Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

A Real-Life Analogy to Bad Advertising/Social Media Campaign Thinking

Monday, June 29th, 2009

I’m not sure how I ended up with a free Condé Nast Traveler subscription, but since I wouldn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, I read it happily. Somehow they must have found out I love traveling. That’s irrelevant though, I just needed a lead.

I was set to write a blog about branding this week when I happened upon an article from the June issue that peaked my interest. Condé Nast sent three people to Moscow, one with a Blackberry, one with an iPhone and another with a guidebook. The intent was to show which was the best in getting folks around.

Details notwithstanding, the guidebook won in most categories and overall. The iPhone and Blackberry, while nice devices, have their limitations. The guidebook, with its research and careful editing worked great in most situations and even fostered a little social networking and conversation, if you will.

“PERFECT!!!” I thought. I know so many people who put so much trust in technology and toys that they lose sight of the tried and trusted methods of doing things. I sometimes fall into that trap myself. I think we all do.

So many businesses and agencies run campaigns using the latest and greatest. Recently, social media has taken prominence – as if it could bring throngs of customers and revenue to even the worst business. Wrong thinking.

I won’t suggest that social media is bad. As a matter of fact it’s a great way to reach some tough demographics. In some cases it might be the only way. You shouldn’t depend on it though. One of the most appropriate quotes in this article highlights what I constantly tell people: “I will [not] travel without [an iPhone], guidebook, a laptop and a willingness to talk to strangers.”

Integrated.

The point I’m making here is to integrate your campaigns. Integrate what you’re doing. Never depend on one medium. If you do, you could end up stuck, out of cash and wondering what you did wrong. One area of life imitates another.

And oh yeah, if you’re traveling, I suggest using a guidebook. I might even suggest subscribing to Condé Nast Traveler.

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Posted in Advertising, Social Media, Strategy, Technology | No Comments »

Live or Die by Social Media.

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

These days, if you haven’t planned for any social media interaction with a large or national campaign, you’ve doomed yourself to failure. Indeed, if you’re a national company and your crisis plan doesn’t have social media embedded into it, you’re in for trouble.

Sure, you might get lucky, but monitoring the social internet is as critical as listening to your customers who walk in and out of your store. More importantly, negative statements won’t just echo for a few minutes, but can sit around for a long time. Anyone with a fancy for Google can see and use these comments – from the media to influential bloggers and your potential customers.

A few good examples: KFC, Dominos Pizza, Swine Flu (sorry, H1N1).

In the most recent case, KFC decided to use Opera to give away free meals. In theory, this was a great plan. Oprah’s draw is extreme. The problem for KFC, however, is that Oprah’s draw is extreme. In short, KFC didn’t plan for this. They thought that they’d double Oprah’s estimated pull for the free meals and that would be enough.

Hindsight being what it is, even Oprah’s organization could have planned a little better and warned KFC that the impact would be huge. Regardless, what I think both organizations didn’t plan for was the power of social media, especially blogging and micro blogging (Twitter). When word got out via social media and the Oprah machine, the demand was too much for the KFCs.

To illuminate what went wrong, it might help to look at a company that did it right, or at least better. When Denny’s decided to promote its Grand Slam breakfast by giving it away, it carefully thought out that there might be more demand for a free breakfast than their kitchens could have expected. Restaurants greeted those who came too late with rain checks. While they took a few shots for it, it helped defray some of the negative sentiment.

According to the Twitter traffic and reports on the situation, KFC simply turned patrons away. Many were rude. They didn’t offer a rain check. If some of the articles are any indication, they didn’t even get buy-in from every franchise. The result should have been expected: people complained. There were complaints on Twitter and over the blogosphere. The primary problem may have been poor planning, but in that poor planning was a forgotten element: social media.

Dying by social media.

KFC didn’t plan for it, and as a result the social internet ate them like a greasy drumstick.

On the other hand, companies like Dominos handled their recent crisis slightly better by essentially fighting fire with fire, posting a video on the same site that hosted the original video. Dominoes also started using twitter to address concerns. Thought I think they acted a little too late – at least they acted. In the future, those companies should continue to foster their social media tribe. When it comes to communicating over social media in a crisis, an established tribe is going to be a lot more useful than a brand new one. If you take a quick look at Starbucks, they have almost 176,000 followers who will hear them if they need to be heard. Dominos has less than a 10th of that. Who do you think is going to weather a social media storm better?

Finally, one group that seems to “get it” would be the CDC. To combat misinformation about the H1N1 virus (so-called swine flu) they quickly utilized Twitter to help correct the misinformation and panic that could have spread virally (sorry, couldn’t help it). Was it a perfect execution? Probably not, but so far there have been very few “perfect executions.”

So what’s the point here? If you’re in PR and/or crisis management, if you’re planning a large-scale promotion that could overload your infrastructure or if you have any connection to the image of a company, you should be scouring the social web to be sure your brand is protected. Anything else would be downright irresponsible.

http://www.twitter.com/starbucks
http://www.twitter.com/dpzinfo
http://adage.com/article?article_id=136551
http://adage.com/article?article_id=136484
http://adweek.blogs.com/tweetfreak/2009/05/brands-on-twitter-kfc-and-oprah.html

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Posted in Public Relations, Social Media, Strategy | 5 Comments »

Crisis Management in 30 Minutes or Less

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

We all suspect it happens. The movie “Shenanigan’s” is built on the premise of it. It’s why we should treat even the worst servers nice when we go out to eat. It was only a matter of time until the social web brought it right to our web browsers.

Earlier this month, Dominoes Pizza was dogged by an unfortunate brand killing video of two employees doing – well – things we all suspect food service employees do from time to time. It took Dominoes almost 48 hours to respond. It was a decent response, using the same medium as the original video. They also used twitter and comments on blogs discussing or showing the video. The response was simple and thought out, though late. The lateness might have hurt them. You need to be immediate with your response.

Additionally, Dominoes and their agency, Ogilvy & Mather seem to think that research shows that the issue went away. I’m not so sure of that and the “Booger Pizza” comment at the end of this show Consumerist post seems to agree with me. Just because it’s not being blogged or twittered about doesn’t mean that it’s not being thought about.

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Posted in Public Relations, Social Media | No Comments »

No Channel is an Island

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

I hate buzzwords. Most people hate buzzwords. You probably hate buzzwords. That being said, today’s buzzword is “synergy.” I’m sorry.

I’ve known the word since grad school, but recently I’ve seen it being used more frequently and often incorrectly. Just to be clear, it basically means “the interaction of the parts produces an effect greater than the actual sum of the parts.” To paraphrase: interaction of “synergetic” things will multiply results instead of adding. From this concept we get integrated marketing campaigns, not just ad campaigns.

I mention this because so many “social media experts” and advertising agencies use social media in a way that doesn’t connect to the rest of their campaigns. It’s not being used synergistically. In an article for Ad News, I wrote about how you need to use a different style of messaging, a conversational style, when using social media. I caution you, that’s only part of it.

What many professionals forget to do is integrate the social media into the campaign at large. What I see is a forced use of the medium. Don’t do this. Social media campaigns must be strategic and part of a larger campaign.

I’m cautioning the mixed readership here: integrate, integrate, integrate. If you’re thinking of using social media, don’t just force yourself to use it, it needs evaluation just like radio, TV or print does. If you don’t know the demographic and population, you’re in trouble.

Social media integration is not easy. The style of the medium is very nontraditional. Even if you’re not paying to use it, you still have man-hours invested. Beyond that, you have to be sure that use of the medium doesn’t have a negative impact on your campaign or the brand at large.

If you don’t know how to do this effectively, ask someone who does. More importantly: if you do hire someone who claims to be a social media expert, be sure they can work with the larger campaign. If you hire an agency, don’t assume they know social media. Be sure they know or do research on the trends and demographics. I can assure you, they can change direction on a dime.

…and don’t forget the synergy.

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Posted in Social Media | No Comments »