Tom Fishburne: Marketoonist

the emperor's new tweets

 

(to license this cartoon, click here)

In London last week, I happened across Mark Ritson’s column in Marketing Week: “Hoodwinked by the Emperor’s New Tweets”. The title alone sparked this cartoon idea. 

Mark lampoons the social media bandwagon, particularly the herd mentality to incorporate social media into each and every marketing plan and the gullibility of marketing directors to believe all the hype. He writes, “Most brands don’t have the newsworthiness, broad appeal or dynamism to have any chance of making Twitter work for them.” 

 I think that statement is true. And I agree that attempting social media without “newsworthiness” or “dynamism” is simply expensive window dressing. But, I don’t think that this is result of a limitation of Twitter or any other social media platform. I think this is the result of a limitation of the brand. 

Brands have the obligation to be “newsworthy” and “dynamic”. Start there, not with social media. I’m a big fan of a quote from Kathy Sierra: “Please, businesses, don’t DO ‘social media’. Do ‘user happiness’, which may, or may not, require use of social media tools.” Social media will not make a dull brand more meaningful. 

Eric Ryan who founded method in the mundane category of household cleaning likes to say, “There are no commodity categories. Only commodity brands.” It’s the impetus of each and every brand to rise above commodity status. Or it risks becoming irrelevant next to cheaper private label. 

Only once a brand is truly meaningful to consumers does it earn the opportunity to have relationships with them. And I believe those relationships often can be made stronger through the use of social media tools.  

the six types of twitter users

This cartoon sprung fully formed from a great post from Guy Kawasaki. I always learn something from Guy's blog, so it's a tribute of sorts to put together a cartoon entirely inspired by one of his posts. 

Twitter can be overwhelming at first, like drinking through a firehouse. It definitely helps to understand the different archetypes there. Seek out the Mavens and Mensches. 

But, more importantly, consider the type of Twitter user you want to be. Evolve beyond simple lifestreaming. Become a Maven or Mensch yourself. This is particularly essential for Brands. Tone down the overt selling, and inspire consumers by offering them something of real value. 

Guy has a useful Twitter 101 primer.

voice of the brand

As businesses wade into social media, there's an interesting choice to make about the voice of the brand. The falacy is that social media is free. But the people costs to do it properly are important to understand going into it. As much as I love Tony Hsieh's approach at Zappos, not every CEO is capable of personally fronting the company in social media. 

I enjoyed Ann Handley's post on this topic: "The Right Voice for Your Brand Online is ... (Pick One): The CEO? Head of Marketing? An Intern? or Who?" 

I think the laziest (yet very common) option is the "Intern", which illustrates just how low social media really falls on the priority list for many companies. Social media is a classic Intern assignment because it has unclear upside and little perceived risk of screwing it up. 

But the Intern is often the least connected person in the organization. The Intern approach runs counter to the promise of social media improving the dialog between organizations and their consumers. Interns also need supervision, and the approval process detracts from the immediacy of social media. 

I recently heard someone describe tweets and facebook updates as "copywriting". It was a good reminder that social media dialog is every much a part of the voice of the brand as any other form of marketing (perhaps more so).  It's crucial to consider who is doing the talking and what they're talking about.

If yours is a brand that markets from the inside out, this voice should come naturally from what you are already doing. If instead your voice is applied externally from an agency, you may need a bigger overhaul. Social media exposes Cyrano de Bergerac.  Your consumers are increasingly demanding a real and meaningful conversation with your brand. And they likely won't have that conversation with an Intern. 

To think through the true investment of social media programs, I found the "Basics of Social Media ROI" from Olivier Blanchard a useful place to start.

the caged bird tweets

I found an interesting study about social media in the workplace, called “Whistle but don’t tweet at work.” The poll reports that 54% of companies ban social networking entirely, even for business purposes. 

Organizations are clearly struggling how to address social media. Many start with the premise of social media as a threat, rather than an opportunity. The emphasis is on limiting liability, often with Draconian command-and-control policies (like the muzzle and cage in this cartoon). 

Counter that approach with what a recent Harvard Business post advocates as “The Über-Connected Organization”. It gives some good pointers on how to embrace social media within an organization. Large companies like IBM and Toshiba are connecting employees globally and driving mass collaboration through social media tools. 

Those case studies speak to the potential of über-connections within an organization. But the greatest opportunity involves the über-connections between an organization and its customers. More than ever, consumers are seeking organizations with a human face. 

Yet, the corporate social media crackdown is hamstringing those types of meaningful interactions. These new policies are bolstering the “Corporate Firewall” I cartooned a few months ago. 

It’s time to tear down that wall. It’s time to acknowledge that the command-and-control model no longer works. It’s time to encourage the organization to engage more freely with the outside world. 

If there’s nothing to hide, then the risk should be low for social media tools to enable more transparent conversations. If there is something to hide, then the effort should be placed on cleaning up those skeletons in the closet so that the organization can truly brand itself from the inside out. 

Time is far better spent there than on devising over-protective social media policies.

the viral video bandwagon

Back in 2001, BMW created an internet-only series of short films called The Hire directed by big name directors like Guy Ritchie and John Woo. All of the films featured a pre-famous Clive Owen driving a BMW in different assignments around the world (my favorite involved Clive driving around Madonna). 

Over four months, the films were seen 11 million times and spiked BMW sales by 12% (and helped launch Clive's career). They effectively pioneered viral video marketing. I remember seeing these films in 2002 and marveling at how a brand could create content that interesting and compelling. 

Viral video marketing has exploded in the years since (and you no longer need Guy Ritchie to direct them). Along the way, there have been some great standouts like Smirnoff's Tea Partay, but also a lot of complete rubbish. 

This year, it feels like every marketing plan features viral video as a tactic. Yet, many brands treat these videos in the same dull way as placing a grocery cart ad or staging an on-pack promotion. They feel like infomercials. These brands assume that if they build it, viewers will come (and watch, and share). 

Brands sometimes forget that videos become viral, not by how interesting the content is for the brand, but by how interesting the content is to the viewers. They also forget that "viral" is, by nature, unpredictable. 

I thought that Volkswagen struck the right chord with its launch of The Fun Theory last week. VW created a clever series of videos around the simple principle of creating change for the better by making them more fun. They communicate a lot about VW and their environmental approach, but in a way that is not heavy-handed. 

Another personal favorite is David Mitchell's Soap Box series, put on by Bulldog, a young 5-person brand of men's natural grooming products in the UK. I had lunch with Simon and Rhodri, the two Bulldog founders, last week. They compete against the largest CPG businesses on the planet, and need to find ways to break through the clutter and level the playing field. In this video series, they commissioned David Mitchell, a well-known British comedian, to riff on a variety of 3-minute topics. Here's one I enjoyed that pokes fun at some of the language in traditional marketing.

social media makeover

Watching some businesses and brands grapple with social media reminds me of that classic expression, "putting lipstick on a pig".

I stumbled across this Marketing Week article a few months ago called, "Reckitt Benckiser makes an online push to connect with young consumers."  As part of a social media campaign backed by online advertising, the cleaning products company launched a Facebook fan page to reach "the online chattering classes" and "be automatically seen to be in the top three global FMCGs".  

One of the best parts of the article was the sole comment it attracted:

"A fan page on Facebook? You'd have to be very sad to join that. I'll be surprised if it connects with young people. Will they really manage to get a 20 year old student \(or worker) interested in connecting with Vanish?".

Many businesses treat social media tools the same dropping an FSI or placing a grocery cart ad.  It becomes just more superficial window dressing.  I think it would be far better to apply that investment toward actually making the brand and products more interesting and remarkable.

I touched on this theme last year with Poser Marketing too.

corporate twitter

For a while, it felt like social media was under the radar for many companies. Something they gave to interns or outsourced to agencies. The better companies experimented with being more transparent than ever before, overlooking the typical safety nets around corporate communication.

Lately though I've sensed a backlash brewing about potential liabilities around corporate social media. For a start, there are the the big regulatory SEC issues, like those in this WSJ article.

The article talks about eBay hiring a "social-media veteran to be an 'internal reporter' to increase transparency and put a face on the company." Ultimately, the experiment proved too transparent and they had to muzzle the social-media veteran so they didn't violate SEC disclosure rules. 

"There's much more of a microscope on what I'm doing now," he said.

I sense that this microscope is broader than just SEC concerns and will start to guide many companies to be more risk-adverse with social media. In a meeting recently, I heard someone say that the "summer of free social media love" was going to come to an end.

It will be interesting to watch. I actually think this microscope creates an incredible opportunity for companies still willing to put themselves out there. For companies with something interesting to share and the courage to say it, social media can amplify their voice far louder than their size. The microscope will keep others mute.

Compare the voice of @howiescardigan, Cardigan Bay's third largest clothing company, with the silence of @LeviStraussCo, to see how David can leverage social media against Goliath.

In 2003, Levi Strauss (revenue £2.8bn) threatened to sue Howies (revenue £300K) because they claimed Howies jeans infringed a patent. Howies leveraged its transparency and openness against the legal risk aversion of Levi Strauss to win the contest in an hysterical battle they called "Operation Tickle".

"We introduced a colour-blind test for people buying our jeans. Just to make sure they could tell the difference between grey (ours) and theirs (red). We also introduced a spelling test, too. We asked our customers to spell corporation, oppression, Machiavellian etc. Of course they had to spell Levis and howies as well. If people failed the spell test, we refused to sell them the jeans"

The growing social media microscope will help distinguish companies that are willing to openly interact with their customers with real honesty. This is David's new slingshot.

social media bandwagon

It's only fitting that I found inspiration for this social media cartoon from something I read on Twitter.  @KathySierra writes, "Please, businesses, don't DO 'social media'. Do 'user happiness', which may, or may not require use of social media tools."

It's interesting to watch the varying ways that business embraces social media.  For brands with the right mindset and something useful to say, social media can empower their most evangelical consumers.  See the frequent, personal, and transparent approach that innocent follows on facebook (including how they handle criticism on the recent investment by Coke).

As web 2.0 pundit/cartoonist Hugh Macleod says, social media is "a good way to make things happen indirectly, a point lost on many corporate types."

Too often, brand managers treat social media like direct marketing, with the goal of interrupting a demographic rather than contributing to a meaningful conversation.

See the Habitat faux-pas when they exploited Twitter hashtags to insert irrelevant marketing messages into conversations on the election in Iran.  That doesn't just show bad taste.  It shows a traditional marketing mindset at play in a social media world.

The pointer from Kathy Sierra on "user happiness" is exactly right.  In contemplating social media, the first question to ask is whether yours is a brand worth sharing.  If yes, then social media tools can enable that sharing.  If not, it's time to redirect your energy back to question number one.

This topic reminds me of this other cartoon I drew on buzz marketing a few years ago (which, I just saw from the footer, was the first cartoon I drew after our youngest was born).  Takes me back.

the linkedin support group

I think LinkedIn can be a meaningful tool.  It just cracks me how many invitations we all get with the default "since you are a person I trust" greeting.  Particularly when they come from people we don't actually know.

A friend of mine who used to run a high profile investment fund told me he gets 20-30 LinkedIn requests a day.  He's seen a noticeable surge in the last six months, which struck me that LinkedIn is probably a good barometer of the career anxiety we're all facing. 

So many of these interactions start and end with the LinkedIn invitation.  Social media of any stripe is a means to an end.  It can be incredibly productive, but I think it takes focused attention to stand out from the herd.  Otherwise, it can give a false sense of security.

And I think a small number of meaningful, serendipitous interactions will yield better results than a flood of general, superficial ones.

It reminds me of this post from Seth Godin defending why he doesn't use Twitter: "I don't want to use a tool unless I'm going to use it really well. Doing any of these things halfway is worse than not at all. People don't want a mediocre interaction."

Seth went on to create a private social network called Triiibes, which he occasionally opens up to new members.  It works well because membership is capped and you're encouraged to be an active member, not a passive bystander.

(After I finished this cartoon, I suddenly remembered I drew a very similar one back in 2002 when I was about to graduate from business school in a down market.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.)

evolution of marketing

This cartoon was inspired by a question from Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell.  Jackie and Ben are interviewing me as part of the Post2Post blogging book tour I'm doing this week.  They asked: " Is branding dead and if so, where do we bury the body?"

I definitely don't think branding is extinct, but I do think it's evolved.  So, I decided to use the evolution metaphor to play with a couple stereotypes in the noble profession of marketing.

Doctors have Hippocrates.  Even lawyers have Atticus Finch.  But, ask most consumers what archetypes they think of for marketers and the snakeoil salesman comes to mind.

I think that's because much of the history of marketing and branding has been about concocting a story consumers wanted to hear, even if the story was a wee bit phony. Charles Revson, founder of Revlon, famously quipped: "In our factories, we make cosmetics. In the store, we sell hope."

Nowadays, consumers are often in the marketer's seat.  Consumers have always been the best source for what your brand means (not what's on a brand architecture tacked up in the office).  But, the power used to be with the marketer to sculpt and shape that message.  The question to ask now is no longer how your consumers play back the message you told them.  It's what message are they spreading to others.

With rise of social media, consumers are quick and empowered to share brands they like.  But, they are also quick and empowered to point out hypocritical stuff they they don't like. (Jackie and Ben wrote about this phenomenon in their book, Citizen Marketers).

I think the key is to tell an authentic brand story (but careful that you don't overdo that like the authenticity hawker in the cartoon).

And then find ways to enable your consumers to advocate on your behalf. 

I love how the gDiapers brand has found a way to recruit consumers to even do in-store demos and go to local events on behalf of the brand.  Now that's powerful.  If you want to know what the gDiapers brand means, just ask these moms.  You can be sure they're not snakeoil salesmen.

If you'd like the full interview, Jackie and Ben are posting it on Tuesday on their Church of the Customer blog.