CopyDiva

Recently, David Alston of Radian6 posted a picture, using Twitpic, of a current magazine ad for FruitLoops that freaked him out. I got the idea that he wants his kids to have healthy eating habits.

He was incredulous - is FruitLoops really trying to pass off their cereal as a good snack — a good breakfast? It tells moms that they can “feel good giving their kids a nutritious snack that won’t come back in their lunch box.” Here’s the offending ad (sideways, unfortunately, can’t figure out why it doesn’t orient properly):

A nutritious snack? FruitLoops? Last I checked, something that had a first ingredient of sugar was considered junk food. But, lets just check the nutrition label from a box of FruitLoops:

Yup, just as I suspected. High sugar, no fiber, a micron of protein - which certainly means energy, but a short burst, instead of a real satisfying snack that would keep you going.
Have advertisers really come that far from these ads, circa the 1950’s and 1960’s?

Doesn’t seem so to me. Here’s an ad from the 1950’s I’ve lovingly titled “7Up Baby.” Though its hard to read (but is easily found online), the gist of the ad is that 7Up is so natural, that its ok for even a baby to drink it. So go ahead, give that 7 month old a good chug-a-lug of 7Up and build up that lifelong craving and desire for white sugar.
How about this one, which came out as a response to artificial sweeteners being added to make low-calorie soda:

Seems like if you’re a good mom, you’ll give your teen (girl) sugar so that she will have the energy to get through her day — and its low calorie, at just 18 calories a teaspoon. ‘Cuz you wouldn’t want Mary to get fat.

My point is, advertising to moms hasn’t changed much. Now, instead of appealing to wholesome American-dream type values, its positioned around the convenient packaging of a ready-to-eat plastic bag of sugary-ness, so that you can spend one less minute making your kids lunch — since we’re all too busy to spend 5 minutes making a healthy lunch. That’s right, kids, a sugary snack is a nutritious snack.

Seeing these ads - and as many on TV that make moms/wives look like stupid dolts who get supreme life satisfaction out of: getting their husbands to eat oats, or a clean toilet bowl, or a really good dustrag - makes me downright depressed about how wives and mothers are still portrayed in media and advertising.

I guess my point is I am not surprised at the FruitLoops ad. Apparently, the market research shows that parents think cereal is a healthy snack (though this and other stories tend to refute that), so, as an extrapolation, FruitLoops must be too. But really, how many parents really believe that? And, have advertisers, who’ve been criticized for targeting children with ads for unhealthy food, really done much to change?

Oh, and don’t think I have it in for just FruitLoops and Kellogg’s. Plenty of the high-end brands sold as “natural and healthy” have as much or more sugar in their cereals, too. Organic sugar isn’t any better than plain old sugar, when it comes to sugar cereal. It’s just more expensive.

How do you use, interact with, and communicate with social computing/social media tools? Lately, I have spent some time thinking about the way I use specific social computing tools and why others bore me, or why I simply have no interest in others. Certainly not a science, as these are my observations about my personal usage, but I do think that perhaps it bears some useful information, particularly about motivations, necessities, distractions, connections, and other words ending in -ion.

Blogging: Writing and Reading

The ol’ stalwart blogging. Yes, I blog, but certainly not an A-lister - more like a D-lister or lower. My blog isn’t bringing in money, nor is it set up to do that. I blog about mostly business topics that interest me. I am not really a personal blogger, except for the occasional anecdote. I blog for this blog, guest blog on occasion, and blog where I work.
As far as reading blogs, I subscribe to a number of blogs via Google Reader, but I have to say I rarely read them. Having worked at a social media measurement company, I am spoiled, and so I don’t like sifting through blog posts I don’t care about. So, I use Filtrbox to streamline my reading. I have a few filters set up, and I sift through those when I have time to peruse posts that are of interest. I am less interested in who is doing the writing, because there are plenty of unknown bloggers that write good, interesting, thought-provoking posts.

Generally speaking, I find a lot of interesting and relevant things to read through people I follow on Twitter and Friendfeed.

Micro-blogging or update services

Twitter: I use Twitter for updates that are both personal and business-oriented as well. I follow friends, business associates and interesting and important people in the social media space, and I am followed by similar folks. I don’t necessarily follow everyone who follows me. Early on, I did, but I found that some people were micro-verbose (meaning, they would tweet 6 or 7 tweets in a row, which is really annoying). So, I have reduced somewhat the number of people I follow, but am always adding new people as well.

How I access Twitter: I never login to Twitter’s web page to tweet, only to read profiles. I use Twirl as my desktop tweeting app (its also my friendfeed app). I don’t like having to visit web pages to update messaging, it takes too long and makes it even more disruptive than it needs to be.

What I hate about Twitter use: It’s bad enough when someone you’re talking to gets a phone call or email, but by far the rudest interrupter is getting tweets delivered to your phone. TURN IT OFF. I can certainly envision a helpful aspect to getting tweets to your phone — getting updates in an emergency, for example, or getting organized with a large group you are traveling with. But, I have to say, the tweets I get seem really not important enough to interrupt me when I am away from a computer.

FriendFeed: This very helpful aggregator of social tools, from Digg and Technorati to Plurk and Twitter to LinkedIn. After plugging in all my accounts, I have no reason to visit the FriendFeed site, except to find people to follow, which makes it very easy to interact with, at a low commitment level, which I prefer.

In part 2, I will discuss many other micro-blogging or update services, plus social networks.

Interesting posts I read this week, so far:

• Improving your website as a business asset and lead generator: This post at conversation marketing gives you concrete steps to take for a 3-hour improvement on your site (probably good for sites that don’t have 100’s of pages).
• WOM moneyback guarantee: WOM agency BzzAgent is challenging themselves by pitting their efforts against a typical interactive shop — if they don’t do 20% better than an agency, your WOM campaign is free. Kudos to them on that challenge, its very compelling.
• Top 50 Women Bloggers: Want to know which women bloggers have the most influence (granted, as per usual, this is a subjective analysis)? What really intrigued me about this story was the incredible diversity of topics of these women, from knitters to sex therapists to techno-geeks.
• Alisa Leonard has great, cheeky insights when I remember to read them. She added to her list of things to do when you want to get social.

Today, my snail mail showed up with yet another catalog that I never order from. Here’s the basic reality: I can count on one hand how many purchases I’ve made, from a paper catalog, in the last year. These purchases were from two catalogs: RoadRunner Sports (where I buy my running shoes and the very occasional item of running clothes) and Sierra Trading Post (skivvies for skiing and assorted outdoor activities).

I am not a paper catalog buyer, generally speaking. So why does LL Bean continue to send me catalogs? And Lands End, Chico’s, Title Nine (who has a store in my town that I could go to instead), etc? The catalog industry is in the dull-drums, thanks to Internet buying habits of people like me. But, it really peeves me that perfectly good trees are cut down and wasted so that the catalog industry can create glossy catalogs for me to put right into my recycling bin.

I would think that in today’s world of marketing and sales metrics, the catalog companies would figure out that I am a bad target — haven’t ordered from you in many years — and simply cull me from their list. Most sales organizations do this regularly, so that they don’t waste time marketing to people who, frankly, are not interested. Otherwise, marketing lists get unwieldy, corrupt and create lousy return on lead gen efforts.
Compare this to other companies that are more Internet and search-driven, like Zappos and Bluefly.com. I’ve ordered from Zappos (though I did return my order), and though they maybe have a catalog, I haven’t received one from them. Blessedly. Same with Bluefly — what they sent was a clever postcard coupon for a percent off my next purchase, a few months after my last purchase.

So, my message to companies like this — its time to diversify your customer relationship strategy, your lead generation strategy. Thanks to search and other online marketing, many people - maybe most - don’t buy the way they used to even 5 years ago.

• strategize better search terms to expand customers for specific types of products (like running shoes, flip flops, etc) that people tend to repeat buy
• go niche — products targeted at natural communities (scrapbookers, cyclists, techno-geeks) work better than demographics - remember, just because I am a white, middle-class mom with kids, doesn’t mean I have the same interests as another white, middle-class mom with kids who lives next door
• create more interactive shopping experiences for items that are difficult to shop for online (shoes, bathing suits, dress suits) AND make returns of those items free of charge — it works for Zappos

What do you do to retain customer loyalty? In today’s world, where there’s always a cheaper place to buy something, or a cheaper version of what you’re selling, it can be really difficult to create any connection with customers. But, as anyone in sales and marketing knows, its more efficient and costs less to keep customers than to find new ones. Building relationships with customers (ie, exceeding their expectations) is an important and often lost art in business.

How do you do that? Well, certainly there are differences in every business, but I think one of the best ways to do it is to exceed expectations in unexpected, memorable ways. Many of these involve encouraging your staff to take that extra step for the customer by empowering them to do things without endless manager approval.
Yesterday, I had a few experiences like this. I went skiing at my favorite mountain, Copper. It’s my favorite for a number of reasons, one of which is this kind of service. So, what do they do? Well, for one thing, they have free parking lots with endlessly running shuttles that take you — for free — to the mountain. They have 3 different shuttles that go to the 3 different mountain bases, so it takes all of 5-10 minutes from when you parked to getting on a chairlift. Which, considering how much lift tickets are, is really nice. At Vail, where ticket prices are outrageous, there’s no free parking, and you have to take an endless walk in your ski gear to get to the mountain. For a day skier, its a crappy way to start and end your day.
Yesterday on the shuttle at Copper, the driver offered discount coupons on rental gear for anyone who might need it. A nice little extra unexpected touch. Then, when I was leaving, the parking lot attendants were washing everyone’s windshields. Why, I asked? Just because. The dude who washed my windshield said the reason they liked working at Copper was because of what they called “The Bro Factor,” the laid back attitude of the company. The Bro Factor is, what seems to me, the authentic approach to customer relationships that Copper takes to develop loyalty from its local customers.
More Bro Factor: Christy’s, where I rent my son’s snowboard gear. He was supposed to go to the mountain with me, but being a teenager, got a better offer that involved hanging out with friends. So, he didn’t use his rental equipment. When I returned it to the store last night and told them he hadn’t used it, the staff person gave me a coupon for a free rental. The reason the equipment wasn’t used had nothing to do with Christy’s, but this staff person felt empowered to do something unexpected. Now Christy’s is just one of a dozen ski rental shops in town, but I go there because of their customer service and because they rent better equipment.

So what’s your Bro Factor?

Last night I bought a new pair of boots on Zappos.com. Big deal, right? Exactly. So, I am just almost through with the check out, and I get a pop-up window that asks the following questions:

• do I want to share what I purchased on Facebook? Or,
• do I want to share that “I bought something cool at zappos.com” on Facebook? Or
• no thanks

Why do I want to share what I bought on Facebook? The fact that I spent probably a little too much money on a pair of boots — a very nice pair of warm winter boots — why do I want to share that information? Maybe I am just not that kind of person. I mean, it isn’t like I called all my friends last night and told them about my purchase.

Maybe I am just not that interested in exposing that much to the ether. I really love shoes, but that doesn’t compel me to let other people know. Can someone please explain to mean this desire to express my purchases?

To be fair, I do expose my music stations that I listen to on Pandora, but I think that is different somehow. What I listen to is more of an expression of who I am than my winter boots. In fact, the whole idea of letting people know about what kind of boots I bought is boring me so much I will stop now.

Just posted on the Collective Intellect blog my opinions related to the whole issue of measuring influence in social media. This is an important question for folks in marketing, advertising and PR these days, because everyone is trying to figure out how to monetize (I know, hate that word) social media.

What concerns me about that whole “making money” aspect is that too many agencies will convince their clients to jump into social media before they (the agencies and the clients) understand what they are doing. This already happens — in fact, we were just arguing about that in the office this morning when one of our partners asked for ideas for a social media campaign. It was clear from the request that the partner is still relatively clueless about good potential uses for social media campaigns.

The result is that users will just jump on the next bandwagon (newer app, fewer advertisers) to try to get away from the onslaught. It’s time for advertisers to realize that the whole model is broken. Why do you think TiVO’s are so popular?
Anyhoo. Back to the influence measurement. Since social media is dynamic, you cannot measure influence like you do in traditional media, where influence remains relatively static. To find out more about my opinion, visit this link to my post at the Collective Intellect blog.

I posted today on Collective Intellect’s blog about an article from Monday’s Wall Street Journal, discussing the metrics problem with online advertising — basically, how it is hard to figure out online measurement because there are a lot of variables, and different vendors measure in different ways. I find it amazing still that measurement is so seemingly arbitrary still, similar to the model by Nielsen to measure advertising online. Online measurement should be easier, because there is a trail of data left behind. However, now there are so many place to measure, it is more complicated.

You can read my post here.

At the requisite weekend BBQ, I chatted with my friend Caroline, a relative Internet newbie who is completely enthralled with all things online. I had told her about Pandora Internet Radio, and she was telling someone else about it, which reminded me that I hadn’t listened in a while. So, today, while working, I logged in to Pandora.

Wow, it’s really changed since the last time I saw it.

The whole interface received an upgrade, which is nice, but I have to say their ad model is just, well, weird. I initially could not figure out why there was a strange looking pair of legs on the page. Then, I see that I am invited to listen to “Schick Quattro Radio for Women,” or add it to my radio list. Now why would I do that? I mean, do I care that much about what razor I use that it is somehow related to my music choices? This is some weird-ass brand extension idea. I would be extremely curious to see what kind of impact this has.
I did also see the opportunity to listen to radio stations put together by Budweiser, which seems more likely because listening to music somehow seems more related to drinking beer than shaving my legs.

I decided to click through on the Schick ad, and it just got weirder. I was offered a free leg reading –uh, what? Somebody actually got paid to come up with the oddest idea for a viral campaign I think that I have ever seen. And odd here is not good, I can’t actually believe that someone would actually send this to a person, wasting bandwidth in the process. I only did it so I could blog about how weird it is.

With my fake name (Eunice), I selected pictures of what kind of shoes (flip-flops, sneakers, heels), clothes, and toe nails (painted, unpainted, tattooed) to get my leg reading — which it turns out is a really dumb ad for these new razors for women. The lack of imagination and fun value that’s required for a successful viral campaign is not anywhere to be found in this campaign.

But this is really besides the point. Really what I cannot figure out is why I would want to listen to song selections made by Schick. Especially if I am making my own radio stations on Pandora because I think I know what I like.

Yesterday, my son and I got new cell phones. We finally reached our two-year “you get a new phone now!” date — he was beyond excited, since he had a cheapy crap phone we bought on Ebay after he lost one nice phone skiing and sent another through the laundry (sound familiar, parents?). He decided on a V-Cast phone so he could get music on his phone. This V-Cast thing is quite the scam, as far as I can tell. The monthly fee only covers the airtime you’re accessing the V-Cast system so you don’t use your minutes. The songs are so incredibly expensive — $2/each — that I am amazed anyone decides to buy this service. Then again, what do I know, I’m not a teenager.

The craziest thing about the whole buying experience with Verizon is that I wanted to change my service level at the same time, since I apparently am such a big cell phone blabber that I blow past my minutes pretty consistently. But, every time you change anything on your plan, you automatically extend your plan by a year. So, according to the Verizon customer service guy, I should wait until the day after buying the new phone BEFORE changing my service level. Why? Because, and I know this is wacky math and all:

new phone = new 2-year contract
new service = new 1-year contract

Total: new 3-year contract

Basically, by changing phones and plans on the same day, they add these two together and come up with 3 years. By waiting 1 day, I add just 1 more day to my two year contract. Now, this has got to be the stupidest, customer-irritating thing — no wait, the whole contract thing really is, but this is just an extension on that whole story. Why isn’t their system as smart as that customer service agent?