Long Time No Post & Tasteless Guerillas February 3, 2007
Posted by sfinkelp in Marketing.add a comment
Hi folks, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. Here are some thoughts on the Boston marketing fiasco…..
When is Guerilla Marketing not cool? When it shuts down a major US city because it’s mistaken for a terrorist attack.
After a series of lite-brite-esque cartoon characters strung on bridges and tunnels in Boston were revealed to be a promotion for a Cartoon Network show, the mainstream media and blogosphere erupted in a debate of whether Boston overreacted and if the plot was brilliant or a low-point of marketing.
To the first point, Boston didn’t overreact. How should the general public be expected to recognize a cartoon that needs to employ guerilla marketing to get noticed and whose audience is the same demographic as the glib duo who hung the boards and then taunted the press as they were arrested and posted bond?
The commuter who spotted one of the strange looking advertisements and alerted the police was following through on what every DC metro commuter hears a dozen times a day– See something weird? Tell someone. What if this hadn’t been a hoax? The media would elevate the vigilant commuter to hero status, while the police and bomb squads would be praised for being on top of their game.
As for the success of the campaign? I’m certain the execs at Interference Media, the New York Guerilla Marketing firm hired by Turner Broadcasting are feeling like they did a pretty good job this week. While they have an apologetic splash screen up on their site, it reads half-hearted. After all, I’m a woman in my early 30s—not the show’s target audience– and I can not only name Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but I also now recognize its characters and can name the network it airs on. In other words, the campaign not only succeeded, it got well beyond the audiences it intended to reach.
So I’ll give this one an A for permeation and an F for execution. When it’s all said and done, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force clip I watched on the show’s website tells me, this is no Simpsons or South Park. The most brilliant marketing tactic conceivable can’t fix that.
What should we communicators take away from this story? Like any profession, we should operate with an eye on ethical conduct. There are some means that do not justify the end. In my opinion, this was one of those times.
One Journey Ends, Another Begins August 5, 2006
Posted by sfinkelp in Blogging, Uncategorized.2 comments
How can it be August? The summer is flying and I’m about to finish my first two Masters courses at Johns Hopkins. One of my professors, Nicco Mele, has asked us all to blog about something we learned or didn’t understand.
What I don’t understand is what I think nobody fully understands. What will tomorrow look like? That’s what I really want to know.
Last January, I traveled in Patagonia where I visited Torres del Paine, a national park in Chile. On one hike, we trekked up and down the edges of wind swept mountains for about 3 hours. Then, the last hour of the hike was straight up. We scrambled over boulders and rocks, trying to reach the towering peaks above. What looked like it would take 10 minutes, took more than 60. And several times, I thought I was at the top, but then realized there was still more to go. Finally, when we did get to the top, the view was different than any of us could have predicted. For starters, we didn’t reach the towers. They were still a football field or so away. And actually, it was impossible to reach them as we were separated by an aqua mountain lake nestled in a deep valley.
For me, there’s an analogy between that hike and all that I’ve learned this summer. I’ve been climbing up a steep mountain of information, wondering when I will be “on top,” and able to see out in front of me to tomorrow. I desperately want to be able to predict where we are going and to be in front of the trends. But for now, I just keep climbing, looking back down the mountain now and then to see how far I’ve come, but plodding steadily upward. But the tricky thing about this mountain is as I climb, it keeps growing. The online world is evolving so rapidly, I wonder if I’ll ever hit any kind of peak. If and when I do, I won’t be surprised at all if the view I see is completely different than what I expected to find.
Regarding all that I’ve learned, I think perhaps the greatest knowledge I’ve gained is perspective. I feel I have a much better handle on the context in which Internet trends are evolving and growing. The Web and all that’s happening on it sits within a fascinating nexus of technological advances, society’s response to industrialization, and human psychology. It’s a strange mix of being all at once new each day and just a different form of something old.
Another thing I’ve learned? Blogging’s kind of fun. But it stinks when nobody gives you comments.
So What Really Is Web 2.0? August 1, 2006
Posted by sfinkelp in Web 2.0.add a comment
In a March Slate article, Paul Boutin boils it down to this:
The only way that 2.0 fits the current Web is if you use the original meaning. It’s a technology upgrade, one that finally does what they’d said version 1.0 would do.
He’s right. Web 2.0 is finally the arrival at the “readable, writable” web where the lines between content consumers and producers blend.
In his article, Web 2.0: The new Internet “boom” doesn’t live up to its name, Boutin points out the term is becoming an overused buzz word.
But the definition runs aground when Web 2.0 technologies power Gap.com, an impressive but collaboration-free shopping experience.
Web 2.0. It sounds so cool. Some might even say, so 2.0! He’s right to caution that it can be an empty or even confusing term when people use it to sound sophisticated or ahead of the curve. What makes more sense:
I like Wikipedia because it’s 2.0.
I like Wikipedia because it’s an online, ever-evolving encyclopedia by the people.
But at the same time, I think techies need to chill out. Some people are going to misuse the term, no doubt. (I wonder if hip-hoppers lament the spread of “bling” into mainstream society?) But at the root, the term is spreading because the Internet is coming round to being what it was intended to be. That’s exciting! If 2.0 makes it into the dictionary, that would be even more exciting. No doubt what’s happening on the Net right now is a hallmark of our era that historians will discuss. Let the 2.0 term get out there and get out there wide. Let people’s imaginations be captured by it. Let folks get jazzed.
I trust people will see through the phony imposters.
The Industrial Interruption of the Human Conversation August 1, 2006
Posted by sfinkelp in Web 2.0.add a comment
When I started my job at Free Range nearly two years ago now, I asked my future co-workers what I should read to help me prep for my new position. One person recommended Don’t Make Me Think, a well-known book about information architecture, which I found very useful and informative.
The second book was Cluetrain Manifesto. For some reason, I never got to that one and it’s been gathering dust for nearly two years. But now, thanks to a grad school class, I’m jumping in. And of course I’m kicking myself for not fitting it in earlier.
The book does a good job of explaining why the Internet is what it is in our lives—completely enmeshed. According to the authors, we’re reacting to a society filled with managed structure, assembly line mass production, big media, and mass marketing that deals with many but connects deeply with few.
We crave the bazaar that the marketplace once was– that place of human interaction and of buzzing conversations.
So now that it’s so easy to connect, we’re going gangbusters. At the time Cluetrain was written, the blogging phenomenon hadn’t even hit. Cellphones were probably just about to hit their tipping point in America, so texting was probably off the radar of nearly everyone. And yet, the authors captured what was going on. As they point out, the technology almost doesn’t matter. Whether email, chat, listserves, or open source software, the Internet is about living communities where people are interacting and speaking with their authentic voices. Each new technology just makes this easier and easier.
As I’m reading Cluetrain, I’ve also been doing research for a paper on youth, the Internet and civic engagement. As I’ve been combing through articles, it’s fascinating to see the divide among academics. Some say the Internet is another TV, locking us in solitary, passive activity and contributing to society’s breakdown (Robert Putnam). On the other side, Net proponents fall in line with Cluetrain—that the Internet is what’s allowing our postmodern society to re-establish community and connectedness. And it’s community plus—now we get to interact with people around the world, who we’d otherwise never meet. Average people can reach the world, toppling (sometimes literally) hierarchies.
I say the Net is an agent of both. It just depends on the user and those generating content (who of course are now more and more often one in the same). Some folks like to just chill, perhaps solitarily downloading tunes or gaming alone. But others are interacting. They are hobbying, protesting, griping, teaching, learning, laughing, empathizing, and helping. Wasn’t life kind of like this before the Internet. Some people are people people. Others aren’t.
I’m getting gushy, but I am glad to be living now to see this phenomenon re-shape the world. Maybe it’s the geek in me or maybe I’m just one more who finds the “get real” nature of the Net a welcome relief amid the fake speak that still lingers about. Think TV commercials, White House press briefings, corporate scandals…
Your Phone, Swiss Army Knife Style July 25, 2006
Posted by sfinkelp in cell phones.add a comment
In 1999, I left my hometown of Pittsburgh to go to Slovakia for the Peace Corps. At home cell phone users were still considered snobs– often stereotyped as rude, self-inflated business people yakking away at the most inappropriate of times.
My then 96 year-old-grandmother had a neighbor, a young, single lawyer, who fit the bill. If he wasn’t gabbing on his cell in the shared backyard behind their houses, he was always leaving his trashcan in front of her section of the front lawn. When he refused to put his can elsewhere, she clipped an article from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette about cell phone users being snobs and sent it to him. “P.S.,” she wrote at the bottom, “I’m not a fan of your trash can.”
So you can imagine my surprise when I landed in Slovakia– a still developing Eastern European country– and found that everyone had cell phones. And it was in the Peace Corps that I got my first went mobile.
The thing was huge– a used phone I borrowed from some co-workers. But it was my only phone and I LOVED it. I couldn’t imagine not having it. Suddenly it was so easy to meet up with friends and make plans. And like all Slovaks, I quickly became a text-messaging pro. It was cheaper than a phone call, although reading and writing in Slovak was sometimes challenging.
Two-and-a-half years later, when I returned home to the States, I was surprised again. Americans were buying cell phones in droves. And gone was the stigma that cell users were stuck-up and rude. It was fascinating to me to compare adoption in Europe to the States. In Slovakia, cell phones were cheaper than land lines. Text messaging was cheaper than calling. So everyone had cells and everyone used SMS. But in the US, it was clear that people were warming up to cell phones due to their convenience and peace of mind. And rarely did people ditch their land line.
America’s growing love affair with the cell phone has no end in site. A recent Pew Internet study noted that we sometimes resent our little phone friends. We don’t like that people can reach us more easily than ever before and we often lie to folks about where we are when we’re on our cells! But we put those annoyances aside easily and more and more, we don’t want to be without our phones. In fact, the study revealed that most people want to have more features on their phones. Especially when it comes to maps, the Internet and email. As the study said, we’re looking to have a “communications Swiss army knife.”
No doubt, we’ll have all of this. In fact, we won’t even have “phones” for much longer. We’ll have handhelds that do it all. Life Pilots.
One side-effect that I do like about the mobile world. I feel like it’s bringing a little social spontaneity of the old days back to society. People make plans on the fly and agree to meet each other on the spot.
If only Grammy could see us now.
And You Didn’t Believe in Reincarnation July 25, 2006
Posted by sfinkelp in Gaming, Uncategorized.add a comment
Perhaps one of the concepts that’s “blown my mind” the most in my recent digital journey is that of Second Life. If you haven’t heard of this website, take a look. Thousands of people have become “residents,” buying property, meeting people, partying…
So after several weeks of talking about it, I finally joined. Got myself an avatar and hopped on in. Much to my chagrin, it doesn’t seem to be a super Mac friendly world. It took forever for places and people to load. And I couldn’t get my bearings due to a time lag between arrowing and moving.
Even so, I learned that I can fly, laugh, shout, cry, shrug my shoulders, walk through water, buy a cute frog, and say hi to people. At one point I landed somewhere where a couple was standing kinda close. One said, “Hey Sweetie.” The other said, “Hey Baby 
.” I wasn’t sure if they were talking to me, but it wigged me out and I left ASAP.
It’s funny how in real life I’m not shy when meeting people, but this virtual world felt so strange. I felt very shy and worried that everyone was going to be REALLY weird.
But for as foreign as this place is to me, thousands of people are really at home there. They even call the real world their “first life.” And they aren’t gaming, they are residing.
When I first hear of SL, I was tempted to write it off as some hobby of some fringe subculture. And while for sure it’s still a minority of people who are SL members, the place has a booming economy– it generates more than 500K in economic activity each week.
Listen to a recent episode of the podcast, SecondCast, about SL and it seems somewhat even more normal. Last weekend The American Cancer Society held it’s second annual Relay For Life Virtual walk-a-thon. And it raised $27K! Not bad!
In fact, what is so interesting to me is how riddled SL is with real life. There are scandals and controversies over policies. People sell stuff and hold charity fundraisers.
In our class we compared SL to a modern day hobby like model railroading. But I think SL is a different beast. It’s like escapism and more of our same old life all rolled into one.
So will I go back? I’d like to explore a bit more. Wish I had found some more interesting places to go. But at the same time, I think I’m too much of a lover of the real earth, sun, and sky to sit in front of my computer for long periods of time.
All the same, this world is fascinating. I can’t wait to see how it develops further.
Comment Happy July 18, 2006
Posted by sfinkelp in Joomla, Uncategorized.4 comments
I want to thank my good pal Ryan Ozimek for posting a comment (and a good one at that) to my blog! Being a new blogger, that was very exciting.
If anyone reading this needs a great content management system for their non-profit, check Ryan out at PicNet. His Joomla and NonProfitSoapBox implementations have been really well received by my clients.
Blogging Through the Bad July 18, 2006
Posted by sfinkelp in Blogging, Uncategorized.add a comment
Thoughts on Naked Conversations Part II:
In the second half Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s book, their discussion on blogging in crisis struck a chord with me.
I used to work in PR and would sometimes wonder what I’d do if a crisis hit my organization. My savvy would be tested. Would I pass?
Facing a PR crisis in the age of blogging seems all at once to be just as scary, but also empowering. If a company or organization has no connection with the blogosphere when trouble knocks, look out. But if the group has been patiently tending their blog garden, they should have a better shot at sailing through the storm unscathed– that is if they didn’t do something really wrong.
In a nutshell, the best defense when you hit a crisis is not only a smart response in the storm, but also your preparation before hand. Scoble and Israel offer many tips in their book for making it through a crisis. Here’s my summary of the ones I think are important:
- Start your own blog. Do it right (see Scobles principles for good blogging). Post often, link, converse. In this way you’ll become known in the blogosphere and you’ll get to know bloggers. This will also prepare you to act fast. Blog word-of-mouth travels at lightning speed.
- Make a practice of listening and answering rather than taking lots of time to craft a perfect statement. I think this is good advice both before, during, and after a crisis.
- Keep it open and transparent. Don’t hide negative comments. Respond to them and let your responses be seen. Be honest if you don’t know all the answers. Take your time in figuring out the right way forward– just keep communicating all the while.
- Scoble and Israel also suggest possibly creating a special crisis blog. An organization or company keeps this waiting in the wings for when a crisis hits. I think this would be most successful, if you are already on the blogosphere.
For crisis communicators, blogs should provide some peace of mind that there is a way to communicate directly with the public (at least the web literate public) without being at the mercy of reporters who filter your message to the world.
At the same time, I can see how crisis communicators might get nervous in the face of what seems like a big disorganized cacophony of blog voices who don’t follow one set of journalistic standards. What if a popular “in” blogger has taken to dislike your organization or company?
Hopefully the skilled communicator will patiently keep the dialogue going and enough other bloggers would join the conversation to direct things toward truth.
Hey WordPress, how do you spell “blog”? July 15, 2006
Posted by sfinkelp in Blogging, Uncategorized.1 comment so far
Has it struck anyone else as ironic that WordPress’ spell checker doesn’t know the words blog, blogger, blogosphere, etc.?
Just wondering…
Hewitt the Blog Cheerleader July 15, 2006
Posted by sfinkelp in Blogging, Uncategorized.add a comment
I don’t think blogging’s a fad. The informal, straight talk conversations blogs foster is something people are craving today. We don’t trust our politicians, we don’t trust CEOs, but we trust our friends. So when that politician or CEO talk to us like a friend, we are more likely to listen. I don’t think we’ll get tired of this kind of direct interaction.
I’ve just read a few chapters of “Blog”, a book by conservative talk show host and blogger, Hugh Hewitt. I don’t fall on the same side of the political fence as Hewitt, but he’s got a lot of good points about what blogging really means for society. I get why he’s so excited about it.
Yet, there’s something about the way he writes. It reminds me of Harold Hill in the Music Man when he shows up in River City. I picture him enthusiastically standing in town square, with a crowd gathering around him…
Are you a CEO and are your ratings are low?
Then blog, my brother, blog.
A lonely housewife with a boring life?
Then blog, my sister, blog.
Whether you’re a plumber or a teacher, a manager or a preacher,
Just find a PC and take it from me,
Let your fingers do the talkin’, get that Google Juice- a rockin’,
You’ll convince, make them laugh, while you argue your own half,
Then watch them change their minds, it works every time,
Soon you’ll see, this is the way of the century,
Just blog, my brother, blog!
But back to the good points he makes:
- The blogosphere is about trust. If bloggers don’t trust you, bad news. Blogging is about transparency and it allows for anyone to call you out on what you say. This is good for society.
- Web-based publishing technology is revolutionizing what we call “media.” A person only needs to know a few basic computer skills and have something to write (or link to) to get rolling in the blogosphere.
- Bloggers aren’t saints. The technology may be amazing and revolutionary, but Hewitt rightly is a realist when it comes to the fact that there are haters, thieves, and bigots who blog.
I also found Hewitt’s discussion about “blog swarms” interesting. Today PR folks can specialize in “crisis communications.” No doubt, a new specialty will be blogosphere relations management.
