CorporatePR

Confronting the Upcoming Challenge in Achieving Brand Awareness in France

I wanted to share with you a document I recently prepared that attempts to both summarize the current challenges facing brand managers in France together with some ideas of how these challenges might be met.  I believe the analysis makes sense for companies in many markets, so thought I would share it with you.   To frame it for you: this paper was written as something that could be taken to a senior executive, so has an overall strategy (vs tactical) approach.  It was inspired, in part, by a final exam question given to students in one of my international PR courses this spring.  As always, I would be interested in your comments.  In the coming weeks I will be digging into some of the ideas contained in this analysis, and will share the results with you.

Confronting the Upcoming Challenge in Achieving Brand Awareness in France

French brand managers are facing a serious problem today:  How does one achieve similar audience reach (as compared to traditional channels, especially TV) on new media/internet platforms for the purpose of brand awareness?  The short answer is, one can't.  As Shelly Palmer, a US-based expert on television advertising said in a recent presentation, nothing beats the scale of TV.  It is the only place one can achieve large audiences presumably watching the same thing at the same time, including ads.  Now we can debate whether people are actually watching the ads, but in terms of traditional measures of reach, TV is the only place to find it.  Given that there may soon be fewer options on French television to purchase ads (all ads may soon be prohibited on French public television), plus an increase the cost of advertising on TV, this means a potentially dramatic cut in brand awareness among target audiences.  As of today, there is no replacement that can deliver reach on the same scale, not even online.

Perhaps – and only perhaps – it might be possible to achieve the same raw numbers by buying ads across an extremely large number of websites, portals and so on.  This is a primary driver behind the proposed buyout of Yahoo by Microsoft.  In Microsoft's public letter to Yahoo, they wrote, “The online advertising market is growing at a very fast pace, from over $40 billion in 2007 to nearly $80 billion by 2010. The resulting benefits of scale along with the associated capital costs for advertising platform providers make this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today this market is increasingly dominated by one player [Google]. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a competitive choice while better fulfilling the needs of customers and partners.”

Even if scale in advertising platforms can be reached, there remains the problem of the fragmentation of the brand exposure.  This, combined with a documented lack of success in online ad viewing, means that the raw numbers don't necessarily add up to a similar level of brand exposure quality (to put it awkwardly).  People simply don't have the same reaction to online banner ads as they do to television ads.  The 30-second spot, the core of TV brand advertising, doesn't exist online and probably never will.  There is nothing that replaces it in terms of effectiveness (even if, as we are starting to see today, this effectiveness is declining).

Major consumer brand companies, such as Unilever, Proctor & Gamble (P&G) and J&J are all experimenting with online media, social media and so forth.  There have been both documented successes and failures, and there is much to be learned from them.  But it is clear that the efforts underway are still viewed as relatively experimental at the companies, with executives publicly stating they aren't or cannot measure their success in terms of traditional ROI.  While some of them are indeed achieving the gain of a large “audience” -- and I use that term advisedly – it is through very different mechanisms than advertising.

Clay Shirky wrote back in 2002, that one can't get both scale and interaction online.  “Communities are different than audiences in fundamental human ways, not merely technological ones.  You simply cannot transform an audience into a community with technology, because they assume very different relationships between the sender and receiver of messages.”  If you look at examples of brand “communities” online, it is clear that the difference between those that succeed and those that fail is the human relationship issue.  This is another roadblock to preventing scale along former audience-driven/reach-driven lines.  With the explosion of social networks, it is becoming clear that the only way to achieve scale is to turn over all control of the community to its members, and keep a light touch on the branding lever.  Efforts by J&J, Purina and Pepsi offer examples (Pepsi is in the early stages) of this type of community.

One of the other lessons being learned is that the communities that brands develop really can't be about the brand.  Rather, they are about some kind of “object” to which the brand is related, more or less obliquely.  For example, J&J's Babycenter.com is about sharing information about babies and toddlers for the benefit of, mostly, moms.  Purina's Petcentric.com is about people's pets.  P&G's beinggirl.com is about the issues growing girls face in their lives.

What is tremendously interesting here, is that consumer brand companies are finding themselves becoming media companies.  Not in the traditional sense of media 1.0, but in media 2.0, or participatory/social media.  This shift flies in the face of the old “core competency” business strategy where companies focus on what they do best, shedding or outsourcing the rest.  But the shift in technology and audience expectations is driving a major evolution in marketing, which, at least initially, is leading companies to develop, purchase and/or maintain/support media properties, be they online forums, blogs, and social networks.  (This is already starting to result in brands competing with traditional media, the very places they have supported by their advertising over the past decades.  With large consumer products companies in better financial shape than media companies, this might result in some odd marriages in the next few years.)

There is a very interesting presentation available on the economics of Media 2.0, by Harvard Business Online/Director of the Havas Media Lab's Umair Haque that sheds a light on some of the strategies that media 2.0 companies should pursue.  He identifies three mechanisms that allocate scares attention efficiently, the “holy grail” of media 2.0, and I would argue, marketing:  revelation, aggregation and plasticity.  The first relates to people sharing information, the second to the aggregation of this information into buckets that are more easily digestible (this aggregation happens both automatically and through voting platforms like Digg.com), and the third to the inevitable mashups that occur during this process.  What is interesting, is that the profit here comes at the end of the cycle, not the beginning.  It is after the information is disseminated, commented upon, processed and acted upon that someone is willing to pay money for the results of the “act” or, I would argue, the resulting “object”.

Brands, who can play at all three levels, should especially focus on providing value towards the end of the cycle, where, instead of having people pay for the object with cash, people pay with attention to brand messages. 

As Haque's presentation indicates, the economics of Media 2.0 also tells us that popularity is driven hyperefficiently by quality, not marketing.  This has two major implications.  First, it tells us that niche markets are incredibly valuable and they are winner-take all markets, meaning if you can own it early on, you will totally own it.  In terms of brand communities, for example, it would behoove brands to figure out what their niche is and investing in building objects in that niche.  This is what Petcentric.com has accomplished.  There are other examples, from social networks for skiing to running and so on.  These latter ones aren't owned by brands, but they are increasingly active.  The second implication is that investment has to come in production, not attention.    Brands have to ask themselves where production opportunities lie and move marketing budgets there. (There is a meme online now that products themselves have to have marketing built into them – the iPhone is an example.)  The challenge is, of course, that it takes time to realize audience scale and ROI; we are talking years vs. months.

The new book Groundswell, written by Forrester analysts, states that “Awareness remains crucially important, so don't expect the groundswell to change that part of your marketing.”  In other words, brands will still use traditional marketing techniques, including, especially, the 30-second TV spot.  Which brings us back to the original problem.  If the opportunities to advertise are disappearing due to regulations and cost pressures, where does this leave us?  In an awkward transitional phase where falling brand awareness is a very real possibility.

Another challenge brand managers have to deal with in this changing world is, as alluded to above, the potential for brand fragmentation.  It becomes ever more difficult to express what the brand stands for over the astonishingly wide variety of formats and channels online.  From search ads and banner ads, to Facebook widgets and YouTube video channels, it is easy for brand ablation to occur.  Not only is it difficult to keep brand consistency in terms of look/feel across all these different channels, the very messages of the brand itself will work better in some places and formats than in others.  Success in one place is no guarantee of success in another.  This is, of course, complicated as consumers start talking about and mashing up your brand.  So what stable point remains in all this upheaval?  For one, the product itself.  Quality has to remain consistently high.  And, as I mentioned above, marketing is ideally “built in” to the product itself, so it therefore effortlessly matches the brand messaging.  The second opportunity is working to have a similarly effortless link between the marketing object, which I have mentioned a couple of times, and the brand.  To put it another way, it is as if two products are being produced, the one sold on the market (bought with cash) and the other “sold” to a community (bought with -- or perhaps “traded for “is a better phrase -- attention).

In France, there is another significant challenge, which is the low participation online of key demographics, particularly women between the ages of 25 – 44, according to the social technographics tool provided by Forrester.  Women's participation is below average in all categories of online participation.  What is particularly clear, is that women, for the most part, are not creators, nor are they joiners (which, as Forrester has stated, may mean that the opportunities for joining have been scarce, for example, Facebook has only recently provided a French language interface).  If a brand is seeking to set up a brand community to create new relationships with its customers, particularly around awareness, this is a major challenge.  They cannot simply build a social network and turn it on.  They are going to have to provide large amounts of content up front that women can comment upon and collect.  This is going to require significant time and financial investments. 

The numbers of participants for French women increase for the late teens/early twenties, and for males, across the board, the numbers are higher.  However, as is the trend across Europe and the US, the number of creators remains in the minority.  So even if you are expecting to target teenage males, providing strong community management and content will be critical to success.  At some point, the brand will likely be able to decrease its hands-on participation and/or support in terms of content creation (if they choose to do so), but this is a point probably measured in terms of years.

This double whammy of decreasing opportunity for advertising combined with a relatively low participation rate for new media for key audiences will be a tremendous challenge for brands in France over the next 3-5 years.  There is no easy solution.  A combination of media buys across both traditional and new media will likely not meet raw reach targets, and the results of new media advertising (search and banner, particularly) may not give the hoped for results, given people's resistance to advertising online.  And yet, it is not all bad news, as we know that the effectiveness of social media marketing may be higher than traditional advertising.  The value of the conversation, the value of the engagement (even though this remains difficult to measure today), may result in enough brand awareness and goodwill among engaged audiences that it makes up for the lack of sheer reach in terms of numbers.  At least that is the social media marketing hypothesis, which, while it is as yet unproven on a large scale, offers some impressive results for early experiments. 

Another option for French brands is to think about in-person marketing or event marketing.  While expensive, it might offer a way to bridge the gap over the next few years, particularly in terms of generating awareness.  Sponsoring sports teams, art groups, flash mobs, or school/community events are a few examples. Being physically present among the communities of people you are trying to attract to your online properties may provide the needed impetus for people to join.  It would be ideal to tie offline world activities to the creation of the “object/s” of your online efforts.  In fact, all offline marketing efforts should have a strong connection to online efforts.

Brands in France may be forced to adopt new media strategies and techniques uncomfortably early in the adoption cycle.  In the end, however, most brands will have to move in this direction worldwide given global trends in technology, marketing and so on.  By being forced to move online faster than they would have liked, it might give French brands a competitive advantage (or at least knowledge/practice advantage) in the long term.  Brands will have to learn alongside their customers, which, while it will almost certainly result in some awkward missteps, in the end, it might result in stronger relationships, greater brand loyalty, and increased profits on the bottom line.

An Abundance of "Free" Thinking

Two recent blog posts on the subject of "free" have recently received much attention: Better than Free by Kevin Kelly and Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business by Chris Anderson. Both are works in advance of upcoming books by the respective writers.  The two articles examine the concept of free in different ways: Kelly by looking at value propositions and Anderson, who looks at business models.  Both posts have generated a myriad of comments and commentary in other posts.

The basic premise of both articles is that anything that touches the web gets pulled into an inexorable cycle that brings its cost to consumers to, essentially (if not actually), free.  This is driven both by decreasing unit costs of technology and psychological behaviors of consumers that show "free" is a whole different ball game than "low-cost".  One recent study demonstrates that to consumers, "free" equals a perceived higher benefit.  Whether this is actually the case or not in the long run when trade offs are accounted for is besides the point.  At the point of sale (maybe we should say, point of decision) free is irresistibly attractive.

Kelly's article offers eight attributes of things you can sell, which cannot be copied, his formula for success.  He calls them "generative values" (more on that in a moment).  Anderson offers six categories of the "priceless economy."  Together, the articles offer an interesting roadmap for people seeking to make money online in an environment where the pressures point to free.  And yet, there is a problem, which commenters brought up in both cases (and Kelly addresses in a later post): while "free" is good for consumers, and large companies flush with cash, it isn't so good for unfunded companies or for the creators in the long tail, who are trying to make a living.  In fact, this problem may actively destroy innovation, as people accept products and services that are "good enough" and free vs. paying for something better.  More optimistic people see this process and call it a cycle, where truly innovative ideas will eventually rise to the top again as people get tired of mediocrity.

The angle I want to think from for these two articles is scarcity vs. abundance and their relative values.  I think there are underlying problems around these issues in both articles.  In traditional economics scarcity = value. The rise of the digital world and the pressures towards free have led, in part, to economists starting to think about economies of abundance.  Kelly is one writer who has been trying to think about this for quite some time.  The key question here is how can something be abundant, yet still valuable?  Or, to put it another way, can you have an abundance of uniqueness, with "unique" keeping its value (which we have usually thought of as coming from its scarcity)?  We will get to that question in a bit.  First, let's look at scarcity.

Anderson writes,

"There is, presumably, a limited supply of reputation and attention in the world at any point in time.  These are the new scarcities -- that the world of free exists mostly to acquire these valuable assets for the sake of a business model to be identified later."

I find the disclaimer, "presumably" very interesting here.  It questions whether, in fact, there truly is a "limited supply" of reputation or attention.  Is there really a static pool of reputation in the world that we apportion out in different "slices of pie"?  It seems a bit foolish when you think about it that way.  In a globalizing world, the pie keeps getting bigger.  And given how difficult it is to really define and measure reputation today, I'd hesitate to make any type of categorical assertion about the amount of reputation in the world.  So let's assume, rather than it being limited, that, at the moment, it is unknown, even, if not limitless in the end, far more available than Anderson supposes (even with his disclaimer). That brings us to attention.  In this case, he has a stronger argument.  Clearly, each individual human has only a certain amount of attention, as he/she has only a certain number of hours in the day.  Time is the limiting factor here.  And certainly demands on our attention seem to increase every day.  Yet, at the same time, there are more and more technologies that enable us to better manage what we actually pay attention to (RSS feeds, recommendation engines, friend recommendations, etc.) For the lucky ones who can afford to, they can hire people to help filter attention demands.  Attention is perhaps a more limited factor, but, still, it seems to me that we can handle more and more demands moving forward.  Where does this bring us, then, when we consider his six categories of the "priceless economy"?:  Freemium, Advertising, Cross-subsidies, Zero marginal cost, Labor exchange, Gift economy?

Honestly, I am not completely sure.  What if we consider reputation as abundantly available (with a lot of hard work) and attention more abundant than we have assumed (if bounded)?  Does it even make sense to think about this in terms of "priceless economy" or do we need to broaden out the economy we are describing? Does it create another economy that falls between "free" (with all its hidden "costs") and "pay"?  Maybe it has more to do with a sharing/barter/gift economy, and Anderson's last two categories actually need to be seriously rethought? (Much of what I have read about gift economies seems far too simplistic to me.)

This brings us back to Kelly's piece.  I think his eight generative values have potential to help us think about abundance economies, which I think could revolve around affect.  First, let's look at his term "generative values".  He defines a generative value as:

"a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated, nurtured.  A generative thing cannot be copied, cloned, faked, replicated, counterfeited, or reproduced.  It is generated uniquely in place, over time.  In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold." 

As I often like to do, I went back to the dictionary to think about "generative" and "value".  First the latter (I paraphrase): "an intrinsically desirable quality."  By using the adjective "generative", Kelly is adding power, the power to "generate, originate, produce or reproduce." Later, he states that his definition does not include reproduction (in fact, is expressly contra reproduction, which is problematic given his choice of word implies reproduction from the beginning). Of course, generative is linked to generate, which has as its ancient root the Latin for descent or birth.  What is interesting, is that there is another word that descends from the same Latin root, which Kelly introduces later in the piece: generous. Meaning "magnanimous or kindly", which nicely clicks with the theme of affect I alluded to above, it also means "liberal in giving" or "marked by abundance or ample proportions, copious." We are back to abundance, instead of scarcity! It is easy to get tripped up by Kelly's thought of generative values as unique, which in our common usage, means scarce. Yet, this assumption doesn't need to hold. To my thought, Kelly's argument is that uniqueness can be abundant and still retain its value.  This "abundance of uniqueness" idea runs square against the "scarce is valuable" meme of traditional economics.

So what are Kelly's eight generative values?  Immediacy, Personalization, Interpretation, Authenticity, Accessibility, Embodiment, Patronage, and Findability.  As a reminder, Kelly is offering these things as values that, when attached to products and services, will promote people paying for those products and services, versus demanding them for free. What I'd like to do is take just a quick look at how affect underlies them, as I think this is a key need in a movement towards thinking the value of abundance.

Immediacy is defined by Kelly as "getting a copy delivered...the moment it is released, or even better, produced - by its creators." He offers beta copies of software as an example, and emphasizes how this brings fans into the "generative process itself."  His follow up piece to this article, 1,000 True Fans, explains further how creators can work directly with fans to make a living.  The affect that underlies immediacy is, for one, trust.  Not the least of which is the trust that your mistakes will not destroy your reputation, but rather, your learning from them, your accepting advice from others, will enhance your reputation.

Personalization, remarks Kelly, "...requires an ongoing conversation between the creator and consumer..." the creation of a relationship.  Trust and the twin gifts of time and attention are clearly important here.

Interpretation relies on "support and guidance", not necessarily given by the creator him or herself, but from somone who has invested their own time and effort to understand something, then wants to share that understanding with others (sharing being the key word here).

Authenticity is more problematic to me, as Kelly identifies it with digital watermarks and signature technology.  It is proof that something is original/unique/rare.  He ends his discussion, however with the words, "for those who care."  I know, certainly, that there are many who do care, but I also question the assumption that copies are somehow "valueless" (more on that another time).  I am not sure that there is true affect underlying this particular definition of authenticity.  Of course, if you think about authenticity in other ways, as honesty or truthfulness in sharing, that obviously is something we desire in abundance.

Accessibility refers to having other manage our digital archives for us, for which we happily pay them.  I am unsure this even belongs on Kelly's list as I suspect as digital management tools get better, we'll stop outsourcing this to humans.  And there is no affect here, in the sense that I am looking for it.

Embodiment means that people will pay for the book itself, or to have a human come and talk to them in their office, for example.  The first may be more of a generational/technology thing, but the second will remain important for far longer.  Seeing, touching, feeling, smelling another human is an intrinsic part of the human experience.  While virtual presence is a wonderful thing, it will always be worth the premium to have the actual person close to you -- at least until we all become posthuman.

Patronage, where "...audiences WANT to pay creators. Fans like to reward artists...with the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect."  While we may not have the intrinsic talent to create something, we can feel part of creation by supporting it financially.  This has a wide variety of underlying affective traits, some of which are even problematic from an aesthetic viewpoint (but I won't get into that now). 

Findability leads Kelly to claim that "creators need aggregators...for the distribution of the users' attention back to the works."  Like Accessibility above, a good portion of this problem can be solved in the long run by technology, but people passing along word of their likes and dislikes to friends, to their network, will remain a significant (and affective-ridden) portion of findability.

To reiterate: While Anderson relies (however tentatively) on a scarcity of reputation and attention, Kelly is trying to think about an economy of abundance, or generosity: 

"...these new eight generatives demand an understanding of how abundance breeds a sharing mindset, how generosity is a business model, how vital it has become to cultivate and nurture qualities that can't be replicated with a click of the mouse."

Whether or not there are actually eight generative values, in terms of affect, Kelly's effort to describe how uniqueness can be abundant, and valuable, is a good step towards thinking about economies of abundance.  I wonder if it would be useful, however, to start from how a generosity of affective traits might create value(s). In the way these eight values are written by Kelly, it almost seems like affect came after vs. before.  For example, we could do a thought experiment where we considered what might be possible with an abundance of trust, or an abundance of attention devoted to a topic.  At the very least, we need to more clearly define what an abundance of uniqueness might look like or how it could be defined in terms of value.

When it comes to thinking about scarcity and abundance, I think there remain problems that need to be thought through carefully, such as that concerning reproductions and copies.  The problem is not a clear cut as Kelly glosses it.  Furthermore, I think that if we think about generosity and affect much more directly than Kelly has done, we will probably uncover more generative values, or at the least more ideas about how to apply them. If we pursue the thinking of an abundance of uniqueness, in conjunction with thinking about gift economies that I proposed above, I suspect we'll discover a wealth of new ideas.  I look forward to participating.

Disguise Me

After reading this article in the IHT about Google's Street View, I began thinking about what will likely be a growth industry in the future - personal disguises.  Think about it.  If we are all being photographed willy-nilly everywhere we go, by companies such as Google, but also by anyone with a camera phone, our relative anonymity on the street effectively disappears. (I say "anonymity" vs. privacy because the word seems more appropriate - walking around outside seems to forgo "privacy", but more on that another time.)

Rather than trying to control everyone with camera phones, roof-mounted cameras and satellites, it is much easier to take personal responsibility for one's anonymity.  If you don't want to be identified outdoors, wear a disguise!  While I don't expect to see lots of people walking around with Lone Ranger masks in the near future, I expect that sophisticated silicon-based face masks may become the accessory du jour in the future.  Remember the Jetson's?  I also remember reading a sci-fi book that discussed this extensively - I think it was by Stephen Baxter.  At that point people were wearing total camoflage outfits...to hide from wormhole pin cameras or something like that where people could spy on you from the future.  But you get the picture.

What's in a Word?

I had a lovely, long conversation with Jen McClure yesterday evening while my daughter slept 3 hours straight (!!). It had been awhile since we had chatted, and she filled me in some of what has been happening with fellow SNCR colleagues and industry buzz.  When I mentioned I was wondering what the most significant conversations had been in the "social media" sphere over the past few months, she pointed me to Brian Solis' blog, PR 2.0, and recommended the discussion around the definition of social media (I started with that post, which links to all the other posts flying around the 'sphere).

I am always fascinated by the passion that erupts over definition battles.  I watched the battles that brewed a couple of summers ago about the definition of blogs blogging bloggers (I participated too, but I am too lazy to go link to everything right now, sorry).  Brian was on the right track with his question, "what is wrong with social media?" 

What one has to remember is that definition battles are proxy power/influence battles.  Remember when there was strong argument that Live Journal not be considered a blog platform?  Of course that cut out a huge number of women from being defined as bloggers, and all the implications of that.  The important question when considering definitions, is "what (who) is excluded?"  The answer to that question can reveal the power/influence battles underneath the hubbub.

So, to ask the question, what/who is left out of the definition of social media? Here is Brian's start at a definition (which I like, by the way):

It's an emergent term that as Stowe put it, defines the socialization of information (Social Media) as well as the tools to faciliate conversation (social media).

So, "socialization of information".  This is very passive language to describe human behavior in relation to connected/networked information.  Perhaps we need to start from the human behaviors to understand what "socialization of information" entails.  E.g., Exchange of trust, influence, gifts; celebrations, arguments, pontifications; negotiation; cheating, influence peddling, inauthentic sharing; digital identity formation.

(I am particularly interested in the last behavior, and you will find my posts will tend to focus on that in the coming months.)

As many PR people have noted in other recent debates (JetBlue, PR 2.0, Web 2.0 etc.), the hardest factor to figure out in the social media world is human behavior.  To truly engage in social media you need to address real individuals with real behaviors instead of abstracted "demographic" or "psychographic" trend-driven mass approaches.  And that is messy, risky, time-intensive, and prone to misunderstandings, as well as potentially highly rewarding.

You will notice I haven't really answered the question, "what/who is left out of the current definition(s) of social media?"  That requires a lot more reading and thought on my part, which I don't have the time for right now.  But maybe you can add your two cents below - and that could help add to the overall meme.

Tags: socialmedia social media social+media media2.0

Book Review: In Women We Trust

I recently read In Women We Trust by Mary Clare Hunt (read her blog here) at the urging of Yvonne DiVita (it is one of her company's books).  Yvonne was putting together a virtual book tour and I was happy to help.  It has taken me a little longer than I had hoped to publish this review, as impending motherhood has gathered most of my attention.  I thank Mary and Yvonne for their patience!  I had the opportunity to correspond with via email and talk via phone to Mary, and really enjoyed our conversations.  There is much to learn from this book, and I recommend it – particularly for those marketers who are seeking to use word-of-mouth techniques to reach female audiences.

Mary captured the key to success in marketing to women in her title:  Trust.  Related to this (part of building this trust) are things like respect and community.  “But wait!” you say.  “Men want these things as well.”  Of course they do, and the techniques Mary writes about will work for men as well.  But as we women know intimately, marketers have done a rather bad job dealing with us.  It is time to focus on how to improve the relationship between brands and women. 

The book is full of examples that I am sure most of my female readers can relate to:  shopping for electronic equipment or cars are two iconic ones.  I still seethe when I think about how I was treated at a major electronics chain a few years ago when I went there to buy a digital camera.  Standing at the outside of the square counter, with the (male) clerk behind it, I was ignored completely while he waited on at least four other men (some of whom arrived after me), then when he finally asked me if he could help with a sigh, I launched into my questions, which he really didn't listen to (he barely looked at me) and then, when he was interrupted by another man with a “quick question” that turned into a lecture on the benefits of pixels, I simply walked away, left the store, and vowed never to buy anything from them again.  And I spread the word among my female friends.  I bought the $600 camera at another store.

Women will make or influence decisions on over 80% of all consumer purchases.  This statistic is one of many that will be found in the first part of the book.  As Mary wrote, “Money talks.”  Here are a couple of other data points I found interesting. Women make or influence decisions on:

• 83% of all consumer products and services
• 50-60% of all auto purchases
• 51% of consumer electronics (this number is from 2003 – from recent news I think it is increasing)
• 81% of riding lawn mowers.

Women cannot be ignored in the business-to-business arena either. They own 45% of all companies in the US, with more than $1.2 trillion in sales. They employ 18 million people.

So, how do marketers learn how to better tap this market rich in resources and possibilities? Mary believes a cultural shift is necessary “to the softer side of business.”

Writing an Article on Comment Platforms and PR

I am in the process of writing an article on comment platforms, what I am calling Web 2.0 services like Digg.com, Flickr, YouTube, etc.  These are all the places you can post news, photos, videos etc. and people rank and comment on them. 

I strongly advise PR people to monitor these sites, to see what is being said about their companies and products.  It gets more tricky, however, when PR people want to actively intervene, posting a comment, for example.  Recent kerfluffles on Wikipedia, Digg.com and other places where PR people are strongly advised to "look don't touch" make it even more important to approach these places carefully.

If you have a success or failure story about your PR activities on these various comment platforms, please drop me a line at ealbrycht at gmail dot com or leave a comment below in the next few days.  Thanks!

Everyware Book Review and Podcast/Interview

I reviewed the book Everyware by Adam Greenfield for the lastest issue of the New Communications Review (read review here).  I also had the pleasure of interviewing Adam for a New Communications Podcast ( you can listen here).  I hope you enjoy them!

New Job for Journalists?

At the EuroBlog 2006 Symposium last week, Steffen Bueffel of the University of Trier in Germany presented his observations of a local German newspaper and its engagement with bloggers (PDF Download here).  During his presentation and the Q&A afterwards, he defined a new role for journalists and/or newspaper publishers:  community managers.

Today, I read a story in the Online Publishing Insider (free signup required) about Google Finance written by Mike May.  In it, he writes:

But increasingly the quality of a publication's audience, as determined by their refusal to remain solely "audience" and insist instead on joining conversations everywhere, will influence advertisers and their budgets. This means that a publisher's job is not just to publish content and start conversations, but to house, nurture, promote and sanction those conversations.

In other words, to become community managers!  This makes a lot of sense to me.

Co-Dev or Co-Creation

I am keeping an eye out for examples of consumer co-development/co-creation, as I think it is an important future trend.  That is why I was so happy to run across this piece of news in the IHT today:  iRobot (makers of the robot vacuum, Roomba) is helping their customers hack the product:

And iRobot is happy to help them experiment. In October, it introduced a $30 kit that lets people reprogram the software in older Roombas so they can modify how they work. The newest models feature a digital data port, similar to those found on personal computers, that permits control of the robot's sensors and motors. And iRobot is even giving university robotics labs free Roombas to use as teaching aids.

The idea is to encourage a new wave of robotic innovation that will not cost iRobot a lot of money. Investors have rebelled against the company's recently announced plans to increase spending on research and development. The company's stock, which sold for almost $38 in mid-January, now trades at about $28.

Brilliant.  It will be very interesting to see what comes out of this.  At this moment, what I am most interested in is how they are gathering feedback.  They don't blog, but you can submit reviews.  This company is a prime candidate for adding more interactive/conversational features.  If you are out there, iRobot people, feel free to let us know what you are doing. I'll be in touch offline as well.

Tagging Is Too Much Work

I love the idea of tagging and emergent knowledge organization.  I use del.icio.us religiously to keep track of posts I read in various categories.  I like to see what's happening on a variety of Technorati tags.  But I always forget to tag my own posts.

Tagging is too much work.

I want a cheat sheet sidebar I can drop onto my blog with pre-coded tags I can simply click on.  Or maybe a drop down menu built into TypePad I can populate with my favorite tags.  I'd like others to be able to tag my own posts (hey, share the workload).  Until I have at least one of the first two, my tagging will always be sporadic and half-hearted.

Now we have tagging silos all over the place.  Technorati, del.icio.us, digg, furl, flickr...arrgh.  I want it to be simpler.  The ubertag, the master of tags, the tag search engine.  Something. Help!