Affinitive’s Social Media Playground

A paper recently released by two University of Maryland economists, Craig Garthwaite and Tim Moore, tries to quantify Oprah Winfrey's influence over her fans with regards to the Democratic primaries and generating votes. From the paper's abstract:

Candidates in major political contests are commonly endorsed by other politicians, interest groups and celebrities. Prior to the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary, Barack Obama was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, a celebrity with a proven track record of influencing her fans’ commercial decisions. In this paper, we use geographic differences in subscriptions to O! – The Oprah Magazine and the sale of books Winfrey recommended as part of Oprah's Book Club to assess whether her endorsement affected the Primary outcomes. We find her endorsement had a positive effect on the votes Obama received, increased the overall voter participation rate, and increased the number of contributions received by Obama. No connection is found between the measures of Oprah's influence and Obama's success in previous elections, nor with underlying local political preferences. Our results suggest that Winfrey’s endorsement was responsible for approximately 1,000,000 additional votes for Obama.

The full paper (with lots of cool equations) can be found HERE.

Disclaimer: the point of this post was to simply address the level of influence certain personalities have over consumers and is not an endorsement of any particular party or candidate

All those “your mom” jokes just got serious. AdAge recently reported Procter & Gamble Co.'s plans to pamper top “mommy bloggers” in an effort to tap into these online influencers and inform them of Pampers diaper products. The company may bring in as many as 15 top bloggers in this category to their Cincinnati headquarters for all-expense-paid trips not to buy their loyalty, but instead let these bloggers get to know what the company is about which will hopefully bring a positive light to their product.

Tapping into blogger "influencers" is a very sensitive initiative. They can’t be treated as paid employees sitting behind desks receiving mass amounts of PR blasts nor do they want to be treated this way. Because they have the liberty to write at their own free will, there is no hindrance to what they can and will write. Typos included. It is this raw thinking process in which marketers crave and should be paying attention to.

Cision Media Research recently conducted research on the mention of blogs in 20 major print media publications clearly indicating the growing influence of bloggers. Cision discovered that the top 20 national magazines and newspapers mentioned blogs and bloggers 13,066 times in the one-year period ending June 30, 2008. That compares to only 795 times in 2004 and 2,179 times in 2005.

“This stunning growth in blogger influence magnifies the importance of employing common sense when contacting bloggers,” said Peter Granat, Cision Executive Vice President. “Knowing the blogger and his/her focus is the critical element in a successful blog relations campaign. While many blogs are highly visible in their own right, the growing influence with the mainstream media elevates their importance.”

How can we as marketers connect with bloggers? You may not have the status of P&G to offer all-expense-paid trips but the simple gesture of being sincere and getting to know the blogger whom you are trying to form a relation with is just as good. Notice I said blogger and not bloggers because generic PR blasts to a list without any customization will not do. It takes time to get to know someone so make the effort to do so and your initiatives will more likely yield positive results.

I recently attended a conference on location based services and although this is an area of amazing potential, I was reminded how easy it is with new technologies to get caught in what I'll call "The Videophone Trap". In this, people within an industry become obsessed with, and base entire business models on, demonstrating certain capabilities of technology rather than using it to solve human problems or provide any actual value to users.

The videophone was a revolutionary product that was featured prominently in the 1964 World's Fair. Huge amounts of time and money were spent creating it and just because it was technically possible, it was predicted that there would be an enormous demand for it. But it turned out that no one actually wanted a videophone. In fact, that the parties cannot see what each other looks like is viewed by most people as a major benefit to voice-only communication not a limitation.

When I worked in Interactive Television, every year there would be two or three companies that invested a large amount of effort in developing systems to allow users to click on a person on the screen. The envisioned killer app for this was inevitably buying what the person was wearing, the example being whatever happed to be the hit show of the moment such as Sex and the City. Even ignoring the difficulties of coordinating the business cycles of television and fashion to have products on shelves when a show airs, it was always a cumbersome user experience. TV shows are edited (such as cutting between two people having a conversation) so timing a click to be on the intended person is difficult. It would be much easier to simply select that actor from a menu. The hubris of these technologists is such that one company even blatant stated that TV shows would no longer need to be edited as if it were a flaw that would finally be corrected with their product.

Now with location based services, the holy grail is evidently walking down the street and getting beamed a coupon when passing by a certain vendor, usually Starbucks. Apparently the technologists' vision of the future is being bombarded with offers as we stroll down a city street, even though everyone at the conference admittedly had no desire for this much less the average person. But these efforts perpetuate because it makes a good trade show demo and an even better pitch to a client or venture capitalist. Unfortunately, as we've seen in a previous post, selling the client on the presentation rather than the result usually leads to something that no one actually uses.

Modern humans evolved about 200,000 years ago and we all have the essentially the same brains as our ancient ancestors. It's amazing that something like a film can deeply emotionally engage us, but it somehow taps into the way our minds work. Social interaction whether around a campfire or on Facebook hasn't changed much; people still want essentially the same things whether it's to flirt or boast or establish social hierarchies. Technology and media that address human needs or solve human problems can be very successful. Some companies like Apple are amazingly adept at this. Products that simply demonstrate their technical capabilities are doomed to fail.

The water cooler just got a lot sexier for marketers. A recent survey conducted by WorkPlace Media and reported by MarketingCharts indicates that 96% of workplace consumers give coworkers advice about products and services. Additionally, 93% also seek advice before making purchases.

"The American workplace is replacing the American neighborhood as the most lucrative marketing channel for advertisers looking to connect with consumers where they eat, shop and socialize," said Stephanie Molnar, CEO of WorkPlace Media.

With the average work week well over 40 hrs and gas prices continuing to rise, consumers are making their purchases to and from work, and during their lunch breaks. Dining out, food/groceries, and beverages round out the top three purchase items.

How can you take advantage of this WOM trend? The corporate kitchen might be a good place to start. Stocking the fridge with free product and marketing materials would get the conversation started, or take a tip from Andy Sernovitz and turn your regular restaurant goer into an office evangelist!

Recently, video game publisher (and Affinitive client) NAMCO BANDAI Games sought help in choosing the official box art for the upcoming PlayStation 3 release of NARUTO: Ultimate Ninja Storm.

Tapping into their 20,000+ member Hokage's Room enthusiast community, members were invited to complete a survey and provide feedback on 6 designs as well as how the designs reflected key attributes of the game, were memorable, eye-catching, and would make them more interested in learning more about the game. In just a few days, 1,100 members provided feedback and the results were sent off to NAMCO BANDAI Games' marketing team - check out the winning "official art" chosen by members!

The idea of “product placement” is one that many entertainment industry veterans are so familiar with, it is likely a part of their daily vocab. There are many memorable examples of product placement throughout the years, including the origin of the “Soap Opera” which comes from the show’s original sponsors, a list that included Proctor & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive, when it was a radio broadcast and the soap manufacturers were the sole sponsors. Recent examples include, Coca-Cola and Ford taking center stage on American Idol and other blatant placements that have garnered the investigation of the FCC on how exactly to regulate them. The most notable example as of late comes from the placement of a wide assortment of brands and products ranging from Glaceau’s Smart Water to Mercedes-Benz to the ever-present Apple in a product-heavy Sex and the City film, a movie that was SO filled with placements that hardcore SATC fans hit the blogosphere with their Manolos pounding in disdain.

With media moving to more non-traditional means, it was only a matter of time before the idea of the product placement hit the web. Last month, Sprint PCS launched a consumer promotion on YouTube where they ask you to make a family or summer video that features their new Sprint Instinct phone, as a product placement. Shill their product in your home vid and you will get $20 for your efforts. Their name of the promotion “Sell Out” would indicate that perhaps this all is just some joke, meant to combat the edge and wittiness of Apple’s marketing, owners of the iPhone, which this phone was made to directly compete with.

The idea of this type of placement has had mixed reactions across the board. To me, there are several key questions that have come up from the consumer and brand perspectives that leave gaping holes in a promotion like this that could ultimately note bode well for Sprint’s credibility within non-traditional online channels. A few of these questions being: Is a measly $20 a strong enough value proposition? Will any viewer of this video see it as a genuine endorsement? Is this just some publicity stunt by agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to try out the social media space and perhaps garner some blogosphere buzz? And perhaps most importantly (and most unanswered) will this really translate to any sales of the Instinct?

With reference to the latter, only time will tell, but as someone who prides themselves on working for a company who builds Word-of-Mouth the genuine way, I feel as though the distinction between a genuine brand reference within a social media channel and one of placement must be made. There is a vast and incomparable difference between Word-of Mouth that is cultivated by simply giving your product to a consumer and allowing them to experience it, engage with it, and then let you know how they feel, the natural, raw, organic way that is based on opening up a dialog versus these paid placement promotions that don’t come from any basis other than people willing to shill if the price is right without any passion or affinity towards the brand.

At Affinitive, we pride ourselves on building programs that result in user generated content as a by product of an engagement strategy, where consumers participate because they are interested in learning about the product or because they already have a passion for or relationship with the brand. We could not have the quality or quantity within our library of content for each program that we have by shelling out a few twenties for some videos.

We love to reward consumers for their willingness to engage and create content, but doing so in a way that is about the consumer and not about the creation of a tool for the brand makes a world of difference.