Being Peter Kim

Is #RoyalWedding an early warning sign?

TechCrunch reports on "The Pitfall Of Twitter’s Promoted Trends."

Long before social media had reached critical mass, advertisers were reluctant to place ads on MySpace. The main concern of big brands was their new high performance shoe or high paid celebrity endorsement banner being placed next to a schlocky user profile. Brands got over it because MySpace traffic kept growing and the eyeballs were tough to pass up.

Now, Twitter finds itself in a position similar to MySpace in 2006. Traffic is growing rapidly and daily ad rates are rising. Advertisers and media buyers can't seem to pass up this opportunity, in some cases employing worst practices:

Running ads promoting a time-sensitive event that's already completed:

Buying ads on terms having nothing to do with a brand:

Running a high risk of hashtag brandjacking as conversation flow shifts in real-time: 

In paid search, brand investments in contextual ads were eventually protected by algorithm. Hockey stick growth doesn't last forever and advertiser interest will plateau quickly unless the platform provides better experience. Twitter needs to find ways to protect advertiser interests or risk heading down the path to MySpace.

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Four good examples of social media campaigns

Earlier this month, I led judging in the social media strategy category for the 4A's 2010 Jay Chiat Awards. A couple years ago, I assembled a list of 300+ social media marketing examples with help from dozens of contributors. This time I requested the help of some friends to judge the fourteen entries: David Armano, Joseph Jaffe, and Jeremiah Owyang.

We decided on four award winners in our category. While the voting wasn't unanimous, one thing we all did agree on was that even the best entries were reflective of campaigns rather than sustainable strategy. On the worst end, some entries were nothing more than a Facebook group or Twitter account.

Here are the winners and some brief notes on the entries.

Silver

• McKinney//Travelocity: "Gnome on Chatroulette" - a clever way to tie a brand into a timely cultural phenomenon. Over 40 days and nights, the Roaming Gnome generated 350,000 impressions on site, engaged in 40 conversations, and generated over 19 million total media impressions for the brand.  
• Saatchi & Saatchi LA//Toyota Sienna: "How Mom & Dad Got Their Swagger Back" - although I'm in the target demographic (I think), I will still never buy a minivan...but I can respect the execution. The Swagger Wagon YouTube video has generated almost 7 million views and has successfully ignited consumer participation - only 3% of views have been driven by advertising.

Bronze

• Team Detroit//Ford Fiesta: "Fiesta Movement" - a campaign that most people in the social media industry have heard of, where 100 cars were loaned to 100 influencers for a year. The campaign was cited as part of Ford being named Ad Age's Marketer of the Year. It created plenty of buzz: 31,000 pieces of original Fiesta content and 10,000 online vehicle reservations - but the jury's still out on efficacy towards the end goal of increasing sales.  

Honorable Mention

• RPA//Honda: "Friending Honda" - curious that three out of the four winning campaigns were for auto manufacturers. Honda launched an integrated media campaign supported by an interesting Facebook presence. The campaign increased fans from 15k to 422k, generating over 3,500 dealer quote requests. Clearly driven more by main brand idea than social strategy, but it worked.

Congratulations to these winners. Looking forward to tighter cross-channel integration, solid business goals, and meaningful measurement next year!

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2010 Jay Chiat Awards: Call For Entries

This is a brief and long overdue post...I'm honored to be participating in the AAAA's 2010 Jay Chiat Awards as chair of the social media strategy category.

Assisting me with judging the category are some people you may know:

• David Armano, SVP Digital at Edelman
• Joseph Jaffe, Chief Interruptor at Powered
• Jeremiah Owyang, Partner at Altimeter Group

I've been following the social business/media/computing space for a while and a few years ago published a big list of examples and opened up a related wiki. In today's market, there are thousands of initiatives underway and agency partners providing assistance. I'm hopeful that we'll discover and discuss a new set of case studies from forward-thinking brands.

The entry deadline is technically today, but I'm sure exceptions could be made for late entrants who want to throw a hat into the ring.

I'll keep you updated as the process moves along.

Thanks - and please pass along to your favorite brand/agency person who deserves a shot at winning the award for social media strategy of the year!

Promoted Tweets: A Necessary Evil

Twitter's much anticipated advertising platform launched yesterday. The analysis has been measured but mostly leans positive...I suspect that in most cases, industry watchers know that it's crazy to bet against Twitter. (Of course.) But my friends at Forrester, Edelman, and Altimeter don't seem to be "making the call," so I'll go ahead and say it: marketers should wait and watch before participating in promoted tweets. Why? Keep reading.

Over a decade ago, I read an interview featuring Tim Koogle at Yahoo!, discussing the site's advertising model. He said something along the lines of: we place the ads in a consistent place on each page, in a consistent size, so users know what do expect. You know what? That made the ads easier to ignore. Guess what? Promoted Tweets occupy a consistent, easily ignored position on a search page.

A few key reasons to support a bearish position on Promoted Tweets:

• Advertising on social networks has a poor track record. Remember Beacon? Google display ads on MySpace? Microsoft ads on Facebook?
• Consumers love to hate advertising. Content and service providers will never be able to support their businesses based on consumer payments alone - they require commercial subsidization. Watch for clutter, irrelevance, and interruption to take root.
• Return on investment. Are Promoted Tweets really the next best place to invest your advertising budget? If you haven't exhausted the potential of measurable initiatives like search and email marketing, why bother with an experiment?

Can anyone blame Twitter for monetizing the platform? Of course not - they've got to perform up to expectations for the hundreds of millions of dollars invested. But I think the smart marketers will watch bleeding edge brands run their experiments now and learn from the successes and failures. For Twitter, Promoted Tweets are a necessary evil to turn this question mark into a star (think growth-share matrix).

Involuntary advertising exploitation

This sign was on the curb outside the Austin airport.  If someone don't consent to being exploited in any media ever as stated, how are they supposed to fly home?

Reminder from an anonymous coward

Breaking a three year streak, I'm not writing about Super Bowl ads this year.  If I had investigated anything, I'd have analyzed social media campaign integration.  But something struck me as dissonant when I realized that I rarely watch TV ads - so why should I suddenly care now?

Looking back, my first Super Bowl ad post was in 2006.  Charlene Li suggested I cross-post on her blog, where I received some interesting comments, mostly in disagreement.  One particularly brash commenter wrote:

"Forrester needs to fire Peter Kim if he analizes stuff for them like he did that BK commerercial and If he is your friend run now and find a new one cause this guy is a complete moron if he thinks the BK ad was the big winner."

I was struck by the severity of the opinion, even if written by an "anonymous coward" with poor spelling and grammar skills. (click on the link for a definition if you're unfamiliar with the reference.)

It was a good reminder to me that it's impossible to please everyone all the time.  So I do my best to cite facts, use common sense, and give honest opinions.  That way, when disagreement occurs, it's a learning experience.  And sometimes you discover that a difference of opinion can actually be affirming, as in the case above!

UPDATE: Chris Brogan says that Opinions Are Every Bit as Important.  Of course they are.  If you've concluded that the point of this post is to suppress dissenting (or concurring) opinions, it's not - otherwise I'd turn off comments on my posts.

Motrin MANIA!

Lots of controversy this weekend about a commercial from Motrin.  The discussion on Twitter is particularly active and you can take a peek by searching for #motrinmoms.

Here's what I think about it.

Some of the unsolicited advice being offered to Motrin is good and all brands can pick up a pointer or two.  But most of it is just "me too" mantra from individuals trying to look like experts.

Anyone who has managed a brand will tell you that it is impossible to please everyone, all the time.  I've had to help manage some brand controversies in my career.  Family planning activists and primate lovers, in particular.   The world is too diverse for self-interests to not end up colliding.

What are the odds that this one makes it out of the social media echo chamber?  Will a mainstream media outlet bite?

Dads wear babies, too.  And in my experience, Children's Motrin works pretty well.

But here's the strangest thing about the whole Motrin Moms controversy to me:  I thought social media killed the 30 second spot.

I guess not.

Shifting The Line in Social Media Advertising

Over the weekend, I learned that Anna lost her phone. Jade and Luca did too.  You can find out more on their Facebook pages (linked).  And let me know if you notice anything odd about them...

We've been discussing social media marketing on this blog for the past couple of months. While updating the list of social media marketing examples - now 270 - I found out about Anna, Jade, and Luca. Without getting too deep into definitions, I think that marketing and advertising vis-a-vis social media require separate consideration. Max Kalehoff recently published some thoughts about the current state of social media ad campaigns:

"To be sure, there are a lot of promising attempts on both the media and agency sides. But most are short-sided. In fact, most seem disingenuous or uninformed..."

So back to our friends with the lost phones. It turns out that it's all made up, part of a campaign from W+K London for Nokia. As a story concept, I think it sounds cool. As an advertising campaign, it's different than most of the standard executions around today.  I like it.

But...it wasn't too long ago that advertising characters were off-limits in social media. Like GourmetStation's T. Alexander, L'Oreal's Vichy's Claire, or Wal-Mart's happy RVers.

More recently, you can make friends with VW's Helga or follow tweets from HBO's Sookie Stackhouse.  Bloggers don't seem to be up in arms about these developments.

It seems to me that "The Line" has shifted in social media advertising, separating what is and isn't commercially acceptable content.  Bloggers used to revolt against commercial profiles.  Now we lament the demise of them, witness AMC's Mad Men on Twitter.

Are you now more accepting of fake people posing as real ones?  What's the deal?  I have a few theories and would love to hear what you think...

Don't believe the hype (it's a sequel)

In the summer of 1999, I was subletting a place near Harvard Square while working at Fidelity Investments.  Near the end of the summer, my high school friend Dave moved to Cambridge to start his first year at HBS.  This was back when a book like Year One was invaluable, way before every student thought about bloging about the experience.  One of the things I found most interesting about the first years was that walking around the dorm, many had replaced the school-issued name on the door with business cards from their former employer - McKinsey, BCG, Goldman, etc.

I met up with Dave one day after work at an orientation happy hour at John Harvard's.  One of the people I met had previously been working in corporate finance for Paramount Pictures.  We discussed, among other things, the profitability of movie sequels.  Sequels are almost always profitable.  Why?  Among other things, they draft off the visibility of the lead, even if it tanks.  Assets can be reused and budgets more accurately scoped.  Distribution can bypass the expensive theater route and go straight to DVD or PPV.

So what does this have to do with marketing?  It has everything to do with branding and it's simple to make a connection with today's "viral" videos.  (I had a great conversation with Sam Ford from Peppercom/MIT last week about why the term viral is a misnomer - but that's a story for another post.)  Think Dove Evolution and Onslaught, for example.  At the time of writing this post, Evolution has 7.1 million views; Onslaught has 0.2 million.  So is Onslaught a failure?  No way - it's generated a ton of attention and surely Ogilvy didn't have to work nearly as hard to publicize #2 as #1.

Well, Kris Hoet from Microsoft Belgium emailed to let me know that a sequel to "The Break Up" has launched.  Even if you don't know the name, you've seen this video.  Now "Inspiration, Anyone?" is out - and has been since June 8th.

And I haven't heard anyone talking about it.

I don't know if it is just hasn't penetrated the echo chamber of marketing blogging or if most people have seen the sequel and thought "meh."  Or perhaps it hits too close to home for agencies - they can get very defensive, very quickly - e.g. check out this post.  Maybe it just needs time.  Some people have told me they think the first was successful because few people realized Microsoft was behind it.  But Dove was behind the Campaign For Real Beauty and that didn't seem to matter much.  Microsoft's making a point to sell more advertising services, Dove's making a point to sell more beauty products.  Maybe we can chalk it up to B2C vs. B2B.

If you haven't yet seen the sequel to The Break Up (it's 3:38 in length), I'd love to get your thoughts on why it does or doesn't work for you.

Guerilla allergy marketing - effective?

  1-800-4-ZYRTEC 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

Seen on the streets of Boston.  Amanda mentioned this on Adrants.  Wonder if the pulled tab was a prospect or PR?

Cheap.  Effective?

Calling the number sends you to what's essentially a 40-second radio commercial.  "For more information visit zyrtec.com."

At least it's different, I guess.  Let me wait two hours and see if I feel anything.