Cymfony's Influence 2.0

We've Been Blended!!!

Forrester's Josh Bernoff has created a "Will it Blend?" video with tchotckes from social media vendors. Cymfony is honored to be among the elite company of Bazaarvoice, Facebook, MySpace, Mzinga, and several others.

Enjoy!

Our summer vacation is over....

OK, so it was more like a spring AND summer vacation when I didn't blog. But that doesn't mean things were quiet at Cymfony.

For instance, check out this interview with Cymfony President, Andrew Bernstein on our local Fox affiliate.

And this Boston Globe article in which I was quoted.

Watch this space for more news, announcements and cool stuff coming from us this fall!

Is Prediction Even the Point of Social Media?

On his personal blog, Forrester's Peter Kim writes, "Many [brand monitoring] vendors say they can predict future events based on chatter levels." Everyone wants a crystal ball to ensure correct decisions, but is that a realistic expectation when we are dealing with fundamentally unpredictable entities like human beings? Or is the point to be able to follow more closely the erratic path they invariably take?

I read Peter's post early this morning, then the question of predictability came up on a Blog Council webinar where I presented with David Rabjohns of Motivequest and Ann Green of Millward Brown. David had shown their Cooper Mini case study, and the work he had done with the Kellog School of Management which statistically correlated levels of advocacy detected in social media to sales of the cute little cars. He mentioned his experience across product categories that predictability is only reliable out to about 1 month in the future.

Why 1 month I wondered....

It is well known that the impact of a marketing event has a short half-life. Recall of TV ads decays quickly, and even the increased awareness from an 8-week flight wanes in a short period of time when the campaign is over. Competitors' messages come to the fore, economic conditions change, the seasons change...all sorts of things crowd the brand out of the consumer's mind.

So the benefit of social media is not so much in its predictive ability -- with this complex environment and consumers' serendipitous reaction to events, predictability is virtually impossible.

Social media's benefit is more in its ability to keep the marketer in tune with consumer moods in real-time, or, as I like to say, "at the speed of the market." 

Social Networks' 2008 Tightrope Walk

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble....

My musings on whether social media has become a bubble has stirred up a bit of buzz.

But here's the real issue: in order to develop a solid revenue model, social networks must walk a very thin line between pleasing marketers without alienating their users. The models and examples exist today; the question is: will media companies and marketers resist the urge for the quick hit and exercise the retraint, wisdom, and patience to build a mutually beneficial relationship with their audience?

Paul LaMonica at CNN Money picked up on it earlier this week and so when I was in New York we had a wide-ranging discussion which he wrote up here.

The blog Socialized, took it the wrong way, and thought I was an idiot. I corrected her interpretation and she kindly put up a new post to draw attention to my comments.

To save you all the trouble of wading through all the various links and comments, here is a succinct summary of my key points.

1. The bubble is in VC funding and start up companies, not in consumer behavior. I elaborated on this in this post and as I told Paul the trend of consumers using social media is "unequivocal, inexorable, and irreversible." Just as consumers kept using the Internet after the 2000 bubble burst, they will keep using social media no matter how much money the VCs lose or how much doom-and-gloom comes from the media. Smart marketers will keep their eyes on their audience.
2. The social media business model creates greater tension than other media businesses. Any media business has to manage the tension between editorial and advertising. But here the tension is especially acute. One of the drivers of social media's growth is that consumers are sick of the ad clutter in other media. In addition, the value of social media is personal relationship, not information. Ads that are relevant to the editorial are more accepted (think cosmetics ads in Cosmo or shotgun ads in Field & Stream. What kind of ad is relevant to insert between two people building a personal rapport?
3. Marketers are likely to push the model the wrong way. In marketers' embryonic understanding of the social media ethos, they will ask -- and push for -- what they know: guaranteed placements and impressions/GRPs or some other measure or audience size. Banner ads everywhere....lists of members they can ping to invite to friend their brand profile. Facebook is facing a mini-rebellion from their members with a 50,000-strong group called "Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy." (As an aside I was invited to join this group -- by a friend who is a senior marketer at a CPG company!)

To me this is reminiscent of the pop-up ad phase of online advertising: advertisers wanted more intrusive units than 468x60 banners, sites obliged them, felt huge backlash from their audience, and dialed down, or even eliminated pop-ups altogether. Kudos to Facebook for listening to their users and rapidly amending policies that meet resistance, as they have done with the Beacon Opt-out policy.

But social networks have a better alternative than retreat: educate marketers on the right way to become part of the social media environment. The panel I did at AdTech this month had great case studies from Coke, Digitas (representing Delta), MySpace and YouTube that begin to provide models other advertisers can follow to be successful.

And, thanks to MySpace, Isobar, and Carat, there is great research that has defined the "Momentum Effect" as the ROI driver in social media. This is a MUST READ report for marketers entering this space (get it here) (Disclosure/mini-plug: my colleagues at TNS were one of three partners is executing the research, along with TRU and Marketing Evolution).

Will social networks have the backbone to turn down revenue is marketers demand types of placements that will alienat users? Will marketers learn to give up control and learn to become the kind of friend that social network users will welcome?

This will be the real story of 2008, not Bubble 2.0.

Memo to Bob Parsons: You are so wrong!

Dear Bob:

I read that you have decided that it is not worth it to promote GoDaddy's Super Bowl ad ahead of the game as you have in the past. I say, the strategy of promoting early isn't wrong -- your execution last year was flawed! Tune in to my webinar tomorrow with the Advertising Research Foundation and I'll show you the proof!

Bob,

A recent Brandweek article, quoted you as saying that you won't promote GoDaddy's ad as aggressively before the game as in year's past:

What we learned is that doesn’t really pay off because people are going to watch anyhow. So while that might work for other occasions, that doesn’t work for the Super Bowl.

Our analysis (to be published in the December Journal of Advertising Research) shows that advertisers who promote their ad aggressively before the game (whom we dubbed "Play Action Advertisers") got 10 times the coverage and consumer discussion as those who didn't.

10 times!!

We calculated that Doritos got a minimum of 40 million impressions even before the coin toss. That's almost half of the audience that the game gets. Stick that in your ROI calculator!

And those who showed their ad online before the game got 4 times the coverage of those who announced early, but did not show their ad. You can download an abstract of this (and some other analysis we did at our site

Bob: The lesson you should take away from last year is that you can't do the same thing two years in a row. It was boring and seemed a lot more contrived than the 2006 effort. (see my 2006 post in which I awarded you the "They Really Get It" Award). Scroll down to the bottom of this post to read my review of your brilliant strategy.

So promote your ad aggressively ahead of the game -- if your really have something new to say!

PS. I take back what I said about questioning your reason for being on the Super Bowl at all, both in last year's and my 2005 review (where I gave you the "Load up the Cannon with Gerbils" Award). I recently started a blog about my other obssession -- LED lighting -- at http://ledlightsathome.com . When I decided to do it, GoDaddy was top of mind and you got my $14 to register the domain (actually more like $80 because I also registered a few variations thereof).

(cross-posted at www.superbowladvertisers.com )

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.

Has the Web 2.0 Hype Cycle Kicked In?

I'm as bullish as anybody about the growth of social media and the impact it will have on the relationship between brands and consumers. But this study makes me think "Bubble 2.0" with its conclusion that 81% of marketers will spend as much or more on Conversational Marketing than traditional marketing by 2012. This suggests an order-of-magnitude faster growth than Interactive marketing and TV advertising has seen in the last decade...

Let me start by saying Cymfony is a member of SNCR and fully support their work. And I'm friends with Joseph Jaffe and think he is one of the leading thinkers in the dramatic changes marketing is experiencing.

That said, this study smacks of the hype cycle "peak of inflated expectations". I use these as reference points:

• Interactive marketing has been around for over 13 years, and it is $18.4 billion this year, according to Forrester's latest interactive marketing sizing report and will be only $61 billion by 2012. (I say "only" because Bob Coen at Universal McCann pegs 2006 advertising spending at $285 billion.)
• If you date DVR's to TiVo's launch in 1999, they have been around 8 years, and the penetration is only 17%, with only about 5% of viewing is on DVR (don't remember where I saw that stat...). Sure, the TV business is quaking in their boots but the 2007 Upfront was stronger than ever -- about a 5% overall increase and CPM increases up to 8 - 9%, despite repeated predictions that it must collapse in the face of declining audiences and rising CPMs.

In other words, if after 13 years, interactive marketing is less than 10% of total marketing, how is conversational marketing going to get to 50% in 5 years? Same question if DVRs haven't demolished the TV advertising business after 7 years?

As an ex-analyst, I sympathize with anyone trying to predict the future of radical changes like this. I've had my share of "irrational exuberance" reports like the December 1998 "1999 will be the year of rich media ads" and my wish-to-be-forgotten January 2001 classic "Online Advertising Eclipsed" (which predicted rapid growth for online ads but even more rapid growth for a broader definition of interactive marketing just as we entered the collapse of Bubble 1.0; I quickly revised it in October 2001 with "Online Advertising Retrenches"). I fear Joseph may have fallen into the trap I fell into of 1) believing what the marketers he interviewed told him and that 2) he only spoke to early adopter conversational/social media/Web 2.0 marketers who have all good intentions that haven't yet hit the reality of corporate conservatism.

The one thing I learned is that no matter how fast technology changes, consumers and marketers don't change nearly as quickly.

My fear is that numbers like this strain the credibility of the industry such that they may do more to reinforce reluctant execs' view that this is another bubble than they do to galvanize them to change.

Is there an irreversible change that will shift money out of traditional, one-way, broadcast marketing? Yes.

Is the future of marketing conversing with customers, listening to their needs/complaints/suggestions and adapting products and messages to align with them? Absolutely.

Will marketers learn to love giving control to their brand advocates and increase their use of widgets and allow consumers to take and spread an array of brand assets as they see fit? No doubt in my mind.

But none of this will happen overnight. Living through one "Trough of Disillusionment" is enough for my career. Let's all try to skip it and keep the marketing world climbing the "Slope of Enlightenment".

Blu-Ray vs HD DVD Update: And the winner is....

Just about a year ago, we published a report on the social media discussions surrounding these next generation video formats, concluding that HD DVD had an edge. Much has changed. Now, the leader is....

...indifference. Media Magazine recently published our analysis, but here is a quick summary.

In the analysis we classified authors by their prevailing attitude: advocates for one or the other format, simply observing that one or the other is likely to win (but without any strong endorsement), or simply indifferent to the outcome.

The Indifferent segment is larger than the advocates for both formats combined. As we dug deeper, Blu-ray has a slight edge in technical features and movies available on the format, but HD DVD has a huge price advantage. It wouldn't take much to nudge the advantage back to HD DVD.

But the article didn't have enough space for two interesting, though less frequently expressed viewpoints:

1. A number of authors didn't see much advantage of these formats over the current generation of DVD's.
2. Others stated that in a few years we'll all be downloading all our content on demand in HD, so they were going to sit out this format war entirely.

Consumers are telling both formats that they have failed to provide a compelling reason for consumers to upgrade. Will they listen and change their strategies before technology moves on and these technologies follow digital audio tape recorders as too little, too late?

New White Paper Addresses Regulatory Issues in Social Media for Pharma Marketers

I'm pleased to announce the newest Cymfony Influence 2.0 White Paper: "Connecting with Patients, Overcoming Uncertainty". We've collaborated with other industry experts to help pharmaceutical companies navigate the complexities of launching social media initiatives within the restrictions of DTC promotion regulations.

We're often asked by our pharma clients and prospects how to engage in social media given the strict FDA regulations around direct-to-consumer marketing. The FDA hasn't issued any guidance (in fact, they haven't issued guidance for Internet marketing). For a long time we looked for others who had made suggestions or analyzed the issues involved, to no avail.

So we've put a stake in the ground -- you can download the paper here. I had two great co-authors on this project: John Serio, a lawyer with Seyfarth Shaw LLP who specializes in food and drug law and regulations, and Fard Johnmar of Envision Solutions, a healthcare marketing communications consultant.

In the paper, we propose a framework for identifying the key issues across the entire spectrum of social media types. We review the core principles that are the foundation of DTC promotion regulation and discuss how they should be viewed in light of social media's unique characteristics. We zero in to show how to assess adverse event reporting requirements, off-label promotion risks, and fair balance when designing a social media initiative.    

Of course, nothing substitues for detailed FDA guidance. But we believe drug companies can participate in many types of social media without undue risk. We hope this paper will give marketers, regulatory compliance, and legal professionals in healthcare companies a common understanding of the issues, and ideas on how to mitigate the risks and become part of the active conversation that patients are having every day. 

My co-authors and I will also present these ideas in a webinar on September 11 at 1:00 eastern time. I hope you will register and join us on the call.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first paper of its kind. I hope it will stimulate a lot of discussion and that you'll share your thoughts with me here.

Paid blog posts -- still the wrong model, one year later.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: paying bloggers to write about you isn't blogging, it's copywriting. Unfortunately, today's Wall Street Journal article doesn't appreciate the difference.

Last year I wished that we would all help the paid blogging model fail quickly. Instead it appears to be gaining momentum. Some may mistake this as a sign of the growth of importance of blogging; in fact, this is a sign that marketers are still thinking in 1.0 marketing ways: whom do I pay to put the message I want in the place I want it?

This is the wrong model for blogging because it contradicts the essence that makes blogging different from other media: blogs are supposed to be the unvarnished thoughts, experiences, and opinions of We, the People. Blogs have attracted people because we no longer trust that the products in TV shows -- even the stories on the news -- are the result of impartial editorial judgment. We turn away from other media because we suspect it is all bought and paid for one way or another. If blogs don't offer a distinctly different alternative, they don't have a reason to exist.

But I'm no purist. If we must have paid blogging, let's all agree that the standard for disclosure should be no lower than the standard for traditional journalists: state that you're being paid at the beginning of the post. If a traditional publication or writer have a conflict, they state it upfront in the article, not buried somewhere in fine print, the masthead, camouflaged with some cutesy name or hidden in some disclosure document in a file drawer somewhere. And this disclosure isn't at the discretion of each writer: it is enforced by the organization writing the check to her.

(Does anyone else appreciate the irony that everyone's all up in arms that Rupert Murdoch will surreptitiously slant the WSJ's editorial approach, but the WSJ seems to think it is OK for bloggers to surreptitiously take money to slant what they write?)

The pro-pay advocates will say, "But if bloggers say upfront that they're being paid, people won't believe the post."

My point exactly. If readers will only believe it when you withhold material information about the motivation of the author, then it should only be published with the disclosure of that motivation.

Or better yet, don't waste everyone's time. 

Social Media Forecast: Looks a lot like online advertising 1994 - 2000

Mediaweek, citing an eMarketer report, states, "User-generated content on the Web is set to rapidly shift from a budding consumer trend to a serious business over the next five years." For those of us who have watched the adoption of online advertising, we are seeing history repeat itself.

This eMarketer report states that UCG sites will earn $1 billion in ad revenues this year, and $4.3 billion by 2011. Mediaweek goes on to state, "Plus, users have shown no indication that creating their own Web content for others to consume is a passing fad, found eMarketer. By 2011, the researcher estimates there will be 95 million Web users creating content online, up from 64 million last year."

The analogy to Web 1.0 online advertising is this: 1994 is usually cited as the birth of online advertising, and in 1997, the medium's fourth year, the IAB reported $900 million in ad revenue. Arguably, 2005 was the first year of social media, so 2007, the third year of its existence, will see $1 billion. Very similar growth curve. Online advertising hit $4 billion in 1999, its sixth year; UGC will hit this landmark in its 7th year. Since UGC growth isn't being propelled by a bubble that was starting to inflate in 1999, the curve again looks similar.

At the same time eMarketer also published an article "UGC not Critical for Many Marketers" in which only 12% of survey respondents said UGC was "very important" to their marketing efforts. The top reasons according to eMarketer "lack of clear ROI was often named as an objection. Other reasons listed included "management doesn't embrace it yet," "we simply haven't given it enough priority to consider it at this point" and "we've had difficulty in getting the establishment to understand it."

Nonetheless, over 40% are either using it already or considering it for next year. emarketer explains, "respondents understood the benefits of using UGC. A third of respondents said UGC was cost-efficient compared with traditional marketing and advertising, and 31% said it was useful because the credibility of traditional advertising and marketing was declining."

This is really deja vu for me: I wrote the following in an October 2001 Forrester Report titled "Online Advertising Retrenches":

"Marketers wrestle with opposing forces that alternatively urge them forward and hold them back from adopting Web site display advertising. They sense the Web's potential but recoil from the risks of being a pioneer and so wait for proven metrics and ad formats to appear."

In a nutshell, consumer media consumption habits are changing faster than marketers can learn and adapt. But year by year, from dipping a toe in the water, to pilot tests, to full adoption, the shift is on an inexorable course. The only question is whether the shift will be faster or slower than the prognosicators think.

I have an obvious bias, but my money is on it growing faster. Being a former prognosicator, here is how I would think about it:

1. There is no VC-fueled dotcom spending here, so the growth is unlikely to be interrupted for 3 years as happend to online advertising.
2. Senior marketing executives and industry observers like Bob Garfield have woken up to the reality that the age of mass marketing is in decline and they no longer need to be convinced to move beyond the tried-and-true tactics of the past. Traditional advertising spending is slowing and "below-the line" (I've always hated that phrase) on CRM, interactive, direct mail, etc. is growing.
3. Social media represents a bigger change than online advertising was. Banners were another format to push messages through; blogs and social networks require a much more dynamic relationship with consumers.

IMHO, the biggest drag on the growth of online ads in the '90's was lack of urgency because marketers still had total confidence in TV and mass marketing. Without that comfort, marketers will be much more willing to invest in the necessary learning to add new social media tools to their marketing arsenal.

iPods, Pacemakers, and a brewing crisis for Apple

A storm of coverage has erupted in the last 24 hours over reports that an iPod can cause a pacemaker to malfunction. Both the traditional media and social media are buzzing....

Mickey Khan of DMNews tipped me off to this story.

The first report appears to be in the Pioneer Press and then was quickly picked up by blog Ars Technica and is spreading globally to the UK, Germany, Australia, India. There are about 165 traditional media stories (as of noon eastern time) and about the same number of blog posts. And it is starting to rise on Digg, with 26 votes.

So far, no response on the Apple site (in fact the last press release about the iPod celebrates selling 100 million of the devices), either in the media info section or the support section.

I'll let you check out these stories and assess the facts behind it for yourself. This event raises some interesting questions that will play out in the next hours....

• Will this become the next example of the Influence 2.0 world damaging an iconic brand before it can organize a response?
• Or, as many bloggers suggest, is this no big deal because any electrical device can interfere with a pacemaker?
• Will Apple be forced to respond? If so, will their response make matters worse or reassure iPod lovers?

Stay tuned...

Before the kickoff, Doritos scores a touchdown

In the REAL contest (the battle of the Super Bowl ads to see which advertisers will get the most for their money), Doritos has already put a big lead on the board. From January 1 - February 2, coverage of their contest to have consumers create their Super Bowl ad has generated over 40 million impressions -- almost half the number the game will deliver.

Cymfony has been tracking coverage of Super Bowl advertising in television (thanks to our friends at Critical Mention!), Internet traditional media sites (sites like reuters.com, abcnews.com, msnbc.com and thousands of others) and social media sites (blogs, discussion boards, social network sites, etc.).

Here's one other stat: the social media sources deliver less than 5% of all the impressions generated. While the blogs and social networks are undeniably important, they still have a long way to go to match traditional media's impact. But this shouldn't be a surprise: according to Quantcast, Engadget gets between 30,000 - 40,000 unique visits per day. A broadcast on a local TV station like ABC 9 in Cincinnati delivers an audience of 65,653 while the online version of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper delivers 66,416 readers.

Beyond just the raw amount of exposure, Doritos wins on another dimension: almost half of the discussions of the Doritos ads are positive and almost none are negative. At Cymfony, we almost never see this strong of positive reaction for any brand.

    

By contrast, Nationwide's Kevin Federline ad also shows strong favorability, but in a more typical pattern, almost 17% of the discussion is negative (you can't please all the people all the time).

 

But while Nationwide also got a fair amount of coverage and discussion, K-Fed really can't please the blogosphere: just under 30% of discussion in the social media world is negative.

   

Read my picks of the best and worst of Super Bowl ads: First Quarter, Second Quarter, Third Quarter, Fourth Quarter.

Superbowl advertisers are missing the real game

Ad Age reports that many Superbowl advertisers are staying quiet about buying the expensive spots. This is exactly the wrong strategy.

At $2.6 million per spot, even with 100,000,000 people watching, this works out to a $26 cost per thousand, high by any standards. Add the fact that this is a very untargeted audience and any specific advertiser's cost per target audience thousand escalates rapidly. There's no way to get a return on just the 30 seconds of the game alone.

Last year, I posted my thoughts about the right Superbowl ad strategy:

"The only way to rationalize this expense is to use it as a platform for public relations, word of mouth, and other exposure for your spot. Just as the ads have come to almost overshadow the game, the value from exposure before and after the game overshadows the 30 seconds the brand is paying for. "

Ad Age attributes companies' reluctance to promote their Superbowl ads to "accountants and procurement types breath[ing] down CMO necks."

In other words, the bean counters, trying to squeeze more efficiency out of marketing budgets, are accomplishing exactly the opposite of what they intend.

I have expected that the buzz about the Superbowl ads this year would focus on Doritos, the NFL, and Chevrolet who are conducting a contest for consumer-generated ads. It looks like the other advertisers are making this a reality by leaving the field wide open (pun intended)...

Doritos Ads -- More evaluation

Yesterday, I ranked the five final ads in the Doritos "Crash the Superbowl" contest based on my gut reaction. Today I ask more rigorous questions -- and change my ranking slightly...

The first question: Do these ads meet the standards of a "real" agency? To answer this question, I had to travel back in time to put myself in the mindset of my ad agency days, ie, if I were the management supervisor on the Doritos account, would I feel confident presenting these ideas to the client? The answer is a definite yes. In fact, at times I had to present much worse work and try to sell it to my client!

But I don't believe agencies are in danger of being put out of business by Ad Age's "Agency of the Year" -- the consumer. If every brand were to run a contest like this for every new campaign, the novelty would quickly wear off and they would receive no submissions. I do wonder if networks of freelancers will crop up to compete for assignments at a fraction of a Madison Avenue fee.

But agencies will face tough questions about why they need to spend $350,000 or more to shoot an ad when these consumers delivered quite good production values on a shoestring.

The second question: How good are these ads, really? How well do they accomplish Doritos' branding and sales objectives? To answer this, I evaluated the ideas by five criteria; definitions of these criteria and their weightings are below. Here are the grades (click to enlarge):

   

These grades confirm my rating of "Live the Flavor" and "Checkout Girl" as the top two ads, "Duct Tape" and "Chip Lover's Dream" move up but "Mousetrap" drops to the bottom.

In my next installment, I'll do my best to channel Bob Garfield and review each ad.

Here are the definitions and weighting of the criteria:

Strategic fit: 40%. Call me a stickler, I don't care who creates the ad I insist that it fits the brand's strategy. I've made the assumption that their target audience is young men; the rules of the contest allude to attributes like boldness, flavor, and the action the attributes drive.

Quality of idea: 30%. I'm also a believer in the Big Idea: is the fundamental idea driving the ad compelling and engaging?

Art Direction: 10%. Art Directors are responsible for casting, sets, props, and the grapic design of the spot. Grades are based on the quality of these elements.

Copywriting: 10%. Interestingly, only two ads --"Checkout Girl" and "Duct Tape" -- have a spoken script. But copywriters are also responsible for the storyline of the ad. The stronger, tighter, and more complete the story, the higher the grade.

Production: 10%. This criterion includes the quality of the finished video, the acting and direction, and additional special effects included.

Doritos announces final five consumer-created ads

As if on cue following Ad Age's naming of the consumer as Agency of the Year, Doritos unveiled the final five candidates in their contest for consumers to create the brand's Superbowl commercial. Here is my ranking....

Doritos launched their "Crash the Superbowl" contest back in October and consumers have submitted over 1000 ads. After a couple of "playoff" rounds, Doritos announced the final five.

I took at quick look at them, and I rank them as follows:

1. Live the Flavor
2. Checkout Girl
3. Mousetrap
4. Duct Tape
5. Chip Lovers Dream

As an ex agency guy, I can't resist commenting on whether they actually live up to what a real agency would produce. But it's late tonight.

Watch this space for more discussion over the next few days...

Ad Age misses the point of consumer control

First, Time Magazine named "You" as Person of the Year. Now Ad Age names the consumer as Agency of the Year. Time got it right. Ad Age got it wrong....

Time put their finger on the pulse of this change when they said, "It's about the many wresting power from the few...and how that will not only change the world, but change the way the world changes."

In other words, "you" have the power, and society and its institutions must get ready for the changes that "you" will demand.

But Ad Age says, "The question for 2007 will be whether marketers and agencies find ways to harness that consumer-bred creativity...and deploy it to the service of brands."

In other words, big corporations and brands still have the power, they only let the consumer have the illusion they have the power. The marketer may not be able to give the consumer a creative brief and tell them what to do, but if they are wiley enough, they can still manipulate, cajole, fool, and bribe the consumer to do what they want.

I'll concede that you may be able to get a bunch of consumers to suck up to the brand for a couple of months to win the bragging right of having their commercial picked for the Superbowl. But what happens on February 5? There are a lot of other conversations out there about the brand -- praising, damning, complaining, and advising -- that won't be so easily whitewashed by a chance at short-term fame.

Ad Age has been seduced by the lure of the big YouTube pop, and is leading its readers astray with the mirage of viewership numbers that are as ephermeral as the next email.

The lesson Ad Age missed -- and that marketers should focus on -- is how to harness consumer-bred creativity and deploy it to the service of those consumers, by listening and learning what the consumer says makes for a great brand, then delivering it in real, differentiated, meaningful features and benefits. 

The next great marketers will see the real benefits brands can gain in this consumer-controlled world: deriving superior consumer insight to drive sustainable competitive advantage.* They will shape the experience consumers have with the brand to the desires and needs that consumers now spontaneously and directly express. These brands will build a longer-term, stronger bond with consumers based on real value consumers receive, and give up the illusion that the slick sell can make up for the lack of real benefits.

*Thanks to Prof. Robert Lauterborn for sharing his marketing mantra with me!

2007 Prognostications

I've been speculating on what 2007 will hold. Here are links to some of the places I've been quoted. Check them out, plus some bonus thoughts....

Heidi Cohen published my thoughts on how marketers will embrace online video in new ways on ClickZ.

Mickey Alam Khan wrote an excellent recap of a long conversation he and I had at AdTech about what all the changes in the media landscape mean for advertisers and media companies in his recent DM News editorial.

Then, ADOTAS tapped me for an article of crystal-ball gazing, based on the Time Magazine Person of the Year, which should appear soon....

Now, for a couple of other thoughts:

Bubble 2.0 ? -- I don't think so. Earlier this fall David Pogue worried that AOL's switch to a totally free ad-supported service signals the return of the late '90's Internet bubble. I agree, we have some froth in the market, but there is one big difference: online advertising is heading toward $16 billion this year, and it is real money, not VC cash that sloshed through Bubble 1.0. But an even more telling example is YouTube suing TechCrunch to protect their business model. This is the anti-bubble -- content may want to be free (in the popular Bubble 1.0 era phrase), but content owners/creators/distributors are not charitable institutions. For there to be content worth watching, somebody has to make some money somewhere along the line.

Web 2.0 is growing up. Reuters investing in Pluck is a strong signal that the worlds of "traditional" and "social" media continue to converge, bringing blogs to a wider, less tech-happy audience. Moves like this advance the case for Influence 2.0, the intersection and interaction of both mainstream and traditional media. With YouTube safely entrenced in the Google world and striking deals with NBC Universal, Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, the NHL, and others, it is clear that real companies are starting to work Web 2.0 into their business models. Contrary to Steve Rubel's thoughts, there is still a long way to go, but the trend will accelerate in 2007.

The post-TiVo era begins. TiVo taught consumers they could break the control network programming bosses had over scheduling. Then the networks completely gave control over by putting popular shows on iTunes, and consumers learned they could have their video content not only whenever but wherever they wanted it. In 2007 as video-enabled mobile phones become a reality, consumers will have even more freedom to view what they want, when they want, wherever they want. Ads will spread but the real change will come as marketers create more product demonstrations and segments with expert advice. Someone wondering what to make their family for dinner will dial up a 5-minute segment with Rachel Ray sponsored by Kraft.

Beyond MySpace. Marketers will seek sites that are “not your teenager’s social network”. MySpace still grabs all the attention, but social networks have begun to spread, popping up to serve different segments of consumers. Though sites like Gather.com and eons.com don’t have the raw numbers of MySpace, they have the buying power of aging Boomers and the NPR audience. Marketers will discover that novelties like a brand character page on these sites won’t cut it. Instead, brands will engage with consumers on how to fulfill their LifeDreams on eons.com while resurrecting the concept of “cause-related marketing” to support issues the Gather.com audience cares about.

More fake blogs. As a member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Board of Directors, it pains me to say this. But we will see more examples where marketers try to take shortcuts to create buzz by pretending to be someone they are not. Sony launched AllIWantforXmasIsAPSP.com, having missed the lessons of the “Walmarting across America” fake blog controversy that gave the retailer and their PR firm, Edelman, such a black eye just a month before. Pardon the slightly commercial message, but there is still time to establish a New Year's Resolution of engaging in ethical marketing practices: join WOMMA, embrace the Honesty ROI principles, and institute the practical ethics steps that will help you engage in authentic, valuable conversation with consumers.

I've been tagged!

Peter Kim at Forrester jumped on the "five things you don't know about me" meme; he tagged his new Forrester colleague David Frankland who tagged me. I generally keep this blog focused on business issues. But what the heck. In the holiday spirit, here are five things you don't know about me...

1. I play the Scottish bagpipes. I started in college, played competitively for many years, achieving Grade 2 status in the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association (yes, there is such a thing).
2. I was a geology major at William College. How did it get from there into the advertising/marketing world? Buy me a drink sometime and I'll give you the whole long, convoluted story!
3. I sing in my church choir. I'm more of a bass, though I'm trying to stretch my range into baritone. Our organist/choirmaster is amazing -- I have an OK voice but I've never had any prior voice training. In the past few years I've learned a lot and he has had us sing some amazing pieces.
4. I'm a alternative energy nut: I drive a Toyota Prius, (which I bought in 2002, long before the recent run-up in gas prices) and put solar photovoltaic panels on my roof a year ago. Next, I'll probably put a solar hot water system on the roof, especially if I can track down the Swedish system I read about recently that uses hot water for air conditioning.
5. 5. I'm a dog nut. But I've had a really tough year. Two of my beloved girls went to doggie heaven this year: Sadie, age 16, last February and Gina (at left) age 13 this past Monday (I'm in deep mourning this week). We're down to one dog right now, but we'll add to the pack soon! (see the whole pack at petcentric -- Sadie is the little Sheltie mix next to Gina in the background; DeeDee the black lab in the foreground is now the lone dog in the household).

I would have tagged Pete Blackshaw, but someone got to him first! So my tags go to Jackie Huba at the Church of the Customer, Bob Liodice at the Association of National Advertisers, and Todd Defren at Shift Communications.

Our Blu-ray/HD DVD report triggers skepticism...and we reply

It's been about two weeks since Cymfony published its finding that the next generation video format HD-DVD is taking an early edge over Blu-ray.  The findings themselves were interesting - which you can download here: but the truly interesting aspect of the study was the response to the analysis itself! 

A Blue Christmas for Blu-Ray has caused quite a stir in the blogosphere, industry forums and message boards. The report was picked up from coast to coast -- from the Washington Post to the San Jose Mercury News and in top-tier blogs like Engadget and arstechnica. Then it truly started to get interesting!

As the story evolved, some skeptics bashed the report, wondering who paid for /sponsored the research. We quickly updated the report with this disclaimer (which we should have included more prominently in the initial release):

Cymfony conducted this research as an independent study to evauate and measure the influence of online social media in the high definition video market. The research was not sponsored by any manufacturer or other ognazination affiliated with either HD DVD or Blu-ray products.

We went into the study with no preconceived notions or agendas. We picked the topic expecting it to capture attention due to the heightened awareness of the holiday high-tech consumer season and the importance of these new formats to their respective supporters. The depth of skepticism about Sony's ability to succeed in launching a new format and the perception of the company's "arrogance" surprised us.

We hit a nerve, spurred debate, and that's exciting -- that's what analyzing social media to discover unexpected insights is all about.

I can certainly understand that Blu-ray supporters wouldn't like our findings. And I can even understand their initial reaction to try to cast doubt on the findings.

But I hope on reflection they will begin to understand the bigger lesson we were trying to illustrate with this study: the value of listening. In today's market, consumers are in control and expressing their views; Cymfony is just the messenger. The real question is: are companies and brands ready to listen?  Can they learn to face criticism, respond positively then engage in the conversation productively?

Now that the initial shock has receded, I hope these companies and brand will ask themselves:

• Could this information have helped shape the product development and marketing strategies?
• Can these insights be incorporated into a mid-course correction, to address the doubts and concerns expresssed and make a more compelling story for Blu-ray's benefits?
• Should we create a forum on blu-raydisc.com and ecnourage these consumers to come directly to us to express themselves?
• What should we do to prove to the skeptics that we have heard them, taken action on their concerns, and are committed to making Blu-ray a must-have product?

These aren't questions just for Sony, the Blu-ray consortium, or their rivals backing HD DVD. These are questions all marketers must begin to wrestle with.

We welcome the conversation to continue. As such, we plan on conducting similar research on other topics next year, capturing the opinions of the consumer base within traditional and CGM forums.

What are your thoughts? What issues, brand, and areas of interest would you like to hear about?

Post a comment for me with your suggestions.

A Blue Christmas for Blu-ray

Consumers are talking about next generation video formats: Blu-ray and HD DVD. This new Cymfony report gives the edge to HD DVD, but not for the reasons you may think.

Here are a few highlights of the study, which you can download here:

• Talk is evenly divided between the two formats, but postive comments about HD DVD are 46% higher than positives about Blu-ray.
• Over twice as many post authors say they are impressed by HD DVD than are impressed with Blu-ray.
• Sony, a leader of the Blu-ray consortium, inspires skepticism and resentment among a significant segment of post authors. They cite a string of Sony-led formats (such as Betamax) that have failed and accuse the company of arrogance.

This was a surprise to me. Much of the mainstsream media coverage of these high-def formats talks about the "format wars", drawing the analogy to the videotape format battle between VHS and Betamax. Our research shows there's more going on with consumers: it's not that consumers are waiting for one format to win before they purchase, but they actively doubt Sony's ability to win the battle. Here's my favorite post:

"Sony, on the other hand, has a track record of starting format wars, and losing them too...but they just don't seem to learn their lesson because they're so greedy."

A key point is that most conversation is still among early adopter videophiles and gamers. So far, both audiences have similar downbeat assessments. This doesn't bode well for the word-of-mouth that is likely to guide mainstream consumers.

One point also came through clearly: people don't see much difference between these two formats, and don't discuss the higher storage capacity or "next generation interactivity" that Sony touts as Blu-ray advantages.

In the report we steered away from making recommendations, but let me make this suggestion to Sony here: issue a movie that really struts Blu-ray's stuff. The few movies out on Blu-ray have the usual extras: added scenes, director interviews, etc. and in some cases post authors note that the Blu-ray version has fewer extras than a standard DVD! This hardly provides a reason to throw out my DVD player that is only 3 years old...

Disclosure: Jon Fortt at Business 2.0 blogged about the report, expressing concern about who was behind it. The answer: nobody. We did this as an independent research project, none of the companies involved in either format paid for it, had any input to it, or even were aware we were doing it. None of the lead companies for either format are clients of Cymfony.

I think this is a good example of the insight companies can and should be tapping into to understand what is truly driving the success or failure of their marketing.

Great Ideas I learned in October -- Part 3

Conversational Marketing

With all this talk of "the consumer in control", the waning effectiveness of traditional advertising, and the new models of Web 2.0, most marketing models haven't really changed, witness the growth of regular banner ads and Google AdWords appearing on blogs.

But social media are about conversations. Putting Web 1.0 banner and search ads in social media is like putting a radio ad on TV and leaving the screen blank. It probably works to some extent, but it doesn't really use the unique qualities of the medium to their fullest.

I've had the good fortune to work closely with Tom Hespos of Underscore Marketing and Tom Troja of Pajamas Media this month, helping them flesh out the implementation of their concept of Conversational Marketing. The insight driving the idea is deceptively simple: if consumers go to blogs to be part of a conversation, the ads should invite them to enter a conversation with the marketer.

Tom Troja conceived of an advertising concept he calls "Can We Talk?" which uses ads not to push messages at the target audience, but invites individuals to begin a dialogue with a brand. To make this a practical program, we've combined Cymfony's tools to monitor and analyze topics discussed in the blogosphere, with the Pajamas Media blog network, and the strategy and creative skills of Underscore. Together, we've created a process to identify relevant topics, pose these topics to consumers on sites where they are in conversation mode, and give them an immediate opportunity to begin a conversation with the company.

Stay tuned for more on this innovative model!

The real story of the State of the Blogosphere

David Sifry's latest State of the Blogosphere report notes that the blogosphere is maturing. Forget the 57 million total blogs. The interesting number is that there are more authoritative blogs than there are traditional outlets in any single medium.

It's time to stop citing that there are 57 million blogs -- it is a pretty meaningless number. Since 26 million are spam or abandoned, they don't count. I'm not even sure the 31 million active blogs (that have been updated at least once in the past 3 months) is a very meaningful number -- in the blog world this isn't very active. At best these numbers serve as a proxy for the growth of CGM. But with comScore and NetRatings traffic numbers for YouTube and MySpace, I think this number has outlived its usefulness.

The number that really caught my eye is:

• 30,488 high authority and very high authority blogs

For context there are about 13,000 radio stations, 9,000 TV stations, and 17,000 magazines in the US. (source: Forrester Research, "Left Brain Marketing")

In other words, authoritative blogs are  more numerous than any other single traditional medium. That alone is a number a marketer or public relations person needs to take seriously.

blogosphere CGM media

The REALLY BIG story of the Wal-Mart/Edelman fake blog situation

Plenty of people have been criticizing Edelman, so I've been sitting it out. It is now time to take a step back and look at the big implication: The PR and marketing professions must commit themselves to changing course now, or they will crash into the mountain of consumer control.

Let's face it, this could probably have happened to any big PR firm or company that is blogging these days. The fact that it happened at Edelman, one of the self-declared leaders in using social media with some of the highest-profile bloggers out there, says as much or more about the chasm the profession will have to cross as it does about any one individual company.

For a generation or more, PR has been about spin. Finding a clever story angle is what PR people are trained to do. Marketing is the same, except they call it "positioning". Each new strategy starts from the basic premise of how to magnify the positives and deny any potential negatives. Exaggeration, careful selection of facts, and creating enticing ways to present the messages are not only accepted, but the fabric of every day work. In advertising, they are limited only by truth in advertising laws.

But consumer mistrust of advertising and media make these unspoken assumptions obsolete and dangerous to the health of companies and their marketing/PR partners. Before we launch a campaign, we must begin to put its concept through a new filter. After we ask "Is it on strategy" and "Is it compelling to the audience?", we must now ask "Is it ethical?". And we must train everyone in our organizations, down to the entry level assistant account executive, media relations manager, and marketing associate to ask this question.

The WOMMA Ethics code is a great start on specific areas of honesty in relationship, opinion, and identity. (Disclosure: I am a member of the Board of Directors of WOMMA). Now it -- or some similar guidelines -- must be incorporated into the curricula, training programs, and OJT learning that takes place every day.

Marketing and PR have been on autopilot for decades. The collision warning system just alarmed us that we're heading straight into the side of a mountain.

What are you doing to change the course of your organization?

edelman walmart micropersuasion richard+edelman flog public+relations wal-marting+across+america

Facebook's Quick About Face

I'll give CEO Mark Zuckerberg a B- for his response to the situation. Read on to see how I think he could improve his grade.

I've been out of the loop due to traveling (my godson received his wings as a Naval aviator on Friday -- a great day!). So I'm just catching up on all that happened.

Here are the components of the grade:

Initial response: C.

Mr. Zuckerberg's 9/5 blog post acknowledges that "many of you aren't immediate fans of the new features" but first highlights that some consider the new features "overwhelming and cluttered". Hmmm. I didn't see any protest groups popping up about the clutter. He goes on to defend the features and invites feedback, but the general tone is defensive and doesn't reassure readers that Facebook will incorporate the feedback into the product.

Ultimate Response: A

"Coding nonstop for two days" to bring out features to correct the deficiencies was exactly the right thing to do. Mr. Zuckerberg's 9/8 post hits exactly the right tone: Admitting where Facebook messed up and that the company missed key principles that they believed in is the kind of honesty that always disarms critics.

Speed of Response: A

Getting the initial response up on 9/5 as the protests grew was exactly right. Fixing it within 3 days was even better.

Learning the bigger lesson: B-

That lesson is: involve your customers in your development process. Mr. Zuckerberg took one good step in inviting members to a group called the "Free Flow of Information on the Internet" to talk to him and other Facebook executives. Basically this is the right thing to do but 1) the name sounds more like a lobbying group than a customer feedback group. Also, it sounds like he will be pushing his view of what Free Flow means. 2) He gives no indication that this is more than a one time event meant to address one specific problem.

Remedial action

To raise future grades, Facebook needs a permanent way to gather member feedback, an internal process that proactively seeks it, assesses it , then incorporates it into development. Study  QuickBooks community section, especially Better Because of You to see how Intuit solicits and uses their customer suggestions. For extra credit, get tutoring from a company like Communispace that specializes in building and managing customer communities.

Lots of Unhappy Faces at Facebook

In case anyone had any doubts about the power of the social web, the controversy about Facebook's plan to send RSS updates of members' updates should put it to rest. Here are some initial issues the incident raises....

290,000 members joining a protest group demanding a change of this policy...a promised boycott of Facebook next week...and no Cesar Chavez leading it. This is truly a grass roots reaction. (For those of you too young to remember Cesar Chavez and the Grape Boycott of the '60's and '70's, check out Wikipedia.)

This controversy will likely continue to grow and evolve over the next few days and I'll update my thoughts about it. But here are some initial thoughts and questions that I hope to explore more over the coming days.

• Is this about poor communications on Facebook's part or the boundaries of privacy? From my read, the RSS feeds only go to a small circle of friends, the people who most likely come to  the friend's site on a regular basis anyway. Mark explains this pretty clearly in his post. Is RSS so cutting edge that even these presumably sophisticated users don't fully understand it? Or did this cross some line which even these people who live their lives very publicly don't want to cross?
• What was Facebook's product development process? Did they get any user input before hand? Or are they developing these features in an engineering silo because they are "cool" as Ruchi Sangvhi says in her blog post announcing them.
• And why didn't Facebook have a blog long ago? They just started their blog on August 22; thank goodness they did so they have a platform to respond to the uproar. Mark Zuckerberg did a nice job on jumping on it with his Tuesday post. But nothing since. I think the members would like to know what his thinking is two days later, even if it is just to stay "we understand concern is growing and we're looking at some options." But they probably could have avoided this whole issue if their blog had been active during the development process and they pinged their members for feedback.
• Why didn't Facebook learn from eBay's mistakes? Several years ago, eBay had similar user backlash to changes in policies and fees. eBay has since developed a philosophy that while they own the platform, the community should be empowered in large part to govern itself.

I'm not writing another post about SoaP

Aside from the occasional editorial comment, I'll shut up and let the viewers tell New Line Cinema how to monetize SoaP further:  instead of a traditional post-release marketing strategy, New Line must continue to expand on the social media marketing strategy by:

1. Exploiting this campy B-movie with special fan showings,
2. spicing up the DVD with an audience participation track,
3. packaging "how to throw a home SoaP viewing" kits, and
4. Stocking offical Snakes Gear in the online store, like official SoaP rubber snakes, masks, and snake puppets.

Jim: Forget the movie -- the fun is in the social experience.

Zubkavich: Is it a "good" film? Hell, no! The core premise...is completely ridiculous and mind-numbingly stupid. Does it make for a fun B-movie worthy conflict? Yuppers."

Martini Republic: "...the enjoyment had only 50% to do with the movie itself, which is not up to par with the director's previous effort. The beauty of the evening ... was the fun of listening to a sarcastic, cynical, ruthless audience."

A Bunch of Us: "I think the cash I laid down was the best Hamiltons I ever spent. The movie in and of itself won't be good unless you see it in a crowded theatre....the best parts were the really the crowd antics:

• There were dudes running around with snake masks on before the movie began, and started alternating crowd chants of "snakes!" vs. "planes!"
• Whenever there was a lull in the film, everyone hissed. Like snakes.
• When Sam Jackson delivered THEE line, the crowd went nuts. People stood up and cheering and whistling, and people threw rubber snakes at the screen.

Jim: Give us more of this social experience

BrillBuilding: "Hisses and snarky jokes were already going strong by the time the trailers rolled around...When the snake-timer counts down and the snakes were free...those who brought their own snake toys threw them into the air for what seemed like a solid two minutes....There was certainly a Rocky Horror aspect to all of this."

AimlesslyWandering: "I would only recommend this movie if they have a fan showing after this weekend, like a Rocky Horror midnight showing. I would assume that these will start in the very near future."

Jim: Give us cool snake merchandise (PS. the stuff in the official online store is pretty lame in comparison to what fans came up with on their own)

Queencallipygos: "I met my friends...and [they] presented each of us with a snake hand puppet, complete with a little squeezy thing inside the mouth to make it flip out a rubber tonge and hiss...someone else seeing the movie came up, looked at the size of the line, and saw us standing ther giggling and playing with snake puppets. 'Wow,' I heard one of them mutter, 'and I thought we were obsessed.' "

Jim: Watching the DVD won't cut it...

Kungfurodeo: "Good mindless fun, with or without the hype, and I did jump in my seat a couple of times. I don't think I'll ever watch it again -- seeing it in my living room will never compare to a packed Staten Island theater filled with 15 year olds."

Zubkavich: "Home video viewing will take the wind out of this thing's sails like nothing else."

Jim: ...unless they add special features to it

Bigmaki: "I just don't see it playing nearly as well on DVD as it does with a (mostly)full theater. I'd put money on an "audience participation" track of some sort whenever that DVD does come out."

A Bunch of Us: "The movie in and of itself won't be good unless you see it in a crowded theatre, or alternatively, on DVD with your drinking buddies (playing one of the drinking games that will inevitably pop up on the internet)."

new line cinema SoaP marketing strategy social media

New Line Cinema: Stop Your SoaP Griping!

New Line Cinema's apparent disappointment with the box office take of Snakes on A Plane shows they have missed the point of WOM.

Since everyone else in the blogosphere has written a post about SoaP, I have restrained myself. Until I saw this article in the New York Times with the headline "Snakes: A Letdown After Hype on the Web." The following facts in the article pushed me over the edge:

• "The film was still the No. 1 draw at the box office during the weekend."
• "It basically performed like a normal horror movie." said David Tuckerman, president for theatrical distribution for New Line.
• The article notes they only spent $20 million on marketing
• Box office was $15.2 million on the opening weekend.

So let me get this right -- New Line spent about half the marketing budget they normally would ( Hollywood Reporter notes $36.5 million is average), drove the same amount of revenue they would expect from this type of movie, and still grabbed the #1 slot for the weekend.

And they're disappointed?

They make a consciously low-budget, B-movie and are surprised when the alchemy of WOM doesn't turn this lead into gold. Duh!

Count your profits, go home, and plan the WOM campaign for your next movie! (and fire half of your marketing staff since you don't need them anymore).

work of mouth new line cinema Snakes on A Plane

Craig's List Lawsuit: Free Speech vs Social Goals

NPR reported this morning that several months ago a suit was filed against Craig's List over apartment listings that violate the Fair Housing Act non-discrimination laws. Should operators of sites be held to the same standards that newspapers are? If this succeeds, what does that mean for negative comments people make about companies or products?

The gist of the NPR story was that listings for renting apartments on Craig's List often include criteria such as they will or won't rent to gays, minorities, Christians, etc. etc. etc. Years ago, newspapers were forced to screen their classifieds and reject ads like this. So far courts have held that the Internet is different than a newspaper, and is not bound by the same legal requirements. But as classified ads increasingly move out of newspapers and online, should this change? And if it changes for Craig's List, how will it affect all the Blogger.com, Typepad, etc. Will they be responsible for editing and removing offensive, illegal, etc. information?

The extension for word of mouth marketing is that these services might have to monitor discussions of companies/brands/products for accuracy. If a company didn't like a blog post or a review, they could claim inaccuracy and sue or threaten to sue. Most blog and review sites, being small companies, would probably take the posts down rather than incur the cost of the suit. The word of mouth world would be a much poorer place.

But being a Child of the '60's, I believe these laws serve a laudable social goal of creating a truly free and equal society. Beyond that, as a country, we decided long ago that property owners don't have the right to discriminate whom they sell or rent to based on their personal biases. On the other hand, living in New England and going to my town's Town Meeting every year, there is a great tradition of each individual having the right to stand up in public and state his position. The Internet has expanded that to the world and it would be a shame to lose it.

Censorship to serve the greater good vs free speech is a paradox as old as the country. It looks like it will continue on the Internet.

What do you think? A quick search on Sphere and Technorati didn't turn up much discussion of this yet....here are a couple of other posts:

TechnologyTalk

Technology and Marketing Law

I'm off on a week's vacation and celebrating the big 5-0 birthday. Some of my colleagues will be posting. I'll be back the week of 7/17 -- at which time I will be in my second half-century!

Payperpost.com -- Let's all help it fail quickly

I don't think it will surprise any of my readers that I am vehemently against this model. It is the worst of Influence 1.0 thinking: whom does one pay and how much in order to get a carefully controlled message into this new medium? But why is this model worse than advertising or product placement? When reading a blog, the expectation is that you are reading the honest beliefs of a real human being. If the medium loses that value, there is no reason for it to exist.

I managed to get away to a long holiday weekend with family without hearing about the controversy of Payperpost.com. I'll try to summarize the key points that have struck me today as I have caught up.

(If you haven't already read them, read the Business Week article that started it and TechCrunch's post before you go further.)

While there are a lot of businesses trying to harness the power of word of mouth, this one step over the line into blatant exploitation because 1) the advertisers sets requirements for what the author writes 2) Payperpost.com must approve it before the author gets paid 3) there is no requirement for disclosure. Whatever is written is no longer the author's true opinion, it is the advertiser's opinion written by another hand. It is not word-of-mouth marketing, it is copywriting by another name.

Pete Blackshaw offers the best summation of the damage this could do to the idea of blogs, consumer-generated media, and a trust-based relationship between consumers and marketers.

You don't have to feel a sense of moral outrage to think this is a wrong-headed use of the blogosphere. Postbubble makes a good argument that it isn't economically viable because thinly veiled sales pitches will chase away a blog's audience, while Marshall Sponder on WebMetricsGuru says $5 - $10 isn't enough money to attract writers in the first place.

To these economic arguments I would add that 1) few product categories could even approach affording this kind of money and 2) even then the economics are still out of whack. Let's compare to classic snail mail: you pay roughly $1 per person to mail to them but you've carefully selected them so that they have some level of interest in the product. Paying even $5 for some unknown number of readers who are completely unqualified just doesn't work. Better to spend your $5 on a radio ad that reaches 1000 people.

The other way for this is to fail is for marketers not to get sucked into this misuse of emerging media. I've been encouraged in my conversations at WOMMA conferences that marketers are reluctant to engage in shilling, if only for fear of exposure. Hopefully, that fear will deter them from trying out Payperpost.com.

The defenders have two basic arguments for it:

1) It's just advertising, it's like Google offering paid links.

Wrong . Without disclosure this is lying, pure and simple. That's why all other media must label sections as "advertorial" or "special advertising section" when the content is bought, paid for, and created under the advertiser's total control. Google labels their paid links and clearly separates them from natural results.

2) It's human nature, it's the capitalist system at work.

One particularly cynical person who signed his comment at Naked Conversations "El Hakeem" said that people are naturally "venal, duplicitous, and self-seeking" and goes on to say "the only ethical test is if it delivers economic value to all participants." Human nature and the capitalist system have their dark sides to be sure, but isn't that why we form civilizations and governments, to keep these in check? "El Hakeem" clearly didn't attend any of the readings of the Declaration of Independence this holiday -- or better yet, let me direct him to the preamble of the Constitution, in which "We the People" formed a government to "promote the general welfare." Enron, Worldcom, etc created plenty of economic value, too, for those smart enough to get out in time.

So as long as we reject laissez-faire capitalism and survival-of-the-fittest law of the jungle, we accept that our behavior is bounded by certain limits. The minimum requirement for a business model like this is transparency and disclosure. Then, if people chose to read and act on the comments, and it creates economic value for all, fine.

I'm surprised no one has brought up the analogy to product placement -- this is more problematic than the advertising model. Product placements in TV shows and movies aren't disclosed (yet) and this is one of the hottest areas in marketing. But here there is another difference: that content is fictional, the characters aren't real, the events never happened, and the viewers know that. Blogs are supposed to be different: more real, more spontaneous, more honest. If they become fiction too, they lose their uniqueness in the media/entertainment world and will lose to the more compelling story telling of other media.

payperpost.com blog

WOMBAT Conference Takeaways, Day 1

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association Basic Training conference (affectionately known as WOMBAT 2) has lots of great content. Here are my three favorites, plus an interesting Diet Coke/Mentos moment...

Ed Keller of Keller-Fay group presented data from his new TalkTrack product, which surveys consumers about their offline word-of-mouth behaviors. He wrapped up with a list of the 10 most positively buzzed about brands, one of which was Wal-Mart. Cymfony's analysis of consumer-generated media discussion about Wal-Mart will appear in the July issue of Media Magazine. Ed's data and our analysis agreed that there is a lot less "Wal-Mart bashing" going on than one might expect.

I moderated a panel session titled "Practical Word of Mouth: 43 Word of Mouth Ideas You Can Implement Tomorrow." They were all great, but Allison Gower of qtags showed how to "Make it easy for people to find you and tell people about you." For a non-profit organization's annual fundraising dinner, she had created a small business card holder, but instead of business cards, it contained cards with information about the organization, its mission, programs, etc. So every attendee could put this in their purse or briefcase and when they told friends about the group, could hand them one of the cards.

Scott Wilder of Intuit recommended that companies "close the loop with customers, to let them know you heard and acted on their suggestions." He pointed to the section of QuickBooks Groups called "Better Because of You." The site lists 64 changes the company has made to QuickBooks 2006 based on user suggestions. Because of ideas like this, Intuit continues to be my "poster child" for the company that is most effectively implementing an Influence 2.0 strategy that relies less on pushing messages at people, instead engaging customers in a dialogue.

The interesting moment came at the end of the day when Stuart Sheldon, director of brand activation for Coca-Cola North America, was asked why Diet Coke hasn't picked up on all the buzz surrounding the viral videos of the Diet Coke/Mentos experiments. Clearly stating he was giving his own personal view, not an official Coca-Cola company statement, his first response was, "We like to think people drink our product." He went on to say that it didn't fit Diet Coke's sophisticated brand personality, the "Hollywood of soft drinks," while it did fit Mentos' "tongue-in-cheek" image.

Scott makes a good point: one key criterion a brand should use to evaluate participation in online buzz is whether it is relevant to a brand's essence, core values, and unique selling proposition. If it is, whether positive or negative buzz, the brand should be involved; when it isn't, it is optional to get involved.

On the other hand, Hollywood has a sense of humor, too, so even a sophisticated brand should be able to have a little fun once in a while IMHO....

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Clear Channel Gets Lost in the Fog

Clear Channel is contemplating selling one-second ads. What could they possibly be thinking?

I couldn't believe this when I saw it in Ad Age today:

"Clear Channel, the country's largest operator of radio stations, is discussing the idea of one-second radio spots with marketers and media buyers. Called “Blinks” the new format is being promoted as something that could be used between music tracks by, say, McDonald's to play part of its “I'm lovin' it” jingle or Intel to play its chime..."

Where have they been? Is this really the same enlightened radio company that announced that they were reducing the number of commercial minutes per hour? (check out this link and read CEO John Hogan's quote in the sidebar.)

This strikes me as the audio equivalent of pop-up ads. Did they sleep through that consumer backlash?

And in the age where the entire industry is talking about learning to live with consumer control, is this the only thing they can think of: to try to sneak in ads that are over before the listener's finger has time to hit the “Seek” button.

Surely there's a better way than to keep pushing ads at consumers who don't want them, using any trick in the book to sneak them by consumers' defenses.

Surely in a medium like radio that has proven it has so many ways to create a two-way relationship with its audience -- call-in shows, on-air personalities' involvement in local events, broadcasts from local shopping malls, fairs, community events -- they can find ways to increase the participation of their audience and monetize that.

I have two recommendations for Clear Channel:

1) go read my post yesterday about Seth Godin's view on the state of marketing

2) come back to this blog on Monday.

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Seth Godin says: Take the New Road

In his speech at the BrandSlam conference in West Palm Beach, Seth asked: Do you want to be American Airlines? Or JetBlue?

This was my first opportunity to see Seth live -- anyone who has seen him knows he is entertaining and has great examples to illustrate his concepts of being remarkable, telling stories, and conducting permission marketing.

But what caught my attention was his phrase "the TV industrial complex", which he described as a cycle with four phases:

1. Spend a lot of money on TV

2. Get more distribution for your products

3. Sell a lot more product

4. Buy more ads

And keep going around and around this cycle.

As we all realize, this model is broken. Seth challenged the audience that we are at a fork in the road, and we must choose whether to "bear down using the old rules or cheat, and come up with new rules." Now here's the airline analogy: "If you're American Airlines, you give passengers fewer peanuts and lay off people. Those are the old rules. If you're JetBlue, you give them more peanuts....and video at every seat...and more free stuff. Which one do you want to be?"

Let me broaden his analogy to the Mass Media Industrial Complex to encompass the full range of the marketing and PR tools we use to influence perception and preferences. The Mass Media Industrial Complex let us push messages through all these various media channels -- in Seth's words, marketers believed "I can interrupt anyone I want anytime I want."

Now, consumers intercept these messages, remix them, and redistribute them. These remixed messages often show up right alongside the "authorized" version when people search for a brand on Google. And these messages may bear little resemblance to the original message by the time other consumers see them.

So the question we face is: do we bear down using the old rules of influencing the market, and keep trying to push messages into an environment that hijacks and detours them? Or do we cheat, and come up with new rules to let go of some of the control we have insisted on, let the media remix culture co-create the message that fits the market, and listen to our customers rather than broadcast at them.

I'll have more thoughts on this next week...

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A Giant Leap for the Word of Mouth Marketing Industry

I am very excited to be serving on the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Board. The knowledge, talent, and energy of the newly expanded Board will accelerate the growth of this new industry.

First off, let me thank and congratulate Pete Blackshaw, Dave Balter, and Jonathan Carson for all the work they have put into founding WOMMA and building it to the point where it needs this expanded Board. You guys have accomplished an amazing amount in just a couple of short years.

I also want to thank Andy Sernovitz for the vision, drive, and enthusiasm he brings to the task of creating a respected marketing discipline out of something as intangible as word of mouth marketing.  I've been involved with a number of marketing associations over my career and none have accomplished as much in as little time.

Congratulations to my fellow Board members. I feel a little like when I went from high school to college: I went from being top of my class to middle of the pack! On the WOMMA Board, I am among  the smartest, most visionary people in all of marketing. I know it will be a challenging and exciting experience.

And thanks to all the WOMMA members for electing me. I'll work hard to keep the momentum going and to educate marketers on how WOM will help them adapt the forces which are changing marketing so rapidly.

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As Social Interactions Move Online, Influence Goes With It

The nature of social interaction is changing, away from the physical and toward the virtual-- the online -- the "social media" sites like MySpace. This further saps the influence traditional media once had as people connect with each about shared interests, not about shared reactions to last night's hit TV show or nightly news item.

Two recent articles got me thinking about this:

1. Bolt Media's study that says one-third of people under age 34 can't name any the four TV networks. Dave Evans' reaction is his ClickZ column was a great summation: "Why would anyone who's grown up with millions of independent channels -- the blogosphere, MySpace profiles, and YouTube -- even care what a network is, much less be able to name some arbitrary subset of them?"
2. This NY Times article about Digital Chocolate, a company that creates games and applications for mobile phones,that are "designed to foster conversation, flirting and...a little friendly trash talking." CEO Trip Hawkins explained further: Because it's when you're mobile, you're the most socially needy and vulnerable and insecure, and that when the one platform you have is the mobile, wireless platform."

Anyone who knew my work at Forrester will know I am a huge skeptic about mobile media and advertising. But mostly because the models have relied on traditional intrusive, interruptive models, the classic walking-down-the-street-and-get-a-Starbucks-coupon-on-your-phone scenario while the idea of doing anything on a 2-inch or smaller screen strikes me as far-fetched (maybe it is just because I'm turning 50 this summer...)

Mr. Hawkins observes, "If you're going to really establish something as a new medium, you can't do that with content that is derivative and a second-class version of another medium." Finally, someone with a vision I can believe in about the mobile platform! I've always said that the phone is and always will be primarily a communication device and it will be an enormous change for consumers to view it as an entertainment device. Mr. Hawkins is saying the social interaction is the entertainment.

What does this have to do with the Bolt Media study? Back in the "old" days, those social interactions were greased by the network TV hit shows. "Did you see (fill in name of hit show) last night?" used to be common water cooler question, giving co-workers with little else in common, safe ground to build the relationships that helped get the work done; with hit shows' Nielsen ratings in the single digits, this rarely happens now. The old saw is "you can't choose your family" and you pretty much can't choose your co-workers. But social networks like MySpace, Gather.com, and the MomNetwork give people the choice not to find common ground with those in physical proximity to them, but with far-flung people who share particular interests.

I believe this is an important dynamic in how marketers need to think about building campaigns that influence their target. Not only has fragmentation made it harder and harder to assemble the target audience you want, but now those social interactions, in which people slip in a question about some purchase they want advice on, don't even occur in those conversations. If a mom wants advice about the right car seat, is she going to ask someone at work when they happen to be chatting at the water cooler or will she ask her MomNetwork virtual friends? The network TV advertising may still get a larger audience, probably even higher TRPs (target rating points) than a social network, sow maybe it will still be effective to raise awareness. But where is the real influence taking place?

social media social networking consumer-generated media mobile advertising

Half a kudo for GM's Chevy Tahoe response

Note to GM: the next time you respond to a controversy, and you have strong facts on your side of the argument, skip the marketing blah-blah and let the facts make your case. And if you really want to be honest and transparent, go beyond just writing a good response and incorporate actions that truly address the root issues of the controversy.

In my last post, I commented on the Chevy Tahoe consumer-generated ads getting out of control. Chevrolet division general manager Ed Peper has posted his response to the issue on the GM Fastland blog here. Pete Blackshaw rightly pointed out that with a long history of Fastlane, GM has standing in the blog community to state their side of the story. But I think he overstates how effective the response is.

I give Mr. Peper credit for acknowledging the issue head on and for deciding not to censor the anti-SUV ads. And for saying GM wanted to be honest and transparent.

But I deduct points because he starts out his defense with the line "The 2007 Tahoe is capable, refined and responsible" which is straight out of their marketing schtick. This one line immediately sets the reader on notice that they are about to get hit with the usual corporate-speak defense of their products. The response would have been much more credible if he had skipped the tagline and went straight to the fact that the Tahoe gets 22 mpg -- even I have to admit that is a respectable number for a humongous vehicle like this (and remember, I'm a Prius-driving tree hugger).

And words alone won't dampen this controversy. If GM really wants to be transparent, they need to address the real issues that the anti-SUV ad creators are upset about. This kind of transparency would do more to silence their critics than even the best blog post.

What exactly should GM do to create this kind of transparency? They should follow McDonald's example and partner with an environmental group to find solutions to the issues that anger their opponents. The fast food chain faced criticism from environmental groups in the early '90's for their excessive packaging, so they partnered with the Environmental Defense Fund on a successful study that resulted in numerous initiatives to reduce the waste generated by their restaurants. GM should invite the Union of Concerned Scientists to consult with them based on the group's extensive studies around increasing vehicle mileage.

Technorati tags: citizen marketing Tahoe Chevy Tahoe

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Controlling Consumer Control Goes Out of Control

Jackie Huba’s Church of the customer blog has hosted a lively debate whether the Chevy Tahoe Apprentice campaign – in which consumers select from Chevy-provided video clips to create their own commercial --  is consumer-generated media or not. Consumers have settled it once and for all: technology trumps the corporate powers who would guide, constrain, and compel the “wisdom of the crowd” to do their bidding. But maybe Chevy should consider these ads as a new kind of ad testing mechanism for the images they associate with their vehicles.

Chevrolet thought they had a way to harness the power of consumer-generated media to further the Tahoe’s marketing goals: give consumers a carefully selected inventory of video and audio clips that they can assemble into their own commercials, cherry-pick the ones that best fit Tahoe’s strategy, and voila, consumer-generated commercials. If a consumer created something the brand didn’t like, no problem, it would simply be suppressed.

Problem is, the consumers haven’t followed by the script. They have come to create commercials, but many of them depict the Tahoe as a gas-guzzling, global-warming-gas-belching, earth-destroying behemoth. These ads are now cropping up on sites such as TotalTactics, Heavy on the Chevy, and You Tube. The story has even made the New York Times advertising column.

As a professional marketer I think there is more to learn than just that technology has made consumer control absolute. These commercials are a virtual Rohrschach test – or maybe a Zaltman brand co-creation collage -- of how the typical images used in SUV commercials strike consumers. Instead of communicating freedom to explore the wilderness, they communicate the power to trample it. Instead of confidence, arrogance. Instead of protection, destruction.

Being a Prius-driving, save-the-planet kind of guy, I love this, and perhaps this may turn the tide on the popularity of SUVs (my favorite ad is “What Will You Tell Your Kids You Drove?). People buy cars to project an image about themselves to friends, neighbors, colleagues. So far, the car companies have been able to wrap their vehicles with the image of their choice; now the friends, neighbors and colleagues are setting the agenda for the associations that will attach to SUV drivers. This kind of peer pressure may accomplish what nothing short of a $1-a-gallon-gas-tax could do: destroy the market for SUVs.

If you think I am over the top, check out the commercials on YouTube – then go back to Jackie Huba’s blog and read her analysis of the growth of this site. Watch a few of the consumer-created Tahoe commercials and see if you will ever look at an SUV the same way again.

Chevy Tahoe marketing advertising consumer-generated media

NY Times Gets Stealth Marketing Wrong

A New York Times article titled "For Tobacco, Stealth Marketing Is the Norm" is dead wrong. The marketing tactics cited are legitimate and pragmatic, even innovative given the constraints on tobacco marketing. They don't match WOMMA's definition of stealth marketing: tactics that attempt to hide the marketer's identity and fool the consumer. The Word of Mouth Marketing industry needs to keep this definition sharp to avoid confusion and keep the focus on the illegitimate practices that could undermine consumer trust.

Catching up on my reading this weekend, I read this article accusing the tobacco industry of using stealth marketing. But the tactics cited are "direct mail, coupon discounts, and promotional efforts for its database of smokers." Author Julie Bosman also uses the example of a new product, the Marlboro Menthol 72, "a shorter cigarette intended for a shorter smoking break" and a lower cost generic product. Her final example is RF Reynolds opening a tobacco lounge in Chicago in response the a citywide ban on smoking.

To me, this isn't stealth, it is creative, pragmatic marketing responding to the many restrictions the industry faces. But "stealth" marketing? Not in the definition that our industry is using.

WOMMA has developed a detailed definition of stealth marketing. The short version is anything that attempts to deceive the consumer, using a fake identity when contacting a consumer, hiding the marketers' involvement, etc.

These tobacco examples do none of these. The databases are pure opt-in; consumers know they are signing up for mailings from tobacco companies, so there's no deception there. The new products are smart marketing: adapting the features to changing circumstances in the market. The tobacco lounge: maybe this one is on the edge since it is the "Marshall McGearty Tobacco Lounge" (whoever he is) and not the RJ Reynolds lounge. But this seems no more deceptive than using a character like Ronald McDonald or the Jolly Green Giant to promote a product. On the other hand, it clearly declares it is for smokers, and is licensed as a retail tobacco store. Smokers know it is for them, non-smokers know not to go there. Where is the deception?

Many people don't like the idea of the tobacco industry doing any marketing, and perhaps this journalist is one of them. To them it doesn't seem "right" that a company should provide incentives to continue or increase use of a product when that use may lead to serious long-term health problems. There is grounds for a debate about the ethics involved, but that is a different issue than whether this is stealth.

This isn't a matter of splitting semantic hairs. The WOM industry needs to keep the definition of stealth marketing pure so we can focus on marketers whose abusive tactics could further alienate consumers from the marketing process. It is important that we don't allow stealth to be confused with legitimate marketers using honest tactics for products that some consider unsavory.

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My other technology obsession -- alternative energy

I admit it: I'm a sucker for innovative, energy-saving products even if the savings never pay back the higher cost. But my reasons are more complex than showing off to others my environmental concern. And herein is a lesson for marketers about balancing rational and emotional messages to maximum effect.

Since it is Sunday, I will depart from my usual policy of only posting on topics relevant to marketing to vent about a New York Times article I read this week, "Why Appliances Buck the Trend and Cost More." But stick with me, there are marketing lessons here as well.

The author starts from an interesting premise, that while electronic gear packs more features every year, prices decline rapidly for PCs, flat panel TVs etc. "White goods" (refrigerators, washers/dryers, dishwashers, etc) have been increasing their prices while adding electronic controls, water/energy saving features, etc.

Why can one type of product get away with price increases while the other gets into a death-spiral of decreasing prices? The author comes to the conclusion that consumers are actually buying the styling and the look of the appliances, and justifying it with the savings, even though in many cases the higher price more that offsets any dollar savings from energy efficiency.

I can't argue with any of that. The line that ticks me off is when the author draws a parallel between the success of appliances like the high-style, high-end Whirlpool Duet and the Toyota Prius, he says: "The Prius is a feel-good car that runs on sanctimony as much as battery power." Reporter Damon Darlin gets it wrong on two counts:

1) Ask any automotive marketer and they'll tell you that every car purchase is fueled by some emotional reason, and not by gasoline. Why do we never see car reviews that deride Ford F150  or Nissan Titan purchases as a "feel macho car that runs on male insecurity" or a Volvo purchase as a "feel safe car that runs on family protection paranoia"?

2) As a 2002 Prius owner, there is a deeper message we are trying to tell the auto industry: we, the car-driving public, want to see change. We understand the impact our use of the automobile has on the planet, our national security, and the global geopolitical situation, but in our society a car is a necessity. Car makers must get over their thinking that increasing the cost of the automobile will cut into sales -- that only applies to indistinguishable and undistinguised run-of-the-mill models that make up the bulk of their boring product lines. If they come up with something truly unique, with real benefits, there is a market for it.

Since Prius sales have gone from 20,000 to 200,000, there are now 7 other hybrid models on the market, and even GM is getting into the market this statement is starting to have the desired impact. Not to mention the talk of "plug-in hybrids", flexible fuel vehicles, biodiesel, etc. I'd say the automakers are not hearing the sounds of sanctimony, but of cash registers ringing.

Since the days of the early '90's, environmentally-responsible products have failed to go mainstream based on their earth-saving benefits alone: think recycled content paper towels, organic foods, compact fluorescent light bulbs. If it takes wrapping these features in attractive styling and positioning the whole thing as upscale, cutting edge technology, so be it. Just get more of the products into use.

Enough for the Sunday sermon, back to the marketing lesson.

First, truly new, innovative products have talk value. If I'm excited about the fact my washing machine uses 1/3 the water of a normal machine, I'll tell people. I told Pete Blackshaw about my Prius and he went out and bought a Honda Civic Hybrid (see our WOMMA presentation, "A Tale of Two Hybrids"). In the new world of WOM, consumer-generated media, etc. be sure your marketing plan incorporates strategies and tactics that leverage this talk value to amplify your product's differentiation.

Second, consumers do not make a simple, rational decisions to buy things, even such mundane items as appliances. Emotional needs are the real drivers, but people don't want to feel ruled by their whims; they want to be able to explain a purchase rationally. When you find that combination that drives sales in your product category, you'll have a winner.

PS: I also have solar photovoltaic panels on my house, the Miele front-loading, low-water/low-energy washing machine, and all Energy Star appliances. If you want to thoroughly understand my reasons for being environmentally conscious, read Paul Hawken's "The Ecology of Commerce."

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5 Tips on "Listening to Customers"

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association recently interviewed Cymfony's Jim Nail for its "5 Tips" newsletter series and WOMBAT blog.  Jim's interview focused on listening to consumers.  It's a valuable and quick read so I've decided to post it on our site (and I suspect Andy and gang won't mind the word of mouth aspect of posting here).

Products that solve a consumer problem or meet a consumer need are going to be successful, but the only way to make those products is to talk to consumers. "Guessing or just meeting with R&D doesn't work," says Jim.  By listening to consumers, you get direct, unbiased results, unskewed by a moderator or a single strong personality in a focus group.

Here are Jim's five tips on listening to consumers:

Tip #1. Appoint a consumer ombudsman
The CEO and CFO protect the interests of the shareholders. The COO protects business processes and manufacturing, and HR officers protect the interests of employees. The CMO should represent consumers, but more often, marketing is an internal agency and not always very strategic.

Tip #2. Get a tool to listen to consumers
There are so many conversations in so many places on the internet that trying to compile it with tools like Technorati or Google can be extremely labor intensive. You may pull hundreds or thousands of conversations, and trying to read through them manually and distill them practically just won't happen.

Tip #3. Add human analysis
Once you have a tool in place to analyze the feedback, you still need the human touch from analysts and account managers who have the particular perspective your company needs, to extract the insights from consumers.

Tip #4. Listen ethically
Marketing with consumers rather than at them is new, and being able to change the traditional mentality of marketing is not easy. It is tempting to take shortcuts, such as posing as a consumer and posting favorable reviews of products.

Yes, there's huge pressure to make quarterly numbers, and WOM is not something you can pull off in a quarter. But if you take shortcuts, you'll do more harm than good.

Tip #5. Tie WOM to a financial metric that CEOs can love
Plenty of development work needs to be done on this topic in order to see exactly how WOM contributes to cash flow. But WOM marketers need to lift WOM beyond the "let's be nice to customers and they'll be nice to us" realm, bringing it to the level of strategy that can be placed side by side with other marketing investments that result in rational, quantitative, data-driven decisions.

Join the discussion at the WOMBAT blog

Lessons in Word of Mouth Marketing from the American Revolution

Here’s the analogy: a small group of undisciplined, poorly trained, poorly equipped average citizens takes on the most powerful Empire in the world and defeats it through the sheer force of the passionate belief in their cause. Sounds kind of like bloggers vs traditional media to me. But there is more to the story: Word of Mouth was Washington’s secret weapon in defeating the British Empire.

John Trumbull’s painting “Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown”, 1797

I drew the analogy to the American Revolution in my speech at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Basic Training conference last week. Andy Sernovitz asked me to kick off the panel on “Word of Mouth 101: Core Strategies and Tactics” by introducing the philosophy of WOM: listening to consumers, not pushing messages at them.

I began by noting how different this philosophy is from what I was taught as a young Account Executive at Ogilvy & Mather: create a compelling message, distribute it broadly to drive high reach and frequency, and repeat in consistently over time to build awareness. Listening to consumers turns this approach around.

And then I remembered from my high school American history class that after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown and the British Army marched off the battlefield, the regimental band played a tune named “The World Turned Upside Down.” In this example from Intuit, the Quickbooks Online Edition group asks their users to vote on a new tag line. Having our target audience approve our ad copy? Truly the world turned upside down.

But there is more to the story.

Cornwallis’ army represented only about 25% of the British forces in America. Even after the battle, the British held key strategic cities including New York and Charleston. The analogy here: consumer-generated media doesn’t have to destroy the entire traditional media empire, nor even defeat its largest, strongest troops (e.g., television) to become a major world force.

And here’s the final, and most compelling, part of the analogy.

Yorktown was a significant victory but on the face doesn’t seem a strategic, devastating blow to such a powerful empire. So why was this the decisive victory in the five-year War for Independence?

The answer is Word of Mouth.

Washington’s original plan was not to meet Cornwallis: he was on his way to New York, believing that the war could not end while the British held this major city and important port. But Ben Franklin, ambassador to London, had his finger on the pulse of British public opinion and was convinced that if the British forces suffered another loss, the public would turn against the war.

Hearing this, Washington changed strategy, avoiding a difficult and uncertain battle in New York for a more certain victory at Yorktown. Cornwallis surrendered, the British entered into peace negotiations, and the prime minister, Lord North, resigned in disgrace.

Such is the power of listening and adapting your strategy to your consumer. Such is the power of Word of Mouth.

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WOMBAT and IDC's MPM Summit Summary

As Jim Nail was speaking at the Word of Mouth Basic Training (WOMBAT) Conference in Orlando last week, Cymfony's CEO Andrew Bernstein held court at the IDC Marketing Performance Measurement Summit for Business to Business marketers.

To expand on Jim's post about Thurs. session at WOMBAT, Steve Rubel has few nuggets and Josh Hallett, Marianne Richmond, Dana Vanden Huevel and Toby Bloomberg did an excellent job summarizing the event on the official WOMBAT blog.

Meanwhile in Santa Clara, Rich Vancil, VP of IDC's CMO Advisory Practice and chairman of the MPM Summit suggested tech marketers are embracing measurement practice out of economic necessity.  This is a shift from last year where he emphasized that the high-tech sector was woefully lacking.

According to Rich, marketing costs have grown to 6.5% while worldwide IT industry growth has only risen 5.5%.  Sales costs have increased and sales cycles have lengthened.  Additionally, media has fragmented leading to complicated marketing decision-making. 

As expected, most of the speakers talked about the need for measurement and the strategies used to implement.  Andrew's luncheon discussion on "Measuring and Analyzing MSM and CGM to Gain Critical Market Intelligence" was the only session that touched upon the need to integrate CGM into the mix.  So I'm not surprised that I couldn't find much discussion about the event online.  Opportunity for IDC perhaps?

There will be a similar east coast event in New York City in April.

WOM, Marketing, marketing measurement

Dispatch from WOMMA Basic Training, Day 1

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s Basic Training Conference gave attendees a strong foundation in the strategies, tactics, and culture of word of mouth marketing. But the fast evolution of the discipline is evident in some of the new ideas and topics presented.

Marketers who are new to WOM got an intense crash course (those who didn’t attend should be sure to take advantage of WOMMA’s many educational whitepapers, podcasts, etc.). But even a “veteran” (of a little over a year!) like me picked up some new tips, in two areas:

Organizational practices: in my podcast leading up to the conference, I stated that organizational silos and mentalities impede most companies from really using WOM right. The panel titled “How We Made WOM Part of Our Corporate Philosophy” Maggie Colby of Intuit and Zane Safrit of Conference Calls Unlimited described some of the steps their companies took to make the shift. Zane admitted that some of his customer representatives couldn’t make the transition from order processors to caring, customer service people, causing some turnover and short-term pain.

I especially liked Intuit’s formula which Maggie outlined: “look for people with the right DNA”, have them participate in “follow me home” sessions (on-site visits to observe customers using the product), and give them special training in topics like blogging.

Simpler metrics: The industry seems to be gravitating to using some form of Fred Reicheld’s Net Promoter score. Late in the day, Fred provided a detailed look at the research and case studies that support his assertion that companies with strong word of mouth grow faster and are more profitable than industry averages. In the morning, Don Peppers shared his “return on customer” formula as a way of converting the “feel good” sentiment of treating customers right into a number CFO’s can love. Lorent Flores of CRMMetrix showed how his company uses the greater detail available in consumer-generated content to expand the Net Promoter into “brand strength”, the ratio of delighted promoters to unhappy detractors. In contrast to the detailed, multi-faceted measurement framework that came out of WOMMA’s July 2005 conference, having a core concept like Net Promoter is a practical approach to assessing the value of a company’s word of mouth.

But underlying these new ideas is a core set of principles that WOMMA continues to focus on and develop: ethical standards, measurement methodologies, and protecting the reputation of this nascent industry. In a fast-changing market like this with such a diverse membership, maintaining this focus is difficult, I’m sure. But these are the right things to do now – keep it up, Andy!

I wasn’t able to stay for Day 2, so if you have seen a good wrap-up leave me a comment with a link!

BuzzMetrics Gives Me Deja Vu

As Steve Rubel notes in his blog, when radical changes happen in a market, it is easier for big companies to buy the needed skills than to try to develop them organically. While some observers may think this means the death or the failure of these new ideas, it is just the opposite: the beginning of major growth.

Been here. Done it. Got the T-shirt.

I started my advertising and marketing career in the early '80's, a time when a new-fangled discipline called "direct marketing" was just making the transition from late night Ginsu knife commercials into the budgets of the Fortune 500. The '80's turned into the Golden Age of direct marketing and Madison Avenue followed the money: Ogilvy bought Hodes-Daniel a couple of years before I joined them, Y&R bought Wunderman, and on down the list.

So perhaps today's creation of Nielsen BuzzMetrics will start a similar cascade that brings word of mouth marketing into the heart of the traditional marketing community.

Marketers and brands will be better off for the change.

BzzAgent Raises $14 Mil – A Call to Arms!

A danger lurks just beyond the range of the champagne corks popped to celebrate the $14 million BzzAgent raised: the scent of money is likely to lure fast-buck pretenders who want to enrich themselves, not build a viable, respected marketing discipline. Now is the time for legitimate marketers, agencies, WOM specialists, and WOMMA to launch as second campaign to ensure WOMMA’s code of ethics is firmly embedded in the practice of word-of-mouth marketing so these scammers can’t gain a foothold.

Message to Dave Balter: Congratulations! A well-deserved recognition of the hard work and thought you have put into building a business that carefully balances the needs of both marketers and consumers. This event is one of many contributions you have made in establishing WOM as a professional, respected marketing discipline.

Message to WOMMA: The entire industry should celebrate this recognition. Let’s all raise a glass of champagne in Orlando next week. But once we’ve drained our glasses, we must redouble our efforts on the ethics front – we can be certain this kind of money will attract less ethical people who want to make a quick buck, and don’t share our commitment to building a sustainable industry over the long-term.

Message to various fraudsters, hucksters, former spammers and all forces of evil: Stay away from our industry. We will be on the lookout for you. Our Code of Ethics has already laid the groundwork that will expose your tactics and we will continue to educate marketers so that any legitimate company will steer miles away from any fly-by-night, shady tactics.

Message to my fellow WOM industry agencies, technologies, and services: If you agree, take arms against the hordes of troubles that may invade our industry, and by opposing, end their ability to gain any traction (or raise money).

The Continued Rise of WOM

Recently I read this article on eMarketer about marketing to teens. It states the the group spend a lot of time online, and play a lot of video games. No shock there. The interesting part of the piece wasn't its conclusion (that marketers should use new-media and mediums to target teens), but rather two things it mentioned in conjunction.

The first was a statement by about a report by Forrester Research, which said "Forrester found that about 50% of 12 to 21 year-olds get purchasing advice from their friends and family, and 65% let others know what products they like." The second was the results of a survey by BIGresearch, showing "The Top 10 Influential Media for Electronic Purchases" for 18 to 24 year olds, with Word of Mouth as number one, and the internet as number four.

Add together a group of people that spend a lot of time online, and who aren't shy about telling each other about their opinions (or about their lives and their cats' lives, for that matter), and one should realize that the "internet", or more broadly various technology enabled mediums, are exactly where a good portion of this WOM exchange is taking place.

The result?

An unparalleled insight into consumer opinion. One just has to look.

Blogs are Good for Direct Marketers

I will be joining a panel of other bloggers at a New England Direct Marketing Association event on Jan. 19th to discuss the pros and cons of blogging. The moderator of the panel is Bob Cargill, who is one of the few direct marketers that adopted blogging long before it was a commonly discussed topic in marketing circles. Even today, a lot of direct marketers are more scared by blogs than excited by them. But as a long time blogger with an even longer marketing background, Bob can easily see the benefits of blogging as a powerful connection and communication medium between people of all kinds including buyers and sellers.

Anyone can blog and read blogs regardless of age, income or social standing. Blogs allow people to pick and choose what they want to read, who they read repeatedly, who they want to open up a dialog with and who they trust. Through blogging, people share ideas, concerns, rumors and desires. For direct marketers, the blogosphere is a gold mine of oppportunity to learn what people want and what annoys them. The best use of marketing is to provide the best information that will help a buyer select your product or service over another and to help people stay on as a loyal customer.  Traditionally, direct marketing has been all about capturing the attention of the potential buyer long enough to make an impression. Through dozens or perhaps even hundreds or thousands of impressions using many different messaging and marketing techniques, direct marketers hope to capture enough mind share so that when a buyer starts the process of making a purchase decision, the buyer considers their product or service first. 

By getting engaged with the blogosphere to listen to consumers, direct marketers can increase the effectiveness of their campaigns. Simply by listening to what consumers are interested in or where they are concernced or confused, the direct marketer can provide better messaging and more useful materials both online and offline. This in turn can lead to increased mindshare and quicker and potentially less competitive decision cycles as consumers make buying decisions based on better information. On top of that, because the blogosphere is such an easy environment to connect with others, consumers at every stage of the buying process can share information and fun ads with others who may not even have been in your target market segment creating a large recommendation ecosystem. 

The only downside for marketers on the blogosphere is that if they don't listen well, act dishonestly, engage with consumers without transparency or hype their products, they can get blasted quickly. Negative information and perceptions can spread like wildfire. Bloggers want no part of being pitched to, manipulated or tricked to get their attention. That doesn't mean that all bloggers hate promotions. Lots of good marketing campaigns are spread virally through the blogosphere because they are fun or clever or engaging. But the bloggers are choosing to share them - not the marketers.

If marketers look at the blogosphere as a learning lab and connection tool where they can communicate honestly and directly with potential buyers they can really benefit from the experience and have a lot of fun doing it.

For more information on the NEDMA session please visit the event website or the blogs and websites of Bob Cargill and my fellow panelists:

Bob Cargill, Vice President/Creative Director Newport Creative Communications

Ted Demopolous, Principal of Demopoulos Associates and author of the new book Blogging for Business

Stephen Turcott, President and Founder of BackBone Media:

Steve Ustaris, Associate Media Director at Carat Fusion

Building Brands through Recommendations

It’s been known for decades that consumers value recommendations about products from their friends far more than reviews by industry experts but what may still be surprising to some marketers is that online consumers highly value recommendations from strangers too. Perhaps one of the reasons is that so much information is available online that a recommendation from a stranger can be investigated quickly to dig up supporting evidence or people can simply check out the recommendation among their friends through instant messaging, blogging or sharing services. For people interested in reading more about the power of recommendations and maintaining brand trust, I recommend a few good reads:

Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and Gartner collaborated on a study that researches the phenomenon of playlist sharing. The study suggests that consumer recommendations influence music sales. For more information, you can download the report : Consumer Taste Sharing is Driving the Online Music Business and Democratizing Culture

Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company is writing a book to be published soon about the importance of recommendations across all categories of products. He believes that many companies are not asking themselves the ultimate question: Would I recommend my product to a friend of colleague? Instead, they are focusing on bad profits vs. good profits, chasing quick dollars over the long-term value of a satisfied customer. The first chapter is available for free on Womma’s blog.

Even if your product is highly recommended, you need to be careful that you maintain high standards for quality, innovation, safety or whatever brand attributes are most important to your audience. This is especially true for brands that are built on a trust relationship with consumers. Stanford University Business School Professor Jennifer Aaker and her colleagues Susan Fournier and S. Adam Brasel researched the affects of a transgression on relationships with sincere brands (i.e. Coca Cola or Hallmark) vs. exciting brands (i.e. Yahoo! or MTV). Their findings suggest that sincere brands suffered more after a transgression while exciting brands ‘evinced a trajectory characteristic of short-lived flings’ according to their abstract. In a nutshell, I guess they are saying that it may hurt just as bad initially to be let down by an exciting brand as it does for a trusted brand, but you were sort of expecting that weren't you? So you are more likely to give it another try. The impact of being hurt by a sincere brand is far more damaging. Sounds a lot like human relationships. For more on this interesting topic, take a look at the study: When Good Brands Do Bad

Harris Survey Analyzes Value of Word of Mouth

The Wall Street Journal ran an article(free subscription required)today about a new survey from Harris Interactive on the effects of word-of-mouth communications.  Coincidentally Ron Alsop who spoke at Cymfony's event last year on the importance of monitoring corporate reputation authored the piece.  According to Harris, WOM carries much more weight than corporate advertising and public relations. About 85% of respondents said word of mouth communications is credible, compared with 70% for advertising and PR.  The Harris study reinforces the importance of monitoring word-of-mouth messages, including chatter in blogs and other sites on the Internet. "Companies are remiss if  they aren't getting a handle on what's being said about them and trying to manage it," said Johnathan Dewitt, a senior vice president in Harris's Wirthlin Brand & Strategy Consulting group. 

He continued "Companies should start trying to measure PR, promotional events and sponsorships based on their impact on what people are talking about and whether or not it's positive talk."

Credibility was rated as following:

85% said word-of-mouth communications is credible

70% rated advertising and PR as credible

75% rated media stories about a company as credible

84% found the opinions of company employees believable

92% said personal experience with a company is the most credible

word of mouth

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