Ever wonder if you’re being boastful online and whether that is okay? With so many self-affirmations accessible in the form of comments, thumbs up or re-tweets, have our egos grown larger than the Internet itself?

To read complete post: http://pepperdigitalblog.com/?p=109

Why the shiny new Plasma at the coffee shop means more than just ads

I stopped by Tully’s coffee this morning to grab my morning “cup of Joe” when the 32” LCD display screen above my barista’s head caught my attention. I was entertained by New York Times headlines, horoscopes, weather updates and ads for local attractions, all brought to me by Ripple TV. The technology itself wasn’t novel or fascinating to me; it was exactly the opposite. I had seen these screens just about everywhere – from the hotel I stayed in last week to the hole in the wall pizza joint I went to for lunch yesterday. One actually projected real-time tweets and “shout outs” for birthdays, anniversaries and local happenings, creating a real social experience. It was such a simple concept – why on earth is it only becoming mainstream now?

For full article: http://pepperdigitalblog.com/?p=123

Being on the inside of the PR industry you hear a lot of buzz about new marketing initiatives – in the press and among brand managers. Last year, it was all about Twitter and this year I feel like everyone is talking about Facebook, again. Brand managers everywhere are looking to join the Facebook caravan. And, every day I see a new article or blog post about Facebook becoming a monster and brands that can’t get enough of the action.  

Today, I came across an article in Wired about how the social media giant Facebook has no regard for privacy in its flight to become the “epicenter” of the Internet. This comes as no surprise to me.  However, what does surprise me is how many brands are relying solely on Facebook to drive brand awareness – to the extent that they are redirecting their corporate domains to their fan page directly – for example, www.vitaminwater.com. The company has experienced great success leveraging social media, but there’s one problem; I’m not sure how their latest move to a Facebook-based website will impact them in the long haul. Time will tell. 

This strategy has sparked a lot of debate and discussion in the industry with regard to its impact on SEO, privacy, legal and now even ownership. A recent blog post by Michael Gray talks about the negative impact of “Putting All Your Eggs in the Facebook Basket.” One of the many really good points he raises that specifically struck me is how brands who do this inherently relinquish the success or failure of their social brand platform to one common denominator – Facebook. 

While nobody can deny the success Facebook brought to marketers as a tool, we certainly don’t think it should be the only method of spreading your messages to brand communities. At the end of the day Facebook is a company that offers a service, and like any other media business they are bound to go through their own set of ups and downs, from a regulatory, operational and growth standpoint. 

We’ve stood witness to some of these over the past several years and even in the present. One of the top issues being discussed today is Facebook’s privacy and how much information is given away to third party sites without explicit permission. This is so much of a concern that tech geeks within companies like Facebook and Google are abandoning ship and shutting down their Facebook pages. This includes Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at Google who has not technically left, but has deactivated his Facebook account.

The point is Facebook cannot be taken for face value and brands that rely solely on Facebook’s community run a dire risk. Basic logic to managing risk is to diversify. When building a social media platform, it’s best to take a multi-pronged approach with a variety of tools and assets working together – whether that be your website, a blog, Twitter, YouTube or Facebook. Also, developing a plan for overall social engagement online in the form of thought leadership and contributing to conversations that already exist, so you can take your messages out to places where people are already talking about them. All of this will help create a social sphere and active brand presence online that isn’t reliant upon the success or failure of one company. (Original post: http://pepperdigitalblog.com/?p=131)

Obama’s YouTube press conference following the State of the Union address has left members of the press, citizens and those following U.S. politics globally realizing a paradigm has shifted in the way the White House will communicate with the public moving forward. By leveraging YouTube, Facebook and other social media platforms, Obama continues to shorten the gap between the administration and the public. Using social tools, he has built an emotional connection with the public in an unprecedented way.

To read full article: http://pepperdigitalblog.com/?p=172

By Sahana Jayaraman, PepperDigital

As the media landscape changes and ad revenue begins to free up for many large companies, the likes of Pepsi, GM, and Anheuser-Busch are reevaluating their marketing spend, including pouring millions of dollars into a 30 second spot around Super Bowl or spending that same money across the span of a year on a social network. 

According to FOX Business News, who interviewed Laura Martin, director and senior analyst at Needham and Company about Pepsi’s decision to pull out of the Super Bowl ads this year, the “ad recession” is over with 95% of Super Bowl ad spots sold to date. In spite of the most anticipated backing out, Super Bowl has no concerns about the last two spots of the 32 spots available being grabbed before the big day.

Link to full article:

http://pepperdigitalblog.com/?p=176 

In keeping with the spirit of the 12 Days of Digital, I’d like to highlight a particular retail brand benefiting from a sound social media program rooted in strategy rather than tools.

Best Buy’s Holiday digital marketing campaign, which was also recently featured in the New York Time’s Bits Blog, is worth sharing for its creative strategy and impeccable execution. Although there isn’t anything new or innovative about the platforms Best Buy chose to use for its social media campaign, the underlying theme and tactical approach is. Here is a glance at some of the campaign’s core initiatives and a look at how they were each built to engage enthusiasts in a fun and interesting way.

Link to full article:

http://pepperdigitalblog.com/?p=193

As the media market dwindles, reporters are on the move, jumping jobs, changing beats and increasingly strapped for time and resources to do their due diligence when reporting. Moreover, there is stronger emphasis on speed versus accuracy. In fact, if you remember, Wall Street Journal’s managing editor issued a memo to staff in March saying that given revenue reality, all the Journal’s reporters will be judged by speed first, then everything else.

The result: sloppy journalism. – typos, misquotes, misattributes, and imbalanced reporting. With reporters focusing on being the first to report, the attitude is post now and adjust in real time as news unfolds. There is always time for getting the facts straight later, right? I’d say wrong, especially when a company’s reputation is involved.

So how do you hold journalists accountable, and how do clients who are misrepresented recover?

The Silicon Alley Insider wrote a story a couple weeks ago with a solution that caught my eye, “New PR: Beating Back Bad Press with Google AdWords.” The article talks about a PR practitioner that combats bad press from the New York Times in a non-traditional way – using Google Ad Words.

Traditionally, when a company is the subject of a critical or unfavorable news story, we recommend a more strategic approach to mitigate damage. Typically, this involves writing a letter to the editor, issuing a press release, or maybe even demanding a correction when warranted.  In some cases, using social media to address the issue head on with activists is appropriate. At the end of the day though, none of these tactics are guaranteed.

One of these instances involves a New York Times front page story about hoki, a fish best known as the primary ingredient in the Filet-O-Fish, being at risk of depletion. Needless to say New Zealand companies that farm hoki weren’t pleased by the article because it implied irresponsible overfishing.

When the Times refused to run a correction, the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council took a less diplomatic and non-traditional approach by buying Google ads for keywords like “new Zealand hoki “ and “hoki new york times” in hope of clearing the air.

According to the article, “The ads sought to target people discussing or searching for more information about the story. They each linked to a page that purports to set the record straight about hoki fishing and includes emails exchanged with Times science editor Laura Chang.” The Silicon Alley Insider calls this move “Genius”!

Also, reported is that “Because the council’s hoki page was originally a straightforward description of the fish and its uses, the Times had linked to it in the third paragraph of the article, and 78,000 people clicked though, according to Sarah Crysell, a spokeswoman for the council. Taking advantage of that incoming traffic, the group transformed its hoki page into a rebuttal of the Times story.”

The PR firm involved coins this strategy “media accountability” – which I love. He claims it is his way of “holding the media accountable for their deliberate falsehoods” and dealing with “arrogant reporters who have a one-sided agenda.”

 The Silicon Alley Insider says the firm is representing their client’s interests like any other PR agency should and would.  And, doing it with Google AdWords is just a more novel and clever way of shedding like on the editor’s reprehensible behavior.

It’s hard to argue the effectiveness of this “hoki” tactic in terms of guerilla marketing within an overall communications strategy, however I do question its legitimacy as a stand-alone PR practice given that it’s no longer “earned media” but rather a “sponsored ad”. It’s like assuming the public perception of an advertorial and an article bylined by a reporter are the same.  It’s a rapid fire and easy to execute band aid to a problem, but not a long-term solution. The New Zealand Seafood Industry Council needs a more sustainable marketing approach to help them address this and other issues with those constituents that are central to their business. Tell us what you think.

My guest post for Peppercom’s  Pepperdigital blog 

According to an Associated Press article that appeared in USA Today, “Made-to-order magazine lets readers choose.” Time Inc. is pilot testing a customized magazine that combines reader-selected sections from eight publications to create a new magazine compilation called mine. In an effort to mimic the personalized news feeds that has become ever so popular online, this experiment tests the extent to which people appreciate aggregated content by applying the method to Time’s magazines.

The article states, “The five-issue, 10-week experiment also aligns readers with the branding message that its sole advertising partner, Toyota Motor Corp., has for its new Lexus 2010 RX sport-utility vehicle: It’s as customizable as the magazine carrying its ads.”

As of right now, the magazine is of free subscription. The print edition is limited to the first 31,000 respondents, while an online version is available for another 200,000. If you are interested in checking it out or signing up for a free subscription, you may do so at www.timeinc.com/mine. I’ll be looking forward to receiving mine soon. 

You can pick your five favorites from eight different Time Warner/Amex publications listed for your personalized magazine. Titles include, Time, Sports Illustrated, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Money, In Style, Golf, and Travel + Leisure.  Editors will pre-select the stories that make it into each biweekly issue, and readers won’t have the option of switching their “top five” list of publications from one issue to the next.

The entire experience will have Toyota written all over it.  Even when you subscribe, you are asked a few simple and generic questions such as, “Do you crave sushi or pizza?” This sort of survey strategy allows Toyota to direct hyper-targeted messages geared towards a user’s persona. Having come up with the idea for mine, Toyota will be the single and only advertiser nabbing four full-page ads per issue.  Apparently, the cost of this program is comparable to that of one of their standard advertising campaigns. In fact,the company’s VP of marketing suggests that this campaign is more targeted and that the message of “driver inspired” and “customization” will resonate far greater with this medium.

Time Inc.’s president of advertising sales and marketing, Stephanie George, says in the article, “The mine experiment represents the latest effort by traditional media organizations to appeal to readers increasingly accustomed to picking and choosing what they read on the Internet. Online advertising, through growing, hasn’t generated enough revenue to offset declines in print; personalized print products could help fill some of the gap.”

Here is another eye-catching excerpt from the article:

“This summer, MediaNews Group, publisher of The Denver Post, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News and other newspapers, plans to experiment with its own reader-created publication, likely at its Daily News in Los Angeles. Readers will be allowed to choose specific stories, or those by author, keyword or subject. Details on that venture are expected next month.”

Now, reading all this probably has you questioning a few things. First, will these media ventures succeed? Lately, our lives have been tough enough, with newspapers shutting down and media laying-off staff.  Now what?  How will this impact our world in PR? Will we be forced to compete with the cash flow advertisers are using to sustain these publications? Gasp. 

The good news is that we’ll find out fast.  The promotion of mine kicks off this Friday and both Toyota and Time will be conducting extensive research on consumer reaction.

We’ve been hearing this for awhile now. In fact, if you read our previous post, “Silicon Valley Tech Gurus Claim What’s Hot When It’s Not So Hot,” Elisa Ackerman from The San Jose Mercury News cited non-profit and privately sponsored journalism as a growing trend over the next five years.

I also recall in the book Groundswell that authors Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff claimed, “RSS is the grease that lubricates the groundswell.”  They talk about how RSS feeds or, customizable content such as mine, accelerate mechanisms that drive groundswell and can very quickly signify whether the masses’ are for or against a product, company, etc.  We no longer rely on the institutions to tell us.

At the end of the day, the groundswell will decide, and it’s all just survival of the fittest. What happens if Travel & Leisure magazine doesn’t get “chosen” as much as the others? With initiatives like mine, the process of natural selection will work itself out much faster –with the assessment of publications, content, editors–and even the advertisers.

Tell me what you think.

To: Sahana

From: Holly Green

Last night my buzzer rang and from the lobby I heard a voice, “Sahana, you have a floral delivery.” I paused for a minute, thought about the date… “No, it isn’t a special occasion, isn’t my birthday…”

I ran downstairs to see what this was all about. The delivery man handed me a beautiful pot with a vibrant green plant assortment.

I opened the card and it read …. [click here to read the rest]

Last week, we represented PepperDigital at Silicon Valley’s PRSA 2009 Media Predicts event held at the Computer History Museum. The annual dinner event hosts a panel of Valley tech media insiders who highlight the tech happenings of the current year and offer projections for the following – what’s hot and what’s not.