CS2 Live

BY: Brian Sullivan

How many of you know the origin on the word “blog” ? The word is a shortened version of the term web log. There is a heavily sourced and referenced history of the term on Wikipedia, so you know it must be true. Check it out if you have 15 minutes to spare: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog.

Blogging has evolved from the relatively innocent online diary to a multi-million dollar pimping business.

In the beginning, people were blogging about things they actually cared about.  Blogs were personal, allowing people to step over the proverbial too much information line with great regularity. We discovered that most people lead an existence not too dissimilar from our own, but for some reason, they enjoyed sharing details and we enjoyed reading about them. Of course, not all blogs were purely personal. There were journalists, wannabe journalists and category experts that found a home to share their thoughts. Some people gathered quite a following by sharing information online, writing about politics, travel, fashion, music, parenting, etc.

The number of followers for blogs grew organically at first, but as always, people found ways to make money off of them, and advertisers like us began to take notice. Bloggers began endorsing products, companies began soliciting content from subject matters experts to add some third party credibility to their own blogs. In my humble opinion, this intersection of followers and advertising is where we lost the essence of blogging – that authenticity and transparency that made blogs so compelling in the first place.

The average web surfer knows that bloggers and corporations are often in bed together, and if they didn’t, Congress made sure they were protected through recent legislation requiring bloggers to disclose any compensation received for their words. This isn’t the death of the advertising-influenced blog, but it does mean we have to work harder and smarter when bringing our content into the blogosphere.

Authenticity and transparency must be present in what we do. We need to be sure we are communicating with followers, not talking at them, and sharing content that is both useful and interesting. We need to be sure that our focus is on meeting the needs of our followers, not just in meeting our immediate business objectives. And like we preach with every single tactic we present to our clients, it must be strategic.

There is nothing wrong with blogging for dollars, as long as you’ve got something interesting to say.

BY: Kate Metcalf

People all over the world are finding various methods to express their outrage in response to the ongoing hacking scandal of Rupert Murdock’s News Corporation.

Concerned citizens are protesting, governments on both sides of the Atlantic are investigating, comedians are mining the hoopla for laughs. Wendi Deng’s slap heard ‘round the world has already become a meme all its own, hitting the online trifecta of animated gif, someecard design and Urban Dictionary entry nearly overnight. Yes, being Wendi-slapped is officially a thing now.

Beyond the handwringing and backpedaling, the controversy has launched an important conversation about journalistic ethics, individual privacy rights and the occasionally too-cozy relationship between reporters and their official sources. It’s also spawned a movement for responsible web surfing in the process.

For those looking to disassociate themselves from Murdoch’s massive media empire in the wake of the scandal, there are now several tools to make Internet browsing News Corp-free.

From Business Insider:
Murdoch Alert, a Firefox add-on, warns an Internet surfer when he or she stumbles upon a Murdoch-owned site. (A previous program called Murdoch Block simply wouldn’t allow browsers to go to any page owned by News Corp or its subsidiaries without permission from the user of the computer.)

Even if you think that the criminal acts of a few don’t necessarily reflect the corporate ethos of a whole, the Murdoch Alert add-on is still fascinating in the way it illustrates the expansive reach of News Corporation online. It’s a good reminder of the importance of the Internet as a repository for unfiltered, multifaceted news content in the face of the growing monopoly-based approach of traditional news sources.

BY: Amy Sharp

In our household, there are many days, weeks (it’s so often I’ve lost count), that I hear one, or all, of these questions from my 11 year old daughter. I try to answer with more than ‘Because I said so.’ simply so I don’t have to acknowledge the fact that I have indeed become my mother.

‘Can I stay up late on a school night?’ ‘No, you have homework.’ ‘Can I get cell phone?’ ‘No. I’m holding out as long as I can’. ‘Can I watch (insert stupid show here – Zach and Cody, icarly, Hannah Montana, etc. etc.)? ‘No, _______ is the stupidest show on the planet. It goes on and on. So I found it mildly amusing the other day when a SUBWAY television commercial, airing on the Disney channel, caught our attention (couldn’t find it online or I’d link to it here – too bad SUBWAY). The commercial opens on a child in the 8-11 age range asking almost an identical series of questions. The audience never sees the parent, only hears the series of ‘No’s’, until you see the child at the neighborhood SUBWAY counter asking for a sandwich a specific way, and we pan to our friendly employee saying ‘absolutely’! The fascinating part was hearing the next day, while out running errands, my daughter ask if we could have SUBWAY for lunch. When I asked ‘What’s with the sudden love of SUBWAY?’ she responded in a slightly bored voice, ‘MOM, they make my sandwich exactly how I want it.’

Just a great example of what advertising is all about. People make purchases based on emotions first, rational thought second. I don’t know if my daughter noticed any delicious looking food in the commercial. I certainly didn’t. SUBWAY simply knew the target audience, and identified with them. This isn’t even a unique selling position (I’m humming ‘Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce’), which is why the identifying and making the emotional connection, is so important. Don’t forget, not only is SUBWAY building a new customer base with their ‘we get you’ message, they’re also making a sale on every parent along for the ride. Cha-ching!

And do I mind being taken on this ride? If it’s between this and a cell phone, ‘I’ll take a six inch on wheat with turkey and cheese only please.’

BY: Brian Sullivan

When searching for the essence of your brand, you may be surprised to find that it is not what you thought.  You may think that people know your brand or visit your brand or buy your product for something quite obvious when indeed there is a much deeper connection.

Clothes don’t make the man; they enhance the man in the clothes.  All people that wear The North Face technical gear don’t climb mountains every weekend, but they like the outdoorsy / slightly athletic image that wearing that brand projects.  So, while the shorts with the carabineer loop are designed for a climber, people connect with the implied sense of adventure.

People don’t necessarily visit New Orleans just because of the French Quarter, they visit for the no holds barred / thrill a minute attitude you are allowed and even encouraged to have in New Orleans.  Their trips are remembered for what they did and what happened to them and their friends while in the French Quarter.

People don’t buy Cascade dishwashing powder because it cleans better; they buy it because they don’t want spots on their glasses when serving their family and friends.  Serving clean glasses means they are a conscientious homemaker and that is the image they want to project.

These are just three examples of looking beyond the surface for the essence of your brand and finding the emotional connection people make with it.  Armed with this information, you can create much more persuasive communications.

BY: Brian Sullivan

I watched a short video today that challenged the viewer to guess the name of a movie based on the icons in the video. The icons morphed from one to another in a very clever way touching a wide range of movies. While movies are not my thing (I have a hard time sitting still that long), I loved the challenge of trying to guess the titles and felt good when I got one or two right.

I believe consumers like it when you challenge them. To be clear, I am not suggesting consumers like to be challenged to a duel or have their comments challenged (think Apple’s response to iPhone 4 complaints), but I am suggesting that consumers like smart communications that challenge them to think (even just a little bit). The goal is to engage them and not just talk to them. And, consumers find it endearing when you give them credit for being intelligent. Of course, there is a time and a place for this type of dialogue with a consumer just as there is a time and a place for “Big Mac $2.99.”

When a brand speaks to their consumers intelligently and treats them with respect, they will earn loyalty. When they can make their audience think just a little bit whether it is a reference to something in pop culture or a simple double entendre, people respond positively to the challenge of figuring it out.

This type of thing happens everyday in conversations around the world from… Andy Roddick referring to spontaneously shaving his head as a “Britney moment” to someone (me) playing the Violent Femmes Blister in the Sun over the company paging system just prior to a beach vacation. Smart communicators know the value of a payoff when the consumer has that “aha” moment which really translates to “they really know me.” Consider a Pepsi spot I did a few years back for an under-the-cap promotion that used the song Twist and Shout as the background, or Gastro One, the new name of the leading GI practice in our region, or the new tagline Live it Up, Just Down the Road for Tunica, MS, a primarily drive-in destination gaming market. All of these create “aha” moments, but in very different, very subtle ways.

So, as you can see, we consider every touch point an opportunity to give our audience credit for being smart, to engage them in a meaningful way and to ultimately gain their trial and resulting loyalty. Of course, social media outlets have become the ultimate way to engage consumers and have a true dialogue. However, it is important to remember that you can’t ignore the other opportunities to engage your audience. Man cannot live by social media alone.

I challenge you to see how many movie titles you can guess and can almost guarantee it will be more than I got. Click the image to view the video.

BY: Brian Sullivan

Thought leadership should be the goal for all communications.

You have probably heard the term, thought leadership. It is usually used in the context of brainstorming or strategic planning and refers to experts in various fields offering thoughts or advice on a particular subject. These thoughts are not intended to necessarily get to “the answer”, but to direct or lead the deeper thinking on the subject that takes place with a smaller group at a later date. However, our team believes thought leadership has another definition within advertising and marketing. One of the things we do as communicators is find ways to invoke or promote thoughts (or feelings) about a particular subject. The subjects vary from brand image to product promotions and almost everything in between.

Our ideas, stimulants or disruptants (a new word I just made up) are intended to invoke thought. These thoughts are meant to cause some kind of action whether it is a direct purchase, a visit to a website, or to start a dialogue.

Once our targets have seen or read our communications and we have invoked a thought or consideration, we now want to lead to the next step. As I mentioned earlier, this first step could be a number of things but the second step is where you can build some real value. The second step is for the consumer to feel a connection with your product or service. A connection so strong that they will tell others about it. This could be word of mouth or better yet through one of your social media channels.

If you can lead your targets to the second step, you will find out all kinds of things you may not have ordinarily known. Take the case of the new Pampers diaper with “Dry Max” that was supposed to be lighter and more absorbent than previous options. After the product rollout and a strong call to use the new product, parents around the world were complaining that the diapers caused a strange rash. P&G reacted defensively by blaming the parents and claiming they monitored 300,000 diaper changes over 6 years to make sure the diapers were safe. Well, P&G, your real world research is telling you differently. One parent started a facebook page protesting and had over 3,000 people sign on as friends. Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2010/05/pampers_problems.html

The rash of complaints prompted Ad Age magazine to call the new diaper roll-out a marketing blunder akin to New Coke (that is a whole other blog post).

How is this rash of negativity good? Well, their consumers took the second step because P&G has committed to social media as a tool and their consumers were led there by this commitment. Despite the fact that all the press and comments were negative, P&G has stepped up their social media commitment so they can maintain a dialogue with their consumers.

It is important to consider not only what thought you want to invoke from your targets, but how you can lead them through a full communications cycle.