Why SxSW is awesome from the moment you arrive

It’s not the weather, that’s for sure. It’s 40 degrees and pouring out today. There’s a line for umbrellas and people are paying exorbitant prices for rain jackets in hotel gift shops. Oh well.

I’ve been here a day and half so far, and have only started to make my schedule, but have already had incredible encounters with people I know and others I met for the first time.

It even started on the plane. I don’t think there was a single person on Jet Blue Flight 1263 who wasn’t headed to the nerd convention. In fact most of us knew each other.

I ran into Scotty Henderson and got an update on New Empire Builders, a collaborative venture to discover the start-ups, non-profits and companies making the world better.

I sat next to a young entrepreneur Scott Dubois, co-founder of Pidalia, a software company disguised as an ad agency because if you make stuff for marketers rather than for IT departments it plays a bigger role in a company’s strategy. Interesting to see all the ways that tech is infiltrating marketing and advertising.

In Austin I caught up with Musa Tariq, the global head of Burberry’s social media initiatives. We talked for a couple of hours about the need for better social metrics and an understanding of how to leverage likes and engagement in more effective ways. Burberry uses the new platforms as well as anyone and has mounds of data as you would expect. Further validation that the interest graph platforms are the future.

Over drinks I had the pleasure of meeting Edelman’s Managing Director of Europe, Middle East and Asia Marshall Manson. I got a crash course in how social media does and doesn’t work in different countries around the world.

And finally, this morning Conrad Lisco of Co:Collective invited me to join him for breakfast and a rapid fire discussion of new business models, the future of work, and the role technology will play.

I haven’t even been to a panel and I’m smarter than when I got here.  I know more about how to counsel brands and clients on mobile development. I have a more vivid understanding of where analytics has to focus if it’s to help social marketers make better decisions. I have further validation and also a better perspective as to how the interest graph can help brands segment their communities and emerge as trusted experts. And I have a new insights as to how social media differs from one country to the next.

And to think I only came for the parties.

Facebook can’t make your social ads more effective

Note the percentage of "talking about this" to "likes." Even Mashable's is a mere .03 percent.

Facebook’s new advertising strategy and the launch of brand timelines has received no shortage of attention. And deservedly so. The platform is about to reach a billion users and its upcoming IPO could be the largest initial offering ever. Which makes anything Facebook says or does big news.

But the timing of the new brand page announcement to coincide with the upcoming IPO is no coincidence. Obviously Facebook wants to position itself as more relevant than ever to the advertisers who will fuel its future growth.

This appears to be a smart move, as brands need some serious help on Facebook. Despite the fact that most brands have a huge Facebook presence and generate $3.7 billion in annual revenue for the social platform, the dirty little secret is that most people don’t visit brand pages and miss a full 84 percent, at least, of brand posts. Basic math quickly shows that only a tiny percentage of those who’ve acquiesced and granted their coveted like upon a brand pay any attention at all – half a percent of Ford likers pay attention, significantly fewer Old Spice clickers seem to care,  and not even a full one percent of Nike fans engage. Why even mega-passion brand Lady Gaga gets just .01 percent of her fans to listen. Likes as currency? Not yet.

The problem of course is that most brands use Facebook the wrong way. They come for the size of the audience more than the social behavior that users exhibit. Marketers show up with old tactics and techniques, posting messages and updates, rather than creating stories that merit attention and embrace the platform for its social qualities.

To its credit, Facebook has worked tirelessly to educate those willing to listen on how to be a social brand, rather than a brand that uses social media. But without much success.

Conversation strategy remains little understood by most brands

Consider some findings from recent research conducted by Mullen. We surveyed 160 CMOs and discovered that the number one metric for success remains likes. Only 34 percent of companies have even developed a conversation strategy. And by far the majority of content created by social media marketers consists of little more than product promotions and offers.

The thinking behind the Facebook changes is that it might get brands to do a better job at telling stories, creating the kind of content that works in the stream, and learning to earn attention engage more effectively, once and for all eschewing the tendency to broadcast content as Facebook were a TV channel.

The question is whether or not the changes alone will get brands to modify their behavior. Venture Beat reports that, “Facebook’s changes will do a lot to help marketers shift their thinking about social marketing. In particular, it will help them appreciate the power and the effectiveness of the user’s news feed.”

This will wean marketers from apps, forcing their landing page to be the new timeline. But it won’t guarantee that marketers learn to use the news feed effectively.

The only way that can happen is if advertisers stop thinking like advertisers and learn to think more like users themselves. Sharing stuff that’s useful, interesting and makes a contribution to the conversation. (Can you believe we still have to say stuff like that?)

Success will come from handing Facebook over to people who know how to engage in real time, who understand community, and who start their thinking with their users. Traditional media thinking – buying and audience – and creative – let’s make something shiny and clever – may become less effective.

My colleague Sean Corcoran offered some useful suggestions in a recent column.

My suggestions are similar with a few additional guidelines.

1. Learn to earn your way into the newsfeed by creating content that starts conversations or inspires participation.

2. It’s not always about a big, clever creative idea, but about the moment and real time conversation.

3. Master the analytics that will help guide you. Determine who among your community matters, learn what content is working, prioritize the results you want to see. Most importantly, think short term and long term.

4. Be present all the time.

5. Put the right people in place; you need a fast-acting, hybrid team comprised of digital strategy, content production, and community management.

6. Don’t assume that Facebook despite its size is always the answer. I personally believe that as the interest graph platforms (Pinterest, Springpad – where I also work – and others) take off and grow their user populations there will be additional platforms that work better for connecting with people who share your brand’s interests.

The bottom line is simple. Facebook can’t make your ads, or your story, more effective. You have to do that.

Facebook changes explained quite well.

The less money you have, the more creative you can be

My favorite slide from Daniel Stein's #BUSCD presentation

Daniel Stein, CEO of EVB, shared that thought last night with #BUSCD, the class I teach at Boston University. Arguable, certainly. But as Daniel put it, “Give an agency $200,000 and they will come up with endless creative ideas. Give them $20 million and you get a TV campaign. Give them $200 million and you get really big TV campaign with celebrities and Superbowl spots.”

His lesson, of course, was that creative teams should welcome smaller budgets. The tighter financial reins won’t restrict your creativity.  On the contrary, they’ll liberate it. Take away that extra zero and you won’t have to satisfy expected solutions and media buys.

Of course Daniel told his now famous story of EVB’s Elf Yourself. The casting call for a dancer went out over Craig’s List. A repainted wall in the office served as the green screen. And the entire production cost well under $30,000. That’s a pretty good price for one of the more popular brand icons of the last five years.

There’s no shortage of examples that demonstrate how a tiny budget can yield both big ideas and real results. A few memorable favorites (particularly because they were among the first demonstrations of new social platforms) include Poke’s Baker’s Tweet, CP&B’s Shocking Barack, Fallon London’s Tate Tracks, Mullen’s Will it Blend, and the Milwaukee burger joint AJ Bomber’s Swarm Badge event.

In every case the budget was the advertising equivalent of pocket change. In most cases TV would have been the wrong solution. And as a result, creators were forced to use digital and social media in ways that invited users to be part of the story.

I should give Daniel a shout out for another reason. He kindly took the Red-Eye from San Francisco to Boston specifically to speak to 25 students eager to hear and learn from the best. It’s a wonderful example of someone who has succeeded and prospered taking time to give something back and help the next generation of advertising thinkers and creators.

Thanks, Daniel. Twenty-five students, and one instructor, are all smarter for your visit.

Note:  Will share Daniel’s #BUSCD deck once we get it online.

Entertainment, utility and the interest graph are the solution to marketing challenges

E-Marketer worries that too many screens and distractions fragment our attention

I had an interesting interview yesterday with E-Marketer. They’re working on a project to explore the implications of too many screens and too little attention. It appears that consumers these days are flipping through digital pages on their iPad or fiddling with an app on their smartphone when they’re supposed to be paying attention to the TV commercials. What’s a marketer to do?

Interestingly the questions alone suggested that too many of us are still stuck in an old way of thinking and aren’t leaping quickly enough onto the newer platforms that call for engagement and collaboration rather than advertising.

The questions

“Should advertisers be trying to elevate a consumer’s attention level? Or should they instead accommodate themselves to current behavior and try to craft messages that will make a positive impression even if the consumer isn’t paying much attention?”

“Research has shown that many consumers check their e-mail during them commercial breaks of TV shows they’re watching. If they’re not looking at the TV screen but haven’t bothered to mute the sound while the commercial pod is on, does this mean that (for reaching this segment of the audience) the sound track is more important than the visual element of a commercial?”

“In the age of distraction, does consumption of ad content need to be more a lean-back activity (thus accommodating other simultaneous media usage) or can it be a more immersive, lean-forward activity?”

 A response

Such questions suggest that marketers are still in the business of buying attention. Fat chance. The idea of actually creating a more memorable soundtrack because someone’s looking down at their iPad instead of up at the screen in hopes of securing recall is ludicrous while the thought of making a positive impression on someone who isn’t paying attention strikes me as incomprehensible.

There are three things we can do, however. The first is simple. Be so damn interesting and entertaining that consumers not only welcome out content, they seek it out and pass it on. This is hard, but essential. The more choice a viewer has the better an ad has to be.

The second, of course, is to forget all about buying attention and focus entirely on adding value through utility. Years ago when we had no remote control to save us Charmin’ could force Mr. Whipple into our living room. Today, however, the brand has graduated to utility like Sit or Squat, an iPhone app that crowdsources the locations of clean, public restrooms. Clearly a better way to think about the second or third screen is to create content that considers context.

The third, and perhaps most promising approach is to go where we’re wanted. If a marketer is paying attention at all he or she knows that the newest trend in digital behavior is the interest graph – new platforms that encourage consumers to express their interests (Pinterest) and better yet their intentions (Springpad*) in ways that practically invite brands to connect, inspire and incent people who actually want their presence.

Granted the latter once again calls for marketers and advertisers to learn new tactics, master yet another form of conversation and figure out how to add value on a user’s term (hint: that requires more than simply posting your content on those platforms or adding a “spring me” or “pin me” button to your site) but who wouldn’t make the effort if there’s access to people who opt in. (I’ll be writing and speaking more about this over the next few months.)

As we’ve discussed lots of times, advertising in its traditional form won’t go away. At least not enirely. But thinking that we can meet the challenge of new behaviors and technologies by simply moving old tactics to new mediums is a sure way to accelerate its ineffectiveness.

*Note that in addition to my job as chief innovation officer at Mullen, I also work as CMO for Springpad, thanks in great part to Mullen’s willingness to let me experiment more and explore the startup world.

When did advertising get so small?

I’ve come around to agreeing that the best Super Bowl spot (above) only ran in Canada.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t run into anyone in the advertising or marketing business who wasn’t hugely disappointed with the commercials that ran last Sunday. It made all of advertising seem tired, old and in need of a serious makeover.

Even among the 25 students in the class I teach at Boston University, consensus seemed to be that all we got were recycled ideas (Honda), agencies struggling to extend past successes (VW, Chrysler), and sad attempts to replace humor with something more sophisticated (Bud Platinum).

Granted, it’s difficult to make great advertising of any kind. Add the pressure, money, judgment and expectations of the Super Bowl and the challenge is 10-fold. And today, with everyone having a microphone to express his opinion, in real time no less, it’s unlikely we could ever get consensus on what constitutes great.

At a Brand Bowl kickoff last Friday, held at the Boston Globe’s innovation lab, 60 people previewed half a dozen spots. They texted their reaction so we could quickly gauge a winner. Interestingly nearly all the spots split the audience. A slight majority disliked Ferris. A twinge more than half gave the VW dog the thumps up. But nothing stood out or made a lasting impression.

Granted come game day consumers and viewers pay attention to the spots. By adding their two cents, they elevate brand mentions and visibility across all of the social channels. And as Mullen’s Brand Bowl revealed, classic advertising humor still works at inspiring volumes of chatter. Doritos generated tens of thousands of tweets and M&Ms proved that a new female character can charm the pants off viewers.

But is that good enough?

There was a time when advertising helped define pop culture. “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” or “Take it all off,” or “Wassup,” or “When I grow up,” were ideas that started with an ad and then migrated outwards. Today, however, most great ideas begin somewhere else. Hollywood. Silicon Valley. The app store.

That should bother anyone who still works in this business and be a challenge to the next generation ready to enter it. Maybe it’s too late. The new frontier has moved well beyond message based marketing to engagement, utility and collaboration.  But it appears that good old advertising still has some role to play. And if it’s going to show up for a competition as fierce as the Super Bowl, it better start bringing its A-game.

Related posts:

All the spots: Ad Age

Non Brand Bowl analysis: Media Works

Charming to Smarmy: NY Times