I vote for the latter. I don't care if you want to call podcasting 'social media', or 'goat cheese from Nantucket', I just care about what it does, and whether it can help businesses grow and better reach their customers. The label isn't important to me, what the tool DOES and how it can be used to BENEFIT a company is what I am interested in knowing.

And last night on Twitter, I heard a new term 'microsharing'. Now granted, 'microsharing' might be a better term than 'microblogging'--or maybe it isn't.

But I think we are short-changing the advancement of this entire space when we get hung up on something like labels. Tomato or tomato? Who cares? Is it more important to come up with THE 'accepted' definition for 'social media' (until someone moves the goalpost in a month and comes up with a better one), or is it more important to help Company A better understand how ONE of these tools can better help it reach and communicate with its customers?

I say let's worry less about naming the tools, and more about making sure that companies understand how and why they should be using them.

I was surrounded by people who were speaking a certain dialect: Harlean. Technical terms about engines and models and paint colors were tossed about with a mix of both profanity and reverence. Uniforms (mostly black Harley t-shirts), symbols (lots of tatoos), and a certain swagger of the elite were all in vogue. You see, these people were not mere motorcyclists. They were Harley owners.

Over lunch, I discussed my reaction with my friend. He laughed, realizing that the Harley rider community was, indeed, cult-like. I had heard in the past that this was the case in Harley-land, but this was my first visit to one of the temples. As I saw the two-wheeled icons on display, and watched the evident brand attachment in the eyes and voices of the owners, it reinforced something that had been brewing for years in my mind. Brand advocacy isn't always the highest goal to shoot for. You really want to create a cult.

You want people to feel like they've found "it." That they are now part of a special association, an elite, the kind that freely exchanges the secret wave when they pass each other on the highway. You want folks who pull up to a bar or club anywhere in the world, and fellow cult members immediately start a conversation about the icon and their experience of it. You want people who will pay more for the brand t-shirt, who will proudly wear the brand tattoo, who will boast about the apparent advantages of the brand - and you want outsiders to jealously wish they could be part of the club.

You want full alignment with your tagline. These owners really do Ride to Live, and Live to Ride.

My guess is that Harley has managed to tap into certain aspects of the American psyche - the yearning to chuck it all behind, hit the road, make noise, and show the rest of the world that you fully intend to be free. Other cults latch onto different mindsets. Those who are part of the tree-hugging and latte cult aren't likely to be Harley buyers, but that's just fine - they can hop into their Priuses to visit the recycling center and gather to compare Obama and Hillary. Harley riders will roar down the highway to parking lots and rallies anywhere and gather to compare chrome and engines.

I'm not a motorcycle rider (yet?). I feel like quite an outsider in the Harley temple. But I know great marketing and branding when I see it and feel it, and these guys have nailed it big time. Do you have a plan for creating, not just a marketing campaign, but an out-and-out cult?

(Image credit: Harley sign)

How cool is that? If this seems somewhat far-fetched, let’s remember that the original Coke formula is a blend of South American coca leaves and African kola nuts (the caffeine source), as the article aptly points out. Given the attention functional foods and beverages are getting these days, and their high growth potential, I think Coke is onto something here.

Let’s also remember that collaborating with the Chinese when it comes to herbs, is also a great idea. Chinese herbal medicine has been around for thousands of years, so the Chinese are a font of information. Even though this seems to be a top secret project, a short news release did apparently state that Coke and the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences had opened “a research center in Beijing last October.”

A few tantalizing tidbits have come out here and there. This one caught my eye: “Access Asia, a Shanghai-based market research firm, said in a January report that Coke’s aim could be nothing less than to create ‘the new product for the new millennium’.”

Could it be that a new brand of soft drink is about to be born? One sans sugar? One with healthy herbal ingredients? Could this start a revolution in the beverage industry as Coca Cola did over 100 years ago?

If it does, Coca Cola has a unique opportunity, it seems to me. The company blended exotic ingredients in the past to create a brand new category. It could conceivably do so again—and do it while being in touch with a new era, new consumers and new ideas. . .while still being true to its legacy. Gotta love that.

The worldwide market would be huge right out of the chute for such a new product. North America, Europe, Asia. . .all moving toward functionals in a big way. . . The market is primed and ready. If you ask me, success for such a drink; or drinks (more than one formula may be in the offing) will all boil down to a few factors, as they always do with foods or beverages:
• Taste and aftertaste profiles
• Mouth feel
• Market positioning
• Major features and selling points
• Healthy herbs explained without making undue claims—a major sticking point with FDA
• Packaging

Questions:
• What do you think of Coke’s potential new drink(s)?
• Would you be willing to try a brand new beverage product if Coca Cola was behind it?
• Or would you be reticent, preferring to buy bona fide healthy beverages associated as the mainstay of other brands instead?

I’d love to hear from you.

"But wait!" you say. "What about social media? Customers in control! Advertising doesn't work anymore!" I've been thinking about these issues quite a bit lately and have to break it to you, social media marketing doesn't scale. Most experts agree - social media fits works best as part of an integrated mix, but not at either end of the marketing funnel: the front (building awareness) or the end (driving purchases). For the latter, shopper marketing and direct tactics guided by analytics work best. For the former, mass media works best.

When will a social media marketing campaign be able to claim that it reached 209 million people over a three week period? How about 715 million people for a single event?

$3,000,000 will get you a lot of social marketing stuff. For a category manager, you can set up get your brand portfolio hooked up quite nicely with an enterprise-level brand monitoring contract, a handful of virtual private communities, widgets galore, some sponsored Facebook pages, WOM campaigns, and more. You'll probably even have enough left over to hire the people you need to monitor and manage all those things, because your current skeleton crew has enough to handle in the name of "budget accountability."

But when you work for a public company like P&G and have to generate *billions* of dollars in top-line growth every year, is "conversational marketing" going to get the job done? In the long-run, probably. The seeds of tomorrow's basis for competitive advantage (i.e. strategy) are being sown today. But in the short-run, marketers need to show results and hang on to their jobs.

Social technologies can help marketers get ready for the new brand world of tomorrow, by building a solid internal foundation today. So I say spend it on the ad and lock in the low rate now. What do you think?

[click for larger size]

This scene depicts airport security at the Veg City Airport stopping an onion that is not up to Burger King standards. Just like airport security blocks bad people, Burger King similarly screen for only quality ingredients.

You know this onion is bad because they found in his bag: Botox, anti-aging cream, as well as copies of the magazines... "Wet Vegs", "Playveg" and "Green & Horny."

Then there's the surly pickle about to perform a cavity search on the onion. Wow!

This artwork is fun to explore while you're chomping your burger and fries... But - as I originally asked on my site - is it truly representing the brand Burger King wants to be? And even if there are different standards regarding the appropriateness of nudity in Europe versus the U.S., should Burger King be a different type brand in Europe than in the US?

A Split Audience

The comments I've received split into three camps.

• Group 1 - Those that feel this is the coolest artwork.
  
• Group 2 - Those that are going to boycott Burger King because they don't want their children exposed to the inappropriate material. (Most people missed the fact that this is a European campaign and wouldn't be seen in U.S. locations).
  
• Group 3 - Those that are slamming Group 2 for being so narrow minded. That they should be boycotting Burger King because of their junk food versus cartoon images.

There are a few of you marketers who have commented on my original question... is this tactic appropriate for brand Burger King?

The artwork is part of a series called Veg City supported with an on-line virtual city. In addition to the Airport tray liner other executions include: (click titles to go to view larger images)

The campaign for Burger King is by BBDO's German Group Munich-based agency, .start. I've emailed them a couple of times, but have not received a response.

Take a look at the comments to my original post at the Idea Sandbox Blog.

You can view more images at Chrossn's Flickr Photostream and by visiting the German Veg City website.

Is this adult-themed humor on-target with the Burger King brand? Has BK shifted from competing with McDonald's as a family restaurant to an adult destination - closer to Hooters?

Share what you think from a marketer perspective. (Put aside moral judgment, if possible).

(Thanks Ads of the World and chrossn's Flickr Photostream for the links).

Our new app became available in the iTunes store just yesterday; the URL for it is here:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=288259449&mt=8

So, if you have an iPhone, just click to download this app. Then, the next time you're standing in line or stuck on hold, you can stay current with great bits of marketing advice.

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment here or in the iTunes store.

The idea that Social Networking is moving beyond the youth market to business isn’t new but the idea is how and what are people doing to get them to join and what content are they providing to keep them engaged.

Listen to Catherine’s ideas on how to get your own community going as well as keep them coming back for more.

Link to Original Audio Source

Signup for this Podcast Series

About Catherine

Catherine Brown, Director of Enterprise Social Networking, Dotster, Inc., has over 14 years experience in marketing and product promotions and has a successful track record at both large and small firms. At Calista, an IP Telephony start-up, she was part of an executive team that took the company to acquisition by Cisco. While at Cisco, she managed major product launches and million dollar promotional campaigns, worked on a company-wide website redesign and started a web analytics program. She has also been an entrepreneur. Catherine has a BA from Stanford, an MBA from UC Berkeley, and has lived in Europe and Latin America (she speaks both French and Spanish).

Or maybe not. And here are the arguments, as I understand them, against outsourcing the company blog. The point of blogging is:

1. Having an authentic voice.
2. Giving customers a personal connection to the company.
3. Ghostwriters do neither.

Well, pardon me, but who do you think writes executive speeches, letters from the CEO, and all those personal words to shareholders one finds in the Annual Report, and web site content, and most of the pithy executive quotes found in newspapers? Guys and gals such as me. I also write and manage several company blogs, who are my clients. As the period on the sentence, none of those things are done without interviewing executives and employees, studying the company and its customers, and, finally, getting approval from the company spokesperson for everything I write.

Would it be better if someone from the company wrote the blog? Maybe, maybe not. When work is outsourced, the consultants often have more influence over the executives and more freedom from message management. And if we're fired, we haven't lost our jobs, just a job. We don't have the pressure of saying what we think the company wants to hear, at least many of us don't. More important, key inhouse staff are focusing on their other jobs and responsibilities, while gaining the outsider points of view and expertise, which are then translated into blog posts.

So, there you have it. One consultant's take on outsourcing blogging. Not right. Not wrong. It just depends.

Here’s the gist of the campaign for Arm & Hammer’s Essentials™ Multi-Surface Concentrate cleaner, in a nutshell—gleaned from the infomercial and the web page:
• Made of all natural plant-based agents (from coconuts and palm kernel oils, yet, so these are highly renewable resources) that can handle “the toughest household messes”.
• Works as well as traditional cleaners sans chemical agents and fumes.
• Costs up to 25% less than traditional cleaners.
• Is available directly from Arm & Hammer® as a FREE Starter Kit. Consumers only pay $4.99 shipping and handling and order online.
• The best part: an empty 32 ounce refillable bottle is sent with a cartridge that consumers apply to the squirt bottle after filling it with tap water. . .meaning: the bottle gets used over and over again as the consumer purchases refill cartridges.
• The final coup: the tagline “Harnessing the Power of Nature”™ and this: “Arm & Hammer® Essentials™ is backed by the trusted power of Arm & Hammer®--one of the most recognized trademarks in the world”.

The ad explains that the product is efficacious, safe for the family and kind to the environment since the cleaner’s formula is plant-based and the same bottle can be used over and over again.

Did you know that 60 billion pounds of plastic waste ends up in landfills every year? That’s enough to fill the Empire State Building 82 times!

Wow! Is this a brilliant marketing campaign, or what? Take note of how this was done. One dedicated web page. Brilliant short copy that hits every key point of concern to consumers. A link to the infomercial.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not hawking Arm & Hammer® Essentials™. Admittedly, I’m crazy about is the roll-out of this new marketing campaign, and its execution. Talk about building awareness. Talk about building direct consumer demand under the umbrella of a trusted, heritage brand. (Notice Arm & Hammer® is going directly to consumers, not pushing this through conventional distribution channels yet). Talk about getting major selling points across quickly and efficiently.

What I’d like to know, though, is this: how will consumers get the needed refills? No discussion of that. However, I’m betting that Arm & Hammer® has already anticipated this. I bet there will be information and probably coupons (?) for refills when consumers get their starter kits.

What’s not to love about this product launch? This marketing launch? Especially when so many fall flat?

Questions:
• What is your feeling about this new product and the way it is being brought to market?
• Do you think Arm & Hammer® will be successful with its new Essentials™ product?
• What do you think of the company’s leveraging of the “trust factor” in its Essentials™ product launch?
• What makes this more compelling to you as a consumer than other natural cleaners?

In other words, whether you agree with her liberal leanings or not, the fact is that she has a proven record of leveraging the power of the Big Three – and more – as demonstrated by the phenomenal growth of her namesake site.

As the NY Times wrote this past spring, "When Ms. Huffington, the 57-year-old author and former conservative pundit, announced her plans for The Huffington Post three years ago, many critics dismissed the idea as a digital dinner party for her new liberal friends. But it has grown in ways that few, except perhaps Ms. Huffington herself, expected."

Within three years, the Times added, Arianna has broadened her publication from a political blog to something that increasingly resembles a national newspaper, with sections on entertainment, business and more. It's the second most linked-to blog, with upwards of 4 million unique visitors a month.

And she continues to innovate: Just recently, Huffington introduced its version of a metropolitan section when it rolled out a local page for Chicago.

The story of that growth, and the way the Huffington Post team leverages the Big Three, is part of the story she'll tell in October. I hope you'll join us.

You've seen (and created?) those slide decks with the corporate history, the mission statement, the list of clients, and the bullet points about every capability we bring to the table, etc., etc. Time for a snooze. The prospective client really doesn't care about all that blather. They want to know this: are you a "fit" for us?

In the first few minutes, you ought to be sure that you can articulate to the client what their actual needs are (translation: you've done your homework), and then why precisely you are the best match for them. Only if they quickly sense that you are pitching a great fit will they tune in to the rest of your presentation.

How can you accomplish this?

1. Gather as much background information as possible about the exact nature of the client need(s) before deciding on what you will present.


2. Tell a story up front about how you met a similar need for a similar client.


3. Avoid a tidal wave of bullet points, and narrow the focus to your true core competencies that relate to that need.


4. Don't be afraid to pitch the standard capabilities slide deck overboard if the situation warrants a more interactive discussion.

Most of the presentations I've seen weren't "Made to Stick." Your goal should not be to simply cover as much verbal ground as you can. It should be to drive one or two major points home that demonstrate why you are the best fit.

Last year, I was one of a number of vendors invited to pitch capabilities to a pharmaceutical training client. I knew the drill, and how easy it would be to get lost in the crowd of vendors. Since I was there to discuss my consulting expertise, I decided not to "present" at all. Instead, I just gave a quick verbal overview, asked for someone to volunteer a current training problem, then began asking questions and consulting on the spot. Was it a bit risky? Sure. Was it memorable, and did it get me back in the door? Absolutely. Because they could see the "fit" live and in person!

So, next time you're invited to be part of the dog-and-pony show, don't just show up and throw up. Put the standard pitch deck to one side and discuss how best to pitch a fit in front of the group. Chances are you'll be quite memorable, long after the others are forgotten!

So with this as a backdrop the answer would logically be – NO!

A podcast is a new media. A podcast is a new channel. But it is still at the end of the day a one way dialog – you listen to one or two people having a conversation. If you were listening to two people having a conversation at a party are you being social? I think not – its only when you get involved in the conversation does it become social.

So just how social are podcasts?

Take it from me, I have personally recorded and handed edited over 100 podcasts for this blog and other purposes and I can safely say they don’t get the level of interactivity (read comments) like my regular old blog posts do. Yes there is that element of “portability” meaning you can take a podcast anywhere and listen to it any time – but do people really do that?? The answer there is also NO. I find my listeners tend to consume the media right when they find it. Which is why I go through the trouble of tagging my podcasts with Veotag so folks can listen to only the relevant question or 2, get in – get out and on to the next thing. People are busy and you can read faster than you can listen!

So does that spell the end of podcasts?

No way, I got a little nervous when I saw PodTech get sold for $500,000 but think podcasts can be very useful in delivering messages – just realize going in you aren’t really doing social media by doing a bunch of podcasts. Does this mean I will stop my podcast series? – no, I enjoy it too much to stop!

So what’s your view – is podcasting social media to you?

Let's think about that a different way.

Assume you get a solid eight hours of sleep every night. That means you have sixteen hours of potentially branded exposure - another message every 11 or 12 seconds. And most advertisers would even hope that you'd dream about their brands.

But in this age of ad-skipping, pop-up blocking, and do not call lists, do you think consumers actually see this many messages? And if they do...do they even care?

Joseph Jaffe, who I've shared a keynote stage with many times over the years, is fond of asking audiences, "Would you rather have 5 million impressions or 5 quality relationships?" I'll borrow his rhetoric and ask you - would you rather have all 5,000 of the ad impressions in a consumer's day...or would you prefer 5 minutes of an engaged consumer's attention?

For example, recent studies show that more men than ever are making dinner, doing housework and managing the kids. That sure sounds a lot like my neighborhood. Still, you’d never know it from what brands reflect in their ad campaigns.

As Jack Essig, publisher of Rodale’s Men’s Health magazine put it in the AdWeek piece: he “believes there’s a gender-based blind spot in home brands today that is the inverse of one by car companies a couple decades ago.

‘Ten or 15 years ago, car companies were speaking primarily to men and assuming men were making the majority of car-purchasing decisions, only for research to show that women were really weighing in,’ Essig says. ‘I think the same is true for a lot of home decor and other home brands when it comes to speaking to men. They want their home to reflect their personality as well.’

Essig has it right. As with the marketing to women movement of a decade or so ago, there’s one big misstep to avoid in trying to better reach this gender: swinging the pendulum too far to the masculine extreme. Let that happen, and you'll be alienating plenty of men who don’t see themselves as quite that macho, and, you may risk turning off current or prospective female customers along the way.

Yet, the reactionary gender pendulum swing is a marketing culture pattern. Brands rushed to “pink” when they first started paying attention to the specifics of how women buy. Now, I fear we may see a rush to “blue” as brands go too far masculine in their mad dash to appeal to “all men everywhere.” Of course, the consuming men we’d like to reach are actually starting to accept/embrace their perhaps more feminine ways of buying, thus making the stereotypically male, linear marketing approach less likely to succeed.

Here’s my point: (Most) men and women use some balance, not either/or, of their male and female brain traits to make decisions. Consumers have many reasons to become more holistic in their purchase processes - and I don’t see that changing in this abundant, 24/7 shopping culture (though the economy may give their decision-making an extra “creative” limitation).

Women already and commonly wind along their purchasing paths using both their linear and their more emotional ways of thinking. This may have evolutionary origins - starting with having to listen for baby cries, while gathering nuts and berries - all the while trying to keep their abode safe from intruders while their men were off hunting. Men, while similarly having the capability to use both sides of their brains, have been more rewarded in society by continually looking through the provider/status filter. But today they no longer need be off “hunting” in order to fulfill their manly missions, and they, like women, can (and may well like to!) engage with the buying process more fully.

Men are starting to think and buy differently because society is allowing them to do so. It makes sense. So, just as with women, marketing must become more relevant to who they are now - not who they were yesterday.

Those of you reading this have long since learned a bit about serving feminine buying traits. So, move forward in confidence as you seek the consumer that walks like a man and buys (more) like a woman!

Bigger problem, created. What you're really doing is eroding your long-term margins and your long-term sales. (This is especially true if you run a business based on quality and value versus being a low-price provider.)

The problem with discounts is that customers don't see the price drop the same way you do.

As a business person, you clearly understand you are temporarily cutting into your own profit to give a little more to the customer and keep their business.

As customers we see it different. The moment you discount, it re-calibrates the perceived value of your products/services. Selling something for $200 today, and discounting for $150 tells us you are making more money on the $200 version... And you're still making money on the $150 version... so the $200 version was over-priced. The new perceived value, $150.

As a consumer buying something, we get this. As a marketer selling something, we tend to ignore this fact.

When you see an infomercial and they tell you you're getting a $199 value for only $49 do you really think you're getting $199 worth of something? Heck, no. In fact you know that may be a sucker for paying the 49-bucks.

Starbucks Coffee used to host their Annual Brewing Sale at the stores. Each spring they would put coffee and espresso machines on sale. "Lowest Prices of the Year!" the signage declared. As a customer you'd save between $50 to $200 on a brewing machine. So instead of being priced at $250, the brewer was on sale for $200. Instead of being $700, the automated espresso machine would be $500.

Well, guess what... customer perception became, if Starbucks could sell items for the lower price of $200 and $500 that must be their value. Customers stopped buying year-round and waited to buy ONLY when Starbucks had the sale. You'd be a sucker to buy it when they were not on sale.

While the ring of the cash register sounded good, Starbucks made no more money in the rush of machines sold at SALE prices than they did selling them at a fixed prices all year. (Furthermore... by having a once-per-year focus on the machines, the store employees didn't have brewing machine knowledge. As a result, today you can get a better explanation of coffee equipment at a general kitchen store like Williams-Sonoma than from the coffee expert. Discounted machines hurt the brand.)

So what should you do?

First, if customers are complaining about your prices, make sure you actually aren't charging too much. Compare yourself with your competition. Recession or not, if you were already dramatically out-pricing the competition without a dramatic difference in quality or service, perhaps you should consider lowering your prices. (I'm not recommending getting yourself into the low-price game, just make sure your higher prices offer higher value.)

Second, instead of giving away money, strategically provide add-on services or products. Instead of discounting the price of a hair cut at the salon, give away a bottle of that great shampoo you used that made my head tingle and hair smell so great. Instead of cutting the price of your website building services, offer a complimentary, 6-month, search engine optimization (SEO) service.

This accomplishes two things... (1) You don't erode the cost of your base product. (2) If you do it right, you offer customers things of value that they may never had tried before. You've created a strategic win-win. As a customer, I feel good for receiving something of extra value. As a business, you got your customer to try something new. The customer may start buying that shampoo on a regular basis, or continue to subscribe to your SEO services.

Recession or not, more than likely your customers can still afford to pay full-price for what you offer. In times when their being ultra-conscientious about spending, they want to make sure it is still worth their while providing value for the money. If they're considering whether you're still *worth* it or not, perhaps you weren't providing the experience you promised in the first place.

Long story short, discounting lowers the perceived value of your offerings, and in the long run erodes your brand. Once you start offering discounts, the only way to get that rush the next time, is to discount more. If this cycle continues, your margin is gone, your prices are bargain basement, and your brand has reduced value.