Big Data, Teenage Sex, and a Better Megaphone

While reading a marketoonist cartoon on Big Data (see image below from that page), the author cited a hot topic in marketing circles, “Big data is like teenage sex”. The quote behind the discussion goes something like this “Big Data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.”

The underlying discussion about Big Data is funny because of the truth behind the statement, but what struck me is who gets credit for that phrase or who can claim to really owns that phrase, since I recalled hearing it before. I’m not trying to stir a debate of originality over impact, but from a fame and bragging rights standpoint, it’s worth taking a second look.

I found a nearly identical quote by Dan Ariely here, where he received nearly 1700 likes and over 700 shares. That was back on January 6th of 2013. I’m not sure if I saw it them, but I might have seen a “share” as the reason why the recent spread of that phrase caught my eye. Of course, I don’t know if Dan’s post was the first, but I do know that the LinkedIn post that followed recently is the most famous.

10 months after Dan’s post that received 1700 likes and 700 shares, the same phrase is finally picked up and e-broadcasted to LinkedIn, and BAM!. Suddenly it’s being shared by no less than three people I know personally. Is this random luck or something that could be engineered? It seems like random luck, and even if it was, it’s worth considering a few key properties of this now famous statement. 1. Big Data has gone through a hype cycle, and reality about it is settling in 2. The statement is largely true, even w/o the comparison to teenage sex 3. The statement connects the reader to a universal experience 4.  There were 1700 likes and 700 shares, so it clearly had some redeeming value before it was famous 5. Someone from LinkedIn curated it.
Of the above, only #5 was necessary, but arguably, the previous 4 steps made #5 easy for someone at LinkedIn to notice and curate. I would postulate that many famous statements or quotes share the same spirit of the the first three.

Social Media: tools, costs, impact, ROE, and ROI

There are so many experts telling you what to do and how to spend your time/money on social media, so I was happy to see a presentation from a knowledgeable colleague. In it, he reviewed several key issues surrounding social media: tools, costs, impact, and ROI. While the presentation is on the long side, it's a good read.

Cost Effective Social Media Measurement from geoff sharp

If you are strapped for time I recommend leaping forward to page 34 using the slide control, as that provides a case study with a quick view into a way to look at and evaluate social media efforts.

One reason this presentation appeals to me is that it attempts to define a closed loop approach to measurement and recommendations. Using initial or preliminary goals, I can look at the analysis and reports to see how I'm progressing toward those goals by choosing and analyzing a few key metrics. Over time, as I progress toward my goals or fail to reach them, the measurement allows me to re-evaluate my choice of metrics as key indicators of goal progress or even redefine my goals or sub-goals based on what resources I can apply to the process.

The key to this approach, however, is to have goals. These goals can be simple or complex, and can be co-mingled with costs, for example:

• Simply have or expand a social media presence
• Create market awareness and findability
• Create the largest social media footprint without advertising
• Create the largest social media footprint with a limited ad budget
• Use social media to drive sales
• Use social media to establish thought leadership
• Drive sign-ups to your service

Each of those goals is valid depending on your business needs and stage of business, and each has implications on both ROE (return on effort) as well as ROI (Return on Investment).  Pursuit of any of the individual goals alone or in combination has implications in terms of pre-requisites, resource allocation, and budget, which then translate to identifying which metrics you track on the way to your goal.

So, what is your goal, and how will you know when you get there?

Disclaimer: I know the creator of the presentation and have been an advocate of his measurement and ROI centric approach. Funny how I agree with it, no?

Publicity by Pranking Victoria's Secret

While reflecting on how a colleague is trying to "Cross the Chasm" with his startup, I naturally reflected on basic marketing principles for customer development, such as reputation building, free PR, and testimonials. There are other principles, but I'll focus on those few since they came to mind when the topic of my undergraduate school's small size yet excellent academic reputation came up as a comparison.. And that's when I thought of Victoria's Secret.

My undergraduate education was earned at Harvey Mudd College (HMC), a small engineering focused school in southern California. It has consistently ranked in the top 3 for top engineering schools and for a brief time was ranked as the top undergraduate institution by US News and World Reports. Sure, we had more PhDs per capita than CalTech at the time, but for every one person who knew that, ten would ask "Harry Mudd - that guy from Star Trek?" Before geek was cool, and before there was a "Big Bang Theory" on TV, it was difficult to get recognition for my small, young, but rigorous school.

I and my classmates continue to fight that uphill battle, silently rejoicing when Harvey Mudd is acknowledged for any reason. Sure, we've had math champions, CS champions, famous faculty, and even the school President is on the board of Microsoft. The problem is that only a few "in the know" would assign weight to those facts, despite my personal bias that HMC President Maria Klawe is a recognized leader and lends additional credibility to the school. No, it would take a hilarious prank on Victoria's Secret to make me really happy.

In one act (many small ones, really), students from the school banded together to dominate a contest to win Victoria's Secret lingerie. The prank leveraged student technical know-how to beat voting protection systems to not only make it seem like Harvey Mudd had over 1 million students and alumni, it also spelled out school phrases, and catapulted other Claremont colleges into the top rankings. The prank on Victoria's Secret was covered in news sources all around the web, and an article in Yahoo voices can still be seen here.

Now back to my original comment about reputation building, free PR, and testimonials - this small, but meaningful prank demonstrated a few key points that could help attract new students and make alumni proud:

• Reputation building: The student body self organized to pull off a technical feat. You can bet the school is both technically skilled and has a tight community.
• Free PR: HMC did not have to spend a dime to advertise that the students were skilled technically or that there's a creative, if not "puckish", personality of pranks at the school.
• Testimonials: Tthis prank was acknowledged by many online sources and shared via Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and became virtual lore at the alumni meetings that followed. This also led to follow up discussions where fellow alumni suddenly started talking about the pranks they did or others did while at school. 

In short, sometimes communication and reputation can be assisted by events, people, and tools that tell a story about a school or product that has merit, but can be amplified by leveraging the goodwill of another brand. It helped Harvey Mudd, and it may help others looking for increased visibility.

The Truth Behind Food Styling Can be Viral

Since when does a video exposing the marketing tweaks to a product  go viral and reach over 5 million views? The McDonald's Canada video on "food styling" just did. You'll find the video on the top video viral chart there.

I try to look at business videos applying 3 main filters to understand it's influence and potential for spread:

• Is it relate-able or use an archetype?
• It it relevant/timely
• Is it memorable

Is it relate-able?

There's a resounding "YES" here. Nearly everyone I've known has asked the question answered by this video. Who hasn't wondered why fast food has never looked as good in person as it does in the photos - would be a better question. The premise is good and it draws people in.

Is it relevant? 

I'd say yes, but not in the usual way. Normally, when something is relevant, it is connected with your current needs or interests. In this case, there are few people who are particularly interested in this question. The real relevancy is two fold: 1) universally relate-able topic, and 2) market concern over "pink slime" and fast foods.

Suffice it to say that a universally relate-able topic always has some relevance, but add that to the recent concerns over "pink slime", and people are more interested in what goes on or in their fast food. I'll admit that I wondered if there was any real-world air brushing or special chemicals applied to the burger, and that kept me watching.

Is it memorable?

If one of life's mysteries was answered for you, would you remember? Of course. The revelation in the video, of course, isn't so appealing, but having worked in the film industry and marketing, I came in with some expectation of staging. Sure, I've staged products, I've staged homes for sale, and even created special demos that avoided known bugs. In this case McD's gave us the tour of how it takes hours of prep, staging, and even some photoshop to make the burgers look as good as they do in the photos. 

This video hits all the key points for me, and it's no wonder that the video went viral.

Social media explained and the next phase of #socialmedia

While people debate social media and what all the services do, I found an elegant, yet tongue-in-cheek, image from Adverblog that does the job admirably.

From a clarity and classification standpoint, this image  delineates a complementary ecosystem owned by the major companies shown. Nearly every social media company who currently or hopes to compete with one of the leaders would overlay one or more of the companies listed.

If you agree with not only the implied classification but also the market dominance suggested by the image, then you may also agree that any competitor in that space has a low probability of success due to the ownership of each social media category by an incumbent 800lb gorilla.

New entrants, may attempt to introduce product suites, integrated features, or better differentiated features, however the problem is not one of a better product, but one of category ownership. A new entrant with a suite or integrated product must be more than just better with some feature advantage. They need to overcome thought leadership of each of the major competitors that they overlap. I would argue that direct competition for those major segments is over, unless one of those leaders grossly pisses off their user base.

The implication for me is that a new entrant must follow a narrower vertical strategy where they can capture both the pain and imagination of a niche market and own it. Yes, the whole of social media will likely follow the path of social networks - products for businesses in narrow verticals where the open access and unsecure information of the current leaders creates social media demand that lacks the privacy, security, and narrow market knowledge that practitioners in a narrow field of focus require.

This is not new, of course, as this parallels the growth and segmentation of enterprise software. Where once there was ERP, CRM, and Supply Chain, etc, there are now those software (and SassS) in specific verticals such as government, human resources, finance, automotive, energy, bioscience, medical etc. The only thing that prevents or delays the next wave of vertically focused social media, is the process and structure of demonstrating consistent and repeatable results and ROI in the same way that CRM analytics enabled the creation of pretty charts showing how to identify, cull, and optimize that sales funnel.

Where did my review go? Social Media Fail.

I believe in the power of social media and the power of crowds. Specifically, I rarely questioned if review systems were good things designed to help and inform consumers. I also believed that reviews were a way for product marketers to gain insight into the values and shortcomings of products.

Unfortunately, one of my favorite stores, Brookstone, has fallen short on providing reviews that would benefit customers, and especially myself.

The issue at hand is not one, but two disappearing reviews (out of 8 for the product) that I had submitted following two product returns and several calls to customer support.  The real problem is that the two reviews were posted months apart for a product that lacked a key feature that the retail store confirmed was not in the product. The product is linked at the end of this post, if you're interested.

So to sum it up - I paid $400+ for a product online with ship to store (Brookstone retail). I Tested it in store, where it was clear that the “Foot rollers” did not work, and I confirmed with customer support that the product was supposed to have the feature. I returned it and wrote a review about the product failure, but great in-store customer service. I read it on the site, thinking that I was helping them correct the product mis-listing or boost quality control. A few months later, after a hard day on my feet, I tried again. I looked for my older review, and it was missing, so I assumed that there was some system glitch, and/or that the product was somehow improved or different. So I ordered again.

As they say, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. I might have to check my mental reasoning skills, as the same thing and more happened. Not only did the product not have the feature, but service again claimed that it was supposed to have rollers. This time, however, the sales person confirmed that he had not seen the product EVER have working foot rollers. My new review included a suggestion that the customer service or marketing department verify the product features as it would help other customers make an informed decision and reduce return costs.

This time, my review was gone in less than a day.

6 months later, after another aching foot day, I went to check Brookstone.com and the product that I wanted earlier. There the product was, claiming to have the missing, but key feature, -- but neither of my reviews were there.

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me - but more than that, Brookstone. I can’t trust your online rating system, and will never order from you online again. This time, however, the review won’t be removed, and this note can hopefully serve to shine a light on customer service and review systems.

I have continued looking for a better foot massager (notice that it still claims to have foot rollers). If you know of a comparable one with foot rollers at the same price or better, let me know.

Customer Support is more than internal tracking tools

I've got a customer support horror story, and I'm not afraid to tell it, because it has both a good AND bad side, but it also provides a learning opportunity for Acer and possibly others.

My Acer laptop went on the fritz in January, slowly getting worse to the point of being unusable in March. I updated the drivers, checked bios settings, verified all the connections, and nothing helped. I even documented the original problem here. I contacted Acer support, knowing that warranty would end in less than three weeks, figuring that they could determine the problem, I could ship it, and they could fix it even before warranty ended.

The diagnosis process was less than satisfactory - where the Acer people insisted that I do everything that I had already done - again. They even insisted that I just LOOK at the BIOS - w/o providing any suggestions once I got there. Of course I peaked around the BIOS once I was there, and there was nothing to change except to possibly disable the external monitor, which, btw, did not solve the problem (documented here). After two weeks of back-and-forth communication over their support ticket tool, they decided that I needed to RMA it.

That's when things got interesting. I packed and shipped the product after their determination that there was a hardware problem, making sure to ship it w/receipt while still in warranty. The support team that was on my ticket never acknowledge receiving it, even though UPS had tracked it. My first two attempts where met with "your product is out of warranty" we'll check with the depot. The depot finally acknowledged receipt, but the support team did not have an active record of it. Meanwhile, I asked the support team about why they kept telling me that my laptop was out of warranty and if they would still fix it since it was diagnosed and acknowledged to be defective. No answer. Even after I told them that my video pages (above) had received > 3000 hits, they didn't respond.

I contacted them every week with those questions as the video page views increased. They completely ignoring my questions about the warranty and repair. Finally, someone from the repair depot called to tell me that they couldn't get the parts and they would ship me a replacement the next day. The next day came and went, and there was no notification of the shipment, so I contacted support to find out what went wrong. Acer support told me that the replacement was not longer available, and that they were working on it. That's it. Nearly a week later, no update, so I dug through my call logs to find the inbound number from the Acer repair depot. The person at the depot was again clear and courteous, told me what happened, when another replacement option was available, and asked for a pre-authorization to ship it to me. I granted it of course, but the ship day came and went, and again, no notification. So another contact to support, and they acknowledged that a replacement was being sent. Whew!

What does this all mean? Well here's what I took away from this experience:

• Acer's support system is designed to track issues only, and does not have the focus on customers that Dell and Apple have shown when I've had repair issues with them.
• Acer doesn't track blogs or social media venues. All told, my rants on the topic garnered north of 10,000 page views.
• Persistence is still the order of the day. It seems that support is not a right, but must be earned, at least from Acer. Otherwise, I might still be out of the hardware to this day, over month and a half after reporting the problem.
• Acer's repair depot and support system have vastly different levels of person skill levels, where the depot people treated me like a human, and the support people treated me like my support issues were not worth their time.

My replacement laptop seems fine, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the support experience. In this day and age, I'm surprised that this level of service could come from a top PC company. and I'm even more surprised that Acer cares so little about it's reputation that it would allow such problems to go so long without resolution.

At least at the time of this writing, my video can be found on the 1st page of Google search results for "acer video flickering" and in the comments for the #1 search result for "acer video problems". Let's hope companies like Acer pay closer attention to their customers because other customers may be listening, and search results may not always show what you want your customers to see.

Outrageous Marketing Stunts by the Clueless

Over the course of lunch, I overheard a marketing professional discuss how he needed an outrageous marketing stunt to be successful. The belief was that the stunt would generate a ton of publicity and people would flock to his website. "What short sighted thinking," I muttered to my colleague. "Who would notice, and what would people do when they got to his website?" Sometimes overeager marketers simply grasp at 'standout marketing' without a clue.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a publicity stunt, and they can indeed draw an audience. Heck, I ran marketing for a startup that grew from 254 Google search results to 44,000 results in a less than a week. My team leveraged an outrageous stunt on the stage of an AlwaysOn Hollywood event to hit those numbers. The more outrageous the stunt, the more attention you might grab. But what is the quality of that attention and how does that translate to users or sales?

A few outrageous stunts that come to mind are: the Aqua Teen Hunger Force blinky lights marketing campaign, the woman who tattooed her forehead for a casino, the Tokbox taco truck with free tacos for laid off Yahoo employees, and the giveaway of the Pontiac G6 on Oprah. Each was an interesting and somewhat outrageous marketing stunt, but all yielded mixed results.

To clarify my point, some additional facts are in order. The Aqua Teen Hunger force campaign ran in 10 cities, with little to any market buzz until it shut down the Boston Airport. How many of you cared enough, even after the buzz, to watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force for the first time? The woman who tattooed her forehead got a permanent tattoo and was paid only $10,000. Do any of you remember the woman, what casino sponsored it, or visited that casino? Tokbox, who did the taco truck promotion seven months ago, recently let go 50% of it's workforce, and all the founders left, so it's not clear what the gains were there. The car giveaway on Oprah was a big success for Oprah, but it was Pontiac's idea (no one gave them credit), no one remembers that the car was a G6, and Pontiac is being closed as a division of GM. Looks like memorable stunts that didn't do the job in these cases.

So what's wrong with outrageous stunts? Nothing, but the context, goals, and audience need to be aligned to make the sure the stunt even has a chance at yielding returns. In each of the above examples, the stunts were memorable, but not in ways that increased brand goodwill, drove the right kinds of customers or audience, or yielded leveragable attention.

Just being outrageous may make your memorable, but that's not really the point, is it? As much fame and notoriety you may get for the marketing stunt, you still have to drive adoption, registrations, and/or sales. A stunt for visibility sake is no guarantee of success.

All talk and no action? Social Media Gumption

socialThis is a brief post about all the talk about "joining the conversation" and all the pontificating about it. As a lead in - this post is NOT about talking about "joining the conversation" but instead about actually getting involved.

Over and over again I hear people and so-called social media experts talking about "joining the conversation." Sometimes they're effusive, sometimes they're instructive, and other times they pragmatic. This subject, as it turns out, is exactly one where the debate of "do" vs. "teach" comes into play.

Ask these people how many of the following have they done?
- youtube videos uploaded
- youtube videos commented on
- blog posts they have written
- blog posts they have commented on
- twitter messages they have sent
- twitter @reply messages they have received

Then ask them how many of the following they have:
- total views on their youtube videos
- friends or subscribers on youtube, facebook, or myspace
- followers on twitter

If the answer to any of those items is less than 10, then there's alot of work to do. The actual absolute number of any of the above do not matter, but instead the participation does. Becoming part of the conversation and participating in social media is NOT about pontificating about what the benefits might be, but it is simply participating. I think it was either Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu who said " the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step". Joining the conversation is not really as hard as you might think, and all it takes is one comment to get involved.

Just to be clear, though - there is a difference between social media and building your personal brand. I'll get into that in a later post.

That's all for now.