Overflow

 

 In the Red Zone [21:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4)

In the Red Zone with Frank SIngleton is our specialty podcast that addresses Crisis Communications from the perspective of a Senior Vice President at Ogilvy Communications World Wide.

We felt it appropriate to christen this series with a situation that is a very hot topic at the moment, which is the campaign that was launched by McNeil Consumer Health, the parent company of the Motrin pain relief medicine.

We are not here to rehash the entire episode from the initial launch of the campaign to the bloggers who posted, and initiated a Twitter campaign that expanded exponentially until main stream media picked up on the firestorm, which ultimately generated an apology from Kathy Widmer, Vice President of Marketing for McNeil.

As well as an apology on the Motrin.com web site:

This is all background information for the conversation that we had with Frank in which he provides insight into the episode from a Crisis Communications Strategist’s perspective.

Key elements of our conversation include:

• Motrin was not prepared at the launch of the campaign to monitor the conversation that was taking place regarding their brand, which was particularly egregious as they launched the campaign over the weekend and the delay in response only fed into the volume of negative reaction.  The company could have very easily set up a search group in a Twitter app such as Tweetdeck to see any tweets about their brand, and could have Google Alerts monitoring news and blog posts about them.

• A more “human” response should be implemented immediately from the company via setting up a twitter account and preparing a video response to address the situation.  The corporate apology is not sufficient enough to quiet the controversy.

• Engage the more vocal bloggers to present the approach that they were trying to take with the campaign and solicit feedback.

• It appears that the campaign was a quick turnaround tactical approach to reaching a particular demographic, and the typical time and focus group research conducted on major campaigns was lacking.  The agency was probably

• McNeil now has the opportunity since they have the attention, to become conversational with real human communication detailing their true intentions, and become a good case study for how to respond to crisis situations correctly. There is a learning curve, and they probably won’t make this mistake again.

Let’s hope that the Motrin experience can be used as a bellwether for brands awareness and understanding of the impact of social media, and can be looked back upon as an episode that instigated an acceptance of progressive marketing strategies that incorporate listening and communicating tools.

What do you think? What are your reactions to the whole episode from a Social media standpoint?

 

 Current Gets Convergence [17:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8)

Current TV has been a significant talking point at Fluid Media since the network launched back in late 2005. We would use the Current business model to demonstrate to clients and in lectures, the convergence of web and television with an added topping of user generated content (UGC).  We would constantly tell clients to find the network on their cable systems, watch the programming and check out the web site.  Then figure out how it should be incorporated into their web strategies.

Today in the Overflow podcast we revisit these aspects of the business model plus the exciting addition of “twitterfied” content produced during the recent election cycle and planned for the future.

The basis of the programming is user produced “pods” that are submitted via the web site and voted on by the registered users of the site, with top vote getters making it to broadcast. Pod content can consist of everything from News, Politics, Music, Comedy etc.. plus the network producers will constantly develop assignments for a specific topic that they would like to run on TV.

Concurrently, advertisers provide users with the bare minimum of material to work with such as a logo bug, tag line, headline, video or billboard and allow them to produce their own commercials called VCAMs.  It costs very little to the advertiser since they don’t have production costs .. but if the ad is successful for them, they can choose to pay the producer and run it on other media outlets.  So they’ve witnessed the production cost savings & have had their own mini focus group to see how effective the ads are prior using the creative on other channels.

Here is an example produced by 21 year old Andrew David Watson (no relation) of Philadelphia.

During the election coverage this fall, Current rolled out the integration of a live Twitter feed on the screen as the debates were taking place called Hack the Debate. So as you were viewing what the candidates were saying, you could also see what the great community of the electorate was saying simultaneously.  It has to have been a double check for the statements and claims of each of the candidates, in the long run it will continue to ensure the the campaigns of the future remain more factual.

Information that has been disseminated recently indicates that Current TV is going to continue this type of integrated content with Twitter in the future, and plans to launch another programming channel focusing on movie content.

Let us know …. Do you watch Current TV?  What do you think about the quality of the content, the format of the programming and especially the VCAM user produced advertising?

 

 iPhone Apps are my Crack [22:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (13)

This week our topic is about the iPhone apps that we are using and how the device has changed our lives.  The instigation of our discussion was a tweet on Sunday evening from Cameron:

“I think I need an intervention. The iPhone App Store is my dealer and the apps are my crack. 9:22 PM Nov 9th from web”

These are the applications that we discuss:

ITalk - This application turns the iPhone into a recorder.  With one touch you can record at three different quality levels Good/Better/Best.  There is a free version that contains advertisements or for .99 cents you’ve got the ad free version.  The companion iTalk Sync allows you to drag and drop the recordings through Wifi to the desktop for archiving. The Mac Sync is available now, and the PC version is now in public beta.

Say Who Application, which is brought to you by the same people as Say Where, is a voice dialer where speaking into the phone will search your contact list and bring up the name that you are trying to call. It’s not entirely hands free because you still need to click to dial, but it’s better than scrolling through a list of contacts.

Twitterific - Currently the best way to communicate via Twitter on your iPhone.  Easy to read and respond to your tweets, and includes the user’s avatar so it’s easy to see who is making a post.  It’s free and includes advertising every 50 posts.

LaTwit - is an app that you pay for.  It’s $2.99 but provides you with the ability to post to Laconica based applications like Identi.ca and Twit Army.  For the smaller Laconica communities I generally view the public stream. Since they are not a voluminous as Twitter’s public stream they can give you a better sense of the conversation taking place. This app lets you set whether you want to open in the public or friends timeline, which is think is a nice option. Coming soon will be the ability to send private DM messages.

Flickup - is an application developed by Martin Gordon this is an easy way to get pictures from your iPhone to your Flickr account - Joe’s Flickr Stream & Cameron’s Flickr Stream. Of course, the limitation is that the camera on the iPhone is terrible, so we’re hoping for an upgrade in the future (video too?) .. But with a few easy steps you can upload the picture to Flickr as well as send a tweet with a link to the photo.  This is a great way to let your twitter friends know and see what you are up to!
Read the rest of this entry →

 

 Looking for a Leader Online [32:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (25)

It is Election Day in the US and we discuss how technologies have impacted out ability to follow the campaigns in this edition of the Overflow podcast!  We get a little long clocking in at over 32 minutes, but we have alot of thoughts on how the political landscape is changing.

The State of Georgia provides us with early voting options, so we have both taken advantage and are planning on watching the election dialogue via Twitter and online blogs, prior to turning to cable television coverage later on for the results.

We start by juxtaposing the differences between the 1968 Presidential Election as exposed by Joe McGinnis in The Selling of the President and the current methods of presenting the candidates.  During that successful run by Richard Nixon, his handlers focused on using the medium of television to his advantage after learning from the mistakes made during his first campaign in 1960 against JFK.

It can be argued that the presidential candidate became a product for mass merchandising at that time, and all brand marketing tactics were to be implemented to ensure election success.

There are new tools in 2008 that are being used to sell these candidates ranging from Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and IPhone apps that have all been implemented as a way of communicating to potential voters.

We completely blow over the fact that these candidates have web sites, since it is something that is commonplace now and is to be expected Obama & McCain.

Here are the some useful Apps:

The Facebook pages for each candidate have added significant numbers of “friends” in the last two weeks, and Cameron indicates that Obama has added over 400,000 while McCain has added 60,000.

Obama IPhone App provides instant information about candidate speaking engagments, local events, video clips and a complete rundown on any policy position statements right from the phone.  A search for a McCain equivalent came up empty.

Hopefully, the result is that we are all a lot more informed about the various stances on issues, since we have the ability to easily research that was not available to us in the past.

The big question is whether or not the successful candidate (and party) will use these new tools as a way to provide more transparency going forward.  Our expectation is that we should be able to see where spending is going, what programs are successful or not, and how our representatives are voting.

Read the rest of this entry →

 

 Social Networks - Touchin 'em All [28:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (83)

Today’s guest on the Overflow podcast is Jaq Baldwin who is the publisher of The Launching Pad blog with daily posts about the Atlanta Braves and all things baseball.  Jaq provides us some insights into his strategies for using the social networking tools such as Digg, Stumbleupon and bookmarking sites like Delicious and Magnolia.

The first topic takes us to Digg where Jaq has been able to generate enormous amounts of traffic to his site, however he cautions that it might not be the type of traffic that will convert on a site within a niche community.  He has developed a group of followers in his baseball niche at Digg who have helped to elevate the presence of his posts while he returns the favor by supporting theirs.

Jaq has sort of a stated motto; “If it’s something I like, I’ll Digg it. If I really really like it I’ll shout it .. and if I hate it, I’ll bury it and you are not a friend any more.” Using this criteria he has been able to weed out the people that are not contributing to the dialogue by simply pushing their own sites and stories … and in essence spamming other Diggers like Jaq.

Bookmarking sites like Delicious and Magnolia operate a bit differently than the networking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon in that they become a utility for accessing saved site links remotely.  However, Jaq likes the Magnolia aspects of community that has developed, and mentions that there is the ability to subscribe to other Magnolia users streams to see what they are bookmarking.

For baseball related sites specifically there is YardBarker and BallHype .. and some of the smaller submission sites like Reddit have added a Baseball specific section.

The task of working these sites to their greatest potential tends to absorb huge amounts of time and effort, and a take away from the podcast might be to focus on finding the best place for your niche, and developing relationships within that particular social network. It’s a common theme in all of the social media marketing tactics.

Jaq sums it all up best through with the statement “content really is king” … Having quality headlines, categorizing submissions properly and putting some thought into how you intend to get people to click on your post is the fundamental to making sure that the post is promoted.

Thanks to Jaq Baldwin for joining us on the Overflow podcast.  Read his blog at The Launching Pad and follow him on Twitter.

How do you use the Social Networks to promote your sites?  Let us know in the comments what has worked best for you.