Like most e-retailers 1-800 Contacts relies on the Web to sell their products.  There are many products that can get away with the lack of personality of the Internet. Buying glasses and contacts is a personal transaction. You need these things to see so there has to be a level of trust to make the transaction.

This over-dramatization of the guy being special, the commercial brings a personality to the brand. It says hey, we care about you and hey – you’re special. It’s so cheesy that you can’t help but feel warm and fuzzy.

For a brand this is a good connotation, because at the end of the day, the vendor is being trusted with your sight. I don’t wear contacts and don’t plan on wearing them, but my wife orders from them so I generally have a good opinion of the company.

While the commercial gives me that good feeling, I also wonder if it tries too hard. It kind of seems like they are trying too hard. Does this over-compensation for being special hide something about the online contact vendor? Or is it just my cynical nature kicking in?

Now while I like the video’s embrace of the Flash Mob, I wonder if it is a sustainable marketing tool. For starters, other competing brands are seen in the video – Macy’s and Sacks – in a natural setting. Do you want to give the competition more face time?  I would also  assume that the kids were wearing H&M gear – but I can’t be sure.

While those questions center on the brand, I also wonder about the validity of the Flash Mob. Since there were multiple camera angles, you have to wonder if the audience was in on the event or if they were innocent bystanders. Also since it’s an ad do they need to sign waivers?

If the group was in on the secret does this remove the essence of the Flash Mob and become just another catchy advertising ploy? What do you think?

While I have played the mantra of PR helming the social media ship, the record is broken. The reasoning is flawed in a sense because I am a flack and am somewhat biased. However I have recently been looking at clearance and sidewalk sales (when it’s not raining), and have come to have a new appreciation for my original stance. I call it the ugly sweater theory.

Now we aren’t talking a literal ugly sweater, but rather using sales and other marketese to sell unwanted inventory and last season’s line. Take a minute and look into your inbox – how many sales are sitting in there. Are any of the products something that you must have? No, but they sure sound cool and may trigger an impulse buy.

This window dressing is very similar to someone rocking an ugly sweater to a holiday cocktail party. They know that the sweater is ugly, but it is a way to draw attention to them. It makes them more interesting and the sweater masks the fact that they are very uninteresting. In a nutshell it’s a classic bait and switch.

Whether they like it or not, it’s a plight that most marketers will get into if left steering the SS Social Steamer. A nearly free medium with no filter and pure ROI mixed with the Look at Me mentality is the recipe for a disaster.  While I don’t think that all marketers are snakes in the grass, I do think they would go into a SM channel for all the wrong reasons. Instead of looking for engagement, the goal would be transactions.

Do you want that to happen to your brand? Will you let the green blinders alter the way that your company looks at social media?

Now don’t get me wrong, PR folks are not perfect – we spin, sometimes as much as a washing machine. However, the brand reputation and public perception is our main goal. With that in mind, it makes us perfect for building up the community. Communications pros will also have an eye on driving revenue as well, but instead of the fancy window dressing the sale will be conversational and a soft sell.

How are you going to engage in the cocktail party, will you be the conversationalist, or are you dusting off the fugazi sweater?

Image – Signal Blog

While Gary focuses on commercials in his videos, I would also suggest that companies are missing the boat with their offline and radio ads as well. Radio has the same limitations as TV in selling products, but you could gauge the reach on top of the metrics the stations offer by offering a specific Facebook page with a survey that asks where they heard the commercial along with some interesting content. You could also add the URL to magazine and other print ads because it puts something tangible and actionable on an ad that won’t immediately garner a sale on the john. By adding a link you could also get someone heading to the site if they happen to have a BlackBerry or iPhone handy in their *ahem* office. What could it hurt? A tiny URL or Facebook call out in the corner of the ad won’t hurt anyone, but will add some more bang to your buck and some additional metrics to track.

Before tossing this to ya’ll to see what you think about the proposition, I wanted to share an oddity that I got from a few of the folks I spoke with during the #soxup for the book release party of Steve Garfield’s Get Seen (my review). Now the event was about using video to get seen, so it took me by surprise talking to some folks only to find out that they were terrified of getting in front of the camera or opening their company up to user generated video. I wonder if that has anything to do with the hesitancy of adding new media to traditional media pieces. What do you think?

Theories get you thinking. Sweat gets you results.

Now take a minute to look at those words and digest them. When looking at social media and looking for a way to define it for a manager or an executive break it into two separate areas that they can visualize.

Theory – Now there are a number of theories and schools of thought that you can go with, but at the end of the day they are just that. Pick the metric that you want to move the needle whether its sentiment, Retweets, link views (use a shortener to track clicks) or some other metrics – own it and live and die with it. While you might be tempted to look at doing everything, keep it simple and towards a metric that your boss understands very well. Do this even if the metric means little to you; this will help you gain a champion with some weight behind them.

Sweat – This doesn’t mean to break out your headband from high school basketball, but rather showing your manager that the only way to make a dent in social media is by getting your hands dirty. Rome wasn’t built overnight and neither was your company’s brand, so why should your presence in social media? Strong communities are built over time so the toughest battle here is showing your superior that you can’t just throw a bucket of money at it to make it work. For marketers, it is a hard pill to swallow, but as a flack your tool box has some tricks to help the medicine go down smoother. The battle won’t be easy, but its another way that you’ll have to put in the sweat to get the job done.

Have you had a fortune cookie that clicked with you in a similar way?

A six pack of Boston Beer Works' Fenway Ale

On one of my first trips up to Boston to visit my wife four years ago, I was introduced to Boston Beer Works, a microbrew pub with two locations in Boston. They are also home of the best chicken tenders in the city as well. Couple that with my love for craft beers and you have a very happy Jeff.

One of the things that always struck me about Beer Works was that their advertising was always bleh at best, but the locations always had people in them. Their Facebook group was also created by customers not the staff. Seasonally they have the Red Sox (across the street from Fenway Park), Bruins and Celtics (Canal Street location) to thank for putting fannies in the seats, while word of mouth and the previously mentioned lackluster ads take care of the rest of the year.

Being a fan of the restaurant, I was ecstatic for them when it was announced that they were expanding with two locations in Logan Airport. All signs pointed to business being good and that my belly would continue to be filled with chicken tenders. On Saturday afternoon, I made a purchase that made my weekend – a six-pack of their beer from the local liquor store. Granted you could have purchased the beer in Growlers or in a sixer at one of the pubs, but this meant that I could now pick it up on my time and without having to head into the restaurant. It goes to show you that reputation goes a long way. In the case of BBW it overcomes any marketing shortcomings.

So at that I will end my rant on how excited I am for the Boston Beer Works company and that I can get their beers without having to jump on a T. Cheers!

If you can’t view the video, click here.

I don’t want this post to come across as a me being uber-green or a tree hugger, because I am not either of them. It is rather my frustration with the phone company and YellowBook delivering phone books twice a year. Seriously it is a waste – It is 2010 people have the Internet and can instantly get numbers. No need to skim through pages to see the number for Frank’s House of Tacos.

After wrapping up the video, I counted the books and noticed that there were more books than units in the condominium.  The pile is up to my waist and will probably sit there for a month or so when Bernard our building’s facilities guy (who is getting up there in years) has to throw them away. To me it’s just a waste of marketing spend and resources.

I have seen this mural, from Adult Swim,  on the side of a deli for close to a month now in Boston, but finally got a chance to stop and grab a picture in daylight today. The mural is interesting in a number of ways.

The first asking the obvious that in today’s uber-PC world, is there a place for Santa Claus and do you believe in the season.  To that I say the hell with PC – it’s Christmas time.

The second connotation could be a jab at Boston and asking whether they still believe in the terrorist threat that Adult Swim (and Comedy Central) posed to the city while promoting the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. Don’t know what I am talking about, check out the PR stunt gone awry here.

What do you think? Do you still believe that this is the season of giving and in Santa? or is this just another let’s stick it to the man moment from the cartoon juggernaut?

Image: Social Media UK

There have been a lot of articles recently written about the need for companies to engage with their customers via social media. Some companies look at Dell’s $2 million revenue via social media and say – how do we scale to that over the next X months? While making money is a very good thing, the results don’t magically happen over night, but that gets lost in the hype. Something else that often gets lost in this tornado is whats really important, the conversation and the company’s image and reputation.

Think about it, as recently as a year ago, companies  – and newspapers – were ignoring blogs as a medium for people to communicate and share information with their peers. Many of the companies that dismissed blogs and forums for that matter, may wish that they had a Delorean to go back in time. Let’s face it blogs aren’t going anywhere and ignoring them can only lead to headaches down the road for companies.

The same can be said for social media. Sure some will still call it a passing fad, but these folks are not ready to believe in a change in the way that companies do business. With the real-time conversation engines across the Web, companies need to embrace the chaotic theory that their brand is owned by their constituents. So they better be listening and dialed into the consumer.

Failing to do so could be truly bad news for the company and their brand image. For example, let’s look at hash-tags and you are a resident of the Philadelphia area. Right before the first pitch of the World Series, your local Fox affiliate decides that they’d rather show Family Guy reruns than the game. Granted this is extreme, but I can guarantee that within minutes there would be an active hash-tag about this dilemma and the local station could either A fix it or suffer the consequence of a real-time complaint storm making news both locally and nationally from a little computer key – #

Yes the example is extreme, but say for instance you are a decent sized company who gets blindsided by a negative thread on a well-known blog. In this age of new media, you could simply broadcast your side of the story out there. Whether or not you screwed up consumers will get to hear your side, not the slanted side from the blog or complaint board. This holds true for large companies as well, especially with the resources at their finger tips. It is almost negligent to not know what is being said about you.

One of the biggest questions for businesses are Who? What? Why? and How?

Let’s address them one at a time:

Who - The person monitoring and reacting for the company should be decided on. While the organization could choose anyone they want, a person with a PR or communications background usually helps. It is also important to note that the voice should remain constant.

What – Listen to where you are being talked about. Are your customers engaging on blogs, Twitter, Forums, Facebook, etc? Well that’s where you should be. However don’t jump in blindly, listen and get to know what is being said before acting.

Why – The day of not caring and believing that a company can control the message that the consumer sees are over. Mommy blogs and review sites hold weight with consumers and are the new Word of Mouth.

How - Set a plan, listen, react and repeat

To be honest it isn’t rocket science, it just is a part of caring about what is being said about your company and brand. If you want to be loved by your customers, show them you care.

Oh and if you want to say I forgot the When – you should be doing it now.

What tribe are you a part of?