Yaffe Tidbits

Soap Operas: An Ode to the Original Content Marketing

Like many of you, I've spent the last 24 hours hearing the country mourn the end of an era. Even though I never watched either of these soaps,  (because my Mom reads this blog and so I obviously spent my free time in college fighting social injustices and reading the classics) it does feel like a significant cultural loss, or at the very least, a significant cultural shift. 

After reading Bitten & Bound (my source for serious, breaking news the world over) and learning that "the face of daytime television is about to change with the launch of two new shows that are informative, authentic and center on transformations," (my emphasis) I thought it only right that a member of the ad world pay homage to the country's first form of content marketing. 

Blogs will tell you that the phenomenon of brands producing engaging content is new. But you shouldn't always believe what you read in blogs. (I actually spent my free time in college watching Days of Our Lives and Another World on the other channel. Sorry, Mom.) 

Most people, especially ad people graced with the euphemism "soap salesmen," know that soap operas got their name from the soap companies that dominantly sponsored their airtime. But those companies weren't just sponsoring them, they were also producing them. Over the years, Proctor and Gamble produced 20 soap operas. That's a lot of content aimed at engaging and entertaining a consumer. 

Skittles:Touch may make me feel like I have to wash cat spit off my hand, but will people mourn it when it ends? 

The network's implication that Erica Kane does not provide authentic, transformative and informative content leads me to believe that they suffer from a classic case of hanging on a far too narrow definition of those terms. You don't get to be a 64-year-old who looks like a 46-year-old without undergoing a little transformation. As far as authentic, her hands are definitely still real. Nobody delivers slaps like that with fake hands. And as for informative,  the last thing the world needs are more self-help shows telling us the life we want is ours for the taking. Sometimes we just need to be shown. 

I encourage everyone to take a moment to lament a lost era, and pay homage to brilliant pioneers in branded content. Also, to enjoy a good cat fight and share the names of your favorite soap rivalry below. 

 

  Jen Wright, Out-of-the-Closet Daytime Drama Enthusiast and Yaffe Social Media Strategist

The evolution of Consumer Generated Content.

Online content created by consumers isn't just bad home movies any more. With the availability of great, easy-to-use tools, the consumer has upped their game beyond the "Funniest Home Videos" realm. And with that, expectations have rose, as well. There are amazing photos, videos, programs, apps, stories and more being posted by talented everyday people. This is good for everybody, especially marketers who want to tap into these talents.

When we created our first online videos, a lot of people were concerned that we not make them look too good. Look at what's popular on YouTube, they said, the consumer responds well to the authenticity of the lower production values. Well, as it turns out, they were responding to the authenticity of the people and what they had to say, not of the low quality methods. Seems high production values work just fine if you have real people telling compelling stories.

How marketers use consumer content has changed as well. It's gone from finding content and using it to sponsoring the next generation (Stride gum/Where's Matt?) to creating contests where quality content is created for the brand by consumers (Doritoes Super Bowl ad) to collecting stories and helping the consumer tell it (see below).

A good example of this last methodology is a series of videos we shot for Covenant Health System in Lubbock, Texas. Each features a very real, very compelling story told by the person it happened to. The laughter is real. And so are the tears. Even though the films were shot and edited by us, this is still consumer generated content - it's real people sitting on a couch in front of a camera telling their stories, without scripting or special effects. Yaffe/Deutser also created a special website, www.covenantstories.com to showcase the videos. Then, on the official Covenant site, we have a link for more people to submit their stories that could be used in the next round of videos.

How do you see consumer generated content evolving? Are you using it for your brand or your client's brands? It will be interesting to see where this trend goes next.

Mike McClure, ECD and fan of the consumer.

Marketing Musings on a Thanksgiving Morning

Sitting at home watching the Thanksgiving parades on TV, I'm struck by how much marketing has changed in recent history. Sure, that's something I've known for some time, but watching the parade has crystallized how different things are, all in one little microcosm. I've worked with large retailers here in Detroit before, planning their Thanksgiving marketing. It mostly consisted of running their image and customer service type ads during the family ordinated parade and then hitting the rest of the day hard to with their ad to drive sales on Black Friday. It's much more complex today. Here's some of the trends I've seen:

Product Placement. The first thing that struck me this morning was the more integrated use of product placement. Corporate sponsorship has always been part of the parade experience. But today, I think Hoover took it to another level. They had a dance team featured in the parade. One of the professional dancers from Dancing With The Stars lead local dancers in a routine where they each were dancing with the newest high tech Hoover vacuum cleaner, much like the Fred Astaire spots they did a few years ago. The parade announcers spoke about the dancers and Hoover for at least 3 minutes. They talked about the features of the vacuum and how everyone wanted one. One announcer talked about how he had just gotten one at home and it was amazing. That's a lot of good value for Hoover - and no one was flipping away during a commercial break, because it wasn't one.

Multi-Media Rules. It's no longer sufficient to just run TV spots. You need to operate in multiple mediums at the same time. Honeybaked Hams had a good example of that working today. They had a promotion with the local TV station that was running during the parade. It involves TV, web, customer generated content, a contest, engaging their customers - all the things you need to do these days. They ran an ad that said, "When families get together for holiday hams, fun things happen." and then invited people to take fun or funny pictures of their families at the holidays and post them on their site.

Mobile Tie-Ins. Detroit's most upscale mall, The Somerset Collection, had an on-going text contest along with running their regular TV spots during the parade. it was also tied into the local TV coverage. The announcers encouraged people to text in to win gift cards to the mall. Then, throughout the parade they would put up people's names and the Somerset name as they gave away each gift card. Again, it got their name out there in a positive way over and over again, without being in a commercial break.

What did you see this Thanksgiving that illustrated the way marketing is changing? I'd be interested to know.

Mike McClure, waiting for turkey.

10 Things I learned at Brand Camp `09

I attended the Brand Camp University event this last Saturday and it was a fabulous day filled with wonderful and inspiring speakers. It was great a brain dump of information and inspiration. There was way too much stuff to detail in one blog, but here's some of the highlights of what I learned at Brand Camp 09:

1. It's time to Grustle.  Brand Camp organizer Hajj Flemings, kicked off the day talking about "grustle" - a combination of the daily Grind (what you have to do to make a living) and Hustle (the stuff you are passionate about and love to do) The key to personal happiness is finding your grustle; working at something you love to do.

2. Harley Davidson doesn't sell motorcycles.  Speaker Mitch Joel talked about the three conversations you need to have about your brand: internal, one-to-one and one-to-many. He said the internal conversation is about "finding the real you, what you're all about, what you like and don't like." His example of a brand knowing "what the real you is" was Harley Davidson, who says they don't sell motor vehicles, they sell the ability for 43-year-old accountants to dress up in leather and ride through a small town and have people be afraid of them.

3. The world's only Museum of the Weird is in Austin, TX.  While talking about his "10 Keys to Building a Powerful Personal Brand" speaker Rohit Bhargava's #3 item was "Find your Twist." The idea wasn't just about finding what makes your brand unique, it was also about finding your niche within your arena, whether that's within your field or your geographic region. Austin is proud of it's weird vibe, has tee-shirts proclaiming the city and it's denizens as being weird. Turning a trinket shop into a Museum of the Weird was someone finding their twist. Been meaning to get down to Austin for some time, now I have to go!

4. Participation is an ecosystem. One of the things Valeria Maltoni of CoversationAgent.com spoke about is the idea that there is a whole ecosystem to the act of participating in the conversations online. In the center is your content (for instance, you're blog). The first circle around that center is the people you know. The next circle out is the people who know the people you know. Different levels of participation allow you to move through the circles and expand them as you network.

5. PETA is everywhere.  Even in a focused and limited attendance conference PETA fanatics can raise their heads. Some protester shelled out the cash to attend just so she could attack presenter Ken Brown about McDonald's chicken killing processes. It was an interesting diversion and both the organizers and Mr. Brown handled the interruption well, quickly moving on.

6. People will pay to watch you burn... and that's a good thing.  Speaking of Ken Brown, he's a very high energy and dynamic speaker. He worked the crowd without any visual or audio aid. One thing he said was 'if you find your passion, people will pay to watch you burn." That goes for personal and corporate brands. If you are very passionate about what you do, it will come across and people will sit up and take notice.

7. You can get a room full of multi-tasking social media geeks to shut up & pay attention.  Paraplegic Olympic 100m sprint gold medal winner, April Holmes, had the room in silence (except for the occasional sniffle) with her moving and inspirational story. Not a single tweet went out on the #brandcamputwitter feed during the DVD detailing her journey.

8. We're living in an age of the Rise of the Brandividual.  Ford social media guru, Scott Monty spoke on how some personal brands are becoming as powerful as corporate brands. And some of those personal brands are inextricably tied into the corporate brand. Such is the case of Steve Jobs and Apple or Richard Branson and Virgin. He said 77% of people trust big companies less than they did last year (and last year wasn't exactly a banner year). they trust people they know and trusted 3rd party experts. So, a brandividual may carry more weight and garner more trust than the company brand alone.

9. Only 3 things distinguish social media.  Biggby Coffee's CEO, Biggby Bob Fish said social media appears to be just another method of message distribution except in these three ways: 1. It gives your brand personality. 2. It allows for interactions and dialog with the consumer. 3. It allows you to consolidate your media.

10. I'm going to want to go again next year.  It was definitely worth the time and money. I learned a lot. I saw some very dynamic and good speakers. I walked away inspired. I got a couple free books and a tee-shirt (which my wife already stole). Speaking of books, there were a lot of good titles recommended. I put together a list of them in a separate post you can find here.

Mike McClure, The Man, The Brand, The Yaffe Group Social Media Brandividual

How to catch customers' attention and keep it.

Welcome to the age of the fleeting consumer. The American attention span is getting shorter. Oops, just lost half my readers. People are finding ways to avoid marketing efforts. Online, they can choose to ignore when not engaged. Radios get flipped the minute the commercial break hits, if you're listening to commercial radio at all. TV gets TiVoed and commercials get skipped.

For many brands, products and marketers the answer lies in becoming part of the content instead of part of the interruption. It's a trend called "branded entertainment." According to the New York Times, the new TNT show "Trust Me" features a fake ad agency with real world clients. A number of products, including a Dove line of hair care products and Bertolli food products, have signed up to be clients of the fake agency. They pay real money for the mentions and have to agree to not try and influence the story lines. Even the actual Dove brand manager appears in the show as a client. The real products add realism to the show and give a showcase to the brands. You can't fast forward them without missing plot points.

Pepsi also got in on the branded entertainment bandwagon with commercial versions of the Saturday Night Live skit "MacGruber" - a spoof of the old MacGyver TV show. It didn't work so well in the Super Bowl. But while watching SNL the night before, Pepsi ran three different versions, all as the first spot in each commercial break. So, viewers thought it was just the next SNL skit instead of the first commercial. Each one had the original MacGyver as a side kick and the Pepsi tie in got more intense each "skit" - you can see all three here. Frankly, I've never been a big fan of this skit and thought these were funnier than the usual skit.

But how does a smaller company get into the world of branded entertainment. Can retailers or regional brands have content created for them and be able to afford it? Absolutely. They won't be as high profile as a network TV show, but there are ways to create entertaining content online that is affordable. It's one of the programs we've been working on here at Yaffe. Short films featuring entertainment or lifestyle content that is relevant to your target and creating a regionalized distribution mechanism is the key. If you'd like to know more about how you can get into branded entertainment, just drop me a line.

Mike McClure, ECD, mikem@yaffe.com