September 4, 2012 · 8:59 am

Fake Traffic

You probably have read about fake Twitter followers.  Most people have some (1% of mine are), famous people have lots (Justin Bieber has 14%).  You can check out the fake or inactive counts at Status People.  Obviously I haven’t gone out to acquire fake followers but like every part of the interwebs, Twitter has its share of  spammers and other flavors of cretin and they leach on to legitimate folks all the time.

That’s very different from folks who create fake accounts to add to their follower totals and very far removed from folks who go out and buy followers.  I suppose that the quantity of an audience is important to some people who market themselves based on their Twitter base or Klout score.  It’s been interesting as I pitch new business to have potential clients ask about that and how their minds change a bit after they understand how the system can be gamed.  Caveat Emptor if you’re hiring based on that and not on business acumen – it’s much harder to buy!

One way a system is gamed that I find really disturbing is the sale of web traffic.  No, I don’t mean impressions being sold to advertisers as ad space but the sale of bulk traffic to websites looking to increase their numbers.  There are a number of firms – I’m not going to plug them here – who will generate visits to your website for a fee.  Need 100,000 visits quickly?  $250 will get them for you.  Obviously for sites that sell based on rate bases or on impression guarantees, this is a form of fraud.

How do they do this?  Some companies use bots – automated scripts.  Others pay people to do nothing but click on the list of pages they’re given.  Still others push pop-unders which display the purchasing site when a user hits some other site the vendor controls.  Others use redirects from abandoned domains.  Pretty questionable stuff.

I’m told that some rather prominent sites use these firms near the end of a month when their traffic is kind of light.  I sure hope not.  This is exactly the kind of thing that will set back digital advertising 10 years just as it’s getting a fair amount of traction.  I can’t imagine what these folks are thinking.  Like the lightweight consultants who buy followers and game the reputation system, once this found out, those same systems will be used to spread the word about their duplicity.  Skeevy, right?

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August 31, 2012 · 8:07 am

Forced Endorsements

 

Our Foodie Friday Fun this week isn’t directly about food

English: American cook, author, and television...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

at all but about one of the most entertaining people ever to prepare it. That would be Julia Child, about whom I’ve expressed my admiration before. I’m not sure if you’re following what is going on with her estate and the Thermador people but it instructive on a number of levels.
Let me say at the outset that I own a Thermador oven. Two of them, in fact, and I’m quite happy with them, so there’s no axe to grind against the company. That said, they’re behaving badly.  You see, they’ve been using the fact that Julia Child had a Thermador ovens in her home and TV kitchens as the basis for an implied endorsement.  So much so that magazine ads that showed photos of Julia and two of the brand’s ovens with the caption, “An American Icon and Her American Icons.”

Well, you say, sounds like a typical celebrity endorsement.  As we all know the notion is that people who like the celebrity will like the product the celebrity likes too.  There’s only problem.  Julia Child NEVER endorsed products.  Nothing.  She always felt she was a teacher, and anything that wasn’t of the highest quality could undermine her reputation.  The foundation that owns her intellectual property has sued since they were never approached in advance of the use and turned down a license when they were since they won’t license her name or image for endorsements.  Pretty straightforward so far.

Here is what’s interesting.  Thermador is claiming it’s not an endorsement.  As the L.A. Times reported, they:

filed a suit in Boston on Friday asking a federal judge to make a legal declaration that they had the right to use Child’s connection to the brand in its marketing materials. In its complaint, BSH’s lawyers wrote that the company’s use of Child’s photo and name “do not state or imply any endorsement” but “reflect on the long history, significance and influence of Thermador products on American society and culture.”

Right.  It’s a statement of fact.  So if an athlete is photographed drinking a Coke, it’s fine if Coke uses that statement of fact in an ad.  I don’t think so.  More importantly, to those of us who admire Julia, this is having exactly the opposite effect as an endorsement.  You can’t force people to endorse your products, you can’t use their likeness without permission, and you can’t rationalize your way into it being OK.  This is a good lesson on why bad behavior seldom works out in business. I can’t imagine anyone who has ever done anything in marketing wouldn’t have known that this is wrong.

Thermador, I use your products and like them – feel free to use that endorsement.  But stop behaving badly, please.  You’re better than this, or at least your ovens are.

 

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August 30, 2012 · 2:50 pm

Bird Poop

I had just walked out of a meeting this morning

Birds on wires

(Photo credit: rkramer62)

and was standing talking to some other folks on the team when something with started dripping down my sport coat.  Despite it being a warm morning I was very certain it wasn’t sweat.  What I was hoping was that it was some excess moisture dripping off a pipe but of course it wasn’t.  It was bird poop.  Well more specifically I think it was bird pee although frankly it doesn’t much matter.

As I was standing there frantically trying to wipe it off my coat, my compatriots informed me that it was good luck.  Apparently in some cultures a bird pooping on you is exactly that.  I’m not so sure it is in my culture – more likely it’s 180 degrees from that.  In checking out their notion I also found that many people believe this to be a major sign of wealth coming from heaven.  Seem to me it’s a sign of an expensive cleaning bill coming.  In any event it did trigger a business thought.

Too many businesses spend their time standing under wires hoping bird will poop on them, figuratively speaking.  They would almost rather be lucky than good.  Rather than looking for wires filled with birds, they’d be way better off spending time looking at analytics, social mentions, and their own financial statements.  Spending money on bird seed trying to attract the birds and the luck they bring is probably not as worthwhile as spending it on an all hands on deck brainstorm.  You know the ones – where no idea is a bad one and outrageous thinking is encouraged.

I’ll let you all know if some great piece of luck follows – there wasn’t a large check in the mail today however.  In the meantime, remember what Hemingway told his son – you make your own luck.  Good business advice – and much cleaner than depending on the birds!

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