Entries Tagged 'Advertising' ↓

Today we’re continuing a series of posts from my Father, Lorenz J. Gude. Although my Father writes mostly on politics these days over on his blog Yankeewombat, I believe our mutual interest in areas like media and technology are appropriate fodder for a blog like EXCELER8ion.

Corporate Blogging

by Lorenz J. Gude

I have become aware of corporate blogging through the work of my son and daughter-in-law who, among other things, have been working on helping corporations get their own blogs started. One thing they experience is that there is both resistance and enthusiasm for corporate blogging. What I mean here by corporate blogging is employees blogging on behalf of their company trying to advance its cause, not frustrate it, or pursue personal agendas. In this post I want to explore why some companies first reaction is concern about the negative potential while for others it is an opportunity to take advantage of a new avenue of communication to their customers and even their potential employees.

My understanding of what happens in any culture when a new medium is introduced has been heavily influenced by the work of Marshal McLuhan. He is most remembered for his work Understanding Media which contains the famous dictum, ‘the medium is the message’. However, it is his earlier, much more scholarly work, The Gutenburg Galaxy that has convinced me of his lasting usefulness as a theoretician through which to understand the arrival of phenomena like corporate blogging.

McLuhan argued that when a new medium emerges people tend to focus on content, not form. For example, when Gutenburg invented movable type, monarchs immediately saw the potential for the presses to be used for political agitation against them and brought in Draconian laws controlling every printed page. Conversely, it took 300 years for interchangeable type to morph into the system of interchangeable parts we all take for granted today. Innovations that emerge as people come to grips with the implications of a new media environment are difficult to see at first because no one can see the new environment. Indeed, at first, they can only see the innovation in the context of the old environment.

Many of the people who run corporations have grown up in the media environment dominated by TV, while the rising generation has grown up in a transitional TV to Internet environment. From the perspective of the older media environment corporate blogs look like a highly risky new conduit for content already conveyed reliably to the public through regular customer relations, marketing, and PR channels. For the advocates of corporate blogging the new medium looks like an opportunity to reach the public more authentically and directly than traditional advertising and public relations. Consequently, when some corporations consider blogs they tend to see risk while others see opportunity. The bottom line is that McLuhan’s ideas may be of genuine use to the advocates of corporate blogging to help corporations recognize that, like it or not, they are operating in a new media environment with both new dangers and opportunities. And yes, negative publicity is one danger but the larger one is to cling to a world that no longer exists and fail to positively engage the new media environment.

Today we’re beginning a series of posts from my Father, Lorenz J. Gude. Although my Father writes mostly on politics these days over on his blog Yankeewombat, I believe our mutual interest in areas like media and technology are appropriate fodder for a blog like EXCELER8ion. Shannon and I tend to focus on social media, and specifically how this medium is contributing to a meaningful shift in communications and marketing that we’re all grappling to understand. From some of my conversations with my Father on blogging, and its wealthy cousin, corporate blogging, Dad has taken to writing some pieces on the topic, which is what I’ll be sharing with you. To start us off, Dad, aka Lorenz or The Yankee Wombat, gives us an intro to Marshall McLuhan and some of his seminal ideas on media that are still highly regarded (and relevant) today and at the same time, still largely misunderstood. Largely misunderstood? Pah! Not by me, because all of this is over my head to begin with! Many of us in the blogosphere, and in much more finite terms, the Recruitosphere, fear that we spend too much time tossing around the same tired views, voices and inside jokes and to that Shannon and I say, YES, let’s not lose sight of the big picture. So read on, and take this as a part I of X in a series on understanding this new medium, er, message from an observer with a valuable viewpoint.

The medium is the message

by Lorenz J. Gude

Anyone who has heard of McLuhan has probably heard his most famous quote “The Medium is the message.” I studied McLuhan quite a bit in connection with my teaching about media in the seventies and eighties. What I have realized lately getting interested in McLuhan’s thinking again and referring to it in some of my blog posts is that while McLuhan’s famous dictum is still well known it is not well understood. McLuhan is making a point about form and content. The medium - handwriting, print, TV, blogging - whatever - is ‘the medium’. The message - ‘meet me in the square at 6:30′, ‘Texas election tied’, ‘Tsunami relief delayed’ - whatever - is the content. What McLuhan is saying is deliberate nonsense - on the face of it. The message, of course, is normally the content.

What McLuhan was trying to do was shock us into awareness of the importance of form as opposed to content (or message) by means of an outrageous statement. He failed. I find most people don’t get it. I certainly didn’t until I read McLuhan carefully. What he is saying, put in a more balanced way, is that the form of our communications media have a large effect on us but we miss it because we are understandably focused on the content that is being communicated. The phrase “Content is king” reinforces the basic truth that we select what we consume in any medium by the content. The remote control, for example, enables us to instantly make decisions about content while watching TV. Content is what grabs our awareness like the figure in a picture, while we take the background - the medium - for granted.

Of course in this particular famous picture the figure and the ground are ambiguous - so we can see it as two faces or a vase. What McLuhan is asking us to do is make a similar switch of awareness from how the content is impacting us to how the medium is impacting us.

McLuhan developed his thinking at a time in human history when new media - TV, radio, mass circulation magazines, motion pictures were all changing our day to day experience of the world. A hundred years ago most people were farmers. They saw the occasional newspaper. Read a few books if they were so inclined. Most of their time was taken up with work - with hay and cows and chickens and eggs. No TV, or movies or radio. McLuhan was struck by the indisputable fact that the media environment had been drastically changed in the 20th century. Today I sit here at a computer most of the day. I happened to grow up on a farm with cows and chickens so I have a reality based picture of what it was like 100 years ago, but I don’t live in that world at all any more. Most people today in the developed world have had absolutely no contact with a world where cows and chickens are a more important part of their everyday experience than TV. We take these changes for granted; McLuhan warns us not to do that.

McLuhan was amazed when he began to look into the effects of this sort of change of environment on human beings. He searched for evidence of changes caused by living in different media environments. One of the things that got him started was a phenomena noticed by the British when they began to give civil service exams in India. They discovered that examinees passed the tests with high marks because they could remember word for word the entire text book the exam was based on without always fully understanding the content. McLuhan argued that they could perform this prodigious feat of memory because they came from an oral culture. Writing was rare - everything of verbal importance was heard, not read, and then had to be remembered precisely, if it were to be preserved. What McLuhan theorized was that differences in the media environment change the emphasis we place on our various senses. Therefore it impacts the way our brains develop and the way we experience the world. In this case literacy reduces the importance of the process of hearing and remembering and increases the importance of the sense of sight and reduces the necessity to remember the exact wording. McLuhan called that shift in sensory emphasis sense ratio.

Now lets skip forward to our own time and look at an example of the very different media environment we live in. We live in a period when the media environment in terms of where we get our news is changing from the near total domination of TV to a mix of TV and the Internet. McLuhan didn’t live to see the Internet, but an analysis in McLuhan’s terms of the changes introduced by the Internet would begin with some fairly obvious observations. The first might be that TV and the Internet, while both using a screen, engage different parts of the brain because TV is dominated by visual content and the computer screen by print. In my experience computers have made me much more aware of how emotional TV is. Lets do a thought experiment. Take the Iraq war and close your eyes and see what images you remember. I get burning tanks, the aftermath of suicide bombings, stills from Abu Ghraib. I don’t know what images you get but I am pretty sure they will have a strong emotional element. If you read news and blogs on the Internet about the Iraq war then think of what stands out for you from that experience. It will probably be more about ideas and interpretations of events. What I notice is the great variety of different views expressed by bloggers and the relatively predictable view of events that the media presents. I see that dissonance because as a student of McLuhan I am looking for it. Because I am less concerned with content I am not swept away by each competing point of view but very impressed in how a change in the media environment is changing the way we see events. I notice that the established media are accustomed to framing events in certain ways and that bloggers frame them differently. The bloggers break the monopoly the media have enjoyed in the framing of events. This is exactly the kind of thing that McLuhan was saying we miss when we focus exclusively on content.

I’m no genius when it comes to media. It wasn’t until I started using the Internet and happened to not have a TV at all that I got it that TV is so emotionally manipulative. I first saw it when I visited my son in the US and he had a large screen TV. I became aware that every time the news came on my stomach clenched, and that I was moved into upsetting emotional space. Once I noticed it, McLuhan gave me a way of understanding that it was the medium itself that was a big part of the reaction - not just the content. I could read about the same events on the Internet with much less emotional reaction. To the extent that kind of difference is caused by the medium in question, that medium, while not the whole message, is very much a part of the message.

Technorati Tags: Marshall McLuhan, blogging, the-medium-is-the-message

“I Make US Fly”…Well YOU Make Me Sick

According to a local Pennsylvania newspaper article today, the new US Airways Group (created by the merger of US Airways + America West) recently launched an internal marketing campaign called “I Make US Fly,” playing off their consumer slogan, “Fly with US.”  The campaign stresses that in order to set the airline apart from the competition, employees need to provide friendly and helpful service to customers and each other “all the time.”

Many employees have responded to the ”I Make US Fly,” with “You Make Me Sick.”  Given the severity of the labor issues at US Airways, it is certainly no shocker the employees aren’t having any of it: 

If anyone thinks for one minute that whitewashing serious labor unrest with cosmetics will cover up deep-rooted problems, this airline is in serious trouble,” said Capt. Jack Stephan, spokesman for the US Airways pilots group.

New Marketing 101
Know your audience and (slightly newer thinking) - don’t ever try to make them force down a plate of bullshit.  We applaud the fact that US Airways seems to realize the effect that customer touch points (especially with their employees) will have on their brand.  But, if you have seriously disgruntled employees, this is not the foundation upon which to build an effective brand.  Every customer and employee interaction is critical to your success.  This is a lesson not just for building the overall company brand but for Employer Branding as well (i.e. every interaction management has with their employees). 

Our favorite thinking about this is an example of a company that truly gets what effects their brand: Scandinavian Airlines System.  SAS had 10 million customers last year that came into contact with at least 5 SAS employees for an average of 15 seconds.  The SAS CEO called these touch-points: “50 million moments of truth.”

Some interesting side points - the US Airways campaign was actually funded by Coca-Cola, which beat out Pepsi to sell its products on the new US Airways’ flights.  AND - this campaign maybe hated so much that I was already able to find employee lanyards and pins up for sale on eBay, and yes, they have bids.

technorati tags: employer branding US Airways Internal marketing

According to AdAge, Federated Department Stores is poised to drastically change their Marketing Media Mix in the coming years.  In a move that reminded me of major beer brand Foster’s recent media eviction - Federated will move as much as $425 million away from local print media.  At first glance, I read the newsclips to say that they were pulling out of local newspaper completely.  Much like what I think about Fosters’ move - my opinion is that putting all of your eggs in one marketing basket is a mistake; however, according to the article:

The most dire prediction calls for as much as $425 million of the retailer’s ROP newspaper advertising to disappear by 2008. More conservative estimates, such as the Deutsche Bank research report “Federated Impact May Be Greater Than Papers Expect,” by Paul Ginocchio, forecast a still-stinging $200 million blow for the already ailing medium. Federated’s annual newspaper spending currently totals $830 million.

The headlines I saw everywhere today sensationalized the potential loss in revenue for local newspapers.  Many stories alluding to the end of the Newspaper industry are like the headlines we read in the supermarket check out line.  But really, Federated is just having a go at promoting a national brand, with national media tools.  That changes the equation for local newspapers and will certainly equate to lost revenues.  On the up side - local online newspaper sites continue to grow at a strong pace and although articles tout TV advertising and national magazines as the NEW vehicles for Federated, few are talking about the role of online.   According to the article:

“Federated’s bevy of historic and beloved department-store brands will be officially reborn as Macy’s, backed by the company’s first national branding campaign.” 

“Our media selection will be driven by where our customers’ eyeballs are going,” said Jim Sluzewski, Federated Spokesman.

“Newspapers will continue to be a very important medium,” he said. “The fall launch is one point in time, and what happens longer term is something we are still going to be working on,” added Federated Spokesman Jim Sluzewski.

In my opinion, Federated is completing a loop that began when they started acquiring regional brands like Burdines and Foley’s.  Having started my career with the online advertising teams for two prominent newspaper groups,  I had the chance to pitch one of the major Federated brands back in 2000.  At the time, Burdines was one of the original department store brands in Florida.  Just 6 years ago, Burdines still actually needed a transactional web site to (as they put it) “help drive additional foot-traffic in to their stores”.  In addition, they were just starting to look for media outlets for online recruitment advertising.

Today In just 6 short years times have changed, Burdines is gone, consolidated under Macy’s.  Federated has brought much to the table as far as online recruitment goes and is often touted as having one of the best online careers sites on the web @ Retailology.com. 

In Federated’s opinion, consolidating under the Macy’s brand was really the logical next step in consumer minds. It follows that Macy’s as a national brand will now be promoted nationally. For now, the hype, and reality is that local advertising will suffer in the short term but Federated isn’t shy about adjusting a marketing strategy that isn’t working out.  Abby Clark VP of Sales for The Columbus Dispatch made the following point in AdAge:

…despite Macy’s national brand ambitions, newspapers remain relevant. “It’s going to be risky. People go to newspapers and look for sales and shopping, and if they don’t, they may not think to go to Macy’s as often.” Ms. Clark said Macy’s experimented two years ago by pulling back on coupon offers in ROP ads. “They backed off quickly from that because it hurt them,” she said.

And who said national brands don’t benefit from local newspaper advertising?  Just ask Best Buy, Target, Home Depot, Office Depot … the list goes on.  As a local consumer, where you are is where it’s at, so local consumption of products and services goes hand-in-hand with consumption of like-focused media and tools.  Federated, THE single largest print advertiser, has been advertising in local newspapers forever.  I think that Federated’s move will do more to prove some of the value of local print advertising than crush it.  No doubt the print revenue that was enjoyed by local print publications will never be the same but the power of local comsumers will crop up in future Federated media buys… as they said, they will put their money - “where our customers’ eyeballs are going.”

I believe that Federated’s new Chief Marketing Officer, Anne MacDonald is just dealing with the reality of managing her marketing budget. You don’t often get carte blanche to take a $1 billion dollar ad budget and just double it (OK, that actually NEVER happens) - in the real world, you rob from Peter to pay Paul.  MacDonald, a former Citibank marketer is no doubt a national brand expert (and believer) so the national focus is no shock.  And don’t forget that Citibank and Anne MacDonald’s peers have won most of their accolades in the last 5-10 years for their progressive work in online advertising, an area where local media outlets could surely make back some of their losses.

technorati tags: local advertising online advertising newspapers

Everyone has a great time playing the role of Monday Morning Quarterback on the big game AND in the last decade that has included the T.V. commercials that run during the Super Bowl. We’ve all come to see the commercials as an integral part of the big show. There are whole legions of people who watch the Super Bowl just for the commercials. Er, my wife and I are pretty close to this latter group (no, we’re not Football haters, we just really love advertising!).

What does this have to do with local interactive advertising or online recruitment marketing? Everything, because online marketing is all about interaction and consumer engagement and online marketing has proven again and again to be a big winner here. The former leader in generating emotional response and engagement was Television. Anything we can learn about how these ads effect consumers is information we can use when crafting our own interactive campaigns.

Like you, I’ve read lots of reviews on the commercials with the consensus being that Fedex won this year’s battle of the commercials contest (of course there are some dissenters in this opinion). People also seemed underwhelmed by this years spots. Shannon and I really like to analyze the ads on our own and draw our own conclusions about the best ads before reading other opinions.

Our reactions.

First, we weren’t as underwhelmed as so many seemed to be.
And our pick for the best ad? The Disney World “NFL Dreamers” commercials showing various football players practicing their “I’m going to Disney World!” refrain for after winning the game. We immediately connected with the ads and felt they were the clear winner. We seem to be in the minority - at least in terms of the media pundits. Maybe we’re all wet but this story on CNET Tuesday showing that the Disney World ad was the most engaging gave us some validation.

“The researchers at UCLA and FKF Applied Research used fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging, to measure the activity of brain regions associated with key emotions in viewers.”

A couple of points that really jumped out at me. First, the Disney commercials scored the highest when it came to engaging the viewer, followed by the Sierra Mist airport security ad. What is a little weird is how the Disney ad went from a clear winner on the first viewing to a big loser on the second viewing (a larger drop than many other second viewings). So, the Disney ads made the list for both most engaging and least engaging.

Since we follow the online recruitment space we were also really interested to see that CareerBuilder’s monkey commercials also make the ‘least engaging’ list. When you look at the actual data it looks pretty bad.

Our favorite local TV commercial? Well, there was only one to choose from. In our market we saw a commercial for an exclusive local golf community. How about you?

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the overwhelming reaction I have to this data is how ALL the ads produced high levels of anxiety! The Disney commercials, along with the others have far larger responses in the areas of threat than positive aspects like reward. I’d love to see this kind of brain study performed on interactive ads (yeah, it’s probably been done - I just don’t know of it) to see how the greater targeting and interactivity of the web would change these dynamics.

Any researchers out there want to partner up with us on this research?