Why 2012 was a blah year for social media

A good friend of mine and a guy whom I both respect and like recently wrote in his Zeus of Marketing blog (http://jrgrana.com/blog/2012/12/27/its-a-wrap-2012-was-a-blah-year-for-digitalsocial) that 2012 was a blah year for social media.

While I tend to agree in general with some of Jesus' "non-soap-box" advice, there are another two important aspects which hobbled social media and will continue to hobble social media:

(1) It is social, but it ain't media

I've been saying that for ages (or what passes for ages today). Social media's major problem is that it is social, not media.

People go to social media outlets to socialize and network either personally or professionally. They don't go to look at advertising. As a result, social media moved away from the implicit promise of "results" into the muddy waters of "attitudinal" and it is definitely a non-transactional environment.

The end result is that social media zealots have the same discourse now that TV zealots had before... talk about attitude, buzz, engagement and a whole bunch of fuzzy pseudo-metrics.

The lousy part there, too, is that while most clients could easily measure some degree of transactions they don't even have attitudinal benchmarks, so even if social networks could move these metrics, most still would not be able to measure the lift or non-lift.

Bummer

(2) There are too many "anti-Facebook" networks muddying up the waters

Americans love underdogs. And, of course, compared to the 800-pound gorilla, ANY newly-hatched network is an underdog. But, honestly, do we really need yet another pseudo network? I even have a running bet (a bottle of wine) with friends about whether or not the newest, bestest, shiniest pseudo-network (Parranda.org) will even be a player a year from now.

Why?

In contrast to television, where you can have as many networks as you want because the extent of our involvement is laying back, eating Doritos and scratching our bellies, a social network requires work. Real work. And, if Facebook is monopolizing most of your social network time, just how much time and energy do you really have for Parranda? Or Que Pasa? or the zillion others that exist only as minute little pilot-fish networks?

To sum it up... it has been a blah year? Probably. But that's because expectations were misplaced and, face it, plain wrong

Where is a 25-year-old woman a 54-year-old man?

Hint... this is not about sex change operations.

A young woman is the same as an old man only in the mind of advertisers.

I was just reading this news item from The New York Times online: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/business/media/60-minutes-gets-younger-and-its-viewers-do-too.html and was struck by how antiquated we still are in the U.S.

Everywhere outside of the U.S. we target by way narrower demographics and have done for 20 years now.

In dozens of countries, ranging from Mexico and Brazil to England, Spain, China, Japan and many others we would target slices such as "18-24 year old women in the D SEL (Socio Economic Level)" or "35-50 year old men in the ABC+ SEL"

Three factors contributed to the change:

1. The creation of a people meter base. We have that.
2. The acceptance by advertisers and agencies that this was a better way to target consumers. Evidently, we don't have that.
3. The acceptance by many TV networks to guarantee audiences in narrower demos. This can go either way here.

We now have dozens of media channels that we didn't even dream about 20 years ago and can probably target "young women, 18-21, who like mountain biking".

Isn't it about time we move away from equating young women with old men?

Has JCP found its groove?

I admire the latest campaign by JCP (JC Penney for the rest of us), I really do:

• It is courageous: a million other stores like Sear's, Kmart, Kohls and others, still believe in the two basic pillars of American catalog retailing: schlock and discounts. The new JCP does away with both in a single, clean swoop
• It works! My wife and I haven't been to a JCP store in maybe 2 years. The last time, really, about 2 years ago, I bought a pair of Nike shoes because it was the only place where I could find 8E. But... that's it. Yet, I buy a huge amount of T-shirts and running shorts at Target, which is essentially the same price point. It just never occured to either of us to set foot in a JCP Store. Today, after looking at the catalog, my wife all of a sudden said she would definitely go next time we are in Dadeland. So the campaign took her from a decidedly negative attitude to a decidedly positive attitude in a bit less than 2 months.
• And it engages: the main attractions of the catalog --and my wife read the entire thing cover to cover-- are the stories of real people.
• Personally, I like the switch to clean bold graphics, clean bold photographs and the decidedly different square logo.
• It can work in any media: I've already seen the TV spots, of course, and while I find them a bit too close to the Target ones for comfort, at least they are engaging and make me look. My wife even commented "Wow... did they just redo Penney?" and now notices most of them.

All in all, a welcome change from the usual schlock we see in retail and I'm very glad quality is working. A blow against naysayers everywhere.

Is this the best-ever campaign for a college?

MDC - Miami Dade College grew out of its original --and humble-- beginnings as "Miami Dade Community College" into an educational powerhouse.

I've been following this campaign since it started and, in my mind, this is the best college ad campaign I've ever seen, period.

1. It appeals directly to the community: all of these people are part of the fabric of Miami Dade
2. Absolutely recognizable: the same format appears over and over and over: a 3/4 shot of the person, same background, same pose, same style: name and company
3. Appealing to our intelligence: no one did the obvious dumb thing, which would have been telling us what each person did. We know some (e.g., Willy Chirino) and we don't know many. But, in every case, we realize that the person (1) graduated from MDC (or MDCC) and (2) must be someone
4. Can be adapted to everything (except radio): small format ads, web, mobile... you name it, the campaign works in that medium

I know it is customary for bloggers --especially those of us who are in the ad business-- to criticize (oops, I mean "critique" of course) ad campaigns and, boy, I've done that with some. But this campaign for Miami Dade College (www.mdc.edu) is absolutely outstanding. Kudos.

And I happen to think that Willy Chirino is an outstanding person and musician

Social Media and the Republican Primaries: To know you is not to love you

I was intrigued by the recent Ad Age article which looked at the correlation between social media and primary results and concluded that social media was not predictive (yet). So I decided to do some research on my own.

First things first, I was struck by the huge difference in social media between President Obama and the current four Republican candidates.

Mitt Romney tops the Facebook “likes” scale at 909,600. President Obama has 25 million.

Newt Gingrich tops the Twitter followers scale at 1,500,000. President Obama has 13,000,000

So, right off the bat, if social media is a good sign of election results, these guys are fried.

The four candidates, together, have 2,885,000 “likes” to President Obama’s 25,600,000 and 2,449,000 Twitter followers to President Obama’s 13,000.

However, the four candidates, together, have put out 7,340 Tweets to the President’s 3,130. So, could there be a mathematical correlation there?

I looked at the number of states currently having held primaries but excluded four huge economies: American Samoa, US Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Marianas Island. With those important economies out of the way, Romney has 15 victories (58% of the total), Santorum has 9 (or 35%) and the rest have 2 (or almost 8%)

So, Facebook v Wins... nothing there:

There’s just no rhyme or reason between the percentage of wins for each candidate and their Facebook “likes”. Ron Paul has almost 1 million “likes” and 0 wins; Santorum has almost no “likes” (179,800) but is the second largest winner.

So I looked at Twitter

Gingrich –a well know firebrand—has the most Twitter followers at 1.5 million while winners Romney and Santorum have only 377,800 and 166,500 followers respectively. So, excluding Ron Paul, there seems to be a perverse reverse correlation.

And when we look at the number of tweets, the relationship becomes a bit clearer:

When looking a the number of Tweets, we find the same perverse relationship: excluding Ron Paul, the more candidates “twitted” the less states they won.

So, evidently, the more they Tweet and the more we know about these candidates... the less likely we are to vote for them.

As a reminder... the four Republican candidates together have issued 7,342 Tweets... President Obama has only issued 3,130, well under 50%.

So, can social media predict an election? Perhaps, in a perverse kind of way... it might.

Real Branding vs Really? Branding?

I've got to confess: the first ever real ad I remember... and one of the seminal ads in getting me into advertising, was from the 70's and showed a beautiful apple with an Alfa Romeo key inserted in it and the keychain with the Alfa logo dangling. Needlessly, it said: Temptation.

That ad got me hooked into advertising and communications. It was incredible how a brand could both, tell you what it was all about AND entice you with such an economy of words and a powerful image.

A second classic ad that impacted me was this one:

That's right. The mythical "commendatore" Enzo Ferrari drives a Fiat. Of course, he doesn't drive the Fiat shown... or any other "Fiat-branded" car. But, in 1970, when Fiat bought Ferrari, it was huge news and this single ad changed the entire perception of Fiat among thousands of car enthusiasts likey myself. After all, how can Fiat not learn and improve from Ferrari?

That was real branding.

Fast forward to today and we now see that the makers of this beauty:

A Pininfarina-designed Maserati GT --which by the way, has a 400+ HP Ferrari engine-- had the bright idea of coming up with this:

Which brings three questions to mind:

1. If I just spend $130,000 in a GT... do I really want my neighbor to have a $35,000 version made by Chrysler?
2. Is the U.S. ready to spend $35,000+ in a car with a 1.4 liter, 4 Cylinder engine that puts out 160 HP? I mean, even a Mini Cooper S has 180 HP.
3. Why would Maserati even do this? Why put yourself in a position where a Mini or a Honda Civic can beat a Maserati from 0-60 or, more probably, from one stop light to the next? What were they thinking?

Now... Maserati has a long history of doing weird alliances. These alliances have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.

In the 70's, this car was a sublime example of a great alliance:

The car was a Citroen SM and had a Maserati engine and enough advanced engineering to shame a modern car designer: speed sensitive power steering, headlights that turned with the steering, 6 speakers... it was expensive, fast, luxurious and did wonders to bolster both, Citroen's and Maserati's reputations.

Then came this doozy:

A Chrysler TC... a thinly-disguised K-Car, the laughing stock that saved Chrysler the first time and the platform that helped cement the brand the ultimate purveyors of Mini Vans and other castrating vehicles.

After that car, no one, but no one, bought a Maserati in the U.S. The brand just basically vanished.

The car was under-powered, ugly, full of design miscues.

And, now, in a stroke of genius, Maserati is going to destroy its image again.

Certainly brings new meaning to the old phrase regarding those who ignore history...

Short Hiatus - New Agency is Born

Back after a short hiatus.

On Dec. 31st the agency where I used to work closed its offices after losing its largest client and was reborn as a media rep firm

After a short vacation, Carlos Montaño, the creative director and one with whom I've worked at 3 different agencies in Miami and New Yori, and I, decided to take the plunge and form a new venture: Montano + Salup Communications.

So that's our new logo, a gift from talented designer Carolina Angel (http://www.lovetob.com/) and here's our new website: www.montanosalup.com


Goes without saying that we will deeply appreciate referrals. My new business email is msalup@montanosalup.com