SXSWi: Let's Get Engaged!

This year’s South by Southwest Interactive Festival started off tragically with the news of the Japan disaster casting a shadow over the otherwise jubilant festivities. But by the time SXSWi was over, the crowd-funding was in full swing, and all of the ubiquitous “dudes with beards and glasses” were heading to the airport to be replaced by more dudes/dude-ettes with tattoos and piercings arriving for the music festival. One thing was clear to all: marketing in the modern era is all about ENGAGEMENT.

As NYU professor and author Adam Penenberg described on one panel, when people engage with each other (tweeting, writing on their walls, checking in, blog commenting, gaming) the body releases the chemical Oxytocin, also known as the hormone of love. The same hormone that bonds mothers to their newborns also increases empathy 13 percent in males. So, you could think of all the networking that takes place at SXSWi as a love fest of sorts. Certainly, for Seth Priebatsch, the founder of next big thing SCVNGR and keynote speaker, the future is all about engaging with others through the “gamification” of social apps and sites. If we only transform all challenges of the modern era – education, the environment – into a game that we all solve together, the world will be a better place. And this is a theme I heard throughout the event — education is broken, work is broken, social media is broken — now lets change the rules and play some games!

I appreciated Jason Brown of Zynga’s sentiment that “games are becoming indistinguishable from real life communication” and as I watched all attendees staring at their screens throughout the show this truth became self evident. But the funny thing about “South By” (as you should call it if you want to demonstrate street cred), is that it’s a cul de sac of future thinking that will eventually hit Main Street once everyone catches up. So, while Location Based Services (LBS) are the rage at the show, the market of smartphone users that actually use them is still immature. And by immature I don’t mean that they wear bright orange tee shirts with matching orange frame sunglasses (love that Priebatsch style). Watch the mobile LBS/gaming market take off as brands aim to increase engagement with consumers through loyalty-creating games that encourage them to “level up.”

But, lest we believe that people will play games without incentives, consider the promotion that Jill Okawa Fletcher of Virgin America did with LBS provider Loopt to drive people to check in at taco stands to win flights to Mexico. On the “Go Here, Do This” panel she shared with LivingSocial, Foursquare and Yelp! everyone agreed that “you need a big carrot” and that Facebook Places will be the check in hub for LBS. In counterpoint, in a panel on the true value of a Facebook fan, everyone concluded that it’s important to not focus on your brand’s most influential fans, and that giving away free ice-cream dilutes the value of a fan base. What’s most important is what you do with the fan (engagement, again). But it was beneficial to hear from Paul Ollinger of Facebook that the average fan spends $77 more than non-fan customers.

So if engagement via gaming, LBS and social media is the key for brands relating to consumers, the bar is even higher to produce content (stories, videos) that will create better engagement. Social isn’t about just creating pass-along viral buzz, it’s about dialogue, and the dialogue should never be just about the brand. This was made even clearer when I met my personal hero Victor Pineiro of Big Spaceship who posts for Skittles and was on a panel with the guys who created Whopper Sacrifice and American Express Open Forum. Their advice: fail and fail often. This is a process of constant reinvention. Conversational posts are 8-10 times more likely to get responses. Stories are not about us (brands). Focus on the topics that brands share with consumers because that’s what forms dialogue. If Oreo’s fan page can out-do Lady Gaga’s fan page in engagement with posts to the community, it’s more than just celebrity fueling engagement.

The same thoughts were expressed by Robert Brunner of Ammunition Group in his solo session “Ideas not Objects.” Product designer Robert Brunner has played a role in designing some of the seminal devices of our time: the Kindle and Beats by Dre headphones to name two. His philosophy of design is that every product must tell a story. “It doesn’t help to wrap a story around a bad idea. We get our stories from the community. The creation myth can no longer be a myth. Designer and storyteller need to work together. You cannot control your brand, you can only influence what people feel. Today, not taking risks is risky.”

“Content is still king” was heard from several during the show, but one risk-taker in particular hit it home: artist and designer Marc Ecko. He outlined his mathematical formula for authenticity. Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, he took a dizzying Prezi.com-powered presentation trip inside his own mind to uncover what defined his personal brand, on a personal road of discovery that has lead him to promoting UnlimitedJustice.com a cause to stop the use of paddling in corporal punishment in the 20 states that still permit it. He’s using the tools of outsider art and protest tactics to use social media for good and benefit education. Check out the site to stop the dropout rate from climbing. The SXSWi show ended with the news that Owsley Stanley, the “Acid King” who ushered in the psychedelic movement of the ’60s, had died. In many ways, his passing was a passing of the torch to a new generation of adventurers gathering in Austin to tune in, log on, and check out (the modern era’s version of “tune in, turn on and drop out”). Comedian Marc Maron closed the festival with a live podcast of his WTF Show and he called Austin “Hipster Alamo” as the last bastion of cool in Texas. I prefer to think that the “Love In” lives on at SXSWi.

Social Insecurity

I recently read the fantastic book Born to Run by author Christopher McDougall about the amazing Tarahumara runners from a remote part of Mexico who run hundreds of miles in bare feet. It was a great read, and in addition to eating chia seeds by the tablespoon now, I bought a pair of Nike Free sneakers to get back in shape.

But that’s not what this post is really about. Reading the book, I loved a quote attributed to social philosopher Eric Hoffer who said “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” It got me thinking about social media marketing today. And as I pack my bag and head out for the South by Southwest Interactive show (barefoot running sneaks in tow), I’m wondering whether this year’s event will make me feel that social media is a movement, a business or just a racket.

No matter what I ultimately conclude from my experience, I can guarantee that this SXSW will be a hotbed of insecurity. When you throw a bunch of people together in one location that have basically only known each other virtually through tweets, posts, videos, comments and check-ins, it’s bound to be awkward. Why else would South By have a session titled “How to not be a Douchebag at SXSW’”? Clearly, attendees are eager to network with old connections and build up new ones, and it does require you to come out of your shell.

Beyond this interpersonal insecurity brought out by the show, there’s the insecurity of being a social media practitioner today. What other field of work can engender so much unease as social media marketing? (Certainly brain surgeons aren’t questioning themselves as much as we do. Or at least I hope they’re not!)

Old school, big ad agencies are wondering if they’re going to be usurped by smaller, more nimble interactive/digital agencies. Traditional PR practitioners (like Charlie Sheen’s publicist) are wondering if social tools are going to put them out of a job. Clients are asking who needs to take responsibility for social media within their organizations – customer service, brand marketing, online, advertising, PR, sales – all, one, a mix of several departments?

So, while we all have some knowledge of the social scene, and name drop (and retweet) to prove our bona fides, social is so all-encompassing, and ever-changing, that total knowledge of the space seems forever out of reach.

Like any other movement, social media marketing has its crusaders. Last year I was underwhelmed by Chris Brogan, Julien Smith and Peter Shankman. They made me feel that social really was becoming a racket in which self-help gurus teach corporate America to act human. Their very authenticity felt disingenuous to me. So, this year I’m avoiding any sessions where self-created Vaynerchuks espouse the virtues of letting it all hang out. This year, I’m focusing on the technologies powering social and how brands are adapting social into how they market.

Admitting that you don’t know everything is the essence to preparing yourself to learn (social media marketing or brain surgery). The risk in admitting this is that it reveals your own insecurities. But, I really enjoy this quote from Hoffer: “In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned shall find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exists.” As the Tarahumara already know, if you don’t keep running, you die.

Stay tuned for my notes from the show.

Social Media Food for Thought

When I was five, I went to New York City with my family, and I visited the Automat. The Automat is a relic from a bygone era. You put your money into a machine, and out popped your lunch from a special vending machine-like portal. Consumers could see what they were going to order through the window in the portal, and they had a wide variety of choices. Your interaction with a waitress or a waiter was nonexistent. And you had zero control over what toppings you got with your sandwich. So, customization was lost at the expense of convenience in the name of low overhead. 

As a kid I loved the novelty of this experience with a physical machine serving as my connection to my food. But as I grew up, and my tastes grew up with me, I wanted greater choices. Burger King had a memorable campaign with their “have it your way” and I can still recite the McDonald’s sing-song mantra “…pickles, lettuce don’t upset us….” Big brands were beginning to understand that consumers want choices. There is no perfect, only “perfects” to suit all of our individual needs (thank you Malcolm Gladwell).

Fast forward more than 30 years, and I’m back in New York City again, eating at 4food, a new restaurant that is taking over where the Automat left off, with a mission to de-junk fast food in the age of social media. When you enter, you are overwhelmed by a massive video wall that showcases your social check-in on Foursquare back to the lunch crowd. And it’s impressive to see that you can play with iPads that they’ve conveniently placed around the restaurant (just wipe the ketchup off your fingers first). Then you are overwhelmed by how many choices you have to customize your food to your tastes. There are thousands of possible combinations, and the burgers have a big hole in the center just to cram all of those toppings inside (check out the video below).

4food does a great job of manning its social presence, with active engagement on Facebook and Twitter. And in the real world, the staff is friendly and attentive. But 4food runs the risk of providing almost too much choice to meet the new consumer’s need to feel engaged with his food by remixing it into a personal masterpiece. I found myself wanting to order something popular named after a movie star, as I could do at any deli. And I realized, as I ate my personalized burger, that I really didn’t like what I created.

This is a powerful message for anyone working in social media today. Brands can provide the forum and the content for consumers to create something personal for themselves, but ultimately what the consumer creates is the consumer’s responsibility, not the brand’s responsibility. The fact that I didn’t like my burger wasn’t 4food’s fault, it was my fault for not creating something good out of what they had to offer.   

Catch and Release in the Stream

I recently had the opportunity to take an extended break from work. Well, not voluntarily; I seriously injured my arm and had to take short term disability. I don’t want to get into how I hurt myself (saving school children from a mugging, volunteering in Pakistan, defending a maiden’s honor). But the upshot was that I had two weeks to heal and basically do nothing.

It’s a funny thing when you go from a completely plugged in life, to one in which you can’t really indulge in much typing (casts make it difficult). I slowed down, read several books, and I fell in love. I fell in love with the stream.

The first object of my affection was my Roku streaming Netflix on demand hooked up to my HDTV. Months ago I paid $150 for the box that sits on the shelf above my TV and streams thousands of movies wirelessly to my TV for $10 a month. But I didn’t really realize how amazing it is until I had hours to kill. I went deep into the catalog, becoming an armchair cineaste.

And then I discovered Rhapsody. I don’t mean that I somehow reached a state of eternal bliss. Rather, I realized that I could plug in my wi-fi enabled iPod into my stereo and listen to millions of songs on demand for $10 a month. All of the music that I would have to pay iTunes $1 to own, and eat up my hard drive, became basically free because I was sitting at an all-you-can-eat buffet of music. And anyone who knows me knows what a good listener I am. I’m wearing my Bose headphones right now, and not paying attention to the colleagues at my door. Like I said, I am a good listener.

I’m not an owner of the movies and the music I consumed on break and continue to consume. I’m a renter.  And in this economy, why would you own when you can rent, and thereby benefit from an endless variety of experiences? Not only is the supply greater than what I could reasonably afford to pay for all the media I am consuming, it’s incredibly easy to access this content.

Right before my accident, I made a mixed CD for a friend, and asked her to rip it so she could return the CD to me. She looked at me like I was asking her to play an eight track cassette. Michael, she said, I don’t even know how to rip from a CD, no one plays CDs anymore. I was taken aback at my twenty-something friend, because the very concept of having a tangible form of music was alien to her.

And all of this got me thinking about ownership, new economic models, and ease of use. The truth is that we don’t listen to iPods; we listen to music. And we don’t watch the Roku, or Netflix on Demand on the iPhone app, we watch movies.

The best devices/services/apps provide instant access to content and the best delivery of the content. The best devices catch and release seamlessly – they disappear as we use them and meld with the experience. Who can tell the dancer from the dance?

I don’t want to get metaphysical on you, but there’s something to the idea of taking something, enjoying it, and then passing it along. They say that holding things up inside you only causes grief, and that the constant need to consume bigger, better, faster things is an unfulfilling life. The possessions, what George Carlin called stuff, keep us tied down instead of freeing us. I learned the hard way from my accident that not all things can pass through me without inflicting some harm. But I started healing when I stopped forcing things open, started going with the flow, and opening my mind to trying new things in the stream. And now that I have access to my hands, I’m back to swimming in the social stream.    

The Skittle Fairey…Yum!

This past weekend I went to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston to see the Shepard Fairey exhibit Supply & Demand. You know him for his Obama portrait, a pop cultural icon that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. For someone who came up in the art world by graffiti tagging and plastering stickers with the face of Andre the Giant and the word “Obey” just about everywhere, being featured at the ICA and National Portrait Gallery is a sign that what was once street is now truly mainstream.

And when you think about it, what’s really happening in the world today, from a communications standpoint, is that the Shepard Faireys are taking over. Before there was a Facebook wall for you to write on, Fairey was tagging walls with his graffiti art, and spreading his stickers virally. His “Obey” stickers preceded the Internet age and became so ubiquitous that they’re the precursors to those “Original Irish Gifts” and other Facebook flotsam and jetsam that is seriously clogging up my information arteries (not that I don’t love a virtual Guinness as much as the next guy).

In the way that Fairey is subversive by taking traditional images of propaganda (Mao, Stalin, Bobby Seale) and giving them an ironic (and often hilarious!) twist, marketers are using the power of social networks to have you, the consumer, mess with their brand and help to define it anew, remix it, make of it what you will. Consider Skittles, the bite-sized candy in a rainbow of fruit flavors. I love them because they’re delicious. And as someone in marketing, I also love them because the brand is going outside of its safe zone. With its “Interweb the Rainbow” campaign, they’ve created a widget that floats from Facebook page, to YouTube channel, to Twitter, to product page so you can seamlessly experience their brand as a participant. Like Shep Fairey, you can “tag” Skittles by tweeting about them, creating a video and uploading it to YouTube, write on the FB wall, etc. Skittles is opening themselves up wide for all that YOU have to say about them.

We’ve all heard the joke about the bad blind date who talks on and on about his many accomplishments to his companion, and then pauses to say, “Well, enough about me, what do you think of me?” In our increasingly digital age, where self-publishing and social networking technology is free to everyone with a smart phone or an Internet connection, who you are isn’t what you tell the world, it’s what the world tells you. Now go have a Skittle.

In Facebook All Business Is Personal

Last week our agency received a visit from Lisa Hickey, a self-described “Slightly insane creative thinker and writer. Designer and strategist. Global conversationalist.” She worked at almost every local Boston area advertising agency (with the exception of Mullen) and when she was laid off last year, she re-branded herself as a social media consultant.

Her compelling tale of personal growth via use of Twitter, Facebook, etc. was stirring for all attendees. Given the tragicomic state of the economy today with layoffs everywhere, we can expect other marketers to follow her lead from the unemployment line into social media, and a proliferation of “social media gurus.” By the way, social media guru is a term that I personally loathe because in this day and age we should all be digitally literate, rather than relying on some sort of digital elite (See: Chinese Ch'an master Lin-chi I-hsüan and “Killing the Buddha”). 

Anyway, one thing she said really stuck with me: “Today, people are becoming brands, and brands are becoming people.” It’s true for Lisa, and it’s true for a lot of companies today. Consider how Facebook pages for companies have proliferated, and the very same week of Lisa’s visit Facebook changed those pages to resemble individual profiles. Check out this fantastic whitepaper from The Advance Guard on how those changes can be optimized.

Now, what Facebook doesn’t tell you is that if you wanted to get a customized URL for your company’s fan page that will start at around $100K and involves a media buy. Not a lot of individuals will be in a position to brand their own personal profile at that high price tag.  So, I guess companies are becoming more like individuals, but still get corporate pricing courtesy of Facebook. (Nice. But it’s probably better than spending the money on redecorating a bank’s bathroom.)

So what’s my point? I guess I’m left feeling like Randall Stross, who in his Digital Domain column on Sunday really opened up the can of worms that individuals becoming like companies, and companies becoming like individuals entails. His belief is that it’s ruining our sense of privacy: “When the distinction blurs between one’s few close friends and the many who are not, it seems pointless to distinguish between private and public.” It will be interesting to watch companies open up in the social world and see just how much they’re willing to share. What do you think? Are we over-branding ourselves and destroying what little is left of our private identities in the process?     

 

Seth Godin on PR vs. Publicity

I just want to celebrate Seth Godin and the wisdom he demonstrates in his post "The Difference Between PR and Publicity." I can't really write what he wrote any better than how he wrote it. But I think it's important for all clients to understand the difference between PR strategies/counsel and getting ink, and to demand that their agency delivers both.

 I also feel that an agency that delivers great press coverage without great strategy is performing some kind of miracle. For great press coverage is the result of great PR strategy -- the two are not mutually exclusive. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how an agency can deliver results without strategy, or strategy without results. I seriously doubt that it's possible.

Tweeting Together/Alone on the Red Carpet

If you participated in the tweeting about the Super Bowl advertising and joined Mullen at www.sb43ads.com, then you will certainly enjoy our latest adventure in sourcing the wisdom of the crowd. By going to www.redcarpet09.com you will be able to watch everyone commenting on the Oscars before, during and after. And you can participate in polling and tweet directly from the page. If you’ve harbored a desire to be like Joan Rivers or Ryan Seacrest, providing play-by-play commentary on the action, now is your chance to do just that in the Twitterverse.  

James Michael Surowiecki’s book “The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations” was never more relevant than today, when micro-blogging services such as Twitter have enabled masses of people to share their thoughts about everything from Doritos TV spots to Kate Winslet’s gown.

I read a recent review of a film festival being held in New York for horror movies by director David Cronenberg (“The Fly”, “Videodrome”) in which they wrote that “One of the advantages of seeing one of these high-Cronenberg extravaganzas with a midnight-movie audience is that everybody gets to go “Ewww” at the same time, which kind of relieves the tension.”

The same can be said of these two experiments in Twitter mass participation. By viewing the Oscars and tweeting your impressions and sharing those impressions with others via the hashtag #redcarpet09 you are experiencing something with a group, even though you may be alone in front of your TV set with your laptop or iPhone and a bowl of popcorn.

Adweek and The Boston Globe have taken notice of Mullen’s adventures in tapping into the collective wisdom of crowds, and that can only help boost participation (#sb43ads was the fourth-most tweeted topic for a time during the Super Bowl, inching out Bruce Springsteen for a moment – can’t feel bad about beating the Boss).

Edward Boches, our chief creative officer, feels that these Twitter experiments are really only scratching the surface of what’s possible with Twitter (read his post here). The sky is the limit for where this service can go, and I’m excited to be a part of taking it there. As David Pogue wrote, "Don't worry about the rules. Including mine. Use Twitter the way you want to. Don't let anyone tell you you're doing it wrong."

We hope you take part to see what can be accomplished when we tap into our collective conscious. If you have any thoughts about how Twitter can be used for other purposes, feel free to comment here.       

Tweeting About the Super Bowl

While we’re all bummed that the Pats didn’t make it, the Cardinals won’t be the only birds in the game on Super Bowl Sunday. The Twitter universe will be tweeting about the advertisements in real time and all of the play-by-play commentary will be compiled at "Trash Talk from Section Twitter."



To participate, get a Twitter account and type #sb43ads in your tweet plus your canny commentary.

As the Boston Globe just reported, Mullen, as well as “a group of ad agencies and Boston University students are looking to get a real-time Twitter debate going on the merits of Sunday's Super Bowl ads.”

According to the Globe, "the ad agency group is looking to harness the social networking technology of Twitter.com as a way to get folks to post instant and pithy critiques of ads they loved or loathed - even as they are watching the game."

Edward Boches, Mullen's chief creative officer, said of the upcoming Twitter experiment on Super Bowl ads, "We're looking to use a new medium to comment on an old medium. The idea is to get the whole community more familiar and comfortable with the concept of social networking as another option in the marketer's tool bag. And if we're lucky the comments will be funnier than the ads themselves."