Archive for November, 2004

Thought The Persuaders was great. A little disappointed it didn’t probe more into public relations – it started getting there towards the end.

I’m not sure if it is true, but O’Dwyers claims that PR Execs went to ground when asked to participate. (also blogged by Pepper). Sounds like nonsense to me. And, if it was true, why not report that on the show and flag the “shadowy world of PR”? ‘Journalists’ aren’t normally that slow to miss an angle as good as this.

PR EXECS GO UNDERCOVER

The Public Broadcasting System will air “The Persuaders” on November 9 to explore the inner workings of the marketing and advertising businesses.

The program intended to have a PR focus, but PR executives refused to “go public” about what they do, Justin Vogt, a producer at ‘Frontline,'” told O’Dwyer’s.

This website met with three “Frontline” producers earlier this year, and provided a list of top executives for the program to contact. “They were very informative, but would only speak off-the-record,” said Vogt.

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising, is among those interviewed by correspondent Douglas Rushkoff. Roberts talks about the importance of establishing an “emotional connection” between consumers and brands.

Doug Atkin, of Merkley + Partners says effective advertising goes beyond emotions. Marketers are trying to create a passionate zeal for their products equal to “cultists or religious fanatics,” he said.

Atkin considers General Motors’ Saturn unit a “mass cult brand,” pointing out that more than 45,000 people a-year spend part of their vacation time visiting its car plant in Tennessee.

Social critic Naomi Klein scoffs at emotional branding, saying that in the end it is about choosing a laptop or a pair of running shoes.

Recently read Kevin Robert’s book Lovemarks – a Tom Peterish rant on the future of brands – which from my POV is mostly correct. One point he makes that I find communicators struggle with day-in and day-out is that most if not all products are at parity. We all dream of launching the break-away product but few get to. So, why does so much of our communications work focus on the product and not the brand experience?

What was also interesting for me was how the media we’re clearly jumping on this. The NYT’s ran a story on Clotaire Rapaille this weekend. And aside, why journalists think Rolls Royce is still a status symbol is beyond me… Anyway…

Here’s Rushkoff’s blog.

Old communications rules said that information cascades from the most reputable source outwards – in a very linear and exclusive fashion – often based on a media scoop. Thus, we sought to influence the most important folks in our respective ecosystems.

New rule. Listen to the ecosystem. Information emanates from inside the ecosystem. Thoughts, observations, news… they all are replicated and filtered. And the more they are, the more they reach outwards towards the masess. Linear communications models are dead.

There is a great example making it’s way around the web. Steve Rubel has captured it nicely on the IAOC website.

The Kryptonite Bike Lock Company is one who should have listened. Consider the following chain of events. On September 12, 2004, a forum poster at bikeforums.net noted that he can open his Kryptonite lock with a Bic pen. One day later, one of his fellow bikeforums.net forum members posts video of lock being picked, verifying the salacious claim. Before I go on with the story, think for a moment what might have happened had the company been listening and using monitoring tools and had learned of this incident while it was in this early embryonic stage. They might have been able to have prevent what happened next.

On September 14, Metafilter – a group edited site – picked up the trail. This was quickly followed by Engadget and dozens of other bloggers. Still, Kryptonite remained silent, probably unaware of the tsunami that was at their doorstep.

Finally, just a few days after the initial forum post, the story leaped into the mainstream media with a story on September 23 in The New York Times. “The Pen is Mightier Than the Lock,” the Times headline screamed. Finally, only after the New York Times ran their story, did the company awake from its slumber and post a statement on their Web site. But by then it was too late. AP and dozens of other media outlets had picked up the trail.

While I am offering my own perspective on this, the message is the same. Communications will be less about communicating and more about listening. Thanks to Steve for a terrific story… RSS his site, well worth the read…

In continuing to think through how we measure communications effectiveness I keep coming back to the notion of recommend – something our COO and President, Jonathan Schwartz inspired us to think about.

As communicators we get caught-up in all kinds of abstract terms. Terms like Reputation. Which normally involve substantial research to do justice to. What I like about Recommend is how practical and real it is. “Would you recommend Sun?” is much easier to get a handle on than “What do you think of Sun’s Reputation”.

You can also capture Recommend scores very quickly and cost effectively. “Social’ recommend engines are a fountain of data and insight. Pew just did some more work on their growing influence and, the increasing participation of people in them:-

Pew Internet & American Life Project: Rating systems

Twenty-six percent of adult internet users in the U.S. have rated a product, service, or person using an online rating system. That amounts to more than 33 million people. These systems, also referred to as “reputation systems” are interactive word-of-mouth networks that assist people in making decisions about which users to trust, or to compare their opinions with the opinions expressed by others. Many Web sites utilize some form of this application, including eBay, Amazon, Moviefone and Amihot.

The usage patterns the report reveals point to a future in which decisions will be increasingly made based on recommend by third parties. The informal ecosystem of unpaid reviewers.

An earlier Pew Internet & American Life survey conducted in 2003 showed that 44% of
U.S. internet users above the age of 18 have contributed their thoughts and files to the
online world. This group of users, made up of more than 53 million American adults,
has participated in posting photographs, written material, or audio files to Web sites,
maintained their own site, ran a Web cam, or undertaken some other method of adding
content to the Web. That same survey found that 13% of internet users have their own
Web site and 21% have allowed other users to download files from their computer,
including music and video files.

Ultimately we are going to have to communicate with even more influencers. This is going to require scaling communications beyond 1:few. Blogs and Wikis have much to offer here. For me this is a good thing – Lee says it well,

The more voices that are in the mix, … the better off everybody is,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew group. “There’s more wisdom in groups than there are in individuals no matter how expert they are.”

I’m not suggesting that online rating engines are a panacea – but they are a useful, real-time tool that communicators, for the most part, do not use today. Take a look at how you can incorporate Recommend into your dashboard using them as a source. It will also increase your relevance in the executive suite.

launches… looks like another Fast Company. Oh God save us!

Actually I’ll hold all comment until I’ve read a hard copy which should arrive by snail mail sometime this decade – unless I see one in the mail room in which case I’ll steal it (all in public interest of course). Will Worthwhile be worthwhile…?

You might get fined… I’m not sure but Mark Cuban’s fine by the NBA might be the first tangible punishment doled out to a blogger (other than gettting fired!).

(Quick segway while we are on flying… I know the flights to NZ cost a fortune but this is ridiculous.)

Anyway, Mark can’t get fired… fined yes, fired no. Here’s how the BBC covered the Queen of The Sky… A Delta employee fired for including photos of herself at work – kind of at work – but just the same…

Queen of the Sky, otherwise known as Ellen Simonetti, evolved into an anonymous semi-fictional account of life in the sky.

But after she posted pictures of herself in uniform, Delta Airlines suspended her indefinitely without pay.

Ms Simonetti was told her suspension was a result of “inappropriate” images. Delta Airlines declined to comment.

Complaint lodged

“I was really shocked, I had no warning,” Ms Simonetti told BBC News Online.

“I never thought I would get in trouble because of the blog. I thought if they had a problem, someone would have said something before taking action.”

Thank goodness we don’t have to wear uniforms. What were the NBA thinking! The one thing they need is buzz and they seem determined to kill it… It really wasn’t that bad. Really. And you can guess where I sand on the firing…

All this points to is the need for companies to have a widely published and simple blog policy. Like, “don’t do anything stupid or disclose anything that is confidential – but if you want to support us in your free time, have at it”.

More to come.