Strategic Public Relations

Fight Club 2.0: AdWeek’s Digital Hot List | Brian Morrissey Interview

Reading AdWeek’s “2009 Digital Hot List” it becomes clear we’re in store for a dynamic and competitive digital landscape in 2010.

As the brands on the list fight for market share, it almost reads like a script for Fight Club 2.0.

Brian Morrissey provided Strategic Public Relations his opinion on some of these brands and, in the process, some insight into the Hot List.

1) Social networks are comparable to a bar scene. There's always a hot bar everyone goes to until it gets old and they move onto the next hot bar. How long can Facebook hold onto their hot bar status that, in part, put them in your top spot?
MySpace was 3rd or 4th on this list a few years ago. The same could arguably happen to Facebook. Will it become uncool now that the demographic is expanding? Keep in mind the list is a present to near past snapshot of digital category leaders vs. a forward-looking prediction. That said there’s no reason to believe it will be less popular in the near term.

2) Hulu announced a pay model is forthcoming. With cable TV challenging Hulu with TV Everywhere coming from cable as a challenger, what do you think will happen next?
Hulu has been a trailblazing video delivery platform. They took a lot of heat initially. TechCrunch used to mock them – not anymore. They’re a catalyst for change in an industry desperately needing it. Digital distribution can work well for the television industry. The impact of a subscription on Hulu remains to be seen. But as I understand it, this will be a premium option and the base content will continue to be free.

3) What can mainstream media learn from the brands on this list? Bob Garfield would remind us they're all (f-ing) doomed, but if social is more popular than porn as your article states, can social save mainstream media?
There are challenges facing traditional business models and traditional distribution models. There are some traditional media on the list represented by their digital offshoots...but not many. WSJ.com is succeeding with its subscription/advertising model mix. Other media are now trying to organize around social as a delivery model. Readers are gaining increasing amounts of control based on their recommendations. They are beginning to determine traffic patterns instead of a Google algorithm.

4) Twitter is polarizing to say the least with lovers and haters. Can Twitter make money? It would seem that would quiet both camps and Twitter would settle down into a platform you either use or you do not use.
As far as making money, it’s not a question of if Twitter will make money, simply a question of when. Twitter is sitting on a mountain of real-time consumer intention data. There is a significant business leveraging this facet of Twitter. The recent Google and Microsoft deals underscore the importance of this information. If you start looking at Twitter as an intention data platform instead of a microblogging platform, it gets interesting.

5) OK, Rocky IV reminds me of Google and Bing. Bing seems to be Rocky to Google's Drago...they made Google bleed! Less than 10 percent market share/blood, but still. Is social search the next big fight between the two search super powers?
There was much debate with my colleagues at AdWeek on whether or not the $80 million marketing spend around Bing’s launch also bought it a spot on this list. Will it keep the gains it made on Google? As long as marketers want an alternative to Google, they have a shot. What’s a market without any competition? Bing is hope for marketers. As far as which one will own social search, that remains to be seen.

6) My last fight with a brand on the Hot List is iPhone and Android. The iPhone has more than 100,000 apps in its corner. But Android seems to be gearing up for a serious cage match with iPhone. Will the consumer benefit?
The consumer will definitely benefit by having another alternative to the iPhone. It’s tough to compete with THE mobile platform with 100,000 apps in their store. But if there is a digital war waged in 2010, iPhone and Android will be one of the battles in this war.

Storytelling’s Link to Social Marketing Success | SummitUp 2009

SummitUp brought together some of the best and brightest in Ohio's social media scene as well as industry luminaries like Chris Brogan and Bob Garfield. Fueled in no small part by the passion and determination of David E. Bowman, the event was a complete success and I was honored to kick it off with my keynote presentation.

"What's Your Story?" details how the craft of storytelling can help us deal with the challenges social media creates. I consider these challenges a bit of a paradox as my slides and video will explain. But the very technology that is bringing us together with people from around the world also prevents us with truly connecting with people.

My presentation serves as a refresher course on storytelling, gives some examples of how it's being used in social media by non-profits and consumer brands in everything from big strategic plays to the littlest of details. It also gives 12 action items to challenge attendees to apply storytelling to their job and improve social marketing efforts.

Some additional resources from the presentation can be found here.

What's Your Story?

View more documents from prblog.

Marketing Meets Augmented Reality

Like most marketers, augmented reality popped up on my radar when GE used it to unveil its Smart Grid technology.

The ability to create a digital hologram is intriguing, but it always seems to be applied to sci-fi technology or futuristic plans. I’ve wondered how someone might put it to more practical use.

Meijer*, a client of Empower MediaMarketing, answers my curiosity with the “Be Transformed in 3-D” promotion.

Having Fun with Masks
The microsite allows you to try on four different masks – using a web cam and augmented reality. You can record a :30 second video message using a voice to match each mask and send it to someone via email, share it via Twitter or post it to your Facebook profile.

It’s a lot of fun and reminds me of Office Max’s Elf Yourself with an augmented reality spin – a perfect mix for Halloween. But consider the practical implications at work here. Trying on a product in the comfort of your own home using augmented reality could easily become a long term must have for retailers. At the 2009 NRF, some of the latest dressing room technology contained similar holographic options to eliminate the need to change into several outfits.

The end result is a higher probability to purchase a product. Meijer’s site also offers the masks for sale on the site and in stores. There is also a coupon for purchasing a web cam on the site. It will be interesting to see if this use of augmented reality starts a trend of more practical and fun applications moving forward.

*As I noted above, Meijer is a client. I work on the account. I’m posting about it because I’m genuinely interested in this promotion.

AMP, #PepsiFail and staying on brand

There's been lots of discussion around the iPhone App "AMP UP Before You Score" from Pepsi's AMP Energy Drink. Let me see if I can sum it up.

The Issue: The AMP app profiles 24 types of women, from "Cougar" and "Athlete" to "Out of Your League" and "Married."

Each profile provides unfortunate content including pickup lines and other information to help the user "score." It also has a brag function which allows users to promote and share their efforts via email, Facebook or Twitter. The app states: "Get lucky? Add her to your Brag List. You can include a name, date and whatever details you remember."

The Outrage: Needless to say, the immature, chauvinistic app has Twitter frothing. The vitriol is understandable. It even elicited an apology from AMP.

"Our app tried 2 show the humorous lengths guys go 2 pick up women. We apologize if it’s in bad taste & appreciate your feedback. #pepsifail"

Whether or not it's a genuine apology, it's smart because it:
* acknowledges the issue
* addresses the issue where the conversation is taking place vs. on the company's web site
* uses the #pepsifail tag to ensure the apology reaches the right people on Twitter. While some feel they should distance themselves from Pepsi, I highly doubt that's even remotely possible.

But AMP has done nothing else. And by not removing the app from the iTunes store, the amount of ill will for the AMP brand and for Pepsi has snowballed.

The Brand: It's obvious and understandable why people are offended by this app. I downloaded it to write this post and will be removing it promptly. But it bears noting that, if nothing else, it appears to be on brand. I'm not the target audience. Disclosure: Starbucks is the only energy drink I consume and have been happily married for more than 11 years.

But the site, including the Yo Mamma Slam and extreme sports sponsorships, seems to be geared to the same target audience. While AMP takes a slightly different approach, it reminds me of the positioning around Axe grooming products. 

The Strategy: The brand claims the app is a lighthearted attempt at humor vs. a misogynistic tool. But the concept and a variety of details in the app are a bit over the top. AMP knew it was competing with 76,000 other apps in the iTunes store. It even created a YouTube video riffing off the Apple "There's an app for that" commercials to promote it. AMP knew it needed to push the envelope to stand out. Perhaps they planned for controversy to fuel that promotion. Mission accomplished.

The Hypocrisy: If AMP had pulled the app, I can already see pundits like myself saying that AMP over-reacted to a Twitter mob mentality. Motrin received a similar rap when it responded quickly to a negative response one of its ads received online. AMP acknowledged the situation, something other brands don't always do, and they moved on.

We criticize brands for not responding online. Do we also get to criticize them when we feel they haven't responded to the degree of our expectations or even exceeded those expectations? Every "social media expert" shaking their head to the affirmative as they read this might also want to consider the cost to develop an iPhone app and then shelve it.

The Bottom Line: Does Motrin Moms set up the expectation that brands must instantly go to extremes when negative conversations first pop up? Perhaps, but I think Motrin Moms did so because its target audience was up in arms – the very consumers they’re trying to get buy their product. And, while I agree that the app is in poor taste, this does not appear to be a similar case.

I'm impressed by brands that use Twitter to monitor the conversation and respond as quickly as possible. But at the risk of increasing ire, I'm not sure AMP should remove the app. I think this is a new wrinkle. Brands might not be able to do everything we want. Or they simply might not be willing to do everything we want -- when we're not the target consumer.

We’re certainly reinforcing AMPs stance by drawing even more attention and Google juice to the application. That’s the real energy drink fueling this conversation.

AMP assumed its app would be ignored during the concepting stage. They designed it to get attention. Perhaps the lesson is that the proper response from Twitter, and consumers like me, is to do the exact opposite of our reaction up to this point. We should move from outrage to silence.

Much Ado About Avatars

From the minutia department, I’ve been talking a lot about Twitter avatars lately. I enjoy swapping out my avatar. It’s my version of a t-shirt --expressing my personality in a small way. And, as I have my pic on my Twitter background, people can put a face with the name the first time a person follows me.

This goes against conventional Twitter wisdom. In Trust Agents, Brogan and Smith recommend using your picture across all social site profiles in an effort to be more human online. Even Twitter notes: “A real picture of yourself is encouraged. It adds personableness to your tweets.”

But avatars are very polarizing. The Bob Ross and Big Boy avatars never fail to encourage Twitter love. While the Charlton Heston and Hanson Brother avatars usually wig people out a bit. The end result is that changing out my avatars has become a great conversation starter on Twitter.

At the same time Trust Agents also talks about the benefit of going against conventional wisdom. The book devotes an entire chapter to making your own game. Now I’m not going to try and tell you that swapping out my avatars is a strategy or a game-changing technique on Twitter. Or is it?

Millions of Mad Men
AMC’s MadMen Yourself is the most recent avatar-swapping craze to hit Twitter. It resulted in 1 million visits to AMC’s microsite and 600,000 avatars have been created. This is a great example of everyone wanting to wear the MadMen t-shirt by turning themselves into an early 60’s cartoon. And it successfully flies in the face of Twitter wisdom. Sure I can see a resemblance between people and their avatars, but only if I already know what they look like.

At the end of the day, I guess I’m saying there’s more than one way to skin your profile on Twitter. Whatever approach you take, make sure your tweets, background and profile give potential followers a good idea of who you are as a person.

avatari uploaded by prblog

Selling Ideas with Words, Numbers and Pictures

We're always trying to tell more compelling stories...delivering messages that get our point across credibly and effectively with our target audiences.

It's one of the reason research and hard numbers(regardless of the sample size) tend to make big news.

When creating messaging to tell a story, consider if words, numbers, pictures or a combination of all three get the job done. Let's say you're trying to note that Wal-Mart has far more stores than their nearest competitor.

omg, Wal-Mart has a freakin' buttload of stores.
or
Wal-Mart has over 4100 stores and clubs in the U.S.
or
As you can see above, the biggest retailer in the world covers an area larger than Manhattan.

All Hail the Infographic
Especially in our social world where people pass around good content like a joint at Woodstock, turning a compelling factoid into an infographic gives you the ability to share it and to share it much more easily than in the past.

And while it would behoove you to work with a graphic designer in creating said infographic (to ensure it doesn't look jank), if you have no other option you can jump into Powerpoint, use Smart Art to create your own and save the slide out as a .jpg.

You can see the dramatic impact a visual makes in truly getting a point across. Creating one is time well spent.

Cross-posted to the Bad Pitch Blog

Considering Blended Media

My last few posts detail how the old approach to media outreach isn’t working with bloggers and how blogger relations takes more time compared to traditional media relations.

Add to this recent FTC Guidelines and anyone moving from pitching traditional media to building relationships with bloggers needs to revisit their plans.

One thing that hasn’t changed is client needs. They have to justify their marketing spend – even defend it when investing in social media. A 2.0 world of experimentation and soft metrics has given way to the need for scale and a better idea of expectations -- due in part to the economy.

Paid │ Earned
These factors are evolving my thinking of paid and earned media. As a quick refresher, let’s define terms. Paid media comes with guaranteed placement and total control of the message. Earned media does not pay for placement and, as a result, you don’t know the message until you see it online, in print or elsewhere.

Early in my career, I kept paid media and earned media as separate as church and state. This was in part a reflection of my passion for public relations. As various marketing disciplines were more siloed back then it was easy to do. As the integrated marketing campaigns I worked on grew in size and budget, I saw how much paid media and earned media need each other. In some instances one serves as ground cover for the other as part of the campaign strategy.

Blended Media
Viewing the paradox of blogger relations and client needs, I’ve wondered if there isn’t middle ground that would blend some benefits of paid and earned media without coming off looking like an advertorial, infomercial or worse.

The topic was also  discussed during a recent panel discussion I was on with Pete Blackshaw, Dave Knox and Suzanne Tosolini at Cincinnati's Digital Hub Conference.

According to Blackshaw,

“There is so much evidence across the web that "earned media" -- consumer-generated media, social media, conversation, variants of PR -- is creating meaningful lift and value for brands that we now need to think more critically about resource and spending allocations.

“Here is an attempt to acknowledge that paid media often serves as a critical stimulus or even vitamin for "earned media." Moreover, in a world of crowdsourcing and co-creation, "earned media" is increasingly becoming a core input into the paid equation. Yes, we must always accommodate that fuzzy middle.

Blackshaw created the above diagram as a possible model for paid, earned and blended media. There's potential in blended media that circumvents the old ways of doing things with this new audience.

Collaborating in the Middle
Let’s consider some completely fictitious scenarios as examples. Sharpie does an excellent job of marketing their products from Susan Wassel’s tireless efforts and showing up at Fashion Week to sponsoring NASCAR and encouraging artists to push the limits using their products.

So for their next product launch, instead of bombing bloggers with product samples, what if Sharpie teamed up with Hugh MacLeod and developed a cartoon generator widget?

Sharpie would fully disclose their involvement. It’s not an ad or a sponsorship, but the end result is more predictable than potential blog posts resulting from product mailings. The pitch becomes a collaboration where Hugh is the creative director, Sharpie is the sponsor and the end result is shared across the web.

Some would argue that collaboration is the ultimate connection with a specific audience online. This is just one example of how funding gets to the end result more quickly. But it’s done in an acceptable, fully-disclosed fashion. 

In the Mix
Social media and blogger relations are still a nascent field. We’re applying a few years of experience against projects compared to entire careers in other marketing disciplines. But as we continue to build programs that do more than simply broadcast across social media platforms, I think we'll see more examples of blended media.

Before Apple’s 1984, There was Daisy in 1964

Before every Super Bowl, over the last 25 years, we inevitably point to Apple’s 1984 as the “one-run” commercial that sets the bar for all other Super Bowl commercials.

But there was another one-run commercial that did more than build buzz off a major TV event -- it helped Lyndon Johnson stay in the White House. And it aired 45 years ago this week.

According to Time magazine:

”The most famous political campaign ad played only once, during a September 7, 1964 NBC Monday Night at the Movies broadcast. Referred to as "Daisy Girl," the ad — Lyndon Johnson's response to a statement by Republican candidate Barry Goldwater that he would consider using nuclear weapons in Vietnam — created an immediate controversy and was pulled from the air.

“But news organizations picked up the spot and ran it in their nightly news segments, increasing its influence by an order of magnitude. Daisy Girl is now credited with helping Johnson defeat Goldwater in the 1964 election.

The Stuff of which “Mad Men” is made
In researching this post, I found a web site that digs deeply to explore the history behind this ad. It feels like an episode of Mad Men just waiting to happen. Ad history buffs should check it out.

People still wonder aloud if another 1984 spot will grace the Super Bowl -- where a single :30 second spot will cost $3 million this year.

But media and consumer habits have changed too dramatically in the last 10 years to get a one-run hit. Media fragmentation alone has impacted the likelihood of a TV event locking in an audience large enough to warrant a "one-run" investment. It will never happen.

Or will it?

The One-Run Misnomer
These one-run examples took place before an ad could go viral. But Daisy Girl and 1984 arguably did just that. How? The media helped propel Daisy and 1984 to their now historic perches in the :30 second spot hall of fame. Daisy Girl even wound up on the cover of Time magazine.

One-run is a misnomer when describing these ads. 45 years later viral also tends to be a misnomer. Much like one-run ads, viral is often pointed to as a goal. But viral is not a goal or a strategy. It's an outcome.

So we may see more examples of Daisy and 1984. But more than anything else we'll see examples of failed attempts at going viral...examples that probably failed for all the right reasons.

Dell Makes a Social Shopping “Swarm”

If you’re like me (condolences), when you’re thinking of buying a computer you consult a tech savvy colleague, a friend who works in IT or a nerdy teen a.k.a. digital native. Or you might be into social shopping where the so-called “wisdom of the crowd” points you to the best products.

 

These approaches might help you specify your purchase. But they do not necessarily help you narrow down the best price.

 

But what if you also consulted other’s in the market for a new computer and organized them into one group so you could all get a better price? Group purchasing is common among large companies and buying cooperatives to achieve lower prices on individual items by buying in bulk. Dell is harnessing this group model with a word of mouth component to create its new Swarm program.

 

Swarm, Share and Save

Andy Lark and Lionel Menchaca/@LionelatDELL point us to the pilot program that debuted in Singapore and, as the video above details, is currently running in Canada.

 

The more you have in your group, the more you save. So there's incentive to spread the word about Dell and this program to your personal online networks. It’s an interesting model and it even has a feature reminiscent of Priceline where you commit to a purchase at a certain price. This wraps you into someone else’s group buy. The program means that Canadian consumers can get Dell computers cheaper than they would on the Dell.ca site.

 

Swarm reminds me of the Laptop Hunter ads as another example of how the PC is competing with the Mac in our current value-conscious economy.

Text vs. E-mail or Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants

Call me Mr. Obvious here, but I had an interesting experience at my coffeehouse recently.

Cashing in a frequent buyer’s card for a free, highly-caffeinated beverage, my barista encouraged me to sign up for information on future promotions and events.

She told me to write down my cell phone or, if I was willing, my email.

This struck me as odd. Personally I’d hand over an email address before I’d give over my cell phone number. My barista noted that most customers don’t consider a quick text (a temporary message passing through their phone) to be as intrusive as an e-mail (a permanent, official message clogging up their inbox).

This makes sense. But it also shows the digital immigrant in me.

Media Post reinforces this, noting “52% of Millennials strongly appreciate communication via cell phone or text message and 55% said the same about social networking sites. This compares with the General Population at 38% and 39%, respectively.”

Bottom line is that yesterday’s approaches are working less effectively today and they aren’t going to work at all tomorrow.

they’re already into texting uploaded by Kendrya