A couple of weeks ago I was at Ad:Tech and besides meeting some companies who treated us like idiots and some that didn’t, there was a pretty decent talk by three creative directors with their own set of “Five golden rules” in advertising.
The first and the last creative directors gave typical rules like stay true to the brand etc. Very advertising in the ’90s or web1.0. Now one of them gave five points that were much, much more relevant to this day and age:
Understand your consumer
Own an issue, stand for something
Spark & manage a conversation
Involve your audience
Aim for impact
Alright understand your consumer and aim for impact are normal, but while the other two were talking about transmitting one-way messages, at least he mentioned “conversation” and involving the audience.
If you’re paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to an agency to do your advertising, wouldn’t you rather it be an interactive, engaging effort instead of one of 2 million “impressions” that registered in their peripheral vision for all of two seconds? Because if you’re still engaged in the transmit model (i.e one way monologue) as opposed to conversation and two way dialogue, it seems like a waste of time. Especially if your demo is Gen Y.
Yesterday I was at the ad:tech conference Future Generation track (for students) and the second session of the day was with OMD, and it was very… scammy.
First they came and they said “We don’t want to tell you what life in an ad agency is like, we want you to live it”. So they broke the crowd of students into groups, gave them a brief about a brand and in-game advertising and sent them off to brainstorm.
Now, I don’t know what companies think, but we’re not stupid. It was so terribly obvious that they wanted to farm for ideas and were poorly disguising it as “live the exciting life of an ad agency!” It would’ve been fine if they said “So we wanna know what the new consumer - you guys - think about putting ads in games. Here are some of ideas, do you think it’ll work?”. You want a 140 people test-group or the ideas of 140 business and communications students? Just say so. Openly.
The best part of it all? After the students presented their ideas/pitches, OMD said “They were all so brilliant, we want to keep them!” and then proceeded to collect the paper on which the pitches were written.
If that doesn’t smell of theft I don’t know what does.
And we’re supposed to want to work for employers like that?
Just got back from the IDC Web2.0 Conference today (thanks to Debbie and Joyes for granting me access!) and have some immediate thoughts before I go into detail about the various topics discussed.
Main thought: People need to do more research before coming for these conferences.
I estimate about 200 people in the room, and when the room was asked who used feeds (RSS), less than 30 people raised their hand.
Now I’m not judging, but I think if companies are going to spend $240 to send people for a three hour conference, they need to be able to absorb what is going on and follow the discussions. If only 30 people understand feeds, how many would understand the rest of the topics today? Wikis? Co-creation of content? Social networking? User-generated content? I have my doubts. I think companies owe it to themselves to do a little bit of research before going, so that they can truly engage in the discussion.
The thing is there was some good content at the conference. One speaker mentioned it’s not necessary to be front and centre of the content-creation, just a curator. And I wonder how many people got the reference.
Edit: Maybe next time after a conference I should walk up to people randomly and ask “So what do you think the takeaways are for your business?” and see what answers I get.
Finally, a question was asked towards the end of the day: “Is there research to show that using IM and Facebook increases productivity? And are some professions more suited than others to using social media in education. For example, would it be applicable to medicine?”. A muted groan rippled through the room.
Firstly, obviously there is no research to show that. The people who question the benefits of IM, Twitter and Facebook are those who are not on it or don’t understand it or are suspicious and un-trusting of their employees to be on these applications. Do you think people aren’t using the office phone for non-productive uses? Or the office email? Or the office printer?
The reason why this question comes up, to me, is because companies want to see this instant gratification. Are you using Facebook to generate a sales lead or close a sale? No? Waste of time. But it doesn’t work that way. Facebook, Twitter and IM take time to produce results. I spend a lot of time in the office on Facebook. I joke that it’s “research”, but finding out how people use Facebook and interact is very important. If you don’t know how your consumer is using their tools, how can you ever hope to be relevant?
Will there be employees who abuse this trust and throw sheep or superpoke friends at work? Sure. But I don’t feel that’s a reason to shut down access, because to me, the benefits outweigh the cons. Let’s keep this all in perspective. It’s the people that abuse the tool. Not that there’s anything inherently “wrong” about the tool.
Secondly, what a crazy question! Can the medical profession use social media? Of course! I honestly and truly question why this person was at this conference at all. The whole morning people were talking about interaction and content sharing and co-creation and wikis and transferring ideas and collaboration via Google Docs.
You mean you don’t see how medical knowledge can be pooled together, developed and refined via these tools? Or did you seriously mean doing away with practical surgery sessions and teach it via social media? Which is absolutely ridiculous too.
It is people like that, that are holding social media (and your company) back from advancing. The new consumers are not going to be convinced by an advertisement in the newspaper. If it’s not timely and relevant, forget it. If your business is not showing and interest in discovering how the new consumers think and behave, you might not be around in 10 years when they graduate and choose to spend their disposable income with a company who does.
Passed by this yesterday, one of the many banners hanging on street lamps.
Two almost exactly identical banners hanging from every street lamp for a block.
So here’s where it doesn’t make sense.
1) Why two? If you really had to waste money putting a banner outdoors, wouldn’t one do the trick? Or does placing them on either side of a street lamp guarantee double the eyaballs?
2) Why every street lamp? Why not every alternate one? When I drive past by the time I see the first one and look up more closely, it’s the third street lamp anyway.
So essentially, they could’ve either done one banner on every alternate street lamp and spent a quarter of their budget, or done it over a larger area (ie four blocks) and spend the same amount of money.
Or they could’ve just contacted animal, dinosaur or bird enthusiasts online and invite them to come and spread the word. It’s not like putting up street lamp banners are any more measurable than doing a blogger outreach exercise.
I bet the ad company is laughing its way to the bank.
#1 and #2 reasons why Plurk over Twitter are cliques and threaded conversations respectively. Cliques allow you to send plurks to specified subsets of your followers. I have a local clique, and that’s where all the chatter that is unique to Singapore goes to, instead of spamming it to everyone. Threaded conversations allow you to follow one conversation, unlike Twitter where replies are rather fragmented.
Within seconds of posting, NovelistKat talked about how they may get customer service, but not how to treat their employees. This went back and forth awhile until litford hopped in to talk about jPod and how it’s a spoof of EA and its programmers. (full conversation here)
Isn’t this how true conversations happen? Imagine talking about a shoe brand (no names) over dinner. “Man those new shoes I bought are comfortable“. Somehow the conversation meanders to “I hope that comfort is deserving of the child labour that it took to make it” and then after a little more it goes to “Did you see the new ad for the shoes on tv last night?”
Conversations have a life of their own. Seeing them grow organically has a lot of value. How many brands could listen in or participate in the EA conversation and learn from it? EA certainly. Douglas Coupland perhaps. The jPod network could’ve pointed us to a website to stream the first episode for free and get us hooked. The possibilities are endless.
I write this post partially in reply to @jonathank of Fabrikade who isn’t sure of the personal/business possibilities of Plurk yet, hope this is one step towards convincing you, Jonathan!
It was really nice to see yesterday that of the 10 most popular posts on ping.sg, three were about SMB:S2, even though it was three days after the event!
As always, I think it’s great to have a central “collection” point for all the media generated around the event, so here’s the rundown:
Video: Social Media Breakfast 2.0 by Miccheng (ps another video on Geek Goddess TV should be out June 4th!)
As much as I think SMB:S2 definitely did better than the first, there are a couple of things that bug me:
1) Retention metrics
2) RSVP-ing
Retention Metrics
I ran through the name list from the last SMB and looked for overlaps with today and it showed that only 17 out of 34 people who came for the first SMB, also came for the second. A 50% attrition rate is pretty scary, especially when the feedback we got from the first one seemed largely positive.
RSVP-ing
A rough count on the Facebook page shows that about 24 of the 62 people who said “yes” to coming, did not appear in the end. That’s about 38%. Luckily this was offset partially by people who said “maybe” but came in the end, as well as people who aren’t on Facebook who came, but the point is: someone has to pay for the food/venue. We’ve been lucky enough to have a great sponsor in Caleb for the last two rounds, but not turning up means we’re potentially wasting money by over-ordering.
I have a few solutions to this:
1) Stop mass-catering. ie each person pays for him/herself, which could end up in the region of $20/person including drinks and venue charges.
2) Make the event invitation-only with a combination of registrations and/or white/black listing.
3) Take the amount of “yes” RSVPs on the Facebook event page and cut down by 30% to save cost, but run the risk of running out of food.
Feedback
So in light of this I’d like to hear feedback from both those who came and those who didn’t. Was there a problem with the timing? Location? Just didn’t feel like coming? Overslept? No value to be gotten out of it? I’m curious to know so that you can help us improve the event.
If you did come yesterday, do you want more or the same, or something different? What would make you come back again? What wouldn’t make you come back again? Is there a “fatigue” developing due to the high number of events (this week alone had three or four). Post anonymously if you must, but frank and honest feedback/constructive criticism will definitely help myself and the other co-organisers hold a better event in the future.
I know there are people who are really into building the community (you know who you are!) and I thank you for supporting us, your feedback will definitely be welcome too! If the results show that we’re the only people who’ll take SMB seriously, perhaps we’ll need to work around that.
I know there is a percentage of the population who misses Lucky Charms. That cereal with the marshmallows in the shape of four leaf clovers and horseshoes and stuff like that. I know that because when we were in New York over the December holidays, a group of us consumed it like it wasn’t from this earth. I don’t know why, but the cereal mysteriously disappeared years ago, never to be seen again. I don’t know about you, but Froot Loops took the place of my favourite cereal. Guess I just like some colour in my cereal.
Interestingly, my girlfriend e-mailed the major retailers in Singapore and couldn’t find the reason why it was stopped, but confirmed the fact that none of them were bringing it in.
Until two weeks ago.
Jason’s Marketplace at Raffles City is apparently bringing it in, as well as a whole line of cereal from the same brand.
So the question is twofold: What would you do if you were the agency tasked to bring Lucky Charms in and generate some sales? After all, unless you’re looking out for it, it would be just one of the 34,632 other cereal boxes on the shelves.
And from the other side of the coin, what would you do if you were a consumer wanting your sorely-missed Lucky Charms to reach the shores of Singapore again?
Remember, it’s not about whether it would work, it’s about how you’d use social media from either side of the fence. Or maybe… you wouldn’t use social media at all?
Second social media event in two days (the other being The Open Room by Ogilvy), is none other than Podfire’s soft launch at Geek Terminal. I came armed with my camera because Michael says I don’t post pictures!
What Is Podfire?
Podfire is a network for local podcasters/videocasters to come together and basically run their shows. Issues with hardware? No problem. Just come with time and a remarkable idea, Podfire will do the rest. The first two shows to be launched are Blogger’s Treats, a show featuring blogger’s favourite food haunts (featuring Sabrina and Daphne) and The Geek Goddess show, centered around web and tech happenings in Asia (featuring Estee and Peter).
How Were The Episodes?
I must say the episodes definitely impressed me in terms of quality and post-production. Having dabbled in videos myself, believe me when I say it’s hard work. Pacing was a little iffy, but hey, we’re bloggers, not TV hosts!
The Event
The event itself was pretty good. As usual I met a ton of people. Shannon for the first time ever, the aforementioned Daphne, Claudia, and Nicole for the first time in person and people who are by now “regulars” like Nadia, Michael Cheng, Jean and Ridz. As a new blogger, it’s all about meeting new people and forming new relationships for me.
The Aftermath
I gotta say I’m giving serious thought to entering the podcasting world with Podfire. My biggest issue is that my niche is covered so well in North America that it would be a great challenge to differentiate. Gonna have to think about it over the next week or so.
The second thought I have is that I’m getting closer to cementing my thoughts that social media may not be primed to work in Singapore despite our great infrastructure, lack of a language barrier, high internet penetration rate etc. I’ll probably blog about that tomorrow.
Thanks for reading and before you go, check out the two inaugural episodes! (As usual, Wordpress is giving me issues with Vimeo videos, so click on the links at the top of the page!)
Google SMU Singapore (Singapore Management University) now and you’ll get this result (click for bigger picture):
The top result? A fake paid link by NTU (Nanyang Technological University). I understand Google can be gamed, but do we really need to do this? Is it bordering on unethical behavior? What do you think?
Edit: Note that I’m not making a big deal out of NTU appearing on an SMU search. It happens with Google and it’s okay. The point is that the paid link says “SMU Singapore” but the URL link is “ntu.edu.sg”. Clearly misleading.
I'm experimenting with different themes right now! If you have any to recommend (preferably 3 columns), please leave a comment! In the meantime, please bear with the frequent facelifts =)
Yesterday I was at the ad:tech conference Future Generation track (for students) and the second session of the day was with OMD, and it was very… scammy.
I know there is a percentage of the population who misses 
