Steve Ellis

Laura Ramos wants to hear from customer reference professionals

Steve — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:39:00 GMT

Further to that last post.

It's great that Forrester is applying increasing attention to the area of customer reference programs. The more science that is available to evidence ROI, or to document and validate good and bad practice can only be of benefit to everyone operating in this field.

In fact, Laura Ramos has just posted on a piece of research she is undertaking for the forum.

If you are a customer reference professional, I'd recommend you find the link to the survey in Laura's post. The more knowledge gets captured and shared in this area, the greater the benefit to us all.

Tags: Forrester, customer references, customer advocacy, Laura Ramos

Metia sponsors 2009 Customer Reference Forum

Steve — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:15:00 GMT

Metia is sponsoring Bill Lee's Customer Reference Forum event again in 2009. Bill has cornered the market in this particular arena. He puts a lot of hard work into making a great event and deserves his success.

The 2009 event is in Berkeley during February. California is not a bad place for North Europeans to spend a few days in February.

Aside from attracting great keynote speakers like Forrester's Laura Ramos and Merv Adrian, the big value in the event is to compare notes with counterparts from around the world. You could describe it as industry benchmarking, although sometimes it also seems like group therapy. Either way, its a good investment of time for those who have just started their customer ference programs, or are looking to evolve them in new directions.

Metia's customer advocacy team will be attending to meet up with our customers, learn more and hopefully make a contribution too.

Tags: Customer Reference Forum, Bill Lee, Laura Ramos, Forrester, Merv Adrian

Social media from the PR budget, or the advertising budget?

Steve — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:03:00 GMT

In this Reuters article - Tech Firms Tune into Social Media to Reach Consumers - NetApps says it plans to spend 20 per cent of its PR budget on social media.

If NetApps were really radical, they would be planning to spend 20 per cent of their advertising budget, with their PR agency, on social media.

Tags: social media, NetApps, Reuters, PR budgets

Help me start a list of Comment Magnets

Steve — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:30:00 GMT

Pete wrote this post on the Top Ten Most Irritating Phrases. What struck me was that this Telegraph article accumulated 2,484 comments, more than I'll get in a lifetime. Whick proves irritating phrases rattle cages.

So what other posts are in the list of the Top XX Comment Magnets?

I'll cover the easy ones for you, in no order of priority.

1. Slagging off PR people

2. Saying anything positive about Microsoft

3. Saying anything negative about Apple

4. Mentioning Russell Brand or Jonathan Ross

What else?

Tags: comments, Microsoft, Apple

Gene Hunt just called me a dozy faced pansy

Steve — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:56:00 GMT

That's it I'm retiring from social media. It doesn't get any better than this.

Out of the blue, Gene Hunt (fictional Life on Mars detective from the 70s) starts to follow me on Twitter.

Better than that even, he really is following me on Twitter because he gets in touch with some tasty retro abuse.

All of which made me laugh out loud.

It also made me wonder what other fictional characters - or perhaps real, but long since dead characters - are out there living on in Twitterland?

Is there anyone else I need to know of? (Twitter's search feature was broken when I tried to look so no help there).

Oliver Reed might be entertaining. Peter Cook perhaps. Dorothy Parker wittier. Surely, you'd just need to load all the one liners into a bot and press start? Actually we just made a bot for a client that automatically answered frequently asked questions...

Tags: Twitter, Gene Hunt, Life on Mars, Oliver Reed, Dorothy Parker

PS - Gene's not as hard as he makes out, he wanted to kiss and make up in an email sent afterwards

UPDATE: seems I'm collecting the whole cast Chris Skelton, Annie Cartwright and Party Seven icon, Ray Carling

Mr Advertising meet Mr Software. And these are Mr Software's lawyers.

Steve — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:53:00 GMT

UK ad agency, Beattie McGuiness Bungay (BMB), is in a spot of trouble over its Carling iPint application for the iPhone (illustrated in action above). US based developer Hottrix has slapped a $12.5m law suit on the agency and client Molson Coors, accusing it of copying its own iBeer application. Judged from afar, it would seem to be an open and shut case.

All of which has opened the age old discussion about creativity in advertising. The controversy has been fuelled by the iPint application winning ad industry awards for BMB.

The feature (24.10.08) around Campaign magazine's Big Awards 2008 illustrates the issue to perfection. After praising the success of the application, the write up turns to the tricky issue of the lawsuit.

...But then the judges merely saw this issue as another example of BMB's ingenuity.

"We all recognized that it imitated an idea that was already out there," Cridge said [Mark Cridge of Glue, chair of the digital awards panel]. "But we just thought that it was a classic example of an agency finding something interesting, and recognizing that by aligning it with a brand like Carling, then it could create an even bigger and better idea."

That soundbite speaks volumes for the gulf that exists between the world of advertising and the software industry.

NAB jumps into social media, then jumps out again

Steve — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 07:25:00 GMT

It would appear National Australia Bank (NAB) stuck a toe in the waters of social media, and liked it so much they jumped right in.

But then jumped out right again, very shortly afterwards. Story here.

More salutary lessons on how large organizations need to plan and prepare before embarking on social media experiements.

Thanks Paul P. for the pointer.

The Death of Dialogue in Advertising

Steve — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:54:00 GMT

Thought provoking article by Alex Benady in Campaign (17.10.08 issue) on the death of dialogue in advertising.

The assertion is that TV and cinema advertising has been taken over by the use of bold imagery and evocative music to connect to audiences. And that dialogue within TV commercials is going the way of long copy ads in newspapers.

I hadn't considered this as a trend before but on reflection it makes perfect sense. Guinness, Cadbury, Sony and Honda are all great examples of brands that use images and music in advertising to grab attention and make an emotional connection.

It also makes sense from the transition toward the use of social media or other interactive channels. Online and social media is where the dialogue is taking place today and, increasingly, is pushing the definition of dialogue, interactivity and conversation.

The picture is of polarisation between the two forms. The attributes of each medium being used for what they are best at.

Tags: Campaign, advertising, social media

The Google Story

Steve — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Coming back through the airport at the weekend I picked up a copy of The Google Story. It was one of the few business books that didn't need to be mulched and re-written following the financial crisis of the past few weeks.

Now, I'm up to page 100 - by this stage the dynamic duo are getting about one million searches per day and have $25m VC funds in the bank, so are quite advanced in the masterplan. But so far marketing doesn't come out of it too well.

The contribution of the marketing dept so far?

The name? A mis-spelling by one of the founders. Moreover an accidental mis-spelling, no machiavellian brand consultant behind that.
That logo? An in-house DIY job.
The huge ad campaign? Not a single cent spent on advertising.
That user interface? An in-house DIY job. OK, they got someone else to look at it by about page 80, but the UI professional wasn't allowed to change it much.

In fact, I don't think the guys have hired a marketing dept yet, that must come in future chapters, maybe after the CEO joins.

None of which is new news, but the anti-marketing streak in me rebels when brands such as Google are quoted by marketers and ad agencies as paragons of excellence. Google is a great brand for sure, but how much did marketers or ad agencies have to do with it?

Microsoft ads #5 - Joe Wilcox on I'm a PC

Steve — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 07:03:00 GMT

Joe Wilcox reckons the I'm a PC campaign is a fail.

How shall I put this? I'm sure it's not a runaway success either - but it's a lot better than what has gone before.

Was a single campaign ever going to turn around perceptions overnight? I'm still hoping it will build and grow consistently in the long term. That's what Microsoft needs.

I hadn't seen the latest counter adverts from Apple - Joe has the links.

Interesting to see whether this develops into an ugly fistfight and, if so, just how tough each side is prepared to get.

I'd interprete the Microsoft adverts as (currently) presenting the positive side of the PC point of view. The Apple adverts score better for sure - but for their sharp and witty barbed digs at the PC, rather than the positive Mac angle.

If Microsoft were to choose to go there, they have rich vein of sardonic humour available to them in characterising I'm a Mac perspective as over-priced, elitist and smug. All of which offer lots of opportunity for parody in credit crunch USA.

Ultimately, who wins? Well, 'Madison Ave' probably.

Tags: Joe Wilcox, I'm a PC, I'm a Mac, advertising, Microsoft, Apple

btw - yes, as I have pointed out many times in this blog, Microsoft is one of our clients but we don't touch this campaign

2008 Seattle Offsite aka PubCrawl 08

Steve — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:59:00 GMT

Here's the agenda for our 2008 Seattle Offsite. Doesn't look like there'll be too much PPT then.

Nice job Kathleen.

Scott Meyer solves the Microsoft advertising conundrum

Steve — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:11:00 GMT

Take a look here.

Give that man a multi-million dollar ad budget.

No end in sight to the BBC's Pestonathon

Steve — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:10:00 GMT

Every cloud... as they say.

I had always thought Robert Peston looked more than a little uncomfortable when hauled in to do the science bit in the BBC News at Ten's business coverage. His delivery was that of a man enunciating his words very, very clearly to a dictaphone. He lacked the brio of geezer Jeff Randall who he had replaced as BBC business editor.

But that was all Before HBOS. Now out of the ruins of Meltdown Monday, Terrible Tuesday, etc - strides a colossus.

Not only has he become the semi-official source of disseminating (leaking?) market moving stories (who cares about LSE reporting, just get it to Peston's Blackberry, job done) but he is probably also more trusted by BBC viewers than the Chancellor on his grasp of the situation.

Here the Independent gives us an insight into the pressures of broadcasting live from the Peston Centre. Other Pestonmania here and here .

I wonder if he has an agent yet?

Tags: Robert Peston, credit crunch

PS - the one man newsdesk continues today.

How to present customer references on web sites

Steve — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:36:00 GMT

Bill Lee - aka Mr Customer Reference Forum - asked me for guidance to pass on to a member seeking to rebuild their customer success stories web site. I passed back some quick views and opinions.

Thinking this might be of interest to others, or perhaps start a discussion, here are my comments back to Bill:

Finding case studies is a top reason for visiting corporate sites – so it needs a place/link on the home page (don’t settle for less).

Sites tend to come at it from two directions:

Sites that are effectively only aspiring to be a search capability on the front of a database of evidence and everything else is auto generated (so minimal web maintenance)

Sites that adopt an editorial standpoint and seek to engage the viewer and recommend content that is topical and interesting just like any other content provider

My preference is the latter because I believe customers want to read about other customers (and it goes without saying any web presence needs a successful search capability too). To support this, day-in-day out we see that any link/headline that features a customer name (ie Wells Fargo explains its new social media initiative) gets x3 the number of hits vs a generic headline without a customer name.

Good examples? Here’s a reference site we built recently for Microsoft's Innovative Schools Program.

Aside from being a bit more funky and consumer than usual, we:

Sliced and diced the video content so that users could group and view content across different case studies by subject matter, their role (teacher, parent, IT Manager), or simply watch a whole individual story.

Likewise the media player allows you to simply watch the soundbites that interest you.

There is also a BackPack feature that allows viewers to gather content they want to keep for later download (and collect email signups to do this).

The site also promotes other ‘call to action’ materials at the bottom of the page, which can be gathered up in the BackPack, so in a more commercial context, would become part of the lead generation process.

Those were my topline comments to Bill, interested to see / hear of any other examples people may be particularly pleased with...

Tags: customer references, Bill Lee, web sites, customer advocacy

Microsoft ads #4 - I'm a PC

Steve — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:21:00 GMT

The ads are out there.

Opinions, links and comments on the ads from Joe Wilcox, TechCrunch and Steve Clayton.

Not seen themself. So I have no opinion, yet.

UPDATE:

TechCrunch praise them, almost like them, Mashable are neutral, VentureBeat likes them and Ben McConnel adds a bit of perspective on the whole exercise.

Have any ads been as analysed as these? Not sure I have the energy to actually watch them after all that.