Cymfony's Influence 2.0

The Road to Super Bowl XLII

With the Patriots steamrolling through the NFL this season, many people here in the Boston area are thinking a lot about the Super Bowl coming up this February.  But here at Cymfony, the Super Bowl has become a year-round obsession – but for a different reason:  It is the perfect example of Influence 2.0.

We tracked discussion of last year’s game and conducted several studies on the audience impact of the media coverage and consumer discussion of last year’s Super Bowl advertisers. Over the past month, these studies have been published in a variety of publications.

• Visibility vs Surprise: Which Drives the Greatest Discussion of Super Bowl Ads?  To be published in the 12/07 issue of the “Journal of Advertising Research” from the ARF.

• What This Year’s Super Bowl Advertisers Can Learn from Doritos. Published in the 11/07 issue of Media Magazine

• Is There No Such Thing as Bad News? - How controversy drives word-of-mouth around Super Bowl advertising and how it can bite the brand. Published in 11/07 “Measuring Word of Mouth Vol. 3” from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association

I encourage you to buy the WOMMA and JAR publications for the full story (and other great research as well).  We've also compiled some of the insights from each of these studies in a brief informational abstract that is available for download on our site now.   

The gist of our findings: Last year's success of advertisers like Doritos and Nationwide changes Super Bowl advertising -- it's no longer about great buzz after the game, pre-game media coverage is just as important, maybe more so.

(Disclosure: shameless plug coming) In response to this change, we are stepping up our analysis and launching a new product: the Super Bowl Advertising Audience Impact Report. Check it out at www.cymfony.com/superbowl.asp Clients will get a timely, in-depth analysis of the media coverage and consumer discussion of Super Bowl advertisers each week leading up to and immediately following the game on February 3.

This report will address:

• How much coverage is each advertiser generating? 
• Which ads are consumers discussing online? What are they saying?
• What is the quality and tone of the coverage?
• How is the event impacting consumer engagement with the brand?
• How are pre-game promotional strategies influencing coverage?

After the post-game coverage peaks on Monday after the game, our Super Bowl analysts will lead a detailed online briefing Tuesday afternoon to discuss the ad winners and losers as reported by consumers and the media. This will all get wrapped up in a comprehensive report a couple weeks later when the coverage is complete.

Some of us around here are as excited about this new report as we are about the steamrolling Patriots.  (OK, we admit it, we're social media geeks!)

Some Sanity Comes to the Hype Cycle

The PQ Media forecast of the size of Word Of Mouth Marketing injects some needed discipline into the crazy projections floating around about the growth of WOM. Putting this study side-by-side with some other reports and it becomes clear that social media is about a $1 billion industry.

My post about whether social media is climbing the hype curve brought Paul Chaney by who wanted to stir up more discussion about the state of adoption of these new tools.

There have been a plethora of studies on how much money marketers are spending in these emerging areas which are zeroing in on the billion-dollar number.

There may be some definitional differences between "word of mouth", "social media" and "conversational" marketing in these studies. But let's set those aside for the moment and try to triangulate these different data points to get close to a real number.

• PQ Media says marketers will spend $1.35 billion on WOM this year. Disclosure: I'm on the Board of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association which participated in the PQ Media study.
• An eMarketer report quoted by Jim Tobin on his Ignite Social Media blog says that "social media marketing" is 7.8% of online marketing spending. eMarketer's online advertising report pegs spending at $21.4 billion -- so social media's 7.8% share of this equals $1.67 billion.
• Forrester pegs online advertising at $18.4 billion and social media at $600 million.

While the range from $600 million to $1.6 billion might drive the statistical purists crazy, as an ex-analyst I look at it and say it's all in the same ballpark. The differences are likely due to 1) the different definitions that I set aside 2) the emerging nature of the market which makes it devilshly hard to come up with any numbers 3) different assumption each analyst necessarily makes. 

So, let's call the size of social media marketing spending a billion. As Everett Dirksen was famous for saying, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money."

Social media is reaching the point of being a real item in the marketing mix. I'm willing to accept this wide range of numbers because that high-level conclusion jibes perfectly with my experience in talking to our clients and sales prospects.

And as I said in this post, marketers need to keep their eyes on consumers, not the VC world, and gear their spending accordingly.

I'm not the only one thinking Bubble 2.0...

Maurice Levy, Chairman of Publicis echoed my concern that social media is gaining the inflated expectations we saw in Bubble 1.0. Am I worried? Actually, no.

While one lesson of Bubble 1.0 was that zillions of start-ups cannot live by hype alone, the other lesson was that while investors and even marketers may get disillusioned, consumers pay no attention to the trials and tribulations of the VC community. People look for tools and things that bring value to their lives.

Just as consumer adoption of the internet was unfazed by the bust of 2001 - 2002, adoption of social media will be equally unaffected should we see a social media bust take place. They'll just keep connecting to one another, creating videos, making virtual friends....

What should marketers do if the bloom comes off the social media rose? Ignore the anguished cries of VCs and even the doomsday blather that the media may put out. Keep your eye on the people who buy and use your brands. Stay involved with social media because your consumers will be involved with it.

More on Conversational Marketing

My blog post last week about whether social media is scaling the Hype Curve hit a nerve last week and spawned two podcasts. So I faced off with Joseph Jaffe and Pete Blackshaw....

...but don't expect a smackdown. While we disagree on a number of points, we all agree on the inexorable transition from the mass marketing world to one that is much more dynamic and engaged.

Joseph and Jen McClure of the Society for New Communications Research started a good conversation on the post, and we decided to take it live. We quickly get beyond quibbling over the timing and the research to tackle the much bigger issue of what Conversational Marketing (or whatever you want to call it) will mean to the practice of marketing in the future. Catch it at the New Communications Review here .

The debate also caught the eye of Ann Handley of Marketing Profs who recruited Paul Dunay of Buzz Marketing for Technology and Pete Blackshaw (who needs no introduction!). We dissect the barriers between marketing today and where it needs to evolve to be truly responsive and conversational with consumers. And, I hope, shed some light on how to make the transition. Give it a listen here.

Thoughts on the Social Media Value Proposition: What kind of friend are you?

In yesterday's post I summarized the key learnings of Coca-Cola, Digitas, MySpace and YouTube in how the social media value proposition is evolving. Today, I'll share my reflections on it.

Conclusion #1: The ROI of letting go of control is huge

I revealed this conclusionyesterday. As a classically-trained marketer I admit to fear in the pit of my stomach at the thought of not enforcing strict and consistent brand image and messaging. But the data is compelling. This finding inspired yesterday's title: "How to learn to stop worrying and love losing control"  (All you movie buffs out there will know what I'm alluding to! If you don't, leave a comment and I'll explain.)

Conclusion #2: The nature of branding has changed. Really.

Something that struck me in all the case studies: there was no discussion of what my classical training tells me are the core elements of branding: positioning, the key brand message, the differentiating benefits and features. As I look at the examples, though, these elements still exist, they are much more subtle in these campaigns. Putting these front-and-center in social media would smack too much of advertising, which 27-year old LA guy, Rob whom Heidi quoted yesterday doesn't want.

In my Forrester days, I wrote a report that stated that interactivity changed branding because you had to add the experience dimension to the brand image and brand promise dimensions (you couldn't just say what your brand was about, you had to prove it in the experience the consumer has on the site, etc).

But this feels different than that. The experiences I talked about were bringing the brand promise and benefits to life. All of that stuff is way in the background as you try to be a "friend" and be "authentic". Social media experiences aren't about what the corporation wants the consumer to think/feel/do about the brand, they are about how the individual relates to the brand on a very primal level. The brand becomes less and less about the physical and performance characteristics of the product and more and more about the values it represents and its personality -- and how the consumer uses those to express a dimension of his or her own values and personality.

Conclusion #3: What kind of friend are you?

So the "Robs" of the social media world want brands that are friends; but what does that mean? And as Matthew summed up -- and all the panelists touched on to some extent -- authenticity is essential; but what does that mean?

And so I got thinking about the different friends I have: some I go drinking with, some I debate the great issues of the day with. One is the guy I rely on as a source for great new jokes; another is my guru and conscience whom I turn when I need help putting the important things in life back in perspective.

So maybe this is the authenticity a brand needs to seek. Not an authentic reason why they are better than their competitor. But what kind of friend the brand can credibly be: the pal, the coach, the class clown, the one to turn to in hard times. Figure that out and build the right participatory experience to deliver on this type of friendship, and maybe, just maybe, the social media world will build stronger brand relationships than the mass marketing world ever could.

The Remaining Question: scale

There were some impressive reach and purchase intent numbers in the presentation:

• Cherry Coke gained 64,000 Facebook friends
• Adidas reached 21,000,000 MySpace members and increased purchase intent at at cost of only $.25 per viewer who indicated they "definitely would purchase" Adidas
• Electronic Arts reached 22,000,000 MySpace members and increased purchase intent at a cost of only $.33 per user
• Heinz generated over 10,000,000 views on YouTube.

But is this sufficient to drive the kind of volumes that will be more than a blip on the sales curve for these huge brands?

Pardon my old-fashioned comparison but 10 - 20 million reach is one or two nights of a prime-time TV buy. But then, we know awareness/recall measures decay over a few weeks after a flight ends. Will these kinds of brand relationships have more enduring impact?

And I don't think TV drives these kinds of purchase intent results. How much of it will translate into real sales? (PS: if anyone knows of any research that gives a ratio of purchase intent to actual purchase, I would love to know about it). Will the percent who actually purchase compared to the percent of those who say they will purchase be higher for a social media brand engagement? 

And if these are the right 10 - 20 million target audience members, maybe we finally have an answer to the old "half my advertising is wasted"....perhaps that's why the cost of the purchase intent impact is so low.

But that's what I love about this emerging space -- we're learning fast but there are plenty more interesting and compelling questions out there that we still need to figure out!

Free Webinar with Paul Gillin, Author of “The New Influencers”

We are excited to have Paul Gillin, author of the new book “The New Influencers”, join us for a free webinar on Nov 28th.   Paul will present insights from the book and join Jim Nail in a discussion about the best ways companies can identify and communicate with influencers in social media.

If you aren’t familiar with the book, “The New Influencers” is about the people creating social media content online and driving the “greatest change in market dynamics since television.” The book demonstrates the power of these individuals and it offers businesses strategies to enhance your company’s message with social media and how to incorporate these tools into your marketing strategy.

Concerns about how to identify, evaluate and communicate with influencers are some of the most common issues we hear from prospective clients.  If you’ve got questions about influencers in your industry, join us on the 28th (1pm Eastern) to discuss them with Jim and Paul directly.

Registration is free.  Sign up before Nov 16 to be eligible to receive a free copy of the book!

How to learn to stop worrying and love losing control

At yesterday's AdTech, I moderated a panel that wrestled with the topic of "Has a Value Proposition Emerged for Consumer Generated and Social Media?". A great group of panelists began to crack the code on how marketing and media can thrive in this new world.

As I told the panelists, this was the best session I have been part of at any conference in years -- real examples and great insights into the early learning that leading companies have gained through innovative approaches.

I learned a lot at the session really stimulated my thinking. Today I will summarize the session; tomorrow I will share my thoughts on what it means for how marketing and branding need to evolve.

Defining the problem

The old media/marketing model (media companies create content, audiences flock to media companies, advertisers pay to get in front of the audience) breaks down when the audience is creating the content, aggregating their own audiences and come together not because they want to read expertly written content but because they want to socialize with other people.

After two years or so of experience, what have we learned about the important questions:

• Will brands even be allowed into these environments?
• If they are allowed in, will they be tolerated but ignored?
• If they are allowed in and under the right circumstances consumers will engage with brands, what new approaches must marketers learn in order to be successful? What must media companies do to help the marketers?
  

Summary of each speaker's key points

I'm vastly boiling down each speaker's comments to try to get what to me were the most compelling points. My apologies to them because I'm leaving out a lot of good stuff each one brought to the session.

Shane Steele, Coca-Cola's Director of Emerging Media got us right to the point: we have moved from the mass market one-way, lean-back model, past the Web 1.0 interactive model to the participatory model. Interactivity like click-throughs or time spent mousing over a rich media ad are fine, but now the audience wants even more involvement. But not everyone wants the same level or participation, so a campaign must give a range of participation opportunities to engage the maximum number of people at the level they are willing to engage. She showed a great chart of the process of Awareness -- Engagement -- Immersion -- Momentum that must be built into a social media effort. Her example of a Cherry Coke campaign on MySpace brought these ideas to life.

Heidi Browning, Fox Interactive's SVP of Client Solutions went deep into their Momentum Effect research. It shows that the ROI (in terms of increase in purchase intent) of letting go of control (by distributing brand assets that people can include in their profiles) for Adidas and Electronic Arts is 15  - 20 times that of online advertising in general. In other words, letting go of control has HUGE ROI. In addition, she showed an intriguing quote from the qualitative part of their study in which 27-year old Rob from Los Angeles said, "I don't want companies to advertise to me. I want them to be my friend." More on this later...

Jonathan Adams, VP Media Director of Digitas, brought more examples to bear. Delta, emerging  from bankruptcy this year, has done some great work to reengage travelers with the brand in their "Change" campaign. Videos of flight attendants giving tours of foreign cities give personality and demonstrate their caring attitude. Animated cartoons of some of the things people hate about travel show that Delta isn't oblivious to the stresses that passengers endure and show they can poke fun at themselves.

Matthew Liu, Product Manager at YouTube, nicely summarized many of the themes of the day as follows:

1. Create commercials that are content
2. Let users know that you understand the context (don't intrude where people are really deeply engaged with friends and ads aren't welcome)
3. Encourage engagement and participation
4. Have a thick skin and use the site as a huge focus group
5. Be authentic

His case study of the Heinz Top This TV Challenge made these points concrete.

Social Media: Hype Curve or Big Bucks?

The definitive answer will be at the WOMMA Summit in Las Vegas next week. Come find out!

A recent study raised fears in my mind that social media might be hitting the Peak of Inflated Expectations on the Hype Curve.

But now, WOMMA will bring us the real answer -- the dollars to be spent over the next 5 years -- with a new study from PQ Media.

Read the press release about the definitive study of the size and structure of the WOM industry, then register for the event and come out and hear the results first hand!

This is one of many reasons and a ton of learning you will gain by attending.

See you in Las Vegas!

An Example of Confused Terminology

A recent article published in the PRSA's new PR Journal provides a example of how poorly the terms "output", "outtake" and "outcome" are understood in the industry, even in this peer-reviewed publication which features articles from the leading academics and industry practitioners.

My recent post, "Outputs, and Outtakes, and Outcomes Oh My!" lamented how frequently I see these terms misused. In addition to the comments I got on the blog, I had email exchanges with several people. One member of the IPR's Measurement Commission said "I'm extremely puzzled how anyone could possibly misinterpret outputs (which only relate to mentions) with outcomes (which must relate to attitude or behavior reinforcement or change)."

I didn't have to look far for an example.

In this paper titled "The Application of "Best Practices" in Public Relations Measurement and Evaluation Systems" published in the first issue of the PR Journal, EchoResearch's President David Michaelson and CEO Sandra Macleod, noted as "two of the world's leading experts in communications research and measurement", ouputs and outcomes are used incorrectly if you take, as I do, the IPR's Guidelines for Meauring the Effectiveness of PR Programs and Activities authored by Prof. Walter Lindenmann as the standard definition. (Note: David Michaelson is on the Institute for PR's Commission on Public Relations Measurement & Evaluation under whose aegis the guidelines were published.)

Before I address the misuse of the term, let me say the paper is useful and, for PR practioners unfamiliar with conducting market research it should be a "must read" to understand the basics of constructing a valid research methodology. However, IMHO, it falls short of delivering the "best practices" by skimming over the tough issues of how to isolate PR's impact from other marketing/communications/sales activities and how to link PR to sales. But this is a topic for another post, perhaps.

Back to the example. On page 3 of the paper, Michaelson and Macleod write:

"Companies specializing in public relations measurement and evaluation have traditionally focused on evaluating only the outcomes of public relations. These outcomes are most commonly the media or press coverage that is a direct result of media relations activities (outputs)."

These two sentences say that outcomes are the number of clips or impressions while outputs are the number of press releases issued, perhaps the number of reporters called or who attended a press conference, etc.

Here are Lindenmann's definitions on page 7 of his paper:

"...PR outputs, which are usually short-term and surface (e.g., the amount of press coverage received or exposure of a particular message)..."

"...PR outcomes (e.g., did the program or activity change opinion and attitude levels, and possibly behavior patterns?)."

If the experts and members of the IPR Measurement Commission don't use the terms accurately, the rest of the industry will be confused, as I believe they are today.

Why do I rant about this? We all know words are important -- that's why we do what we do. We also know that words come with certain associations and connotations from everyday usage and I believe the terms "outputs" and "outcomes" are commonly used in ways that are dramatically different than what the IPR intends. (Outtakes is just a strange word that only exists, perhaps, in the world of film editing.)

Michaelson's and Macleod's misuse of outputs above is an example where common usage gets substituted for the official definition. If someone asked me what my output was today, I'd probably answer "a blog post, 35 emails, and 3 meetings" or something. When a CEO thinks of outputs, he probably thinks about how many widgets come off the assembly lines of his factory, not the number of his widgets on store shelves. Thus when a CEO (or other non-communications exec) hears the term outputs in association with communications activities, she probably thinks in terms of the activities of the PR staff as Michaelson and Macleod describe them, and not how many articles the company was mentioned in. And, as I have said before, I believe the only "outcomes" C-level staff are interested in are those that contribute financially to the firm's performance.

It is natural for people to apply their common understanding of terms when they hear them in a new context. It is a lot of work to try to wrap new meanings around them and have those new meanings widely accepted. The IPR and PRSA need to either step up efforts to educate the industry on the correct use of these terms or consider changing them to terms that are understandable based on their common usage.

I believe change is the preferred course. My nominations for new, more readily understandable terms are:

• Media Influence: clips, impressions, message pick up that indicate that PR activities and programs influenced the media to distribute the intended information
• Audience Influence: perceptual or attidudinal changes that indicate the intended audience saw the information, paid attention to it, and that the desired change took place
• Business Influence: sales, stock price, or brand equity valuation increases that are linked to these activities

What's your vote: change or stick with outputs/outtakes/outcomes?