Jaffe Juice

Blogging is dying and Twitter is to blame

It’s bad enough that society is already suffering from M.D.D. (Media Deficit Disorder) – a modern day, technology led version of A.D.D. We can’t seem to do any one particular task well anymore, because we’re so busy juggling multiple things at the same time. Our attention spans have shrunk to the size of a newt. We can’t even seem to hold a thought consistently without drifting…….what was I saying again?

Now along comes Twitter, which totally reduces our collective thought leadership to 140 characters or less and in doing so, belittles and minimizes every big thought into a punch line or social limerick. It’s premature articulation if you ask me and it’s very unsatisfying. Even with products like Twerbose (seems like it was made for me) which tries to cheat on Twitter’s size limitations by linking to a (gasp) blog post of sorts, the problem still remains and isn’t going away anytime soon.

Amidst the Twitterfication of our lives, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend developing. Blogs are starting to fade into oblivion. OK, maybe it’s not *that* bad, but it’s a fade nonetheless. As someone who blogs, podcasts and has a video show, I can attest first hand that the leap from blogs to audio to video is like crossing a chasm – the level of difficulty, complexity and commensurate time investment grows exponentially with each step up to a richer form of communication, characterized by the adoption of additional senses and skills. But if this is in fact true, why am I (and many others like me) struggling to post as prolifically (quantity) and substantially (quality) as I once did?

If blogging is so easy, why are so many of the Web’s legends in their own minds on a blogging downward spiral?

The other day I wrote a simple post about the launch of one our client’s iPhone Apps. It took me about 45 minutes to post a simple multi-paragraph overview of the product, containing several links and 1 or 2 images.

“When did blogging become such a laborious and time-consuming task,” I asked myself as I painstakingly filled out the appropriate categories for my post, verified the desired time stamp for my post to hit, entered the relevant keywords and Technorati tags and previewed the post before hitting the publish button?

And then, as if a little tweeting bird whispered the answer into my ear, it hit me: The enemy is Twitter.

Over the past 3 years, Twitter has caused me to become increasing jittery, scattered and hyperactive. Twitter has turned everything into an elevator pitch. It has marginalized and trivialized everything profound in2 @n abbrv’d #tagline.

Twitter is to blame for my poor responsiveness on e-mail as well. I once used to type long letters on e-mail. I would take the time to read every word from every e-mail sent to me. And now I barely do either. In fact, the number of unread e-mails in my in-box grows by the day.

Twitter is to blame. I’m not sure why, but why not? It’s better than blaming myself, right?

In all seriousness, there has been a marked shift from blogging to “micro”-blogging and I wonder what we’re sacrificing in the process. I recently spoke with a colleague (Grant), who pushed back smartly by giving me a history lesson; comparing Twitter to Poetry and how society once shunned and chastised this short-form content as being nothing more than superficial eye-candy rhymes that drove us further and further away from the “Great American Novel”. He made a good point.

We mock what we don’t understand

We belittle what we have no reference point for

We criticize what seems foreign to us

I guess I have a problem with the idea that Twitter is comparable to blogging at all. Whereas Twitter is all about living in “the now”, blogging rides the wave of the long tail. Whereas Twitter is about concentrated real time conversation, blogging is about dialogue that is both distributed and extended. Perhaps the biggest problem is that Twitter has almost become an alternative to blogging and in doing so, sets up a confrontational “versus” zero sum choice, when in reality is simply has to be an “AND”.

Perhaps the real issue with the 45-minute-blog-post-that-should-have-taken-me-5 was that I was too busy tweeting at the same time, distracted every 30 seconds with a familiar Tweetdeck chirp that has since put the AOL “You’ve got mail” dude out of business.

I guess we’re a little too quick to cast doubt and blame the way of new ideas, innovations and technologies which we perceive to distract us through disrupting our routines, norms and the status quo of life, when in reality all we need to do is just get on with it, using our common sense and figure out how to incorporate new technology in an additive and complementary fashion versus a cannibalistic one.

So perhaps I need to turn the blame inwards, along with my lack of self-discipline, self-control and inability to just turn off the friggen Internets every once in a while. Or maybe it’s a good sign that all those prolific bloggers who are blogging less these days, are doing so not because they’re tweeting more, but because they’re too busy doing REAL work for a change. Not a bad thing at all.

I’d like to leave you with a Twimerick:

“How many failed whales constitute a school?”

Said a learned owl to a suspicious mule.

“I don’t want to chat,”

said the mule with an @

And ended up looking like a tool.

Help me Opr@h-wan-kanobi, you're my only hope

Looks like the Ponzi scheme has already begun to unravel. Mediaweek reports that up to 60% of Twitter's "rapidly growing audience" doesn't come back to the service.

Oops.

In other words, even with all the hype from both mainstream media and celebrity central, the message coming back from Main Street America is "huh?" or "I don't get it"....at least not yet.

It's eerily reminiscent of the good old Second Life days, despite many of the Twitter-boosters who make a clear distinction between the two "services" based on ease of use (set-up; initiation; operation) - whereas Second Life was ridiculously cumbersome, Twitter is pretty simple to use.

Perhaps someone needs to send a memo...'er, DM to Ev and Biz with an 9-character message: SELL NOW! (who needs 140 chars?) or perhaps this is just a reality check restoring growth curves to "regularly scheduled programming".

Perhaps this is also particularly good news for geeks everywhere...that they are not being overthrown by the likes of Ashton, Larry or Oprah.

Oprah incidentally, has been on Opr@h W@tch for about a week now. I'm still waiting for her to respond to me (because that's what Twitter allows you do i.e. connect friends, fans and Dr Phil) She also hasn't updated her profile in 5 days.

You can view my attempts at becoming Oprah's Dr Phil of Conversation here

So is this a good thing? Is Twitter becoming cool again for people who like to say things like FAIL, WOOT and PWND? Or on the flipside, does Twitter have a bit of Secondlifeapnia - especially when it comes to retention?

And while we're at it, what would you do if you were running Twitter to stem this tsunami of attrition? Personally I'd just get @oprah to tweet more, but that's just me...

RT away.

Ski-doodle

A lot of "buzz" has been going on about Skittles "homepage redesign"

For those of you who've been spared from the tempest in a teapot, essentially Skittles decided to go all Modernista! (an agency that made Wikipedia their homepage; irked Wikipedia purists and as you can see, became a little too transparent) on us and cede their entire web presence to "the people" by presenting the amorphous "conversation" as their true digital presence.

You'd think I'd be elated with this authentic demonstration of cession of control to the masses. You'd be 100% wrong.

For starters, I don't believe that we had control to start with and even if we did, the worst thing we could do is to give it 100% to consumers...who quite frankly, don't necessarily even want it.

Let's begin with Skittle's first bowl (a bold attempt at getting a strike, but sadly nothing more than a gutterball) which was to overlay their site against Twitter. Exhbit 1 shows that when left to their own devices, the "conversationalists" (as defined as social media insiders, fishbowl dwellers and navel-gazers) are mishevious little imps who are also a little sado-masochistic.

Translation - Skittle's entire web-presence AKA Twitter is skittled with gems like: @qwghlm More like: ARE SKITTLES MAKING PAEDOPHILES OBESE? or Skittles Skittles Skittles Skittles Capitalist Whore Skittles Skittles Skittles Capitalist Whore.

Like the Octo-Mom, very soon the media coverage turned on their once darling and Skittles swapped out Twitter for Facebook before settling it would appear on banal Wikipedia as their final resting place.

Rumor has it that this was always a short-term "campaign" and Skittles always intended to go back to a more traditional destination website presence i.e. revert back to the way things used to be. I find this suspect at best and loathsome at worst: suspect given Agency.com's (the same agency behind Subway's When we Roll...We Roll Big) involvement in this and their subsequent backpeddling from the Subway kerfuffle and loathsome if this entire move was nothing more than a short term attempt (campaign) at seeking "buzz" or "viral" response.

So why am I so irritated about all of this? Honestly, I'm not entirely myself. I think it's because of the ridiculous lack of strategy behind this program. It epitomizes 90% of all the work out there right now, which continuously demonstrates "tactics in search of strategy" and an acute lack of understanding of the real power of conversational marketing.

I could go on for hours about the myriad of holes in this program. Here are a few examples:

• Exactly how many of Skittle's core target audience are actively on Twitter? Even if the attempt is just to reflect the buzz, it's a classic example of the Revenge of Second Life (there I said it)
• A company's digital presence or storefront is arguably more important and inarguably as important as their physical presence. Why on Earth would a brand cede this equity or asset to an emerging, unproven and unstable platform like Twitter or a more stable, yet decentralized environment like Facebook or Wikipedia? This is 100% cart before the horse
• What exactly is the message or idea behind this entire effort? It's not remotely clear what the intent or goal is? From a functional standpoint, the Wikipedia page is your boring "about us" tab, which is one of many tabs on a traditional website. From a form perspective, I still can't possible think of what the takeaway is....do you?

I do want to add that a lot of people have said, "why chastise them for being bold and innovative; taking a risk; experimenting" - indeed, a big part of my and crayon's message is about experimentation. That may be so, but there is a huge difference between experimenting with versus without any structure, cause, process or methodology. Case in point, would you casually experiment by playing with matches, gunpowder and a gas cylinder...I think not.

And so, although most mainstream media outlets have praised these efforts, I am not jumping up and down with the same excitement (an understatement) Perhaps they're all right and I am wrong. All I know is that brands need to be adopting new approaches, technologies, platforms and experimenting accordingly....but NOT at the expense of a smart, integrated and solid strategic foundation.

It's really that simple.

Just to be clear, I'll gladly share sales data and mea culpa if I'm wrong about this and there is success at the cash register. However, I think the end result is another demonstration that short term buzz or viral success is relative when a) it is fleeting and b) it is predominantly negative.

So final result? At best, a "split" in keeping with the Skittles analogy.

The greatest piece of research....ever!

...but seriously, quite possibly the dumbest piece of research.....EVER!!!

According to a Gallup & Robinson study of 12 years' worth of surveys about recall and likeability of advertising that appears in the annual pigskin classic, there is a direct relationship between the confidence people have in the economy and the attention they pay to Super Bowl commercials.

I can't even begin to go into how completely useless this information is.

Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic....attention in Super Bowl commercials is going down:
a) because people are drunk out of their minds
b) because people hate advertising
c) because people have the volume turned down and are having a party at the same time
d) because watching the commercials on YouTube and/or listening to Donny Deutsch on the Today Show was witty once....but now is shitty
e) because the creative product sucks
f) because of too much clutter
g) because they're not in the least bit in "buying mode"
g) because they're worried about paying the mortage
h) all of the above...except for g)

Missing Fedex Package (Tracking Number: 3,000,000)

So today, Fedex announced that - for the first time in 12 years - there will be no cavemen or Burt Reynolds (not necessary the same person) in next year's Stupid Bowl. Steve Pacheco (he's a Jaffe Juice reader) made the announcement on the Fedex company blog. 

The statement cites "unprecedented economic waters" as the primary reason for this decision (not being able to "justify the ad spend")

In the ultimate medium when where the message is king, being in the game simply sends the wrong message both to employees and other FedEx constituents. A Super Bowl ad buy is not where we should put dollars at this time although, in the past, the value of doing so for FedEx has been indisputable.

Steve & Co. - I appreciate your POV on how advertising in the Super Bowl helped strategically establish the brand. In addition, I also completely acknowledge that times have changed - for example: Fedex no longer needs to establish itself as a player (nor explain what it does and how it does it - better and/or different)

However, I do take a point of difference in terms of a contradiction of sorts. IF the Super Bowl was truly everything that you say it is (the Super Bowl is the only single event where an advertiser can reach a global audience of this size . . . last year almost 98 million people watched the game), then surely it should not be (one of) the first line items to be cut, but indeed the last.

This same logic could be applied to the intangible reasons why companies advertise in the Super Bowl i.e. less concerned with end consumers and more focused on internal customers i.e. employees, as well as the trade (including plenty of tickets and bragging rights)

The fact remains: advertising on the Super Bowl arguably NEVER had the return on investment that has always been touted by the networks (that's a relative statement). It's always been a giant ego play and a perfect game of illusion, misdirection and hype.

Don't get me wrong...has the Super Bowl ever worked? Of course it has. Big time. Remember Apple's 1984 commercial. It's just that the list or ratio of "hits" to "misses" has shifted radically away from the success stories to the eulogies of dot bomb 1.0 and most recently, "everyone else".

And as every major indicator has shifted away from the 30-second spot (from declining audience numbers to more diverse i.e. more fragmented viewing audiences), the prices continued to rise. Kids - don't try that strategy at home.

And here we are....the fork in the road. Fedex (spare a thought for poor BBDO) smartly (although arguably a few years too late) takes a bow and leaves the final line of incumbents to stubbornly defend their position, status quo, and along with it, their pride.

Steve - again, I appreciate your company's position. It is financially sound and responsible, but it is also 100% a reflection of common sense. The bottom line is that the recent "unprecedented economic waters" have not only forced all companies to think and act in a more fiscally prudent way, but also to be more accountable in their efforts.

I would take this one step further: it has also created a more glaring transparency of wastage (current and years to date with line items such as the Super Bowl), unnecessary opulence and self-congratulatory debauchery (to be clear, I'm not saying Fedex suffered from any of the above, with the exception of not being able to justify their Super Bowl spend anymore based on its performance/efficacy)

Companies cannot afford to send out a message of careless or excess wastage anymore - especially when they're laying off employees left, right and center.

Net Net: $3,000,000 is better spent on retention, customer service, employee satisfaction and building long term relationships or commitments with customers.

Jaffe on Seinfeld on Gates on Microsoft on CP+B

The blogosphere has been lit up over the past week or two regarding the new campaign from American Express Microsoft, featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Ballmer Bill Gates. The reaction, with few exceptions, has been decidedly negative - scathingly so.

And now, we find out that the campaign is done:

That campaign either ran its course (if you believe Microsoft) or flopped (if you believe the critics) and is being replaced with an ad that will try to subvert Apple's famous "I'm a Mac," "I'm a PC" series.

(Seinfeld was reportedly paid $10million for 3 spots....2 have aired and 1 is in the "can" waiting for better days)

...or is it? Mashable via Gizmodo says otherwise. Of course, the source in question is a trusted CP+B person, who clearly has no agenda whatsoever.

I should point out that according to this LA Times Blog post, the needle of perception did move a tad, but how statistically accurate and representative this is, I'm not sure: That piece (New York Times) quotes a brand perception expert saying that Microsoft's image started out 25% positive and 13% negative, but by Tuesday was 28% positive and 8% negative. You have to walk before you can run, I guess.

I thought I'd use this platform to offer some new commentary and constructive criticism to all parties concerned.

 

1. The Seinfeld-Gates spots were not great at all. Here's why: Jerry Seinfeld was a bad, bad casting call. He's associated with American Express (so is Superman). He represents borrowed interest and sends out a signal that the brand cannot sell itself without a celebrity crutch. He's also somewhat old; yesterday's news
2. The choice of Bill Gates was a bad, bad casting call. Gates doesn't work at Microsoft anymore. He's moving on. The company is in great hands in the form of Joanne Bradford Steve Ballmer, remember? Gates is off to focus on humanitarian efforts that save the world, not the Smiths in Peoria.
3. The spots were trying to be too clever for their own good. They were disconnected (I'll come back to this) and confusing. It is a flawed strategy to believe that people care enough about advertising to wait with baited breath for the next episode in the installment of brand propaganda.
4. As a standalone (and ads should be judged independently, when one considers the massive investment in their per airing production and media costs), they failed to deliver a single reason to believe; a single proof point, brand attribute, call to action or nugget of value.
5. From a blogosphere standpoint, most people got to see the two spots (in their entirety) on the Web....which is a good thing as viewers at least got to bust beyond the standardized television constraints. That said, I was horrified when I actually saw one of the spots (I believe I was watching Fringe at the time), paired down to fit the advertising pod, end with the words, "to be connected." Huh? I got the swarmy association between "to be continued" and "to be connected", as well as Microsoft's equity associated with connectivity/networking etc., but as point 4) alludes to, why are we assuming people care enough to wait for the next installment in a series of ADVERTISEMENTS? Episodic advertising is just not viable in my opinion anymore. In any event, there should have at least been a URL to go and view all these ads. And there wasn't.
6. Also, before I move on....where were the outtakes? casting calls? deleted scenes? etc? This is such a 101 from about 10 years ago.
7. Back to the blogosphere, all the feedback almost without exception was negative. Have CP+B not learnt their lessons from Deadenbacher? Can Microsoft afford to be in the center of negativity? When will agencies learn that "buzz" is not good when it's all bad?
8. The new slogan, "Life without Walls" replaces - I guess - the "your life, our passion" (or something like that) one. Swings and roundabouts. I still think most people refer to Microsoft's "Where do you want to go today?" slogan and positioning, which was all about empowering people in the NOW. In any event, Microsoft set themselves up for further ridicule as you don't have to leap very far to discover the disconnect: A life without walls has no place for Windows. D'oh
9. There's no question here that CP+B are an inextricable part of this firestorm (see point 7). On one hand, when you're on top, everybody wants a piece of you, but on the other hand I feel the agency has to work that much harder to avoid being stereotyped themselves as arrogant, self-serving and possibly even negligent ($10 million for Seinfeld). I'd prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I do think they need to work harder - and that includes engaging the blogosphere in a smarter way - to ensure that they don't distract people from their main agenda: serving the brand.
10. The new new campaign, which replaces the old new campaign of Seinfeld and Gates, features a John Hodgman lookalike (the PC guy in Apple's Mac v PC ads), complaining about being stereotyped. Off the bat, this is a little disingenous, given the stereotyping of the Seinfeld-Gates spots, which patronizingly focus on trying to "blend in with normal people like us." That said, I actually very much like these spots. Finally. I think it's spot on for Microsoft to stand up to Apple and demonstrate it's 97% to 3% (or whatever the ratio is) dominance over Apple by letting its customers do the talking - from famous to infamous; from old to young: from inspirational to aspirational etc.

Here's the spot.

Anyway, the point is that I actually think Microsoft ended up in a good place. Humility goes a long way. Moist and chewy swarminess does not.

PS I'm a PC too and I'm a stud!

Visiting the brand E.R. - the difference between onslaught and onslaught(er)

Andrea Vascellari sends me this Greenpeace video response to Dove's Onslaught (their follow-up to Evolution...and not to be confused with Slob Evolution)

In his post, Andrea notes this as a perfect example of how public reputation can be smashed down in less than 2 minutes (1m27 to be exact)

The video is in response to this piece:

It's a far cry from Slob Evolution, which was a playful and irreverent spoof of the ground-breaking Evolution video, which seemingly ushered in a new era of thoughtful and purpose-based brands that put authenticity, transparency and social responsibility before corporate greed, profits and acquisition.

Until now...

On one hand, this sends out the clearest of messages to faker brands looking to "get in on the conversation" by sending out a stern warning: you gotta walk your talk if you want to join the conversation. Think like an advertiser and attempt to cut corners and you will be found out and duly punished.

Put differently, if you want to commit to community, dialogue and partnership, you need to have your entire house in order first.

Now that said....I would be remiss by dumping on Unilever if I didn't point out this timely update from Greenpeace itself:

UPDATE: Thanks to the staggering public support for our international Dove campaign in April 2008, Unilever has now agreed to play their part in saving the Paradise Forests of South East Asia. As the biggest single buyer of palm oil in the world, Unilever has a special responsibility to help clean up the industry that's behind so much forest destruction.

They have agreed to support the call by Greenpeace for an immediate moratorium on deforestation for palm oil plantations. They have also agreed to urgently contact other major companies calling on them to support the moratorium.

This is the first success in a broader campaign to secure real change on the ground in South East Asia -- to stop the palm oil industry from destroying the Paradise Forests. Greenpeace campaigners will work with Unilever for th next six months (starting May 2008) to bring together a major coalition of companies to make the moratorium a reality. We will see at the end of this period how things are progressing and if we need to change our campaign approach.

The update is both in the information box on the YouTube video post, as well as in the comment thread. It certainly alludes to the fact that Unilever is listening and although being taken to task, is prepared to change or at least take steps in the right direction.

That said, I wonder how many people will notice this "fyi" and in the process, how much brand reputation damage will occur?

Stop Killing Trees

This is the scene at Grand Central during the morning commute/rush. It's one of a plethora of similar-looking trash bins.

I don't know about you, but it's just such a waste to see piles and piles of newspaper discarded every day.

Such an inefficient and old fashioned way of getting information and updates which are out of date.

Jaffe in action

I recently spoke at ANA's Integrated Marketing conference in New York City. Ad Age was there to cover the conference and was nice enough to put this edit together. Enjoy!

Friday Fun - How many social media experts does it take to change a lightbulb?

Let's see how many responses we can get.

Q. How many social media experts does it take to change a lightbulb?

A. It depends - is it a physical or a virtual lightbulb?
A. Actually I wrote a blog post about it last week...
A. You expect me to answer this in 140 characters or less?
A. A wise crowd
A. The community will decide
A. You'll need to buy my book to find out...
A. I have no idea but I hope they Qik, uStream or ooVoo it live...