Some organisations shouldn’t bother advertising. Plain and simple. Banks are a primary candidate (warning – incoming rant!). Over the last few weeks, the Commonwealth Bank has unveiled a series of self-indulgent TV spots, the first of which can be seen below:

I’m not going to comment on the creative execution. There’s been enough snark relating to the Commonwealth’s new advertising direction on Mumbrella and Campaign Brief, and it’s truly not my area of expertise. What does shit me however is the underlying message the Commonwealth Bank is trying to deliver through these commercials – “we care”.

Bullshit!

For the first and only time, I’m in complete agreement with Senator Fielding. The banks are thieves! Let’s look at the facts. The Commonwealth Bank records a record profit of $5.6 billion, including an increase of 42% in cash profit. By anyone’s account, they are astonishing results. Yet while posting record profits, they want us to believe that it’s necessary to raise interest rates above and beyond the RBA’s movements…

And you expect us to believe that you actually care about your customers?

Please!

Actions speak louder than words. And when you act like a fucking jerk, no amount of advertising can possibly change that perception. So quit it with your patronising advertising! You don’t need brand awareness, and you’re never going to change perceptions that you are in fact devil spawn.

Unless of course you actually start acting in a humane manner… pffft!

Online trolls are an unfortunate reality of the web. The combination of simple publishing tools (forums, blogs etc) and total anonymity creates the perfect breeding ground for keyboard warriors to flourish. Almost every online community experiences some form of trolling behaviour. And the Australian media/marketing community is no different. Indeed, we have our very own type of troll, which I have entitled the Snarcissist.

The snarcissist is an ugly little character. Chock full of snark and an inflated sense of self-importance, he lurks within marketing communities such as Mumbrella and Campaign Brief, waiting for any opportunity to impart his superior marketing intellect. You can spot a snarcissist from a mile away. Just look for the following character traits:

• The snarcissist is a visionary, blessed with the unique talent of being able to forecast the human response of every possible message/campaign/scenario (in hindsight of course…)
• The snarcissist cares not for solutions. What’s important is identifying faults!
• The snarcissist is a master of all trades, being able to provide expert commentary on any campaign regardless of industry, budget, client brief or audience (as if they matter anyway…!!)
• The snarcissist is immensely humble, preferring to remain anonymous most of the time, instead of taking credit for his insightful commentary
• The snarcissist is a master of time management, managing to juggle a (supposed) full-time professional career with a part-time trolling habit

So where exactly will you find the snarcissist? I’m glad you asked. Just head over to the local trade press to find him pulling apart the latest campaigns. Here’s just a few recent examples:

1. A swarm of snarcissists took aim at the recent Tourism Australia campaign
2. Bakers Delight was baked itself on Campaign Brief for producing a TVC ‘as bland as their bread’
3. A Channel 9 TV ad was  crucified, albeit in a blatant case of plagiarism. Was the criticism justified? Perhaps. But the self indulgent snark… Perhaps not!

So what are we to do with the dreaded snarcissist? Well one thing’s for sure… he certainly ain’t going away any time soon. Indeed, the curse of the snarcissist goes back as far as 2006, when rumblings of his unsociable behaviour first began to emerge. Four years on and he’s just as prevalent as ever, if not more so with the rise and rise of Mumbrella. So I’m afraid we’re just going to have to learn to live with the little bugger. Ho hum!

With that in mind, here are a few practical tips for living in a world with our snarcissistic friends:

• Don’t feed the troll! Wherever possible, avoid entering into debate with the bastard, regardless of the stupidity of his opinion. He feeds off conflict and craves the reaction. Employ the Simpsons mantra – “Just don’t look“.
• If you absolutely can’t ignore the snarcissist (ie. they’re attacking your campaign), challenge them to submit their own campaign/message for consideration. Independent thought ain’t their forte, so a challenge like this is likely to send him running!
• And if all else fails… build a bridge! Trolls love em, and it’ll help you get over it!

It’s been a long time since my last post. As many of you would know, that’s because I’ve been busy tying the knot with my beautiful wife (as per my last post). So what better way to reacquaint myself  than with a rant against the very industry that has utterly consumed my life for the past 6 months. Let’s get straight to the punch – the wedding industry is evil. Pure evil! Profiteering off love and raw emotion is almost as despicable as profiteering off war/death. In my journey, I dealt with two types of operators – short-term profiteers (the overwhelming majority) and event partners. And there’s a clear marketing lesson in this story about how an overemphasis on short-term gains can cost a business in the longer-term. Let’s take a look at how the two types of  parties operated…

Short term profiteers

As the name suggests, short term profiteers are all about the cash baby! Or more to the point, extracting the absolute maximum number of dollars out of the transaction. A broad range of tactics and tricks are employed by the profiteers in an attempt to increase the total volume of dollars from you:

• Emotional bribery: This tactic was used on my wife numerous times and really pissed me off. After expressing pricing concerns, she’d often be told that money should never be a barrier for a wedding. Easy to say when you’re not paying for it… One prospective dress supplier even told her to ignore the budget she was working towards and just get what she wanted. “Don’t worry about what your husband says; it’s your day after all”. Funny… I thought marriage was supposed to represent a union. Needless to say she was quickly removed from the supplier list.
• Bait and switch: One of the oldest and most devious tricks in the book. Various suppliers roped us in with promises of free services (such as alterations or delivery), only to conveniently forget about those verbal agreements when it came time to settle the bill. Often for the sake of little more than a hundred dollars. Tell me… is it really worth pissing your customer off in the most royals of manners for the sake of a hundred bucks?
• Failure to provide any additional service: Our boutique hotelier was well aware that we were staying at their venue as part of our wedding celebration. Yet despite the fact that we were spending well in excess of $250 per night, they refused us permission to take photos in their picturesque lobby area, as we had not utilised their wedding facilities. Nor would they honour a specific request to scatter rose petals on the bed. Way to ruin the romance!

In summary, short-term profiteers are pricks.

Event partners

To blatantly discard all wedding suppliers as dishonest would be a disservice to the rare diamonds in the rough we found (such as our wedding caterer or wedding band), who understood that premium pricing should in fact be accompanied by premium service. These were the providers who at least gave the impression that they actually cared about our wedding, rather than simply fattening their wallet.  They followed a few simple principles of good business:

• Being responsive to our enquiries and communicating effectively
• Honouring minor requests without attempting to jack up the price
• Being open about their pricing structure
• Customising and personalising their service where necessary
• Understanding that good service is good marketing!

So who wins in the end?

Sure… the short-term profiteer might have got an extra $100 out of me via their bait and switch tactics. But they are the real losers in the end. I was amongst the first in my friendship circle to tie the knot. I have five close friends getting married in the next 9 months. Guess what they’re doing now…? Planning their wedding. And who do you think they’re turning to for advice and referrals. Me.

Naturally, I’m more than happy to give them a list of suppliers who I insist they avoid. At all costs! Conversely, I have have been a passionate advocate for those few businesses who treated us well. For our caterer, that has already translated into a new customer to the tune of $20,000. And guess how we found out about our caterer… via a referral.

So congratulations Mr short-term profiteer. You weasled a few extra dollars out of me. But you’ve cost yourself thousands of dollars in new business. And whilst I haven’t named and shamed you, others will in the future via social media. You’re living on borrowed time buddy.

Power to the people!

You may have noticed it’s been a little quiet around here lately… or you may not have. Anywhoo… there has been a reason for the lack of activity, and a good one at that. You see, it’s just over three weeks until I tie the knot with my bride-to-be. And as anyone who has ever organised a wedding before would know, it’s a hell of a ball-breaker! Hence, I’ve had more important things to do than muse over than the nuances of the digital marketing world (for now). And that’s likely to be the case for the next 3-4 weeks. So, in the anticipation of an extended absence, why not help me celebrate this momentous occasion by raising a virtual glass to the happy couple…

It’s official. Chatroulette is the hottest thang on the web right now! The buzz machine has rapidly filtered through to the mainstream media, who seem to have found a (temporary?) alternative to the Twitter hype. comScore data tells us Chatroulette’s user base increased 900% to almost a million US users in February. Whoa! And as we all know, where people go, marketers follow. We’ve already seen brands such as FCUK & Sunny Queen Eggs enter the fray. To which I say… ho hum! Just because a service achieves instant popularity, doesn’t mean that marketers should jump in blindly. In fact, I can think of a bunch of reasons why marketers should stay the hell away from Chatroulette…

1. Chatroulette is seedy

Really seedy! If there’s one warning that continues to emerge from people trialling Chatroulette, it’s to prepare yourself for what you’re going to see… cocks. And a lot of them. Informal research revealed a 14% skew towards perverts and masturbators. Anecdotally, some claim it is much higher. Regardless, it’s an environment few brands would want to be associated with. In fact, the only industry that should be gravitating towards Chatroulette right now is XXX. Stick a pornstar in front of the webcam and watch the perverts flock to their webcams…!

2. Chatroulette is random

By nature, Chatroulette is random. Completely random. Which is of course the novelty of the whole thing – connect with a complete stranger and see what happens. Which is exactly what makes it a disaster for marketers. The point of any marketing campaign is to connect and communicate with a defined audience. Yet the random factor makes it impossible to achieve that simple goal. Businesses can’t select who they communicate with. And more importantly, customers can’t connect with brands if they want to (I’m highly doubtful they would want to in this environment anyway). So what are we left with? A brand searching randomly/aimlessly for people to speak to. Sounds kinda like advertising to me…

3. Chatroulette is private

Unlike Twitter, Chatroulette is a private environment. Chat sessions are a one-to-one experience, as opposed to the one-to-many format that Twitter and Facebook embrace. This is a significant difference. Brands can’t (and shouldn’t) penetrate private communication channels. You don’t see brands trying to invade private conversations on traditional instant messaging services such as MSN or Yahoo Messenger. Nor do we attempt to infiltrate private telephone conversations (although we do try to create new ones via telemarketing). So why should Chatroulette be any different?

4. Chatroulette fails to offer any tangible benefit

As far as I’m concerned, there is next to no benefit for brands participating on Chatroulette. We already know it’s untargeted. Furthermore, it’s lacks a registration process. The implication for brands is the absence of a branded profile, such as you might see in Twitter or Facebook. So we have no profile (and therefore no crawlable links), no history & no ability to generate real web traffic. Just random interactions with strangers. Heck… even if you do create a positive experience, there’s still no word-of-mouth benefit because the interaction is private. The sharing element that makes other social environments so appealing to marketers is absent as well. All we’re left with is that fuzzy fallback position that display advertisers love - branding… ewww!

Getting past the ‘shiny new toy’ syndrome

Chatroulette is hot. But so what… Just because something achieves fad status, doesn’t necessarily make it an effective marketing tool/channel. Being the first to implement a campaign on a new service is not a marketing goal. Nor is making your agency look “cool”… at least not for your clients (who are the one paying the bills after all). The rush of brands towards Chatroulette was entirely predictable, yet ill-advised in my opinion. Yes… marketing on the web will always entail an element of innovation and experimentation. But that doesn’t mean innovation for the sake of it. If you can’t see a tangible goal at the end of it, what exactly are you trying to achieve…?

So last week AIMIA (Australia’s leading digital industry body) announced the finalists for their 16th awards, perceived by many as the most illustrious in the industry. I’ve always considered industry awards to be a bit of a wank, proving only what a narcissistic bunch we marketers truly are. But nevertheless, I was keen to head on over there to view the work judged to be the best our country had to offer. And my initial reaction? Disappointment. Not in the quality of work selected, as much of it is excellent at face value. But therein also lies the problem. Face value. It seems as if it’s all we’re judging upon here. Flashturbation was a word that quickly came to mind when viewing some of the nominees. Which left me wondering… why aren’t our premier awards based upon actual results rather than creative execution? This is not advertising. Digital is THE accountable medium right? So shouldn’t we practice what we preach and reward work based upon real tangible outcomes…?

If you walked into any digital marketing pitch today, I’d bet that 10 out of 10 would emphasise accountability as a core theme (if not the primary theme). It’s the ace in our sleeve and what we’ve built our industry upon. Heck, I’ve seen John Butterworth (CEO of AIMIA) speak on a number of occasions and accountability has been has been a strong theme within AIMIA’s own propaganda.

So if we as an industry sell ourself based upon accountability, why is it that we mimic the traditional advertising awards structure by rewarding creativity over real results? Only one of the 25 AIMIA awards places any real emphasis on the actual outcome (The Effectiveness Award). The remainder are judged on a set of criteria heavily weighted towards elements such as design, visual impact and technical expertise.

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?!? Shouldn’t we have one creative award, with the remainder based upon tangible results?

Don’t get me wrong. Amongst the nominees there are some wonderfully creative sites that utilise digital technologies to deliver a key message. A few of my favourites are:

• ABC Black Saturday site: The ABC produced a stunning micro site to commemorate the Black Saturday bushfires. A mixture of photo, audio, video and map content is used highly effectively to retell over 200 chilling stories. It’s almost impossible not to become immersed in this site.
• FBI Radio’s Ask Richard campaign: Like Tourism Qld’s ‘Best Job’ campaign, this beautifully cheeky stunt is probably closer to PR than digital. But nevertheless, it shows how extraordinary things can be achieved with the most basic of digital tools (thereby making a mockery of AIMIA’s criteria relating to design, visuals & technical innovation).
• Greenpeace’s Action-Pact campaign: Follows a strong tradition of Australian not-for-profits using digital channels successfully to create awareness and support for a specific cause.

What I like best about these campaigns is that they utilise the digital channel to enhance a strong message. They don’t introduce interactive elements for the sake of “creativity/user engagement”. They use appropriate technologies for their message, and nothing more.

Conversely, there are clearly a number of AIMIA nominees who in my opinion are guilty of creativity for the sake of creativity:

• The Shapeshifter site: I couldn’t even figure out what to do here to begin with. I’m not sure how this could have passed through the usability criteria with core navigation hidden from users? It took me minutes to understand how to use this page.
• 26000 vodka: I was baffled by this site. Key messages were hard to find and I’m still struggling to understand the purpose of the questions users are asked to answer. Flashturbation.
• Tic Tac iPhone App: Quite possibly the most inane iPhone app ever. Its sole purpose is to allow you to “shake” a virtual packet of Tic Tacs. This seems to be taking advantage of the iPhone’s motion sensor purely for the sake of it. I can’t see what possible business objective this may fulfill.

Isn’t it time we grew up and moved beyond rewarding the “best” creative idea? We all know it doesn’t necessarily lead to the best outcome for the client. How many times have you laughed at a TV ad, yet failed to recall the product/brand? The same goes for the web. I was reading Capgemini’s Cars Online 09/10 Report just yesterday and it revealed dynamic graphics to be amongst the least important online features for consumers when buying a car. And that’s for the auto industry – one of the highest involvement industries on the planet, where product aesthetics contribute significantly to purchase decisions. If consumers don’t care about dynamic graphics and interactivity when browsing for auto information, are they really going to be impressed by them for other lower involvement products?

Advertising (presumably) rewards creativity because they can’t measure results. At least not accurately. But we can… as we’ve been telling anyone who will listen for over a decade. The way I see it, if you want the glory and prestige of industry awards in the digital arena, you should put your money where your mouth is and reveal the real results.

Until we do, I’m afraid that our industry is a walking contradiction.

Well… it’s that time of year again folks. No… not Christmas silly. I mean the end of the year. And that can only mean one thing. Predictions! Yup… it’s that time of year when everyone in the industry seems to get infected with some form of temporary insanity that makes them believe that they are the reincarnation of Nostradamus. Never one to be outdone, I’ve decided to join the fun this year and put together a list that I’m sure you’ll agree provides the most unbelievably accurate predictions for the web in 2010. So… without further adieu let’s take a look into that crystal ball of mine!

Internet censorship goes global baby!

The world may have laughed when Australia announced an innovative plan to censor the Internet, but they quickly realised that the joke was on them in 2010 when the results emerged. Within weeks of implementing the initiative the country was transformed into a modern day Eden. Crime disappeared almost instantly, as did impure thought. All foreign conflicts were resolved, with even the Jewish and Palestinian communities managing to resolve their differences. With Australia transformed into a veritable paradise, the rest of the world quickly followed suit and censored the web… except China. Unhappy to be suddenly aligned with the Western world, they gave the globe the middle finger and released the shackles.

Dial-up makes a comeback

With censorship proving to be such an outrageous success, the Australian Government moved into the second phase of Operation Purity. Having successfully conquered the number one societal problem (freedom of information) they swiftly moved to tackle problem number two – the speed with which information is accessed and shared. Plans for the National Broadband Network were shit-canned, and the country was rolled back to 56K dial up connections instead. Once again, the results were astounding. Frustrated with the speed of the web, most people gave up using the Internet completely and went to church instead.

Internet piracy disappears completely

The combination of excruciatingly slow Internet speeds and perfect moral ideologies facilitated the complete abolishment of Internet piracy. Record labels were restored to their rightful position as global power-brokers, yet decided to actually pay their artists second time around (that’s what happens in a perfect society!). The local video store also enjoyed a revival, with Seventh Heaven and Full House becoming the most in-demand titles on the shelf (although the subsequent slutty decay of Jessica Biel and the Olson twins remained a sore point for society).

The collapse of the porn industry

With impure thought now a relic of the past, the porn industry suffered the same fate as Internet piracy. Pornstars were publicly executed for besmirching the moral fabric of the male species. Adultery became a concept of pure fiction. Teenagers refrained from indulging their hormonal urges. Virginity was saved for marriage once again. Priests even stopped molesting altar boys. All was good in the world.

The Thought Police become a reality

Enthused by the sudden emergence of an Orwellian-like society, the Australian government took aim at their final (and most formidable) enemy – independent thought! Fred Nile was appointed to the leadership position of the Thought Police. Web cams were replaced by telescreens in every computer to allow constant surveillance of web browsing behaviour. Perpetrators of  thought crime, including renegade bloggers, political activists and freedom fighters were swept away to the Ministry of Purity for “rehabilitation”.

Predict This!

In case you can’t tell (and I’m a little worried if that’s the case), this post is a complete piss-take. And there’s a reason for that… because predicting the next big thing on the web is a pointless exercise. The next big thing on the web hasn’t even been created yet. Twitter was a pretty simple concept – instant messaging goes public. Yet I don’t remember anyone predicting the imminent explosion in 2005. Or Facebook. Or Wikipedia…

Sure… everyone’s predicting the rise and rise of mobile marketing in 2010, primarily based on the success of Foursquare. But I’m pretty sure if you review the predictions of web marketers from 2002-2009 you’d find  ” the realisation of mobile marketing potential” on pretty much every list. So well done… we may finally be right on that one. Which is proof that if you predict anything for long enough, it’ll probably come true in the end.

So my message to everyone is simple. Stop with the predictions! The web is in a constant state of innovation and evolution. You don’t know what’s going happen next and nor do I…

And it’s ok to admit it.

Banner advertising sucks! That’s been my view ever since I got into the online marketing world. Indeed, I frequently tease anyone who works with banners on just how ineffective their weapon of choice is. And I’m rarely proven wrong. As a web strategist, I advise clients on how to leverage each web channel (search, email, social etc). And my recommendations are typically very similar. Search and email are consistently towards the top of the priority list. Social media usually sits somewhere in the middle (despite the fact that I write about it frequently). And almost without fail, banner advertising comes in dead last. User discretion advised…! Yet last week I was given a stark reminder that under the right circumstances, banner advertising can in fact kick ass! Indeed, last week I executed a banner campaign that was so successful, it wiped the floor with search. Yes… and a pig almost flew as well…!

Facebook marketing for the WIN!

If the thought of a banner campaign outperforming search is enough to shock a seasoned online marketer, the fact it was a Facebook campaign would truly knock their socks off.

If you were to do any sort of independent research on Facebook advertising, it’s unlikely to make for pretty reading. Tales of abominable click through and conversion rates are the norm. And I must admit that I’ve always been a skeptic. After all, social networks aren’t search engines. People aren’t in research mode. They’re there to socialise. So why would they click on an ad…?

Despite this, my research led me to the conclusion that Facebook was a fertile ground for the client. Their customers were there. We knew that. Competitors had already established successful fan pages. And there were tens of thousands of people with brand related keywords in their profiles to target. It wasn’t rocket science! There was a real opportunity there.

So we took the plunge…

And boy did it pay off!

The campaign results

Within hours of implementing the campaign we knew we had a winner. The community was growing considerably by the hour. Within a week we had connected with over a thousand new “fans” via Facebook at a cost of around $0.30 per person. Furthermore, the new fans weren’t simply joining the page, never to return. They were contributing wall posts, uploading photos and commenting on each other’s photos. Within a week, the community had generated over 100 photo uploads and almost 200 comments on those photos. The audience was engaged. The campaign was a runaway success.

People often question the true business value of a Facebook “fan”. The truth is that those people don’t understand the potential of Facebook as a communications platform. To me, acquiring a Facebook fan is much like acquiring a customer email address (few marketers will question the value of email acquisition). In both cases, customers are opting-in to receive communications from the brand.

While being careful not to abuse that privilege, the organisation can now communicate freely with that audience. Obtaining a Facebook “fan” shouldn’t be viewed as a goal itself. Rather, it is simply the start of a relationship. It is what is achieved via the ongoing communications that drives the real business value. Web traffic, new product awareness, customer advocacy/retention and real-time customer feedback are just some of the marketing goals that can be achieved via those communications.

In our case, even after just a week of establishing the page, we are beginning to see tangible business benefits being derived via Facebook communications.

Proof that banner advertising doesn’t suck?

Well… no. Not quite. In this specific campaign we were the beneficiaries of operating in an extremely high involvement industry (definitely within the top 3-5 purchases a consumer makes in their life). Customers have a true passion for the product and many are active advocates. This was a huge factor in the success of the campaign. The fruit was ripe for the picking.

In another low involvement industry the campaign could easily have tanked. So the point of the article isn’t to pump up Facebook or banner advertising. Instead, the key message is to understand your audience first before determining which marketing channels to employ. Don’t rule out a particular technique based upon previous experiences in another industry…

Rather, determine who your audience is, what they want, where they hang out & how they behave. Once you understand this, you’ll have a far better idea of how and where to hit them with a message that will resonate.

Who knows… it might even be a banner…

The current Toyota social media “pitch off” has created debate far and wide across the Interwebs (background here). It has even attracted the attention of leading global industry analyst Jeremiah Owyang. In many ways, the topic  has become a philosophical debate on “proper” corporate social media implementation. In one corner we have the purists (with Laurel leading the charge), who advocate ongoing community engagement and participation. In the other corner we have pragmatic marketers, who need to turn client interest into agency revenue in a practical manner – aka campaigns. While more of a purist myself, I also need to approach the issue pragmatically as an agency employee. And at the end of the day, different approaches will suit different businesses. So you’d expect to see a split between both styles of social media engagement in the market. Except that we don’t. Within Australia at least, there seem to be a clear skew towards the campaign approach. Recent work by Warner, V Australia, Tooheys, Nissan & Levis is testament to that. And while many of these campaigns are neat executions, you have to wonder about the long-term value they deliver the client. Why aren’t we seeing more case studies based upon ongoing community engagement, like Holden? And more to the point… who is it that’s actually pushing the campaign agenda… the client or the agency…?

Before I enter the debate I should clarify that I do believe that the social media campaign has a place. The campaign is a viable approach in a range of different situations such as:

• When the brand is weak
• When a new product is being launched and needs to generate buzz
• When the product has a limited life cycle or a time dependency
• When the product is low involvement and natural engagement is unlikely

Interestingly, the Toyota case study meets none of these scenarios. In fact, it’s almost the polar opposite. So why was the campaign approach favoured? It’s hard to say. Especially when Toyota is already dedicated to the ongoing management of an impressive Facebook community (aka the purist approach).

In this particular case, Toyota was clearly pushing the agenda (no agency would volunteer a 5 way pitch). But agencies can be just as guilty of a campaign bias. Let’s take a look at the motivations both parties have for a campaign style implementation…

The Agency

Social media presents an interesting monetisation quandary for agencies. Indeed, I’ve been working through how to build a viable revenue model within our own agency. From an agency perspective, there is no question about which approach is easier to manage and monetise. The campaign approach. A campaign style implementation allows the agency to apply their established skill set in a conventional manner:

• Generate a creative/big idea in order to generate eyeballs
• Produce assets to support the campaign theme (micro site, Facebook app, display advertisements etc)
• Market that campaign in order to drive awareness and eyeballs (display advertising, search, mobile etc)
• Measure results (hopefully)
• Walk away

Conversely, the purist approach is far more difficult for an agency to monetise (although it’s still very much possible). It relies on a consultative approach rather than a technical one. Ironically, it is the simplicity of the purist approach that creates the difficulty. Rather than big ideas it relies simply on engaging with customers regularly and creating positive brand experiences. It entails monitoring of social environments, rather than the production of them. It entails speaking with customers rather than at them. And it requires an ongoing commitment of dedicated resourcing.

In short, it’s almost completely opposite to how agencies currently make money. So I guess you could say there’s a pretty clear bias in place…

The client

While the agency is motivated by cash and convenience, most clients are motivated simply by comfort. Social media is new. It’s different. It’s scary (iSnack 2.0 anyone…?). Few clients that I have met are willing to make the quantam leap from ground zero into a full-blown social media engagement. Indeed, conservatism is the dominant sentiment towards social media within many Australian businesses, aside from the not-for-profit sector.

Those businesses brave enough to enter the social web typically look for a way to test the waters, which is understandable. Thus, the campaign approach presents the perfect comfort zone for them. Indeed, many client briefs will instruct agencies to present a campaign style solution. The campaign becomes an experiment likely to determine future adoption of social media on a larger scale. Which tends to suit the agency just fine…

Chicken and egg scenario?

At the end of the day, the question of who should shoulder the blame is probably a classic chicken and egg scenario. There are valid arguments for each side of the story. In reality, it’s likely that both sides are contributing to the outcome.

My hope is that the agencies are simply using campaigns as a gateway to lead clients into more expansive long-term projects. I know that’s been my strategy when pitching for campaign based projects. Because while a campaign might create temporary buzz, it’s unlikely to contribute to real long-term business benefits such as customer advocacy or customer retention (which the purist approach certainly can achieve).

What do you think? Are agencies in it just for the short-term buck? Or do they really have a longer-term plan in mind for the client…?

The words “social media expert/guru/strategist” are practically insults these days. And you’d have to say with fairly good reason. The web is awash with “social media experts” making bold claims of how it will change  business  and marketing as we know it. And to a certain extent they’re right. It has made businesses more accountable for their actions. It has changed the way people make purchase decisions (ratings & reviews). And it has opened a new range of corporate communication channels. But… like any marketing channel it has its strengths and weaknesses. And it seems that amongst the hype, the weaknesses are often glossed over. This post aims address some of those shortcomings via a real life case study.

The inspiration for the post came to me as I read one of the most interesting articles I’d seen for a while. It was by Julian Cole and it analysed a social media campaign that didn’t meet the defined objectives. Imagine that! It’s exactly the type of post you never see from the self-proclaimed “social media experts”. They’re generally more busy talking in these terms (hilarious vid, but comes with a language warning):

So kudos must go to Julian for having the courage to publish his case study. And following in the spirit of honest and open analysis of social media campaigns, I’m bringing my own to the table which also fell short of fulfilling some of the campaign objectives.

The Case Study – Social Media Master Class

Back in September I was involved with Social Media Master Class with US author David Meerman Scott, which was organised by the wonderful Jennifer Frahm. Next Digital (my employer) were the major sponsors of the conference, and as a result I took on the role of marketing the event. My first task in developing the marketing plan was to identify the target audience for the event. Two distinct audiences were identified:

1. Social media professionals and enthusiasts
2. Senior marketing and business managers looking to understand social media

The core objectives of the marketing plan were pretty straightforward:

1. Create awareness and interest in the event amongst the target audiences
2. Convert that interest into ticket sales

Given the vastly different media consumption habits of the two audiences, a marketing plan was devised for each:

The Marketing Plan for Social Media Enthusiasts

It didn’t take Einstein to determine that the ideal place to reach the social media professionals and enthusiasts was within social media itself, particularly given the subject matter of the conference. A range of different channels were established to reach this audience:

• An event blog was created to serve as the hub for all event information
• A Twitter account was also created and used in a number of ways to (a) link to relevant content, (b) disperse event info and (c) host event related promotions (book & ticket giveaways)
• An outreach campaign saw prominent industry bloggers sent a copy of David’s new book and invited to an ‘invitation only’ event to meet David
• A 20 minute podcast with David was created by Trevor Young (who managed PR for the event)
• A partnership with Sydney’s Social Media Club (SMCSYD) was established, which culminated in a speaking appearance for David at a SMCSYD event. A discount offer was also created for all SMCSYD members.
• A Facebook page was created, although rarely used

The Marketing Plan for Senior Managers

While social media was ideal for reaching enthusiasts, it was quickly recognised that it would be ineffective in penetrating the senior manager market. Subsequently, a more traditional (yet still primarily digital) marketing plan was devised:

• Display advertising space was co-ordinated throughout Marketing Mag’s web site (an event sponsor)
• Promotional banners were purchased within the email newsletters of key industry publications including Marketing Mag, Mumbrella, Anthill and B&T
• A search marketing campaign was implemented to target people searching for keywords related to social media
• Display advertisements were placed within Google’s content network
• Dedicated email campaigns were executed to a range of marketing and public relations industry bodies

The Results

If you had told me the numbers we would achieve at the start of the campaign, I would have expected the event to be a resounding success. At the height of the marketing activity, the blog was receiving between 100-150 unique visitors a day, which is considerable for a niche event. The Twitter account also gained traction quickly with over 600 followers generated in around 6 weeks. Indeed, by the end of the campaign, Twitter had sent more traffic to the event blog than any paid media source. Cool. So far, so good.

But… did that hive of activity help us achieve our objective…? Did it actually sell any tickets?

Yes. But not a whole lot. In fact, the Sydney event had to be cancelled due to a lack of demand. Of course, there were a range of external factors that influenced our ability to convert awareness into sales:

• Awareness of David’s work isn’t as high in Australia as it is internationally
• At around $900 a pop, the tickets weren’t exactly cheap and that pesky Global Financial Crisis didn’t help
• A limited marketing budget restricted our paid marketing options

The fact that we were still able to host a full Melbourne event was evidence that we did something right (and the feedback from all attendees was resoundingly positive).  Indeed, a competing event hosted by Marketing Now with speakers of the calibre of Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse & David Armano seemed to succumb to similar pressures, eventually giving their tickets away for free. So the campaign certainly achieved an element of success in a difficult environment.

But the exercise made it abundantly clear to me that social media’s strength is not in direct response (a belief I’ve stated a number of times on this blog). Some companies such as Dell have made it work for their business, yet most organisations that approach social media with an advertising or promotional approach walk away disappointed. Social media is not an advertising tool. It is a communications tool. It is best suited to objectives related to customer awareness, customer engagement and customer retention, rather than pure acquisition/conversion.

The star performer of the marketing campaign was email. Yes… good old-fashioned email (although I should clarify that dedicated emails outperformed paid banners in third party newsletters by a significant margin). It was by far the most effective direct response channel. Despite the hype around sexy new mediums such as social media and augmented reality, it should never be forgotten that email consistently delivers a superior ROI than any other marketing channel. Time after time. Don’t forget it.

The biggest lesson of the campaign

In hindsight, the marketing plan had an overreliance on web marketing tactics. While effective in reaching the social media enthusiasts, it failed in delivering the message to our second audience of senior managers. Online activity alone (let alone just social activity) simply wasn’t enough to fulfill the marketing objectives. Proclaiming the death of rival media sources is a favourite hobby of many “social media gurus”. Yet all that proves is that the “guru” has never actually executed a serious marketing campaign.

Social media should now be a valid part of the marketing mix for many companies, but it compliments rather than replaces other elements (and it’s not necessary for everyone). A good social media approach aligns activity with objectives from a broader marketing strategy. Indeed, the social media strategy itself is simply a subsidiary of the marketing strategy. It will rarely succeed in isolation or without support from other media channels.

So in summary… there’s no question social media is emerging as an important marketing channel. But let’s not all get lost in the hype.