Transparency Done Properly

Had you passed through Terminal 5 of London's Heathrow Airport any time last week, you might have happened upon author Alain de Botton, who was occupying a desk there as the airport's first Writer-In-Residence.

BAA, owner of Heathrow Airport, hired de Botton to spend one week in Terminal 5, observing the passengers and staff of Britain's largest airport. de Botton, the Swiss-British author and philosopher whose How Proust Can Change Your Life brought him acclaim in the U.S. as well as in his home across the pond, will collect his observations into his next book, A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary, to be released in late September. BAA reportedly gave de Botton full physical access to all areas of the airport, as well as full literary access to cover any topic about the airport, down to any cockroaches that he may have seen.

According to Creativity-Online, 10,000 free copies of the book will be given to random Heathrow passengers; the book will also be available for sale at major retailers.

While de Botton says that this book will be more journalist-style than philosopher-style, it is still a bold marketing move for BAA to allow him full creative reign in his disclosure of the workings of the airport, as Heathrow COO Mike Brown points out.

Well done, Heathrow.

If an organization means to promote and publicize itself through an open outsider's perspective, the only way to do so is to allow the outsider to reveal everything - good, bad, and ugly. Transparency can't be done halfway; it can't show only the good, while hiding the unpleasant. Such translucency simply doesn't fly.

If your organization wants to venture into the realm of customer reviews, customer-created-content, customer blogs, etc., it must resign itself to allowing full "creative reign" to those customers. Sure, you might set and enforce some ground rules (no profanity, no obscenity, etc.), but you absolutely cannot restrict content simply because it casts your organization in a bad light. Such censorship will inevitably be found out, and will only sabotage (possibly forever) the much-needed trust of your customers and the public.

Again, I extend my congratulations to BAA for getting it right. I hope that their transparency efforts will result in better air travel and more air travel at Heathrow.

Brilliant Use of Twitter by Phil Wickham

Today I saw a great use of Twitter, exhibited by musician Phil Wickham (@philwickham). He tweeted this around 1:30pm:

"I just found out that the Houston show is sold out tonite, but I'll put two tickets under the name Forest Gump by 6:30. 1st come 1st serve!"

How brilliant! I love it! In less than 140 characters, Phil has done the following:

1. Rewarded his followers with [a chance at] free tickets to a sold-out show.


2. Endeared those followers to himself ("Aw, how nice! Phil saw that the show was sold out, and put two more tickets out there for free to anyone who wants them!")


3. Gotten more followers to come to the venue for a shot at the free tickets. Even if a follower isn't the first to show up as Forrest Gump, maybe she will find people outside the gates who are willing to sell their tickets. Or maybe she will buy merchandise as a consolation prize.


4. Convinced a few more followers to attend the concert when they otherwise would not have come; now they will come because they might be able to get an invaluable item (tickets to a sold-out Phil Wickham concert) for free.


5. Kept his Twitter feed fresh with new and intriguing content, thereby encouraging his followers to keep following.


6. Possibly attracted new followers thanks to current followers who tell their friends, "You won't believe what Phil Wickham just tweeted today!"

How can you reward and gain followers (and customers) through your Twitter account? More basically, how can you add value to people through your Twitter account? Do your Tweets actually provide something worthwhile (i.e. inside information, humanization, interesting tidbits, wisdom, humor, the occasional giveaway), or are you wasting time and bytes?

Your Employees are Your Ambassadors: PUMA

Yesterday MediaPost published an article entitled "Puma Employees Become Ambassadors," describing Puma's new campaign called "Puma Employees Only." This marketing effort showcases the distinct personalities of 14 Puma employees through a series of YouTube videos, a Facebook Fan Page (with over 1 million fans, thank you very much), and future in-store and out-of-store events. These employees share fun info like their favorite things, pet peeves, and best places to visit in their respective cities.

I love the idea of Puma employees being ambassadors for their brand. I love their use of online video, social media, and in-store/out-of-store events to make Puma more personal - to give a face to the brand. To let the customer "get to know" the real people who work for Puma, and to think "This person's cool; he reminds me of me. He likes Puma; maybe I'll like Puma, too."

But MediaPost got it wrong. These Puma employees didn't become ambassadors for their brand when they were featured in this campaign. Employees are always ambassadors for their brands, whether they star in online videos and Facebook Fan Pages or not. Whether they intend to be ambassadors or not. Whether they show pride in their brands or not.

If your employees don't show pride in your brand, if they talk about coming to work as if they dread it, if they complain about their coworkers or bosses or management or customers or work-hours, they are representing to the world that your brand is dreary, thoughtless, inconsiderate. As ambassadors, they are influencing people against your brand.

If this is true for a significant number of your employees, it is time to look at your corporate culture. Is your company a place where people are respected? where their jobs are appreciated? where their skills are recognized? where ideas are rewarded? where departments work together? where coworkers encourage and help each other? where individuals can get excited about the work they are doing, the products they are delivering, and the difference they are making in the world?

If not, start making it so. It begins with you.

Vending Machines of the Not-So-Distant Future

The next generation of vending machines may soon be coming to fast-food restaurants, food courts, and cafeterias near us.

America's old favorite Coca-Cola and newcomer MooBella are both doing beta testing this summer for their respective high-tech vending machines. Coke's Freestyle is a touch-screen dispenser of soda (what else?) that allows customers to select from 104 flavors of Coca-Cola waters, juices, sodas, and sports drinks. The machine uses PurePour Technology to mix the drinks from concentrate within the same space as a typical six- or eight-valve soda fountain. The Freestyle also uses Impinj’s RFID technology to collect data on flavors selected, which helps both supply chain management (by telling HQ when refills are needed), and market research (by telling HQ which flavors are popular - or not). RFIDNews has details on exactly how the RFID works in the Freestyle machines.

Soda-drinkers can't exactly create their own combinations with this machine (which was designed to collect data on which Coke varieties are most popular), but 104 flavors provides a lot of options. For the full list of flavors, see the Coca-Cola Freestyle Facebook Fan Page.



"Cooler" still, MooBella (an eight-year-old company from Massachusetts) has developed an automated vending machine for...ice cream! And these machines are not mere purveyors of pre-packaged sundries. On the contrary, each MooBella Ice Creamery custom-mixes 100% natural dairy ice cream with one of 12 ice cream flavors and one of three mix-ins to create made-to-order hand-dipped-style ice cream - in just 45 seconds! MooBella flash-freezes the ice cream (rather than slow-churning it), which enables the quick service. The machines also feature a touch-screen interface, a behind-the-scenes Linux operating system, and wireless technology that relays inventory and sales data to headquarters via satellite.



With these new vending machines, it seems that both Coca-Cola and MooBella are doing an excellent job of using new technology to provide great products, great service, and great info on customer preferences. Are they using new technology just as successfully in their marketing communications for these products? Let's see:

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give Coca-Cola a 4. They have a Facebook Fan Page with lots of great information on flavors and locations, plus they seem to respond quickly and aptly to fans' wall comments. However, their Fan Page has only 1,067 fans as of 11:36pm Central, 18 August 2009 - a rather small number for the "world's largest beverage company," don't you think? Coca-Cola Freestyle is also on Twitter (@ccfreestyle) as of 7 August 2009, but only has two tweets, 30 followers, and no profile pic as of 18 August. Any blogs or mobile apps for the Freestyle? I haven't found any yet. Video? A few on YouTube - from customers, not the company.

On the same 1 to 10 scale, MooBella gets a 2. They also have a Facebook Fan Page, with frequent and interesting wall posts (more interesting than those on the Freestyle Fan Page, actually). Sadly, the MooBella Fan Page has only 43 followers (ouch!). As for Twitter, there is a "moobella" account(@moobella), but it might or might not be the same company. It's hard to tell when @moobella hasn't tweeted anything yet. Blogs? Mobile apps? Not that I can see. Video? A YouTube search only uncovered two - both more than five minutes long; neither from customers.

Ah, well. Perhaps Coca-Cola Freestyle and MooBella will jump more fully into social media and mobile marketing after they release their respective products to the public. For now, I suppose we must wait for beta testing to end. (The Freestyle is undergoing beta testing in Southern California; Moobella in Boston.)

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: P&G

It seems that Procter & Gamble, Walmart, Geico, and others are facing a bit of a dilemma regarding their television commercial placement. According to a recent AdAge article, these companies have been the target of boycotts Left and Right in connection with advertisements during Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck show.

Apparently Beck's "flamin' conservatism" has prompted some liberal activists - including Donny Deutsch of CNBC's The Big Idea - to boycott the companies who advertise during the show. In response, Walmart, Geico, and Men's Wearhouse have specifically pulled their commercials from that time slot. Other targets of the boycott, including P&G, SC Johnson, and Progressive Insurance, protest that they never intended for their spots to run during Beck's show in the first place.

And now the companies who pulled their commercials from Beck's show (whether or not they originally meant for their ads to run during that time) are facing another boycott: this time, from Beck's supporters who resent the pulling of the ads.

What's an advertiser to do? Especially an advertiser whose general primetime ads just happened to fall during Beck's show?

A few options come to mind:

1) Advertisers could choose to run or pull the ads based on who their customers are, and what those customers' political convictions are. If a company serves customers from all parts of the political spectrum, it could base the decision on the Customer Lifetime Value at risk from liberal boycotters versus conservative boycotters.

2) Advertisers could choose to run or pull the ads based on the companies' own political convictions. After all, you can't always waver based on the whims of your customers. Sometimes you have to stand on your own values, don't you?

3) Advertisers could maintain the status quo, leave the spots as originally purchased, and continue to buy ads during broad time slots, leaving the particular show times up to the luck of the draw. These companies are never going to please everyone, the boycotts have to blow over sometime, and, as someone once said, "there's no such thing as bad publicity."

Stay tuned for what happens next....

Paying for Effectiveness Instead

Roughly three weeks ago, Advertising Age's MediaWorks published an article about potential changes in the way that ad space is valued, bought, and sold. Apparently ESPN and CNN are exploring ways to measure the amount of "buzz" that is generated from television commercials on their channels. Soon, advertisers may be able to pay for advertisements based on how many viewers talk about the ads, not on the number of impressions.

Great idea! (assuming that ESPN and CNN can get it to work.) Payment always ought to be tied as closely to performance as possible. So why not tie valuation of ad time to the effectiveness of that time slot in connecting with consumers?

The possible results from an advertisement (or advertising campaign) fall on a spectrum of effectiveness that looks something like this:



An advertisement is slightly effective if it leads to brand recognition (consumers can remember having seen the brand when they are presented with the brand name or logo) or brand awareness (consumers can remember the brand when asked to name ads they've seen recently, or to name brands in a particular product category). But an ad is really effective if it generates word-of-mouth, if it gets people excited and talking about the brand with their friends; or, even better, if it starts a veritable ideavirus - one than spreads like wildfire from person to person simply because it is excellent, remarkable, and worth spreading.

Traditionally, advertising is valued based on CPM, or cost per thousand impressions. The number of impressions is the number of people who might potentially have seen the ad (assuming that they were paying attention, and hadn't muted the tv, gotten up to use the bathroom, or engaged in a side conversation while the commercial played). Thus, media "impressions" is quite a nebulous term - it gives no real indication of the effectiveness of the ad:



Setting prices for advertising space and time based on the number of people talking about the brand, rather than the number of "impressions," places value on the real results of the ad: its effectiveness.



I do hope that ESPN, CNN, and other media outlets will be able to find an accurate way to measure the amount of talking that an ad generates. Switching to a new pricing scale based on effectiveness will be a huge improvement to tv advertising, one that will benefit the media, advertisers, and viewers alike.

This Billboard Saves Lives.

Here's a novel idea: help people in crisis and build goodwill for your brand by providing free supplies during emergencies before rescue teams even have a chance to respond.

That's what Indian telecommunications company Aircel did during this year's monsoon season in Mumbai.


Photo by Aircel. See the full slideshow of events at www.aircel.com/Mumbai_sails_through_aircel/

Aircel attached an inflated life raft to a billboard near the Milan subway in Mumbai; the billboard read, "In case of emergency, cut rope." Citizens of Mumbai followed the billboard's instructions when a monsoon flooded the streets on July 15, 2009. With the Milan subway nearly impassable, a group of Mumbaians cut the rope and used the Aircel boat to row themselves to safety.

According to CMD Global, Aircel now plans to expand the billboard campaign to Delhi and Calcutta also.

This corporate social responsibility effort actually helped people in the crucial moments of a crisis - while the rains were still falling, the floods were still rising, and people needed immediate help. Perhaps U.S. companies could follow Aircel's lead - lashing life rafts to billboards along the Gulf Coast during hurricane season; snowshoes and shovels in the Northeast during the winter; fire blankets and hoses in California during the summer.

Can we pre-plan ways to help each other during crises, instead of relying on our government to rescue us?

Some of my more cynical friends might accuse such corporate social responsibility efforts of being mere ploys to attract more customers. And perhaps they are - for some. And certainly, good works ought to be done with pure motives. But I, for one, would much rather give my purchasing dollars to companies who are doing good for society, than to companies who aren't.

Marketers, keep seeking more ways to genuinely help people. Consumers, vote with your dollars - support companies who are champions for good in the world.