Tag Archives: Marketing strategy

FTC Announces Settlement Over Influencer Campaign for Xbox One

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Thanks to Gonzalo Mon of Kelley Drye & Warren LLC for flagging this story. It’s a really important one for those thinking they can get away with paying for endorsements without telling their public.  I hope the pay-for-play blogger companies take note.

“In January 2014, AdAge interviewed me about news reports that Machinima had hired influencers to create videos promoting Microsoft’s Xbox One gaming console and games. In a native advertising campaign, the influencers posted positive reviews, but didn’t disclose that they had been paid to do so. During the interview, we speculated about whether the FTC might take action against the campaign and what the result might be. Now, almost 20 months later, we have the answer. This week, the FTC announced a settlement with Machinima.

According the to the FTC, Machinima, the operator of a popular YouTube network, paid two influential gaming bloggers to create videos promoting the new Xbox One console and three new games, but didn’t require the bloggers to disclose that they were paid for the reviews. The bloggers posted four videos that had more than 1.6 million views. To capitalize on this success, Machinima later recruited and paid more people to upload positive reviews, again without requiring a disclosure. This generated another 300 videos and 30 million views in a five-week period.

If you follow our blog, you can already guess the problem. As Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said: “When people see a product touted online, they have a right to know whether they’re looking at an authentic opinion or a paid marketing pitch. That’s true whether the endorsement appears in a video or any other media.” Under the proposed settlement, Machinima is required to ensure its influencers clearly disclose when they have been compensated in exchange for their endorsements.”

For Gonzalo’s original story go to:

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ftc-announces-settlement-over-16317/

And here’s the original AdAge story:

http://adage.com/article/digital/microsoft-machinima-native-youtube-blunder-risks-ftc-ire/291273/

Google’s ‘Winning the Zero Moment of Truth’ – with mobile, more relevant today than ever

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Screen Shot 2015-07-31 at 7.02.49 AMThinking about how the customer journey is changing as buyers increasingly move to their mobile phones, I’m brought back to Google’s Jim Lecinski’s ‘Winning the Zero Moment of Truth’ 2011 eBook.

The title comes from Proctor & Gamble’s analysis that they have to win the ‘First’ moment of truth – when the consumer first sees the array of goods in a supermarket and has to decide which to choose – plus the ‘Second’ moment – when the buyer takes their choice home, uses the product and decides from their experience whether they’re happy with the choice they made. Google then added a ‘Zero’ moment – the initial online search for that product or product category.

Over the past few days I’ve re-read the eBook and think few companies even now have caught up with the insights uncovered within it.

I’d 100% recommend you to download it from Google’s site if you haven’t a copy already.

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/research-studies/2011-winning-zmot-ebook.html

 

Ogilvy’s Christopher Graves: Genuine Influence can’t be bought

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Screen Shot 2015-07-30 at 7.50.20 AMIt’s easy to glaze over when we all read the word ‘influence’ one more time. I see so many brainless articles on the subject. So this story, in PR Week of all places, jumped out yesterday. At last – someone talking sense on the subject.

Here’s a flavor:

“The very word ‘influence’ is being thrown around in many contexts and some completely abuse the real meaning or conflate it with popularity.

Real influence means to convince someone to choose to do something on their own—without threatening them or bribing them—which they would not otherwise have done. That’s much tougher to come by. It is earned through sustained relationships, and not fleeting or dependent on compensation.

Influence is a demonstrable chain of persuasion from person to person leading to new attitudes and behaviour. Having a large audience does not necessarily mean wielding influence. Views and likes are not measures of influence though they may correlate or be coincidental.”

Thanks to PR Week and Christopher Graves, Global Chairman of Ogilvy Public Relations. I couldn’t agree more.

http://www.prweek.com/article/1357843/opinion-genuine-influence-cant-bought

 

 

 

“Going forward we’ll all need banking, but will we need banks?” Brett King’s Bank 3.0 paints a compelling picture.

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Bank 3.0. Influencers, Buyerside Journey

Took me a while but I’ve just finished Bank 3.0 by Brett King. Sounds the dullest subject in the world but the book was captivating. I couldn’t recommend it more. It expands – in great detail – on the Bill Gates’ quote from a few years ago, “Going forward we’ll all need banking, but will we need banks?”

The book analyses what consumers increasingly want from their banking – and how, as a result, the vast majority of banks are in danger of now losing their customer mindshare to the Apple’s, Google’s and PayPal’s of this world. It also questions why banks are so intent on defending their branch strategy, often at enormous cost, when their customers would be better served if that investment were directed to their mobile banking apps.

For those interested in how we’ll all manage our finances in future, New York-based Brett King paints a compelling picture. For the traditional retail banks, it’s a frightening one. This book alone must be driving up the value of the emerging challenger banks such as Atom and Starling.

India’s time to provide the momentum in Influencer Marketing?

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IMIR logo

Reviewing the applications to join the Influencer Marketing & Influencer Relations LinkedIn group we’ve seen that 31 of our most recent 100 applications have been from individuals in India. Typically we’d expect no more than 10%. Is this just a quirk or is this the year of India really getting to grips with its market influencers? Or has something else happened to create the groundswell there?

And looking at the organizations those individuals are from, it’s clear they’re some of India’s largest global and multi-nationals – in utilities, tech, engineering and auto manufacturing.

Continuing to look at the geographies involved, the majority of applicants were from the most expected regions – led by the US, UK, Germany, India, France, Singapore, Canada, Spain, Sweden, and Brazil.  No great surprise there.

But what was most interesting was which countries weren’t applying. Japan, Australia, China. Leaving aside the obvious language barriers for Japan and China I’m wondering why Australia is so quiet on the topic? It has a common language, a mature B2B and B2C marketplace, and no shortage of marketing skills. LinkedIn is popular there.

So why so few interested applicants?

Every purchasing decision features a series of little understood ‘micro-moments’.

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Buyerside Journey, Influencer50, Influencer MarketingWhen I look at how Google is investing in analyzing the online buyer’s journey – breaking it down into a series of what it called ‘micro-moments’ – little understood inflection points when the buyer reaches each mini-decision stage – I wonder why most enterprise vendors aren’t doing the same.

I remember talking with the marketing VP of a well-known accounting software co. a few years back and his belief that the only stand-out decision points for buyers of his software were simply “does it have the functionality I need?” and “can I easily integrate it into my existing processes?”. He felt that if they could tick both of those boxes – and the buyer was aware of his firm’s software – then the sale was all but certain. His view was that his audience would be idiots not to choose his software. He was leaving a lot to chance.

Every purchase has micro-moments. If I think back to recent purchases I’ve made, they certainly occurred, even if I hadn’t planned them. With online and mobile purchasing there are now many more than we were used to a decade ago. But they’ve always existed. How many vendors today have really spent time breaking down the steps in their buyer’s journey? I think remarkably few. Respect to Google.

The marketing VP I mentioned clearly didn’t believe in any ‘micro-moments’. I should check if he’s still employed there.

Reblog: Why Word of Mouth Should Be a B2B Marketer’s Top Priority

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Screen Shot 2015-05-26 at 7.41.48 AM

Fairly interesting post here from Pam Neely. Contains some hard-to-argue-with stats. Nothing revelatory but further proof of which marketing channels perform best for sales conversion. Thanks to the often excellent Business 2 Community site for this.

http://www.business2community.com/brandviews/act-on/word-mouth-b2b-marketers-top-priority

Why would a top ‘social’ CMO follow 26,000 people on Twitter?

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There’s a top tech CMO I follow on Twitter. She doesn’t post that often (which is fine by me), and I don’t always agree with what she says, but I’m happy to get her updates. She’s a vociferous supporter of ‘social business’ and her company preaches the importance of filtering the online wheat from the online chaff. But I noticed yesterday two stats which struck me. One was that she has approx. 40k followers – I told you she was a top CMO. Second was that she herself follows almost 26k people.

I’ve no doubt she has an extremely busy worklife. So what possible benefit can she get from signing up to follow the stream of 26,000 people’s tweets. Why would she do this? Either she skims every one (v.unlikely), sets up filters to only see the most selective ones (in which case why not just cut back on most of them), or she dips in occasionally for a random selection (most likely). Is that such a great advance on more traditional methods of gauging the public temperature?

Just how selective can she have been to have signed up for each of those 26,000? Surely she hasn’t individually checked each one out in advance? I’m guessing most were followed on the ‘quid pro quo’ basis. So for someone whose job role is to advocate social networks as a path to greater personal efficiency, presumably she doesn’t herself place much value on the importance of gaining online followers. Which to me is a conflicting message.

Maybe I should ask her. I just doubt she has the time to respond.

Are PR agencies telling their clients the truth about their ‘blogger influencers’?

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I’m fascinated by the response I get when I talk to senior marketing folk within US corporates. I met with one last week – a >$10bn consumer goods co. – and after a while our conversation moved, inevitably, onto ‘blogger influencers’. Immediately the execs in the room distanced themselves from any interest in courting them. They said they’d implemented a policy of not working with ‘pay for play’ bloggers, that they agreed those people had no credibility with their audience, and certainly didn’t want to subscribe to any blogger database. I was pleased to hear it.

But I keep reading about the “growing success” of several of these ‘blogger influencer’ database companies – the ones that marry up ‘pay for play’ bloggers with vendors willing to commission them. I looked a little deeper the other day – looking at who those companies claim to be their clients. Their client lists showed few brand-name vendors but plenty of PR agencies. And there’s the distinction. Agencies are their market.

Brand-name vendors can immediately see through the folly of these database trolls. I’ve written several times on this. Any blogger signing up for ‘pay for play’ is signing away both their credibility and any previous influence. The fact that almost none overtly acknowledge their paid endorsement is proof that the bloggers realize this too. But most PR agencies don’t seem to care. They can tell their client they’re increasing their reach, that they’re trying new channels, that they’ve forged new relationships. In many cases I’m sure they’re not even telling their client they’re having to pay for each blogger’s posts.

Clients may not have asked their agencies these questions, or at least done so only superficially. I think those questions are being asked more forcefully now. And agencies will start to get uncomfortable without better answers than they currently have.