In my blog of February 10, I was both intrigued and skeptical about the“ Pepsi Refresh” initiative. Intrigued, because it represented everything that an ideal interactive campaign can be – “creative, innovative, highly engaging and very popular, while building on the brand in a fun and social way.” Skeptical, because Pepsi was to grant large sums of money ($5,000 to $250,000) to charities (within selected categories) based on a populous vote of “friends and peers.” Critical thought as to urgency or evaluation of need, did not come into play.

Still, my skepticism faded rather rapidly as Pepsi came up with another angle within its campaign — its “Do Good for the Gulf” Refresh campaign, which has awarded 32 grants each month worth $1.3 million. Now Pepsi has invited consumers to submit ideas that could “refresh the communities of the Gulf states,” through July 16 and has pledged another $1.3 million. Starting August 2, consumers can vote on the ideas they like best. Finalists will be announced on September 2, and grants will be awarded on September 22.

For big brands to spend money on major causes is not new. Nor is it new for big brands or companies to get behind a disaster and offer funds and equipment as needed. If it is also somewhat self-serving, and is based on an ulterior marketing motive, so be it. Still, marketers would do well to note how well the Pepsi’s Refresh campaign worked in that it has empowered the consumer and rallied the public-at-large to come up with ideas in support of a disaster, in this case, the Gulf Oil disaster.

It’s a fine line to cross, however, and can be seen as opportunistic.

In this case, Pepsi has gained recognition for outstanding corporate social responsibility (CSR). It has earned it in a substantive way, for the Refresh Project has given more than $7 million in the first five months of the year and expects to invest at least $20 million in worthy causes.

And it has raised a populous conscientiousness as to charities. How does that get rewarded?

Special guest post by Chris Paine. Chris directed “Who Killed the Electric Car?” His next film, “Revenge of the Electric Car” is set for release 2011.  Currently, he is working on two projects related to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. http://www.facebook.com/revengeoftheelectriccar http://www.facebook.com/chris.paine

Exxon Valdez veteran marine toxicologist and author Riki Ott (“Not One Drop”) laid out some disturbing comparisons of the two oil disasters during our recent shoot in Louisiana.

BP is using the same playbook Exxon used on us in Alaska.  It’s all about minimizing liability and damages in court. So right off the bat, BP is underestimating how much is spilling, understating harm to the environment, claiming  dispersants are “safe” and “not toxic” to marine life, and putting workers at risk because BP doesn’t want to supply respirators. BP says it will pay all “legitimate” claims, but what this means is ’see you in court.’ Same old story with Exxon.

Here are a few examples:

1). Broken Promises:  The oil industry makes false promises to get permits:

-Exxon: Promise: Double hull tankers and advanced vessel tracking so ‘not one drop’ of oil would spill in Alaska.  Actuality: Single hull tanker grounds, destroying pristine ecosystem and fishing industry for decades.

-BP:  Promise: State of the art drilling platforms with fail-safe safety procedures. Actuality: Multiple reckless decisions lead to massive oil spill threatening wide destruction of Gulf ecosystem, fishing  and tourism.

2). Manipulate Government Regulations

-Exxon:  Manipulate government regulatory bodies to receive multiple exemptions. Examples: A) Take advantage of OSHA exemptions for colds and flus to mask chemical poisonings of cleanup workers  B) Convince EPA and Coast Guard to rubber stamp contingency plans like using low grade “mill pond” buoys instead of “ocean grade” buoys. C)   Circumvent vastly variable effectiveness  of dispersants for different oil grades by persuading EPA to create one “compromise” effectiveness rating D) Convince EPA to sign off on toxicologist reports for dispersants that have only  been tested on older animals, not juveniles.

-BP: Examples A-D above still apply.

3). Spiller in Charge

The oil polluter becomes a ‘super state’ in charge of running response and cleanup. America leaves spiller in charge of cleanup. The Coast Guard sides with industry.

-Exxon:  USCG signed off on “miles of beaches” treated. USCG backed up Exxon’s control of images.

-BP: Signs of similar activity.

4). Under-Reporting Spill:

-Exxon:   In Alaska, Exxon reported up to 3 times less oil spilt then estimated by independent experts.

-BP:  IN Gulf, BP at first estimated  its spill at 1000 barrels of crude oil per day, then increased it to 5000 once researchers said it was at least this much. Now independent researchers using satellite images estimate as much as  70,000 barrels a day.

5). Under-Reporting  Cleanup

-Exxon: Said that it recovered 10 to 12% of oil on beaches in Prince William Sound but this was based on its own underreported spill size. When you take actual spill size into account, Exxon actually only cleaned up about 4%.   Eyewitnesses reported as much of 80% of recovered “oil” as being water in the last of three tankers that off-loaded “oil” from the stricken Exxon Valdez.

-BP:  Initially claimed to be recovering 20% of spill with its first siphon but this was based on inaccurate flow meter data . Later estimates for recovered oil per day are considerably lower

6).  Minimize public perception of impact

- Exxon: immediately put a flight restriction over area to prevent photography. It also required cleanup crews and workers not to talk to media or take photographs

-BP:  Many reports of similar measures. Dispersants used to prevent visible oil slick. Massive messaging effort to minimize public and government reaction.

7). Sick wildlife

-Exxon.  Ecosystem collapsed 4 years after Exxon Valdez spill.  Pink Salmon eventually recovered but Herring fishery utterly collapsed and 15 of 24 species have not recovered 21 years later

-BP:  Effect of oil and dispersants still unknown — and NOAA has not yet initiated comprehensive ecosystem studies despite vast extent of oiled estuaries and marshes.

8). Sick Communities

-Exxon.   Medical and social trauma caused by collapse of fishing industry never anticipated or compensated.   Domestic violence, divorce, suicide, drugs, and depression rates due to financial stress and cultural dislocation were at historic highs for 20 years with PTSD as high as 99% increases.

-BP.  Hospitalized oil clean up workers.  Already signs of severe financial stress amongst unemployed fisherman just recovering from Hurricanes Katrina/Rita.  Cleanup workers facing illness without proper protection.

9). Minimize liability, Write off legal costs

-Exxon.   Exxon appeals $5 billion punitive fine for 20 years until claim to reduced to $507 million – about 10% of original claims. Legal fees become a business expense, written off against revenue from taxpayers.

BP: ‘We will pay all legitimate claims’.  “Translation?” says Ott, “See you in court.”

Ambush marketing — think of it as gate crashing, as in you want to get into a Lakers game without a ticket or go to a party without an invitation.  That’s what took place at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Here’s what occurred…  Two women, with three dozen or so more in the background, all sporting the distinctive Dutch orange, are believed to have led an “ambush marketing” stunt on behalf of a Dutch beer brand, Bavaria, during the Denmark-Netherlands match on Monday.  In other words, the Bavaria beer people were caught red-handed promoting a beer without paying for sponsorship, basically stepping heavily on the toes of sponsor Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser, who had spent a hefty sum for that privilege.

So they got their due. FIFA, the soccer governing body, caught the culprits as they tried to take advantage of the Game’s global publicity for their brand and confiscated their passports before releasing them on bail.  Although this is not the first run-in with FIFA (2006 World Cup in Germany) Bavaria is, of course, incensed. In a company statement, they protested, “the orange dresses don’t have a big brand name logo” and added that “thousands of fans at the game were wearing the dresses, which were sold with eight-packs of beer.” The company declined to say whether the two fans arrested had been employed by the company.

Ambush marketing is one of the oldest and most devilish marketing games around, breaking entry laws and overstepping ethical standards’ boundaries.  And yet big brands use ambush marketing to gain publicity that money can’t buy. It is akin to passing “go” without paying dues and getting in front of the line.

Brands choose high visibility events that present a world stage to them. As example, in the Sydney Olympics, the slogan for the games was “Share the Spirit.” Qantas airlines adopted a slogan “The Spirit of Australia” despite the fact that Ansett Air was the official airline sponsor. In the Barcelona Olympic Games, Michael Jordan (sponsored by Nike) covered the Reebok sign on his gear while accepting his gold medal for USA basketball. Nike also sponsored the press conference for the “Dream Team” even though Reebok was their official sponsor.

Ambush marketing is no more than creating a clever stunt to grab momentary attention. The lure for marketers is the immediate brand visibility, a notoriety of sorts, but the consequences can potentially be worse than the gain – that of being “hauled into a court of law” or being publicly and negatively discussed or derided in the on and offline media.

But it is prolific…

It is either a brilliant marketing ploy calculated to boost the giant liquor company’s sales or a spontaneous lucky streak for Smirnoff.  Or not — for the popularity of the ‘Bros Icing Bros’ game, which originated on college campuses and quickly spread virally via all social media channels, may very well cast a shadow on Smirnoff’s public image and its stance on responsible drinking.

Although Smirnoff has denied that this might be a company-mounted marketing scheme, the jury is still out, considering that the winner clearly is the liquor giant itself and that it has remained largely silent. The game has also triggered sales of Smirnoff Ice drinks within demographics that probably never even heard about the sugary ice malt beverage.

The rules of the game, which had a murky start somewhere in either Florida or Vermont, are explicit on the web: a ‘bro’ hands a friend (or ‘bro) a Smirnoff Ice and he (most participants have been men) “has to drink it on one knee, all at once — unless he is carrying a bottle himself, in which case the ‘attacker’ must drink both bottles.” The listed rules include: “You cannot refuse an Ice.  If you refuse to drink the Ice you are instantly excommunicated and shunned and thus can never Ice another bro or be iced. If you are Iced by a fellow bro you can Ice block.  When presented with an Ice, you pull out an Ice of your own and reverse the Ice on your bro. The ultimate ice insult…”

The mercurial spread of ‘Bros Icing Bros’ from the Web to living rooms and offices around the country seems bizarre, when you consider that it has gone way past college fraternities and now includes young professionals and minor celebrities such as the rapper Coolio, the actor Dustin Diamond and members of the rock band The National.  According to the New York Times, there is even a campaign online that aims to Ice Ashton Kutcher, who often serves as a kind of Kevin Bacon of Web memes, linking disparate areas of the Internet in fewer than six degrees.

Here’s the rub…If it is a social media trend that sparked spontaneously, the game will play out virally until the next ‘thing’ comes along, that is, unless Smirnoff finds ways to disavow the game.

However, it can also end abruptly if the young ‘Bros” get a sense that they have been co-opted by the brand for its own purposes, that they’re being used, in fact, to market a drink that, by all accounts, they really don’t like. But this will surely come back to “bite” the Smirnoff brand.

It’s every company’s dream to have sales rocket through the perennial roof without spending for a marketing campaign.  But this is about a game that extols uncontrolled drinking, with one particular product, with the potential of youths of questionable drinking age, participating.

It raises doubts…

A Smirnoff company statement says, “We never want under-age ‘icing’ and we always want responsible drinking.” Well, that’s good. But if, in fact, Smirnoff had nothing to do with initiating the game, how about taking a stronger stance to distance the company from all the ‘Icing’?

Not happening as yet.  Sales are good.

The British should be familiar with parodies.  After all they invented the form…

BP is ripe for mocking, as witnessed by the launch of the faux BP Twitter account, @BPGlobalPR,  which already has outdistanced BP’s real Twitter stream, attracting nearly 60,000 followers, compared to the company’s 7,000 followers.

While it is true that the company’s real twitter account @BP_America offers continued updates about actions taken toward a solution of the international calamity, no one buys that the effort alone is commendable.  And yet, in reading and watching all the hyperbole that the company puts out, all the gaffes made by its CEO and all the meager attempts at “talking” to a public through full page ads in the NY Times, daily, the company continues to exude a righteous behavior that is irritating and obnoxious, as well as arrogant and disdainful – certainly not characteristics that can endear a company to its many publics.

In the words of a tweeter, “The engineers (may) be busy but PR (folks) are (in) hiding.”

And so, while BP’s PR advisors seem to be AWOL, people turn to mocking.

It’s a real circus out there.

Twitterers are tweeting about the now “extinct mermaids” to the “sharks getting entangled in oil geysers” to changing the word catastrophe and agreeing to call it a “whoopsie daisy.”  The faux account has sold “BP cares” T-shirts with the profits from the sales going to the nonprofit Gulf Restoration Network. Apparently its humorous blasts have been re-tweeted by everyone from filmmaker Michael Moore to singer Michelle Branch.  And then there were preposterous headlines made by Kevin Costner and numerous TV appearances by Bill Nye, the Science Guy, the children’s show host who is apparently now an authority on the issue.

Apparently the faux twitter account’s fictional character “Terry” who has steadfastly remained in character, weakened and fell out of character when asked as to why this effort, to which he answered, “Companies screw up and then they hire folks like me to come in to make it look like they’re doing something while they figure out how to make money again.”

Well, there you have it – the public mocking of a company…

The curious thing is that according to a dialogue that Ad Age had with BP spokesman Toby Odone, he said that, “he wasn’t aware of any attempts by the company to have the feed taken down.” In playing the role of a real BP spokesman, the bogus one took the opposite stance – the one that the real BP should have taken in the first place by saying, “I’ve heard rumors of fake BP PR accounts, and I assure you if we find out who is in charge of them, we will annihilate them.” In further mocking the company, he added, “BP is doing everything we can to save our reputation and hopefully salvage some oil out of all this.”

Here’s advice for BP: hire the faux twitter account owner for advice as to next moves or push your PR folks out of hiding and make them unleash a PR campaign that is based on critical thought and one that is substantive…

We introduce our fifth guest blogger of our monthly series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary this year, Kathleen Kaufman, published author and educator.

Kathleen Kaufman is the author of environmental fiction and an inner city educator. She is well known in the social media community as a Facebook influencer and entertaining blogger. She can be found on her publisher’s website, The Way Things Are Publications, on Facebook and on her website.

Facebook marketing is a dirty word. No one wants to feel like they’re friends with a person who is trying to sell them a product, be it a book or a copyedit.  The most successful Facebookers, the ones who have converted their page into actualized business, are not marketing, rather they are participating.   It’s not as easy as it sounds; for one, you have to mean it.  The simple act of being genuine on Facebook is easier said than done.

I am certainly not an expert on how to juggle professionalism and sincerity in a virtual world, but I have learned a few lessons along the way as to what not to do.

1.  Mass Emails: I currently have approximately seventy-three messages waiting for me on my page.  I have no intention of reading them, for the most part, because they are all invites to ‘The Best Opening Night Of The Best Play Ever!’ or ‘Open Mic Night At The Improv!”   Thus, most of them are for events that are in Boston, Chicago, or New York.  It becomes painfully obvious that the sender has no idea that I live in Los Angeles, and even more painfully obvious that I am just a number, a member of their growing horde, an inadvertent member of a fan club.

“QR,” as “Quick Response” technology is referred to, has been around in Japan ever since the technology was first created by the Japanese corporation Denso-Wave, back in 1994.  It is simply a bar code that delivers an arsenal of information to a device that can scan it. Surprisingly, while Japan has been immersed in it for the last 16 years, we are just now starting to see a “QR” phenomenon in the US.  As it turns out, mobile phones are the perfect scanner for QR.

If this catches on in the US, beyond only elite tech gatherings, the possibilities for corporate communication seem endless. On a practical level, QR code can instantly deliver contact information to a phone with a simple scan, direct mobile browsers to websites, or display phone numbers that can be instantly dialed. The more sophisticated codes can automate social media following or access cloud software.

For starters, companies can instantly tap this trend by putting QR into the social media activities, whether on blog posts, Facebook walls or websites. Beyond that, brick and mortar businesses, especially, have an opportunity to take advantage of this by offering special deals, access to specific (and hidden) microsites, or by setting up social media networking protocols into QR code. These are only a few ways of bringing offline marketing into the online world.

Other practical applications can include putting QR code on business cards for easy networking at trade shows, setting up QR code “bread crumbs” throughout a community leading consumers to store locations, or simply using it on products or storefronts so buyers can “like it” on Facebook in real time.

To begin messing around with this, search for “QR” in your smart phone application directory and read this blog again, but through the QR code. Or better yet, go to Kaywa and start making your own QR codes for free.

In a poll taken by CBS’ Political Hotsheet’s Peter Maer in his post titled, “White House: Stop Marketing Unhealthy Foods To Kids,” the question was asked of readers as to whether or not they would support restrictions on marketing unhealthy foods to children in order to combat obesity.  Out of 12,630 submitted votes to date, a shocking 89% said no they would not, while 9% said yes, with 2% not sure.

And this in light that almost one-third of U.S. children are at least overweight, and about 17 percent, obese.

If this random poll is any benchmark, childhood obesity is not high on anybody’s list, except that is, First Lady Michelle Obama, who has made this issue her signature piece similar to Nancy Reagan’s campaign against drug use.

And just in time, for in the absence of federal mandates to push changes in the marketing of junk food to kids, it will take a “bully pulpit” to rally consumers toward embracing healthy eating and disavowing hawkish marketing directly to kids of junk foods.

Michelle Obama is leading such a campaign.  Much like Michelle Obama appealed to the community at large when she planted an organic garden on the South Lawn of the White House which spurred many to have home gardens of their own, especially during the economic crunch of ’09 (see blog of July 14, ’09, titled Michelle Obama and Gardening…,) she is now asking communities to take charge in helping combat childhood obesity.

A Task Force on Childhood Obesity, spearheaded by Obama, which was set up to review this urgent issue, wants junk food makers and their marketers to “go on what amounts to an advertising diet.” It also came up with a more practical idea, a pocketbook approach to keep people from buying unhealthy foods by potentially imposing state and local sales taxes on less healthy products.

That’s good and fine, but for the campaign to really make an impact, it will take the FCC to step in. However, per the comments of the FCC Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz, “A regulatory approach is certainly not where we want to start” — there’s not too much chance of this happening in the future.

According to Ms. Obama, it should become a crusade for all to adopt.  In her words,  “No one gets off the hook on this one from governments to schools, corporations to non-profits all the way down to families sitting around their dinner table.”

Much like the Green movement unleashed decades ago resulted in consumers preferring to support and do business with companies that portray an environmental concern and social conscience, so too can there be a groundswell behind companies that market healthy food products directly to children and promote healthy eating.  For example, wouldn’t it be great if it suddenly became “cool” to market healthy food products with kids’ favorite media characters?

Marketers take note, after all, it’s about children…

As if the oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, with the potential of a global calamity of unimagined proportions, is not enough of a disaster for BP corporate, the company’s well recognized “Beyond Petroleum” campaign, launched almost 10 years ago, has come back to bite it.

The “beyond petroleum” campaign, which positioned the company as “transcending the oil sector” and as being innovative, progressive and environmentally responsible and performance-driven, now seems more of an empty marketing ploy than a true descriptor of a company on a mission.

It has the stench of public deception.

It is not BP’s first petroleum mess and PR disaster that it has wrestled with, proving that being environmentally responsible has to go beyond a marketing tag line. In 2006, it was disclosed that BP’s Prudhoe Bay pipeline, which supplies 8% of U.S oil production, was corroded and leaking — for many years because nobody inspected it. It is interesting to note John Kenney’s wry comment at that time in The New York Times, “The company that claims to be ‘beyond petroleum’ shut down a pipeline that serves up 400,000 barrels of oil a day. Maybe Coca-Cola’s new line should be, ‘It’s good for your teeth.’”

This time around, according to BP PLC Chairman Lamar McKay, “no preparations for such an accident were made because it was unforeseeable, and seemed inconceivable, that equipment in place to avert an oil-well blowout, would fail,” referring to a valve mechanism sitting on top of the oil well nearly a mile down in the ocean, which failed to shut in the malfunction. Reports surfaced that it had forgone a $500,000 “acoustic trigger” shut-off device required of offshore oil wells operating near Norway and Brazil.  Apparently, this valve is the last line of defense against oil spurting out of the earth, but it didn’t seem to warrant another half-million expense.

Wouldn’t an environmentally concerned company have a plan ready for the “inconceivable” even if it was “unforeseeable” and include a plan that addresses the “last line of defense” as well?  As Kenney commented back in 2006, “If BP hadn’t been so “holier than thou” in its marketing during the last few years, I doubt that it would be getting hammered right now — at least to this extent. “

Speaking of history repeating itself…

Creating a glorified company image through marketing tag lines, without a genuine effort to become what it says, will always backfire.  Far better to take the cautious track and first make a genuine attempt to engage the public in a debate or a corporate rallying cry to change the paradigm – before you preach to the world what you cannot, or have not intention to, uphold.

In an ironic twist, BP was recently named as a finalist for a federal award honoring offshore oil companies displaying “outstanding safety and pollution prevention.”

Retiring the “Beyond Petroleum” posturing, has been urged before and considered, but rejected to date.  Now is a good time…

Who would have thought? You are in a mall, walking by a Macy’s store and oops! You get an alert on your smart phone that Macy’s has a special discount for you if you walk in, right now.  Or, you are driving approximately 10 blocks from Taco Bell, and there goes off that alert again – this time with an offer from Taco Bell that’s well worth a stop, rather than the one you had planned on – that coffee shop across the street. It gets better.  If you walk into a store often enough, you will be able to click as you enter on the smart phone location and immediately get on a customer loyalty program, enabling you to add points for future purchases, much like frequent flyer programs with miles.

Of course, you have to be a location app user.

If this sounds futuristic, it’s not. It’s here. Apparently all this was made possible by Foursquare, the location-based social network that introduced a free analytics tool and dashboard last month, giving business owners access to a range of information and statistics about visitors to their establishments.

Innovative marketers have managed to figure out how to maximize this into win-win situations. Just consider — Pepsico and the likes, sell more products, stores get more traffic and the consumer gets special offers geared to his/her likes and tastes.  And there’s another convenience soon to come.  As companies start to turn Foursquare (or other custom location applications) into a virtual loyalty-card program that offers customers discounts or other rewards for shopping, consumers get to toss all those customer loyalty cards that stuff up wallets and use smart phones as a simple replacement for it all.

Savvy businesses like Starbucks, Tasti-D-Lite, Macy’s and Pepsi, are using information reaped from smart phones that can signal someone’s location, to get live information about when and where people are shopping, track store traffic and note when their most loyal customers visit and market to them accordingly.

Of course, you have to want to be tracked and it’s good to remember that being a member of the likes of Foursquare is a proactive choice. But while it was fun and games just to check out who is sitting in the cafe across the street to find friends to meet up with spontaneously, so much information about you, presents a whole new scenario.

It is not only friends who are looking for you now, rather marketers, who are following your moves…

This may cause a momentary shudder (as in Big Brother Is Watching YOU, right out of George Orwell’s book, 1984), but my guess is that in 2010, it is the accepted reality — more so, if you get such advantages as loyalty points, discounts and free sodas.

It may just be that if Big Brother is, in fact watching, it no longer matters…

We introduce our fourth guest blogger of our monthly series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary this year, Tom Searcy, who helps companies in finding business solutions.

Tom Searcy, co-author of  “Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company”, author of “RFPs Suck!” and founder of Hunt Big Sales, is a sought after business solutions expert for small to mid-sized companies.  Follow Tom’s thought leadership through his blog: www.huntingbigsales.com or access his resources at www.huntbigsales.com.

I remember watching a documentary on nudists when I was of an age that I couldn’t yet buy my own “nudist” magazines at the drugstore…the ones with the brown wrappers…if they even bothered wrapping them. The documentary talked about the “freedom of nudity”, its “natural state” and “the beauty of the human form.” It was confusing as hell to me- because the human form, at least the ones at the colony, were not beautiful. Even at distance and with discreetly placed black-box-blockouts, these were some pretty unattractive people. Their nudity not only put me in a position to look at things I didn’t want too, but it answered questions about people, (surgery scars, stretch marks, the body’s response to gravity over time for example), that I was not asking.

The documentary was about a microscopic sliver of the population who had made a distinct choice. But we are all living naked now. You, me, our companies, our children. We are all naked. And we will be beyond naked very soon- (BTW, I don’t know what “beyond naked” means but I think it involves Flickr™ photos of our last set of x-rays and dental records). Are you ready to live naked?

YouTube™, Flickr™, Digg™, Twitter™, Facebook™, LinkedIn™ and the rest of the usual suspects of the social media revolution are creating a naked world. Every customer experience, every shipped product and online FAQ answer, each touchpoint in the chain of your business is open for scrutiny and discussion. You may be aware of this, which puts you ahead of the huge brands out there being lampooned every day in painful and direct ways. But what is your strategy?

I work with small to mid-sized companies who are trying to grow quickly. One of the things that we work on is their market image. One of the nice things about everyone being naked is that it’s easier to do the necessary research on a prospect company before you see them. But…It works in reverse…(sometimes when I work with companies they forget this part).

Here’s what I tell my small to mid-sized companies:

• Control – You don’t have it any more, so take a deep breath and stand tall, proud and naked. You can control your integrity and your authenticity. Focus on that. Don’t focus on the buttoning-down of over point of entry and exit to your perceived brand machine. That’s like trying to grab the wind with a sack.
• It’s Never Fair – Of course attacks are unfair. No one is trying to provide a ‘fair and balanced’ story, as if there ever is one. Don’t waste time trying to make their attacks ‘fair’ by offering your point-by-point answers. The bell has rung- you are not going to un-ring it. You can just respond.
• Fast and Good – A quick response that is reasonable is much better than a slow response that is perfect. Do you see Toyota out there floundering with the slow and perfect story? That’s because slow in the naked world is by definition imperfect.
• Find Your Voice – As a writer and speaker, I go through a number of exercises to make certain I am writing in my voice. Not what I think to be the “professional and homogenized” voice. In the heralded brands around the world, one of the key elements to the rankings is their consistency and authenticity of their voice. You need to make certain that the voice is an authentic voice.
• Be 3-D – All the movies are going 3-dimensional for the same reason; the audience expects a different experience. You have to be multi-dimensional in your market message. A website with a never-changing brochure of product/service lists doesn’t cut it. Customers want the multi-dimensional experience. Give it to them. Videos, photos, blogs and ever-changing content.
• Thousand Points of Light – Your brand is no longer just the crafted message of your marketing firm. The touchpoints are now your brand- employees, customers, vendors and competitors. You have to be out there knowing what is being said. You can’t survey once a quarter and keep track of the voices. This has to be a daily part of someone’s role. Key word searches and tracking make it easier- but it has to be done constantly.

On this blog-site, you can read past entries to see what it is like to live naked. Noemi’s blogs provide examples of how ugly in can look when big companies try to hide. This is especially true for those companies who have not yet realized that the emperor not only isn’t wearing clothes, but his wardrobe has been shredded. But the question for you should be “What is my strategy for living naked?”

When thinking through your strategy, include these questions:

1. On a simple Google search of my company’s name and my name, what comes up and in what order? Is it what I want to come up? How can I change it?
2. How do we tell our story to the world at the level of customer, employee and supplier? How is the world telling our story to us in the naked world at the level of customer, employee and supplier? What does it mean about us if no one is telling our story?
3. Who are the examples of companies, regardless of industry, that we look up too in the naked world? What can we learn from them?

Fortunately for me, living in a naked world requires neither diet, nor exercise nor surgery. But it does require confidence and a strategy. What’s yours?

Wearing my PR marketing hat while reading today’s New York Times’ article by Leslie Kaufman headlined, “At 40, Earth Day Is Now Big Business,” I found that the position taken by Denis Hayes (the national coordinator of the first Earth Day and who is again returning 40 years later to organize this year’s activities), regarding how Earth Day had turned into a marketing platform for selling products and services, totally out of whack. Hayes said, “This ridiculous perverted marketing has cheapened the concept of what is really green,” and goes on to dramatically say, “It is tragic.”

Perverted marketing?  Tragic?  Not really. Opportunistic, yes, but that’s the good side of Corporate America – doing what it does best, but with a capitalistic bent, and jumping on the bandwagon of what seems a worthy and popular cause and — well OK, making a profit in doing so.

In part, Corporate America is actually responsible for supporting the original intent of Earth Day back in 1970 – to raise awareness of the urgent need to save our resources and stop the pollution of the planet — by developing services and products that are green and bringing them to the marketplace. The very marketers that Hayes criticized so harshly, the ones that saw an opportunity of maximizing Earth Day as a marketing platform, are also those that have been responsible for the rise of eco-consumerism, albeit as a by-product benefit.

So I say to the many pioneers of the environmental movement that find that eco-consumerism detracts from Earth Day’s original intent – think again. In part, it is continuing the job that the pioneers intended and spreading it far wider than bullhorn demonstrations ever could dream of.

Just consider what has happened over the forty years that ensued since that first Earth Day, back in 1970, when Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York City addressed a crowd of tens of thousands in Union Square, amidst an atmosphere that The New York Times then likened to a “secular revival meeting.” Forty years ago, only environmental activists thought about re-cycling or land fill poisons or polluted fisheries.  Now, before consumers buy, they check labels as to what “poison” might be in cleaning products, think “organic” before buying produce and use recyclable containers where possible, just to mention a few habits that have crept into our norm. We are becoming a society of eco-consumerists, and we have Corporate America to thank for its leadership in environmental innovation, as well as in getting customers to care, and then buy.

So I thank FAO Schwartz for its Greenzys penguin toy that, as an “ardent supporter of recycling, reusing and reducing waste” serves as a good role model for kids, and also Bahama Umbrella for its specially designed umbrella, with a drain so that water “can be stored, reused and recycled,” and the Gray Line, for its “Earth Week” package of day trips to green spots, as well as the many more companies that are turning us into an eco-consumerist society.

It’s become a partnership between environmental activists and Corporate America.  One needs the other for the good of all.

When will it end?

First, back when, they took away the complementary meals and replaced them with a for-purchase array of soggy sandwiches and salads prepared well ahead of departure.  Next came extra rows of seats, leaving anyone over 5 feet tall in a squished position for the duration of the flight. Then came per-baggage fees, which resulted in added carry on bags for cost saving, causing a ruckus on board as travelers wrestled to garner the ever-decreasing storage space in overhead compartments.

And now, under the sales tagline of ‘Bring Less; Pay Less’, Spirit Airlines is planning a new charge — $45 per carry-on bag.

But wait.  That’s not as bad as it can get.

UK-based budget airline Ryan Airlines, is charging to go to the toilet.  Yes, that’s right, they have installed slots in their cabin toilets that require passengers to insert either a pound coin, or a one-euro coin to use the toilets.  At that cost, many may opt to “hold it” (on short trips, that is) and wait for a land toilet upon arrival.

Moreover, Ryan Airlines is considering, but has not yet implemented, a “fat tax” for overweight passengers. From a messaging point of view, one thing is for overweight passengers to voluntarily buy two seats in order to fit, and yet another, is to be taxed for their fat.

OK, this does not mean that other airlines will follow with these desperate moves as they search for more revenue, but hey, it’s out there so, who knows?  Case in point is that charging for checked baggage quickly became the accepted norm, so why not carry-on bags?

In the end, disgruntled passengers may result in more empty seats, clearly far more costly than the price of sandwiches and checked luggage, so it’s in the airlines’ interest to “sit up and listen.”

One airline is exemplary in that regard. Southwest Airlines should be commended for not descending into this madness, while still achieving growth. Southwest’s policy of ‘bags fly free’ has apparently not dented their bottom line. According to an AP report, Southwest Airlines passenger revenue per available seat mile rose 22 percent from last year, while the carrier’s occupancy rate rose 3.7 percentage points to 81 percent.

There is a lot to be said for that airline’s long-term commitment to a strategy of compelling customer relations and a personality in the marketplace that customers find interesting and engaging, which adds up to “happy and loyal passengers.”

C’mon airlines. The sales gimmick of piecing together costs to make ends meet is slick and the intent is transparent to all air passengers — for they too, can add…

Southwest gets it.  It’s about passenger satisfaction and engagement and finding creative means to make ends meet, rather than nickel and diming passengers.  It can be the real differentiator, impacting an airline’s bottom line far more effectively than silly add-on costs.

Photo courtesy of Wired

It was unofficially announced that the cost for subscription to The Wall Street Journal on Apple’s new “must have” device, the iPad, will run a news hound $18/month. This produced an immediate gasp in the media world as to whether this is too much money for an app, when you consider that a subscription for the print version is only $9.

Still, the argument in favor of the premium price is that this is, after all, The Wall Street Journal – not just “any” news app. Another, is that online version promises to have far more features than found in the print version, Also, it will be the very first newspaper app on the iPad and counts for something.

Whereby at first glance the $18 price tag seems over the top – double, when compared with the print version, I began to wonder what should the cost of newspaper apps be on the iPad, how is it formulated and what will the market bear?

Thinking about the standard price formula, I translated some of the costs involved. If we already know that pricing is generally based upon the sum of variable costs, fixed costs, and profit, then without a degree in Business Economics, I may be able to figure this out.

We can assume that WSJ has priced their print to include all of their costs for producing content and that it costs the WSJ less than $9.92 per month to produce it and still make a profit. So, let’s focus then on the costs involved on an app.

Not really knowing as yet the average costs for developing apps on the iPad, it is safe to assume that it will be similar to developing one for an iPhone. According to this discussion, it takes 200 hours at $50/hour on average to produce an app for the iPhone. If I assume that WSJ hires someone at $50/hour to do this, than one only needs to add the application license fee from Apple of $399.  As to downloads, iPhone applications, on average, are downloaded 25,000 times per year. It is therefore safe to assume that the WSJ iPad application will follow this pattern and be downloaded that many times.

So here is the formula that will figure out the WSJ app’s ideal price:

(Development Hours X Hourly Rate) + License Fee/Average Number of Downloads = Price (Apple’s Commission) + Print Subscription Price

Or, shortened:

If we follow this formula, it will cost The Wall Street Journal $10,399 to produce the app, including the license. If they fall into the average, then approximately 2,083 will be downloaded every month. The total cost then per download is $4.99. When you add Apple’s commission, the cost becomes $6.49. Next, when you add in the current price of the print subscription (which theoretically includes the cost of producing content), the price according to our formula should be $16.41.

If you consider the “prestige” category and that and the fact that the app will contain added features, then $18/month makes perfect sense. Also, if WSJ continues to support and develop the app throughout the year, then the costs would stay relatively the same monthly.

Does that mean the market will bear that price? Time will tell but the sticker price is no longer so shocking.

We introduce our third guest blogger of our monthly series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary, Jay Baer,  who writes in the below blog, on forward thinking social media programs and their composition.

Jay Baer is one of the world’s most popular social media strategy consultants and bloggers. His Convince & Convert social media blog is consistently ranked among the top business blogs, and he speaks to tens of thousands of marketers annually at conferences and conventions. Founder of five companies, he’s a digital marketing pioneer that started online in 1994. He’s worked with more than 700 brands since then, including 25 of the Fortune 1000 (Nike, Pepsi, Sony, Cadbury, Conoco/Phillips, Procter & Gamble). He’s a tequila-loving forest dweller with a passion for tequila, and spreads his “strategy first, then tactics” message like a digital dandelion.

I’m sitting in a restaurant in Cincinnati last night, surrounded by televisions with the sound turned down. The bartender approaches, and asks if I’d like to hear the TV. I say “sure” expecting him to saunter over to a monitor, and turn up the volume. Instead, he reaches under the bar, and pulls out a Soundog unit.

The Soundog is an ingenious device – a small, personal speaker with switching capabilities, enabling me to listen to whichever game I prefer without bothering nearby patrons.

Happily using this handy new technology, I was struck by its utter usefulness and the fact that it neatly addressed a common (although perhaps not world-changing) problem.

Why can’t your social media program do that?

The difference between “selling” and “helping” is only two letters, but the gap is in reality, much larger.

The best – and most effective – social media programs aren’t based on promotions and message distribution. Instead, they revolve around removing friction and uncertainty for potential or current customers.

Nationwide Insurance has a terrific iPhone app that allows you to document a vehicle crash in real-time, including photos, collection of the other drivers’ insurance information, and other key details. They aren’t trying to sell you more insurance – at least not at that point – they are being helpful.

Geek Squad makes its living providing technology configuration and repair services, via BestBuy stores everywhere. But yet Geek Squad has a YouTube channel that includes hundreds of videos showing people how to do it themselves. They aren’t trying to sell you services – at least not at that point – they are being helpful.

Geek Squad Founder Robert Stephens was asked about the contradiction of a services company providing helpful videos at a conference where I spoke. He said that the reality is, their best customers are those that can do some of it themselves. If they can assist them initially, they’ll appreciate it and turn to the when they need more help.

That’s understanding the difference between selling and helping. That’s understanding that social media success is a long putt, not a tap-in. That’s measuring results on an annual basis, not a weekly basis.

That’s what you should be doing.

Start today by conducting a Helpfulness Audit for your company. Talk to your customer service department, or survey your customers and document the top 10 problems that customers have with your product or service. Then, strategize ways you could make those problems disappear by providing better content (as with Geek Squad), faster response (as with Nationwide), or better access to help (as many companies are doing by launching online customer support communities using Get Satisfaction or other systems).

Our agency opened its doors on March 25^th 1985. It’s been a quarter of a century, today. It’s our day…

We are privileged to have been a witness to some of the most accelerated changes in history — moments that occurred from 1985, the year of our founding, to today — moments in time that have impacted not only history, but the PR consciousness and subsequently changed the ‘way it was’ from that ‘moment’ forward.  Recognizing this, we set out to put it all into some perspective to crystallize these impactful moments.

Our choice of 25 PR Defining Moments, over our 25 years, is capsulated in the video below.

We sought out ideas for our list from our colleagues, PR professionals and journalists, asking them to submit their ideas.  The criteria for inclusion was that the ‘moment in time’ over the last quarter of a century, had to have found its place in history or altered the way we live our lives, and also had to have impacted change within the context of public relations.  The ‘moments’ submitted could have influenced a lifestyle change, unfurled a technology that would change the way we lead our everyday lives, spotlighted a news happening through an inadvertent camera shot, or changed a political order or the societal landscape.

What we got was astounding, way more than 25…

So we chose our moments, from the many, and listed them in random order, so that we would be free to include ‘moments’ that fit our criteria, rather than be limited to the year in which they occurred.

If you wish, please let us know about ‘your moment’ that is not on our list via: Twitter @PollackPRMktg with a #25PR hashtag, comment on the blog, or email to info@ppmgcorp.com.

• Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
• The Televised Car Chase
• September 11, 2001
• The Cola Wars of the 1980s
• US Airways Flight 1549
• Fall of the Berlin Wall
• War Time Coverage
• Demi Moore’s Cover for Vanity Fair
• Real-Time Communication
• Barack Obama’s Social Media Election Campaign of 2008
• Dan Rather Exits As News Anchor
• First Dot Com Web Domain
• Debut of Roger & Me
• Gen-Y Changes the Playing Field
• Demise of Seattle News Institution
• The Rise of Pundits
• The Oprah “Effect”
• Reality Television
• Mosaic Browser Introduction
• Entertainment As News
• Product Craze
• Death of Princess Diana Media Implications
• Faux News Scandal
• First Blog Post
• You!

The world’s largest soda brands face off in a battle for market share and brand loyalty dividing the country into two distinct groups of rival soda drinkers. The cola wars brought consumer engagement to a new level as brand choice was viewed as a lifestyle decision.

->Back to 25 PR Defining Moments

->View the Complete List

Numbering over 70 million and spending over 200 billion dollars annually, Gen Y has changed the playing field for marketers. Immune to traditional marketing tactics, marketers had to reinvent themselves in order to reach the Gen-Y target, effectively flipping the marketing equation in just a few years.

->Back to 25 PR Defining Moments

->View the Complete List

Compiled By The Pollack PR Marketing Group, The List Is A Collaborative Effort Of

Colleagues, Journalists And PR Professionals

LOS ANGELES (March 25, 2010) – As part of the celebration of its 25th anniversary, The Pollack PR Marketing Group (PPMG), an integrated PR and marketing agency, released today a list of 25 PR Defining Moments that occurred from 1985, the year of its founding, to today — PR moments in time that impacted not only history, but the PR consciousness and subsequently changed the ‘way it was’ from that moment forward.

Several months ago, the agency sent out a call to colleagues, PR professionals and journalists, requesting them to submit their ideas for such a list.  The criteria set for inclusion was that the ‘moment in time’ over the last quarter of a century, had to have found its place in history or altered the way we live our lives, and also had to have impacted change within the context of public relations industry.  The ‘moments’ submitted could have influenced a lifestyle change, unfurled a technology that would change the way we lead our everyday lives, spotlighted a news happening through an inadvertent camera shot, or changed a political order or the societal landscape.

According to Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Noemi Pollack, “What first prompted the making of such a list is that over our 25-years we have been witness to some of the most accelerated changes in history.  As such, we wanted to put it all into some perspective to crystallize these impactful moments in time. Clearly, we recognized that many more than 25 ‘PR moments” would qualify for the list, so this list represents our choices of the numerous ones that were submitted. We chose to present the selected 25 in random order, so that we would be free to include ‘moments’ that fit our criteria, rather than be limited to the year in which they occurred.”

The agency was founded on the 25th of March in 1985, as Pollack & Setzer by senior strategists Noemi Pollack and Paul Setzer.  Almost two years later, at the time that Setzer left the firm to pursue a focus on advertising and graphic design, the agency was renamed The Pollack PR Marketing Group.  In the ensuing years, the agency continued its early focus on consumer products and services and, in recent years, has expanded its niche to include online and offline consumer branded engagement.

Fourteen years after its founding, the agency became a partner in The WORLDCOM Public Relations Group, a consortium of 110 agencies in 94 world markets, which added the collective resources and talents of 2,200 professionals that creatively and collaboratively handle small to large scale local, national and international public relations and marketing campaigns, seamlessly.

Additional plans for the year-long celebration include: developing and posting videos on the 25th of every month of forward-thinking communication concepts and ideas that incorporate evolving communication trends, as well as concepts that can support smoother adoption of ‘change’ by corporations – globally; a community relations “roll-up-your-sleeves” plan, whereby each agency professional gets an opportunity to work an 8-hour day at a charity of their choice on the 25th of every month and, in return, the agency will offer a donation to each charity; a monthly guest blogger column on the agency’s blog on the 25th of every month; and, of course, social festivities.

To date, guest blogger contributors include: futurist and author, David Houle, sales “guru” Jeffrey Gitomer; social media strategist, Jason Baer, author and sales strategist, Tom Searcy; PR publisher, Paul Holmes; and journalist, James Flanagan.

Says Noemi Pollack, “When we think of ourselves as a quarter of a century old, the longevity in that phrase really astounds,” and adds, ”We look forward to the next 25.”

ABOUT THE POLLACK PR MARKETING GROUP

The Pollack PR Marketing Group (PPMG) based in Century City, CA, is a 25-year old mid-sized, multi-specialty agency that develops communication platforms and programs, manages corporate reputations, launches new products and services and promotes consumer brand engagement for clients ranging from innovative start-ups, to Fortune 500 companies, with a focus on consumer products, technologies and services. PPMG is a partner in The WORLDCOM Public Relations Group, a consortium of over 100 partners with offices around the world. For more information, visit http://www.ppmgcorp.com, or http://www.pollackblog.com, or follow us on Twitter @PollackPRMktg.

According to Richard Branson, founder of Virgin America, the long-standing marketing credo that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” is being put to the test by a new marketing tactic for the airline.   According to a Wall Street Journal article headlined, “Airline Floats Trial Balloon With ‘Fly Girl’ Reality Show,” the airline is producing a new reality show featuring five of its female flight attendants bickering, partying, and worrying about their love lives while living together in a sumptuous ‘crash pad.’ The airline is clearly hoping that the publicity and viewership it will garner will boost airline revenues from its loosing streak that it has been on since its launch in 2007.

According to Porter Gale, vice president of marketing of the San Francisco-based carrier, “the TV series will have an amplifier effect and we will get exposure, press and buzz,” while Virgin America spokeswoman Abby Lunardini said the series, “is definitely a calculated risk.”

I agree with Abby’s comment. The show is somewhat outmoded. Making it a “girlie show” in light of the nation’s 100,000 male flight attendants and 33% of the nearly 500 at Virgin America alone, seems to be a branding disconnect.  Moreover flight attendants have evolved long ago from the image of “stewardesses” who were required to wear girdles, submit to weigh-ins and quit if they married or became pregnant. Having flight attendants portrayed as party girls in search of fun and adventure is out of sync with the edginess that even the high-flying Branson has infused in the brand.  It’s downright old fashioned and, if anything, it goes against his personal branded image.

Moreover, picking out “IFBs,” or in-flight boyfriends, as seen in the ‘Fly Girl’ Reality Show, is so not real, nor cool in 2010.   It is insulting to the professional women who are not the 20s something selected as actors depicting what is perceived as “life up in the air.”

Totally disagree with Branson.  There is nothing “good” about bad publicity.  It can damage a brand’s image and impact consumers’ opinions of a company or product and can certainly be held up for ridicule, as I think Fly Girl will.  If the reality show accomplishes anything at all, it will produce the negative publicity that Branson embraces, but certainly not net loyalty or increased revenues.

Anyone remember the 1967 novel “Coffee, Tea or Me”?  Here it is again, this time around as a reality show.

Maybe it is because of today’s economy that has resulted in desperate times for marketers, but it has become blatantly obvious that marketers of leading brands are playing “war games” with their competitors, as they fight harder to win or retain market share.  In particular, leading up to the Holiday Season, which is kicking off on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, could have been the motivator for engaging in desperate measures, negative or not.

Witness the recent Verizon ad that showed a map of the US with dots as to ATT ‘s cell phone coverage.  It showed vast empty spaces, clearly implying that ATT has limited coverage, prompting an immediate suit from ATT for false claims. Verizon shot back that “the truth hurts,” and defending its claims.   Lawyers suddenly became very busy.

These games are not new, but have been escalating in numbers unseen before and to the point of willfully misleading consumers and, more significantly, impacting sales on all sides.

Most claims are much over nothing.

For example Pantene versus Dove, has Pantene attacking Dove’s claim that its conditioner “repairs” hair better, while Science Diet versus Iams, has that company claiming that “No other dog food stacks up like Iams.”  Campbell Soup versus Progresso, had a particular damaging ad, when Campbell soup said its Harvest lines of soup are “Made with TLC,” while competitor Progresso’s soups are “Made with MSG.” And then there was Direct TV, who a few months ago had a banner straight across its ad, claiming that competitor Charter Cable’s bankruptcy, would affect its service.  Charter sued and lawyers became busier.

Interesting that it is the dueling marketers that are forcing their competitors to show proof, rather than the “watchdog,” an advertising division of the FTC, which requires by law to have a reasonable factual basis for their commercials.  But filing a complaint with the National Advertising Division, even though a cheaper route than going to court is voluntary and has no legal power.  Defending claims therefore, requires companies to delve into minutiae, as in supplying test results, providing proof for statements and seeking experts to substantiate it all.

These war games are really desperate measures, replacing well thought-out campaigns with messaging unique to the brand.

Here’s what I have to say to marketers that engage in such wars: there has to be a marketing strategy that becomes the basis for all forms of communications, be it advertising, public relations, promotions or digital marketing, one that provides the directional thought for driving a brand forward, without resorting to slamming the competition simply because of a dearth of creative and persuasive messaging, which should win the hearts and minds of consumers.  Deliberate misinformation or negative implications vis-à-vis competitors only weakens a brand at a time when social engagement, i.e., “befriending” consumers, is imperative to the success of a brand.

Here’s another thought:  attacking and suing is one way of getting publicity, albeit negative.  It’s a by-product, but I certainly hope that it is not part of any plan.

Advertisers are on the prowl again, this time around with checks in hand, to recruit Twitterers via the newly launched Sponsored Tweets, a new Twitter advertising platform that connects advertisers with Twitterers.  Now, those who tweet as a lifestyle (really most, per the headline in ClickZ, July 30, 2009, “Twitter Surpasses Facebook as Top Link in E-mail”) have the opportunity to get paid by advertisers for their tweets when tweeting about products and companies.

Well, there goes the “neighborhood,” so to speak, or the end of Twitter as we know it…

Look, getting paid for blogging about a company’s product, etc. is not new. It’s known as a “sponsored conversation,” which is a social media marketing technique in which brands provide financial or material compensation to bloggers in exchange for posting social media content about a product, service or website.  In fact I devoted a blog to the topic last June 11, titled “The FTC Steps in, Lightly” questioning the credibility of paid bloggers and noting FTC’s watchful eye hovering over it all.

And now enters the next iteration of “paid-for-opinions” online, in the pay-per-tweet platform. It somehow seems more invasive with Twitter, which originally was set up as a quick communication path for keeping up, almost hourly, with the minutest details of everyday life with friends near and far.  It even became a conduit for transmitting first hand news in real time (as in the plane that landed in the Hudson River trumping all news outlets).

This all begs the question, “how much is your Twitter soul worth?” Getting paid for tweets really sounds like a Twitter “sellout” to me…

By all accounts, I have plenty of company in that thought.  Per Mashable’s Adam Ostrow, “Personally, I think any review – on a blog or on Twitter – is immediately de-valued if the author is being paid to write it, because the objectivity is lost.” And according to an article that appeared on Mashable on the launch of Sponsored Tweets, “when you throw Twitter in the mix, there’s always the potential that your followers won’t understand that your sponsored tweet has been commissioned, even with the obligatory “hashtag” (or disclosure in the ad copy, which may, in the hurry to scan 140 characters, easily be overlooked).

Still, looking at the brighter side of things, it’s not really a bad thing for those unemployed Twitterers, and could potentially be seen as a “boost” to the hordes of still unemployed whose unemployment benefits may soon be at the brink of running out.  It could mean pocket change, a lively entrepreneurial business or a potential goldmine for Twitterers who can set their pay rate and find opportunities to tweet on behalf of advertisers, getting paid per tweet and/or click.

Interestingly enough, the cost per tweet (CPT) does not run cheap for the advertiser.  It can run between $2 and $30,000 per tweet for a 140-character message. The message goes from one Twitter account to as many people as the person has following.

Apparently there are already 200 paid Twitterers, among them celebrities who are ready and willing to be compensated for the appropriate Twitter advertising campaign.  I suspect that Sponsored Tweets will have a runaway crowd of Twitterers waiting in the wings for advertisers to beckon.

As it turns out, George Orwell’s science fiction book titled “1984” was not quite on target, as we look back 25 years later. Its futuristic predictions had a “Big Brother” watching, literally on screens everywhere, our every move in a totalitarian society that would dictate how we were allowed to live, what we could read, watch and do — basically turning us into a will-less robotic society.  Happily that’s not what happened, for unlike the Orwellian futuristic story, nobody is watching.

However, ‘They,’ whether Big Brother or other, are taking “copious notes…”

It’s well understood that a mountain of information is known about our offline lives like income, credit score, home ownership, what car we drive, etc.  It’s also well known that our every move online is traceable, through a technology known as computer “cookies” (a small text file which contains a unique ID tag, placed on your computer by a website). But now comes the news, as reported by Stefani Clifford on the front page of the New York Times, July 31, headlined “Ads Follow Web Users and get Deeply Personal,” that technology has made possible fatter and better “cookies” – ones that connect our offline information to consumers’ browsers.

Just think of a delicious wafer cookie, with a layer of cream in between two wafers.  Now add an extra layer of cream (your hereto private information or real world data) and bingo! — marketers and advertisers start salivating. In this case not at the taste, but at the opportunity to now take out the guesswork involved in online-only profiling. They can use this trove of information to show different products to people with different shopping habits, in many formats, i.e., ads, e-mail messages or semi-personalized Web pages.  Retailers that are already taking advantage of this tactic include Gap and Victoria’s Secret.

According to the article, this melding of offline information with online tracking will result in “a sea change in the way consumers encounter the Web.”

Although consumers can delete those “cookies” from their computers that allow such tracking, not many do and, according to the article, “it is easy for companies to add cookies without users noticing.”

This has an Orwellian feel to it, knowing that a lot of this is done invisibly.

In the book“1984”, it was the totalitarian government that intruded in the lives of private citizens.  It would seem that Corporate America is doing likewise, for nobody gave anyone permission to use the offline information to further typecast us as to our wants, dislikes and behavioral patterns.

To be fair, I suppose that there are benefits to this all around, not just for advertisers, marketers and companies showcasing products.  Even some consumers will be pleased to have their “wants” “come to them” based on their online profile, rather than go hunting themselves.

But what — are we going to make George Orwell right in becoming a will less society in which others do the choosing for us, those who now know what we think and want?  Do we want to be so predictable?  What about randomness? What about individuality?

In recent times there has been much discussion about online privacy issues.  I say this raises the bar on privacy concerns all around…

If you are a retailer in the time of an extended recession, what do you do when you open your doors and ever so few walk in?  Despair for one, panic, hand out pink slips or – innovate.

And that’s just what Best Buy did.  According to a report by Bloomberg news last week, headlined, “Best Buy Uses Twitter to Create Sales, Service Team” the company is first in reaching out to the Twitter community to search out people who really care about their consumer electronics – you know, those who chat about what’s new, what works, what brand has more clarity, where to find it, and so on.

Enter Best Buy’s Twelpforce, on July 19.  A clever play on combined words as in Tw for Twitter, elp, for the second half of help, and force as in sales, Best Buy’s 500 person sales team will engage with consumers by Twittering away, entering into 140-character conversations with those who are consumed with consumer electronics and want to devour as many facts, figures, technical tidbits, cost comparisons and whatever else anybody wants to know about consumer electronics.  And guess who will be their “sidekick”…

So, engage first, sales next.  How clever is that?  It has usually been the other way around as in “buy now, and call us if you need help.”

Considering that all this is innovative, we were curious and took a quick straw poll over the 4th of July weekend, as to whether Best Buy’s “Twelpforce” Use Of Twitter To Create Sales Is Hot Or Not.  We found some surprises.  When asked by age groups, 18-24, 25-34. 35-54, and over 55, it was the youngest group that was 100% not sure whether it was a good use of Twitter.  In contrast, the two middle age groups thought it was good use by an average of 60%.  When asked by gender, women outweighed men as to a positive use of Twitter, by 67% to 56%.  When asked by different job categories, more surprises came up. It turned out that academics, marketing and PR people were 100% not sure whether it was a good use of Twitter, while product and sales people were 100% sure.

It’s clear that the jury is still out.  But you have to hand it to them. It’s that old line, that if buyers don’t come to you, go to them.  Traditionally it’s been about going to them through advertising, promotions and coupons.  But this time around it’s the contemporary way, actually going to where their potential customers hang out, listening to what their “wants” are, and communicating directly one-on-one.

Moreover, it’s a frugal way, for it leverages the downtime of employees in the stores. By tapping the Twitter platform, Best Buy has basically made a “pay forward” move, which should pay off in brand loyalty down the road and translate into sales.   It is also the first, to take the next evolutionary step for how sales and service can meld with Twitter.

Marketers take note…

I take great exception to the title of Michael Arrington’s “Facebook Blows A Whopper Of An Opportunity” read on TechCrunch today.  I would have entitled it the reverse “Red-Faced Facebook Belatedly Shuts Down Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice Fiasco. “ OK, so they shut it down, but for the wrong reasons, citing privacy.

C’mon.  Considering that Facebook’s “mantra” is for users to amass friends and create a platform for interactive communication, why was it ever OK, even for one day, one hour, to run any campaign that encourages the dumping of friends, no matter how faceless they are?

Sure, I can understand that any of our consumer product clients would want to grab the attention of 150 million Facebook users, a number that amounts to half the population of the entire United States, and garner brand engagement with just one or two clicks.

But this is not the wild, wild, west anymore, where anything goes. The potential to tap such a mass audience must be accompanied with careful strategy and not go against the very principles upon which Facebook was founded.

And dumping friends is never acceptable, not even for the love of money.