Marketing Hipster

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A Google employee and blogger named Lauren Turner hopefully has learned a valuable lesson on what not to do when writing for a corporate blog. Ms. Turner posted a story on Google’s Health Advertising Blog about Michael Moore‘s new movie, Sicko. She said:

“Moore’s film portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care.”

She then went on to encourage health care companies to advertise with Google to spread their “counter-message”.

To no-one’s surprise except for maybe Ms. Turner, this did not go over real well in the blogosphere. Very quickly, Ms. Turner recanted her post with this little diddy. She said:

” Not so good is that some readers thought the opinion I expressed about the movie Sicko was actually Google’s opinion. It’s easy to understand why it might have seemed that way, because after all, this is a corporate blog. So that was my mistake“.

Unfortunately, Ms. Turner could not leave well enough alone and then went on for another two paragraphs about how, “advertising is an effective medium for handling challenges that a company or industry might have”. Many bloggers have expressed their dismay on how this Google employee expressed her opinion on a corporate blog which got her into trouble. I absolutely disagree.

Yes, you do need to be careful how and what you write when you are representing a company, but I think many people are missing the bigger issue here. Blogging is all about credibility. Whether you are writing a blog on a subject you have an interest in, like what I do here or if you are writing a blog for a company you work for; the only way your message will get through is if the author has some sort of credibility. If you do not have any credibility, it does not really matter what you write because no-one will care.

All that Ms. Turner did in both her original post and then in her follow-up was to lose all credibility in my eyes. She took an incredibly complicated and important issue like healthcare in this country and boiled it down to, “Advertise with Google Healthcare companies and we can deliver your message.” Ms. Turner showed that she knows very little about the healthcare industry because if she did, she would know that EVERY study that has been done recently all show that people are not listening because they do not trust any of the healthcare companies and buying ads in Google will deliver nothing other than putting money into Google’s pocket. Writing for a corporate blog does not mean that you need to be a corporate shill.

Ms. Turner, your posts showed that you know very little about the industry your trying to sell to. Our world is very different than it was several years ago and buying text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search will not help get a “counter-message” out. And even if it could, what would a counter-message really accomplish?

Even more importantly, you are doing a huge disservice to many people in this industry who are trying to show our clients how to actually reach out to their customers and truly have an impact that makes a difference.

What do you think? Was this blogger wrong and if so, what did you disagree with her about?

Technorati Tags: Google, Lauren Turner, Michael Moore, Sicko, corporate blog, Blogging, credibility, healthcare

I have gotten a number of emails from people asking me about how the presentation went that I did last week when I spoke at the Triangle’s American Marketers Association lunch. We had a great turnout, I think we had well over 100 people show up and I think at least from the feedback that I have received, all went well.

What I tried to convey in my presentation was two main points. First, that in today’s fractured media environment, it is no longer about products, services or even brands; it is about the people. The customers, the clients, the users, the people, we as marketers, are trying very hard to reach. But today it is not just about getting attention, it is about connecting users with a brand as well as connecting users to other users with similar interests.

My second point discussed the question about control and that again, we as marketers, have very little if any control compared to years past. This includes utilizing more traditional marketing techniques like TV, radio and print. As marketers, we not only need to accept this, but I believe we need to embrace it. The days of talking points and controlling the message is over. And the sooner we accept it, the sooner we can realize that this is not bad news, but on the contrary, this is incredibly exciting news with great possibilities if understood and done correctly.

If you are interested, I have included my presentation below for you to look over. As always, I welcome any and all thoughts.

Over the last month, I have written several posts about Dove and their most recent viral video venture on YouTube. If you are not familiar with it, they hired an actress and offered users a chance to (in their minds) create a Dove commercial that would be played during the academy awards. Though they supplied all the content that could be used for these videos and they also banned all men from participating in this contest. This campaign received a great deal of attention and hits from the YouTube community, but if you look a little bit deeper, you will see that the campaign was no where close to a success.

YouTube vlogger Shmuel Tennenhaus sent me a link to a video post of his where he discusses this campaign and I think he raises a number of great points. Please view the video below.

Excellent thoughts Shmuel, thanks for sharing!

Though I do believe there are some other points that need to be looked at here regarding this campaign. First and foremost, this video should of never been put up on YouTube, period. The video is an absolute straight advertisement and anything that is blatantly advertising will most likely get panned by the YouTube community.

Even more importantly than that, at the heart of viral videos is the engagement factor. What makes viral videos successful is that they are contagious. Viewers want to send them to their friends and others want to take them and make them their own either by commenting via message boards, blogs or vlogs. Dove did not allow for any of these things and it cost them dearly. How do you create a contest where you supply all the content, images, videos, music, etc. and expect to get anything original? And then be surprised when you are called out on this.

Bottom line is that Dove – Unilever and their agency Ogilvy wanted their cake and to eat it too. They wanted to capture attention using user generated content, but were unwilling to give up control of their brand to see if they could be successful.

Technorati Tags: Dove, YouTube, Shmuel Tennenhaus, viral videos, engagement

I had a little bit of a deja vu moment earlier. I was having a political discussion with a friend over IM today and we were talking about possible presidential candidates for the 2008 election. My friend who is also “in the industry” talked about how many of the presidential hopefuls are really grabbing onto “engagement marketing” techniques like MySpace, YouTube and their web sites. I responded to him that yes, the candidates are using some of these technologies, but they are far from even coming close to engaging anyone.

Following my discussion, I was going to post an article on this when my Google Reader popped up with a post from Robert Scoble whose thoughts are very much in line with my own. Bottom line is that these candidates can use all the new and cool widgets out there, but the only way to truly engage with their constituents is by opening a two-way conversation.

Even though Barak Obama launched his exploratory committee though YouTube and John Edwards has a MySpace page, no-one has yet engaged with the people on these social sites not to mention the blogosphere. Politics and business have a lot in common here. It seems that neither understand or want to actually listen to what people have to say.

The first candidate to actually engage in a two-way conversation online the right way will see attention that all the media dollars in the world could not buy. Though I question whether that will happen or not.

Here is my Sunday question of the day. If you were running for president and truly wanted to engage people online, how would you do it? What would be your tactics? Where would you start?  I am going to put some ideas together as well and post my thoughts this week.

Technorati Tags: presidential candidates, engagement marketing, MySpace, YouTube, Robert Scoble

Now that the new new year is in full swing and we are all back to work, the blogosphere is a awash with articles on anything and everything that is Web 2.0. Depending on whom you read, Web 2.0 has many different meanings. One of the main themes that I have pulled from many pundits is that this is the year that marketers really engage with their customers. Instead of this one way push conversation that has been going on for the better part of forever, this year large and small marketers alike realize that the only way to truly own their customers is by opening a two way conversation.

One of the questions that I am being asked by clients is where and how to start? As many of us know, when you are dealing with large companies with many levels, change does not happen quickly to say the least. Also, when you are talking about engagement marketing, there are definitely some trials and tribulations involved. In other words, companies do not want to take a chance of opening Pandora’s box.

An area where I believe is a must starting place for any company is to look internally. How are customers / clients being dealt with today by the employees? How is communication being handled whether through phone, email or fax? Are customers only being spoken with when there is a problem? Are you being proactive or reactive? To really properly engage with clients, it starts on the front line which is your employees. They need to be engaged and understand the vision to ensure that everyone is proceeding in the same direction.

I was sitting in a client meeting recently when a question was posed to a client, “If you were sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner and one of your relatives asked you to tell them about the company you work for, what would you say?” There was silence in the room while people searched for a response.

If it takes employees time to figure out how to define your company, what do you think your customers are saying?

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, engagement marketing