How much is a tweet worth? And how much does a Twitter follower cost?

NYT profiles first lawsuit re: ownership rights to tweets. Only surprise: this is the first suit of its kind that media is reporting..

"..In base economic terms, the value of individual Twitter updates seems to be negligible; after all, what is a Twitter post but a few bits of data sent caroming through the Internet? But in a world where social media’s influence can mean the difference between a lucrative sale and another fruitless cold call, social media accounts at companies have taken on added significance.
The question is: Can a company cash in on, and claim ownership of, an employee’s social media account, and if so, what does that mean for workers who are increasingly posting to Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus during work hours?
A lawsuit filed in July could provide some answers..."

Would be surprising if this were the first suit to be brought, but if so, ultimate court decision could prove to be a doozy..even it'll be appealed..No doubt there will be plenty of more suits to follow..with lawyers wearing them..

#DunderMifflin Morphs Into Real-Life Brand of Copy Paper-#Reverse Product Placement

 For decades, marketers have worked to embed their brands in the plots of TV shows and movies as a way to stand out in a crowded ad market. Nowadays, using 'reverse product placement'. they are seeing value in bringing to life fictional brands that are already part of pop culture. That can be far cheaper than building brands from scratch.

On the heels of a full clothing line based on the Madmen TV show, Staples' Quill.com has struck a licensing deal with NBC's parent company to launch a Dunder Mifflin brand. Priced largely above private-label copy paper, the Dunder Mifflin packages will be emblazoned with slogans such as "Our motto is, 'Quabity First' " and "Get Your Scrant on," well-known phrases from the comedy series.
Read the full story here courtesy of the WSJ

Does Trusting Transparency Work?: PR Crisis Management Case Study

Even if NYT columnist and CNBC commentator Andrew Sorkin might not consider himself a crisis mgt/PR guru, his column today profiling investment firm Jefferies Group efforts over the past several weeks to combat rampant [negative] rumors circulating throughout the investment industry provides good subtext not only for securities industry firms, but any firm whose reputation, and in particular, perceived financial viability is evaluated by its customers/clients on a daily basis.

For those familiar with the chain of events leading to the collapse of various financial firms back in 2008 & 2009 (sic Lehman, Bear Stearns, Refco, and more recently, multiple closings of once-esteemed 'major hedge funds', we're in a 24-hour news cycle world where a rumor-fueled "run-on-the-bank" can destroy a company and thousands of jobs within a matter of days, if not hours.

This is exactly why even  the most altruistic PR crisis management strategies need to be well thought out, and vetted by objective, experienced experts--and perhaps even "tested" on a control group before anyone lets the CEO take pen to paper and hit the 'send button'.
Click on the title link to read in between the lines.

Marketing Marijuana Goes Mainstream:Sex Sells

Courtesy of Bloomberg LP:

"..There are currently 16 states that allow some form of legalized medical marijuana, but so far, only Colorado allows marijuana businesses to operate as such. It’s the first, and for the moment, only, for-profit marijuana marketplace in the U.S.."..and per the Bloomberg article, these entrepreneurs are taking best-of-breed marcom and sponsorship strategies one would expect from cutting-edge consumer brands..

At least one interesting take-away: sex sells..click on the title link for the full article..

Marketers Embrace Last Laugh: Comedy Sells

When times are hard, a soft sell can often work better than a head-on approach.
Good article from today's NYT:
Comedians, stars of situation comedies and actors known for being funny have long been mainstays of advertising, on the theory that laughter can sweeten a sales spiel. Recently, their popularity as pitchmen and pitchwomen seems to be increasing — sometimes to the point that television viewers or magazine readers may feel that they are sitting through a set at a comedy club. 

During the Depression, advertisers turned to funny radio performers to peddle their wares, among them Fred Allen, for Bristol-Myers brands like Ipana toothpaste; Jack Benny, for Jell-O; Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, for Chase & Sanborn coffee; and Fibber McGee and Molly, for Johnson’s Wax.

Another reason for the prevalence of laugh makers is their ability to woo consumers into paying attention to ads. That is important in an era when DVRs and remote controls make it easy to avoid commercials and marketers seek to attract visitors to Facebook fan pages and YouTube video channels.

#Borrowed-Interest: Betting on 11-11-11

Per today's NYT, Ads that hinge on a special date are an example of a marketing tactic called borrowed interest, in which advertisers try to involve themselves in big, topical events that the proverbial “everyone” is talking about. It is the hucksters’ equivalent of candidates far down on the ballot attempting to win by riding the coattails of those at the top of the ticket. The article profiles only a handful of the tens of dozens of major brand campaigns seeking to leverage 11-11-11

The take-away reminder for marcom guru's is merely a reminder that thought leadership strategies are driven by topical news events. Today's smart marketers are the ones that also peel off every major headline story and come up with an angle to use the latest events to subliminally promote their company products/services.  That's the beauty of Twitter; although I still don't understand their purported valuation on SecondMarket

Big Brands Low-Cost Facebook Strategy

WSJ Nov 3:

The centerpiece of Ford Motor Co.'s online campaign for the 2012 Focus was a free Facebook page hosted by an orange-colored puppet that in a few weeks won over a new, younger audience for the once-stodgy compact.

Ford spokespuppet "Doug" drew crowds to online conversations and videos that starred him clowning around the new Focus. Doug inspired more than 43,000 Facebook users to click "Like," the icon that broadcasts to friends a thumbs-up approval of a brand or product.

While Ford shelled out an estimated $95 million to advertise the new Focus across a broad range of media, it spent just pennies on the dollar for Facebook ads.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204294504576613232804554362.html#ixzz1cYU8picK

#HedgeFund Marketing: Its all about the #Brand

courtesy of HedgeCo.net –
Since the market correction of 2008, a vast majority of hedge fund net asset flows have gone to a small minority of hedge funds with the strongest brands, marking a change from the pre-2008 environment. A brand is an investor’s perception of the overall quality of a hedge fund based on multiple evaluation factors that evolve over time. A high-quality brand takes a long time to develop, but once achieved, it significantly enhances a firm’s ability to raise capital and retain assets during a drawdown in performance.

Branding is a critical issue for all hedge funds, because the marketplace has become increasingly competitive. Most agree that there are over 10,000 hedge funds in the market place. Hedge fund investors are inundated with requests for meetings, with some receiving hundreds of phone calls or e-mails per week from investment managers. To filter through the overload of information, investors are turning more and more to a firm’s brand when choosing which funds to meet and ultimately invest with.

#Jobs : The Icon

A genius marketer who epitomized the meaning of "blue ocean" was only one of many of Steve Job's attributes. He'll be remembered as a visionary unlike all but a handful of men throughout the past 200 years who have so noticeably, and so productively influenced modern civilization. He was the King Neptune of Blue Oceans.

Among the many phrases that will be used to describe him, the best might be human force majeure, a truly great force, and someone who was unique in his ability to influence, inspire and incite fireworks across the broadest spectrum of human intellect.

We can only hope that he left behind the blueprints and the user manuals to the many products and technology innovations that he left on the drawing board, or at very least, that he has left a legacy that will inspire those that aspire to be like him!

#Computer Fraud & Abuse Act: New Boon for Criminal Lawyers

GWU Law Professor Orin Kerr's op-ed in today's NYT  "Should Faking a Name on Facebook Be a Felony?", and his take on how far the US Department of Justice wants to take this 1986 legislation is a must-read.

Unknown to most, that legislation has been quietly broadened over the years, and unless anyone raises a voice, its about to become a felony to write/post anything that "exceeds authorized access" to any computer, including writing/posting anything that's not true.

Sounds crazy? Well, the DOJ is planning to exploit the definition of "exceeds authorized access", the ubiquitous 'terms and conditions' that are part and parcel to the very tiny fine print displayed in every software application, and a condition to virtually every third party website, including social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Aggressively over-promoting the benefits of a soft drink?Are you doing the Alec-Bloviator-Baldwin thing, and stating on your Twitter account or FB page that "the barrista at Starbucks purposefully gave me bad service and didn't know what he was doing!"?  Boom: Potential 3 year jail sentence in a federal slammer.

Marcom 202: Fired CEO Don't Call Board Members #Doofuses"

Who can't resist reading about Carol Bartz? This is a gal that's been at the tiller of major corporations, and at the same time, drops f-bombs faster than a machine gun. When she gets fired from her latest gig as CEO of Yahoo!, what does she do? She calls the board members " a bunch of doofuses"..

If ever there was a lesson not to be learned about how to control the messaging from a global brand's corporate HQ corner offices, this one might even trump the lessons that should not have been learned from the countless HP stories over the past number of years.

1. Firing a CEO over the phone is a very bad idea.

2. Which means that Carol is right, the board of YHOO! is a bunch of doofuses. Hiring Carol to run this company was a doofus move in the first place, but firing this firebrand over the phone takes the cake.

3. If they had the common sense to bring in a crisis management expert before someone was allowed to call Carol, one that would have also been fluent with marketing communication best practices, and who would have known how to pre-empt PR disasters like the one that happened today, 2 billion fewer people would have found out how munch of a doofus they are. 

#SocialMedia Sites Fail To Stir Conversions

On the heels of warning about government clampdowns on social media sites, lo and behold, research shop Outbrain issued a report that indicates social media sites trail far behind search engines when it comes to delivering traffic to websites and content sources. What does this mean? Read the report!


2011 Q2 Outbrain Content Discovery Report

#Flashmobs: US Regulators Eye #Clampdown on #Social Media; Twitter, FB and Others to be curtailed?

Social media apps, and the companies that promote them are more than likely to face heightened scrutiny, if not outright clamp downs from US regulators as the Flashmob Epidemic moves from the Mid East to the UK, and now inciting violence across the US.

You read it here first: Cellphone carriers will undoubtedly be included in a new wave of government actions intended to prevent unruly and violent mobs from gathering and wreaking havoc.

Sure, were it not for social media apps, Mark Zuckerberg wouldn't have become a zillionaire, countless VC's wouldn't have been resuscitated in the latest investment industry frenzy, and the "Arab Spring" would have wilted before the first bud appeared.And Ashton Kutcher, the guy with the largest following on Twitter, might not have replaced Charlie Sheen on that TV show 2 1/2 Men.

Yes, we love social media for creating billions of dollars of wealth, and helping to create jobs for thousands of marketers and ad sales people. Not to mention the jolt its provided for a bunch of staggering brands. It would seem to be a good thing that a bunch of dictator regimes have fallen, all thanks to social media, but into the hands of who? Liberal or altruistic democrats? Hardly. The founders of Facebook and Twitter, cheered on by the likes of Anderson Cooper might want to think that their social media tools should be credited with inciting movements not seen since Mahatma Gandi, but the facts tell a different story so far.

Sure, we can blame the spreading civil unrest on challenging economic times, and we can blame that on inept politicians and corrupt government officials that seem to care only about their largest campaign donors or the private sector lobbyists holding out job offers that are conditioned on legislation or regulation that delivers bigger profits and bonuses to corporate titans.

But record unemployment and the growing chasm between haves and have nots ain't going to be solved by the type of social-media inspired violent outbreaks that we're seeing in the UK, and now in the US. These are destructive events being led by youth-centric anarchists wielding social-media powered cellphones; the new tools of the social disruption trade.

"What about freedom of speech? Or what happened our right to our right to congregate?.." you might ask. This blogger respectfully suggests that when all of the other constitutional rights, not to mention public safety, are being threatened by gangs of unruly mobsters [many of whom have been living on the government teet simply because its easier than working] --and intent on re-creating scenes from Mad Max and the Thunderdome, then the weapons they're using need to be taken away.

If that means Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare or the other less ubiquitous names in the space should be subjected to new rules that prevent instantaneous broadcast of  messages that inspire unruly mobs to gather and wreak mayhem, or if it means I can't update my LinkedIn, or broadcast a txt msg to more than 4 peeps at the same time via my Verizon-powered cell phone in order to promote a brand that's hired me to raise awareness for their new bikini wax, or if means the value of the shares that I bought in FourSquare on the SecondMarket platform is going to crater, then  I'm all in favor of Big Brother clamping down. I can easily sell my shares tomorrow.

What? You'd rather have a bunch of under-employed teens throwing a brick through your store front window for the fun of it? Or, maybe its ok with you when 20 unruly twenty-somethings get a Twitter message to show up on your street and turn over your car and light it on fire while your infant is in the back sit?

Something is clearly awry when widgets created by wonkers-turned-billionaires are turning the world literally upside down. To the Zuckerberg's of the world, and the other Gen Z geniuses: you need to take a time out if you truly believe that power is in the hands of the beholder and can be exploited without consideration for the impact on public welfare. Otherwise, you should get yourself prepared for a serious spanking.
Yes..I said it and now I feel better.

Website Offering #Prizes to #Critique Ads

Interesting article, albeit it remains to be seen whether the responders are providing material feedback..But, heck! I'm happy to score a $300 prize for critiquing an ad..oh..you need all of my personal data, too? mmmmm...

Loffles, a new Web site where users choose from a selection of prizes, watch a commercial in order to be entered to win that prize, then answer two or three questions to confirm that they viewed the commercial. So far she has won Michael Kors sunglasses (valued at $317), an Oster electric wine bottle opener ($24) and a gift certificate to The Cheesecake Factory ($50).
Since Loffles began on June 27, more than 3,400 users have registered on the site, providing their age, sex and areas of interest, information advertisers in turn use to determine who sees their ads. Users, who may enter a contest for a prize as many times as they are willing to watch additional ads, spend an average of about 16 minutes a day perusing prizes and watching commercials on the site.
About 60 percent of users are male and 40 percent female, while the average age is 24.
Click this link for the NYT article.

You might want to #short stocks, but not #Social Media

The Value of #PR. Can it be measured? What to pay for publicity?

Kudos to Carl Bialik at the WSJ for opening the can of worms that many within the "public relations" industry would like to keep closed, particularly those that pitch AVEs (Advertising Value Equivalents) as the metric by which they charge for their services...
Here's the thesis:

For decades, many publicists have translated clients' news coverage into dollar figures, with a simple rule of thumb: A newspaper article is worth as much as a newspaper ad of the same size. Similarly, 30 seconds of television news coverage is seen as comparable to a 30-second ad. 

Some public-relations specialists, reasoning that news coverage carries greater weight with consumers than paid advertising, put a news article's value at three times an equivalent-size ad.

But other public-relations professionals and academics have railed against making these calculations. Publicity, they say, has different goals than advertising and shouldn't be measured in the same way.

This blogger would argue that putting a definitive monetary value on a blurb is bombastic, BUT, the PR hack's job is to get the client as many mentions as possible, whether in major newspaper stories, radio, TV or attributions in blogs. For those that favor a flat tax, maybe there should be a flat fee, or a fee scale that's based on number of third-party mentions, and the scale is limited to media sectors?

What sayeth you? Let us know!

Branding & PR: Not Just For #Gamers

Here's a new PR twist: that's gaining traction: tell customer's you'll throw them out if they txt or use their cell phones while in your establishment. The operator that's pushing this envelope has got my vote on the message, the delivery, and the application! Click here for NYT coverage

Here's a "duh" idea that leads one to ask "Why didn't your marketing/branding wizard think of this idea? He did?! Then why hasn't he implemented anything yet??.. Got you guessing? Good.
Now click on this article from today's WSJ
 

#GameChanger:#ICANN's Plan To Profit By Extension:The Bubble That Keeps On Floatin'

In what can only be viewed as a "profit by extension" scheme by ICANN, the Internet Central Bank and World Congress of the Internet combined, today's game changing announcement to open up the extension market, which is currently capped at 22 suffixes (e.g. .com, .net., .biz, .org, .edu, .mil, and 17 others) and allowing the registration of privately-owned extensions for a mere entry price of $185,000 per extension is going to make millions for fast movers with big check books.

Make no mistake; this is also a game changer for anybody (who's anybody) that's responsible for brand marketing, and anybody that has a vested interested in the World of SEO.

While ICANN had first started planning this idea over 10 years ago, today's formal approval to open up the flood gates and offer the ability to own and monetize customized extensions was no doubt bolstered by the terribly-in-vogue, "its all the rage and there's no supply!" pricing strategy currently being used by Wall Street and Silicon Valley bankers in the course of their touting social media IPOs; a period that will hereafter be remembered as 'The Bubble That Keeps on Floatin' "

Having once dallied up and down the lanes of big bank trading floors, this part-time VC, part-time blogger, part-time rainmaker is lovin the idea. While this post is not to be construed or considered to be a solicitation to sell shares or solicit investment from institutional or individual investors, if you want information on a new private fund that will be focused on leading the land-grabbing gold rush by securing sought-after search phrase names, then executing a "profit by extension"  plan with the goal of making 10x-20x return on invested capital--contact us.

And no; our plan isn't driven by a blue ocean strategy; in this case, the size of the ocean went from being the size of a puddle to the size of the Mediterranean Sea. The opportunity to profit has gotten that much bigger for those that are willing to sit at the $185,000 per card table.  Chump change maybe, and its more than likely you'll very soon be reading about tens of millions being raised by hedge funds and Wall Street shops to back similar ideas.

That's fine; if today's social media IPO market is any indication, the ones that get to the gate first and accumulate the value properties the fastest can make 50x on their money in under 5 years. This isn't a pernicious prediction, this will be happening. As the notorious parody author of one the blogosphere's more pugnacious sites likes to say: Trust me.

No Joke: #MarthaStewart Goes Comic; #FlashSale: The New #MarcomStrategy

Comic Book format for story-telling (i.e. product/service selling), a marketing strategy that we profiled two years ago and revisited last week when Steve Jobs announced his new bio will be in comic format, is gaining traction--as evidenced by Martha Stewart's announcement that her bio will be published in a similar comic-centric format.
 "A visual medium provides perspective that is not only accessible but more relatable to the average person without losing any of the information involved." 
Don't say that we didn't tell you so.


As long as we're on the topic of trendy marcom strategies, for all of you PR 'gurus' and marketing geniuses that get paid for positioning creative branding strategies for your clients, you should know that aligning your clients with "flash sale" sites (the ones that offer steep discounts for products only if you act "now") isn't so much a sales strategy as it is a branding and marketing strategy.

Most brands have long lamented the down-sides of using juicy on-line promo coupons to bring in customers; the subsequent sales from these strategies are considered to be momentary blips, and for many merchants, these campaigns prove to be more aggravation than they might be worth.

That said, and as profiled in today's NYT , brands are discovering that flash sale campaigns have become something else: a way to advertise and find new customers, many of whom visit the sites of the brands and buy full-price merchandise soon after the sales.

#SteveJobs Bio in #ComicBook Format: Buys into Approach From JLC Group 2008 BlogWe Told You So!!

According to AP, Steve Jobs is cementing his iconic image with the release of a bio in comic book format.

By MATT MOORE AP Business Writer

PHILADELPHIA June 14, 2011 (AP)

Steve Jobs, the public face of Apple Inc., is getting a biographical comic book.

Publisher Bluewater Productions Inc. said Monday it will bring a 32-page biography — titled "Steve Jobs: Co-Founder of Apple" — of the iconic CEO to comic book shops, bookstores and online retailers Aug. 24, detailing his life and career.

Before you click on the the full story, .according to Associated Press.  look back to the September 2008 blog post right here, and you'll understand why we're patting ourselves on the back; after all, we've been promoting this very idea for years, and its one that has since become a proven branding application.

The issue isn't why Jobs waited two years to embrace the application that we've long advocated as a being a key weapon within a larger branding arsenal, the issue is that he's the most recent icon to do so.

Starting Your Own Online Video Channel

For thought leaders looking to leverage the trend in online video..Good read from the NYT. Below clip is our [very raw] primer.

#BrandBurnishing Boot Camp: For Celebs, Entrepreneurs and Wannabees

#1: Video. Get on the bus, or get run over by it. If you haven't embraced it yet, its not too late. If you need a primer, Google subsidiary YouTube is providing a boot camp for newbies that provides a primer in the basics. See this past weekend's NYT article. Don't forget to bring the marshmallows!

#2: You're a celeb of sorts; your fame could be a function of a series of corporate accomplishments, your role as a pundit (i.e. talking head), an entertainer, or perhaps you're a professional sports figure. You're looking to leverage your notoriety. Wouldn't it be neat to add "novelist" to the notches on your belt?

Well, this is apparently one of the fastest growing trends, and if you can't write, no less spell, no worries! Publishers are bending over backwards to exploit your notoriety and they've got ghost writers on call to mint your name with their story lines. See today's article from NYT

#VideoCalls& #VideoChat Moves from Madison Ave to #WallStreet: Turn Up the Volume!!!

Because this blog has been around longer than many of what have become ubiquitous 'apps', whether social media-centric, website wonders, or communication tools, we've had the benefit of being prescient and predicting trends that would stick vs. the stuff that would slide down the wall.

Maybe its because this blogger has always aspired to be a Hollywood film producer, but anyone that's visited this blog more than 2x over the past 7 years will know that we've had a particular bent towards anything/everything that exploits (monetizes) video. After all, from an eyeball-grabbing, wallet-fetching perspective, "it" is almost always  about sight, sound and motion.

Years ago, we looked at the financial metrics of video chat businesses that dominated the Web-based, adult-entertainment silo. We predicted the same technology would be embraced by a broad spectrum of mainstream industries.

Even if we thought many industries would move faster than they actually have, Rome wasn't built in a day, and the fact is, more than 90% of human beans are followers that wait for others to 'prove' a concept, establish a trend and move ahead of the pack.
All of that said, and as profiled by this past Sunday's NYT, video chats on mobile devices are now the "it" app, teleconferencing via Skype has become not only a norm, but a revenue-producer for a wide range of professional service providers (other than adult entertainers!).

Even the financial services and securities industry is finally getting it! These are the silos that have traditionally (or notoriously) eschewed any form of communication that provides any kind of transparency, could be easily misinterpreted, or might show a face of the company other than a professional model hired to be a spokesperson or talking head in a TV commercial.

The head blogger here has advocated installing live-cam video on major Wall Street trading floors for years, so as to allow institutional customers to see (if not hear) the action taking place. Its not a theory that this approach would create an infotaining (even if only ephemeral) enhanced connection with said institutional customers. 

Lo and Behold..Breaking News...The US Securities & Exchange Commission (those funny arbiters of what's right and not right, and who is allowed to say or see) has issued a no-action letter to a group that wants to broadcast "investor roadshows" over the internet. [Roadshows are the institutional investor presentations that have traditionally taken place behind closed doors, followed by uber luxe snacks served to help whet the appetite for those managers to make 8-figure investments].

According to latest news, Roadshow Broadcast LLC can now transmit those live (and canned) shows over the Net without having to register as a broker/dealer.   In separate news, CNBC is purportedly plotting out a new reality show that will otherwise facilitate pretty much the same thing. This blogger won't say whether he's been asked to exec produce for CNBC, but would be happy to entertain the offer!

#NYTimes Trashes Twitter (Touche!); Questions Merits of Social Media

Kudos to Bill Keller, NYT's Executive Editor, for his witty perspective on the merits of social media, and the [negative] ramifications of relying on abbreviated discourse. At least that's the way this reader read it.

Click on the title link to read Bill's musings.

#SocialMedia for Syncophants; Making #Tupperware #Titillating

While sitting at the Gramercy Hotel Bar with LA's entertainment lawyer/personal manager/agent extraordinaire Michael Wallach and author of best-selling "How To Get Arrested",
thanks to Verizon, we found ourselves drinking less and fondling our mobile devices more.

Needless to say, the barkeep was non-too-happy. Instead of our socializing with the gaggle of young, aspiring actresses who dropped by to rub shoulders (if not more) with "this generation's Jerry Weintraub"  after they heard about his NYC visit via FB, Twitter, LinkedIn and/or 4Square, we found ourselves busy sucking down bandwidth and re-charging the batteries of our swanky new cell phones to better carouse the web. What were we thinking??

Since I wasn't imbibing and taking in the scenery, here's what I was thinking:  Social networks, in and of themselves, have value, but there is more value by linking them to each other. Miraculously, this exact observation was made in  today's NYT by Dell Computer's Chief Marketing Officer Andy Lack. I don't know Andy, and I don't know if he knows of me, but given his creds and his title, all I can say is that great minds think alike.

To my clients (and others) that I've counseled on the topic of best practices for social media, the simple streamlined steps of simultaneously updating/posting to your various social networks is easy to do, and based on the turn out to the Gramercy Hotel Bar, it works!

Lest I forget to remind all of you corporate marcom "gurus" that are still talking, but not yet doing the social media "salsa", even staid Tupperware is joining the dance party. See the profile in today's advertising section of the NYT.

Great ideas are worth nothing unless you execute on them.

Ad Font: Its Not the Size, its the Motion

Your ad agency was wrong when they told you that taller font size makes for higher recall of your message. 

According to to a new study to be published by Psychological Science, font size is irrelevant; its the shape of the font, specifically using fonts that are difficult to read, that leads to higher recall.

The reasoning makes for interesting reading... view the full story courtesy of the New York Times.

FlashGordon Marcomm Strategy-Minority Report App Now Real

Let's face it: marcomm is always about selling, and we're always enamored by high-tech apps that stand out..this one inspired us when we first saw Minority Report..now its not just a film fantasy..

Digital billboards that display different ads depending on who is looking at them were once only found in Minority Report. But a recently launched startup aims to make targeted billboard advertising as ubiquitous as targeted online advertising.
Immersive Labs introduced its smart billboard technology atTechStars‘ Demo Day in New York on Thursday. The software combines video analytics with environmental factors and Twitter and Foursquare information to decide what the best ad to display at that moment is.
Click on title link to read the full story.

Games People Play Can Burnish Brands Better Than Ads

Games people play can burnish brands better than advertising..according to Appsavvy..Social Media 201..

Are you a #twit when you #tweet? Measuring #Influence

Good article courtesy of NY Times David Leonhardt...follow the path to Twitalyzer.com to determine how much time you're actually wasting vs. actually influencing by tweeting.

A Better Way to Measure Twitter Influence

By DAVID LEONHARDT

Illustrations by La Tigre

Whether you’re a Twitter user like Lady Gaga (millions and millions of followers) or, say, me (2,600 and growing!), you’re always aware of roughly how many people follow you. It’s just how people keep score on the site and compare themselves with friends and colleagues.

But it turns out that counting followers is a seriously flawed way to measure a person’s impact on Twitter. Even one of Twitter’s founders, Evan Williams, made the point to me recently: someone with millions of followers may no longer post messages frequently, while someone followed by mere tens of thousands may be a prolific poster whose messages are amplified by others.

So who are the most influential people on Twitter? We asked the people at Twitalyzer, an independent research firm, to study the question, and they came back with something called the Influence Index. It counts the number of times somebody’s Twitter name is mentioned by other users (including retweets, which occur when one user rebroadcasts another’s message). The Influence Index doesn’t merely measure who’s talking on Twitter, but it also measures how much someone is affecting the conversation. Look below at how low Lady Gaga’s influence score is, for example.

Among the discoveries: It helps to come from one of the four countries where Twitter is most popular — the United States, Brazil, England and Canada. That may explain why there are three unfamiliar names, at least to most Americans, in the Top 10: Stephen Fry (a British actor), Luciano Huck (a Brazilian television star) and Rafinha Bastos (a Brazilian comedian).

Eric T. Peterson, the chief executive of Twitalyzer, points out that some of the most influential users also make a big effort to respond to much less famous people with personal messages. Kim Kardashian falls into this category. President Obama, as you may have guessed, does not.

One last thing: Twitalyzer’s public Web site doesn’t let people calculate their own influence scores. But you can get your impact score, which is a 0-to-100 index that combines influence, number of followers and frequency of message writing. To calculate that, type your Twitter name into the box here.

A Brands Best Spokesperson Is...

As noted by marcom advisory JLC Group , happy employees (and not necessarily your sales execs), followed by satisfied customers, are a brand's two most powerful torch carriers when it comes to promoting your brand.

Consistent with that erudite observation, WSJ's Sarah Nassauer's headline story in today's paper "A New Sales Model:Employees" might not be a new revelation per se, but her story profiles several companies (Zappos & J.Crew) leveraging that theory, with one of today's most powerful branding applications; both of these companies are producing [hopefully viral] online videos that profile employees either modeling or demonstrating their companies' products/services. This strategy completely conforms to ad industry's scientific theory that "real people", as opposed to actors or celebrity spokesmodels prove to be a brand's best influencers.

Coincident to WSJ article's reference to brand-based online video schemes,  the NYT Business section today dedicates a half page "viral video strategies of the week" to Thinkmodo and the strategy they devised and implemented on behalf of upcoming film "Limitless"...  The Youtube driven shorts have apparently attracted 500,000 viewers in the last four days alone. Let's hope that the film comes out real soon, otherwise the recall rate is at risk of melting down faster than a nuclear power plant.

Speaking of online--for you marketing/sales execs overseeing online and e-commerce initiatives--keep your fingers on the pulse of increased brick and mortar retail lobbying efforts to turn up the volume on imposing sales tax on products sold over the Internet.

#SocialMedia & #Financial Services: Buy-Sell-Hold?

For brokers, savvy traders and fund managers: the trend is your friend; don't fight the tape.
That said, when it comes to regulated industries, this compliant author reminds you: bears and bulls profit; pigs get slaughtered.

For those that have been following this blog on a regular basis, you know that we've dedicated many posts over the years to the topic of social media, and that we've profiled various strategies used by various brand marketers across various industries.

More recently, and because this author frequently resides at the intersection of Madison Ave. and Wall Street, we've poignantly observed the social media initiatives (lack of, poorly executed, and best execution) demonstrated by financial service industry players.

There's an increasing  number of expert observations on this very topic (see links below), and illustrative of the need for smart thinking, its interesting to note that social media czar Neil Edwards, the serial entrepreneur and former CEO of mobile game maker Cellufun, has recently switched gears; he's now offering expert social media guidance to major banks, brokers and fund managers.

Perhaps the most resonating recent observation extracted from a March 8 article in Financial Planner:

"..But many in the industry still find social media as an effective way to connect with and enhance their relationship with clients. At the recent TD Ameritrade Conference in San Diego, Christopher Van Slyke, a partner and co-founder of Trovena, LLC, spoke about how Facebook has been a boon for his business.

“Why is Facebook the third largest nation on Earth,” he asked the packed room attending the Social Media Bootcamp run by Marie Swift of Impact Communications. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Facebook allows you to leverage who you know. If your business is relationships and your relationships are better because of social media than it has helped.”

editor note: this article profiles the planned social media initiative by SecondMarket, the electronic exchange platform facilitating the trading of non-public shares in companies such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, etc ...Yet another story from today's WSJ profiles the initiatives of online poker casinos that are gearing up again to help win the legislative battles that are brewing in states from Nevada to New Jersey..

If they were really smart, they'd call Neil Edwards before doing something that might backfire..

#Social Media Does Sell: Shares In Company

In response to blowback we rec'd from powerhouses Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan re: most recent posting "..consumers don't respond to brand pitches via social media."....we've been asked to clarify.

In view of the fact both of these global investment banks have acquired direct and/or indirect stakes in Facebook, Twitter (respectively) and un-named other social media enterprises via investment funds created by those banks, it should be perfectly clear that social media does sell, even if only what is selling are private shares in these companies to 'institutional investors' at prices that remind us grey beards of the Internet bubble(s) that inflated and popped back in the ancient times of the late 20th century.

According to this a.m.'s NY Times, Twitter's valuation is now north of $4.2 billion +/-, up 30% in the past six months alone. Twitter's 2010 revenue of $100 million (unconfirmed because its not a public company), is derived mostly from advertising deals. Taking off our CMO hat and putting on our CFO hat, that means Twitter is worth 45x revenue.

Having worked on Wall Street in a prior life, and notwithstanding the extraordinary profit margins leading web and social companies enjoy (Zynga purportedly delivers 45% net margins, GOOG 30%, YHOO! north of 25% profit margins, etc), this writer can only say "WOW!" re: Twitter's seemingly preposterous valuation.

For argument sake, let's give Twitter the benefit of the doubt and estimate that ad sales will increase 50% a year for the next few years, unless of course some 20 yr old introduces a better mousetrap before hand.

Come 2013, Twitter might therefore deliver $500 million in gross revenue, and let's say their profit margin narrows to 40%, providing a bottom line $200 million in profit. Obviously, we can't predict what the market valuation might be three years from now, but when reflecting on the 150+ year history of organized financial markets, enterprise valuations of 20x gross profit is pretty pie in the sky, when considering GOOG's valuation is about 5x its gross revenue.

Let's give JPMorgan the benefit of the doubt--its not as if they're buying a stake in Twitter without having a hedge in place (including the ability to quickly move any proprietary position into a 'fund' they manage for investors. Or maybe they're intrigued by the black box apps that are interrogating stock market-related Tweets and using the data to make intra-day bets on global markets. Presuming JPMC's people can get themselves an inside track on tweets a few seconds before they get published, their several hundred million dollar investment in IT, regardless of the 'valuation,' is certainly justifiable. If only Bernie Madoff were still on the outside!

#Social Networking Doesn't Sell...

Consumers Don't Buy It from Facebook, Twitter or other social network apps...

We don't typically re-publish lengthy articles, but this one from Keller Faye Group's Ed Keller deserves a shout out. The article points out a point that we've been making for the better part of four years in the course of weighing the value proposition and utility of social networks vis a vie promoting consumer brands.

By Ed Keller

Each week we all see trade press stories outlining the latest and greatest ways that marketers are using social networking technologies to connect better with consumers. One story last week jumped out to me, both because of the headline, and also the source.

"Razorfish: Facebook, Twitter Don't Make Customers Feel Valued" wrote MediaPost, followed by this lead: "While marketers have flocked to social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, consumers still don't view them as important ways to engage with a brand, since they don't meet their expectations. Most people still prefer to connect with brands through more traditional methods, such as email, company Web sites or word-of-mouth."

To reach this conclusion, Razorfish surveyed consumers and asked them to prioritize what was important to them when engaging with a brand, and then asked them to rate how well each of various consumer touchpoints do when it comes to engagement – from the consumer's perspective.

The study found that consumers have the following priorities when it comes to brand engagement, in this order: feeling valued, trust, efficiency, consistency, relevance and control. In other words, says Razorfish, "In a world full of engagement touchpoints, the most important things to everyone are to feel valued by companies they do business with, and to feel the companies they engage with can be trusted."

When it comes to touchpoints, which do the best job of delivering against "feeling valued" and "trust"? According to Razorfish, "the most important consumer engagement channels are transactional email, company websites, traditional word-of-mouth, and face-to-face conversation with a company representative." The least important: "social networking services . . . be it LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or the even newer location-based social networking services."

"Gasp" says Razorfish, in commenting on these findings. Gasp indeed.

Are businesses making a mistake by investing in social networking strategies? No, says Razorfish: "We believe consumers do not use some of the hot new channels to interact with brands because brands are neither fully nor consistently using them to deliver on the Engagement Elements, particularly in social media." And, says Razorfish, over time this may well change. But for now, they say, "These surprising findings taught us to assume nothing when it comes to why and how consumers interact with brands."

What I found noteworthy about the Razorfish study was the important reminder it provides to marketers that despite the massive attention being paid to the consumer's use of Facebook and other social media and mobile applications, they still use those technologies relatively infrequently when it comes to their interactions with brands. This is a topic I have written about previously, and Razorfish reminds us that this remains true today – even after Mark Zuckerberg was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year and The Social Network is garnering all sorts of awards.

The lesson is not for brands to stop deploying strategies that employ the new and emerging technologies, but rather to remember that truly "social" brands need to engage with consumers through a variety of touchpoints, and the "traditional" ones cannot be ignored in favor of what's new and emerging. Being "social" is less about channels and technology, and more about a philosophy, and a way of doing business—based on two-way communication, consumer engagement, and tapping into your customer's social networks, in the physical as well as virtual worlds. A holistic approach is required, one that seeks to connect with consumers in all the ways they value—including both the old ways and the new.

Email and Blogs: Yesterday's Apps

The jury is in: two of the leading apps that unleashed the power of the web are dead (or soon to be dead).

Maybe not news to some that spend more than 15 seconds following trends in marketing communication, but anyone with a sense of intuition can see the writing on the walls...which are now typically limited to #'s and no more than 100 or so characters.

Email: As reported in today's NYT  "..the number of visitors to web-based email sites (Gmail, Yahoo!, etc.) declined 5.9% from Nov 2009 to Nov 2010, according to comScore. That decline reflects the spread of email devices (e.g. iPhones) which do no need to log onto the Web to see messages; the number of people who use mobile devices to check e-mail rose 40% during the same period.."

More predictive: 24% fewer people age 12-17 used web-based email during the same period. This means that the new generation rising up through the ranks into adulthood, and presumably jobs (lets hope!), will have adapted completely different forms of communication than the current workforce.

Other than using email to transmit corporate communications and the most formal correspondences, Facebook (and other social networks), txt'ing and Tumbling on Tumblr will displace email altogether by the year 2015.

Bloggers are bygone. From 2000-2009, we told our corporate clients "if you don't have a blog, and if you're not maintaining it consistently, your competitors will be eating your lunch.."  This was (arguably) sage advice.

If you're accustomed to changing your underwear, its time to change your 'blogging" strategy; tumble over to Tumblr; a move advocated by Web guru Rex Sorgatz, along with tens of dozens of the most highly-regarded internet gurus. Why?

Simple Math: Social media has killed the ironic or iconic blog "headline"; exponentially more traffic today comes from headlines distributed on Facebook, Twitter and other short-form media-communication apps.

On the topic of simple math: We've insinuated, if not insisted that intuitive marketing strategies will soon be displaced by quant-based predictive applications.

Lo and behold, according to Sunil Gupta, a Harvard Business School professor who teaches digital marketing, "Marketers are moving away from intrusion strategies that use ads running in the middle of TV programs to a more cooperative model in which they try to stimulate discussion across social networks. In the traditional world, marketing used to focus on the middle part of the bell curve and reaching out to them. Now, the way to reach out to the middle part is through the extreme ends of the curve..."

If you're a marcom guru that's over 40 and you don't already have a  mobile device that keeps you connected and in touch, its not too late to get on the bus before it rolls over you. And it will, trust me.

Sight & Sound Trumpet Syntax: The New Normal for Marcom

A simple picture is worth a thousand words, an adage that was coined more than 100 years ago, and its one  we've been trumpeting for almost as long.

Its not what you say, its how you say it, and images are indisputably the most compelling form of communication.

And, as noted here more than a few times, delivering a corporate brand message or a public service message via image (whether it be a single picture, a montage of images, or a crisp video) delivers exponentially greater brand recall than any combination of words that the best word-smith can pen. Below images are courtesy of various sources and promote various products and messages (btw..thanks to the creative people at Viagra for the top middle photo)

Lo and behold, in today's NY Times, reporter Ashlee Vance profiles the trend from the perspective of industrial manufacturers that support this ever-burgeoning story with her snapshot: "Graphics Ability is the New Goal For Chip Makers":

"..In the good old days, it was all about speed. Computer chip makers like Intel and Advanced Micro Devices tried to outdo each other by putting out ever faster chips, and then by improving battery life and making smaller, cheaper laptops.

These days, though, it’s all about graphics and how well computers can process and display photos, videos and other types of media. And the competition is putting marketing departments to the test..."


By some forecasts, video will account for about 90 percent of all consumer Internet traffic by 2013.

According to the Chief Marketing Officer for Intel, “We think the new norm is this constant visual experience.”

Here's a strong example of one corporate video clip: