Author Archives: winterSmith

The problem with measurement

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In yesterday’s MediaPost Marketing Daily, Douglas Brooks touched on a subject I’ve been yarping about for some time – measurement. He offers some prudent advice, but sidesteps the issue that’s been bothering me: to wit, our rage to quantification is driven by fear, not expertise, and it often leads us to ignore a whole suite of important decision-making tools.

I would never suggest that ROI doesn’t matter – quite the opposite – and I also wouldn’t argue that quantitative methods can’t provide us with useful data – of course they can. The problem is that American culture has this odd relationship with knowledge and evidence – in any kind of professional enterprise, statistics and numerical metrics are increasingly being taken as the only kind of evidence. If we want to say something about our customer base, we feel an obligation to quantify whatever we’re trying to say. Continue reading →

Addressing the “praise deficit”: young workers putting a strain on organizations and organizations are responding inappropriately

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One of the things Black Dog specializes in is how generational dynamics affect organizational behavior and effectiveness. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, companies across the US are flying headlong toward a massive macro-succession pile-up, and the collective personality of the Millennial Generation (born from ~1980-2000) is going to play a major part in mid-management breakdowns in the next few years.

If you’d like a glimpse of the stress the Millennials are already exerting on organizations, you’ll want to read a new analysis from the Wall Street Journal‘s CareerJournal.com site. In it, Jeffrey Zaslow chronicles how businesses are addressing the Mills’ excessive need for praise: Continue reading →

Progressive capitalism: Tocqueville, RJ Reynolds, and taking back our American birthright

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This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles. We’re stealing it back. – Bono

Business ethics have been much on my mind of late. Gavin (Whythawk) has pounded Scholars & Rogues (a politics and culture blog I contribute to) with a steady stream of posts that come from some really different angles. The S&R crew is largely American and progressive, but he’s African and Libertarian. Unlike many Libs I know, though, he’s not a creature of pure theory – he gets his hands dirty trying to drive investment at the bottom of the food chain in a place where the bottom is about as low as it gets on Spaceship Earth.

The result, for me at least, is that I find myself thinking about how years of fat cat scandal and abuse here in America has worked to make “capitalism” a dirty word among folks to left of center. Continue reading →

Sprite Yard is the right idea

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And this morning, a glimpse of the future:

Sprite Launches Mobile Social Network
by Tameka Kee, Thursday, Jun 7, 2007 6:00 AM ET
MOVE OVER, MYSPACE AND FACEBOOK. Coca-Cola’s Sprite is debuting its own social network, called the Sprite Yard.The brand’s global interactive marketing team is betting that the mobile platform will set new benchmarks for consumer brand engagement.

Launched officially in China on June 1, with plans for a U.S. rollout to start June 22, users connect with the Sprite Yard through any WAP-enabled phone. After texting the word “YARD” to 59666 (LYMON), they are invited to register–and to create a tag name, a profile, and even an avatar. Members of the community can then share pictures, send “Shouts” to their friends, post “Scribbles” to a discussion board, and plan events on a shared calendar.

At the Sprite Yard, users will also have access to “Nuggets” of exclusive downloadable content, from mobisodes (short animated and video content created by Coca-Cola and other media partners) to ringtones. The branding tie-in is designed to drive sales as well as engagement, as content can only be unlocked by using a PIN found under Sprite bottle caps. (Story.)

I’m in no position to predict how well executed this project will be, but the concept is dead-on and I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes the model for consumer brand mobility over the next couple of years. Continue reading →

Free white paper: what is interactivity?

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Today’s Online Spin column by Joe Marchese addresses a topic that’s been front and center around here lately. To wit, what exactly is “social media”? It’s a term that’s being tossed around pretty enthusiastically these days, but as is so often the case with particularly fresh and buzzy marketing jargon, not everybody is 100% sure what it means. Hey, I didn’t quite know what people meant when I first heard it, either, so don’t feel bad if you’re a little fuzzy on the details.

However, it occurred to me that this terrain is actually more familiar than we might realize. Way back in the Dark Ages (1993) the catchphrase was “interactivity.” Everybody used it, but it became quickly apparent that no two people were using it in quite the same way. Continue reading →

Reality TV hoax raises interesting marketing question

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Whatever you think about reality TV, this would pretty much have cemented your opinion. If you, like me, appreicate how some reality shows illuminate our genuine moral trashiness, then by god, this would be the best you could hope for until FOX debuts Christians v Lions 2007: Payback Time for Kitty. If you’re appalled by that same trashiness, then this would have made you hack up your own skull.

TV show to offer kidneys as prize
Wednesday May 30 05:00 AESTThose disappointed that reality show Survivor didn’t quite live up to its dramatic title are in luck — contestants on a bizarre new Dutch program will actually be fighting to stay alive.

In The Big Donor Show, which is set to air this Friday, a terminally ill cancer patient will select one of three patients to receive her kidneys.

Viewers will watch testimonials from the three Dutch contestants, aged between 18 and 40, and send in text message advice to the donor to help her decide who should receive the lifesaving operation. (Story.)

Of course, by now you’re probably catching a whiff of Eau de Hoax, huh? Continue reading →

Doubleclick report missing the mobility picture?

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I was reviewing the Doubleclick Touchpoints IV report earlier today, and while I still need to dive a little deeper, there are a couple things I wanted to comment on.

1. The study’s top finding – “consumers acknowledge that online video shows great potential for advertising” – points to the exploding importance of social media. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but maybe it does. Sometimes I slip into assuming that everybody tracks “the next” like I do, but the truth is that the pace of advance these days is so rapid that it’s hard to keep up even if keeping up is your main job.

2. The study suggests one potentially dramatic finding that the authors either ignored or failed to recognize. I’m going to ask you to study a couple charts from the report and see if you notice something: Continue reading →

New Saturn campaign: a victim of old thinking?

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Saturn is set to launch an interesting new promotion this Summer.

Saturn to Park Competition On Dealership Lots
by Karl Greenberg
Friday, Jun 1, 2007 5:01 AM ET

SATURN MAY BE ROLLING OUT a fresh line-up of vehicles this year, but consumers visiting Saturn dealers this summer will be surprised by the pair of cars parked next to Saturn’s Aura sedan: Toyota’s Camry and Honda’s Accord.

The effort, a retail version of the overtly competitive “Ford Challenge” campaign by its cross-town rival, lets consumers shopping Saturn’s Aura test-drive the Camry and Accord, as well, when they visit Saturn. Continue reading →

US companies underperforming on reputation index?

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There’s a lot to be suspicious about anytime you come across a survey-based measure of reputation, especially when you’re working across all kind of international borders and trying to normalize for dramatically different sets of local and regional assumptions about how businesses ought to work. But even given this, the results from a new Reputation Institute study of corporate reputations raise some questions.

Mainly, how come American companies didn’t do better? Continue reading →