PyroMarketing for PCPA

I just shared my PyroMarketing message with PCPA, and organization of denominational Christian publishers that meet annually in Nashville.  I promised to post the slides online so that no one in the audience would get carpel tunnel trying to take notes.

Please let me know if I can help your company market its products this way, train your staff, or help you rein-vision your company in light of the changes wrought by the digital revolution.  Spread the fire. GS

Download Pyromarketing for pcpa

"Milk-a-what?" Is the Lindsay Lohan - E*Trade lawsuit a publicity stunt?

Lindsay Lohan has emerged from rehab long enough to file a $100 million lawsuit against E*Trade Financial.  Lohan claims the milkaholic "Lindsay" character in E*Trade's latest television commercial is based on her and that she should have paid something--or a hundred million somethings--as compensation.  Sheesh, I guess whoever cast Lohan in Mean Girls knew what they were doing.

This story was all over the news yesterday.  Each time someone covered it, they replayed the advertisement.  Each time they blogged about it they described the ad, or linked to it.  E*Trade and Lindsay Lohan got millions of dollars worth of traditional and social media exposure.  And that got me to thinking...

What if this is just a publicity stunt?  What if E*Trade and Lindsay Lohan have been in cahoots from the beginning?  Did the agency agree to pay Lohan a fee if she would file a patently ridiculous lawsuit because they knew that such a story would be irresistible to the media and gossip hounds?  Have the media been played like a Stradivarius?  I think this is a distinct possibility.

Pay attention to how this turns out.  If it's legit, then Lohan will pursue it through the courts until she gets a verdict.  But I predict another outcome.  I predict that either Lohan will drop the suit entirely or that the parties will "agree to settle out of court for an undisclosed sum (Lohan's payment for participating?)."  Call me a cynic, but my theory seems the most logical explanation for such an absurd suit.

Spread the fire. GS

PyroMarketing creates promotional plan for Bob Garfield's new book

Last June I created Stielstra Publishing in order to help Bob Garfield of Advertising Age and National Public Radio publish a wonderful book he wrote called The Chaos Scenario.  It is about the historic re-ordering of media and marketing brought about by a revolution in digital technology. It explores how traditional advertising tactics are being replaced by entirely new digital and social platforms.  You can learn more at www.thechaosscenario.net.

I helped Bob bring the book to life and also created and implemented its marketing.

Last week, I submitted the book to the IPPY Awards.  The IPPY's honor the year's best independently published books.  We entered The Chaos Scenario in three categories; Business, Current Events and Best Book Marketing.  Winners will be announced in May at an awards banquet in New York, just prior to the American Booksellers Convention.

For the Business and Current Events categories judges will consider the book itself.  For Best Book Marketing, however, we had to submit support materials highlighting what we had done and why those efforts might deserve the honor.

I am proud of the work we did on this book and thought you might like to see the elements of the plan.  So, here's a pdf of the The Chaos Scenario Marketing Overview.

Do you need help marketing your book?  Give PyroMarketing a call at 615-812-3821 or send me an email using the contact link on this blog. Spread the fire. GS

Simply Superb: Google's Super Bowl Ad is what I was searching for.

Way to go Google.  Your "Parisian Love" Super Bowl ad was brilliant and my favorite by a wide margin.  What's more, you created it yourself. Kudos.

Though the Super Bowl is too often a celebration of excess, your ad was simple and that helped it stand out. An intriguing whisper in a room full of loud-mouth hucksters. 

It's simplicity was also true to your brand.  The Internet can also be overwrought, yet your home page remains elegantly simple. 

Your ad told a story--a charming story.  Your ad evoked emotion.  Your ad engaged me as a viewer because I participated.  I read the search queries and the results.  Adding a soundtrack that paired associated sound effects with the words I was reading further reinforced the spot in my memory.  Very nice.

Not only did your ad show the product (Levi's tried selling pants by showing people who didn't wear any.  Huh?), it allowed me to experience it and its various features.  It showed me how to use Google and reminded my why I should. Spread the fire. GS

Here's a link to all of the Super Bowl ads and ad critic Bob Garfield's thoughts on each.

Could we be headed toward a world without advertising?

Here is an interesting discussion about possible business models for social media.  What does the search for profits mean for the future of social media?.

Social media are exploding as more and more people use social media platforms (up 82% from last year according to Nielsen). But the big providers--MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.--still haven't figured out how to make any money.  Meanwhile, their business expenses are increasing and their investors are clamoring for a return.  They need to make a profit.  But how?

Murder - Suicide
This has serious implications for marketers.  Social media stole people's time and attention from traditional media outlets, reducing the size of their audiences and the prices they could charge for advertising.  What's more, the infinite availability of ad inventory online drove traditional media ad prices down even further and often to unprofitable levels. 

This double-whammy wreaked havoc with traditional media like newspapers, magazines and television; forcing them to operate on the slimmest of margins.  Many couldn't and went out of business altogether.  Read The Chaos Scenario by Bob Garfield for a great review of the entire process.  (Full disclosure: I helped him publish the book)

Meanwhile, the social media companies that ran them off aren't making any money at all.  Which, I don't need to tell you, is a difficult business model to sustain.  If they can't achieve profitability soon, their demise could be next.

Could we be headed toward a world without traditional OR social media?  Not everyone would mind.  A 2003 Yankelovich survey found that a third of Americans would accept a slightly lower standard of living in exchange for a world free from advertising.  If social media don't discover a profitable business model--and soon--those people might just get their wish. 

Spread the fire. GS

Decisions: Timing Can Matter More Than Choice

It's been a little over a year since Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger successfully landed his crippled jet in the Hudson River, sparing the lives of everyone on board.  On January 15 those survivors met and traveled by boat to the spot where the plane went down.  At precisely 3:31 p.m., the moment of impact, they raised their glasses in a toast to the pilot whose skills had allowed each of them to grow a year older.

There are many reasons to praise Captain Sullenberger. He remained calm throughout a difficult situation.  He expertly guided the plane so it would glide atop the water rather than cartwheel across it.  The list goes on and on.  But what amazes me most is the timing of his decision to land the plane in the river.

After striking a flock of birds and losing thrust from both engines, the air traffic controller suggested returning to LaGuardia and later, Teterboro airport in New Jersey (You can hear the air traffic control audio in the video below).  Planes are supposed to land at airports. Sullenberger must have preferred those options.  And yet, he made the decision to land in the river and he made it in time to execute it.  If he had clung to his hope for a better alternative any longer, he would have lost ALL of his options and, likely, the lives of those on board.

When making decisions, timing matters.  Are you faced with a decision and holding out for the best option, but risking all of your options in the process?  What if you landed in the river instead?  You might find yourself toasting your choice in a year. Spread the fire. GS

Social Media Marketing's Two Essential Ingredients

There are two ingredients essential to effective social media marketing, yet I've noticed that most people focus on only one.

When it comes to social media, most people tend to focus on technology.  "What's the hot new app?" "Are we on Twitter?"  But that approach is incomplete.  An understanding of human behavior (psychology:how we behave individually and sociology:how we behave in groups) is just as necessary. 

Just because people "can" do something (technology) doesn't mean they "will" (human behavior).  After all, people can still read newspapers, but increasingly they don't because other, new technologies enable them to do things they prefer; like connecting with friends or people who share their interests.

By understanding how natural human inclinations intersect with the technology that constrains or enables those inclinations it becomes possible to anticipate how people will respond, and that makes for effective marketing.

Spread the fire. GS

How Social Media Changes the Way Brands Communicate

We Interrupt This Program

The Martians landed just after eight o’clock on the evening of October 30, 1938 in Grovers Mill, New Jersey and promptly incinerated its residents with their heat rays.  At least that’s how it seemed to the six million people listening to Mercury Radio Theater’s infamous broadcast adaptation of H. G.  Wells’ classic novel War of the Worlds.  The program began, harmlessly enough, with the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra but was soon interrupted by news bulletins about unexplained atmospheric changes, strange explosions on Mars, space craft landing near farms, and eventually, by eye-witness accounts of the murderous Martian conquest as it advanced amid plumes of poisonous gas through futile defenses toward New York City.

Panic ensued. 

Despite repeated disclaimers throughout the broadcast, nearly a third of the listening audience thought the attack was real, according to some estimates.  People variously hid in basements, readied weapons, or prayerfully knelt in churches anticipating the end of the world. 

The War of the World’s broadcast is more than a curiosity from our past.  It contains an important lesson for marketers.  The circumstances that transformed Radio Theater into panic that night also empowered advertising for the last century, but no more.   

Well Connected to Mass Media, Poorly Connected to Each Other

A single radio broadcast could incite widespread panic because people were well connected to mass media but poorly connected to each other.  At the time of the broadcast nearly 80 percent of American homes had a radio while only 36 percent had a telephone.  This meant nearly everyone could hear the gruesome reports dispatched from New Jersey, but few could corroborate their validity.  Without other sources of information radio’s authority was absolute.

During the last century, one-way mass media technologies were developed before and adopted more quickly than two-way interpersonal communications.  AM radio debuted in the 1920’s followed by television twenty years later.  FM radio arrived in the 1960’s and the 70’s produced cable TV and the VCR.  By 1962 90 percent of American homes had a television and a radio, but it would be almost ten more years before the same percentage homes also had a telephone! 

By contrast, technologies that allow us to communicate with each other like the cellular telephone, the pager, the fax machine, the answering machine, the camcorder, message boards, the PC, digital cameras, and the Internet are products of the last twenty five years.  Innovations like VOIP, Instant Messaging, Blogs, Twitter, video conferencing, and online social networks are more recent; many of them emerging within the last five.

Another reason for mass media’s rapid adoption was its instant utility.  When people bought a radio or a TV and switched it on, the broadcasters’ signals were already present.  By contrast, interpersonal communications devices like the telephone had no value until a person’s friends and family also had them.

Not only did interpersonal communications lack instant utility, they cost more too.  Local TV and radio signals arrived freely but a telephone call to a friend in another town incurred long distance charges and those charges increased with distance.  These differences rewarded people for consuming free mass media but penalized them for connecting with their friends.

Communities of Convenience

When people are well connected to mass media but poorly connected to each other, as they were for most of the last century, they tend to organize by proximity into communities of convenience.  Unable to find programming or relationships that precisely match their interests, people settle for those that are physically near.  For most of the last century people watched local television, read their local newspaper, and listened to local radio.  Their best friend probably lived next door.

These circumstances produced the traditional mass advertising model where brands blanketed metropolitan areas with advertising monologues through mass media.   DMA’s were simply communities of convenience defined by the coverage limitations of the mass media at their center. 

This model worked wonderfully for the latter half of the last century until two trends that began in the 1980’s tipped in the new millennium.

Loosely Connected to Mass Media, Well Connected to Each Other

Over the last twenty five years, technology spawned new media vehicles whose specialized programming splintered audiences into ever-smaller niches.   During the decade of the sixties an advertiser could reach 80 percent of all the women in America by running a single spot simultaneously on the three television networks.  A similar “roadblock” today would require hundreds of channels at a prohibitive cost.

Expanding channel choices did not similarly expand people’s range of interests. Between 1994 and 2003 the number of televisions channels available to the typical American grew from 40 to 100 but the number of channels they actually watched rose only from 10 to 14.  So, while more channels increased consumption slightly overall, individual audiences shrank. 

As advertisers wrung their hands over media fragmentation another equally important but less visible trend was changing the advertising landscape; Consumers were connecting to each other on an unprecedented scale. 

Between 1984 and 2006 cell phone subscribers in the United States exploded from 340,000 to more than 233 million.  Each month the average American spends 13-22 hours wirelessly talking with friends, relatives and business associates.  Americans sent a trillion text messages last year and that figure is increasing at 154% per month.

Blogs, virtually nonexistent five years ago, number more than 57 million today and the number is doubling every 230 days according to Technorati.  Globally, there are 1.3 million new posts per day—about 15 per second.  Thanks to blogs and the search engines that find them, anyone can have a global platform for expressing their ideas.

Eighty four percent of Americans are in online communities.  MySpace swelled from two million members in 2004 to more than 160 million today and that figure doesn’t include members of Facebook, Orkut, Bebo, Hi5, Eon, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and the other social networking websites linking friends, students, and business associates through text, photos, and video. 

We video conference on the Internet, share photos from cell phones, express creativity on YouTube, collaborate on wikis, and communicate moment to moment with IM, Chat, Twitter, Voice Mail, MMS, faxes, and email.

These changes matter to advertisers because much of the attention people once reserved for commercial media, they now devote to each other.  More significantly, this shift has altered the way people organize with each other and it is this change, more than any other, which has altered the marketing landscape. 

 A New Way for a New Day

The circumstances that enabled mass marketing in past decades are reversed.  Today people are loosely connected to mass media but well connected to each other.  Under these conditions people organize by affinity into communities of interest.   They can now find the programming and relationships that precisely match their interests and connect to them.

“Homophily,” a term meaning, “love of same,” describes people’s natural tendency to gather with similar others.  Impossible previously, these days the Internet lets people find and build community with others who share their passions and interests; whether religious beliefs, political leanings, or passions for a hobby.   Once people find similar others, cheap interpersonal communications technologies help them sustain those relationships over time and great distance. In this new world markets are defined by people’s passions and interests not media coverage maps or even geography.  Atlanta is no longer a market.  Atlanta is merely a city.  Interests like a love for hiking or Ty food or the Green Bay Packers, now define markets.

What’s more, the connected consumer is more than advertising’s target; he or she is also a conduit through which brand messages flow.

Interest-Centric Planning
For decades most planning has been media centric.  Decide a media mix, select some DMA’s, and run your ad campaign.  That’s fine when people organize by proximity, but less effective when consumers organize around interests.  Today brands must identify affiliation networks whose interests identify them as likely customers and connect with them first.

Monologue vs. Trialogue
In this new era, advertisers must employ a “trialogue” where brands connect to consumers, consumers can contact brands, and consumers are encouraged to communicate with each other. 

Passive to Active
People used to watch whatever came their way.  Now they seek out precisely what they like when they want it. This requires brands to establish a permanent presence like a website and a blog because you don’t know when people may be searching.

Centralized to Decentralized Distribution
Time was when advertisers spoke to everyone through centralized media.  The advertiser was the hub.  Now there is no hub.  Everyone speaks to everyone else. The gatekeeper is gone.

Consumer is a Channel
Every person is a station broadcasting to an audience of friends, family, and coworkers via email, telephone, Instant Message and other new technologies.  Each has a direct audience numbering in the hundreds and increasing to millions just three degrees away. But be careful. Don’t trespass on interpersonal communications technologies.  The cell phone belongs to the consumer, not the advertiser. The question isn’t “how can you place your ad on their phone?”  The question is, “What will cause them to voluntarily add your brand to their programming?” 

Finally, to thrive in the new marketing environment, you must recognize and accommodate a few other changes.

Then	Now
Centralized Message Distribution: Few-to-Many	Decentralized Message Distribution: Many-to-Many
Media-Centric Planning: What media shall we buy?	Consumer Centric Planning: Which people must we reach?
Passive Consumption: Consumer is the target	Active Participation: Consumer is a channel
Monologue: Brands preach at “consumers.”	Trialogue: Brands to people, people to brands, and people to each other.
Geographic Borders: Markets are defined geographically.	Ideological Borders: Markets are defined ideologically.
Company Controls the Message: Brand perceptions were formed by advertising messages through institutional media the company controlled. No one else had a voice.	Consumer Controls the Message: Consumers speak for the brand by sharing their experiences through social media.  Brands merely influence the message by controlling the experience they give consumers.

 

The Chaos Scenario Educational Video

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll change your business model.  The Chaos Scenario is a movie and Bob Garfield plays himself.

Here is a 33-minute video by Fabian-Baber that takes you on a whirlwind tour through the changes to the traditional mass media/mass marketing symbiosis wrought by the digital revolution.  Garfield claims that "advertising no longer works" and introduces you to something that does; "the art and science of Listenomics."  Warning: Bob uses one naughty word about a minute into the video.

Consider sharing the video with your staff, you clients, or your college class and feel free to add it to your website, blog, or social media platform. 

This video is part of the 30 Days of Chaos program Bob and I created to help share the information in his book with the marketing and advertising industry.  Spread the fire. GS

The Chaos Scenario from Greg Stielstra on Vimeo.

Are Smoking, Obesity and even Happiness Contagious?

Obesity spreads like a virus.  So does smoking and even happiness. That's the finding of Nicholas Christakis, a social scientist and internist at Harvard and James Fowler, a political scientist at UC San Diego, who studied the records and social contacts of 5,124 male and female subjects from a heart study begun in 1948.

Their research revealed the profound influence of our social network on our decisions and behaviors--a wonderful affirmation of PyroMarketing.  For example, if one person in the study became obese, the likelihood that their friends would follow suit increased by 171 percent.  This means that a person's social network is more predictive of obesity than the presence of genes associated with the condition. 

Our social sphere also influences positive behaviors. When a subject in the study quit smoking, their friends were 36 percent more likely to quit as well, but the influence disappeared after three degrees of separation.

The influence was true for emotions too.  By evaluating the self-reported moods of people in the study, the researchers found that happy people tended to have happy friends.  What's more, this was also true online.  By studying smiles on Facebook profiles, they found the same pattern.  Social networks gather around joyful expressions.

The researchers didn't find any million dollar smiles, but they learned that almost every smile is worth $22,500.  That's because each happy friend increased an individual's happiness by 9 percent, while an extra $5,000 of income only increased it by 2 percent. 

The implications for marketers are significant.  If smoking, obesity and happiness spread through social networks, why not books, beer, and Snuggies?

Stop marketing to individuals, and start targeting social networks with a two-step strategy. Start with the driest tinder-- individuals within each network predisposed to your offer--and then leverage their influence to reach the rest of their group.  

You can find more information on the study in the current issue of Wired or in the book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.

Spread the fire. GS