Isabel Walcott Draves

Heard Around Town

People often ask me what Word of Mouth Marketing is.  Well, here are a couple of interesting Word of Mouth Marketing initatives so you can see it in action.

- Microsoft hires college students to promote their class-notes-organizing software on campus

- Cloud Ten Pictures sets up preview screenings of their new film, which has a "biblical message of salvation", at thousands of churches across the US (To quote their website, the producer said theater showings are a loss leader that drives video sales. The Sony Pictures Entertainment DVD releases in stores tomorrow. )

Another way to drive Word of Mouth is to determine who the influencers are and consult with them on product launches.  An August survey conducted by Intelliseek confirms what we already knew, that early adopters are early adopters and cool people are cool.  It's no coincidence that iPod users are also bloggers, movie downloaders, and text messagers, but Apple is entitled to feel proud about it anyway.

If you can't join 'em, beat 'em...

Bruce sent along an outrageous article that was in the WSJ last week, regarding a problem that has been going on for at least a year (that's right, you heard it here first!)

Did you know that your telecommunications provider is free to prevent you from using your Internet connection to send video files or make long-distance calls?  And no, I'm not talking about provisions blocking raunchy content, preventing the illegal exchange of copyrighted materials or prohibiting unsolicited telemarketing.

The telecom and cable companies want you to access video from their preferred providers (they get a cut, you know?), and they can ban your freedom to access videos in other ways.  Which means you might never get to see little Maggie's first steps, or the day Jimmy first rode a bicycle.

The long-distance phone companies like the revenues they get from land line phone use, so they'll try to put Skype and other Internet telephony solutions out of business by banning their customers from accessing those services.

Think you can escape by turning to smaller, community ISP's?  Think again, because the big telco's are working their hardest to keep small ISP's from providing broadband to communities.  They like their monopoly status.  (Great comment at muniwireless). 

But what a cop-out!  These OldBigCo's should be embracing the future, and changing their revenue models to meet the future head-on!  If they keep fighting against it, we in the US will become second-class citizens in a modern world, clinging to our outdated companies and revenue streams as they dwindle ever-smaller...I call this Coward Capitalism.  Get out there and innovate, people, or at least acquire the little fish who are doing it for you.  That's the big difference between modern tech companies like Google, and the OldBigCo's.  We must learn to embrace change, not squash it.

At heart, this sliver of the access debate is about democracy and openness, not saving a few bucks on phone calls and movie tickets.  Bruce Kushnik has been railing about this and similar topics for years; Alex Goldman is a less biased expert.  I'll close with a great bit from Martin Geddes' blog:

"Cheap, ubiquitous and unfiltered communications are becoming a prerequisite of a pluralist participative democracy. Societies that fail to encourage the free flow of information will suffer because ingrained interest groups will ensure the rules are set up to perpetuate their privileges. When you can’t make a Skype call, you’re losing something more than money."

Cyclotron

Just fell in love with this story of two guys who biked the entire length of Vietnam in a pedicab to raise money for a charity for street kids.  Way to turn a lust for adventure and desire not to go back to work into something of real value!  If you have a chance, check out their story and give a few bucks to their charity of choice, KOTO.

Crazy Extremist, or Respected Corporate Leader?

It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.  First we had Larry Summers, the President of Harvard, discussing why Harvard doesn't have many women professors in math and science.  According to Summers, this is not due to discrimination, for which there is no "evidence", but because women don't have the required "innate ability" to succeed in those roles.  This comment was made as Summers supposedly was trying to recruit more respected women science professors to the University.  Way to go, Larry, they're really banging down the doors to work there now!

Now, we have the legendary ad guru Neil French, Worldwide Creative Director of WPP, one of the largest ad agencies on the planet.  At an ad-industry event which advertised itself saying "no question will be spared and no topic will be taboo", women learned a little too much about French's true feelings when he responded to a question about why there weren't more female creative directors.  His answer?  "Women don't make it to the top because they don't deserve to. They're crap."

French then continued to call women  "slacker-breeders", "babes", "bitches", and even "c*nts" (!) who will inevitably leave work early to "go suckle something" (who fed French when he was small?).  Now you can ask what else you would expect from a former pornographer and heavy metal band manager.  Or you can ask how someone with those views could make it to the tippy top of one of the most respected empires in the communications world.  You can say that this is a rare case where an extremist shoots his mouth off.  Or you can wonder how many others share the same opinions, but have far too much delicacy to say so.

Nancy Vonk, one of the women who considered Neil French a mentor, was at the event and said she has finally "snapped out of it" and realized behavior like his cannot be tolerated.  Comments on her blog say this is just "one man's opinion", that women aren't negatively affected, and that childrearing is more important than work anyway.  Which is fine until it comes to questions of promotions, pay, and which creative ideas "win". 

And then, I bet, it really matters if someone who thinks like Neil French is your boss and you're female.  And because women make the vast majority of all consumer purchasing decisions, workplace gender discrimination probably erodes an ad agency's bottom line as well.  Who would hire an agency that is so out of touch with the people they're trying to reach?

Neil French has resigned (or been asked to resign) his post; Lawrence Summers kept his after a minor dust-up.  How many others are out there, in charge of hiring, managing, and promoting?  And how long will it take Neil French to get a new job?

Who Moved My Cheese?

A classic tale in which $40,000 worth of cheese mysteriously disappears from Canadian waters.  Foul play? Or just natural economic forces at work?

The Times It Is a-Changin'

Apologies to Bob Dylan...

I spent a lot of time last week thinking about Word of Mouth Marketing with a team of really talented PR-turned-WOMM (Word of Mouth Marketing) folks from Edelman.  One thing we worked on was how to communicate externally why the nature of PR is necessarily changing. My personal take: There is a gathering backlash against authority in America.  People have begun to question their teachers, their doctors, their parents -- in short, independence is thriving.  (To the dismay of some - like the conservative groups that objected to the SmartGirl slogan, "Smart girls decide for themselves".)

The Internet facilitates this anti-authoritarian streak, because it allows people to get second, third and hundredth opinions with a few clicks.  The Internet enables many-to-many networked communication that challenges the traditional broadcasting model.  There are now millions of choices for information and entertainment sources, and many of those sources are just other people with similar interests.  Edelman's Trust Barometer 2005 shows the average person's faith in "a person like me" jumped dramatically from 2003 to 2005, while their trust in corporations, traditional media and the government declined.

The "Old PR", or working mainly with journalists, though not in mortal danger as some doomsayers insist, must consequently now share some shelf space with Word-of-Mouth Marketing, in which companies actually have a conversation with their customers, and give enthusiastic customers whatever help they need to spread the word.

Here's one of my ideas for an explanatory slide (this one didn't make it into the deck):

The old clip:

The new CLIP: Connect, Learn, Interact, Participate.

Engagement Photos

Mike and I were extremely lucky to have gotten our engagement portrait done over the weekend by Helene DeLillo of Dancing Icon Studios.  She is a genius at making people feel at home during portraiture.  I just checked out her website and I was incredibly impressed by the breadth of her accomplishments.  I am now convinced that good portrait-taking is all about the rapport you have with your subject.

Adrian Belic

Over the weekend, some friends and I had the opportunity to get a sneak preview of Adrian Belic's new documentary, "Beyond the Call".  It is picture-locked but there is apparently still some work to be done, and I am officially not allowed to blog about it, but surely it is OK to just say one word - WOW.  Inspiring, amazing, humbling, impressive.  OK, 5 words.

When Experience Pays Off

Sean says Jason Calacanis's company got bought by AOL.  It's so nice to see some of the original NYC "new media" pioneers getting recognized by the establishment.  Now the question is, will the acquisition have a lifting or a dragging effect on the participating companies?