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Ad-Tech Diarist: Ten Questions on the "Art of Conversation"

This year's Ad-Tech, which I'm still attending, is very special.  Most importantly, the first "keynote panel" of industry experts focused on an issue that rarely gets top billing at industry confabs: the art of conversation. This is an important shift in our collective industry "attention" and "engagement," and while we're all far from finalizing the perfect white paper or case study about managing relationships with consumers in this age of consumer control, we're finally starting to talk about it, and at minimum, ask the right questions.  I was deeply honored to moderate this first diverse panel of industry experts, which included (right to left after me in the photo) Tom Asher of Levi-Strauss, Beth Thomas-Kim of Nestle, Jordan Warren of Agency.com, Todd Cunningham of MTV, and Rick Clancy of Sony Consumer Electronics.   I was also thrilled to debate, discuss, and vet out all the relevant issues in several spirited meetings and conference calls before the actual event.  (Key learning: the "conversation about the conversation"  as as important as the end result.) You can skim various blogs (or Twitter feeds or see a superb cNet News story summary) that recap the panel, but what I'd like to do here is simply list the key question we probed and discussed. I truly believe every marketer needs to hit the white-board sooner than later on these questions. 

1. In what ways does Web 2.0 or the digital space expand the boundaries and opportunities of having meaningful conversations with consumers? Does it reinforce or add value to what we are currently doing?
2. What makes conversations truly authentic and genuine?  Is blogging the answer, or is it just an entry strategy? What's the right way of setting expectations with consumers?
3. How do we keep conversation with consumers trusted and credible? In the age of consumer control, do we have a higher threshold to meet this torture test?   What is the relationship between search and brand reputation, and how is 'conversation' impacting what shows up on the shelf?  Can that be influenced?
4. If conversation is king, is customer service or consumer affairs the new marketing? What's the true value of listening and being responsive to issues consumers raise directly to the brand?  Nurturing loyalty and advocacy among enthusiasts? Garnering big insights?
5. If we agree consumer affairs is a new centerpiece of managing conversations with increasingly empowered consumers, why is this group so divorced from marketing or media planning? How do we change that?
6. How do we begin to train, or expand the wings, of customer service reps to embark upon these new conversations with consumers, even outside of the company's backyard?  Who else should be involved?  What's the right and appropriate way to enter a blog or online community and address or clarify an issue?  Or is that even appropriate?
7. Who should "own" the conversation among marketing stakeholders? Corporate Communications (Ricks' group), Consumer Affairs (Beth and Tom), the digital agency (Jordan), the research folks (Todd), or someone else?  Or is that the wrong question? How do we use conversation and social media to soften corporate boundaries and silos?
8. In what ways should employees be enrolled in conversational marketing?  In what ways can their passion and credibility be unleashed?  Are employees a more trusted ad channel? Can it go too far? 
9. What is the value of "internal" learning in this area? Can organizations become better primed to exploit the power of conversation, CGM, and social media through internal use of Web 2.0 tools, blogs, and beyond.  What can internal networks borrow from consumer innovation?
10. How does conversation impact the retail channel? What are Apple, Sony, and Levis retail store venues learning about the relationship between "service" and marketing. How does the consumer benefit from this mindset, both offline and online?
11. Bonus Question:  What can go wrong?  What if every marketer jumps into the conversation?  Nirvana or Spam 2.0?   What happens if we lose consumer trust?

Many of these themes will be tackled at many levels -- and with finer levels of granularity -- at the upcoming Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) conference entitled WOMM-U.  I provided background about this last week.  Here's more info.

Other Ad-Tech Notes:  Late last night, I was flattered to receive a special Ad-Tech industry achievement award.  I dedicated it to my recently deceased father, William Blackshaw, who taught me all that can be good in advertising -- provided we keep it trusted and credible.   Other industry achievement award winners included Rich Lefurgy and Kate Thorp, both of whom I deeply respect and admire.  My message to the audience was that if we continue to keep the consumer right smack in the center of our radar, everyone wins -- always. I still think there are so many important issues we need to pro-actively address -- privacy, word-of-mouth ethics, ad intrusion, and more -- so while awards are appreciated (even humbling), we still have so much more work to do.  But before we get too serious here, I'd be remiss not to direct folks to the full list of award winners, including "Elf Yourself," which swept three categories.

This Brand May Be Monitored for "Quality Purposes"...and Other Lessons in Consumer-Surveillance

In my ClickZ column this morning, Adapting to Consumer-Controlled Surveillance, I volunteer a dosage of tortured ambivalence about today's marketing environment:

"I often worry that in our sometime irrational exuberance over the benefits and wonders of conversation, brands are blind to what it truly means for consumers -- our coveted buyers and lifetime revenue streams -- to be constantly watching, monitoring, evaluating, and talking about us. At the end of the day, consumers are monitoring brands and companies "for quality purposes" 24/7, far more attentively than companies recording toll-free calls. And that has enormous consequences for how we promote, protect, and manage brands."

It's not that I lack excitement about "participation" and "conversation." I just worry that brands and their agencies -- and other brand stakeholders -- all to often sidestep the more difficult questions around how to truly manage and interact with consumers in this age of "consumer control." Romanticism sometimes suffocates realism. Marketing claims often simply betrays the facts.  This is big theme in my upcoming book, Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3000: Running a Business in a Today's Consumer-Driven World.  This isn't to suggest I have the answers, but I do know we need to get this particular "conversation" going sooner or later.  In my column I outline six key rules and principles to warm up our thinking. They include:

• We must rethink what it means to be truly credible. In a world of 24/7 consumer surveillance, credibility is everything. Today's infrared-enabled consumer can find every chink in the brand armor. My book outlines the six drivers of brand credibility: trust, transparency, authenticity, affirmation, listening, and responsiveness. Getting these drivers right not only neutralizes the impact of piercing consumer radar but also lays a foundation for a win-win.

• We must become better listeners. Marketers must shift from a paid-media marketing model to a listening-centered marketing model wherein all early signals, whether extreme or ostensibly insignificant, are absorbed and internalized across the brand franchise. This requires both internal brand radar, and processes and tools similar to what my own firm (and many others) provide for external listening.


• We must reposition customer service as the new media department. You can put Dove Evolution, Dove Onslaught, every Doritos consumer-created Super Bowl ad, and dozens of hugely popular user-generated ad spots into a blender, and they still won't come close to filling the Olympic-sized pool of negative media in the conversational airwaves implicating bad customer service. In categories like banking and financial service, conversation indicting customer service owns upwards of 40 to 50 percent of all discussion volume. In electronics, the number is around 20 percent. The consumer-controlled surveillance culture is actively taking notes on customer service, and the narrative -- the content it creates -- can cut in either positive or negative directions depending on how well brands nurture this arena.


• We must rethink the value and importance of indirect marketing, including human resources and operations. In a surveillance culture, consumers see three levels deeper into the brand. What they see has less to do with the message's polish and more with the brand experience's foundational drivers. Products that work require a superb operational backbone. Meaningful service experiences require a service profit chain of well-trained, motivated, loyal employees. Smart, interactive, responsive online interfaces require excellent business processes.


• We must close or integrate the silos. Brands need a united, cooperative front to contend with the elevated power and leverage of the consumer-controlled surveillance culture. At some point, it's just not going to work to have PR firms, advertising firms, digital agencies, and other supplier groups messaging against or with these new currents. We can't have eight different groups managing and interpreting influencers. We probably need to refashion and recast what we mean by holistic communication.

Here's a link to the full article.

Hey! Nielsen: Where the Black Box Meets the Soap Box?

This week a site I've been working on, Hey! Nielsen, just launched to public beta.  It's 100% about CGM, and has echoes of the first "consumer expression" business I started out of P&G, PlanetFeedback.  In a nutshell, Hey! Nielsen provides a platform for consumers to rate, review, rant, react, and respond to all manner of content related to entertainment: TV, movies, music,  personalities, websites (e.g Facebook, MySpace,), and more. In the coming months, a Spanish language version of the site, Oye! Nielsen, will roll-out. Nielsen essentially wants consumers to be heard, and its not being shy in suggesting the consumer opinions and non-personally identifiable data will be shared with big decision makers in the entertainment industry. What's clear in this new age of control is that the "power to be heard" has unique and important "social currency," and certain brands (Nielsen believes it's one of them) have unique credibility, as well as years of expertise in panel management for research purposes, to be the conduit.  This is a big reason why I keep pounding away in this blog at the importance of business functions like consumer affairs in the new marketing mix; importantly, brands need to "mind their influencers," and the vast majority of them are right under their noses, eager to talk to them, with or without advertising stimuli.
Consumer Megaphone as Corporate Matchmaker:  Anyway, I just returned from a couple launch events and meetings in New York, and it's all pretty exciting -- and for many reasons beyond the obvious. This was an unusual project for Nielsen, and certainly the subject of lots of very healthy "conversation."  Although my division Nielsen BuzzMetrics played an important role in the launch (strategic consulting, BlogPulse integration, marketing tactics), the initiative was coordinated and led right smack in the center by Nielsen Communications, a group which successfully (and quickly) brought together dozens of key stakeholders throughout the company to get us to this first phase (we have much more to do).  There's an "Exportable AHA" (my new term for "takeaway") here.  Consumer expression is serving as a powerful stimulus and catalyst to unite key stakeholders in large, sometimes siloed, organizations. I see this in every "CGM 101" training session I lead at major corporations. Everyone, it seems, has a stake (perhaps even some degree of fear and apprehension) in the "new rules of consumer expression," from communications and public relations to marketing and operations.  The "vocal" consumer is what brings them together.  On more than a few occasions, workshop attendees have approached me and said my presentation represented the first time they had ever met or interacted with some of their own colleagues.  As I see it, that's both a breakthrough, and a huge opportunity.

Anyway, give the site a test run!  It's not out to become another Facebook or MySpace, but rather a very focused "open" platform on the very topics Nielsen is already tracking.  I like to think of it as the place where the "black box meets the soap box."  Also, if you know of folks who'd like to play a leadership role in this new venture, shoot me or Jennifer Geissel a message.

The Chaos Continues: Garfield on "The Post Advertising Age."

Next month I'm moderating a panel at Ad-Tech San Francisco entitled -- get this -- "The Next Big Thing: Is Advertising Still Relevant?"  The panelists I recruited represent a diversity of voices that touch and bond with consumers in far less traditional -- yet hugely promising -- ways.  Scott K. Wilder of Intuit is in charge of Intuit's massive online community of product enthusiasts; Beth Thomas-Kim is Director and Head of Consumer Services for Nestle USA (and President-Elect of the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals (SOCAP); Paul Woolmington is a founding partner with Naked Communications; and Marti Bledsoe is an interactive marketing strategist at spot-on (read my related ClickZ story)  Resource Interactive.

Garfield Helps Write the "Discussion Guide":  Needless to say, I'm more pumped about this panel than just about any session I've moderated in recent years -- and I'm doubly pumped because I feel as though Bob Garfield just wrote a big chunk of my "discussion guide."  In tomorrow's Ad Age cover story, Garfield continues his highly provocative "conversation" about the future of advertising with Chaos Scenario 2.0: The Post Advertising Age. ....a conversation that initially started with the original Chaos Scenario and then migrated to Listenomics.  Garfield covers a ton of ground, a chunk of which validates his initial forecasts, but perhaps the most thought-provoking part of his piece lays out "five reasons the online world will not online transform traditional modes of advertising, it will largely displace them altogether."  They include:

1. People Don't Like Ads
2. But they Crave them Information
3. The Consumer is in Control..No, Really
4. Diversion of Ad Budgets
5. Pay-Per-View

But why spoil the fun with a half-baked summary.  In fact, ignore the blog blurbs on Garfield's piece like this one.  Just read it! 

Open-Source Stakeholder Management: P&G Alumni Reunion

This past weekend I attended the P&G Alumni reunion, a once-every-five-years gathering of over 500 former P&G managers put on by the P&G Alumni Network. The reunion was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends, laugh (and cry) over a few battle scars, absorb 'key learnings" from a handful of provocative panels spearheaded by some of the brightest and most accomplished minds in marketing and business management, and reflect, with humility (I was surrounded by over-achievers), on my own personal career and long-term objectives.   Reunions are a dime a dozen, but this one had a unique characteristic, and the term that kept buzzing above my head through-out the event was "Open Source Stakeholder Management." Rather than shy away from, or snub, the folks that left the company over the years, P&G clearly saw unique competitive advantage in embracing the network.   While not the official organizer of the event, P&G was an active sponsor and participant, and the company's level of engagement in the activity seemed to reflect a new corporate mindset -- one that almost parallels the attitude of companies that take a more progressive view of employees blogging. (Just think about how companies like IBM and HP view their open employee blog platforms as strategic assets.)  Throughout the event, an important message kept resonating from the P&G representatives in attendance, including the CEO, A.G. Lafley: you are not only alums, but potential partners, suppliers, co-creators, external sources (and potential pipelines) of innovation, and more.  This "Connect & Develop" principle is not only smart, but also practical -- you just never know who might be an ally or partner.  I get this feeling every time a former work colleague -- whether from P&G or the California legislature -- reaches out to me via Linked In.  Even this blog has become an incredible source of driving new connections, or refreshing old ones -- even a few I once considered permanently off my "A-List."  :-)

Listening Centered Marketing: Intuit Taps into Online Communities

Jennifer Jones, host of PodTech's outstanding "Marketing Voices" series, just posted a terrific podcast with Scott K. Wilder of Intuit.  Wilder, friend and fellow board member on the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), heads Intuit's Quickbooks online community program, which over the past year or so has grown by leaps and bounds. Scott and I were talking the other night and he noted that Intuit communities have tens of thousands of members, and that this conversational platform acts as a de factor customer support center. Indeed, he noted, nearly 75% of all questions posted to the Quickbooks communities are answered by other community members.  Some topics, like payroll, are more robust than others.  Community members can set up profiles, and they even access to map locators, so you can find local resources, not unlike how social network sites work.

“Our goal is to build an infrastructure to help small business owners get their questions answered by other users,” explained Wilder. “Our community website is a tremendous way to learn about what small businesses need?”

In many respects, Intuit’s focus on community is an extension of founder Scott Cook’s philosophy of what he called the ‘follow-me-homes.’ Way back in the beginning, Scott asked product managers to follow consumers home (with their permission, of course) to see how they used the products. By watching and learning, and absorbing a continuous flow of feedback, Cook and team were able to make key, value-added changes to Intuit products. Interestingly, the Harvard Business School cases study on Intuit describing Cook's approach had a big impact on my thinking about the power and potential of consumer feedback loops.  The case study author, Professor James Heskett, ended up serving on the board of my first start-up out of P&G, PlanetFeedback.com, which was all about, not surprisingly, feedback loops.

Anyway, it goes without saying that Scott K. Wilder and team are sitting on a mountain of feedback.  Again, here's a link to his podcast.

Books on a Shelf: Citizen Marketers - When People are the Message

At the most recent WOMMA board meeting, customer evangelism evangelista (and fellow WOMMA board member) Jackie Huba gave me a copy of her latest book written in partnership with co-evangelista Ben McConnell entitled, drumrull please....Citizen Marketer: When People Are the Message.  While I'm a wee bit bit skeptical about the reapplicability or re-appplication potential of some of the book examples (scaling "passion" is easier said than done), and early this year I didn't net out in the exact same place as Huba and McConnell on their well-blogged observations and take-aways re: big-buzz-low-box Snakes on A Plane, the book's an excellent, engaging, provocative and case-study rich read.  It also validates and reinforces so many dimensions of CGM.  Moreover, I hardly need cash from PayPerPost to say or blog, enthusiastically and with nary a hint of reservation, that Jackie and Ben are among the most thoughtful, articulate, and customer-centered thinkers in marketing land today.  Then again, am I truly enough of an evangelist to write more than a couple hundred words at 4 AM this morning when BrandWeek magazine just published an excerpt of their book that better telegraphs the book's broader content than my own blog blather: I think not.  Again, here's the link to the BrandWeek article.  Important to note that well beyond the case studies, the book is loaded with compelling frameworks to help us distill, categorize, interpret and understand what's really taking place behind citizen marketer viral bursts or threads, including this construct regarding so-called "memes" (help me, I still struggle with that term).  "One reason why citizen-created memes spread," the authors note, " is that they often follow the four stages of successful meme replication:

• "Assimilation. The meme is noticed, understood and accepted by someone, who becomes a host of the meme.
• "Retention. It's embedded in memory. The longer it's stored there, the better.
• "Expression. The idea can take some form, such as language, text, pictures, or even in unconscious behavior, such as the way someone walks.
• "Transmission. The host passes the meme on to one or more people.

All in all, a smart book by smart people...and quite timely.  Jackie will be speaking (and signing books, I presume) at the upcoming WOMMA conference in Wash DC next week in case you happen to be there. 

CGM Meets Primetime!

Tomorrow is a really big CGM milestone for me.  I'm helping organize one of the first-ever "summits" focused exclusively on consumer-generated media.  This is part of my real job at Nielsen BuzzMetrics.  We're having 100 or so clients here in New York for a deep, extended conversation on all aspects of the measurability and actionability of CGM.  Should be fascinating as there's such a diversity of approaches to leveraging CGM.  Needless to say, I'm pumped!

Great Quotables: Marketing & Public Relations - False Dichotomy?

I love this quote because it's so incredibly spot-on! It's from Wal-Mart's new VP-Governmental Relations and Corporate Affairs, Leslie Dach, in response to a question by Ad Age (article by Mya Frazier and Matthew Creamer) about whether there's competing tension between marketing, PR, and other corporate functions:

"In today's communication world, the line between marketing and public relations is thin and nonexistent. Everyone should know the strategy. The ideas should be encouraged to come from anywhere, and the execution is a tactical decision."

I actually think consumer-generated media is one very important factor in blurring the line between marketing and PR.  If you put all the CGM or social media initiatives in a blender, you'll find huge ambiguity around the question of "who leads the work"  Is it PR, the group that historically has managed "influencers" (of which consumer message creators and spreaders are the latest entrant) or is it the marketing, which typically anchors the rest of the messaging (especially the paid media) mix.   For the next couple years, expect to see a ton of ambiguity, and along the way, we'll see a host of brand spanking new titles emerge across the corporate brandscape that attempt to straddle (embrace, integrate, capture..however you see it) the tension, among them:

• Chief Communication Officer
• Chief Message Officer
• VP, Brand Equity
• VP, Stakeholder Relations
• Chief Marketing & Influencer Relations Officer

Reflecting on 9/11 Through Early CGM Lens: Must-See Exhibit

Like millions of others, September 11, 2001 touched me in ways that are still difficult to describe. Within minutes of hearing about the second plane hitting the World Trade Center, I found myself in the company of dozens of employees glued to the television set watching in horror as this almost unimaginable tragedy unfolded.  That I had been at the top of the World Trade Center's "Windows of the World" only months earlier for a business conference made it all the more strange and shocking...and eerily close to home. Still, it was all so overwhelming and sudden that it almost had a numbing effect. How can anyone possibly absorb such an event, and all the related questions, controversies, finger-pointing, and politics.  It wasn't until several weeks later while on business in New York City that 911 touched my most raw and sensitive emotions and nerves.  While rushing through New York City's Grand Central Station, and I happened upon several kiosks and bulletin boards I will never forget.  Like so many others throughout New York, they were loaded -- nay, bursting -- with notes, letters, cards, and "missing" signs related to 9/11.  There were flowers, poems, and photographs.  There were tributes, obituaries, and prayers.  There were notes to Firefighters, and scribbles of emotion dedicated to the volunteers. Raw heartfelt emotion seemed oooze from every inch of these walls, and a collective narrative of voices, reflecting despair, horror, hope, and even renewal seemd to be speaking.  It was a different form of consumer generated media, but without the marketing or advertising influence, and it was 100% sincere and real. 

Freedom Center 9/11 Exhibit:  Last night, I visited an extraordinary exhibit at Cincinnati's National Underground Railroad Freedom Center that rekindled my memory of those kiosks at Grand Central.   I attended a special commemorative exhibit on 9/11 entitled "September 11, 2001 -- Global Response and Personal Remembrance."  The exhibit was comprehensive and multi-faceted, but what truly moved me -- and compels me to share my thoughts in my blog -- wasn't merely the historical replay of the events on that day, but the written commentary and narratives or oral histories expressed by thousands who were touched by the events of 9/11.  In particular, one room, the "Tanya Hoggard Collection," featured a most extraordinary collection of letters and objects sent from across the globe by schoolchildren to New York City Firehouses.  Hoggard is a Delta flight attendant who volunteered at Ground Zero after Sept. 11.  During this time she started taking photographs and collected nearly three tons of notes, artifacts, cards, and most significantly, letters from children.  You might think of her as a 9/11 librarian and historian wrapped into one extraordinarily commited individual.  When when she spoke during a reception at the exhibit's inaugural exhibition, after initial introductory remarks by Freedom Center CEO John Pepper and Director Spencer Crew, her sincerity and dedication was both moving and motivating at the same time.  It's fitting that the Freedom Center anchored this exhibit to the remarkable contributions of one individual who took the initiative to keep these stories and narratives and expressions of hope alive; fitting because the center revolves around a belief in the "power of one voice" and everyday "heroes."

The Power of Ongoing Narratives:   Part of what so fascinates me about consumer-genenrated media and especially the blogosphere is that it powers and enables an almost endless stream of consumer narratives and oral history.  Indeed, the web has become a giant kiosk of experience, and millions of consumers are putting their stories on the public record for others to read, see, and experience.  This is especially the case around big events, whether it's 9/11 or the Tsunami tragedy or the London terrorist bombings.  The "traditional" media often played second fiddle to the often more compelling and real narratives from "on the spot" consumers.  The rise of CGM2, especially video, has taken the power of individual narratives to the next level.   Last night I was so moved by the exhibit that I felt the need to record and share it with others.  Which I've attempted to do in this very short yet important 2 minute video.   It's just one person's take, but just imagine the power of one voice.   (More photos from event on FlickR.)