Exclamation blog: Stories, Ideas and loud noises
If ‘08 Is The Year Of The Crowd, What Does That Mean For Marketing?
Some people are predicting that 2008 will be The Year of The Crowd. In a story last month, Karlene Lukowitz from MediaPost predicted that “Crowd” would be the word of the year. Lukowitz says, “Business people love buzzwords, and none will be buzzing more than terms paired with Crowd. She says “get ready for Crowdsourcing, Crowdstorming, Crowdbursting and who knows what else.”
The Year of The Crowd hails from the term Crowdsourcing. Jeff Howe first coined the term in a June 2006 Wired Magazine article.
Mountain Dew’s latest campaign is a great example of Crowdsourcing. In November of 2007, the interactive game Dewmocracy was launched, in which users vote to determine the can graphics, color and flavor of a new Mountain Dew product to launch in 2008.
Dewmocracy (officially written by PepsiCo as DEWmocracy) is a combination of the words Dew (a nickname for Mountain Dew) and democracy. It is an interactive game on its own domain that encourages users to vote for the next flavor of Mountain Dew that will make its debut on shelves in 2008. The game features a live-action short film and 3-dimensional characters. As the player goes through the game, users will help pick every feature of a new Mountain Dew, including can graphics, color, and flavor, from five choices for each aspect.
Mountain Dew and Pepsi aren’t only using this Crowdsourcing project to engage their loyal customers in designing their next product. They are also using this as an opportunity to market the new product between now and when it is released. They are betting on the fact that the consumers that come to Dewmocracy are loyal Mountain Dew customers, or brand evangelists. They are hoping ultimately that these brand evangelists will help spread the word about the new “Dew”. Word of Mouth Marketing has proven to be one of the most effective ways to market a new product, and to build buzz.
Paul Gillin, a social media consultant and author summed up brand evangelists best in a recent article in BtoB Magazine by saying,” Customers are a low-cost and high-powered extension of your marketing team. Their words carry more credibility than any ad or promotion you produce. Thanks to the new wave of online publishing tools, they have unprecedented potential to spread the word about your brand and seed the market with their spontaneous enthusiasm.”
But Mountain Dew isn’t the only company that is using the concept of the crowd for its marketing needs. Some large companies are using “Mob Wisdom”, or the “Wisdom of the Collective” to gain unique insights from customers.
Companies are realizing that if they could listen to all of the conversations customers were having around their products, their services, and their brand online, that they could then take that marketing insight and change their business for the better.
So, 2008 isn’t only the year of the crowd. It may also be the year of the online customer community. In its predictions for 2008, Forrester projects that at least one-quarter of Fortune 100 companies will launch online customer communities this year in order to create higher levels of engagement with their customers and prospects.
Companies are listening to customer conversations by tapping into the interactions between customers in online communities, and social networks. However some companies are only having basic customer communities built on their sites, or developing simple networks or groups for social networking sites. This creates added customer engagement between customers. But an online community on a company website can also be used to increase levels of engagement between customers and the company itself.
This happens by taking those online conversations, and using analytics to really see, monitor, and track what customers concerns, wants and needs are. Then, you are effectively using the crowd to help shape your company.
This type of Crowd Marketing has been described as many things so far. In a Chicago Tribune article from November entitled” You Talk, They hear on the Web,” Deborah Schultz called this emerging social practice Conversational Marketing.. Schultz consults on Social Media Strategies for Proctor & Gamble.
One of LaunchSquad’s clients is now using this Wisdom of the Collective to help provide companies with unique marketing information about their customers. Networked Insights allows companies to listen to conversations around a brand and tap into these interactions. This provides companies with actionable data they can then use strategically.
Networked Insights is currently working with The Guild and (The ArtfulHome.com), a marketplace for artists and collectors.
The Guild has been using Networked Insights for a little over three months and has completely shifted how they are strategizing in 2008 due to insights gained directly from their customers. The Guild realized that their customers were primarily buying products with interior design in mind. They were not aware of the scope and importance of interior design, and have now shifted their business priorities in the upcoming year.
Paul Gillin summed up this new type of marketing quite well by saying in a recent piece, “Your best product and marketing consultants may be out there right now, for free, waiting to help you. All you need to do is let them.”
Networked Insights and the Guild are a perfect example of this savvy interaction. What a way to start off the Year of the Crowd.
The Holiday Gift Card Debate
With Thanksgiving coming up this Thursday, it’s safe to say the holidays are upon us and accordingly, gift cards are once again a hot topic in the media and consumer blogosphere.
I have always had mixed feelings about the cards as legitimate, thoughtful holiday gift-fare—they often seem to serve little purpose other than to clog my wallet. They’ve furthermore proved remarkably adept at expiring mere days before I finally attempt to redeem them and I try not to think about the the many cards I’ve been given that have gone unused.
When a college friend very generously gave me a spa certificate for my birthday a couple of years ago, I put it in a drawer and vowed to redeem it upon completion of my final exams. Of course, I forgot about my opportunity for a free facial in the chaos of end-of-the-year festivities and when I finally booked myself in for an appointment the following Christmas, I was unceremoniously informed that the gift card had expired. Guilt-ridden, I resolved never to admit my forgetfulness to my friend– and also began to think twice before purchasing gift cards for others.
Undoubtedly, I am not alone in this frustration and complex gift card fees and expirations have resulted in a windfall for retailers.
According to The New York Times:
“In 2006 alone, $8 billion in gift card sales were never redeemed. That same year, shoppers spent about $80 billion on gift cards. Of that, consumers forfeited 10 percent — about $8 billion — either because the card was lost, stolen, never used, or fees cannibalized what was left on the card.”
Certainly, $8 billion in lost cash is not a number to sniff at — and the recent buzz around gift card management demonstrates that reporters, bloggers and finally consumers are really beginning to pay attention.
On November 13th, Consumer Reports kick-started a public education campaign aimed at creating awareness around the hazards of gift cards with a full-page ad in The New York Times. USA Today, Reuters, The Consumerist, the NPR News Blog and The Motley Fool have all discussed the dirty little secrets of the gift card industry—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
With all this coverage, one could say that consumers finally are striking back against an industry that profits — and to a vast degree — from a combination of shopper ennui, ignorance and the post-holiday frenzy, all of which result in deferred or perpetually delayed card redemption.
A new LaunchSquad client is also moving into this space with a free personal web application that helps users better manage gift cards, and loyalty/rewards program memberships. Launching this week, the service is called Leverage and allows users to purchase, track and exchange gift cards and even earn interest on gift card balances for the first time.
What with the proliferation of coverage around the industry and launch of a comprehensive gift card management service like Leverage, I can’t help but wonder if the days of missed expirations and the subsequent exasperation are coming to an end.
$8 billion is a pretty big number. This year, by actually proactively managing my gift cards rather than relegating them to a lonely drawer or the recesses of my already painfully congested wallet, I hope to do my part to put a dent in it.
Let the shopping begin.
The RSS Engagement Problem
Last Friday, at the SNAP Summit (basically a Facebook conference), I sat down to have a chat with Newsgator’s Jeff Nolan and we stumbled onto the topic of RSS engagement. This is a really, really thorny problem not only for companies like NewsGator (our client), who build the RSS infrastructure but for media entities that publish lots of RSS feeds (like, say, the NY Times blogs).
If I were able to define the solution, I’d have a bestselling book on my hands. My conversation with Jeff only defined the problem, and I hope this becomes the start of a larger conversation about RSS engagement. We temporarily labeled this problem The Loop. Maybe I called it that because I lived in Chicago for a few years. But this loop is a loop that stubbornly remains open. The question is this: how do you effectively put a metric on one’s engagement with an RSS feed?
I have a few blogs that I read when I’m at home on the weekend; I have them set up in both NetNewsWire and my Google Reader, and I’ve read over the Google Reader’s stats a few times. Google has a real basic approach here; they can put a metric on which feeds you’re clicking on, so the reader can understand how valuable each feed is to him. Let’s call this the UTILITY metric. For example, if I realize that I’m only reading 20% of what comes in on the Oakland Tribune’s feeds, and there’s a high volume of feeds, then that feed has really low utility to me.
But let’s say that I’m reading 100% of what’s coming in from the Entrepreneur Watch blog. So, that blog is a high-utility blog for me. But if that’s all the information I can get, then I’m stuck, as a publisher, wondering what the next-action is for someone who reads that blog. RSS feed readers and enterprise content-management systems lack an effective way of tracking what the reader does as a result of the information they read in an RSS feed.
RSS readers can map out discrete metrics. Google’s Reader can tell whether you’ve shared an item on their service (which ports over to Facebook and a host of other social networks via in-network applications) and NewsGator’s Enterprise Server product surfaces the most popular feeds and articles within organizations, which is really useful. And they also do the Facebook thing well with their NewsFriends application. But no one, so far, has figured out how to close The Loop and really map out any kind of ENGAGEMENT metric. (By the way, this FeedHeads Google Reader application is seeing really low adoption - like under 300 users).
This is only the beginning of this conversation, and a little work has already been done on this in the social media blog space, but the thing that’s clearly come out of that writing is that somebody needs to do something about it (and waiting for metrics companies like Factiva, Buzzlogic or Buzzmetrics to just come up with the answer is probably not the soundest business strategy). I’m beginning to wonder if some sort of engagement consortium is in order, because this is one big question mark.
Obama Girl Joins Next New Networks
Big news in LaunchSquad land this morning: we announced that our client BarelyPolitical.com was acquired by Next New Networks and Obama Girl now has a new online channel. The story is getting a good amount of press today, here, here and here, among others.
It’s interesting news, and not just because we like to see one of our clients make good, but also for what this says about the speed of image building today. Obama Girl was born less than six months ago, somewhat on a whim, with the idea that there was a huge appetite for a new combo of online video, catchy tunes, scantily clad girls and national political figures. Today, Obama Girl has become something of a national phenomenon and the phrase alone will likely stay in our political lingo for a long time.
The other piece that’s interesting here is the mix of fiction and reality in a way that can really only happen online. Obama Girl is played by model Amber Lee Ettinger, and she plays the part well, both online and offline. It’s a tough part to play, as she needs to stay in character beyond just her roles in the videos. And while some people think that the Obama Girl videos are simply viral eye candy, I think there’s a lot more there behind the success. It comes down to character and story, and the series of videos that the BarelyPolitical team has produced so far, and will do in a bigger way as part of Next New Networks, is pushing the Obama Girl character forward in interesting ways. This, to me, is the real attraction. Much like the success of LonelyGirl15 or even serial TV shows like Heroes, I think people want to follow the lives of characters.
The intriguing piece though is that the line between what’s fiction and what’s real is blurring. Unlike LonelyGirl15, BarelyPolitical never really “pretended” that Obama Girl was anything but an actress, but still, the real Obama quickly began getting questions about what he thought of her, as if she was the real deal. And Obama eventually even acknowledged her (a PR person’s dream come true) helping to move the Obama Girl story forward.
At Next New Networks, Obama Girl and BarelyPolitical can continue to create these new characters and new stories, and I’m looking forward to what they have in store. Congrats to Ben, Amber and the whole BarelyPolitical team.
How To Tell The Story Of Our Time
At LaunchSquad, we love seeing companies communicate their vision in an engaging and innovative way. Recently our friends over at Sequence helped Chevron do just this with the redesign of their corporate website – Chevron.com. Last week I headed over to the Sequence offices on Potrero Hill and chatted with them about this project.
Last month Chevron launched a massive marketing campaign around the theme of “Human Energy.” The message of the campaign essentially boils down to “Yes, we are an energy company. But we are also human beings who live on this planet with everybody else and we all need energy to live so we’re just trying to provide in the best way we can.” There were several components to the campaign, including a series of emotionally charged television ad spots, and Sequence handled the redesign of the corporate website.
This website is a great example of how to put your message front and center. The homepage is relatively simple and very clean, showcasing the slogan “The Power of Human Energy – Finding Newer, Cleaner Way to Power the World,” with a few provocative images – a mother holding a baby, an old man walking a bicycle, a reporter covering a protest. The message accompanying these images reads: “It’s the story of our time. More than 6 billion people on the planet. We all need energy to live.” The user is then prompted into the site by clicking on phrases like “Where Will It Come From?”
The idea behind the campaign is honesty and humanity, and Sequence’s design captures this with the straightforward presentation and the “speak when spoken to” approach to users’ interaction with the site. Using dynamic presentation tools such as AJAX and Flash Sequence created an environment that encourages the user to request information by rewarding them with rich, dynamic content and interaction. Throughout the site, text pops up as the user scrolls over it, giving them information without requiring them to click further into the site.
The site also feels very educational. There is an entire section on all the different sources of energy Chevron is tapping and exploring. They don’t play down the importance of oil, but also describe their efforts with renewable sources like geothermal and solar, and the research they are doing with emerging fuels like hydrogen. For this section Sequence developed a series of “interactive stories” integrating video and other content, such as original illustrations, compiled in Photoshop using Illustrator, Flash and other tools. They created the framework for the stories using XML so that the stories are flexible and dynamic, and can be updated as Chevron’s story changes. The result is a series of vignettes that not only give users information about how various parts of Chevron’s business works, but also conveys the flavor of the company as approachable and eminently human. Often, these sections are paired with a section that highlights the humanitarian or ecological efforts Chevron is making. For example, the “Ultradeepwater Drilling” section has a section on the ocean floor’s flora and fauna. These elements reveal Chevron’s softer side as educator and partner.
Chevron is the sixth largest company in the United States, with a massive global presence. In many ways they function like a small country, deeply involved in financial, political, ecological and humanitarian issues around the world. Telling this kind of story is obviously a challenge, yet this campaign captures it with concision and clarity, allowing Chevron to invite discussion about their company, their industry and all the issues surrounding it – communicating their story with transparency, authenticity and humanity.
Mobile RSS Solutions - What’s Out There?
Exclamation is usually our blog that’s reserved for storytelling. Well, half of storytelling is listening, right? And it’s pretty hard to “listen” to a story on the bus or the train unless you’re into books on tape, and, as much as Audible would like, I doubt a majority of the people I know are as into books-on-mp3 as I am. I think they’re much more likely to read, rather than listen, on the fly.
One of our clients told me the other day that he wanted to start reading and commenting on more blogs on his Blackberry. I realized, in talking to him, that I don’t know what are the best mobile RSS readers, as of this summer. I remember setting up HubDog about 18 months ago on the lousy T-Mobile MDA smartphone, nearly vowing never to use mobile RSS again. Mobile RSS has been tossed around for the last couple of years, but only recently have a few real contenders come along. I know that EnGadget did a posting on this a while back, and I don’t think of this as so much of an update as a condensation!
So, here’s a quick roundup, based on the popular platforms. One disclosure: NewsGator is a current LaunchSquad client.
Blackberry: NewsGator Go! is the best thing I’ve seen, but you can use a web-based app like Google Reader, if you’ve got the time to do a bit more clicking.
iPhone: The native Safari RSS reader on the iPhone is pretty strong, but lately, in the the Apple forums, NewsGator has been gaining some traction. Most of the iPhone RSS conversation takes place in Apple’s Internet & Networking forum. To register for a Newsgator account, you can go here, and you’re you’re set up you can log into the mobile RSS portal here. It’s definitely what I’d use to sync mobile and desktop RSS together. If you want to view multiple feeds at once using feeds that you’ve read before using Google, you can use Google Reader, as it’s been recently optimized for the platform. What it lacks in comparison NewsGator’s horsepower, it somewhat compensates for in look and feel.
Palm: Bloglines Mobile has a light-looking PDA interface, but for more robust RSS reading on the Palm platform, but if you’re looking for a standalone application it looks like QuickNews may be the answer. Google Reader is also a suitable alternatative, but I haven’t personally used it on a Palm.
Regular Phone: Feedm8 seems to be the service of choice for most major publishers (CNN, Reuters, Engadget), and I’ve even seen Digg using it lately. It works fairly well if you’re just reading basic RSS feeds published by large publishers. On the other hand, I wouldn’t recommend it for encrypted RSS, and it’s a free service that’s only usable with some publishers. If your phone is even slightly Java-enabled, NewsGator Go! would be a good fit, and is worthwhile for any heavy-duty RSS usage.
Our Clients Make Stuff We Use Every Day (Awareness, AnchorFree,TimeBridge, SuccessFactors, NewsGator)
While I sometimes envy PR agencies that handle super-flashy clients like Slide and RockYou, because they’re super-slick applications with huge usage (in social networks), I realize that, at the end of the day, there are probably more people working behind a desk, doing business, than on Facebook or Myspace. Which makes me pretty glad to work with clients that make some super-useful stuff. And while one could say I’m being “paid to write this,” I suppose I could secretly not use these products. But why would you want to use software that sucks? Google Reader, anyone? (Stats feature excluded…)
Here’s the breakdown:
Awareness: They make enterprise-grade content management and social media management systems. If you’re looking to manage all of your blogs and wikis (modifiable internal blog pages) and need crazy-big scalability, this is what you need. I can’t think of too many social media solutions that are a good fit for a group of 30 and a group of 3000. The search feature has saved my butt more than a few times.
NewsGator: There’s nothing like doing your RSS feeds on a plane. And until the rest of the aviation world catches up with British Airways, NewsGator’s NetNewsWire is the best freakin’ RSS reader I’ve ever used. The new Mac version is lightning-fast, and eats roughly 60 feeds for breakfast for me, every morning. NewsGator’s Enterprise-On-Demand platform is basically the backbone of LaunchSquad’s coverage and tracking architecture. I had a meeting yesterday with a tech company who told me that their PR firm sends them Google searches on their brand. For 2002, that would be totally acceptable. If my PR firm did that, I’d fire them and bring on a bunch of high-school students to research my coverage. Or, I’d start using NGEOD If you’re doing any kind of coverage tracking, beware that 30-day free trial - you’ll be hooked.
AnchorFree - Okay, who doesn’t hate paying for wi-fi? Why can’t Apple just cut a deal with T-Mobile and charge the customers an extra $25 when they buy their computer and give them free wi-fi at any T-Mobile location? Oh well, while that all gets sorted, you can reliably depend on AnchorFree not only for free wi-fi (in most cities with a population greater than, say, 1000 people) but for a solid HotSpot Shield, so you can reliably do your banking, your Amazon or any confidential-type-stuff in a public place. Complaints about the small ad leaderboard can talk to the hand. When was the last time Yahoo or Google gave you a great service that wasn’t ad-supported? Puh-leese.
SuccessFactors: Although my experience using this software is not so much on an everyday basis, it forms the basis of goals, expectations and long-term people development strategy at LaunchSquad. From what I understand, this solution is the quickest way to get innovative 360-degree reviews into smaller and medium-sized companies, without forking out for a five or six-figure consultant-enabled SAP installation.
At my wife’s previous company, the implementation seemed to eerily coincide with the firing of a bunch of unproductive laggards and the promotion of a group of her team members that worked really hard. I definitively say that SuccessFactors “did it,” but the data that the program surfaced clicked with some substantial changes.
TimeBridge: I must say, I’m not lucky enough to use this every day, but I love using it, because it means you’re making things happen. This is a tool for scheduling 2-way, 3-way, 4-way and 5-way (and more!) meetings that saves all parties involved about 3-4 emails per person. It’s a huge time-saver.
Attendi, one of our newer clients also has developed a really high-utility people search product, but it really can’t be summed up in a quick blurb, so I’m going to dedicate some time to that later in the week, to explain it in-depth and show some great use cases..
