MLB hit it out the park with this iPhone app. Babyshaker on the other hand, did not. On a third hand, interesting implications with respect to Apple's one-sided and subjective selection and curation policy.
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My latest Adweek column is up. It's titled, "Journey to Success In today's digital landscape, a Web site is just a means to an end" and talks about the rise of digital (and ultimately virtual) hubs as a possible successor to the very 1.0 notion of traffic-driving destination websites. Whilst I doubt it will raise as much controvery as my previous article, it essentially expands on and extends the theme.
Here's the full text:
Here's a question I've been thinking a lot about: What kind of future do Web sites have?
In the current environment, most brands still struggle to understand the basics of digital. Interactive is subservient to the status quo in so many ways. Do you think the majority of brands value their online storefront on a par with their physical stores? Fat chance. The only categories that do are the ones that have been literally bowled over with a landslide of change led not by them, but by their consumers.
Within the communications world, an interactive presence still fights a losing battle to get prime real estate on 30-second spots, radio ads and even print units. I can't tell you how many radio scripts still do not have a Web site address, but instead repeat toll-free numbers umpteen times despite the fact most of their victims are driving and unable to write down the "call me" numbers even if they wanted to.
And on the rare occasion the advertiser in question does put forth a Web site address, it's done with little more than a fleeting message. Sure, you'll get a feeble and non-committal call-to-action from time to time, characterized by the obscene "log-on-to-our-Web-site" dare. But that's just driving traffic to a destination Web site-or as I refer to it, a dead end.
That's not how the world works anymore. Web sites are not ends unto themselves; they are simply a means to an end. You don't want your customers to move into your stores-you want them to buy into whatever you're selling and take it with them into their own homes where they consume it, share it and tell their friends and families that they enjoyed it. So why should you expect something different from the Web? Today, consumers' digital homes are their Facebook profiles, their blogs, their custom-created communities. That's where they "live" in the digital world and that's where we need to hope they invite us to come and hang out from time to time, not the other way around.
Think of a Web site like a hub. And a hub is like a train station-it can be a point of origin or a destination. Some people begin their journey there, some people end their journey there, some are just in transit, or meeting someone, or taking refuge from the storm -- you get the picture.
Hubs need to be open and fluid. They need to be infused with "sociability" -- teeming with life, alive with conversation. They are decidedly non-linear and diverse by nature, and they need to be loaded with content, information and features.
You shouldn't measure success or activity within these hubs using only traditional or familiar measures or metrics -- visits (unique or otherwise), clicks or time spent. Supplement these metrics with new social metrics like level of conversation, sentiment, consumer-to-consumer distribution and shareability.
In a world of RSS feeds, embeddable HTML and links, hubs reign supreme. In a world of multiple personalities and personas, the key to digital success is not a one-size-fits-all approach-the "or" approach-but an "and" approach. The goal is to co-exist in multiple places at any given time. With a bit of effort, determination and luck consumers hopefully will get in on the act and take us with them to their homes, communities and meeting places.
Consumers live their online lives in a distributed fashion (feel free to substitute the words "fragmented," "disjointed" or "frenetic," if you like).
It's incumbent upon us to play into that, to be where they are and, most importantly, give them a reason and way to take pieces of what we offer them into their own digital or virtual "homes."
That said, there's still a role for the brand as both aggregator and curator, for a brand to provide a place where consumers can see the conversation pulled together, engage with the brand, hear the story in the brand's voice, etcetera.
Until then, I hope you won't be camping out in your own Web sites, listening to the crickets and waiting in vain for your train to arrive. It won't.
My latest Adweek column is up and it's already getting its fair share of comments - with some particularly negative ones leveled at me.
The piece is about where I think "social" media really fits and why - based on this assessment - I think it's a flawed strategy to charge a digital or PR agency with the AOR responsibilities associated with this imperative.
PS If you're going to be a hater, please indicate if you work for a digital or PR agency :)
Full text here:
March 15, 2009
There are three worlds. Or perhaps I should say three environments. And whether you know it or not, you're living in all three right now.
Let's start off with the physical world, also known as the real world (and I'm not talking about an MTV program). The physical world, from a media standpoint, is the one governed by television, radio and print. It's also the world in which most word-of-mouth conversations happen. Face to face.
Then there's the digital world. Web 1.0. The world of Web sites. Of big, Flash-based, SEO-unfriendly "skip intro" edifices built to glorify brands. This is the world of e-mails, banners and buttons. It's a world of advergames and gargantuan portals. And it's become synonymous with "traditional interactive" -- a sterile wasteland devoid of life, creativity and innovation.
Finally, there's the virtual world. Yes, it includes the obvious virtual reality, the maligned Second Life, MMORPG experiences like World of Warcraft and more kid-friendly environments like Club Penguin or Webkinz. But, I would argue, it also includes blogs, podcasts, presence applications like Twitter and social networks. My definition of a virtual world is any environment that utilizes avatar and/or profile-based participation, with the option of anonymity. In short, it's a place or space where people can interact with other people in ways they could never do in the "real" or digital worlds.
So where does social media fall? The obvious answer is right in the middle of these three worlds, which is exactly why neither a digital agency nor the PR industry is equipped to deliver against the three-pronged imperative of community, dialogue and partnership.
Digital agencies today are stuck somewhere between scalability hell (tasked with automating and compartmentalizing the lowly impression) and storytelling schlock (replicating obtuse and detached hyperbole in an advertising-unfriendly environment). It's a world governed by performance-based pricing and ad networks on the one side and pre-roll advertising and clunky Web builds on the other.
Exactly where and when did the digital space earn the stripes and credentials to tackle the high roads of authenticity, transparency or peer-to-peer collaboration (just to name a few of conversational marketing's core tenets)?
The PR business is really no better and no worse than the digital one when it comes to social credentials. With its claim of being champions of "earned media," it tacked the word "relations" onto blogger, lumped it together with "media relations" and "journalist relations," and somehow went unchallenged.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying PR shouldn't be at the table. I'm just questioning how "relations" between corporations and journalists equate with real people hanging out with other real people.
Whereas the digital space has very little claim to the "physical" world and hasn't proven itself in the virtual space, the PR industry resides more comfortably in the physical world, with a superficial grasp of the digital space and an anemic understanding of the virtual one.
In both cases, the ability to connect the dots among the three environments, find the commonalities and establish obvious synergies is barely practiced.
I've seen client after client duped into charging a digital or PR agency with-arguably-the most transformational opportunity we've been given in our professional lifetimes and the result is almost always a shambolic disappointment. From Sony or Wal-Mart's fake blogs to the recent Skittles.com mess, the culprits are almost always digital or PR agencies.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying every digital and/or every PR agency is ill-equipped to deliver against "social." What I am suggesting, however, is there's an acute and fundamental flaw in equating "social" with "digital" or "social" with "earned media."
So what's the solution?
Perhaps the solution is to return to the clichéd "integration" drawing board and figure out how to ensure that all three sides of the equation are equally represented around the table. In this scenario, there's a definite and defined role for an "integrator" -- an independent third party (internal or external) that is the generalist to the physical, digital and virtual specialist verticals, with less interest in ensuring success in any one world than in simply ensuring your success, period.
Having said this, it may also turn out that there is no such thing as a social AOR.
But don't take my word for it. Continue to vest your future in companies that build elaborate destination Web sites, construct parties that nobody shows up to and deliver ostensibly social solutions that reek of control, manipulation and fakery.
Hey, at least people will talk about you, right?
So I finally purchased The War's EP, Waving White from iTunes.
The catch? A few week's ago I saw an "ad" for the group on Facebook, referencing the fact I like Keane.
I took a couple of quick listens to the group on their MySpace page (ironic don't you think) and decided to take the plunge.
I'll let you know what I think...
Trevor is an intern at Mentos. He clearly has nothing better to do with his time than communicate with other board cubicle cohorts throughout his day.
He clearly is very talented though at what he does (in terms of putting together this very interactive website with all the right trappings) and so if you're reading this blog, Trevor, consider this an open invitation to come and work for crayon.
I'll even double the salary Mentos is paying you, although I'm hoping it is fee-less internship.
Seriously though, this is clearly Subservient Chicken 2.0 and there are several key aspects to this that make it very engaging.
Now where it goes from here and how long it lasts is anybody's guess. For what it's worth, I'd like to recommend that the folk over at Mentos seriously consider giving away free Mentos - it's a golden opportunity starting at your in the pimpled-face.
...or maybe, as Ad Age's Matt Creamer puts it, Lord Maurice Saatchi is just "out of touch"
Creamer is referring to an Financial Times Op Ed piece quilled by Lord Saatchi which basically underscores the great divide between old marketing and new marketing. It also represents everything wrong with traditional advertising world - marketer, agency and media alike.
In his diatribe, Saatchi poo-poos the little upstart search engine called Google, and discounts "prediction" in favor of "perception"
Saatchi explains that, "People do not know what they want until a brilliant person shows them," and yet discounts the fact that a brilliant person can also be a brilliant algorithm. Perhaps human search like Mahalo.com will be critiqued in Saatchi's next technology master-piece. I'm holding my breath.
I'm not finished. Let's dissect that statement a little more:
The rest of the article is full of hyperbole and vague, abstract and obscure metaphors. Sound familiar? Remind you of a certain golden goose that helped Maurice pay down his various villas?
BTW, I Googled "Lord Saatchi" and the third ranked result took me to a critique of his litany of obtuse and out of touch tirades. Guess the algorithm works fine after all.
PS Gotta love the banner that appeared directly above the Ad Age article
Very cool. Advertising is a loud-mouthed, arrogant, egotistical jerk.
Way to go Microsoft. Just don't go replicating all that TV, radio and print all over again, now.
Libby Copeland just published this article for the Washington Post. She quotes me and also cites Virtual Thirst.
Libby originally interviewed me for this piece a few days before Coca-Cola's Second Life initiative launched. I invited her to the press launch in Second Life and what impressed me so much about her was that she actually took the time to download and install the software, register, create an avatar and attend the launch - all within a couple of days.
Most journalists that have written about Second Life have never so much as been in Second Life. The same applies with many agency execs that advise their clients on investing in non-traditional or emerging media like Virtual Worlds.
Makes you think, doesn't it...
BTW...I'm going to be on All Things Considered on NPR tomorrow on a feature piece about BBDO and also the changing role of advertising and agencies.
According to Ad Age, Bud.TV drew 152,000 unique visitors last month (March), 40% fewer than February's 253,000 visitors, according to numbers released today by ComScore Media Metrix. A-B executives have said that they hope to draw between 2 million and 3 million visitors per month by early next year to the online network, which is costing the brewer somewhere between $30 million and $40 million.
The new "Direct to Consumer" venture from Anheuser Busch has come under a lot of scrutiny and criticism of late, but I want to take this opportunity to throw my weight (90%) behind Bud.TV...or at the very minimum the idea behind Bud.TV
Personally, I believe that special interest groups (read: media companies) are responsible for a good chunk of the pushback from the various State Attorney Generals. There is so much hypocrisy involved that it makes me want to puke. We can run alcohol advertising on the Super Bowl, but online is somehow different...
But I digress.
I think it's early days for Bud.TV and I really hope A-B stays the course. On one hand, they're not in the content game and getting involved in this kind of effort is a committment, as opposed to a one-off campaign-like investment. On the other hand, the quality of content on the networks isn't exactly worth writing home about either...
Personally, I'd love to work on Bud.TV - take that anyway you want to. I'm just saying...
Here are some tips I'd give the executives over at A-B (you may be doing this already, but as a blogger that has not been engaged I wouldn't know):
There's a lot riding on this and I think there are a lot of people who want you to succeed. There are also a lot of people who want you to fail...don't be distracted by them. Cheers!
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