advergirl

10 New(ish) Things I'm Not Ready For

Oh, look at me: the savvy blogger. iPhone in hand. Laptop at the ready. Twitter feed scrolling. iChat dinging. Hulu faves playing. RSS feeds ... well, accumulating.

For all my early-adopter DNA, there are pockets of online life I cannot connect to. From memory meetups to wicked wikis to silly security, here are my top 10 "I'll pass" technologies:

1. The Next Generation of Security Questions. Once, registering to check your cell phone bill online required little more than your phone number, a shaky password and your mother's maiden name. That maiden name was like the open ID of security. If you could just remember that and your "last four" you were all set.
   
   Today's security questions demand your pet's name, your favorite author, your best friend, your favorite sports team.  Blame my shoddy memory or my chronic indecision, but my favorite animal/author/athlete are a slippery slope of ever-changing affinities that I'm not ready to commit my account access to.
   
   (Incidentally, I blame the Family Tree farmers for this unfortunate turn of events. Far too easy to track down such things with rampant human cataloging online.)


2. Giving up email. How much do I love the IDEA of wikis and boards and other many:many communications? About as much as I fear actually adopting them. I need my home base. My weedy, out-of-control inbox that I can sort by name and search by whatever thread of conversation I happen to actually remember.
   
   I need the one spot that notifications of everything else will come to. Where I can imagine some privacy. Where I can stack up correspondence relatively guilt-free by merely applying the always-hopeful "mark as unread" designation.


3. Accepting ugly for function. Speaking of wikis. Or myspace. Or Twitter. Or half the new blogs I've been pointed to lately. I hate ugly. I hate super practical. I hate the point of view that we'll all just subscribe anyway; so, appearance doesn't matter.
   
   I appreciate table linens with casual dining. Wide-brimmed hats and delightful dresses at Shakespeare in the park. Helmets that match whatever two-wheeled device gas prices have you riding. I like a little ambiance. An appreciation that the experience matters. And, I'm not willing to give it up just because something is free / works great / is brilliant.
   


4. 15 year gaps. Humans I haven't seen since high school popping up as Facebook friends. Long-lost boyfriends emailing me their latest MP3s. Holiday letters from long-forgotten neighbors boredly googling their address books. (Stranger still when these ghosts of dorm rooms past are people who didn't even like you in the first place.)
   
   I don't know how to re-connect over gaps that far. What clever questions or meaningful updates will make this interaction anything more than a cocktail quip when we get back to our real lives? I am at a loss for where to even begin.


5. Local strangers. For me, Twitter is the first truly local social media. The one where my contacts are more likely to be sitting in the same traffic as I am than triple-tapping to 40404 halfway across the country or the world.
   
   This has created a whole new form of social introduction. At a party, a restaurant, a staff meeting, the voice accompanying the extended hand is saying, Hi, I'm @so-and-so. People I communicate with every day. People who live down the street. People who I only know by an anonymous handle until we're thrown together as Advergirl and @billyfischer.
   
   I feel like a great CB voice at a hopping truck stop.


6. Integrating devices. As willing as I am to try anything online, I am scared to death of actual machines. I have a rather shocking number of game systems floating around the house. Plus various TVs, tivos, computers. None of them are connected.
    
   I WANT to take my PS3 online. But, find myself intimidated by the box. By a whole category of technology I let pass me by.


7. Tagging. Live for today, my friends. Archives will fend for themselves. Like wikis, I understand the power of tagging, but, in practice, I just archive with impunity. No self-created hierarchies. No clever recall tools. Just a big pile of data to match the big pile of paper I keep in the offline world.


8. Group shopping. Oh, Kaboodle. Oh Lemonade Stands. How you baffle me. It's my offline aversion to browsing (and girl talk) brought online, but, still, it's a quickly growing category that I cannot seem to attach to.


9. Virtual notes. If it's over 4 pages, I want to print it out. I really do. I want to dogear and scribble notes and flag and tactilely consume. I have notebook installed in Firefox. I test-drove the Kindle. They're not for me. If it's worth reading, it's worth fingerprinting.


10. More blog rankings and ratings. Every month I get a new one. Advergirl is rated B by Blog Buddy. Or 85 by Rate Rank. I don't get all the algorithms; so it just becomes more for me to either obsess or feel angry and short-changed about. ToddAnd got to me first. The only rankings hurting my self esteem in the near future will continue to be the AdAge Power 150. The rest of you - go tell Griner he's just average!

Reputation, skepticism and social media

Then.

About a million years ago, I was a campus politico. An engaged, sometimes enraged, college citizen out to change the world or at least change the way we buy used text books. That's me on the right, watching a Take Back the Night event from the auditorium stairs and otherwise taking myself too seriously.

My junior year, I found myself running for student senate president with a way-too-intentionally-diverse ticket of fellow travelers, called (embarrassingly): N.A.T.E. or new activism toward empowerment.

(I know. It's melodramatic tripe. But stick with me.)

As I remember it, we were set to win. What I can't quite remember is if that was us believing our anecdotal internal polls or real momentum against an entrenched group of incumbents.

(If I'm going to be melodramatic, I see no reason not to embrace it wholeheartedly.)

Enter the villain of this particularly tale: AT*, the editor of The Post, Ohio University's campus newspaper. AT was a bit of a firebrand, looking for a big story that would help her make her mark before graduation. It just so happened that N.A.T.E. got in the way.

The day before the elections, AT got wind of an "accounting scandal." Apparently the current student senate treasurer (also known as: the guy running as my VP) was stealing money. AT ran with the story. Even though the only "witnesses" were members of the opposing ticket.

We lost the election. In large part because of the huge, above-the-fold, Nixon-esque front-page headline on newspapers littering campus that said my party's VP was stealing student funds.

The following day, the newspaper retracted the entire story. Said it was completely wrong. In a single column. On an inside page.

They greatly influenced the election, hurt individual reputations, cost a lot of people a lot of money & opportunity and walked away with great clips. Years after the fact, an ethics professor told me that AT said it was a huge learning experience for her. Somehow I wasn't moved.

Now.

I mention this because this power of the pen has been wholesale transferred to bloggers. With Google in the mix, anything we say about a person or brand creates a digital trail of commentary that is somewhat-permanently associated with that brand or person. For better or worse.

It's one thing when it's right - or at least a valid representation of an experience - but what happens when it's wrong?

Jump ahead to last week. Another blogger took issue with something that I posted. Nothing unusual there. In fact, creating controversy and conversation is generally a good thing in this medium. The problem was that she suggested that I had been unethical.

A slew of incendiary comments further indicted me and by the time I had the chance to set the record straight, there was a quite significant trail of negative commentary attached to my, let's say, personal and blogger brand.

At first, the corrections came "in a single column. on an inside page." They were emails and post comments - the below-the-fold stuff we always mean to get back to, but...

To her credit (and with my thanks), the following weekend, the blogger updated the above-the-fold record (a glorious conceit of Web media) and - to my mind - removed - or at least significantly negated - the negative trail.

Next.

That said, there may be a bigger issue at hand. One that greatly impacts the future of social media and our ability - as early adopter types - to be part of it.

Let's get to the specifics.

In short: A local foodbank is having a really bad year. So a number of "creative economy"-type businesses around town had started internal food drives. Two woman from my agency among them.

And when I say these two women started a food drive, I mean they started a movement. Teams, campaign posters, internal events. It was a big deal. I got caught up in it and used my blog to challenge other agencies in the area to start drives of their own.

Turns out: This particular foodbank had a previous business relationship with my agency. So, the aforementioned other blogger called me out for - essentially - pimping my client under the guise of authenticity.

I hadn't thought of them as a client (in part because I never worked with them). And didn't have an agenda. I probably should have made the connection, but I wasn't in that mindset - so I missed it. Opened myself up to the questions and criticism.

Still, it raises an interesting question:

Can social survive skepticism? 

If brands respond to social media trends effectively, they'll be finding ways to make themselves worth talking about by their most important stakeholders. They'll be creating a relationship around that shared passion that Kelly Mooney talks about in The Open Brand. Those stakeholders aren't just customers. They're also employees and partners. The people closest to the brand.

One way to think about it: If my company is doing something I'm proud of and I talk about it, shouldn't that lend it even more credibility in this new paradigm (meaning, the message actually successfully engaged and activated someone who knows the dirty laundry. so, it must be pretty real, powerful stuff)... instead of more skepticism in our traditional one?

Can we be people first and job titles second? Or do affiliations always lead and ideas follow?

And, if we open ourselves up to believing in that authenticity, how do the real spinners and pimps fit in?

For me, I hope the answer is that social forces brands to become more compelling and companies to be more ethical and transparent. But that's a long view answer to a here-and-now push-and-pull. One that pits suspicion against conviction. One that will shape how we go forward.

*Not her real name

Diagnosing the Boys Club

More on the Get Interactive series later this week, but - true to my distracted nature - I'm going to wander off on another tangent right in the middle of it. And a fiery tangent at that. Let's kickoff this week by talking about gender.

Listening to Hillary Clinton's concession speech this weekend, I was glad to hear her finally speak frankly about the barriers that her candidacy had the opportunity break down. In perhaps her most memorable remark she talked about blazing a path for the women who will follow her:

Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it. And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.

It's interesting in a time when gender inequality is still such a prevalent experience, how little it's actually spoken about. Particularly in our industry. We are at once liberal and progressive. Yet, still, on average, paying women less than men for the same jobs. Giving them less access to true leadership. Packing new business teams with guys in suits. Shorting maternity leave. Etc. But, to talk about it ... no, it's unmentionable.

I have a theory on why.

Discrimination - and, I'm sorry, it's a tough word that lots of people have warned me against using, but it is what we're talking about - has become increasingly benign. So subconscious and blandly everyday that it's nearly impossible to work up the fervor to rally against.

The intent is simply not there. It's so built into our cultures that it goes un-talked about. Passed from one supervisor to the next. Insidious harm affably wrapped.

So what do you say we strip it down?

My girlfriends and I have worked at all kinds of agencies and companies. And for all kinds of bosses. Personally, I worked on the smoking floor of a converted factory for a 600-pound man deep in the Midwest AND in a gorgeous custom-designed loft space for one of the second city's leading lady power brokers. Our careers have taken us across the country and back. And, in them, we've found four key ways that men create "boys clubs."

Boys Club defined: Group of men whose routine and systematic actions - intended or circumstantial - limit the daily success and career potential of their female peers. These 'clubs' are not always culture-wide. They can exist in smaller teams or departments.

Four Ways to Diagnose a Possible Boys Club:

1. Access: Agencies tend to be social places. Ones where long lunches are had, golf is played, after-work drinks are enjoyed, etc. The challenge comes when those social outings are both open to men only AND are occasions when business is done.
   
   When everything from department structures to project plans are routinely being discussed in forums women don't have access to, it creates discrimination.
   
   Many women would go farther and say that just the fact of the social outings - business or no - is access-based discrimination because men have the opportunity to build personal relationships and different kinds of respect with agency leaders than women do. It's a fair argument in a business that is based so much on gut instinct and the belief that who you know = who you can trust.
   
   The key concepts here are routinely and systematically. It's not one guy taking two other guys out to lunch. It's a leader routinely socializing exclusively with the men on his team and systematically excluding women in the same / similar positions.


2. Stacking: One of my least favorite things to see is an "About our leaders" section of an agency Web site populated with 15 guys all wearing the same suit.
   
   It's common when talking about gender in an agency to mention what percentage of women work there - as in, women make up 45% of our staff. The trick is in asking - which 45%? Discrimination by stacking happens when the women on the team (routinely and systematically) hold only the lowest-ranking, lowest-paying spots. They're interns, assistants, entry levels. And the men (routinely and systematically) are the managers, supervisors and leaders. That's not equal hiring. At best, it's tokenism. At worst, it's evidence of a belief that women are less capable and have less value.


3. Communication: A woman we recently interviewed for our strategy group had previously worked at a very well-known regional school for girls. We asked her to make the elevator argument for single-gender education and one of the points she made was that women answer questions differently in class. Men tend to put their hands up right away and shoot from the hip. Women tend to think about it for ~12 seconds. They think conceptually, consider lots of different angles. Come to a conclusion.
   
   I loved that illustration because I've always thought that cultures that communicate by yelling, fighting and jocking for position are discriminatory, but I couldn't quite explain why. It's a more masculine way of communicating. One that rewards one gender-specific style over another one.
   
   This is a discrimination that is worse for the doer. You miss out on a lot of great ideas and insights by steamrolling over your peers. And on a lot of good partnerships by screaming at them.


4. Entertainment. Apparently it still has to be said. Emailing pornography. Making lists of the hottest women in the office. Talking about your peer's breasts or ass or propensity for, well, you know. Yeah, that's all wrong. It creates attitudes of disrespect and otherness in cultures that by-and-large already have enough problems.

I mention these things for a couple of reasons.

First, because - in general - I really don't believe the men who are part of these boys club cultures mean any harm. Meaning: If made aware of their behaviors, they may be predisposed to stop.

And, second, because while I've self-selected out of cultures like these, not everyone has or can - so, it's important to talk about. To keep challenging what's right and fair. Better than it used to be isn't enough.

Wendy's: the brand struggle

Griner may think the debate on Wendy's ended when he celebrated the demise of the Red Wig campaign, but, after having my post-writers-strike prime time interrupted by the Wendy's fish sandwich love fest these past few weeks, I've got to say: I miss Red Wig. At least I understood its role in the brand story.

Let me step back.

I'm not a food marketer, never hawked so much as a warm roll, but I've watched the industry on and off over the last few years and am close enough to other customer segmentation strategies to have developed a theory.

From the advertising and product mix out there, it strikes me that there are four main types of fast food customers:

• Families and Kids. Hungry people looking for a meal that's easy, affordable and in a place where ketchup smears and screaming babies are par for the course.


• Convenience Eaters. They're dashing from here to there and would probably like to eat something else, but when life has you on the go ... well, you hit the drive through lane.


• Calorie Nullifiers. Blue collar guys busting ass on the work site all day. Just getting to noon burns more calories than convenience eaters consume in a week. They need a big meal to keep them going.


• All-Day Eaters. Let's be honest, maybe they're a little drunk. Either way, they've got wacky schedules, demand ooey-gooey satisfaction and, frankly, probably have enviable metabolisms.

So, when Wendy's started up with Red Wig and introduced the Baconater, I started to get it. They were transforming from a family brand to something straddling the Calorie Nullifiers and the Any-Time Eaters. They were getting back to the Where's the Beef, taste matters heyday of  - screw the nutrition label, this stuff tastes great (for fast food).

Now enter the 'healthy' fish sandwich spot.

We're back to advertising core product. And, to convenience eaters, no less. Meanwhile, product development is adding jack cheese, jalepenos and bacon to any meat-bread combo they can dream up. And, the stores are still featuring cute little Wendy. Where are we red head?

The good news is, Wendy's has all the right tools. Bold product development and real estate teams. Solid footprint. And enough historical brand equity to ride out this blip, but, it's going to take a hard look at the core brand and the customer to get them back on track post-Dave Thomas.

Women: what to do when an agency offers you a job

Dear Readers: Thanks for your questions about why this post changed. Some readers in my local market read something into the illustrative case (now deleted) that simply was not there. I don't say that to insult them - once any of us thinks we know what someone really meant, right or wrong, it's hard to shake it. Nonetheless, I didn't feel the illustration was worth the controversy. So, I took it down. The take away from the data below is this: by not correctly gaging what we're worth and not negotiating salaries, women are more likely than men to depress their salaries over a lifetime. So, when we see the national statistics about women making an average of 76% of what men in the same jobs earn, there is a certain amount of behavioral culpability we have to take in changing that equation. The balance of the post is below:

Something to consider:

Men initiate negotiations about four times more often than women. The reason is simple: women are more likely (2.5x) to be uncomfortable negotiating. Many don't even know where to begin. In a recent study, when asked to pick metaphors for negotiations, men picked "winning a ballgame" and a "wrestling match," while women picked "going to the dentist."

The impact of our discomfort is ... in a word ... disastrous.

By not negotiating a first salary, women stands to lose more than $500,000 by age 60.

We often don't recognize what we're losing even in the moment. Women tend to be more grateful - to be happy to have received the job offer. One reason is we don't know our market value: women reported salary expectations between 3 and 32 percent lower than those of men for the same job. Men expect to earn 13 percent more during their first year of full-time work and 32 percent more at their career peak.

So, what to do?

• Build your value: Emphasize the benefits of your skills and experience in the interview
• Do your research: Know what you're worth in your market with your experience and find out what you can about how the agency rewards its employees
  
• Let the agency bring up salary first: Avoid being the first one to throw out a number and avoid filling out salary history questions
• Know what you want: Is it 10% more in salary? Is it an extra week of vacation? Be ready to ask for the compensation that you really desire
• Be quiet: When the new boss first makes an offer, nod as if you are considering it and keep quiet. Resist the natural urge to basically gush with effusive thanks
• Take the night to think about: Come back with a reasonable counter offer clearly stated
• Don't be emotional: Or take it personally. At this point, business is business

Marketing Ourselves

The City of Los Angeles has a 100-person department dedicated solely to dealing with the remains of people who die alone. Investigators who dig through over-stuffed dressers, side tables full of prescription bottles, stacks of junk mail ... all to try to find someone who might care that you are no longer ... well, home alone.

Which brings me to: Marketing Yourself for Marriage.

First the self help books. You too can find a man.

Then interview shows got in the game. Most recently, it was Stacy London making-over a guest's online dating profile. Why did you show yourself riding a horse? Do you really want to just share laughs or do you want to find a husband?

But, dammit, this month's issue of Chief Marketer may take it a step too far ... Chain Letters for Lovers.

Clients of  “Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School" author Rachel Greenwald send pitch letters to friends and family asking them to refer a 'blind date.'

In the example shared, a 50 year-old woman sent out 100 cards around Arbor Day, a holiday not traditionally associated with greeting cards. Each letter offered to plant a tree in Israel in the name of anyone who sent her a potential blind date.

Why is Chief Marketer covering this? The woman in question garnered a 12% response rate - there's never been a direct mail metric that enviable!

If fellow feminists are already choking on this, um, advice, I leave you with this last blow: Greenwald advocates that women set aside 10% of their annual salaries to market themselves to potential husbands.

Not to get out of character here, but: holy crap.

Read the full article

Budget Season POV: Broadcast dollars are wasted without Web

It's that time of year again. Brightly colored leaves crunch underfoot. Pumpkins with punched Mr. Potato Head faces decorate the neighborhood porches. And, your clients are calling with budget demands - what should I do next year? Oh, and I need to know by this afternoon.

Well, help is on the way. Here is the one piece of advice every client needs to hear in 2008:

If you don't back up every broadcast and print campaign with a personal, relevant online experience, you're wasting your money.

Here's why: Consumer shopping behavior has fundamentally shifted. Trial no longer starts in-store. It has moved online.

That makes the barrier at once lower and longer. (And gives the traditional ad agency both more control and more responsibility) Here's how it works:

While most consumers don’t choose to buy online, the vast do majority go online to ‘pre-shop’ for products and information.  Before we undertake any in-person shopping, we want to “try on” brands online to see if they fit with our complex choice models of price, perception, and utility.  That means pre-shopping product catalogs, readings reviews, comparing prices, etc.

From there, we head into stores with a more educated perspective and spend more than our offline-only counterparts:

• 89 percent of consumers shop for information about products online
• Less than 7 percent of retail sales actually take place online
• Online pre-shoppers spend an average of 41 percent more in-store compared with consumers not exposed to online advertising

(BIG research, Comscore)

Oh, splendid, I was wondering how I'd become irrelevant...

... or otherwise displaced.

Apparently post-factory worker, post-knowledge worker, Digitas is planning to offshore the whole personalization of advertising business...

The plan is to build a global digital ad network that uses offshore labor to create thousands of versions of ads. Then, using data about consumers and computer algorithms, the network will decide which advertising message to show at which moment to every person who turns on a computer, cellphone or — eventually — a television. Read the article.

And, here we'll be with our college degrees and pithy headlines and clever storyboards trying to get real jobs. I blame Armano. Yeah, yeah, I know he's moved on to Critical Mass, but, come on, this has him written all over it... Logic + Emotion. Riiiiiight. We should have known to get suspicious when he started using the P-word.

Time to get serious about the 401ks, friends.

The Worst Focus Group is You

OR: No, you are not normal

OR: Why not conduct a focus group of one

You know what focus group I’m talking about. The one that inside a strategy meeting starts out with one of these familiar phrases:

Well, I’m in the demo and my experience is…

I’m a consumer / customer of that [brand] and I think…

From my perspective as a parent…

Separating ourselves from the great, big populace of product buyers out there can be a challenge. After all, we are parents, kids, shavers, eaters, joggers, hair-doers, hair removers, etc. When it comes to understanding the drivers of the purchasing decision, why avoid your own opinion?

• If you use the words consumer, demo or brand, you are likely not experiencing the greater marketplace as an average Jane. You may rate store signage, rant about advertising strategy in your living during commercial breaks (nah, pods) or event critique direct mail addressed to you and your family.
  
  Asking you to discuss the buying experience is like asking a rocket scientist to help build a 2nd-graders diorama of the solar system. There is a level of expertise, cum mania, that eclipses the normal interest level of the wider population. You are overkill.


• One person – even if it’s not your expert / jaded / all-knowing self – is never extendable. Remember this equation: 1 / SQRT(n). That’s the formula for accuracy and extendibility of a population’s survey results. When n = 1 … well, it has a plus or minus accuracy rating of 100%. Not exactly confidence inspiring.


• You may simply be too close to the brand. After years of being a marketer / customer / advertiser, you hold certain core beliefs about the brand(s) you represent. If there is a change in the marketplace - or, even in your core customer - you may be too close to see it without an outside perspective.


• You may be masking your real objection. If your “gut check” is leaving you feeling that something is wrong, ask critical questions, dig into the research … heck, commission research. Don’t replace someone else’s flawed rationale with your own when you have the tools available to make it right.


• You’re wearing down your own credibility. To varying degrees your clients and colleagues have spent years honing their bullshit meters. In other words: they know a soapbox when they see one. Bring strategy, ideas, plans, resources to the table … leave the market pulse to someone who knows how to take it.

Taking on Griner: Why I like Boy Wendy in the Woods

Ok, David, now that you’ve convinced me to return to blogging, I’m going to have to make a pest of myself.

First up: The issue of Saatchi & Saatchi’s pig-tailed play in the woods.

To catch everyone else up:

AdFreak’s David Griner – and, in fairness, other industry notables – have panned the new Wendys spot as too long, derivative and flatly executed. Here’s why I think the spot was smart, strategic and an overall win:

Real estate: Chain-wide, Wendys has 6600 stores. Compare that to category leaders: McDonalds at 31,045 and BK at 11,184. They don’t have the built-in marketing hammer of being top-of-mind via ubiquitous presence. When lunch time rolls around, Wendys needs you to be so wanting their square burger that you actively seek it out. In :60 seconds they pounded that brand and the idea of a hot and juicy burger into memory.

Client culture: I wonder what decades of casting cuddly founder Dave Thomas as the primary brand spokesperson have done to the marketing culture at Wendys. I would guess it’s fairly conservative. This is a huge and bold departure – one they should really be proud of in terms of contemporizing the brand and niche-ing their approach to the market.

Noise: You watched it, right? The visual is ridiculous; the audio is unexpected.  It broke out of its 3-minute Idol pod and got watched. That’s successful.

After-School Special Effect: I’m not convinced Saatchi was following Crispin. The spot actually seems a little snarky – almost making fun of the category. It’s got that feel of intentionally-off on authenticity … think: after school specials. And, I’m guessing Wendys customer is a little older than BKs – so, that might be just the right tone and fit.

Anybody out there from Saatchi? Come on, tell me I’m close…

David: Here’s one as annoying as those BK ads, linked just for you