For sweet and scrumptious times ahead, a compendium of links that caught my eye, head and/or heart (but not necessarily in that order)
Fellow crayonista, Greg Verdino, reflects on a piece by Max Kalehoff which underpin the strong organizational forces required to implement against social media change. The primary bullets include customer experience, company values, listening, humanizing voice and confidence and organizational silos. Good stuff.
This definitely warrants a separate post...and rant (it's coming), but for now feast your eyes on what is arguably, the worst brand offense at not just faking, manipulating, dominating, controlling or avoiding the conversation (as per Join the Conversation), but in this particular case an entirely new category: STEALING the conversation. 3M/Post-It: you are on official Jaffe Juice notice. Some brands just don't deserve to have the opportunity to join the conversation.
File this under "how the hell did they pull this off???!!!" - Diesel promotes their XXX global party with this one-in-a-billion video (watch out for the Harmonica)
Is this the worst commercial on TV right now? PS AT&T now that you've found the Internet on deserted islands and in Yeti's back yard, perhaps you can do something about Westport, the I95 around New Rochelle and LGA airport.
More on why this is the year of mobile, no it's not, yet it is, no it's not, yes it is....or perhaps next year will be.
Not sure if this link will work, but it's a great demonstration of Facebook as a conversation "keeper." In this case (assuming you can't get in), Warren Sukernek has aggregated various blogger's posts (all of whom are on Facebook) into a central theme and tagged them accordingly. It's a great way to a) get the contributing bloggers' attention and b) create a visual and uncluttered conversation via comments
BL Ochman wrote this piece in one of the advertising trades titled, "10 reasons your company shoudn't blog" and specifically references requests for CEO blogs within this corporate category.
Perhaps all of these alarmingly regular requests to BL are being adhered to, as only 74 of Fortune's 500 largest companies (representing 15%) have any semblance of a direct relationship/conversation with their customers.
Personally, I think this approach is dead wrong. In today's day and age, "authenticity, transparency and purpose" (I'm quoting the Senate Banking Committee) are stabilizing forces that keep us honest. Moreover, as marketers we have never had the ability (nor perhaps will we ever have such an opportunity) to establish and maintain such a powerful, undiluted and open pathway of communication between ourselves and our customers. Never.
Whilst I recognize that most attempts or efforts at corporate blogging can be miserable, pathetic, superficial and/or downright embarrassing, isn't it up to us to steward and guide our clients through this virgin territory and proving ground in order to demonstrate how impactful this can truly be?
So with that said, I'd like to build a top 10 list here to counter BL's list and with it, points including "you need to read constantly to be a good blogger", "you need original content" and "you need to drive traffic to a blog".
Perhaps BL can set the ball rolling with some of her reasons in favor of companies committing themselves to their customers....
There's no question that Fantasy Sports has become a huge interactive draw card and conversation starter. So much so that ESPN has regular programming dedicated to who's hot, who's not and trade rumors/recommendations etc.
In fact, when I was asked in an interview at ExactTarget's user conference what was the one e-mail I always look forward to/open up every day...I said my Fantasy Baseball update.
...but this post is not about how brands can tap into fantasy sports or what the conversational marketing implications are with respect to Fantasy Sports, it's more to reflect on this South African-born player's victory in a league of his geeky peers!
That's right, "Bobo the Clown" (my team) has just wrapped up a momentous and awesome victory in the coveted, "Social Media Geeks Unite" fantasy league, besting the following power players in the process:
Fantasy Twits gave me a run right at the end, but ultimately the clowns proved too much for the competition!
I guess there are some "community" proof points in this story. I did use twitter to round up a league of social media folk and within 30 minutes or so we had our 10 players. We even created a Twitter ID, but truth be told it wasn't used much. In fact, the smack talk was rather minimal throughout the season. Perhaps next year...
Lessons learned from this rookie? Simple. Never follow your heart. If I had, I would have had a Yankees-filled lineup that would surely have underdelivered.
Value bets: Xavier Nady (who was a Pirate when I acquired him), Jamie Moyer and Cory Hart MVP's: C.C. Sabathia, Johan Santana and Grady Sizemore
The entire episode is dedicated to my conversation with Frank Eliason AKA Twitter's comcastcares (www.twitter.com/comcastcares). Audio comments to +1 206 203-3255. Customer service inquiries to: [email protected]
Exhibit A: Billed as the first ever interactive game in YouTube, there's this from Hexolabs. Taking advantage of annotations, it's a pretty low-tech demonstration of non-linear video storytelling. Pretty cool for that reason. Not so much from a gaming standpoint, although there are endless possibilities with respect to "choose your own adventure"
Exhibit B: The return of Shoshkeles. The effect is nothing new (in fact I was reluctantly doing this for K-mart at TBWA\Chiat\Day in 2001), so a big yawn for YouTube trying to demonstrate their advanced knowledge of advertising 2.0, however accolades for Nintendo, with a bulls-eye representation of strategy and creative in perfect synchronization for WarioLand. Check it out here.
PS Half a point for YouTube insofar that all the functionality seems to be working post-effect.
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.
(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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Also, before I move on....where were the outtakes? casting calls? deleted scenes? etc? This is such a 101 from about 10 years ago.
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?
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
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.
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.
Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe are at it again. I had the pleasure of meeting this dynamic duo at TCCC (that's The Coca-Cola Company) when they wowed the folks at Coke with a demonstration of a conversation which for the longest time, Coca-Cola either ignored or refused to join.
That was then...and since then, Coca-Cola embraced Eepybird and did this together with them:
This is now. Eepybird + Post-It = OfficeMax and Coca-Cola in support, but no 3M to speak of. Confused? You should be. It's hard to figure out who's who in this particular zoo. There's Samurai Girl on ABC Family (pretty damn good content integration if I've ever seen) There's OfficeMax (conventional brand integration/sponsorship, which makes sense) There's Coca-Cola (who seem to be quietly in support, taking a rather passive back seat...perhaps a little too passive in my opinion)
What there isn't, is 3M i.e. Post-its. And what would any social media story be without the clumsy, stumbling brand, right? Stephen (hat tip) questions their lack of response, but I'm pretty sure they're somewhere in this mix...anywhere on the continuum of tacit legal endorsement to backstage producers.
That said, there can be no doubt (can there?) that a more active role could and should be present, front and center. I just don't buy the, "why-would-we-need-to-do-anything-because-it's-being-done-anyway-and-besides-our-presence-would-only-detract-from-the-authenticity-and-or-overall-impact" argument - even if it's true. It's just a cop-out and/or lazy position to take.
In any event, let's not take anything away from this fantastic demonstration of raw (material) creativity. I think I even prefer this to the original. Enjoy!!!
There are just not enough case studies or accounts of brands investing in podcasting...let alone any discussion on their efficacy, value and ultimately success. Thanks to Cat Moriarty from USPS, you'll hear a frank account of her reflections on this investment. Also in this episode, blog(ger) maturation, podfading part deux, as well as a listener generated Winners (K-mart) 'n Losers (Best Buy). Audio comments to +1 206 203-3255. Join the Facebook group.
CNN's Rick Sanchez has my attention. He's using Facebook and Twitter really effectively to engage his viewers during his broadcast. From what I saw the other night on TV, he's really committed to this with not only frequent on air promos, but is following through by acknowledging some of the many comments he's getting along the way.
When last I checked Rick has 11,644 followers versus Scoble's 33,896 and from what I gathered, Sanchez only launched this last week. How long do you think before he takes Bobby out? A week? A month?
MSM bites back to demonstrate this not about "OR", but indeed about "AND".
to the reincarnated and reinvigorated Jaffe Juice.
What was once a weekly op-ed column is now an unshackled, uncensored and uninhibited dialogue
on the subjects of new marketing, advertising and creativity.
The blogosphere has been lit up over the past week or two regarding the new campaign from 
CNN's 
Recent Comments