Filed under: Blowback, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Case Studies, Citizen Media, Content Filtering, Content Management System, Controversial Marketing, Copywriting, Corporate Partnering, Corporate Responsibility, Google, Google YouTube, Honesty, Industry Reputation, Influence, Information Technology, Intellectual Property, Invasion of Privacy, Legal Issues, News Organization, Online Applications, Online Brand Protection, Online Copywriting, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Video, Personal Privacy, Personal Responsibility, Privacy

U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton may have opened up a Pandora’s box.

Last year, Viacom, the owner of  such major cable networks as Black Entertainment Television, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon, sued YouTube and Google because YouTube, through it’s uploading system, was allowing it users to upload Viacom copyrighted videos.  YouTube was profiting from this as it increased its audience and, thus, advertising revenue.  Viacom was, in turn, losing online audience and potential revenue.  It saw itself, legitimately in my mind, as a content provider for YouTube, without receiving compensation.

YouTube immediately began scouring its databases and removing copyrighted video from Viacom. But considering the amount of videos that are uploaded - every hour on the clock, 780 hours of video are sent to YouTube’s servers - the task of finding and identifying copyrighted material is daunting.  A lot can get by the YouTube’s regulators, so to speak.

So the lawsuit stayed, with Viacom demanding access to YouTube’s database of user info.  The database is larger that that of the Library of Congress mind you.

YouTube’s database essentially contains four pieces of info:  the user’s unique login ID, their IP address, the time frame that the video was watched, and the video itself.  Usually, a login ID and an IP address can’t be used to identify an individual, but “usually” is a very inexact word.

Viacom is saying that they aren’t doing this to go after individuals.  They’re not doing this to nail someone who uploaded last night’s The Daily Show.  I believe them, at least for now.  But that doesn’t mean that they keep to that forever.

It makes no sense for them to try to use this data to sue people who have been uploading copyrighted videos at this juncture.  The ‘YouTube culture’ is one that has permitted this to happen and Viacom needs to work to change that culture over a year or two.

Viacom is saying that it wants to gauge the popularity of its copyrighted material.  Again, that makes sense.  We are talking revenue generating material that, while on YouTube, ins not directly generating measurable video.

There is some good news here.  Google, while not appealing, has asked Viacom to give them time to erase user names and IP addresses.  Viacom is open to the idea.

That’s great.  But that’s only this case.   You can be that this is opening a can of worms.

I’ll be investigating this further.  Stay tuned.

No Comments » Posted on July 6th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: A-List Bloggers, Abraham Harrison LLC, Activating Bloggers, Blog Messaging, Blog Policies, Blog of Personality, Blogger Effect, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Blogger Response, Brand Promotion, Branding, Conversation, Conversation Marketing, Influence, Influencers, Influencial Bloggers, Influential Brand Advocates, Influentials, New Marketing, New Media, Online Marketing, Online Messaging, Online PR, Online Reputation, Seesmic, Viral PR, Viral Videos, Web 2.0, YouTube Marketing

Let’s take a look at the debate between Brian and Loic, point by point.

Point #1

Brian Solis: Understand You’re Not the Only Story in Town
Loic: Who cares about stories, you can get traction and users if you have a good product

Where do I start? First of all, Brian’s spot on in that many top executives in startups overvalue what the product or the service or whatever it is that they’re introducing. They don’t understand that the battleground for attention from key influencers and potential customers is filled with other players battling for attention as well. Sometimes it’s necessary to get someone to help craft a pathway through that battlefield, from someone one that understands which weapons and shields are needed. How to break through that clutter. Because on that very same battlefield are others looking for sweet victory as well. And that’s just the battle to get noticed.

Sometimes that’s having someone who can help craft and deliver a great story.

And, yes, sometimes, one of the best weapons is having established a blog and with that, a burgeoning community. Loic has done that and kudos to him for that. He is a great example of what he’s writing about.

Some of those competitors on the battlefield may not be direct competitors in business. No matter. They are still competing for mindshare of the audience a startup wants to reach.

CEOs need to understand this. They’ve worked their tails off for a significant period of time to produce something. That’s quite an accomplishment in itself. But many automatically think that whatever they’ve produce “sells itself” that it’s a “no-brainer” causing people to automatically understand why they should buy it. This is called hubris.

Hubris kills. For example, a trivia question. Guess who said this last fall:

“I’m in it for the long run. It’s not a very long run. It will be over by February 5.”*

History is filled with failed startups let by overconfident individuals that failed to realize they need some sort of marketing plan to get the word out, to position the product, to clarify key features and benefits. They decided to start companies and then implemented marketing as an afterthought. In other words, their companies have no stories.

While the atmosphere is much better today, I’ve seen decision makers that refuse to get this. It’s as if they seemingly believe that press rooms of major business publications had fax rooms where eager young interns hang out excitedly to retrieve their press releases and run to the editors with all of your important info. If you lack a story - and a decent product - it’s much more difficult to gain traction.

No, Loic, good stories are often needed. Stories can explain complex products. Stories can differentiate between competitors. Stories can offer insight that go beyond a series of sentences on a press release. Just as blog posts can. Blogging and trying to develop a community can work - but not really in time to help that start up. Unless they’re already a know quality like you. It also helps when you have a Web 2.0 type service that connects people such as Seesmic.

A second major point regarding Loic’s comments is that not all good products can get traction. Just as not every great guitarist gets that major record deal, just as not every great aspiring actress gets the big break, not every great product gets noticed. There are a bunch of factors that influence success. As Jim Kurkral commented on Loic’s post, “Even people with great products can still fail getting coverage.” Coverage in industry press, coverage in mainstream press, coverage in blogs. Nor will all creators of great bloggers be able to form online communities.

For that matter, not every product that meet with success is of top quality. Sometimes it’s luck. Previous reputation. Timing. Or a great story.

*Trivia answer: Hillary Clinton, (self)presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party in the U.S. Presidential race, describing how quickly she’ll win the nomination.

No Comments » Posted on June 17th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Blog Messaging, Blog Policies, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Crisis Management, Industry Reputation, Online PR, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Strategy, Propaganda, Propaganda Warfare, Reputation Management, Reputation Rehabilitation, Search Engine Reputation Management, Search Reputation Management

I think Southwest is missing an opportunity to effectively come clean on this recent story that they let 46 of the planes fly beyond the FAA mandated amount of per plane flights to have an inspection. They’re using “spinspeak” when they don’t have to.

The issue is muddled. The level of responsiblity is unclear. The nexus of blame looks to be dispersed. Southwest needs to open up a bit more. Instead, they obfuscate.

“The FAA has issued what is called a “letter of penalty” to Southwest Airlines regarding one of many routine, redundant, and overlapping inspections of our fleet. The specific inspection in question involves an extremely small area in one of many overlapping inspections designed to detect early signs of skin cracking on our aircraft.”

“Many, routine, redundant, and overlapping inspections”…”extremely small area in one of manyh ovrlapping inspections”. Please.

Meanitme, one can simply read any news coverge of this and find out that the airline went well past the alloted amount of flights. By trying to sound “reasonable”, they cause people to look elsewhere. And the term “overlapping inspections”…what they hell does that mean?

Most of the rest of what they say if fine. But in the interest of transparency, simply explain the concept of inspections based upon amount of flights. THEN you add how you found the problem and quickly notified the authorities. Keep the bulk of the story on the blog itself. Off an apology for the confusion. Thank people for their loyalty. Let them know that you’ll keep them informed via the blog. Have CEO Gary Kelly post an entry a week until the situation resolves itself.

Right now there’s a bunch of responsed showing doubt towards Southwest. And there’s a significant amount of supportive responses. Some very elaborate. Allmost seems organized, but they’re not cookie cutter. And y0u’ve got some who are defending the company by attacking the media. Saying that the media doesn’t know what they’re talking about…that the media is blowing things out of proportion. On what they’re basing this I don’t know.

Southwest has 30 days to respond to the FAA’s letter of inquiry. Let’s see how it turns out.

No Comments » Posted on March 10th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Blog Counter-Messaging, Blog Messaging, Blog Policies, Blog Strategy, Blogger Ethics, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Blogging, Blogging Policies, Blowback, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Controversial Marketing, Corporate Blog, Corporate Blogging, Corporate Responsibility, Defensive SEO, Honesty, Internet Strategy, Legal Issues, Online Attack, Online Brand Intelligence, Online Brand Protection, Online Brand Reputation, Online Communications, Online Outreach, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Strategy, PR Blogging, PR Industry, PR Pitching, Public Relations, Public Relations Blogs, Public Relations Industry

I’ll be taking a look at Southwest’s overall response to the report that they had been flying “unairworthy” planes. This controversy relates to missed or overlooked inspections, small or tiny cracks, a thumbs up by a FAA inspector, and a short period of continued flying violations after the problem was identified.

As usual, in cases like this, the story is hard to follow. That always seems to create initial hysteria and then allows to potential offending party to spin the story to their benefit, often leaving out key concepts.

It seems that in 2004, the FAA issued a ruling that all 737 airplanes must be inspected every 4,500 flights. These inspections were primarily concerned about cracking, a condition which that can lead to very dangerous situations.

On March 15, 2007, Southwest let the FAA that it may have allowed 46 planes to exceed that number of flights as decided by the FAA. Southwest then did and internal investigation and found that, yes, those 46 planes did indeed exceed that limit by a total of 59.791 flights. They reported back this information to the FAA on March 19. However, after disclosing this information to the FAA, they continued to fly those planes for four more days to March 23 for an additional 1,451 flights.

At some point within that March 15-23 time period, an FAA official gave Southwest the thumbs up to continue to fly the planes as long as they were quickly inspected. That official, now being disciplined, is supposedly based out of Dallas, which coincidentally, is where Southwest Airlines is headquartered.

For this transgression, the FAA is proposing a $10.2 million fine.

That’s the story as I see it so far. I’ll be examinging their response as time goes on.

Next, I’ll be taking a look at the way they’re corresponding through their blog.

That’s the story as I see it so far.

No Comments » Posted on March 8th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Blog Counter-Messaging, Blog Messaging, Blog Policies, Blog Strategy, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Relations, Blogger Response, Blowback, Brand Promotion, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Branding, Branding Online, Buzz Marketing, Citizen Generated Media, Citizen Journalism, Citizen Media, Code of Conduct, Cult of Personality, Customer Ratings, Customer Reviews, Influence, Influencer Identification, Influencers, Influencial Bloggers, Influential Brand Advocates, Influentials, Intellectual Property, Legal Blogs, Legal Issues, Memetics, New Marketing, New Media, New Media Blogs, New Media Marketing, New Media Strategy, New PR, Online Advocacy, Online Avertising, Online Brand Intelligence, Online Brand Promotion, Online Brand Protection, Online Brand Reputation, Online Branding, Online Communities, Online Community Outreach, Online Engagement, Online Evangelism, Online Facilitation, Online Marketing, Online Participation, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Reviewers, Online Reviews, Online Strategy, PR Hubris, Peer-to-Peer, Pop Culture, Public Relations, Reputation Rehabilitation, Social Meda, Social Networking, Viral Marketing, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Word-of-Mouth, Word-of-Mouth Marketing

I just asked a question via Twitter. And I’ll repeat it here.

Question for social media types…many complain about interference from legal dept. when it comes to social media, especially with UGC…so, are there any conferences, events, seminars, etc. that bring the two groups together to understand one another more?

Not to toot my own horn, but that’s a good question. And it’s one that needs to be answered.

Marketers are essentially in charge of defining, promoting, enhancing, and protecting the brand. Lawyers are essentially in charge of protecting the entity, the business, and, yes, the brand.

I got to thinking about this because social media strategists often, as part of their strategy, enlist, encourage, or allow a brands users to play a role in the branding. I got to thinking of a recent story involving a group of car enthusiasts putting together a picture calendar showing off their cars. They calendars were to be sold on CafePress. But there was some sort of communication screw up and it was halted I believe. Some social media strategists mistakenly blamed the car company.

But then I thought…wait…if the legal department did have reservations in this situation, is that necessarily a bad thing? Think about it….

What if one of the participants of an unsolicited consumer generated media effort has let’s say a problem. Like a police record. I mean, let’s say he’s the type of guy who could get nailed by Chris Hansen of Nightline. You know, a pedophile.

Ridiculous? If you think so, you’re missing the point. The point is that legal department and marketing departments are going to have to understand one another and work together to both reasonably promote and protect the brand through social media. Cutting edge vs. overly cautious won’t do. Lawyer potentially nixing or at least getting in the way of potentially effective programs or frustrated marketing types angrily rolling their eyes at the stupidity and interference of the legal department will only serve to stifle the brand, or, potentially worse, leave it unprotected.

No Comments » Posted on March 2nd, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

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