Don’t Get It? Don’t Worry!

I came across this article in AdWeek on Coca-Cola Hunts for Social-Net Formula: The company's online marketing highs and lows show an old brand learning new tricks. On the one hand, they have spent millions and millions trying to "get" a new media/social strategy that feels like a win. OTOH, they haven't hit the proverbial home run yet, and to their credit, are still in the game playing.

The schizophrenic responses show the uncertain embrace Coke's made of social media as it tries to translate its over 50 years of success in the traditional marketing world to the new terrain. The pitfalls the company has faced and concessions it's made highlight the challenges faced by big brands navigating the new marketing playbook.

What is driving this post from me is that me and my colleagues bemoan daily on Twitter and other social sites about how many companies "don't get it." But you know what? It's not easy getting it, if you haven't been raised on the internet, like we have.

So let's stipulate these facts into the record:

1. It is really hard to get it, especially the bigger you are. You are too shielded from people who will tell you the truth and who will take risks and who actually have any experience down here on the streets of the web where all of the market disruption and social media creation is taking place.
2. There is a level of chance and unpredictability involved. Going "viral" is not something you can plan for and purchase off the shelf. A viral response online is just like it is in biology - an unexpected mutation that takes off in an entirely new direction.
3. If you have any hope of having a concept go viral however, you FIRST have to get out there and make media, have conversations, and take risks. It ain't gonna happen in the safety of a board room with your usual suspects. If you don't know who they are, email me and I will explain it to you in private.
4. IMO, any company serious about developing a social campaign should have BOTH the stable of brand agency players as well as a young upstart new media expert firm in the planning and execution. I've written previously about errors made by such luminaries as Walmart and Ford who spent a lot of money on big agency misfires. Remember, big agencies have the "big" problem too. See #1 above. You want a tour guide who speaks the language natively, not someone who just bought the Cliff Notes, on your team.
5. Please have a tolerance for messiness. People raised online cannot be controlled, and you will only lose more, faster, by trying to do so.
6. Try and get over your addiction to big numbers. They were mostly meaningless in terms of actual response rates.
7. Relax. The internet is not going away. You have time to experiment, to see what works for you and the nuances of your corporate culture. The marketplace on the one hand is very harsh on people who try to game the system, but incredibly forgiving of those who are willing to have a meaningful, valuable exchange of ideas, products, and services.

Gaurav Mishra is writing a book-as-blog experiment and recently discussed Patricia Martin, author of Ren Gen. There are numerous good points but I want to leave you with this one as you think about how "to get it":

People Want Authenticity: A related trend is that we want real and authentic experiences, instead of packaged formualic one. So, when we travel, we are not satisfied with the usual photo-opportunities; instead, we want to participate in adventure sports, or immerse ourselves in local culture, or go off the beaten track and explore nature.

Just remember, you can't buy authenticity. You earn it, one transparent conversation at a time. That's nothing to worry about, just something to start practicing. Maybe even in a staff meeting today!

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.

Rent or Buy? How Does a Company Decide to Use New Media

I just tripped across the Custom Content Conference being held this March in New Orleans. It is targeted at brand managers and ad folks who may be considering creating their own serialized web content or new media/social media channels. I thought I'd mention a few of the companies who have already ventured in to this arena, and hopefully you may have some more to add to the list.

Whole Foods has been doing this for about a year with both audio and video podcasts, all of which are produced using in-house talent. Scott Simons, Regional Marketing Director, hosts the Secret Ingredient show. There has been discussion on the Yahoo Videoblogging List about this show and the opportunities to also integrate both freelance-produced content as well as user-generated content. Word on the street is that Whole Food is not interested, preferring to control the show in-house. It's a full service blog-based site, with comments accepted and RSS. Visitors can manually download the flash version of the episode, though that is not playable on most MP3 devices.

American Express last year launched LX.tv which is a combination traditional web site and video blog, using the "new" part of the media and not so much the "social" part of the media. It is Flash-based, which makes the site a bit slow for my tastes, but does allow the designers to create a very rich, urban mood and feel. They use freelance contributors and the episodes focus on restaurants (AMEX merchants) and celebrity/social life. You can get an RSS feed, and in their grab the embed code for each episode, but the flash programming makes that part very cumbersome and the interface is elusive unless you know what the little icons represent. Viewer comments are not accepted.

Starwood Hotels launched The Lobby as a text blog in 2006. It also hires freelance contributors around the world, sharing local life stories and virtually always ending with a link to a hotel or hotel service found in the region. They have started including YouTube-hosted videos made by their contributors. I really like the widget they have in addition to traditional RSS options.

We are in production with a Fortune 100 company to develop a branded show that is educational in nature. Naturally, the goal is to drive sales for this particular service, but the company believes (and so do we) that creating original branded content that is useful and entertaining using new media (aka your own internet TV station) is a terrific, largely untapped opportunity at this time.

There are many other examples of companies who are doing direct ad sponsorships of independently-produced shows. I discussed the Ford - Amanda Across America collaboration in this post with follow-up in this post. Earthlink was an early sponsor of the Washington Post video podcasts and pharmaceutical companies are pursing this as well.

I definitely have my preferences, based on years of experience as a consumer (!) and also the past three years of being on the forefront of creating audio and video content for the web. Keep in mind as well that the criteria will vary depending on your audience and your product/service - there is no cookie-cutter solution here. And if things go wrong, as they did on the Edelman-managed video for Walmart, do like Edelman did and learn from the experience. It's not possible to know it all - and that's the reason for us to keep talking. For those of you attending the HAF Conference tomorrow, we'll be discussing this in more detail.

Apple did NOT invent Podcasting

Don’t get me wrong. I love Apple. I think of Apple as much more than a computer maker and software company. Apple is actually a lifestyle company that really understands design, culture, art, and creativity. But I digress…

For all of the wonderful things that Apple has created, Podcasting is not one of them. And while they did arrive at the party about 8 months late, they were smart enough to have already developed the infrastructure, ITMS (iTunes Music Store), that gave them the ability to easily and quickly develop support for downloading and subscribing to Podcasts.

Apple has never claimed they invented Podcasting. But as the mainstream media is finally coming to the party, now over a year after the first podcasts were launched (I have the proud distinction of being among the first 30 podcasters in the world when I launched my personal podcast in October of 2004), they (mainstream media) are starting to rewrite history. This from a story today in the Sacramento Business Journal:

"Podcasting began to catch on about a year ago. Apple invented the medium to give its multiplied millions of iPod users something to listen to besides their favorite music." Sacramento Business Journal: Pondering podcasts' potential

Come on! Even a minimum amount of research will turn up the true origin of Podcasting. It's one thing to misquote a source. If you've ever been featured in a newspaper or magazine article you know how some reporters can set out to write their story rather than the story. But to just make something up out of thin air? Enough already. A lot (thousands) of people have worked long and hard and have put in very late nights to get Podcasting to where it is today.

I beg of you, mainstream media, do a little research—heck, maybe even subscribe to a few Podcasts so you really understand the technology—before you start rewriting history and adding untruths to what is already a confusing technology for most people.