Monthly Archives: November 2015

November 4, 2015 · 11:31 am

Who’s Working For Whom?

Ever encounter a situation where things seem backwards? Maybe you’ve seen a parent being told what to do by a child or a customer being berated by a service rep. It makes you wonder who is in charge or who is working for whom. I have another thought along those lines today, and it has to do with data. There was a post from AdAge by their data reporter, Katie Kaye who wrote the following about the NY Times piece on Amazon: 

The article should inspire us to question the value of decisions based entirely on data to create business efficiencies at the expense of human empathy and the arguable imperfections that can benefit any organization or project.

I like that. It makes you ask who is in charge here: the humans or the numbers. We all ingest more data than we can consume, and, unfortunately, some of us allow that massive intake to be regurgitated as unconsidered decisions. That’s a bad idea. The data is there to serve us, not the other way around.

I’m the first to say that we need lots of data. Without impartial feedback, we’re flying blind, and data can help us make better decisions. The key there is “help US”.   Data without the context of a plan is useless. Data that’s not actionable is useless.  Data that causes us to overreact, however, is  dangerous.  If you watched any election coverage last night, you probably heard a lot about early results and the need to wait for data from key precincts.  How many times has someone in your organization overreacted to an early piece of data, only to find out that it was not at all typical of the overall results?  We need a plan, we need context, and we need a little patience.

When we chase after outliers, we’re working for the data.  That’s backward.  Data, and all the other technological tools in our arsenals, needs to work for us.  Make sense?

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November 3, 2015 · 9:29 am

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A riddle to start us off today. What do the NYC Police Department, Jeb Bush, McDonald’s, Walgreens, and Qantas all have in common? They’ve all had their hashtags hijacked. The Bush campaign is just the latest organization or company to have a hashtag used for a purpose far different from what was intended by the originator. I think the folks at Wired git it exactly right in their write up:  

This slogan-jacking shows just how difficult it has become for political campaigns to control their own message in the digital age. It’s no longer just up to the campaigns to steer the conversation and their opponents to counter it. Now we can all play a role in spinning the new narrative, which dramatically changes the power structure in campaigns.

Except that you’d be a fool if you are reading that solely in the context of politics, since it’s true for any form of marketing.  The consumer is in control, and they are very much paying attention, but maybe not for the reasons we’d prefer as marketers.  It’s imperative, therefore, that brands think long and hard about how messaging – and social media messaging in particular – can be twisted and hijacked.  If you’re trying to stir virality using a “tell me how much you love me” message, you’re probably going to go viral for the wrong reasons.

It’s not just consumers who are trying to take over the meaning of the message. Some brands have been just as guilty, and inevitably their stupidity has caught up with them.  DiGiorno’s Pizza tying a pizza sales message to a hashtag about domestic violence is just one example.  A 2013 post on the phenomenon summed it up:

The bigger the business or the more well-known the person or organization, the bigger the target on its back. And what typically happens is the hijacked hashtag becomes viral and far more visible, as a result of the sarcasm and negative uses of it.  Not only does hijacking have a negative effect, but the negative aspects are magnified.  It becomes a train wreck, where public relations are concerned.

The tags here might be #playingwithfire and #campaignfail if you’re not careful.  I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble.  You?

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November 2, 2015 · 12:15 pm

Preservationists

I live in a town with a lot of old houses. By the town’s definition, that’s 50 years or more, although there are a lot of homes that are well over 100 years old. I should know: I live in one. Oh sure, a lot has been changed, both in my house and in many others, but the original structure and feeling of the building has been preserved. It’s part of what I liked about this town until recently. While there is plenty of new construction, much of the work was about adding on and/or renovating.  

I used the past tense because the trend over the last few years has been to knock down the older homes and build overly large new homes – they’re known as McMansions here. In fact, a local website features a Teardown Of The Day photo of some old home that is destined to be destroyed. Fortunately, we also have a Historic District Commission, and plans to rip down any home that’s over 50 years old are reviewed to be sure that no historic buildings or ones with historical value to the town are destroyed.

What does this have to do with business? I was reminded by it when I came across a quote from the critic Ada Louise Huxtable. She noted almost 50 years ago, “What preservation is really all about, is the retention and active relationship of buildings of the past to the community’s functioning present.” The same is true of sound business principles, which all too often are discarded like an old house as new technologies change the nature of the businesses.

Some of what I do with clients when I begin working with them is to clarify the “old” business thinking that needs to be preserved as we add on the new stuff. It’s akin to upgrading the electrical system and insulation which leaving the sound structure intact.  Sure, some of the old stuff needs to be tossed – you aren’t dependent on others for content distribution, for example, or your marketing can’t be a bullhorn, constantly blasting “buy me” messages.  Still, the underlying principles behind distribution and marketing haven’t changed since I’ve been in business (and I’m very much one of those historic houses at this point).  Confusing tools with the business just does not work.

I guess that makes me a preservationist.  I believe in retaining the sound old stuff and placing it into a present context.  What about you?

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