensing their pain.
November 7, 2008
 Obama continues to deliver on OPENTagged as: O.P.E.N., Open brand, social web, technologyPosted by: Nancy Kramer
I was inspired today when one of my colleagues pointed me to the new president-elect transition web site. I continue to be amazed at the remarkable communication strategy of the Obama team, and this new digital hub builds on the team’s OPEN approach. From the invitation to submit your ideas, the presentations of the top agenda items, to how to apply for a job in the administration, it’s all there for everyone to share, comment, and post. I think our very own Karen Scholl summed it up best when interviewed about Obama’s approach for the March cover story of Fast Company. She said, ” With Obama, not only do people feel they know who he is, they feel trusted to share their views,” Scholl says. “And they get constant feedback from the campaign and from each other.” October 29, 2008
 Life is back from the dead. And Marilyn is forever.Tagged as: O.P.E.N., digital millenials, engaging, networked, social webPosted by: Nita Rollins Life Magazine is a brand colossus, in many ways the quintessential Boomer brand. Defining photojournalism in the 20th century while also defining the 20th century, its portraits framed the ahistorical absolutes of courage, despair, charisma and power as much as the persons of a certain historical gravitas. The viewer’s pursuit of accidental revelations of character kept all those modernist literature-stoked latent/manifest dichotomies in productive tension. I know because I used to sit spellbound before the stacks of Life my cousin had collected in his post-Harvard hovel. With my two-page spread-sized memories intact, and an avowed deference for the tradition of the defining public image—in stark contrast to the people’s indefatigable showcasing of social networking candids—I am the perfect witness to a Boomer brand entering the ecosystem of the open web. It’s not Life’s digitization per se that makes this an interesting transition for a brand twice defibrillated in its 64-year history—we barely raise an eyebrow over Google’s all-in-a-day’s-work project to digitize the world’s books, for heaven’s sake. It’s the letting loose of Life’s curatorial authority, its single-photo storytelling precision, into the jungle of laissez-faire cut-and-paste social web content that begs for commentary. The ‘coming soon’ web site promises over 10 million photos will be made available for viewing, or, as parent company Time put it: “…the most important collection of imagery covering the events and people of the 20th century…[will be] available for free for personal use”—at least, for viewing and sharing. More than 97% of the collection has never been seen by the public. Such an inconceivable darkroom trove of “outtakes” (albeit by the likes of Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White and Gordon Parks)! What could be more appropriate for our era of flourishing amateur photography and citizen journalism than converting Life’s vault into an editorial roundtable, a photographic piñata? Unsettling, perhaps, for its Boomer devotees who remember when larger-than-Life was hard to come by? (Winston Churchill as a screensaver—really?) But probably, ultimately, exhilarating for all comers. That is, if Life truly adapts to the digital channel. And from what I’ve gathered, the revenue model is strictly 20th century—mainly advertising-based. (As Time also owns Getty, site visitors coming to look and learn will be exposed to the latter collection and might buy.) Based on the advance press, there is but one concession to the social web’s intensely OPEN relationship with images—you can create Flickr-style personal collections. There are ways to counter the constant battering of our journalistic institutions (hint: they’re digital), and, in this instance, to drive cross-generational traffic to Life.com. (Yes, this begs for a post on washingtonpost.com.) For Life, in my opinion, the most important of these is a social platform for storytelling, the kind that would enable community voting on the best photo/journalistic albums—those with stirring commentary that keeps history alive. Kodak has an employee blog that has done wonders for their place in the imaging community, as they like to call it. Limited edition downloads of Life covers for poster-size printing wouldn’t be a bad idea either, even if I did steal it from the current collaboration of Absolut and fashion designer Helmut Lang. For all those copyright-minded among you, there are always the Creative Commons alternatives. Quite simply, more exposure, more usage=more life for Life.com. To make sure I’m not blindly enthusiastic about this digital brand makeover of Life, particularly as an Engaging and Networked brand, I conducted some quick research of a certain person who has graced Life’s covers several times, and who is the very definition of iconic inexhaustibility (if you don’t believe me, read American Monroe: The Making of a Body Politic). Has the social web tired of Marilyn Monroe? Can icitizens find enough to do, interactively speaking, with the silver screen goddess? Does she make sense any longer to digital millennials, for whom continuous virtual self-presentation precedes self-knowledge? Are you kidding? 16,738 thought to upload some version of Marilyn Monroe on Flickr. Metacafe has 144 largely homemade Marilyn Monroe videos. iStockPhoto has several Marilyn impersonators doing their best to keep the subway breeze blowing up her white pleated dress, figuratively speaking. And Google says Marilyn Monroe matters to someone 13,400,000 ways. I found a particularly appropriate cultural artifact trolling around someone’s personal Picasa photo album: Marilyn Monroe coaxed once again into life through a collage of Life’s covers.
I also found a Marilyn Monroe image rarely seen (perhaps never before published?) on Flickr and will leave you to contemplate both its hold on the viewer and the icitizen comments that follow.
October 16, 2008
Like any data, value is derived from use. There’s a rich vein of opportunity, but it requires a shift in mindset and some creative thinking. Are you willing and able to spend the time to build the relationships – or do you just want more effective advertising? Influence Vendors Here’s an overview of the types of vendors in this space, though with the current speed of progress this post is certain to be obsolete by the time you read it. If you are a vendor, please send me your creds and I’ll add you to the list. 1. Method: Analyze & Rank Blogs What brands get: List of most influential blogs in your category and in the case of BuzzLogic, a solution for targeting blog readers via advertising Easy win: Increase advertising effectiveness Vendor example: BuzzLogic, Nielson BuzzMetrics Blogpulse
2. Method: Analyze & Rank Social Network Relationships What brands get: target social ads to friends of brand fans Easy win: increased advertising effectiveness Vendor Example: SocialMedia.com
3. Method: Analyze & Rank Email Database What brands get: Rich customer data based on social network influence and observed behaviors Easy win: More effective CRM programs Vendor Example: Popular Media
4. Method: Analyze and Report Names of Influentials, based on phone surveys of community What brands get: names of individuals cited most influential on buying decision within a community, for a given topic. Easy win: More effective direct sales program October 2, 2008
 Facebook – Delivering value to this Gen XerTagged as: O.P.E.N., networked, personal, social web, trendsPosted by: Mila Goodman I have two digital social profiles – my professional one and my personal one. In my professional world – I have an avatar, I twitter, I shop online and am an active member of several social networks. My personal circle – comprised mainly of my non-work friends – is mostly offline and connected by phone and face to face. They don’t twitter, post pictures online and rarely use email or IM. In the past 2 weeks, these worlds finally collided. My high school and college friends made their way onto Facebook and I am re-connected with them. Facebook now delivers the promise of being a social utility – not because of any updates or re-designs but simply because the people I want to stay connected to are finally there! I can keep tabs and update both of my worlds with single strokes on the keyboard (or more likely my Treo). The fact that it successfully juxtaposes my work self with my personal self is truly an awesome thing. In my experience, my generation—unlike the Digital Millenials—is either in the digital space or still trying to figure it out. For my Xer friends not in the business, the online channel is not part of their DNA or even seen as a useful way to communicate. Notwithstanding the social convenience Facebook has recently delivered for me, it is a part of mass culture. Consider some of these stats… - Facebook has over 110 mm active users - Facebook is the 4th most-trafficked website in the world - Facebook is the most-trafficked social media site in the world - More than half of Facebook users are outside of college - The fastest growing demographic is those 25 years old and older - Maintain 85 percent market share of 4-year U.S. universities - Over 24,000 applications have been built on Facebook Platform - 140 new applications added per day If you’re an Xer or Boomer looking for an easy entry into the social web, visit Facebook.com and re-connect with your family and friends or friend me and I’ll show you the ropes. September 28, 2008
 Open Up the BackchannelTagged as: O.P.E.N., digital millenials, engaging, networked, social webPosted by: Dan Shust
We have been seeing similar experiences sprout up for the debates and other select events, but why not just open the backchannel permanently? Let us chat while we watch, participate in fun competitions, etc. I’d love to see the major networks get behind an idea like this. What a great way to enhance the viewing of a live sporting event, episodic drama, etc. It could even make a really horrible show fun. (Remember MST3K?) Advertisers would love it because chatting encourages live viewing (the anti-DVR?). Additionally, they could collect some very interesting user opinion data surrounding their ad campaigns. What do you say NBC, ABC, CBS, HBO? Open up the backchannel and I might even watch Knightrider. August 27, 2008
 Activating Messages on Social NetworksTagged as: O.P.E.N., networked, social webPosted by: Molly Metzger “Despite the buzz about viral marketing, most companies should not count on it to spread the word about their brand or product,” says Duncan Watts, professor of sociology at Columbia University and iCitizen keynote speaker. He suggests combining the power of traditional advertising with “the extra punch provided by viral propagation”. This is the promise of social advertising: enabling campaigns to reach a larger population than they had previously had access to by encouraging reproduction and sharing of the message. The latest installment is Facebook’s new product called ‘Engagement Advertisements’ (described here by Jeremiah Owyang) that encourage members to interact with the ads by leaving comments, sharing virtual gifts, or becoming fans. It’s in trial but will be available later in the year. These ad units have a built-in mechanism for collaboration and sharing. But this only addresses one half of the equation of social advertising. Social ads can’t simply be easy to share. They are dependant upon disruptive, highly targeted creative that motivates users to share, often by serving as a social lubricant. Traditional calls to action need not apply. Need some inspiration? Look no further than the O.P.E.N. framework, particularly the networked quadrant. How can your social ad support one of these 5 networked experiences?
August 26, 2008
We’ve had quite a few requests these past few weeks for our perspective on Social Media for B-to-B brands. We field a lot of web 2.0 technology questions, but the dialog inevitably comes back to the value of social media. A recent Aberdeen Group report (free through 8/29/08 – chock full of interesting stats you can use), examines the social media practices of 360 companies. Those considered best-in-class for social media experienced an average 11% increase in Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI), improved customer retention and year-over-year improvements in product development, blowing the rest of the field out of the water. For technology companies, the need to “communify” the digital experience is even more apparent. No sector has been more impacted by social media than technology, for obvious reasons. According to Forrester Research, nearly three quarters of IT professionals use web 2.0 features in a professional capacity. From code writing to documentation to problem solving, IT professionals have come to expect a certain level of accessibility and interaction with their technology providers as well as their peers. Here are just a few ways prospects in any industry might expect social media to add value to the complex selection & implementation process:
The last bullet can’t be overstated. Social media isn’t just a channel, it’s a change agent for best-in-class companies. The Aberdeen Group data suggests a key to success is the internal process that supports and capitalizes on customer-facing social media. Successful processes
The challenge for organizations we talk with seems to be this: Lead generation is still the digital strategy du jour — the big kahuna of online measurement. To capitalize on the value social media can bring, best-in-class brands are engaging customers at all stages of the customer lifecycle– not just the selection process. This is easy if you are a starting from scratch but a bit of a challenge for organizations built on delivering digital content in exchange for capturing leads information and funneling them to a commissioned sales force. Marketing teams in this boat will need to take a good, hard look at the real decision process and their role in serving their community in a broader sense. They’ll need to adopt metrics that quantify their participation in the entire, end-to-end process. Social media is an extremely powerful tool for building and nuturing relationships. If you are in B-to-B marketing, ask yourself this: How can we put our wealth of content and better still, our experts, into the service of our community, independent of lead generation activities? If you are like most of the b-to-b companies we work with, you have expertise to spare. What do you think? The technology part is easy. Is your organization ready to capitalize on the promise of social media? August 21, 2008
 Technology-Enabled Social Network, Old-SchoolTagged as: O.P.E.N., networked, on-demand, social web, technologyPosted by: Chris Berk
Right there on I-70, I was about to give up on the OPENness of my technology, when my wife suggested an alternative technical solution, “Why don’t you get out of the car, walk over to that truck, and ask the truck driver what’s going on? Doesn’t he have a CB or something like that? Can’t he just talk to one of his trucker buddies way up at the front of the line?” I coyly walked over to what must be one of the original, technology-enabled social networks – a truck driver and his CB radio! Of course the trucker knew what was going on – an overturned truck was blocking the highway. The more I thought about it, his CB radio network functions much as the web does, truly enabling an O.P.E.N. experience that serves the needs of its participants. Forget the iPhone, I need a CB. August 11, 2008
On occasion we find ourselves in client meetings with a very senior team shouldering a very inconvenient burden: convincing their CEO that the digital medium is not inert and uninvolving—that its ads are more than insinuating party crashers, that its Flash-fangled web sites don’t pale in comparison to 3-D store shopping, TV ads, magalogs, or even digital OOH advertising. “The web can’t make shoppers fall truly, madly, deeply in love with us. Period.” Thus speaks the CEO who knows from retailing—the merchant prince with skeptical eyebrow arched over all things dreadfully, dully digital. Yes, digital diehards, pioneers and recent converts, doubts persist about the web’s potential to involve us emotionally in a brand. If the argument were entirely without merit, rebuttals would hardly be necessary. But most of us don’t say “deeply moving,” “wildly inspiring” or “irresistible” quite as often as we’d like about our digital brand experiences. Most of us aren’t able to say, “That brand feels like me” often enough online. Hence the rise, one could argue, of consumer-generated content that makes the brand over in our own image. Brands that do make the emotional connection often employ humor, and among digital millennials, humor is king online, particularly sarcastic, knowing, parodistic, low-brow humor—emblematic of both the generation’s marketing savvy (they’re in on it) and the emotional peculiarities of a life lived virtually (and a private life lived publicly). Sarcasm and parody, after all, put some distance between “us” and “them,” don’t they. Music will dramatically change the emotional timbre, if you will, of the web. So will the continued rise of brands demonstrating corporate social responsibility—particularly those using the power of video to spur activism. But let’s give the devil’s advocate his due. A very thoughtful post by Sean X Cummings about the deeper emotional impact of the TV spot vs. the online banner ad, Is Digital a Hopeless Medium?, draws a series of sharp contrasts between the individual viewer/user’s respective psychological stances while online or watching TV. Online engages the cognitive cortex, TV the limbic system—allegedly the older, less understood part of the brain involving emotion, memory, learning/motivation. Though I’m unaware of any scientific proof of this argument, it seems at least superficially accurate. My rational drawbridge is down, in the way one says “my defenses were down,” when I’m watching a movie (or Mad Men) on TV, which makes it easier for emotions to cross the moat. Cummings also argues that digital is a “learn forward” medium, chiefly informational and individualistic whereas TV is a “lean back”, communal entertainment medium. Again, these assertions seem generally true, leaving the very communal and limbic MMORPGs aside. Leaving aside digital millennials’ constant connectivity and the digerati’s microblogging and lifecasting, which also seem inarguably if strangely communal to me. Leaving aside networked brands that are either transforming “traditional” online advertising into social media marketing or dramatically decreasing spend on straightforward interruptive ads because they recognize the web’s colossal community impulse. Leaving aside as well the imminent full-video web, which will make distinctions between so-called entertainment media like TV and informational media like the web (and first, second and third screens) superannuated. OK. Leaving aside quite a bit. Still, Cummings’s argument seems to contain a kernel of truth. An intuition, perhaps, about how difficult it is to describe, assess, appreciate the virtual community when members haven’t (yet) fleshmet. (I’m reviving this term because it’s deliciously, well, corporeal, and contrasts nicely with the hyperreal online.) It does seem a propitious moment to introduce a digital experience far, far from the banner ad that Cummings spends considerable energies critiquing. A digital experience emphatically limbic and communal, that springs from the living web—and all that it implies. Inert and uninvolving? Not for me, baby. |
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