Category Archives: Consulting

July 29, 2014 · 8:54 am

Trusting Sponsored Content

We’ve explored the subject of branded content or advertorial or deceptive editorial or whatever you want to call it here on the screed a few times.

English: Example of a variable data tear sheet...

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Some data on the subject that I came across from Contently is worth a minute of your time.  They were spurred to do the research by a statement from the CEO of Chartbeat, an analytics company, who claimed that only 24% of readers were scrolling down on native ad content compared to the 71% of readers who scroll on “normal content.” Since that content is advertising that is supposed to integrate seamlessly with the site’s other content and, therefore, get the sponsor higher brand engagement, that number is pretty disturbing.  For my money, not quite as disturbing in some ways as what the subsequent study found.

Putting aside that most of those surveyed disagree about what exactly qualifies as “sponsored content”, some of the other findings were:

  • Two-thirds of readers have felt deceived upon realizing that an article or video was sponsored by a brand.
  • 54 percent of readers don’t trust sponsored content.
  • 59 percent of readers believe a news site loses credibility if it runs articles sponsored by a brand.
  • As education level increases, so does mistrust of sponsored content.

In fact, the study found that people would rather have to deal with banner ads than sponsored articles, and the more education the consumer has the greater chance they feel deceived by a piece of branded content.  The fine print labeling it as something not quite the same as other editorial does nothing to change consumers’ views.

Way back in October of 2012, this is what I had to say on the subject:

I’m not a fan.  Obviously I’m a big fan of ad-supported media – I worked in it and sold it for decades.  I do think, however, that doing this in digital in particular is an issue since there is so much content out there and users’ expectations of editorial integrity…are not met when the line is crossed.  It calls into question all of the legitimate reporting.  I get that people might ignore advertising but pay attention to this.  They need to know it’s not the same as other content.

My views haven’t changed.  Have yours?

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July 25, 2014 · 8:42 am

Pretty/Useless

This Foodie Friday I have restaurant marketing on my mind. That’s the result of some close encounters with restaurant websites.

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From time to time I’ll check out places to eat in cities where I’m heading. Of course I use the review sites as a first source of recommendations.  Inevitably if a few places seem to be of comparable quality and hold potential I’ll go to the establishment’s website to do a deeper dive on the menu.  This is where things begin to break down in a couple of ways and there are some broader points which come out of the experience.

Many of the sites are beautiful.  Clearly, someone spent many hours creating a multimedia site complete with music that plays while you experience the site, flash movies that auto-play, and dozens of pictures of happy customers.  Unfortunately, most of these sites are painful to use and are a huge waste of money.  I’ll go even further to say that they do more harm than good.  In the case of restaurant sites, no one cares how the site looks.  Visitors want information, not to be entertained.  They’re pretty and useless.

Think about it.  Why do you visit the site?  Probably, first and foremost, to check out the menu.  Many of the sites I visit force a download (it’s easier to update one file than several pages of the site) and some of those downloads are huge.  Next, I may want to make a reservation so I need to know where the place (Google Maps link!) is and some means of doing so – a phone number or a direct link to Open Table or whatever service the place uses.  Finally, the hours they’re serving and maybe a listing of the specials would be good.  That’s it.  Designers need to focus on the business goals and not on “pretty.” The most important factor in the design of a website is that the website makes it easy for users to find what they want.

The problem isn’t restricted to restaurants.  If you’ve built a site and not had a discussion with the design and coding team about business goals for the site, target audiences, analytics you’ll be using to measure activity and success, or how you’ll be marketing (SEO implications), you’ve missed the mark.   Unlike the restaurants with crappy sites, there probably aren’t lots of review sites driving people to your business (most review sites contain a modicum of the critical information).  Maybe now is a good time to take a look at your site through a visitor’s eyes?

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July 24, 2014 · 11:21 am

We Need Smarter Social Thinking

Sometimes it feels as if it’s one step forward and two steps back with respect to marketers and social media.

English: Southwest Airlines 737-300 N310SW. I ...

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The latest example of this comes from a company that generally has a consumer friendly reputation, Southwest Airlines.  I’m willing to cut the home office a little slack in the tale of woe I am about to relate.  But only a little.

Southwest, like every airline, has a top tier of frequent passengers.  These are generally heavy business travelers and are the ones any airline executive will tell you really pay the bills since they’re often flying full fare and doing so frequently.  They receive perks, and in Southwest’s case one of them is priority boarding.

One of their “A-list” flyers was traveling from Denver with his young children (ages 6 and 9) and wasn’t allowed to board early because they don’t have VIP status.  We can debate if that was a mistake by the gate agent or bad corporate policy but what happened next is really the point.  He told the agent ‘Real nice way to treat an A-list. I’ll be sure to tweet about it,’” according to  WCCO.  He went on to do just that.  According to him, it was “Something to the effect of, ‘Wow, rudest agent in Denver. Kimberly S, gate C39, not happy @SWA.’”  Here is where things get interesting and, from a social marketing perspective, just silly.

Southwest’s social crew does a great job listening.  As an aside, they thanked this same traveler for a nice tweet about an agent a month ago.  They saw the tweet and must have called the gate agent about the unhappy customer.  The agent proceeded to remove the man from the plane (upsetting the children) and to demand that he delete the tweet to be allowed to travel.  He did so and according to all involved there was no bad language and threats made by him.  The agent did threaten to call the cops.

Since this incident (for which Southwest has apologized to the traveler) there have been TV stories, newspaper articles, and many screeds such as this.  The guy kept tweeting about it too.  Southwest offered the guy three $50 travel vouchers.  He has said he’ll never fly them again.  So much for an A-list passenger’s business.  I suspect the social crew at Southwest didn’t intend for the agent to take the action she did but someone should have thought about that being a possibility.  I mean you call someone up and say they pissed off a top status passenger and now it’s on Southwest’s “permanent record” and what do you expect?

As marketers we need to have thicker skins when we’re in the social stream.  If you were speaking with a number of business partners and one said something a bit off-putting, you’d probably make a mental note and let it go.  At worst you’d say something privately later.  This just threw gasoline on an already lit fire.  That fire has gotten brighter as it gets more oxygen from all that’s being written about the incident.  It’s hard enough to develop an A-list customer.  Retaining them should always be a top priority, maybe even if it means bending the rules (like expanding priority boarding to kids under 18) from time to time.

Thoughts?

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