portrait:landscape
A consideration of new media and social utilities' impact on corporate communicationsWhatever happened to Richard E. Grant and Julia Swalha?
It seems this week that one particular brand has flouted New Media. In a move that might be complacent, even, one of the biggest UK retail brands suggested a rather old-fashioned browse-and-buy system continues to outweigh any sort of ecommerce.
In a story relayed by Alex Brownsell of Marketing Magazine, Argos has commissioned a revamp of their logo by The Brand Union to ‘modernise’ perceptions of their brand. Arguably, pouring money into the aesthetics overlooks the biggest anachronism of the entire Argos experience.
In a world of search-friendly Web 2.0, why does an organisation, conscious of being out-of-date, insist on producing bi-annual editions of paper catalogues? This relentless printing is environmentally irresponsible, especially in light of figures that confirm ‘less than 2 percent [of catalogues] prompt a sale.’
Admittedly, some high street concerns have their motives for encouraging a more traditional retail experience. Back in 2006, for example, electrical chain Dixons felt the need to retreat entirely, trading exclusively online. Also, electrical retailers ‘Powerhouse’ admitted defeat and closed all UK stores the same year as a result of ‘rising competition from e-tailers.’ The internet poses a massive threat.
However, the Public Relations Society of America reported in October last year that ‘62 percent [of retailers who rely on direct sales] say paper catalogs remain their biggest revenue generator.’ If this is true, Argos could be shrewd to maintain its’ wares in print.
Although, it seems only to be history repeating itself. According to a brief history of the Internet featured in The Guardian, The Advanced Research Projects Agency’s two-computer network, or ARPANET, was the founding technology destined to become today’s internet. This achievement, however, fell into the shadow of the visually spectacular ‘moon landings’ which ‘were the subject of enormous attention at the time’ although ‘not a great deal developed from them.’ Maybe Argos has its’ fingers crossed that the spectacle of a new identity will distract customers from its’ foot in the past.
Unchartered territory
Last week the Crème Egg came back en force. Utilising New Media in every which way, the 2010 reappearance was not only inescapable but, with online gaming and a Facebook fan page, it had a much greater Web 2.0 draw.
Handling several online incarnations of the brand, like this, is here to stay according to Hill & Knowlton’s Tech Decision-makers Study last year. Results confirmed certain Retail Marketers found ‘online social media…as important as traditional media.’ However, it was refreshing to see on industry sites this week that the PR professional is not the only one to pit their skill set against these new, emerging channels.
The pressure to understand and even create new digital interfaces now lies with the Journalist, according to American blogsite Gawker. ‘As if the journalism job landscape wasn’t terrifying enough, now you’ve got to think about learning to code.’ Prompted by the bankruptcy of several US newspapers, ‘Network Journalism’ (coined by academics Bardoel and Deuze) i.e. to devise and maintain Web 2.0 news forums is more economically viable than the traditional press. Also, ‘shovelware’/simply uploading content to a website is no longer sufficient. If the readership or the content requires a new platform, it’s down to the Journalist to create it.
As Clay Shirky points out, though, the rise of Programmers will not negate the difference between ‘people who write code’ and ‘people who are paid to write code.’ The journalist’s trepidation to broach unfamiliar territory could partially be down to the news industry’s incessant eye rolling at those amateurs that ‘dabble’ in Citizen Journalism.
Mercedes Bunz of The Guardian is right to point out that the sooner journalists engage with emerging technology the better; ‘journalists of the future will have more forms of expression than ever before.’ Plus, almost as an incentive, Gawker lists writers such as New York Times’ Nick Bilton who’ve embraced coding, or the ‘nerdy trend’, to their benefit. Gawker’s quite right to infer that coding will ensure the news spans further; the same dream as the early ‘pamphleteer, typesetter, postmaster and newspaper publisher.’
OK, the professionals haven’t always welcomed the reports of the Citizen Journalist but the qualified journalist can maintain their advantage, according to Bunz, as long as he/she continues to ‘value the ethics of journalism.’
How do you eat yours?
So, Christmas is behind us but we’ll only have to wait until August before it rears its head. It’s Easter’s turn to waylay us in advance and the main culprit is irrefutably Cadbury’s.
Continuing the impetus from Publicis’ 2008 campaign (i.e. catch them whilst you can), 2010 sees the relaunch of www.cremeegg.co.uk to mark the four-month availability Cadbury’s Crème Eggs according to Brand Republic blogger Matt Williams. Featuring online games and youtube videos, the website also cleverly integrates the brand’s strong social media presence. Included is the twitter feed, listing fans’ tweets, and a simplified facebook wall showcasing a two-way communication stream between the brand and consumers.
From earlier posts, it’s already been considered that ‘one-size-fits-all’ glossy advertisements are being rendered obsolete. Blogger Mark Bower echoes this, fearing marketers will retreat ‘trembling in fear into [their] shell’ by sticking to print methods during the credit crunch.
What Groundswell have noticed, though, is that the difference between this recession and the last is that Web 2.0 marketing techniques have been about far longer. ‘Digital marketing is no longer experimental.’ An average of 12% of every marketing professional’s budget was spent on social media and web advertising.
But the use of social media to strike up what the Cluetrain Manifesto team term the ‘conversation’ also cultivates what Decker and Ze Frank call the ‘Participation Chain’ – engaging customers through communication. Something as simple as incorporating ‘How are you feeling this evening?’ into a marketing call and extending it slightly almost doubled the number of consents to have salespeople conduct a home-visits.
Although social media is not direct marketing in this sense, the sentiment of their paper is engaging a consumer for longer, through online games, videos etc., increases ‘their connection to that brand or platform.’
The use of Twitter and Facebook on this site not only encourages engagement but provides a Web 2.0 incarnation of word-of-mouth marketing – heralded for its results. These streams ‘can be used to market to, and draw in participation from, other visitors to the Web site.’
This all shows Web 2.0’s effectiveness at generating Participation Chains. Back in the day, we only had five simple words: ‘How do you eat yours?’
The Tempest 2.0
Last weeks blog, based on child-focused marketing, was a bit bleak especially for Christmas.
To balance out, there’s a feature in Design Week which showed this same age group wielding the power. In designing a touch-screen educational program for the Tate, Magnetic North creative director Brendan Dawes went to great pains to pander to a scrupulous audience with ‘attention spans of nil.’
Based on critical thinking, his frustration could be borne from differences in between generations rather than their age. Children of the latest generation might not have the same patience as adults but, from growing up with technology, are far more capable with technology than we were at their age. (I say ‘we’ because I can’t be the only one poor with a Wii, right?)
Theorist Durisin claims 98% of ‘Generation Yers’ (adolescents that have had developed with constant access to New Media) are positive that computers have positively impacted their lives. Generation X / those that matured before the internet became popular are far more reluctant to agree.
Echoed by Futurist Marc Prensky, members of Generation Y are ‘the digital native’ and those of Generation X ‘the digital immigrant.’ The latter might learn to ‘adapt’ to technology but always keep the mother tongue or ‘their “accent” […] their foot in the past.’
Prensky goes on to address the dangerous void between the two. The Native’s random-access learning style, acquired through digital interaction, alienates the Immigrant’s bookish teaching style (‘slowly, step-by-step, one thing at a time, individually, and above all, seriously.’) However, Durisin is more optimistic.
The Native’s confidence has bred complacency. Durisin’s test group failed to source breaking news online by relying on logarithms of search engines established weeks before. Also, Generation Y was less able to evaluate ‘spurious’ web content, searching for information and ‘simply applying criteria uncritically.’
Generation X and their experience with a wider variety of media may be more inclined to check other sources and, therefore, safeguard Generation Y from the unhealthy stakeholder relationships discussed last week.
However, let’s acknowledge our true responsibility as members of Gen X: to practice Guitar Hero religiously and show the kids how it’s done.
Vid from Lapland
Does anyone else remember posting a letter to Santa in a battered cardboard post box at the supermarket? Even if you didn’t get a reply, it was a buzz.
Well, for the first time, it was him that contacted me. I was emailed a video last week where the man himself reprimanded me for gossiping and spending too much time on Twitter. Either I changed my ways or remained on the Naughty List.
When I was 8, I wouldn’t have dreamed micro-blogging could land me in hot water. Also, I would never have expected an email direct from Santa’s workshop. Probably because neither existed.
Mashable blogger Amy-Mae Elliot lists other Web 2.0 solutions to reaching Kris Kringle this year; why not ask Virtual Santa a question or checking out his grotto on a Finnish web feed?
Some of these methods are better suited to those not yet at, what theorist Denise Bortree calls, the ‘Concrete Operational stage.’ Children under 7 years tend to be less biased, susceptible to persuasion and, therefore, less likely to ‘dissect’ poor Santa.
This group also struggles to interpret non-verbal communication’s full meaning; they can’t scrutinise Web 2.0 Santa like the older kids.
Or even Web 2.0 altogether.
It is only those at the Concrete Operational or ‘Fully Operation stage’ (12 years and over) that think abstractly. In the context of Bortree’s thesis, they begin to appreciate what an organisation is and their relationship to it.
Immature, pre-Operational children and the opportunism of online content has been a long-standing cause for concern. Bortree attributes ‘the epidemic of childhood obesity’ as the partial responsibility of internet advertising.
Behavioural scientists French and Story agree; preschool websites prove internet use begins at the same time ‘pester power’ is first exercised by a child: children first specify request a branded product at only 24 months. Forums and brand-own sites designed for toddlers often feature games, puzzles, videos, wallpapers etc. advertising food products, according to the scientists.
The Guardian’s Mark Sweeney noticed a concerning 11% rise in online junk-food marketing in 2008 despite an impressive 46% decrease in TV ads.
Although he suggests the trend will not become fully established under a vigilant government, let’s hope the internet remains just a portal for Father Christmas in the meantime.
Cuppa and a heavy duty stapler
So, today I needed some binding done. Unfortunately my Assistant was on holiday, having flown out on Purefiction airlines to the small province of Idontexist. It was down to me to head to our usual binders.
On arriving, I was turned away having been advised the company was ‘far too busy to handle small jobs.’ It was ‘not what they did’ and ‘not what they wanted to do.’ Back in the warm, with a cuppa and heavy duty stapler, Google showed their business listing in between poor reviews from several credible sources.
Search Engine Results Pages or ‘SERPs’ have ‘changed little during the past 10 years’ according to MediaWeek digital editor Rich Sutcliffe. Since the millennium, we’ve been presented with a very similar format although a wider variety of media (i.e. videos) has become incorporated. Although, it’s likely that maintaining the SERP’s style has given rise to those determined to manipulate it.
Search Engine Optimisation, according to Phillips and Young, ‘is the method by which websites can gain enhanced positions in the organic listings’ of major search engines. By finding the balance between popular search words and phrases specific to a niche, designers can embed words into site’s HTML, content and title to manipulate their search ranking.
To say search engines are used by 93% of web users everyday and a majority of B2B sites are located by engines like Google, this binder’s reputation and CSR is in jeopardy. Their site might look good but the web user might be completely put off by negative previews collated on the same search.
Maybe the organisation in question can take some comfort from the recent scrutiny Google, the world’s preferred engine, is coming under from bloggers such as Julian:
“In some ways Google has set up its giant monopoly in a way that if it ever veers from its “Don’t be Evil” way of thinking, it will lose its monopoly status”
To have a truly unaffected and organic search – as sought by Google – the relationship between the engine and SEO specialists is contradictory. A pure engine, unaffected by marketing opportunities like adwords, would a) affect income and b) reputation – results would be riddled with SPAM.
Like the binders, maximizing profits and maintaining an indignant attitude towards the unworthy might be shrewd but detrimental to a transparent business.
Virtual Guinea-pig
Today I decided to sign up to LinkedIn. A couple of years ago, I might’ve been a little more reluctant to join a professional social utility. Where are all the photos from last Friday? Is Friend A definitely still in a relationship with LoveRat B? Can I not even ‘poke’ anyone?!
Linked In, according to a comparative article against Facebook written by Papacharissi, is a ‘business-oriented social networking site.’ Its focus is on generating a ‘network of contacts to maintain communications, trade information and refer each other.’
The potential of such a utility has been nationally acknowledged according to journalist Whitehead. Membership in the UK alone has hit around 3m as victims of the unemployment crisis invest their hope in Linkedin. Software company Micro Focus has the same trust in the network, creating a group as part of a government supported manifesto to create 250,000 jobs in technology this week.
New Media theorists like Castells might find this ironic: phasing out the manual worker in favour of technology is ‘a centuries old fear’ which has been realised time and time again. Can innovation in this same field really offer a solution? Blogger O’ Carroll makes the prospect look bleak: LinkedIn itself is allegedly cutting 36 jobs in the UK office.
Papacharissi does conclude, however, that LinkedIn lends itself far more for those with professional goals than purely social ones. The pages and profiles are ‘more static’ and without the tools to entice ‘fláneuring.’
Facebook encourages users to snoop through user profiles, whilst expressing a more ‘flamboyant’ self with the use of ‘props’/applications such as food-fight or super-poke. I would never consider throwing a virtual guinea-pig at a potential employer and, with LinkedIn, that danger doesn’t arise.
However, as the Groundswell team warn, ‘social technologies are social’; distinguishing between being an individual and representing a company requires some practice, just ask anyone in PR or Communications.
The Perfect Host
I’m aware that I harp on about company Facebook/Twitter presences a lot. It’s just too tempting this week but I promise to change the record for next time.
Justin Hunt wrote about the ongoing divorce between traditional brand advertising and social media this week. ‘Glossy brand messages – one size fits all- do not work well in a social media context.’ He discusses the need to tailor communications to different ‘niches’ rather than the masses. Logical, really, as he refers to Facebook: one of the most personal and easy to personalise utilities out there.
However, fellow blogger Jennifer Whitehead reported recently on a communications initiative to be applied to all Starbucks Facebook fans across 16 countries. The chain intend to bring users from across the globe together tomorrow for a web-cam singalong of The Beatles ‘All You Need Is Love’, raising awareness of its AIDS charity. I’ll admit there’s a worthy cause involved but isn’t this just a ‘one-size fits all’ CSR strategy masquerading as karaoke? Wouldn’t participation just draw a fan’s attention to being simply, as Richard Bailey considers, ‘part of the tribe’?
Yes, but there’s the opportunity to be something more important than a dedicated stakeholder or even philanthropist. That’s why this will be a success.
We have to remember that, as Gillmor considers, we are no longer the audience we once were. We can ‘transcend’ the traditional one-way communications to become part of ‘a larger [two-way] conversation.’ With Web 2.0, we have the chance to become the media rather than be subject to it. It’s not just the elite that are published these days and, in the same vane, singing to the world shouldn’t belong solely to U2 either.
Blogger Fisher has coined the phrase ‘Cyberdisinhibition’ – we’re 20% more likely to lash out or express ourselves in a particular way online than face-to-face. If this is the case, isn’t Starbucks doing something to further facilitate our voice (like Gillmor suggests) and our online persona (as put forward by Fisher)?
I still agree with Hunt when he talks about general brand advertising in Facebook etc. ‘If you were at a party’ he writes ‘you wouldn’t want to be interupted by someone shouting about a product which you did not care about, would you?’ We do not want social networking interrupted by irrelevant messages fighting for our attention. But, if we’re lured into a company forum, their message would be ever present and tolerated at the very least. Starbucks has cleverly repositioned itself here out of being the unwelcome guest at the party to become the perfect host.
Peter and Paul
I work with creative and digital agencies and it would’ve taken a foreign holiday to ignore the impending doom around the Digital Economy Bill this week.
In what appears to be a collaboration between Business Secretary Mandelson and Culture Secretary Bradshaw, the Bill expects its second reading on Wednesday 2nd December. Although Guardian journalist Robinson highlights its attempt to support ITV and prepare the radio industry for digital switchover, proposals on illegal file-sharing have caused an unashamed furore.
To give the general gist, content producers (e.g. record labels/film production companies) would have the right to ‘force ISPs to disconnect internet users’ who illegally file share ‘without judicial course’ according to music blogger Helienne Lindvall.
Understandably, companies such as Talktalk proclaimed to the Guardian this will lead to a devolution or split into its component parts Talktalk (the second largest ISP in the UK) and Carphone Warehouse. The estimated cost to the ISP of £2.00 per line to cover the cancellation admin etc. seems like robbing Peter (the digital economy) to pay Paul (the entertainment industry.)
But it’s not just that.
As any PR professional will tell you, New Media makes sharing information all too easy. The phenomenon of ‘Porous Companies’, coined by Phillips and Young in Online Public Relations, suggests that file-sharing sites or even mere emails have made it far easier to leak information than ever before. But often it’s not even deliberate – 15% of employees admitted to sending company information out to the wrong party in a 2004 SurfControl poll.
However, in light of the Digital Economy Bill, special consideration should be given to those PR specialists that operate on behalf of those seeking to protect their intellectual property. The Recording Industry Association of America, for example, had their entire CSR strategy questioned when filing a lawsuit against a 12 year old, underprivileged girl after illegally downloading music in 2003. Lobbyists felt so passionately that an independent group financially recompensed the family for the amount sued.
The RIAA’s Head of Communications was happy to take ‘PR hits’ to get the message understood. However, as Mandelson and Bradshaw share the load amongst the Government, the digital industry and the content producers, they risk the standing of all three.
