It’s not just product, it’s a brand

Five days

The amount of time that passed from the introduction of the Gap logo until the company’s ultimate surrender to the din of loyal customer criticism.

Ten weeks

The amount of time that passed from the introduction of New Coke until the company’s ultimate surrender to the din of loyal customer criticism.

What these incidents have in common

Logo Fail

The Gap logo took at least six months to develop, from concept to production (it was first spotted on the company website). In an effort that likely took a couple of years, Coca-Cola reportedly had their best R&D people formulate New Coke and the best market research money could buy pointed to it being a better product. Yet in both cases the companies failed to explain why they made the change or why it was necessary.

Put a different way, the companies did not integrate the feelings of their loyal customers into their marketing plans.

When New Coke was introduced in 1985, media was broadcast one-to-many with few opportunities for feedback. Today there are multiple paths to the hearts and minds of your most loyal customers, all leading to a two-way conversation. Gap erred in not using those paths and slowly winning over the loyals while explaining their thinking about the necessity of the change. Like Coke, Gap also kept the media out of the loop, increasing the chances that the buzz would be negative rather than guided by an established plan for the logo’s unveiling.

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When Selling is Annoying

The Yelling Man

Two recent events cause me to chuckle, the first being the selection of Staples’ Yelling Man as Consumerist.com’s first Worst Ad in America Awards. The vote of more than 100,000 consumers confirms that, no matter how low the price, it’s not worth damaging your hearing.

The irony of course is that the spot, created by McCann Erickson, is considered a big success because people remember the character when they need office supplies. Is it merely a coincidence that the same week Congress passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, or CALM?

The second event was last week’s unveiling of the new Goldman Sachs ad campaign, including the tag line “Progress is Everyone’s Business.” Of course this inspired the amateur tag line writers to go to work. Barry Ritzholtz’ blog got a lot of traction when the radio program Marketplace mentioned his “contest” for an alternative tag line, noting the worthy submission by Patty Edwards:

Government Bailout…29 billion.

SEC Settlement…550 million

Doing God’s work? Priceless.

There are a lot of crude suggestions on those pages that aren’t particularly funny with a few gems in between. Currently I’m favoring…

Making you forget about Bernie Madoff one CDO at a time

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Homer is Always Hungry

You have to love the creativity that drove this Brazilian promotion for the Simpsons Movie.

Simpsons Movie escalator

Simpsons Movie escalator

Thanks to Ads of the World and Julien Hatton.

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News for Algorithms

In Dr. Laura, Associated Content and the Googledammerung Scott Rosenberg lamented about the state of Google News, and rightly so.

Is Google News useful? Certainly on a good day.

Is it human? Not so much.

A week after the Dr. Laura n-word controversy hit the fan, Rosenberg typed |Dr. Laura n-word| in Google News and was amazed to see  a story from Associated Content at the top of the results

AC, of course, is the “content farm” recently acquired by Yahoo; it pays writers a pittance to crank out brief items that are — as I’ve written — crafted not to beguile human readers but to charm Google’s algorithm.

AC’s appearance in the Google lead position surprised me. I’d always assumed that, inundated by content-farm-grown dross, Google would figure out how to keep the quality stuff at the top of its index. And this wasn’t Google’s general search index recommending AC, but the more rarefied Google News — which prides itself on maintaining a fairly narrow set of sources, qualified by some level of editorial scrutiny.

Rosenberg goes on to quote the lead paragraph from the AC story, which squeezes the phrase “Dr. Laura n-word” three times into one paragraph. Rosenberg correctly pegs the style — or more accurately, the lack thereof — to nothing more than the “determination to catch Google’s eye by repeating the phrase ‘Dr. Laura n-word’ as many times as possible.”

So there you have it: Associated Content and their ilk may be the first media written for algorithms, not people.

Ronsenberg concludes that the result of this “is consequential for all of us.” I say writing for algorithms is the best way to dumb-down the state of media overall.

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The things copywriters must do

Friend sent me this and opined: “I don’t know if this is an issue due to the exchange rate, or because of measurement standards. Either way, it’s taking a toll on the youth.”

Playground Equipment

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Commitment to Excellence

This is a scan of a sticker exactly as it appeared on our newspaper recently.

Commitment to Excellence

Where is a proofreader when you need one?

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Hunters and Gatherers on the Web

Today we learn via Forbes what we’ve known for thousands of years: males compete, women converse.

Of course that’s an oversimplification, yet it’s almost that basic: women use social networking tools to make connections while men use social networking tools to raise their status, leveraging content-oriented sites like Digg, YouTube and LinkedIn; I believe UC Berkeley’s Lorrie Thomas nails it when she says men use social media as an “interactive Rolodex.”

…women, the gatherers and community builders, had to work as a team to survive. They needed to use each other as resources and adapted to be more supportive by sharing their plans, shortcomings and advice. Today, women are still more likely to be forthcoming and verbose than men, she says, a difference that is reflected online.

Women are the majority of users on conversational sites Twitter, MySpace, Bebo and Flickr; because of their predisposition for conversational media, a woman who advocates for a brand online is more likely to influence her friends—the real nugget for marketers.

Facebook is 57% female and attracts 46 million more female visitors than male visitors per month. Plus, women are more active on Facebook. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says women on Facebook have 8% more friends and participate in 62% of the sharing. “The social world is led by women,” she concludes. And they’re leading that charge online.

This is a powerful statement for the importance of social media and a day we all knew was coming: “The world’s gone social. And women are more social than men,” according to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. And to think that the virtual communication differences between the sexes can be traced to evolutionary methods of survival.

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Congrats to HARO on its second birthday

While it was my friend Dennis Erokan who can claim “get famous” as their own tag line, Help a Reporter Out is surely paying homage by claiming “Get sourced, get quoted, get famous.”

Today is HARO’s second anniversary and it’s been a lifesaver for hundreds of reporters and surely thousands of sources. For many PR pros it’s as mandatory as the morning’s first cup of coffee. As its reputation and popularity spread, what would a sudden influx of “newbies” do to the quality of leads and sources? Will HARO someday suffer its own eternal September?

We hope not. HARO is one of the most helpful tools in a marketing pro’s toolbox. May it ever be so.

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The Dynabook that will eat the world

Could Apple’s tablet announcement really be the incarnation of Alan Kay’s Dynabook?

More importantly, is Apple going to win the interface war? Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo (among many others) have posited that the desktop metaphor does not translate well to the mobile milieu.

And is the iPad, as J.S. McDougall predicted on HuffPo, a Kindle-killer?

A Short History of the Tablet Computer

Gizmodo: Apple iPad First Pics

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Tom Hansen counts down the tag lines

Tag lines. There certainly are some good ones, but there are some stinkers too.

I have to tell you how much I enjoyed Tom Hansen’s Scribbles episode, Tag Lines 2.0. Perhaps all the better since I had just encountered the tag line “We’re the Expert Vibrator Guys.” Yes, you can become a member of the Vibration Nation but to their credit, the company (which makes industrial vibrators) is also very big on lean manufacturing.

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