Where the Frak is my Social Media Unobtonium?

Recently saw Avatar with my sons. Lots of cool Signourney cussing and crazy-eyed Colonel Quaritch violence.

I couldn’t shake the feeling though that I was watching an object lesson about what could happen to big chunks of the social media world.

Don’t mean to get all Pandora mystical on you but the planet of social media is an amazing place. People run around on trees, doing within reason pretty much whatever they’d like and without interference. Whenever they want to mind-meld with the entire world both past and present, they simply ponytail-jack their way into the system and do the whole Na’vi social-network thing. They can feel the love, exchange communal knowledge, decide where the best burrito can be had, or whether to get a Prius or Volt, all of it. The straight dope from those who know from all over the world. What could be better?

But then of course the people from the planet of stupid show up. Instead of appropriately listening and learning from these gentle Na’vis, as Sigourney suggests, we bring in Colonel crazy-eyes. This goon and his boss ignore the real power; the connectedness of the populace and the planet, the amazing ability of the people to plug in and share thoughts, knowledge, memories etc.. They instead go for the unobtonium underneath the big tree. Which as far as the stupids are concerned has real ROI. And the pursuit of which will destroy what makes the place magical and valuable in the first place.

I was talking to someone recently from a large financial services company who runs their social marketing practice. He has set up a social monitoring system through which he can hear everything everyone in the world, online, has to say about his company, his competitors, and the whole category in which they compete.
This gives him and every part of his company incredible insight into what the market cares about regarding products, and service and the future. He’s also dipped his toe into having a voice in the space. Built a small but growing community in the social network and blog space where he can publish content to those who care. In spite of this very cool and valuable system of direct and relatively unfiltered communication with customers and prospects, he’s under pressure from his boss, the crazy-eyed Colonel of his company, to deliver ROI. Which in their terms means sales, directly measured. The same way they measure sales through direct or sales through clicks off of a banner.

And so they’re going to strap themselves into those giant metal robot things and start trampling the social planet in order to extract the unobtanium. Now, I’m no ROI snob. We’ve all got to earn a living, but for Eywa’s sake can we please not demo the planet or that big tree thing, and blow this insanely wonderful listening and communication system in order to turn social marketing into the same crappy ROI piece of shite digital advertising has become?

Let’s not be skxawang’s please!

Goldfish and Ping Pong Tables

My sons came back from one of their school’s carnivals with baggies full of goldfish they won for throwing rings around bottles or pennies into jars or some such Carnie shenanigans.

The day after they came home with the booty we went to the big fish store in the city to get the equipment to keep them alive for a few days until they die due to starvation or overfeeding or disposal disaster. As we’re buying the fish bowl and food I ask the fish store guy if he sold the fish to the school. He asks me which school. I’m a bit thrown that he has to ask which school and it turns out he gives nearly 100 schools in the city free goldfish every year for carnivals.

The day after of course the store is flooded with people spending $50 to $100 each to keep those “free” fish alive for a few days. Frigging genius. I realize this razor blade/razors parallel isn’t new but still really good stuff. But not everyone is in the give free fish to sell bowls/tanks/food business so I wasn’t sure of the marketing parallel for most.

But then just a few days ago two of my sons came home from school (they go to different schools) and interestingly both played ping pong at their respective schools that day because their schools had just landed new ping-pong tables. And It turns out that a lot of their friends are now planning on asking for a ping-pong table for xmas. I smelled a rat.

Turns out the big sporting goods store in the city is giving these tables to schools gratis or close to gratis, just before the holidays. For all the reasons you can imagine. Tons of kids lining up around shiny new tables, for which they can gain limited access (important they still crave the thing come xmas time). The sporting goods store, like the fish store, doesn’t need to charge for the things although for different reasons.

Fish guy makes his money on supplies. The Ping Pong table guy makes his money on reaching absolutely critical influencers, in an extremely engaging experience, at absolutely the right time. Once again, brilliant.

Have to ask whether every marketer’s plan starts with something big like this? For most considered purchase marketers their situation is probably more like the ping pong table. How are you getting your product in the hands of the right people at the right time so that they are experiencing thoroughly . Whether you’re selling a fancy diaper changing pad or an electric car, this has to be at the top of your list. People want to have the product in their hands or find people who’ve had the product in their hands. No ad or digital/social gizmo is going to overcome that desire.

Creating and capturing these kinds of engagement experiences can be the critical element feeding a social marketing effort.

Instrinsic vs. Instrumental Value In The Social World

Something is said to have intrinsic value if it is good “in and of itself,” i.e., not merely as a means for acquiring something else.

Happiness has intrinsic value, because being happy is good just because it’s good to be happy, not because being happy has to lead to anything else. (definition borrowed from Kent Holsinger)

Something is said to have instrumental value if it is good because it provides the means for acquiring something else of value.

Having a billion dollars in Gold Doubloons is an Instrumental value. Having this booty is good only to the extent that you can use them to get something else – like happiness.

One of my great fears about social marketing (a discipline I love and which pays the mortgage by the way) is that it constantly tries to find Instrumental value in social activity that at times might be closer to something with Intrinsic value. The purchasing of fandom on facebook (i think our sense of “fans” on FB will need to change as a result of marketers getting fans of their marketing rather than their products) and the constant manipulation or purchase of dialogue among bloggers and social participants is going to impact them in ways they can’t imagine.

One of the best elements of the social world has been its ability to give us a relatively authentic view of how we’re doing. And ideally give us some “learning” moments. And when we behave well in this world it continues to do so. Now I’m no idealist, as evidenced by our active marketing in the social world but this Manifest Destiny point of view in which every element of the social world gets drawn and quartered for marketing manipulation is going to give us a crapload of false positives and other such oddities. It will also likely take real fans, who enjoyed their position of uniqueness in celebrating a brand online and make them feel marginalized or part of a brand culture they didn’t bargain for when they originally joined (see Jack Daniel’s recent more shrill participation in FB).

If you’re a brand that’s doing a Wolfgang Puck and crossing over from LA fashionista’s to Vending Machines and the masses then by all means set fire to the joint.

At the end of the day though it’s worth double-checking that you’re not trampling over the real fans who in the marketing sense have “Intrinsic” value to try and pull in every Tom, Dick and Harry with some kind of short term, social-marketing manufactured, Instrumental-value metric and objective.

And by the way, I get that all marketing lives in the world of Instrumental value and that we’re playing with the language in this post but you get the idea here right?

Johnny Walker

If you haven’t see the Johnny Walker – The Man Who Walked Around The World video: the take the time.

It’s 6 minutes long but well worth it. At the end you understand the history of the whiskey, the walking story and undoubtedly feel bonded to Johnny Walker and the whiskeys in a way other communication forms could not have achieved.

I want to start seeing equivalent forms of communication from other industries. Why is it I know more about Johnny Walker than the cars I purchase from General Motors? (my family works for GM and I worked for the agency that does Chevy ads).

This form of communication in which information is delivered in a reasonably entertaining fashion strikes me as the absolutely first thing on the list of responsibilities were I introducing a new car into the market. When the Chevy Volt launches (or any of their brands) I better be able to learn at least as much about the reasons that Chevy has gotten it right as I learned from Johnny Walker about the reasons they’ve gotten it right.

Johnny Walker also did a very cool multimedia event described here at <a href="“><a href="”>Food Monkey
Amazing, compelling experience driving deeply the passion for the brand. Now you could argue that it’s easier to win someone over when they’re all liquored up and you’d be right but c’mon, when that Volt launches they should be able to create a comparable experience for anyone interested in learning some more.

Radio Shack / fork-in-the-eye marketing

Lots of press lately about Radio Shack’s plans to use The Shack as a nickname in their latest blitz marketing effort. While I don’t like the nickname much it doesn’t really matter.

What matters is how anyone can think the right way to do this stuff is to launch an all-out campaign in the face of significant customer satisfaction issues. In an article in Adage the CMO responds to the question of why they’d launch the campaign with people unhappy about the store experience by saying that people don’t understand how “The Shack” nickname will be rolled out in the ads. Unless this campaign is going to be a public acknowledgment that the stores have issues and they’re working on them I can’t imagine how these things relate.

It’s simple, you cannot launch a big marketing effort in the midst of having very large customer issues. You have to start with the issues, solve them, and then market any way you’d like. The reverse is incomprehensible. The CMO suggests they’re in the process of addressing these issues but then goes on to talk about the campaign. For Christ’s sake, just wait on the blitz until you’re done. Until then run your Sunday circulars or promotions or whatever you need to in order to get foot traffic.

Now the CMO may be under the gun to do something big prior to the store fixes. He probably doesn’t control that aspect of the company. Many don’t. But that’s the problem then. The store experience is the number one form of marketing for Radio Shack. If it isn’t brilliant then there is no amount of money on earth that will make this campaign work.

After the dust clears, and the campaign fails to lift the fortunes of the chain, and the CMO is ushered to the door he’ll claim, “I told the CEO the stores needed to be fixed”.

Zappos and Slows BB-Q: The Social Phenomenon of Excellence

The story on sale of Zappos reminded me of a recent visit to Slows BB-Q in downtown Detroit. I remember when players like Zappos launched and everyone was convinced you could not sell shoes on the web. And then they went and created a miracle of service and proved them all wrong. Pretty cool, pretty brave.

Slows BB-Q is in a largely abandoned part of Detroit near the old Tiger Stadium. As you drive there and pull up you can’t imagine that it could work. I don’t believe a soul on earth connected to food service, or retail or anything would have predicted it could work. Then they went and did something miraculous. It’s a combination of amazing food, great energy, great beer, great service, a green message about the construction (in an area that you could shoot a north korean missile and not hit another green-messaged business). When you get there you realize that to some degree greatness cannot be denied. If you treat people extremely well, offer them something they love, you will succeed. Whether you’re selling shoes on the web or BB-Q in Detroit.

And, increasingly not only is it a recipe for success, but anything less will likely be a recipe for failure.

Fight Crime / Do Marketing Right / Stick With It

Recent article in The New Yorker about David Kennedy’s Ceasefire strategy for curbing gang violence and public drug sales. Dives deep into what works and doesn’t work in cutting down on crime. Turns out reducing crime is hard work. And most successful when extremely layered. Carrots, Sticks, Jobs, Threats, Social Care, Persistence, Time and Patience are all required for it to work.

What is nice about the Ceasefire strategy is it gives the messiness a structure.

Marketing is like this now. Layered, complex, and requiring all sorts of unique and seemingly non-coordinated, non “structured” marketing events.

We’re all in a race to get the structure right. To make sense of it all. To find our Ceasefire. It’s not simple. And it’s going to require patience while we work through the emerging structures. One thing that scares me is that I think we’re on the right track. That inside-out or bottom-up marketing models are truly helping but that marketers will grow impatient with them.

Recently in an article in Ad Age Jeff Goodby talked about how we’re all becoming Irrelevant Award Chasers

This article terrified me because it struck me as like the call from the old-line police departments referenced in the article who decry the new-age “soft” policing/community strategies and claim we just need to return to kicking ass and naming names. I hope no marketer out there read the Goodby article and thought that perhaps they could get away from the hard work they’re undoubtedly putting in to have successes big and small, broadly viewed, or only relevant to individuals.

The Ceasefire program has found that over time cities and police departments have a hard time sticking to the program because they get restless or look for shortcuts for any number of reasons. I hope we don’t see that happen in the marketing world.

Prop 8, Chevy Malibu and the social touch

Have read quite a bit about the failure in California to overturn Prop 8. All sorts of reasons have been give about why it failed but the most interesting notion to me is that people couldn’t be marketed / advertised through believing that it was legally or ethically right to allow a same sex couple to marry. They had to know someone or get to know someone gay or lesbian in order to “convert” (see dick chaney).

The discussion around this issue reminded me of when Chevrolet introduced the new Malibu a couple years ago and for the first time in a long time it was an extremely good sedan. Every bit as good as the Toyota and Honda alternatives. But how were people going to be convinced if they weren’t still domestic buyers? In the end, people needed to see the car, and feel it and touch it in order to get “converted”. You couldn’t simply spend a lot of money in order to get them into the dealer where they would be magically converted. It required a more social touch.

Similar issue for those looking to overturn Prop 8. I’m not suggesting they not spend money or stop fighting until everyone in California befriends or spends time with someone who is gay or lesbian. However there is talk about another ballot initiative for next year and if that happens and there is another campaign I hope a different marketing tack is taken. More on that later perhaps.

Spending $43.3 million in traditional marketing fashion to attempt to convert pro Prop 8′ers or fence sitters is a tough call when an insufficient number of people have had the social touch that most effectively makes the point.

Kosmix.com: teaching us to fish

Met with Jodi Olson recently, the Director of Corp Comm for Kosmix.com. Prior to meeting visited Kosmix.com and have to admit didn’t have a clue what Kosmix is other than i figured it was another search engine.

She gave me the scoop on the site and their various services and after meeting went back and played some more and it has now become one of our favorite research tools. Really the first place we go to when researching a new prospect, or their competitors, or a category in which they compete. Really anything in which we want to learn about something and have access to everything there is to know about them.

My sons now use it for their school projects. They used to use youtube as their search engine (not sure how many people know how much youtube is used as a search engine amongst the youngsters) but now through kosmix they get their youtube and they get everything else as well. Presented in a format that is just perfect. All the different media forms are organized nicely, from google links, to video content, social media conversations, mainstream media articles. it’s all there. Teaching us to fish rather than whipping that fish at our heads like our pals at Google do.

I still use Google endlessly when i’m just looking for that one thing, but for an agency, or marketing person, or student, or anyone that needs to learn about something I can’t think of a better tool than Kosmix.

SoulWow.com: the catholic church takes a chance

I noticed a link to soulwow.com on a friends facebook page. If you haven’t seen it take a look. I had to watch it several times in order to figure out if it was by the church or simply making fun of the church. In the end I have to conclude it’s from the church. If it’s not then it’s the best marketing the church has done since that big book was written and they should take credit regardless.

why? well crap it doesn’t take a marketing genius to tell you that the church has had some tough moments over the last decade or two. and since people have been getting approximately the same pitch for a couple milleniums a fresh approach couldn’t hurt. i mean they adhere to the best principles of content for social distribution: funny, short, topical, parody of ad form, in your face etc.

And they do it every bit as well as a Crispin or Saturday NIght Live or any other hotshop would do it. now i may get burned at some point and learn that this was a parody and some knucklehead at Michigan State created it but damn that would be a shame.