Webconomist

 

Stop Pissing on the #Kony2012 Campaign & Here's Why

 It's been all over the news and the social web, the whole issue of stopping a child molestor. Except it took a sad and now sad and twisted sideways turn - now there is a media and social media frenzy to mock and shame the Kony 2012 and Invisible Children foundation. As a marketer and communications professional, also having spent a lot of time in the depths of Africa, Latin America and China during my career...well all I can say is: shame on the news media and it's lack of journalistic investigation. It has been a massive #Fail for news media.

Communications Cost: Invisible Children has a good end goal - get Joseph Kony captured or made ineffective, create awareness and therefore citizens pushing government for support. To create awareness in Western countries like America, Canada and the UK, you MUST spend money to get air time. Good quality video production plays a key role and the materials needed to drive a campaign are crucial...because the #Occupy movement certainly didn't care to get on board. Looking at this budgeted expense, I think their costs were far below what they should have spent.

Kony Wins Big Time: Because the news media has now focused on Invisible Children, it's budgets and people...Western governments can safely ignore taking any action in regard to Kony because news media and citizens unwilling to dig deep or lacking the understanding of launching such a massive effort of awareness have crucified an organisation and made them look useless. So, Kony can now feel very good about kidnapping and torturing thousands more children. Congratulations New York Times, BBC, Washington Post, Globe and Mail and others for supporting a child molester and monster.

News Media Failed: because news media has focused so much on the efforts of the Invisible Children group and trying to dismantle them, the attention has shifted away from the real issue: that a monster is killing and raping children. That is an undeniable fact, otherwise why would the UN and western government expend the resources they have to hunt Kony down? News Media has failed. Terribly.

Breaking Point: That Jason Russell should snap and collapse in an alcoholic blur is no surprise. Can you imagine piling on him the stress of news and social media over the past week? He's not getting filthy rich off this gig. Despite some of their approaches, the intent to get rid of a child molester is real and genuine. That's been lost now and so he snapped. Most people would.

So while people enjoy making fun of and ridiculing an attempt to get rid of a child killer, they have unwittingly leant their support to Joseph Kony and now, #Kony2012 fizzles, governments in Western nations can walk away and citizens can go to bed and let children in another world die.

I say shame on news media and shame on the childish people who have failed to do their homework and make fun of a broken man. Shame on your ignorance.
 

The Most Boring & Predictable Marketers Ever: Finance Industry

 I now count about 3 messages by LinkedIn every week from; insurance, financial planning and wealth management types. Then there's the emails, the DM's on Twitter and the vague attempt to "friend" me on Facebook...I've come to notice something - the financial/insurance industry has the most boring, uninspiring, lame, monotonous marketing pitches. Ever.

Now, post 2008 financial crisis, they've just added to the verbiage things like "looking after your future" or "we use long-term, risk free strategies" - uhm, isn't it those long-term "risk-free" strategies that got us into this hot water in the first place?

Please, financial industry, stop ALL saying the same thing. Every single one of you says "I'm the best" or "you can be safe with me" - why? Says who? Just who the heck woke up this morning and blessed...wait, every single one of you as the best?

Every financial institution, insurance company, asset management firm, wealth management firm...you all say the same damn thing.

Stop it. You're all wasting billions in advertising...and social media....ah social media...all producing the exact same boring videos. Maybe a few talking heads on YouTube, some nice canned quasi-porn music and floating smiling faces. Of course there's equal representation of all races and creeds there too.

If each and every one of these companies is so much better, safer and boring than the other...how come they all look the same? Sound the same? Use the same adjectives and verbs, colour palettes and oh, well, just...the same.

At least Ally Bank has tried something original...and for me it works. Check it out if you haven't seen it. I love the Egg Management Fee one...here: 

But here's the quandary...the last time the financial sector got really, uh, creative, we ended up with the 2008 collapse and mortgage scams.

But I have to think...they can get Unboring can't they? What a great challenge for a financial services firm to engage a really hip and cool creative agency to do something completely and utterly different?

Am I missing something?
 

Brands Are Afraid to Succeed Anymore

 I'm sure you've come across the ads from a major bank? Even a supposedly cutting edge MMOG game like World of Warcraft...that annoying Chuck Norris ad that won't stop and suffers so badly because they play the same damned ad on TV? And you have to suffer through the first 5 seconds on YouTube until you can "skip this ad"?

Isn't that sad? Lame? Pathetic?

I mean, here you've got an incredible opportunity to create something powerful, a wicked chance to execute some powerful creative in an online channel that doesn't have near the restrictions of broadcast television and well...same old. Nothing new. Nothing innovative. Nothing creative. Yet consumers flock to really creative content online.

Why haven't major brands picked up on this? Why are they so afraid? Success?

What would a brand do if it created some powerfully awesome advertising message that...oh shit, actually worked?

I find this aspect of creative so incredibly sad. So, well, incredibly failing.

Brands keep getting trumped by consumers creating infinitely more powerful messages. At a time when we should be seeing Nike, MacDonald's, Coca-Cola and others producing some wildly creative content. Yet they don't.

Are consumers so disinterested? I suspect not.

What do you thunk?
 

Why So Many Marketing Campaigns Are Just Boring, Boring, Boring

 When was the last time you got excited about a Tide detergent commercial? How about Sunlight? Pampers maybe? Ah, depends. Nope, not them either. How about a Sony TV...hmmm, maybe a little. The prospect of a new Apple product, like the predicted actual television set everyone is drooling in anticipation for? Ah, now we're talking...

So much marketing is boring. I think it's because of two reasons:

Fear of Success: Once a company reaches a certain size it likely has a lot of shareholders and stakeholders. It can reliably predict a certain annual volume of sales. As more people are involved, process trumps everything else. The product must be produced. Apple bucked this trend, so has Samsung (the only company pushing and nipping at Apple's heels, which is good for innovation) ah! And that comes to the second reason marketing campaigns  become boring...

Innovation: The company grows so large it is afraid to innovate. Not just in its products and service, but all aspects. Once a process is established and systems are in place, innovation becomes evil. Innovation might disrupt. Steady process means predictable ways to manipulate for cost-controls and margin maximization and other complex corporate-speak words. Innovation stops. Small, tiny, incremental innovations might happen. Might.

Apple, Samsung, Benetton. These are brands that innovate in different ways. Even Google has found its innovative soul again with it's products...not that it really stepped away, but it was. Schmidt is an excellent CEO - when you need to focus on process and being boring. Certainly it may be that sometimes a company needs to focus on boring stuff. But when innovation is lost across the board...everything becomes boring.

I always used to cringe when I would hear a client say "we want to be like our competitor, to look like they do..." well, why not just sell your business to your competitor? That way you'd make more money in the short term. If you sound like everyone else in your space...well, how is anyone ever going to know your better or different? If it walks like a duck...

I suggest the main drive of all companies it to innovate. Not just with products. But right across the board...innovate your hiring practices, innovate production processes...just, innovate. Especially your marketing. Please Tide...get with the times. it's 2011 and men do laundry now too. And when you innovate, customers get interested in whats next and employees enjoy their work more as well...
 

Walk & Talk With Me in 2012

I so look forward to the next 10 years and the technologies that will evolve. The ones that draw our world closer together. The technologies that help us connect even more as humans. Across cultures, religions and other divides. I look forward to seeing how we use these tools in ways the creators of them never imagined, but you did and you made a difference. The technologies that help us understand each other better, connect, create, share and reinvigorate our world and find new economic and political systems. That promote greater democracy, hopefully shatter more dictatorships and move us ever forward to understanding our world, our universe and each other.

 

The less ignorance there is, the less racism there is. The less ignorance there is, the less hatred and violence there is. The more we laugh, the more we share and understand, the less we see divides and the more we see similarities. Between races, creeds, religions and gender. The more borders become irrelevant.

 

To do this, we must keep sharing, creating, discussing, debating, laughing, crying and being. Being human. This is the first time humanity has had the opportunity to understand one another better and to find the commonalities which truly bind us all - that we are ALL human. That we all love and want to be loved, beyond anything else...no matter where we came from or where we are going. Perhaps we will truly discover that we are all far more alike than we are different.

 

This is our time. This is your time. Reach out. Connect. Share. Discuss. Debate. Think and reflect. Make 2012 the year we start to find how much we are all alike. No matter our religion, race, creed, gender, sexual preference. Together, in dialogue, we can make this world an incredible, exciting, vibrant and energizing place. So in 2012, stop, take a breath. Walk and talk into a brilliant future...it is ours to share.

 

I'd like to walk and talk with you, just to hear your thoughts and ideas, just to, well, talk. Will you join me so we can explore? It will be a great adventure, filled with new wonders, I promise you that much.

 

It's Occupy 2.0 We Need to Think About

 It's a shame really. The whole #Occupy or #OWS (if you're a Twitter type too) could really have been something. The cold hard, factual and economic reality is that the 1% are getting wealthier and the middle class is eroding. The marginalized are getting more marginalized. The world is incredibly interconnected, as are all its monetary systems. Wealth begets wealth. When the whole Occupy Wall Street started, well, pretty much all of the disenfranchised stood up and thought it was pretty cool, even Obama and Canada's top finance guy, Carney, agreed, among others. But Occupy has failed. Miserably.

No revolution, no significant change, ever, in any way, shape, form or how has ever succeeded where there has not been a clear rallying message. Ever.

This is the single and one salient, undeniable fact of why Occupy Wall Street failed. When it started, it had a message "we 99% are feeling screwed over by the 1% who keep getting richer" - and you know what, they had a point. Even Warren Buffet agreed...even though he just bought 5% of IBM for a few hundred million and despite the fact he lives in the same house he did before he became even a millionaire. I digress.

Ask any public relations professional, marketer or communications practitioner. I've been a marketer for over 20 years and if you don't have a "hook" that one, simple, easy to grasp and communicate message - you've failed before you've begun.

This is human communications 101 folks. Nothing more complicated than that.

Occupy Got Hijacked.
Then the unions showed up because it fit their generally socialist agenda. Then the homeless discovered a meal ticket....and perhaps a side of weed and the odd shot of rum and the tent cities grew. Not true? Well, that, folks, is what became "public perception". But before we knew it, all most people saw was either union rallies or tent cities and soon the stories of drunken parties and stoners permeated the media.

The Media Didn't Help Either
Then the media just loved all the drunken, pot-filled, drug-induced frenetics of the protesters. All we saw was ragged, bearded and hippie-eque types chanting peace slogans from the 60's that they could barely understand. They got camera time and they loved it. And mainstream media snickered and rolled the cameras. Mass media is as much to blame as the Occupy movement. The original story, the message that got us all wound up...it vaporized in a haze of doobies and booze.

The Middle Class Aren't Pissed Enough. Yet.
And then the middle class stayed home, still in their homes, snuggled up on their comfy couch from The Pottery Barn and gazing at their 53" LCD HD screen while tapping away on their iPad on Facebook. That's about 94% of the 99% - so the middle class aren't pissed enough yet. When we hit 12% unemployment and many are losing their homes and they can't afford to watch HD cable anymore...then that will change.

It's Occupy 2.0 We Should Think About
But the fact is, there is craploads of cash and liquidity out there. Companies are making wicked profits, dividends are still juicy and the bankers are laughing as they collect their bonuses. There is NO austerity in the corporate world. Profit is not bad. Because of capitalism we have more and better jobs than ever in the history of mankind and overall, humanity IS progressing. This is a FACT.

But It Could Go Very Wrong
But there is also a significant danger point here. It could all go south. Much will depend on how the 1% deal with things to come. If they keep hoarding cash, if they don't innovate, advance R&D, put money back into the economy...we are truly screwed. When the 1% fails to re-invest and simply hoards to see how high they can rack up their deposit accounts...well, one word: Depression.

If the 1%, corporations and ultra high-net worth folks don't start moving liquidity back into the markets...then we will have Occupy 2,0 and then it will be really bad....all they need do is look to the Great Depression and the French Revolution and well, history can and often does, repeat itself. I doubt this is something the 99% can influence. It's just one of those things we have to hope that the 1% realize. if they don't, then they'll have the pleasure (or not) of seeing their empired torn to shreds and insane economic and social changes occurring...and a very dark age for humanity. I hope we pass this point. I'm not sure we will, but the jury is out. I have hope. These are smart people these 1% and so at some point, they will realize the best way to increase their wealth even more is to let some go now, invest it in opportunity. Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com sees this and they consistently perform. In a recession they hired MORE people and built up infrastructure - now THAT is innovative capitalism that works for everyone. Build a desire to improve society through capitalist actions; perhaps that is the mix we need to move mankind forward? I hope so. Then we all win....unions too, cause they keep the membership that pays the nice fat wages of their management. Hopefully, along the way, a union leader or two will take an economics course to help them out.

To The Occupy 2.0 Folks
Find a bloody message. Saying "99%" was cute. Now it's old and it failed. You all failed. Instead we're right back to where we always were....so if you're going to start another Occupy Something Or Other...enlist a student studying communications. Perhaps then you'll get somewhere and cause some real change...otherwise, us 98.75%, well, we're going to just change the channel on our nice big LCD HD screens, especially cause by then we'll have 3D (without the silly glasses.)
 

A Fundamental Truth of Social Media

 I think there are likely several "fundamental truths" about social media. This is one of my theories based on all the research my firm has done on social media and people in the past three years;

Fundamental Social Media Truth #1:
People Love to Talk
Tell me that isn't true! Ever since cave drawings we've wanted to share information. It's why we invented the printing press, then the telephone (Because Alexander Graham Bell wanted to share opera with the world.) And now the Internet and social media channels.

Elements that frame this truth are:
- We love tell secrets
- We love to feel peer acceptance
- We love to be heard (the self as celebrity complex)
- We love to be heard wen we a) know the audience and b) especially the thrill of not knowing the audience, but that one is there

This I think, is one of the Fundamental Truths of Social Media. I'm just philosophising here at random. Feel free to add to this our argue against. Are there other "Fundamental Truths of Social Media"?
 

What The Media Missed About Ships Start Here

 Last week, Halifax received some of the best news in decades; we won a contract worth around $25B to build some naval ships at Irving Shipyard. It didn't take long for the news media to pick up on defence minister Peter MacKay's comment that the money spent promoting the Ships Start Here campaign was an utter waste.

I couldn't disagree more. It was a very sound and logical investment. I'm glad they did it.

Why?

Because it builds excitement, it gets people thinking about what a great future we have ahead of us in Halifax. People start to get ideas. They begin to dream. When the moment arrives, those dreams and ideas are closer to reality. I heard the downtown bars were booming after the news. People were celebrating. It was the talk of the town...propelled in no small part by the PR campaign leading up to it.

Because of that campaign, all of the citizens, all of us who have a vested interest in the city of Halifax, truly understood we had a) won on merit and b) we can start to be more positive and stop whining.

Without the hard work of the Greater Halifax Partnership and the province helping educate the public on the deals implications, we understood not just the local opportunity, but how it impacts the entire region of Atlantic Canada. The whole campaign was an investment of perhaps .0001% of the project win and the tax revenues the city and province will see. That's a good ROI.

Creating a positive "vibe" and energy in the city is a good thing. Somewhere along the lines of Bhutan and their Gross National Happiness Index. Is there something wrong with being motivated? Is there something wrong with energizing a population of giving people hope in a positive future? If there is, then we are in a sorry state of affairs.
 

Why The Mobile Phone is the Switchblade of the 21st Century

 From the 50's through to the early 90's, the switchblade knife was an icon of the rebellious youth. The Fonz in Happy Days mocked it with a switchcomb to keep his greased hair, well, greased.

The riots in the UK this past week showed how looters used BBM via their Blackberry's and txt messaging to coordinate where and when to hit. In Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and other parts of the Middle East, the mobile phone played a key role with social medias to motivate and coordinate protestors. In 2005, txt messaging featured prominently in organizing the Orange Revolution. In Haiti during the aftermath of the earthquake, citizens coordinate help via their mobile phones. Flash mobs are possibly, good and bad, due to mobile phones.

And it is those seeking change in society who are using them in these ways. Perhaps then, the mobile phone has become the icon of the rebelluous in the opening of the 21st Century and as they are increasingly in use, one can only suspect they will play an even greater role in the changes of our society?

What do you think?
 

We Still Have Privacy So Stop Whining

 With the launch of Google+ the privacy debate rages on yet again. I wish people would stop whinging on this issue so much. We still have a fair bit of privacy and neither Google, Apple nor Microsoft really care about what you had for lunch. Here's my rant on the issues of privacy;

It's Your Choice So Smarten Up: if you as a human, decide to post photo's of yourself in compromising states online, either in Facebook or anywhere else, that is your responsibility. Not Google's or anyone elses. Own up to it, take control of yourself and what you upload. If you're that daft to not understand the consequences at this point of the Internet in our society, move to the mountains and chill with Grizzly Adams. Hopefully the grizzly won't see you as a snack.

They Don't Really Care: If you're suffering from paranoia, seek medical help. None of the big corporations like Apple, Google or Microsoft really cares about you, or me, and the minutae of our lives. They care in terms of "aggregate" data or larger pockets of data. As individuals, we're just not that much value. As a demographic or psychographic group/segment, we become more valuable.

Real Private Stuff Stays Private: For your personal things that really and truly matter, they stay quite private. Yes, there is a lot of information online, but not ALL information. We're pretty savvy at keeping the stuff that matters private - for all the data online, there's much more that has never and will never, make it online.

Our lives are more visible now, but not all aspects of our lives. Yes, there've been some grave errors by companies posting content online or not enabling enough privacy rules, but they are learning or being forced to (rightly so in my opinion) through government regulations.

My point here is, you have more privacy than you may think. You are also responsible for what you place online. You also have a responsibility to shout out brazen violations by online providers. Just put your privacy into perspective. This is the reality we live in today; understand it, deal with it.
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