Clinton & Obama: A lesson of losing control of your brand

Many of my colleagues (Mitch Joel, Shel Holtz, Valeria Maltoni) and I frequently speak to members of PRSA, IABC, and advertising agencies explaining as best we can how consumers now own the brand. Good will increasingly cannot be bought and the political season is giving us striking examples of the mechanics of how "web 2.0" - "new media" - "social media" (choose your buzz) have changed the landscape of both business communication and brand marketing.

Frank Rich has this in today's New York Times editorial page:

The Hallmark show, enacted on an anachronistic studio set that looked like a deliberate throwback to the good old days of 1992, was equally desperate. If the point was to generate donations or excitement, the effect was the reverse. A campaign operative, speaking on MSNBC, claimed that 250,000 viewers had seen an online incarnation of the event in addition to "who knows how many" Hallmark channel viewers. Who knows, indeed? What we do know is that by then the Yes We Can Obama video fronted by the hip-hop vocalist will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas had been averaging roughly a million YouTube views a day. (Cost to the Obama campaign: zero.)

Ed. Note: Video inserted at the end of this post to save you a click-thru.

I have two points to make. First is to note the extreme shift in balance of power as to who controls your brand. Hillary is trying, some would say desperately, to control her brand and essentially trick people into voting for her. She (along with Bill presumably) are convinced they are the best for the country. The country, increasingly, is demonstrative otherwise. She can spend money and stage "staged" events with planted questioners, but we have learned as consumers of media as well as of products, when someone is "faking it up." (My favorite way to describe the traditional art of advertising's dark side.)

Second, one of the best measurements of how well your brand is being received, is the way that people play with it. Are they promoting you or are they disparaging you? It is not that hard to tell these days.

The great opportunity for business is that we can learn from the political season. We can observe how losing control can be tragic, comedic, and/or a fast trip from relative obscurity to leader of the pack.

Footnote Observations

1. It is still early on the date of publication of Frank Rich's editorial (cited above) and there are over 500 comments already posted. People have opinions and they want to share them.
2. My mom, a lifelong Republican, said she would consider voting for Obama before McCain because, "Obama has class." In this age of communication transparency, things like class definitely can shine through all the traditional mud-slinging.

HAF - Links from Roxanne’s Presentation

This post is a summary of the conversation we had at the Hawaii Advertising Federation Conference. Please feel free to join in. Tip: Lots of links here, so right-click or control-click to open them in a new window.

Advertising online is fraught with challenges. Most web savvy consumers have learned to tune them out, as people are increasingly displeased with advertising in general. A large part is due to ads getting noisier and more ubiquitous. I was on a US Air flight recently and when it came time for drinks, and the tray tops came down covered in ads, I heard three different people complain out loud. People are tired of the intrusiveness and one-way-ness of most ad messaging. They want to have conversations that are two-way. The nice way to put this, is that advertising is due for an upgrade.

Since my expertise in online, the underlying theme today was to convey how the internet is a foreign country. It has it's own practices, many of which are the opposite of their offline counterparts. The pace is faster, the look and feel is less polished in most cases, the interactivity is high, and there is a good chance someone is talking about you whether you know it or not. You may use email, Google, and have your own website. (That's web 1.0). To be a successful traveler, you've got to leave the Holiday Inn in this foreign country and go out to meet the vocal locals. (That's web 2.0.) The social web is filled opportunities and pitfalls for advertisers.

A Few of Our Group Metrics

• Most of the 70 or so people in the room had read a blog before.
• Less than 10 had left a comment on a blog.
• 2 had written in a blog.
• About 10 belonged to LinkedIn.
• 1 person was on Twitter.

Benefits and Buzzwords
Your power comes from joining the conversation. At it's most basic form, by adding a comment, you create a valued in-bound link back to your web site. You also add your point of view. You can in many cases claim thought leadership for your company, for your industry, for your customers, for your vendors. Read my post on how and when to leave blog comments.

Remember relationship marketing? The tools and apps (applications) of web 2.0 are relationship marketing on steroids. People stay longer on sites that allow them to do something other than read some text or look at a some pictures. On blogs and socnets (social networks) people click through to more pages. That translates into longer session times and more page views which are a resource you can sell, or sell ads on. And the relationships you build with your visitors? Priceless.

Accepting comments on your site allows people to tell you what they love, what's not working so you can fixit sooner than later, ideas for new products and services, and most importantly they build trust with you. If you talk back in the comments, it shows you pay more than lip service to the concept of listening. When it comes time to buy, they will come to you first, because you have already established a relationship and possibly market leadership too. All the while you are getting free market research data, if you think of it that way.

And regardless of whether or not you (as the company) are engaged in online conversations, your brand is being discussed, debated, celebrated and parodied online. This brand democratization can be ripe with opportunity as well as fraught with bloopers. Your odds are better the more you are engaged. Here's a "link to the YouTube Mac vs PC" ads, the real ones and the spoofs, some of which Jason Sperling showed to us at lunch today.

Social Networks
Thanks for joining our "analog" social network! Now that you've had practice creating a profile and sharing a few details about yourself with someone you did not previously know, you are ready to go out an join an online social network. Try one under a personal screen name to get some more practice before you start doing this on behalf of your company. And check out Mitch Joel's blog on personal branding to get tips on how to benefit from your participation.

Free Blogging Services: (Set one up and play with it for personal use)
WordPress
Blogger
iWeb - if you're on a Mac (It's part of the iLife software package)

Sites I mentioned:
CNN - Click on "From the Blogs" link below an article to see recent, related blog posts
Honolulu Advertiser - find a news item and look for "Reader Comments"
Technorati - indexes millions of blogs; look for blogs here and claim your blog here once you have one
LifeHacker - popular blog with tips for managing your life
Chris Brogan - Look at the "MyBlogLog": in the orange-bounded box in left column to see recent readers (we left a comment on the Mac Book Air post)
My Sister's Site - pets and kids in southern california
My Mom's Site - Blanche's Art Show

Business Examples:
Mary Schmidt - marketer who grew her service business with a blog
Association for Downloadable Media - Association for Downloadable Media; multi-author association blog
MightyJ Music - local girl band who gets bookings by having a video blog; doubled site traffic after an appearance on Beach Walks with Rox, as compared to zero traffic increase after appearing on local morning television in Honolulu
Legal discussion of Hasbro/Mattel - Scrabble and Scrabulous discussion of Hasbro/Mattel/Scrabulous trademark infringement
Discussion of Ford Black Mustang Fan Club issues

Social Network (SocNet) Sites:
LinkedIn
MySpace.com
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Viddler

Please leave a comment and tell me what you liked, didn't like, and anything I may have missed! I am working on some additional training programs targeted for agencies and business communicators to learn how to use the social web effectively. Let me know if you're interested.

Mahalo nui for inviting me. I had a blast - and hope we can continue learning together.

Getting Clients to Pay On Time

We are a small business. We invoice once a month, for services performed in the previous month. Our payment terms are "due on receipt." Some clients pay accordingly. Others have tended to lump us into the "net-30" category based (my ass-u-mption) on the terms they receive from other vendors. A few others appear to have a "squeaky wheel" folder, aka don't pay until someone is bugging them repeatedly to pay.

Years ago I contemplated putting up a web site called "theydontpay.com" that would serve as a sort of small business Dun & Bradstreet service. Small business owners could post their experiences of companies with a bad record of not paying, so other small companies could check out a potential client in advance. Back in those days, we had a few big names you would think would be an asset to the client list. But in reality, they had a high P.I.T.A. score often based on refusal to pay normal invoices. The concept was very similar to another social media site I recently discovered, RottenNeighbor.com. (I could have some fun there!)

Since I was too busy to do that, and am wary in general of putting out stink eye for all the world to see (I prefer Aloha), I decided instead to offer positive incentives. I've been having fun, but have to report that it has only made the good clients better and not the "bad" clients better. The first month was a 10% discount to the first payment received. We accept and encourage electronic payments so the first payment was delivered in less than 20 minutes by a nonprofit client, NAWBO. I reported that in my next monthly mailing.

The next time I offered a free $10 iTunes Gift Card to anyone who left a comment on our blog. This was to also help our clients get more comfortable leaving blog comments and hey, do any of you not love getting more blog comments?

Guess what? Only one person played. Meredith of HereComesTheGuide.com was stoked, and I extended it some because she actually left two comments! I sent her a 25 gift card that also donates 10% to AIDS relief in Africa. (I hope that link survives outside of my browser cookie settings...)

This month, I am offering a more generic BareFeetShop/Amazon.com $10 gift certificate and link love to all those who tell me about a blog they read and why. (And I even encouraged them to get staff involved.) Early congrats to Andy at Packet Analytics who replied in less than 15 minutes! I'll compile the results here in a few weeks.

Wish me luck. I'd sure like to find out what the tipping point is to get old invoices paid. (You know who you are, though I wonder if you read our blog. Please contact me privately to tell me about your sweet spots.) I am all ears to the rest of you who have fun ways to help clients pay on time and feel so good about it they'll want to do it over and over again.

New Media Expo to Pay Speakers

I just read this from Tim Bourquin and I want to raise a "High Five!" This has been a 20 year itch of mine, to have speakers fairly compensated for providing the featured sessions at a conference.

I posted a question on LinkedIn about this topic several months ago and got some fantastic responses:

Pharmaceutical Exec Elisabeth Mutisya said "Many solo-preneurs and others with 5 or 10 employees will tell you that this is the best source of new business. From what I've heard, it's more effective than ads, mailings, etc."

John DiPietro, a speaker/marketer said "The real good groups with the smartest planners realize that the effort and babysitting of a "celebrity" is not worth the effort. They go out and hire speakers with either generic expertise that is relatable to the the group, or speakers with specific industry background. That being said, the dollars can range from expenses only, to $5k for a non celebrity, non-author speakers."

Molly Holzschlag declared in 2006 that she will not speak for food any longer.

The debate has typically centered on:
• The conference organizer takes the risk and does the work to make the event happen.
• The speakers:

• Get tons of recognition and lead generating opportunity so should speak for free.
• Take time out of their paying gigs to prepare, travel, and present the very tasty nuggets that attendees are paying to hear.
• There are always new and aspiring speakers who don't care about being paid; they just want the experience.

The speakers' position has often been positioned as an either/or scenario, when it fact all statements are true. Another consideration is whether the speaker:

• is self-employed, therefore making every minute and dollar that is focused on the event somewhat precious
• is other-employed and the employer is picking up the expense and benefitting from the employee's outreach efforts.

So as a speaker and a person who hires speakers (plus a past presenter at Tim and Emile's conference), I am thrilled with the news and hope others will follow their lead.

Boycott Facebook & Related Sites

Let me stipulate a few facts:

• I live my life online.
• I have gotten very used to a certain (large) lack of privacy in most traditional senses.
• I am in favor of business relationships with independent media creators.

But the way that Facebook's Beacon is setting cookies and sending my very specific online behavior (at selected sites) back to it's databases not in the aggregate but assigned to my personal data, is going too far.

Beacon is getting a lot of bad press, but this article in PC World hits bottom for me.

I am going to boycott Facebook for now. Please join me. Let their traffic plummet and see how fast the users can speak.

If you think you need to use Facebook for some reason, you can use Firefox and manually block at least some of this bad behavior.

From gigaom here are some of the particiapting sites that I also plan to boycott:
The 44 sites that have partnered with Facebook include everyone from Kongregate, LiveJournal, NYTimes (NYT), Sony Online, Blockbuster (BBI), Bluefly.com, STA Travel, The Knot, TripAdvisor, Travel Ticker, TypePad, viagogo, Vox, Yelp, WeddingChannel.com and Zappos.com. I've also heard Fandango and Epicurious.

I am happy to announce our client, Here Comes The Guide does not particpate, so all you brides? Stay away from The Knot and Wedding Channel! And head over to the nice, ad-free Here Comes the Guide site and plan your wedding in peace and privacy. FYI, they have a great business model and are an excellent example of a company that provides a great service and expertly balances the desires of brides with the sustainability of bridal vendors.

UPDATE: When I said "related sites" in the title, I was referring to the 40+ sites who are in on the Beacon tracking system with Facebook, and was not lumping all social networking sites into the pot. Innocent until proven guilty applies here.

UPDATE 2: Chris Heuer provides an excellent and scholarly commentary on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's most recent apology.

I am glad there is forward movement on the Beacon situation, but this closing remark indicates there is more work to do:

Last week we changed Beacon to be an opt-in system, and today we're releasing a privacy control to turn off Beacon completely. You can find it here. If you select that you don't want to share some Beacon actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won't store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook.

"even when partners send them to Facebook"?? Let's keep at it folks. Don't track data to individuals. Consider us a herd if you must, but let us retain the semblance of privacy that can exist in the aggregate while you attempt to figure out how to reach us. (Even though countless among us are posting on this topic daily.)

June 26: The day the web goes silent

Join Bare Feet Studios in fighting the proposed rate increase for royalties paid by internet radio. “The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger.  Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!).  To protest these rates and encourage the millions of net radio listeners to take action and contact their Congressional representatives, a national Day of Silence will be held June 26.”

I am quoting in this post directly from the Save Internet Radio web site. "On March 2, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which oversees sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services, increased Internet radio's royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent and thereby jeopardized the industry's future.

At the request of the Recording Industry Association of America, the CRB ignored the fact that Internet radio royalties were already double what satellite radio pays, and multiplied the royalties even further. The 2005 royalty rate was 7/100 of a penny per song streamed; the 2010 rate will be 19/100 of a penny per song streamed. And for small webcasters that were able to calculate royalties as a percentage of revenue in 2005 – that option was quashed by the CRB, so small webcasters' royalties will grow exponentially!"

The internet is here to stay. People are speaking and listening to each other, as well as to your mass-produced content. Come join us at this amazing party, or be left behind.

When arbitrary and clearly biased fees such as these are imposed on the marketplace, the marketplace resembles more of a feudalistic system controlled by a few dinosaurs who don't know how to grow their businesses with the times than "may the best company win." Yes, this action has been spurred by the large traditional radio station owners who are seeing declining listenership due to the Internet.

Calling all traditional media and traditional content producers: You no longer control the conversation all by yourselves.

Calling YOU: You and Congress can stop this heinous fee hike that is designed to drive Internet Radio out of business. This link makes it easy to contact your representatives.

View the list of participating stations here.

Meanwhile go explore internet radio if you haven't already! Here are some places to start:
http://www.daveslounge.com
http://somafm.com
http://www.kcrw.org
http://www.doctortrey.com
http://www.live365.com

saveinternetradio, roxannedarling, barefeetstudios, podcast

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People Are Put Off by Advertising

This a quote from a recent health care marketing report by the Economic and Social Research Council. Advertisers are having two very different responses though.

On the one hand, NBC is testing viewers brains to see if ads can still register even when TV viewers fast-forward past them.

NBC is testing hearts and minds in its quest to track the habits of today's elusive media consumer. The network last week received the results of its first dip into the world of neurophysiology—examining brain waves, galvanic skin response and eye movement of TV viewers. NBC used an episode of "Heroes" to find out what viewers comprehend of ads when they fast-forward past them on DVRs.

And Business 2.0 reports that Ogilvy and Yahoo both are using cookies and math to track online behavior and change the content of what is displayed to us in real time.

Red isn't working on a particular banner? The background will be blue the next time you see it - and the software will even swap the ad copy. No one's happier about that than advertisers: Optimized ads perform 15 to 30 percent better than their standard-issue counterparts. "We've reached a point of instantaneous feedback," Hendra says. That's forced the business to become brutally Darwinian.

Meanwhile Toby at Diva Marketing Blog covered the ESRC Report on healthcare marketing that I quoted in the title of this post.

One thing that really put people off was advertising, so people clicked off drug company websites straight away. Generally, the medical information on drug company sites is very accurate but people question the authors' motivation and agenda. The issue of impartiality is quite crucial in building trust.

In the latter report, they did find positive results from people reading trusted friends and blogs.

It's my opinion that people are done with being tracked, tricked, tempted, and targeted into buying stuff they don't want or need. They are more curious than ever, however, about learning new things that will help them live happier and healthier lives. What side are you on? The "trick ‘em til they drop" or the "here's my experience"? Which one gets your money and your love?

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I am woman, hear me.

For seemingly forever, men and the male voice have owned the “authority” space. When polled, men and women alike prejudicially choose men over women when it comes to “best leader”, etc. I am not interested in roaring. Just being heard. Period. Not dismissed based on gender alone. 

Steve Safran suggests over at Lost Remote that a TV station hire a woman anchor just because she has a strong voice. This type of thinking is just what I focus on over at Beach Walks with Rox.

Yes, we all still have that old back brain that runs purely on instinct and fight or flight syndrome. But that doesn't mean we have to use it! Part of what consciousness is about is learning to think — and act — with the frontal cortex. That ability to set aside things we know to be silly (like women can't lead or manage authority) and act different!

This is precisely what Joan Baker (successful voice-over talent) suggests in her article called Challenging the Voice of God.

Counter Point:
I have to add since we are talking about voices, I don't know where the young girls of today get those squeaky whiny voices. I find that incredibly irritating. Alongside the very old prejudice against women's authority, is females adopting speaking behaviors that sound childish and powerless. It takes both sides to effectively change a power structure. C'mon girls! Drop those energy-draining twangs; they don't score you any points except perhaps with your own peers. Or better yet, develop a versatile voice that can come and go with ease.

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