Ventura County Star Features Editorial Written By CMAC President and CEO Keith R. Pillow

The Ventura County Star, in its Sunday, November 14 print edition, published a lengthy editorial written by CMAC President and CEO Keith R. Pillow about the city of Oxnard's misguided rebranding campaign, and the REAL issues behind the municipality's efforts to overhaul its tarnished image. Check out the coverage below:

Tiger Woods Joins Twitter...Finally...In Effort To Boost Image

As widely reported today in this story by the Associated Press, this item in SportsNewser, and countless other mainstream consumer, sports, and golf media outlets today, former world No. 1 golfer and internationally-disgraced superstar Tiger Woods has officially begun using Twitter under his own handle, @TigerWoods. The account, as of this afternoon, already has well over 150,000 followers.

According to AP golf writer Doug Ferguson, who has a long-standing relationship with the star, Woods has been using his Twitter account since June of 2009, although the handle was secured and set up approximately one year prior, and the only tweets, before today, were to announce his Twitter stream, Facebook page, and redesign of his Website. You can see Woods' brief tweet history below:

Ironically, Woods is just launching this effort now, almost one year after news first broke of the now-infamous, Thanksgiving Day car crash in the driveway of his Isleworth home and his unbelievable series of infidelities with as many as a dozen women, even though he has long eschewed mainstream media in favor of making announcements exclusively through his cutting-edge Website. In the wake of his recently-finalized painful divorce, and his first season without a victory since turning professional in 1996, Woods is using Twitter and other media platforms to slowly begin rebuilding his damaged reputation. The key question related to all of this: will it work?

In addition to posting his first tweet, Newsweek posted an op-ed piece by Woods today titled, “How I’ve Redefined Victory,” and he is scheduled to be a guest for two segments on Thursday, November 17 on ESPN Radio’s “Mike & Mike in the Morning.” And Woods may make one or more television appearances in the next several weeks, according to his agent, Mark Steinberg, leading up to the golfer's annual invitation-only, end-of-season tournament, the Chevron World Challenge.

In the final analysis, it will take far more than a few tweets, op-eds, and media appearances to overhaul Woods' image as a liar and philanderer. However, based on fan and media reception at tournaments this year in which he's participated, it's readily apparent the tide is turning in Woods' favor, although he still has many skeptics and detractors. Above all, the most important ingredient in this equation is time; it takes time for people to forget about the past, and to recognize positive behaviors in the present which definitively prove that he has changed...as a golfer, as a husband, as a parent, and as one of the world's most recognizable athletes. There is no reason to believe that, if he stays on this path of growth and development, most people will eventually forget about the past. That's human nature, and it's a pattern we've seen repeated over and over with sports and entertainment personalities who've stumbled along the way and disappointed their fans and colleagues. Kobe Bryant...Pete Rose...Britney Spears...Bill Clinton...the list goes on and on of celebs who've redeemen themselves.

Regardless of what happens to Woods and his reputation, it will be interesting to see precisely how long, and through what tactics and channels, it will take for all of this damage to be repaired. Stay tuned...

Crowded House: How Marketers Can Use Crowdsourcing For Maximum Impact

Outside of social media and viral marketing, crowdsourcing has arguably become one of THE hottest communications techniques in recent years to be used by marketers for greater engagement of, and interaction with, target audiences of all varieties. But for the uninitiated, what is crowdsourcing, and how is it being used today by businesses? Let's explore further...

Crowdsourcing: Origin and Definition
For starters, the term "crowdsourcing" was first coined by Jeff Howe, a contributing editor at Wired Magazine, in his seminal feature story, "The Rise of Crowdsourcing," in the June, 2006 issue of the publication. It is a combination of the words "crowd" and "outsourcing." Howe still writes for the magazine, where he covers the media and entertainment industry, among other subjects. He also continues to cover the phenomenon on his blog, Crowdsourcing.com, and he wrote a book, Crowdsourcing: Why The Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business, on the subject which was released in September, 2008. According to Howe, crowdsourcing is defined as the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee; it could also be an external third party, such as a PR firm or advertising agency), and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call. In his article, Howe explains that because technological advances have allowed for cheap consumer electronics, the gap between professionals and amateurs has been diminished. As a result, brands are now able to take advantage of the talent and real-time input of the public for all sorts of different marketing and product development programs.

How Does Crowdsourcing Work?
Essentially, crowdsourcing acts as a distributed problem-solving and production technique. In a typical crowdsourcing scenario, an issue is broadcast to a known or unknown group of people requesting solutions and/or input on the topic. Individuals, also known as the crowd, then form into online communities, and the crowd submits solutions to the requesting company. Going one step further, the crowd can also potentially sort through all the proposed solutions, and pinpoint the most appropriate ones. In the end, these best solutions are owned by the entity that broadcast the problem in the first place — the crowdsourcer — and the winning individuals in the crowd are usually, but not always, rewarded with prizes or some other form of recognition.


The Four Main Crowdsourcing Strategies
According to Howe, there are four primary crowdsourcing strategies:

• Crowdfunding: An open call to raise funds for a specific business, individual, cause, or non-profit organization.
• Crowdcreation: An open call requesting individuals to join a crowd interested in the requester's mission, products, or services.
• Crowdvoting: An open call for the crowd to vote for a specific choice.
• Crowd Wisdom: An open call to solicit the collective opinion of a crowd, rather than a single expert, to answer a question.

The Benefits of Crowdsourcing
As explained by Howe in his book, and as reinforced by many to today's top marketing experts and social media strategist, crowdsourcing offers the following benefits:

• Problems can be explored at comparatively little cost, and often very quickly.
• Payments are based on results, or not offered at all.
• The organization can tap a wide range of talent than might not be present in its own organization.
• By listening to the crowd, organizations obtain direct insight into their customers' desires.
• The community may feel a direct connection with the brand of the crowdsourcer, the result of an earned sense of ownership through contribution and collaboration.

Real-World Examples from Today's Marketers
With the advent and global popularity of social networks, much of today's crowdsourcing is orchestrated through major social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. In addition, many companies also request input from their respective crowds through their corporate Websites, e-mail newsletters, direct mail pieces, print and online advertisements, and other forms of marketing communication — or in many cases, most or all of the above, to obtain the absolute widest range of feedback from all possible sources. From the marketer's perspective, the more feedback from a brand's multiple target audiences, the better. Marketers can then analyze all of the input and solutions from the crowd, and strategically use that information to best solve the problem.

As mentioned at the beginning, in addition to tapping into the talents and expertise of the crowd, crowdsourcing has become a very popular, low-risk communication channel for directly interacting with and engaging target audiences, and convincing customers that their feedback is both useful and highly valued. Years ago, this high level of engagement was very difficult to create and maintain, but through the aforementioned technology-based vehicles, it is easy and natural in society today.

In terms of real-world examples, here are some excellent recent instances of crowdsourcing at work:

• Gap: Last month, when Gap introduced its new brand identity without consumer input, there was so much negative pushback from long-time Gap shoppers about the visual presence that the company ultimately pulled it down and went back to its original design.
• Procter & Gamble: The company employs more than 9,000 scientists and researchers in corporate R&D, but still have many problems they cannot solve. Employees now post these issues on a dedicated crowdsourcing Website called InnoCentive, and offer large cash rewards to more than 90,000 “solvers” who make up this network of backyard scientists.
• TopCoder: A software development house for outsourced projects. What separates TopCoder from its competitors is that the work is crowdsourced to a community of over 180,000 members from over 200 countries in a competition format.
• Wikipedia: Technically, the globally-popular online encyclopedia is a crowdsourcing-driven initiative.

In many instances, the crowdsourcing initiative is not as extensive or comprehensive as these examples. It could be as simple as a restaurant chain such as Denny's, Red Robin, or California Pizza Kitchen asking its respective crowds to submit ideas for a brand-new healthy menu item. Or a consumer brand, such as Johnson & Johnson or Kraft, asking for the crowd's input on a list of potential names for a new product to be introduced next year. Or a technology company, such as HP or Apple, requesting opinions from its consumer base on choices for a new celebrity spokesperson. And the list goes on and on. Anything that marketers can think of, where consumer or user input would be valuable, is fair game for crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing isn't going away any time soon. In fact, it will become far more prevalent as additional companies realize how extensively they can leverage the collective minds and expertise of their respective customers. So, the next time your business needs some form of creative or strategic direction, ask the crowd. You'll be pleasantly surprised at both the quality and quantity of the input.

This Season, Social Is The New Black

Editor's Note: The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post written by Philippe Guegan, vice president of strategy and engagement at Big Fuel, a New York-based social media and branded content agency that takes brands from Content To Commerce, and appearing recently in MediaPost's Social Media Insider. It is an excellent, well-articulated commentary in which Guegan explains how the rise and prevalance of social media closely mirrors the explosive proliferation of digital marketing several years ago, and why social is fast becoming less about experimentation and more about regular production. It's definitely worth spending a few minutes to read...
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Fashion victim, fashionista: these are words not easily applied to me. However, I have learned one valuable lesson over the years by observing an industry that's always on the lookout for the next big thing: if you wait long enough, past trends and patterns will make a comeback.

This is exactly to the case with social media right now. As all things social start to mature, the same evolution that took place in the digital marketing industry only a few years ago is emerging: social is fast becoming less about experimentation, and more about regular production. In fact, production is the key word in many ways, which I'll come back to a bit later.

In recent months, a noticeable shift has taken place among the clients and prospects we've talked with at our agency. They fall roughly into three categories: those still experimenting with social media, those using social media consistently as a tactical add-on to their marketing activities, and those trying to make social a more central, strategic component of their marketing efforts.

As we approach 2011 budget deadlines, more and more marketers are trying to switch gears and move from using social as a tactical add-on to making it a core component in their overall efforts. Small, medium and large companies want to know how they can streamline, automate, budget, and measure social media and social marketing. How can it move from a series of handcrafted singular projects to a more consistent, more repeatable, more predictable undertaking?

We have clear answers to that. The key challenge remains implementation.

Marketing integration may have been the Holy Grail for advertisers over the last 15 years, yet the agency world became increasingly fragmented during that period of time. Many agencies that initially dismissed digital as a peripheral activity are now bent on not making the same mistake again with social.

Agencies rightfully see social as central to the future of marketing and work to develop in this space as fast as they can. Yet each agency, each discipline, looks at social through a very narrow lens that only puts the emphasis on their original core competencies. And, this is what really spells trouble for marketers.

Back to the issue of production, as mentioned earlier: It is tempting to draw parallels between social content production/earned media on one hand, and advertising production/paid media on the other hand. However, the comparison can be misleading in many ways. There are at least five key differences in social that every marketer should bear in mind:

1) Forget one-size-fits-all messages targeting "lowest common denominator" audience. Recognize that fragmentation is here to stay, and embrace it at every step.

2) Frequency and freshness of content matter more than production values. Increase your execution capability and move to rapid-fire, low-cost production cycles.

3) Campaigns have a limited shelf life, but quality content is a valuable and reusable asset. Build your library for the long term and ensure that you will be able to do "reruns."

4) Stop thinking (and budgeting around) campaign flights and push marketing. Start thinking about ongoing engagement. Audiences can no longer be turned on and off on demand.

5) In a genuine two-way, real-time conversation, it is hard to separate the production arm from the distribution arm. Your brain is connected to your mouth for a reason.

Larger creative and media agencies have legacy economic models built around scale and size that make it difficult to adapt and operate profitably in a world of exponentially fragmented audiences and touch points. When it comes to social, the question is not whether "they get it," but whether they can evolve to become as fast and nimble as marketers need them to be. Even Web agencies, in spite of their digital DNA, can sometimes struggle with things like video production or labor-intensive, low-tech conversational engagement.

The long-predicted new marketing paradigm is finally here. Marketers need to start thinking, behaving and organizing themselves as content producers who treat engage consumers as audiences, instead of fully outsourcing this function to external publishers. Content is still king, after all.

A new species of agencies is emerging to deliver solutions that meet this new paradigm Built from the ground up to meet the new realities of turnkey content production and distribution, agencies with a studio mindset and roots in video program production and distribution can create a competitive edge from a creative, execution and dissemination standpoint.

It's official: Social is now well beyond a passing marketing fad. Amid this environment, marketers find it increasingly challenging to differentiate brands, products and messages. The push for a constant flow of newness is becoming a key operational requirement -- just like in the fashion industry. One thing is certain: social is the new black.

Philippe Guegan is vice president of strategy and engagement at Big Fuel. Philippe previously spent more than 15 years planning, implementing and measuring digital and integrated marketing programs at several marketing agencies.

© 2010 Media Post Communications. All rights reserved.

The Efficacy Of Alcohol Promotions In The Digital Age

Even in the era of successful, attention-seizing digital marketing and social media campaigns, consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketers remain fervent proponents of expensive product sampling programs — by mail, in store, and at special events — because it puts offerings directly in the hands of consumers, increases trial, and creates short-term spikes in sell-through.

Now, we can debate the advantages and disadvantages of product sampling all day long, as I did in my recent blog post concerning WHEATIES® Fuel. However, traditional brand management theory holds that consumers are likely (but not guaranteed) to try a product if given to them at no cost, and almost equally as likely to buy it, particularly if its regular size is offered at a substantial discount (via a coupon). In the end, marketing experts agree, this process usually leads to increased sales of the product, although the size of the increase varies widely. It all makes sense, and it's a tried-and-true technique that's been employed by CPG manufacturers for over 50 years. In fact, sampling programs are practically must-haves for all new consumer product introductions... from peanut butter, to disposable cleaning wipes, to men's deodorant.

But here are two interesting questions: 1.) What if the consumer product is a beer, wine, or spirit, instead of a breakfast cereal or laundry detergent? 2.) Do the same rules, dynamics, and end results apply? Perhaps...but let's explore this further.

I got to thinking about this last night as I attended a monthly mixer, held at a popular local high-end steakhouse, for the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce's Young Professionals Group. Upon entering, I was bombarded by in-restaurant signage, lighted premium items, large table tents, and an attractive bevy of girls wearing solid black, super tight-fitting attire, sporting trays of free shots, and swarming the restaurant's patrons, most of who were over the age of 55 (this restaurant is located adjacent to a retirement community). No, this promotion wasn't for Miller Lite, Jägermeister, Jose Cuervo, Johnnie Walker, or some new trendy, super-premium vodka; it was for Hpnotiq (pronounced "hip-not-ic"), the distinctive blue liqueur which blends vodka, cognac, and fruit juices, and is bottled in the Cognac region of France. It was a successful promotion, at least for me: before I knew it, I had two nice pens that light up (blue, of course), two lighted lapel buttons (also blue), four free shots (valued at $7 each), and two T-shirts. Not a bad haul.

I knew Hpnotiq had been around for some time, but I decided to investigate further. Hpnotiq was the brainchild of Raphael Yakoby, a 26-year-old college dropout from Long Island, New York, who created the spirit in 2001 after seeing a blue perfume bottle at Bloomingdale's. Within one year of its introduction, it became popular in New York's trendsetting nightclub scene. Originally distributed by Great Neck, New York-based Wingard, Inc., Yakoby sold the Hpnotiq trademark and the distribution rights to Heaven Hill Distilleries, Inc. in January of 2003 for a reported $50 million. Heaven Hill also distributes dozens of other alcohol brands, most notably the Christian Brothers line of brandy, cognac, and related products. For the record, Yakoby is still in the liquor business. In 2007, he created NUVO, a pink vodka and sparkling wine liqueur packaged in an elegant, tapered square bottle that looks more appropriate for a high-end perfume than booze.

Obviously, alcohol distributors spend millions of dollars annually on guerrilla marketing and sales promotion programs just like Hpnotiq's to drive sales and brand awareness of specific products. But do they actually generate the desired results? In some cases, absolutely, but much of it has to do with consumer behavior, alcohol consumption patterns, and venue and audience dynamics. Consider the following:

• Cordials and liqueurs do not typically exhibit the same consumption characteristics as beer, wine, and select staple spirits, such as vodka, gin, and rum. Cordials and liqueurs are viewed as more appropriate for special occasions, or for sipping a single glass after dinner -- not consumed in multiple servings or mass quantities. In addition, these spirits are just not as popular as they once were years ago, although one can argue that Hpnotiq's initial success defied this convention.
• Not all bars are created equally, and as with any marketing activity, venues must be carefully selected to match the audience of the alcohol brand. In the case of last night's promotion, the venue and audience were all wrong for Hpnotiq, which claims to "make every girls' night out a little more fabulous," and is obviously targeted at women 21-35. Need evidence? Take a look at the brand's official Website and Facebook page, as well as the image above. Outside of my gathering, the steakhouse patrons skew toward senior citizen age (55+) because of its proximity to the retirement community, and therefore, lie well outside of Hpnotiq's core demographic. Definitely not a good fit.
• There must be an incentive to purchase the product in the future, such as a coupon, or a call to action to register consumers online so they may be targeted in the future. Hpnotiq had none of this.
• Most bar promotions for alcohol brands are all about fun, free/cheap booze, free branded stuff, and interacting with hot babes -- not really about "selling" the product. They're great for sampling and trial. Product information is limited. Most of the women I've talked to who've been hired for these gigs know very little about the products themselves; they simply regurgitate whatever they've been told by the promotions company retained by the distributor, and that's very little. Next time you see a Jägerette, ask her about the product; I bet good money she doesn't know much about it other than what it tastes like.
• Historically, alcohol promotions in bars and nightclubs have proven to be EXCELLENT tactics for increasing brand awareness, but additional marketing is required to convert that awareness into sales. Just the way it is.

When it comes to alcohol sales promotions, it's apparent that the same rules and dynamics that apply to CPG product sampling are not in play here, and as a result, they require additional strategies and tactics to generate sales increases. There's no question that Hpnotiq is a unique, highly-differentiated offering with excellent branding and strong marketing assets. But last night's program was at the wrong venue and with the wrong audience: a recipe for disaster.

And when that occurs, no amount of branding or money can save you. As Hpnotiq says in its tagline, it must "Live Louder," and engage in more appropriate target marketing, if it wants to succeed in the long term.

Fame Monster Lady Gaga Continues To Rule Social Media, Viral Marketing Universe

For those keeping score at home, celebrities, professional athletes, and other noteworthy personalities continue to attract record numbers of Facebook and Twitter followers, as well as YouTube viewers. It's hard to believe that, in today's day and age, music artists such as Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and Britney Spears can garner more followers and eyeballs than other, and seemingly far more important, individuals such as President Barack Obama, Warren Buffett, or Nancy Pelosi. It's both impressive and mind boggling...all at the same time.

Need more proof? As reported today by Mashable and countless other print, broadcast, and online media outlets, Lady Gaga's YouTube viewership (i.e., total views of all her videos on the service) has just hit the 1 billion views milestone, with Bieber a close second at just over 962 million views. The Fame Monster announced the news via her Twitter stream this morning, as can be seen below:

Bieber is expected to hit the 1 billion mark on November 1. Incidentally, Bieber still holds the the record for the most-viewed YouTube video of all time for his smash hit song “Baby,” which has 366.5 million views as of this morning: