Influential Marketing Blog

Influential Marketing Blog Featured in Wall Street Journal

Many of you may have already caught this yesterday, but this blog was cited in the Recommended Reading  section of the Wall Street Journal yesterday in an article by Keith Huang.  As Jay Berkowitz from Ten Golden Rules shares on his team blog, my blog was one of 60 resources that they recommended to the journalist as part of their reading list and was selected from that list as a recommended resource for companies looking to "optimize their online presence."  Here's the writeup:

Influential Marketing Blog, rohitbhargava.typepad.com
Rohit Bhargava's blog is intellectual and educational. In a recent post, he discusses the art of stamp collection and how, even today, many smaller countries use stamps as a key marketing tool. He writes, 'Next time you pass a post office in any country, pay attention to how they are using their philately to promote the country, cater to tourists, or commemorate moments of significance.'

It is a great media hit and to be selected from a list of what I am guessing were 60 stellar resources is flattering.  I'm in awe at being included among the other bloggers and authors mentioned in the article - including Seth Godin, Steve Rubel, Matt Cutts, John Battelle, Chris Anderson, Joseph Jaffe, and Danny Sullivan. Thanks to Jay for including me in this great list, and to Keith for selecting to include my blog!

Can Anyone Solve This Ticketmaster Riddle?

I am a passionate hater of Ticketmaster.com.  Paying a surcharge to a site whose main purpose it is to make it difficult for me to complete an online transaction seems wrong on every level.  Imagine you were forced to make every travel booking for any hotel you ever wanted to stay at through Expedia.com.  That's the equivalent of the monopoly Ticketmaster has, and it's amazing in our world of increasing choice online that an old world monopoly like theirs has managed to last this long.  Here's my latest frustration:

If you can tell me what this CAPTCHA actually says, I'll give you a million dollars.  Just post your best guess, along with your swiss bank account number so I can wire you the money if you're right ...

Update (08/10/07): Here are two other CAPTCHAs that I got when going back to search for tickets for another show one day after writing this post (no joke).  I never realized CAPTCHAs could be so well branded, but at least they're honest ...

Now all they need to do is work on their poor spelling.

Shell Has Eureka Moment, But Sends Wrong Message

Good advertising is based on insights ... a singular idea or truth that gets to the heart of a product or brand.  The trouble with insight, though, is that it comes in two forms.  There is insight that can help you to create a great communications message - and there is insight that can help you do your business better.  They are not usually the same.  And when they are confused, you have a situation like Shell's Eureka film - part of their Real Energy campaign.  There are more than a few people who have talked about how the film has been well executed.  It's hard to argue with that, as the film is compelling and well produced - easily watchable despite being a 9 minute long commercial.  The method of distribution (inserts in Wired magazine) and postings on YouTube of the short and long videos of the film also make sense (though it didn't take long for someone to post an embeddable version to get around a request to disable embedding on the original Shell posted video).  The problem comes in the strategy and is actually very simple if you think about it:

1. Every oil company is trying to be green and get more goodwill from consumers.
2. People in general are afraid that oil companies are exploiting the earth, oil will run out and prices will keep rising.

The conclusion most competitors have drawn is that marketing and communication needs to focus on positive non-oil messages such as what they are doing to fund alternative energy sources.  Of course they are getting more efficient about drilling for oil ... everyone expects that because it makes business sense.  Unfortunately, broadcasting a "eureka moment" of an engineer getting the idea to create a flexible oil drill to suck oil deposits out of the ocean like a teenager sucks a drink through a straw is not a great choice for a consumer message.  Even the online landing page for the campaign does little to help the cause, outlining that the flexible drill was necessary to "prevent all that precious oil going to waste."  Some could argue the oil was fine where it was, but ultimately the unintended message they send is: Shell cares about inventing new technologies to suck the earth dry.

The irony is, once you delve into the film and learn about the process and the benefits, there actually is great value in the method for the environment in terms of being able to use fewer drilling platforms and produce less waste.  It seems to be a great technology advance for Shell as well as the industry.  Yet the visual of an oil company slurping every last drop of oil from the earth through their superstraw is exactly the wrong way to portray the industry and Shell itself.  This was obviously a eureka moment and a great business case for Shell - something shareholders are likely to love.  Using it as the hero story for their consumer marketing just seems like a bad idea no matter how well produced it is.

Watch the video:

Full Disclosure: BP is a longstanding Ogilvy client, though I am not currently part of the BP team or participating in any ongoing work for BP.

Newsflash for Ask.com: The Algorithm is Dying

In case you hadn't heard - Ask.com has a new advertising campaign through their new partnership with Crispin, Porter & Bogusky (CP+B) focused on making a hero out of the algorithm.  The idea behind the marketing strategy is described on their blog:

If you get great search results, you don’t care why or how you got them.  But for more than 80% of searches, there can be more than one right answer. And even when there is one right answer, there’s more than one way of getting you there, understanding those results, or getting ideas for alternative searches. For these searches, the editorial voice of your search engine matters. Search isn’t the commodity it may, at times, seem to be.

You might know CPB for their superfun and standout ad campaigns for Volkswagen and Burger King (including my favorite, the Subservient Chicken viral).We've been working with them to create a campaign that champions "The Algorithm" and how it brings good search to life--from plain old “ten blue links” to popular, algorithm-driven features such as Smart Answers and Zoom related search.  ... So ready or not world, here comes the Algorithm, soon to take its rightful place as a household word, once and for all.

Um, ok.  Obviously they are excited to be working with the "cool kids" at CP+B, which is great.  And the campaigns that are mentioned were wonderfully creative campaigns that defined a new positioning for each client and offered something new and viral.  Unfortunately, there are three pretty obvious flaws in this marketing strategy for Ask:

1. No one cares about the algorithm - This is a fact which they already note above, stating that consumers don't care how they get search results as long as they work.  Everyone in the tech industry is trying to be more "human" with their advertising - but Ask inexplicably decides to go the other way and focus on the algorithm.   
2. The algorithm is declining in importance - As anyone following the search industry knows, the rise of social networks and human filtered search mean the algorithm is not what is used to be.  Even Ask notes above that "the editorial voice of your search engine matters."  Seriously, does the editorial voice of Ask come from an algorithm?  Not so much.
3. The core brand value or positioning for Ask is not about the algorithm - This is perhaps the largest strategic issue of this campaign, that it misses the mark in focus.  Ask happens to be a search engine, but the core value proposition is not about the power of the algorithm.   For years the company focused on user friendliness and having Jeeves as a personal assistant to navigate results.  Quite simply, the algorithm is not what makes Ask unique.

Strategically, the campaign misses the mark pretty widely - and the only explanation for how it launched that I can think of is a marketing team getting blinded to strategy by a creative concept that they fall in love with (probably because of a great sales job from the CP+B team).  Unlike most of CP+B's work, this is definitely not a winning idea.  As Techcrunch recently shared, the execution doesn't seem too much smarter with their Unabomber billboards and incomprehensible microsite.  Even Valleywag was confused.  Am I missing something?  This doesn't inspire too much confidence in Ask.

Learning from Blackberry's Social Media Marketing Mistakes

Blackberry's recent "Share Your Stories" campaign was inspiring for me, though probably not in the way they intended.  I actually love my Blackberry, but their entire "Share your Story" campaign just struck me as lacking in any of the lessons many other marketers have learned about Web 2.0 marketing and what works in social media.  The mistakes were so basic, that it led me to put together this post listing a few of them and some reactions for how they could have been avoided.  As more and more consumers continue to find ways to interact with brands that they are passionate about, the popularity of UGC campaigns will continue to rise.  Blackberry has such great potential to tap their own brand enthusiasts for efforts like this ... but they fall short in this campaign in several ways.  Without further intro, here are some of the key mistakes and thoughts on how Blackberry might have been able to execute this campaign idea differently:

1. Mistake #1 - Not offering a payoff or incentive for users:  Asking consumers to share their stories with you is one thing, but giving them an incentive beyond relying on their affinity for your brand is vital.  This is not about turning any campaign into a contest with winners and prizes.  The incentive could be as simple as guaranteeing that your story is shared with the most relevant people inside of Blackberry, or sending a personal email of thanks back.  The point is, an incentive answers the question of why ... and without necessarily promising a financial reward as the answer.
2. Mistake #2 - Forgetting about photos and video: It probably seems odd in this time of popularity for online video and YouTube for any User Generated Content campaign to launch without some ability for customers to include their photos and videos as part of their submissions.  Of course text based entry is easier - but for those customers who really love their Blackberries, why not let them submit images and video.  Particularly when one of the coolest features of the new Pearl is the integrated camera.
3. Mistake #3 - Only promoting campaign through advertising:  The way I found the campaign was through a banner ad on CBSNews.com (not exactly a hotbed for consumer generated content).  Though I am unsure about their other online advertising efforts, I am fairly certain they missed the most easy promotion available to them - a link from the Blackberry.com website.  There are always a host of reasons why clients decide not to link to their promotions from their own homepage, and the only reason I have accepted in the past as reasonable is not wanting to give up the real estate on a ecommerce site to a promotional unit.  Blackberry has no such reason and should be promoting this campaign everywhere they can, especially on their own site.
4. Mistake #4 - Avoiding publishing contributions real time: Again, legal and filtering reasons are probably behind Blackberry's choice to not publish any stories immediately ... however as a consumer being invited to share my story and not be able to read anyone others before doing so seems odd.  What is the plan for these stories they are getting anyway?  According to the T&Cs, the only thing that's clear is that a consumer gives up all rights and control to any story they submit.  The only way they could make it any scarier for a consumer to participate is by asking for a full driver's license number upfront like Bud.TV initially did when they first launched (which they have since corrected).

Does anyone have any other thoughts on something I might be missing here?  Would love to hear more from other folks who are launching (or considering launching) new User Generated Content campaigns using social media and struggling with some of these issues ...

Airport Security Bins and 10 Other Spots We Need Advertising

Apparently, the latest "innovation" in advertising is offering up ad space on the bottom of those security bins used in every airport.  Despite fears that it might confuse people during an already confusing moment of separating liquids and laptops into quart-sized bags, it seems that airport authorities are ready to go ahead with the plan (according to a piece earlier this week in USAToday).  After all, if consumers are used to ads everywhere else, it seems only natural to put them here too.  But what are some of the more unique places with advertising opportunities that we are not tapping?  Surely in this overexposed world there are other unused canvases just waiting to be decorated by the brilliance of advertising creative.  Here's my list of a few that we might see sometime soon, some ideas on who the perfect advertiser for each might be, and an example tagline:

1. Hubcaps (Goodyear, Car Manufacturers, ZipCar) Nothing handles these roads like Goodyear.
2. Fruits and Vegetables (5aDay, WeightWatchers) Try this fruit with [product name here]
3. Bottom Logos on Beach Flipflops (to make footprints in sand) (Beach Resorts, Crocs)
4. Screen Printed Contact lenses (Nike, Lenscrafters)
5. Chinese Takeout boxes (Netflix) Would you like some Netflix with that?
6. Public Restroom Doors (Glade Air Fresheners) Glade ... if it stinks, we can fix it.
7. Grass/Lawns (Local sports teams, local elections, Residential services)
8. Airline seat backs (Portable DVD players or MP3 players) Watch your own stuff.
9. Movie Theater Popcorn Bags (Candy bars, Orville Redenbacher) Movie theater taste, right at home.
10. Printed Aluminum Foil (GE Ovens, Betty Crocker) The ultimate choice for baking.

Isn't this too much?  Of course not!  Consumers are still free to ignore the messages, aren't they?  Anyway, I also have the perfect advertiser and tagline for those security bins ... Amtrak: "Next time, take the train."

A Recap of 2006 on Influential Interactive Marketing

Let's start with a warning ... this is the "clip show" post where I recycle a lot of old material so if that causes you extreme pain, please close this window now and come back tomorrow.  For all the rest of you, it's the holidays and a quick glance around the marketing blogosphere will show that these clip show posts are in right now.  With nearly 400 post on this blog already, there is lots of content to choose from ... allowing me the luxury to conveniently ignore those posts from the past year that are outdated or that I just don't like anymore.  Here is a sampling of the rest:

Concepts & Ideas:
This is a collection of concepts and ideas that were introduced or discussed on this blog and then travelled virally to other blogs and were discussed elsewhere in media.  A good collection of ideas, many of which I still hope to implement on a client campaign (but haven't yet).

• Soundbombs
• Virtual Hugs
• Placecasting
• Widget Marketing
• Text Messaging Customer Service
• Tagging with Domain Names
• Social Media Optimization
• Automated Blog Translation
• Photopedia
• Human Search Filters

Rules & Guides:
These are a group of "Guy Kawasaki style" posts written in list format as guides to various topics from SMO to viral marketing.  It's a format I have always liked and you will probably see many more posts in this format going into 2007.

• Avoiding the Dark Side of Social Media
• 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization
• Signs Your Viral Marketing May Flop
• 7 Tips on Pitching Bloggers
• Golden Rules of Blog Etiquette

Presentations & Published Work:
Links to presentations given at industry events as well as guest contributions to other blogs.  There is some good powerpoint link bait in here, useful for those who are interested in any of these topics but couldn't make it to the events referenced.

• 7 Rules for Getting into Search (Search Engine Strategies Conference)
• 7 Tips on Pitching Bloggers (White Paper)
• The Human Side of Search (Search Insider Summit)
• Guide to Blog Marketing (SixApart Seminar) 
• Finding your Personality in Personal Media (Guest Column on Strumpette)

That's it.  Look out tomorrow for an all new post about what I think the top ten marketing ideas to watch will be in 2007.

Snakes on a Plane Viral Campaign Misses the Multicultural Mark

I came across an interesting viral campaign for the upcoming movie "Snakes on a Plane" where users can go online and enter names to have a personalized viral message sent to someone spoken by Samuel L. Jackson.  I have seen this viral talking idea before, such as with the "7 days left" campaign for The Ring 2 ... but in that case the promotion was not personalized.  So visiting the site, I was expecting another smart piece of a marketing strategy from a film that has done well to foster a fan frenzy by reshooting scenes based on fan input, encouraging discussion through fan blogs like Snakes on a Blog and even a fan wiki.  Sadly, this viral campaign is a disappointing example of what happens when movie marketers forget about multicultural audiences. 

The first step in sending a viral talking message is to enter your name and your recipient's name.  I first tried it by entering my name and my wife's name and came up with the error message "I can't say the name Rohit or Chhavi and still make a personalized talking message."  Bummer, but maybe we just have tough names.  So I went to the Social Security Administration's website where they list the 50 most popular baby names from any year (as registered by their office).  I then tried two "ethnic sounding" names from 2004: Isaiah and Ava ... and got the same error message.  This is like an online version of the experience every kid from another culture has when going into the tourist store to see all the personalized keychains and license plates with only names like James or Emily.  Of course, those stores can't be expected to carry every name ... but in a viral campaign like this where technology serves the personalization, this should not be a barrier.  Unfortunately a concept that could have worked well as yet another buzz builder for highly hyped movie online ends up alienating multicultural audiences and falling flat.

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The Importance of a Movie Theater Website

Searching for a movie this weekend, I cursed my way through yet another painful online experience dealing with AMC Theaters.  The main problem, in their case, is that I know their brand and I have been to their theaters.  And because I do, I have higher expectations from AMC.  For one, I assume the theater's website would be easy to find so I skipped Google to go to www.amctheater.com.  Wrong.  So I tried www.amctheatre.com.  Wrong again.  Frustrated, I finally went to Google and typed in AMC Theater, to find the website was www.amctheatres.com.  The other two sites are not in use, but for sale - I can only assume AMC is too cheap to pay for them.  Not a great first branding impression.

As I arrived at the site, I was greeted with an extremely confusing interface pushing lots of things I don't care about, like free popcorn.  Seriously, sell me that stuff when I get there, not online.  Just get me to my theater for showtimes.  They would know that if they asked any of their customers.  The saga continued when I discovered the hard way that booking a ticket online doesn't work reliably with Firefox - luckily, I could use the Firefox IE plugin to get around that issue.  Still, you would think a brand like AMC would be able to get their development team to fix that.  Ultimately, I made it through to the order screen and started the process of getting my tickets.  The last time I was on the site, I signed up for the MovieWatcher club.  But apparently it takes 4-6 weeks to get a number (not the card, just a number), even though I can get approved for a credit card in 90 seconds.  Big bummer.  So I left that field empty, while thinking to myself that I've never belonged to a loyalty program for a brand I believed less in.  Finally I made it to the last step, and submitted my order, only to get an error page saying the site was experiencing technical difficulties and I should try again in an hour!  Um, my movie starts in 45 minutes - so that's probably not going to work for me. 

So we jumped in the car after wasting 15 minutes and made it to the movie theater with five minutes to spare.  At the theater, my experience was the polar opposite.  I bought my tickets at an automated kiosk in less than 1 minute. I could purchase popcorn there too, and walk in to pickup without waiting.  And I made it in before the previews started.  Inside the theater the seats were modern and comfortable and the quality of picture and audio was perfect.  The in-person experience was everything I wanted it to be.  Unfortunately, I almost didn't go because of the barriers I experienced online.  With the struggles of movie theaters, you would think the customer experience on AMC's website (and every other movie theater) would be a higher priority for them.  After all, for most people isn't that where the decision to go to the movies usually starts?

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5 Signs Your Viral Marketing May Flop

In light of Chevy Tahoe's recent experience with consumer backlash towards their promotion run on The Apprentice, viral marketing is a hot topic of discussion in marketing circles these days.  Is it too risky to do well?  Should companies avoid it?  Is Chevy doing the right thing by not stepping in and removing negative consumer created ads from their site as Nike did during the whole "sweatshop" escapade?  I think it's too soon to tell what damage this may or may not do to the Chevy Tahoe brand - but it has certainly gotten people thinking about marketing in an era where giving up control of marketing messages is becoming a necessity.  Is there a formula for doing viral marketing that works?  Unfortunately, you never really know what will truly take off - however, I believe you can predict what is going to flop.  To that end, for marketers considering launching a viral marketing campaign, here is my list of top five ways that you can tell viral marketing may not be the best tactic for your campaign:

1. The people who hate you are louder than the people who like you. This was Chevy's big mistake.  The anti-SUV groups are organizing and gaining support.  The people who drive SUVs or buy SUVs are often ashamed of their choice. Put these together and you have an environment ripe for backlash against any consumer generated program trying to get consumers to declare their love for an SUV.  Chevy should have seen this trend and stayed away from viral marketing.
2. You don't have something sexy, funny, controversial or voyeuristic.  These four are my own list of what qualities have made successful viral marketing campaigns (and in particular viral videos online).  The first three are self-explanatory, and the last is meant to cover the phenomenon of curiosity marketing that I have written about before.  If you can't honestly look at your program and say that it fits one of these four categories, make some changes or risk boring consumers and wasting your marketing budget. 
3. The message is too difficult (or impossible) to pass on. Viral marketing is not only about getting someone to interact with a message, it needs to be viral - it needs to have a pass along effect.  Billboards, events, or stunts can all have a creative concept that could be viral, but if customers have no easy way to spread the word about your promotion, you should think twice about whether it will truly be effective.
4. Your focus is on the tactic instead of the strategy.  It's the ultimate cart before horse marketing mistake - committed all the time on countless programs.  You have a creative idea, you (and your agency) fall in love with it, and you want to do it.  The only problem is, it has nothing to do with your brand or products.  What you could end up with is Subservient Chicken - a highly original viral marketing program that wins awards, but does little for your brand. Contrast this with Mastercard's priceless.com campaign which was on strategy, on message, and on brand.  Avoid recreating the chicken - you can do better.
5. Overselling and overbranding. Viral marketing online, by its nature focuses on content.  This content is meant to deliver a message, usually through ways that are engaging and compelling for people to interact with. The biggest mistake marketers make is feeling the necessity to overly brand their efforts or sell their product due to fear that customers won't follow through or won't know who was behind the promotion.  Customers will always find out - if you really have a compelling campaign that makes sense for your brand, people will know who's behind it.

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