Before there was the Internet... There was ME.
The (sometimes) random musings of a man who has a (sometimes) faulty filter between his Ferrari brain and (sometimes) Trabant mouth.
A number of months ago, I met with fellow Newhouse / Syracuse alumnus Howard Polskin of the Magazine Publishers Association.We had gotten hooked up with each other via another fellow Newhouse alum Howard Sholkin a few weeks earlier, to talk shop and do a little bit of networking.We had a great conversation, talking about the media business in general, and the direction it’s going in.
During our chat, Howard mentioned that the MPA was in the process of planning for their third annual Digital Awards luncheon at the fifth “Magazines 24/7 Digital Conference” in March, and asked me if I’d be interested as acting as a judge for the competition.The MPA Digital Awards honor excellence and innovation of magazine brands on all digital platforms in 12 categories.
I told him that I’d be honored to be part of the distinguished group.
WEBSITES OF THE YEAR The “Website of the Year” category recognizes excellence and innovation in content, design, functionality and usability in four subcategories.
Website of the Year: News, Business & Finance:Wired.com Website of the Year: Entertainment & Sports: SI.com Website of the Year: Enthusiast: Architectural Record Website of the Year: Service & Lifestyle: Epicurious.com
(ED. NOTE: Updated and tweaked 10 Nov. 08) Pepsi-Cola has decided to shake up their branding (as opposed to a can of Pepsi, which is not advised) to see what happens.
FULL DISCLOSURE:I don’t like Pepsi. The brand itself is fine, but any carbonated beverage, aside from Champagne or beer, is anathema to my palate.Blech.Anyway…
You may have already seen some posts from several “social media influencers” (Shankman, PSFK, Rohit Bargava, among others) in the marketing and advertising field about Pepsi's innovative new campaign, being dubbed by many the "Pepsi 25" for their choice of 25 bloggers to single out and send three packages to over the course of an hour (gotta suck to be an Account Assistant at Pepsi’s agency, huh?). Since I wasn’t one of them, I've grabbed the image posted on AdRants(thanks, AdRants! :) ) .
I’ve been a bit busy lately, but being late to the party gives me the benefit of some “widescreen views” about the campaign, and seeing what many of my fellow bloggers had to say the new initiative. Here’s the topline thus far:
The new logo looks a lot like Barack Obama's campaign logo.Really.I assume Pepsi's was being mocked up before Barack started his campaign (not sure when he debuted his, but let’s assume over a year ago), but it’s really, really close.
Who are these “Pepsi 25” influencers that Pepsi chose (though you can find them by checking out the Pepsi Cooler and other blogs—see below)?
How did they choose them (friends in the blogosphere?)?
Blogs/observations/rants that this campaign won't necessarily get any of the bloggers to like or drink Pepsi any more than they do now.I think they’re more the Mountain Dew, hyper-caffeinated types, probably, but I don't think that's the point of the effort. More on that below.
Pepsi’s making moves, no doubt about it.They’ve always been eager to make connections with youth and pop culture.It started in the ‘80s as the “Voice of the New Generation/Pepsi Generation”.According to AdAge , this effort will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide as part of a multi-year transformation.But the Social Media part is probably of minimal cost. You know something?I think it’ll work.
Why?
Research shows that 1 in 2 online Americans access social networks.I’ll write more about that in another post, but as you can imagine, the young (under 30 – grr..) people of today make up the bulk of the users, and that number will grow as that demographic matures.But also...
Social Media is the most efficient, cost-effective way in which to:
Grow a publisher's audience, increase engagement, and generate new revenue streams
Enable Brands to engage their customers more effectively in an increasingly fragmented world
Enable Marketers to evolve from delivering messages, to engaging in a conversation with customers
And get this:
"93 percent of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85 percent believe a company should not only be present, but also interact with its consumers via social media."
- 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study, September, 11-12, 2008
It could be argued that this is a very well-executed campaign, if only for the reason that these influencers have large followings (especially from marketing geeks like myself), and therefore will just get a lot of buzz.From what I can see, it’s succeeded. Going by the compiled list of "Pepsi 25" targets on ParkerWeb, the campaign's hit rate as of this writing is 16 for 25, which is pretty decent (for a small scope), actually.
Granted, some on the list don’t add to coverage in the “Positive Team”, but as some of my previous employers have noted/built their empires on, any coverage is coverage.Not my style, but then, I don’t work for them anymore. Pepsi's choice to make it an exclusive marketing story to online journos (in the Stuart Elliott/NYTimes vein of MSM pitching), and a revamp of a 100+ year-old brand logo and its evolution in the physical form of cans (would’ve LOVED to have that collection in my office!), probably means that Pepsi is pretty happy with what they got:a bunch of marketing geeks who reach a larger group of marketing geeks (as I said before, myself included) to talk about it.Word of Mouth, baby!
So what does this mean?
More importantly, many folks who really have no interest in writing about Pepsi now have a reason to, and Pepsi's (attempting) to keep the buzz going using the tools that Social Media people use, likeFriendFeed.They’ve created an online community called the Pepsi Cooler (hehe, ‘cooler’, get it?For soda pop, and ‘causeit’s cool!).
The Interwebs are a superlative communication stage, but you already knew that.It's efficient (fast, cheap-ish), effective (you’re reading this, right?) and scalable (start with 25 influencers, and let them grow the buzz for you). However, now that Social Media is here, it's become even more so. The ‘Net is now a launch pad for global relationships between brands and their consumers, as well as their stakeholders/critics.
My Mets will be having a runoff vote to determine their new eighth-inning sing-along song.
Traditionally, Shea (in its last season alive) plays Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline", and everyone rocks out a bit. In the latest misguided digital corporate campaign, the organization received five million votes at mets.com after inviting fans to choose from among 10 selections to potentially replace the song.
Fark.com readers bombarded the Mets website with votes for a write-in candidate: Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up."
I have a colleague (actually a few) who is obsessed with Rickrolling.
Never heard of it? Guess you're not as geeky as you thought. :)
To Rickroll is to intentionally misdirect someone to a video of Never Gonna Give You Up from 80s pop icon Rick Astley.
Tease them with a link to a supercool video or site, perhaps disguising a YouTube link with TinyURL. Your victim is served with Rick Astley doin' his blue-eyed soul thing in your face. Ha.
Anyway, the Rickster heard about it, and shared his thoughts...
Scary news for corporations who are interested in building online communities to further engage consumers (Disclosure: I'm involved in creating online communities for corporations interested in further engaging consumers -- but nothing nefarious like this). A Harvard researcher has uncovered a piece of "marketing software" sourced from Sears and Kmart and discovered that it contains invasive (and illegal, according to Boingboing) spyware.
Remember awhile back when Sony embedded spyware into its CDs, crashing computers all over and further hurting its sagging in-store (as opposed to iTunes) sales? I personally took it as an affront because of what it did to Neil Diamond. Let me digress for a moment...
Neil was working with master producer Rick Rubin on a 'comeback album', 12 Songs. Rick had just come off of his work with Johnny Cash and other aging legends, so I was looking forward to their efforts. Neil, as per Rick's direction, was to play a good deal of the instruments on the record, which he hadn't done in 30 years or so (totally a guesstimate -- might bother looking it up later to update). Anyway, long story short, the album came out, the spyware was on it (along with a number of other releases), and Sony ended up having to get returns on a crapload of CDs. Sales of the Neil Diamond album spiked upon release, but after the spyware incident, took a nosedive. Pissed me off... Neil and I have similar roots.
Anyway, Sears and Kmart (both owned by Sears, btw) didn't learn Sony's lesson.
Topline:
Fall 2007, Sears.com and Kmart.com began asking users if they wanted to participate in an "online community" (I assume a social network made up of Sears and Kmart loyalists).
In late December, a security researcher discovered that the "community" installed software from a market research firm, to track the web activities of the sites' visitors.
It also tracked visits to bank sites, looked at email, and other invasive things.
All this information was sent to the market research firm.
Oops.
I harbor a strange romanticism for the lost American companies of my youth and prior, like Woolworth's, The Automat, and Gimbel's. Because of this, I used to feel sort of sorry for companies like Sears and Kmart, who've gotten crushed in recent years by Target and Wal-Mart and Best Buy (Disclosure: Best Buy is a client). Not anymore.
When will companies understand that full transparency/disclosure is needed when working with word of mouth campaigns, social networking and any other relationship-building initiatives? Evangelists are willing to, or even excited to work with their favorite retailers to improve their experience. When they're misled, consumers lose trust in a company, and move somewhere better. Lately, most other retailers have been better, online and otherwise. These guys just really really hurt the feelings of people who cared enough about them to stick around and shop, and join up what's essentially a fan club. They're not going to stick around any longer.
You know how you always hear -- a number of times-- during a sports event on TV, "This broadcast is the sole copyright of Fox (or ABC/CBS/NBC/etc.), the NFL (or MLB/NBA/etc.), and any rebroadcast..." blah blah blah... Well, there's an interesting twist to that tonight. A blogger and her husband were surprised to see a (slightly modified) photo of their dog appear in the FOX network's "Happy Holiday" ticker during a football game. She says that someone from Fox nicked the pic from either her blog or her Flikr photostream.
And let's not forget that this is the corporation who SUED YouTube over streaming FOX content (full disclosure: I was in the employ of the House of Murdoch on the broadcast side for about 8 or so years).
Now, you and I all repurpose images that we find via Google each and every day-- and that's what these guys did. But it wasn't theirs, so they should be remunerating someone, at least according to their own rules for not allowing others to utilize their content.
Another thought: ever think of where your photos might be ending up?
ird annual Digital Awards luncheon at the fifth “Magazines 24/7 Digital Conference” in March, and asked me if I’d be interested as acting as a judge for the competition. The MPA Digital Awards honor excellence and innovation of magazine brands on all digital platforms in 12 categories.
Conference was a big success, and the awards were announced a little over a week ago (yeah, I’m a bit behind – been busy), so I thought I’d share the news with you as well, if you hadn’t heard. Kate Maxwell, Senior Editor at Condé Nast Traveler, presented the awards to the winners at the Marriott Marquis New York on March 3rd. 
