Wednesday April 29th 2009, 6:36 pm
Filed under: blogs,Internet
There have been a number of lawsuits in the last 24 months or so that basically seek to determine the responsibility an online delivery mechanism has for the content it carries.
There’s the fashion model, Liskula Cohen, who sued Google for a number of personal remarks that a blogger wrote using Blogger – a Google property.
Or one of my personal favorites, AuditAdmit.com, which raced to wipe its system of the IP addresses after comments about Yale law school students (females) became so vicious that the victims sued. They got somewhere, but mostly because the two owners of the site cracked under pressure.
Note to Ms. Cohen: Google isn’t likely to crack under pressure.
The latest, of course, is the call for Craigslist.org to eliminate its “erotic services” section, following the murder of a woman who went to a hotel and meet a man she first encountered on the site. And now there appears to be attempted copycat crimes, as well. And it’s pile-on time now, too: people who try to sell stuff on the site and subsequently are assaulted by would-be buyers they met on the site, etc.
It’s all pretty awful. The question is: who’s responsible and – once we determine responsibility – does it matter? Do the attorneys general urging Craigslist to remove the section really care about the legal backing they have for asking the site to cut the section? I’d say no.
It’s challenging for me to fault Craigslist for individuals knowingly and legally advertising their services and then coming to some harm in the fulfillment of those services (the illegal ads gotta go). Craigslist is the Internet version of all the personals and “massage” advertising that’s run at the back of local newspapers and magazines for decades.
I’m processing this, but my first conclusion is that there is no reason that Craigslist couldn’t start a ratings system much like Amazon’s – so you know something about the “seller” and the “buyer” – and also make it very clear that IP addresses are kept and will be turned over to authorities if any illegal activities result. There’s clear precedent for the former, and the latter… Craigslist would merely be enforcing its existing TOU (Item 6). This is “bare minimum” stuff.
This isn’t over, as it’s no different that the contentious debates over free speech that take place in the “real world” today. Do I believe in the First Amendment? Absolutely. Would I want to be Google or Craigslist when the mother of a dead girl goes on national television claiming that (perfectly legal) content on my site killed her child? Absolutely not.
There have been several articles recently pointing to the rise in both offline and online coupon use. While consumers 65+ are more likely to use newspaper coupons and younger individuals prefer online coupons, there’s no real news here given that these stats will change over time as newspapers become less available and older consumers become more and more comfortable on the Web.
In the meantime, don’t leave home – or buy online – without it!
I’ve become accustomed to checking online for coupons and promotion codes prior to making either a store or Web purchase. There is an art to this and, once you get the hang of it, you’ll become savvier about what sites are likely to bear fruit and which will not.
There are four general categories of sites I’d recommend you consider:
1. Aggregators – these are sites whose sole purpose in life is to offer coupons and “promo codes” from many retailers, typically across multiple industries. Some examples would include:
4. Forums - some activities tend to make people want to vent (like having to take your shoes off at the airport…), and folks on these sites love to let others in on a deal:
If you’re set on a particular brand, it only takes a second to check out that company’s own site, too. KFC, for example, has a pre-set button on its home page pointing visitors to printable coupons. I’m actually surprised that more brands don’t take advantage of this simple way to build a solid customer database. If a consumer is a fan, he will part with valuable demo and psychographic information in exchange for a steady stream of deals delivered by email.
And as a final tip: consider opening a brand new email account exclusively for your interactions with coupon and promotional sites. You’ll be able to see all your coupon- and deal-related email in one place without clogging your own email inbox.
So start looking for coupons online and, pretty soon, you too will understand the nirvana of “stackable codes…”
Whether you are job-hunting or not… this is absolutely must-see TV. I was tempted to show you just one of the videos here, but decided it would break up the flow.
My favorite is #13 – watch her hand. What’s yours?
Poor Dominos.
In a nutshell, two employees posted a “prank” video on YouTube that shows them at work spitting and sneezing on food, putting cheese up their noses and then onto pizzas, passing gas on meat then – ouhhhh – putting said meat on the food…
As the beauty says to the gross Ben Stiller character when he asks her out (in that great philosophical movie, Dodgeball),I think I threw up in my mouth. Just a little.
I coach corporate clients on how to manage their reputations and build brands online. I show companies how to proactively create meaningful online interactions with prospects and customers. I use case studies to demonstrate the usefulness of one social community vs. another. I present lessons that apply to all businesses, and some that are industry-specific. And I do train companies how to assess and react to negative content on the Web. Be proactive and, when you must, here’s how to react to problematic online content.
And then there are things that you just can’t plan for. We’ve seen vanity urls (walocaust.com, ihatestarbucks.com) and online stunts created by disgruntled employees and angry investors. We’ve seen rats scurrying along the floor inside a fast food restaurant. These kinds of events are now so frequent that they can and should be part of a company’s online crisis strategy. [NOTE: You have one of those, right?]
But two employees, with no ax to grind, demonstrating phenomenally bad judgment? All a company can do in advance is reinforce its own employee policies with respect to unacceptable behavior and… make sure the Internet is covered. I’m sure that disparaging the company to this extreme is already grounds for dismissal, and these two MENSA members have been fired. And arrested and charged with a felony.
Unfortunately, Dominos is taking a real hit. But the company has come out swinging online - play fire with fire – and I give them enormous credit for that. Take a look at Dominos’ own YouTube response (click HERE if you do not see the video below):
If I were advising the company, I’d suggest a 5-point action plan over the next 90 days. What they’ll actually do? We’ll have to wait and see.
In the meantime, if you order a pizza and think you see boogers… I’M KIDDING!
Here’s a quick post about an article about Disney in the The New York Times today.
The piece is all about a Disney researcher considered to be “the kid whisperer.” Her job is to help the company understand the needs, wants and desires of boys age 6 to 14, and then use this information to drive incremental revenue. While 40% of the audience for Disney Channel is male, for example, girls continue to drive an outsized percentage of (merchandise) sales.
The article follows Kelly Peña as she walks through boys’ homes, unearthing insights such as – while a 12 year old is trying to be tough and mature – he still as stuffed animals on his bed.
While in-home anthropological research is becoming de rigueur in consumer packaged goods, it’s a pretty big deal in the entertainment space, where executives or creatives often believe they “know the target” and pursue a product development process not necessarily informed by real people and their real behavior.
This is a huge simplification, but there is a fundamental difference in both B2B and B2C companies alike that build something new by starting with their customer target’s belief systems and behavior vs. those who start with the best product development process. I was trained in customer segmentation – start with the consumer (or business target) – and build “to suit” – but not everyone is.
If pursued with rigor, I think this type of development work could be extremely helpful to the process of creating new entertainment vehicles and entertainment-inspired merchandise.
There’s a new proposal from ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) that could enable a virtual endless number of domain-name suffixes to be created over and above the already-familiar 18 including .org, .edu, .net and .com.
The idea is to enable businesses and others to create suffixes that are specific to their business or purpose, as opposed to the current generic “top-level” endings. “Whatever is open to the imagination can be applied for,” says Paul Levins,” ICANN’s vice president of corporate affairs. So if the Museum of Modern Art wanted to attract visitors to its permanent collection, it could conceivably create a URL ending in “.art.”
Most experts agree that there are numerous issues with this new proposal. The first and possibly most obvious one is… who’s going to keep track? Could Mars use “.candy” while Hershey uses “.chocolate” and “kisses” and JellyBelly uses, well, “.jellybelly?” The answer seems to be yes, and the possibility of chaos for marketers and consumers is obvious.
Secondly, this proposal opens the door for scammers and squatters to purchase a brand’s name and simply invent multiple URLs to go with it. This would not only mislead Web surfers, but could cause brand names to fall into the hands of those who wish to exploit them and possibly get money from the owner. If your pet peeve is labor relations at Wal-Mart, you could purchase WalMart.unfair, Walmart.worksucks, WalMart.unions, WalMart.sickout. There are no guidelines, at least not yet.
Third, who can own what? Are all words in the common domain and therefore available for purchase? The International Olympics Committee has already threatened to sue ICANN if the organization permits the purchase of the IOC’s trademarked and protected words. And the Flemish government doesn’t seem happy, either.
2008 saw a record number of cybersquatting complaints from trademark holders as it is.
Fourth, what are the intricacies of the process? Do I have to prove anything to purchase any URL I wish, how long can I keep it and must I meet some performance level to maintain ownership? What happens if there are two potential buyers for a TLD - will there be a bidding war?
Finally, ICANN proposes to charge an application fee is $185,000 plus an annual “continuance” fee of $25,000. As the seller of services, what assurances of value and security will ICANN provide? Is ICANN responsible for the protection of children who may wander onto a porn site at SpongeBob.fun? The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse estimates that it could cost big marketers up to $1.5 billion just to defend existing turf: what do these companies get in exchange for the millions of dollars they would suddenly have to pay to protect something that suddenly needs protecting?
ICANN is going to have to put some fencing up around proper names, brands, and protected words, but that won’t help the vast confusion that could result. I suspect that larger commercial brands will settle into some industry-wide structures that try to minimize the information overload. Because if you think spam is bad now…
I am hyper-sensitive to market research that is somehow flawed, or lopsided, or misrepresents the group being tested. I’ve written a few posts on this very topic – here’s one on galvanic skin response, and measuring brand affiliation and a relatively new post on how Fuqua and the AMA mixed and matched some concepts on a questionnaire that IMHO compromised (some unknown percentage of the) results.
I’m into (a) crafting effective research vehicles and (b) making sure I’m talking to the people I think I’m talking to.
So I found an article in The Wall Street Journal today very interesting. In an online poll, Cosmogirl.com and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy recently found that 1 in 5 teenagers have shared nude or nearly-nude photos of themselves on cell phones or the Web. The article’s author, Carl Blalik, points out how this statistic has taken on a life of its own in the media. 20% of our teenagers are engaging in this dangerous behavior!! GAH!
The problem is… probably not. Long story short, the research firm the two entities hired surveyed teens and young adults who had previously signed up to take online polls and surveys. To many, this means that the survey polled individuals already predisposed to being on the Web a lot and engaging in technology-oriented activities. Then there are questions about who even in that group responded: the environments in which those surveyed could be dramatically different, for example (an 18 year old living at home may be different from one at college who might be different from one who is working full-time). The research company did not normalize for the multiple factors that could affect the integrity of the research… with the biggie being that it’s highly unlikely that responses from a random sample of all teens in the given age ranges were captured.
Fascinating!
No one tried to hijack the research, no one had ill intent – there are no bad guys here – but this kind of thing happens. And if the flaw isn’t caught, results fly into the universe and end up on the news every night.
Here’s a real-time, personal example. Yesterday, I received an email from a company I don’t know anything about called Advertiser Perceptions (and a reminder email today). The email asked me to click on a link to take a “Media Influencer” survey for which I would receive an honorarium of $20. I do take online surveys here and there, and $20 bucks is OK, so I started the survey. And it went on FOR-EV-ER. That’s when I noticed that the cheery email copy said that the survey wouldn’t take more than 30 minutes. 30 minutes?? A half hour for $20 so a bunch of advertisers could figure out what to sell me? No chance, no how, not going to happen.
So what kind of segmentation did Advertiser Perceptions do before they sent these emails? Are they offering the same honorarium to an ad manager fresh out of college and a marketer with 20 years of experience? I’d assume yes, and therein lies the garbage-in-garbage-out problem of the day. If Advertiser Perceptions does not adjust for this bias, they’ll end up with a non-random sample of people who have the time and inclination to sit at their desks for 1/2 hour and take some third-party survey for $20.*
I can’t tell you exactly what that sample will look like, but I can guarantee it ain’t random or representative of the entire prospect list.
And there you have it. Caveat Emptor. Ask questions. Does something “sound right” to you? Because maybe it is… and maybe it’s not.
I just want to say how relieved I am to discover that I am NOT the only one who is totally digging the song in State Farm‘s TV commercials.
I’m serious: I’ve been pondering a blog post about this for awhile, but assumed that I was just an ad nerd, grooving to some random tune in a car insurance ad. That State Farm had come up with this insurance jingle… and you would mock me.
I really should have more confidence in myself. Not only is it not a jingle… it’s a remake of the The Sound of Musicsong, “Sixteen Going On Seventeen,” by Modern Music. And it’s all over the web, like HERE and HERE and HERE.
Perhaps the strangest cover of a song ever – but brilliant just the same (and not a Von Trapp in sight).
While restaurant chains suffer, and the industry predicts a “purge,” one restaurant has decided to let its customers take more of a direct role in its future.
Sghetti’s Italian Bistro, a local restaurant in Pennsylvania, has established a “pay what you think it’s worth” policy. The menu no longer shows specific prices, opting instead for a suggested price range by category: appetizers $3-$9, pasta $6-$12 and so on. The offer is good for parties of 8 or less at dinner only, beginning at 4pm.
“[The recession] is sad, for senior citizens and young families,” says the spot’s owner, Eugene Razzano. “…we can do something to empower people.” Razzano recognizes that some diners won’t be fair, but believes that the press coverage and increased traffic – particularly return traffic – will make this a successful proposition overall.
I think this is brilliant. Razzano has been very clear that he is assessing the program on a week-to-week basis. High-margin beverages are not included, and parties are asked to tip the wait staff, as usual. He’s getting full-blown word of mouth, while still protecting himself on the downside.
Part of the commentary on this blog lately has seen me preaching restraint to businesses advertising at such a sensitive time. If you’re going to put a message out there, be 100% certain that it connects to how people are feeling and what they are experiencing. Even if a negative reaction happens “outside your target audience,” it can have an outsized ability to impact business over the mid- to short-term. My opinion is that companies including Pepsi and Hawker have taken risks with their brand images by promoting messages that are out of tune with the public zietgeist.
In December, Domino’s created an online-only promotion offering a free pizza to site visitors using the promo code ”bailout.” The promotion never got final approval internally… but someone didn’t tell the pizza retailer’s online tech team.
A clever consumer living in a suburb of Cincinnati somehow caught on to the live promo code last week and before you can see “meat lovers special,” Domino’s had given away 11,000 free pizzas. In less than 24 hours.
The news spread quickly, fueled in part by online moms at sites like www.CincyMomsLikeMe.com. If you’re curious about the power of online moms and aren’t familiar with the Motrin Moms event last November, I really would suggest you check it out. Do not screw with these ladies!
Things became even more complicated by the fact that Domino’s retail stores are franchised. A man who owns 14 locations in the Cincy area thinks he gave away somewhere between 600 and 700 pizzas. Corporate has promised to reimburse all franchisees. Maybe the stores will even see an upside: the event got hundreds of people to try the new ordering engine at Dominos.com (which is pretty good, by the way).
Depending on how you look at things, Dominos is either lucky or unlucky the promotion wasn’t discovered two days later – on April Fool’s Day…
Online retail sales are bleak – no question – but there are some opportunities for sharp loyalty marketers.
I say that because some gift types actually saw an uptick around Valentine’s Day this year vs. month prior or year prior or both – ok, the only gifts in the latter category were pets and outdoor gear, but still…
Internet Retailerlooked at both shopping cart completions and sales totals for February 09 and gifts, pets, jewelry and sports apparel & gear all saw increases in the percentage of orders that were completed vs. February 08. That does not mean that order sizes increased – ticket size, in fact, decreased in all of these categories – but more customers completing any orders offer a smart online retailer the opportunity to capture:
- incremental email addresses
- more refined SEO information
- additional data about the relationship between ticket size and order completion
- increased data regarding site visit and purchase behavior
All of these factors permit more accurate and efficient site design and offer development targeting a broader consumer base.
‘Definitely a glass-half-full approach to some pretty dismal numbers, but both more and less of just about every kind of behavior online can make you a better marketer over time.
Secondly, this proposal opens the door for scammers and squatters to purchase a brand’s name and simply invent multiple URLs to go with it. This would not only mislead Web surfers, but could cause brand names to fall into the hands of those who wish to exploit them and possibly get money from the owner. If your pet peeve is labor relations at Wal-Mart, you could purchase WalMart.unfair, Walmart.worksucks, WalMart.unions, WalMart.sickout. There are no guidelines, at least not yet.
