Video

Nov 11 2010

Amplification

Great thing about social media: you can amplify your business.

Amplifier, thanks techfuels.com

Bad thing about social media: you can amplify bad business.

If you watched any of the Amazon imbroglio on November 10, 2010, you’ll know what we’re talking about.

One bad decision – or one lack of a good decision – can be put under a magnifying glass and go viral in a heartbeat.

The problem for business people is that often the good doesn’t get amplified as quickly as the bad.

Search, for instance, for happy stories about United Airlines. Where do you start? What are the terms you look for?

On the other hand, search for United Breaks Guitars and you’ll find the now-famous video. And its 9 million views. And the two follow-ups from the guy. And on, and on.

Goodwill, brand reputation, loyalty – gone in 60 seconds.

Amp – li – fi – ca – tion.

How do you prepare for this reality? The reality that, at some point, your business will screw up and you will face amplification to the nth degree? SOME steps to follow:

Delegation.

If you’re a one-person shop, this could seem impossible – but you have to have a delegate, an aide de camp, someone you can bounce stuff off of. Work on building this network now.

Simplification.

Not only do you need to do scenario planning – what could possibly go wrong? – but you need to break problems – real and perceived – down into their simplest chunks. Be prepared to do that as quickly as you possibly can.

Amazon’s issue, which will be discussed ad nauseum, was not broken down into simple chunks quickly enough. “(1)We’re a free enterprise that can (2) decide not to sell something that (3) puts innocent lives at grave risk.” Three chunks. 30-second decision. Done.

Gut.

Should we really be doing this? Is this the type of thing that will come back to haunt us? Are we associating ourselves with unsavory characters?

Lots of people sell lots of books. Lots of people claim to be influential and want special treatment. Etc., etc.

In the go-go “the customer is always right” universe we’re in, big brands are often afraid of who to kowtow to, or of not being PC enough, or of rustling the wrong feathers.

Amazon’s decision to publish and sell a book they should not have sold, if shared with a focus group or beta-tested with a user group, would have been resoundly panned.

Plan for the Amplification now.

Nov 09 2010

Why Should Honda and the Big Names Have All the (Failure) Fun?

Honda is doing something interesting, and we thought we’d “dive in” too.

If you check out Honda’s page on Facebook (link to Honda on Facebook here) you can learn that last week was “Failure: The Key To Success Week.” (Digression: since we just learned this today, does it qualify as a failure because we missed the whole week of programming, or is that failure a success?)

There are some interesting videos: from the Uber-marketer Gary Vaynerchuk, from The Brand Builder, Olivier Blanchard and from Area 224’s personal favorite, Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek.

Somewhere on the site they do say that they (Honda) want this to be “our discussion, not theirs.” So Dave from Area 224 thought he’d do his own video on Failure. And, importantly, learning from it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BoQ4w4arpI

Nov 09 2010

Insert Social Media Here

Thanks, simplesbm.com

It is that simple. Right?

Love to think back to that time two years ago when Area 224 was just getting rolling as a marketing consultancy. Back when we were having tons of meetings with tons of businesses and trying to find out what was on everyone’s minds.

The everyone we met with on this particular day was the Chief of Sales for a B2B Concern. (Again, protecting the innocent here.)

This particular person (may have been a man, may have been a woman; protecting the innocent) wanted to buy a “solution.” “Viral marketing,” said s/he, “will solve our problems.”

And…what are those particular problems?

The long silence was deafening.

Seems the CEO had seen a video on YouTube and thought “we should do that.”

Seriously.

The knee-jerk response, two years later, from the C-suite, seems to be “Social Media will solve our problems.”

This possibly brings about the opportunity for us to help you – or for another top-notch marketing consultancy to help you. BUT not before you figure out what the problems are.

What business problem are you attempting to solve?

Dave from Area 224 used to work for a very smart guy who abhorred busy work. And, in the “pre-social media epoch” (right before the YouTube era), he’d ask the above question all the time. Saved us a lot of busy work, but also saved the organization a lot of wasted effort on things that just didn’t make strategic sense.

Your job – as a marketing executive, as a C-suite aspirant, as the guy or gal who needs to translate all this stuff for the bosses (or for yourselves if you’re one of the bosses) – is to ask these questions first. And here’s a little how-to guide.

Why are we doing this? Doesn’t quite matter what the “this” is – could be a video campaign, could be getting the boss on Twitter, could be blogging. The objectives for each could be radically different. You want a video so the CEO can show how passionate s/he is about the business so that your startup can raise its next round of capital. You need to Tweet because it’s the most laser-focused way to reach the 15 influencers you have targeted for relationship building. Your blog has to be launched because you have a network of people who can write insanely well and you want to be the centerpiece of a budding community.

What will happen if we don’t do this? Seriously – you need to think about the alternatives. You may even have to negotiate with your bosses.

Roger Fisher and William Ury wrote a best-seller called “Getting to Yes,” and they coined the term “Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement,” or “BATNA.” Consider the BATNA in your social media planning.

If we don’t get social with our marketing – will our competitors do that? If our competitors do that, will they be able to effectively tell the story that we can tell better? Will they win market share if they beat us to the market?

It might be likely that your competitors are NOT in the position to win lots of eyeballs and market share. It might even be likely that, while they focus on “social,” your focus on product excellence, or distribution channels, or fine-tuning your message could be the best thing for your business.

Upshot: Insert Social Media Here at your own peril – and not without some serious thinking and planning first.

May 31 2010

5 Tips for BP PR – How to avoid more loss of brand equity

Like everyone else, we’re watching BP and wondering if the oil spill will ever stop.

It may not. In the event that we’re still having this discussion in July 2011, here are three moves that BP can make right now to minimize loss of brand equity.

1. Cut prices at every one of your service stations by 25% effective immediately.

Why? You’re going to lose tons of business anyway.

For instance, heading out of town this weekend, I filled up on gas. I bypassed your station in Evanston, IL. Better to support the Marathon guy down the road. I made this decision simply because I didn’t want to give you more money than I already had to.

Then, on the Indiana Toll Road, my hands were tied. BP or nothing. Darnit. So I filled up at a BP station.

But there’s more to this, right? I mean, local dealers who sell BP have franchises and buy gas from you and all that stuff I don’t understand.

So it’s these guys that are gonna lose business. And lots of business.

Thus the 25% cut in prices. That will make me think twice. Right?

2. Buy an acre of Louisiana swamp land for every hour that the spill continues.

Pay market prices. Donate the land to the State of Louisiana. Call it a day.

3. Accept any Louisiana fishing claims without batting an eye.

If I have a shrimp boat in Louisiana, and I’m toast, I probably don’t have Environmental Insurance. Business Interruption Insurance. ANY INSURANCE. I’m not saying people can make crazy claims, but if a 40 year-old guy in the Bayou says he makes $75K a year fishing and will lose everything, cut him a check.

4. Know all that “Beyond Petroleum” stuff you have been doing? Do it again. And again. And again.

I want to see wind farms. I want to see soy biodiesel. I want you to revisit all those ads from a few years ago where you talk to people on the streets and they tell you what they want out of an oil company.

I want to see those ads and I want to see them now.

5. Get a YouTube Channel NOW.

See the ad up here? It has 200,000 hits.

Search for “BP” on YouTube and stuff like this comes up.

Not press conferences, updates from your executives, video of your own.

Get a channel and get it NOW.

Oct 21 2009

Beer, Vermont, Branding, The Word Monster, A Trademark Lawsuit…

Capitalism, Free-Market Economy…boy, we could go on and on. In this case, though, here’s one side of the story about a small brewer in Vermont, a beer called “Vermonster” and a cease-and-desist order from a much larger company.

First, the video:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbG_woqXTeg

Now, what do you think? Does Matt, the guy in the video, go too far — risking everything to keep his name? Does the large company go too far — since it’s a different category (energy drink vs. beer).

And does Matt use video effectively?