GOOGLE GETS PETTY (AND PISSY)

A brand’s identity is much more than the image it creates in its advertising, or the buzz swirling around its products. It’s also in its collective behavior - the way it approaches its business partners and rivals, the media and the rest of the world.

On that basis, it seems Google might be taking a sharp turn towards the nasty. The firm that famously exhorted its employees, “don’t be evil”, may be abandoning that friendly approach. Earlier this month, the company jumped on its soapbox to denounce Microsoft for copying Google results in its own search engine, Bing.

The reaction to this from some in the tech community wasn’t what Google expected. There was a surprising amount of backlash critical of the search giant for picking a fight.

The criticism was justified. Leaving aside its nice-guy motto and philosophy, Google is clear and away the top search destination on the internet; as #1, it should also be clear and away from petty sniping with a distant rival. Like its foray into mobile operating systems, MP3 players and… well, anything else that isn’t a buggy PC operating system, Microsoft is a pale competitor to anyone. On top of that, their traditionally aggressive business practices and competition-choking moves have not made it a popular firm among most of humanity.

So why bother bashing them at all? The number one company should be above that, first of all, and secondly, attacking Microsoft is a simple shot at an easy target. Both make Google look petty and pissy; is that the image one of the top world-beating companies, and one of the most recognized brands, should be projecting?

I’m not condoning plagiarism here. Readers of this blog know my feelings on that subject. Plagiarizers should be called out… but only that. Attacks and denouncements on the part of the plagiarized serve only to make the offended party seem undignified and small-minded. It’s much better to fly above the controversy than slop around in the mud.

Here’s what Gord Hotchkiss of Search Insider had to say about Google last, in his post A ‘Page’ From Google’s PR Book.

Clamor for mobile marketing begins - from Mobile Marketer

Six weeks into 2011 and it is very clear that the high-stakes sprint to do all things mobile is off and running in an immense way.

If 2010 was a marathon, a long endurance race with only a few winners making it to the finish line, this year’s starting block includes marketers of every size and liquidity – aggregators, developers, networks, agencies, location-services and chancers – all clamoring to get to the front of the line.

My question is this: What took you all so long?

The short answer is a combination of marketers’ aversion to risk and a bit of follow-the-herd mentality thrown in.

While the traders over on Wall Street took risks aplenty with our money, marketers, it seems, were waiting for others to take the first few giant steps.

The long answer, below, is, well, long.

Adding new dimensions to mobile
Last year clearly demonstrated that mobile marketing was no longer a one-horse or single-dimensional player. It began to, and now is, playing a significant role in many multichannel campaigns, fundamentally reshaping the dynamics of interactive marketing in the process.

Here are some recent numbers if you do not believe me:

- Mobile marketing spend will top $1 billion in 2011, according to Forrester Research

- Nearly half of smartphone users say they have already, or soon will, use their phones to do mobile shopping. Fifty-three percent also use, or intend to use, their smartphones for mobile banking, per ABI Research

- There will be an estimated 1.8 billion Internet-enabled mobile phones in use around the world by 2013, and 91 percent of all U.S. consumers already own and use a mobile device, according to Modus Associates

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BACK TO THE FUTURE IN 30 SECONDS

After all the hoo-hah with the Super Bowl ads last week, how about a bit of nostalgia-themed advertising banter to kick off this week instead?

The retread and nostalgia business is clearly thriving. Movie franchises such as Superman and James Bond are well into their latest reboots; customers plop themselves onto the vinyl banquettes of faux-1950s diner chains for a patty melt. Everything was better, fresher and sweeter years ago… or at least we trick ourselves into thinking so.

So maybe it’s time for the ad business to hit that trend. This has been happening in the UK recently, where brands are making throwback TV spots that reference famous ads from years past, and attracting good buzz from doing so. Can the rest of the world be far behind?

American advertisers have dipped their toes very carefully in the water. Two Super Bowls ago, Coke did a parody/update of its classic Mean Joe Greene ad. The old fogies in the audience will remember the spot featured the gruff Pittsburgh Steelers lineman hobbling away from a tough game, being offered a cold bottle of the soda from a young fan, rejecting the offer… then finally accepting it and tossing the kid his game jersey as a thank-you. The updated version featured current Steeler Troy Polamalu, with the twist of an obnoxious adult fan grabbing the kid’s Coke Zero before Polamalu can accept it… and getting convincingly tackled by the football player for his effort. The ending has Polamalu claiming the drink, then ripping the would-be-thief’s shirt off and throwing it to the kid for a souvenir.

Like most Super Bowl ads, though, that was essentially made as a one-off, something to provide a surprise and a chuckle. Perhaps that’s the fate of nostalgia ads in the US – expensive single commercials that mine a classic only as a source of parody.

It’s a shame to limit them so narrowly. The little kids who laughed at TV ads in the 1980s and 1990s are now an attractive demographic group with significant spending power, so a well-made, at least semi-reverential spot could stir their emotions and score fresh brand awareness.

It could even make a lot of that demographic, myself included, feel young again - even if only for half a minute. Now that’s a jersey worth tossing their way.

FRIENDING AN EXCUSE, OR TWO

Marriages fail for a number of reasons. Couples drift apart, one of them cheats, a spouse discovers that the magic is gone or that her partner is a cross-dresser, and so on. These are all painful developments that can only be dealt with through maturity, understanding and time, and maybe a few bouts of binge drinking. Eventually, the pain fades with time and the injured parties go their separate ways to, hopefully, find other and more suitable mates.

Or, alternatively, they could just blame Facebook.

That’s right, the world’s top social networking site is also fast becoming one of its most popular scapegoats for the demise of marriage. Late last year, Churchgoers were warned by their pastor “Thou shalt not Facebook”, who feared Facebook was ruining the marriages of his congregation.

Maybe he was right...

“Facebook ruined my relationship!” pages are springing up faster than Farmville followers, in which bitter sad sacks detail how spending time on the site has led to the breakdown of their relationship, and/or divorce.

Awwww, can you hear the violins?

It’s hard for some people to take personal responsibility, but come on people. Facebook? If someone can’t own up to their or their marriage’s failings, they can at least come up with a more creative excuse than Facebook. Perhaps an inappropriate astrological configuration, the fact that AC/DC isn’t doing a reunion tour in 2011, lack of affection for your mate’s pet Kimodo dragon… anything, really, that shows a spark of intellect and humor. What’s next, blaming your health problems on Twitter?

It seems that some people apparently forgot that social networking, by its very name, is a public phenomenon. Anyone in the social networks’ tangle – well, those curious enough to look at such pages, at any rate – can see a name and a face attached to the whines and complaints on “Facebook (name your grievance here)”. It’s already pathetic that someone is scapegoating Facebook for their marriage breakdown; doing it in public is just humiliating and embarrassing.

Why not simply run into the middle of a crowd, scantily clothed, perhaps downtown Manhattan at midday, and start yelling about how the chosen scapegoat has made your life miserable? Screaming is far more therapeutic than typing a wall post will ever come close to. There’s more bang for the buck right there, plus maybe the local news crews will discover you and you’ll become famous for a few minutes – or even longer like Kate Gosselin.

Ha, that could be a new fan page right there! “Facebook turned me into a screaming weirdo humiliating herself in public, and I got a reality show.”

Wow, social media really can be useful and instructive, don’t you think?

PR In The Age Of Plagiarism

You know that a journalist has hit rock bottom when he or she starts copying another journalist/media outlet verbatim.

That's what happened two weeks ago when one of Britain's top newspapers, The Daily Mail, lifted entire sections of a story that ran only four days earlier in The New York Times.

In our "Age of Information," how could any journalist be deluded enough to think they could get away with plagiarism of that scale? Google Alerts, hello?

The original Daily Mail rip-off had the byline not of an ambitious rookie journalist looking to make a quick splash in her career, but of a seasoned reporter for the paper -- which makes the move even more astounding. If ever a journalist was considering cut-and-paste "reporting," the last place I would recommend for material is The New York Times. Not that I am recommending doing that at all.

Copying Is Not A Form of Flattery
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Murdoch is at it again.

Never one for modesty, the media giant wasn’t shy about trumpeting his latest venture last week, an iPad-only daily newspaper titled, imaginatively enough, The Daily. The interesting thing about the new news toy isn’t that it is exclusive to Apple’s popular instrument. No, what’s intriguing is that it costs money.

The Daily is one of the still-rare e-publications available only by subscription – 99 cents per day for the mildly curious or occasional article hunter, or $39.99 for those who want to take the full splash. This isn’t the first time Murdoch’s erected a paywall – last summer, he built one around his prize British property, storied and popular daily The Times – which is still being um-ed and ah-ed over.

Ever since news outlets started building paywalls, the results have been mixed. Salon became significantly less popular when it introduced a pay-for-content model, winning back readership only after it dismantling its paywall piece by piece (it is now completely free again). Several years ago, the Los Angeles Times asked online visitors to pay $4.95 per month or $39.95 annually to access its CalendarLive entertainment section. Those readers answered by not reading the LA Times; many of them found such content elsewhere, like on the free pages of rival news outlets, proving that consumers are used to getting their content for free.

On the other hand, Murdoch’s The Wall Street Journal has been a huge success in the pay-per-access game ever since introducing its paywall way back in the internet Dark Ages of 1997 (which was, incidentally, long before Murdoch got his hands on the paper). And over in London, The Times Online has built up a relatively modest but sturdy subscriber base. According to the company, there were over 100,000 subscribers to the paywall in December 2010, although this also counts readers who download versions to their Kindles or the paper’s app to their phones. Yet this isn’t a bad result for a system that, at the time, had been in place less than half a year.

It’s early days, still, so it’s hard to gauge how this paywall story will end. But early indications seem to be that it’s going the way traditional media always did – certain publications are finding their subscribers and building what looks to be a sustainable business model, and some aren’t. As ever, it seems that newspaper/magazine readers are willing to pay for their media, but only if it provides value for the information it conveys.

It’ll be interesting to see if The Daily, The Times, and other media outlets with paywalls can deliver that value and keep building a subscriber base that’s not fixated on all-content-for-free.

My free trial expires in two weeks, so I’ll let you know how that goes.

Super Bowl 45, Brought To You By....

Branded content.. Yep, branded content.

That's what you witnessed if you were watching the 45th Super Bowl. And if weren't watching, just exactly what were you doing?

This year's Super Bowl programming was markedly different to last year's, for a number of reasons.

The programming was truly an all-inclusive, inspiring, and uplifting affair. As a relative newcomer to the joys of NFL, I can't compare many previous games. But I can compare the last two.

And this year won hands down.

I started watching the pre-game programming around 1pm, to get "in the mood," accompanied by a light libation (or two) and a bowl of chili…

Good start.

What struck me first was the quality of ads that were targeting viewers like me: newbies, women and non-hardcore fans.

So far, so good.

And then came the Ritz part. Guy Fieri, host of Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives on The Food Network, grilling some sinfully calorific treats, served up by Super Bowl 45 sponsor, Ritz Crackers, at lunchtime just when stomachs were growling.

I couldn’t find the actual segment online, but I did find Guy’s Super Bowl recipe spot on CBS – you can watch it on YouTube here.

Very clever indeed. From a PR perspective, branded content like the Ritz segment is where advertising dollars and consumer engagement are heading this year. Consumers have had it with cheesy ads (pun intended!) and brands get it: instead they are developing "branded" content - the type of which we experienced last night - to engage them and keep them riveted, and, importantly, talking about these brands by the watercooler today, and tomorrow.

According to the Proactive.com blog, “the idea is to listen to online conversations and establish what interests your community. Is there a need for certain information? Can you creatively provide that info in an engaging way? Storytelling in articles, with images and video, is one of the best ways to produce branded content. And that’s a PR skill.”

And then there were the ads, which were dominated by car spots. Some have called it “The Auto Bowl,” because of prevalence of car ads.

FABULOUS:

Doritos - I loved these. The fingersucking and trouser-sniffing scenes were really out there!

Optima - like a mini movie-trailer in a 15 second spot Groupon and Living Social tie even place BMW - Ch-ch-changes VW Passat and Darth Vader Jr.

Snickers

GM does Facebook

4G with Ossie & Bieber

Stella Artois (and I'm not just saying that because Adrian Brody made me cry as well)

Chrysler, Eminem and Detroit - what a great story (and redemption for the dreadful Brisk ad - see below)

BLAH:

Coca Cola

HomeAway.com

Pepsi

CareerBuilder.com

NCL - why did you bother?

Motorola's Xoom - better luck next time

MiniCooper

Xfinity

Mazda – instead of zoom, zoom, zoom, this was yawn, yawn, yawn


STICK HOT PINS IN MY EYES:

Brisk

Anything by GoDaddy

Carmax

Cars.com

Chatter.com

Skechers w Kim Kardashian

I probably missed a few during drink breaks, but you can see all the ad again at www.foxsports.com/ads.

Now, about the half-time show by The Black-Eyed Peas... I'm no music critic, but I know what offends my ears and offend they did on a big a scale. Visually, aurally, their performance was a Texas-sized production but an abysmal spectacle that was a mash-up of 90's songs I'd rather forget, and the most overplayed tracks from the past year or so.

You know you're not impressed by the half time show when you're pining for the next set of commercials. Even Fergie's voice couldn't stop me from getting up for another round of drinks.

But what mustn't be overlooked in all the Super Bowl hyperbole, mega-bucks advertising and TV escapism is the Obama/O'Reilly pre-game interview. Obama, clever, cool and collected as ever, gave a wonderful interview with Fox's Bill O'Reilly. While O'Reilly tried desperately to set and control the tempo, Obama stole the show, disarming his interviewer with factual, honest and on the mark responses.

Go team Obama! Never mind that my team lost.