Pringles has a new funny online campaign that skewers folks who “overshare” on Twitter and Facebook.

A key feature of the campaign’s website – http://www.helptheoversharers.com - has a ”Best of” Twitter feed that streams some classics: “My arm is itchy,” “Cleaning the kitchen,” and “New shower gel – hooray!”

Amazing: “hurray” is just the utterance I was planning – too bad P&G got to it first.

So anyway, the website offers tips for recovering oversharers, a plug-in that allows you to “shame a friend with just one click” (very popular, I’m sure) and even an interactive video into which you can drop some of your favorite inane comments.  And you can buy a t-shirt with a dopey tweet on it.  Of your choice.

The site is accompanied by a utility on Facebook that Pringles’ 3 million fans (and anyone else who feels like it) can download and use to label boring Facebook updates.

To me, the campaign feels a wee bit derivative of Burger King’s 2009 ”Whopper Sacrifice Challenge,” which offered a free Whopper to anyone willing to unfriend 10 people on Facebook. That campaign was semi-criticized for being an “anti-social” social campaign – a page that Pringles appears to have torn out of the fast fooder’s playbook. And there have been a number of other brands – like Nestle and Skittles – that have leveraged the riskiness and “nowness” of featuring a live Twitter feed in their promotions.

But so far, this has been a conversation focused on techniques and tools – a plug-in, a feed, interactive videos and custom t-shirts.  I love tools just as much as the next marketer, but… what does the Oversharers campaign have to do with Pringles’ persona and the ultimate goal of selling more product? 

If there’s a second phase of this campaign that ties the downside of oversharing online to oversharing your Pringles (because you want to eat them all yourself?), P&G better get moving. It seems like that’d make sense… but I’m guessing and this connection isn’t made at the moment.

So from a business point of view, I don’t get it.  You’re the Pringles brand manager: what consumer insight led to this campaign? What are you trying to communicate? What differentiation would motivate trial, or make an existing Pringles eater feel good about the brand?

Don’t “overshare” social media tools because they’re cool.  It’s tempting – and I recommend social media experimentation all the time – but all of the standard rules of branding, communications and marketing (and revenue and market share and shelf space) apply.

A new study released by Q Interactive indicates that – while women may be flocking to social networking – they’re not yakking about the favorite baby food or burgers.  While 52% of 1,000 women said that they’d become a “friend” or “fan” of at least one brand, 75% of women in the study overall say that social networks do not influence what they buy.

I had to smile when Q’s president scrambled to make sure that marketers (with money) didn’t interpret the results in a negative way: Q calls the “disconnect” a “huge opportunity” for marketers and says that brands need to catch up to the needs of women online. 

If I were an agency relying on clients, I’d say the same thing!

But what if that’s not true? What if the social media frenzy that’s been whipped up among advertisers is…  overhyped?  What if we find out that women love discovering new ideas and interacting with new people and new communities, but the commercial promise in these interactions isn’t there? What if online engagement doesn’t lead to sales?  What if talking just leads to… talking?

I’m going to watch for new news and information about how women are interacting with social media because – if Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and all the other social sites do not turn out to be a brand bonanza for advertisers, we could see a major reset in expectations, involvement and, most importantly, dollars.

So yes, this is another post about Twitter.  What can I say?  It’s the fastest growing, probably weirdest social media phenom thus far, and I’ve been sucked in.

One of today’s interesting tweety tidbits is a quite lengthy email that Rupert Murdoch – sorry, I meant the Deputy Managing Editor at The Wall Street Journal – recently sent to employees outlining “do’s” and “don’ts” for employees on Twitter or otherwise engaged on the “social Web.”

It’s sort of a doozy.

Don’t ”friend” confidential sources, don’t criticize colleagues, and my favorite (verbatim): “Don’t engage in any impolite dialogue with those who may challenge your work — no matter how rude or provocative they may seem.”

Employees may cite (but not push) their own reporting and – well, that seems to be pretty much all they can do.  And even that rule, as you can see, comes with a murky qualification.

Some of the restrictions make perfect sense, such as not detailing how an article was edited.  Others are ripe for wrongful discharge lawsuits, such as the “don’t” that says you mustn’t recruit family or friends to promote your work.

In most instances, this particular restriction would be nearly impossible to dissect and prove.  If I retweet comments from a former colleague who then talks up my work, did I solicit that positive feedback?  And, I’m sorry:  if my mom claims that I’m just the cleverest person ever ever ever, there’s nothing I can do about it.

So I was thinking that the whole thing seemed very 1984… until I spotted a blog post detailing real tweets that some knuckleheads have posted on Twitter.  A sample (with all grammar errors intact):
- “I just got to work (Oracle) and I am doing as little as possible”
- “Huh, with my boss on twitter, maaaybe I should take down that sexy picture of her… but her reaction will be priceless!”
- “hate my job!! i want to tell my bosses how dumb they are and how meaningless this job is, then quit, and be happy!”
- “Workin… This job sucks worse then [sic] the economy!”

The title of this blog post? “TwitterFired: The Top Ten Tweets to Get You Fired.”

Huh.  Maybe The Wall Street Journal Twitter police knows what it’s doing.

Well, that was quick.

Facebook recently felt the wrath of both its own members and privacy experts (again)after my beloved Consumerist published an article pointed out that recent changes to the company’s Terms of Service meant that the company would own a member’s personal information “forever,” even after a member deletes her account.

That didn’t go down too well with anyone so the company reverted to its prior TOS this week, saying that it would come out with a new version at some time in the future, written in “language that everyone can understand.”

Interesting.  It seems to me that Facebook’s problem is that we all understood the new Terms a little too clearly.

On a separate but related note, Silicon Alley Insider’s Business Insider graciously points out that – if we’re all going to start reading every website’s TOS – we might start with Google, Verizon, YouTube and AOL AIM.  This article is accompanied by a photo of a guy wearing a tin foil hat on his head while at his computer. 

I have no comeback for that.
Google YouTube Facebook Silicon_Alley_Insider Consumerist Eric Yaverbaum

Wheee-ooooo, wheee-ooooo! 

That sound you hear turns out to be the Facebook Police.

I recently twittered about Burger King’s viral campaign to get Facebook members to “unfriend” people in exchange for a free Whopper.  In one week, over 82,000 people accessed the app via www.whoppersacrifice.com and unfriended nearly 234,000 friends!  If the marketer had been McDonald’s – my favorite – I have to admit that I’d look hard at my so-called ”friends” in exchange for an Extra Value Meal #2…

In any case, it’s good that Americans are so addicted to fast food because Facebook shut down a key part of the app: that being the notification that the unfriended get when they’re thrown overboard for a burger.  That was the sweet way  the campaign spread:  I may be just one person, but if I unfriend 10 folks, then all 11 of us get served (sorry) the Whopper message.   After Facebook’s reaction, Burger King pulled the campaign.

It turns out that Facebook’s privacy policy prohibits a member from receiving any kind of notification if he is unfriended.  Who knew?  I can understand my friend Eric Yaverbaum‘s (Bubbletweet) reaction to the actions of the “Facebook police,” but I actually think this is sort of a nice, tiny piece of etiquette in the otherwise turgid sea of the Web:  I may not invite you to my parties anymore, but I don’t have to send you a notice telling you so.

Eric_Yaverbaum Bubbletweet Whopper_Sacrifice Facebook

eMarketer has reviewed some recent data indicating that Millenials are “born with keyboards in their hands”:  that is, that they view the world in a fundamentally different way that assumes the use of hand-picked technology doo-dads to handle just about everything.

You can see the tremendous shift here, particular toward the use of cell phones (and – my opinion – the increasing pressure on phone and cable companies to deliver well-priced digital/cellular phone services packages):

Resource Interactive points out the particular impact of this shift on how Millenials shop and “pre-shop” with their friends.  Coupled with an addiction to MySpace, Facebook and other platforms that bring people together, technology has made it simple for friends to get advice from each other (a “communal” blessing, if you will) before making a purchase.  “The actual shopping activity in the store… becomes a social activity for them,” says Mila Goodman, the shop’s director of experience strategy.

All of this means that retailers have an opportunity to build brand awareness and loyalty by making it easy and fun to shop “together” using mobile phones and other devices.  Among the many reasons that Beacon didn’t work for Facebook is that it didn’t draw me into my friends’ thought process and experience around purchasing something; the site simply reported that my friend had done so.  No fun.

Outdoor, magazine, online and even TV advertising could feature a barcode or some other tag that a person could photograph and send to friends; that tag arrives with information about the product and maybe a special offer.  It should be easy to download a tiny piece of code and send it along.  And when you get someone all the way into your store?  Wow:  make it count.  Give away ringtones, wallpapers (Chanel wallpaper, girls?), sign-ups for special store events and discounts…   I think all stores/retailers should eventually make it simple to email high-res product photos that come along with just a bit of sales and promotional info.

If you had the opportunity to get target customers talking about you on their cell phones with every individual ad viewing or store visit, what would you do?

Millenials

What a difference a year makes… for Facebook.

2007 saw folks pushing The Facebook Marketing Bible, conference segments and endless articles on the wisdom of marketers hawking their wares on Facebook.  A lot of this stuff is still around, but the climate appears to be changing.

In a recent survey of CMOs, over half indicated a very low level of interest in including Facebook in their current plans.  A third said they have no interest at all.

Epsilon commissioned the survey, and I do agree with the company’s CMO, Steve Cone, that marketers aren’t interested in “teenagers sharing photographs with one another.”  However, I think the fact that that is the case – or even the perception – is a failing that smacks of lost opportunity.

33% of Facebook’s 33 million users are over 26 years of age, and 13% are 35 or older.  That’s nothing to sneeze at.  But are there any particular areas on Facebook that might be attractive or particularly relevant for an older audience?  Nope.  And more importantly, Facebook’s efforts to target advertising by age and other characteristics have failed to gain traction.  At this very moment, there are 3 ads on my profile page:  one for an HP something (dvt5 anyone?) powered by Intel Centrino2 Processor Technology, another for “faith-based universities” and one asking if I want to get an MBA.

Let’s just say that 0 out of 3 of these ads are relevant to me personally.  Based on my zip code and self-reported educational data, at least two of them shouldn’t be there at all.  As a marketer looking to spend precious dollars wisely, this sends me a strong message that Facebook is not the place to do so.

Facebook needs to figure out target marketing quick and take its show on the road to marketers interested in reaching grown-ups.  

Everyone knows that social networking is today’s IT girl of marketing.  Most people aren’t exactly sure why, but there you are.  What’s given me a chuckle are networks tossed together on a very loose definition of “shared” interests.  Facebook, ironically, may the best example of them all.  While it’s the media darling, to be sure, and has a kagillion members (including yours truly), most of whom have little in common.  So its cosmic customer growth has been great for news outlets, but not so wonderful for marketers who quickly discover the limitations of Facebook applications and the difficulty of uncovering and aggregating “like” people.

Enter Unilever and their ad agency, Bartle Bogle Hegarty who chose Kodiak, Alaska for its harsh physical conditions and promptly set up a storefront where they began giving away free bottles of a new Vaseline lotion, Clinical Therapy.   From there, Vaseline representatives began asking visitors to pass the word and subsequent visitors had to name the townsperson who had referred them.  In other words, they went hunting for a key influencer:  a “tipping point person” whose advice people heeded and who could influence others to try a new product. 

This is the way they found Petal Ruch, who tried the lotion when she read that the company was giving away samples.

Once she did, the company claims that she passed the product along to 1,000 town residents in only two weeks.  The company set up a special website, www.prescribethenation.com, where visitors could see individuals who have tried the lotion and how many people they passed it on to.  Unilever also spent several days filming documentary-like footage for the ad campaign, and site visitors can watch videos of each person talking about why they like the product.

This is an outstanding word-of-mouth effort that I hope wins some awards.  The effort itself could not have been that expensive (no doubt the filming was the most costly element, not the consumer/storefront piece) and, most importantly, Unilever built a “social network” from the inside out: by finding a passionate advocate first, rather than building the network and hoping someone will pop out of it.

Unilever     Bartle Bogle Hegarty     Vaseline Clinical Therapy     Kodiak    

Brandweek recently ran a lengthy article about behavioral targeting.  “BT,” or contextual targeting, keyword targeting or psychographical targeting all roughly refer to the same idea:  that a marketer uses your own actions or profile to serve up advertising that might be of interest to you.  This is pretty standard stuff that has migrated its way from the generic web onto social networks such as MySpace and Facebook.

I did think, however, that the notion of “influencer marketing” was interesting in this context.  As with a coming post on how Vaseline built a social network around one key person who helped spread the word about a new product, influencer marketing would mean crafting a message based on how many people you reach in your life and around which issues or topics you may have the greatest influence.

Say I have 350 “friends” on Facebook, 250 of whom are part of the “New York” network.  I might get served an ad for a local New York service, the value of which could increase for me based on the number of individuals to whom I send the offer.  Or maybe I have 100+ female friends, all over the age of 50: an audience that consumerreports.org is interested in targeting for paid site subscriptions.  The site might not only promote specifically to me, but could offer me a free 6-month subscription for referring 15 friends (with verified email addresses).  These are examples of how the ”influencer” idea might be used on an “outbound” basis – that’s me communicating outwardly to individuals in my network. 

Targeting could be used to equal effect on an “inbound” basis:  if a Facebook member regularly posts a lot of positive messages about Barack Obama on his profile to which many people regularly comment, the campaign might want to reach out to that person and ask him to host a house party (particularly if the influencer lives in a zip code that is underpenetrated).

We’ll see if marketers start experimenting with overt “influencer” messaging on social network sites.  It holds promise.

social networks     Facebook     MySpace     influencer marketing

Facebook appears to be selling virtual gifts like crazy. 

What’s a virtual gift?  It’s an image of something (a birthday cake, a beer, a rose, a bottle of champagne) that you can send to a fellow Facebooker for his or her birthday, new job or… just because.  The image is then posted to the recipient’s Facebook profile, and the gift giver can specify whether her name and message are visible to the public or only to the recipient.

Lightspeed Venture Partners is now estimating that 10% of Facebook’s revenue ($35 million) comes from the sale of these virtual gifts.  In assessing what seems to sell the best, Lightspeed says that holiday-themed gifts are a bonanza in November and December and account for 40% of the year’s sales.  They have also observed that 80% of all sales are made off the first visible page of gifts.

I suppose none of this should be a huge surprise:

• At a price of $1 for something that is delivered instantly, it’s a nice ADD-like way to wish someone a happy birthday, or an even easier way to suck up to someone you’ve neglected.

• Holidays – big pain.  Very few people have the time or energy to send (real) cards anymore.  And, frankly, after factoring in the cost of a good card and the stamp, $1 isn’t too bad.

• We ride in herds.  Wisdom of crowds, and all that.  If it’s not on the first result page of Google – or on the first page of Facebook virtual gifts – forget it.

$35 million for tiny images that cost Facebook essentially zero is impressive.  I believe I’ve given Facebook $20-30 myself for the privilege of sending little blue robots and flowers now and then.

Facebook   Virtual gift

 Lobbycon.   barcamp.   SXSW.   Foo Camp.

How many of these terms do you know?  If you’re too busy prepping your slide presentation for that conference coming up, you may have a problem.

Web 2.0 has come to the conference circuit, and it’s crazy!  Gone are the days when you sit, they present.  You pay, and sit some more, someone else talks.  You write your grocery list while – you get the picture.  Web 2.0 tools including Meebo, Twitter, Utterz, the reliable old chat room, Flickr and a host of other sites are transforming audiences into event participants – or disrupting events entirely.

Witness the unfortunate, widely-covered case of BusinessWeek‘s Sarah Lacy interviewing Mark Zuckerburg at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW) on topics the audience decided were booor-ingggg.  Many began twittering, and the angst in the room built to the point of mutual hostility between Lacy and audience members who began hollering (or worse) once the microphone was opened to the floor.

At a lobbycon, people show up to a conference without paying and mingle with speakers, organizers and fellow enthusiasts in the lobby for free.  That’s how we get the most of these things anyway, right?  And back at SXSW, the line for the Google party became so long that tech bloggers shot video of the line and started twittering they were going to set up a separate party down the street at a bar.  Within 30 minutes, 100 people had arrived.

And then there’s the un-conference, where people show up and determine the agenda on the spot.  A group might determine areas of key interest, vote on them and those able to present do so.  The two most notable un-conferences thus far are Foo Camp and barcamp.

Personally, whether I’m on the dais or sitting there in the dark, I’m excited.  If I’m presenting and can get some (polite?) signals to head in another direction, great.  And if I’m in the audience and can help transform a tedious session, fantastic.  This is just the beginning, but I’d say that the overall effect at tech-savvy conferences will be more value (and entertainment) for your conference dollar.  And presenters had better bring their A game, or be prepared for some virtual tomato throwing.
sxswlobbyconbar campfoo camprobert scobletwittermeeboflickrweb 2.0

Sears is running a campaign on Facebook that allows young women to gab about the prom.  This is a nice kernel of an idea, and I can hear millions of parents breathing a sigh of relief at the prospect of their daughters buying a prom dress at wallet-friendly Sears.

Then, like many ideas, it drops the ball in the execution department.

I know that every CEO and marketer alive is wringing his hands if he’s not on Facebook, but honestly I cannot figure out why.  If you have something to offer that meets the high standards of a social community – that (a) takes advantage of the technology and (b) offers true value – great.  If not, stay away.   So often it seems as though the care, planning and (appropriate) obsessiveness these same folks regularly display when spending money on traditional media fly right out the window when Facebook is put on the table.

Is it because Facebook seems more ephemeral?  Or brands think that their messaging will be received in a more casual way or will somehow be judged by lower standards than those applied in the “real” world?  That teens on Facebook will take what they can get? 

My opinion is nearly the exact opposite:  I believe that if a brand can’t bring its A game to  social media, it’s better off in the clubhouse.  A weak-hearted attempt on Facebook will not work.  At minimum, the effort will fail; worse yet, you may be pilloried for a botched attempt (see:  WalMart).   The New York Times says that I now see 5,000 ad messages a day, which means - if you ask for my time – it better be good.

So if Sears wants in on the action and prom is their game, why not make an awesome application on Facebook?  Maybe it could take a girl through a questionnaire about herself, the event, her budget and her favorite style and color in order to provide a few dress recommendations on the other end.  Maybe it could let a girl and her friends take the questionnaire together so that they could be sure to end up wearing complementary styles and colors.  Maybe the app could provide recommendations for boutonnieres and corsages that would work nicely with the dress.  Maybe it could recommend jewelry, undergarments, hosiery and shoes that would go perfectly with the outfit of choice (and that are for sale at Sears!).  Maybe it could let the user email her choices to the individual(s) of her choice – her mom, for example.

Instead, the app lets a girl choose 1 of 70 dresses available at Sears and share it with her friends.  That’s it.  Anything that a girl can do in two seconds with a digital camera phone flunks my “unique value” test.

So frustrating!  No doubt, Sears has something to offer and young women with whom they could create valuable and lasting experiences.  So again, we’ve all heard the marketing horror stories on Facebook; I’m not talking about those.  I’m just talking about companies with good intentions who fail to deliver an experience that’s within their reach.  It’s a lost opportunity.

Facebook has announced plans to introduce real-time chat functionality in the coming weeks.

This could create a lot of valuable advertising inventory because, if they can get the non-invasive behavioral targeting just right, this is messaging that would be seen by only highly qualified, increasingly wealthy, self-selecting people during a personal, “invested” conversation. Could be particularly useful for complex (financial services?) or high-ticket items (cars, luxury).

Anything that ties people more tightly to Facebook is good in general, by the way, as eMarketer notes that the affluent Internet users pouring into social communities belong to at least three social networks and that – unlike Facebook – the fastest growing ones are highly specialized groups clustered around like interests.