Entries Tagged 'Mike Spataro' ↓

The Society for New Communications Research is another fast growing organization gaining wider respect and new members each year. The group handed out awards last night in Boston to more than 50 companies and individuals in the area of excellence in social media and interactive services.

It’s a good thing that organizations like SNCR and WOMMA put in the time and effort to recognize what people are doing because I’m not sure how we’d keep up with some of the amazing work being performed in this emerging industry. We were thrilled to be among the winners in the area of technology innovation for our TruCast solution, but if you ask me the real winners are the people whose lives are being changed everyday by smart interactive and social media thinkers. For instance;

The Humanitarian Emergency Logistics Preparedness, Inc. (HELP) is a non-profit humanitarian relief organization that helps victims of natural and man-made disasters on a global basis. They target medical/health concerns in disasters and other areas of chronic medical need. HELP deploys “Doc-in-a-Box” mobile telemedicine clinics and a Web-based community of volunteer physicians and hospitals. These clinics enable local physicians to have modern state-of-the-art facilities and expertise “looking over their shoulder” providing the latest technology and insight to the remotest regions of our world. It’s safe to say the program has been an enormous success. The work being performed in the non-profit area is among the best you’ll see. You can find the other case studies on the SNCR New Communications Review site.

Awards were also given to some of the usual brands that have been long-time social media leaders, such as GM, Dell, Sun, Microsoft, Boeing and others like Midwest Airlines. In fact, I had a chance to spend some time with Tish Robinson who authors Midwest’s popular female-focused travel blog - Travels with Tish - Girlfriends Getaway Guide, which is based on the personal travel experiences of Tish and her friends. What a cool idea.

More on the actual conference sessions in the days ahead.

Mike Spataro

It’s funny that when the Internet went commercial in the 90’s there really weren’t that many new PR positions created. Very few companies, for instance, created jobs like “Internet PR Manager.” In most cases, Web communication roles were absorbed by existing PR pros. That’s certainly not the case here and now in the social media age. Now we have everything from ‘conversation analyst’ to ‘new media guru’ to ‘chief blogger and podcaster.’

The online edition of the Chicago Tribune has an interesting article on this called “You Talk, They Hear on the Web.” It highlights some of the work performed by Edelman Public Relations, but rest assured there are many other PR shops with strong capabilities in this arena now, such as Ogilvy’s 360 Digital Group, Burson Marsteller, Hill & Knowlton, Shift Communications, and Topaz Partners to name just a few.

Mike Spataro

There’s been a lot of talk lately at cocktail parties, trade shows, industry conferences and other social networking events about whether or not we’ve entered the next Internet bubble. Like everyone else who lived through the last one, we all have our opinions. I don’t see the same hype now as then, but the fact that so many people keep raising the issue lends some validity to the discussion, which was also the subject of a feature story in Sunday’s Boston Globe (free for a few days).

Mike Spataro

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association staged its 3rd annual summit last week in Las Vegas. Some random thoughts and observations from the three-day event:

* Nearly 500 people attended - a far cry more people than just a few short years ago.  That’s testament to the growing strength of this organization and the outstanding vision and hard work by the WOMMA Board and staff, especially Interim CEO Peter Waldheim. If you don’t know Peter, you really should.

* One of the great things about WOMMA events (beyond the people who attend) is it attracts professionals from a wide variety of different disciplines, from CMOs, to marketing VPs, to brand managers, to corporate communicators, to market research analysts and many others.

* A dominant theme throughout the event was the notion for brands to get out and participate more in word of mouth activities and go beyond just monitoring what’s going on in blogs and social networks. The always interesting Ed Keller, CEO of Keller Fay, in fact went as far as to say that conversation is the future of successful marketing.

* I had heard and read a lot of good things about Lionel Menchaca, Dell’s chief blogger on Direct2Dell, but until you meet Lionel in person and get a sense of his approach to the business you really don’t know how special he really is. Dell could not have tabbed anyone better for the job and I’m not just saying that because we do some work for Dell, which is also blogging in Chinese, Spanish and Norwegian. These guys are light years ahead of others in social media strategy and measurement.

* If you’re looking for some great word-of-mouth case studies take a look at this year’s Wommie award winners from Affinitive, Converseon, Fanscape, and Quicken Loans. All are great, but I still think Nintendo takes the cake this past year for the WII launch.

* One of the best answers I heard during the show was “I don’t know,” from Bruce Ertmann, Corporate Manager for Consumer Generated Media at Toyota, when asked what was the ROI resulting from his online efforts. Too many people are hung up at the moment at thinking they have to have a comprehensive ROI model before getting involved, while smart brands know they don’t need a methodology to have an honest one-to-one conversation with their customers.

* If you’re interested, you can download the presentations from the event. Hope to see you at the 08 summit.

Mike Spataro

Depending on your point of view, the Taco Bell “Steal A Base, Steal A Taco” promotion during Game 2 of the World Series was either genius marketing or a dumb idea that backfired on the fast food chain.

If you’re not a sports fan you might have missed it, but there’s been plenty of discussion about it online. Taco Bell has been gobbling up tons of publicity for years around its Everyone in America Gets a Free Taco promotion for such things as the space station Mir debris hitting the company’s floating logo target in the South Pacific in 2001 or for the astronomical possibility of a Barry Bonds’ home run landing on its floating banner in McCovey Cove during the 2002 World Series. The company has traditionally received overwhelming publicity for little cost and virtually no risk to its corporate insurance policy.

This time, however, the company with the help of Fox Sports moved the promotion inside the dugout of the Boston Red Sox during a one-run game in the middle of this year’s Fall Classic. The offer for a free taco to everyone in the country kicked in when Jacoby Ellsbury of the Red Sox stole a base. Fox announcers immediately cut to a previously taped conversation between Ellsbury and teammate Royce Clayton discussing the promotion the day before and followed with a live in-stands interview with Taco Bell COO Rob Savage. It was like viewers were watching a Taco Bell commercial and were interrupted by a baseball game.

While I’m sure the marketing pros at Taco Bell are counting the news clips and PR hits and watching the traffic surge to their Web site as indicators of great visibility and success, I suggest they dig a little deeper into consumer sentiment about their “big idea.” Fans on sports talk shows in many markets have blasted the company for the in-game interruption and it’s easy to see why consumers are starting to take out their anger on brands that cross the fine line from a clever idea to intrusion marketing.

If I were Taco Bell I’d be surveying people around the country about what they really thought about the promotion because you sure can’t gauge success by handing out a few thousand free tacos. Oh, and by the way, you can claim your free taco tomorrow at about the same time the Red Sox stage their victory celebration here in Boston.

Mike Spataro