There are times when it seems everyone is talking about integration without actually looking at what integration truly means. It becomes just another buzz-word used to slap social media or digital tools onto a traditional marketing campaign. Which is sad, because being truly integrated is what provides the most success. Starting to think along those lines can be challenging, but in the end your organization will be the better for it.

What is the driving force behind integration?

Understanding & knowing yourself and your customers.

Your SWOT is more than just a marketing exercise, it should be part and parcel of providing deep insights and a launch pad to developing your strategies. When you layer on analytics intelligence and social monitoring you have actionable data you can start to look at across your touchpoints and develop the best approach.

And that’s where things tend to break down. What are your touchpoints? What are the extensions from those, both short and long-term? Is what you’re doing in marketing relevant and of value? It can be.

Look at your goals and how extending your efforts can enhance them and accelerate them forward. Who are your stakeholders and what are their pain and joy points? Where does your Research & Development come into play? How can you make your customer service more robust and meaningful?

Extend your ideas into where they naturally fit, don’t just accept the same old media buy as the only answer. Take the time to understand your audience and where they live, work, and play. If it doesn’t align to the 30 second spot or a traditional banner ad, don’t waste your time, money and resources there. Big ideas well planned deliver big results.

While we’re looking at where to best allocate our time and resources it’s always a good idea to ask if you have the right people in the right roles. Just because your organizational structure states that this person “does interactive” doesn’t mean they are the right fit to “do social”.

Integration happens by connecting the disparate pieces that should be connected to tell a cohesive, meaningful, and evolving story. Not by one-offs and force-fits.

[photo credit: alto maltes on Flickr]

When publishing “Join the Conversation“, Joe Jaffe decided to take a collaborative approach to it’s marketing (dubbed “UNM2PNM” or “Using New Media to Prove New Media”), to prove that a book could be a success without the huge launch support of most book publishing events. He offered up 150 review copies to bloggers who requested it and agreed to post a review, positive or negative, on their site. Having enjoyed “Life after the 30 second spot” and his blog, I thought I’d take him up on it.

Without further ado, my review:

Joe Jaffe is a passionate guy and it comes through in this provocative call to action to corporations used to shouting at their customers from their ivory towers. Its rallying cry to speak ‘with’ your customers vs. ‘at’ them is a gospel truth for any business in my view. But Jaffe is also realistic and one of the key points he makes is that brands can “catalyze the conversation”.

Joining a conversation implies participating as an equal partner, which is an ideal situation. However, it doesn’t mean that a brand cannot step up to the plate and lead the conversation or attempt to take the conversation to the next level.

I absolutely agree. The caveat is that it has to be done transparently and with actual vs. forced value.

Equally valuable in my view is his addition of 3 new “C’s” to the original new marketing model premise from the late 90’s of the 3 C’s. The original three are: Content, Commerce and Community. Jaffe adds three more to the mix with: Context, Customization and Conversation, and by doing so brings much needed additional depth to the discussion.

Although I feel that the book is absolutely a must read, especially for traditional marketers struggling to come to grips with “Web 2.0″ and “social media”, I do feel that there are a few weak spots that may fundamentally occur by his insistence on separating conversation from communication, which makes some of his arguments appear forced and not fully articulated. Conversation is communication, otherwise it’s a different form of one-way dialogue. The ultimate goal of any conversation, or communication, should be to build a relationship. Jaffe actually makes these same points at various points in his book, however, because of his aversion to talking about “relationship marketing” the basic premise appears forced to become a catch phrase.

His own examples in places can contradict his main point of only a few paragraphs before. For example, in “The Ten Tenets of Good Conversation” he talks about how traditional advertising is built on a web of lies and we are constantly going to market with deficient products that we are lying about to consumers, yet later on in that same section he mentions “Snakes on a Plane” as an unqualified viral success, but states the studio could have done more to drive box office receipts after opening weekend by offering up the stars for interviews with bloggers and such. Perhaps. But after opening day the buzz shifted from how cool the film concept was (and the nostalgia for Sam Jackson as Pulp Fiction character) to how absolutely awful the movie actually was. More buzz online can’t make up for a bad product. With social media/ new media as with traditional advertising; you can’t mask a bad product behind buzz.

I also feel that in many ways the book neglects to truly take technology and historical context into account and provide a deeper understanding as to why some parts of the culture at large are embracing two-way conversation and mashing up their own brand related content (or the Read/ Write Web) at this point in history. And on the flip side, recognizing that an equally large portion of the population has no interest in having a conversation with a brand, or having them insert themselves into their social interactions.

By somewhat disparaging “traditional interactive” (by which I gather he means email, websites, search, online advertising, newsletters, games, etc. etc.) as just as much of a problem as “traditional advertising” Jaffe neglects to recognize how the technology has not only limited, but has also paved the road of experimentation to arrive at a point in time where two-way conversation online is possible. The “conversation” aspect has always existed in the online world that most people know, with email, live help, IM, etc. The ability for the consumer to *start* or change, the conversation with potential strangers and have it exist for posterity is what has significantly changed in my view.

Although it has it’s flaws (as does everything in life!), I absolutely feel JTC is a valuable addition to the marketing conversation and should be a must read in not only Fortune 1000 corporate boardrooms, but is also incredibly valuable for smaller organizations looking to make a difference and engage their customers as a competitive edge.

Give away: I have an extra copy of the book to give away to the first person to leave a comment or email me (addy is on the sidebar and timestamps will determine the winner in case of tie) with the answer to the following trivia question:

Which chapter of Join the Conversation is comprised of thoughts from contributors on the Wiki prior to the books publication?

Update: And the book is gone!

As was only a matter of time, a debunker has arisen from the marketing world to take on the "Influencer" theory, which was brought to mainstream consciousness with Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, and is a foundation of current word of mouth marketing. Not surprisingly, there are immediate (and invested) detractors and a lively debate will most likely ensue. I’ve been away from the blog for a bit and had a post started and saved entitled "Apple’s billion dollar WOM success story" in response to a lot of the assertions following MacWorld as to the truly organic nature of the Apple brand story. Needless to say, it seems it’s appropriate to now merge it into this one!

In Sean’s post in response to Watt’s Fast Company article, he says:

Well I’ll be darned. Watts believe that companies can’t will a trend that grows small and spreads large into existence. If Watts then, can explain to be the growth of Facebook, MySpace, Wii, Prius, Starbucks, eBay, Apple, Burton, Jones Soda, Maker’s Mark, Innocent Drinks, Harley Davidson, lululemon and a host of other products that have eschewed mass media and have galvanized a brand community through grassroots experiences and targeting fans, ambassadors and influencers, then I guess I’ll reject most of what I’ve written about in my last 400 posts.

I hate to be a wet blanket on the theories that all the ‘cool, hip’ brands eschewed mass media and are the pure products of influencer word-of-mouth, but, for most of these brands, traditional marketing and advertising was the way they reached critical mass, established their brand identity, and the blended approach they are currently using, in the case of Apple specifically, continues to drive their growth.

In other words:

Influencer cultivation and communication builds long-term and sustainable product loyalty and evangelism.

Brand marketing brings out the over-arching brand essence, reaches a large and diverse audience, and helps discover new influencers.

And the cycle continues.

Let’s take Apple as the classic example of the viral success story… I absolutely agree that a lot of their early success was driven by their niche customer base and that these graphic designers, etc. were evangelists. Absolutely true. But Apple did a lot of TV, print, online, and radio advertising to support their product, because, as a niche product without a wider reaching customer base, it was in trouble. In 1997, Apple, struggling with 3% of the market, received a cash infusion from Microsoft. In a landmark moment Steve Jobs stood on stage at MacWorld, with Bill Gates on the video screen behind him, and said the following:

The era of setting this up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft is over, as far as I’m concerned. This is about getting Apple healthy, and this is about Apple being able to make incredibly great contributions to the industry to get healthy and prosper again.

What a difference 10 years make and a carefully re-crafted brand image and massive amounts of dollars spent in traditional advertising to support the product launches.

When I was in Los Angeles in 1997 – 2001 I distinctly remember the Think Different campaign… it was omnipresent: billboards, posters, TV, Internet… everywhere. And that type of ad spend was replicated in cities across the US and the world. Apple hasn’t stopped using traditional channels since… Mac vs. PC commercials are the latest incarnation and they aren’t only available on YouTube. EarthLink, while I was working there, played off of the edginess of Think Different with their own campaign… they wanted to be the Apple to AOL’s Microsoft. Unfortunately, then Microsoft got in the ISP game and the rest is history.

But I digress…

Even the pure internet (and now name brand) companies advertised through mass channels when they launched, throughout the 90’s and ’00’s – Yahoo! was all over TV and radio with the annoying cowboy spots; eTrade on the SuperBowl, OOH, DM, print; Google out of home ads everywhere; MySpace 100M blast email campaign; eBay was launched with print and radio and added in TV in 2000… and the list goes on. And in so far as Prius goes, sure the celebrities riding around in them gives the campaign cachet, but the classic automaker TV, print, web, OOH, and event marketing certainly helps build the awareness over the long term. I also think I may have seen a few Wii TV spots before the holidays?

Now, all of this being said, word-of-mouth cultivation and, more recently, social media strategies, are hugely important, and are needed to elevate the brand into a true dialogue and value exchange with customers, but it’s not the messiah. It’s about integration and understanding who your brand speaks to, builds products for, and respectfully letting them know about you and finding out how you can help them in their daily lives. It’s about telling a story that is meaningful, making people stand up and take notice, and providing a solid reason for them to do so.

Sometimes that means convincing the high school design geek that Mac’s are cool 20 years ago, only to see him grow up to be Tim Burton and become an influencer to a mass audience.

In the end: Branding still matters. Brand promises still matter. Products always matter. And the influencers and evangelists matter. The lifecycle matters and the integration matters. To do anything in a vacuum, and without understanding the symbiotic relationship between brand and consumer, is a recipe for disaster.

[Photo credit: Paranoid Black Jack via Flickr]

The rules haven’t changed THAT much.

Molson has pulled it’s Facebook advertising campaign after public pressure and denunciations accused the beer company of promoting drinking amongst young adults. There’s always been a fine line alcohol companies have had to navigate in their marketing campaigns, especially considering the target market for mass vs. premium beer brands has always been 19-24 year olds (or 21-25 in the USA) who the beer brands try to make loyal customers for life by targeting them when they can first start drinking legally. That’s the nature of the biz, and one rainy day during patio season can heavily impact sales. When I worked on the LBOC and LUSA (Labatt Breweries of Canada and Labatt USA respectively) interactive brands back in 2002 this was something we had to be acutely aware of, and submitted our campaigns to rigorous scrutiny and approval by the AGCO. Frankly I’m more surprised this got past the AGCO than I am that Molson tried to push the envelope.

According to Molson this campaign is a result of the social media space being relatively new.

‚ÄúThe whole realm of social media ‚Äì there’s lots to learn,‚Äù he said. ‚ÄúIt’s really a new area. We’re probably groundbreaking and leading in a lot of things we’ve been doing.‚Äù

Social media tools, the Read/Write Web, and CGC may be relatively new, but the regulations surrounding alcohol marketing and advertising are not, and strategies that involve getting young adults to drink to excess to promote a product are not “groundbreaking”.

Social media does not mean throwing common sense out the window, no matter how much you’d like to get a beer version of Girls Gone Wild going to encourage sales (and believe me, sex sells and there’s nothing wrong with that… when done responsibly). Social media is not “one size fits all”, nor should it be. If you’re tying your brand to a campaign, there still may need to be rules in place (especially if you are a regulated industry), and Molson, and their agency, should have had the sense to have moderators in place before allowing a video picture to be posted or entered into the contest at the very least, and should have nixed the idea of having the contest revolve around students “partying on campus” at the brainstorming level. There are other ways to promote a product and engage in the social media space.

The campaign, pure and simple, involved getting young adults, with whom binge drinking is already a huge concern, to drink beer and post videos about it for a chance to win a trip to Cancun; what other message were they supposed to take away from “partying around campus”? Tupperware? Tea? And anyone who has been to Cancun knows it’s the haven for drinking to excess, so the underlining message is quite clear. If Molson and their agency didn’t think through the ramifications of this, I’m truly surprised. “One upmanship” amongst young adults is well known, and it’s one of the reasons why drinking games like quarters and keg party’s are still around; to think that giving them a chance to do so to win a trip wasn’t going to happen, or indirectly encourage it in order to create the most provocative video pic, was irresponsible. They were right to pull it and they are right to be called out in two subsequent Globe and Mail articles (the power of the print medium is still alive and well).

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Owning up to a mistake is a key part of the transparency and authenticity of social media… that may be the “groundbreaking” part Molson is missing here. There are a ton of ways I can see to have gotten the same message across, had fun, and engaged the demographic they were trying to reach. Hopefully they’ll have learned from it and my guess is the regulatory agency’s won’t be too far behind.

It would have been a different thing had they targeted it generally vs. specifically to colleges in my opinion.

Update – and viewing the creative where “Molson Cold Shot 6.0″ cans are front and centre leaves the premise that the campaign was “misunderstood” sorely lacking.

Update 2 – From one of the comments on the article:

If anyone should be worried about anything, it should be about pictures being on Facebook. Has anyone said anything about the fact that unflattering pictures may end up being within the public domain without someone’s consent? Has anyone mentioned that such pictures bein used by Molson as part of a commercial undertaking without the express consent of those being captured? [i.e. anyone in the photo who didn't enter the contest]

ps – before anyone accuses me of being anti-partying… I’ll see you at the Firkin during a Leafs game ;)

h/t – Traffick

[photo credit: AffiliateBob via Flickr]

I was hesitant to weigh in on the latest kerfuffle raised by the recent TechCrunch post, frankly, because I knew all of these black hat tactics were being utilized by those less savory in our field, and the post just confirmed it, but felt I had to do so when I realized that too many people in our industry were surprised (vs. the ‘regular folks’ in the TC comments who were justifiably outraged, if not surprised).

Let’s apply some logic here – the Internet is a huge, unruly place, with millions of people and companies vying for attention. Dollars are shifting online in record fashion and LOTS of service companies want a piece. How do you break through the clutter, prove results and make a buck? By pushing the limits to the edge, as all firms: advertising, marketing, PR, Web 2.0, etc. do? Do we really suppose that we’ve always done things completely ethically? I’d like to say yes, but I’ve worked for too many firms with client expectations and million dollar budgets on the line to ever make that claim with a straight face. I know that I founded my own strategic marketing firm because I grew sick and tired of tactics employed, lack of true innovation, and egos, and I keep a firm grip on how myself and my team execute projects and develop strategies, but that’s just little old Wildfire in a sea of thousands. I also am (speaking of ego) able to better navigate the waters and develop innovative strategies precisely because of my track-record in the interactive space and the focus I’ve always placed on customer relationships vs. pure push advertising. It’s easier to determine how to balance a company’s need for bottom-line ROI while remaining authentic and transparent about the tactics employed: been there done that and seen a lot. For example, I’m particularly proud of the creative concept and integrated strategy I developed while working with TFC for Sharp Canada (Aquos 1080p D82 Challenge) precisely because it was pure branding, social responsibility, and community engagement. It worked on all levels and the bottom line result was good for Sharp and good for the environment.

That being said, why are we surprised? It takes work and a lot of money to be truly immersed in the Internet and social media space, and with profit margins at agencies and companies being pushed further down, is it realistic to expect that any firm can afford that much R&D and people-hours? Folks expect to get paid and brands expect a return on investment that is tangible. The bottom line for all brands is to sell product and satisfy their shareholders (which is why they are called “for profit”). That will not change, and it’s why 30-second spots still work, even if they’re being moved online in increasing numbers (hello, viral spots). And, as consumers get more sophisticated, more people will recognize not to necessarily trust what you read online unless you know the person, or unless it’s independently verified (ala Consumer Reports) like all of us old skool interactive geeks realized about 7 years ago. Everyone has an agenda, that’s just life. We don’t live in a utopia, we live in a capitalist society. Even the old standard, The Red Cross, was less than pure after 9/11. We can change things, for sure, but change takes time; people aren’t a piece of software that we can just upgrade when we discover a bug or want to add a new feature.

Why are we trying to figure out social media ROI at all if we believe it’s all about the long-term relationship? True relationships take years to develop, just because someone joins your community, for whatever internal and external reasons suit their needs at the moment, it’s just as easy to leave when it doesn’t. That’s what churn is. Consumers own their relationships with a brand and for that reason they also own the conversation – trying to satisfy everyone while continuing to make money is the rub of social media. You can’t have an agency built with everyone’s best friend. The participation economy is a reality, but it’s also a fallacy when you step outside of our bubble. Hip Hop artists don’t do product placement in videos and start their own clothing lines (multi-billion dollar industry) because someone wrote a positive review online or added them as a ‘friend’ in Facebook.

Let’s be realistic. How much time do you spend on YouTube scouring the new submissions, rating them up and sending them along? With over 10k submitted per day, my guess is not enough that you could spot “the next big thing” without having someone point you to it. The recent WOM conference in Toronto in April of this year recognized Chevrolet for their “Let’s Go Chevy” campaign as being a WOM success story when the company was blaring the URL in TV spots, banner ads, newspaper ads, etc. etc. Did we complain then (well, I did, but not too many others)? Why is that okay and not the tactics employed by The Commotion Group except for our own expectations of the purity of the space? It’s not. Neither of them is okay. We need to take off our rose-coloured glasses and think in the big picture. I don’t employ the tactics used in the article, but I get the feeling I’m in the minority (and no, I’m not going to share my secrets), and although a shame, we should look at this as a learning opportunity and be prepared to recognize that if we really want to succeed in this brave new world, we have to be honest with our clients about how much time and effort it will take to build lasting success… and what success truly means. We need to stop speaking to ourselves and start exploring the space.

We bloggers even do similar things – link-bait posts that exist solely to drive traffic/ reputation (Lists upon lists of “the top blogs”, posting on your own blog about a controversy instead of responding in the comments elsewhere: just like this post, etc), “calling outs” to stir controversy, speaking to our own echo chamber and measuring success against that, plagiarism, passing ourselves off as experts in the space when we aren’t, whatever. None of us are true angels. No one is completely pure in reality, and that includes the consumers we are trying to reach.

Perhaps this will be a wake-up call, but I think not. Too much money on the line and the easy way out is usually the one people take (especially for products such as movies that have a short shelf life to make a buzz on opening weekend – the majority of the clients The Commotion Group appears to work for). I know that I’ll continue doing what I do, and one of these days I’ll hang it all up and go be a yoga-instructor and run a golf course up north. Until then, I’m not jumping on any bandwagons and I’ll keep learning, experimenting, educating clients, and being a hurricane when appropriate.

But that’s just my opinion – there are a million of them (manufactured or not) out there to choose from.

Update: Tony Hung has a good post on this as well…. a choice bit:

Mike Arrington himself seems a bit taken aback by how honest the post is, but is anyone *really* shocked?

Are your (or anyone’s) sensibilities *really* that delicate?

….

Bottom line is that this post pulls the curtain back on a phenomenon that any rational thinking individual would already suspect.

That is, when there is financial incentive and opportunity to game a system — even when that system has the appearance of being “open”, “transparent”, and built upon the goodwill and trust of its users (how typically quaint!) — someone will do it.

And the best of them will do it in such a way that no one else will even *know*.

[photo credit: daryldarko via Flickr]