Marketing

Quotes for the week, ending 08 Aug, 2009

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

“The narrow prism of terrorism”

John Brennan, President Obama’s new counter-terrorism chief, saying the present administration won’t be looking at allies and other nations this way anymore.

FACT: You do own your brand and brand messaging

FACT: You don’t own relationships customers have with your brand

Beth Harte, at SocialMediaToday.com on Brand Vs Brand Relationships

“Washington Post Magazine ceases its XX Files feature in Sept. Probably cause?…the essays tended to focus on negative experiences with men.”

Tweet by InVocus

“But the pleasure of turning the page! I protested. The feel of something organic, not electronic, in your hands. The crispness…”

Jessica Burnette-Lemon, on looking at the Amazon Kindle

“Scare you away yet?”

Job description for AXIS Inc., for entry-level marketing position that requires knowledge in PR, customer service, sales…

“Successful candidate will have: 1) LinkedIn, MySpace, and/or Facebook account; 2) Twitter account with consistent, frequent updates; 3) Personal blog”

Job description for Social Media Director at ADF

“It’s a big surprise to me that my blog has meant that 250m people have not been able to enter Facebook.”

A blogger names Georgy, on the reason for the denial of service attacks on popular networks Facebook and Twitter.

“Military computers off-limits to tweeting GIs.”

Headline of article about the Marine Corps banning soldiers from using military computer networks to access FAcebook, Myspace and Twitter.

Twitter traffic machine makes me sick

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It makes me want to shut up about micro-blogging.

For $27 bucks this guy is selling you five CD’s that will help you make money on Twitter by building 16,000 followers in 90 days. It’s called the Twitter Traffic Machine.

The pitch video is really sleazy. And what’s with the sign up page? Those red arrows give the whole game away, don’t they? Welcome to the automated snake oil salesman.

Now if this was a joke, a way to prove that there are enough dumb people who will actually pay to have followers, more power to Bill Crosby. If not, will someone remind Mr. Crosby that the broadcast model of ‘monetizing’ eyeballs and traffic have crashed and burned?

Word Cloud, an interesting lens + tracking tool

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Two months after I posted my word cloud, I revisited it via Tweetstats, and can see how by looking at a word cloud over time, I can track how my focus has shifted.

WordCloud_Mytweets_2_July09

I use a lot of short URLs, via Hootsuite –hence the looming OW factor!

But also News and Flu has come into play. The latter has loomed large ‘cos I’ve talked about the communications implications of  my social media engagement around swine flu, and pandemic planning exercises at Decision Theater, my workplace.

My marketing and media side tells me that this would be a great way to keep track of a long term event.

Speaking of which, here’s a word cloud (left) about news in Iran –with an interesting visual twist. It was made from 84,000 tweets.

Word and Tag clouds could be used from variety of crowd-sourced sites. Take this: I looked up a word tag cloud on Michael Jackson –from people who tagged stories via Delicious. You can be sure the cloud’s focus would move from ‘legacy’ and ‘Barbara Walters’ to messier topics such as estate, drugs etc.

Quotes for the week ending 9 May, 2009

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“Gaze tracking is well-established … In the future, the whole image could also be panned left or right as the gaze approaches the edge of the screen.”

Gadgets and how we may use them, in BBC story on Science Beyond Fiction conference in Prague.

“The effects of the swine flu epidemic have been felt in Hollywood.”

Access Hollywood on an e-mail spam message that claimed Madonna had caught the virus.

“Moving from the digital world to print as everything else moves in the other direction may seem contrarian. But people want physicality, especially as more and more of our lives are lived virtually.”

Eileen Gittins, CEO of Blurb, a profitable print-on-demand company that has sold $30 million worth of books in 2008.

“Integration has long been talked about as the holy grail of brand communications. Socialization of media warrants finding it, and fast.”

Chris Perry, executive VP at Weber Shandwick. In Advertisng Age.

“…the greatest facilitators of human conversations, its building itself as a brand based on emotional bonds and trust in a shell of social , web 2.0 services.”

johnhorniblow, talking of Facebook, responding to the above article

“Forever is a word people aren’t used to hearing from marketers. But forever is good. If you could keep every customer you get forever, you’ll be in business for just as long.”

Rohit Bhargava, about the United States Postal Service’s use of a ‘forever stamp’ at the current postage rate, and it would be valid many years later, irrespective of price increases.

“Be warned. It’s me uncensored.”

Megan McCain, on her blog about her use of Twitter. Megan, daughter of John McCain is seen as the new voice of the Republican party. She will publish a book on this subject soon.

“They should be the ones writing the tweets – no ‘ghosttweeting’.”

Linda Vandevrede at ValleyPRblog.com, about CEOs use if Twitter. The full report is on Ryan Zuk’s presentation about Twitter.

Quotes for the week ending 2 May, 2009

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“If you’re out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes, that’s one thing. If you’re in a closed aircraft or a closed container or closed car or closed classroom, it’s a different thing.”

U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden

“Biden takes train after warning family to beware of confined spaces…”

Headline in ChicagoTribune.com on White House damage control over Joe Biden’s statement.

“The swine influenza outbreak makes Twitter more useful and somewhat useless, at the same time.”

Wayne Kurtzman, Media Bullseye

“Apparently the rate of infection is not as widespread as we might have thought.”

José Ángel Córdova, Mexico’s health minister

“Yes. And NO NO NO. Recently we’ve all been guilty of cheap and dirty!”

Lilamani Dias, CEO of LOwe, Sri Lanka, asked whether advertising standards have inproved over the past five years, on the occasion of the annual creative awards, The Chillies

“Social colonization is when every web experience will be social.”

Jeremiah Owyang, on the news about Facebook opening its walled garden to third-party developers.

Bottom line, Carnival should have been ready sooner with a statement and made it easily accessible on its web site. Surely it has a crisis communications plan?

Len Gutman, Editor of ValleyPRBlog, on the the potential cancellation of a crusie to the Mexican Riviera

Three simple lessons from a visit to Starbucks. Or Four.

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Retail spaces can teach you a lot of things. I once interviewed a guy who worked for auto-supplies store in California filling the racks and managing the register. He ended up as president of the company. How? He says he looked beyond the boring details of his college job and saw retailing as a learning ground for all kinds of management ideas.

I was reminded of that at my stop at Starbucks last morning. The shelves and the signage were screaming with marketing messages but the barristas were doing some pretty amazing –if basic– things. Those we take for granted as communicators. So here are the three takeaways:

  1. Know your audience. Not the trite know your audience by name, but know their preferences, to the point of knowing a bit of their personal lives.
  2. Ask a lot of questions –even though you may *know* a lot about the audience, and have a big database of information in your head and on the corporate server. Ask and you will engage…
  3. Engage in a genuine conversation –Go beyond the mundane  greetings, and leave brand conversations to the brand folk.

I don’t think managers set a timer to make sure a patron is served within a certain time. If they do, it sure doesn’t show. The lines are long, but unlike the wait in a grocery store checkout, no one seems to get impatient when the customer interacts with the service provider. Which brings me to the fourth point:

4.   Reset Expectations: Starbucks seems to set –or reset– people’s expectations when they step inside.

Do you?

Ecohes of Ogilvy in Creative Refinery

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I have to applaud Nathan Wagner, a friend with whom I chat about all things marketing and branding. he occasionally leaves a comment on this blog, and that starts an offline conversation.

Having worked for some pretty cool interactive agencies, he’s launched is own shop, called Creative Refinery. Intriguing name, that. (Previously there was BaconPony) Nathan is one of the few marketing practitioners I know of who rather than parrot the marketing-speak from business books, coins his own expressions. His recent blog post (the blog is called “Relevant Chews” – go figure!) talks of something after my own heart. The ordinariness of the consumer:

“I am not a consumer.  I am a husband, father and a hard working guy – but I could be your next loyal customer.”

I found it almost echoes a famous David Ogilvy idea: “The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife.” Actually I think that’s a  misquote. It is most likely Ogilvy said “The customer is not a moron. She is your wife.” Big difference.

The refinery guys should know.

Quotes for the week ending 18 April, 2009

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“If we’re still in the first inning of social media, we’re clearly at the bottom of the first, with two men out, runners on first and second, and a hitter who routinely hits into double plays at bat.”

Catherine P. Taylor, in MediaPost, on the Dominoes’ viral video fueled by social media

“this lately exploded pustule on the posterior of the British body politic.”

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, writing in The Telegraph about Damian McBride, the communications strategist at the center of the email scandal in the British Prime Minister’s cabinet.

“The real impact of a blog story happens only when it moves into the traditional media”

Stephen Pollard, Editor of the Jewish Chronicle, on how the scandal surrounding Gordon Brown has shifted and exploded.

“The emails were sent from an official government computer email account, so let’s just assume he was at his desk when he wrote them, shall we?”

Editorial in the Daily Telegraph, saying the Prime Minister cannot excuse his political strategist lightly.

“The online social world is about as two-way, multi-way, any-way…”

Josh Bernoff, in Advertisng Age, on why the term ‘social media’ is fraught with too much baggage to inspire people to participate in it.

“It’s a hostage rescue operation, something like the Entebbe rescue mission …It has to be discreet and surgical.”

Gotabhaya Rajapakse, Defense Minister, on the Sri Lakan government’s decision to reject the UN appeal for hostages held by the terrorists to leave the so-called safe zone.

“We are linked by geography and history”

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, on the digital town hall meeting from Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, on the eve of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

“@statesman: I see people on Twitter calling this a “hostage situation” at the Apple Bar. We have NOT been told that by police.”

Robert Quigley, a journalist, on how journalists can still play a role in verifying information. The Austin American Statesman was 35 minutes late to the story, but got it right, debunking the story. People had ‘reported’ via Twitter that a man with a gun was threatening guests.

How do we present a ‘black lung?’

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Excuse the horrible metaphor, but I had two amazing conversations today that made me think a lot more deeply about what we communicators do for a living.

We do not perform complicated surgical procedures, we do not step outside the space shuttle to fix a broken rudder, we do not stand atop a Humvee in Fallujah ducking sniper fire. All we appear to do is generate content and try to get some buy-in.

OK, I know we have ambitious strategic plans, and wear business development hats, sit at board meetings and what nots. But still…

When it comes to presenting something, especially something that’s somewhat complicated, slightly controversial, icky, we  summon the best best tools from digital cameras to–as they say in the military– human assets. But we tend to lean heavily on  ‘push’ tactics.

Speaking to these two senior communicators, I realized that 95% of their time appears to be devoted to understanding the audience, and 5% into the messaging. Without naming names, one is the director of an organization with multiple audiences, another the head of an outreach effort that involves a web site, with as many audiences as there are dots on the world map. Let’s leave it at that.

  • The Comms Director was someone who’s  finely attuned to considering what the audience was interested, using the web and as a listening post, as much as a publishing platform.  “We appreciate your views in helping us grow,” he mentioned. I was not in his orbit, not geographically, or professionally close to anything that his outreach program was all about. And yet…
  • The Corporate Director was someone who thought a lot about–some would say overly sensitive to — information overload, and losing the audience. “We shouldn’t come across as far too complex. We sound like we are trying to cure every form off cancer, when in reality, we may be just experts in lung cancer.”

I asked if she meant pruning down the content? More than that, she said. “How do we present the black lung?” The what? She  remembered way back when smoking was being attacked on all fronts with logos, warning signs, ad campaigns etc, how one simple presentation in school made an impression. It was a canister with a black lung, and next to it a unsullied one. It was not the slick PSA copy in the campaign that made her decide she would not smoke. It was the black lung!

Which brings this to us.  We tend to pack our communication tool kit with everything we’ve got, when all it takes is one memorable take-away. Not to say we need to drop everything. But perhaps we unintentionally clog up (pun intended) our message.

So I am formulating this black-lung theory. We all have this black lung problem. We present way too many bronchioles, blood vessels and pulmonary side shows as a stand-in for a real solution.  In other words, sometimes it’s time to cut down that presentation deck from 35 slides to 5. Or … zero?

There are other ways to keep the black lung front and center.

  • Use more visuals, less words.
  • Speak for 35 minutes and leave 25 minutes for questions.
  • Better still, start with questions and end with a presentation, counter-intuitive as this might seem
  • Listen to the blogosphere, twittersphere, whateversphere
  • Analyze leads, study your audience, use Google analytics
  • I bet there are dozens more

If you have some great presentation examples (or even horror stories) I’d like to know. And so will my two unnamed sources.