Crayon, join the conversation

I'm going on record. The Palm Pre will fail. And by fail I don't necessarily mean "wiped off the face of the earth," but certainly relative to the hype and investment, not to mention being the alleged "iPhone Killer".

Spread the word:

• Tell that creepy looking lady in the commercials, your friends, clients and co-workers
• Tweet or RT: New JJTV: Why the Palm Pre will Fail - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEOteoGj_kM 
• Subscribe to the show via iTunes or YouTube
• Leave a video response

You're invited to participate in HP's Employee Purchase Program (EPP) for friends 'n family discounts on the full portfolio of HP and Compaq consumer products. Here's what you need to do:

• Visit www.hpshopping.com/employee/jaffejuicetv and register to join the program
• You'll need to enter in EPP company code: 3807
• You'll receive additional exclusive offers if you sign up for the Monthly EPP newsletter

Thank you to HP for sponsoring this show and thank YOU for all your purchases as part of their friends and family program. Don't worry, you can still take advantage of some pretty sweet deals on Netbooks, Printers and more. See below for information on how you can become part of HP's Friends 'n Family Plan.

If you're a seller, then you know all about the black hole of marketing or media buying. If you're a buyer, then you're a Klingon. Why can't we all just get along?

Spread the word:

• Tell Yoda, your friends, clients and co-workers
• Tweet or RT: New JJTV: How to avoid the black hole of marketing or media buying - http://bit.ly/H1Shn
• Subscribe to the show via iTunes or YouTube
• Leave a video response

You're invited to participate in HP's Employee Purchase Program (EPP) for friends 'n family discounts on the full portfolio of HP and Compaq consumer products. Here's what you need to do:

• Visit www.hpshopping.com/employee/jaffejuicetv and register to join the program
• You'll need to enter in EPP company code: 3807
• You'll receive additional exclusive offers if you sign up for the Monthly EPP newsletter

Thank you to HP for sponsoring this show and thank YOU for all your purchases as part of their friends and family program. Don't worry, you can still take advantage of some pretty sweet deals on Netbooks, Printers and more. See below for information on how you can become part of HP's Friends 'n Family Plan.

The viral smash of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz' wedding march (25 MM views and counting) has very interesting implications for both music and marketing.

Spread the word:

• Tell your local DJ, your friends, clients and co-workers
• Tweet or RT: New JJTV: How Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinze reinvented music marketing in the social age - http://bit.ly/jillkevin
• Subscribe to the show via iTunes or YouTube
• Leave a video response

You're invited to participate in HP's Employee Purchase Program (EPP) for friends 'n family discounts on the full portfolio of HP and Compaq consumer products. Here's what you need to do:

• Visit www.hpshopping.com/employee/jaffejuicetv and register to join the program
• You'll need to enter in EPP company code: 3807
• You'll receive additional exclusive offers if you sign up for the Monthly EPP newsletter

As many of you know, crayon has been working with Panasonic for some time now on an initiative called "Living in HD."

The premise is simple: High Definition changes everything! And if you have an HD TV you'll testify to this. In fact, if you watched the finale of America's Got Talent last night in High Definition, you'll have especially loved the confetti at the end showering the winner of the show, chicken catcher Kevin Skinner!

Panasonic's vision for Living in High Definition is not solely about technology. In fact it's the human element that really brings this technology offering to life. So much so that they built a community called Living in HD or LiHD for short and supercharged this community with a collection of families that were given a suite of HD products to demonstrate first hand the transformative power of HD.

Anyone is invited and eligible to join the LiHD community to connect with other HD enthusiasts and exchange tools, trick, tips and tutorials with one another. If you haven't done so, feel free to follow this link. 

However, the purpose of this post is to talk specifically to a very special subset of this group, the "content creators" AKA Bloggers, Video bloggers, Photographers, Podcasters. Pretty much anyone that reads this blog if you think about it.

So put "Living in HD" together with "Content Creators" and what do you get? Enter LiHD Insiders!

We're looking for our third "LiHD insider" to join Steve Garfield and Stacy Debroff. You may recall that Steve and Stacy attended CES as Panasonic's guests in January. 

And if you become our third LiHD Insider, you'll win a very special content-creator suite, including:

• Panasonic 50" Plasma TV - TH-50PZ850U
• Panasonic Digital Camera - DMC-GH1
• Panasonic Digital Camera - DMC-ZS3
• Panasonic Camcorder - HDC-TM20S
• Panasonic Laptop - CF-F8
• Blu-Ray HiTB - SC-BT300

You'll also get a Lumix G1 camera to give away to your community as an incentive to join LiHD

Here are the details in more depth:

Who is eligible to become a LiHD Insider?

Any content creator who - by joining - agrees to upload unique content (seen only on the LiHD community) at least twice a month, participates in the forums and is a part of LiHD special events (live webinars and podcasts) once a quarter. As an LiHD Insider, your opinions and experiences will also help shape future generations of HD products.

A LiHD Insider will also get the opportunity to see new technology before it hits the stores and spend some time with Greg Harper, our LiHD Answerman.

Program Dates
The contest phase started Monday August 31th and ends on Friday October 9th.

Judging will be done in two phases. From October 12 to October 15th, the LiHD Insider committee will narrow down the applicants to a pool of 10 finalists. These finalists will then be presented to the community for voting from October 19th to October 23rd, with a winner being declared on or about October 28th.

The Details:
Any entrant to the LiHD Insider Contest must already be a member in good standing of LiHD, which means they have joined and completely filled out their profile. 

Entering for a chance to become an LiHD Insider is easy!

1. Go to http://www.livinginhd.com/lihdinsider
2. Fill out the registration form
3. Upload a video answering the following questions

• Why do you believe you should win this customized suite?
• How would this suite allow you to do something you currently cannot do? How would it make you better?
• How would you get your community to join and be involved in LivinginHD.com?
• Tag your entry with “LiHDInsider”

If you still have questions, take a look at Steve's video:

I'll warn you right now, this is a rant. And like all (good?) rants, it's kinda one-sided. So feel free to disagree. Feel free to prove me wrong... that's what comments are for. :-)

Cholesterol-and-sodium mecca T.G.I. Friday's found themselves in the frying pan (if not the fire) this week for their "Woody" campaign - and I've chosen the word campaign deliberately. If you're not familiar with the program, Friday's is offering free burgers if their spokes-character Woody gets half a million fans on Facebook. They're pitching the offer on their site, in their TV spots and with Facebook ads. Must have seemed like a good idea (to someone) but now bloggers are asking, so what? And what's next?

Clearly, Friday's took a page out of Starbucks' (face)book after the coffee giant grew the largest Fan community by offering members free pastries. Spike Jones of Brains on Fire calls efforts like these "social media bribery" and rightly points out that they have more in common with old school churn-and-burn promotional tactics than proper commitments to building meaningful, mutually beneficial, long term relationships between a brand and it's customers.

Oy.

In my presentations, I often talk about "marketing 0.2 in a 2.0 world" -- taking the same old things that seem not to work so well anymore on television, in print and (yes) even in traditional digital, force-fitting them into social, and praying they'll work. Marketing 0.2 comes in many flavors (beef and coffee are just two) but seem to share one common ingredient -- lack of depth.

Friday's hits 500,000 fans (they've already surpassed the mark although as I write this, the television ads driving traffic to the Fan Page are still running and the promotion is still highlighted on the chain's home page), Starbucks gives away a zillion scones -- and then what?

In a very different example (one we discussed on this week's BeanCast) AT&T unveiled Seth the AT&T Blogger Guy in a YouTube video that aimed to explain why their service for iPhone owners has been pretty shoddy, and assure customers that they're listening and on the case. If it weren't bad enough that this video smacked of too-little-too-late (why now rather than, say, during SXSW Interactive when thousands of social media influencers were directly impacted by AT&T's poor coverage; why in a single YouTube video rather than a more robust social program or, heaven forbid, a TV spot), it quickly came to light that Seth the AT&T Blogger Guy was neither an AT&T employee (he works for their PR agency) nor an actual blogger (apparently, he does blogger outreach.)

Blargh.

I hate to say it but our space abounds with bad examples. Remember all that hubbub about Skittles "getting" social because they began presenting real-time Twitter search on their home page? They're still doing it BTW (behind age verification because, of course, kids don't eat candy) even though the stream of tweets hardly tells a compelling brand story. High marks for looking like you get social; low marks for proving that looks were all that really mattered to you. What's the objective? What's the strategy? I still can't figure it out -- unless their primary goal was bandwagon-hopping.

But you don't need to cherry pick dramatic examples. You see the same shallow, misguided and misinformed attempts at social media marketing everywhere you look -- in the post-and-pray viral videos, the brand Twitter accounts that do nothing more than broadcast brand messages (despite the fact that there are plenty of good examples to follow from other, smarter brands that tap into Twitter for everything from conversation to customer support), in the blogs, social network pages, podcasts and Apps that start out hot and cool off faster than microwaved leftovers.

Are the agencies to blame? Consider this: MarketingProfs community manager Beth Harte (herself a respected marketing blogger and prominent member of the Twitter community) emailed Universal McCann to request a copy of their Wave 4 social media study. Her email was deleted without even being opened. Does it matter how well you've researched the social space if your actions prove you don't understand that social is at its core about peer-to-peer relationships? Actually, this isn't just an example of bad social marketing; it's bad old school relationship marketing -- why squander the permission someone has granted by offering up her email address. Shouldn't UM know better?

Are the clients to blame? I mean -- they greenlight these programs, don't they? They're quick to pressure their agencies for the next big thing, and even quicker to pull support and funding when the latest social media tactic doesn't scale right away or deliver immediate, measurable ROI.

Looking at examples like these, it seems we really haven't come very far from the olden days of fake blogs and trying-too-hard-to-be-cool MySpace profiles. Have we?

Trying the tools, driving the traffic, collecting the friends, fans or followers aren't what matters. What matters is the "what's next." And what matters for those of us who earn our living doing social media marketing is what happens next for us too -- when we stop being so shallow with gimmicks, giveaways and poorly conceived short term tactics, and actually dig deep into long-term, commitment-based relationship building.

Yes, I know there are plenty of good examples that I haven't mentioned. Once again, feel free to yell at me in the comments. I rant because I love... and (for now) rant over...

My buddy, Mitch Joel, just wrote a book. It's called Six Pixels of Separation and it's the prelude to his blog and podcast. In this special episode, we talk about the book, his rationale and motivations behind writing it, the central themes behind the book and of course, Jay Leno. So give it a listen, buy the book (of course) and send in your audio comments to me on +1 206 203-3255 or follow me on Twitter (why? I have no idea)

Direct download here

iTunes subscription here

Bob Greenberg (the R/GA Bob) just wrote a piece on Adweek which talks about how a "holistic social media program can help keep a brand alive."

This paragraph caught my eye, which really captures the gist of his article:

Right now, many brands are leveraging Facebook to launch social media campaigns. But there are limitations: marketers can reach only Facebook members and agencies must work within the constraints of the platform. There's an opportunity for marketers and agencies to identify meaningful experiences through brand-created platforms. This will enable brands to develop owned media channels to springboard campaigns, show content and promote community building.

In other words, all ye who flock to Facebook are akin to lemmings en route on a one-way ticket to cliff central. Enter "brand-created platforms" which is the 3 word (or 2-word if you want to credit the hyphen) pivot upon which this article rests. 

So much so that this quote from the preceding paragraph absolutely comes into play, "The campaign (Gap's Born to Fit) points to a future where such social media efforts could eliminate the need for a company Web site."

On the one hand, it's an apparent contradiction. If a brand doesn't need a website, then does it need a "brand-created platform"? On the other hand, it represents a scenario where a "brand-created platform" is neither an old-fashioned, traditional website; nor is it the complete cession of its equity, purpose and point of view to the masses (and certainly to the noise) as per Skittles.

I'm still not sure what the "IT" is from Bob's perspective. Although he points to MyStarbucksIdea, Lego's Ambassador Program and of course, Gap's new effort...I hope it's not a codename for justifying elaborate web development to build highly technical (read: expensive), functional (read: expensive) and experiential (read: expensive) sites.

In the world of social media, things are somewhat topsy-turvy insofar that production is both typically and relatively lower, however human capital/cost/investment is typically signficiantly higher...certainly over time.

That's the midde ground. And it comes in the form of one word: "time." Over time, the community grows. Over time the value of the platform grows. Over time, the initial investment is spread over a longer term - thereby presenting a one two punch of efficiency-effectiveness.

And this is where I'd like to believe that Bob Greenberg and Bob Greenberg (Panasonic's) are sympatico - at least as far as "Living in High Definition" is concerned (Panasonic's community for all things HD, which crayon has been working on with Panasonic for a while now) 

As we say at crayon, "marketing is not a campaign; it's a commitment" and whether we're talking about communications, advertising, brand building or even web development, it all applies equally when the goal is to foster and nurture long term, authentic, meaningful and productive relationships with customers.