From today I will be featuring a guest blogger Rohit Bhargava an influential thought leader and blogger covering digital strategy.
Bhargava, of Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence, is in Beijing as part of the Lenovo sponsorship.
Latest Olympics News Video and Photos
This widget is one more example of how news is distributed from a world event by an organization that used to represent mass media, and now embraces social media.
I didn’t have to drop it in here on the blog. I simply added it via the NBC site, while registering for text updates -a more personalized opt-in method of grabbing the news as it happens.
[clearspring_widget title=”Latest Olympics News Video and Photos” wid=”4812279165b55abb” pid=”489f079ec276d62d” width=”300″ height=”400″ domain=”widgets.clearspring.com”]
Exclusive Summer Olympics news & widgets at NBC Olympics.com!
Quotes for the week ending 9 August, 2008
”He went from being this renegade making films that were banned and an eyesore for the Chinese government, to kind of being the pet of the government.”
Michael Berry, of University of California, Santa Barbara, on Zhang Yimou, who directed the spectacular Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing.
In addition I have offered to send the MAD Magazine Editor a $20.00 Circuit City Gift Card, toward the purchase of a Nintendo Wii….if he can find one!
Jim Babb, of Circuit City’s corporate Communications, apologizing to MAD magazine for pulling copies off the shelves in response to a parody of a Circuit City newspaper ad about “Sucker City.”
“Wait until Bob Garfield sees these new ads.”
AdRants, talking of an ad for Snickers, featuring ‘animals digitally tortured and forced to take on human qualities’ by agency NoS/BBDO Poland. The reference to Advertising Age critic Bob Garfield is because of his recent ‘open letter‘ to the president of another ad agency.
“More Americans died from pandemic flu in the 20th Century than died in World War I. It will happen again. Prepare now.”
PSA for the state of Ohio on its pandemic flu preparedness plan and publicizing of its website, OhioPandemicflu.gov
“At the moment the channel for reporters to use the internet is fully open.”
Beijing Olympic spokesperson Sun Weide, on the move by China to lift the blocks on several long-barred websites, that were only accessible by the media at their hotels.
“Never before in an election cycle has so much attention turned to the youth vote…”
Steve Capus, president of NBC News, on hiring the late Tim Russert’s son, Luke, to cover the Democratic National Convention this month.
“But what the clueless HR team doesn’t realize is that the manager community will find a way to shorten it for them – simply by hitting the “delete” button when they receive it.
Blog on MyRagan.com on why “HR is Clueless”
“The new Delicious is just like the old del.icio.us, only faster …”
From a blog post on Del.icio.us about the new, improved tagging and search features launched this week.
“Beard was supposed to shed her clothes and denounce the wearing of fur, but why anyone would wear fur in the summertime in Beijing is beyond me.”
John Crumpacker, in SFGate on U.S. Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard’s failed attempt at a stunt in Beijing, on behalf of PETA.
“Where is the protest against surgeon who remove big part of your brain?”
Someone going by the name of PeterH2 on the discussion page of the Wikipedia entry for the 2008 Summer Olympics, reacting to a question about the use of American English in the entry.
Amanda Beard’s PETA stunt foiled
Poor Amanda. She may mean well, standing up for other creatures in the water and outside, on behalf of PETA.
But someone should have told her that when you plan to pull off a media stunt, it’s best to keep things under wraps until the final moment. Especially since nudity was going to be involved. Especially since PETA has had its sights on China and vice versa.
Like I said before, Beijing is going to be a venue filled with many controversial stories. It’s already begun, with the U.S. cyclist team apologizing for what was not exactly a stunt but a bad PR move. In this context, a swimmer planning to show skin outside of the Water Cube is not exactly a smart move.
Maybe she gets it, now quoted as saying “PETA is a little more risque, a little more out there …That’s not me. That’s not my tactic.”
Really?
Marketing plays by Coke and McDonald’s in Beijing
Nice move by Coke in Beijing, to use hotspots, mobile phones and opt-in.
McDonald’s has an interesting online experience, “The Lost Ring” which is a sort iof immersive game, featuring one Eli Hunt, via podcasts.
Spoof ad, spoof tweet, flogs and unauthorized blogs. Are you sweating?
It’s enough to send shivers down a CEO’s spine.
This story about Circuit City, following closely on the heels of the unidentified Exxon Mobil Twitterer tells us all we need to know about the futility of command and control tactics in corporate and marketing communications.
As MAD magazine sketches go, the details in the fake Circuit City ad are hilarious. Especially if it’s not your organization. (There’s a slight nod to the iPhone –in the copy about dropped price.)
With the maturity of social media, PR and reputation issues are gathering steam.
- Last year, there was a spoof blog in the U.K.
- In May this year, Burger King fired two employees for conduct unbecoming -engaging in “unauthorized activity on public Web sites.” Blogs were involved
- Nike got ridiculed for a ‘do not try this at home” YouTube video featuring Kobe Bryant
- Sony got outed on a fake PSP blog created by a marketing company
The list goes on…
There was a happy ending for Circuit City, where it came back fast, joining the conversation to retake the story. On the MAD magazine site, someone posted a comment about Circuit City’s lack of humor. In about two hours, someone else (Hmm! I wonder who?) posted a comment and a link to the story how Circuit City had apologized.
‘Janet’ in Twitterspehere prompts urgent CPR
CPR is not what you think. I will get to that later.
Common sense tells us that the time to start monitoring a brand is long before the sushi hits the ventilator. But social media always blindsides us. It’s called a Brand Hijack for a good reason. Brand Hikacking, described as “the consumer‘s act of commandeering a brand from the marketing professionals and driving its evolution,” could be “the employee‘s act of commandeering” as well.
Interesting to see how Exxon Mobil will handle what appears to be an employee micro-blogging without been anointed by the PR and marketing department. Someone going as Janet has been sending Twitter updates, but the blogosphere, including Shel Holtz figured out it was not an official Exxon Mobil tweet.
Jeremiah Owyang has been in touch with Exxon Mobil, whose comments, as they seem to wrestle with way to handle this, are enlightening. Especially if you are doing top-down CPR (Communication/PR) in the organization. I am reminded of Alan Jenkin‘s observation that “The shelf life of any “tweet” is about 20 minutes. But tweets are carved in stone.”
The bottom line of course being the need constantly to monitor your brand in the blogosphere.
- Owyang, and Joseph Jaffee had some good monitoring advice, two years ago -pre Twitter.
- Mike Manuel last month listed six social media monitoring approaches.
6.6 degrees of separation, really!
Just add 0.6 to the original calculation and the six points of separation between us and anyone else in the world still holds up.
If you have ever pulled out the ‘Kevin Bacon’ theory or referred to the book by John Guare, this story will appeal. Especially so, if you are into text messaging.
Forrester’s acquisition shows research matters
It didn’t get the same dog-eat-dog coverage that Microsoft has been receiving, attempting to acquire Yahoo! Research, unlike Search, isn’t sexy. But we all lean on it one way or another.
The acquisition of JupiterResearch by Forrester Research tells us that in a downturn, especially when things are not looking great for the economy, research matters.
Forrester knows how to make numbers relevant. It reports on things like “Ideas that influence buyers and markets” and all things related to marketing and strategy. To many of us in marketing, Forrester and Jupiter were the archetypal ‘frenemies’ — you liked the fact that they competed hard; there was no either/or.
This comes through from a post by Jupiter analyst, David Schatsky: “We have not always seen things the same way, and we have scoffed at times at some of Forrester’s market forecasts and bold pronouncements on the future. But Forrester has a lot of smart people, and has gotten a lot right. And they have executed their business strategy masterfully.” Frenemy talk.
Interesting fact: Jupiter was in the social media scene long before Forrester. When Forrester’s Charlene Li (who has since left the company) started a blog in 2004, research director David Card had this to say: “But Forrester is about a couple years behind Jupiter Research on the weblog front. Some of the Jupiter analysts have been writing weblogs since 2002.”
Quotes for the week ending 2 August, 2008
“The humidity is really something here, you are dripping of sweat in a few minutes ..I guess i should not be complaining at all about humidity, being from Delhi, India.”
Rajyavardhan Rathore, Indian shooter, one of the Lenovo-sponsored bloggers, having just landed at the Olympic village in Beijing.
“I suggest someone be kind and bring an Airport Express or other Wifi router and share the Internet love.”
Andrew Lih, commenting on the claim that internet access in the Olympic village is not free nor cheap.
“Beijingoism”
One word re-used by The Economist magazine this week to describe what it calls a ‘virulently assertive strain of nationalism’ mixed with feelings of diplomatic triumph. In December last year, the article on the Challenge of Beijingoism, called the Olympic preparations a ‘colossal makeover.’
“When I first broached the idea of doing YouTube some people looked at me as though I must have completely lost the plot.”
Queen Rania of Jordan, on using her own YouTube channel to address important issues.
“Even though I am avidly digital, my devotion is not pure-play. There are six print news and culture magazines entering my household … — and of course the thump of a daily newspaper to my doorstep.”
Kendall Allen, on balancing old and new media as the news business goes digital.
“Come like you did for Don Bolles; come to Phoenix and stop this madness.”
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, telling the national media to scrutinize Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration sweeps like the way it focused on Bolles, an investigative journalist killed by a car bomb.
“You’ll get respect from providing the media what they need, and writing in AP Style is just icing on the cake.”
Hoipolloireport 