“Audience engagement at presentations is past being a trend,” says Cheryl Cran, an author and a speaker in the field of integrating communications, technology, and human potential. “It’s what’s happening now.”

Here are a few ways you can add some punch to your presentation.

Venues at most big organizations already are outfitted with interactive audience technology that enables a speaker to survey the audience and lets the audience indicate their reactions and responses to the presentation via wireless keypad or smartphone. Be sure to ask what technology is available to you, become familiar with it, and build its use into your presentation.

In addition to (or in lieu of) a high-end system, there also are plug-ins for PowerPoint (PowerPoint Twitter Tools) and Keynote (Keynote Tweet) that enable you to embed a Twitter feed into your presentation that enables the audience to react to the presentation in real time. Set up Tweetchat and provide everyone with a hashtag then watch the comments roll. Tweetchat also enables you (or an assistant) to curate tweets, so that you can control what appears on the screen.

Presentations should be highly polished and much more than a list of bullet points. Keynote offers a lot of flexibility in terms of templates and eases the process of incorporating multimedia elements, such as video and graphics. And there’s even an application for the iPhone that enables you to use it to advance your slides.

Before Cheryl goes on stage, she often mingles with attendees, a small video camera close at hand. (She recommends a Kodak HD, which has a powerful onboard microphone.) Cheryl does video interviews with several attendees, polling them about what their issues are and what they’re hoping to get out of her session. She then uses those vignettes in her opening to set the stage and encourage engagement during the presentation. “Most people are happy to be filmed, but how much they’re willing to say does depend quite a bit on the culture,” says Cheryl. She suggests that learn about the organization you’re slated to speak to before you get to the venue, so you have a sense of what will fly.

Some of her colleagues run their presentations from an iPad and that it’s definitely an option. Doing this, however, requires you to upload the presentation to iDisk. To ensure you can get to the presentation when the time comes, make sure you have a 3G-enabled device—because if there is no Internet at the venue or the signal is poor, you won’t have a presentation!

It’s not all about the gadgets, however. Cheryl emphasizes, “You can have the coolest technology around but if you’re not prepared, nothing will save you. Competition for speaking slots is fierce. Conference directors expect you to do your homework and to fully customize your presentations for their audiences. Customization has become the standard—even for celebrity speakers.”

The good news is you can use technology to get ready as well. As she studies each organization, Cheryl often sends out short web-based surveys using Survey Monkey to test for perceptions and expectations.

With audience attention spans averaging around nine seconds, speakers who want their messages to connect need to involve their audiences in the process. The right technology can enable audiences to provide added dimension to your presentation, create synergy, and increase the impact of your presentation.

Advances in social technologies have made the voice of the consumer more dominant in today’s marketplace. Consumers are vocal about their needs, wants, and preferences. They crave relevancy, personalization, and a platform to be heard.

These new consumers want control over how, when, and where brands engage with them and to what extent. This shift will be the most important trend to impact the consumer market over the next decade and beyond.

Marketers should consider the following when planning to reach current and future consumers:

• Have a plan to continually stay familiar with new technology.
• Track changes in how consumers are using technology to interact with brands.
• Pay attention to consumer preferences—especially how they are interacting with new technologies across multiple industries and devices.
• Understand the brand’s customer base, such as who they are, where they are, and how they shop (in store and/or online), what they like, and motivations affecting their decision-making.

The survey itself should only take a mere 5 (or so) minutes. If you include your email address, we’ll share the survey results as soon as they’re ready so you can see how you measure up. (If you do, we won’t add your email address to a list or pass it on to anyone else. Promise.)

Need that link again?

Take the survey here.

And from me: A big, giant … THANK YOU.

Political correctness in advertising is like a blow horn at the orchestra—stifling, out of place and a creativity killer. For all of the advertising industry’s grand soapboxing about big ideas and creative excellence, I’m disheartened to see a growing divide between our talk and our walk.

Let me be clear: A healthy respect for all people and their differences is vital in advertising. And I’m certainly not advocating being offensive. In fact, I would encourage all advertisers to take a serious look at their impact on culture and the moral responsibility that influence carries.

But unreasonable fear caused by rampant political correctness is not the path to marketing success.

Only by remembering our purpose, understanding the roots of our politically correct culture, and analyzing its impact on advertising will we be able to clearly identify its place in (or needed exit from) our industry.

Why Are We Here Again?

The first and primary goal of any agency should be to make its clients successful. If anything, including oversensitivity, obscures that principal objective, then your agency is heading down a dangerous and self-defeating road.

It seems many of us have lost sight of our purpose. Drowning in a sea of self-censorship, we forget that we’re here to improve our clients’ bottom line.

In 2004, after seeing years of plateauing sales, Skittles took a chance on zany and unafraid marketing. Much of the company’s subsequent success can be attributed to TBWA’s focused and controversial advertising for the candy maker. With the recent online campaign featuring a cat and a man licking the viewer’s finger and a video showing a man’s head exploding, Skittles has unabashedly embraced advertising that could easily invite criticism.

Companies like Skittles are frequently put through the fire for edgy advertising, but what their critics fail to realize is that their goal isn’t to offend people. Rather, they are devoted to understanding their target. In today’s noisy world, Skittles’s young target is flooded with thousands of marketing messages a day. Tactfully standing out from the crowd has become increasingly difficult, and Skittles’s advertising has honed in on this fact. Anything less would bring meager results.

The Road to Hell is Paved …

According to Merriam-Webster, political correctness is “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities … should be eliminated.” Richard Bernstein, writing in the New York Times, explains that “… [political correctness], which has roots in 1960s radicalism, is the view that Western society has for centuries been dominated by what is often called ‘the white male power structure’ … ”

This may explain why it has become culturally acceptable in advertising to portray white males in a negative light, with leaders in advertising like Jeff Goodby admitting “that if a storyline makes fun of a character, an agency will typically be wary of casting a minority actor in the role for fear of being disrespectful.”

The Super Bowl has become an annual opportunity for publicity-seeking special interest groups to be offended by anything that moves. Groupon was recently the center of a politically correct firestorm for its Super Bowl commercials contrasting topics like endangered whales and deforestation with Groupon’s call to “save the money” through its services. Even though Groupon had secured the endorsement of organizations like Greenpeace and The Tibet Fund beforehand—and had even created a website encouraging visitors to donate to the causes—Advertising Age reported that Groupon pulled the ads more to “save face than to stop defecting customers.”

While many who promote political correctness begin the journey with good intentions, we all know where that road eventually leads. The truth is that political correctness is anchored in limiting language which limits ideas and leads to weak euphemisms, bland communication and, inevitably, to George Orwell’s infamous newspeak. This, interestingly, is the exact prescription for ineffective advertising.

A Culture of Fear

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Spoken during the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s words strike at the heart of a major issue facing our culture and industry today. The dirty secret no one wants to talk about is that not only is the advertising industry limping through the current recession and parrying increased government regulation and public criticism, our industry is facing an onslaught of politically correct censorship that could forever cripple our ability to effectively and creatively communicate with our clients’ customers.

You’ll never be able to please everyone. Someone will always find something offensive about your ad. But that’s okay. Get some guts. Paralyzing fear has never led to innovation or profit.

I’m not advocating being offensive for offensiveness’s sake. I’m not even advocating being offensive. But if we continue down this path of politically correct craziness, our fear will be our industry’s undoing.

Jonathan Lewis is an account executive at McKee Wallwork Cleveland Advertising.

The discussions at the recent SXSW focused primarily on how the digital landscape may take shape in the coming year. In this blog post, Red Door Interactive team members who attended SXSW summarize four key takeaways from the event regarding privacy and personalization, brand engagement through emotion, social responsibility, and game mechanics in marketing.

Walking the Line Between Privacy and Personalization

With recent stories regarding restricting the use of cookies and a “consumer privacy bill of rights,” it was easy to imagine that such discussions would percolate during SXSW. During the “How to Personalize Without Being Creepy” session, panelist Jennifer King from UC Berkeley, shared a story about visiting a maternity store, where the cashier informed her that she was already in their “system.” This was her first visit to any such store, prior to joining any baby registry.

Hunch’s Hugo Liu used that anecdote to highlight that relationships require trust—and that trust is built by setting and meeting expectations. Personalization has exponentially more value when it’s explicitly provided.  Noah Weiss, a panelist from Foursquare, suggested that users’ privacy is reinforced when they are given explicit control over the data they provide and the way that data is used. King concluded the discussion by saying, “Advertising has been in a race to the bottom. We have nearly reached it and are starting to see legislation. Marketers should strongly consider auditing their current practices, so that they are prepared for the inevitable.”

Later, Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley discussed further plans to personalize through data and how his ideas for Foursquare go far beyond badges and mayors. “We’re trying to do something much larger—this big data play about things that are going on in the real world, and connecting people to things in the real world,” Crowley said. “If we can use some of the check-in data and present you with interesting options, interesting things that we think you would like, and then couple it with game mechanics and encourage you to do them—that’s an interesting one-two punch.”

Useful, Usable, Desirable: Creating Reverence for Products That Surprise and Delight

Getting the experience right cannot be an afterthought for products to succeed in an ultra-competitive landscape where imitations and alternate options can surface within weeks (if not days) of market launch. Would consumers care if you stopped selling your product tomorrow? It’s a sobering question that differentiates desirable experiences from the mundane and easily replaceable.

With so many brands clamoring for our attention, it’s crucial to find new ways to stand out from the crowd. Where do you begin?

Robert Brunner, whose company designed the Barnes & Noble Nook eBook reader and Dr. Dre Beats headphones, suggested that brands should simply be themselves—and focus on doing that well. Without purpose and charisma, brands cannot establish an emotional connection with consumers. Therefore, products are easily exchangeable with comparable options.

Brunner also emphasized the importance of being disruptive. Target redefined big box retail by introducing a mass audience to the notion of product design. Such innovation isn’t possible without a tolerance for taking risks.

While it’s imperative that brands find unique opportunities to surprise and delight consumers, it’s equally important to get the usability right. Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think, shared his extensive knowledge of online user behavior and demonstrated how informal usability testing can drive major website performance improvements.

Krug blamed overly zealous and expensive usability testing plans and elaborate recruiting requirements as the most common reasons why companies don’t test their products with real people. Krug recommended testing with three users a month and controlling costs by cutting out detailed reports. The end goal is to identify usability problems and begin fixing them. No more, no less.

Building Strong Brands: Why Giving Just Makes Sense

On the final day of the conference, TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie delivered an inspirational keynote presentation. He told a story about how his vision for improving children’s lives led to the company’s rapid ascent as a footwear apparel brand leader in a little more than four years.

Blake’s “One for One” brand story is quite simple. For each pair of shoes sold, TOMS donates another pair to a child in need. TOMS’ philanthropic approach reveals how a message of greater good that is baked into a company’s DNA can establish broad recognition and demand for a brand in a short amount of time. Plus, TOMS demonstrates how brands can develop meaningful relationships with consumers and position themselves favorably in a new era of heightened social awareness.

Being a champion of the greater good has allowed TOMS to rapidly scale the company’s internal operations and accommodate exponential growth. Not surprisingly, a commitment to making the world a better place has made it easier for the company to attract top-tier talent and retain its best employees. Now, with a strong foundation in place, TOMS is prepared to expand beyond a shoe company and become known as simply the “One for One” brand.

Are We Being Played? Game Mechanics in Marketing

While Foursquare popularized the check-in, it also introduced many to the idea of game mechanics in marketing, enticing participation with virtual rewards. Seth Priebatsch, founder of location-based gaming platform SCVNGR, formally opened the conference by describing his vision of how game mechanics could be applied to the physical world and create a so-called “Game Layer.” Priebatsch predicted that such a layer is a natural evolution.  “The last decade was the decade of social … the social layer traffics in connections.” In contrast to such connections, the Game Layer drives engagement, interaction and “will influence where we go, what we do, and how we do it,”said Priebatsch. As he addressed the crowd, Priebatsch asserted that the Game Layer could solve many of the world’s problems, including education and global warming.

Although Rick Levine from Conde Nast mentioned recently that the idea of placing a “game layer” on top of interactive content was becoming more and more prevalent, game designer Jane McGonigal  stepped away from the concept of “gamification” and referred to the essay “Pawned: Gamification and Its Discontents” by Sebastian Deterding. She suggested that brands take a very careful look at why they might want to consider using game mechanics as a marketing tool.

Final Thoughts

Perhaps the most poignant thing taken by the Red Door Interactive team at the 2011 SXSW conference was the lack of quality in the signal-to-noise ratio in today’s digital landscape. Consumers are bombarded with a landslide of apps, products and services, and are looking for guidance. Wise marketers will look for ways to present grounded and substantiated recommendations in front of their consumers. There won’t be one specific channel or platform that consumers will turn to, and those who see the highest return on objective will be those who maintain a consistent presence everywhere their consumers are.

Charles Wiedenhoft is the director of Business Planning & Optimization for Red Door Interactive, an Internet presence management firm in San Diego and Denver that manages clients’ online presence by analyzing their unique challenges, advising them on Internet-based solutions and implementing strategies to help them profit from their Web initiatives. Email him at cwiedenhoft@reddoor.biz.

Tony Felice is the Senior Strategist at Red Door Interactive. Tony brings a deep understanding of technologies to clients and enables teams to craft and execute effective digital campaigns. Email him at tfelice@reddoor.biz.

Wow! Way to go? Or wrong way to go? While consumers “tsk tsk” about oversized meals and beverages in restaurants and fast food joints, many get more than a little pleasure, albeit guilty, in over-indulging. Let’s be truthful here. So the question remains: Is this a major marketing faux pas or a stroke of genius?

Nutritionists are undoubtedly alarmed at the possibility of consumers adding up to 200 calories per day—depending on their beverage of choice. And 200 additional calories per day adds up to 2 more pounds per month. Yikes!

And what about the amount of caffeine in 31 ounce coffee concoctions? While our culture has become increasingly caffeinated on high-voltage energy drinks and larger and larger mugs of coffee, I wonder when the human body’s tolerance is maxed out!

What do you think of this move? Is Starbucks going to cash in on our more-is-better consumer craze? Or are they going the wrong way now that consumers have said “no” to excess in every way, shape, and form? Or does Starbucks know something we don’t know? Are consumers saying “no” while their actions say “yes” to supersized portions still?

I’d love to get your take on Starbucks’ latest marketing move, Daily Fix readers, whether you’ve indulged in the 31 ounce Trenta or not.

And, then you’d have questioned its use for business.

Before we get into why Quora could be important for your business, here’s a two-minute primer on Quora, for those of you wondering what I’m talking about.

Quora is to information networks what Facebook is to social networks.

Let me explain. Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn (I work there) are focused on the relationship networks that bind us. Sites like Twitter, Quora and Yahoo!Answers are focused on the information we possess and share among those networks.

On Quora, what you know is more important than who you know.

So, for an information network, organizing all this random information is a pretty monumental task. Twitter still hasn’t figured out how to do all of that, but Quora is built from the ground up to organize this info along related topics and categories.

Once organized, it not only massively scales to potentially any topic on the planet but also think of it as Wikipedia, just bigger and potentially covering the long-tail of topics. In particular, I think this post by Semil Shah on Quora as a wedge product that could drive growth in many industries nails it.

But I believe this initial activity is just Quora’s thin edge of the wedge. The first arena the site has been successful in altering slightly is the concept of network blogging, all of which has been well documented by others—many times over.

As the product matures and as contributors, consumers, and search engines crawl across the site looking for structured content, Quora could be slightly reorganized and positioned in a variety of new ways to challenge existing Internet products and services, many of which today are themselves large, multi-million dollar businesses. In no particular order, here is a list of markets where Quora could offer an alternative, leading all the way to the other edge—the thick edge—search.

So, why should your business be on Quora? For starters, search. Currently, Quora hasn’t scaled well enough for it to be a no-brainer for your business, but it may soon be in the same way that businesses slowly started getting Twitter’s value.

Now, even if you’d like your company to be on Quora, they’d rather not. They just recently banned Mashable’s account. I guess this could be more of a reflection of their priorities today and less of a disinterest to support organizations. Only time will tell.

Alternatively, I’d be surprised if they’d rather brands use company ambassadors (as David Armano mentioned recently) respond on behalf of brands instead of creating separate brand IDs. A more elegant and authentic solution, in my opinion.

For Businesses: To Quora, or Not to Quora?

Since I started using Quora more aggressively, its potential benefits are pretty obvious to me as a blogger who writes about marketing. But I’m sure all of us will get to wondering if Quora is of any use for the companies we work for?

The answer to that is: Maybe. If your team (copywriters, customer service, etc.) or your company (Zappos, Sears, Best Buy, etc.) are in the information business and shares unique information about their brand regularly (like on a blog for example), Quora may be a better place to do that than the 140 characters on Twitter.

That said, since Quora doesn’t encourage businesses having a Quora account today, I’d instead urge you to give it a shot and let me know what you think.

And if you’re wondering how to get started on Quora, here’s a post I wrote that walks you through the five stages of Quora adoption. And here’s why I don’t buy the contrarian viewpoint that Quora is hyped.

Leave a comment on your specific Quora experience. Do you think it’ll help your business?

Fresh off the digital presses, the report was published this morning. A total of 755 Internet users were asked about 15 different kinds of online material that could be purchased or accessed after a payment. The biggest news: “Sixty-five percent of Internet users have paid to access or download some kind of digital content.” At 33%, digital music and software are the most popular categories for purchases. And 21% have paid for apps for their cell phones or tablet computers. The least amount of purchases were for adult content (2%) and online dating services and sites (5%).

Other interesting facts about Internet users who purchase online content:

• About the same percentages of men and women pay for online content (except software, which online men are more likely to purchase than online women).
• Online purchasing is color-blind. Whites and non-whites are equally likely to purchase most forms of online content.
• The more educated the Internet user is, the more likely that person is to purchase online content.
• The older the online person, however, the less likely he or she is to purchase content. Internet users ages 18 to 29 and 30 to 40 are more likely to buy online than folks 50 to 64 or older than 65.
• Internet users who live in high-income bracket households are more likely to pay for various kinds of content than those who live in lower-income brackets.

So what do all these percentages mean for you? According to the Pew Internet Project, “The issue of people’s willingness to pay for online material has enormous implications for media companies, artistic creators, and others who are hoping to sustain themselves—or grow new businesses—by raising revenue through online purchases.”

In other words, all signs point to a better days for businesses who know how to capitalize on the growing trend for online purchases. Do you?

For more details, check out the complete report.

New data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project provides some fresh answers.

• 8% of the U.S. adult Internet population (which is 74% of adults)
• Young adults: Internet users ages 18-29 are significantly more likely to use Twitter than are older adults.
• African-Americans and Latinos: Minority internet users are more than twice as likely to use Twitter as are white Internet users.
• Urbanites: Urban residents are roughly twice as likely to use Twitter as rural dwellers.
• Women and the college-educated are also slightly more likely than average to use the service.

What do people tweet about?

• 72% post updates related to their personal life, activities or interests; 19% post personal updates once a day or more.
• 62% post updates related to their work life, activities, or interests, with 12% doing so on a daily basis.
• 55% share links to news stories. About one in ten (12%) do this at least once a day.
• 53% retweet material posted by others, with 18% doing so on a daily basis.
• 40% share photos with others, with 12% going so at least once a day.
• 24% tweet their location, with 7% of users doing so on a daily basis.

What does it all mean?
First of all, 8% may not sound like much, but it is a LOT of people.  According to the latest data, the total U.S. Internet poulation is 239,893,600.  That means 8% a “mere” 19,191,488 individuals.

Beyond the numbers, the data is very revealing about usage and behavior. It’s obvious that people are using Twitter to talk about themselves and their lives, and yes, a lot of it is chatter. But one person’s chatter is another’s gold mine.  Look closer at that noise, and you see it’s not babble. It’s actually people telling you how you can fulfill and serve their needs.

What marketer would turn his/her nose up at that?

When you think about all of the strides consumer product companies have made in recent years, you’ve got to wonder why. I mean think of it: greener product components, greener packaging, more reusing, recycling and repurposing than ever. What’s the problem?

Could it be that a weak economy is bringing consumer issues with environmentally friendly products to the surface now? Seems so.

The surveys cited uncovered the following:

• Consumer perception that green products are priced higher than conventional ones.
• Consumer perception that green products may not work as well as conventional ones.
• Fewer sales by green companies make it less likely consumers will try their products.
• Most consumers like the idea of doing their bit to help the planet. But their first priority is: What will the product do for me?

For more details from the surveys, please read the Brandweek article.

These findings are very telling. They point out a crucial fact: Companies need to engage in educating the public about their products more intensively, or, as the article succinctly points out: “risk skepticism or irrelevance.” That according to M.J. Jolda, SVP of marketing for Marcal Small Steps.

How true. Green product marketers must change perception. No easy task. They must consider offering periodic sales to encourage consumers to try their products. Lastly, they must educate consumers about the efficacy of their products; how the price is either in the ballpark with the rest of the category, or slightly higher for real and substantive reasons that make sense. Lastly, they must prove to skeptical consumers that using their products will make a demonstrable difference.

All of the claims and education in the world won’t have a big impact until the economy turns around. But, it seems to me, this is an opportune time to launch a new effort aimed at educating and telling a compelling story.

Questions:
• What do you think of the Green Gauge survey statement that 52% of respondents agreed with: “First comes economic security, then we can worry about environmental problems”? Do you agree?
• Can we balance our economic needs with environmental concerns, even during trying times?
• Do you think this points to a larger problem, regardless of the economy? Are consumers less concerned in reality, than they say they are about the environment?

I’d love to hear from you.

For the last two decades, Americans believed bigger was better—from the size of our houses to our cars to the amount of food on our dinner plates. But the economic recession, coupled with other factors like the green movement, is fundamentally changing American attitudes. Instead of super-sizing, we’re “right-sizing” and re-evaluating what’s important in life. We’re saving more, wasting less, and giving back.

Mindful consumers are taking a closer look at what we truly need and adjusting our shopping behaviors accordingly. As part of that, we are embracing brands that uphold these new ideals, brands that provide quality and value in their services and products, but are also environmentally friendly and socially responsible.

Here is a list of 10 public figures who embrace qualities of the mindful consumer, such as a commitment to sustainability efforts, a focus on giving, and a more thoughtful approach to consumption:

10)  Ludacris—Rappers are not always known for their humility, generosity and environmentally conscious attitudes; Ludacris isn’t your average rapper. Through The Ludacris Foundation, he has donated $1.5 million to support youth-oriented, grassroots organizations and devoted more than 5,000 hours of service, all while paying special attention to his hometown of Atlanta. Did we mention that Ludacris owns a hybrid and is installing solar panels on his home?

9)  Suze Orman—While the financial market collapsed, Orman’s stock rose as she convinced people what NOT to buy during the economic recession. She is viewed as a trusted financial expert, helping Americans become fiscally responsible through her television show, eight consecutive New York Times bestsellers, and frequent guest spots on a range of programs from Oprah to The Biggest Loser.

8)  Indra K. Nooyi—As the CEO of PepsiCo, Nooyi wants those of us who indulge in sugary beverages to feel a little better about it. She’s championing “performance with a purpose” within the organization, which is focused on creating more wholesome products and increasing sustainability practices. As part of this effort, the company has launched The Pepsi Refresh Project. The socially driven campaign allows individuals and organizations to post their philanthropic ideas on refresheverything.com, where the general public votes for their favorite initiatives to be funded. To help support the project, which will give away more than $20 million this year, the company passed on airing a Super Bowl ad.

7)  Ellen DeGeneres—Comedienne, actress, author, Cover Girl spokesmodel, American Idol judge and talk-show host, Ellen DeGeneres does it all. Using her large media presence, she exposes audience members to different charities, such as Feeding America and the American Red Cross. DeGeneres conceals her wealth with ordinary clothes and a gracious attitude, influencing a legion of supporters through her television shows and brand sponsorships.

6)  Taylor Swift—Unlike her flashy counterparts, such as Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga, there’s something genuine and down-to-earth about Swift that makes her stand out among the tween, teenage and young adult set. With her poised demeanor, saccharine pop-country crossover songs, humanitarian efforts for numerous charities, and penchant for affordable clothing—including her line of Walmart-sold sundresses that start at $14—this young superstar personifies the mindset of a new generation who want to feel good, look good and do good with (age-appropriate) style.

5) Warren Buffett—The world’s third-wealthiest person, Buffett is famously known for both his mindful spending and philanthropy. America’s foremost investor still owns the modest home bought in 1958, receives a salary of approximately $100,000 and rarely makes extravagant purchases. Most recently, Buffett auctioned off a lunch with himself that sold for $2.63 million, which will support Glide Foundation, a homeless organization based in San Francisco.

4)  Oprah Winfrey—As proven time and again, the mere mention of a product by Oprah will make it a best seller. Her personal integrity, philanthropic efforts and ability to connect with the masses will help her stay one of America’s favorite trendsetters long after her talk show ends in 2011. Up next: Oprah will start the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), further exploring issues surrounding empowerment, spirit, human relationships and giving back.

3) Stephen F. Quinn—More than three-quarters of Americans shop at Walmart every year, so whether you’re a fan, the retailer has influence. As Walmart’s CMO, Quinn’s leadership on sustainability efforts has a huge impact. He helped initiate strict environmental standards, including high efficiency store designs, reusable bags, recycling programs and the installation of solar panels. In addition, Walmart is helping shoppers go green by introducing more energy-efficient products; locally grown produce; and the Sustainability Index, an initiative that, in the company’s own words, is “helping to create a more transparent supply chain, driving product innovation and ultimately providing our customers with information they need to assess products’ sustainability.”

2)  Mark Zuckerberg—Zuckerberg makes the list not because he is particularly mindful, but because the platform he created is making savvier shoppers out of all of us. With more than 400 million active users worldwide, Facebook has become an interactive consumer haven. With the simple update of a status feed, users can get product recommendations from the most trusted source: friends and family. Plus, the platform provides a voice to grassroots organizations that want to galvanize people around the world quickly and efficiently. Brands like Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Disney are realizing the platform’s potential by generating huge fan followings, making it a marketer’s paradise. And with Zuckerberg’s influence over Internet privacy policies, he is changing the way we shop.

1) Michelle Obama—With the grace of Jackie and the aspirations of Eleanor, Michelle has captivated Americans. When the First Lady donned J. Crew fashions at public appearances such as The Jay Leno Show, it spiked the retailer’s clothing sales, website traffic and brand awareness. However, it is Obama’s efforts to end childhood obesity with initiatives like “Let’s Move” and the White House vegetable garden that are inspiring a nation. She is influencing (and, in some cases, incentivizing) politicians, business leaders, nonprofits, parents and the rest of us to think about what we consume.

* * * * *

Andrew Benett, Global CEO of Arnold Worldwide and Global Chief Strategy Officer of Havas Worldwide, describes the downfall of hyperconsumption and the rise of “the new consumer” in his forthcoming book, Consumed: Rethinking Business in an Era of Mindful Spending (Palgrave Macmillan, July 2010), co-authored by Ann O’Reilly, Content Director of the Euro RSCG Worldwide Knowledge Exchange.

Forecasting sales and inventory levels is probably one of the most difficult jobs of a product and/or supply chain manager as companies need to marry demand signals with supply. Adding more complexity to the mix is global supply chains that span weeks, multiple countries and sometimes oceans. Lots of hand-offs, tons of data to track, and lots of points for things to go wrong.

For many product managers (and the marketing/brand managers that support them) inventory management is a critical task. By not carrying enough inventory, companies can not only lose out on sales but also suffer reputation damage by not meeting customer needs.

Nonetheless, with companies hoarding cash–it seems the last thing companies need is to be stuck with unsold finished goods or piecemeal parts.

Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook agrees. In a recent Fortune article, Cook says inventory is “fundamentally evil.” And Cook should know, as he’s in the very fickle consumer electronics business. “You kind of want to manage it like you are in the dairy business,” he says. “If it gets past its fresh date you have a problem.”

Here’s the rub, however. Forces of globalization and tight coupling are magnifying the complexity, impact and frequency of events. Once steady suppliers are going bankrupt, some suppliers cannot get loans in the credit crunch, and disruptions in the supply chain are becoming more commonplace. Your product launch date doesn’t matter much if your suppliers cannot deliver.

But can’t analytical modeling save us? After all, most companies are using advanced planning applications to predict future trends and behaviors, right?

While statistical forecasting techniques can help extrapolate future trends, these methods rely on building models based on historical data. And some executives say in volatile times, historical data can no longer be trusted to accurately model and predict the future.

So what’s the solution? Should we build more redundancy into our supply chains to better manage the risk of suppliers, or stay the course with the trend towards information management and just-in time supply chains that are well optimized and thin?

Better communication is a potential answer says Camille Schuster, President of Global Collaborations. What is needed, she says is, “Proactive contact with suppliers on a regular basis to determine how supplies are doing, what issues are coming up, whether any shortages are foreseen, whether there is any softness in any product area, what changes and/or rumors are floating about.”

For many companies, effective inventory management is a critical component of financial health. With “cash” at a premium in this global financial pandemic, inventory decisions can literally make or break your company.

When it comes to inventory, what level of risk are you comfortable with?

Questions for DailyFix readers:

* Is a little inventory cushion warranted as risks (environmental, political, criminal, financial, reputation, terrorism etc) seem to be increasing in intensity, complexity and frequency?
* In volatile times, should forecasting and inventory management be more focused on “gut” decision making rather than mathematical models?
* Stockouts leave “money on the table” and ultimately reduce customer satisfaction. What is your marketing advice to supply chain, operations and/or engineering executives in these volatile times? Hedge their bets with a little more inventory, or continue to operate “thin”?
* Is inventory still evil? Should it be avoided at all costs?

Beyond the gas pump, we’re beginning to feel it in other areas now. Some of us will grab the rebates (if we get one) and continue to spend. Some of us may chose to scale back a little, simplify – or maybe even get out of debt! What we’re feeling here in America is surely going to hit other markets, too – as our spending ability (and willingness) decline and impact the economy of producing nations. In the long run, most of us are going to have to spend less.
As an interesting parallel, a whole bunch of us Westerners are becoming overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the “stuff” we own. We aren’t just over stimulated by media messages, but by the physical things we accumulate. We’ve got so much stuff we need bigger houses to hold our stuff… and when it gets to be too much, we have a garage sale or make a trip to Good Will to get rid of our stuff. What I’m seeing is that the STUFF we have doesn’t just influence us to give stuff away — it makes us want to spend less.
We hear a lot of trends like “Going Green.” However, I suspect, in the very near future, we’ll be seeing a new trend in marketing and customer experience targeted to folks of all economic ranges who are beginning to scale back, spend less, simplify and/or economize.
Interestingly, the “want to spend less” and “have to spend less” reality has a direct influence on what Reinier Evers, founder of Trendwatching calls “FREE LOVE” in this month’s trendwatching report. According to Evers, the Free Love trend is defined as follows:
FREE LOVE: the ongoing rise of free, valuable stuff that’s available to consumers online and offline. From AirAsia tickets to Wikipedia, and from diapers to music.
FREE LOVE thrives on an all-out war for consumers’ ever-scarcer attention and the resulting new business models and marketing techniques, but also benefits from the ever-decreasing costs of producing physical goods, the post-scarcity dynamics of the online world (and the related avalanche of free content created by attention-hungry members of GENERATION C), the many C2C marketplaces enabling consumers to swap instead of spend, and an emerging recycling culture.
This report will fill you in on the astonishing amount of free goodies there are to be had, from wireless, national and international phone service, free airline tickets, free food & beverages, car rentals, photo prints, textbooks, travel guides, wifi, gps, stock photography, notes, photocopies, financial management, games, bikes, music, vacation homes… and much more.
According to trendwatching, the rise in free love is attributed to a number of factors and I agree with all of them. It even addresses how my own increased desire to get rid of our crap and clutter plays into the free love phenomena (swap – not spend…etc). My only critique of the briefing is that it doesn’t seem include the economy as an influencing factor in the expansion of the free love trend- and I am positive it will have a direct impact.
Whatever the case, the report is also FREE! Read it to get yourself some goodies. Read it for the ideas. Enjoy!

Drew McLellan points out that a number of corporations are banning the use of Facebook during work hours. One of those companies is Telstra – Australia’s leading telecommunications company. And a raft of other companies seem to be following suit.
Leaving aside the fact that some of these companies so afraid of Facebook are, themselves, online or technology-focused organisations, there seems to be another agenda at play.
And while employers may well be concerned that Facebook could chew up a significant portion of their employee’s days, it is clear (to me at least) that prohibiting access to them is not the answer.
You see, employees are as much a part of your brand as the products that you sell. Your employees largely determine the experience that consumers have with your brand and products/services and, importantly, they provide a humanising effect — they ARE the “customer face.” Just as there are expectations on employee behavior and approaches to engaging and working with customers, so too should there be policies about “acceptable use” for social networking sites.
But there is more.
In the never-ending pursuit of “value,” Facebook and employee networks are the closest thing that many organizations are likely to find to an “Expert Network.” Somewhere out there, probably only a couple of connections away, your employee will have access to someone of great influence. They may be a great thinker, designer or writer. They may be creative or analytical. And through the network of social connections, their good ideas can be activated within your organization — like innovation by proxy.
I am sure there are many of us who have tapped our personal networks for ideas, for pointers or for solutions. And sites like Facebook provide a neat way of segmenting and activating communities of interest through their group functions — and while not perfect, they work.
In this Age of Conversation, participation is the name of the game. The art of competitive advantage now lies not in control but in activation … and the best way to learn this is to open the doors and start to play.

Long history short, the arrival of equal rights of the ’70s gave rise to careers (and large shoulder pads) in the ’80s, and ladder-climbing in the ’90s. There are most certainly women who did this with children in tow, but mothering activities were most likely downplayed in the workplace. Moms stayed at home. Career girls put their job first.
Then in August of 1991, Demi Moore’s bare and very pregnant self was featured on the cover of Vanity Fair. Over the next 16 years, displaying one’s maternity — be it a round belly or just the hint of a “bump” — became a sure means of attracting the attention of the paparazzi and fans.
As the “Is she, or is she not?” speculation achieved front-page status, motherhood got a makeover. The image of “the hectic mom” cleaning up after her children gave way to “the hip mom,” a laid-back figure that not only knows what to wear and what to do, but brings along baby and blogs about the whole lot. From the Special Collection Bugaboo Denim 007 Series to Hotslings, mommy accessories are currently in vogue.
The final bit of proof that the undeniably universal experience of motherhood has been transformed into a bona fide fashion trend? It came from my younger brother, currently expecting his first. I believe the words were, “You better get on this baby thing before it is no longer cool.”

o Twitter is ephemeral.

Its immediacy and community are addicting, but Twitter has no permanance.
You can’t search it; you can’t categorize the posts. You can’t illustrate a point with a photo or artwork. You can’t post a video. It’s as fleeting as any conversation.

o Limiting your network leaves you preaching to the choir.

It’s extremely interesting and valuable to share information with your peers. But if you want to expand your business, you need a global reach.

Where blogging is headed:
Blogging is evolving and maturing. Bloggers who have a real passion for writing and who have developed an audience will keep the conversation going in this platform. But the format of blogs is changing, as well as the content of the ones that are starting now.
For me, and I think for a lot of other serious business bloggers, a blog is a storefront and, once it gains a big enough audience, a global micro-brand. You don’t just walk away from a successful blog that took blood, sweat and tears to build because a shiny new object came along.
o C-level executives are just getting comfortable with blogging – and are becoming more open about discussing issues that previously would have been vetted or banned by legal.

Take a look, for example at the new JNJ BTW, which promises a three-dimensional view of Johnson & Johnson. There’s a discussion of J&J’s lawsuit against the Red Cross – something you would never have seen even two years ago. “Everyone else is talking about our company, so why can’t we?” says the “About.”

o Businesses have finally become much more open to launching blogs built on substantive and strategic premises.

And hopefully most have learned that unless they are genuine and transparent in their approach, they will not have an audience.

o Blogs will become more communal.
You’ll see more multiple-author blogs like the Clutter Control Freak that I just launched for Stacks and Stacks. It is difficult, as any long-term, serious blogger can tell you, to keep a blog lively, interesting, and frequently updated with just one writer.
I see blogs becoming more like magazines than journals, and less likely to pretend to be objective. Because objectivity is not the point of blogging. This new medium is about opinions, and transparency. And it’s here to stay as long as people who feel passionately about broadcasting their opinions can maintain and grow an audience.
And, since we’re social creatures who like to talk to people who share our interests, as we can on Twitter and Facebook, micro-media and socnets are here to stay too.
See, we can all just get along. We just need to keep adding new features to keep things interesting.

Developing a brand experience is much like creating a mosaic. It requires that each customer touch point is first designed to be its own unique experience. Then each element must be carefully integrated into the design that is then pieced together to form one cohesive image. There you have it … a carefully developed world for your customers to enter into to take away the best of your brand.
Or that was how the brand experience use to work before the disruptive world of blogs and YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and social networks came into play. Our customers are tossing those carefully crafted mosaic pieces into the air and making their own brand experiences.
The now famous Coke Mentos fountain video was more than a fun science experiment. It was an explosion of how two brands’ images could be impacted by this new easy-to-use and easy-to pass-along technology.
We can share our creations not only with our closest friends but with friends we don’t even know. Our friends and friends we don;t know want to stop their busy lives to watch what their friends have developed. Why? Because they’re our friends. So consumer generated messaging get our attention sometimes faster and with more impact than the million dollar campaign.
“It’s not the car but the people I meet along the journey that I remember,” said Thomas. In that very same disruptive world of blogs and podcasts and videos and social networks brands have the same opportunities to expand our journey and introduce us to their people. It’s the people who are the heart of the brand ..not the logo or the jingle .. who make the brand experience the real thing.
Can you do that without including social spaces into your marketing mix? Of course you can. The customer service people, the sales people, the accounting department people… all impact the customer journey.
But in a world where your customers are playing fast and hard with your brand, why wouldn’t you want to join that game, too?

They need to be bold enough to stand at the department store make-up counter or peruse the night creams in the drugstore aisles – both very female environments.
So, what’s a guy to do?
Stay under the radar, by having his wife or girlfriend buy it for him? Or head online – to the sanctuary of anonymity?
Because most men likely do feel they have to hide this sort of purchase, this trend may be slow to build (whether men are buying/using such products will be hard to verify, if nothing else).
Lately I’ve been exploring how traditionally female-oriented industries (skincare/apparel, for example) tend to unnecessarily alienate a lot of male prospects by, well…being too “pink” in their approach. The interest from men is there, but the barriers and affronts to society’s expectations for masculinity are a lot to ignore.
Now, those expectations are slowly evolving (there’s a great comment in a discussion about this in RetailWire, that mentions something called “situational masculinity”), but the as yet default marketing to women approach (known here as “Pink Thinking”) isn’t helping. And, I’m guessing women themselves may be wondering how long brands will continue using this type of cutesy/pink approach.
Take the recently launched campaign for the Today Sponge, for instance. According to an article by Jane L. Levere in the New York Times, the packaging – and web site – has a more “modern look” using, not pink, but “wine” and “fuchsia” as its primary palette.
Hmmm. That doesn’t sound too modern to me. The campaign does have its positives, in terms of interacting with customers and gathering their stories, but in other ways it seems to have made some grand assumptions about women.
But, back to the risks a brand may take in losing prospective male customers while going overboard grasping for the womens’ vote.
These days women may be a lot more comfortable entering a man’s consumer realm than vice versa. Women have simply had to do it to get what they want for a lot of years. Now brands are truly scrambling to meet the needs of women, but are taking the easy way out – by pinkifying. This means they will be more likely to turn off any possible male customers that may come along.
Marketing transparently to women, thus serving perhaps higher standards for customer experience, shouldn’t alienate men – and so should give the brand two or more customers for the price of one. Pink Thinking, on the other hand may attract attention in the short term, but in the long run the approach will be too superficial to keep female customers loyal and it may very likely exclude men altogether. So, the negative far outweighs any potential positive.
Careful what you pink for.

Lowe: In many professions, there is almost a procurement mentality, where potential clients issue RFPs and firms respond. Will social networking change the way professional or business-to-business services are purchased?
Fisher: It doesn’t have to change unless businesses want to be more efficient about [purchasing their professional services]. If businesses don’t take advantage of [a social networking model], they are not going to be leveraging speed-to-market, flexibility and different strategic solutions. And that is about competitive advantage.
Next time: Fisher and Gilchrist make predictions about professional service firms and social networking

Mattel is about to launch its new combination Barbie/MP3 player and to take its Barbie Girls site out of beta. The starter set for the BarbieGirls site is sold for $59.99 That investment brings young children into a culture of materialistic greed …. before the values that might temper that greed have been formed.
When her feet are plugged into the iPodesque docking station that she comes with, MP3 Barbie unlocks a site filled with games, virtual shops and online chatting functions on the BarbieGirls.com Web site. Every mini-skirt and pair of shoes gives bought with mom and dad’s very real credit cards give you more privilege in online Barbie’s Second Life for the 6-12 set.

Interestingly, the new doll and its world will be promoted virally, mainly through the site, with minimal (for Mattel) traditional advertising. That is a sea change in itself.
Yet, with all the money and talent available to them, Mattel has not come up with anything that isn’t a direct copy of already existing sites like Webkinz, neopets and Club Penguin.
The better way
If you wanted to copy someone else’s program Mattel, here are some places you could have looked. Harper-Collins Children’s Books is soliciting teen writers through a collaborative writing program. The American Express Members Project will help fund world-changing ideas suggested and selected by members. Starbucks Expedition for Change is another project hoping to bring about positive social change.
Webkinz, to its credit, rewards kids who solve math problems, teaches kids how to make their own videos, and at least tries to instill values beyond “I have more expensive toys than you.”
Children’s Models?
But none of the online communities for children that I’ve been able to find suggest that children think of ways to help other children who are less fortunate, or that they improve their reading and math or problem-solving skills while having fun.
Will MP3 Barbie succeed? The New York Times says that about 3 million people have registered since April 27 on the BarbieGirls Web site, and “that’s without Mattel advertising the site, even on its Barbie.com home page.”
Related:
Int’l Herald Tribune: Barbie and other toy companies use physical goods to unlock online goodies
Blogging Stocks: An MP3 for Barbie – who needs it

“Socnets” offer a glimpse into the Internet’s future …. which will increasingly include mobile communication from devices like the iPhone with small screens. That’s what makes them so exciting.
The “Real Work” is changing
Social networks can look like distractions from the “real” work of business. Business is built on relationships and strengthening relationships is much of the “real work.”
Sometimes socnets are just a distraction, but more often, they help increase the strength of business and social connections relationships. And I’m surely more likely to respond to an email or call from someone I’m in regular contact with than someone I don’t “know.”
I’ve been spending time building my Facebook network, and I’ve made Twitter a daily habbit (ok, I’m addicted) because:
o it makes me and the really smart people I hang out with on Twitter distill ideas into their essence because each tweet can only be 140 characters
o The potential to make money from them is vast. I have already had several client inquiries and been granted direct access to several of my heroes whom I might not have met otherwise
o Twitter is, so far, free from spam and PR pitches. Or at least if there are pitches they have to be only 140 characters. And if someone is annoying, you can easily block them.
o There are already several examples of intelligent marketing use of socnets.
o My socnet guru, Steven Streight, aka Vaspers the Grate, is the bard of Twitter. I love reading the ideas, questions and links he and other active Tweeties post.
o Twitter’s fun
Socnets are changing blogging, and much more
Already this form of micro-blogging has led me to use my blog for longer, more thoughtful posts (well, not always) and put the short takes and links in Twitter, or Facebook, or 8apps.
This type of change by several well-known bloggers has caused some speculation that blogging is dying. That could not be farther from the truth. Blogging is evolving, and only those who are truly dedicated to writing and sharing information are still, well, dedicated.
Some will say that expressing thoughts in 140 characters contributes to the dumbing down of our society. And they’re probably right. But honey, fighting that one is a losing battle, so you might as well join in.
Shiny Object Syndrome
The A-list blog crowd is flitting around in what some call Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS) like moths to a flame. Nobody, repeat nobody, has time for active participation in six or eight social networks. As an Internet marketing strategist, I join and test socnets because I want to see if my clients should participate in or sponsor them. Until you join and look at the features and give it a test run, you can’t tell which is a keeper.
Soflow, one of the early social networking sites, just announced today that it is closing. Adrants, which had a forum on Soflow for years, recently replaced that with a Ning-based ad industry forum, which seems more feature rich. So the socnet shake-out has begun. And funny thing: podcasting and Second Life seem to be so last quarter.
Many people are heavily invested in creating their LinkedIn networks, and aren’t about to leave those contacts behind in any hurry. Facebook is the “in” socnet of the moment among the digerati, who will most likely abandon it a few weeks from now. It’ll be a long time before the monster business networking app makes itself known.
Remember the web portals, bulletin boards and chat rooms of the 90s? They were all the next big thing once.
We’ve come a long way baby. And we’ve got a looooong way to go.

I just spent the weekend unwired, and it was great. It’s something I rarely ever do, if only because the email pile-up is too awful to contemplate on a regular basis. And most people I know are rarely, if ever, totally out of the online loop. While I was off-line, friends actually called when “want to see a movie?” or “what are you doing tomorrow?” emails went unanswered. By Sunday I felt really relaxed, and my always sore hands were happier.
That gnawing disease…
Even while determinedly avoiding the computer, I had the gnawing feeling – an addict’s craving, truth be told – that I was missing something important by not checking the comments on my blog, and the goings on of my Twitter buds and my favorite blogs. I held my ground, until last night, and I plan to stay unwired more often this summer.
Frankly, while I think the work I do is important for my clients, the world won’t end and IT systems won’t fall if I don’t respond to an email for a couple of hours, so I don’t have a Blackberry and don’t want one. But an awful lot of other people apparently see their work as holding the globe together.
One caveat about disconnecting: it’s a joke among bloggers that if you want to start a problem for a corporation you write the post on the weekend because nobody corporate will see it until Monday. Several big companies have been caught in blog storms that started on a weekend and that could have been diffused is someone was watching the store. So somebody has to be handling reputation management on weekends, but people can take turns doing that. If there’s a problem, a simple phone call can summon the troops.
Constant connection is often an addiction
Nonetheless, it’s common to see people answering email via Blackberry in meetings, at meals, and during events: something that strikes me as incredibly rude, but which seems almost universally accepted. For the most part, rather an a necessity, staying constantly connected is a habit that becomes an obsession, and then an addiction.
One 30-something friend told me “I have to be online 24/7 because my clients are.” I responded: start by saying, “I’m not available until after noon on Sunday,” and go from there, until you’ve re-claimed your weekends. She finally decided that was possible, and reports that she is not only less stressed, but ultimately also more productive because she now has some time to think.
How about you: how often are you unwired?

Instead, as reported by Packaged Facts, the publishing division of MarketResearch.com, half of all U.S. households are headed by unmarried adults, 43% of all singles are 45 and older, and nearly two-thirds of single women are 35 or older. These more “mature” single women view their lifestyle as a choice and not a sign of failure, and prefer to see themselves portrayed (in ad campaigns, for example) with friends or family, doing anything but pining away at home alone or in some sad, dark bar.
A few key points from the Packaged Facts report that jumped out at me (being both a marketing type and a 40+ year old single woman):
* After married couples (who make up 61% of home buyers), single women are the next largest group (22%), accounting for nearly a quarter of all homes sold in the United States in 2006. By comparison, single men buy only 9% of homes.
* Especially in cities, single women look for safe, well-established neighborhoods while single men want plenty of space “for their toys” (according to Rosy Wansor, a ReMax agent interviewed for the report).
* Women, both single and married are more likely to do yoga (9% each of single and married women, versus 5% of single and 3% of married men). Men (single and married) are more likely to participate in weight training.
* Single women are more likely than married women to favor sports with a social component (inline skating, martial arts, volleyball) and are also more drawn to outdoor/extreme sports such as rock climbing, snowboarding, and surfing, etc.
One more of the many insights in the report: Most marketing to childless singles focuses on 18 – 24 year olds, but the vast majority of childless singles who live alone are older than 35.
Hmmm. Who knew? I sure did. If you need a reality check on today’s single woman and how to reach her, read this report and/or just get in touch with me.
P.S. There is a great quick-look at the report’s contents in a MediaPost article, as well.

While that might seem impressive, data far more important than that emerged as a result of the company’s study. Apparently, it was divulged that “all marketers–not just those who transact business on the Internet–need to have an online presence regardless of how much (or how little) product they sell in cyberspace.”
Thirty countries were included in the survey, which concluded that 50% or more of the people in those countries regularly used the Internet. In the U.S., almost 65% of the population is online.
Bottom line: consumers want and expect brands to have an online presence, whether or not they choose to buy items that are seldom purchased on the Internet. The study cites that “the channel (referring to the Internet) has become a key part of the purchase funnel and therefore a process to be managed.”
Not only that: consumers cited that they wanted and expected the Internet marketing of companies to offer them engaging experiences. GroupM: “that experience lies at the heart of consumer engagement.”
GroupM referred to customer experience as one of four pillars: the others being reach, reputation and transaction. The Internet affords consumers with easy access to information, and interaction with companies, whether they purchase from a web site or not. Internet use continues to grow in popularity, thus, the study concluded marketers ignore having a cyber presence at their own peril.
Interestingly, the study did not bring up any points about effective marketing on the Internet, and we all know that some marketers have used the Web effectively, while others have had less than stellar results with it.
I guess I would add this: having a cyber presence is important today. Very important. Yet, how engaging the sites are to the customer is just as important, as the article briefly alluded to. Throwing a site together just to promote products and services without giving any thought as to how to engage the consumer is not a good idea.
If the intent is to develop strong relationships with the customer, and I believe it should be, then a conversational, congenial environment must be created. Hard-sell tactics shouldn’t be the primary objective; building long-term relationships with targeted customers, ought to be. Engaging the customers in conversation, and being responsive to them when they do make contact, is vitally important. This is what brings the brand alive to the consumer. Without that, a web site is not interactive as it was meant to be at all; it’s a dead or inert object.

“We are a controlling company,” said marketing boss George Harrison. “This was a big deal for us.”
David Reich’s first post here last week talked about how marketers are increasingly reaching out to bloggers to include them in their marketing efforts by mentioning a recent WSJ article (thanks for the link, Paul). I even blogged about my participation in the Nikon D80 “Picture This” campaign, which I have admitted is one of the best-run blogger-ambassador type programs yet.
But all these attempts by marketers to incorporate social media into their marketing plans are still missing the mark.
What makes social media tools so popular, is that they give everyday people the ability to publish content, and communicate with others. But many marketers aren’t tapping the enormous potential of social media.
Instead of reaching out to customers and bringing these voices into their company’s marketing efforts, many marketers are wanting to use bloggers as simply another promotional tool. Instead of viewing bloggers as customers that can afford them invaluable input into how to effectively reach their target markets, marketers are increasingly seeing social media as just another sales channel.
And I think it’s about time we started calling them on it.
To view blogs and other forms of social media as a one-way selling tool is to show that the past few decades have taught us nothing about the importance of understanding our customers. Today, marketers have more tools in place than ever before to give them insight into what their customers are thinking. Blogs, Twitter, MySpace, all these forms of social media are channels that marketers can use to communicate with, and better understand their customers. As a result, their marketing will be more efficient, because they will better understand their customers’ wants and needs.
But instead, many marketers view these incredible tools not as a way to better understand their customers, but as tools to sell them more stuff.
The more technology changes, the more marketing seems to stay the same… .

If we’re to successfully implement these tools, we must first acknowledge that the tactics marketing should never take the place of marketing itself. Marketing is not about merely the effort to match the right people with the right product or service, but it is also about doing it in the right way. Your message, in fact, is strongest when it occurs at the intersection of ethics and the strongest passion you share with your audience, which, assuming a sustainable business model, naturally results in sales of whatever you are peddling.

The article says studios and networks, “fed up with the jaded attitudes of professional critics and TV feature writers, are flooding bloggers with free stuff in hopes the flattered recipients will reward them with positive coverage.”

This used to be commonplace for mainstream journalists until most major media began putting restrictions on their reporters accepting gifts, including travel. Many now don’t allow them to accept anything valued at more than $25. The New York Times, I know, won’t even let its reporters accept a cup of coffee (although if you throw in a bagel and lox, the bill can come close to $25).
So it looks like the networks are going for the low-hanging fruit — bloggers.
While many of us, certainly in the marketing community, are adamant about not being “bought,” we’re starting to try things like free books for review or even digital cameras for long-term loan. There’s been a lot of online discussion on the subject — some of it quite heated.
Most bloggers are not journalists, nor do we work for or represent a news organization. Our blogs are simply our own ideas and opinions on a wide range of subjects. We have no editors and no mandate to be objective.
The marketing blogger community, however, seems to be especially concerned with integrity, which is a good thing. I would guess integrity is not as important to some bloggers who write about entertainment and celebrities, although I am not casting any aspersions. That’s just my casual impression.
The Wall Street Journal article talks about one blogger who took a junket to see a taping of the Julia Louis-Dreyfus sitcom “Old Christine” on CBS. Returning home with stars in her eyes, she sent her write-up to the network publicist, saying, “If there’s anything you’d like me to add, just tell me and I will.”
Now how many mainstream journalists will let a publicist edit their stories?
You can’t blame the nets for targeting bloggers. If their efforts to woo and wow get them some good exposure in the blogosphere, good for them. It’s up to readers to decide if what they’re reading has been tainted by freebies.
As has been discussed in the marketing blogging community, transparency and honesty is of utmost importance. If we state upfront that the subject of a post has done something for us or given us something, I feel we are being fair by advising the reader. He or she can take that into consideration as they read our post.
I was recently pitched by a publisher’s publicist, asking if I’d like a copy of a new marketing book. I said she could send it, but I could not guarantee I’d write about it or, if so, what I’d say. She accepted those terms and sent me the book. I’ve been reading it and enjoying it. I probably will write about it, but I’ll begin that post by saying I was sent a free review copy. My readers should have that knowledge.
As blogs become even more widely read, bloggers will be targeted by more and more publicists hoping for access into their space. Just as the public relations profession needs to maintain professionalism in how it approaches bloggers, the blogging community will have to do its part to maintain honesty and integrity.
I’m sure some bloggers will succumb to the lure of free stuff and favors. It’s human nature. But those who do it consistently and allow those freebies to color the integrity of their writing will be discovered. Many, although not all, will eventually lose their credibility, if not their audience. And the better P.R. people will then move on to find others who have audience and credibility, leaving those “hacks” for the publicists peddling plastic surgeons, breast-enhancing creams and the like.
Hopefully, none of us will allow ourselves to descend to that level.
Or will we?

The blog got off to a rocky start since it shared a URL with a porn site, and it initially refused to talk about the elephant in the room – Dell Hell.
Has Dell’s reputation for abysmal customer service permanently soiled the brand? It remains to be seen.
It is certain, however, that since last year Dell has improved its blog and done some very progressive things with Studio Dell and the innovative Dell IdeaStorm community, which claims that it’s received 5072 ideas from visitors. They definitely are trying.
So how come there is no link to any of these sites from Dell’s home page? You have to click three times from the Dell homepage to get to a page that explains the various community efforts the company is making. The blog is hiding in plain site.
Dell is not alone in hiding its blog.
There’s still no link from HP’s homepage to Eric Kintz’ popular blog. You still can’t get to Bob Lutz’s blog from the GM home page. And, incredibly, despite the fact that scores of IBM employees blog, you would never know that from the company’s home page.
Some companies link to their blogs through their “About Us” page, but who’d look there for a link to a blog?
I think a lot of companies are still not sure they trust this “new” medium not to inflict a stock-crashing blog storm on them. So their toes are in the water, but they’re still behaving like those old folks at the beach who don’t want to get their suits wet.
Hey c’mon dive in. The water’s fine. Mostly.

At the end of the day, the smart business relies on cost analysis and results effectiveness of everything it does. This just in from “The Pew Internet & American Life Project” of people’s “evolving relationships to cyberspace.” Pew found that 73 percent of U.S. adults own a cell phone, 68 percent have a desktop computer, 30 percent possess a laptop, and 73 percent connect to the Internet.
Only 8 percent of U.S. adults are “deep users” of Web 2.0 features, using them to express themselves publicly. (Web 2.0 users are defined as people who take advantage of technology “to express themselves online and participate in the commons of cyberspace,” including maintaining a personal Web site, blogging, vlogging, remixing media or sharing new-media creations.)
This is the time for me to ask: Is there anyone reading this? Joking aside, that makes for a pretty small audience. Here is a summary of the data revealed by the survey:
- 8% of Americans are deep users of the participatory Web and mobile applications
- Another 23% are heavy, pragmatic tech adopters …. they use gadgets to keep up with social networks or be productive at work
- 10% rely on mobile devices for voice, texting, or entertainment
- 10% use information gadgets, but find it a hassle
- 49% of Americans only occasionally use modern gadgetry and many others bristle at electronic connectivity
What does this tell us marketers, consultants and business people, if anything? Is web 2.0 a marketing and sales tool worth adding to the mix? Do we make too much of Web 2.0 tools?