ChaosScenario

The Loyalty Trap

Assuming audiences who are predominantly affluent, marketers (particularly advertisers) salivate over two categories of audiences:

1. A captive audience
2. A loyal audience

Though there are still some who are in denial, in our attention-starved world, the first type is out of reach. The second type sounds good, but only until you consider what sorts of thinking this can lead to.

The goal of all marketers is to turn paying customers into loyal customers. But what does that really afford us? It is almost as if, upon bestowing upon a customer the title of "loyal," companies consider their work finished and move about trying to acquire new ones.

Loyalty is a crutch. Intentionally or not, it is used as an excuse to be lazy with respect to that loyal group's needs so that the company can focus on their own needs. Or at least what they think they need.

Don't fall into that trap!

Loyalty just leads to permission to behave in a certain way, including, if you're lucky, to communicate more frequently with the person than your competitors. That loyalty is good only for as long as you act in a way consistent with that permission.

Behave well, and you will have established a permission asset.

Be overzealous or neglectful, and you're almost certain to destroy it.  - Cam Beck

Someone in the king's court tries to trick

It's not uncommon for people supporting a cause to get their message out using social media. Discussion boards, social networking groups and pages are easy enough to build and a great way to get the word out.

Companies and brands struggle with how to react to this type of new media. Some just ignore it as more "dot com" hype. Some see it as another advertising vehicle where they can blast their message out. The best companies understand it's about relationships and open, honest two-way communication.

Don't neglect open and honest. That means you are transparent and that you don't misrepresent who you are.

Apparently a VP at Burger King didn't get the message. In a dispute with a group that is trying to get fast food producers to boost the wages of farm workers, a VP accused the group of some shoddy accounting. Fine -- but what makes this really bad is that he took his message to the web using his own daughter as cover!

"Although Shannon Grover also uses the name surfxaholic36 - mostly on social networking sites - she said the anti-coalition posts are her father's alone.

I don't really know much about the coalition and Burger King stuff, she said, reached by phone at the family's Miramar home Friday. 'That was my dad. My dad used to go online with that name and write about them.

Last month, activist2008 sent an e-mail to The News-Press almost identical to many of the online postings signed Shawn Glass. The e-mail's Internet address showed it came from Burger King's corporate headquarters in Miami."  News-press.com 

Really? He thought you'd get away with that? No matter how you feel about the agreement, these are shady tactics. Frankly, it really damages the credibility of what you're trying to communicate. It also shows that you're not too "web savvy" if you think you could do this and not get caught. - Paul Herring

What is a Good Business Use of Twitter? Find Out Today!

If you've been wondering why you should be not only using Twitter, but building connections within it, today's your opportunity to find out. David Armano is demonstrating it to a client.

Here's what to do.

1. Follow @Armano.
2. Today (4/29/08) at 1:00 P.M. (EST), go here to watch David and his friends go to work.
3. Refresh your page every few minutes.
4. Take note of the responses he gets.

Now, David has over 2,400 people following his updates, which he had to build by, among other things, contributing to the community some 7,400 times.

Not all of those updates were "business-related," but sometimes that's what it takes to build a strong, interested and (dare I say it?) engaged community. - Cam Beck

Update: David says he got over 100 responses to his question on Twitter in a short amount of time. Maybe there's something to this social media thing, after all.

Monday Fun: How Big Are This Guy's Hands?

Thank you, Internet.

According to his YouTube page, Gerry Phillips has been playing songs on his hands for 38 years.

I'm going to work on being more open minded for when one of my kids shows off what might appear to be a funny party favor but useless talent. Perhaps it can be commercialized, after all.

- Cam Beck

Hat tip to John Keehler for providing the link.

Forever Young

So much of advertising is about young people. Something about all of us is attracted to that energy and enthusiasm. Everyone gets old and sometimes we believe that, as we age, our souls begin to deteriorate the same was our body's do.

Not so. All of us will die but we have now to live life in whatever way we want to.

I'm inspired by the documentary Young@Heart. At first it may seem weird to get people in a nursing home to form a choir to sing rock songs. In the end, however, you realize just how much life these people (and probably most others) have in them.

My hope is that as I grow older I don't let my age dictate who I am, what I do or what song I sing. - Paul Herring

Saluting the Past for Our Future's Sake

One of the most peculiar things about time is how slowly it often seems to progress towards the future, but how quickly we consider its passage in retrospect. I have been reminding myself of this over the past several weeks, when I learned that my grandfather, Dr. George P. Cressman, had fallen ill and was not expected to live. My mom called to tell me on Sunday that he had passed.

I've missed him for awhile, though. Like many others, he fought a long battle with one of the cruelest diseases on the earth: Alzheimer's. I thought the illness was especially cruel in this case, for it robbed his ability to share one of his greatest assets with the world.

Though I never really considered it before, I guess you could say my grandfather was a geek. Maybe one of the first. And the brightest. Everyone wanted him on their team when we played Trivial Pursuit.

A meteorologist at a time when weather patterns were poorly understood, as the first director of the Numerical Meteorological Center (and later the head of the Weather Bureau and National Weather Service) my grandfather's intellect, dedication to his craft and his fellow man, and vision helped advance the weather prediction capabilities of the world.

When I was about 11 years old, I asked him about the method he pioneered to help predict the weather. It didn't sound all that groundbreaking to me at the time, but that's because he understood that an 11 year-old couldn't begin to conceive of what "interpolation" meant, and he sought to explain it in a way I could understand. He boiled it down to its essence. The details just complicated it.

The last time I saw him with his full (and substantial) mental acuity was about 1996 or so. It was only years after, when he was no longer capably responsive, that I came to appreciate the significance of his accomplishments. It was at that moment that I decided to stop cursing the system from the outside, go back to school, and earn my Bachelors Degree.

Now I wish I had more time with him. I wish I had written more. I wish I could have chatted with him about philosophy, political theory and -- yes -- the weather.

My grandfather was the only person I knew who, if you chatted with him about the weather, it wasn't idle small talk. 

His wife, Fran Cressman, served him faithfully through the entire illness. She even visited him often when he could no longer recognize her.

 Her heart and will teach us as much about love and devotion as her husband taught us about meteorology.

Writing for a new marketing and technology blog, I often disparage the way things had been done in the past and praise the virtues of the way things should be done in the future.

The truth is, I pray to God we never forget the things our grandfathers and grandmothers worked so hard -- and sacrificed so much -- to teach us. Dedication. Service. Vision. Courage. Endurance. These are things we should always remember -- and should let guide us from now until Kingdom come.

Along with the memory of my late grandfather, George P. Cressman. Rest in peace, Grandpa. - Cam Beck

The Publisher's Paradox: Why Traditional Advertising Models Are Dead

While composing my latest post for Marketing Profs: Daily Fix, I suspected that I'd be preaching to the choir. The readers there are usually well versed in new media marketing and the challenges that go along with it. I generally avoid writing such articles. I figure if I'm not challenging what I or what the readers are already certain of, then I'm not adding anything of value. This one is different.

I chose to write this one because I saw a few needs for it.

First, it isn't just for existing readers, but also for those who are still struggling with this entire new media mess and don't understand the principles that affect it. They're still looking for ways to interrupt you -- through your mobile phone, through pop-up ads, through opt-out emails, etc.

If there's one thing I've learned from years of philosophical debates (including political or business-related), it's that we cannot assume we all assume the same things. It isn't that we don't assume anything. We just assume differently.

For those who aren't quite there yet, we have to occasionally make our case as conscientiously as we can if we're going to make an impact on how they think.

Second, we need less, "Do it our way or suffer the consequences," and more, "This is why it's in your best interests to listen."

To that end, I also hope the article gives you some ammunition for when you must try to convince someone that doing what they've always done is more risky than doing something new.

I hope you enjoy the effort. Stop by and let me know what you think. - Cam Beck

Are You Inspiring Others?

On Friday, Erin over at junior planner i am, had a great post about how a speech entitled "Brand Heroism: Advertising As a Force For Good" once again made her fall in love with advertising.  The speaker was Hal Curtis, a creative director at Wieden & Kennedy that has worked for years on brands like Nike and Coca-Cola.  Erin went on to explain that just because a piece of business is not pro-bono doesn't mean that it can't speak to social matters and still inspire people to do great things.

Curtis went on to show how a uninspiring brand could be turned around with just one spot.

Feed readers go here:

This inspires me to do great work.  This inspires me to make a difference.  Are you reaching your potential today? - John Herrington

Ad:Tech Parting Thoughts: Are Conferences a Waste of Time?

This last week I had the great fortune of being invited to attend Ad:Tech San Francisco, along with Ryan, Sean, Katie, and Paul, on behalf of Tim and Wendy McHale of The Madison Avenue Journal. It was a fun, rewarding experience on a personal level, but when I came back, I knew I would have to answer the question (both for myself and for my company): Can companies regularly justify the (sometimes hefty) entrance fee for events like these?

I can't speak for all conferences, but on this one, I can say I will recommend my company, Click Here, send at least one representative per year, if not two.

To be sure, not all sessions had equal merit. Some of the panelists were throwing around buzzwords like they were going out of style. Several times I expected half the audience to stand up and shout, "Bingo!"

As Dave Barry would say -- I swear I'm not making this up -- I heard one panelists say "engagement" six times in one sentence. The more he used the word, the less it applied to me. I had enough.

Is there an echo in here?
Also, I didn't always agree with (or I didn't always understand) the keynote speakers and panelists. This is a good thing. I figure that, as a general rule, if you are attending only those conferences and speeches where everyone agrees with you and they're only talking about things that everybody knows, you aren't stretching yourself nearly enough.

If no one disagrees with you, you're probably in an echo chamber. That's a dangerous place to be. That's why, by the way, I told Ann Handley and Paul Barsch, in the comments of a post on MPDailyFix.com that I want to hear from people who hate what I write.

There's no way to get better feedback and fine tune your own thinking than to stand toe-to-toe with someone who will kill or die (figuratively) for a competing idea.

There were plenty of moments I was also in some speaker's "Amen" corner. There was some passionate disagreements between panel members -- and between the panel members and the Twitterers. These are the sorts of disagreements from which innovation springs.

5 reasons you should attend these conferences

1. Networking. I met a lot of good people at Ad:Tech, and got an opportunity to see others I don't get the opportunity to see that much.
2. Exposure. I don't care who you are, it's good for those in your industry to be aware of what your company does. If you need business, with over 10,000 people in attendance, this is a good way to build it. Maybe you have all the customers you can handle, and if so, good for you! But nothing is perpetual in business except change. So it will be nice to be on the top of someone else's mind when they happen across a situation that causes them to reflect, "Hey, I know the perfect company for your project."
3. Education. We're apt to think that our problems and challenges are unique, but in reality there isn't much that is new under the sun, if you know what to look for. Chances are you'll come across someone, either in conversation or by watching a keynote or panel discussion, who has found a way to tackle something you've been struggling with, and it might spark an idea on you can approach your situation.
4. Trend-spotting. Where is the industry heading? What are the buzzwords? Hint: If you haven't heard any new ones lately, see my warning about being in an echo chamber.
5. Vendor research. This is sort of a combination of all of the other reasons, but it deserves its own space for the extent to which you can educate yourself about the companies out there who are, in pursuit of their own interests, dying to help you solve your business problems. I know a lot of us get pitched by potential vendors all the time, but it's hard to beat the opportunity to see so many of them in one place, at one time.

The ideal conference strategy
Depending on your budget and human resources, I recommend sending at least two representatives to these conferences. One person would be the designated seminar attendee, and the other would attend all the vendor demonstrations.

For a multi-day event, these attendees should meet 2-3 times daily to discuss what they learned, how it applies to their company, and what their respective next steps should be. Ask questions like:

• What seminars should I attend?
• Should I ask any questions?
• What types of vendors should I look for?
• What questions should I ask them?

It is impossible to attend every seminar. What's more, it's still difficult to attend seminars all day and still get a good run of all the vendors. With two company representatives in attendance, you can build enough contacts to keep several members of your company busy for awhile, just vetting out everything you have learned at the conference.

Yes, that takes time and effort and money. But the alternative is to become stale and to slowly lose relevance to your customers. It's much less expensive to simply attend the conferences. - Cam Beck

These 3 Letters Could Save Your Life

This weekend the American Heart Association trained me in and certified me for CPR and first aid. It was the first time in about 16 years I'd been certified to perform CPR, although I had since been trained for particular emergencies (mostly dealing with sucking chest wounds and other battlefield injuries). A few things had changed since my last certification. One of them was something that someone might ask you for one day, and if you don't know what it is, the person being rescued might die. Also, if you happen to be the person in a dire situation, it's imperative that others know what it is, too.

It's called an AED, or Automated External Defibrillator. Until you get your CPR certification, what you need to know about it is this:

An AED could save your or someone else's life.

They're not always available when you need them, but many public places require them. They may be available at malls, airports, and other places where people gather in large numbers. Your work may even have one or several.

I write this now because, up until Saturday, had someone asked me to, "Call 9-1-1 and get an AED," I would have been able to do exactly half of that. I would have been clueless about the second half.

At a minimum, know what an AED is (they are not all identical in appearance) so that you can be useful should anyone suffer a problem that might require the use of one, but I also ask you to consider getting certified in CPR by visiting the American Red Cross or the American Heart Association.

The world is too small to assume it's someone else's problem. - Cam Beck