During my presentation/interview at the Northwest Business Virtual Summer Conference, Tom Cochrane asked me what the big difference is between marketing with social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc) and using the traditional sources such as TV, radio, and print.

I replied that there has always been something of a “contract” between the audience and old media — radio listeners get their content at no charge, and in return accept the fact that advertising is part of the landscape. Same for newspapers and television: the information arrives either at no charge or heavily subsidized.  Although there is more interaction than there used to be, the content is still “consumed”, and must be paid for somehow.

The fundamental difference with social media, I told Cochrane, is that people use it to communicate with each other, and do not expect to be pitched to. Even though Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are essentially free services at this point, the users, rightly, or wrongly, have a different set of expectations.

Since making those remarks, I’ve encountered a couple of good posts that expand on the topic:

At Marketing in Progress, Brett Duncan takes on the Twitter spammers:

It saddens me to see so many people constantly posting tweets and Facebook updates that go something like this:

• Brand X is helping me lose 10 pounds a week. It can help you, too. CLick here . . . .
• If you want to make $1,000 this week on the Internet, I have what you need.
• Want to earn what you’re worth? Sign up with Brand X. Ask me how.
• I get 300 followers a day. Go here to find out more.

Nobody gets on Twitter looking for crap like this. There’s nothing “social” about using social media as your own advertising medium.

And The Digital Marketer offers counsel on how to avoid damaging your social media reputation.

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I once heard Marketing Consultant Paul Weyland remark at a seminar that if you have an unhappy customer, “You need to either make him happy, or kill him and bury him in the backyard.”

United Airlines did neither with this passenger.

I don’t have any way to evaluate the particulars of this story. But apparently Dave Carroll of the band Sons of Maxwell flew United  a while back, and something bad happened to his $3,500 guitar.

Carroll responded by making the video below. He posted it on July 6; in less than three days, it’s been viewed more than 255,000 times, and has generated nearly 3,000 comments — very few of which are sympathetic to the airline.

Two more videos are in the works. Enjoy this one, and ponder: how much will United Airlines’ inability or unwillingness to make one passenger happy cost them in damaged reputation and lost business?

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Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

From the Oregonian Friday, July 3, 2009:

I applaud The Adult Shop for attempting to use the story of 2009 in their marketing. And the term “Stimulus Package” is a nice touch.

But…

1. The discount is only ten percent.

2. Anonymity is likely to be important to a porn store customer

3. A significant number of jobless potential customers may be embarrassed about the fact.

So expecting unemployed people to walk into an adult store and “present [their] current unemployment check stub for sales associate to verify” — for a lousy ten percent — seems like a recipe for failure.

Of course, I’m neither unemployed nor an adult store regular. Am I wrong? What do you think?

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

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Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

I’ll be one of the presenters at the Business Northwest Virtual Summer Conference, happening over three days (July 9-11) later this week.

 The theme of the conference is “Getting Your Business Message Out in Today’s Economy With Today’s Technology.”

 There’s a live event at the Marriott on July 9th at 9:30am featuring a panel with Kent Lewis and Hallie Janssen of Anvil Media, Matt Kish,  Managing Editor of the Business Journal, and Tom Cochrane of TKC Solutions. The rest of the presentations, including mine, will be on the web.

 My presentation, titled “Brand New Technologies, Same Old Errors: The Seven Deadly Online Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them”, is tentatively scheduled to run at 9:30am on Friday, July 10.

 Attendees will be able to see all the presentations, ask questions of more than 20 speakers in special forums, and download written materials. You can have access to the whole thing — you can see it live or watch the archived presentations at your convenience for 30 days — for just $8.50.

 Find out more, and register, at www.businessnorthwest.org/conference.

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing Blog.

Request your free copy of Phil Bernstein’s white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

Sunday’s New York Times covers the rising profile of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, in organized religion. Challenges include setting rules and boundaries

In online debates and private discussions, leaders of all faiths have been weighing pros and cons and diagramming the boundaries of acceptable interactions: Should the congregation have a Facebook page, or should it be the imam’s or priest’s? Should there be limited access? Censoring? Is it appropriate for a clergy member to “friend” a minor?

… to feeling comfortable giving up some control of the message

“If total control is what you want, social media will frustrate you,” [Rev. Bill Reichart] said, reprising his advice to the clergy. “But the trade-off is the ability to hear and learn, reach out in new directions”… “The young don’t do e-mail anymore,” he said. “They do Facebook.”

And like any other institution, there’s a need to balance tradition with staying relevant.

“If someone chooses to interact with us mischievously, that’s fine,” said the Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee, the church vicar. “The opposite of engagement is not mischief, but apathy.”

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One of the amazing things about Vietnam, to these American eyes, is how hard the people hustle. Everyone has a product or service to sell; unlike many of their American counterparts, they’re not content to sit back and wait for business to come to them.

My family took a motorbike tour of Nha Trang yesterday — four motorbikes, four drivers, and us  on the back. We ran into our drivers again this morning parked on the street, pitching the tourists as they walked by.

About an hour later, I was walking down another street trying without success to find a bank. I had just given up on the route I was taking when “my” driver pulled up and asked what I was looking for. I told him, and he said, “No worries, I take you there.”

He took me about a half mile to a bank (was there a closer one? I have no idea), waited as I went inside, and then took me back to the hotel.

As one seller doing business with another I’d grown to respect, I was happy to overpay him.

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

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Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

I flew halfway around the world for a copywriting lesson.

We’d spent the afternoon wandering through Hoi An — a Vietnamese  town near the coast that’s known for its clothing stores. It was brutally hot, and I’d already crashed back at the hotel.

My wife and sons had tired of wandering into a series of shops that all seemed to have the same merchandise, and they were ready to call it a day. They were heading for the hotel when a woman walked out of the Lucky Star Tailor Shop, poĩnted at my son Tyler, and said,

Suit for you, forty dollars!

Less than an hour later, my family walked out having ordered two suits and a dress.

At a copywriting class I attended, the instructor had us pick a client and try to summarize their value proposition in a maximum of six words. The object ot the exercise was to force us to use only words that matter.

Lucky Star did it in five — a benefit, an offer, and that’s it. No mention of the friendly, knowledgeable staff, or the fact that they also can make pants, shorts, and dresses, or that they’ve been serving the community since 1997.

Can you make your pitch in five words?

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

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Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

Branding’s gotten a bad rap lately. In an economy that has made marketing money increasingly difficult to come by, it’s not unreasonable to want a measurable return from every single dollar invested.

Because branding campaigns generally don’t have a measurable response mechanism — or even an offer to respond to — it’s easy to conclude that they don’t have any effect.

Sometimes they don’t.

And sometimes, a paragraph like this one jumps out of a Wall Street Journal article:

On a recent afternoon, at a supermarket in Chicago, Laura Gilligan confronted a salad-dressing aisle filled with dozens of varieties spread across two dozen brands. After staring for nearly a minute, Ms. Gilligan, a computer-company manager, chose Kraft Foods Inc.’s cucumber-tinged light ranch. “There’s too many choices,” she said. “I just went with Kraft because I know Kraft.”

What caused her to choose that dressing? It wasn’t a coupon, or a direct-mail pitch, or an email, or a pay-per-click ad. Kraft will never be able to figure out what “worked”.

And yet, something did. Faced with “dozens of varieties spread across two dozen brands”, shoppers often just grab something familiar and throw it into the cart.

What “worked” was the years, and dollars, that Kraft invested in building the Kraft brand.

This doesn’t mean that the direct-response advocates are wrong. But they aren’t completely right. Even in today’s economy, there’s real, tangible value in good branding.

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

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Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

There’s quite a hoo-ha in progress over this year’s Radio Mercury Awards — the judges decided not to award prizes in several categories, including station-produced spots. Much of the discussion centers around the criteria, and what constitutes a good commercial.

Among the most compelling takes is that of Scott McKelvey,  Director of Creative Services for TargetSpot. McKelvey’s thoughts recently appeared in Tom Taylor’s Radio-Info Newsletter. I’d link directly to it, but the only place I can find the quote is in my email box:

I submitted a commercial for an award for the first time about 10 years ago while working for a New Jersey station. The New Jersey Broadcasters Association, to their credit, required a letter from the advertiser that said the entry was effective. The advertiser sent the following: ‘Thank you for entering our commercial for an award. Even though it didn’t work, we thought it was really funny and creative, and we appreciate the time and effort you put into it.’ He may as well have said, ‘Thanks for wasting my money, jerk.’ This was my wake-up call. Unlike established national brands that spend millions to build market share and top-of-mind awareness, local advertisers need to see ROI. Does this mean commercials for local advertisers can’t be creative or funny? Absolutely not. But it certainly is not a requirement and should never be the goal. The goal should be to sell the product, whether that leads to an award or not…

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

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I can’t endorse this, as it’s basically an attempt to deceive. And the same concept showed up in the movie “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan”.

But I have to admire, grudgingly, a guy who has the cojones to name his store “Going Out of Business.”

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing Blog.

Request your free copy of Phil Bernstein’s white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.