Passion2Publish

Rant: Target, Rounders, and Facebook

Oh, kids -- they're an attractive demographic, pretty good at making sneakers, AND an excellent stumbling block for most companies and their poor advertising campaigns.

Exhibit A: Target, and their Rounders campaign on Facebook

The Breakdown: Target gave freebies and large discounts to kids who promoted Target on the site and on the Facebook Group page. Members of the Rounder group were told to "keep it like a secret" from other users. One member felt this was wrong, wrote a paper for college, and her professor posted the info on her blog.

The Idiocy: The driving factor in word of mouth marketing is trust. Receivers have to believe that the source of information is trustworthy -- and not "ad-like" -- and blowback can be deadly. The damage from this type of outright deception can be much worse than simple negative feedback from a customer.

The Lesson: There are no well-kept "secrets" online -- especially in communities, especially regarding massive companies. Target, you were literally asking people to lie for you. People love Target, I know, I've tried going to Target and its always over-run with happy, smiling, excited customers. Asking customers to write about you is fine, but lying about why they're doing it ... that isn't acceptable on the social web, and this is just one more cautionary tale to prove it.

Besides, you're muddying the data. Feedback, whether its positive or negative, is valuable. By handing out cookies, and saying "say something nice about us," you're not taking advantage of the power of a simple conversation. Look, we're smarter than you think. When we see a page with nothing but celebratory comments, we know it's bullshit. But when we see honest feedback and engaged customer service reps, we see proof of a company that is customer oriented.

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?