advergirl

Social Media in Action: Learnings from a successful flop

You’ve probably all been in that dead-end social media pitch. The one where you have a perfect audience and an authentic story, but your client heads down one of three painful directions:

• The Social Kids Table: (Or the Intern Factor.) Assuming social is just for (irrelevant) kids, they offload the brand voice to the nearest 20-something and hope for the best


• The Slow Lane: The mere mention of social starts the weaving of a bureaucratic Web. Mediation, distrust, individual approvals. How can we protect ourselves from the people who want to engage with us?


• The Soapbox: Prepping for command and control. Spewing content into the vast social underbrush. Comments locked down. Brand Invincible.

It’s enough to convince you that social can’t succeed with an average business. That – as the blogging boys say – your brand can never be my friend.

But just when you’re about to give up: A completely unlikely brand throws itself entirely into social and comes out smarter and more authentic for it.

Breaking through: Online tools that convert browsers to fans

We've probably all found ourselves building Web applications we weren't quite sure about. Like, say, a Merman-a-gram or a hip-hop video featuring a personalized BBQ bottle getting down with its saucy self. (Yes, that is me on the bottle - courtesy of friend Joy.)

For every couple thousand of these little interactive wonders we chef up, there are a special few that manage to captivate an audience. That hold us from the first click until ... hey, where'd that last 10 minutes go?

Two recent examples to get lost in:

Edu-commerce

Closing a high-engagement sale (think selecting an insurance plan, buying a car, etc.) is always a challenge online. Lost is the sense of urgency, the gentle prodding by the "expert" in the room. Instead there's the ability to browse, to get frustrated, to wander off...

Imagine how much harder that sale is when you add in ignorance. An entirely new group of novice buyers entering a specialists category. Ouch.

Indie ad agency Woods Witt Dealy & Sons paired education with e-commerce to solve just such a problem for IRO Cycle.

Short story: Fixed gear bikes are to messengers as hush puppies are to hipsters. They're that one have-to-have item that broke through the barrier from enthusiast to fan. And, suddenly a whole bunch of folks who'd never wielded as much as a pedal wrench before wanted their own stripped down urban two-wheeled ride.

The IRO Cycle build-your-bike site takes shoppers into the grit of building a fixed gear. You pick your drivetrain, your rider, etc., but each choice shares both the lingo-ed "what" and the plain English "why."

Just about anyone could feel confident building a bike on this site. AND they'll walk away talking the talk.

(Congratulations to Kristen Milligan on this one. This is the very first press release find I've posted.)

Creativity Fix

How many online quizzes have you taken? A slew, I imagine. From What kind of care bear are you (?) to who's your mate? Half of them I click off long before they've diagnosed me.

Enter this gorgeous quiz from My Deco, a publisher tagged as a furniture fix for the decorati.

Every question is answered by selecting a conceptual image from a delightful mood board of ideas. Your ideal bedroom, favorite chair, color palette for your living room.

At the end, you get the verdict. Just what kind of design style you have. But, the experience of the quiz is enough to communicate the expertise of the publisher. Yeah, they get it. And, I can't wait to see more.

Spotted by creative co-worker Carrie on Creative Envy.

Breaking through: High-engagement agency marketing

Writing about Plaid's quest the other day made me think about the changing ways agencies are engaging potential clients, partners and employees. Increasingly, they're not settling for create-and-wait tactics, rather they're engaging best-fit audiences with can't-resist content and experiences.

Today's agency marketing is LESS like:

• Spray-and-pray mailers
• Dialing for dollars against generic lists of "creative decision makers"
• Pulpit positions at preaching-to-the-choir conferences
• If-you-build-it-they-will-come agency Web sites

It's MORE like:

• Creating opportunities to share ideas
• Spending time with like minds
• Building value around content
• Making the Web a personal experience

In our fast-moving, client-driven world, agency leaders are investing time and resources in changing the playing field. The results are ... pretty desirable. Check out these two examples.

Space150: Rip up your white paper, host an event

Thought leadership used to come in a 15-page white paper, complete with charming 12-point type and the occasional bar graph. Today, it comes in shared time and ideas. Agencies leveraging their partners  and networks to create immersive events on topics clients are actually interested in.

Check out Space150's DeepSpace Mobile workshop for a great example. 

Cole & Weber: Create deep dive industry experiences

Industry relevance was once a column of client logos. Today, it's a sense of the experience. Of speaking the language, having apropos theories, demonstrating a targeted approach.

Cole & Weber brings a great example to life on this micro site showcasing their experience in the wine category. It's peppered with thought leadership. Has a taste of quality, a note of investment and a nose of confidence.  (Metaphor - and post - officially exhausted).

Breaking through: The drama of the every day

About a month ago, GirlEffect.org (sponsored by Nike) made speedy work of our pass-along circuit.  Its near-universal acclaim was credited to the simplicity of the design and the pace of the engaging story.

But I think it was something bigger. Or, I guess I should say it was about being bigger.

The easiest objection to make to advertising in any form is - what does it matter? What does the brand of chips I buy, the sports team I cheer for, or the brand of shampoo in my shower* really matter in the big scope of things?

The challenge was even greater for this nonprofit. Can a small contribution really make a difference in a village thousands of miles away? Can someone on a couch in Ohio change the lives of a nation?

The Girl Effect pulls that thread.

Makes it personal.

Blows that little donation up into something that will change the lives of first a girl, then a village, then generations.

Makes it bigger than you. Bigger than itself.

It even lays the gauntlet that husbands and children are bad for girls. That's drama. Hell, yes. I'm in.

The hallmark of creating drama in the everyday is the lump in the throat. The experience so big that you see yourself as having real responsibility to it. You feel like it matters.

And, it doesn't exist just in the work of philanthropy.

Take these two niche favorites:

Cesar's (the dog food cum canine cuisine) I Promise campaign brings the Love Them Back tagline to life. It sets up your pet aisle picks as nothing less than an expression of how much your value your fuzzy friends. It lays down a gauntlet of love.

Or Monster.com's Stork spot. The beautifully shot story that hints at how valuable each life is and asks - are you reaching your potential? Stork replaces the transactional choice of work with nothing short of the meaning of life.  It either lays down a gauntlet of guilt or hope. You pick.

*Baked Sour Cream and Cheddar Lays, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Aveda Sap Moss ... you know, if it matters.

David Griner and The Social Path

If you totally trust the advice of Advergirl, no need to read on. Just click through this subscribe link and get a feed you're sure to love and thank me for. If you're tougher to convince, keep reading, I'll talk you into it.

It's been over a year and a half now since I hung up my blogging hat. No fanfare, no goodbye. I just wandered off after a decidedly questionable post on bug advertising.

Until, May of 07, when David Griner, a snarky AdFreak blogger, called me out on the disappearance. His "Where is Advergirl" post ended up flooding my inbox with "yeah, what the heck happened" notes and trackbacks from other bloggers echoing the sentiment. I was compelled to return to posting. Since then, David has been something of a big brother of blogging - peer pressuring me to try new social media (damn twitter) and calling bullshit when I head out too far into the land of ranting.

So, I'm very excited to tell you about his new blog: The Social Path.

TSP is a social media blog that tears down the jargon of our cliquey chat and replaces it with great examples, advice and ideas. More about it in David's own words:

Advergirl: Your latest brainchild - The Social Path - launched this week. What's the big idea behind it?

David: I love social media. I love talking about social media. But I've never really liked reading about social media. For every good blog on the topic, there are hundreds packed with vague rhetoric and self-promotion. We wanted to start an agency blog that was conversational, practical and digestible for the masses.

But to be honest, I just wanted a place to rant on the company's dime.

Advergirl: You write for advertising's leading publisher, plus have a growing family, a full-time ad job and a blog of your own, what made you decide to take on this new venture?

David: I seriously felt like my life was missing something. I love writing about cool and strange stuff for AdFreak, but I also wanted a place to talk at length about trends and technology. Yeah, it spreads me  little thinner, but I've gotten a lot of support from all three bosses: my creative director, the AdFreak editor and my wife. I forgot to check with the dog.

Advergirl: (Karen: If you want to contest the boss order there, we welcome your comment!) Anyway, David, who are you writing for this time around?

David: I'm trying to keep the luddites in mind. I want to demystify social media, make it seem less scary for businesses and ordinary people. But I still want it to be interesting for the people who already read tons of sites about networking, conversation, etc. I figure clients and potential clients probably fall somewhere between those two extremes.

Advergirl: The Social Path is pretty prominently sponsored by your home agency, Luckie & Co. Last I checked, your gig was copywriting there, not chief blogger. Is this launch the start of a new role for you?

David: Time will tell, I guess. For now, still contently plugging away as a copywriter.

Advergirl: I know we have a lot of readers who are interested in introducing their bosses, co-workers and clients to social media. What advice to you have for promoting and teaching social media?

David: You can talk all you want, but the easiest way is to actually help them set up a few accounts on sites like Facebook, Blogger or Twitter. Then walk them through the process of getting started. That's the toughest hurdle to get over. For that reason, I prefer one-on-one training instead of trying to convert the masses all at once.

Advergirl: Do you think every brand should embrace social media?

David: Embrace it? Probably not. But every brand should be experimenting with the possibilities and keeping an eye on trends. Last I checked, half of the Top 10 Web sites in the U.S. were social. That's a hell of a boat to miss.

Advergirl: Is social media marketing, customer service, product development, or something new entirely?   

David: Social media is just a way to communicate. But when companies use it, I think it should be seen as a mix of PR and customer service — except good.

Advergirl: What tool do you hope comes next?

David: I love the idea behind FriendFeed, but I hate the interface and I never end up using it. It would be great to have a site that easily combines all these other things I use: Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, etc. Lots of folks trying to do it, no one succeeding (yet).

Advergirl: What's the most un-social thing going on in social media today?

David: I still think about that MySpace suicide from time to time. It's becoming so easy for bullies to torment other kids online. Makes it more important than ever for parents and teachers to understand how all this technology works.

Advergirl: Now that you've spent some time with Lance, how would you weigh in on the Big Debate: Should he embrace the moniker Adverboyfriend? Or continue to seek his own identity?

David: I think he just needs to make Adverboyfriend his own, really feel out the potential. It worked for Dr. Girlfriend.

 

Ok, ready now? Visit the site. Or subscribe to the feed.

Groundswell. A book about a movement.

I almost don't want to tell you about this book.

I laughed. I dog-eared a ridiculous number of pages. I found cause to clamor for a notebook to jot, nay, furiously scribble down an idea. I'm already retelling the stories.

It's almost too good to share.

I should back up...

In general, I think good marketers come from two basic camps. Statistics and experience. Or, how we can model and measure likely success vs. how we can learn from what's worked and hasn't worked in the past. Heady or intuitive.

Groundswell author's Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff are from Forrester Research. So, it was no surprise that they could write analytics well. Could  lay out an infinitely logical and actionable model for how to  do social media with your customer audience.

What was a surprise is what amazing storytellers they are and how willing they were to bluntly - sometimes harshly - tell it like it is.

Li and Bernoff start of by setting aside particular technologies and diving deep into the ways social media has changed us. Increasingly, they argue, we get what we need (news, reviews, shopping, etc.) from other people rather than from traditional institutions (like business or media).

Then, they systematically answer the questions a lot of digital immigrants ask in the meetings we've all sat in (over and over and over again):

• How does it work?
• Why do people spend their time on this?
• How is this going to impact - threaten / totally screw up / help - my business?

But, the best part is the back 2/3s of the book where Li and Bernoff dig into various strategies to tap into the groundswell with stories about the success and failure of brands brave enough to give it a try.

Some of them are parts of the story I never knew. Like the Mini marketing that we hold up all the time as so savvy and talky and in-the-tent started by listening to the (later named) groundswell online. Or how the awkwardness of the internal conversation become part of the impetus of P&G's broadly cited Beingagirl.com

And some reveal surprising results. Like how Blendtec's funny 'will it blend' videos (crunching up iPods and other odd things) popped sales of the absurdly expensive kitchen device 20%. Or just how much of Ernst & Young's recruiting is powered by Facebook.

And some were simply inspiring. Like the oft-told story of Best Buy's Blue Shirt Nation (btw - next time I talk about my home agency, let's remember - it's not self serving, I'm just an Orange Shirt) or the all-too-human ways execs at Avenue A / Razorfish connect with employees.

Every story is accompanied by the business plan behind it. Why it worked. What the ROI was. How to know if it's right for your audience.

You can probably guess which parts I dog-eared.

Local marketers who get it

Let's get physical for a moment, ad friends, with a couple of great examples of local marketing done right. Starting with agency work and wandering the whole way down to a homemade, hand-stuffed message from a local restaurant:

First up: The Women's Fund of Central Ohio Keyholder Event

This annual fundraiser supports grants to programs that promise social change for women and girls. Every year, they feature a well-known speaker. This year, it's Miriam Peskowitz, author of The Daring Book for Girls.

The invitation and Web site were created by Ologie (long before I arrived!) and - I think - powerfully bring to life the book, the theme and the cause. The pieces feel very high end for local greater good and have been received with something akin to delight.

AND- The Web site (again for a local market event) has been nominated for a Webby. Vote for it under Living / Events on the People's Voice.

Onto: The Makeup Counter at Nordstom

Talk about making a big brand personal! Nordstrom has always been known for service, but sometimes they outdo even themselves.

Recently, I went to the Laura Mercier counter to get a fab new lip gloss (seriously, baby doll gloss, you've got to have it) and was helped by a perfectly gracious associate.

Then, the following week, I got this hand-written note from her - thanking me for the purchase. That's a business card I was careful to save.

 

 

Finally: Figlio Restaurant in Grandview / Columbus

We've talked a lot lately about brands leveraging Twitter to listen to users - to find small problems before they get big; to uncover ideas that might make better products.

Peter and Laurie Danis, owners of Figlio, have perfected the old-school version of that.

They have a great personal story about tossing their law practices for the love of food. For caring about work with passion. So, they scan the local newspaper's career section every week. And, target people who've recently been promoted with a great little congratulations package:

A letter about your accomplishment. Their story. And a gift certificate for dinner. All asking that you share your celebration with them.

And, all bizarrely genuine.

 

 

Favorite new multimedia sites

With every new location comes a new pipe to deal with... and this one is... slim. Checking out Flash sites lately has been a little circa-1997-56k-modem-enter-a-URL-and-go-make-dinner-while-it-loads. Nonetheless there have been a few delightful ones this month that were absolutely worth the wait:

Best B2B
Motorola City's show-and-tell of their commitment to public safety. Wait, stop yawning at the title, this site is slick:

Best I-don't-even-begin-to-get-it but somehow admire what you're doing:
Modernista's site relaunch that basically leverages DHTML and some open sourceness to dynamically assemble content from around the Web. I think the point is: we fundamentally get how the Web works in ways that other agency's don't. I think the visual experience is, in a word: painful.

 

Best basic landing page:
Haagen Dazs Help the Honeybees issue site. For its beautiful illustration and actually worthwhile soundtrack.

Best for kids:
Nintendo's Professor Layton and the Curious Village game promotional page. It brings the game to life and (at least seems) very fun and interactive for kids.

It should always be...

This EASY to use a press room:

The media room for Andy Beal's Radically Transparent offers enough content to power six news articles, four custom reviews, a buying decision and an ongoing relationship.

All in one place. All super easy to navigate.

This FUN to watch a branded video:

AKQA and Cake really fundamentally get it. It being social media and brands. You have to be able to take liberties - with yourself, your culture and your customers. You have to be able to delight and entertain and be completely different than a 30 second spot.

Little escapes the snark of this video from Pot Noodle. A piece that 200,000 people have already watched this month.

This PERSONAL to watch a recruitment video:

When Molly posted this video on Twitter, I had to ask her if it was sanctioned or organic ... the very simple delivery is so brimming with personality and conversation that I couldn't imagine it making it through any agency's self-marketing process.

But, somehow it did.

And, the simplicity of it - from an agency that COULD do anything - might just make it even more compelling.

This SIMPLE to share information:

Speaking of Twitter, I've been logged on for the past two days reading some of your favorite bloggers cover Ad Age's Digital Marketing summit in real time.

The posts include verbatims, analysis and a little argument. It's addictive.

This OPTIMISTIC to profile an audience:

After it sat for months on my teetering bedside stack of good intentions, I've finally picked up RenGen and dug in. Definitely my favorite industry book of this year... as much for its optimism as its smarts and illustrative examples.

Martin connects the dots from our creative and intellectual selves to a theory of renaissance that will define a generation.

AAA. Authentic storytelling makes a comeback.

Remember those long distance commercials from the 90s that left us with a lump in our throats?  The long-lost daughters calling home to dad. The couples reunited across seemingly uncrossable distances. The embarrassed TV watchers swiping tears from their cheeks?

Yeah, those ones.

What made them compelling was the story. The archetypes welling with happy emotion. The everyday hero stories that we all want to be a part of.

Jump ahead to 2008.

In an advertising environment of dropped calls, sweaty athletes and gloriously glossy hair follicles. AAA responds with their own everyday heroes; with compelling, authentic stories that we can all see ourselves in.

The campaign - from AAA Ohio and SBC Advertising - launched this month. It's told from the perspective of real tow truck drivers. But delivers something much larger: the story of their brand – literally, the true essence of service and membership – found in neighborhood driveways, in busy parking lots and in the cabs of tow trucks, with real people just talking about their jobs.

The result is great TV. Watch the spots here. But, don't blame me if you get a little teary on the Ant ones...

Why I love this approach:

AAA is up against two of the toughest challenges aging brands face: commoditization and sinking relevance.

People think: Oh, I already have this with my insurance or new car.

People think: My car won’t break down. I don’t need it.

Keeping ahead of the market, AAA aimed its operations and marketing strategies at refreshing the market perception of AAA.

Operations: Upgrade the ‘product’ we’re selling. People don’t have time to be towed. They want to be fixed and ‘stay on the go.’

Marketing: Anyone in any car can need AAA. The most common calls aren’t for breakdowns, they’re for keys locked in cars, dead batteries, flat tires, etc.

You can see the results in this campaign.

It shows that members are as likely to call for everyday goofs as real emergencies and demonstrates that most problems are fixed on the spot - no need to tow.

But, more than that, it brings to life a level of service and community that I hope will define the brand going forward.