I’m gonna run with this concept of community for a while. I’ve touched on something that’s created a bit of a spark. In other words, I value the contributions people have made here and I want to keep the discussion going.

Chris Abraham, in a response to my previous post The Fallacy of Community, gives us a great synopsis of what they’re about. Jeremiah Owyang has another post that’s excellent, What Makes a Successful Marketing Campaign on Social Networks?

What got me thinking about this is an exchange I had with Marco Nunez of Aurelius Maximus and Richard Millington of Fever Bee. The discussion centered on the use and misuse of the word “community”.

I’m starting to think that many mistake great brands with enthusiastic users – users who may even evangelize – are brands with communities. Some manage to attain that status of course, but I’d say that the majority of them don’t. That’s because these brands often don’t have the users, the clients, the customers that CONNECT. What I’m offering is the thought that the relationship between community members, while not as vital a the relationship between member and brand, is still important. Or, if not the direct relationship, the experience one garners with the product brings out a intangible sense of belonging. That status could be based on enjoyment, on status, on a sense of mission.

So the users have to feel some sort of connection with one another. Marco mentioned Apple. Richard noted Harley Davidson. Chris brought up WordPress. I pointed out Red Sox Nation and Blog Her. These are brands with communities, quasi-organized entities whose members have developed a sense of camaraderie. The camaraderie is genuine. It isn’t necessarily corporate created and maintained.

I’ll add that entities such as marketer-created fan pages and groups on the likes of Facebook and MySpace are inherently not communities as well. They may be clever marketing tactics and they may eventually become communities. But a page on a website doesn’t within itself capture the essence of community. The members do.

Real communities are long-term, if not permanent entities that last beyond a three month marketing campaign on Facebook. Especially in this day of quickly created social media networking/marketing groups. That’s because quite often those groups last as long as a campaign lasts and hence, they aren’t communities.

I write all this because the idea of “brand” is one of the most important in marketing. There’s been debates for decades on what makes a great brand. Rob Frankel, one of the best minds in branding says “Branding is not about getting your prospects to choose you over your competition; it’s about getting your prospects to see you as the only solution to their problem.” Building a brand often takes an enormous amount of work, and many attempts fail. (Note to Richard: this supports your point about Guy Kawasaki and his work for Apple).

At this point we’re not even touching on brand evangelism. There are plenty of great brands out there that don’t cause their enthusiasts to evangelize. Someone may be dedicated to using Tide Detergent, but that doesn’t mean they’ll tell friends and coworkers…unless asked. As I mentioned in a previous post, Tropicana No Pulp Orange Juice is my “brand”, but I don’t evangelize about it. I just drink it.

But the concept of community goes beyond a great brand, it goes beyond getting evangelists. It means either organizing those evangelists – or helping them organize themselves. It means enabling the members to connect with both the brand and the community. It then means keeping true to the brand promise so as not to throw off the community members.

That’s what I see is behind an enduring, thriving connected brand community.

I’m going to go against the orthodoxy of my fellow social media practitioners. I’m going to commit heresy. I’m going upset the apple cart of the proverbial echo chamber.

The new 2008 version of Where the Hell is Matt YouTube video isn’t going to live up to it’s intended purpose. It will be something that many of us will talk about, blog about, pontificate about. Then it will go away.

Here’s the video if you haven’t watched it:

But that’s it.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the concept. I’m not against the concept. I, like many of you, find the idea of a this young American traveling throughout the world, visiting places, getting to know the people, the culture. And video taping himself, dancing, often with others, often many others. And often with children.There’s something touching about Matt Harding dancing in Jerusalem in one shot, on the West Bank in the next. There’s something inspirational seeing him dance with children in Zambia or Morocco or Bhutan.Regarding the “rules” of social media, it was done almost flawlessly. The company didn’t require him to wear a Stride shirt or hawk the gum or promote it in any way. All they got was a mention at the end in the credits. It was right in line with what I’ve been reading on all these blogs for the past two years. Subtle, not in your face. Makes us feel good.But that’s not enough. Not in today’s world. An ironic thought, considering the theme of the video. Here’s why.

It creates little brand awareness

One can watch the video several times and not have any idea that it’s a marketing effort by Stride Gum. In fact, I bet the vast majority of people that view it and/or forward it have no idea that there was a company behind this. The little credit line at the end isn’t enought. Sorry, social media folks, but that’s he way it is.

Gavin Heaton says:

There are 4 million people around the world willing to sit through almost 5 minutes of video. These people are receptive to the simple brand message offered by Stride Gum. That is 20 million minutes of brand engagement — opt-in.

Gavin, even if all 4 million (now it’s up to 6 million) viewed the entire clip, if they don’t know that this is in somehow related to Stride Gum, then it ain’t brand engagement. They’re simply watching a cool video on YouTube. Brand engagement means viewers must be aware that they are, in fact, engaging a brand. Ergo…

It has no brand connection

I’m betting the vast majority of people who watch this video are enamored by it. Hell, I am as well. Big time. Seeing all those people dance with Matt. I mean, CK’s in joyous tears over it. Yet she wrote a blog post about it…but didn’t even mention the sponsor’s name.

Dancing with some sort of small primates in Madagascar has no connection to chewing gum.

Neither does dancing amidst red crabs on Christmas Island.

I mean, if Matt wore one of those shirts from Stride – the one’s that everyone is trilled that he didn’t wear – in every, say, 12th location…so what? It would have helped the 6 million of us viewers understand what was behind this. The entire video itself it inspirational enough to overcome that. A little promotion here and there is not shoving it down anyone’s throat. In fact, Matt could have worn other T-shirts as well, saying things like “End Violence Now” or “Help Defeat Malaria”. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN COOL.

So, yeah. So what if an occasional Stride T-shirt shot pisses off 18 social media marketers who want and demand a false notion of purity.

If you don’t know that there’s a brand behind it, or even related to it, then…

It creates no brand affinity

We all love Matt now. Don’t we? We think he’s a fine young man. We want to grow up/be like/have a son like him some day.

We imagine what it must be like to be able to travel to Tonga and Iceland and the Cape of Good Hope. We want to have that freedom. We want to be able to experience the world.

The affinity here is with Matt. This fine young man.

What was the name of that sponsor?

In my last post, I talked of the coming disruption of the three way relationship between marketer, agency, and media property. Essentially it centers on the idea that marketers (who are often behind themselves) are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of digital savvy of their agencies and are now turning to media properties for strategic ideas and creative capabiliites. And these media properties are making themselves all the more ready, willing, and able to carry out the needs and wishes of the marketers.

I believe that that’s happening. But there’s still a big problem with that model. Consistent brand messaging

On a micro-level, this new way of doing things makes perfect sense. Crafting an marketing campaign tailored to the offerings of an online property could maximize the effectiveness of the campaign itself. For that media property.

But last I looked, most advertisers don’t use all their spend on one property. They’ll pick many properties in many channels. They’ll test here and there. They’ll sometimes concentrate on branding, sometimes concentrate on direct , sometimes (and the web makes this more possible, concentrate on both.

If the marketer – the company that is the end client – has to tailor each of its marketing messages to that of the publisher, chaos could result.

Publishers will need to realize this and further expand their services, sort of becoming almost full service for their advertisers. But still, this still could run into brand confusion as each publisher will owe it to their paying client to create the most effective campaign for their specific property or properties, leaving potentially different and confusing brand messages across several media properties.

Wise agencies should see this as the window of opportunity and work with publishers before they even get clients to formulate the framework for effective marketing campaigns that can perform very effectively over a cross section of properties and platforms.

I don’t expect Hillary Clinton to take my advice. In fact, I fully expect her to keep forging ahead, putting out negative ads against Barack Obama and push for the delegates of the rule-breaking states of Florida and Michigan to be counted. I think the intensity of 35 years of waiting and wanting to run for president will take over and make her not see logic that she basically can’t win the nomination sans an Gary Hart-like Obama implosion. And there are no signs of that happening. I fully expect her to pull no punches and either she or her surrogates will attack Obama viciously, making him all the more vulnerable come November.

Disclosure: I worked back in 1992 for her husband’s presidential run. Worked in seven states. Something I’ll never forget. A blast. Makes me patriotic just thinking about it. Running around New Hampshire. I’m an independent though. And more of a centrist. Hillary (and Obama) are definitely to my left. McCain, whom I respect, is to my right.

Hillary turned me off with part of Hillarycare. On something so large an encompassing, you start off in the center or center-left. Not hard left. I remember a provision that would force organizations to enroll in insurance that would provide abortions services. Organizations such as the Catholic Church. When the Church objected to this provision, the answer came back: tough shit. As a Catholic who is slightly pro-choice, I was offended. There’s a stark difference between allowing an action (an abortion) and forcing an entity to pay for that action if it is completely against it’s principles. Thus, Hillary turned me off.

Two days ago, I read a post on TechPresident written by Liza Sabater. She pointed to a blog entry written by Erin Kotecki Vest, the Queen of Spain. ;)

The Queen, a former supporter of Hillary, makes a passioned plea for the Senator from New York to step down from the race. That’s because the Queen sees Hillary now as a polarizing figure, one that divides. She defends Hillary in the end, however, in that she sees this polarization largely as the result of the mental makeup of those that Hillary turns off:

If you firmly believe that there is still time for you to change the hearts and minds of those rude and stubborn Americans who are voting with their gut when they see “Hillary” on the ballot-then please, prove me wrong.

Ewww. Queen, you disappoint me. Rude and stubborn. When will some people learn? ;) One must be careful when considering the motives of others when they vote. But you are still my favorite Queen!

But I’m here not to trash Hillary, but to help her. To help her save her brand. In fact, I disagree with the Queen’s appeal. You see, I’m not a fan nor a hater of Hillary. But I can cetainly understand why she has legions of both. To me, she’s performed admirably as a Senator. She wasn’t an idealogue like many expected her to be. And she’s been given high marks by Republicans for her ability to work with them. Yes, she has the ability to reach across the aisle. We need that and she’s not been given a fair shake on that issue.

So, here goes. Hillary, accept the fact that you have almost no chance of winning the nomination. Accept the fact that a flurry of negative ads by you attacking Obama will only turn millions of Democrats off. Off of you personally. Accept the reality that if you fully try to have those delegates in Florida and Michigan count, you’ll tear apart the party and appear to be desperate and sinister in what would look like a fanatical desire to become president. Nixonian.

Instead, campaign your posterior off in Texas and Ohio. And let’s not forget Vermont and my native state of Rhode Island. Strictly in a positive manner. Don’t show that lack of graciousness as you did when you didn’t publicly acknowledge Obama’s continual sweeps. No bawdy negative attacks. Lay out your ideas passionately. Advance that agenda that you believe in. Find that voice. Give it your all. Make some of those “rude and stubborn” people think twice. And do it knowing the whole time that there’s a 3% chance that you’re going to be the nominee.

And when and if you lose these primaries, bow out graciously. Congratulate Barack Obama for his hard fought victory. Acknowledge that he has indeed touched something in many an American soul.

Right now, you look like the Bad Hillary. The power hungry, it’s all-about-me Hillary. The one that causes people to vote against you because of their gut.

By campaigning in a positive manner, you will be closing out your campaign and you’ll leave a positive taste in the mouths of Democrats anywhere. They’ll see your passion and ideas as you lay them out and perhaps lead legislatively in 2009. They’ll see you as you should be, the Good Hillary.

You see, Barack Obama, the likely nominee, while inspirational, is still vulnerable. Ask Texas state Rep. Kirk Watson. Barack Obama’s lack of national experience may prove to be too much for voters. I’m not saying that should be the case…I’m saying that it could be. And come November, we could see yet another Republican take the presidency.

All of which would make you the front runner for 2012.

That’s if you stay positive and show passion.

But I doubt you’ll do that. Because it’s my guess is that you’ll show the Bad Hillary that have turned so many off, causing them to become rude and stubborn. And it will be unfortunate if that ends up being your legacy.

Me too.

You want to get back to the show, the game, the newscast. See the bad guy get his ass nailed, the final two minutes of the tight game, or news on the latest scoop on the election cycle. The last thing you want to see is a series of presentations about pills that can make you pee better, a car that supposedly makes you cool, and a law firm that chases ambulances.

Me too.

But every once and a while, you’ll watch something that will catch your eye. It will make you laugh. Chuckle inside. You’ll be able to relate to it. Or you’ll be impressed because it’s impressive, not because the commercial is trying to pretend that it’s impressive with itself. Or you’ll think, shit, how did they do that?

Me too.

If that’s what happens, then that’s a commercial that will likely end up on Firebrand.

Firebrand is a client of ours. We’re proud to have them. They’re a new media outlet – literally. We’re proud to have them. They’re a new media outlet – literally. They’re on the web at ‘re on the web at http://www.firebrand.com and on the ION network on cable in 95 million homes. They seek out and get the world’s best commercials and play them, MTV style. From the States, Britain, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, India.

Now, let’s talk football. Let’s talk the Super Bowl. I could go off on a tangent and first talk about the great commercials, but I’m a lifelong fanatical New England Patriots fan so to me, this Sunday means football. I had to get that in.Allright, so lets’s talk about those about great commercials that the Super Bowl is known for. They get plenty of press beforehand. People do stop and watch them and they then talk about them the next day. They remember them. And they wish that all TV ads were that good.

We’ll, this week Firebrand will be celebrating ads of Super Bowls past all week long. Then on Monday, February 4th, they’ll be hosting “Firebrand Monday”, showing all the ads from the previous day’s Big Game. Viewers will be treated to the likes of Terry Tate, Office Linebacker and Carmen Electra

Here’s the lineup for the week.

Monday January 28th: “BIG TIME ATHLETES” in classic Big Game commercials

Tuesday January 29th: “BIG BUDGET PRODUCTIONS” for classic Big Game commercials

Wed January 30th: “CHICKS IN CHARGE” in classic Big Game commercials

Thursday January 31st: “BIG TIME CELEBRITIES” in classic Big Game commercials

Friday February 1st: “BIG TIME BRANDS” in classic Big Game commercials

Monday February 4th: IT’S FIREBRAND MONDAY, THE DAY AFTER THE BIG GAME – CELEBRATE THE HOLIEST DAY IN ADVERTISING WITH THE OFFICE LINEBACKER, CARMEN ELEKTRA AND CLASSIC BIG GAME COMMERCIALS!

Don Frischmann of Rubicon Consulting wrote this great article for AdAge.   A great read.

Nothing is Insignificant When It Comes to Brand Fulfillment

The culture of participatory social media is having some surprisingly significant effects on both the way satisfied customers play a role in contributing to the marketing message development of products and services. And it is also playing an increasingly important role in defining the key touchpoints that customers use in the deciding factors one what to purchase. What makes this all the more noteworthy is that much of this is rooted in offline purchases. I’m putting this together from two recent studies…

As we all know, a satisfied customer can often be your most effective marketing vehicle. This has become all the more apparent as Bazaarevoice found in a survey they completed for Keller Fay, the word of mouth marketing agency based out of Atlanta. They found that 79% of reviewers write reviews to reward a company for the quality of the product or service they bought, with 87% of the reviews being positive in tone. Positive experiences mean greater customer involvement.

This means that satisfied customers see the idea of writing online reviews as an important part of their product/service experience. That’s backed up by the fact that in the same survey, 90% of the respondents write the reviews to help others make better buying decisions. Social media allows them to ’share the love’ so to speak. The survey also points out that 70% see contributing to online reviews as a means to help a company improve what they offer. If this is the case, then we’ve got the initial stages of what many are calling a ‘community’.

The significance of that point shouldn’t be underestimated. Social media marketers are constantly talking about community. Sometimes I think they overdo it. That’s because I think they believe exists in the first place. It doesn’t. But customer reviews are one way in which they begin.

That becomes more important when you realize that comScore and the Kelsey Group found that reviews written by fellow consumers had a greater impact on the buying decisions of potential buyers than that of professional reviewers. And this no small point: 97% of review readers fine the reviews they read to be accurate. So, the quality of the reviews by fellow users is not compromised by a lack of ‘expertise’ in writing reviews. With more than three-quarters of review readers saying that their reading of someone else’s opinion on a product or service effected their decision to make a purchase, online review are now completely mainstream They are part of customer relations, message development, and community formulation. In short, an ecommerce strategy must include happy customers.

And just how can this affect the touchpoints as to the reasoning behind a purchase. comScore helps us out again by pointing out that people were willing to pay 20% ore for an Excellent, or 5-star rating, than they were a Very Good or Good 4-star rating. The survey doesn’t stipulate the percentage of people that feel this way however. But it does show that for (likely) price is not necessarily a huge factor when it comes to top quality. I say that because a 4-star rating is still very positive.

It should also be pointed out that offline purchases are really pushing this. Bazarrevoice found that of their respondents, 65% of them had, after purchasing offline, had gone back online to write a review. So it is not necessarily technology insiders. It’s broader than that.

Kelly Mooney has a great piece in AdAge, For Relevance, Think Three Way, in which she talks about the concept of ‘triangulation’ involving the brand, the customer, and the community and that all three need to embrace one another. She also blogs at MooneyThinks.

She’s quite right in that, for many of us, we’ve moved much of our media gathering experience online. Websites, blogs, social networks, forums are the areas that we discuss brands or experiences with brands or our impressions of brands.

Kelly calls on companies to shift from “B to C” over to “B to We”. An excellent example she gives is the “Pink” campaign from Victoria’s Secret that targeted young women. She writes

The recent star-studded PJ Party, promoted through Facebook, street teams and in-store, included flash-mob experiences via SMS announcements about free merchandise and a mobile photo application that enabled partygoers to see themselves on the stage’s LED screen, and it culminated in a free Fergie concert. The destination site featured a real-time mobile photo blog from the party and a dance-video-upload contest set to Fergie’s latest hit, where Pink fans voted on who should win a shopping spree and have her video featured on VSPink.com. Through triangulated communications, the brand is extended from offline to online, viral and mobile, and to an increasingly “qualified” audience.

I can’t disagree with this concept but, I’m often left wondering…how many brands can actually engage their customers? How many brands are able to cause that much passion? How many brands can develop or, for that matter, find an actual online community?

That’s a question that most of us haven’t asked yet.

The latest Economist has the headline “Who’s Afraid of Google?” In this first article, apparently everyone is afraid of Google and all its information it has on “us”. I thought this article was a little harsh ending by calling Google’s slogan, “Don’t be Evil”, “trite”.

But, actually it wasn’t the first article that I wanted to talk about it was the second article, “Inside the Googleplex” because it touches on the corner stone of Google’s power and dominance. Which, is (a) its ability to garner huge amounts of traffic, while (b) providing perceived relevance to both consumer (web user) and advertiser. “Linking” these two up is what Google does best!

First, Google’s share of web searches must remain stable. Thanks to its brand, this looks manageable. Google’s share has steadily increased over the years. It was about 64% in America in July, according to Hitwise. That is almost three times the volume of its nearest rival, Yahoo!. In parts of Europe, India and Latin America, Google’s share is even higher. Only in South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the Czech Republic does it trail local incumbents.

Brand! Maintaining brand is the most important part – loss of perceived relevance of searches or any other level of trust would definitely have a negative impact on Google, both amongst consumers and advertisers. If Google misuses information that it gathers from search, email, document applications etc, it will hurt – and hurt bad! The depth of the pain will depend on what excatly happens, how it happens and when.

One could compare an information leak at Google to the theft of personal credit information. How many people experience credit card fraud each year? Or the theft of personal information from any number of sources? Yet, we continue to use credit cards on an increasing regularity. Yes, Google gets lots of “personal” information – like what we think, say and are interested in. But, never forget when you purchase something with your credit card there is a clear trail all the way back to you. And, well, we purchase lots of personal things.

In this way I think Google may be a permanent fixture like Visa and Mastercard!

The second part of Google’s power is its ability to “connect the dots” between consumer and advertiser.

Second, Google must maintain or improve the efficiency with which it puts ads next to searches. And here its dominance is most impressive. In a recent analysis by Alan Rimm-Kaufman, a marketing consultant, it took a whopping 73% of the budgets of companies that advertise on search engines (versus 21% and 6%, respectively, for Yahoo! and Microsoft). It charged more for each click, thanks to its bigger network of advertisers and more competitive online auctions. And it had far higher “click-through rates”, because it made these ads more relevant and useful, so that web users click on them more often.

Perhaps most tellingly, advertisers do better with Google. Mr Rimm-Kaufman found that Google’s ads “converted” more often into actual sales, which tended to be larger than those originating from Yahoo! or Microsoft. This is astonishing, given that Yahoo! has just spent a year on an all-out effort, codenamed Panama, to close precisely these gaps.

This is the power that Google has over all its rivals. How long will this technological power last? That, in the world of technology, is hard to know. But, the chance always exists that someone will come along with a powerful new logarithm that will provide event better returns to the consumer and advertiser. This, of course, is very hard when the technology is backed by a strong brand and trust in your product. Even if there is a new technological option for the consumer as long as the brand stays strong it is going to be hard to scale up to truly challenge Google.

My guess is you will see increasing efforts at trying to tackle the brand power of Google. Hell, if you can’t match um, well, just talk bleep about them. (ex: Nike, Microsoft, China)

A while ago I had a brief exchange with a VP of Marketing of a company that’s actually in the marketing arena. I had stated my definition of branding…

“A brand is what creates a collective sense of vision, perception, image, or experiences that a significant amount of current or potential customers relate to a specific product or service. To be successful, the brand must elicit supremely positive benefits to provide a solution, it must differentiate itself from the competition, and it must be consistent and long-term.”

The short way of saying this is that I had posted that on the company blog. It wasn’t live because he wanted to edit it.

He didn’t necessarily disagree, but he ‘corrected’ it by completely equating brand with image. He did that in part because the term image is part of their tagline.

But he was wrong. Brand doesn’t equal image. How to explain? Best way is to give an example or two.

WalMart

I’d say that WalMart’s brand is related to the fact that it’s a huge store that you can buy almost anything. And buy it cheaply. Clothes, food, toiletries, toys, sporting equipment, cosmetics. It’s variety and convenience have made it a go-to place for many ‘middle Americans’.

But it’s image…well, that’s different. The Killer of Downtowns in small town America. Cheap labor and anti-union. In other words, the convenience and the variety get stripped when it comes to WalMart’s image.

McDonald’s

With billions served, McDonalds has become one of America’s most recognized symbols. It’s brand relates to, well, convenience and cheapness, but also cleanliness and familiarity. You’ll get the same tasting sandwich in Topeka, in Tacoma, in Tucson, and in Tallahassee. It’s convenience makes it easier for parents to get a quick meal for the kids.

It’s image is different. Greasy unhealthy food that completely lacks nutrition. Fast Food Nation.

I could go on, but you get the drift.

So I have to say NO to this marketing guy…brand and image ain’t the same.