ClickZ NewsFacebook Fan Pages Evolve Into CRM Channel for Big Brands
By Christopher Heine, ClickZ, Mar 25, 2010
An ever growing number of companies have begun employing Facebook "fan" pages for customer relationship management (CRM). During the last few weeks, ClickZ has examined dozens of Facebook brand pages with an eye toward CRM and discovered that commitment level varies widely. While some appear nonplussed by the CRM opportunities on Facebook, others have bought in. Not surprisingly, firms committing to answering publicly/anonymously-made questions and authoring responses to "fan" comments predominantly have vested interests in direct-selling or retail.
Walmart, Dell, Comcast, Toyota, Domino's, Taco John's, and Teleflora, among others, have been proactively addressing customer concerns on Facebook. If questions cannot be immediately answered, their social reps normally direct "fans" to a Web page, toll-free number, or customer service e-mail address in a follow-up post.
But there are other types of simple-yet-interesting CRM/loyalty tactics being used. Toyota has been constantly posting comments under "fan" car photos as it continues to reach out to consumers in the wake of its scandal. A post on March 21 read, "Congrats on the new Tacoma, T.J.! Thank you and your family for your continuous support." Seven other similarly toned comments were posted by the Toyota rep within the same hour on that evening. The copy was often akin to post-sales-conversion "Thank You" e-mail subject lines.
And then there's Teleflora, which for the last year has utilized its "fan" page to reel in occasional customer complaints. Nicole DeRuiter, manager of emerging media at the Los Angeles-based florist network, normally has one dedicated staffer addressing "fan" posts, while enlisting more people to help during busier seasonal periods. The staffers also pay heed to customer dissatisfaction - and positive comments - being expressed via Twitter.
"By looking at what other companies, such as...Comcast and the folks at Dell have experienced," DeRuiter said, "we knew that opening ourselves up to social channels meant we would experience customer-service type questions. CRM via social media is just one piece of our overall social strategy."
Many firms use their posts to address rising CRM situations on the fly. For instance, Domino's recently remedied a potential customer-service headache via Facebook before it could go viral.
Here's the pizza chain, alerting "fans" about the looming issue at-hand: "Just a note to all our fans, there's a page floating around on Facebook that claims to be giving out $50 Domino's Pizza vouchers. This is NOT something we are sponsoring, involved in or supporting."
CPG Brands Mostly Focus On Engagement, Though Dove and Intel Dive Deeper
Some brands with huge Facebook presences are choosing to zero in on engagement (i.e., "Feels like spring outside! Perfect weather for [product name]!") while leaving CRM alone. For example, Coca-Cola (5.2 million "fans") and Skittles (4.1 million) are two of the biggest brands on the social site, and they consistently author updates that are designed to be engaging and fun. Both seem to achieve that end regularly as their pages buzz with "fan" comments. But neither actively does CRM there.
Ivan Askwith, director of strategy for the Brooklyn, NY-based Big Spaceship, handles social media initiatives for CPG brands like Skittles and a host of entertainment-based clients. He said what a company is selling should impact whether or not it invests in Facebook CRM. Askwith seemed to warn against the cardinal sin that has stifled profits for too many businesses during the Internet era - doing it just because everyone else is.
"Very few of our current brand clients are using Facebook as an active channel for customer service," he said. "To some extent, that's a reflection of the current clients we have - few of whom have active 'customer service' needs."
Meanwhile, there are non-retail brands prominently using Facebook as a CRM tool - software firm Intel and Unilever's Dove to name a couple. In terms of the latter, Dove's social media reps are recommending items to "fans" if they ask for product guidance. In social media circles, this tactic is commonly referred to as "pull marketing."
On March 18, a Dove "fan" inquired: "I found a product of Dove that I don't like, the pomegranate and lemon verbena body wash doesn't smell very well. - If anyone from dove is reading this, I wish, I wish really hard, that you would come up with a really clean zippy citrus set." Fifty-minutes later that Friday evening, Dove's rep responded: "@Judy have you tried Dove Body Wash with Nutrium Moisture? There's no other body wash like it!"
Overall, Dove's exchanges on Facebook can be at times similar to conversations between customers and sales reps in bricks-and-mortar stores. Askwith alluded to that idea when he said, "Like having a storefront in the neighborhood mall, brands - especially those with active customer-service needs - benefit from going where customers are."
Ade Adeosun, commercial director for the U.K.-based Web analytics firm Nedstat, said the public nature of Facebook opens up the possibility for multiple customers with the same problem getting addressed by one brand post. He added that "fans" often help each other with questions, alleviating the rep from having to enter the picture and creating a deeper sense of community among users. But European brands overall have lagged behind U.S. firms in terms of using Facebook for CRM, Adeosun said, despite it being the continent's No. 1 social site.
"[European companies] kind of have this apprehension where they think, 'Okay, it's a community.' And they don't realize it's actually a very strong channel," he explained. "They could let the people within the community do the customer service for them. That's essentially what we are seeing from brands doing it in a smarter way."
Thursday, March 25
Facebook Fan Pages Evolve Into CRM Channel for Big Brands - ClickZ
Tuesday, March 23
Boards >> LMVH mixes culture with commerce on Nowness.com
Model Guinevere van Seenus stars in Todd Cole's fashion film "Aanteni" for Rodarte and Nowness.com.
The world of luxury brands has always had a hard time swallowing the lo-fi chic of video sharing sites such as YouTube. While digital campaigns became the norm for a broad spectrum of advertisers more than a few years ago, high-end fashion retailers remained largely in the rarified worlds of glossy magazines and runway presentations.
About two years ago, brands such as Yves-Saint Laurent, Prada and Louis Vuitton started creating fashion films and interactive microsites both in-house and through outside ad agencies.
In February, global luxury group Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) went a step further and launched Nowness.com, a web platform that gives luxury brands a place to showcase high-quality film content amidst the kind of sophisticated design aesthetic and insider editorial voice that consumers in that market have come to expect.
Created with digital commerce company Create The Group, Nowness replaces LVMH's eLuxury online shopping portal, which shuttered last year. The site is updated daily and will house exclusive slideshows, short films, videos, interviews and interactive projects about fashion, art, film, travel and wine. Recent stories include an interview with visual artist Jeff Koons, an article on Campari cocktails, a video tour of painter Lucian Freud's studio and a slideshow of work by experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger.
The site also uses software that accesses users interests, preferences and viewing history to tailor recommendations from the site's archives.
"We hope Nowness will inform and educate users," says Kamel Ouadi, global digital media director for Louis Vuitton, who created the venture. "Luxury is a culture, so you have to be in the know, to get backstage, behind the scenes. I think it will provide unexpected stories that are fresh, pure, emotional and beautiful."
Ouadi hopes that artists, filmmakers and designers from around the world will contribute to the site. Los Angeles-based commercial and music video company The Director's Bureau partnered with video artist Todd Cole to create an experimental sci-fi fashion film for American designers Rodarte's autumn/winter 2010 collection. Berlin-based animator/director David OReilly's 3D portraits of glam singer Lady GaGa were also recently featured.
Ouadi promises a wealth of innovative digital art and content in the coming months, funded through advertising but also backed directly by luxury brands, which can pay to feature their own content or commission original content for Nowness. He's most excited about interactive art projects, which will include an interactive map of Jeff Koons lovers around the world, for example.
"We're going to partner through content, because the business model of Nowness is based on custom publishing," he says. "It's the right space to connect with luxury, the best of the best of the industry. Brands do not have on their own site the space to promote their brands and tell stories."
(With files from Ed White)
www.nowness.com
www.createthegroup.com
www.thedirectorsbureau.com
Creative Review - Are you a Cubist?
The Cube, Nissan's quirky, boxy, city car, is expresssly aimed at the design-aware young urbanite – that's you, well, some of you. So, is it a car that CR readers will want to own?
I first saw an earlier version of the Nissan Cube (above) in 'the flesh' at Kenya Hara's Japan Car show at the Science Museum last year. There it was presented as a piece of High Design – a visitor from another culture. A bizarre, chunky little alien that, like many of the Japanese car industry's more eccentric products, would surely never grace UK roads. But late last year, encouraged by a growing import cult, Nissan launched the third generation Cube in the UK.
Nissan is presumably hoping that the Cube will find favour among designers and other creative types – it already has a cult following among CR readers for its retro convertible, the Figaro. So, I was loaned a Cube for the weekend to give it a try.
It was pretty easy to spot where the man from Nissan had parked the thing as it stood about a foot taller than any other car on the street. In fact, on getting into a Cube the first impression is not unlike a London taxi (although I'm going on memory here, thanks to last year's budget cuts at CR).
Mine (above) was a suitably off-beat dark brown with matching velour-covered seats (not sure what the design reference was here – MIke Reid's leisure suit maybe).
Another dash of eccentricity came with the translucent pull-back shade for the big glass panel in the roof, recalling Japanese sliding doors.
While the dashboard and door handles are meant to recall waves
Apparently, earlier versions were more eccentric inside, with a bench-style front seat and column gear-shift. It seems that things may have been toned down for UK drivers but I liked the simple forms and the lack of clutter. Some of the controls felt a little cheap and insubstantial to the touch, though.
And there's one final quirk at the back where the rear door swings open from the side rather than lifting up vertically
It does feel a bit van-like but, with the big glass roof and huge windows, everything's wonderfully bright – not unlike driving around in a goldfish bowl or the mode of transport favoured by a certain mail deliverance operative namesake of mine. And it's definitely fun – my ten-year-old son adored it.
Can I see CR readers rushing to buy one? It definitely has the appeal of all things Japanese that many designers and creatives find so alluring and now that Minis are a no-go area thanks to their wholesale adoption by estate agents, it would be in the running for anyone looking for a city car that's not a Golf or a Golf-a-like (at least until a more viable electric car like Nissan's own Leaf comes onto the market).
But would you want something so 'look-at-me-aren't-I-kooky"? Just as so many creative people retreat to the anonymity of black when it comes to clothing, so many prefer a bit of Germanic underestatement when it comes to cars.
For what it's worth, opinion in the CR office is split fairly evenly between "oooh, cool" and "oh my God, you must be joking".
What do you think?
Will factories move back to the city? - Core77
David Benqué, a student in the Design Interactions department at the Royal College of Art, worked closely with 3D Mintegration to envision what it might mean for factories to scale down and move back into the heart of the city, in the form of street vendor stalls, mini-buses and temporary tents. The project, part of the IMPACT! exhibition at the Royal College of Art, is entitled Fabulous Fabbers.
3D-Mintegration is a small team intent on radically rethinking manufacturing, "researching new techniques to manufacture complex, miniaturised and integrated products, with cheaper and smaller infrastructure than the current silicon industry." We don't know exactly what this means, only that it involves micro- and nano- scale engineering in the assembly of high tech goods.
Benqué distills it down for us a bit, at least in terms of how this may impact our experience of fabrication and the city:
The factories are coming to town! They are moving away from the unseen fringes, and into our cities. Advances in micro-scale engineering point to a global scale revolution where local, disposable factories produce hi tech goods at our very doorstep. What shapes might this new way of "making things" take within our urban landscape ? From garage-workshops to circus-like temporary structures, from street vendor stalls to vagabond encampments, this project explores the factories of the future and what our relationship to them might be, with the exciting prospect of taking back ownership over our production tools.To illustrate this, he's proposed (in miniature, of course) a few new archetypes of our micro-manufacturing future, including the Rogue Factory, Mobile Manufacturing Unit, and Self Replicating Street Stalls:
Self Replicating Street Stall: The street Genie can print any product you might think of, including a working copy of itself.
Rogue Factory: If rogue mobile factories could produce custom high-tech goods, what would the black market of "special orders" look like?
Mobile Manufacturing Unit: This corporate factory tours the country, setting up in cities for a few months at a time. As the population welcomes a new source of goods, jobs and manufacturing techniques, it is celebrated as an event.
Made.com sells designer furniture straight to customers - Telegraph
Made.com 'cuts out the middle man' in the furniture-buying processThe team behind Made.com say the site will "cut out the middle man", allowing web users to buy bespoke or designer furniture directly from the manufacturers. It is the brainchild of Ning Li, an internet entrepreneur who said he could see "a lot of inefficiencies" in the furniture retail industry.
Made.com has secured £2.5 million in financial backing from a number of high-profile investors, including Brent Hoberman, founder of MyDeco and co-founder of Lastminute.com, and Michael Birch, co-founder of social-networking site Bebo.
The site showcases the designs of a variety of manufacturers from around the world, include the UK and the Far East, and asks visitors to the site to vote on their favourite items of furniture. The most popular items go in to production, and visitors who have voted on the site can then buy those items at a discounted price.
Ning said his site would halve the price of contemporary furniture by cutting out the wholesaler and retailer while maintaining quality and design, and minimise waste by ensuring that only the required amount of furniture was made.
"It is very common to see a piece of furniture being sold for six to ten times its factory price," he said. "The internet helps us provide total transparency and strip out the middlemen. Our ambition is to bring appealing design to as many people as possible, revolutionising how furniture is sold and how you buy it.”
According to Verdict, the retail analyst, online sales of homeware, furniture and floor coverings in the UK currently only accounts for 5.8 per cent of a market worth more than £26 billion.
Monday, March 22
Perspective: R/GA’s Ross Popoff-Walker On Creative Mobile Strategy | MobileBehavior
Perspective: R/GA's Ross Popoff-Walker On Creative Mobile Strategy
In order to further our understanding of the behaviors developing around mobile technology, we have been reaching out to experts across the globe for their unique insights. By doing this, we are able to escape ourselves and become exposed to new perspectives.
Ross Popoff-Walker is a senior interaction designer in the Mobile and Emerging platforms group at R/GA. The group is tasked with spreading mobile and social design thinking across the agency’s many teams and accounts. Previously he was at Modernista! in Boston, focused on bringing digital to the agency. Before that, writing for Forrester Research, covering young consumer strategy. He has a Masters from Carnegie Mellon in Entertainment Technology, a hybrid of interactive and game design.
You’ve spent time at Forrester observing consumer behavior, how has this research mindset affected the way you plan mobile strategy?
Spending time with Forrester’s data and research methodologies helped paint a broad picture of consumer behavior. Agency mindsets often take an early adopter world-view, and assume that buzz in the mobile space is widely shared by end users.
But not everyone is frequently downloading branded apps on their iPhones – quite the opposite. The mobile landscape is highly varied, and I think the best approach is a diversified one, such as Facebook has coupled their multi-platform app with a simple SMS system.
Mobile is exploding, every day we see numbers pour in about industry growth over the next several years. While it is optimistic, what roadblocks do you see for brands? What opportunities for creative strategy?
I think the biggest creative challenge for any brand is digging deep to find what meaningful interactions will augment their customer experience. Mobile devices are such a personal technology. Yet most brands will try to prioritize their business goals above basic consumer desires, like contextual information and utility. There needs to be a nudge towards user-centricity for brands to succeed in the mobile medium.
Do you notice industries with more potential for mobile marketing?
I don't think any industry could *not* benefit from some from of mobile marketing, as long as the marketing tactic pairs well with the brand and audience. Brands with a physical retail presence, especial large shops like Target or Best Buy, have a huge opportunity for enhancing the in-store shopping experience, from way-finding to check out -- but so can digital brands, too. ZipCar's app completely simplifies their customer experience.
Are there any technologies that you are excited about? Have you been following any specific developments in mobile culture or user behavior?
Sure! It’s fascinating how important mobile devices have become to the developing and unbanked world. Of course in Japan, but even in Kenya people are using basic SMS services like MPESA to exchange funds. It’s amazes me how the networked world knows no bounds, and where there is a cultural shift, technology provides a solution.
Google Shopper and Layar on Android have both helped blur the lines between the physical/digital divide, and I think augmented reality will especially find more practical applications soon. Personally I’ve developed an obsession for iPhone photo apps -- TiltShift Gen and Hipstimatic are two faves.
Any predictions?
I'd bet my monopoly money on the global mobile landscape leveling out. Ubiquitous smartphone ownership will change things radically. Niche behaviors like location check-in will become accepted by the mainstream.
Mobile app design is going to alter the design of everything else. Simplified navigation, reduced clutter, personalization, context-aware, and communications-focused – all of that makes for a good mobile experience. When everyone is walking around with those design paradigms in their pocket, they’ll start to expect it from every medium.
What are your top three mobile marketing efforts and why?
In the brand space Nike Plus has a special place for me. It’s the reason I came to R/GA, and still remains my favorite example of a successful marketing effort combining products with a digital service and community. Unrelated, Tumblr is another service that I always come back to as simple, effective design, and I hope it shifts to mobile lifestreaming more.
But still in the forefront of my mind is the outpouring of SMS donations during the aftermath of Haiti. The uniqueness of that tragedy itself prompted such support, but it was the first time the mobile channel was mature enough as a consumer behavior to be so effective, and inspiring to see the potential of this channel as a positive force.
Nokia: Conversation, the new conversion / we are social
Hippies, Facebook and making social TV / we are social
Very nicely timed with the announcement by CNN’s President that he’s more worried about social networks than FOX, the first video installment of a unique Facebook documentary called Goa Hippy Tribe has been released.
Goa Hippy Tribe is using Facebook in a number of ways: as subject matter (in particular the re-connection of the eponymous Goan Hippies via the social network); in part for research, production and content, and also as a platform for marketing and distribution.
Whilst the story behind the film itself highlights the role that networks such as Facebook play in creating new stories for documentary to cover, what’s really interesting is the way Facebook is being used to shape the content and format of the work.
The filmmaker, Darius Devas, has been interacting with the community of people who were part of the scene in Goa as he makes the film, not only shaping the way the film evolves, but building a community that is a part of the filmmaking process.
Interviews and other items of ‘micro-content’ have been posted over time, sparking conversations, building shared connections between the audience and involving everyone in the journey of the filmmaker and the film. There’s even a lively discussion on a separate Goa Hippy Tribe Group page considering the role of Facebook as an enabler, versus the inevitable privacy concerns when old photos and stories are made public.This kind of collaboration would not previously have been possible, and it’s a particularly effective way of increasing the emotional involvement of the audience, who will be more likely to share links and recommend the film to their friends, especially as Facebook provides the means to easily do so.
All of this starts to change the way we think about broadcast. This project has an obvious community interested in the subject, but there are just as many niche audiences outside of hippies in Goa. As CNN’s President, Jonathan Klein puts it: “The people you’re friends with on Facebook or the people you follow on Twitter are trusted sources of information.” As these “trusted sources” – our friends – become our audience(s), and we involve them the narrative of our own status updates, the relevance and role of the one-way broadcast media comes into question.
interactions magazine | On Authenticity
While in Las Vegas for the first time a number of years ago, we had occasion to visit the Las Vegas Hilton where “Star Trek: The Experience” was operating. The immersive “themed attraction” spilled over into a cafe (Quark’s Bar and Restaurant) and shopping area both modeled after the TV show “Star Trek: Deep Space 9.” This led to slightly dissonant sights, such as an Andorian sitting at a table hawking credit card offers, where the free gift was a plastic sports bottle topped with an Andorian head. As we strolled through the Deep Space 9 Promenade, we came upon two Klingons. Of course, it was two actors portraying Klingons, but let’s set that important difference aside for a moment. They were chatting with tourists and posing for pictures. Eagerly waiting for his moment was a young boy with Down’s Syndrome, wearing a James T. Kirk T-shirt. (Some quick backstory: In the lore of “Star Trek,” Kirk and the Klingons were enemies.) As these two Klingons chatted with the boy and posed for a picture with him, the actors delivered a magical experience as they maintained character and gruffly acknowledged (just gruffly enough) the boy’s T-shirt and what it represented to them. They found a way to be kind to a vulnerable person while not destroying what he was there to appreciate: the essence of their Klingon-ness, their “Star Trek”-ness. Given that we were in Vegas, where a veneer of grandiosity often stands in for authenticity, this was a touching and impressive moment.
What do we mean by authenticity, and why is it so important to us now?
Calling something “authentic” may connote original, traditional, indigenous, old, rare, the real thing, or in some crucial way a better example of its category. We use the term today as a messy amalgam of its twin roots: the art historian’s validation of an object and the philosopher’s valuing of the true self. While the concept of authenticity is employed in vague and subjective ways, we want to believe that an item’s authenticity is an absolutely determinable quality, an expectation that (as you’ll see) is not wholly realistic.
As for “Why authenticity now?” a likely reason is our unprecedented awareness that the identity of products, objects, and brands has never before been more subject to the forces of marketing and spin. This awareness drives us to identify sources that are “truly authentic” (a sort of arms race of terminology, while implying the modified adjective here is itself becoming devalued).
Pine and Gilmore (in their book Authenticity) explore the prevalence of the opposite: fakery and inauthenticity. But they also shy away from a tight definition of the term, instead framing it as a quality of product that we consume because of our own self-image (rather than an intrinsic quality of the item itself). Spooner (an anthropologist who studied “Oriental” carpets) also emphasizes the act of projection in seeking and consuming authenticity:
“Authenticity is a form of cultural discrimination projected onto objects. But it does not in fact inhere in the object but derives from our concern with it. In seeking authenticity people are able to use commodities to express themselves” [1].
But it gets more complex if you consider that authenticity is not a binary attribute. There is space between the truly authentic and the brutally inauthentic. Let’s look at the area in the middle of that continuum, something we’re calling “fake authenticity.” Consider the molded plastic lawn and garden products that serve as storage containers and poolside speakers, or the cell towers designed to resemble trees. While in the past we might have easily classified these as inauthentic, we submit that they’ve become sufficiently prevalent that they are identifiable by their own aesthetic. They aren’t inauthentic rocks and trees; they are authentic fake rocks and trees. The plastic food in the window of a Japanese restaurant isn’t inauthentic; a visit to Tokyo’s Kappabashi district, where stores are fully stocked with examples, reveals the authenticity of plastic food. Kitsch is another flavor of fake authenticity, a celebration of not just trash, but specifically trashy versions of traditionally quality forms. Of course, as art and post-modernity march on, we find ourselves with high-value authentic versions of kitsch (from premium Hostess-style cupcakes at neighborhood bakeries to Philippe Starck gnomes).
There are efforts to define and own authenticity from the producer’s side. A consortium of Italian pig farmers from Parma once sued a British supermarket because even though the prosciutto ham they were selling derived from Parma pigs, raised in the region’s landscape, on the requisite diet of curds, it had been sliced in England, and not Parma! The British consumer would have probably accepted it as “real” prosciutto, even if the pigs had been fed in Yorkshire. But if the ham had not been sliced thinly enough, not almost see-through and pink with a gummy texture and mouth feel, then consumers may have failed to credit it as true prosciutto.
If you are aiming at a micro-niche (i.e., connoisseurs) you may need to cater to this purist sense of authenticity. Manga publishers outside Japan originally “flopped” layouts to provide left-to-right reading, but otaku (obsessive fans) demanded the original Japanese right-to-left layout, now the standard. Whether Parma ham or Porco Rosso, the point is that the criteria that ensure authenticity are not a priori; they cannot be reduced to a few fundamental principles that are treated like a checklist. Establishing authenticity is a social and cultural process, one that is negotiated. The elements that carry authenticity shift and change, and where people locate the essence of what they value in a product or service experience evolves over time.
It’s not just the label or branding that is under consideration; there are many components or holistic aspects of the designed experience that can contribute to or detract from its authenticity. When visiting the Portofino Bay Hotel in Orlando (meant to evoke a resort on the Italian Riviera, but felt more like a move-studio lot), we noted Vespa-like scooters parked (installed, actually) around the grounds, and weathered-looking pebbles embedded as stair treads. But the architects took it further, building blank functionless facades to suggest a townscape. And as you might find in old Europe, passageways were narrow and hindered navigation. It felt like a rendered videogame background before the branding, characters, and gameplay were added. Ultimately, we wanted the hotel’s precious Portofino-ness to get out of the way so we could perform basic way-finding tasks.
Alcohol companies and (infamously) Sony Ericcson are not shy about using stealth marketing - sending good-looking actors into bars to chat up unsuspecting patrons and extol the virtues of whatever product they are paid to represent. While much of the controversy over Facebook’s Beacon was focused on privacy, there is an aspect of personal authenticity, as it has the potential to post items to a user’s page without their intent or awareness, in essence representing them. This goes even further in Magpie, an advertising service that works with Twitter, where people can be paid for having ads embedded in their tweets.
When dining out, the service plays a crucial role in making the experience great. A great waiter will be your host: guide you, encourage you, joke with you, and generally connect with you. When you walk out the door, you feel good about the interaction you’ve had with someone who gets paid based on how well they induce that feeling of connection. Is that an inauthentic relationship?
There’s a moment early in the Maysles’ documentary “Gimme Shelter,” where after showing us the 1969 audience’s view of Mick Jagger singing, dancing, and giving his all to the performance, the camera moves to the back of the stage and we see Mick looking back at the band and rolling his eyes, breaking character as he expresses frustration, disdain, or bemusement. From the other side of the filmic proscenium we wouldn’t have even known there was a character for him to break, assuming that emoting singer was who Mick Jagger really was. Does that make his performance inauthentic? By calling it a performance, don’t we assume that it must be built, and therefore not authentic to the individual? As with the waiter, if someone does a good job when they are onstage, and they create a positive response, but that is not who they are when they are offstage, are we surprised or disappointed?
Consider the VW Beetle and its evolving story. We marveled at the 1998 reintroduction of the VW Beetle, which went from its 60s-era meaning of aspirations for hippie-like freedom to a mature reflection on that past (as the drivers of Beetles in 2009 are often the same people who drove them in 1971). Yet this pales to the shift away from the original meaning: Hitler’s “car of the people.” Thomas Frank quotes one of the creatives at DDB (Volkswagen’s legendary U.S. ad agency) as saying, “The cute Volkswagen in 1959 reminded lots of people about the ovens.”
To reinvent the Beetle, DDB launched an unprecedented decade-long anti-advertising campaign that mocked the culture of conspicuous consumption associated with other American cars, differentiating itself by its frugality and mocking other car models’ planned obsolescence by, for example, running a print ad proclaiming over a single photo: “The ‘51 ‘52 ‘53 ‘54 ‘55 ‘56 ‘57 ‘58 ‘59 ‘60 ‘61 Volkswagen.”
Over the years this positioning found fruit and built its constituency. Those who wanted to shift away from the values of American consumer culture (or simply save money) bought the product. It became the car of choice for the counterculture, intellectuals, the young and free-spirited, ultimately symbolizing values in 1960s America diametrically opposed to its start in 1930s National Socialist Germany.
Time and generation-to-generation shifts in meaning provide an inexorable if less overt force for recontextualization. Concert T-shirts, once tokens of an experience, are now sold to those who were not born when the band was together. In “Shirt-Worthy” by David Giffels, which appeared in the October 28, 2007, edition of The New York Times Magazine, the author, having grown up with the Ramones T-shirt as a totem only available through the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll experience of a concert, must come to grips with his nine-year-old son’s request for the same shirt, now $20 at Hot Topic. Elsewhere, concert shirts have been reformulated into “onesies” so that infants can passively yet semi-ironically proclaim their parents’ passion for Black Sabbath. The users who adopt a product or brand can strongly shape its authenticity, but if you pin it a priori to a fixed variable (like its earliest origin or moment of invention), you will overlook what can be - which is the very point of innovation.This opens up a very important role for design research. Unlike top-down or market-led approaches (based on past category assumptions and orthodoxies), it can intimately identify where users locate the authenticity - and therefore where to focus experience design efforts on delivering it. This approach would also include how to design: the parameters for innovation, what can change (or improve) while preserving the sense of authenticity, and what cannot be changed without risking it (or even to what extent these essential elements can be tweaked or playfully manipulated). If authenticity is a matter (in Schopenhauer’s terms) of “will and representation” - of groups of people’s desire to believe something and to portray it that way to themselves and others - this doesn’t mean where it lands will be random. It will follow a historical process, and design research is crucial to delineate the pattern and guide where and how to design for it.
Even if authenticity is hard to define, this is not true for its opposite. If authenticity is subtle, inauthenticity is flagrant. It’s easy (and effective) to channel Supreme Court Justice Brennan with “I know it when I [don’t] see it.” We’re certainly able to determine when something is not authentic (and there’s probably an evolutionary biologist out there who can tie that pattern-matching skill to some fight-or-flight reflex). If we, as makers of something, strive to be authentic in the thing that we are making, is that really authentic? And yet if we fail to strive for authenticity, are we likely to fail?
Some advise that the best way to deliver authenticity is to be authentic (either in the art historian’s sense or the philosopher’s sense, though each requires a different set of corporate actions). Perhaps in our goal to deliver authenticity we should strive instead to avoid inauthenticity. Perhaps the straightest path to inauthenticity is to fail to investigate the meaning of what you are delivering, asking not only yourselves, but also your customers, who will ultimately define your authenticity.
[1] Spooner, B. “Weavers and Dealers: The authenticity of an Oriental Carpet.” In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in cultural perspective, edited by Arjun Appadurai. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Friday, March 19
Advertising vs. Editorial: Can This Marriage Be Saved? - ClickZ
What's The Buzz?Advertising vs. Editorial: Can This Marriage Be Saved?
By Anna Maria Virzi, ClickZ, Mar 19, 2010"Explore the Innovation Hall of Fame," read an ad for Intel's 2010 Core Processors on NYTimes.com's home page this week. It encouraged Web site visitors to roll over the ad to view selected articles from the newspaper's archive.
The takeover ad - built by Venables Bell & Partners and The Visionaire Group - then expanded to show a blue circle; the circle's outer radius had a timeline spanning 1910 through 2010 and it included 10 hatch marks. The first mark, placed on 1914, leads to an article from that year headlined, "Evolution of the Motor Car Has Been Meteoric." Other articles from the NYT's archives herald the arrival of the phone, TV, mobile devices, and man's first walk on the moon - and were written at the time of those developments.
Move ahead to 2010: "Intel's Bet on Innovation Pays Off in Faster Chips," read the headline that links to an article published Jan. 14, 2010 in The New York Times.
Don't be confused: This is an ad that incorporates articles written without the influence of the advertiser. Are readers smart enough to know the difference? I'd like to think so.
Welcome to 2010, an era when The New York Times Co. and other publishers are experimenting with advertising and publishing technologies to help shore up revenues. These efforts come at a time when ad dollars are abandoning print newspapers and magazines faster than a Toyota careening down a California freeway.
Seismic changes in advertising and media - offline and online - were also the theme at last week's 2010 Media Summit, sponsored by Bloomberg BusinessWeek. There, Richard Samson, senior counsel at The New York Times, discussed another Intel home page domination ad at NYTimes.com. That ad, promoting the theme "looking to the future," included a mock up of what The New York Times might look like in 2040. "We were very careful...to maintain the integrity of journalism and not give an appearance of influence. Our editorial department is not at all involved in the ads," he said.
The New York Times is not alone in finding new ways to work with advertisers.
An Intel ad on Cnet's home page this week sent Web site visitors to a review page. Under an Intel ad on the review page, there was a list of headlines and links to Cnet news and features about products made with Intel processors. Next to that, there was a list of headlines, published under the title, "Articles and tools from Intel" that included links to marketing materials from the processor manufacturer.
And this week, Gannett-owned PointRoll introduced a new banner ad unit that allows advertising content to live inside a banner adjacent to editorial content pulled from a publisher's site.
In one example, an ad for Verizon's FiOS service incorporates video clips from Discovery's show,"Everest Beyond the Limit: Avalanche Alley." When a Web site visitor activates the video player to watch "Everest," she also sees a display ad for FiOS TV that reads, "See Everest the way it should be seen. On FiOS TV."
Publishing and Advertising in the Hot Seat
In two high-profile cases, advertising has been the key issue involving lawsuits; one involves an online review site and the other, a print trade mag.
- Two California businesses filed suit against Yelp, alleging the site removed positive reviews about their businesses when the firms did not purchase ads. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman contended in a blog post that the claims are false and "ignore empirical evidence in favor of conspiracy theories."
- Variety, a trade magazine, has come under fire because a negative review about the movie "Iron Cross" disappeared from its Web site. Pundits questioned whether the review was removed because the movie producers paid Variety $400,000 to help promote the movie as an Academy Awards contender. According to NYTimes.com, the producers are now suing Variety for contractual breach, negligence, fraud and deceit, and unfair business practices.
Additionally, concern that bloggers had been accepting freebies from advertisers in trade for favorable reviews prompted the Federal Trade Commission to establish voluntary guidelines for product endorsements last year. The guidelines call for endorsements made through blog posts or other social media channels to disclose any "material connections" between advertiser and endorser.
LA Times, Down the Rabbit Hole
Or consider the dust up over an ad in the print edition of the Los Angeles Times. On March 5, the newspaper published a mock front page, which was part of a promotion for the movie, "Alice in Wonderland" and featured Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. (Sharon Waxman, editor-in-chief of TheWrap.com, reports the ad pulled in $700,000 for the newspaper.)
By end of day, the Times' newsroom received 175 calls and e-mails about the ad; most people were unhappy, wrote Deirdre Edgar, reader representative at the LA Times, in a blog post.
Wrote reader Jim Hergenrather of Los Angeles:
The use of a legitimate image of the front page of The Times as the background for a movie ad is an insult to journalism. It derides the value of news and simply suggests you have adopted the position that a newspaper's editorial content is now nothing more than a vehicle for marketing.Yet other readers were amused. Wrote Richard Vallens of Irvine, CA:
The Alice in Wonderland (false) front page is absolutely, positively the cleverest idea EVER. It totally tricked me, in the most delightful way. Brilliantly executed. Brilliantly!Bottom Line for Advertisers and Publishers
So how flexible should publishers be when working with advertisers? Most important, how will Web site visitors, fans, followers, and others respond to new advertising approaches that include the blending of editorial and advertising?
"We have to be clear in our disclosure who we are and on whose behalf we are reporting. It should not be hidden in the fine print," said Joelle Gropper Kaufman, SVP, worldwide marketing at Adify, a vertical ad network owned by Cox. "It serves advertisers and publishers well to make it clear to the consumer. We should all be striving for that...As long as we treat consumers [and] readers with respect, they will return it."
BiographyAnna Maria Virzi
Anna Maria Virzi joined The ClickZ Network as executive editor in August 2007. Previously, she was executive editor at Ziff Davis Media's Baseline magazine. She's also held editorial posts at Forbes.com, Internet World, and the Connecticut Post, and received awards from American Business Media, the American Society of Business Publication Editors, and New England Associated Press.
Article Archives by Anna Maria Virzi
Book Review: 'Twitter Marketing' - Mar 5, 2010
Purpose-Driven Online Advertising - Feb 19, 2010
E-mail Marketing's Future in a Twitter World - Feb 5, 2010
Learning From the Best of the Best in Online Marketing - Jan 22, 2010
More article archives
Archive
ClickZ Yesterday
UrbanDaddy Lures the Luxury Brands - Mar 18, 2010
A Call for Low-Hanging Fish - Mar 18, 2010
Your Social Identity - Mar 18, 2010
Including E-mail in the Attribution Equation - Mar 18, 2010
ClickZ News Headlines
Android Growth Picks Up in Mobile Ad Race Against Apple - Mar 19, 2010
Ex-Yelper Helps Law Firms Go After Yelp - Mar 19, 2010
DMA Takes Another Jab at Expanded FTC Power - Mar 18, 2010
Stealth Partners Go Public to Focus on Brands in Context - Mar 18, 2010
ClickZ Stats Headlines
U.S. Users Don't Mind Ads, Don't Click On Them Either - Mar 16, 2010
Searches for Major Media Brands Dip in February - Mar 9, 2010
MTV, Microsoft, and ABC Grew Web Video Streams in January - Mar 5, 2010
Two Thirds of U.S. Users Have Broadband, Says FCC - Mar 2, 2010
Thursday, March 18
Bloggers Create Social Network Via Snail Mail - PSFK
Social networks present a paradox; we utilize them as a utility to keep in touch with everyone, and yet people spend hours everyday interacting on them. It’s clear from this that the commodity being played with is time. Moreover, we are accustomed to immediate and self-gratifying communication. In reaction though, many of us still lament older forms of human interactions. Because in a world where birthday wishes are symbolized by animated gifs and two second decisions about whether to post a comment on Facebook, the sincerity can sometimes feel a little lacking.
This is where the Package Project takes it starting point. The goal is to build a network of interactions by sending creative and colorful packages to other bloggers. They write:
The Package Project is an exchange aimed to connect bloggers around the world and to grow the blogging community even further. It is all about swopping pretty packages and handmade delights. The packaging only makes the exchange more fun so get creative…strings, manila tags and ribbons galore. Each package must be a joy to receive and each time you do receive one…pop out your camera and snap away. This way we all get to share in a bit of your excitement.
By participating, you get to learn about your blogging partner through their creativity as much as their contents. More importantly though, the sense of anticipation between each blogger builds a more meaningful interaction because of the time needed to create the project as well as send/receive. Time, here, is still a commodity, but is it possible to feel a little bit of sincerity reinstated when you know the other person has spent just as much time as you have thinking of them?
[via: Frankie]
Wednesday, March 17
The Business of Fashion | Blog Archive | How Influential are the New Fashion Youth?
NEW YORK, United States — For decades, a quick route to fashion world prominence involved a designer turning a youth culture trend into a runway-ready collection. Calvin Klein made heroin chic, Jean Paul Gaultier sampled from club culture, Marc Jacobs glammed-up grunge and Hedi Slimane turned Berlin punks into fashion plates.
The concept was simple, even if the design work wasn’t: find a scruffy outsider style that remained untapped, then spruce it up for the luxury market. But today, as high fashion becomes increasingly accessible, this approach may no longer work. Today’s internet-empowered youth have the tools, access and information to create and promote their own fashion culture.
While some in the fashion media have been fixating on the growing importance of editorial coverage by young bloggers, relatively little has been said about a broader democratisation that’s happening in the fashion industry overall. For one thing, runway knock-offs — formerly a marginal industry — have become a borderline acceptable business practice, with stores such as Zara and Forever 21 building successful franchises by copycatting high fashion designs. In a sense, fast fashion collaborations such as Jimmy Choo for H&M or Rodarte for Target seem to legitimise this practice.
At the same time that affordable imitations of high fashion have emerged as a widespread, easy option for budget-conscious fashionistas, the once closed system that has long dominated high fashion has become increasingly transparent and accessible. The latest runway images are available online for anyone to see, while the behind-the-scenes machinations of the fashion industry have become fodder for popular movies and TV shows, from The September Issue and The Devil Wears Prada to The Rachel Zoe Project. Within this context, the power dynamic between high fashion and youth culture has changed dramatically.
A generation of young bloggers like Tavi and Charles Guislain form the vanguard of the emerging fashion youth demographic. Following in their digital footprints, websites such as Lookbook.nu allow young consumers to compare and share looks assembled from fauxthentic fashions sourced at Urban Outfitters, Topshop, Uniqlo, H&M and vintage stores. Further facilitating this fashion fluency, the ubiquity of street photography sites now allows for a remarkably rapid global exchange of trends: something pops up in a street shot by The Sartorialist one week and is seen in Moscow on Slickwalk a few days later.
Charles Guislain in Vogue Italia | Source: Vogue Italia
The 16-year-old Guislain reminisces that, “The first thing which attracted me to fashion was Hedi Slimane’s work for Dior Homme,” but rather than waiting for a casting director’s call, Guislain teamed up with influential fashion blogger and champion of new talent Diane Pernet to post videos on her website, A Shaded View on Fashion.
He may say, “I don’t see myself as a style influencer — I’ve always dressed firstly for me,” but his modesty is undercut by the fact that Ms. Pernet’s videos of Charles are amongst the most-viewed content on her site and have already made him a budding style icon. Indeed, Mr. Guislain is featured in the latest issue of Italian Vogue alongside Stella Tennant, photographed by Tim Walker.
The looks showcased by Guislain and his contemporaries are certainly youthful, but they aren’t the byproduct of an isolated outsider culture blithely waiting for upmarket exploitation. In fact, with the easy accessibility and free flow of information that informs youth fashion today, that idea seems almost silly now.
In a relatively short time, young bloggers such as Tavi have gone from being outsiders submitting missives from the sidelines to challenging the dominance of major editorial outlets as arbiters of taste, with their front row presence denoting an important show and their opinions openly solicited. For an industry that has long thrived on hierarchy and insularity, this is a startling reversal of power, underscoring a shift that’s helping to drive a fundamental restructuring of an industry built on creating luxury through exclusivity.
Of course, none of this was possible before the internet. But today, young creative people, no matter where they are, have access to inspiration and powerful outlets to share their ideas. From articulate blogging stars to the young aspirants on Lookbook.nu, the new fashion youth are quickly sampling from the looks they see on the runways and creating mix-and match ensembles that are incredibly fashion fluent and often impressively innovative. Moreover, they are remarkably self-aware and savvy — seemingly immediately comfortable with and able to remix, communicate and capitalise on the high fashion aesthetics that have influenced them.
A month shy of her 14th birthday, Tavi has made videos for Rodarte, while Alie Suvelor was able to found the popular French magazine Dirrtyglam at the age of 18, attracting around a million hits each month. Indeed, the former outsiders are now the trendsetters and the idea of trying to repackage youth style without the participation of these young creatives seems woefully outdated.
Not all young fashion bloggers — even the ones getting the most attention today — will have staying power in the years to come. But the internet’s democratising effect certainly offers tremendous opportunity for exceptional young talent to break through and shape the new, digitally accessible fashion industry that’s emerging, while conversely making it less likely that anybody in the future will have as much consolidated influence as figures like Suzy Menkes or Anna Wintour do today.
Ken Miller is an editor, writer, and curator for print and digital media.
Brand Recognition Is the Issue
PARIS — What is the final assessment on the 321 collections shown over the last month in London, Milan, New York and Paris? There are, of course, strong trends — particularly in the powerful return of outerwear and a new focus on a more womanly and rounded figure.
But there is also a test that each designer has to pass.
Brand recognition is the vital issue, especially now that collections go global and viral before buyers have even had a chance to get to the showroom and make a choice, and way before advertising campaigns or editorials can express the look of the season.
One definition of branding in fashion is how quickly a seasoned viewer is able to identify a look. This is nothing to do with logos or overt symbols. Ultimately, the power of a designer is to be able to register a vision and to project that for the consumer.
With nil advertising and an aversion to promoting himself or his clothes, Azzedine Alaïa has achieved such clarity that every single piece in his privately shown collection — princess-line leather coats, skating-skirt dresses, shapely knits and flirty ankle boots — definitely belong to the aesthetic of this designer.
To be able to command burned-out press and buyers to your studio at 9 p.m. on the final day of a four-week fashion marathon, you have to have pulling power. And so it was that editors, buyers and eager followers like the American model Jessica Stam watched the parade of outfits, each of which had been fitted to the body by the hand of the master. Hence there were double-breasted coats in gleaming pony skin, jackets defining the waist and a few innovations such as a curvy low-front bodice, a short fur bolero or even — an unlikely innovation for Mr. Alaïa — a baggy boyfriend sweater.
All this came in “Alaïa” colors: black or jewel shades like garnet red and deep green, as well as a graphic black and white animal print. Around the walls were his accessories: zebra-patterned bowling bags and sensual shoes crowned with black cock feathers. This was another collection in the great stream and flow of Mr. Alaïa’s talent.
Miuccia Prada gave her usual spiel after the MiuMiu show, that everyone should have “fun with fashion.” She might have said “sex” with fashion. Because the defining character of this Prada satellite brand is of nymphettes who, by the curving rise of a skirt at the back, a half-moon scoop of bared-flesh below the bosoms or a strategically placed bow at the rear of the thighs, are provocative beyond their years.
Typically this season, the focus was at the back, rather than on the womanly bosoms at Prada. Tossing their ponytails, these fillies came out in short, geometric 1960s dresses, perhaps in orange felt and with all sorts of childish embellishment, especially silvered rosettes. And it really was sex with everything. Even the shoes — the company’s heartland — had an over-layer like a tongue emerging from open lips.
What is the fashion definition of Cerruti’s style? That is the question that the British designer Richard Nicoll must have asked himself before his first outing for the brand. Although he was still in diapers when the company was a by-word for sleek tailoring and fine fabrics, that is Cerruti’s heritage.
An elongated furry vest in a warm rust opened the show, playing with a strong color palette that included bright blue. A short double-breasted jacket introduced Mr. Nicoll’s vision of modern tailoring, for which he is known at his London label. But in spite of some chic-and-sharp touches, like a subtly designed cape coat and a blouse with a small collar and twin rows of buttons, there was not enough focus on the tailoring. One long coat in a season of outerwear was too timid.
By contrast, long skirts, split and worn over stretch leggings, looked like they were trying too hard to be hip. The designer needs to nurture his own taste for tidy tailoring and neat blouses — and then project that boldly at Cerruti.
Tuesday, March 16
Creative Review - Driven by data: McLaren's new site
Maybe it's the ungainly shadow cast by Jeremy Clarkson but the world of motorsport wouldn't be the first place we would look for stylish graphic design. A new site for F1 team McLaren Mercedes proves us wrong
The site was created by Work Club and Pirata. According to Work-Club's Andy Sandoz, the idea is that the site is "designed as if a computer compiled it, with the pit lane race screens in mind. You see what they see."
So, during today's practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix, the first race in the new F1 season, live data was streamed to the site providing the running dialogue between drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button and the team
Elsewhere, the site carries through the style to pages on the team's drivers
During the race itself on Sunday, the site will carry more live stats and commentary giving users some idea of the race experience. Mclaren.com
Friday, March 12
The nuances of European social media / we are social
At 12:30pm tomorrow, in Austin, Texas, I’m meant to be giving a talk entitled ‘Lost In Translation: The Nuances Of European Social Media’ at SXSW:
Europe is ahead of the US in terms of the consumer usage of social media, and yet little attention is often given to the nuances of what is on one hand is the world’s largest economy and on the other a collection of 48 countries with very different cultures.
Find out why the blogging scene in Paris is 2 years ahead of the US, the Brits are all a Twitter, the Dutch prefer Hyves to Facebook and the Germans will take any chance to give brands a hostile reception in social media.
I’m very honoured to get a speaking slot. The SXSW organisers whittled down over 2300 applications to just 300 based on public votes (if you were one of those that voted – thank you!) and their own judging criteria.
The trouble is, I’m not going to be there. Despite some of our friends taking the whole company to SXSW, with the speed things are moving here in Europe for We Are Social, right now I simply can’t afford five days away from the office.
Thankfully, our friend Peter Bihr ( @thewavingcat), one of Germany’s leading social media thinkers, has agreed to step into the breach and lead the talk, but he’s not had much time to prepare. So, we need you your help – I’m going to talk below about what I was planning to cover, but please chip-in in the comments if you have any insights to add of your own. Peter’s relying on you!
Lost In Translation: The Nuances Of European Social Media
With over 10 pan-European social media campaigns under our belt, we feel like we’ve got a handle on the nuances of European social media, but it’s very hard to sum-up in a few words. Let’s take things step by step.For those needing to get up to speed, Forrester’s social technographics profile tool is a good place to start. To save you the trouble of playing around with all the drop-down’s, here’s a presentation I put together based on the data from it:
As you’ll see, there’s a lot of variation between age groups in each country, with different generations in different places using social media in different ways. Germany really does seem to be lagging behind, with the Netherlands and Sweden leading the way.
However, the data doesn’t support the deliberately provocative proposition in my preamble that “Europe is ahead of the US in terms of the consumer usage of social media”. Well, Forrester is only one source of data, and others paint a different picture.
Nielsen’s ‘Global Faces and Networked Places’ report from March last year showed Spain, Italy and the UK ahead of the US in terms of social media usage:
And others often show similar findings. Universal McCann’s Social Media Tracker Wave 3 showed the vast majority of Europe ahead of the US in terms of blog readership (page 18), people starting their own blog (page 22) and membership of social networks (page 36). Sysomos has shown that London is the captial of Twitter (in fact, it could be argued it’s the social media captial of the world), and more recent data from Neilsen shows that people in the UK and Italy spend more time on social networks each month than those in the US:
Aside from the detailed look at European social media usage that the Forrester data provides, there are other reports worth looking at. Our friend Tom Smith of Trendstream put this really useful deck together based on his first round of Global Web Index data:
And IAB Europe’s Marketers & Consumers, Digital & Connected data is really useful when trying to understand what’s happening in some of Europe’s regions and smaller countries. Here’s a summary of their findings:
So far, I’ve concentrated on European social media usage and behavior, but it’s worth remembering that Europe has a rich landscape of social media services, despite Facebook’s merciless and continuing rise to world domination.
The FT recently carried an article by Maija Palmer that’s essential reading if you want to understand this landscape – ‘A future alongside Facebook’, looking at the fate of services like Skyrock in France, StudiVZ in Germany, Tuenti in Spain and Hyves in the Netherlands (although bizarrely, she neglects to cover the fate of Vkontakte in Russia).
So where does that leave us? Europe is a complex and varied continent, and it’s no surprise to find that its social media landscape matches this. From our pan-European campaign experience, we know it’s important to treat each country differently, and we always make sure we either have a native of each country working on the team in London or Paris, or we work closely with local partners. Despite the varied uptake and usage of social media in different countries, we’ve found if we respect the local social media culture, it’s possible to run successful social media campaigns in any market in Europe.
