Like Anderson’s previous blockbuster book, The Long Tail, the new book started out as a Wired magazine cover story — so the ideas he puts forth in it have had lots of time for debate and pre-first guessing (or whatever you call sped-up second-guessing) in the blogosphere and elsewhere.* Also, as the original article was written before the economic meltdown, it will be interesting to see how a gut-wrenching recession may have altered the reaction the book will receive in the marketplace when it is officially released next Tuesday, July 7.
The publisher has reportedly already printed 80,000 copies of the book, so there’s a lot of cash riding on a book called free that costs $26.99 retail ($17.81 on Amazon).
In any discussion of the “power” of free (its marketing power was known long before the advent of the internet), there seems always to be a lot of rehashing of brands and products that have included “free” in their business models over the years: Think Gillette — give the razor away free, make money on the blades. Or think of almost anything one provides “free” that results in an indirect benefit rather than a direct benefit. My current favorite personal debate along these lines has to do with paid vs. free wifi. While all hotels and airports understand the value of providing the comfort of free air conditioning and restrooms to their passengers and guests, why do some hotels and airports not extend such logic to free wifi access to the internet while others do? Obviously, the answer has to do with the understanding by those airports who provide free wifi that the return on that “free” comfort/service is far greater than the licensing fee revenue they receive from selling internet access. Here’s one: One will arrive early at an airport with free wifi knowing they can be productive while waiting. More time that means more money spent in the shops and restaurants in the airport. Conversely, if one travels a lot and encounters paid wifi in airports and hotels, the value of purchasing a wireless 3G modem from a cell-phone carrier becomes easily apparent. (The current favorite public debate over this topic is free vs. paid content from newspapers — a topic Gladwell focuses on.)
What benefit do I get out of posting this item for free — or of doing anything on this blog that gives away ideas or suggestions I run across that may help someone — even a competitor — do something they may charge others for.
Well, hmmm. Let’s think.
Once I got an e-mail from Chris Anderson asking if it would be okay if he gave my name to a publishing group who wanted him to speak about how “the long tail” might affect magazine and journal publishing. As it was a publishing group and he’d read several posts I’d written regarding the book (or maybe the article), he knew I was at least somewhere in the ballpark of correct in explaining the concept to a group of publishers. More important to Anderson, I think he was probably making a few thousand dollars per speech at the time (vs. the “you can’t afford it if you have to ask” levels he makes now) and he knew I’d probably speak to the group for something closer to their budget, say, several one dollars for airfare and a room at a Hampton Inn.
Of course, I spoke. And for that group, I decided to do it for free for the opportunity to one day post (I’m using up that opportunity right now) that I can speak when you can’t afford Chris Anderson. Fortunately, at the meeting, someone heard me who had a specific nugget of information that has turned into a very worthwhile return on my investment of giving something away for free.
The whole notion of “free” is whirling around the media business these days — especially whirling around newspapering executives who want to equate “the business model” of leveraged rolled-up national newspaper chains with some notion of “journalism” or “free press.”
The argument by the rolled-up leveraged media executive is this: Giving away something for “free” always means that something that’s “paid for” will get killed.
I on the other hand, believe this: Free always kills things that are charged for, except when it doesn’t.
It’s sort of like the last line in Gladwell’s review of Anderson’s book:
“The only iron law here is the one too obvious to write a book about, which is that the digital age has so transformed the ways in which things are made and sold that there are no iron laws.”
As for whether or not the book will be a big hit? I predict it will, but the money it makes will pale in comparison to the appearance fees Anderson will continue to receive.
*On another front, the book Free has already stirred some controversy over free content included in it without citation. That’s called plagarism when someone I don’t know does it. However, when it’s someone I respect and trust and whose magazine and blog I’ve read for years, I give them the benefit of the doubt when they explain what happened, admit the screwup and take time to explain — not trying to get excused, but to explain — the screwup in great detail.
Update:Anderson responds to Gladwell’s focus on “the future of journalism” debate. Great quote in the post: “My business card says ‘Editor in Chief’ but if one of my children follows in my footsteps, I suspect their business card will say ‘Community Manager.’ Both can be good careers.
Steve Gillmore’s love-post to Apple the other day, “Why Apple wins. every. time.” may not be 100% accurate — Apple constantly doesn’t do all the stuff I think would make their products perfect — and I have Mac-related problems daily. But he is 100% correct when he writes:
“Apple’s rigorous march forward and its deep understanding of what the market will want next is not only keeping them ahead of the competition but building the markets they will own tomorrow.”
Apple developers have a way of seeing around corners to know how to “tickle” users (and I’m talking typical consumers, not just “geeks”) with tricks that, at first, entertain us and then, soon, we didn’t know we couldn’t live without them. I think “tricks” is the right word: The features and apps on an iPhone let a user do things akin to magic tricks.
For example, yesterday I caught a cab at O’Hare and told the driver an address that had him so baffled, he had to launch into a non-stop argument with his dispatcher while looking through some booklet map he had. (To be honest, I don’t think this driver knew the way to the next terminal over, much less to Itasca.) Not to worry. Within 30 seconds, I had my iPhone out and was using the Google maps app and I started talking the driver leg-by-leg through to an address I’ve never driven to before. I was able to (even pre-Tom-Tom app) use the Google maps app to watch our progress real-time to reassure myself that we, indeed, were heading in the right direction.
Unlike the car GPS systems I’m familiar with (which for me, are limited to the ones in rental cars), the iPhone’s touch-screen allowed me to click instantly to various alternative views of ways to interpret the route, easing my stress over wondering if we were actually going to make it to the destination. We did, and the moving “dot” entertained me along the way.
It’s like that opening scene in the movie, The Prestige,* where the character played by Michael Caine, Harry Cutter, says:
“All great magic tricks are composed of three acts: The Pledge, where the magician shows the audience something ordinary, but is probably not; The Turn, where the magician makes the ordinary act extraordinary; and The Prestige, where there are twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance, and you see something shocking you’ve never seen before.”
In presenting the new iPhone 3GS on Tuesday, one iPhone app Apple demo’d actually was a medical device that monitored vital signs — and, therefore, I suppose could fall into the “life hanging in the balance” category.
But it’s all those other things that Apple product development people and clever apps creators — the playful or creative ways they think to surprise and entertain us — that are “the prestige” that sets Apple products apart. Like being game-savvy enough to recognize that the built in accelerometer can power a “shake command” that’s more fun than simply “deleting” something — it’s more akin to ripping a sheet of paper out of a typewriter and wadding it up. That’s “prestige.”
Steve Jobs, almost literally, is the Walt Disney of his (our, this) generation. That he’s become the Walt Disney Company’s largest shareholder (though its acquisition of Pixar) seems completely appropriate and an act of destiny. The “imagineering” creative process that Disney is known for seems to be similar to the process at Apple where coming up with “the prestige” is a part of the conversation from day one. I get the feeling that product development people at Apple are always attempting to “shock” us with something we’ve never seen before — even if we’ve seen the trick a hundred times before.
I get the feeling that, like with Disney, that process has become a part of the institutional DNA of Apple.
Apple and Jobs often appear arrogant because, in many cases, they probably are (I only know what I read). But as long as they keep creating products that not only do the turn, but deliver the prestige, I’ll probably keep writing love posts like this.
(I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me to discover when I googled it for this post that The Prestige is a Disney film.)
(Disclosure: I’m happy to say that my IRA has some AAPL stock purchased around $100/share.)
*Thanks Joshua Porter (@bokardo) who provided me with some Twitter-delivered copy-editing that caught my mistake in the name of the movie I referenced.
I love all my fellow social media Kool-Aid drinkers.
But there are three things about which I typically disagree with many of them:
1. I believe use of the word “social” misses the mark in describing what’s taking place. Indeed, I believe the use of the word “social” is a hindrance to “the cause” of educating a broader audience regarding online identity and personal expression. (However, for marketing and “search” reasons, I always go with the flow on the use of popular marketing buzz-terms on this blog.)
2. I don’t believe social media — or digital media — “kills” other media. I believe it (they) compliment(s) and add(s) to, and enhance(s) other media. In the 15 years I’ve been immersed in the development or management of online communities and platforms designed to encourage online identity, expression and interaction, I haven’t seen any medium destroyed by social media (although I’ve seen the management of daily newspapers commit suicide on their medium). (Note: I certainly believe new business models related to media kill old business models, but that’s a different debate than the one I typically see waged in the rantosphere.)
3. I disagree with the way in which social media zealots say anyone who doesn’t use a specific online service the way they do, “doesn’t get it.” (My personal belief is that no one fully gets anything.)
Here’s where I probably disagree most with my fellow Kool-Aid drinkers:
I don’t believe we are living in a post-advertising age. And I certainly don’t believe print is dead. (Note: again, for clarification purposes — by “print” I am not referring to a specific “business model” but media that use ink on paper.)
I believe we are living in an exciting time in which traditional advertising is being overhauled dramatically. I believe we will soon be entering into a age in which consumers will have a better — and more “literal” — balance of power with producers and suppliers of products and services. And I believe there will be a better understanding among “producers/creators/evangelists” and “users” that we are a “we.”
But I don’t believe “traditional advertising” will be killed anymore than I believe a new search engine will kill Google.
Where did this post come from? Perhaps it was reading that Starbucks, who did not use traditional advertising in building its mighty (but currently hurting) brand, has started using newspapers, magazines and outdoor media to promote its social media efforts.
Or perhaps it was that I’m drinking a Grande Americano instead of Kool-Aid this morning.
No surprise to those who read this blog regularly: I belong to the Cult of Doc. More than anyone, he has helped me to articulate my beliefs regarding the way a world in which people have the ability to connect and communicate online radically alters the relationships we have with one-another and with the institutions and causes and products and ideas and passions and music and hobbies and beliefs we all choose to embrace as individuals.
Big media companies and politicians and traditional marketers and everyone I know want to do the “social media” thing. And I believe many, if they knew how, want to do it the right way. But they start by going to conferences and hiring consultants. And unfortunately, the way many “experts” explain what’s taking place ends up sounding to the people running big media and big marketing programs like they are being asked to convert their building’s lighting from electricity to lightening-bugs collected in a jar. I used to get frustrated with the people who run these companies, but now I’m more understanding. I appreciate the challenge they face in transitioning from that which was into that which will be.
And I appreciate that many are at least trying to listen.
I’ve been listening to Doc for at least ten years — as this month is the 10th anniversary of “The Cluetrain Manifesto.” (The website was created in April, 1999, and the book was published early in 2000. Doc wrote a detailed blog post in January that reflected on the past decade and Cluetrain.)
For me and many others who have spent much of past 15 years pondering the role of online communities, Cluetrain is a bit like Woodstock. The authors didn’t create or discover anything new: however, they synthesized and simplified what was taking place into a list of proclamations they wittily called their “95 Theses” (witty for those who enjoy references to historic protests calling for reform). Together, these 95 theses were the Cluetrain Manifesto. (The “Cluetrain” is what left the station, leaving behind those who “have no clue.”)
They started out by merely nailing 95 theses to the door of a website.
The first thesis was this: “Markets are conversations.”
For me, those three words were a lightbulb — or, at least, a jar filled with lightening bugs.
Markets are conversations.
But as Doc Searls reminds us in his “beer notes” post, conversations are among people.
Not pitches and creative and media buys and transactions — conversations. Not targets, battles and strategies — conversations. Not copy-writing, institutional-speak or buzzwords — conversations.
I just posted a set of photos of the first issue of Mine Magazine on Flickr (or view, left). Last month, I wrote about the “customizable” magazine Time Inc. has created for advertiser Lexus. As I wrote then, the idea is not new, but the concept is creative: a customizable magazine to echo the “branding message” of the Lexus RX — a brand they apparently started out to customize for me, but somehow forgot to add the “e” in the middle.
31,000 readers got the print version (am I lucky, or what?) and another 200,000 could get a swell PDF version. (Aren’t you lucky? Only 199,000 have signed up.)
The readers can select content appearing in five titles from eight published by subsidiaries of Time Inc. and American Express Co.: Time, Sports Illustrated, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Money, In Style, Golf, and Travel + Leisure. Each issue will contain content selected by editors that correspond with the personal choices of the readers. There are 56 editorial combinations in all (the Lexus SUV has 22 customizable advertising message settings, plus eight options handled by a dealer).
My take: It’s nice — and a lot better than a conventional Lexus ad. But frankly, it looks like what you’d expect a magazine full of re-purposed content would look like. And those full page section heads are an exercise in corner-cutting “free edit.” And as for it being a project that portends the future: Not.
Later: A few hours after posting this, I received the following “mass” e-mail that, apparently, was sent to subscribers:
Dear Rex,
Thank you for subscribing to mine magazine. We want to let you know that a computer error may have affected the first issue you received this week. It’s possible that this issue did not contain the combination of magazine content you selected. Please know that the problem has been resolved, and that each of your subsequent issues will reflect the exact content you originally requested.
In appreciation of your support, we have extended your five-issue subscription to include a sixth free issue of mine. You can also access real-time mine content through your smartphone device at http://mine.mwap.at.
We apologize for the inconvenience and, again, thank you for being among the very first to experience mine.
Best regards,
Wayne Powers
President, Time Inc. Media Group
Dear Wayne. As the subscription was free and I can’t recall the combination of magazine content I selected, I am happy to report that I was not inconvenienced.
When the Kindle II was released earlier this year, it included something Amazon touted as a “read-aloud” feature. Here’s a quote from NYTimes.com’s live-blog coverage of the release event on February 2: “Any book, blog, magazine or personal document can be read aloud,” Mr. Bezos said. “It’s very easy to go back and forth between reading and listening.”
Bezos & Co. chose to position the feature as something new and unique.
Unfortunately, publishers and authors, heard the announced feature as being something that could easily cannibalize the highly profitable “audible book” market. (I haven’t heard the Kindle II automated voice, but I feel certain it would never cannibalize a customer considering the choice between a computerized digital voice and, say, James Earl Jones reading the Bible.)
Obviously (and it should have been obvious then), Amazon should have positioned the “voice-over” service as an accessibility utility that is exactly the same type of utility that can be found on any computer, be it a Mac, Windows or Linux. In other words (the words Amazon should have used at the announcement if it wanted to bring up the feature), Amazon was providing those with vision impairments the same accessibility they have when using other technology. Let me try this again: Any e-book on a computer can be “listened to” using free accessibility utilities.
But no, Amazon blew it. They characterized the utility as “a feature” and created a backlash among publishers and authors who saw it as an assault on their high-margin audible books. So all hell broke loose with the Authors Guild. They immediately issued a statement blasting the “speaking” Kindle. And so, Amazon backed down and announced that authors and publishers could disable the feature.
And then, people who have fought hard for such accessibility tools on technology jumped into the fray. So then, the Guild’s president, humorist Roy Blount penned a New York Times op-ed trying to explain why the Guild was protesting. His piece featured his wry wit, but his argument hinged primarily on the fact he knows Andy Aaron of IBM who once told him that IBM’s text-to-speech technology could one day produce a southern accent. Again, witty, but proof Blount’s skills may be better for NPR game show repartee than serious policy debate.
And now, not only is Amazon catching it for trying to market “an accessibility utility” as a unique “feature,” but the Authors Guild is under-fire for its strong-arm tactics.
And CNN “iReporters” were there to catch the action:
Things would have been so much simpler had Amazon marketers and the Authors Guild had eyes to see and ears to hear. Next lesson: How to respond to lawsuits and ADA investigations.
This summer, Time will produce a five issue, ten-week custom — and customizable — magazine for Lexus called “Mine.” The “customize” message embodied in the ability to personalize the content in the magazine echos the “branding message” of the Lexus 2010 RX suv that is being marketed as a “customizable” vehicle. While the approach, technology and even editorial concept dates back decades, it is being touted as something new that “tries to mimic in printed form the personalized news feeds that have become popular on the Internet.”
The magazine will be available in print to 31,000 respondents and an electronic-version of the print publication will be available to 200,000. (You can sign up now at Timeinc.com/mine.)
According to an AP story about the magazine, readers can select five titles from eight published by subsidiaries of Time Warner Inc. and American Express Co.: Time, Sports Illustrated, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Money, In Style, Golf, and Travel + Leisure. Each issue will contain content selected by editors that correspond with the personal choices of the readers. There are 56 editorial combinations in all (the Lexus SUV has 22 customizable advertising message settings, plus eight options handled by a dealer).
For the past several decades, Time Inc and many other magazine publishers (including Hammock Inc) have utilized a wide variety of evolving printing and binding technology to customize and personalize advertising and editorial content to provide advertisers and readers a wide variety of publication options. Southern Living, for example, is customized for readers by geographic zones with advertising and special editorial sections. Ducks Unlimited magazine readers receive a customized version of the magazine depending on where they live in relation to specific migratory patterns.
Combining “re-purposed” content from various magazines is also an editorial approach with a long legacy. I can even recall an airline magazine from the 1980s used the format, but unfortunately can’t recall which airline. And, of course, magazines ranging from Readers Digest to the Utne Reader have used the format for decades.
I signed up for the print version and look forward to receiving it.
The more one reads about the history of recessions and market collapses, the more one realizes why certain contrarian investors and marketers look forward to those times when others are capitulating, laying off, hunkering down and wallowing in bad news delivered by CNBC all day.
When people who run giant companies get terrified over the possibility they may lose the ability to travel in private jets, they also lose the ability to think. That is great news for those who can. Rudyard Kipling taught you that in middle school: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you…you’ll be a Man, my son!”
Being terrified is another way of saying, “panic.” Kipling said it much more poetically than neurologists and psychologists, but they explain what happens when you panic in much the same way. However, they use terms like “limbic hijacking” to describe the way panic causes emotional parts of issues (like watching CNBC all day) to hijack the part of our brain from which rational thought originates.
I say all this to note that sometime in the future, when we’re heading into the next recession, writers will be looking for examples of how companies weathered previous recessions. And once more, they will look back and discover the winners were those companies that look forward to recessions as times in which they can gain market share. Like so many other things when it comes to marketing, Apple will be one of the examples, and the story-line will go something like this:
“While other technology companies curtailed their ad budgets to ride out what appeared to be an intense and protracted recession, Apple actually increased marketing and advertising.”
Apple will come out of this recession a winner. “Nearly everyone” who panics won’t.
Now that we have world peace and the economy is under control, we can turn our attention to the important stuff, like President Obama’s Blackberry. Over the weekend, we learned he’s getting to keep his Blackberry, except, maybe it won’t be a Blackberry, but a super-secure Sectéra Edge from General Dynamics. Of course, Microsoft was quick to say, hey wait, he should use a U.S. product (i.e., one running Windows CE) rather than a Blackberry, a product from Canada, a country where lots of people speak French. No word yet from Apple, despite the iPhone playing a supporting role in his campaign communications success.
Unfortunately, the White House email server crashed this afternoon and no one there is getting email anyway. And you thought that just happened where you work.
President Obama’s love of his Blackberry is the type of unsolicited endorsement that comes along once in a marketer’s dream life. I’m sure there is some group crunching away at the equivalency value of the millions of mentions of the Blackberry brand in the media’s obsessed coverage of this puffery. The New York Times ran a story a couple of weeks ago suggesting Obama’s “endorsement” is worth $50 million to the brand.
And even with the device reportedly being the Sectéra Edge, every article is still using the word “Blackberry” to define the category of wireless device it is.
But is the Obamadorsement really helping Blackberry? According to the Wall Street Journal this morning, the company that markets Blackberry, Research in Motion, has sold only 500,000 unites of its new model, the Storm, about 20% of the units of the Apple iPhone that sold during the the same period after its introduction.
Even Obama can’t revive some things.
The notion that a President would actually “endorse” a product may seem far-fetched, but you could argue that Presidents spend a big chunk of their time doing ceremonial activities that are, in effect, a way in which they can lend their stature and media-big-stick to raise the attention of industries and causes. And it’s extremely well documented that if a President mentions he likes a book, the sales sky-rocket in a way that rivals only an Oprah nod. A recent example is the Obama-touted Team of Rivals and perhaps the best known example is Ronald Reagan turning Tom Clancy into a rock-star author by calling his Hunt For Red October “unputdownable.”
President Kennedy tried to pump up sales of a Navy buddy’s
hat company, but hat sales still sunk.
My favorite — and perhaps most obscure — story about an overt attempt by a President to help boost the sales of a product is one I read about years ago in the magazine American Heritage. Thanks to Google, I found the remembered article — actually an editor’s letter — on the American Heritage website* and the photo it describes (but is not on the American Heritage site) on the website of the JFK Library.
It has long been an urban legend that President Kennedy is the reason men stopped wearing hats in the early 1960s. (Snopes.com has a great de-bunking of the myth with photos of Kennedy wearing a top-hat at inaugural-day functions.) But the fact remains that Kennedy, who rarely wore a hat, was perceived even at the time as exacerbating the already-established trend away from hat-wearing by men.
However, President Kennedy one time purposefully had himself photographed with a hat as an active form of product endorsement — what today we’d call a “product placement.” He did it as a favor for a Navy buddy who had served with him on the famous PT 109.
Here’s how the story goes in American Heritage:
“After his PT service, (Al Webb) became vice president of sales for Cavanagh Hats. With his fellow skipper’s famous bareheadedness ravaging his enterprise, Webb had Cavanagh run up two fine custom hats and hurried to the White House to give one to the President and one to Kennedy’s long-time friend, a businessman named Red Fay.
“Al removed the hats from their boxes as though they were fragile Stradivarii,” recalled the writer William Manchester, who was on hand for the presentation. “Jack and the Redhead tried them on. . . . Al stood back to observe the effect. He said unconvincingly, ‘You both look great.’ Jack and Red looked at each other and burst out laughing. ‘Al,’ said the President, ‘are you willing to destroy the beloved image of our country’s leader just to save the hat industry?’” Manchester thought the hats made the two men “look like a couple of house detectives.” Webb retreated, “crestfallen.”
…”Kennedy met the challenge in his own way. The next day he greeted former President Eisenhower at Camp David and thereafter sent Al a picture of the great occasion: It showed Kennedy leaning forward, his right hand extended; in his left hand he held a hat, the lining facing out toward the camera. The Cavanagh Hats label was plainly visible!”
As stylish as Kennedy was, however, the hat never made a comeback in men’s business fashion.
And despite the well-publicized ‘addiction’ of President Obama to his Blackberry, it will be interesting to monitor what sort of sales bump his endorsement will have.
Honda is distributing a series of mini-documentaries via a special website and simultaneously, YouTube. I strongly recommend watching the video embedded below, an 8-minute video Honda describes as “an inside look at the mishaps of Honda racers, designers and engineers to learn how they draw upon failure to motivate them to succeed.”
Honda is showing how to succeed using “content marketing” with this effort.
I don’t believe I’ve done much TV commercial reviewing here (other than during a Superbowl), but I had to comment on how great I think the current Allstate insurance ads are — the one embedded below. Dennis Haysbert’s voice is one for times like these. It is perhaps the most reassuring “commercial” voice since Hal Riney, who wrote and did the voiceover for the, “It’s morning again in America” campaign ads for Reagan’s re-election campaign in 1984 — the commercial Time magazine called the third most effective campaign ad of all time.
And now that I’ve looked at the “morning again” spot for the first time in 25 years, I’ve got to say this Allstate ad seems “inspired” by “It’s morning again” in its writing, tempo and scoring. (I assume the writer is at Leo Burnett, Allstate’s agency for 50+ years.)
The copy for the Allstate ad is sparse, but sparkles in its simplicity. I believe it’s about as good as advertising copy gets.:
“1931…
was not exactly a great year to start a business.
But, that’s when Allstate opened its door.
And through the 12 Recessions since,
they’ve noticed that after the fear subsides,
a funny thing happens.
People begin enjoying the small things in life.
A home-cooked meal.
Time with loved ones.
Appreciating the things we do have.
The things we can count on.
It’s back to basics.
And the basics are good.
Protect them.
Put them…in good hands.”
For as long as the term “Web 2.0″ has existed, I have resisted using it. My reason? I’ve repeated it often: When a term means anything, it means nothing. And for as long as it has existed, Web 2.0 has meant whatever was trendy during that period of time. The only thing that all those who have used it can agree on is this: Web 2.0 is not like those dot.com startups that tanked back in 2000.
Here’s the only secret you need to know: The web is a place where people with shared passions form communities around those passions.
To show you how difficult-to-define the term continues to remain even at the end of 2008, a huge section-heading article appears in the Wall Street Journal (and WSJ.com) today called, “The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World.” However, before getting two paragraphs into the story, the writers had to insert this caveat:
“But first, a more basic question: What is Web 2.0, anyway? Essentially, it encompasses the set of tools that allow people to build social and business connections, share information and collaborate on projects online. That includes blogs, wikis, social-networking sites and other online communities, and virtual worlds.
OK. Read back through that and tell me again: Why is there a 2.0 behind the word Web? That’s not Web 2.0. That’s the Web. There was a time when I would have continued this rant and pointed out that everything that is in that definition was around long before many of those words we now use to describe them were first uttered.
However, I’ve stopped that type of rant. Why? Well, one is simply a marketing decision. At Hammock Inc. my colleagues and I are in the business of helping clients build stronger relationships with their members and customers. We help our clients use traditional media like magazines and new media like everything mentioned in the Wall Street Journal’s list. We help clients understand blogs and build wikis and online communities and share information.
If potential clients would like to call these things Web 2.0, then I’m happy to call them that, also. If they want to call them social media, that’s fine also. If they want to say social networking or, my favorite, conversational media, then any of those work for me. If they want to call them, “all that crazy stuff on the web,” then ditto.
In other words, if the Wall Street Journal wants to write a giant story about the need for companies to get a clue about Web 2.0 marketing, I’m here to say that I run a company that is in the business of helping marketers do just that. Call me. Let’s talk.
However, my real point is this: It’s not about the tools nor is it about any “secrets” that are listed in the Wall Street Journal today. All of these technologies are merely platforms where people — real live human beings — can express themselves in all of the nuanced and chaotic ways we do in the real world. But today, we can all do it with thousands more people in real-time.
The only thing different today is that these platforms and networks of expression, knowledge and connections take away the comfortable myth marketers used to have that customers are not people, but metrics with names like reach, frequency, eyeballs, click-throughs, ratings points, etc. Communicating with real people who have a platform is not something one used to learn in college (they do now, but not in the classroom) or on-the-job. It’s scary for the kind of people who read the Wall Street Journal.
Here’s something I know as a fact: You’ll never learn the secrets of Web 2.0 marketing by reading an article. Or a web post. Or a thousand articles and web posts. Of course, you know that. Because you know that you can’t learn how to drive a tee shot like Tiger Woods by reading a thousand articles.
The web — and all those things the WSJ today calls Web 2.0 marketing — are about a place you cannot learn by reading, researching, analyzing or lurking. You’ve got to go live there. You’ve got to participate. You’ve got to try and be willing to fail. You’ve got to learn how to talk without using metrics.
The web is a place where people with passions form communities around those passions.
Don’t think you’re going to impress them by creating your own communities. Go live there, among their communities.
If you are a marketing-type, feel free to fill in the blanks and send this around to the folks in your “group.”
Subject: What our marketing and communications team can learn from Obama’s campaign
Date: [The sooner, the better] To: [Name of your group here] From: [Your name here]
In the coming days, you’ll be reading and seeing a flood of reports and “what we can learn” blog posts about the “marketing of Obama.” Those reports will break-down every media buy, every creative strategy, every direct solicitation and database marketing effort, perhaps every word of every speech the candidate made, etc.
Before you read all that analyses, I wanted to share with you a 30,000 ft. view of what I believe are the major lessons our [Name of 'brand group,' department, etc.] should look for when reading about the specific tactics or strategies of the campaign. In other words, this memo is not about the executions or technology used. These are major themes that will likely cause the Obama campaign to have a lasting impact on marketing “thinking” that comes after it — including ours.
1. The brand is a narrative:
Too often, the word “brand” is over- or mis-used. When we don’t know what else to call some marketing activity, we’ll say “branding.” We’re so fuzzy about the word brand that people — including some who are receiving this memo — will even start using the word “brand” when they mean graphics. The Obama campaign displayed what a brand is: It’s an overarching narrative. It’s the story that pulls everything together. The Obama “brand” was blessed with a great spokesman who personified the narrative. But the narrative was central to everything the campaign did: creatively, strategically or tactically — even when the spokesman wasn’t present.
2. Brand marketing and direct marketing and online marketing and social media marketing are all the same thing:
Somewhere along the way, marketing people like us decided we couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time — that there is something inherently different and distinct about writing copy for a :30 second spot vs. writing copy for a direct mail solicitation letter. Worse, we started believing a myth that one individual can’t think in “TV” and in “the web” or in video or social media — that each of those are somehow extreme specialties like brain surgery vs. dermatology. The Obama campaign proved that thinking wrong. It was “wholistic” marketing. While, no doubt, the greatest amount of money was spent on TV, there was never a sense that TV was “driving” the campaign and everything else was supporting it. Each medium used — including media not even around when the campaign began (iPhone Apps and Twitter, for example) — was utilized with the same intensity and priority and treated, not like an “extension” of the paid-media campaign, but as a critical component to the overall “brand” that, to at least some supporters, was more important than all of the other activities of the campaign.
3. Don’t focus on features, focus on the narrative:
One of the complaints most professional political pundits (and supporters of his opponents) obsessed over was the lack of specifics in Obama’s plans — that he was just a good speechifier, but not experienced in specific areas of foreign policy or national defense. Such are the complaints of professional political wonks. They, however, don’t realize that focusing on such nut-and-bolts minutae of public policy is like trying to market a computer by describing each and ever part inside the box. Effective marketing is all about the outcome. It’s the problem solved. It’s the need met. It’s about love and pride and hope. And yes, it’s about sizzle. Marketing that works is rarely about the stuff we wonks love to discuss.
4. Don’t let others define us:
While we at [your organization's name here] would never resort to the type of attack advertising you see in politics, the lesson we should learn from the Obama campaign is this — don’t let any false information in the marketplace sit there without a response. We often think we should be above the fray or that responding only adds credibility to those who may say something about us. While I’m not saying we should respond to every anonymous forum commenter, I do believe we can learn from the Obama campaign that we should be on top of everything being said about us, and if we see something negative gaining any traction, we should respond in a way approapriate to mitigate the impact.
5. Great marketing is not about “I” or “me,” it’s about our [customers, members, users, readers, etc.]:
Going back to the primary campaign, Obama’s message focused on empowering his supporters. He positioned himself against his opponents in a way that reinforced theirs were campagins’ of self-centered ambition; his was a campaign that focused on the aspirations of his supporters. I’m just guessing, but if you compared all the times the candidates used the words “I” “me” “we” or “us,” his opponents would be off the charts on the “I” and “me” usage, while Obama would be at the other end of the chart with his use of the “we” and “us” words. It is a subtle thing, but everytime we try to market our [product, service, etc.] by talking about things that are important to us, rather than talking about our [products, services, organization] in terms of the wants and needs and passions and aspirations of the individuals we serve, we fail.
6. A grassroots movement is incredibly expensive — and valuable:
In the past, the terms “viral” and “grassroots” and “user-generated” seemed to indicate that a marketing effort was less expensive than traditional media — or, more naively, free. Yet the Obama campaign invested tens of millions into providing the “movement” the tools necessary for it to grow and flourish. If you were to show me a startup business that, in two years, could build a database of 3+ million individuals who will contribute more than $200 each online, I’d show you a startup ready to go public with a multi-billion dollar valuation.
One last thing. I hope that you’ll learn from the Obama campaign that anything is possible if enough people believe that, yes they can.
On Tuesday, amidst my live-blogging of the Future of Business Media Conference in the New York, I took a shot at CNBC for covering the economy in the way the Weather Channel and CNN cover hurricanes: with breathless alarm and Anderson Cooper dressed in rain-gear while panting in a way that makes every puff of wind seem like proof that, yes, this could be the Category 5 we’ve all feared.
At the conference, I heard business-side and news-side people from Dow-Jones, CNBC, Fox Business News, the Economist, BusinessWeek, Forbes.com and Fortune magazine (to name a few) say something to the effect: This is a really difficult time, but this is the story of a lifetime and, well, it’s been good for our ratings (or newsstand sales).
So I guess I should not be surprised that since the business media is covering the “financial crisis” as if it is a weather event, business executives are using a term most associated with weather to describe how they are responding to the “crisis” that is leading to what our experts in the Economy Tracking Center in Miami are believing will be a Category 3, 4 or maybe even 5 recession. Or better yet, a nuclear winter:
Hunker down.
Look at a Google news search for recent uses of the term “hunker down.” This morning, you’ll see it is not only the go-to cliche for covering bad weather (the snows in the northeast) and natural disasters (the earth quake in Pakistan), but it is now the must-use term to describe anything related to how businesses and individuals are reacting to the “bad economy.”
As a business person, I understand the realities of needing to be mindful of the context and conditions you face. Certainly, if your customers are sitting on their wallets, you can’t pretend they are about to purchase your wares. Flexibility and being ever-mindful of the need to prepare for whatever situation you face is the only way to run a business. But by focusing on the hunker down metaphor — especially the “we’re afraid” aspects of the term, there is a strong possibility that the “hunker down” activities are no more than duck-and-cover exercises.
Isn’t “hunkering down” the panic reaction to a situation that a calm, rational person might discover contains some opportunity? What if you’re in a business that suddenly finds all of its competitors “re-trenching” and “pulling back” and “hiding in caves” — if you, also, are “hunkering down,” aren’t you missing a unique opportunity to gain market share?
The term hunker down means two things: One is related to preparation for some type of pressure you’re anticipating. The other relates to “hiding.”
I fear that a lot of business planners are confusing the first type of hunkering down — anticipating and preparing for an economic downturn — with the second type of hunkering down: hiding.
If you’re a company or organization that wants to elevate its awareness — and brand — in the market you serve, the worst thing you can do — in good times or bad — is “hunker down” — as in, hide. The evidence is overwhelming that companies who market wisely and aggressively while others are hunkering down are the winners during — and after — a recession. For example, according to research conducted at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business during the last recession, “firms entering a recession with a pre-established strategic emphasis on marketing; an entrepreneurial culture; and a sufficient reserve of under-utilized workers, cash, and spare production capacity are best positioned to approach recessions as opportunities to strengthen their competitive advantage.”
Rather than use the “hunker down” metaphor, the “winner” companies followed another metaphor — one from athletic competition:
“Athletes often choose times of stress to mount attacks: strong runners and bicycle racers may increase their pace on hills or under other challenging conditions,” the authors write. “In a similar vein, proactive marketing includes both the sensing of the existence of the opportunity (a tough hill and fatigued opponents) and an aggressive response (possessing the necessary strength or nerve) to the opportunity.”
A warning, however: The research indicates that it is only when companies are prepared for recessions (like cyclists who train for hills) who benefit. Thus, Apple with its pre-existing marketing and advertising savvy and a mountain of cash, is likely to benefit during this recession, as it has in previous ones, rather than another company whose marketing is inept, even in less challenging times.
Bottomline: “Hunkering down” is not the metaphor you want as your guide when planning your marketing efforts for the coming months — especially if your marketing has been working and your competitor seems to be huffing and puffing already. Hunker down wherever you can — say, executive compensation — but use a recession to raise your visibility, not hide.
(From the Future of Business Media Conference) At the Future of Business Media Conference, Andy Sewer is interviewing Sarah Faye, the CEO of media buying ubber-agency Aegis Media. The following are rough notes, not direct quotes.
Sewer: Recession? Depression? Ready to call it?
Faye: Not yet. (That’s a short version of her longer answer.)
Sewer: Traditional media vs. new media?
Faye: We’re getting to a point where marketers are thinking about them correctly. Marketers are wanting to understand “the consumer journey.” How each media is going to work together. We now hear marketers say, not, what do we want the customer to see and hear, but “What do we want the customer to do?” We now have to bring all of the media opportunities together and consider “an architecture” of how the customer will walk through the program. It’s an integration of “brand strategy” and “direct marketing.” So, it’s hard for marketers who are dealing with one agency for brand strategy and other agencies to carry it out. They don’t typically work in a way where everyone is at the table.
Sewer: Are we still where marketers are saying, “get me digital opportunities”?
Faye: I wouldn’t necessarily say they are at the point where there is a lot of integration. But they are looking for “efficiencies.” Marketers now know online work. The next step is to make sure that when you’re running a TV advertising campaign, to consider what kind of “keyword” searches those ads will generate.
Sewer: Metrics?
Faye: Marketers have gotten used to using digital media and the metrics they get are addicting.
Sewer: Google? What’s your Google strategy?
Faye; Google is a huge partner of ours in search. We use them as a paid search partner and we have a huge SEO operation. We’re also using Google TV and some of their other properties. We believe YouTube is a force to be reckoned with. Google — so far — has not created a dominant position outside of search. And that will grow throughout the next decade. Google TV is interesting, but there are several other companies going after that space. Google is not dominant. There’s lots of innovation going on at Google, so who knows what will come out of it.
Sewer: Google/Yahoo deal?
Faye: I’m not a fan. I like having competition in a market. The idea of the biggest and second biggest search advertiser getting together is necessarily good.
Sewer: Is print dead?
Faye: I think magazines are still very important and plays an important role. People still like to hold onto a magazine and read it. It’s a good jumping off spot for an integrated program. I will say, newspapers roles are changing. I’m becoming more skeptical of “controlled circulation” in the B2B media arena. The content in those magazines is available online. The “resource for buyers” role is being changed by the Internet.
Sewer: TV?
Faye: There’s a gap in pricing and efficiencies of network TV. Network is still expensive — it’s like beach front property. However, there is lots of “cheap” long tail of TV out there. The gap has to narrow at some point. Broadband is differently than the rest of TV. It is bought and measured differently. We are bullish on it. You can’t skip the advertising. It creates a high impact.
Sewer: Race to the bottom of TV? Is content a commodity and distribution a premium? If you go to network TV and can’t tell which reality program you’re watching, does it matter what network it’s on?
Faye: We’re following the consumer as to what’s popular with them. I think will see the quality productions go the HBO model.
Faye: Viral is huge. We’re looking to find “the voice in the consumer.” Getting the consumer to create or participate with the brand, is where you’ll get an extension to your media budget. If you can get the consumer to talk about your brand, there’s a new kind of authenticity.
Sewer: Social networking?
Faye: Gotta me a model there, because the time sure is being spent there. For me, I hope Facebook gets there with their business model. For us, it’s about the creation of the community and then using the traditional media to point people to that community.
(Sewer and Faye are talking about people on Facebook as if they are talking about people on Mars.)
Question from the audience about digital acquisitions for Aegis
Faye: Yes, we’re still bullish.
Question about online search vs. display
Faye: We have the ways to analyze “click stream activity” that show that display advertising drives search activity. So, you can’t dismiss — no matter how much you want to — display advertising.
Faye: The business reader need better servicing. It’s important that business to business media companies evolve. From the marketers we work with, they know that they need an integrated approach. The question is are the media companies in their sector servicing them.
Question about bypassing advertising agencies:
Faye: The challenge agencies and clients are having…there are specialists in all these different areas. That’s one thing we’re trying to address. We have an “open source” approach — because we’re more of a “media (buying)” company than a creative driven company.
Question to Sewer re: how the business media is covering the financial crisis — are people running out and buying magazines.
Sewer: The end of August (Fortune) newsstand is up 30%. The traffic across our business websites is up 80% at Fortune.com. It’s an incredible period.
