Passion2Publish

Rant: Starbucks, Pass the Cheer, and It's Red Again

Via AdRants:

Starbucks is resurrecting their "Pass the Cheer" campaign and the It's Red Again microsite.

About the campaign:

Starbucks kicks off the holidays Pay it Forward-style by disseminating cheer on chilly city streets. Baristas hand out movie tickets and other small gifts on the condition that the recipient has to do something nice for someone else.

The campaign includes a "cheer pass" that tracks how far the "chain of cheer" has gone. Participants are encouraged to visit It's Red Again to share holiday stories and create greetings. The site is hosted by an awkward-looking man who personifies Starbucks' quirky intellectual vibe. It's also ridden with clever recommendations about holiday coffee blends and seasonal cakes.

About measurement:

CEO Jim Donald says they're interested in the qualitative results of the campaign and admits there aren't any of the usual tracking methods attached to it.

Ok.. I get it. I get the objective -- let's take this company that seems a little monolithic, big guy crushes little guy, and inject a little human emotion, a little goodwill, a little, "hey, we're here with you on this cold street with you, and we sorta care."

But you are a big company --  a really big company. And when it comes to doing good (like superman), use that size to your advantage to actually make a real and measurable difference in the world and don't commit dollars that you could use to not raise my drink another 9 cents just to blow on some feel good campaign.

How about each region/city picking a charity, or a specific village in Africa, and saying, "we're going to commit to at least this much cash to supply clean drinking water/AIDS medicine (or whatever -- the world isn't short on maladies) -- and on Dec 23rd, if you order a coffee, we'll take 100% of that money and use it to help someone out, because we're big and we'd hope that if everyone was this big, they'd do something real about making the world a little better. " Then when the customer orders their coffee, give them a pass that logs them onto a site where they can track the progress of the project -- to keep Starbucks in check -- oh and while they're on the site, they can see how their region/city is doing compared to others and they can also see related charities in the country's region that they can give additional support to. Starbucks could send out info and photos to the baristas about the progress of the project and they can relate back to interested customers.

I know shopping for charity gets lambasted, but its about putting the opportunity in front of people. I'd like to do more, but I'm running around putting out fires, and I forget. I shouldn't, but I do. But when I'm stuck in the airport for 12 hours and there's a GAP right there that I have to walk in front of just to see the departure's screen, I get bored, walk in, see the tag on the shirt, buy a few and give them out to friends. There's a Starbucks on every corner, and I was born in the city, Houston, where there are actually Starbucks on opposing corners. That's a lot of opportunities for them to use their size to do more.

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You may be asking yourself, "What is this rant doing here?"   -- Well, I'm getting frustrated by all of the feaux-social campaigns out there and when I get frustrated I write. Let me know what you think? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

 

What Seesmic is Missing and What it Needs to Win

Today I got my invite for Seesmic. What's Seesmic? Well, you're supposed to think of it as the video equivalent of twitter, but for now it's a place for you and lots of other people to upload short videos -- mostly of yourself, fumbling to talk about anything over than yourself (it's hard):

Seesmic is in 'pre-alpha' which is a new one for me, but so far the features that are available have worked well.

Once I got my invite, from Julia Patricia Roy, queen of the internets and wearer of awesome hair (I promised her I would say she is awesome, and give a good compliment about her hair if she invited me), I scrambled to get my first 'Smic' online. (I'm copywriting that phrase, and just in case, the verb forms as well -- smic, smict, smuc't? needs some work)

I could have used one of our cameras here, but instead opted for my cell phone -- which led me down the path of having to upload the video to youtube and then over to seesmic. But first, I got to try out many of the webs online video editing sites, such as jumpcuts by yahoo, or Eyespot (here's the top list of video editing sites by techcrunch).

Video sites such as this seem to be the v.c.'s hot topic right now, but there are definitely some obstacles to overcome before Seesmic or any others can become a robust community/sexy investment. We've already seen that the explosive growth of Youtube seemed to have more to do with clips people saw offline and followed on than the community by itself. Community propelled growth, but right now Seesmic has no functionality to relate users or content to one another.

If Seesmic wants to foster robust community, it needs to succeed in the following ways:

• Scanning -- I can scan text, but I can't scan videos, yet. As users, we need to do be able to scour information or videos more quickly, or spend less time viewing non-relevant content. Seesmic can do this in various ways, including 1) tagging videos by the author and by the community, 2) adding geographic data to the videos, 3) creating deep profile systems that better relate users and tools like twitter blocks, 4) complete text transcripts and mathematical content relationships.. anyone want to take that task on? It's a doozy.
• Sharing -- As Joshua Porter points out, the way to achieve those 'elephant math' like numbers is to be incredibly smart about how you build content sharing capabilities.
• Gaming --Building upon sites like ImInLikeWithYou and their use of point driven participation and gaming (dating as gaming, as Josh Spear says). Seesmic or others could take this type of activity on -- points for uploads, points for sharing, points for creating games (where the questions and answers are in video-format), and points for winning games -- in order to build a participation crazed community.

What do you think?

What do sites like Seesmic need to do in order to succeed?

Should I stick to straight text-blogging? Better equipment? Something worthwhile to say?

The Single Tenet of a Community Manager

Jeremiah Owyang -- one of the biggest movers and shakers in web strategy, whom I sometimes refer to as Jeremiah to appear important myself, culled together 16 actual job descriptions for an online community manager.

He distilled the job down to four essential tenets:

1) Community Advocate -- "the community managers’ primary role is to represent the customer"
2) Brand Evangelist -- "the community manager will promote events, products and upgrades to customers by using traditional marketing tactics and conversational discussions"
3) Savvy Communication Skills, Shapes Editorial -- "The community manager should first be very familiar with the tools of communication, from forums, to blogs, to podcasts, to twitter, and then understand the language and jargon that is used in the community"
4) Gathers Community Input for Future Products and Services -- "Perhaps the most strategic of all tenets, community managers are responsible for gathering the requirements of the community in a responsible way and presenting it to product teams."

Now before I give my input, I'll point out that the second way you can appear more important than you may actually be (remember, the first one was to name drop) is to find some way to disagree with a talking head.

But I do disagree with Jeremiah, even for reasons beyond growing my own self importance. I think Jeremiah is putting too much on the shoulders of a community manager -- in fact, these four tenets could really be called the four essential tenets of a customer facing company.

I think a community manager should subscribe to one and only one essential tenet -- increasing customer efficacy.

I don't think a community manager should be a brand evangelist or a marketing mouth piece. At the start, the community manager should be product agnostic until that community has been able to shape that product. I know, that sounds dangerous -- but a community manager should never tell a lie, even a lie well disguised -- and no company recruiting a community manager that I've seen has that kind of unbeatable product. The goal of an organization should be to plug their customers into the production process as early as conceivable -- through the work of the community manager.

But I don't think that editorial shaping and requirements gathering alone creates the kind of relationship we want from our customers -- and I'm certain it doesn't offer the type of relationship our customers will come to expect.

When I say customer efficacy, what I mean, at the very core of it, is that every customer should feel that their patronage changes the business, that they're uniqueness contributes to the uniqueness of the brand, that every thing that emerges from the assembly line (literal or figurative) was crafted with them in mind. The star of the show isn't the community manager -- its the customer. In turn, the customer becomes the marketing mouthpiece, the customer starts to help shape the editorial, and the customer gathers the requirements. Companies are looking to hire someone they have the control over -- but if you're looking for a fruitful relationship, you'll hire someone that the community will control. 

It's a great article, and a fantastic resource -- go read Jeremiah's full post.

It's Statistics Tuesday! Teen Shopping & Multimedia Usage

A couple posts caught my eye today in the ol' Google Reader and I thought I'd share:

From Search Engine Guide on Multimedia Usage:

• Most Web users watch online video today. In fact, 1 in 5 say they stream video every day. (Source: Pew Internet)
• Americans don’t get their news from static print sources anymore. Only 13 percent say they get their news from newspapers and magazines, compared to 40 percent who use the Internet and 32 percent who watch TV. (Source: Zogby)
• The media has a high demand for video content. Use of video by newspaper Web sites is expected to double over the next 12 months. (Source: Borrell Associates)

And Jennifer's reasons to integrate multimedia content were dead-on:

• Increased search presence -- video is a great way to break into universal search
• Stronger sales pitch -- some products just need to be seen, not described (iphone)
• Portability -- let your users have something they can walk away with and show off
• You spark the conversation -- capitalize on the strong communities at sites like flickr and youtube

And from Ypulse -- an excellent source of youth marketing resources, comes some teen retail shopping figures just in time for black friday:

Where do they learn about new products?

The web (65 percent)
Friends (62 percent)
TV commercials (54 percent)

We know they're headed to the malls (95 percent), but which stores are they going to?

Electronics (46 percent)
Bath & body (45 percent)
Music (surprise. surprise.) (41 percent)

Who gets the most of teens' hard earned money? ($100 or more)

Their sweetie (28 percent)
Mom and dad (20 percent)
Grandma and grandpa (18 percent)

What do they want most?

Money! (39 percent)
Laptop or desktop computer (30 percent)
Clothes (25 percent)
A new car! (24 percent)

If they could ask for just one gift, it would be:

Laptop/desktop computer (15 percent)
Money (12 percent)
Car (11 percent)

And as for the brands they want?

When specifically asked about brands, Apple was the most cited brand in the music technology category, Dell was ranked #1 for computers/laptops, the Motorola RAZR phone led the mobile phone category, and Microsoft’s X-Box 360 was the leading video game console, while Halo 3 was the leading video game. Abercrombie and Fitch was the clothing brand most teens say they want and when it comes to cars, Ford and Cheverolet brands were most cited.

Anastasia is quick to point out that teens are still brick-and-mortar shoppers because of the lack of credit cards and the social aspect of shopping.

Wow. I can't believe there was a period of time when I actually liked going to the mall ...

Measuring the Return on Engagement

As the nature of our business, custom publishing, changes -- we have to recognize that the education we provide our clients also needs to be shared internally as well. For the last 4 weeks or so, the Digital Media team in our company has been giving 30-45 minute talks each Monday about the very basics of what we do. And we're only halfway through our schedule of conversations.

Yesterday I introduced metrics and how, as a company, we can be more agile to respond to user needs. Here are the slides from that presentation (It's not my most creative presentation, usually I load up the slides with photos of kitties from Flickr...):

Click through for my thoughts about the presentation AND our adoption of an internal social network.

Rupert Murdoch is a fan of Passion2Publish.com

via

"News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said Tuesday he intends to make access to The Wall Street Journal's Web site free, trading subscription fees for anticipated ad revenue."

Rupe'... err. Can I call you Rupe'? For such a busy, extravagantly rich man, I'm surprised you had the time to read my blog -- but I'm flattered nonetheless. Obviously you spent some time with these posts of mine:

• Times Select and the Flawed Logic of Paid Content Models
• Scarcity: Catch it Before It's Gone
• Advertising Age Declares the Paid Content Model Dead

and my call to action to ol' Rupe' -- Someone Should Meddle with the Wall Street Journal

Thanks Rupe', but next time you're interviewed, would you please toss me a little press? Credit where credit's due, and all....

Testing the Facebook SocialAd System

Following Jeremiah, I've set up a one-day, $20, run on Facebook's new SocialAd system to promote this is a conversation, the facebook group.

The SocialAd system lets you segment and target your ad based on the user attributes in your profile. Want to market to a single college graduate who is politically liberal but is interested in guns? Well, according to Facebook, there's 420 users who fit that profile!

I'll be providing live updates on twitter throughout the day -- come check me out, micro style.

PIC: Steve Carell & The Office Immortalized in Pumpkin

Beth and Gretchen in our office entered this pumpkin into the building's Halloween competition:

And they lost!

Obviously this is the result of a cloak and dagger, sinister type, pumpkinista agenda to deny these two gifted pump-craft-people of their due. Now, I would never suggest calling up the staff at 600 W Fulton, Chicago, and demanding justice -- I just think if you leave really nice comments it may bring these two back from the brink of personal crisis.

Oh and here are some fun friday vids to watch:

And in a personal victory, this is my 100th post!

Join the Conversation on Facebook

If you're a marketer that isn't actively pursuing the conversation, you're making a grave mistake.

I am a man obsessed with the web's ability for a brand to talk to a consumer, a consumer to speak to a brand, an evangelist to reach out to everyone that chooses to listen... and the magnitude of the ripples between us all.

With every conversation, your competitors and your customers are getting smarter. What have you risked? What have you learned? What have you won? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's an old expression, 1.0 if you prefer, but it fits this 2.0, this 3.0 landscape.

I'm inviting you to come join a new group on facebook that I've started -- as a precursor to larger things to come perhaps.

Call it alpha, wrap a starburst around it, and give it a gradient -- this is a conversation on facebook. Don't be passive, don't be a lurker -- I'm looking for people with something to say.