MarketingInsideOut.com

After weeks of speculation, Facebook’s new ad system, dubbed Facebook Ads, was revealed Tuesday. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook’s new technology represents a new era in which commercials are replaced by messages planted in online conversations between friends. Blockbuster, CBS, Sony Pictures, Coca-Cola, Fandango, eBay and Verizon are among the initial partners.

The three-pronged effort launches tonight and will basically allow companies to create their own Facebook pages, which can serve as the spring board for viral apps, and then allow users to add company information and updates to their own profiles and mini feeds. Then there’s an ad system for advertisers and an interface to gather insights into people’s activity on Facebook that marketers care about.

Insights that come from the social network’s members who reveal their purchases, eBay product postings, and other things they’ve done on some 40 Web sites (so far) off-Facebook and have them appear on their profiles. That ultimately can provide advertisers with information to target ads to just the people most likely to be interested.

According to the new release:

Advertising messages will gain distribution through what Facebook has termed the “social graph,” the network of real connections through which people communicate and share information. When people engage with a business’ Facebook Page, that action will spread information about that business through the social graph.

This enables advertisers to deliver more tailored and relevant ads to Facebook users that now include information from their friends so they can make more informed decisions.

Word of mouth (personal referrals) is by far the most persuasive element in product or service selection. Face it, we’re herd animals, and even the skeptics often act on the recommendations of those they know and trust. This is why the Facebook platform could be revolutionary. It could potentially allow marketers to harness this one-to-one trusted recommendation engine.

So the appeal of using people who like a product as brand ambassadors is obvious, but I wonder if there will be diminishing returns if Facebook members’ news feeds end up chock full of paid placements and “friends” feel like shills. The devil will be in the details of how this all actually works.

I applauded the Dove campaign for real beauty. As a woman and professional. I admire brands with the guts to take a stand. And cheered on their efforts to reach 5 millions girls by 2010 with “feel good about yourself messages” as part of the Self-Esteem Fund. I’m all for loving yourself and feeling comfortable in your own skin despite flaws. As a mother of two teenage daughters, how could I not admire a company standing for self-esteem?

BUT…with the latest film, “Onslaught”, they went too far and lost credibility with me. Celebrating and promoting the concept of self esteem and inner beauty is one thing. Encouraging you to “talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does” is a worthwhile message. But doing it in such a hypocritical and arrogant way is another.

Dove doesn’t stand alone. It’s part of a larger company and consumers know it. Even my 15 year old knows it. Regardless of whether or not people see this as a powerful creative spot (I don’t think it has near the power of the original), using the attack approach against the industry begs the question… do they honestly believe that people will see Dove as “above it all”? When they are in fact part of a large marketing driven company [Unilever] whose own brands have and continue to perpetrate the “beauty industry” images that play right into our insecurities. The same type of images that they use in the film as examples of the exploits.

There’s such irony in the fact that on Unilever’s own site they play to our insecurities in order to hype their beauty products. Like how you can get “Oscar-worthy hair” just like Nicole Kidman, Posh Spice and – oh yeah – Paris Hilton. And let’s not forget that Unilever is a major manufacturer of skin-whitening creams marketed in India (playing to a stereotype that, the lighter your skin, the more beautiful you are). And what about Axe body spray, whose sexist and stupid ads as well as the “humilidating” show, Game Killers, on MTV this year (a production of Axe spray) doesn’t exactly send the message that the Onslaught spot does.

Unilever wants it both ways. To be hero AND benefactor relative to our insecurities. And that’s hard to reconcile.

An AdAge story this week about the sales success of HeadOn states: “Those rapid-fire “HeadOn, apply directly to the forehead” spots are arguably among the worst commercials ever from a creative standpoint. They’re annoying, repetitive, obnoxious — and effective. ”

Creatives everywhere probably gagged when they first saw the campaign. But when I posted this story about HeadOn back in November, I thought it was a smart strategy. And still do.

Regardless of how un-creative the spots are, look at the facts…sales are up 234% even though they annoy viewers. Millions talked about them. Thousands upon thousands blogged about the spots (there are 19,562 on Google blog search alone…a few thousand more show up on Technorati.)

The last time I remember such a high level of buzz about an ad campaign was for Deadenbacher, the ill fated Orville Redenbacher campaign. The Deadenbacher spots cost a fortune to make and were done by one of the most creative shops around. That “creative” approach didn’t work and Crispin lost the business.

On the other hand, Dan Charron, VP-sales and marketing at Miralus Healthcare, the marketer of HeadOn fully admits they weren’t out to be creative or win awards. Charron’s very pragmatic approach of testing for recall against ad clutter helped him hone in to find just what achieved his objective: just getting people to remember the product. And that they did…extremely successfully.

I found myself nodding my head when I read the following comment on the AdAge story. Since he/she says it so well, I’ll just quote it in its entirety:

In this article about the +200% growth of the product Head On, the author used the phrase “arguably among the worst commercials ever from a creative standpoint” to describe the infamous TV commercials for the headache product. And in using that phrase it shows that most advertising types have lost their way. It validates what I say here and on many sites on the web, a creative ad is not necessarily an effective ad. But I also think AdAge (mirroring most of the industry), doesn’t understand the term ‘creative’. This IS a creative ad. Yes it only says the same six word phrase over and over. Yes it is one single camera shot with a chromakey and two-dimensional graphics. So? It is creative, unique, and effective. Those six words do more for sales than those million dollar campaigns with big football stars. Just because it doesn’t have a cinematic look, some sort of cool special effect, or humor driving it does not mean it’s not creative. What it does have is a call to action, and highlights a products purpose, without having to show some esoteric shot of the cliffs of Ireland from a helicopter while offering a tongue twisting voice over from a smooth voice such as Peter Coyote that has the viewer wondering what it was they just tried to advertise. No not every ad should mimic this ad but the fact that it stands out amongst the field of much more expensive ads, yet does so much more for the product, rather than the ad agencies award wall should once again be a wakeup call to most big agency advertising, that advertising is broke and only sees ‘creative’ as what makes an ad good. As for annoying, try the Sprint ad with Peyton Manning that has a budget 100 times this, yet no one can make heads or tails of what it’s supposed to do, let alone what it’s trying to sell. Yet the agency for this Sprint spot made a behind the scenes video and posted it on YouTube so the world could see how a creative, high priced, award winning ad that does little for the product is done. Now that’s annoying. –New York, NY

What’s your opinion?

This would be hard to overlook.

Via Ads of the World

On Children’s Day in Indonesia 500 floating hands appeared in the pond in Jakarta’s busiest traffic roundabout. The ambient execution reminded people that even two years after the tsunami in Aceh there are still children in desperate need of help. A sign near the roundabout said: “Many tsunami orphans are still in need of a helping hand.”

Advertising Agency: JWT, Indonesia

I am mesmerized by Sarah Jessica Parker’s new perfume “Covet” and I haven’t even taken a whiff of it yet. I have no idea what the combination of Sicilian lemon, lavender, chocolate and musk notes smell like, but I’ve already decided that I have to have it.

My love began with the commercial. Wearing a pretty white couture dress and stellar high heels, Parker walks up to a store front at The Place Vendome in Paris to admire a huge display bottle of her nouveau perfume “Covet.” She suddenly exclaims, “I have to have it,” and kicks in the glass of the display window with a force that would put a Tae Bo junkie to shame.

As she reaches through the broken glass to steal the coveted bottle, the Parisian police handcuff her and whisk her away to the police car. I completely connected with Parker’s ultimate need to have the perfume, but it wasn’t until I logged on to Covet’s Web site that I realized I was going to be sucked into a two-month interactive marketing campaign.

You too can play detective and solve the “Case of the Coveted Bottle” for a chance to win a $10,000 shopping trip for two to New York City (hotel and travel accommodations included). Every week through mid-October, the Web site is refreshed with a new blog from Parker’s Parisian publicist, Melisande Champney, who offers up information and clues that could possibly free Parker from the jail cell.

Little does the television commercial portray, but the bottle of Covet came up missing after Parker was arrested. Was this a set up? It’s up to you to follow the scent and bust through the clues using online French translators, Google, Flikr and other detective blog Web sites. Profiles on MySpace lend information on possible perpetrators and suspects. There are even bonus challenges where one can upload videos to enhance their chances to win.

I feel like a Charlie’s Angel trapped in an addicting mystery waiting for the latest news and clues to arrive each week. There is no doubt I will continue to scavenge through the end of the campaign and will soon smell like a bottle of Covet myself.

Besides, I have to have it.

Occasionally you meet someone with a really great, fun and out-there idea that’s unique and timely. Like Linda, who created the concept for mypoliticalpets.com where you can register your pet and vote for your favorite candidate. She wanted to get people involved in the political process in a fun way while also helping to raise money for the Second Chance Animal Shelter in Killeen, TX as well as shelters around the country.

I’m a total animal nut…who has 4 rescued cats and one dog and I’m pretty interested in seeing change happen to improve our political process. So the idea appealed to me right away.

On the site, you create a profile and register your pet with a political party. I didn’t have to think at all when I registered my cat Baxter. He’s democrat through and through. I also have two cats that are clearly republican and another that would probably advocate for a monarchy if given that option (with her as queen of course).

As it gets closer to the election, you’ll be able to cast your pet vote for one of the candidates running for President. It’s truly politics gone to the dogs…and cats…and birds…

It’ll be interesting to see if our pets’ votes can predict the next President.

Great idea. I wish I’d thought of it.

Tonight I finished reading a very practical and insightful book titled Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing by Lois Kelly. In it, Kelley provides a practical, how-to guide for marketing professionals to navigate the world of conversational marketing.

She outlines and explains the top nine types of stories that people naturally like to talk about.

She arrived at this list by tracking and categorizing business/marketing communications for a ten year period. The practical use of The Nine Block Conversation Planner is to translate conventional marketing messages into conversational points of view and create program ideas worth talking about.

The top nine are (excerpts from the book):

1. Aspirations and beliefs. More than any other topic, people like to hear about aspirations and beliefs. (This may be why religion is the most popular word-of-mouth topic, ever.) Sun Microsystems’ focus on sharing and ending the digital divide is an example of a belief-based point of view as is Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s views about how companies can grow by reducing pollution and creating more sustainable business strategies. Aspirations are helpful because they help us connect emotionally to the speaker, the company, and the issues. They help us see into a person or company’s soul.

2. David vs. Goliath. In the story of David and Goliath, the young Hebrew David took on the Philistine giant Goliath and beat him. Sharing stories about how a small organization is taking on a big company is great business sport. Rooting for the underdog grabs our emotions, creates meaning, and invokes passion. We like to listen to the little guy talk about how he’s going to win and why the world—or the industry—will be a better place for it. Like how Southwest Airlines conquered the big carriers and the way social media is taking on the media giants.

3. Avalanche about to roll. The mountain is rumbling, the sun is getting stronger, but the rocks and snow are yet to fall. You want to tune in and listen to the “avalanche about to roll” topic because you know that there’s a chance that you will be killed if caught unaware. This theme taps into our desire to get the inside story before it’s widely known. It’s not only interesting to hear someone speak about these ideas, they have the ingredients for optimal viral and pass-along effect. Charles Schwab started his company by listening to rumbling market conversations about investing. The avalanche about to roll was that the middle class was growing more interested in buying stocks, especially as companies were cutting out pensions and more people were beginning to control their own retirement savings through IRAs and 401ks.

4. Anxieties. Anxiety is a cousin of the avalanche about to roll, but it is more about uncertainty than an emerging, disruptive trend. We are in all matters more swiftly motivated by fear than appreciation of the good…in other words, if we don’t feel threatened and scared, we tend not to pay attention. Examples of anxiety themes abound: (1) Financial services companies urging baby boomers to hurry up and invest more for retirement: “You’re 55. Will you have your needed $3.2 million to retire comfortably?” (2) Tutoring companies planting seeds of doubt about whether our kids will score well enough on the SATs to get into a good college. Although anxiety themes grab attention, you have to proceed with caution because people are becoming pretty skeptical. Too many politicians, companies have bombarded us with FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) with no facts to back up their point.

5. Contrarian/counterintuitive/challenging assumptions. These three themes are like first cousins, similar in many ways but slightly different. Contrarian perspectives defy conventional wisdom; they are positions that often are not in line with—or may even be directly opposite to—the wisdom of the crowd. The boldness of contrarian views grabs attention; the more original and less arrogant they are, the more useful they will be in provoking meaningful conversations.

Counterintuitive ideas fight with what our intuition (as opposed to a majority of the public) says is true. When you introduce counterintuitive ideas, it takes people a minute to reconcile the objective truth with their gut assumption about the topic. Framing views counter to how we intuitively think about topics—going against natural “gut instincts”—pauses and then resets how we think and talk about concepts.

Challenging widely-held assumptions means that when everyone else says the reason for an event is X, you show that it’s actually Y. Challenging assumptions is good for debate and discussion, and especially important in protecting corporate reputation.

6. Personalities and personal stories. There’s nothing more interesting than a personal story with some life lessons to help us understand what makes executives tick and what they value the most. The points of these personal stories are remembered, retold, and instilled into organizational culture. Robert Goizueta, the respected CEO of Coca-Cola, said he hated giving speeches but he was always telling stories—often personal ones about how he and his family had to flee Cuba when Castro took control and had nothing more than his education. When Steve Jobs gave the commencement address to Stanford University in June 2005, he shared his personal story and life lessons. That commencement address, “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish,” was talked about on thousands of blog and was published verbatim in Fortune magazine. It helped us see Jobs in a new light.

7. How-to stories and advice. Theoretical and thought-provoking ideas are nice, but people love pragmatic how-to advice: how to solve problems, find next practices, and overcome common obstacles. To be interesting, how-to themes need to be fresh and original, providing a new twist to what people already know or tackle thorny issues. For example, in talking with female customers and doing research, Home Depot was surprised to find that women initiate a big percentage of home improvement projects. So the company started how-to clinics and do-it-herself workshops that have been attended by more than 200,000 women.

8. Glitz and glam. Robert Palmer sang about being addicted to love. Our society is more addicted to glamor and celebrity. Finding a way to logically link to something glitzy and glamorous is a surefire conversation starter. For example, Sun Microsystems created a text-messaging program that allows audiences at U2’s rock concerts to get a text message from Bono on their mobile phones after the concert, sending them to the One Campaign Web site. Tagging on to the widespread interest in the Academy Awards, Randall Rothenberg, director of intellectual property at consultancy Booz Allen-Hamilton, crafted a point of view about the similarity between creating new “star” brands and movie stars.

9. Seasonal/event-related. Tying into seasonal or major events has a limited shelf life. But these themes, done right, may appeal to sales reps looking for something interesting to talk to customers about. Seasonal and event-related topics can be used in weekly voice mails to employees, or featured in departmental or company-wide presentations. Talking about industry predictions around the New Year, advertising during SuperBowl season, executive compensation reform when an executive of a well known company “resigns” with an especially bloated compensation package are examples of this type of story.

Excellent concept, albeit a bit creepy. Via Ads of the World. Agency: Scholz & Friends, Berlin, Germany

It just keeps at me. I either have to kill it or write about it.

And it’s all because of Erin, a colleague in our Phoenix office. She put this monkey on my back.

When I received the first one, I thought “what did she find now”…see Erin finds the most interesting things out there. But I got pulled into meetings and didn’t think much about it again. But I got another one yesterday. And today. This Monkey on my Back is relentless. And it has a deadline.

The idea behind the Monkey on Your Back application is pretty cool, and injects a dose of fun into something as boring as reminding people to do something.

While, there are several great Websites out there that promise to help you organize tasks and to-do lists, Monkey On Your Back is a different kind of reminder service: the type you use to remind other people to do things for you. It lets you create custom reminders and send them to people on the date of your choice.

Email reminders are sent 1, 2, 3 and 7 days before the due date, and weekly before that. Recipients of Monkey on Your Back reminders can mark tasks as completed and add comments (or they can kill the monkey).

Signing up for an account at Monkey On Your Back is free and once you’re signed up, you can start sending out email monkeys to do your bidding — to pester your family, friends and coworkers to finish their tasks, make sure the chores are done. When you send monkeys to your friends, they’ll get a chance to sign up for the site.

The free level of the service lets you have 5 active monkeys at one time. All received and sent Monkey on Your Back reminders can be managed and reviewed centrally. There’s a paid level that gives you more options.

It’s a potentially useful (and annoying) tool that’s simple to use. I sent one to my 15 year old daughter tonight to clean her room. We’ll see if it works on her.

As for me…well Erin, I beat my Monday 5pm deadline. And I’m thinking about all kinds of ways I can use the monkey on others.

Most of us have had some not-so-great experiences trying to get an answer or resolve a problem through a customer call center. Whether dealing with your bank to clear up a problem, a cell phone company to change a plan or any number of places that are supposed to troubleshoot, being put in the queue is a fact of life. Sometimes even getting a human is a challenge (I’ve posted on that subject before).

There are about 50,000 call centers in the US alone. And many more thousands offshore. Competition is fierce, and a single bad experience with a company in any channel can lead to defection from a company. And rarely do defectors leave quietly. They tend to tell friends. They blog. They make themselves heard. Which is easier today than ever.

The fact is that a customer call center is a critical point of engagement for customers. It can make or break a relationship. Most companies know intuitively how important their call center interactions are, but they aren’t sure what the satisfaction drivers are.

Today an article regarding a new study by CFI Group on call center performance indices caught my eye because it gets at some of the key drivers that cause either pleasure or pain and ultimately determine satisfaction levels. CFI studied six industries: Banking, Cable and Satellite TV, Catalog Retail, Cellular Phone Service, Insurance, Personal Computer and reported on how they did and what factors drive satisfaction.

Here’s a few points I found interesting in the study:

• The most crucial factor contributing to satisfaction, loyalty, retention, and positive word-of mouth is not about how well you were treated during the call, but whether or not the CSR is able to resolve the caller’s issue. Unfortunately, 18% of customers do not have their issue resolved. The importance of this one factor is astounding. Customers who resolve their issue have satisfaction scores 46 points higher than those who do not. Furthermore, those who do not have their issue resolved are eight times more likely to defect.
• On average, about two-fifths (38%) of the respondents say they tried to reach the company first through a means other than the call center. Eighty-five percent of callers who try another method first try the company’s website, which fails to meet their needs, forcing them to try another channel to resolve their issue.
• Call center executives need to take a hard look at their training and monitoring programs to make sure that CSRs have the tools they need to answer the questions they are getting. And the bar is only getting higher as customers migrate to the web. If the “easy” questions are answered on the web, it leaves the more difficult issues for the CSRs to tackle.
• Not every issue can be addressed via the web, and one of the clear takeaways from this research is that improving the quality of the online channel could defer hundreds of thousands of unnecessary calls from the costly contact center channel. Contact centers help with resolving issues that can’t be resolved on the web. They should serve as a continuous feedback loop to the web operation. There can an should be processes in place to make enhancements to the website based on what the CSRs in the call center hear.