Viral

Spicy Success

So unless you have been completely off the grid (which is possible) you have probably seen the Old Spice advertising campaign. Yes, the cheeky one which features former NFL football player Isaiah Mustafa playing the role of "Old Spice Guy."

A conservative guess is that Procter & Gamble (owners of the Old Spice brand) spent tens upon tens of millions of dollars on a massive advertising campaign according to an agency side friend of mine. The campaign was a recipient of the 2010 Cannes Lions Film Grand Prix and received an Emmy nomination for outstanding commercial. Yes, this is the very same brand that I previously associated with my beloved grandfather.

If that wasn't enough this campaign was then taken to the next level. What was done exactly? The agency responsible for Old Spice (Wieden & Kennedy) launched a terrific social media campaign that built on the previous campaign momentum.

For a limited time period, fans could interact with Old Spice guy via Twitter, Facebook and/or YouTube and ask questions. The Old Spice Guy then replied in personal manner to those blessed enough via a 30 second YouTube spot. The social media campaign is brilliant from a creative perspective and didn’t cost a lot (compared to prior media expenses) to engage with fans besides the cost of employing the actor, writers who scripted the responses, production expenses and other ancillary costs.

Here is an example of one answer by the Old Spice Guy to a question posed by the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team via Twitter.

You may not like hockey. You may not like Old Spice. But you must admit this is a brilliant concept. An agency team responded to roughly 200 questions in a personalized manner within a 48 hour timeframe. We’re talking real-time answers that were hilarious, in character and in keeping with the desired brand positioning and creative goals. As Leigh Himel points out, it would be pretty cool to see what the agency creative brief looked like. Especially when having to sell a typically conservative organization like P&G.

From personalized answers to celebrities to marriage proposals the whole gamut was covered. The agency also wisely leveraged momentum built up by previous mass media advertising and media coverage that created the persona of Old Spice Guy. They also did little things like leverage the promoted trending topic on Twitter. I don't suspect it cost that much and the agency probably didn't have to do it as the campaign became an organic trending topic all on its own but it's still a good type of marketing insurance to have.

There has been some debate as to whether this social media campaign was successful. The digital results according to P&G speak for themselves. Nearly 105 Million YouTube views, 1.2 Billion media impressions, 2700% increase in Twitter followers, 800% increase in Facebook fan interaction, 300% increase in traffic to the Old Spice website. Not to mention the countless sharing, promotion and mashups created by fans. In my view you have clearly hit a nerve when consumers start creating their own derivations of a commercial. (*Warning about the language contained in the aforementioned link as typically happens lately when Mel Gibson is involved.)

My friend Tamera is firmly of the belief that this social media campaign was a success. Other detractors take the view that digital metrics are window-dressing and the creative was very juvenile. Everyone has an opinion and rightly so.

So it really all comes down to sales, right? Show me the money! That's what P&G shareholders and executives ultimately care about. According to Neilsen, sales of Old Spice Body Wash rose significantly since they launched the campaign. Kind of tough to argue with those numbers even if they are projections. Ultimately the folks at P&G will know the truth.

But I think there are bigger questions in all this. For the agency folks, is your shop capable of pumping out this kind of quality content in a very short time frame for a digital campaign? We’re not talking about days or weeks but minutes and hours to engage with potential customers. We’re talking about your creative directors & content writers working closely with the social media marketers, talent and production team in a truly integrated manner. Do you have the creative juices that leverage previous marketing efforts and support them? Do you truly understand the philosophy of engagement and conversation with customers? Because that is exactly why the Old Spice social media campaign was successful.

And those of us on the client side need to face the music also. As Dave Stubbs aptly notes in a terrific post, P&G put a lot of trust in their agency to pull this off. To react with the speed required means there wasn’t time for 4 different layers of approvals. There wasn't time for a full financial audit about costs on a line by line basis. There wasn't time for every pixel and prop to be mercilessly scrutinized by the brand police. So here is the rub. Can you do that in your company? Do you empower your agency to make bold decisions without fear? Have you built up enough trust with agency partner(s) where you are willing to put your neck on the line when executives start asking pointed questions in the boardroom?

Those are the spicy questions we must all (including myself) ask ourselves. And no amount of Old Spice will cover that up.

Sulemaan Ahmed

Channel Surfing for Influencers, Part 1: Direct Mail

Which channel is most effective at finding, reaching, engaging and motivating influencers to spread the word about your product? In the next four posts, I’ll take a look at the pros and cons of the most widespread channels, beginning with direct mail – hope you’ll join me and share your thoughts.

When VCRs achieved mass-market success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, many pundits predicted the demise of the movie theatre. Who would want to drive to a cinema and sit with a bunch of strangers to watch a new movie when you could now do it in your own living room or bedroom? A lot of people, it turned out. VCRs, then DVD players and other home movie systems, didn’t kill off old school movie-going. They simply created a new channel for Hollywood to market its product. Both have lived together quite successfully ever since.

The same, it turns out, has happened with direct mail. Pioneered on a mass scale in the 1950s by Lester Wunderman and others, this way of reaching consumers and businesses caught on with marketers because, unlike traditional print, billboard and broadcast advertising, direct mail’s effectiveness could be tested, measured and improved on in subsequent campaigns. Despite the advent of email marketing in the 1990s and social marketing today, marketers still consider direct mail a viable and effective way to engage consumers in general and influencers in particular.

Why? Well, for starters, there continues to be a segment of the population that likes to receive things in the mail. While I’m selective about what I like and don’t like to find in my mailbox – I’m not big on grocery flyers, for instance – I do like when I get useful information about products or services that I can hold right in my hands.

I’m not alone and marketers know it. After all, with 90% of word-of-mouth happening face-to-face (Keller Fay Study, 2010), marketers understand the usefulness of offering influencers something tangible they can carry in their purse or pocket and pass along to the friends and family members they’re influencing – like a brochure, a catalogue, even a business card with a name, email address or url printed on it.

And direct mail is also still the king of easy and accurate personalization, in spite of digital marketing’s advances. Plus it continues to beat traditional media in its ability to target industries, regions, niche markets and other highly specific local audiences.

Finally, as effective as marketing via email, Facebook or mobile may be, none has (yet) managed to beam a sample or gift into consumers’ homes without using direct mail to get it there. The tactile surprise and delight factor that direct mail offers highly engaged consumers cannot be underestimated. You know they’ll open it immediately and pay particular attention to the contents from a brand they know and trust.

In part 2 of this series, I’ll focus on direct mail’s spry marketing cousin: email. It’s fast and inexpensive, but is it influencing influencers? Tune in next time when we discuss...

Gillian MacPhersen

Who Won the Superbowl?

Okay, I admit it. While you're reading this during the week at some point after the SuperBowl aired and know who won, I'm sitting here writing this blog entry on SuperBowl Sunday instead of watching the big game. And while I'll be interested to hear who won (Go Saints?), I, like you, will go online tomorrow to find out who advertised and which spot was the funniest or most outlandish. And then I'll go on with my day and probably never think about those spots ever again.

However, the Superbowl is the most watched televised event of the year with some 100 Million people expected to watch. According to a recently televised report, a 30 second spot on American TV during the Superbowl will go for between $2.5 and $2.8 Million. That's about $80,000 a second!

But the larger question being asked these days, especially by a lot of young people I know, is whether that money could be better spent. Especially with everything that's going on in the world right now.

Now after years of producing some of the most memorable Superbowl ads in history, PEPSI is asking the same question and has decided not to run an ad. Instead, they're going online with "The Pepsi Refresh Project". http://www.refresheverything.com/

According to their "refresh everything" site, they're looking for people, businesses, and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact. "Look around your community and think about how you want to change it." Submit your ideas and vote on your favourites. Those chosen will be awarded up to $250,000 in grants in categories ranging from Health, Arts & Culture, and Food & Shelter to the Planet, Neighbourhoods and Education.

And the so-called Pepsi Generation is eating it up. This is just one example of what's going on right now. We saw the impact the internet and social media had and is having post-Haiti. This is more of the same great trend. The NetGeneration is getting involved and looking for something more fulfilling than a gratuitous 30-second spot where the money spent to buy the media could eradicate so many issues affecting Haiti, Cambodia and the Congo to name a few -- and those affecting us right here at home. Pepsi is on to something and other brands ignore the trend at their peril.

Watch This...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Are you in?

Surprise

Not many things surprise me after so many years in this business, but I have to admit, this did:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html

Since starting my own creative consultancy two years ago, I've written many websites for clients who think that key words actually matter. So you can imagine my surprise when I learned that Google doesn't use the "keywords" meta tag in their web search ranking. Obviously this isn't as earth-shattering as learning that cigarettes are bad for you or that Balloon Boy was a hoax, but it does raise an eyebrow given that Google hasn't exactly advertised this news. Thoughts?

From Pop Culture to Peep Culture

What does the behavioural trend mean for marketing strategies?

We are moving from a pop culture to a peep culture. In pop culture, we turn on the TV and watch our celebrities entertain us with their performances. In peep culture, we turn on the computer, we move through people’s lives on blogs, face book and Youtube. Instead of getting our entertainment from scripted performances, we get our entertainment from unscripted, supposedly spontaneous peeping into other people’s lives. It can be friends and family. It’s just as likely to be people we have never met around the world.

Susan Boyle became an overnight celebrity because of peep culture. The entire world was staring at her after her transformation from a resident of a small town Scottish town to a global celebrity. We like the story and the peep into her life. In many ways, the breakdown and her struggle will keep her story going.

We have entered the age of "peep culture": a tell-all, show-all, know-all digital phenomenon that is dramatically altering notions of privacy, individuality, security, and even humanity. Peep culture is reality TV, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, chat rooms, amateur porn, surveillance technology, cell phone and more. Can Facebook and Myspace be a cure for loneliness? It’s not the ultimate solution. That’s the irony. We are trying to look for community by moving in solitude into these technologies. You are more likely to see people in a social environment immersed in their PDAs instead of communicating with people in the room. The name of the game is the number of followers. It becomes a narcissistic obsession.

As a society we have become incredibly fast paced without really being aware of these seismic changes in our lives. Today’s generation is the most photographed generation. We are moving into a time where our virtual personality is going to be more important than our actual physical presence. It’s going to be more important what we have online vs. what we do offline. We are going to be judged by our virtual portfolios, socially and professionally. We are not having a substantive debate about this trend in society. What we need to think about is what privacy means to each individual - politically, ethically and socially. We are a highly atomized and fairly lonely society.

In the age of peep, core values and rights we once took for granted are rapidly being renegotiated, often without our even noticing. Author Hal Niedzviecki on his new project, the Peep Diaries says the more we reveal about ourselves, the more attention we seem to get. So what happens next? Does privacy matter anymore? Can we be too connected? Is there anything we won’t put out there? Suddenly we’re spending all of our time tracking other people. And we’re inviting them to watch us! People reveal themselves to get attention and to feel like they are part of a community.

Peep culture is intersecting with pop culture and is evolving it and coming to replace it. For example, we see reality TV as the primary entertainment mode on TV. The phenomenon continues to grow. Game shows from the 1950 are more like pop culture. Peep culture is more like Trading Spouses, John and Kate plus 8 which had 10 Million people watch the debut episode in North America. US Weekly had 5 covers in a row of John and Kate plus 8. That is peep culture.

This has never happened before, where we have turned the spot light on random regular people. It’s an ongoing fascination. It’s really about how underground cultures are changing people’s lives. The biggest problem is what happens when we turn our lives reflexively, without thinking about it, into entertainment product. We are seeing a clash of values of people who are facebooking, blogging, youtubing and being encouraged to do so by an overall entertainment culture that says more attention is better. In contrast, we see a traditional society that says that a very active online persona may not be a good fit with a job or university.

People are being turned into celebrity product. Popular culture is encouraging people to move forward with even less scrutiny with what they are doing. There aren’t any secrets anymore. The notion of private life has changed. First of all, people want private moments to reflect. But they have redefined the meaning of privacy. The problem is we are alone most of the time- in our houses, in front of our computers, in our cars, at work in our cubicles or offices. The fact is human beings are hard wired to be social. We are descendents of apes who spend 80% of their day picking nits out of each others hair.

There are two issues. We have moved in the spectrum of community all the way to the end of gated fences, SUVs and tinted windows, into the belief that the fantasy celebrity lifestyle of having your own limo, private island, bodyguard, and having every appointment vetted by your people is the way to live. That is the fantasy that we have, we think we want. But for most of us, the further we get along that spectrum the more alone we are. So then we move to the other spectrum which is constant flow of details about your life, your blog, and your status updates. That’s what community used to be. There is this flow of information from other human beings that connects us together, which makes us feel more intrinsically human and less like we need to constantly be proving ourselves.

Singing Rabbis – What They Don’t Teach You at Marketing Conferences

No matter how much we blather on about market research, analytics, brand engagement and media responsiveness, when it comes down to it, sometimes what really makes a marketing message memorable and effective is the ole “pull me finger” approach.

While we tend to focus sometimes on the science of marketing, it’s important to remember that when we take ourselves too seriously, we also lose the ability to develop the simple breakthrough, and sometimes really immature creative that can connect with consumers on the human level.

At the end of the day, its about creative that makes people listen, laugh, spend…and post it on their facebook.

Here’s a sampling from around the world…

Statoil; Norway
This could easily be a Canadian ad

Yes HDTV; Israel
An extravaganza of singing rabbis

Starburst; USA
Steals the laugh out of your throat before you know it

Proline; USA
Perfect for football season - maybe

iSystem International; Ukraine
You wouldn’t want to be the tall guy in this elevator

The Kindle. Yawn?

I’m still catching up on my year-end reading. You know, all those magazines that come out with their Year In Review issues. They’re stacked on my nightstand like so many left over holiday cards, begging to be read or recycled.

The best of the bunch is the Newsweek with Obama on the cover. It had a brief mention of something that caught my eye -- Jeff Bezos’ brainchild, The Kindle. It’s described on Wikipedia as “… an e-book reader, an embedded system for reading electronic books (e-books), launched in the United States by prominent online bookseller Amazon.com in November 2007.”

Most reviews are glowing. You can carry a whole library around in your briefcase. Amazing. Apparently, it’s even been endorsed by the big “O” (Oprah, not Obama), making it to her Favourtie Things List of ’08.

You can’t get it in Canada yet. But when I asked several of my U.S. friends how the Kindle has captured the imagination of our neighbours to the south, the response was something close to a tree falling in a forest.

So here are the tough questions: With a nod to Malcolm Gladwell, why hasn’t it tipped? Why isn’t it, according to my U.S. friends, dotting subway cars and park benches and restaurants like ubiquitous iPhones, iPods, and dare I say it, real books? Where are the cool commercials with U2 or Feist singing its praises? Why aren’t there spoofs about it on YouTube? Why aren’t the “Millennials” snapping them up? And will Canadians be a better market for the Kindle when it does arrive on our shores?

Perhaps the secret is revealed in Newsweek’s backhanded compliment… “Amazon’s electronic reader is awesome, but the early adopters skew old, while kids opt for point-and-click.”

That excerpt is interesting for two reasons. Early adopters? The Kindle has been available since 2007. Would the iPhone be considered a success if it took this long to capture the imagination of its intended audience? I'm not talking about just dollars and cents here. There was the day before the iPhone launched in Canada. And there was the day after, when it seemed everyone on the TTC had one or was looking over the shoulder of the person next to them who had one. Can an e-book reader capture the imagination in the same way as an “e-music player”? There's a very specific difference today between capturing the collective imagination and selling units. Arguably, the former is much harder to do and predict than the latter.

And ‘skews old’? I guess Oprah viewers don’t influence the zeitgeist anymore the way some think they do.

The day will come when Canadians will be able to get their hands on a Kindle. The question is, will the “right” target audience (Millennials?) want one?

So from a business perspective, can Amazon continue making and selling them if they remain the technological equivalent of a television series like “NCIS”? It’s there, and by some measure successful, but does anyone care?

In response to 'R.I.P. Monologue:' a Luddite Fights Back

In response to Selina Jane Eckersall’s unambiguous dismissal of all things not social-media, I can think of little to say other than,”Sorry.” (See “R.I.P. Monologue”)

Well, actually, that’s not true. I can think of a lot to say, but “sorry” seems a good place to start.

Sorry, for being one of those, presumably, “seemingly intelligent” marketing folks against whom Ms Eckersall rages. Sorry for needing to “get real.” And, most of all, sorry for Ms Eckersall herself who is so patently wrong.

It is wrong to say consumers are not interested in hearing “my monologue,” (but it is correct that they do not have to give me their time or mind share). Millions of people, many millions of people, in fact all people are faced with many, many monologenous messages every day, and respond to these messages in many, many different ways. I know that they are interested enough in what I say, that they give me give me enough of their “mind share” to be aware of my products and have an opinion about my brand.

What I find exciting, in my Luddite kind of way, is that many of these people are involved in social networking sites on their computers. They connect with friends and reach out (metaphorically) to the world around them, to become more interesting, more worldly people. Many of them use this fantastic facility to ask their friends (and even total strangers) for opinions about products and services they are thinking of buying. By capturing the opinions of 300 people who have experienced my product, these web savvy people become educated consumers. Social media is a wonderful way for all of us to learn about the products or services we are thinking of buying. A little bit like magazines, or newspaper articles or even talking to friends did in the old, old days. But, obviously more intense and apparently more credible, too.

So, I guess I see social media as one of many communication channels out there. But I don’t see how the existence of these channels makes people any more interested in my message. I don’t, for instance, believe that anybody wants to build a relationship, trust, converse with, listen to, share with, evolve along with, or collaborate with a brand. And just because the brand is trying to cajole people into doing all these things on a social networking site, does not make it any more attractive to “Canadians,” not even that small percentage of them who are active in social networking sites themselves.

Sorry, but the fact is that people will be interested in what you have to say if you have something interesting to say and say it in an engaging and appropriate way. It also makes sense to say it in a place (physical or virtual) where the people you are hoping will hear you, are within hearing range and in the right mood to listen to you. Sometimes a social networking environment makes a lot of sense. But, equally, the classified section in a newspaper often makes perfect sense. Shouting loudly through a megaphone also makes sense, sometimes.

To paraphrase Ms Eckersall , I can’t even count the numerous times I’ve heard seemingly intelligent marketing folks speaking about Social Media as if it were the only medium of any worth, and all other media are for Mad Men fossils living in black and white and eating Mrs. Cleavers cookies. Social Networking sites are one in an ever increasing range of alternatives to help consumers make intelligent choices.

But do not forget, consumers will use whatever media they want, and they hope they will be able to find out what they need to know from a wide range of alternative sources. And, most importantly, they really appreciate it when a brand introduces them to something wonderful by means of interesting, educational, and entertaining advertising (“$300,000 ad spends”, to be precise.) If there is any doubt about this, ask Apple, Virgin, WestJet, Guinness, and the list goes on.

Happiness is Contagious

A recent study written up in the Globe and Mail supports what we probably intuitively knew all along: happiness is contagious.

“... they found that when an individual becomes happy, a friend who lives nearby experiences a 25-per-cent increased chance of becoming happy. And the more centrally located you are in your social cluster of happy people, the more likely you are to become happy.” Further, researchers found that “happiness is a collective phenomenon that spreads like a virus through social networks – affecting even strangers three times removed from each other.”

Fortunately, misery does not, contrary to popular belief, love company. Negative emotions do not seem to spread as intensely as giddiness.

The research, published last week in the British Medical Journal, relied on pretty solid methodology – tracking data among 4, 739 individuals over time since 1948, accounting for 50,000 social and family ties.

A couple of questions arise from this.

1. Could it be that social networks supported by social platforms like Facebook, twitter, and flickr, can support the spread of happiness? Aren’t we drawn to wall postings that are light-hearted, fun, and positive? Personally, when I read Negative Nelly postings, I quickly empathize and then move right along, eyes peeled for lighter, happier fare. Boing Boing seems to be aware of this too – when they have a post that is disturbing or disgusting, they offer up a Unicorn Moment, a link to pictures and poems of “unicorns, rainbows, happy flowers forever.” Sort of an antidote to whatever grossness that they had just foisted on their readers.

2. How can brands participate, if at all, in this propagation of happiness? When I first saw the Free Hugs campaign, I thought wouldn’t it have been so awesome if a brand had thought of this. (Or maybe not – that might be another post/conversation altogether). Suffice to say, it was a movement which started small, turned global, got on Oprah (now name me a brand that DOESN’T want to be on Oprah), incited controversy, but generally, did well by others. In the same vein, I wish more brands thought about sparking movements. I wish more brands obsessed about their world view, rather than their shelf space. I wish more brands thought about connecting with folks, rather than interrogating respondents behind a one-way glass.

Insight: Like a virus, happiness can spread. Like a virus, it can be created, propagated, supported, facilitated. The tools are there. On the fringes, proponents act. There exists this wide gaping void for brands to play in. Now more than ever, brands can step up and kickstart a much-needed joy-fest.

Tipping to the Big Seed

When Gladwell published The Tipping Point, his thesis popularizing long standing findings in epidemiology, psychology, sociology and innovation adoption linked them with social media - it sparked a groundswell mania for anything that would Viral, Buzz or Stick. It seems everybody needed and demanded a viral program. And why not? Start with a few influential people and have the power of social media multiply you message while you reap the benefits of free word of mouth advertising! I'll take a dozen please.

Problem is…. life just doesn’t tend to work that way. There is no free lunch, there is no surefire way of creating Viral programs, heck - even the simpler task of being able to spot them has eluded us. Just ask the roomful of experts that gathered for a contagious media contest who failed to predict which of 60 submitted websites would generate the most page views. (see Influentials)

Coming onto the scene, Duncan J Watts, now professor of sociology at Columbia University has some ideas that anyone contemplating new media needs to become aware of. He does come with a growing list of credentials having been picked by Harvard Business Review in 2007 as having one of the top 100 breakthrough ideas to watch. If you haven’t come across his viewpoints as yet, allow me to offer you this brief primer on 3 key viewpoints.

1. Accidental Influentials - “Anybody with a match can start a forest fire.”
Unlike Gladwell’s (Tipping Point) view of special status “Hipster” individuals (Mavens, Salesmen, Connectors) that are deemed critical to the propagation of a ‘viral’ idea, Watts feels that anyone can play that role.

Based on his computer simulations, he finds that most trends are started by the 'average person'. That while Experts/Influentials were able to spread a trend farther – they were not necessary. Indeed he feels that for a trend to take root – there needs to be some pre-existing receptivity in the market - it can't be hyped into existence.

2. Experimental Study of inequality/unpredictability... - The Herd vs the Long Tail:
In an intriguing study of 14,000 people picking from 48 online music downloads (across 8 trials); given the choice in an undifferentiated market, it seems those able to secure an early lead in popularity were able to gain momentum and pull away from the pack. On the other hand, if a previous ‘winner’ failed to achieve a popular lead they were just as likely to be bottom picks. Individual assessments of talent it seems plays second fiddle to group popularity.

3. Viral Marketing for the Real World - The Big Seed:
Not surprisingly given the above, Watts feels that Viral programs are too unpredictable, success too elusive and unrepeatable. Therefore he counsels smarter marketers to adopt a strategy that combines the benefits of ‘massive media’, ‘viral’ and ‘interactive’ to create larger beachheads with consumers. From this foundation he argues, the inherent level of ‘awareness/popularity’ can be used to help nurture the possibility of ‘viral’ and ‘interactive’ engagement and with it secure additional propagated/bonus exposure.

Consider for a moment the probable success of having your brand promoted on Oprah, with a link to your interactive site and some pass-along functionality. Contrast that with the likelihood of success in trying to seed with ‘influentials”, to have them proselytize the awareness of your program. I don't think anyone would doubt that Oprah wins.

He puts forward a simple formula to measure the impact of programs using Forward Track, a service that can map the propagation of emails etc… using just 3 variables:
Seed: How many people initially exposed to the message
Propagation (Z): How many people this message has been forwarded to
Responsiveness (B): The % of the propagated folks that will ultimately act on the message when received

Therefore Propagation x Responsiveness = Reproduction (R) and if R>1 then the propagation will be viral. (example if Z= 2 and B=30% then R= 0.60) And the closer R is to 1.0, the more iterations there will be before the propagation dies off.

While this is the start of some important breakthroughs into a more systematic approach to leveraged marketing in the web space, there are considerable questions left to be addressed:

What are the indicators of favorable conditions for market acceptance of a new message?
How does propagation vary across iterations?
How does propagation vary by type of message? (positive, Vs negative Vs information/entertainment)
What are the relevant sender/receiver relationship hierarchies: Family Vs Friends Vs Colleagues vs (passing) Acquaintances?
How does the relationship between sender and receiver influence the type of action taken on messages?
What role does the risk of following Vs not following the message have on message action?
What role does the sender’s subject matter relevancy/credibility have to the message?
How much time can elapse before people forget the message or deemed the original message circumstances to not have any bearing?

This work helps to define the knife’s edge of where something might be considered viral or spam. And as a consequence, comes to chart the course for how the the social media and email 2.0 players will need to move forward if they wish to monetize their customers' social graphs - be it from within their walled gardens or across domains (Google API). For marketers it provides a platform to measure and monitor the propagation of messages and will provide important feedback on the what, where and how's of increasing customer engagement.

Bibliography:
Is the Tipping Point Toast? Clive Thomson

Influentials, Networks, and Public Opinion Formation, Journal of Consumer Research, Watts and Dodds

Viral Marketing for the Real World, Watts, Peretti and Frumin

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5762/854Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market, Watts et al

Forward Track: http://forwardtrack.eyebeamresearch.org/

Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age – Duncan J Watts

Viral Is Not A Strategy

Marketers have to deal with a lot of tough questions like "how much will this cost?", "can you guarantee it will be successful?" and "what's the point in Marketing, shouldn't we be focusing on sales?" Lately, there's an even tougher hill to climb. More often than not I'm hearing a statement - in client, business development and at seminars/conferences - that goes something like this: "we need our program to go viral."

Viral is not strategy. Viral is an outcome. You can plan for it all you want. You can implement the right hooks that makes something go viral. You can even trick components of it to get passed along, but in the end, you don't decide if something goes viral... everyone else does.

Viral is the effect of doing everything right - strategy, design, content, creative and marketing it in the right channel - the added layer that makes something "go viral" comes through community acceptance and embrace. Stuff we think should go viral never does, and the stuff we think nobody would ever care to play with always goes viral.

If a Marketer claims that they can make something go viral, be sure to steal their crystal ball on the way out of the meeting.

This is not an anti-Viral Marketing post. Not in the least bit. If I could make everything I touch go viral, I would (including this post). All a Marketer can do is their best. Typically, if you're really doing your best stuff, the outcome will be viral - it will get passed along, it will spread, people will talk about it, and people will do something about it.

Last thought on viral: adding in a prize can help. It will get passed along more and create more awareness , but Marketers need to understand that it's the prize that went viral, and not the product/service. The brand takes second fiddle. Never the sexiest part of the orchestra.

The Ultimate Decision

The Promise:
It came upon us as a promise, wrapped in the innocence of simplicity. The inner core of a brand captured miraculously in a simple question.

“How likely is it that you would recommend us to a friend or colleague.”

The Net Promoter Score was born. The brainchild of Fred Reichheld, a Bain & Co. Fellow and Dr. Laura Brooks of Satmetrix Systems. The sort of material that Harvard Business Review writes their cases about. In fact HBR did publish an article in Dec 2003 with the eye catching title “The one number you need to grow”. The equivalent of a viral campaign unfolded, supplemented with a book… global speaking engagements.

Just as a black hole, the simplicity drew everyone to it. The promise, incubated by field studies at 400 businesses (turns out to have been 50+ in the end) which held that if we managed our customers properly – our business would grow. To do so only required our focus on customers who are either our promoters (scoring you a 9 or 10), passives (scoring you a 7 or 8) or detractors (scoring you 6 or less). Wait a minute – that’s all our customers. Exactly, but we’ll get to that again at the conclusion.

The Formula: % of Promoters - % of Detractors = Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Therefore if 50% of your respondents were promoters and 20% were detractors – you netted out at a score of 30. The higher the score the better.

NPS we were told would accurately predict a company’s ability to impress customers, turn customers into advocates, and -- in turn -- become an indicator of potential business growth. Scientific proof that this simple metric was ultimately more powerful and meaningful than any other management theory about customer satisfaction, customer retention, passion, loyalty or …well anything. So simple even a CEO could follow it ;-^)

And so the market embraced the theory. From all corners of the world. Heavyweights like GE (Real Estate division) Philips, HSBC, IBM (Enterprise Content Management), LEGO, Enterprise Car Rental, Intuit, Schwabb, American Express, Microsoft and others.

A simple approach, developed by respected accreditted professionals, endorsed by a world class university adopted by companies. What’s so bad about any of this?

The Questions:
Cracks in the foundation started to develop because of the lack of support to the contentions. Namely that the NPS was not a strong predictor, that there was evidense of research bias in the support used to substantiate the NPS and that the ACSI was not uncorrelated with firm growth..

“We find no support for the claim that Net Promoter is the ‘single most reliable indicator of a company’s ability to grow.’ The clear implication is that managers have adopted the Net Promoter metric for tracking growth on the basis of the belief that solid science underpins the findings and that it is superior to other metrics. However, our research suggests that such presumptions are erroneous. The consequences are the potential misallocation of resources as a function of erroneous strategies guided by Net Promoter on firm performance, company value, and shareholder wealth.”

Source: Timothy Keiningham et al. July 2007 A Longitudinal Examination of Net Promoter and Firm Revenue Growth

Other studies, other experts, opinion leaders, bloggers (see below) added their voices to the boisterous cacophony – worthy of the NYSE trading floor on a black bear day.

Undaunted, NPS supporters countered (see below) with their own assertions the NPS being as good as more complex measures and for the most part avoiding any direct discussions surrounding the statistical annomalies brought forward by Keiningham.

In this quote, Dr. Masden acknowledges being part of the team at the London School of Economics that vetted the NPS Score and asserts its ongoing validity as a reliable method of linking customer loyalty to growth.

"As far as the current debate goes, anyone who has read the information being disseminated from the “anti-Net Promoter” camp quickly comes to the realisation that the one Net Promoter question is, at the very least, just as good as more complex proprietary measures, that are tough to translate to the average executive and employee. But that leaves me questioning: why are we hung up on the measurement? The real conversation needs to be about how to get an organisation to be customer-centric and what that can mean for a company’s future”

Source: Clickadvisor.com on Sept 17 Net Promoter: the ultimate debate on customer loyalty

The Stalemate:

There is too much of an industry and ‘cult’ established around the NPS for it to dissapear on the basis of the allegations laid against them. In defence and defiance they point out that we are all ultimately pursuing the same path. True.

One can argue that the NPS may have accelerated the customer centricity movement, the other important benefit is that in its simplicity it has refocussed the dialogue on using metrics which can be widely disseminated and easily understood. Well in the words of Tim Keiningham

“ I too believe that loyalty consultants and researchers have over-complicated the message (and the analyses) with more advanced statistics than it took to get the Apollo space missions to the moon. It makes it impossible for management to understand, communicate, and rally support. This is ridiculous!”

The Ultimate Decision:
Believe it or not up to this point was the easy part. The hard part is deciding for yourself what happens next.

Will there ever be one metric to fit all needs? Highly improbable – and any contenders will not be allowed to make unsubstantiated claims. Instead of waiting for the new simple metric, we must continue to move forward with as simplified a system we can devise, implement and gain compliance with.

There are many competing schools of thought (Customer Experience Management, CRM, Loyalty/Continuity, Value Drivers, Image, WoM) reflecting the different successful business models/brands in the market.

To understand which approach will work best for your brand you must identify three things:

1. who your profitable customers are

2. what kind of relationship your profitable customers wish to have with your brand
a.Share of Wallet: the traditional CRM-centric make me a compelling (price/promotional) offer and I’ll buy it from you (or perhaps your competitors) – a brand relationship centered on the transaction.
b.Share of Mind: the traditional marketing promotions/communications approach – focussing on the key value proposition – a rational based brand relationship.
c.Share of Heart: Customer Experience Management – How people feel about the brand experience. Experience seen as a price mitigator and continuity reinforcer – an emotion based brand relationship.
d.Share of Life: How customers see the brand as a longer term partner for their category requirements, solutions and corporate/sustainability responsibility – an ‘adult/mature’ brand relationship.

3. within the relationship type identify the activities the enterprise must do to instill the longer-term repeat purchase pattern it seeks.

The key in my opinion is instead of defining your brand as an advocate of a particular ‘school of thought’ and then trying to mold your customers to fit within that model, we must instead look and manage this from the customer’s perspective. Therefore come to recognize the ALL of these relationship types exist simultaneously among different groups of your customers. What and how you communicate will be best served by understanding the type of customer they are first and from there make the ultimate decision as to how to relate and evolve with your customers.

Cheers
Miro

Suggested Reading:
NPS Adovcates:
The Ultimate Question. Driving Good Profits and True Growth. Fred Reicheld

www.satmetrix.com

www.netpromoter.com

Dr. Laura Brooks’s – VP Satmetrix latest blog posting

The Satmetrix white paper describing the research

Research conducted by the London School of Economics

Dr. Marsden from Clickadvisor.com on Sept 17 Net Promoter: the ultimate debate on customer loyalty

NPS Contrarians
Loyalty Myths: Hyped Strategies That Will Put You Out of Business and Proven Tactics That Really Work, Tim Keiningham, Terry Varga, Lerzan Aksoy, Henri Wallard

A Longitudinal Examination of Net Promoter and Firm Revenue Growth

The Value of Different Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Metrics in Predicting Customer Retention, Recommendation, and Share-of-Wallet

January 2007 Maritz Research White Paper

COLLOQUY magazine article

Do ya DIGG?

Fifteen of the world’s largest interactive marketing firms were recently asked which emerging technologies will have the greatest impact on the future of their design practices. The results put forth in a Forrester Research study were recently released in a report entitled "The Emerging Technologies That Matter Most to Interactive Agencies". The results, although not surprising, give marketers a heads up on where to focus their efforts.

Mobile Devices made the top of the list, as being the most important area of focus and growth for interactive agencies. All you have to do is look around to get a sense of how influential mobile marketing can be. From sponsored shows like American Idol, where voters text in their vote for the candidate they want to win, to grassroots experiential mobile campaigns, mobile is here to stay and is increasing in influence and reach.

Online Video was next on the “what matters most” list. It’s no secret that viral video campaigns can be highly effective. Look at the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, or the Philips Shave Everywhere campaign. These are hugely successful examples of how a strong video campaign can launch a brand into super stardom. Another CNN YouTube debate has now been scheduled for just after Thanksgiving, proving further that video is a beloved medium for the masses.

AJAX was another area of importance for interactive marketers, topping the RIA list, beating out Flash. Next month the AJAX World Conference & Expo will take place in Santa Clara and is being touted the i-technology conference of the year. In less than 18 months, the AJAX World event has grown from a single day seminar to a 4 day international conference.

Social Networking technology naturally made the list. Internet apps like Facebook and DIGG are changing the way we interact on the internet and demonstrating our willingness as a culture to share and exchange information freely. A new social networking site called Sk*rt was launched this week, which is in essence a DIGG of sorts for women. The site, which was launched by four female bloggers, is a social ranking platform that acts as a portal for women to discover cool ideas, articles, information, and products that are female relevant.

Marketers are already discovering that Social Networking campaigns don’t follow the same traditional marketing protocol. Successful campaigns in this arena mean developing a personal intimate relationship with the end users and allowing them to have a voice, which can sometimes be scary for marketers, but gives brands a more human face resulting in a deeper connection.

With all of these emerging technologies floating around in the ever-changing world of marketing, it’s a daunting (but necessary) task to keep on top of the trends that are shaping our world. Even if you are focusing on just one of these four areas, you are on the right track.

Pass it on

Who says brands are created in a boardroom and are limited to product or service? A brand is an experience represented by a collection of images and ideas. A brand could even be a person.

This blog is dedicated to a brand named Gavin Michael Booth. Some of you may have already heard of Gavin and the work he is doing in the social media world, some may have seen his films. What you may not know is that Gavin's "brand" is taking off - mostly through word-of-mouth communications and social networking.

Gavin’s latest project is called “How many days”. His mission is to meet 12 of the Hollywood professionals that have inspired him in his career thus far. The selected 12 includes: Steven Spielberg, Kevin Smith, Jimmy Eat World, Zach Braff, Tom Anderson, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Johnny Depp and Harry Knowl.

How is Gavin promoting his brand to the selected 12? Each day, Gavin will send a new video blog to his online community until he meets all 12 people on his list. In order to promote his brand and current project, he's relying on word-of-mouth, targeting key influencers through social media. He's already been asked to appear on various radio shows and local television networks. The message is landing in the right hands or on the right ears. Gavin has already successfully set up interviews with two of the twelve after only 8 days. To learn more about Gavin’s mission, go to his website, 'how many days' or visit his MySpace page.

Pass it on.