digital optimism

That might be a dumb question. With corporations paying million-dollar bonuses to executives with tax payer money, I see why they’d want to keep that under wraps. But in some businesses, it feels like every decision must remain a secret. How can we explain this perpetual confidentiality?

I attribute it to one thing: fear. Company executives are afraid of how other people will react to their decisions. This fear is valid…sort of. We’ve seen how one bad decision can lead to an uprising of unhappy people (ie: Motrin baby-wearing ad campaign). So while it may seem like a valid fear, it’s really not.

I hate to be cliché, but you truly can’t win ‘em all. Fear should evolve into acceptance and confidence. Companies just need to embrace the power of reputation management. Decisions should be made with the expectation that it will be public knowledge. That way, a plan for response measures can be established. People just want some answers, and I mean employees and customers alike. I know that clear, honest communication can repair broken relationships.

Thanks to technology, company secrets can now be revealed to the masses. We shouldn’t fear this. Disgruntled customers now give us the opportunity to appease them with a response. Unhappy employees now have the opportunity to speak up, and businesses have the equal opportunity to reply. The act of responding is key.

Photo credit: vk-red (Flickr)

Most marketing professionals suffer from constant information overload. At least ten must-read articles cross my path every day, while hundreds of “get-to-them-later” posts wait in my reader. Today, a few of those must-reads were “how-to” posts from industry pros that I completely disagreed with.

I do not want to undermine the value of how-to posts. These articles are valuable and without them, I’d be lost. But it’s important to remember that most of this information is not the end all, be all of corporate communication. Not only because technology is ever-changing, but because what doesn’t work for one business might actually work for another.

It’s certainly easy to follow instructions from seasoned professionals, but don’t just take the information and run with it. We cannot expect another company’s tactics to pan out perfectly for our unique business needs. I believe this lack of reflection is to blame for many initiatives failing miserably.

Thought leaders on corporate blogging tell us that quality content is king. While I do agree, some blogs simply do not write quality content. Instead, these bloggers mobilize readers to write quality content in the comments section. The Merrill Dubrow Blog is an example. This is a widely-read blog in the market research industry. Merrill is a great blogger and some of his posts are in fact helpful. However, most of them are simply fun and have little to do with market research. This strategy works for his business.

So read the how-to posts and use them as a starting point if you need one. But remember that it might not work for you or your company, and here’s where the importance of testing comes in. If you aren’t quantifying your initiatives, you are wasting time. Follow the leader to begin, but remember that your own creativity and ideas will most likely be your jackpot. As you take advice from industry veterans, question them and question whether or not their strategy fits your business goals. If you don’t do this, you will fail sooner or later.

Photo credit: vivified (Flickr)

Technically, I missed tonight’s Conversations About the Future of Advertising presentation from Kristina Halvorson – but I didn’t miss much. I caught the most important points via Twitter.

This got me thinking about the future of presentations and conferences. Are people going to be more selective with what presentations they physically attend? Are event planners going to be able to get away with charging attendees the same amounts of money in the future because of this? Anyone can join the conversations without actually showing up now, thanks to the power of Twitter and the web. I recognize that participating online is not the same as physical attendance, but it’s a pretty great substitute when you can’t make it to the show. Anyway, just some conversation fuel.

What do you think?

Photo credit: Andrew Feinberg

Lately I’ve been struggling with a bunch of spam e-mails from companies I’ve never heard of. Some have these have turned out to be nearly impossible to unsubscribe from. Today was no different, as I tried to unsubscribe from a certain list to no avail. It brought me to a page which said “The request did not include a valid MID. Please have your MID setup properly to utilize this page.”

Since I had no idea what MID meant and no time to figure it out, I assumed (correctly) that I had not been removed from this list.

A few hours later, I received this message:

Dear Elizabeth,

Earlier today you opened an email from us announcing the new and improved Customer Management IQ website. Unfortunately some of the links in that email were not functioning correctly and as a result you may not have been able to open all of the articles you wanted to view.

We apologize for this inconvenience and would like to provide you with the direct links to the items in the earlier email.

I realized I must have gotten myself on the hook to receive these e-mails from downloading a white paper or something of the sort. Silly me. But how nice of them to apologize for their e-marketing shortcomings. Sadly they still have a few bugs to work out, since the unsubscribe link was still not functioning properly.

My advice to companies: your messages are not forever-relevant to your subscribers. Be kind and make it simple for them to get away from you if they wish. Nobody likes too much noise on the web or clutter in their inbox.

I’ve asked myself many times how using celebrities like Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Love Hewitt to sell acne solution ever made sense. I’m sorry Jessica, but I didn’t exactly empathize with you and your once ‘troublesome’ skin. And really, I’m hoping the majority of us realize that olympic athletes do not eat chicken sandwiches from McDonald’s for breakfast.

We may be young, but we aren’t dense. Or, are we? Celebrity endorsements are prevalent, so they must be effective. However, Tiger Woods driving a Buick has very little significance for me. So I just don’t get it. Someone, please- explain.

Layoffs, layoffs, and more layoffs. It’s hardly shocking anymore, and then it hits home; two Minneapolis companies (Best Buy and Target) announced, in the same day, impending layoffs. The concept of “job security” hardly exists right now. In my opinion, companies have done a terrible job reflecting this ambivalence in their marketing. Hyundai is a different story.

Maybe I’m a little out of the loop, but this is the first I’ve heard of anyone offering a guarantee like this. Hyundai has a new ad campaign going on- “Certainty in Uncertain Times.” If you’re thinking about buying a car right now, consider a Hyundai. Why? Because if you lose your income in the next year, you can bring the car back hassle free (well, there’s probably some hassle involved, but much less than trying to figure out car payments when you’re unemployed).

What an incredible reassurance for those who are debating whether or not to buy a new car in a slumping economy. I am so impressed with Hyundai right now. I would very seriously consider a Hyundai if I were to buy a car right now.

Hey Big 3! Are you hearing this? Just saying.

Sidenote- I just saw an Ameriprise commercial that mentions the “uncertain economy.” Perhaps I spoke too soon. Still, Hyundai’s guarantee rocks.

Good grief. Talk about a viral campaign fail whale. I’m telling you, if I had a nickel for each blog post I saw about the big Motrin fiasco today, I could buy lunch for a week. I told myself I was NOT going to blog about it, but I decided to defend Motrin. So to all angry mommy bloggers out there:  somewhere in your house there is a baby sticking his finger in an electrical socket or drinking Drain-o from under the sink while you sit in complete rage at Motrin. I admit the ad does seem to dump on baby wearing parents at first; but honestly, it’s an ad. From Motrin. I’m a mommy, and a blogger, and I am not upset by this. In fact, I thank you, Motrin. You got me through one hell of a c-section recovery.

Interesting post about this from the Reponsible Marketing blog here.