Strategic Public Relations

Infographic: At 5, the #Hashtag is One Versatile Character

The Hashtag celebrated its fifth birthday yesterday.

We were inspired to create an infographic capturing how a single character could become "kind of a big deal."

Multiple Media Channels
The hashtag has done more than help Twitter with its paid media strategy. It has expanded past Twitter to  integrate with other sites like Facebook. It has also impacted offline media channels, including TV and print as you see in the picture above.

It's a great reminder that simple can be very powerful.

The infographic reviews the hashtag's history, how it's being used across media channels and also includes tips for brands on how to use them more effectively.

Be sure to check it out. 

Marketing Paradox: Going Against The Norm

"If you want something you've never had, then you've got to do something you've never done." -- Drina Reed

This quote is Pinterest porn but, in marketing, it can also be a bit of a paradox. When an industry succeeds moving in one direction, it can be hard to justify diverting from their path. Yet more than one CMO takes this quote to heart and unveils a plan that goes against the current.

Their goal may be to re-establish the brand or to reach aggressively beyond incremental results. And the trades use words like bold, visionary and innovative to describe these CMOs -- until some of their plans don't succeed.

The trades then suggest that, when an entire industry goes in one direction, wasn't it obvious to the brand it was wandering off the path?

Auto Insurance's Character Nation
Take the auto insurance category for example. The image above shows spokespeople from (top to bottom, left to right): Geico, Progressive, Farmer's Insurance, State Farm, Allstate, Nationwide and SafeAuto. To be fair, at least three of the above spokespeople have been retired.

From the old to the new, each spokesperson's narrative has been entertaining at one point or another, in aggregate like this it looks like a sea of sameness. In an industry where price can commoditize your product, it makes it even more critical to differentiate the brand through advertising.

So why are some of the brand's with the highest awareness in the category mirroring its competitors approach to advertising? We can assume it sells policies.

But Liberty Mutual has taken an altogether different direction, focusing on content marketing to broaden the conversation with its audience to create a more sustainable, long-term relationship.

The Responsibility Project 
Liberty Mutual’s Responsibility Project doesn't follow a “character-focused” narrative — like the bulk of its competitors. These characters, and their back stories, can be entertaining, but it takes more than a brand’s latest ad campaign to create, and sustain, ongoing consumer engagement. No matter how popular the campaign, consumers will eventually lose interest.

Liberty Mutual’s content focuses on “what it means to do the right thing.” The site quickly notes the right thing isn’t always black and white. This statement helps humanize Liberty Mutual. It's a path beyond using a spokesperson to create the emotional connection — and it helps prompt a discussion.

It may take some time to weigh in on whether or not Liberty Mutual's efforts make a business impact. But I'll argue that when a brand swims against the current, it takes longer to make progress.

It's Not Just Ads Making Dad Look Bad

Along with several other timely Father's Day stories, I've got something to say. But it's more of a question.

Why is the ad industry taking all of the heat for portraying dads in a bad light?

Don't get me wrong, I can't agree more with Adweek's "The Demise of the Doofus Dad in Ads."  Ads have made Dad's out as incompetent. But the ads are getting better.

Thank You Mom, Here's to Dad!
This progress was made clear to me after wondering aloud why I kept seeing P&G's "Thank You Mom" campaign so close to Father's Day. This campaign is P&G's biggest ever and it will run across TV and Facebook, amongst other platforms, through the Olympic Games. And it's an awesome ad. 

LOVE the P&G/Mom/Olympics commercial. But as it runs closer to Father's Day, I'm wondering...didn't Dad help them win those medals too?

— Kevin Dugan (@prblog) June 14, 2012

But it was quickly, and accurately, pointed out to me that there's a companion ad and perhaps my family and I were simply watching the wrong TV shows. So "Here's to Dad."



TV as a Whole Should Get "Credit"
As the ad industry makes progress, Dad comes off as an even bigger joke across a variety of TV shows. From popular comedies like Modern Family and long-running shows like Two & A Half Men to quickly cancelled shows and even Disney shows like Good Luck Charlie. This doesn't even consider animated shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy and American Dad.

My point is there are plenty of examples throughout mainstream media and popular culture that reinforce these stereotypes. Movements like the Dad 2.0 Summit have their work cut out for them as we see progress in just one facet of the doofus Dad syndrome.

Family Unit Morphing
Brands and TV should take the lead of other industries that are responding to a much broader issue. The definition of family has changed and it continues to change. As a result, consumer needs are also changing and our industry needs to change with it.

Local, Social & Mobile Trends from Mary Meeker

When I saw Mary Meeker present at Conversational Marketing Summit, it was a race between my hands and my keyboard as to which one would fail first. The keyboard won as she moved through her Internet trends presentation with the substance of an academic and the speed of an auctioneer.

Meeker's All Things D presentation maintained her "legendary" style. But it's less style and more substance with her presentations.



Early Results on Local, Social, Mobile
The above interview summarizes Meeker's slides wherein she notes the industry is "still figuring out local and social, but we'll get there." Monetizing mobile content remains challenging, in part as mobile adoption is still in early stages, but adoption rates are increasing rapidly.

Business Model Innovation
Meeker also looks at several business models being re-imagined and re-invented thanks to mobile and social. And while "there’s a lot to excited about in technology, there are things to be worried about regarding America’s financial situation."

Whether you try to navigate the slides or watch the video, it's time well spent.

Cross-Posted to my Work Blog 

The Power of Unassuming Brands (a lesson from Signal P&G)

The Signal P&G event brought together brands we see in the news almost daily -- from Twitter and Facebook to Coca-Cola and more. But the brands on Procter & Gamble's dais getting less media attention, or perhaps less positive media attention, were more interesting that day. Presentations from Amazon, AOL and Nokia taught me to reconsider the power of unassuming brands.

These companies are not startups or unknowns. But news coverage can suggest that new brands may "kill" more established brands. Stories with only one clear winner, atop a pile of competitors, make for shareable content. It's Mashable pr0n -- a syndrome of oversimplification I've ranted about before. But as these stories distract our attention, several unassuming brands have quietly become pervasive and have a much bigger story to tell. 

The Mighty Amazon
After Amazon launched in 1995, a then client suggested the site was a ponzi scheme. Not only was he wrong, he was one of the first of many Amazon naysayers. But for most of us, we've come to know Amazon as one of the only Internet mall concepts from the dot com era that came to fruition. Signal P&G reminded of some interesting Amazon facts and I've since seen more in the news.

• 80% better Amazon app store monetization for developers compared to iOS (TechCrunch)
• 54% of tablets run Amazon's version of Android to Google's 46% (All Things D)
• 10% of Amazon’s 2011 sales were Kindle readers, Kindle books; Kindle book sales outnumber hardback book sales (All Things D/NYTimes)
• 1% of ALL Internet traffic taps into Amazon’s Cloud (WIRED)

With more than 170 million active customers, keep in mind that's users actually spending money, Amzaon has the scale and ability to personalize the shopping experience. The end result gets users to spend and brands to advertise. Amazon taps into more than its fair share of the daily deals phenomenon that's estimated to generate $7 million every day. In addition to AmazonLocal, it owns LivingSocial. Amazon also leverages its personalization technology to create MyHabit.com. This “private sale” site and mobile app offers brand-specific promotions – tailored to each user.

Amazon Drives Offline Sales for Crest
It's not surprising P&G has experienced great success selling its consumer packaged goods (CPG) through Amazon. CPG is Amazon's fastest growing category -- making up four percent of Amazon’s 2011 sales. A Crest White Strips campaign gave the brand a 26 percent lift in its Amazon sales and even had an impact on offline sales. P&G's Amazon-based campaign increased offline sales an additional eight percent, or $1 million according to Lisa Utzschneider, Amazon's Global VP of Ad Sales .

And if the above all seem like random facts, consider this quote from Forrester Research's Sucharita Mulpuru "Amazon is beating Walmart in price." That six-word metric is reason enough why this brand should not be underestimated.

UPDATE: The New York Times has an article since this was published about how Amazon's moving into Fashion as well. And I forgot that Amazon also owns Zappos. Wow.

AOL’s Content Marketing Play
As the internet expands, consumers are actually using fewer brands, according to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. This gives brands a new significance as AOL builds out what it feels will be the premier information brand.

"It’s unlikely a consumer will make a purchase decision, large or small, that is not influenced somehow by content," said Armstrong. "Consider the impact of always-on, mobile sites like Yelp. AOL’s ability to be a constant like Yelp gives it significant influence in helping consumers and brands through content."

Several of its recent aquisitions have made for dramatic news  between Huffington Post, Techcrunch and Endgadget alone. But these acquisitions are helping them build out their offering and fuels their mission to help more brands publish.

AOL gets local and personal
Successful or not, Patch and About.me are two other AOL projects that may be more telling of its future. Patch has been lambasted by old and new media. But Armstrong notes it is established in more than 850 towns nationwide. And each location costs about $150,ooo to run annually -- a cost unheard of for traditional news outlets. This local play could prove successful in the long term.

About.Me is elegant in its simplicity. This free splash page serves up your most relevant content, with free analytics. It's become a big people-watching site. And its new mobile app will allow you to be notified when your About.me friends are nearby offline. This might sound like stalking. But the bigger point to be made is AOL's wading into geo-location.

Armstrong is oft-mentioned in the media for all of the above AOL business moves. He is very focused, noting that AOL is focused on building things that help people live better lives. He warns others of the danger behind simply chasing the shiny new. "Cool is a disease. Utility is the antidote."

This focus is one reason I think AOL's story has yet to be written. As it completes its transition from access to content, there are a lot of interesting opportunities across paid, owned and earned media.

Nokia Life & Emerging Markets
While some are noting that "mobile is the most pervasive technology ever invented," there are 3.2 billion people on Earth without a mobile phone. Nokia's senior vp of mobile services, Dieter May, discussed how the brand is connecting and engaging "the next billion."

You'd never confuse Nokia for TOMS Shoes, but as Nokia enters emerging markets in China, India and Indonesia, it's partnering with Unicef to extend access to healthcare and other basic life needs through its $20-$100 handsets. Through Nokia Life the brand is bringing these customers a platform to address the gaps in critical, hyperlocal information.

Think Ecosystem
CNET's Brian Cooley kicked the day off discussing "the next big thing." When looking at various gadgets out there, CNET is always asked to predict the next big thing, but also who will win the race for gadget supremacy. CNET looks first for a product's digital ecosystem to determine how successful it might be in the future.

A digital ecosystem includes the device, a service, apps, as well as an operating system. Google has one. Apple has one. Verizon and Samsung have them. Amazon and Nokia do too.

All of these companies can provide its consumer with media that is in sync no matter where they use it, when they use it or even which device they use to access it. A digital ecosystem can make or break a gadget's success in the future. All that said, Cooley notes that even in a post-pc era, the PC will not go away. It simply won't be the center of attention. Cooley points to the connected car as the next frontier for the next big thing as we look to our cars' digital technology to communiicate, navigate, inform and entertain. 

"That's no moon."
Star Wars indirectly provides two examples of how we can make assumptions and by revisting these assumptions we can learn much more. When Yoda was first introduced, no one thought he could possibly be a Jedi warrior. As the story progresses, Yoda makes it clear that size doesn't matter. Even earlier in the saga, what was first assumed to be a small moon was actually the Death Star.

Sci-Fi aside, we should always remember t0 "shake the disease" and look for the bigger story.

 

 

TidyCat's Social Media Team Stops a Stink Over Its #lifestinks Campaign

TidyCats latest ad campaign spans online and offline to get consumers sharing about what stinks in their lives. But one of their ads created its own stink. To the brands' credit, they were listening and responded in less than 24 hours to stop a possible catfight with consumers.

Billboards localize the campaign by referencing what stinks in each market. I'm imagining traffic in Los Angeles, rain in Seattle and there are plenty of opportunities for the NYC subway. These examples are all harmless, even humorous, locally relevant and make TidyCats' point that #lifestinks.

Don't Trash the the Nati
If you were cooking up the ads for each market, would you make a joke about a city's neighborhood? In this case, a Cincinnati neighborhood that Wikipedia will tell you:

• has a rich history
• serious art community
• the most Italianate architecture in the United States
• and has been compared to Greenwich Village, NYC; Savannah, Georgia; Charlseton, South Carolina and New Orleans French Quarter?

As a proud resident of Cincinnati, I'm one of more than a few locals that aren't happy about the billboard. Tony Blankemeyer tipped me off to this bad ad on Friday night. And while the ad clearly sucks, I'm pleased to note TidyCats is taking steps to rectify the situation. After more than a few comments across Facebook, Twitter and the TidyCats campaign site, the brand replied less than 19 hours after I first saw the billboard.

"We appreciate your comments, Kevin. Our billboard mentioning OTR was meant to be humorous. We understand that to many of you, it wasn't. We will be taking fast action to correct our error. Please accept our apologies. - TidyCats Team "

Listen, Learn and Build Loyal Fans
This is a reminder of the importance of social listening and having a response plan in place to engage with consumers and address any unforseen concerns. It doesn't matter if social media is part of a brand campaign. In this case, it was an offline billboard that drew well-deserved ire. Social media is simply where the complaints took place.

TidyCats showed they were listening and taking action against a campaign that was raising a serious stink with Cincinnatians. And in in doing so, they stand to create more friends than foes. Full Disclosure: I'm a dog person. But I'm a fan of TidyCats now based on how this misstep was handled -- and over a holiday weekend no less.

Consumers will still vent their frustrations. But by acting quickly, TidyCats avoided consumers getting organized and the resulting brand pile on that can take place. It makes it much tougher for a brand to change the tone of the conversation.

Hunger Games' Social Media Lesson? The Need for Real-Time (Data) and Longer Lead Time

The word of mouth and promotional frenzy around Lionsgates' Hunger Games has been deafening. It helped the film break box office records -- before it even opened it seemed.

While I may never see the movie (I'm not the target audience), one thing I'm first to admit is that I really like how the movie was marketed.

According to this article in Forbes, the key to The Hunger Games' social media success can be attributed to the use of real-time input from fans and a healthy lead time to build momentum for the film.

"Lionsgate adopted a ongoing continuous process for  improvement based upon user data from their social channels. This is part of a trend where smart marketers are adopting a new approach, one that leverages dynamic customer input instead of the old style of phased, programatic marketing campaigns," says Vince Broady, CEO of thismoment.

Built for Change
It's easy to say, and no secret, that planning cycles and other operational processes need to be more flexible. We need to plan for change. And a steady stream of relevant data makes a more iterative cycle possible.

Whether they're in the digital or offline worlds, our efforts can be optimized for effectiveness and efficiency through real-time data much in the way Lionsgate did.

My data and analytics co-workers take this a step forward and suggest that data equates to a digital persona of the consumer. In a recent presentation entitled, "Humanizing Big Data for Insights & Action," they note that marketers must humanize this data if they are going to learn from it and act upon it.

Whether You're on Real-Time or Internet Time, Social Media Takes Time
For me,  the best part of this article is about midway through when the 10 month promotional build was revealed.

"It was back in June 2011 that Lionsgate and thismoment launched a series of social promotions on YouTube, Facebook, and other social sites to begin the social drumbeat around Hunger Games."

10 months. More than three quarters, but just shy of one full year. We've discussed the need for a committment as opposed to a campaign approach for social media. You cannot flip the switch in the way you can with paid media and create instant engagment with consumers.

So while people may tout social media's role in the success of The Hunger Games, I hope those same people acknowledge that it takes time to build a sustainable level of momentum.

Old Spice All Over Again?
The marketing sex appeal of the Old Spice case study created unfortunate misinformation shortly after Isaiah Mustafa took YouTube by storm. But P&G and its agencies worked long and hard to get things in place ahead of the online campaign. This includes a TV spot on the heels of the Super Bowl and its agency team embedding themselves in Reddit to build the street cred it takes to float a URL there with any success.

Tone Down the Infographic Pr0n
The 10 month factoid may not sex up "that infographic" you can bet we'll see wallpapering Pinterest as soon as I hit publish, but it's critical.

It's also another facet of social media's paradox. Real-data may be more important than ever to inform ever-changing marketing efforts, but it can't speed up the amount of time most marketing efforts require to get results.

5 Examples of How Social Media is Changing the 2012 Elections

There are plenty of ways you can use social media to follow the long march from the Iowa Caucus to the November Elections. Several sites, including Instagram and Tumblr, are being used by candidates for the first time to engage and inform citizens.

From behind the scenes access from the media and each candidate's content to larger sites tracking how the candidates are doing overall, here are just a few sites to check out.

1) 2012 Elections Site | Google: By far, Google does the best job of a non-news organization tapping its products to bring you a complete destination for bipartisan election content. It's using search, YouTube, Google+ and even Google Calendar to fuel its efforts. And in addition to covering the elections, it has a toolkit to get voters engaged in the process.

2) Media Mentions | Washington Post: Media Mentions tracks how candidates are doing in news coverage as well as on Twitter. And The New York Times, with the help of Big Data, will tell you that candidates who do better than expected will get more media coverage as a result.

3) Tapping Klout to Rank Candidates? | CNN: CNN using Klout is a big win for the polarizing ranking site. I'm hoping someone also comes back to note how well ALL of the platforms did as a predictor of candidate success. As we've already seen, unexpected outcomes are standard fare. And we're already seeing folks use a single social platform to make assertions about which candidate might/could win. UPDATE: Mashable asserts Twitter can predict who's winning the GOP presidential race.

This is uninformed and it's already being seen that the correlation between quantity of Twitter followers, Facebook likes and YouTube views does not necessarily correlate to the number of votes. In fact, this gets back to the discussion of influence. If someone has all the social buzz, but not the votes....

4) See the Elections Unfold | Instagram: The "niche photo site" points out three major news organizations using the platform to augment their coverage. And it gives me a wicked idea (evil laugh).

5) Politics & Election News | New York Times: Book-ending our examples is the New York Times who is devoting significant resources above and beyond curating their own news to cover the election. In addition to a mobile app, its bloggers and interactive team are going deep to deliver some interesting insights and examples of social's impact in the 2012 elections.

Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn

A scan on my part shows nothing of permanent of note from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn just yet. Twitter is showing folks how to live tweet for a better election experience, noting how Twitter and live TV go together like peas and carrots. But based on its White House Town Square effort, I'm sure they're capable of a more substantive offering.

Facebook is being tapped for live chats as well. It's good to see an engagement platform being used more for, uh, engaging with voters.

Instant Social Traction
It's wild to see how quickly and thoroughly single moments in an election, or other nationally broadcast events, can unfold through social media. From Santorum's unfortunate shared meaning of his last name (no link, just trust me) to his fashion choices.

Social spoofs will be an interesting sideline to distract from the carpet bombing of political ads we'll see online and offline increasingly over the following year. In a year that election spending is touted as helping to save big media, you know we're in for some serious political noise this year.

But based on the above alone, I'll note social is helping bring a new experience to the the 2012 elections -- online, offline and on TV. It's early and we'll surely see more interesting examples of how it's used to inform and engage voters.

(RED) Taps Media Convergence to Promote Awareness

Some will tell you I've got an Instagram addiction. While I'm not sure about that, the social photo-sharing platform does have a loyal following.

Instagram has shown me some great examples of brands testing and learning the concept of No Channels.

Brand Power
Of the 35 or more brands I follow on Instagram, (RED) seems to have the most fun playing up the visual nature of its brand and the various partnerships it has with other brands.

But more than brand awareness, (RED) is smart about giving followers simple calls to action. In one example, (RED) is using Instagram to encourage users to tap into a promotion for the (RED)-branded Shazam app for music discovery on the go. The proceeds benefits the non-profit's push for AIDS awareness.

Convergence & Cross-Platform Thinking
The promotion starts and ends on a mobile device and it uses two niche apps to get users to support (RED). This is certainly not new. But it is a great reminder that thinking cross-platform doesn't just apply to multiple platforms. In this case it applies to a single-device.

Cross-Posted to my work blog 

Content Is Not King

Guess who suggests content is king and who suggests content isn't king? The answer usually depends on the job of whomever is answering the question.

It seems PR people lean towards giving content the crown. Social media professionals give social the monarchy. And so on.

For my entire career, I've focused on content in one way or another. Content's definition has expanded as the roles involved in creating it and publishing it have evolved. In fact, an entire discipline has emerged just to be more strategic about marketing with content.

And while I've been a defender of content's crown in the past, I've come to understand the truth about the so-called marketing monarchy. There is no king. No queen. No monarchy. The relationship between content, technology and consumer is more of an ecosystem, or perhaps it's just more easily explained using organic terms.

Organs, Kingdoms & Content
Saying that content, or social media or search or the latest shiny new object is king, is like arguing over which organ of the body is most important.

It's actually an old joke where the brain, the blood, the stomach, the eyes and the legs all make their case as to why they are most important. And when the anus makes its case, the rest of the organs simply laugh in disagreement. So the anus shuts down and, a few days later, the other organs apologize and the anus wins the argument. But the point is all of the organs are interrelated and therefore important.

Content, Context, Curation
So whether we're considering paid, owned and earned -- remember the ecosystem. It's all the more critical if you consider the noise consumer's are immersed in through our efforts. And to meet consumer needs and expectations we simply add to the noise.

Brands compete online with more than 1.6 billion messages. EVERY. Single. Day. That's Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog posts and even news releases.

The Business of Content
In Program or be Programmed:10 Commands for a Digital Age, Douglas Rushkoff brings up an even more important point when talking about content's role in capitalism.

Essentially he notes that the internet has helped create a hyper-captialism of sorts wherein the closer you are to value creation the further you are from the money. Just ask anyone writing for Huffington Post (paid or free). There are more examples. But it points us towards the trend of curation.

There are many flavors of curation. And it requires aggregating a good portion of the noise from which to curate the best bits. But it's another part of the ecosystem to keep in mind. We're seeing more examples of media outlets mixing up the ecosystem to provide the best, most relevant product to its readers.

New York Magazine is a great example. It uses original content as a foundation to build upon while curating content and featuring user generated content in the form of web videos.

The King is Dead
Would any media outlet suggest content is king? They'd be ignoring the oxygen paid media brings its brand. And calling it oxygen vs king, queen or court jester is more accurate. So think ecosystem while we dance on the monarchys' respective graves.

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UPDATE: Facebook's Vadim Lavrusik reinforces my point in a Nieman Journalisim Lab article noting how story structure has changed in five key ways: context, social, participation, mobile and personalization.