Social Media

High budget attack ads feign amateur look

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Attack ads and negative ads are not the same. However, they grew out of the same gene pool of political campaign strategy, attempting to annoy, cause fear, and basically present a slice of the ‘truth’ in 30 seconds.

Most ads, ‘scheduled’ to run on YouTube, MetaCafe and similar video sites for long tail value, are created fast, with no time for the finer points for which video production housed charge an arm and a leg. In fact, the more amateurish the video is, the more street cred (and YouTube hits) it gets. No wonder some well-funded organizations are tapping into this high-budget, low tech formula.

This ad, (by NFIB) a slam against Tom Allen, is fairly well produced, even if it is in poor taste. Actors play government snoops, there’s the use of an eighties (Mission Impossible?) split-screen technique, the grainy black & white consciously done. It’s not the kind of low-budget ad made by a bunch of amateurs one evening over beers. Someone had a storyboard, paid attention to detail here.

Unfortunately for the NFIB, this ad has been viewed fewer than 150 times on YouTube. Maybe YouTube audiences have higher standards!

Media skepticism much needed

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Jeff Jarvis isn’t simply being a cheerleader of citizen journalism because of the new media edge (and hip factor) it lends to a profession being slashed (by bean-counters) and burned (by the digital-rules crowd.) More than two years ago, he redefined it as ‘networked journalism’ which removed the dichotomy between Pros and Ams. But how to deal with the credibility factor, or lack thereof?

Responding to how another recent Apple rumor (remember the first one?) piped through an unverified iReport portal on CNN, was being framed as the downside of citizen journalism, Jarvis used this as a ‘teaching moment’ to remind us of the need for media skepticism.

“Mistakes – let alone rumors and lies – go out live and the public has to learn to judge the news more skeptically. The truth is, they always have. But now rather than ignoring their skepticism, we need to encourage it and educate people to think this way. Call it media literacy.”

Truth is, most people expect the media to be fact-checked and error free. They don’t buy into the definition that the media is ‘the first rough draft of history’ and all that.

People often complain about the typos and non-adherence to the style-guide, but don’t always howl about the skewered facts. I find the absence of ‘absolute truth’ across the board, in The Economist and NPR, Drudge and talk radio. That’s the bargain I make when I subscribe to them.

At best the journalists (professional, amateur, networked or otherwise) can only give you one version of the truth. They may be our filters, but we need to also install our own.

Quotes for the week ending 4 October, 2008

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

“Washington Mutual went from “Whoo hoo” to “uh-oh.”

Mike Cassidy at San Jose Mercury News, in a column about the financial crisis and how angry we all are.

“Digital Marketing could well be one of the main industries that will benefit from this downturn, and when things turnaround (they always do), we can all be hopeful that Digital Marketing will lead the brand and advertising strategy.”

Mitch Joel, podcaster, marketer and soon-to-be-author, with his characteristic glass-is-half-full view of the world.

“We also believe that Americans … should be able to ‘debate the debates’ using all available tools on the internet and elsewhere, including blogs, web video services, and other means.”

John McCain campaign’s general counsel, Trevor Potter in a letter to Lawrence Lessig‘s call for open debates.

“Connected real estate.”

Padma Worrier, Chief Technology Officer at Cisco talking about its vision of smart, connected buildings that monitor themselves.

“If this thing follows the normal course, there would be calls for boycotts, protests and so on.”

Greg Sandoval or CNet on the news that the Copyright Royalty Board, and the Digital Music Association have called for a rate increase per music track.

“If there’s one sports league that could and should capitalize on social media marketing, it’s the NHL. It’s downright cultish.”

Jason Baer, on the poor use of social media by the National Hockey League.

“The stories should contain a story.”

Sarah Wurrey, or Media Bullseye, quoting Marta Karlqvist, on advice for Sarah Palin who is facing a lot of press this week.

“If you’d been blogging in 1932, would you have told people to put down the phone and pointed them to that typewriter thingy on their desks.”

Shel Holtz, to blogger Jeremy Pepper on the latter’s suggestion that PR people get off email and get on the phone.

“Having your friends sorted by battleground states is something I haven’t seen any other politician come up with before. This is a glimpse of the future of high-tech politicking.”

Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent, CNet, on the Obama campaign using the iPhone into a recruiting tool.

Big picture thinking, why is it so hard?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I was at a meeting yesterday morning where the discussion soon turned to how easy it is to look at a report or a set of charts and come to a ‘small picture’ conclusion.

We create models –the mathematical, 2D and 3D kind– here at the Decision Theater for clients that project out 20 or 30 years. But even as ‘big’ as this is in the big picture scheme of things, people easily run off with slices of this information just because it suits their agenda or world view. Water scarcity, a big picture scenario, doesn’t look so bad if you make certain small picture assumptions.

To come at this from a completely different angle,  Al Ries put it bluntly saying “No computer is as smart as a human being with a holistic point of view.” Ries, a marketing expert, was talking about “holism” and applying the need for holistic marketing thinking.

He asks why mathematicians and scientists “who developed the art and science of risk management” built models that could “comb through complicated mortgage portfolios to analyze everything,” and still been so off the mark. (A number that involves 7 and 11 zeroes, to wit!)

The answer, of course, is that they looked at risk up close, but not from a holistic, interconnected perspective.

The same goes for water, transportation, education, health. I like to tell people when presenting big picture concepts in the Drum, that even though we put things into nice buckets, we need to pay attention to the connections. Education planning involves transportation and urban growth –where would teachers live, how far will students travel, how many buses need to be in the school system?

Yes we do zoom in, move slider bars, tweak demand and supply. But we make sure people don’t undervalue the need to zoom out.

The lengths people go for Google juice

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The dangerous line between SEO and tricking the algorithm to deliver more Google juice has been crossed before. People have warned about such dangerous practices.

But this one, revealed by Todd Defren stumbling onto a combination of social media and SEO practice is disheartening. Sickening, in fact. Basically it was an act of blog spam plus fake posts.

I don’t know if he is doing everyone a disservice by not revealing who the company was that resorted to this kind of fakery. Maybe Defren is bound by business constraints to not do so. I challenge someone to do some sleuth work and reveal the name of the company, if only to protect some other client from falling prey.

The innovation and value that social media and search engine optimization brings to everyone is far too important to let this one slide.

Bloging gains scientific street cred

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

It’s been a slow process, but the words ‘expertise’ and ‘research’ are now being used in the same sentence as blogging. A whole new window is opening up with Research Blogging, and Science Blogging.

Research Blogging calls itself a site for those tired of “science by press release” and needing to find peer-reviewed research.

Why is this worth paying attention to? These are the early signs of scientific rigor being lent to social media. They bring credibility to the strategies we evangelize. Here’s how one science writer, Nick Anthis discusses a study:

“The results were astounding. Across the blogosphere, scientists had started new collaborations, enhanced their scientific work, advanced their careers, been able to communicate science as never before, and had been offered a whole array of new and unique experiences and opportunities in part or in full due to their blogs.”

“In what respect, Charlie?” reveals poor grasp of media

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

Hard not to feel bad for Sarah Palin.

She’s completely rattled by the media, and does not have the instincts or training to push back.

Her response to Charlie Gibson on his question about whether she understands the Bush Doctrine, with the question, “in what respect, Charlie?” revealed two things:

  1. She was clueless and probably had never heard the term before.
  2. She was dumb enough to take the bait and succumb to the question whose sub-text was “prove to me you’ve done your homework.”

With Katie Couric she appeared to simply be following instructions & talking points by repeating her answer when unable to clarify a follow-up question. That was before she swung into operation-Putin, about him flying into U.S. airspace. She was also not ready with specific examples. “I will try to find you some…” is NOT an answer!

It’s easy to see the urgent need for media training. But more than that, she need media understanding. Anticipating what the interview might be looking for and coming prepared with it.

Let’s hope that in the next few days someone will give her some proper media training. Memo to governor Palin: There’s plenty of free advice out there, if the McCain campaign has no time for this. Here are just two.

Poorly timed ad for Merrill Lynch

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No amount of advertising can repair the damage for some financial institutions.

In this week’s The Economist magazine, the powerful cover image (left) shows the cyclone sucking up brand names like Fannie Mae, AIG, Morgan Stanley, Washington Mutual, Lehman Brothers and … Merill Lynch.

But the bull got sucked into the swirl by another means. Its full page ad inside (probably scheduled and printed before the news stories were laid out) ran with this copy:

“Merrill Lynch connects capital to opportunity…”Our 94-year history of leadership in the financial industry has been a source of confidence for our clients in both good and challenging markets.”