Opinions And Ramblings By Adam Kmiec On All Things Media

I remain troubled by the state of the analyst community. Companies, like the one I work at, pay serious money to companies like Forrester. Part of what Forrester provides is great research. But, another part of why we work with a company like Forrester is the “great” coverage their analysts offer. I use quotations around the word great, because honestly, I’ve been less than impressed with their analysis.

When Jeremiah Owyang worked at Forrester, my feedback to him was that he needed to be less buddy-buddy with the companies and people he was evaluating. Instead, he needed to be more openly critical. For what it’s worth, I still think Jeremiah needs to do that.

Forrester isn’t the only company that’s failed to offer honest, old school, real analysis. eMarketer, Nielsen, etc. have all stopped delivering the goods. Every analyst review reads like something our of Entertainment Weekly. There’s no bite. There’s no decisiveness.

Maybe I should take a step back and outline what I’m looking for in an analyst:

1. Knowledge of the space or industry
2. Clear understanding of what it is they are analyzing
3. Honesty, integrity and the brutal truth
4. A solid point of view grounded in facts

Here’s what I don’t want:

1. A puff piece
2. A middle of the road analysis that offers no conclusion
3. Softened feedback to maintain a “friendly” relationship with the company or person

The reason we subscribe to services like Forrester is ultimately to make our lives easier. In theory, they’ve already done all the digging, uncovered the good, pointed out the bad and offered up a real analysis that helps me make solid decisions. What I’m finding more and more lately however, is that I’m having double and sometime triple check all the work being done by these companies and individuals.

Frankly, I don’t trust what they have to say anymore because I think the analysts clearly lack integrity. Yes, I said integrity. It’s becoming more and more apparent that these analysts refuse to be brutally honest because they’re fearful of upsetting the company or individual they’re reviewing. I mean, sure, I get it. If you’re a tough critic, what company is going to want to let you critique them…especially when they’re in beta. But, for those companies fearful of receiving critical and negative feedback, I say, “shame on you.” That’s right. Shame on you for having thin skin and clearly lacking accountability. If you were acceptable you’d value the feedback because it would help you improve. It’s that simple.

Michael Gartenberg is one of my favorite analysts. His feedback is always honest, grounded in insights, specific and completely relevant. With is recent announcement that he was joining Altimiter Group, I had to cringe just a little bit. I wonder, will he now be less inclined to be straight forward and often critical analyst he’s always been? Time will tell and I hope he does remain true to his roots.

What we have going on right now is a situation where the someone needs to be analyzing the analysts and keeping them honest. Who’s going to do it? It’s a thankless job. You won’t make a lot of friends in the industry. You probably won’t get invited to the hip SXSW parties or get access to the early beta of a cool new product. Nope, you won’t be getting any of those things. But, I do think you’d be getting the respect of the paying clients. People will like me and the companies I represent will be thanking you for having the integrity that clearly so many analysts have forgotten.

Maybe it’s time for a new breed of analysts or maybe it’s just a case of old being new again. Either way, we need a change.

I loathe to praise work done by the juvenile delinquents at Crispin Porter And Bogusky, but I think they’re really on to something with this new campaign for Dominos.  The new campaign includes spots featuring Dominos chefs going door to door to face their harshest critics.

The campaign is pure brilliance and even got me to order up some Dominos.  The new pizza is definitely head and shoulders above the flavorless cardboard they previously passed off as pizza.

Why is this brilliant?  Why do I like this campaign?  Because, Dominos is doing what every company should be doing…converting their harshest critics into hardcore fans.  Think about it.  In today’s crazy interactive age, tools and platforms give everyone a voice.  Unfortunately, that voice often seems to be used for either harsh complaining or amazing praise.  There’s rarely a middle ground.  Think I’m off my rocker.  Go to twitter and search “Delta.”

Are you back?  Good.  Are your eyes bleeding?  There’s a lot of disgruntled people.  And, you can’t make everyone happy.  But, what if you could pick the loudest, meanest, most dissatisfied customers and turn them into raging advocates?  They’re obviously already passionate.  They generally have a following…an angry mob of some sort that they’re leading.  Some have even already created a mini-groundswell (think Motrin Moms).

Let’s be honest, hardcore dissenters often outshout even the most ardent supporters of a brand or company.  It’s to a company’s advantage to flip these people into fans.  But, most companies simply ignore these folks.  I’ve been as big a complainer about Delta as anyone…well maybe not anyone…

But, rather than Delta trying to convert people like Tara and me, they’re puttin their head into the sand.  How does this make any sense?  It doesn’t.  This is like knowing you have rust on a car frame, but just ignoring it.  It doesn’t make the rust go away.  In fact, ignoring it helps ensure the rust spreads and eventually rots out your car…or perhaps in this case, your brand.

If you’re a company looking to find success in today’s ever changing and real time environment give some thought to investing in converting your harshest critics.  You just might find that small investment has a big ROI.

After publishing this, my good friend Michael Leis (a really freaking smart guy) sent me his interpretation of this idea from 2009. Like I said, he’s smart. Give it a read.

Do we need a bit of a reality check?

I was in a client meeting a few days ago where we collaborating on their 2010 social strategy. The social strategy ultimately is tied to the overall marketing strategy and thus the well defined business objectives. As we were plotting out a fairly robust and comprehensive plan, our client paused and asked a great question, “We don’t know if what we have behind the door is a drip or a flood; how will we scale to meet their real time expectations?”

Think about that question. It’s profound really. When we mailed in comments to companies we might have accepted a 30 day turn around for feedback. When we email customer support, it’s reasonable to expect anywhere from 24 to 48 hours for a response. When we call the 1-800 number, we’ll tolerate 15 minutes to hours (depending on call volume and your need) to connect with a real person.

But, in the social space (twitter, Facebook, etc.) we demand, not expect, INSTANT feedback. So, again, I ask, do we need a bit of a reality check? I even find myself expecting immediate feedback when I tweet a company, comment on a post, or make a request via a forum/message board. Is that right?

Let’s consider a few things:

1. Customer service is important and consumers expect great customer service
2. Providing great customer service is expensive – technology while an enabler, still requires REAL humans to deliver on that great customer service experience
3. Customers want value…and by value I mean they don’t want to spend a lot
4. Quality customer service is derived from both what is said/done and how quickly service is provided

There seems to be a gap here, no? Let’s assume you’re a company that offers a service. If you have 10 customers and 1 customer service person, you’re probably ok. But, if you have 1,000 customers and still that 1 customer service person, you’re going to be stretched. Ok, so what happens if you have 1,000,000 customers and still only 1 customer service person? Well, you aren’t going to be able to provide great customer service. Hmmm…ok, so we’ll just hire 99,999 more customer service people to bring us back to our ratio of 1 customer service person per 10 customers. Cool, but we’ve got to pay these people. For the purposes of round numbers let’s assume each person costs the company $100,000 in salary, benefits, and operations. Well we just went from $100,000 of customer service overhead costs to $9,999,900,000. That’s a big jump, no?

Is the company going to eat those costs? Of course not. They’re going to pass those costs on to you. If amortized equally, each customer will now be paying at a minimum $9,999.90 more. Guess what’s going to happen? Yeap, we’re going to have some pretty ticked off customers.

Look, that’s an extreme situation, but the round numbers show us that customers like you and me need to be willing to do 1 of 2 things:

1. Pay more for better service
2. Have more realistic and lower expectations

Surely, there’s a middle ground. Companies like Zappos, Comcast, Southwest and others are showing us the way. But, you can’t simply copy someone else’s model. If you’re a company you need to find your own model; one that works for your culture and customers. And as companies are developing these models what are we to do as customers? Should we change our expectations? I think we should. If we don’t, companies will be reluctant to enter the social space. After all it’s easier to keep us using older and more familiar tools for customer service, like email, letters and the phone.

There’s a reason Apple isn’t in the social space. Part of it is arrogance. But, the other part is they don’t have a model for how to make it work. Think I’m wrong? Consider the Genius Bar. Have you ever tried to walk up and get help at a Genius Bar? If you’re like the majority of Apple customers, it’s a rare occasion when they’ll simply help you on the spot. A more likely situation is the Apple employee will ask you to schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar. Granted, that appointment could be for a time 15 minutes in the future. The point is, they schedule, slot and meter your ability to get customer service. And, while they’re doing that, they’re also getting major kudos for offering amazing customer service. Not too shabby, huh? Imagine if Apple was on twitter and using the platform for customer service…an extension of the Genius Bar, if you will. Do you really think customers would accept an exchange like this:

Customer: “Hey, having a problem with 15″ MacBook Pro. The screen keeps shutting off randomly. Any thoughts? Thanks.”

Apple: “Thanks for your tweet, unfortunately all of today’s, tomorrow’s, and the rest of the week’s slots are filled up. I can tweet you back in about next Thursday. Thanks.”

No customer would dare accept that. After all, if you have time to tweet me that, you should have time help me out. If Apple, instead ignored the customer’s tweet until next Thursday, the customer would still be irritated because of the time lag in getting a response. See, it’s the expectations of the medium. Almost feels like a no win situation.

So, what do we do?

I’m out on blogger vacation this week. The keys to TheKmiecs.com have been turned over to a few, select, awesome guest writers. The following has not been edited by me and is the work and effort of the original author. I appreciate the time and thinking that went into this post and hope you will too. Enjoy!

It is a ridiculous notion that social media is some paradigm-shifting phenomenon whose waters can only be successfully navigated by people with the word “guru” in their LinkedIn profile. Here’s a bit of honest-true reality. Social media is nothing new — take it from somebody who has been blogging since 1997.

People haven’t changed. It’s only the tools that they—-and we-—have at our disposal that have evolved.

Before we spoke to one another at the water cooler. Today we communicate together on Twitter.

Before we listened to our customers in focus groups to develop insights. Today we listen with Google Alerts, Twilerts and ListenLogic to develop insights.

Before people responded to incentives like coupons. Today people respond to incentives like recognition, self-validation, utility—-and coupons.

Before we tried to get audiences to “click here.” Today we try to get them to “comment here.”

Big agencies and the status quo
Then why is the marketing universe freaking out? Why are big agencies completely unprepared to deal?

The answer to the first question is easy. They’re freaking out precisely because they’ve relied for so long on those big agencies who are completely unprepared to deal.

The second answer became clear to me at the iMedia Agency Summit where I saw the other Adam K. a few weeks back. A question was put to the audience during a participatory session on social media: “What does media mean today?”

My table consisted of very “new media” group: the CEO of Six Apart, the lead evangelist from Eyeblaster, a couple of women from AdFusion content network and me. We talked about media being not just new streams of communication flowing out of corporations, but ones flowing back in as well. Fairly thoughtful stuff if you ask me.

When responses from the audience were taken someone from one of those big agencies grabbed the mike a few tables over.

“Media is anything you can buy.”

Therein lies the rub. There was a great deal of talk at the Agency Summit about the “monetization” of social media. Big agencies make most of their money buying media and charging a substantial commission for it. In their eyes, media has to be limited to what they can pay someone else to place in order for it to fit into their model.

Sadly for them, those eyes are attached to their head. Which is buried in the sand. It’s too hard to change their model, so they ignore it and cling to how things have always been done.

Small agencies positioned to win
Meanwhile, smaller, nimble agencies are there to pick up the pieces. Because we are nimble, adapting our model to changing times isn’t as onerous. Because we are smaller, we can provide valuable consultation and management services that contribute to the bottom line in a meaningful way.

For instance, I believe that there is an inherent flaw in the media commission model. Whenever an agency has a financial incentive to provide one service over another, they are motivated to act out of self-interest rather than the best interest of their client.

Try telling that to an agency exec earning 11% on a $200 million media buy.

Adam Kleinberg is the CEO of Traction, a creative agency with a digital core on the California Street cable car line in San Francisco. Traction has designed cross-channel brand experiences for some of the world’s greatest brands, including Apple, Virgin Mobile, Adobe, Bank of America, Walmart.com, Norton, Alibaba.com, CamelBak and Clos du Bois. They were named BtoB Magazine’s 2009 Interactive Agency of the Year.

I’m out on blogger vacation this week. The keys to TheKmiecs.com have been turned over to a few, select, awesome guest writers. The following has not been edited by me and is the work and effort of the original author. I appreciate the time and thinking that went into this post and hope you will too. Enjoy!

“The reason social media is so difficult for most organizations

It’s a process, not an event.

Dating is a process. So is losing weight, being a public company and building a brand.

On the other hand, putting up a trade show booth is an event. So are going public and having surgery.

Events are easier to manage, pay for and get excited about. Processes build results for the long haul.” – Seth Godin, December 10, 2009

Respectfully, I have to disagree with Godin. In fact, I think it’s this thinking that’s caused organizations and businesses to fail in the online space. You see, social media isn’t an event; it’s not even a process. Both of these classifications give too much credit to the social space. Social media is simply an extension. It’s as simple as that – a mere extension of already existing business functions.

For the past year, the entire “social space” has been given too much credit and too much hype. I’m as guilty as the next person, as I fell victim to its noise as well. You spend enough time on Twitter and you’ll be inundated with ponzi-like “get rich quick” talk. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing social media. I think it’s highly effective tool and it’s something I spend a lot of time and effort trying to get businesses to understand. But if you spend any time online, you’ll think it’s the second coming of Christ.

Social media is not its own entity. It’s not new. Its not innovative. Like I mentioned above, it’s merely an extension. I’ve come to realization that people don’t work in social media. There’s no such thing as a social media specialist, or guru, or expert, or whatever title you want to attach. Depending on what your goal with social media is, the space is simply marketing, communications, sales, etc. Frank Eliason (@ComcastCares) doesn’t work in social media for Comcast, he works in customer service. There’s marketing folks, communication folks, folks in sales. But there is not a single “social media [fill in the blank]”. It doesn’t exist.

We’ve all heard, or personally had, the stories of uphill battles with c-level suites that put hurdles in front of social media implementation. A lot of those hurdles were results of “experts” or enthusiasts approaching the online space as a separate entity. So if you had difficulty getting management to begrudgingly accept your entrance into the social space, why do you continue to treat it like a separate entity?

We’re finally beginning to accept the fact that while social media is about building communities and conversations, it ultimately comes down to sales and profit (see Adam’s post on conversion). With this reality check, I think it’s time to let a little wind out of the social sail. As people continue to trend toward mobile and online applications, it’s a natural progression for various business departments to follow. But let’s stop placing social media on its own pedestal. It’s time to go back to the basics and foundation that got us here. It’s about integration.

So quit talking about social media like it’s a separate entity. Stop acting like social media is this new revolutionary and magical department within an organization.

Until we stop trying to prove ourselves and make a name for ourselves online, social campaigns will continue to fizzle. It’s not rocket science, folks. Take a step back, integrate it with your traditional business plans, and watch the $$$$ come in.

Kasey Skala, owner of the consulting firm Interactive Revolution, focuses on integrating new media and emerging technology with traditional communication strategies for small business and nonprofits. Prior to Interactive Revolution, Kasey spent four years in the financial industry in various marketing and communication roles. He currently maintains the blog, The Electric Waffle. Follow him on Twitter at @kmskala