Jaffe Juice

Why charging a digital or PR agency with social media is a flawed strategy

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:

Who Owns Social Media?

A clue: don't look to digital agencies or PR shops

March 15, 2009

-By Joseph Jaffe

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?

To pay or not to pay, is THAT the question?

Forrester just released a report titled "Add Sponsored Conversations To Your Toolbox," authored by Sean Corcoran.

Kmart gave some bloggers a free shopping spree in exchange for a blog post about the experience — a practice we call sponsored conversation. With appropriate protections for disclosure and authenticity, this practice will take its place alongside public relations and advertising activities in the blogosphere. Marketers should take advantage of sponsored conversation as an entrée into the online conversation. To succeed, you should get to know the bloggers you plan to work with and set expectations across your organization.

What's interesting is how Forrester is pretty deliberately putting this approach into a category of its own, alongside it's predecessors or cohorts (depending on your position), advertising and P.R. and in doing so, plays a part in terms of legitimizing or formalizing an emerging practice.

His colleague Jeremiah Owyang covers it here and Brian Morrissey at Adweek covers it here. Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb takes a strong counterposition here.

I was interviewed for this piece by Sean, as was Chris Brogan, who participated in the aforementioned Kmart program, sits on the board of IZEA - the company behind the program (and the one formally known as PayPerPost). Chris responds specifically to Marshall with this post.

Here's the thing. In my time in this space thus far in a formal capacity (i.e. crayon), I've worked on two pretty public and well received programs: My ooVoo Day and the Panasonic CES program. In the former example, both Marshall and Chris were participants; in the latter one, Chris was one of the bloggers. I'm not sure I would call either of these programs "sponsored conversations". In fact, crayon calls them "tactical hooks" - a mash-up of the best (practices) of the advertising and social media worlds. Put differently, we believe that influencer outreach should be treated with the same consideration, commitment and investment as a traditional communications program from both a planning and production standpoint.

It's imperative to give influencers both a reason to believe and a reason to behave. Too often, we are lazy, greedy and gratuitous in terms of what we expect from bloggers and the like and essentially what we expect back from them, relative to what we put in, in the first place.

In a personal capacity, I've participated in both the Nikon D80 giveaway and the Sears program (part 2 of IZEA's Kmart 1-2 punch). In both cases, I wouldn't say this remotely smacked of PayPerPost; nor would I say my conversation was sponsored. In some respects,this is no different than a "celebrity" (TRUST me, I'm using that loosely) sponsorship - from loaning a star diamonds on Oscar night to adorning Tiger Woods with a cacophany of swooshes in exchange for mega moolah.

I guess the point is where on the continuum does blogger or influencer outreach fall. Personally, I believe we should be calling this "blogger/influencer outreach" and not "sponsored conversation". Let me also be very clear (and you can see from the definition), that I don't think Sean meant this to be taken in a negative light. I spoke with him and we had a great conversation. I think the real ambiguity and problem lies with us (i.e. the readers of the report; the commentators and so called social media experts etc).

Part of the problem lies with the fact "sponsored conversation" sounds a bit like "paid search" does it not? Putting two terms which seemingly mean exact opposites together and in doing so, creates a rather jarring disconnect.

Part of the problem as well lies in the endless, boring and inaccurate comparison between the new class of content creators (bloggers if you wish) and journalists. They're not...at least for the most part.

And so we come back to the two core issues:

1. Should bloggers be compensated in any way, shape or form for their time, effort, energy, passion and contribution. The answer can only be a resounding YES, with standard terms and conditions (disclosure, transparency etc) which make both common sense and business sense.
2. Is expecting bloggers (in return for aforementioned compensation) to write, talk, post, create etc about their experiences, reflections, ideas, participation crossing a line? The answer here is a resounding NO, provided there is adequate disclosure and transparency.

Come on people. Grow up and wisen up. This is a nascent industry and space which is learning and maturing all the time. What we have here is in many respects no different to how the world was, but in many respects is also incredibly and completely different. It's time to get off our high horses and open our minds, instead of stubbornly holding on to and exhibiting self-righteous, hypocritical and close-minded positions.

Whatever you call them, "sponsored conversations" are here to stay. And just like the vast differences between crap and mediocre creative (lumped together) and inspiring/breakthrough creative, so too will there be a marked difference between influencer programs that stand out from the crowd or get trampled by it.

CES La Vie in HD!

I'm back from my first CES and besides the side effects of acute lack of sleep and the looooong road to recovery ahead, the buzzing in my head is the best kind possible.

If you've been following my blog or my tweets, you'll know that I went to CES as Panasonic's guest, but also as their partner. With regards to the former, I had the pleasure of participating in a Spotlight presentation to talk about the future of Web Marketing. With regards to the latter, my company - crayon - worked with Panasonic to bring along a diverse and talented group of individuals to the show.

Going into the show, one might have referred to them as blogger, podcasters, vloggers, content creators, or even the slightly cruder but industry appropriate, influencers. However, having been a part of the experience, I would most certainly replace all of those terms with these descriptors: Humans, consumers, customers, Moms and Dads.

(photo courtesy of Steve Garfield of SteveGarfield.com)

Pansonic's whole positioning centers around the harmonious balance and interconnectedness between technology and humanity (ideas from life; ideas for life) and no where was this more prevalent than at CES.

If you think about it, every day we are forced to be schizophrenic - separating our personal lives from our professional lives. In business, we fight every day for integration - but what is integration really? Is it print, TV and online playing nice with one another? Or is it something a lot more profound, namely the ability to join forces with our customers - as partners; the gift of being able to participate in their lives and communities (and to be welcome); the propensity to engage in meaty, healthy discourse and dialogue with them?

...'er yes. That's it. That's what Living in High Definition is all about.

For me, the highlights (if video isn't available yet, it soon will be) of CES and this program were plentiful. They included (from the sublime to the ridiculous):

1. Making 6 new friends (or extending existing friendships) in the form of Chris, Steve, Stacy, Ponzi, Melissa and Vicki and in particular the time when we sat down and talked about this experience together. It's not often you'll get to see video like this that gives you a look inside the Kimono, but then again, there was pretty much no restriction in terms of what was on and off the record. All I can tell you is that this was 100% unprepared and unscripted...and there was some additional conversation once the camera was turned off (not intentionally) that I will remember for the rest of my life.
2. Meeting the Calandro's (yeah, thanks for that!) and the Pollak's
3. The dinner we had with the 6, together with our Panasonic clients - and in particular the moment when we got to share birthday cake with 6-year old Matthew Calandro. This is probably one of the seminal moments in my career....where everything I wrote in "Join the Conversation" came to fruition. Indeed, marketing can be a conversation. I saw it with my own two eyes. Cluetrain was wrong, only limiting this to markets. We - the marketers - are as much a part of the equation as our customers are.
4. The time we spent with Panasonic North America's Chairman, Yoshi Yamada. There will be some video of this soon to share. Mr Yamada was amazing...his empathy, genuine interest and care is something that you just can't fake.
5. My spotlight presentation
6. Meeting Tom Dickson, CEO of Blendtec and the face behind, "Will it Blend?"
7. Meeting Mario (of the Mario + Luigi duo) and coming back to a framed photo of us in my son's room
8. Meeting Philip Scoble. It's a long story :)

I'm very honored that people are embracing this program so much. Brian Morrissey wrote this piece in Adweek, although I'm not sure I agree with him that this is "Advertorial 2.0." The content creation component was just one aspect of this program and I'm pretty certain that everyone who participated - directly or indirectly would vehemently agree that - even with a 2.0 slapped on it - the crude description of advertorial doesn't come close to capturing the genuine emotion and relationship component associated with this effort.

My full Flickr set is here, but if you want more....just search for the LiHD tag (on Flickr; on Twitter; on YouTube etc)

Additional posts/recaps from Greg Verdino, Chris Brogan and the Calandros.

What are *your* 2009 Marketing Resolutions?

Come on now....we all have New Year's Resolutions...so what are *your* New Year's MARKETING resolutions?

• If you work on the more established side of the business, perhaps you want to get more comfortable on the emerging side (the "93 colors")
• If you're on the social side, perhaps you want to understand the bigger picture side of the business...
• Maybe this is the year you start a blog

Why not share your resolutions here with a comment, tweet or better yet, send in an audio comment to +1 206 203-3255.

Even though it's slightly hokey, it's a pretty sound and disciplined process i.e. taking the time to do one thing you've never done before or taking direct steps to improve/get better.

Hmmmm....is the equivalent of marketing weight loss eliminating the "fat" of media dollars wastage???

Crumbelievable Linkety-Link

So great, I predict it will probably snow today:

• Courtesy of Feed Company, Top 10 "Viral" Ads of 2008. Here's my question, what determines Top 10? Views? Here's Numero Uno called "Where the Hell is Matt?" which somehow was made for or with Stride Gum. I guess I'll never figure out Viral Videos and it's probably for the best. PS Watch this in HD if you can...
• Ryan Stephens puts together the 20 essential blog posts from November. Man - these are good enough for all of 2008, let alone just one month. If you're keeping score, Maltoni edges out Godin 3-2, with Jaffe and others in third place with 1 post each.
• Queen of November, Valeria Maltoni gives 10 reasons why you're not a leading brand.
• Contagious Magazine releases their annual "Most Contagious of 2008" compendium.
• Steve Dwyer cannot get Volvo's attention after a lousy customer service experience, so he start's this blog: Why Volvo Sucks. They've since responded...so I guess the question to you Steve is: now what?
• Surprise, surprise: Barack Obama is Time's Man of the Year. Now you can view these incredible pictures on Flickr.
• In keeping with giving those laid off a voice/outlet and a means of finding their next gig, here's a less than inspiring story about how Bob Vaughn was treated by his former employer, Avaya. Bob's resume is in the post if you'd like to give him a call and possibly hire him.
• I've put my name down on this list TWICE, but still don't see it. So WTF do I have to do to be deemed eligible as a blogger to be invited to this CES bash? Perhaps they just have too many registrations, but come on fellas....this isn't 1998.
• It wouldn't be linkety-link without a Twitter post. Rohit obliges with 9 ways to make Twitter more useful for you.
• More predictions posts here and here

PS: Reminder: Jaffe Juice live on Friday, December 19th at 1pm - if you want to join, click here

Sunday Brunch Linkety-Link

Time to do a bit of a link purge:

• Traditional Interactive is dying. Hooray!
• Superlist of what NOT to do in social media. Hope making lists of links isn't one of them!
• When will marketers learn? Suicide and advertising don't mix! What is interesting is how something that happens halfway around the world resonates right in our back yard. Global village indeed.
• The always insightful Peter Kim pokes social media with a stick called ROI. Look out for my comment on the difference between marketing and marketing communications and implicitly, where I think social media should fit...
• Blogging versus Tweeting: THAT'S the question?
• Edelman Studios: PR meets Vine? Desperation, Innovation or Exploitation (D.I.E.) ? You Decide.
• Hold on a second...Pay per post is now Izea? Is that like Gator and Claria? In any event, they're doing this pretty buzzworthy program with my old client, K-mart and $500 spending and friending vouchers. I wasn't approached, but I wonder if I would have participated in this particular program...me personally, I'm a CostCo man.
• 8 Essential Free Social Media Monitoring Tools
• Why brands REALLY need to adopt conversational marketing. I'll let you figure it out.
• Francois Macre does an incredible a'cappella version of Thriller using 64 unique digital frames

 

• Ready to join the Mile High Club?
• Would you work for 1$ a year?

Oh yeah, crayon's 2

I love the fact I completely forgot crayon turned 2 on October 26th. We've come a long way in just 12 months that seems like 12 seconds. But I'd be remiss if I didn't thank our wonderful clients (you know who you are) and our new box of crayonistas (Gary, Earl, Jane, Adam) plus pencil sharpener (Greg)

Photo attribution: Marcin Wichary

10 Links that will change your life

OK, maybe that was a slight overpromise, but here they go anyway:

• Holy Moly, a laptop with 24 hours of battery life? Say it's so, HP! I see a cross-promotion with Starbucks on the horizon. Mitch Joel, are you paying attention?
• Purchase your CNN Election T-shirt here. They need the money to pay for that expensive new hologram they just installed.
• Blog post: "The real winner of the election: The Internet" - President Internet has a certain ring to it, don't you think?
• Ex-crayonista and resident social media muckety muck at Ford, Scott Monty, finally gets his Common Kraft freak on to illustrate Ford and Microsoft's Sync partnership. Nice Zune, Mr Burns...
• Facebook as a cause-marketing platform hits its stride with this week's Election.
• Article: "Making marketing count in a down economy" - you mean, besides cutting wasteful advertising?
• Jaffe in the conversation here, here, here and here
• Time's Ann Moore says you're crazy if you're still on your 5-year plan. Guess she was talking to all those employees she laid off...
• Hey I know she's going back to plain ole "Sarah from Alaska", but I still want to acknowledge two dumb-ass Canadians who embarrassed their entire country by pranking Palin and on the other end of the spectrum, acknowledge this very interesting usage of uStream to create a stream-a-thon of activism against the Sarah from Alaska. Irrespective of your political leanings, it's worth paying attention to...
• Interesting way to issue a press release: quote an author and blogger who is sure to be monitoring the conversation and will most likely punt the release in the form of a link

Patriotic or Pathetic?

Seems like there's a rush of opportunism (or is it just plain and simple patriotism) associated with tomorrow's historic election when it comes to brands.

On the weekend, we popped into Ben & Jerry's and found out we could get a free scoop of ice-cream (I hope it's not Rocky Road; we've had enough of that for a lifetime thank you very much) if we pop in between 5-8pm. More here on their Facebook page. Not everyone likes the idea of "paying for turnout"...or perhaps they just don't like ice-cream? How entirely unpatriotic!)

Then there's Starbucks, who just can't seem to execute a simple idea with any degree of authenticity and credibility (mystarbucksidea versus Dell's Ideastorm) who are magnanimously offering a free TALL cup of their bitter coffee all in the name of democracy. They even create a 30-second spot to celebrate copy like this:

What if we all cared enough to vote?

Not just 54% of us, but 100% of us?

What if we cared as much on Nov. 5th as we care on Nov. 4th?

What if we cared all of the time the way we care some of the time?

What if we cared when it was inconvenient as much as we care when it’s convenient?

Would your community be a better place?

Would our country be a better place?

Would our world be a better place?

We think so, too.

If you care enough to vote, we care enough to give you a free cup of coffee.

Come into Starbucks on Nov. 4th, tell us you voted, and we'll proudly give you a tall cup of brewed coffee on us.

You and Starbucks. It's bigger than coffee.

Don't get me wrong...the message is admirable and right on the money, but come on...."you and Starbucks" and all this for the smallest cup of coffee on the menu?

I guess the question is whether you agree or not. So while we're on the subject of voting....vote here:

Online Surveys & Market Research

Unpolitco linkety-link

It's linkety-link for the independents within us all:

• Osama Bin Twitter? And you thought Barack had problems. So apparently the proof of concept that a technology has gone mainstream is now 3-fold: the appearance of porn, gambling and alleged terrorism! Sheesh!
• When I went to college in South Africa, I studied Marketing from a textbook authored by Philip Kotler. Now I get to present on the same bill as my Marketing idol.
• Social Media Marketing Advertising Branding Communications Conversation defined by Peter Kim (click the link and you'll get a better understanding)
• The Guidance Economy - lead on my brother, lead on....
• How brands thrived during the Great Depression by Dave Chase (hint: it involved alcohol. Lots of it!)
• Tim Bray from Sun Microsystems is the latest rogue to steal my trademark on the word "conversation"
• The first Twinterview between myself and Jason Baer
• Creativity isn't a destination; it's a meeting place. The launch of Meet is worth its pound of flesh.
• Need more juice for your iPhone. Click here
• Every year, 12.9 million people turn 31 on a Saturday. Celebrate this unique community here. I have no clue where this goes but they had me at "every"
• Armano gives me a migraine with this post on unconventional marketing. I hate how he makes me think. Here's another one on the 4 kinds of free. Looks like someone is trying to write themselves into a new book being written....
• Tim Collins from Wells Fargo reads Jaffe Juice. If only the folks over at Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns and AIG had done the same...
• The A-Z of better blog engagement
• Microsoft gets nailed from both sides - first from stereotyping stereotypes in their PC vs Mac ad and then from the latest Mac vs PC ad which exposes the ultimate disconnect of modern day marketing: instead of focusing on fixing a bad product, we invest our money into advertising instead

• NYU's Jay Rosen gives a very thoughtful presentation titled, "If Bloggers Had No Ethics Blogging Would Have Failed, But it Didn't. So Let's Get a Clue." Check it out here.
• Unrelated, how do bloggers make money...