Category Archives: Digital Marketing

There is No Blank Slate in Marketing

First published May 26, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

In 2002, Steven Pinker wrote a book called “The Blank Slate.” For 509 pages, Pinker argues that when it comes to our brains, and by extension, our minds, there is no such thing as a blank slate. While our destinies are not predetermined by our genes, there are certainly hardwired mechanisms that influence the paths we take.  It’s not solely nature or nurture, but a combination of both. Our minds are neither perfectly malleable plastic (the “blank slate” of behavioralists) nor are they cast in stone. In the end, you cannot deny human nature.

Recently, Google has been spending a lot of time talking about the Zero Moment of Truth, or ZMOT for short. In effect, they’re saying that when it comes to influencing a buyer, Pinker’s argument is also applicable. In marketing, as in psychology, there is no such thing as a blank Ssate.

Former Procter and Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley started this market-driven quest for truth a few years ago when he introduced the first and second moments of truth. The first (abbreviated as the FMOT) was when the customer is standing in front of the store shelf, trying to decide which package to pick up.  It’s been labeled the most important moment in all of marketing. The second moment of truth is what the customer actually experiences when she uses the product.

But Google, led by ZMOT evangelists including U.S. director of sales Jim Lecinski, is stepping backwards from the FMOT to show that there’s a whole chain of activity that now leads up to the FMOT, which has received the collective Zero Moment of Truth label. It appears that we marketers need a crystallization of the ultimate moment of decision where the balance of a consumer’s mind is tipped in favor of our product.  To use the blank slate metaphor, it’s the moment when the “brand” is seared into our cortical grey matter.

Google is correct in drawing attention to the substantial research that precedes most purchases. The biggest change in the marketplace has been the balancing of Akerlof’s information asymmetry in favor of the buyer. No longer does the seller hold all the cards in the typical transaction. We buyers research because we can. It’s the way we not only mitigate risk but also explore the expected utility of a purchase.  These are fundamental components of decision theory.  The mechanisms that drive decision theory haven’t changed, but the information available to us certainly has.

But even with all this access to information, we still approach buying decisions with our all-too-human biases and foibles. Our online research is filtered through brand beliefs and emotional prejudgments. Even on the search results page, that most brand-agnostic of advertising pallets, brand is a powerful predictor of behavior.  If we launch a search by using a generic product category term, we often have a short list of brands we expect to see bubble to the top of the results page. There is no blank slate here waiting to be impressed upon. There is a sometimes-vague notion of brand preference waiting to be confirmed by Google’s algorithm. And we scan the results page guided by our expectations and preconceptions.

The ZMOT landscape is a difficult thing to map. Google is providing some guidance through the new ebook,, with some practical advice for marketers. This should be a valuable addition to the marketer’s virtual bookshelf. Jim is a smart marketer and Google has privileged access to all of our ZMOT behavior. But, as with everything in marketing, there will be no hard and fast rules. One of the challenges in producing repeatable results in an experimental setting is to control the variables that could impact outcomes. But one of those variables is human nature, and when the experimental setting is marketing, you’re just going to have to accept the fact that there will always be a significant degree of unpredictability.

Uncovering the “Curse of Captiva”

First published May 5, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

“May you live in interesting times….”

Just about the time you’re reading that line, I’ll be kicking off the Search Insider Summit on Captiva Island, Fla., with it.  I think those six words pretty much sum up the theme of the three-day event.

Here’s the thing about that well-known quote – it’s both a blessing and a curse. On the surface, it appears to be a benevolent wish of good will, but lurking just under the surface lays a malevolent storm that can rip organizations and institutions apart.

The origins of the so-called “Chinese Curse” are murky, but according to Wikipedia, it may be related to the Chinese proverb: “It’s better to be a dog in peaceful times than to be a man in chaotic ones;” perhaps one reason why we should let “sleeping dogs lie.” This is all well and good if we have any choice in the matter, but we really don’t. Chaos, especially in our chosen field, is the new normal. Like it or not, we live in interesting times.

Personally, I like it, even though it can get exhausting at times. I’m one of those perverse individuals who thrive on chaos and change. If things become too placid for too long, my inclination is to get a big stick and stir things up. I’m driven by the belief that there must be a better way. But I know not everyone shares that view. For many, if not most, change brings uncertainty, which usually comes knocking with its traveling companions: stress and anxiety.

Change, in various forms, is pretty much all we’ll be talking about at Captiva. If change was a sure bet, a trading of the mediocre for the improved, there really wouldn’t be much to talk about. Change would be sought, embraced and systematically incorporated into everything we do.

The problem with change is that there are no guarantees ensuring you’ll end up in a better place. It’s tossing that which you know in the bucket and taking a chance on drawing a new lot in life that could be better, the same, or worse — perhaps much worse. And there’s the rub. Humans don’t approach such decisions rationally.

There’s a lot of unusual psychology at play here, covered by numerous economic behavioral theories like endowment effect, loss aversion, disposition effect and Kahneman and Tversky’s Prospect Theory. The long and the short of it is that most times, we believe a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. And attitudes of that sort generally freeze change right in its tracks. We have not evolved to be born risk takers. This tendency can create bizarre behaviors that defy logic: like investors being much more willing to sell stocks that have gained in value than those that have decreased. We’ve all done that, with the unshakable belief that we can recoup our losses. But a purely statistical analysis of that theory would blow it to smithereens.

Through most of our history, the genetic evidence would seem to vindicate this aversion to risk. That we’re still around points to its success as a survival strategy. But current times are not representative of our general history. There are times, this being one of them, when external factors in our environment force us to make changes and embrace risk. Those that hesitate are lost.

During these times, it’s the nimble and adaptable that thrive. Bulk and baggage are impediments. Reinvention is the name of the game. It’s the prerequisite of living in interesting times.

Search Breaks Out of the Box in Park City

First published December 9, 2010 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Wow! The Search Insider Summit is in full swing in Park City, Utah and for the first time in six or seven Summits, I’m not there. I don’t mind saying, it’s feeling kinda weird.

Laurie Sullivan and the team, including your emcee Aaron Goldman, did a bang-up job putting the show together. I did have some limited involvement, looking on from the sidelines as they lined up the speakers and nailed down the agenda. They’re touching on all the hot topics: the convergence of display and search, social and search (pretty much everything and search); new platforms to allow for more effective targeting; the ongoing changes on the SERP; using data to make smarter marketing decisions; and yes, once again, how mobile will change everything (and this time, it’s really true!).

The agenda is a broad one, reaching into virtually every aspect of online activity. And really, that’s what any search agenda has to be. One of the ongoing challenges of programming the past several Summits has been where to draw the line. Despite the best efforts of many to define the search “box,” search is not a box, a channel, or a tactic. It’s what we do. And as such, it connects everything. We search in social networks. We search on mobile. And if we happen to see an ad that triggers our interest, the odds are very good that we will — you guessed it — launch a search. So a Search Summit has to be, by necessity, a Social/Mobile/Testing/Analytics/Display/Target and Segmentation Summit. You can’t keep search in a box.

I started writing this column way back in 2004. Since then (for almost 300 columns), I’ve been watching how search has seeped into every nook and cranny of online behavior. It’s become the gold standard for intercepting a consumer with intent. Search inventory forms the core of any performance marketing strategy worth its salt. Most of the things Goldman and Company will be talking about, nestled in the silver frosted peaks of Utah, revolve around extending the accountability and performance of search into other channels. Once you’ve tasted the search Kool-Aid, it’s hard to settle for any other flavor. The problem is, of course, with the keyword-restricted limits on search inventory, there’s only so much Kool-Aid to go around.

But another thing struck me while I ran down the Summit agenda: we’re talking about things we would have never talked about in 2004. We’re talking about the users on the other side of that search interface as real live people, not just volume numbers in a keyword discovery tool. Tony Fagan from Google will be talking about how constant testing helps hone your marketing skills against actual behaviors. Eli Goodman from comScore will share some tasty data about how Google Instant is changing behaviors on the results page. And, of course, you can’t dive into social media without understanding how people behave when they’re traveling with the herd.

If there’s one thing I’ve found lacking in search marketing, it’s the “marketing” part of the industry. More often than not, search plays out as a technical exercise, full of algorithms, rules and tools, rather than what marketing should be: a drive to forge relevant connections to people with needs, fears and dreams. When I programmed the Summit, I always tried to bring that perspective to the stage. I’m glad to see Laurie and her team have also kept the human part of search very much alive at this Summit.

Have fun, Search Summiters. I’ll miss you (and will see you in Captiva)!

Google: Caught in the Act of Balancing

First published November 18, 2010 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

In last week’s column, I talked about the number of changes I was seeing on the Google results page, and, in particular, how they might maintain the delicate balance between driving revenue from the page and maintaining user trust. No sooner did the digital ink dry on the column than I received an email from an old friend, Chris Knoch, formerly of Omniture and now vice president of marketing at Ready Financial. In his email, Chris included a screen shot of a rather interesting beta that Google is running:

Google-Screen-ShotIt’s hard to say, given Google’s love for beta testing, how widely spread this test is and how indicative it might be of future ad presentations, but there are a number of fascinating implications to consider here. For today’s column, I’d like to focus on one of them: the elimination of the side ads.

Side ads generate a small percentage of the sponsored clicks from the page. For most results, the top two or three ads generate over 80% of the paid clicks on the page, with the seven or eight running down the right rail splitting the remaining 20%. That’s a lot of real estate to devote to underperforming ads. Will Google’s expandable alternative, with the user choosing to see eight more ads, generate more clicks? I suspect so. Here’s why.

We judge the relevance and quality of blocks of information as a group, rather than consider them individually. The first ad in any block will dictate the performance of the block as a whole. If it’s a high quality ad, it’s saying to the user, “I’m relevant. Chances are the rest of the ads in this group could be relevant too. At least, you should spend a few seconds deciding for yourself!” But if it’s a low quality ad, it sends the message, “Don’t waste your time here. I’m not relevant, and everything below me is even worse.”

For side ads, this means that the top ad determines the depth of scanning engagement with the entire block. The position and visual treatment of the ads reinforces that it’s a “sidebar”, of secondary importance to the main purpose of the page. We won’t invest a lot of time scanning here, and if the first ad sucks, the rest of the block is doomed.

Google’s treatment provides a compelling alternative to the user. It restricts the number of ads shown to only the highest quality ones (you’ll notice that this presentation appeared on a broad query, where there would be sufficient inventory to provide high quality ads). The ads should be just as relevant to the intent of the user as the organic results, and given the query, probably more relevant. The user should be hooked. The presentation of two ads (I’d bet big money on the fact that Google will be testing both two and three ad presentations above the “more ads” button) gives a ready-made consideration set for the user. We’ve known for some time now that users “chunk off” a result set in groups of two or three results (maximum four) and consider them as a group. There are natural visual barriers (the related search suggestions) that reinforce the visual presentation of the top ads as a group. What this means is that the user will judge relevancy, and if the first two (or three) ads pass the test, there’s a high likelihood that the set will be expanded.

When the set is expanded, the entire visual balance of the search results set is changed to the benefit of the advertisers, but the user initiates it. The user has given the ads an implicit vote of confidence, and by doing so, all organic results are pushed down out of visual scanning range. My guess is that this will result in much higher engagement with the ads, virtually eliminating the sidebar blindness that has typically plagued right-rail ads.

It’s a perfect example of maintaining user trust while driving more revenue. Based on this beta, I’d have to say, “Well done, Google!”

Google’s Recent Changes: Here There Be Monsters

First published November 11, 2010 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Something’s brewing in Mountain View. Google’s geared up the SAR (Screwing Around Rate) of its results page to unprecedented levels. We have Google Instant, Place Search and Google Previews all rolling out in the last few months. And from around the blogosphere, there’s rumors of testing that allows users to show 11 sponsored ads on top and also the telling switch of the label “Sponsored Links” to simply “Ads.” So what do Google strategists have up their sleeves?

The recent changes at Google prompted me to dig out a research paper we wrote a few years ago called “Search Engine Results: 2010.” In it, I interviewed Marissa Mayer along with a dream team of search pundits and usability experts. A lot of what we’re seeing today was hinted at in those interviews.

For example, Mayer said: “If you imagine the results page, instead of being long and linear, and having ten results on the page that you can scroll through — to having ten very heterogeneous results, where we show each of those results in a form that really suits their medium, and in a more condensed format. When you started seeing some diagrams, some video, some news, some charts, you might actually have a page that looks and feels more like an interactive encyclopedia.”

Michael Ferguson, who was the UX lead at Ask, which had just rolled out Ask 3D (which, in hindsight, was well ahead of its time), went further: “There might be a time you might see people advertising and providing content not just on web pages and blogs etc. but with short discrete self-contained video answers and audio answers that come up either as sponsored or relevant content. So you might have a breaking down of search marketing that takes some of the things that have been learned like optimization and designing good text ads and seeing how that would work when you’re delivering an audio 20 second pitch or delivering an audio content that drives traffic to your site.”

There’s a delicate balance that must be respected when you’re combining the presentation of advertising and the way we search for information. As the results themselves become increasing rich and interactive, advertisers won’t be very happy if the ads start to lag behind in terms of visual prominence. Mayer touched on this: “As you know, my theory is always that the ad should match the search results. So if you have text results, you have text ads, and if you have image results, you have image ads. So as the page becomes richer, the ads also need to become richer, just so that they look alive and match the page. That said, trust is a fundamental premise of search. Search is a learning activity.”

It’s this trust that makes the presentation of advertising a precarious proposition on the search results page. We’re not there to find ads, we’re there to find relevant information. If ads are highly relevant, we’re receptive. If they’re not, we’ll skip over them. We accept ads not as ads, but as potential paths to relevant information.

This is an important distinction. If ads start to look too much like ads we start to skip over them. And that decision is made in milliseconds, before the relevance of the information that lies on the other side of the ad is even considered.

This phenomenon is called banner blindness. Jakob Nielsen explains: “If they put up display ads, then they will start training people to exhibit more banner blindness, which will also cause them to not look at other types of multimedia on the page. So as long as the page is very clean and the only ads are the text ads that are keyword driven, then I think that putting pictures and probably even videos on there actually work well. The problem of course is they are inherently a more two dimensional media form, and video is 3 dimensional, because it’s two dimensional – graphic, and the third dimension is time, so they become more difficult to process in this linear type of scanned document ‘down the page’ type of pattern.”

I believe that Google is now responding to the multi-screen search challenge. Search on a desktop needs to be different than search on a mobile device or on a tablet. Mayer’s “encyclopedia” format makes sense here. But experimentation and the resulting change come at the potential price of alienating users.

Why have ads been the least changed part of the search page? It’s certainly not because advertisers have been demanding that they remain as boring lines of text. It’s because Google, along with Bing and Yahoo, are acutely aware of how important that trust is. The nature of our engagement with ads on a search page is far less straightforward than you might think. There’s a lot of subtle psychology at play here.  In the words of Hector Barbossa, “You’re off the edge of the map now mate, and here there be monsters!”

Google Defines “You” on the Fly

First published November 4, 2010 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Google’s ramping up of local results last week made me realize something: our Web presence is rapidly being taken out of our immediate control. Case in point, the Place Page.

Beyond the Walled Garden…

For over a year now, I’ve been pushing a mind shift to our clients, asking them to stop thinking of their online presence in terms of a “website” and more in terms of a portfolio of digital assets; some under their control and others either completely or partially out of their control. For every entity that lives online, there is a ripple effect. At the core is our website. Spreading out, usually with lessening degrees of control, are the “rings” of our presence: portal sites and extranets, mobile apps, information or products on channel partner sites, online ads, videos, interactions in the social space, comments, reviews, references and third-party apps that may access either our data or pieces of our functional infrastructure. The sum of all this is our online presence. As such, it is incumbent on us to be aware of what that looks like, and how visitors might interact with it.

The challenge is daunting for any company that has been online for a while. Even as an individual, according to Google I “live” online and in over 10,000 separate locations. And that’s just what can be easily identified in Google’s index. I suspect the number is even higher. Today’s column will have its own ripple effect, adding to the collective total of what is “Gord Hotchkiss.” My company’s online presence is the sum of over 25,000 individual parts.

Bringing the Web to Your Neighborhood

Now, consider a tiny two- or three-person company in some small town somewhere in America. The odds are pretty good that they may not even have a website, or if they do, it may not have made much of an impact on the vast ecosystem of the Web. At least, that’s been true up to now. But Google’s Place Pages provides a prescient view of how our Web presence might be defined.

Place Pages aggregates at least some of the various pieces of a local business’ online presence. The interesting part is that these Place Pages exist even if there’s little or no input from the business owners themselves. It’s an online presence defined by an algorithm — or rather, multiple algorithms. It’s a small digital snapshot of “you” as defined by Google. Google decides which parts of “you” it exposes.

Place Pages are important in Google’s local search strategies because they solve a problem that restricted the growth of the hyper-local online market. People will only search if there’s something there to find. Google had to create a scalable on-ramp model to give local businesses an online presence. The company did it by leveraging its strength: finding and organizing information. In this case, the presence is created from the information that defines the business on the Web. It’s carrying a search results page one click further, making it specific to one company and structuring the data in a more cohesive way.

“You” on the Fly

This is interesting and important on two different levels. It shows that an online presence can be created through algorithmic aggregation alone, even in the absence of an official website. It shows how extensive our identities are online. Like it or not, we leave footprints on the digital landscape, and no one is in a better position than Google to gather those together to create online destinations on the fly. If this is true for the tiny Mom and Pop shop in Cannon Ball, N.D., it’s even truer for bigger, more established entities, whether they be organizations or individuals. Will our online selves be increasing defined by Google, with or without our input?

The other thing to ponder is that this is scalable and driven by technology. Google has an open door to aggregate and present different types of information, specific to the type of company it is. I suspect a lot of what you see in the current Place Pages is simply a placeholder for new things to come.

The creation of Web destinations on the fly is quite probably a game-changer for Google.  It’s a natural extension of the company’s mission, organizing the world’s information. It provides a new outlet for something that Google has been doing for well over a decade now: gathering together the ripples that define us online.

A Tale From the Trenches: 14 Years in the Search Biz

First published October 28, 2010 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Maybe you’ve heard the news. I’ve got a new gig. This week, the Yellow Pages Group in Canada acquired the company I co-founded. As I said to my partner, Bill, as we walked out of the office Monday, “Today is the last day we worked for Enquiro.” Although we’ve been ear-lobe deep in the deal for the past several months, for some reason that’s when it hit us. Tuesday, we came to work for a new company: Mediative.

The deal is interesting in a number of ways: a traditional publisher with a strong digital foothold in a market where the consumers are light years ahead of the marketers in Internet savvy, all set on a stage right next to the springboard of the digital revolution. It may not be “The Social Network” (and I’m certainly not Aaron Sorkin) but there are at least a couple good columns there. However, that’s for the future.

Today, it’s all about me.

But, as I pondered this, I realized my story is also the story of this industry. I’ve been doing this since 1996. No one was really doing it before that, so we made it up as we went along. Eventually this Internet thing gained enough critical mass that I had to find other people to do the same thing I was doing. Before I knew it, we had a company. And, because the Internet was growing like a runaway express train, our company became one of the fastest growing companies in Canada. We ran hard, just to keep from being run over.

Somewhere along the line, in addition to inventing an industry on the fly, helping clients who are desperately trying to figure out what the hell just happened to marketing and doing the cha-cha with Google’s algorithm, we also had to figure out how to run a company. As I soon found out, it’s one thing to do something yourself to earn a buck. It’s an entirely different thing to get a bunch of people doing the same thing and somehow transform that into a company — preferably a company that makes money. There are no guidebooks on how to build a search agency. And the headaches you have with a search agency of six people are entirely different than the headaches you’ll get with 13 people, or 23 people, or 34 people. I’ve had them all at various points in the last 14 years.

Just when you think you’re getting the hang of it, throw in a year like 2000 or 2008. It’s one thing to run an Internet company when everyone’s scrambling to throw money at you. It’s an entirely different thing when everyone goes into lockdown mode and companies are disappearing faster than free beers at a search conference.

Speaking of search conferences, those turned out to be our group therapy sessions, but you really had to read between the lines to get to the truth. I saw my friends and colleagues go from wild-eyed enthusiasm to world weary yet dogged determination. We kept hearing stories of people getting rich in search, but it was tough to nail down the facts. By and large, we all just kept plugging away, making enough money to keep the lights on and knowing that working anywhere else, while undoubtedly more lucrative, just wouldn’t be the same thing.

It’s been a 14-year gauntlet and I’ve got the collection of bruises to show for it. Somewhere on this decade-and-a-half ride I got old. I went from being an “upstart” to being a “village elder” (yes, I’ve actually been called that on more than one occasion). I went from being “bright” to being “wise.” I suppose there are worse things to be called.

I don’t mean to make this sound like a swan song. I’ll still be very much part of the search biz in my new gig. But, as I found out when I walked out the doors of Enquiro on Monday night and in the doors of Mediative Tuesday morning, this is a new chapter for me. Indulge me as I thumb through the ones that preceded it.

But you know what? In hindsight, I wouldn’t change a thing. All things considered, it’s been a hell of a ride!

Ode to an iPad

First published October 21, 2010 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I really had no idea how much I’d love my iPad. I have to say that it’s now my preferred connection to the online world. Somehow, whether by design or coincidence, Apple has tapped into something primal and intuitive in myself. Judging from other iPad owners I’ve talked to, I suspect I’m not alone. There is a magical thing happening between me and this sleek little device. And whatever it is, it’s important, even prescient. This, I suspect, is our future sitting in our laps.

What’s the Big Deal?

I’ve spent a good part of my life pondering various technology interfaces. Based on this, I really didn’t think the iPad was that big a deal. The reason I got one was because I needed an ebook reader and I felt that the iPad offered me more functionality than a Kindle. But other than the inevitable coolness (or, at least, perceived coolness) that comes with any Apple device, I didn’t see what all the buzz was about. After all, it was just a big iPhone… without the phone. I still had to deal with an all-too-touchy digital keyboard and a rather anemic processor.

But then I got my hands on one. And something rather strange happened. I suspect that Apple may have found the perfect form factor. When you combine the larger screen with multitouch technology, it completely changes how I interacted with my device. It wasn’t something I could have predicted. But everything I did on the iPad just seemed more natural, more enjoyable, more — dare I say it — sensual. This was one sexy little piece of technology.

Love of the Limbic Kind

What happened? There is no new technology here. We’re even using an obsolete OS, for heaven’s sake. There may be no rational reasoning — but I’ll tell you, my irrational mind has fallen in love. Then again, perhaps it has nothing to do with ration. Maybe Apple is just making interactions with technology more primitive, in a good way.

Keyboards are stupid in pretty much every way imaginable. I’ve dedicated several hours of my life to understanding the QWERTY layout so I’m a reasonably proficient touch typist, but the layout still makes no sense — and yes, I’m aware of the history of it vs. the Dvorak keyboard.. The mouse was a step in the right direction, but there was still some rewiring of our brains required to understand that the cursor was really our proxy for our hand movements.  I find track pads a rather poor compromise.

But, to be able to grab something right in front of our eyes and manipulate it, ah — that is touching something hardwired deep in our limbic brain.  To flick, to stroke, to pinch — that is what it means to be human. Up ’til now, our user experiences have had to be jammed in the arbitrary constraints of outdated and illogical interfaces. But the iPad, perhaps more than any other device before it, is letting us be human again. And the experience is intoxicating.

The Human Part of HCI

I felt something of the same rush when I first picked up the iPhone, but the extra real estate of the iPad delivers a compounding effect on the level of the user experience. Perhaps you think I’m making a big deal out of nothing, but I suspect that the very humanness of the iPad’s interface could be a game-changer. I’m not the first to say so. This was much of the buzz I discounted when the iPad first came out. But now I’ve had the chance to see what might be behind the game-changing aspects of this device. And ironically, it’s nothing to do with new technology. In fact, it’s wrapping existing technology in a package that nailed the “human” part of the human-computer-interaction equation.

The question that comes to mind is, how might this change the nature of our online experiences? If our entire online history has been built on the paradigm of a keyboard/mouse/monitor interaction, how might that change with a multitouch, interactive screen? And that’s not even including geographically savvy devices, cameras or voice commands. That’s a substantially different paradigm, which will inevitably lead to a substantially different experience. Imagine, interacting with a virtual world where you can picture your surroundings, know where you are, touch the things you’re interacting with and express your intent verbally.  Finally, technology will start to catch up with what it means to be a human.

What’s Your Social Role: Are You a “Susan” or a “Michael?”

First published October 14, 2010 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I had actually written another column for today, but as I was putting the finishing touches on it, my friend Karl came into my office for a scheduled meeting and, in passing, dropped the following observation about a client (names have been changed to protect the innocent): “I was talking to Susan, the person who’s in charge of their social media, but I’m not exactly sure what she does.  One of their tech guys, Michael, is the person who actually set up their Facebook page and Twitter account.”

Pinning down Porridge

And there, in a nutshell, is the problem with the corporate approach to social media. We’re trying to apply the same old corporate reasoning to something that defies reason. Not only does it defy it, it seeps past it, sprouts up in unexpected places and doesn’t tend to stay put when you try to jam it in a pigeonhole. Trying to contain social media within a corporate org chart is kind of like trying to pin porridge to a bulletin board.

Within every organization, there is a mix of personalities. There are those who make the rules, those who follow the rules and a few who break the rules. Similarly, there are those with something to say, those who are content to listen and those who will carefully consider what to say before they open their mouth. Most companies try to recruit a candidate from the last camp to act as a gatekeeper for social media. It’s safer — theoretically, anyway.

Don’t Control. Do!

But here’s the thing with social media. It’s not about controlling, it’s about doing. It’s about talking, listening and responding. It’s about rolling up your sleeves and getting in there. If you don’t do that, you’ll become “Susan,” a person who has a title but isn’t really in charge of anything, because it’s happening all around her, thanks to the “Michaels” of the world. Social media just happens, in spite of the best-laid plans of legal and corporate governance. Trying to control it is like trying to squelch a rumor or juicy gossip. Just ask Eliot Spitzer, Tiger Woods or Jesse James how well that worked out for them.

And if you think it’s difficult controlling this now, just wait until the fresh crop of millennials become fully entrenched in their jobs. For them, social media is mother’s milk. They don’t see it as something to be controlled or channeled. They regard it the same way a fish regards water – it’s just there. And they don’t have the same lines of delineation between their work lives and private lives that we do. There will be more and more “Michaels,” those who actively participate in social because it’s part of their world. And there will be fewer and fewer “Susans,” because sooner or later we’ll realize the futility of the role.

The Rise of Open Leadership

Charlene Li sees this as a breath of fresh air blowing through the stuffy halls of corporate America, forcing more transparency and authenticity and leading to “Open Leadership.” “Michaels” have a way of blowing the lid off of carefully spun corporate communications, exposing the unvarnished truth that lies beneath.

So, the question coming from the C-Suite is, “How do you control Michaels? How do you make sure they don’t say something stupid or, even worse, damaging?” Well, you can’t. It will happen. Just the same way that oil spills, product recalls and accounting scandals happen.

But here’s something to think about. If you’re scared to give your employees a voice, you don’t have a social media problem. Your problem is much, much bigger than that. And all the Susan’s in the world aren’t going to help you.

 

The Apple Approach to Digital Service Delivery

First published October 7, 2010 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

A few weeks ago, I was at a conference where the future of advertising was being debated. One of the topics that came up naturally was the future of advertising agencies. What will they look like in the future? It’s a stone-cold cinch that they won’t look much like they do today.

Here’s the challenge. Marketing is changing faster than most companies can keep up with. So many marketers find themselves chasing technology. This is an approach guaranteed to frustrate. Technology is impossible to predict. It’s an area rife with “Black Swans.” You can’t pin future strategies on technological bubbles that expand and burst. As one marketing head said, “the minute someone comes to me with a Facebook/Twitter/Foursquare strategy, I fire them.”

How to Build a Racecar

What marketers are trying to do to keep up with the digital transition wave is akin to buying miscellaneous mechanical parts and then trying to assemble them into a racecar on the fly. In most cases, you don’t know what those pieces do, how they fit together, or even if they do fit together. We’re not even sure what the end product should look like. Yet we keep having digital marketing technology vendors say we have to buy these parts because if we don’t, we’ll lose the race. It’s madness to continue this way. It’s one of the reasons my friend Scott Brinker of Ion Interactive says that we need CMTs – Chief Marketing Technologists. The theory – at least one person in the pit crew should have an idea of what a car looks like.

As I was thinking about this, I started thinking what a possible parallel might be. Where else does technology move so fast that’s it’s hard, if not impossible, for the end user to keep up? Almost immediately, I thought about personal computers.

The PC Service Model

Consider the PC approach. You buy a box designed to accommodate as many pieces of hardware and software as possible. In return for this open flexibility, you have to figure out how to get all the pieces to fit together. You have to download the patches, try to get the box to recognize the new peripheral and figure out how to get one program to talk to the other. Granted, it’s easier than digital marketing because at least the various developers of hardware and software go in with the intention of trying to get along nice with each other. There is no such consensus with digital marketing vendors.

The Apple Service Model

Now consider the Apple approach. Within an enclosed ecosystem, the pieces are pretested to ensure they fit together. The goal: to deliver a plug-and-play experience. Apple is not 100% successful in this, but its track record is much better than on the PC side. Do you have the open flexibility of the PC world? No, but you’re also spared seeing how the sausage is made.

Could you not extend this same approach to a digital marketing agency? Rather than embroiling the client in the nitty-gritty detail of multiple platforms and technologies, couldn’t you integrate the pieces so they work well in the background, pumping out results through a simple and elegant user interface?

It sounds simple, and indeed, this is what many full-service digital agencies say they do, yet there still seems to be a disconnect when it comes to satisfied customers. I haven’t heard many enthusiastic evangelists for digital agencies. I haven’t seen the same devotion and/or longing I see in other’s eyes when I pull out my iPad in a meeting or on the plane. It was expressed in clear terms on a flight last week when, as I was reading a book on it, an elderly gentleman walked down the aisle and asked, “Do you love it or do you LOVE it?” We talked for 10 minutes about iPads. Until those same conversations start happening about your favorite digital agency, we’re missing the boat.