Grounded In Reality

Earlier this week, several colleagues and I discussed the elements that make web widgets successful. Some of the basic factors mentioned were:

• Utility: first and foremost, does it perform a valuable function for the user?
• Enchantment: does it keep people engaged and coming back for more?
• Community: does it facilitate conversation?
• Usability: does it have an intuitive and user-friendly interface?
• Multi-platform: is it compatible across personal pages, social networks, blogs, and mobile devices?
• Share-ability: does it allow people to spread the word?

What else makes a widget successful? Self-expression seems to be at the core of most. Some of the most popular widgets, such as Where I’ve Been, Slide, and iLike, are all designed around personalized storytelling. Call them what you want: vanity widgets, ego badges, blog-bling. The fact is that people crave tools that help them project their personal storylines. For instance, the Project Playlist widget is something I customized with my favorite music and have synched to my Facebook profile. It’s high in utility because it lets me advertise my taste in tunes. For me, the appeal isn’t the functionality. It’s what it says about me.

When developing branded widgets, marketers should consider how to harness peoples’ desire for expression and individuality. Think about their promotional needs first before you think about your own.

I just returned from day 1 of Ad Age’s Digital Marketing Conference. The morning kicked-off with 2 great panels on the topic of branded entertainment and content creation. The majority of the conversation focused on how brands are increasingly building their own content platforms or aligning with media properties to develop branded experiences.

Key points about content included:

• Ownership: Ogilvy Entertainment’s Doug Scott made the point that “brands should own content rather than rent it.” His reasoning is that the Web gives brands a platform to create long-term engagement with consumers vs. the quick burst model of display ads and 30-second spots. Once display ads are gone, they are gone…whereas branded content lives online forever. I agree with his POV, but would add that marketers must be willing to experiment and fail. Brands turning into media properties overnight is no easy task (a la Bud.tv).

• Quality: Nothing new here, but the point was hammered home: creating exceptional content must remain the top priority. Relying on distribution and promotion will only make a campaign go so far. Frank Cooper, VP of Marketing for Pepsi, commented that “there’s a lot of roadkill out there” when it comes to online video (both professional and user-generated). He talked about the importance of finding the right producers, writers and actors who can create compelling, relevant content that’s built for web consumption and sharing.

  As my colleague Rachelle Spero always says, “comedy can’t be cooked up in a corporate conference room. If you want to be funny, hire a comedian.” Daman Wayans, founder of WayOut TV (“Living Color 2.0” as he calls it) echoed this POV during a panel titled “Talking Talent.” Wayans said the vast majority of UGC is actually LGC – or “loser-generated content.” His message to brands: work with the pros who know how to source, produce or filter content that’s going to resonate and be passed along in an exponential fashion.

• User Experience: several speakers stressed that the internet can’t just be another medium for repurposing TV content bits. The web enables community and dialogue, therefore storylines should involve consumers and be as participatory as possible.

I’m looking forward to Day 2, which has an awesome line up of speakers including NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, David Armano of Critical Mass, and Tom Nicholson, founder of interactive agency Icon Nicolson.

In the fall of 2003, a group of mostly-young Democrats became a part of American political history and legends of web folklore. They proved for the first time that web-based, user-driven media could create a political campaign. Through one of the first social networking websites, meetup.com, they rallied support for a little known governor from Vermont named Howard Dean.

They became known as the Deaniacs, and through the early stages of the 2004 US Presidential election, they proved that the web is not only a legitimate part of running a political campaign – they made it a necessity. They brought grassroots organizing, fundraising and blogging to the process. They used the web for engaging two way communication and creating online communities, and, in turn, made their candidate a contender.

And so when the countdown to the Danish national elections, which will be held November 13, began last month, my colleague Kristian Levring Madsen and I went on the lookout for the new “Danish” Deaniacs. We’ve spent time searching every corner of the .dk domain during this election for some sign of the next big thing in political communication on the web. The fact that political TV ads are prohibited here in Denmark, and that this is the first election since social networking exploded, and that this election is placed as a kind of opening act for the US Elections next year – all really fuelled our hopes.

(more…)

I had the opportunity to attend Nielsen Buzzmetrics’ Consumer-Generated Media Summit today in NYC. Pete Blackshaw kicked things off with a great discussion about how much the digital media landscape has evolved over the past year. Key points:

• Word of Mouth remains the most trusted source of influence for consumers who are making purchasing decisions.
• Search continues to have a huge impact on corporate reputation. Influential communities like Wikipedia are “credibility brokers” for companies.
• Consumer-generated video and audio is exploding, largely due to simple editing, publishing, and storage services. Nielsen refers to this as consumer-generated multimedia, or “CGM2.”
• Consumers are increasingly dictating how branded content lives (or dies) online. Nielsen calls this “Consumer Fortified Media.” Fancy term aside, it means that online marketing initiatives aren’t completed until consumers inject their POV via comments and other methods. In other words, consumers “finish the story” by evaluating and amplifying content that marketers produce (e.g. embracing, DIGGing, spoofing, protesting). This reinforces the fact that marketers no longer have complete control of their messages. The Web has created a flat playing field.
• The “wave of consumer emulation” has arrived. More than ever, brands are mirroring how consumers communicate and act. Look no further than the Presidential candidates who are using Web 2.0 to the max: Add the Fred08 widget to your page! Follow John Edwards on Twitter! Get text messages from Hillary! The takeaway: Brands are benefiting by communicating and acting just like consumers. The warning: Consumers spot imitation and exploitation instantly. Authentic messaging remains critical.

The Summit continued with a series of excellent breakout sessions covering healthcare buzz, media & entertainment, advertising & engagement, and defensive branding. There were great insights from attendees, although we’re prohibited from blogging the deets (Nielsen request).

More at Peter Kim’s blog.

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By: Andrew Foote
GCI Group - NY

Over the past week, Dell has been the topic of many conversations in the blogosphere, spurred by a Forrester Groundswell Award and BusinessWeek article discussing the company’s transformation from digital bystander to leader.  In reading these posts, I am incredibly proud of the GCI team that helped make this happen. (NOTE: Dell is a GCI client)

Below are a few highlights from the blogosphere:

• BusinessWeek: Dell Learns to Listen: Jeff Jarvis takes a guest columnist role to discuss his two-year relationship with Dell and an overview of Dell’s social media initiatives. The online version is complete with a 25-minute video of an interview with Michael Dell (also available on Jeff’s blog: BuzzMachine).   He also posted the un-edited version, which notes a very measurable impact of Dell’s programs:

“Thanks to this new relationship, the company learns about issues online before they do in the press or sometimes in-house. They are stanching the flow of bad buzz. By their measure, negative word of mouth in blogs has dropped from 49 to 22 percent. And my Dell Hell posts, which used to come up third on a Google search for the company, are now relegated to second-page search-engine Siberia. ‘That change in perception just doesn’t happen with a press release,’ Menchaca says.”

• Direct2Dell - Dell’s Blog: Lionel Manchaca did an interview with Jeff near the end of the day and posted the vlog that resulted on Direct2Dell.

• Forrester’s Groundswell blog also mentions Dell’s transformation when referencing the Forrester Groundswell Awards that were given out last week.

Company transformation. Dell.
We created this new category to capture the powerful changes happening across all functions at Dell. The Dell Customer Advocate program, which pursues fast resolution of support problems, decreased the negative share of online comments about Dell by 25%. Direct2Dell, Dell’s frank and informative blog, generates 3.5 million page views per month. Ideastorm, Dell’s innovation community, tallied 500,000 votes for over 7,000 ideas and generated a new product, Dell PC’s with Linux pre-installed. And Employee Storm, an internal idea community, has generated 2,700 ideas and seen visits from 22% of Dell’s employees.

• From Geoff Livingston at The Buzz Bin:

Relationships and RELATIONS are about being human — not God. Together as humans we experience life and grow together. Mistakes happen, and good PR can overcome this. Consider Dell’s incredible lesson in admitting wrongs, listening and changing. This week’s BusinessWeek story is a celebration of relations.

• Our own Paul Walker mentioned that he is “really proud of the people and programs mentioned in the article. Thanks, Dell, for letting us be a part of it.” 

On behalf of GCI, I want to give the entire team a big pat on the back! The consistent creativity and innovation in new media waters is something to be extremely proud of.

We’re wrapping up day two at Forrester’s Consumer Forum, and it’s just about time to head back to the airport. Unfortunately, I still haven’t seen much of the city, but it’s been a good two days. Sightseeing will have to wait until the next trip.

We heard another round of great speakers and panelists today. The highlights for me were Josh Bernoff, Vice President of Forrester Research; Christina Norman, President of MTV Networks; and Henry Jenkins, Co-Director of MIT Comparative Media Studies and author of the book Convergence Culture (a good read). A few highlights…

1) Josh Bernoff’s presentation was a nice bookend to Charlene Li’s presentation yesterday. He discussed business strategies to succeed in the groundswell, reinforcing the point that objectives, not technology, should drive your strategy. He described 5 ways to turn the groundswell to your advantage:

• Listening: learning from what your customers are saying
• Talking: two-way conversation, not just shouting
• Energizing: helping your best customers to recruit others
• Supporting: enabling your best customers to help each other
• Embracing: involving your customers in your product development

While the language is a little different, this is very similar to the World Class Digital Media approach we talk about at GCI (Listen, Influence, Engage, Community). Importantly, a good digital media program has to start with listening and knowing your audience. The technology piece comes last.

2) Christina Norman shared four truths MTV lives by:

• It’s not the medium, but the content that matters most.
• You need to build an emotional connection with your audience based on the foundation of that creative content they want to invest in.
• You need to give the audience the means to find each other.
• You have to let your audience help you shape your brand.

Christina shared many great examples of MTV communities and entertainment platforms, but I was really excited by a new one called Think MTV, which she described as the largest online activist community ever. The community unites passionate young people around a variety of issues ranging from discrimination and poverty to the environment, faith and human rights. It’s a social network that allows people to submit, rate, bookmark and share content on these issues; connect with people like them to mobilize action; and actually get rewarded for taking action. I was skeptical of the rewards piece at first, but MTV makes a good case for it here. They’re creating a badge system that puts the “reward back in rewarding” by offering not only recognition among peers, but a variety of cool prizes.

We work with several non-profit organizations, as well as cause-minded corporations, and this seems like a great place for them to get involved to engage and mobilize a Gen Y/Gen X audience.

3) Lastly, Henry Jenkins gave an entertaining presentation on convergence and participatory culture. He defines convergence as a cultural, rather than a technological process, and says “we now live in a world where every story, image, sound, idea, brand and relationship will play itself out across all possible media platforms.” Generally, this happens organically - within a passionate fan community - from the ground up. But if a company really listens and understands its audience, it can help enable this kind of “trans-media storytelling” from the top down.

Jenkins challenges companies to ask themselves: What communities are out there that feel a deep connection to your brand or products? And what are they doing now that may be hard to do, that you can make it easier for them to do? For example, if customers are finding your ads or creative content online and creating their own mash-ups, don’t resist this. Give them the assets they need to do more. In many cases, this means giving up some control, but the rewards in this participatory culture can be great to marketers who understand and embrace it.

Thanks to the Forrester team for a great conference. Off to the airport!

I’m here in Chicago for Forrester’s Consumer Forum 2007, where the theme of the two-day conference is “Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.” It’s my first time in Chicago, and I’m sad to say I’ve only seen the airport, hotel and one restaurant so far. But on the bright side, Forrester has a phenomenal line-up of speakers and topics like Charlene Li, VP and Principal Analyst for Forrester Research in the social computing space; Christie Hefner, Chairman and CEP of Playboy Enterprises; and Robbie Bach, President of the Entertainment & Devices Devision for Microsoft. And that’s just day one.

My head is spinning with ideas, but I wanted to share a few key insights from day one:

1) Word of the day: “groundswell.” A central theme of the conference, Forrrester defines groundswell as a “social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.” Check out the winners of Forrester’s Groundswell awards here for great examples of organizations using social media to achieve their business goals.

2) When developing a social media strategy, technology should be the last part of the equation. Charlene Li recommends a four-step approach that can be remembered as “POST,” which stands for People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology. Start by assessing the social technographic profile of your customers (see below). Then list your objectives. Next, determine a strategy for achieving those objectives. And lastly, identify the right technology. So next time a planning session begins with, “We need to be in MySpace” or “We want to blog,” take a step back and think hard about the audience first, their current behaviors and the relationship you wish to build with them.

3) Christie Hefner reminded us that while technology is evolving, basic human instincts - to meet someone, to be liked, to laugh - are eternal and universal. A good digital strategy should still tap into these instincts. She also commented that the term “brand” is overused, and I tend to agree. Not every product name is a brand; a brand represents a point of view, attitude and lifestyle that can move from one platform to another.

4) Manish Mehta from Dell (a GCI client) and Stan Joosten at Procter & Gamble teamed up for an interesting panel moderated by David Armano at Critical Mass. The topic: “Always in Beta: How Big Business Can Benefit from ‘Little’ Innovation.” The key messages: approach marketing as an R&D lab, experiment with new marketing techniques, don’t worry so much about ROI if it’s the right thing to do, and give employees permission to fail… as long as they learn something. This really resonated with me, as I frequently find myself having the “ROI of social media” discussion. The thing is - you don’t have to spend a lot of money to dip your toe in the water with social media, and small risks - or “incremental experiments,” as Stan would say - can truly transform a company.

More to come on day two…

An interesting new crowd-sourcing site appeared recently, still in Beta, of course, from The Nielsen Company and is (not-so-cleverly) called: Hey! Nielsen.   The site requires that you register to participate and share your opinion, but without registration, you can search through the results of other folks recommendations.  Feels to me like a mix of Digg, IdeaStorm (for Dell, a GCI client), and TV Guide.

There are a couple of things to look at on the site:

• Opinions
  In topics labeled TV, Movies, Music, Personalities, and Internet, members can post opinions about current shows, bands, songs, people, Web sites, etc.  Then the crowd gets to agree or disagree and add additional comments.
• Rankings
  “Each topic (TV show, Movie, etc.) earns a Hey! Nielsen Score, determined by user opinions, comments, and ratings. Calculated daily, the Hey! Nielsen Score also factors in internet buzz via BlogPulse.com.  There is currenlty about a 7-hour avg for updating statistics information.”
• Calendars
  Soon enough this will be the “TV Guide with opinions”…but it will have to launch first.
• Members
  Looking similar to other social networking profiles…and very similar to Digg’s latest ‘profile’ launch, you will be able to click on a member to see which shows, music, etc they like and dont like.  The earlist member date I saw was in May for NatGuy who claims “I’m one of the folks involved in helping to build this site.”  Nielsen lists how many recommendations they have made and lists all their posts.
• Widgets
  What would a site be if you couldnt see if scrolling on your blog? :)  Therefore, they have created a nice scrolling widget for you to keep up with the latest and greatest recommendations on the site.  Hopefully this will become customizable.

Naturally, if you are related to the entertainment industry, this would be an ideal place to gather consumer insights and responses to your content.  However, it would not be an ideal place to promote your entertainment client unless you are extremely open and transparent in your role.

Eventually, Nielsen sees using the information as statistical evidence in each catagory, but personally I think you will need to let the site live for a good amount of time before you can qualify the information collected as valid.  I am also still stuck on the problem of the ‘online demographic’ setting the opinions of a whole set of humans.  I still feel like it is skewed unless mixed with other forms of information collection.

I am interested to see how others respond to the site and the use of the information as statisical analysis.  Would you believe what they say, just because its Nielsen?

Wikipedia, the so called “in-flux” or “open-source” encyclopedia, has become one of the most interesting phenomena in the short and robust history of online media.  Wikipedia is a “.org” and refers to itself loftily as a “project.”  With over 2 million articles in English alone, it is 20 times larger than most traditional encyclopedias and can be found in “approximately 250 languages,” according to the site’s own estimates.  It is by far the biggest and baddest of all wikis out there.

Wikipedia is an example of “collective intelligence” and sometimes also given as an example of Web 2.0.  It has become THE starting point for information on everything from the “John F. Kennedy assassination” to “Cancer” to “Copenhagen.”

Whatsmore, the open nature of the “project” doesn’t seem to have detracted from its credibility.  Studies have shown Wikipedia’s accuracy to be relatively close to that of professionally edited encyclopedias.  But an encyclopedia it is not.  Not in the traditional sense.  Consumers are also increasingly relying on Wikipedia (or are “Googled” towards it) for information on products, brands and services.

This is presenting some serious and interesting challenges for the way companies manage their overall corporate identity.

Case in point: An article in Wired magazine last week profiled a new addition called Wikipedia Scanner. The Wikipedia Scanner allows users to trace the IP addresses of those who make anonymous edits to Wikipedia articles. This salacious little tool is just the kind of thing that can give communications managers nightmares – and in several cases it already has.

The article reported that in a search of 34.4 million anonymous edits on the site, 2.6 million organizations were found to be directly linked to edits related to their own company.  The edits run the gamut - from benign press releases to deletions of entire sections of unflattering material.  The latter has led to the involved companies suddenly being named alongside the CIA and the Vatican (rumors abound about how those two organizations have made heavy edits to their own Wikipedia articles).

In these times where corporate social responsibility and transparency are not only considered important but essential to a company’s good image, it seems natural that the same principles in communications should follow suit.  Wikipedia Scanner is another sign that if companies do not address Web 2.0 media outlets with the same vigilance – and ethics - as other media, that their reputations stand to suffer.

So when you think about “upgrading” your communications strategy, don’t forget to “mind the wiki.”

———-

Brian Woodward
Senior Consultant
GCI Mannov

Unilever announced last week a 12-episode, weekly broadband series on Yahoo! Food called “In Search of Real Food.”

The shows feature Food Network personality Dave Lieberman as he travels across the country talking to people about their favorite recipes for “real food.” The site has a lot of cool features, including a real food blog, user-generated videos, recipes, local dining guides and more.
I actually learned about the campaign through a commercial that aired during “The Today Show” this morning. At the end of the ad, the voiceover read, “Go to Yahoo! and search ‘real food’ to join the conversation.” Interesting. Unilever is reportedly spending between $1 million and $2 million in ads on Yahoo!, as well as driving traffic through print and TV ads and jar caps.

The campaign has received a lot of attention from advertising/business press and bloggers, but it will be interesting to see if consumers can get excited about mayonnaise. I don’t like mayonnaise, but I’ll check it out.