Are you ready?

March 29 has always been an important date: Cy Young and John Tyler were born. The last US soldiers leave South Vietnam in 1973. And the War of the Roses basically ends in 1461.

But March 29, 2008 will be even more monumental. Actually, it's your job to make it monumental:

Just like Joseph Jaffe a few months ago, The Age of Conversation will bumrush the Amazon charts on tomorrow.

If you don't know about 'The Age of Conversation', get all the details here and find more about the Bumrush on Drew's blog.

And, please help the bumrush by checking out this Fresh Peel Post.

Most importantly, buy the book tomorrow.

Join the Age of Conversation

What began as a dare between two bloggers, turned into one of the most interesting blogosphere stories of 2007: The Age of Conversation.

Much has been written about this book, Advertising Age listed it among the 'Books You Should Have Read in 2007" and more than $10,000 were raised for Variety the Children's Charity.

How do you follow up this successful, social project? You create an even bigger, better, baddder and more daring book.

In the spirit of collaboration, the sequel begins with a call-out to the community to determine this year's theme. You can choose between Marketing Manifesto, Why They Don't Get It and My Marketing Tragedy). Weigh in now and vote.



Get the official announcement here.

And if you feel ready to join the conversation with your own voice, email Drew and become part of the gang.

And, did I mention, vote now?

Hat tip to Greg Verdino for the top graphic.

Is Chevy getting it?

In cooperation with the NY Times, Chevy bought above one-page ad in today's NY Times and launched a conversational marketing campaign.

Headlined 'We need to talk', the ad copy states:

"At General Motors, we take our responsibility for the environment seriously. If that sounds disingenuous, coming from the world's largest producer of cars and trucks, well, maybe it's time to talk - in depth and frankly. That's what this is: the beginning of a dialogue between people who share a planet. Fact is, we need to talk. We want to talk."

After Chevy explains their various environmental initiatives, they close:

"We expect skepticism. So if you have questions about our fuel solutions, we are ready to answer them. Over the next several months, this dialogue will take place on the web and in the pages of this newspaper. Ask your questions on the web, and we'll answer them, right here in the Friday Op/Ed section of this newspaper. Please submit your questions and comments at nytimes/com/chevy.
These are serious issues. And we are making serious progress. We hope to prove that to you. But we haven't got all the answers. We value your input. And we promise to listen."

The ad is signed by Beth Lowery, GM VP, Environment, Energy and Safety Policy.

The overall idea is good and an interesting evolution of the infamous Chevy Tahoe campaign. But, once again, it falls short:

- When you go to the site, there's only one thing to do: Post a comment. Q&A, the most important section of the site, has not even launched yet.
- Posting a comment doesn't feel like a real conversation. It just feels like another one-way communication. If I have questions, why bother posting on the site? Why not write GM/Chevy directly on their site or through email?
- A real conversation has to be authentic. Even though the ad copy is well written, it doesn't read like a real person wrote it. Too polished, too corporate.
- This feels like a great media idea that wasn't executed well. It's one of those alibi campaigns that give executives a warm, fuzzy feeling: "We're doing a lot about the environment and deploy these cool, new marketing tools, called Conversational Marketing."


The tagline worked really well for the iPhone, great piece of copywriting. To use it as a headline for the Chevy campaign doesn't feel right.


We need to talk? Chevy might but I have no intention to follow their command.

Overall, a good idea and I'm glad Chevy tries to join the conversation. But they fell short. Once again.

P.S.: It might be helpful to include the campaign in search results of NY Times. If you search for Chevy, the campaign doesn't even come up. Only nerdy bloggers like me cut out ads to remember the URL.

Stunts or conversational marketing

Scott Monty followed in the footsteps of his boss, Joseph Jaffe, and asked the online community online for help to purchase a product. In Scott's case a snowblower. 5 months ago, Joseph asked for an iPhone in exchange for a podcast sponsorship. (Both from Crayon fame.) And Grant Prouly, one of Jaffe's readers, asks for a Macbook Pro.

Now, before I go any further, let me clear about one thing: I believe participatory media and social networks are great for people helping each other out. With thoughts. Conversations. Money. Prayer. And this post is not about slamming people in need.

However, these two sentences in Scott's post concern me:

"If this angle doesn't work out - and I have very low expectations - perhaps Toro, Sears or Lowes are paying attention. It would be an interesting project for them to be involved in."

Is this a real project? Is it more than asking friends to help out? And, even more important, is this the state of conversational marketing?

Didn't I just read in 'Join the Conversation' from Joseph Jaffe that:

"81% of marketers believe that in 5 years they'll be spending as much or more on conversational marketing vs. traditional marketing"

or was I dreaming? Now, I'm agreeing with Jaffe that small ideas are the way to go but how small can ideas be before companies just walk away from any conversational marketing tactics?

Let's face it, some brands believe in conversational marketing, understand the philosophy and idea behind it. But they need to understand how conversational marketing can scale, how they can reach potential/potential customers and how to convert them. Or brands won't spend a dime utilizing conversational marketing.

There are ways of doing it. Scalable ways. Efficient ways. And it will take the whole social media community and a lot of work to convince brands to spend their money on these tactics. In order for conversational marketing to really take off, we need fresh ideas, fresh voices and fresh thinking. And executives of cutting-edge companies to move the conversation forward and advance our thinking.

I'm not sure bartering for iPhones and snowplows will do the trick. But I'm sure we need less tricks/stunts and more thought leadership and case studies.

Chevy Malibu - How can I ignore you?

Chevy tried something interesting today on Yahoo's homepage: Quoting user reviews and linking directly to the Yahoo! Auto Chevy Malibu review page.
I counted 41 reviews at 9.20 am PT: 22 positive, 12, negative and 7 reviews discussing the advertising tactics or supporting domestic automakers with patriotic arguments.

A few quotes:

I WAS WITH HONDA FOR 5 YEARS IN THE CAR BUSINESS. THIS NEW MALIBU WILL TURN ASIAN CAR BUYERS BACK TO GM. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT, THEN YOU HAVEN'T DRIVEN ONE YET. GREAT CAR.

Why there are so many haters in this country? Some poeple says so nagative about it, and obviously, they don't even own one. People are already saying it breaks when warranty expires. but the car just out. Why are u such a bad person? To judge it buy one and tell us when 5 years later the warranty expired and when the car does break. It just don't make sense over the old products agains the new ones. Or does someone paying you to say it?

The last American car that I owned was a Chevrolet. It was a maintenance
nightmare and a piece of junk. Since this horrible experience I only drive vehicles for Toyota and Honda.

CHEVROLET MALIBU IS THE WORST CAR THEY ONLY LAST AS LONG AS YOU ARE UNDER WARRENTY, AFTER THAT THE CAR GO DOWN HILL

another piece of general motors junk..i have been waiting 30 years for them to come even close to camry or accord. needs better pricing to bring the folks back..lutz is a joke..discusted detroiter..

i love the new malibu. it is the best i ever owned. all i ever by is a chevy. my grandfathers car has over 300,000 miles on it and it runs great. and the trucks are awesome 2

best car for the price
when i first saw this car i thought is was a audi a6

just wondering how many of these comments were written by GM, the lack of cons gives it away

is car is the definite class act of the mid-size market. Styling is heads and shoulders above the Accord and especially the Camry (does anyone really think the bulbous styling is really attractive?).

This is a giant step forward and is a compeditive offering. We should stop bashing our selfs as Americans and stop living in the past with respect that only Japan can build a good car at this price point.

Go test drive this car and take a close look. It may change your perspective!

Some of these comments explain why our country is in is decline. Go to Japan and Germany to see how loyal their people are to domestic autos. They understand the importance of the auto industry and the export business. Our country has become an import happy country and all the good jobs are gone because we have no loyalty to our own products.

If the good reviews supposedly come from GM dealers or GM HQ or GM marketers, then the reviews bashing the Malibu probably come from Toyota dealers, Toyota HQ or Toyota marketers or all other "foreign" car makers.

I was under the impression that these comments were to be left by people that own the cars so you could get an impression of what people think about it on a daily basis. Its a little unnerving to see that half of the people on here that are just in LOVE with their rice burners have nothing but bad things to say about this car, because well, its a car that will probably knock their company off its high horse.

Holy Cow, how many of these reviews were written by GM dealers or someone at the GM HQ's.. WOW..!!! I had a 2003 Malibu that was the biggest piece of crap I've ever owned, and that included Ford Escorts..!!! I sold it at 44k with a blown intake manifold, yeah, they've been building cars for 80 years but can't make an intake manifold that won't leak.

Not for nothing, I think Yahoo to support the the ad on its homepage or GM marketing wrote 90% of the user reviews on this board. The language and the style of most of the posts seem like the same person wrote the positive feedbacks. Thats not to say that the car isn't decent, it is. But, it would be a travesty for these two publicly traded companies, to put an ad up Quoting Yahoo Users to get people to click and then misrepresent themselves as normal owners and buyers. The truth is that this car is competive against Toyota, Nissan, and Honda. It does have standard features that are included that the other cars lack. But we all mistrust the longevity and future values of a Chevy and I doubt it will hold up as well as its Japanese look-a-likes. If you are shopping check it out, but don't be fooled by these self posts that GM is flaunting in its Yahoo AD.

I just bought this car and am very impressed with the overall performance and value of this vehicle.... Job well done Chevy !

It's interesting how the discussion changed from reviewing the car to discussing the quality issues (or perception thereof) of domestic automakers. Chevy should have expected it because that's the real conversation happening out there. People have the perception that domestic automakers don't have the same quality product as Japanese automakers.

You can't fight this perception with a massive media blitz and hope for attitudinal changes. Instead, Chevy should have a found a way to insert themselves into this conversation and answer critics with facts (extended warranty) and maybe even some discussion about other brands. If you want to access the world of conversational marketing, you need to listen, respond and join. Just linking to user reviews and hoping for the best doesn't do the job. It will do more harm than good.

Update: I started this post at 9.20 and it's now 10.20 am - No reviews have been posted in the last hour.

Update: Interestingly, the number of reviews have not changed but new reviews are coming in. Bad reviews are still visible but they seem to be switching out old ones. Not sure. However, the discussion has deteroriated. One of the last posts:

Jesus is God!
YAYAYAY YAY YAY YAy YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!! GO GM GO ...

Update: It's 10:08 pm, the campaign has ended. Still only 41 reviews, it seems the old ones drop and the reviews are limited to 41 posts. Lame.

The power of conversational marketing

A few weeks ago I sat down with a friend. He spoke about his newest venture, how he's trying to save some money by either cutting down on certain services or just plainly eliminating them. At one point we talked about phone service and Skype came up.
I thought about taking out the landline at home and just replacing with our cellphones or adding another solution, such as Skype. Since I showed interest, he started raving about all the advantages, his minor complaints and the cost savings.

After listening to his sermon, I asked:
"I was always interested in Skype but their site didn't explain the process appropriately and I felt I didn't really know where to start. What did you do?"
"Go to Skype to start your service and go to Amazon to buy the phone. It's cheaper there."
"You have a minute? Show me what I should order on Skype and I'll figure out the rest."
5 minutes later I was a Skype customer and had a brand new phone.

That's the power of Conversational Marketing and WOM:
Complex decisions can be simplified within minutes, known brands can be forgotten and cancelled within seconds and 'too-complex-for-my-pea-brain-site-experiences' can be forgotten.

And, yes, Skype rocks.

Make love not war Part 2

I've been married for more than 6 years and I've known my wife for more than 8. By now, we should know each other pretty well, wouldn't you think? When we are with friends she has to listen to stories she heard gazillion times before, and she still manages to smile or laugh when the punchline comes around.

I think these moments and habits partners know intimately, make us believe we know the other person. But, once in a while, we're in the middle of a conversation and one of us shares a moment or story we never heard before. And it reminds all of us that we do know a lot about our partner but we don't know everything. (And, by the way, each person is evolving each and every day.)

An entire industry has been built around the idea to avoid these personal and revealing moments. Instead, we discuss the lives of others on TMZ, PerezHilton or awfulplasticsurgery.com. These are just diversions and white noise.

The real stories are with your family, your friends, colleagues. You can wait all your life to hear these stories and experience amazing moments. Or you can simply ask. But don't ask if you're not ready for an answer. Meaning: if you're too busy/pre-occupied to listen, don't even bother asking. As you can read in 'Listening Is An Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project', by Dave Isay:

"If we take the time to listen, we'll find wisdom, wonder and poetry in the lives and stories of the people all around us."

As discussed in my previous post, we have to change our marketing lingo in order to find meaningful connections between brands and people. Once we embraced a more personal, dare I say more loving language, we need to embrace the idea of listening as an act of love. Just like the first date when we force ourselves to ask questions and listen, brands need to listen to people to show 'their love'. It's hard for me to use deep-rooted emotional words to describe the brand-people relationship. But that trepidation shows me that this is something we need to work on and develop.

Successful marketing needs to be rooted in discovering the stories that make people unique and the dreams that drive them. Everything else is just a diversion and white noise.

Thanks to Tom Peters for the inspiration and Ira Glass for constantly pushing the idea of listening as an act of love.

Make love not war

What do football and media planning have in common? Both are littered with military analogies: We launch media 'campaigns', implement 'the blitz', 'target' audiences, hope for 'hits' and 'impacts'. We want to hold our audience 'captive' by delivering 'sticky' experiences. This use of language in the marketing world has defined relationships between brands and people. And created a divide between 'us' and 'them'.

As we know, brands have become the Miami Dolphins of 2007 and people the New England Patriots. It's an unfair battle. Even without spygate, the Patriots (people) have an unfair advantage:

- They have a better strategy (Ad avoidance - Bill Belichick)
- They have stronger weapons (DVR/Adblocker - Randy Moss/Tom Brady)
- They have a huge home advantage (My Media on my terms - Gillette Stadium)

There are two ways to go:
Either we build up our team through draft (bring in new weapons), developing better strategies (Think DMA, Napster, etc.) and try to develop a walled garden that eliminates the home advantage and puts brands/publishers in the driver's seat again.

Or, we develop a new language and, most importantly, replace our current American Football metaphor with something more communal and relationship-building.

As Doc Searls describes:

"Advertising is about supply finding and "creating" demand. Nothing wrong with that. At its best it's good and necessary stuff. But think about what will happen when demand can find and create supply. That's the real holy grail here. And it's one that will take fresh development effort on both the supply and demand sides. The difference between those two right now is that the supply side has been working on targeting, creating and controlling demand for the duration, and the demand side is still getting started."

Clearly, we haven't found the right models for the demand side yet. But we need to start now. And the way to start is with adjusting our marketing language.

Ludwig Wittgenstein said:
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

Our current language limits us and our relationships with people. Let's change it.

Big Blue chimes in

From today's AdWeek:

"About 30 percent of the advertising revenue now resting in the coffers of traditional media companies will shift to online ad exchanges like Yahoo! and Google in the next five years, according to a new report from IBM Global Business Services."
(...)
Indeed, IBM concludes that "as the advertising value chain reconfigures, broadcasters, advertising agencies and media distributors in particular will need to make a number of 'no regret' moves" in key areas such as how to better connect with consumers in a multi-channel world and how to create new business models.

"There is no question that the future of advertising will look radically different from the past. The push for control of attention, creativity, measurements and inventory will reshape the advertising value chain and shift the balance of power," per the report summary. "For both incumbent and new players, it is imperative to plan for multiple consumer futures, craft agile strategies and build new capabilities before advertising as we know it disappears."

But that's only part of the story. The other part is the shift from traditional media to social media: We talked already about SNCR/Jaffe study claiming that by 2013 advertisers and marketers will be expected to spend more on conversational media than on advertising through traditional media.

An earlier study by Prospero reported that 88% of businesses expected to increase Social Media Spending in 2008.

More signs are pointing into one direction. Let's make sure we support this shift with big ideas and small ideas.

Integration

I remember that feeling in my teenager stomach when my father came to me and said: "Let's have a conversation." This 'conversation' was a long monologue, interrupted by a few rhetoric or unanswerable questions: 'Why did you do it?' 'Don't you think I have to work for my money?'
And then there were these innocent talks that traansported me to a different place. They opened up feelings, allowed to form a closer bond with my father: When he talked about his upbringing in the 30's, being a refugee in his own country, having to work 6 days a week for 12 hours in a job none of us would survive for 2 hours.

Conversational Marketing is about opening up. It's not about formulating a response to what a person is saying while that person is speaking to us. Brands are still to attached to their thinking, their positioning and their organizational thinking to really listen to people.

Organizations have to change fundamentally to succeed. Demolish the old separation of church (emotion) and state (thinking): The company produces the product and surrounds it with content and experiences. The thinking is done by the brand and the emotion is attached by an agency.

Instead, we need to integrate emotion during the product development process. This will allow to communicate authentic feelings during the marketing process. It becomes a more organic development and conversational. Conversational Marketing is not a tactic or another channel. It's a mindset.

From douchebag to douchebag

Nice find by Scott Monty.



So, am I a New Media Douchebag? Sure, once in a while. But the longer I focus on Social Media the more I feel enlightened. Not more confused.

And, the search function on YouTube is horrendous. When will the Google Search Team meet with the YouTube Search Team? Yesterday would be nice.

Broken promises?

Quoting Anthony Parker, CMO at Kimberly-Clark, in the WSJ:

"You have to go back to the simple point that a brand is a promise and the product is a delivery of that promise. If you make that promise and deliver it better than the competition, you'll build brand equity. I believe brands are more salient today to consumers than they ever have been -- they are a simplifying mechanism in a world where there are many more options. Private label is declining in some categories. My belief is where brands are weak, the people who are stewarding those brands aren't spending as much on communication. Therefore they're not telling consumers about the promise of the brand."

How do we define brand as a promise? A brand promising something on product or service? Sure, that's a good start. It implies some form of honesty. But is it a good conversation starter?

Not really. Unless you're interested in conversations focusing on broken promises. If you promise a good running shoe for a decent price, people might buy it but they won't talk about it unless you exceeded the basic brand promise.

In a perfect world, brands would only be about promises. We wouldn't need brands to express ourselves, our self-realization wouldn't be achieved through work and we wouldn't need to spice up our existence with Britney news and reality shows. In a perfect world, a water brand would tell me their product benefits and that's about it.



Since we don't live in a perfect world, brands are more than just plain promises.

Brands are meaning machines.
Every part of our life has been commoditized: Dating, Sex, Conceiving, Parenting, Gardening, Spirituality, Life. We tend to complain about outsourcing but we tend to outsource on a daily basis: Scrapbooks, Diaries, Music Collections. Everything is stored on outsourced networks. Nothing is in-house. In addition, our entertainment and information resources have been commoditized as well.

This commodization of life has elevated brands to personal expressions and symbols of meaning. (Let's not forget: Greenpeace is a brand as well.) Those symbols are typically logos or product images, or better: shared cultural associations. In the old days, those cultural associations ended in your personal Cul-de-sac. Social Media allows us to change, re-engineer, reconfigure these associations.

Brands today have to have meaning to stand out the from tangibles jungle. If a brand stands for something we believe in, it becomes part of our niche culture, part of us and our memories. Good brands add this value to your life.

Great brands take this a step further: They let people in and create a collaborative brand. Brands and people as partners in the brand development and advancement process. Now, that sounds like a perfect world to me.

What will I say to her when she grows up?

We're not engineers. We won't be able to solve our reliance on fossil fuels.
We're not scientists. We won't solve the global cancer problem.
We're just marketers. But we still have a huge responsibility:

When my girl grows up, will she look me in the eye and ask "What did you do to make this world a better place?" I hope I was able to provide her a good childhood, education and wrap her with love. But, will I be able to say more:

Did I help move marketing away from advertising to conversations?
Did I help change brands perception of advertising away from getting attention to paying attention?
Did I add value and experiences to people's life?

Marketers face a huge challenge. Are you ready for it? Are you ready to answer her question?

The future of marketing

When I was a kid, marketing meant the farmers market: Stalls, vendors, smells, discussions, conversations. Nobody tried to convince you of anything, you browsed, you tasted and when you liked something you started a conversation.

Have you ever been to a Middle East Bazaar? You can offer the best price and profit but if you don't engage in a conversation, the merchant will refuse to sell since you didn't regard him as an equal. Sure, the merchant wants to make a sale. But he gets out of bed in the morning because of the interaction between him and the customer.

The gist of Conversational Marketing is to re-discover this old idea of marketing. In order to do that, we need to value the conversation as high as the customer does. The conversation has to be the center piece of our marketing. And, we need to be equals. What does that mean?

We need to be able to say no. Just like the customer says no to us all the time. The consumer might be in control. But we need to find a way to say no to customers. If we say no to certain customers, we will elevate our brand. Because we don't try to just get the sale. We want to be part of the conversation. And some customers shouldn't be part of it. Just like some people shouldn't participate in certain conversations. Keeping these people out might be the hardest part of your conversational marketing plan. But it also might be the one with the highest ROI. And the toughest pushback from the brand organization.

Henry Jenkins and Reefer Madness

Went to Barnes & Noble this morning to purchase Convergence Culture from Henry Jenkins. (See this post to understand why I dragged my family to a bookstore on Sunday morning.)

I looked everywhere for the book: Business, Management, Advertising, Culture. Until I finally had to ask the cashier and she pointed me to the Cultural Studies bookshelf. What I saw was 'Reefer Madness', 'The best shrooms experiences' and other books about hallucinatory drugs and out of body experiences. Apparently, Barnes & Noble had problems categorizing 'Convergence Culture' and placed it under 'Cultural Studies'.

It shows how important categories are for human behavior. Categories help you digest information better and easier. And they have a lot of disadvantages: They put you in boxed you don't belong in and when you're on the fringe of a category you might consider not even existing.

On another note, Joseph Jaffe bumrushed the Amazon charts today with his newest book 'Join the Conversation'. Very cool insider event and I was impressed by ooVoo, the video conferencing and messaging platform.
Now, that's conversational marketing.

Here come the big guns

WSJ reports about Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay Inc., and his interest in participatory media:

"People who grew rich in the Internet age believe that the best media opportunities involve new ways to attract millions of users at low cost, with only light guidance from a small team at headquarters. Their reasoning deserves a close look.

The obvious champions of this approach are upstarts like Google Inc. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, or Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Google's $192 billion market capitalization is public. Facebook's negotiations to sell a stake at what might be a $15 billion valuation are being chattered about constantly. In those cases, the sheer size of those new-media fortunes comes across as a triumphant roar.

Mr. Omidyar is no shouter. At age 40, he has been retired from day-to-day duties at eBay for years, though he remains chairman of the online auction company. He lives in Henderson, Nev., where taxes are lower. We've chatted intermittently since 1998, and it's always mind-stretching. Mr. Omidyar may be a low-key engineer, but he likes to defy tradition if he sees a compelling opportunity.

In recent interviews, Mr. Omidyar and his new investment chief, Matt Bannick, explained why they want to build "participatory media" companies, in which vast numbers of ordinary citizens call the shots. To them, that's the future of media, even if it won't always be profitable."

Who and what Omidyar is targeting remains unclear. But it's very clear that the big investors are waking up to the opportunities in participatory media. We've not seen many innovative ventures or niche agencies that focus on conversational marketing alone. I'm sure plans are in the making and there will be major shift in focus from Web 2.0 to Participatory Marketing. It's about time.

Transactions vs actions

Everybody is talking about Conversational Marketing. Not many brands have done anything about it.

Why?

Marketing values transactions. They are the holy grail of each marketing plan. How many products are you going to sell because of your marketing? What's the ROI of each marketing tactic? Business Schools train future marketers to focus on transactions.

In the last few years we've started to learn that relevant engagement can be as valuable as transactions. Engagement allows for a more holistic understanding of actions people take. Relevant engagement is as valuable as transactions because engagement allows for influencing others.

Conversational Marketing in itself might not be the easiest sell to clients. Relevant engagement is the first step to a real conversational campaign.

Clearly, there's always a place for transactional marketing. Doubleclick/Google and aQuantive/Microsoft point into the future of advertising based on algorithms.
But the other half of the marketing pie will be reserved for conversational marketing. We just have to understand that this form of marketing can't be bought. It has to be earned.