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Found this interesting podcast from Chad Stoller of Three Minds @ Organic. While this isn’t a super complicated look at social media, it does have some of the basics of whats working/not working, where social media may be going, and what companies should do to measure ROI.

Twitter, which I’m currently experimenting with, is one of the things Chad talks about. He sees it basically as an RSS feed for his friends’ lives. Even though, he may not have spoken to someone in 6 weeks, Twitter allows him to feel like he knows what’s going on without actually being in contact with the person. I can see how this can be a time-saver and a good thing, but I can also see how this can be a bad thing. If you can’t make time to talk to someone every so often, chances are they aren’t that good of a friend.

Other than the Twitter stuff, see below for a couple other good quotes. For more, check out the podcast.

“If you’re going to be innovative with your media plan, be innovative with your metrics.”

“It’s not always about the volume, it’s about the quality of the participation.”

Looks like I wasn’t off my rocker after all. In case you missed it, I previously posted about trouble with Dove’s YouTube strategy as well as their Pro-Age ad that featured naked grannies. You can see the ad here. Basically, I said that while everyone should be allowed to feel good about themselves, Dove was taking the whole thing too far.

TV networks felt the same way, and spokespersons from Fox and NBC admitted their networks had rejected the ad. I don’t know if the ad should have been banned, but I still think it was too much. While Dove may have been hoping to get some buzz going for their banned commercial, Ad Age says the ad (posted in German) has received only 600 views on YouTube, and traffic to Dove’s website hasn’t increased that much.

I still need to show my mom this ad to see what she thinks. While I’m sure it does appeal to some baby boomers, most people saw through this as a publicity stunt. Dove wanted the ad to be viral and build buzz; instead it repulsed people.

Related link: Ad Age: Why Dove Oldies Aren’t on the Nets…or YouTube 

Happy Valentines Day. Now that I got the positive out of the way, let’s talk about what’s going on/wrong in the world of Dove, the skin care/beauty company. First, they try to get in on the user-generated trend. This video was posted on YouTube and explains that if you’ve ever dreamed creating your own commercial, then you can do one for Dove! OMG REALLY!! No other incentives?! Sounds great…

Apparently a ton of other people felt the same way, and YouTube had to turn off the comments for the video, because of the backlash. Some people even posted their own responses, and Schmuly’s video (found via Whistle Through Your Comb, a great blog by a planner/friend) is one of the best. Schmuly paints a pretty clear picture: Marketers read Wall Street Journal and think they know how to market to YouTubers, but they really have no idea what they’re getting into and are going to keep failing over and over again.

So I thought Dove might lay low for awhile after that screw-up. I’m reading Advertising Age today and I find this article, and see that Dove is using naked grannies in its newest ad for Pro Age products…

Anybody else think Dove’s taking the “be real/be yourself/everyone is beautiful” thing too far here? Watch the Dove Pro Age ad and let me know. Maybe I’m just off my rocker. Wait, I don’t even own a rocker.

P & G, the world’s largest advertiser with an annual ad budget of $6.7 million, is launching 2 websites aimed at creating online communities for data mining and market research…essentially online focus groups on a mass-scale.
One site will be tied to the People’s Choice Awards and the other site, Capessa, will be a community for women to discuss subjects such as parenting and weight loss.
It’s about time someone realized the potential to tap into what people like/dislike through social networks. It remains to be seen whether or not the sites will be popular like Google/Nike’s Joga.com or will tank like Wal-Mart’s social network for teenagers.

NPR did a segment today about how social/user-created content is changing our economics. The segment featured Don Tapscott, co-author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. You can listen to the segment here.
Basically the main thing to take from this is that the new way of solving problems, gathering information and reducing costs involves tapping into the world’s human capital, instead of just relying on the ideas of people from the company itself. In order to take advantage of the millions of ideas out there, a company must open itself up to the public and share its private data.

The power of user-created content speaks for itself and according to Tapscott, major brands are taking advantage of this concept in creating new, innovative products and services. P & G will soon have 50% of all its new ideas coming from outside the company, Tapscott says.

It will be interesting to see how brands will attempt to control the marketplace of ideas. One area that many brands have yet to realize that they can’t/shouldn’t control is the world of blogs.
Blogs are by nature irreverent, spontaneous, and fun, though some companies have insisted on trying to censor comments, create fake blogs and misuse them to their advantage. Ultimately, however, the truth will come out and the remarkable brands will be the ones that listen to customers, acknowledge their mistakes and improve. They will create products and services that will enrich their customers’ lives, not just market things that help their margins. As the spread of ideas increases and more companies become transparent and ask for customer input, the brands that aren’t remarkable will slowly die and be forgotten.

On Sunday, my gf and her mom were craving a $1 sweet tea from the McDonald’s inside Walmart, only to find that at this particular McDonald’s tea was $1.29. The cashier looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock and die as they questioned why there was no $1 tea, even though it’s always advertised. His excuse didn’t say much but this whole thing is a good lesson. Companies shouldn’t say one thing and do something else. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure there was some kind of fine print or speed talker at the end of each ad saying “only good at participating McDonald’s blah blah” but that’s crap. Your experience should be the same at each and every McDonald’s, and $1 sweet tea should be $1.