Quote of the day: Jeff Bezos (Amazon) to Charlie Rose (US interviewer) :
"Before if you were making a product, the right business strategy was to put 70% of your attention, energy, and dollars into shouting about a product, and 30% into making a great product. So you could win with a mediocre product, if you were a good enough marketer. That is getting harder to do. The balance of power is shifting toward consumers and away from companies...the individual is empowered... The right way to respond to this if you are a company is to put the vast majority of your energy, attention and dollars into building a great product or service and put a smaller amount into shouting about it, marketing it. If I build a great product or service, my customers will tell each other."
Chris 'moot' Poole, the founder of 4chan, a controversial, uncensored online imageboard, describes its subculture, some of the Internet "memes" it has launched, and the incident in which its users managed a very public, precision hack of a mainstream media website, as well as the good outcomes they have achieved such as the amazing story of Dusty the cat...
The talk also raises questions about the power and price of anonymity and the fact that 4Chan is endangered due to social networks and the call for persistent identity online.
In it, the author claims that there is no specific evidence to support the theories of Nicholas Carr and that brain wiring is dependent on genetic predispositions which a child is already in possession of long before they discover Facebook and the Internet. The article tends to support Clay Shirky's 'cognitive surplus' direction that the Internet gives us access to each other and therefore the collective brain which is far more intelligent than any individual human being could be which is of course very true...
However, one thought that seemed to vaguely resemble Carr's argument around the negative impact of all of our hours spent online, was the notion of the 'illusion of knowledge':
'Although the case that technology increases our intelligence is at least as plausible as the gloomy idea that it is changing our brains for the worse, there are real downsides to the instant availability of torrents of information. The danger comes not from the information itself, or from how it could rewire our brains, but from the way we think about our own knowledge and abilities. As the psychologists Leon Rozenblit and Frank Keil discovered, people tend to suffer from an illusion of knowledge: a tendency to mistake surface-level familiarity with deep understanding. As more information becomes readily available, that sense of familiarity grows and grows, and with it the illusion of knowledge. On-demand access to reams of data can also trick us into mistaking knowledge we could obtain quickly for knowledge we already have and can act upon. And if the illusion leads us to neglect the acquisition of true knowledge, we as individuals could become dumber as a result.'
The idea that the internet is making us think we are smarter is entirely possible when the answers to billions of questions are at our finger tips and can be displayed on our screen within seconds. Why therefore would anyone need to do a degree to learn the methods of rocket scientists when they can find it online (of course you wouldn't call yourself a rocket scientist unless you had an actual degree but you could think you knew enough about it)? It's a significant danger that the next generation will be facing when it comes to their education and vocational training...
At the recent Social Influence conference in the UK, Alexandra Wheeler, digital director of Starbucks shares some insights, actions and philosophies that Starbucks has adhered to in order to be one of the most successful brands in the social web space to date.
Starbucks are the largest brand on Facebook with over 10 million followers, they are also number one on Twitter...
Some of the key notes:
Social is about relationships, not marketing
Relationships in real life have many dimensions so too should relationships within the social space; such as fun, functionality and social responsibility - adding all of these dimensions and more means you have many ways to curate and create content
Ensuring 'authenticity' can be easily translated to 'be relevant to your brand and what it stands for' (i.e. don't try to own a space or topic that doesn't fit)
'Don't outsource your voice' - don't let your agencies do the talking for you, keep it in house
Social should always fit within a larger digital strategy which should, in turn, be wrapped into a larger integrated strategy
Don't get fixated on the number of fans or followers, it's about the idea itself and the resulting opportunity to build new relationships
'Build a coalition' - aka - you need to be best friends with legal, marketing, product, partners (franchisees) & technology and they need to understand why engaging with customers in this way is valuable, if you do this you can make some special things happen (i.e Starbucks made it possible to donate to the Haitian crisis through stores within 48 hours of the disaster happening thanks to all departments working together)
Co-creating the brand experience in partnership with customers leads to infallible advocacy (My Starbucks Idea), and it's not enough just to listen, you need to act (over 100 ideas implemented so far)
Starbucks digital see themselves as 'content archeologists' but in addition to finding great content they've also become good at saying 'no'. Many people in the organisation say 'we want you to tweet this or post that' but Starbucks digital always ensure that unless it's adding value or creating meaning in that environment then it doesn't go up online. However, they say 'no' in a way that makes the other departments want to then give them something of value and of meaning for their community
She show's the 'one song, one vision, 156 countries' video which they created to support their relationship with RED and world AIDS day which is amazing
Opening up new social channels such as Twitter needs to be done with solid consideration of the use of that channel. Starbucks opened Twitter up for their much love Frappucino to help with the discussion about how to customise your drink and to generally tap into the many conversations already happening about that particular product
However, social isn't just about Facebook or Twitter, it's about looking for those relevant extensions and experiences that can be easily built based on a passionate community (content creation, video mashups, mobile, personalisation)
Their latest foray has been into looking at the connection between social and mobile with focus on location based ideas, such as the partnership with Foursquare and the creation of a badge and 'mayor' deals, this is all about rewarding loyal customers
Integrate across the organisation, such as linking in Facebook feedback with that from In Store and the call centre to provide a holistic view of what customers want
It's great to create new relationships and go after new customers but in the end you must always remember to love your existing customers and communities
Have fun with your brand and don't take yourself too seriously
Here's a great article from Fast Company which contains brand examples, strong statistics and simple pearls of wisdom such as 'advocates trump followers' and 'gimmicks marginalise trust' all within a lovely infographic format (because who doesn't love an infographic!)
"When you are 80 years old and in a quiet moment of reflection, narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices, build yourself a great story"
An inspiring Princeton class of 2010 graduation speech by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon:
(Start from 6 minutes)
As part of Naked's ongoing training program which encourages us to explore everything BUT advertising, we have a regular session known as 'Nudiversity' which is, in simple terms, where we encourage speakers from outside of our industry to come and talk to us and to tell us how they communicate and how their minds work. These speakers could be anyone from musicians to writers to politicians...anything goes.
It's a pretty cool way of conditioning yourself to consistently think outside the barriers and processes, which many of us who have spent time in the industry, have had thrust upon us and within which we've been trained and trained again. After all, creativity is born from human experience, not advertising experience.
This week we had the pleasure of meeting Jess Hall, founder of GoodyTwoShoes communications, she specialises in all things ethical, environmental & sustainable.
She spoke to us about the need for 'radical communications' within these fields due to minimal or no budget and the type of confrontational messaging required to get people to take notice, so thinking outside the box is essential.
She described 'radical communications' as being born out of a formula which can be visualised as:
NECCESSITY (to take action) + MOTIVATION (to make a change) + SIGNIFICANT BARRIERS (no public interest, legal issues, companies favouring their bottom line over doing the right thing, government legislation, people with their heads in the sand, no money) = RADICAL COMMUNICATIONS (driven by requirement)
Now more than ever the opportunity for communications to make an impact has grown exponentially with the rise of the social web & technology alongside the dissemination of power from the media and government to average joe public.
She shared some amazing examples of these 'radical communications' in action, two of which I've outlined below which I thought were pretty special and inspiring for different reasons:
This is a prime example of multi-lateral thinking. In order to raise money for their cause of saving the world's forests, two Norwegians decided to take a slightly different angle on the traditional preaching and protesting and instead tied together their desires with those of others and thus 'Fuck For Forests' was born.
In essence they film hardcore pornography in forest locations and sell it online with all profits going to the ecological charities of their choice. It may sound a bit bizarre and far-fetched but FFF made over $100,000 in the first year alone and donated the cash to the indigenous communities of Costa Rica and the Brazilian Amazon rainforest fund!
Telling lies which should be the truth to raise mass awareness and force change.
These guys are the masters of corporate hoaxes and specialise in bringing attention to social or environmental injustices committed by large corporations who would never themselves apologise, accept responsibility or take action.
The most famous example was in 2004 when one of them posed as a spokesperson for chemical company Dow and talked live on BBC TV on the 20th anniversary of the horrendous Bhopal chemical disaster, in which thousands of people were killed and many thousands more were affected.
During the interview, Mr. Finisterra (actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men group) shocked the BBC's audience when he said that not only had Dow decided to accept full responsibility for the incident, but that it was going to pay $12 billion in compensation to the victims. In response to the news, Dow's stock value promptly dropped.
The BBC had fallen into the Yes Men's trap because, while searching for someone at Dow to interview about the Bhopal disaster, its researchers had confused Dow's official website (Dow.com) with a copycat version created by the Yes Men (dowethics.com). The BBC had sent an email to the contact info listed on DowEthics.com, requesting an interview, and the Yes Men had happily complied.
Even though no compensation was paid out and no formal apology from the company was given, the Yes Men succeeded in reminding the world, 20 years later, of Dow's questionable ethics and their continued refusal to take responsibility:
Ethical, environmental and sustainable communications don't always need to be 'radical' because brands have the ability to create and build CSR programs to do some good and therefore bypass most of the barriers normally faced.
In addition, Dan Burgess (ex Naked UK) recently wrote a fantastic presentation entitled 'Can the creative industries lead us to a sustainable future?' which compiles some fantastic communications examples and ideas built around the sole purpose of promoting self sufficiency, awareness of consumption and working together for a sustainable future which is well worth a look.
Ultimately I think brands need to take more responsibility for their impact on the environment around them and there is a real appetite out there in consumer-land to hear this stuff and to make a difference together, so rather than leaving these communications to the passionate 'radicals' who ultimately play on a small scale, brands need to get on with it!
Most big corporations fear to talk about their CSR work simply because they're worried they'll be attacked for not doing enough but in reality it's far more likely that people will be receptive to them just doing their bit.
In the words of Clay Shirky "even a brand can tap into it (cognitive surplus) to benefit the greater good".
Food for thought...
