24/7 Drama Machine

There is no doubt that the advent of all news cable channels has changed the way television news is reported.  There is no doubt that the advent of social media has changed the way we interact with world events.  Notice I said changed.  Not improved.

We have had far too many examples recently on how the 24/7 news machine deals with major tragedies.  Make that fails to deal with major tragedies.

Just like many others, when there is a significant event happening, I want to be kept up to speed on developments.  I like to know what facts have been confirmed and even some historical and social context of the event.

CNN Anchor/Reporter Wolf Blitzer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don't need to see Wolf Blitzer guess what the news is going to be.  I don't need to hear the talking heads speculate what may or may not be the story.  I certainly don't need to hear news announcers pronounce that it is impossible to know anything with certainty in the early hours of a situation, then turn around and blather on with hours of speculation.

Personnally, I would find the all news channels immensely more watchable during a crisis if they would report on the FACTS, and then go back to the rest of the news.  I think it would be healthy and helpful if these stations reminded us that the world goes on despite a bombing in a mall or a storm that destroys a town.

I think part of the problem is that the all news channels have a lot of hours of broadcast to fill.  And running reruns doesn't work as well on CNN as it does on TVLand.

But I think the greater probelm is that they are still in the old newspaper mindset of being the first to report breaking news.  They rush to announce that this may have happened or that may have happened because they see a value in having their newsboys on the corner first.

I've got news for the news channels.  You are never going to be first out of the gate.  Twitter will always beat you.  Facebook will usually be having a conversation about the issue well underway before you get the cameras pointed at a befuddled anchor.

One of the reasons The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a comedy news show, is cited by young adults as their primary source of news, is that Jon and his staff provide some intelligent analysis and evaluation of the news.  They are also only trying to fill half an hour each night.

If all of the "real" news networks could accept that they will not be first, and could embrace the role of providing value-added commentary or analysis, I think they will find audiences still turning into them.  The difference is they would enjoy it.

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Ready, Shoot, Aim

In this era of Twitter and Instagram, there is considerable pressure on companies and brands to be timely and topical and try to grab their share of the viral madness of a given issue.  In this era of citizen journalists and a smart phone in many pockets, companies and brands are compelled to try to be the first out of the gate with a comment about a topic.  It is a Ready, Shoot, Aim culture.

The truth is, however, many companies end up doing much more harm then good to their brands  when they display their clumsiness or cultural insensitivity through a poorly written or ill-timed tweet or post.  The chances of this happening go up exponentially when a company is focusing more on timeliness (we want to be the first to comment on this) than appropriateness.

Occasionally a company hits a home run.  Ironically, a perfect example of a company hitting a home run is the tweet that Oreo sent during last year's Super Bowl.  When the power went out and most of us were growing weary of listening to the announcers try to fill an unexpected long period of time, the marketing team for Oreo was working hard and effectively.  They came up with a simple, brilliant, topical tweet.  You can see that tweet here and at the end of this blog.  It was funny.  It was inoffensive.  It filled the time while millions of people were waiting for the Super Bowl to start again.  It got retweeted over and over again.  It went viral.  Opportunities like the Super Bowl power outage are rare. Companies being ready to take advantage of those rare opportunities are even rarer.  Oreo was the company that took the best advantage of that opportunity.  They are still enjoying the benefits, as people like me continue to talk about it and share the tweet.

But it is not easy to do this.  Many companies, trying to be quick-witted or topical or edgy, end up sounding tone deaf, insensitive and just plain nasty.  Take for example, the ads for Blush Lingerie connecting their underwear to Edward Snowden uncovering things.  You can find these slightly NSFW ads here.  The ads are not that funny and somewhat tone deaf.

It also seems as if some marketers can't resist joining in on a world event that is garnering lots of attention.  For example, consider the tweet by Kennith Cole, a clothing designer of some renown, who tweeted ""Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC"  His next tweet, 2 hours later, was an apology about making light of a "serious situation."

Every marketer dreams of doing what Oreo did in the Super Bowl.  To a marketer, it is like hitting a walk off home run in the World Series.  But (as I totally overuse this sports analogy) every home run hitter says you strike out a lot before you hit a home run.  The trick is to make sure your strike outs don't do serious damage to your brand.  The trick is to make sure your misses are simply misses and not culturally or socially insensitive to the point of being all people remember about your brand.  The trick is to tie your brand to an event that is easier to make jokes about, like the Super Bowl, rather than one in which people are killed and maimed, like Arab Spring or the Boston bombing.

Finally, and I think most important, it is more important when using social media to tie your brand to current events to take a bit of extra time to get your message right.  No one is talking about who had the first advertising tweet tied to the Super Bowl power outage.  Rather, they are talking about the brand who got everything right.  The brand who took the time to aim before they shot!

6 Ways Social Media is Scary to Marketers

To most marketers, social media is still new.  We are still trying to make sense of this new way of communicating with stakeholders.  Today I would explore a few ways in which social media is different than traditional mass media.  Today I explore ways that social media is scary to marketers.

1. Two-way communications
Social media is a conversation.  Mass media is a monologue.

The simple fact that the audience can talk back in many social media venues is both thrilling and frightening to many marketers.  We all hope that the result will be a productive conversation but fear it will be the media equivalent of a heckler at a comedy club.

2. Volume
The really attractive thing about traditional media is that you can reach a lot of people with a single ad.  When you can get your message to millions of people with a single media purchase, that makes things much simpler and much easier.  This works really well if you are Proctor & Gamble or Ford Motor Company.  It works less well if you are Billy's Bait and Tackle Shop.

For Billy's Bait and Tackle Shop to take advantage of the more democratic virtues of social media, they need to have someone who has some tech savvy and the time to keep their message in the social media.  For P&G and Ford, they have the people, but they have to develop the ability to talk to people at an appropriate volume.  Marketers who grew up talking at mass media volume sometimes have trouble switching to their inside voices.

3. Social Media is Free...sorta
Facebook and Twitter don't charge companies to set up accounts.  Companies can set up all the Pinterest boards they want without forking over a fee.  However, to participate in these "free" social media opportunities effectively requires ongoing input and updating.  For most organizations, this inputting and updating is not done for free.

Furthermore, more and more organizations are recognizing the value of having professional input into the set-up and execution of these marketing tools (not that the son of the guy in payroll wasn't doing a good job...when he wasn't in school.). As someone pointed out to me recently, if we understood social media and what we have to do, we could figure out what it costs.  Since we don't understand it, it has the potential to be a big money pit.

4. Measurement is easier with social media
One of the "truisms" that I grew up believing about advertising is the John Wanamaker quote about knowing that half of your advertising dollars are wasted.  The trouble was there was no way of knowing which half.  Social media provides a lot more data about who is seeing your message, where they are coming from and what they do after they receive your message.

The thing about data is that it is only numbers until you do something with it.  To marketers who have spent their careers channeling Wanamaker, suddenly having detailed data available about our marketing decisions feels a little like being called to the Principal's office.  It could be that you are going to be praised for doing the right things, but the odds are against it.

5. Social Media Allows You to Target Your Audience
The common analogy used is that mass media is a shotgun shot and social media is a rifle shot.  Social media allows you to target your audience more precisely.  That means that marketers need to know who they are trying to reach and what message each audience segment should get.  That is hard.  That requires a marketer to know details about his target audience and detailed message that he didn't really need to know before.

If you are marketing in Chicago, you could buy ads in the Chicago Tribune and on WGN and pretty much figure you are reaching your target market.  Sure, you are also reaching 80 to 90% of the audience who AREN'T your target audience, but when mass marketing was your primary option, what could you do?  When you can slice and dice the audience a million different ways, your opportunities are endless, but so are your opportunities to miss your audience.

6. Social Media Keeps Changing
If you were buying advertising nationally 25 years ago, you were most likely buying advertising in the same media as the guy (and it probably was a guy) who was buying advertising 50 or 60 years ago.  That is not true for social media.  10 years ago, most social media marketing options didn't even exist.  Facebook isn't 10 years old yet.  My Space, a marketing "has-been" by most accounts, will celebrate it's 10th birthday in August.

New social media channels and options are opening up all of the time.  Reading the business and marketing literature can be intimidating, as they are frequently citing the next big thing in social media.  Add to that the challenge of identifying which options best meet the needs of your organization and your target audiences and determining which options best support your marketing strategy.

Keeping up with the Zuckerbergs can be exhausting!



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Smoke-Filled Rooms

This weekend there were a couple of more stories about politicians who were forced to step down because of inappropriate comments, rants or crazy statements made in emails.  We have all read similar stories about business leaders who seemingly forget that email and Twitter messages can, and most likely will, be shared.

Let's assume, for arguments sake, that these pols and business leaders are of at least average intelligence.  Let's further assume that they have an average level of engagement with the world.  We already know they have email and Twitter accounts after all.  So we will assume that they aren't Luddites who are just discovering electronic things for the first time.  Finally, let's assume that these political and business leaders are not purposely engaging in self destructive behavior; that they want to keep their jobs and reputations.

So what gives?

Why are so many of these presumably smart and capable people saying really, really stupid things in emails and on Twitter?

A friend of mine claims that they have always said these really, really stupid things.  We just now get to read and hear about them.  I suspect there is truth to that, but I suspect there is something more to it.

I think that today's leaders are missing the smoke-filled rooms of days gone by.  You know, those back rooms of lore where they could hang with their cronies and say whatever they wanted without fear of ridicule or retribution.  Where everyone laughed at their jokes and acted on their suggestions.  Where a little off-color joke or comment was one of the trappings of privilege.

The smoke-filled boardrooms, filled with syncopatic yes-men and women, who raised the CEO up like some sort of demi-god, was where major corporate decisions were made.  The smoke-filled rooms populated with politicians and their allies is more than just a Hollywood construction.  They exist(ed) and that is where political parties decided who would be the next mayor, senator or governor.

With a greater emphasis on transparency, not to mention smoke-free buildings, smoke-filled back rooms and board rooms have all but disappeared.  While this is positive for accountability, and lung health, and makes for stronger business and political decisions, it does create a void for business and political leaders who need some place to blow off steam.  They need a safe place to let down their hair, tell a ribald joke or social zinger without anyone calling them racist or sexist or any other kind of -ist.

With recording devices on virtually every cell phone and plenty of places to upload whatever is recorded, how is a politician expected to feel comfortable that she is with sympathizers who agree with some of her more extreme views?  How is a CEO expected to relax when she knows that every clerk and janitor who has their nose out of joint because of work conditions or pay disparity could record a random comment, taken out of context, that makes them seem greedy, or devious, or stupid?

It seems, like so many others, they have turned to Facebook and Twitter.


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Digital Snake Oil Salesmen

I have noticed lately that just about any problem you have can be solved by way of some sort of electronic communications.  You can get rich via webinar, loose weight from a blog, and repair your love life with an online conference with a the company's registered Lothario.  You can do even better if you also purchase the e-book.

Or so they say.

It has been the history of each new media that the earliest adapters are the purveyors of porn and magical remedies for all that ails you.  The snake oil salesmen.  The internet and social media are no different.

What is different is the democratic nature of the internet.  An ad for Rolls Royce gets largely the same treatment as the con man selling magic pills.  In print media, there are expensive, high status publications in which the cost of entry is enough to keep out at least the most questionable of advertisers.  The same thing for television and radio.  Not so much with the internet.

The same open qualities of the internet that allow a young musician to post her new songs on You Tube and find an audience and an entrepreneur to find a disperse but loyal customer base, make it ripe territory for other, less desirable uses.  I don't think we can, or should, try to prevent these uses.  I do think that we need to learn to be smart consumers.

Also, I think it is important for reputable businesses to embrace the possibilities of internet media options.   As has happened time and time again, when reputable companies step up and establish a strong presence in a media, the snake oil salesmen tend to get pushed to the side.  Which is a better place for them!

A $136 Billion Dip in the Road

On April 23rd, a fake AP tweet caused $136 billion in stock value to disappear.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this story, I will summarize.  A fake AP tweet indicated that President Obama had been injured in a White House explosion.  Despite the fact that AP quickly flagged the tweet as fake, the S&P 500 dropped 0.9 percent, briefly erasing $136 billion in stock market wealth.

Even though the market recovered quickly upon the realization that the tweet was a hoax, a lot of money changed hands over a very short time frame.  There were undoubtedly winners and losers.

The response to this incident was as fast as it was varied.  On either end of the spectrum, there were calls to end the computerized trading that caused thousands and maybe millions of shares to be sold in milliseconds. On the other hand, some are looking to the equally swift correction the system enacted and feel that it is an example of things working like they should.

I think that this is another example of how our technological abilities are advancing ahead of our social abilities to deal with the consequences.  I put significantly underutilized smartphones, the Cloud, and Facebook into this category.  All with differing degrees of consequences.

I do not mean to paint some sort of Terminator scenario where the technology is going to take over our lives and rule the world.  Technology can change must faster than society can change.  That just means that for a while after a period of rapid technology change, society has to struggle to catch up.  I think we are in that type of period now.

It manifests itself in things like some social and emotional upheaval.  When automobiles first were commercially available, automobile drivers were seen as rude, impudent upstarts by those who chose to still travel by horse and buggy.  Today, we have people making blanket indictments about technology.  It is, according to them, a travesty to invest so much into technology.

This disconnect between our technological abilities and our social ability to assimilate to it can also be clearly seen in business.  For example, businesses sense that social media is important and will continue to be important.  Yet most companies have struggled to figure out how to make social media work for them.  The few companies that seem to be having success tend to be newer companies that don't have to assimilate traditional media thinking into a new media world.

I think that the lesson of the fake tweet is neither that the world is coming to an end nor that there is nothing wrong here so don't bother looking into it.  I think we need to try to understand how technology changes the traditional paradigms we are working in.  In the case of this incident, it isn't only that the stock market can react incredibly fast to changing market situations, but also that we must learn when we can trust our media sources and how easily things like fake tweets can be generated.

I agree with some of the commentators I have read that this incident was not a crash of the system but rather a minor dip.  But like a dip in the road, if you aren't prepared and don't know how to drive through it, that little dip can knock your trailer off it's hitch and cause a lot of problems.

It's best that we mind the dips in the road, at least until we can catch up to our technology.

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The Many P's of Marketing: Perseverance

Weeble Wobbles (Photo credit: m kasahara)

Marketing has gotten more and more nuanced, as new technologies and strategies have opened up many options for marketers.  It is my contention that today, the marketing mix contains much more than the traditional four or five P's that are taught in school.  In this series I am exploring the Many P's of Marketing.

Perseverance:  Have ever noticed that some people are like the old children's toy Weebles.  No matter what life throws at them, they may wobble a bit, but they always end up upright and still with a smile on their face.  These people seemingly brush life's challenges off as if they are nothing but a little lint and keep moving forward, with their positive mental attitude intact.  As the ad says: Weebles wobble but they don't fall down.

There are some brands like that.  No matter what happens to the company or its people, the brand remains unblemished in the public's eye.  These are the brands we should all be jealous of.   I think that is a direct product of a brand's loyalty, or perseverance, to its key message.  Coca Cola has invested so much into its brand image that they could withstand the missteps that surrounded the launch and retraction of New Coke.

With what used to be called reach and frequency, brands like Coca Cola built market share AND mind-share by relentlessly marketing themselves and dominating the relatively few media options with their brand.  The main order of marketing a brand like Coke was to make sure it was everywhere we looked.  Let's call this form of perseverance "budget perseverance."  You can buy it.

These days, with a highly fragmented media and much more sophisticated, media savvy and participatory audiences, you need a different type of perseverance.  You need brand and message consistency.  Your message needs to be consistent and must fit with all the other messages surrounding your brand.  In this media world of retweets and repinning, posting and sharing, no marketer can control where his message goes or who sees it.  No marketer can control what message one segment of the target audience sees versus another segment.  Hence, all of the messages related to a brand must be consistent.  Consistent with the brand and consistent with the other messages.  Let's call this type of perseverance "message perseverance."

Most often, companies fail on message perseverance in the difference between the paid messages they send out and the messages sent by the service they deliver.  Consider the example of the bank who advertises that YOU are important to them, but when you call them you only get a complicated, impersonal series of recorded messages.  Or when you visit the bank branch, you have to wait a long time to get service and then the tellers are unpleasant.  Also consider the Mercedes dealer who gives loaner cars to their best customers, but the loaner cars are Hondas.  I don't understand why a car dealer would expose customers to another brand.  In addition, it seems to me that they are sending a subtle message that the Honda is a reliable car (it is not in for repairs) that you can use while your finicky Mercedes is being fixed.  Not really consistent with their promotional messages.

On the other hand, consider the now famous case of the Tylenol tampering.  Bottles of Tylenol capsules was found to have been tampered with and containing cyanide.  Within a week of the first death the company had pulled every bottle of Tylenol, more than 30 million of them, from store shelves around the world.  McNeal Consumer Healthcare, the parent company that owned the Tylenol brand then pioneered tamper proof packaging.  The rapid and decisive response by McNeal, strongly supported their message claims of caring for their customers.  Their actions cost McNeal millions and millions of dollars.  But it did not cost them market share.  When Tylenol returned to the shelves, customers returned to the brand.

Or consider the story from UPS that they have invested in routing software that helped their drivers make more right turns, increasing their efficiency and shortening delivery times.  This story, while at first somewhat amusing and farcical, actually meshes beautifully with UPS message "We Love Logistics."

Budget perseverance isn't as realistic as it once was.  No matter how big its budget, no company can dominate all the media the way Coca Cola once did.  When some of the most influential media are virtually free to use (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) having a Big Gulp sized budget doesn't help.  The smart marketers are instead focusing their resources on getting out a variety of messages to the variety of media, all of which support and are consistent with the brand of the product or service.  Resources should be focused on message consistency and pervasiveness...the reach and frequency of 21st century.

To achieve success in consistency and pervasiveness you need...you guessed it...perseverance!

Do Random Acts of Kindness Need to Be Anonymous?

We have been having a debate in our household this week.

The debate centers around the 26 Acts of Kindness movement started by the tweet of news correspondent Ann Curry.  I suspect most of you have heard of it by now.  I hope many of you have participated in your own way.  If you don't know about this, check out #26Acts on Twitter.

The debate we have been having is not anything about the value of doing random acts or paying it forward.  We are all in favor of that.  We have practiced it from time to time.

Rather, some in my family feel that by tweeting or blogging about the random acts you do, you take away the randomness of the act.  By publicly declaring that you did an anonymous good deed, some of my family members feel, it is no longer anonymous and is no longer just about the good deed.

Does publicly announcing that you have done a philanthropic deed diminish the value of that deed?  Or does it help to magnify it by inspiring others?  Does it make an act of kindness smaller or larger?

I prefer to believe in the altruism of people and the value of publicity.  I prefer to think that by sharing the random acts you have done or you have experienced, you help get others thinking about how they could do the same.  You show, by example, the awesome impact even the smallest random act of kindness can have.

That is how I prefer to think of it.  What do you think?