Marketing Mojo With Stephanie Fierman

I’m feeling a bit huffy about Advertising Age these days.

First it was the story on ad agencies that have their own bars and - woo-hoo! - staffers who drink on the job. Now, I know that this is all just good bonding fun: 99.99% of folks aren’t getting drunk on the job. I just thought the piece was a little insensitive (and not too reader-friendly) given that the rest of the issue was focused on layoffs, ad cutbacks and clients bleeding to death.

Now comes what I would call the “Call Me Irresponsible” issue (August 4, 2008).

1. A sidebar about the TV show Mad Men discusses the big sales of Frank O’Hara poetry after Don Draper reads O’Hara’s poetry on the show. The article’s title: “TV Can Boost Book Sales, Too.” Didn’t Oprah prove that… years ago? And, like, over and over? Hmmm.

2. On a Law & Order episode I saw last weekend, a witness testifies that violent television programming makes juvenile delinquents delinquent. Sam Waterston then proceeds to eat said witness for lunch by quizzing the guy about the difference between “cause” and “correlation.” Now comes the inadvertently humorous, self-involved AdAge article, “Ad Cutbacks Backfired For Bankruptcy Victims.” [Even though your product is lousy, and you expanded too fast, and your customer base dried up… you’d have been fine if you’d only kept advertising!]  The article does admit that perhaps there are other factors that make companies go belly up, but when push comes to shove…  See Wikipedia on this topic.  

3. Finally, an article titled “How The Economy Is - And Isn’t - Affecting Our Lives” tries to take a sort of tongue-in-cheek view on how the recession is changing consumer behavior. We’re buying (cheap) coffee at McDonald’s instead of Starbucks. We’re “ordering from the dollar menu” instead of choosing Big Macs.” We’re “knitting ponchos” instead of “buying back-to-school clothes.” OK.  Not brilliant, not offering me any insights for my subscription dollar, but fine. Then I got to a claim regarding our reading habits: We are “reading Stephanie Meyer,” but not “reading Maureen Dowd.” The writer’s evidence for the latter is The New York Times’ declining profitability. 

Oh… Trying.  To.  Move.  On.  Can’t…  Drat.

(a) Nearly every newspaper is losing money at this point because offline readership is declining, (b) Maureen Dowd has written two books that have done pretty well, and (c) Dowd’s columns are quite popular online where - unlike the paper - they can be read for free. So what the heck does the Times‘ profitability, in this particular case, have to do with Maureen Dowd? Nothing.  The article does, however, include a picture of Maureen Dowd, so maybe they just thought that that would attract attention. And while I’m on a roll, the author’s supporting evidence for the idea that we’re knitting ponchos is Martha Stewart Living’s increase in 2Q08 sales while consumers are cutting back on back-to-school clothes.  Help me.

If AdAge was known and purchased for its satire, this wouldn’t annoy me. And you may conclude that I’m making a big hoo-ha over nothing.  But you know what? I really look forward to getting something out of AdAge every week.  I give Crain Communications my time and my money, and this stuff isn’t worth either.  It’s just dumb.  A revered trade journal owes its readers more.
Advertising AgeAdAge

I look forward to and enjoy Rob Walker’s Consumed column in every Sunday’s The New York Times Magazine.  Recent topics have included Pirate’s Booty, Safeway’s push into store-brand organics and the magic of the Flip video recorder. 

I have found the columns to be interesting, insightful and well-considered.

So I am bewildered by Mr. Walker’s new acclaimed book.  In Buying In, Walker pulls back the proverbial curtain to reveal that there is a “secret dialogue between what we buy and who we are” because, although consumers will almost always claim they make purchases based on rational factors such as price, convenience and quality (here comes the secret), it’s not true.

He refers to a Roper Study in which only one fifth of responders claim that branding is a factor in what they buy, and then he debunks it.  He says that there is a “knee-jerk bias against logos” and uses the word “concede” to describe the emotion we would all presumably feel if we had to admit that brands, images, logos and symbols matter.  The Washington Post’s review of the book says “Walker… makes a startling claim: Far from being immune to advertising, as many people think, American consumers are increasingly active participants in the marketing process.”

And in another Buying In review, Po Bronson offers that Walker “obliterates our old paradigm of companies (the bad guys) corrupting our children (the innocents) via commercials. In this new world, media-literate young people freely and willingly co-opt the brands, with most companies being clueless bystanders desperate to keep up.”

Who said that consumers were immune to advertising, and what kind of huge revelation is it that brands and marketing matter?  Where is the explanation that you can make research say just about anything (take my word for it)?  Why the implication that consumers who pay attention to advertising are fools and suckers, and that advertisers are “desperate?”

In my experience, consumers readily admit that brands can represent something that transcends the actual products their companies manufacture.  Nike (with the swoosh), Apple, American Apparel… Pick your favorite indulgence. Would Walker say that I had been duped into wanting $250 Gucci sunglasses because of how they make me feel?  Would he believe that the only way to buy sunglasses is to compare the polycarbonates and chemical coatings and that, if I’d only done so, I would have surely purchased $5 street sunglasses instead?  And on top of all this, I lose $250 pairs of sunglasses in taxis just like I lose $5 ones.  This last piece of irrationality would probably give Walker a fit, but OH! the Guccis are so much more fun.  So, non-news flash: I’m not an idiot.  People love brands.  We assign a meaning and importance to them with which most of us are comfortable, and certainly not ashamed as Mr. Walker envisions.

And with serious respect for Mr. Bronson, I suspect that companies/brands such as Sony, Mentos, Comcast (with a sleeping technician plastered all over the web, and Bob Garfield ”seeking ideas for the consumer jihad”) and AOL (with the multiple videos riffing on Vinny Ferrari’s experience) would think it old news that consumers are dissecting, adopting and co-opting brands any way they like.

Much of the consumer world is based on desire - on pleasure.  There is no disgrace here (overspending aside):  many if not most consumer franchises are built on brand, not feature differentiation, and everyone I know knows it. 

Magazine inserts have long been a fact of life.  The “interactive” ones most familiar to women typically deliver a scent (marketing perfume) or a tiny sample of lipstick, blush, foundation or cleanser.  Boooring.

Now we’re in a whole new world!

For me, the insert became noticeable again with Welch’s grape juice LICKABLE insert.  Have you seen this thing?  It’s crazy!  And clever.  I sat on my own couch and licked a magazine.  And it wasn’t even a picture of George Clooney this time!  Oops, sorry… How’d such an ingenious ad happen? It was sparked by a new CMO, of course.  With sales down, the team looked hard at everything from Welch’s age-old positioning focused on moms to its CPG-typical media mix of heavy TV and Sunday coupons. 

Sidebar: When looking for innovation, sometimes the biggest obstacle can be your own history.  I’ve been the “change agent” in many situations, and it can be very hard to motivate and inspire tenured employees.  Many sometimes feel that you’re disregarding a brand’s history: that you don’t appreciate that that history is precisely what’s gotten you your new job, etc.  It can be tough going.  One of the things I’ve noticed in the Welch’s case is that its new CMO was in fact a VP promoted into the job.  Let’s assume that he’d been there for awhile and that his promotion indicates that he is well liked and respected for his work.  This doesn’t guarantee success, but being on the “inside” can make a significant difference when delivering a message of change.  Fellow employees know for themselves that you truly understand and respect the brand’s history, challenges and realities.  This helped pave the way for this guy, Chris Heye, to succeed with a ”nothing is sacred” approach to an decades-old brand and (with a little help from Britney) win big.  Major kudos to him. 

To kick it all off, Chris challenged his team to create an ad that would stop people in their tracks.  JWT subsequently First Flavor, a company that created the first lickable ad using “Peel ‘n Taste” taste strips that dissolve in the mouth like a breath strip, and turned to print to reach Gen X.  People Magazine - with its huge circulation and experience handling odd materials - was the big choice.  The luck came with the Britney Spears cover that happened to grace the issue in which the ad first ran. 

Then viral success whipped the attention even higher with a flurry of news coverage from the Wall Street Journal, GMA, NPR and more.  Based on the brand’s own research, nearly 16 million consumers say they heard the Welch’s name in the month after the ad ran.  The company says those are big big numbers for them.

The most recent new innovation in inserts - also tipped into People - is the one for the upcoming movie, Mamma Mia!.  “Singing” greeting cards and inserts aren’t new, but this one let’s YOU record your voice, too (and suggests you try singing the Mamma Mia! song yourself.  Pass.).

This intriguing technology comes from Americhip, which claims to create “the most vibrant, spectacular, interactive Multisensory solutions experienced anywhere.”  Judging from my first experience with them, and their impressive website and client roster, they may just do that.  

So what do both these mini case studies have in common?  The answer is an ability to recognize and leverage the old - the true essence of the brand, what makes it special - but deliver it for new audiences in new ways.  Welch’s grape juice tastes great.  The calling card for Meryl Streep’s new movie is unquestionably the great ABBA song by the same name.  Neither team made the mistake of straying from these positives: they just refreshed the delivery.    Both are great examples of good judgment matched with a healthy restlessness to stay current and breakthrough in an exceedingly cluttered world.
welch’samerichipmamma miaabba

Without Snow Globe Innovations, Christmas Décor Will Be Flat

Adweek Not A Weekly Anymore

A New Ad Agency – Eager For Press – Blunders Fundamentally
There is a new agency in New York called Womankind that is promoting itself as a new idea: advertising created by women, for women. It’s not new, of course (paging Mary Lou Quinlan), but it’s getting its 15 minutes. And what does it do, to show that it is serious about “harness[ing] the power of female ad and marketing executives” to make difference? It chooses a man to be interviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

This made me want to slap my own forehead. Hard. There is nothing in the universe that would have kept me from putting a woman up for that interview. If all the female ad executives in the world were wiped out by some advertising plague, I’d have media-trained a homeless woman. Or used a female sock puppet. Or put a dress on a rock.

I would have to think twice about giving business to a shop who, in my opinion, just displayed such colossally poor (and easy to correct) judgment right out of the box! Not kidding.

Clinton Library To Get More Green

Sak’s Wealthy Clients Help It Buck The Trend
“The higher-end luxury price points have not seen a slowdown and we feel quite good about that consumer’s buying power at this point,” Saks Chief Executive Stephen Sadove said on Tuesday.

This is one of several interesting articles spawned by Saks’ prediction of increased sales in the 3Q and a prediction of better sales in 4Q06 vs. 4Q05. The key observation overall appears to be that the haves are getting more and the have-nots are slipping down, while the middle is getting squeezed.

High-end luxury retailers, targeting the truly affluent client (net worth of $1M-$10M) are still performing, as these are the customers immune to credit problems, housing woes and $3/gallon gas prices. But those in the middle who have been reaching up to “low end luxury” brands such as Coach for the last 5 years or so (consumers with annual incomes of $100,000 to $300,000) must now pull back and will shop at Wal-Mart instead – shopping closer to their needs than their wants.

TWO SPINS ON OUR CONVERSATION ABOUT ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT AND THE UNFETTERED NATURE OF THE WEB

Town Considers Criminalizing Online Harrassment After 13 Year Old Commits Suicide
A terrible, sad story about “Internet shaming” and the death of a 13 year old girl. Where are we going re. regulation on the Web? What responsibility, if any, do we believe that ISPs, social networks and other involved parties must take?

Bob Garfield’s Campaign Against Comcast Continues
“For people with anger issues, the internet is a cathartic godsend and/or lethal weapon.” “… all he needs to have, basically, is fingers and rage.”

Garfield’s ongoing campaign is funny to read, ha ha, and we all feel good about it when we agree with the attacker’s point of view. Then it happens to you personally, or your brand. What do we do?

bill clintonsaks fifth avenueinternet shamingcomcastmegan meier>

OK, this may be “inside baseball,” but it’s brilliant inside baseball.
 
Take a look at this funny little ad for Hank Music, a company just waiting to provide the music (with rights) for your next tv spot.

Anyone who’s ever been involved in creating a spot – or creating anything, probably – can identify with that moment, that moment, that - moment - when things GO TO *#!@.  Usually during an all-night edit session. Around 4:30am.    GAH!!!!  

Or, or, maybe it’s 1991, and you get a call from the printing plant because there’s a problem and it’s the weekend and you’re the most senior person they could find on the client side, but you don’t know what to do because you’re just a kid and we’re talking millions of dollars if you stop the press but if you don’t and the…  Oops.  Sorry.  I’m back now. 


There are so many great shots here – I think I’m voting the guy in the fetal position under the desk as my favorite. But it goes by so fast, I can’t identify him from this list of these venerable “actors.” Let me know if you can.

Sam Baerwald Head of Production, 72andSunny
Wayne Best Executive Creative Director, Taxi
Mike Byrne Creative Director, Anomaly
Izzy DeBellis Creative Director/Partner, Berlin Cameron NY
Ben Fruehauf Creative Director, Campbell Mithun/MN
William Gelner Group Creative Director, BBH
Liz Graves Freelance Agency Producer
Greg Hahn Creative Director, BBDO
Chan Hatcher Editor, Rock Paper Scissors
Eric Hirshberg Chief Creative Officer & President, Deutsch
Scott Kaplan Creative Director, BBDO
Jeff Kling Executive Creative Director/Partner, Euro
T.K. Knowle Executive Producer/Partner, Bob Industries
Paul Lavoie Co-Founder/Chief Creative Officer, Taxi
David Lubars Chief Creative Officer, BBDO
David Perry Director of Broadcast Production, Saatchi
Rob Reilly VP/Creative Director, Crispin Porter Bogusky
Ted Royer Executive Creative Director, Droga 5
Chuck Ryant Executive Producer/Partner, Bob Industries
Tom Sann Agency Producer, Campbell Mithun/NY
Eric Silver Executive Creative Director, BBDO
Damien Stevens Head of Production, Saatchi & Saatchi LA
Bruce Wellington Head of Broadcast Production, BBHanomaly and advertisingbbdosaatchiadvertising and music

Or perhaps we could call this post, “Stephanie Fierman Meets The Future” or “It’s Hard To Keep Up When You’re Over 40.”  Whatever. 

The upshot, I suspect, is to introduce my audience to Tara Hunt, otherwise known as Miss Rogue. Tara is pretty famous in the increasingly important Web 2.0 – I’d say even Web 3.0 – environment of building authentic customer relationships. Tara’s blog made her Canadian phone ring one day, which got her a job in San Francisco, which led her and her partner Chris Messina to start a company, Citizen Agency, which is now turning down clients.  Big clients.  Big Fortune 50 clients. 

Maybe they won’t turn down business forever, but Citizen Agency is currently focusing on smaller technology companies where Chris and Tara think they have the best chance of actually helping the client execute customer-centric strategies around product research, design, development and marketing.  If that’s not clear, Citizen Agency’s blog post of October 2 is from Chris, humorously relaying the explanation of Citizen Agency’s reason for being during a hot stone massage.   

Another post describes it thusly (see picture and text below.  For you marketers out there, I dare you to say that you haven’t been in the room when one of these conversations has taken place… See if you can guess which comment is the client’s and which might come from the agency):

“Your slow performance is the number one reason your customers are leaving.”
“But we can’t afford to buy new servers.”
“Your slow performance is the number one reason your customers are leaving.”

“The reason your developer network is dead is because you put too many limitations on your API usage.”
“But our investors want us to keep it secure and tight track of who is using it.”
“The reason your developer network is dead is because you put too many limitations on your API usage.”

“Your user experience is horrendous. Bloggers all over the web are talking about it.”
“Well, that is just not priority right now. We have to get the next release of features out.”
“Your user experience is horrendous. Bloggers all over the web are talking about it.”

Their point is, of course, that losing customers makes these other concerns superfluous.  But why don’t we listen? And if that’s too much homework for today, let’s just try to figure out how we can use social media and community to help.  I think part of the struggle is that a lot of folks are trying to understand social media and its impact on brands and marketers as a trend, or the new “thing.”  Like… I don’t know, say, six sigma:  for most of us, if we kept our mouths shut and waited it out, six sigma went the way of the time and motion study.   

But social media is not going the way of the slide rule, because it’s not a trend but really the creation of an entirely new communication stream between customers and companies.   Sure, Bebo, Facebook and the like will be old news some day, but companies having to adapt to a constant 24/7 two-way conversation with their customers – where those customer comments may be on display for all the world to see – is here to stay. 

As marketers, it’s our responsibility to make this a good thing for our brands, no matter how foreign it may be.  It’s our job to help our CEOs understand that loosening the reins is, well, mandatory.  It’s our job to define what the new party phrase “the consumer is in control” actually means in our own spheres of influence.  After meeting Tara Hunt today, I was not only tremendously impressed but also very relieved to know that there’s such great help out there. tara huntchris messinacitizen agencysocial capital

If you’re anything like me, you have set aside the strategic plan and final 2008 budget deliverables due to your boss next week to do something really important:  plan your Halloween costume! 

In Part 1 of this series on growing and promoting brands online - that is, not just company brands but also your own - I mentioned that I’ve begun to consult and help others do just that. 

Here is a (my first ever) podcast that I did with “Buzz Marketing For Technology” blogger Paul Dunay about the importance of managing one’s own reputation online - check it out.   And thank you, Paul, for getting this important message out to your readers.

I’ve also copied most of a press release that was published last week below (the full release can be found here).  

Stephanie Fierman to Advise DIGO Clients on “Brand Self-Defense in The Digital Age”

DiMassimoGoldstein (NYC) beefs up ‘online brand advocacy’ offering by retaining the veteran marketer.

According to Fierman, “Max Kalehoff of Nielsen BuzzMetrics had it just right when he said that this is the age of ‘defensive branding.’  There’s so much a business can do to protect and defend its brand and reputation online, but most marketers still have no idea how to do this — either proactively, or reactively in a crisis.  Well I have  learned the hard way, and I’m looking forward to making it a lot easier for DiMassimoGoldstein’s clients.”Fierman refers to her own brand wake-up call, when she discovered that the top Google search results for “Stephanie Fierman” were anonymous lies and derogatory innuendo.  After months of “taking the high road and ignoring it,” Fierman started looking for answers.  What she’s learned, she now shares with other marketers who are anxious to hear from her.

This week, in addition to advising her growing client list, Fierman addressed the CMO Club in New York on the topic of online reputation management.

About DiMassimoGoldstein (DIGO):
DiMassimoGoldstein is a leading creative brand-building agency that partners with “B.R.A.V.E.” Marketers to manage brands that emerge from the din of the marketplace and the limitations of their categories. B.R.A.V.E. Marketers manage to be Be Real and Visionary Everywhere. We have  built our unique model doing just that for brands such as Comcast, Progressive, Gateway, Crunch Fitness, JetBlue, Clarisonic, Citibank, Starwood, GoSMILE, and Pfizer, among others. Visit us at http://www.digobrands.com/.

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link. Stephanie Fierman https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=68343 

So, Gentle Reader… I’m asking:  what have you done to build your online brand today?anonymous blog postsprotected speechhow google works

For those of you who have not seen Tom Fishburne’s cartoons in Brandweek or elsewhere, they are darn funny. Yes, funny enough to be on this blog and NOT just because I have nothing blogworthy to say today!

So from time to time I’ll pick one that I think is, to quote Steven Colbert, the “truthiest.” And if you don’t want to wait for me, check Tom out on your own at skydeckcartoons.com and http://tomfishburne.typepad.com/ Happy Monday, everyone…

Technically, this blog is a “vlog,” since it incorporates video.  I read that in Wikipedia, so it must be true.

So while I write my next post, take a look at a priceless video about marketing.  This thing is so great, so funny, so utterly cringe-worthy BECAUSE IT’S TRUE. 

Or at least, it can be true.  Not when WE’RE in charge of course, but some of those OTHER marketers, well… you know…