Andrew Lark

Why 47% of Campaigns Fail and How to Make Sure Yours Succeeds

Jon Beattie of Marker is up at the Future of Online Advertising Conference - he's put together a great summary of a keynote on why 47% of campaigns fail - a summary of the presentation by Greg Stuart at the Future of Online Advertising conference today in New York. Greg is the former CEO, IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and co-author of “What Sticks“.

He claims: Over US$112 billion ad spend is wasted out of a total of $295bn - Advertisers and agencies use the excuse of “publicity” to justify a failed campaign.

Here are the three highlights I liked:

1. Did the campaign message get through? 31% of campaigns failed
2. Out of 5 advertisers (P&G, J&J, Kraft, Nestle, McDonald’s) that did creative research of online campaigns: 1 was okay; 2 found half didn’t work; 2 all ads failed and had to start again
3. McDonald’s took 20 per cent from TV put 13.4% into online kept the rest and increased awareness by 5 per cent when it had previously leveled out using traditional media.

A Blogger Isn't A Blogger When...

They are paid to post on a blog other than their own. They then become a freelance writer, journalist, hack, whatever you want to call them.

The move by CNet and others to pay bloggers based on page views is no different than previous payment terms - such as words or stories - made to journalists, so, why call bloggers anything other than that? All that has changed is that the payment is more aligned with the reader/viewers interest level.

Further, the move is likely to continue to blur the lines between the independent publication and there so called independent bloggers. Take Information Week whose vendor blogger blogs away in a very self interested fashion only then to be named by the same publication as "one to watch" in the coming year in a full page spread. Self serving? Self interested? Biased? Yep - all of the above. And not an ounce of disclosure or transparency by either party.

As Steve suggests, this should raise an eyebrow - more than an eyebrow. But is very different than bloggers pimping products in post. It is far more subtle than that.

I initially misread a post by Mitch Ratcliffe, taking it (below) to suggest that if we don't pay bloggers in the same way as journalists their posts don't have to be informative or accurate? That isn't what he meant as his comments suggest.:

"at ZD Net bloggers are compensated based on the number of page views they receive and a fraction of the pages in TalkBack, so at the end of the month the size of a check expresses something, but not necessarily our success in being informative or accurate."

I do think though that publications are attaching the mantle of blogger to paid writers and thereby opting out of any sense of integrity that applies to the masthead. Mitch is making an equally important but different point that popularity doesn't correlate to accuracy - anywhere.

This has been going on for sometime, and pointed to by Tom Formenski and others - so Steve's revelation isn't so much that as a rehash. Either way, it's worth flagging as the standards we expect of publications are increasingly compromised and new means of bloggers generating revenue come to fruition.

Nick makes a good point that businesses and workers tailor what they do in response to economic incentives - a shift in the way publishers and journalists make money means a shift in what gets published. But the message also makes the medium. And once fiercely independent online media are being transformed.

Tragic...

I pondered blogging this through the afternoon after reading it in the Sydney Morning Herald but couldn't bring myself to write about it - It seemed inappropriate to look as such a tragic event through the lens of blogging. CNet then got me rethinking. This is truly a tragic story but if nothing else it reminds us of how powerful this medium is for telling the story and reaching out to friends and family. And, what amazing courage and strength people have in putting fingers to keyboard and laying tragedy bare for us to read.

My thoughts are with the Van Ryn family.

Chain Reactions...

I'm always fascinated by how the media moves a story. The latest seems to be the Dog Whisperer... this story has legs... First it was Malcom Gladwell in the New Yorker and this morning it was The New York Times... Where next... The story is on the move...

What is interesting is how different the stories are. Malcom's is a critique - balanced and thoughtful. The New York Time, more of a puff piece.

Either way, Gabby is beyond training. Although I am certain she is working on training us.

Tim O'Reilly Speech

Here is his commencement speech. Three good lessons and lots of commentary on Web 2.0.

The first was to be fearless in what you attempt. The job I eventually mastered was an enormous stretch for me. The second lesson was that a difficulty is often an opportunity in disguise. I built my company by bridging the information gap that I first encountered that day. The third lesson was the importance of serendipity in your life choices. I never imagined that I'd build a career as a technical writer, publisher, and entrepreneur. My training was in Greek and Latin Classics!

And... (thanks to Nicholas for the pointer - this stood out for me as well)

If history is any guide, the democratization promised by Web 2.0 will eventually be succeeded by new monopolies, just as the democratization promised by the personal computer led to an industry dominated by only a few companies. Those companies will have enormous power over our lives - and may use it for good or ill. Already we're seeing companies claiming that Google has the ability to make or break their business by how it adjusts its search rankings. That's just a small taste of what is to come as new power brokers rule the information pathways that will shape our future world.

As a result, I urge you to think hard about the consequences of new technology. Don't just take for granted that technology will bring us a better world. We must engage strenuously with the future, thinking through the dark side of each opportunity, and working to maximize the good that we create while minimizing the harm.

Now The Media Are Optimizing For Google...

No surprises here. Rather than write what should be written, write what searches best... Lohr reveals all.

So news organizations large and small have begun experimenting with tweaking their Web sites for better search engine results. But software bots are not your ordinary readers: They are blazingly fast yet numbingly literal-minded. There are no algorithms for wit, irony, humor or stylish writing. The software is a logical, sequential, left-brain reader, while humans are often right brain.

Carr + Disney = Back to the Future...

Carr points to and illuminates some of the thinking coming out of Disney on the future of media:

The whole idea of participative, or citizen, media is an assault on the power of big brands to determine what people read and watch and listen to. Tokens of central, paternalistic, commercial control, brands lie at the very heart of the traditional power of the so-called mainstream media. Sweeney is saying that media brands, which have seemingly lost some of their power recently, will ultimately triumph on the web. The future will end up looking like the past - only more so. Faced with the welter of online media choices, "consumers" will flock to trusted brands to "help them navigate the digital world." Same as it ever was.

I'm not so sure. At the end of the day, content will triumph over brand. That will work in the favor of some content creators - such as the NYTimes. I don't think it will work so much for those in the entertainment market where loyalty is much more fleeting. I'm not likely to migrate to big brands as much as I am brands that are relevant (YouTube vs. Disney). And I don't care if those brands are individuals blogging (like Nicholas), blogmedia (I read Engadget more than CNet), or focused feeds from traditional media...

What is really exciting about Disney's announcement is that they are finally - if somewhat incompletely -- understanding that we are on-demand, time-shifting maniacs. I'm still stumped as to why I can only watch TV on the broadcasters schedule. For instance, I can get channels for the region I am in (PST), on their schedule. What I actually want though is all the EST programming on a PST schedule - and both for purposes of Tivo. I want several episodes of Lost back-to-back. Same for 24. The fact that they are beginning to enable me to run my own viewing schedule is a good sign.

If The News Release Is Dead...

Why did Warren Buffett and Business Wire's Cathy Baron Tamraz ring NYSE's opening bell to signal the start of trading on the world's largest equities exchange? Both were "celebrating" Business Wire's recent acquisition by Berkshire Hathaway. Warren's no slouch.

FourDocs

Picked this one up via Veer. Gool idea from Britain's Channel 4 - FourDocs, "the place to upload, watch and learn about documentary. Anyone can upload a FourDoc, it just has to be fact-based and 4 minutes long."

Here's one about a French toy store, and anothere one on abseiling (rappelling).

Very participatory.

Yahoo...

Both Steve and Stowe speak to this story on Yahoo in which they say it's not their goal to be #1 in search:

"We don't think it's reasonable to assume we're going to gain a lot of share from Google," Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. "It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share."

No surprise there. Yahoo's "life engine" brand positioning gets more to where they are going. Arguably, they've done a better job than Google of integrating the entire web 2.0 suite. And that's how I use them. My customized portal is of as much value to me as the utility of Google. Frankly, none of Google's products other than search have wowed me. Google Earth was like fun for a day. But I've found the reverse to be true for Yahoo!

I'm not about to make any declarative statements about giving up on Yahoo!. What is telling is the relationship between the CMO and Google vs. Yahoo - at least the CMO of a start-up. I look at Adsense every couple of days. They suck my marketing budget up like an out-of-control Dyson vacuum cleaner. And of all the marketing vendors they are the only one to demonstrate a very real, automated correlation between investment and results. Yahoo simply isn't there with them.

What is catching my attention as a CMO are all the other search options coming my way - companies like SLI Systems and Eurekster for instance. We tend to always view the battle as being between giants. More than often innovation happens at the edges of the market - that's how Google snuck-up on Yahoo and I have no doubt that Google will inevitably be challenged by upstarts.

So, even if my thesis holds true, it will be interesting to see how they monetize the life-engine position in the future. Google's competitive weapon isn't just the utility of search, but all so the utility of their advertising engine.

Disclosure: Yahoo! is a customer of LogLogic where I am CMO.

Another Media Disgrace

The NYT reports that the ex-chief of HealthSouth (he claims unknowingly) paid for positive coverage:

Throughout the six-month trial that led to Richard Scrushy's acquittal in the $2.7 billion fraud at HealthSouth Corp., a small, influential newspaper consistently printed articles sympathetic to the defense of the fired CEO.

Audry Lewis, the author of those stories in The Birmingham Times, the city's oldest black-owned paper, now says she was secretly working on behalf of Scrushy, who she says paid her $11,000 through a public relations firm and typically read her articles before publication.

It's just stunning that this kind of stuff keeps happening without any kind of ability for censure by industry bodies - both media and PR. I'm sure there are as many frustrated journalists as there are PRs who are sick of having their profession tarnished by this kind of behavior.

Gathering

Content aggregation sites are popping up everywhere. In short, they do little more than assemble others content and enable you to triangulate off read it (in other words - determine how hot the content is and what you should be paying attention to). The latest being Gather. Gather is like a big chat room without the chat. Instead of chatting, you write and post. Others read. And the more they read, the more money you make. You can leave comments if you are a member. Others include Newsvine.

Jim Manzi is behind Gather and had this to say in the Boston Globe: ''No longer must I accept much of my content from what I have called the Literary Industrial Complex, that group of concentrated media organizations with their small elites and self-reinforcing arbiters delivering my news and information 'top-down,' ". He has written moreon this over at Gather.

Ah, yeah Jim. If they are so evil and unnecessary, why choose to announce your venture in the Literary Industrial Complex and not in your own blog? Actually, where is your blog mate?

Looking at Gather, I'm not sure their cluttered design and jamming of content into the limits of the browser is any improvement on conventional news sites. And if I am going to read the thinking of ordinary people I'm (personally) more likely to read, well, Blogs than a site like Gather.

I also wonder how this will influence PR going forward - at what point do the PR Pros start looking at the more prominent writers (the best paid) and target them as a core element of programs. Assuming that Gather can gather readers, you can pretty much bet on that happening. At which point, I wonder how Gather will gather its writers and manage the editorial quality.

Kareem suggests that revenue sharing won't hook bloggers. I'm with him. This is a conversation for me (and indulgence).

Techcrunch covers this as does Mathew Ingram. Steve thinks there is a Web 2.0 crash coming. He is as right on that as predicting the Sun will come up tomorrow. Steve is also right that unless they plug into the ecosystem they will fail. Information is a commodity in the Web 2.0 market and commodity markets depend on creating convenience for the buyer. No Adsense = much fewer sales. No tags (external, not just internal) = fewer readers. Much fewer readers.

To this point, Gather is a very closed ecosystem. Their opportunity was to make it open. Tag not just Gather content but all content. Enable trackbacks and show who is linking and commenting outside of the site. This is more akin to Yahoo or AOL than a blog.

Whether Gather succeeds or not is pretty much a crap-shoot - although I am sure they have a more determined sense of the outcome. What matters is that they are innovating, testing new models, learning and adapting. Those that don't will die. The rest learn.

Remember WebVan?

The New Journalist/ism

In case you missed it, the new journalist/ism is upon us. Powered by wifi and blog-engines, journalists like Dan Farber over at ZDNet are hammering out stories live from announcements. They are breaking a few rules along the way - commenting on what 'competitors' are saying - in this case Shankland, opting for speed over gramatical accuracy, and capturing the essence of the event.

This has been going on for a while now - Farber's peice on ZDNet today just bought it home for me.

If you are in a non-technology industry and see this happening in your trade rags and elsewhere I'd love a few other examples.

Pegasus News Launches First Site...

TexasGigs is up and running. Congrats to the team at Pegasus. From the site:

"Our advanced technology will deliver uniquely relevant, customized news and information to each of our readers based on where they live and what they enjoy reading most." Pegasus coverage will go down to block level and as wide as the community; among oither features, they promise downloadable dining, entertainment and city guides.

More over at paidContent. According to Steve Outing, TexasGigs will be part of the full Pegasus Dallas site (as yet unnamed) when it debuts.

The model here is a good one for corporates looking to harness alternate publishing models - here a strong editor drives the site while soliciting submissions from the public and enabling plenty of comments, chatting etc... This is very different from other models in which the blog simply exists for folks to post away to, editors be damned.

NYTimes Gets Blogospheric (Kind Of)

"A blog is nothing more than a piece of technology... We’ll use the technology our way." - Jonathan Landman, The New York Times Deputy Managing Editor

It seems there really is no such thing as an internal memo these days. Jonathan Landman - The New York Times Deputy Managing Editor - recently sent out a memo to his staff about blogging. The context here is these are a series of new blogs related to their Red Carpet site. Here is a snippet:

But our new blogs are more than running commentary. Look at Carr’s. It’s full of links to film publications and blogs and web sites. It encourages responses from readers and hopes to start a lively conversation. Nothing is more important to the future of our web ambitions than to engage our sophisticated readers. Blogs are one way to do it.

It’s worth spending a little time thinking about blogs, and about ourselves. Blogs make some newspaper people nuts; they’re partisan, the thinking goes, and unfair and mean-spirited and sloppy about facts. Newspapers make some bloggers nuts; they think we’re dull and slow and pompous and jealous guardians of unearned “authority.”

It’s a pretty dopey argument. Indeed, some blogs are lousy. So are some newspapers. Some blogs reject journalism. Some practice it.

The point is, a blog is nothing more than a piece of technology. It allows people to compile thoughts, connect with others and interact quickly with readers. People can use it any way they want to. It has no inherent ethical or moral quality, though it does have its own special power.

We’ll use the technology our way. Our bloggers will have editors. They will observe our normal standards of fairness and care. They won’t float rumors or take journalistic shortcuts. Critics and opinion columnists can have opinion blogs; reporters can’t. (To quote Carr: “If the Carpetbagger delved into plot or relative quality – they didn’t turn me loose for my refined cinematic taste ? flying monkeys would come out of the ceiling here at headquarters and behead him.”) We’ll encourage readers to post their thoughts, but we’ll screen them first to make sure the conversation is civil. Some bloggers will accuse us of violating blogospheric standards of openness and spontaneity. That’s life in the big city.

We will use blogs to convey information, sometimes in conventional ways, sometimes not-so. Our notions of journalistic responsibility are perfectly compatible with spirited fun. Do we put David Carr online to be witless? Um, no. Actually, we think he’s pretty witty in the newspaper.

Blogging does impose obligations. Blogs have to be updated frequently. They have to be carefully tended. There are costs; David Carr and Damon Darlin will be spending time they could be using to write newspaper articles. Their bosses have decided that’s an advantageous tradeoff. I agree.

Most of this is pretty much true for companies embarking on blogging - especially the cost part. But in some ways the NYTimes misses the point in the same way so many companies do - it isn't about the great writer or rock star exec you've got - and whose lucid and clever opinions you are about to unleash on an unwitting public.

Blogs are about building a community and establishing dialogue. As others point out, to them it seems to still be a publishing tool (his memo refers to it as a "technology") - which at its most basic level it is, but at its most important level it isn't. His memo barely gets to this point - instead pointing to the fact that they will "screen" posts to ensure the conversation is civil. Fair enough. But how about a memo to the community you are trying build that stimulates them to participate? Rather than ask your employees for their thoughts - how about asking the NYTimes readers for theirs. They are the community.

Look At Taggin

CNET has a good story on tagging - worth a read.

Also known as "folksonomies," tagging systems are usually created by users themselves, rather than site owners, and make many online services far more accessible and useful than they had ever been before. The practice brings a social context to such resources as blogs, shared bookmarking, photography and even books.

BW On The Best Of The New Web

BW has a great wrap-up of the best of the web, including one of my faves, Digg.com. And another, Basecamp.

Media Companies...

It's bothered me for ages that media keep reporting that Google and Yahoo are media companies. Afterall, Yahoo is a slef declared lifestyle engine. The reason is bugs me is that determining a company is a media company on the basis that they make revenue from advertising seems pretty narrow. What about content creation? Reporting? All that other good stuff. Aren't they merely content repackagers with little IP in content creation?

Anyway, enough of the rant... Seems Yahoo is about to head - albeit in a very small way - down the road to being a media company. The NYT reports that they are appointing a Journo to start covering, of all things wars:

The Web site, called "Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone" will focus entirely on Mr. Sites's travels as a war correspondent and will use nearly every kind of format the Internet allows. His reports will begin Sept. 26.

Mr. Sites, who is 42, has long been comfortable using new technology and the Internet as part of his reporting, from shooting his own video to writing blogs from places like Kosovo and Afghanistan. The use of technology, he said, allows him "to report in ways that haven't been done routinely in the network news business."

They point out that this isn't a Blog, V/Blog or any such thing. No, no, no...

Mr. Sites said he hoped that Yahoo users understood that what he was doing was different from the mass of opinion blogs and other Web sites.

"We are a journalistic entity," he said, "trying to do things in a responsible way you don't always see on the Internet.

So there you go. The Internet company doesn't want to be like Web 2.0. It wants to be like, well, The New York Times...

From over at ZDNet...

Steve Gillmore says:

What's new is the insistent voice of the blogosphere beginning to dominate the conversation between vendors and customers. It's more of a zero sum game than many are willing to accept. Analysts are consolidating (read: contracting) and tech news has been commoditized to something approaching loss leader. Folks like Stephen Shankland and Ephraim Schwartz are increasingly providing analysis in their beat areas, and of course the Redmonk boys are open-sourcing their methodology if not their recommendations.

Yes!

The SNAFUs Continue...

Newsweek reported false, unsubstantiated rumors as fact. They falsely reported that U.S. interragators in Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Koran by flushing it down the toilet, sparking riots across the globe. They took their time in correcting this massive error and buried it when it was time to face the rioters. This pretty much says it all...

Newsweek may have admitted Sunday that its sloppy reporting, about how a U.S. soldier at Guantanamo Bay flushed a Koran down a toilet, led to riots in Afghanistan which killed at least 15 people, but they hardly made their concession prominent in the May 23 edition of the magazine, especially online where, on the magazine's home page, you'd have to guess that this headline, "The Islamic World: How a Fire Broke Out," had something to do with a retraction. And to read Editor Mark Whitaker's message, you'd have to know to click on "Letters and Live Talk" in a left side column, then, under "More," choose "The Editors' Desk." And even then, whether online or in the hard copy, Whitaker didn't approach an apology until the last sentence of his last paragraph: "We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst."

Here's the story on "How A Fire Broke Out". And here's Newsweek's somewhat pathetic response. Shame on you!

Stand Alone Journalists...

It's great to see a dialogue on new definitions emerge. We need them to seperate bloggers from the journalists that aren't necessarily part of the big media machine.

Stand alone jounralist is a a term coined by Chris Nolan. Here's his definition:

is someone who works to get the stories they find interesting told in an honest and forthright manner without the benefit of working for a larger news outlet. That doesn't mean they're objective or impartial; it means they're honest about their points of view or assumptions. A stand alone journalist understands that the main job is to inform readers; and the ethics that salaried journalists have when it comes to fairness, accuracy and honesty aren't just phrases. They're a discipline for doing the work that needs to be done: getting your facts right, your assumptions validated, your arguments well grounded.

She goes on to say:

Stand alone journalists are the next iteration of on-line news professionals. They stand alone because they aren't salaried by existing news outlets. They aren't part of an institution but seek to become one. They may be freelancers--many are--but the work they do on the web isn't under contract for a larger entity.

For more, Jay has the definitive guide over at PressThink.

Monkchips On..

James hits on a key point that I keep debating with others (but mainly with myself). Starting with the premise that radio will die (it might not but bear with me) you ask what killed it... What killed it was the device with 20,000 tunes on it in my pocket - and soon - my jukebox pf tunes and podcasts streaming to my phone. And the dozens and dozens of podcasts on that iPod that are as rich in diversity as they are shallow in content. But they are mine. I don't have to listen to the same XM tracks over and over again. I don't have to put up with lousy reception. I don't have to listen to another predictable news story giving me the news I don't want and that was generally printed yesterday. I simply subscribe to the Long Tail.

Here's what James had to say...

The biggest problem for News Corporation may be Long Tail competition. The company's approach is avowedly mainstream, which often means pandering to lowest common denominators, and certainly means building mass markets. In the TivoSkypoGoogleosphere sphere though, views tend to be fractured, diverse, legion. Perhaps i am mistaken but i feel the future will be about diversity. It will be about lots and lots and lots of niches. It will be about the nouveau niche (via Doc, his stuff rocks of course, even if i do have to drive over a bump in the road to get it).

BusinessWeek Gets Blogging...

BusinessWeek's Tech beat ports to a blog format. Take a look at this posting from Justin. This is great. If all tech stories posted over here it would be even better. The posts are also under-hyperlinked. I guess to keep us in the site - which is Ok given they ahve to earn money doing this.

Mainstream Media Meltdown...

Chris has a story worth reading...

And Another...

Journo being paid to do political reporting on the side is busted and fired. Apparently Purcell disclosed his 'night job':

He said he disclosed the environmental state contract to the Herald and got clearance from the state ethics commission. His state contract pays $60 per hour, with a maximum of $10,000.

So what's the problem?

If Purcell was reporting on the people or organizations paying him to also craft op-eds and assist in other writing then there clearly is a massive conflict of interest. A bit like an industry analyst being paid for consulting by a company and then writing independent reports on that company and the industry.

But if Purcell wasn't, what's the harm in taking a 'night job' - I think they call it freelance work. (I'm being facetious). Is the implication of much of the commentary on this that a journo can only do freelance work inside the profession - other reporting?

Where this is different - and Malkin gets at this albeit with an extreme parallel - is that this is in effect a Government subsidy. She says,  "government subsidies for conservative columnists are as odious as government subsidies for crucifix-defiling "artists". She's getting at the perception issue:

Do we really need another paid partisan hack to confirm what the liberal MSM already unfairly assumes of all conservatives in the media--that we're all on the payroll of the Republican Party and incapable of independent journalism?

Dan is pretty clear on his POV:

Two things here. First, the Herald's initial response was shameful. This guy should have been shown the door the second his government payoff became known.

Second, the conservative wing of the blogosphere has been all too silent to the poisoning of journalistic integrity represented by this example and others like it. (There are exceptions, I'm glad to say.)

This needs to stop if the media - the whole media - are to retain credibility. And the same standards need to be extended to the world of analysts. The same rule applies whether it is a corporate or government subsidy.

There is a difference between transparency and opacity. Behavior like this drives opacity, even when disclosing the details in advance with the intent of being transparent and ethical.

Media Wars

Interesting read over at Slate on this week's media wars.

This week two giant companies took extraordinary efforts to gin up more favorable press coverage. GM, the largest automaker, said it would yank its advertising from the Los Angeles Times—the largest paper in the nation's largest car market—because it was unhappy with the Times' coverage. And Wal-Mart, which generally treats the press like a dead fish, invited reporters to its Bentonville, Ark., bunker for a media day. - Daniel Gross

I've been in their shoes before - both with media and analysts. Respect for independent journalism or analysis shouldn't come with a requirement to support that "reporting" with advertising dollars. I'm surprised more companies don't exercise their right to not fund views that don't agree with.

It's interesting that, even in the Slate story, there is an implication that advertising dollars result in a more compliant media - and that is the intent of these companies. Maybe so. But maybe these companies just don't want to fund those views they regard to be as unfair or inaccurate. Or, whose bias they accept but don't agree with and don't want to fund. The implicit assumption in the media's argument is that journalists and their editors are fair, professional and without bias. Which as we have seen in the last year couldn't be further from the truth.

There is also an assumption that companies need newspapers to reach consumers. That they need reporting. Maybe so - but nothing like to the degree they once did. Look at any of the recent readership surveys. And it's not like companies are short of alternate ways to reach their target audiences these days.

Where the Slate story is right is that if companies engage in these kinds of activity with the belief they can influence the analysis or reporting, they are generally wrong. Especially when it comes to Big Media. All they are likely to do is aggravate the situation.

For embattled executives, it's easy and convenient to think that the media—not their business model or management—is the problem. Morgan Stanley CEO Philip Purcell, fighting off an attempted coup, told the Financial Times today that the challenges will go away if the media stop quoting the dissidents. - Daniel Gross, Slate

I think the criticism of Wal-Mart - and the packaging of the two stories together - is pretty unfair. Wal-Mart is doing nothing more than engaging with the media in a fair and reasonable way. They are not saying this is the only way to engage with them. They are not saying don't do your own reporting. And BTW - access in many instances unfortunately does make the journalistic heart grow fonder.

In essence, the moral here for communicators are common ones - pick your battles carefully and get your own house in order before criticizing another. And be clear on what you are trying to achieve - are you trying to punish the media, make a point or simply not fund a point of view? If it's the last of these, you'd better prepared for a long hard road. If it's the first two, there are much better ways of achieving your goal.

Why Automated Triangualtion Doesn't Work... Sometimes...

I've written on the automated triangulation of news that underpins Google's news page. It's a page that I find hugely valuable for watching news break across a really diverse range of sources.

But right now when I look at the NZ Google page - they have one just for us Kiwis - the lead story says that Terri Schiavo's parents are still fighting to have the feeding tube reinserted - old news. Right beneath that lead story is a piece about the Pope taking a turn for the worse - current news. That's because those are the stories are being clicked. In all fairness to Google they do indicate the age of the news. And packaged in the Schiavo story is the sad news of her death. Which, despite being more current isn't the lead.

So sometimes the wisdom of crowds doesn't always result in the delivery of breaking news - it's inconsistent. This reinforces a point Stephen Shankland made to me awhile back that we shouldn't confuse sites that triangulate news with those that break news.

And thinking about my post below - this points to something I am willing to pay for in a news site. Insightful reporting on breaking news with professional editorial management. Hasn't that always been the business that sets the great news sites apart from the rest. Witness the success of News.com and The Register.

Only 4499 News Outlets Left On Google...

Good Morning Silicon Valley reports that after being threatened with legal action, Google is removing the French news agency Agence France Presse from Google News.

"Before any court decision, we are going to withdraw -- in the next few days- - AFP photos and text," a Google spokesperson told Le Figaro. "We had thought that the 'shop-window effect' could be profitable for the French agency, as it is for many French media who have joined us."

Stupid is as stupid does I guess. Why anyone would want to be removed from the world's leading news triangulation site is beyond me.

BusinessWeek on Slashdot...

Worth a read - on Slashdot's delcining effectiveness as a "Pointer". Not that a sample of one really matters but I'm reading the site more than ever...

HEADLINE STYLES

Great story on Poynter on headline styles... here's a snippet:

ALL CAPITALS Type set in all capitals is harder to read. When ascenders and descenders are eliminated, words become rectangles and are harder to recognize. This is particularly true for long lines of text. THE ALL CAPS STYLE IS HARDER TO READ. WHEN ASCENDERS AND DESCENDERS ARE ELIMINATED, WORDS BECOME RECTANGLES AND ARE HARDER TO RECOGNIZE. THIS IS PARTICULARLY TRUE FOR LONG LINES OF TEXT SUCH AS THIS. Reserve the all-caps style for small amounts of type -- one- to three-word headlines, labels, headers, and other navigational items that only use a few words. Sans Serif typefaces tend to work better in all-caps than serif faces. In this case, the serifs get in the way and erode readability and reading speed. In addition, using all capitals takes up more space...

Citizen Marketers

Great post over at the Church Of the Customer on Citizen Marketers. Some great pointers to Citizen Marketers:

• George Masters and his homemade iPod ad
• The volunteers who market the Firefox web browser (24 million download in 3 months)
• People who create fan sites like this one for the Broadway show "Brooklyn the Musical"
• The quirky guys behind the campaign to bring back Surge cola
• The creators of TiVocommunity.com
• Customers who post photos with their reviews on Amazon.com
• The people who created ads for the "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest from Moveon.org

Also love the mind maps from their Customer Evangelism University.

Watch out for those Counterfeit Minis

The brand assault continues from Mini... the newest twist being a Counter Counterfeit Commission to prevent, you guessed it, counterfeit Minis. I'd only want the original - with racing stripes of course!

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Edelman On Trust... Transparency

Edelman significantly thickened PRWeek with a chunk of it's 2005 Annual Trust Barometer. Kudos for a) doing marketing and thought-leadership, something that most agencies seem to be asleep at the wheel on; and b) for a really timely piece of research. One quote really captured my attention:

"Sacrifice control and perfection of a message for speed and free-flowing discussion. The paradox of transparency holds that companies benefit more when they disclose fully what they know - bad or good - as soon as they know it. This is truer than ever."

And this:

Employees and "an average employee like me" are more credible than CEOs.

Communicators are still way over-vectored on the c-suite and on broadcasting it's voice. Too much of a companies communications channels are vectored to the top of the pyramid. Blogs are a revolutionary force in this respect. They run against what communicators have so long fought to do - keep the voice of the employee under wraps. As blogs liberate the voice of the company they'll, somewhat ironically, become the most potent force for restoring the credibility of corporations. Look no further than Scoble at Microsoft to see this in action...

Storytelling

I've long believed that great storytelling is the cornerstone of great communications. Spot a great communicator and you spot a great storyteller. It's pretty much non-negotiable. Bill Breen - who consistently churns out great stuff for FastCompany has a good read on Marcus Buckingham in the March 05 edition. Marcus, who authored the brilliant - First Break All The Rules, now has a new book - The One Thing you Need to Know... About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success. Well, that pretty much covers all bases! I'm looking forward to reading it... In identifying three approached to finding the clarity - as a leader - that your followers will require he points to:

1. Take a Time Out
2. Practice Your Storytelling
3. Show Us Your Hero

He says of storytelling:

"As a leader, you must practice over and over what to say to describe where you're taking people. After you've found the right words, stick with them - in emails, in meetings, in speeches. Doug, Degn, head of WalMart's general merchandise, uses seven words to describe his customers: "the people who live paycheck to paycheck..."

Forbes is also on to storytelling. Daniel Pink in A Story Goes With It, says "Once upon a time businesses could ignore story. Doing that today, though, could spell the end." While that's a little dramatic (actually, it's way too dramatic) he makes some great points about the importance of storytelling. Unfortunately, most of his examples are the unauthentic kinds of storytelling - copy for direct mail catalogues - as opposed to what Marcus is advocating. One of the key ingredients to great storytelling is authenticity and in this respect Blogs lend themselves perfectly to the art. The message is the medium in this respect. Storytelling is ads makes for more effective ads, but not more potent stories. In other words - don't confuse great copywriting with great storytelling. Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox is quoted on the back page of FastCompany:

"Stories exist at all levels of a corporation.... It's much more powerful than the precision or elegance of the strategy."

The same issue of FastCompany has an interesting piece on Andy & Kate Spade. On Branding, Andy says:

THE BIGGER YOU GET THE SMALLER YOU SHOULD ACT. Never, never start thinking like a big company. Otherwise you become a corporate, and there's no interest in that.

(to which I say AMEN!)

NEVER BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU'VE DONE IS SUCCESSFUL. Challenge it every second, every day.

(not so sure on this one. challenge everything, yes! but also celebrate successes)

BRAND CONSISTENCY IS OVERRATED. The brand doesn't have to look the same, but it has to feel the same. An element of newness and surprise if important for every brand.

(damn right. this is the core challenge facing rules obsessed brand marketers)

BRANDS SHOULD HAVE SOME MYSTERY. Customers should never understand the whole picture of a brand

(absolutely).

YOUR PEOPLE ARE YOUR PRODUCT. They are the vehicle through which everything happens, and they define what you put out.

(um, kind of. the product is the product. the people are the people. but OK, the people matter more. they bring the brand to life. they make it happen. but it's simplistic to isolate customer experience like this. for instance, I love Jack Spade bags - I love the stores - I've always found the people courteous and pleasant - but man, your inventory sucks. you're nearly always out of everything I ever ask for. sigh!). And I'm very envious of the brand you've been able to build.

You Are All Crazy

Another GREAT piece from the Opinion Journal on Blogging... brilliant summary of all we've been called:

"Salivating morons." "Scalp hunters." "Moon howlers." "Trophy hunters." "Sons of Sen. McCarthy." "Rabid." "Blogswarm." "These pseudo-journalist lynch mob people."

This is excellent invective. It must come from bloggers. But wait, it was the mainstream media and their maidservants in the elite journalism reviews, and they were talking about bloggers!

This is a really great piece - out of difference to copyright and right to traffic I'm not going to summarize it more, BUT YOU MUST READ IT.

Intel's Internal Blog...

Dean at the Merc snags a copy of Otellini's internal blog and the Web is abuzz... From this morning's Good Morning Silicon Valley - the eZine I look forward to most (other than Flavorpill...

...Otellini reveals a new side in "AMD suXorS" blog post: So now that we've reached this postmodern understanding that all official corporate communication is, if not a charade, part of a ritualized dance where meaning must be divined between the lines, where do you turn to hear an executive talk straight? Why, to his or her blog, of course, because blogs are required by longstanding Unwritten Net Law to be BS-free...

"Hollywood has always had a love affair with Apple Computers. In movies ranging from 'Mission Impossible' to 'Shallow Hal,' Apple products are positioned to in ways that say you are 'Cool' if you have an Apple Computer or IPOD. My kids will settle for Intel Inside PC or Laptop but they want an Apple computer. Beyond paying for product placements in movies, developing a better relationship between Intel and Hollywood is great way to make Intel the "Cool" computer company of the future

I've long maintained that the internal blog is where the action is. Now if we could just read more of them. For therein lies the paradox of blogging. You want conversations to be as personal and private as possible - you don't want to use the same tone internally as you might have to externally - but anything posted digitally to more than one other person is likely to end-up public so why not just tear-down those walls - the transparency is likely to be positive in the extreme...

"Paul wanted another way to communicate with employees,'' said Intel spokesman Tom Beerman. "It is meant for employees only, and that explains the tone and nature of the subject matter"

And hey Dean, don't be a meanie, post everything you've got.. don't serialize the data, be transparent...

So Let Me Get This Straight...

At CNN you aren't allowed to accept gifts but you can give them? Or, you can't take "bribes" but you can give them...? OK, so this is all history and past tense - and the gifts were probably crap, but it does point to the importance of David Berlind's media transparency channel...

A Nice Little Blog Innovation... Blink

Hylton's got a nice little Blog innovation over at Corante [disclosure:: I write for Brandshift on Corante].

"...the intent of the Blink is to differentiate its content from the longer, meatier posts and to provide a space in which you can provide short pointers to interesting items/articles/blogs that don't require much commentary. As well as to provide a vehicle that allows you to dump things into the blog, integrates a linklog, keeps the blog fresh, etc..

Take a look at Suw Charman and Copyfight to see this in action. This is great in terms of architecting information delivery in the sense it provides a simple way for the reader to visually filter content on the blog outside of category clicking...

The Death Of...

Here we go again. More "death of" remarks... This time from the Economist which, in an otherwise great story on Robert Scoble, ponders if Blogs are the death of traditional public relations. Seems blogs are going to be the death of everything...

Bruce Lowry, PR boss at Novell, another software firm, also wants to get his executives blogging. Boring old press releases—where everybody is constantly resigning “to spend more time with the family” and what not—are totally ill-suited for responding to most PR issues, such as rumours or independent commentary, he says. He can imagine blogs completely replacing press releases within ten years.

Ten years from now? That's what I call hedging ones bets. Many a PR pro is hoping its going to happen lots quicker than that Bruce. And maybe you could drop a note to the SEC asking them if it's OK for blog entries to be regarded in the same light as press releases in terms of fair disclose.

I tend to agree with Schwartz - also quoted in the article:

(Scoble)... thinks that there will always be a place for traditional PR, with its centrally controlled corporate message, alongside the spontaneous cacophony of blogs. Microsoft's official PR boss will not even comment at all on the subject. Sun's Mr Schwartz is also circumspect. “It's not the end of PR but the end of the old PR department,” he says. “The clarifying force will be credibility and reputation.” The truth is, nobody yet knows how corporate blogging will evolve.

The important message is that social networking technologies and participatory communications will force structural change on PR departments. Change in terms of the people required, budget allocation and focal points. And as with all change involving networking technologies, the advantage will go to the first movers.

NYT Multimedia...

This is interesting. They've probably done this for ages and I've, well, totally missed it, but the NYT carries an interesting narrated slide show on the goings on at HP this week. And, narrated by none other that Gretchen Morgenson. Ends with a link into a story by John Markoff.

Brandshift

I've finally started contributing to Brandshift... the new branding blog over at Corante. Sorry for the delay guys... My thanks to Stowe and Hylton for the encouragement. I'm zeroed-in on the intersection between branding, communications and social networking technologies. So, lots more to come.

My First post extends some of the thinking here on FryGate where I try to make the point that:-

This new medium - these new communities and conversations - are set to reshape branding. Brand marketers have been stuck on transmit for decades. The smart ones who looked to have the very act of marketing become a conversation were quickly isolated as guerilla or viral marketers. The Blogsphere changes that. Use it to simply transmit, or purely for stunts, and you miss its enormous potential.

Susan Getgood makes some great points and hits on the transparency issue I touch-on at Brandshift:

On the other hand.... we need to figure out how to tell a blog that has the reporting or opinions of a true live person (whether we think they are a wing nut or not) from a blog that is an invented piece of fiction (funny or sad, effective or lame, it doesn't matter). Why? Because we rely on blogs to be the voices of real people, people like us with whom we will agree some of the time, and disagree others. People we can respect and trust.

Any successful brand is built on trust. Trust is granted where transparency exists.

Quote Of The Week...

Care of Good Morning Silicon Valley...

"What would she get if the firm
had done well? A country?"
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, associate dean of the Yale School of Management, is boggled by former HP CEO Carly Fiorina's $21.1 million severance package.

Hey, and everyone needs a pack of these...