Archives - November 2009


Liar Liar, Pants on Fire (Or When Earned Media isn’t Earned)

So yesterday I saw some brilliant talks at the APG Battle of Big Thinking (highlights included Justin Basini’s Escaping the Matrix – some brilliant thoughts about conservation economics, fantastic turns from John, Jeremy & Amelia, plus a thoroughly worthy winner in my category in the fantastic James Mitchell). For anyone interested, my deck is up on slideshare, (although the eagle eyed will notice more than a little crossover with my Social Media 09 presentation).

The winner in the ‘Big Thinking in the Free Space’ was Claus Moseholm, the founder of GoViral, a “branded content distribution company”, who argued that nothing is truly free, but that the value of earned media was huge in comparison to bought media.

I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. At Naked we’ve spent many years working with clients to understand how to get the most out of their owned spaces (every brand touchpoint, from product to packaging, not just their owned ‘media’) as well as their bought media, to gain valuable advantage in the earned space. If you’re not familiar with the Bought / Owned / Earned model, I’d strongly recommend this excellent post by Daniel Goodall for a clear and succinct overview. Earned ‘media’ (I think media is a slightly misleading term as it suggests it’s just another media channel, but it’s a well-understood term and I haven’t yet come up with anything better…) is arguably the most valuable as it demonstrates trust in your brand, and that people are truly engaged with you (on their terms). So when you do something that gets positively talked about, discussed, shared and passed on, you know you’ve done something pretty good.

Or have you?

Now, we all know that the best thing for brands is not to have a social media strategy, but just to make really good stuff. Make really fantastic stuff and people will want to talk about it. Amelia and I have both talked about the importance of social ideas. Meg Pickard wrote a fantastic post about means, motive and opportunity in the earned space:

The echo-chamber of social media marketeers spends a lot of time thinking about the Means (ability, access, tools) and Opportunity (social graph, stimulus, habits, behaviours) for people to get involved in or pay attention to social activity online, but not nearly enough time thinking about Motive.

Why do people get excited and talk about stuff?
Because they care about it.
Because it’s good.
Because it’s worth talking about.

I wish product makers and media owners would spend a little less time thinking about manipulating audiences, and a little more time thinking about making good things to begin with.

But we also know that brands are frequently reluctant to rely on the ‘make great stuff and keep their fingers crossed people start talking’ approach. They usually want to try and help things along, and make sure that enough people know about it in the first place, to give them the best shot of generating earned media. And we know that brands have long courted bloggers (and now Twitterers) with ‘social media outreach’ programmes to try and generate valuable earned media. PR is nothing new, and money’s always changed hands in some form, although usually through the exchange of goods and services rather than hard cash, When it’s done openly and honestly with full disclosure, I think it’s all above board – as long as the blogger is under no obligation, as long as they’re free to write what they choose (and not what the brand chooses) and crucially when they admit any involvement. Iain Tait’s completely open about wanting free T-shirts, and those brands who send him a T-shirt know what the score is – and most importantly, so do Iain’s readers.

But what about when the relationship isn’t one of courting and persuasion, of attempting to ‘earn’ through bringing genuine value? What about when the exchange isn’t one of value for mutual benefit? What if the earned media is really no different to bought media?

The CAP code, which regulates all UK non-broadcast marketing communication (excluding online), says that all paid-for editorial content must be strictly labelled as such:

23.1 Advertisement features, announcements or promotions, sometimes referred to as “advertorials”, that are disseminated in exchange for a payment or other reciprocal arrangement should comply with the Code if their content is controlled by the marketers rather than the publishers.

23.2 Marketers and publishers should make clear that advertisement features are advertisements, for example by heading them “advertisement feature”.

L’Oreal got themselves in hot water with the ASA for misleading the public when they failed to disclose that Penelope Cruz’s fantastic-looking lashes weren’t in fact exclusively the result of the mascara they were peddling, but were in fact falsies. L’Oreal now have to disclose to the public that Cheryl Cole’s lustrous locks are actually full and glossy due to the hair extensions she wears, and not just the shampoo she’s advertising – though the type is so minute that although the ad was cleared by the ASA, L’Oreal are still being criticised for misleading the public.

We don’t like being misled. We know that brands want to sell to us. We know that we live in a world of advertising. But we want to know when we’re being sold to.

So I find it utterly disingenuous for Claus Moseholm to extol the virtues of earned media over bought media, when his company misleads people by trying to disguise bought media under the guise of earned.

I got the below email from GoViral earlier this week, offering to pay me cold hard cash in return for posting a video for one of their clients on my blog – with the possibility to earn more cash for additional blogging, tweeting etc:

 

[ click to see full-size image ]

 

Like many bloggers, I get lots of emails from PR and agency people trying to get me to plug their product or service. Most aren’t personalised in any way, and don’t indicate any reason why they think I’d be interested in their brand, or why it would be something I’d want to write about – they’re normally just very generic mass mailouts. And this was no exception – except that I’d never before received such a blatant attempt to buy my endorsement.

Curious, I emailed back to ask how the whole bought-masquerading-as-earned thing worked. How much did they you pay bloggers? How did they work out how much to pay individuals – did they have a ratecard for an individual post or tweet, or did the amount vary depending on the level of influence of the blogger or site traffic? Did they insist on approving blog posts or tweets first?

And got this response:

 

[ click to see full-size image ]

 

So they have a cost per view budget for the campaign, and will pay me a stonking £300 for 10,000 UK views, and they have extra budget available for pretty much anything I’m willing to do to promote the brand:

We’re considering social media spread, branded twitter pages, anything like that will allow us to grant extra budget to you

According to the GoViral publisher guidelines, if you take their cash, you should “suggest [the video content] to the user using links, suggestions and featuring” and cannot “subject [GoViral content] to hateful or similar brand-damaging metadata, tags or similar” – although you can “feel free to do creative and funny things with the material, show spoofs of it etc”.

Nowhere in the FAQ or T&Cs does it say that you should disclose that you’ve been paid to recommend the content in question. It doesn’t say that publishers can’t disclose this information, and I’d be interested to understand how GoViral would (or do) deal with that.

When bloggers decide to feature advertising on their blogs, the banners or text ads are clearly marked as ads. What GoViral proposed is plain and simple bought media, pretending to be earned.

Are these blog posts and tweets genuine praise for the music video in question, or are they simply paid-for placements in disguise?

I don’t have a huge problem with the business model – I personally wouldn’t do it, and I don’t like the idea of blogging or tweeting to order, but I know it happens. If bloggers want to make money by writing about brands in return for money, fair enough I guess, as long as they disclose that they’re being paid (although as my good friend Tom writes, this is not a brothel: there are no prostitutes here). What I object to is how dishonest it is. There’s no way of distinguishing genuine earned conversations from paid-for ones. It’s totally deceitful. It’s exactly why people think marketers are a bunch of immoral cocks.

So I’m sorry Claus, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t sing the praises of earned media over bought, whilst at the same time making profit out of bought media pretending to be earned. There’s a distinct smell of burning underwear, and frankly, it stinks.

[ PS: if this negativity is all too much, check out the inspirational (and awesomely-naked Duke Stump on Bonfire Brands ]

November 27, 2009 in Advertising | Permalink | 25 Comments

Bonfire Brands


[ photo courtesy ]

John’s been using the metaphor of fireworks and bonfires for traditional advertising and social communication, which I love, as I think it’s a really helpful way of visualising both the differences and how they complement each other. He’s extended this further with a series of conversations with ‘bonfire builders‘ – people who believe passionately in working together to create successful, conversational communications.

A bonfire is an incredibly rich and seductive image, because it’s bright, vibrant and draws people in.

So it’s particularly appropriate that it should be equally symbolic and descriptive in another context – in this case, it’s just not referencing communication, but brands themselves.

The wonderfully-named Duke Stamp talks about bonfire brands – brands with soul, that draw people in like a bonfire, which encourage people to sit round that fire together, talking about their shared experiences, values and desire – brands which value community:

What ignites a greater sense of possibility and emotion – building a brand, or building a bonfire brand? A bonfire brand is something that galvanizes and mobilizes your evangelists. So ask yourself the following: Are folks gathering to talk about your brand? Do they defend your brand? Does your brand have evangelists that tell your story for you? … If your brand is not a bonfire brand, then you need to be concerned, incredibly concerned. You are in essence replaceable.

John’s excellent presentation highlights one of the most important things about bonfire-building: it takes time and effort – if you try to cut corners, you’re unlikely to end up with a bonfire that will burn brightly and draw people in. And as Duke so rightly points out, the best thing about bonfires is when people join in to keep the fire burning:

If you are as good as you say you are then people will be drawn to you. They will in essence bring the wood for the bonfire and stoke the flames. You will become a beacon and folks will engage in the bonfire. So for Christ’s sake stop watering down your story to make it mainstream. Let them come to you versus chasing them. You’ll stay true to your core and chances are, you’ll be stronger because of it.

You can’t fake this. Bonfire brands are built from the inside out. They have passionate internal cultures united around a single vision and purpose. They build relationships with people, rather than just trying to sell to them.

I love the point that Duke makes about bonfire brands who “embrace glorious mistakes” – because you have to fail to innovate, and it’s only by failing that you move forward. When you’re afraid to fail, you stagnate. Bonfire brands live in fear of standing still. And recognise that failing to try is trying to fail.

His 2009 Do Lecture is now up for the world to see, so I’d strongly recommend checking out the below (as well as the other awesome Big Do’s) for some bonfire branding inspiration:

November 25, 2009 in Brands | Permalink | 8 Comments

Social Media 09 (and thoughts for 2010)

The lovely folks at Mashup* asked if I would do a brief intro to social, to set up the afternoon of case studies and presentations at Social Media 09. The deck is on slideshare and the full presentation is here, if you’d like to see how to raise a gasp from a room of ‘social media specialists‘.

There were some cracking presentations – I heartily recommend checking out Chris Thorpe’s ‘On the horizon of a real-time networked society ‘ for some fantastic insight, and also Jonathan Akwe’s ‘Social Media in Government‘ for a brief overview of how the social web can be used for genuine citizen engagement.

As part of the day, we were also asked to suggest 4.5 trends for 2010 – 4 things we thought would go up, and one which would go down. Nothing radically new here, but here’s my two-penneth:

Going up

  • Social will expand beyond the remit of the marketing department – as it already has within the most successful social brands. Whilst brands will still continue to work with their agencies for social communication within a marketing context, businesses will increase their investment of human capital to deliver social throughout their organisation – with social playing a greater role in customer service, product & service development, research & insight and beyond.

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  • We’ll see a greater focus on return on engagement rather than direct return on investment when measuring the value of social communication – moving away from the fruitless struggle to apply the traditional metrics for paid-for marketing, we’ll see greater attention paid to trying to measure how greater engagement and deeper relationships deliver brand and business value (rather than trying to attribute a direct link between social relationships and immediate payback).

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  • Adoption of mobile geolocation services will tip into the mainstream, and more traditional brands will begin to dip their toe into the development of services and applications utilising geolocation technology to interact with people on a much more personal level.

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  • As the thingfrastructure (Matt Jones’ brilliant description for the internet of things) develops we’ll see more physical objects becoming social – as more and more physical objects become internet enabled and technology such as RFID become more ubiquitous, we’ll see social communication moving away from the screen and into the physical world around us.

 

Going down

  • As greater integration between different social platforms increases, enabling you to automate the sharing your lifestream across multiple platforms, I predict we’ll feel increasingly overwhelmed by the deluge of updates across an ever-increasing number of platforms – and instead of trying to maintain a presence everywhere, we’ll focus our attention into a smaller number of platforms and communities, become both more discreet and discrete regarding how, what and where we share.
November 13, 2009 in Communication | Permalink | 1 Comment

Timeless Marketing Classics

Graeme started Timeless Marketing Classics as a series of posts/reviews where grads new to the industry can discover which books experienced planners have found inspirational during their career. He very kindly asked me to suggest one timeless marcomms classic – certainly not easy to pick just one, but I had a go: you can read my suggestion here and also cross-posted below:

 

My pick is actually a reasonably new publication, having been first published in 2008, so not sure if longevity is a pre requisite for being a ‘timeless’ classic, but I think it’s an absolutely essential read for any planner, or indeed anyone who wants to understand more about people.

If you’re in the business of trying to engage people through your communications, then understanding human behaviour, and what makes us tick, is absolutely crucial.

I personally don’t think you can get this from any one book, nor indeed from books alone, but if I had to pick one must-read book, Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational would be up there. Behavioural economics is the latest buzzword, but really it’s just a new way of describing the science and art of human behaviour, and in “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions“, Ariely uses a wealth of scientific experiments and fascinating anecdotes to illustrate how we aren’t the rational creatures we would like to think we are.

Marketing may change, brand communication may change, but human behaviour remains startingly constant over time. As human animals we are by our very nature consistent in our irrationality – and the patterns within this are such that in many ways we’re predictably irrational. Have been, are, and likely will continue to be. Hence unless the human condition changes dramatically, I’d bet that Ariely’s book will be relevant for many years to come.

 

November 10, 2009 in Communication | Permalink | Leave a Comment
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