Opinions And Ramblings By Adam Kmiec On All Things Media

The interesting thing about “social media” is how quickly people, companies, and organizations have hopped into the space.  Some like Comcast and Best Buy are using it less for “campaigns” and more as a fundamental underpinning of their business.  As they blaze a path for how to make social media work hard for the business other companies are going to sit up, take notice, and follow the blueprint.  Social media is going to evolve from the squishy unsophisticated mess that it currently is, into a stable, predictive, formulaic strategy for business success.

I’m a little concerned though that as companies drink the social media fruit punch and start seeing the return on investment opportunities, social media will become less useful to the people, customers, and consumers who made it something to pay attention to.  Look back through history and you can see that as a technology or an “opportunity” matures it becomes less useful for providing value.

Think I’m crazy?  Look at call centers.  They’re horrible to use.  The whole purpose of them today is to avoid letting you talk to a human being.  It’s all about “automation.”  But, it wasn’t always that way.  When phones and call centers were still an evolving medium you could always get a real person to help you out.  The phone is just one example and there are many others.

In short, what’s going to happen to the value we derive from social media when companies figure this “thing” out?  Are we going to get screwed?  Will you be able to talk directly to Frank at Comcast?  Will Zappos really be able to retain their wide open culture?  I don’t think so.

It’s not a question of if, but a question of when.

Just a quick note so that everyone understands the situation…The thoughts and views expressed in this post and on this blog are mine and do not reflect the thoughts and views of my current or previous employers.

I think Zappos made a huge mistake in how they approached their recent RFP.  Having been on the client side and the agency side of the business I can tell you that the whole RFP process in general is flawed for so many reasons.

From the very beginning most companies have 3 lists for issuing the RFP. One list has “big names” because you can’t go wrong including DDB in your pitch. Another list has the “red tape” agencies. These of course are the ones that the person leading the pitch doesn’t really want to include, but they have to because so and so is friends with the agency’s president. Both the person running the RFP and the agencies in the group no this is a waste of time. The last list is the most important one, it’s the “favorites.” This is the group of agencies you really want to work with and who you think can make some magic happen. If the list portion of the process is flawed, how can the rest of the process not be flawed?

The purpose of a RFP process is to find a dance partner that you like and believe can help your business. Sending pieces of paper back and forth is not the way to get there. As an old friend of mine once said, “if you really want to know if these are the guys you want to work with, have dinner and a drink with them. If they can hold your attention, carry a conversation, and make your head spin; they’re the right agency for you.” Amen.

So what did Zappos do wrong?  To me it boils down to 2 things:

1. Expectations: The concept of expectations in an RFP are always ludicrous.  Seriously, you want a 5 minute video that shows you our office, including the bathroom?  I’m not exaggerating here.  When I worked at DRAFT this was literally a request from a perspective client.  I think what they asked for was not only reaching, but simply showed them to be greedy and frankly not a company I’d want to work with or for.
2. Focus: The simple fact that they went from a small list of select agencies (aka list 3) to then opening up the process to another 100+ agencies shows a serious lack in focus from leadership at Zappos.  If you’ve ever been on the client side leading a pitch process you know there’s no way you can give those 100+ responses a fair, thorough, and unbiased review.

Agencies could have certainly declined to participate, but in this horrible economy agencies are chasing down every possible RFP and opportunity under the sun.  The whole industry needs a reset.  I’ve been in pitches where the internal costs for the pitch exceeded 250K.  And guess what happens if you lose?  That’s right there’s no compensation for the time, work, and ideas.  That’s the risk.  I’ve also seen those ideas that were pitched, eventually used by the winning agencies.  All of us in the industry know that one of the main purposes of an RFP is for the “client” to essentially get “free” ideas.  It’s to their advantage to invite many agencies, because then you get many ideas.

I can tell you right now, that if I ever went client side again and had to choose an agency I’d do everything in my power to avoid an RFP process.  I already know the 3 agencies I’d want to work with.

All I’d want to do is bring them in for dinner, some drinks, and a full day immersion session where they can soak up all the information they need to make sure that they’re up to challenge and WANT to work with me.  No formal letters, no spec creative work, no audacious presents.  Nope, it would just be simple conversation in both a formal and social setting.  Basically it’s taking Gladwell’s “Blink” concept and applying it to the agency review process.

Folks, we need to fix this broken machine.  But, one person, one company, one agency can’t make the change.  It has to be a unified effort. I’m willing and able if you are.

As I wrote in my contribution to The Project 100, “we all have a role to play in the community.” It’s true we do. While it’s easy to jump all over a company’s mistake on the web, we also need to realize that un-constructive criticism and carrying pitch forks are not productive roles. But, too often like sharks that smell blood in the water, we hunt down the victim du jour and tear them apart. I’ve seen it happen so many times, with my favorite example being the Motrin Moms fiasco.

Well this weekend I got to watch another insane situation play out.  Rather than try and describe it, I’ll let you read the actual exchange between a Best Buy Customer and Barry Judge the CMO of Best Buy.

So let’s break this down and try to keep a level head:

1. Barry is pretty well invested in the social space.  He has his own blog and openly tweets and interacts with colleagues, customers, etc.  For the most part he’s a shining example of why more C-level executives need to be engaging on platforms like twitter.
2. Doug is more than a customer; he’s a pretty savvy guy who knows the power of social media.  That’s why he contacted Barry directly.
3. Doug’s initial tweet could have been tempered to something like “Had an interesting recent situation with Best Buy. Online prices aren’t the same as in store.  Is that by design?”
4. Barry clearly was irritated, but could have defused the situation by saying something to the effect of “140 characters is too short to discuss business rationale for this approach. will acknowledge in an upcoming blog post.”  Ideally, Barry would have gotten on the phone with Doug, but I’ have a better chance of hitting lotto than that happening.
5. Barry goes on the defensive and reads into “tone.”  That’s a cardinal sin on the web.  Tone is the one thing you try to avoid getting wrapped up in because it’s nearly impossible to read it correctly.  My general rule of thumb is to assume positive intent.  Barry clearly wasn’t doing that.
6. Where the situation gets funny and sad is after Barry realizes Doug not only knows retail, but knows Best Buy’s category inside and out.  So rather than engage with a worthy “adversary” Barry decides to get off one last zinger and then abandon the conversation.  I wonder if this is what happens in real meetings at Best Buy.

Regardless of who you think was right, the real take away here is that everything on the internet is viewable and shareable.  Assume that everyone is watching your every move.

I’m sure others will go all hyperbole and look at this as a lightening rod  for how bad Best Buy’s customer service (I mean obviously even the CMO doesn’t get it) and how Barry doesn’t get social media.  Others will go way off the deep end and demand a formal apology from Barry; guess what?  That’s not going to happen either.

As for me, I see this as a blip on the radar and nothing more.  Maybe Barry was having a bad day.  We’ve all had them.  Was he in the wrong on this one?  You bet.  Has he been wrong before?  Yes, absolutely.  Have I had first hand experience of him being less than “social” with me?  Definitely.  But, I have to say, his continued contributions in this space far outweigh (for now) his mistakes.  The web is a fickle place.  One minute you’re a hero and the next a villain.  While Barry Judge generally gets to play the role of hero, he was no doubt the villain in this situation.

As a side note….I think Doug is 100% in the right regarding pricing.  If you’re a click and mortar operation like Best Buy, the price should be the same online and in store for every product.  Even if you argue that e-commerce and traditional retail are different business models, the fact you can order online and pick up in store at the reduced price proves (in my mind) that Best Buy was most definitely in the wrong with their approach.

When a brand advertises, markets, or otherwise communicates a message to you it’s in fact making a promise. That company isn’t creating a campaign, website, print ad, or tv spot. Nope, they’re creating promises with their consumers/customers. Lately, I’ve been in several meetings and have take stock of several brand interactions I’ve had where there’s a clear gap between the promise being made and the ability to live up to that promise.

More specifically, I was in a meeting recently, where the brand architecture was essentially pointed to as being “optimistic” and not reality. However, even though it’s not reality yet, we should be leveraging it as the foundation for communication. In other words, even though they knew the product could not live up to how the product was going to be marketed, they wanted to do it anyway.

Huh? That’s like gas on a fire. If I send a blogger product X for review and in the communication to the blogger I describe the product as amazing, remarkable, the best, the gold standard, and sure to please – it better do all of those things. Because if it doesn’t, not only is my reputation tarnished with the blogger, the company/brand/product is going to get ripped to shreds.

BMW promises the consumer that when you buy one of their cars, you are getting the “Ultimate Driving Machine.” The foundation for that claim is “Independent. Unmistakable. Unique. Admittedly, we’re not the typical car company.” As a two time BMW owner and someone who worked on their business for 3 years, I can tell you two things about those statements:

1. When it comes to “driving” their is no substitute in their category. Audi, Porsche, Mercedes, etc. are all very nice cars, but they could never claim (well they shouldn’t) they are the “Ultimate Driving Machine.”
2. My expectations for customer service and mechanical service have always been underwhelming. When I see and hear that they aren’t the typical car company, my expectations are that ever facet of their business will be different than the norm.  The reality is, it isn’t.

Often I hear clients that operate a franchise model bemoan the inability to ensure consistency at each franchise location.  This often leaves me perplexed for several reasons.  But, primarily, it leaves me perplexed because I don’t understand why you’d spend millions of dollars to advertise one type of experience to generate millions of people coming to your store – only – to under-deliver on those messages and leave the consumer with a negative take on your brand.

Look, this is simple folks. In today’s rapidly evolving interactive world, if you break that promise people will know quickly. That’s a recipe for product, brand, and relationship disaster.  Please don’t try and pass off cat food as caviar, no matter how much the smell a like.