January 2008
Mike Farber and I are at the AlwaysOn OnMedia show in New York City. One early theme I am seeing: Part of the issue with new media campaigns is resistance from companies toward taking a risk.
Traditional advertising has ways to track and rate results. New media does not.
On a panel I watched yesterday morning, Jean-Philippe Maheau of Ogilvy noted that companies need to crack the code on measurement to feel comfortable with new media campaigns.
In response to a question I asked about virtual worlds and their affect on brands, Maheau noted some interesting work he's doing in those areas, however he said the budget for those investments does not come from the advertising budget, but rather from an experimental part of the marketing budget.
A general theme here is resistance toward new media campaigns from many large brands.
The burden is on agencies, like Schwartz, to continue to push the envelope for our clients in strategic ways. Soon those new media campaigns-- integrated into PR-- will no longer be "experimental."
Tags:
AlwaysOn,
Ogilvy
Posted by Ross Levanto on January 30, 2008 at 10:05 AM
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Paul Gillin has been covering the tech industry for over 25 years, leading prominent organizations such as Computerworld and TechTarget. These days he's consulting and maintaining a couple of blogs - one on his own; the other, Tech PR War Stories, is co-hosted with David Strom. Paul is also author of the widely acclaimed book "The New Influencers." Check out this podcast - Paul offers a number of important suggestions on how companies can leverage social media. Here are a few notes:
- There's a giant global conversation going on - and it's likely someone is talking about you - get in the conversation.
- Identify the critical influencers in your market and figure out how to engage them.
- It is possible to measure what's happening - pick a small number of metrics important to you (e.g., comments, links, subscribers).
- Don't be shy - bloggers are likely to write positively about your company.
- The new model of journalism - experts can speak freely and community standards will help screen out and regulate errors.
- PR professionals should be publishers as well as a channel to reach publishers.
- Most importantly, don't be overwhelmed - take it one step at a time - learn something new every day.
Posted by John Moran on at 8:30 AM
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Last week the gaming and marketing blogosphere was abuzz with articles on a negative piece on the popular video game, Mass Effect. The game was incorrectly decried as pornography and for showing "full frontal nudity." Neither is correct.
What is most telling is one of the talking heads making the attack, author Cooper Lawrence, admitted at the end of the interview she had never played or even viewed the game.
What a lot of the marketing blogs missed, which is important for PR and marketing people to know, is the blacklash that has been going on in the gaming blogs. Specifically, the gamers stuck back.
Cooper has a number of books listed on Amazon. They are now being panned by a wide audience. Her books now have an average rating of 1 to 1.5 stars on Amazon with hundreds of negative comments. (There were more, but Amazon prunes aggressively). Her most recent book is being panned. And it is not just a few hundred energized reviewers, a quick glance has 1,000+ people endorsing them. Even the "positive" reviews are damning with sarcasm and fait praise.
The attacks aren't stopping with bad reviews. Gamers are a tech savvy audience on a whole and they are tagging her books with comments such as ignorant (1300 people), bias (729 people) and hypocrisy (1,021 people).
Update since I started writing this post. The author now says "she misspoke".
What can non-gaming companies learn from this?
- An engaged user base can be a powerful tool - If the users hadn't responded so aggressively, the misstatements would most likely not have been corrected. An engaged user base can be a powerful asset - so you need to interact with them
- A reputation that takes years to build, can be torn down in a few minutes-You are the only safeguard to your reputation and brand. The commentator, with poorly informed public comments, has tarnished her brand and it will take quite a while to build it up.
- The walls are torn down-The speed of response to this incident was electrifying. What are the likely crises you will face and how will you engage them? You no longer have the luxury of time, so make time to game out the tough questions. If you don't, who will?
Tags:
consumer,
gaming,
social media
Posted by Mark McClennan on January 28, 2008 at 2:15 PM
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I love sifting through the Library of Congress online libraries. There is something about perusing all those old photos and documents that can be pretty thrilling. While I haven't had time dig into the physical archives, the online versions give me the fix I need.
Now the LOC is doing something very interesting with Flickr. By taking a number of photos and putting them online, archivists are hoping to receive public comments and input as to what is being seen. Sure, a lot will be junk, but there could be some gems in there too.
What's most interesting to me, however, is how well the "old technology" of film continues to stand up over time. Take a look at this image, it looks like it could have been taken yesterday. Even better, it can be viewed TODAY since the technology is rather simple. Shine a light through it and you can see it. Storage is a file cabinet, not an outdated magnetic medium.
The fact is, this is a pretty interesting use of social media. Imagine walking through a museum and putting a sticky note on a Picasso with one of your observations. It's that kind of idea.
It's worth clicking through some of the pictures, which can be found here.
Tags:
flickr,
library of congress,
social media
Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on at 9:10 AM
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One of the simplest ways to help clients during media training is to tell them to explain their technology in terms even their mom could understand.
The problem with how many of us discuss social media is that we focus on the tools, not on the overall goal. During a conversation with a colleague the other day, I pointed out how every company has a community of customers, partners, executives, employees, investors, friends, etc. and the key to social networking is first looking into that community and then figuring out how to use it. Tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs and even Google are just methods for doing that.
Too often I'm asked "how does Facebook fit into this campaign." It's the wrong question. The question is, how can we use your existing network to start the social outreach?
During a conversation with my 60-something mother last night I brought up Facebook, then paused and said "do you even know what Facebook is?"
"Yes," she said. "I have an account."
Yes, my mother has an account on the same service as my 15-year-old cousin. Why? Because her local Hadassah chapter uses it as a communications tool, so she got on board.
Mom gets it.
Tags:
communciations,
facebook,
social media,
social networking,
Web 2.0
Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on January 18, 2008 at 8:59 AM
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Paul writes the popular MediaBiz blog for CNNMoney. In this Schwartz podcast, we cover a range of topics, including the value of social networks to Fortune 500 companies, the future of once dominant brands like AOL and Yahoo!, iTunes' position as the dominant player in digital music and deals to look for in the year ahead.
Posted by John Moran on January 9, 2008 at 12:49 PM
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