Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Project Syllabus, Teams Updated

I have updated the Marketing Project Syllabus to adjust the extended deadline for the final project report and presentation, and the self-reflection paper due date.

I've also edited the Project Teams list to correct KYLE's name :)

Prof M

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Power of Social 'Listening'

Here is an IGNITE presentation I gave at the 2013 Portland Digital Marketing Conference (PDX DMC).

IGNITE is a specific format where each speaker has 5 minutes, and 20 slides, which automatically advance every 15 seconds.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Teens break in to NFL player's house, post party pics

On Labor Day weekend of this year, that scenario played out again. A former lineman in the NFL was away for the weekend and kids broke into his house and about 300 of them had a huge party with all kinds of drugs and alcohol, and did $20,000-$40,000 in damage.

But they also posted liberally on social media, including countless photos of themselves partying at his house.

Brian Holloway, the ex-NFL lineman, was alerted to the social media posts by his son. He made a website HelpMeSave300.com where he republished their (public) media. He hoped to shame them and their into helping repair the extensive damage. Instead, guess what happened? He says a number of their parents have threatened to sue him.

The player retorted that after his years in the NFL lining up against the likes of Lawrence Taylor, he won't be intimidated. TheGothamist picked up the story which has now gone viral nationally. For his part, Holloway is holding a BYO BBQ party in honor of Vets at his house, and is still hoping some of the kids will step forward to help out with the repairs.

It's not the first highly public attempt to use social media to shame wrong-doers. The New York Times reported on the case of the Stolen Sidekick to illustrate how social media can be used by individuals to empower themselves in situations where traditional, large organizational sotluions did not help.

The friend of the woman whose sidekick was stolen effectively used social media to identify and, in a very public way, shame the thief. Ultimately, the thief was arrested and the phone returned.

Brian Holloway just hopes he gets his house fixed.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Super Bowl of Social Media

Coke - "Chase"  (You choose the winner at www.cokechase.com) and website #fail



OREO - "Whisper" (Join the Fight on Instagram) - and Breaking Down Oreo's Four Million Dollar Instagram Super Bowl (SocialFresh)



GoPro Hero - Homemade Video



Doritos - Fashionista Daddy - Crash the Super Bowl fan-made winner 2013 and Ranking Crash the Super Bowl 2013 Finalists / Bleacherreport.com

Social Case Study: Will It Blend?

How do you compete with massive, established kitchen appliance manufacturers when you are a 'little guy'?

willitblend.com unleashed the power of social sharing by creating innovative and compelling content that was highly "sharable" while, at the same time, vividly depicting their product's advantages.

The video that put the company on the map was a short clip of its product being used to "blenderize" an iPhone.



The company's YouTube Channel has tallied more than 217 million video views for its series of "Will it Blend?" challenges.

Willitblend also incorporated LISTENING into its social strategy. Visitors to the site suggest things they'd like to be subjected to the "Will It Blend" test.

Of course, the content is entertaining. But it also demonstrates the key feature of the product - it is a powerful blender. So the humorous videos lead consumers back to the willitblend.com website where visitors can be converted into costumers who willingly pay $399 for this super-charged blender.


Social Success Case Study: Old Spice

Arguably the most creative and effective social marketing campaign is the Old Spice campaign executed by Portland's own creative agency Wieden + Kennedy.

Among the amazing results achieved by the campaign:

  • More people watched its response videos in the first 24 hours than watched Obama's victory speech
  • 40 million video views in one week
  • 1.4 billion total impressions
  • Massive "free media" coverage including network news outlets, Oprah and Ellen
  • Significant boost in sales of the Old Spice Bodywash product, and Old Spice #1 in male bodywash market

Here's the ad that launched it all: "Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like." (2010)




Here's a nice case study deconstructing why the campaign was so successful:




And here is W + K's own "case study" story of the making of the Old Spice campaign, and why it was so successful.



@Mashable compiled its own "Top 10" list of the best 'response videos' churned out by Mustafa and the W + K creative team over that long but memorable weekend.

Mashable's Top 10 Old Spice Response Videos


Here's just one example of the "response videos" - made in response to a tweet by celeb / Twitter pro Alyssa Milano:



And Milano creates her own YouTube response video:

Social #Fail: OKCupid 'thematic tie-in' to Colorado Floods

There's a difference between being topical, and being inappropriate.

Here's a post pushed to OK Cupid subscribers in Colorado during the flooding that killed more than a dozen and still has hundreds unaccounted for.


Sunday, September 15, 2013

Social Media Gaffes on the Anniversary of 9/11

There's a saying that a little bit of information can be dangerous. Somewhere between knowing you don't know...and knowing you do know...is that dangerous middle ground where we think we know more than we do.

This advice applies to Social Media. Everyone from individuals to large, global brands realize the need to be "in" social media, and "do" social media. Doing social media well, however, takes time. 

Here's a vivid example from last week. September 11, 2013 as the anniversary of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center towers in NY.

The anniversary also provided ample examples of misused Social Media tie-ins. This Wisconsin golf course drew ire for its 9/11 tie-in.


A surprising number of large sports brands posted questionably appropriate social media "tie-ins" to the anniversary.

Here's a tweet from the Los Angeles Lakers, using the remembrance hashtag #neverforget. But fans didn't agree the post was in good taste, and the Lakers deleted the tweet and then publicly apologized.



Other large sports brands made similar gaffes, prompting Sports commentator Keith Oberman of ESPN to pose the question: "Too soon?" - and answer, "yes!"




Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Affordances of Social Platforms

Don't Mess with Social Musicians: 'United Breaks Guitars'

Traditionally powerful companies can easily underestimate the potential consequences to their own businesses from the power shift enabled by today's Social Technologies.

One of the most vivid examples is the story of Dave Carroll, a pop-folk musician toiling without any particular reknown until a now-infamous incident while traveling on United Airlines on march 31, 2008.

While transferring flights in Chicago during a journey from Halifax, Canada to Omaha, Nebraska Carroll heard a woman behind him yell that baggage handlers were 'throwing guitars'. The band members watched horrified as they recognized their instruments being tossed about by the airline's bag handlers. Among the instruments was Carroll's $3,500 Taylor guitar. When he finally got his guitar back, its base was smashed.

What followed was a run-around from the arline that countless individual customers have experienced at the hands of large corporations. The difference was Social Media.

When Carroll finally despaired of getting a positive response from the airline, he decided to make three songs instead, and post them to YouTube.

That first video cost him $150 to make. It was posted on July 6, 2009 and the results were immediate.

Within 24 hours had over 50,000 views. After repeated refusals by United to pay for the guitar repairs, suddenly the airline called offering to pay the $1,200 in repairs and give Carroll more than $1000 in flight vouchers.

In less than a month, the video had received more than 4 million views on YouTube and more than 19,000 comments had been posted to the video.

The incident was a public relations disaster for United, and the song title "United Breaks Guitars" hung like an albatross around the company's PR neck for years to come. By the start of 2013, the video had been played more than 12 million times.

Jet Blue: Being Human in Social as a Business

Companies can damage themselves by behaving inhumanely toward their customers. They can also use social media to behave 'socially,' and turn potential PR disasters into opportunities to create better relations with their customers.

The airline JetBlue faced just such a potential PR disaster after an incident on February 14, 2007 caused about 1,000 flight cancellations within a five-day period, stranding many customers on the Valentine's holiday travel.  Case study: Jet Blue

In a bold move, the company's CEO created a very personal apology message and posted it on YouTube in which he took responsibility for the incident, and also pledged a retroactive "Customer Bill of Rights."



The CEO's approach drew praise from The Church of the Customer Blog and was well-received by customers. Jet Blue turned what could have been a PR disaster into an opportunity to connect honestly with its customers.