Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Much Ado About Nothing and Face Palms

Marketing Magazine’s latest issue (Nov 30) just arrived and it is all about Social Media.


Make them stop!!!

Filled with pronouncements, prognostications and punditry, the issue shines a shaft of gold upon the field of Social Media.  Among the self congratulatory, hipster-filled, and jargon-riddled pages (B.J. Mendleson's rant against social networks excepted), two articles stood out. 

 A short column by Bryan Pearson, President of Air Miles (one of the more engaging and entertaining speakers I have ever seen) presents an executive summary of an Air Mile’s Social Media study. In a nutshell (from what I got from the column and case study) between February 2009 and May 2011, researchers watched member activity in three Air Miles promotions (an earlier article by one of the study’s authors said there were four contests).  The study group was made up of members who had previously signed up to the Air Miles Community page and were invited to take part in these contests via email: 

• The “Cruise Contest—members answer a weekly question for six weeks for a chance to win a luxury travel package 
• The Block Party Contest—members write about what Air Miles means to them for a chance to win 2,500 reward miles
• The Winter Event—members earn 10 bonus reward miles by posting an answer to the question what they want to redeem for that winter

Research showed that those participants in these contests increased their purchases at Air Miles partners from between 15% and 30% compared to non-participants during the 10-week study period. 

While the study sounds promising, I believe it overstates the obvious and is way, way too overconfident with the more speculative aspects.  By this, I mean that there may be an initial bias within the study because its participants had shown a willingness to interact with the company and other members when they signed up to the company’s Community page well beforehand—ergo, they were prime candidates to enter the three contests that involve writing about their Air Miles experiences and desires. 

The study had (I assume) 25,326 participants, which is one-quarter of one percent of all Air Miles members (is this a large enough sample?), and the participants were divided into two segments: high users (50+ reward miles earned two weeks before the start of the contests) and Medium/Low users (49 reward miles or less).  It is unknown whether this breakdown resembles the entire Air Miles user spectrum (as with any brand, there will likely be very few high users, slightly more medium users, and about 80% low/infrequent users) but that is understandable as it is proprietary information. 

It is also not known if the study group was over-weighted with hardcore high users, those keeners who know how to “play the game” and leverage every opportunity and contest to obtain the maximum number of reward miles; the “Extreme Couponers” of loyalty.  Plus, without a breakdown of the Medium and Low users, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of the initiative. 

To understand the success of this Social Media effort and put its results in perspective with other communications tactics, here are just a few of the things I’d like to know:

• How many emails were sent and how many were opened?
• How many recipients acted on the click-prompt to go to the Community page in the email—of this group how many actually contributed to that page and what was transaction activity compared to before the contests began?
• Was only one email sent out for each contest participant or were there subsequent ones?  If so, what was their content?
• Were there any incentives or special bonus air miles events (e.g. 20x Bonus Air Miles) promoted during the contest periods?
• The study used a two-week period before the contests start to establish a baseline for transaction activity.  Is two weeks long enough?  What would the results be if one month was used?  Two months?

Social Media Data Massaging Techniques
 
Without more information, this study looks like it resembles one of the quirks of quantum theory that states that the very act of observing phenomenon changes the observed reality (behavior) of that phenomenon (suck on that, philosophy majors!).  Now, if its Social Media campaign had shown a statistically significant lift and penetration with the light/low users, the group that holds the most potential in growing Air Miles sales and profitability, that would be news. 

Then there was jewel in the crown, the face-palming, head-slapping stupidity from some of Social Media industry’s spokesidiots.  It’s a piece on how social media has moved marketers from impressions to feelings.  Feelings, wo-o-o feelings...  

The Father of Social Media Sentiment Analysis

Here’s Renny Monaghan, “Today your brand isn’t about the number of impressions anymore—it’s the sum of the conversations about your brand.”  Rennie, old chap, you’re an idiot.  A plain and simple idiot. 

Then there’s David Bradfield of SapientNitro who says that, for example a funeral home could position itself more favourably by understanding the language people planning funeral arrangements use.  “If people have negative sentiments about the words like ‘death’ and ‘dead’ this gives the funeral home the reality check needed to align with how customers are talking and make the necessary changes… If consumers are using the ‘d’ word, neither should the funeral home.”  Fuck, I almost died when I read that utter and complete bullshit.  David, I assume you’re a descent person, even though your moustache reminds me of a ‘70s disco group, but you haven’t a clue.  Not. One. Fucking. Clue.

To show how important “social sentiment” is, the article provides two examples of how this brainstrust dug into peoples’ feeling to save the day.  Dave “In the Navy” Bradfield cites a Canadian food product that cratered after launch.  With their superhero Feelings Capes on, Bradfield and his team used their magic social sentiment analysis to “identify how people who bought the products talked about them, the language they used, the experience they conveyed, which recipes they were talking about and which associations were materializing so the agency could use them to reshape the position of the brand” because it sucked at the time.

First off, I’d like to know who the asshat CMO was that created the original market feasability report that said the product was a good idea and then developed initial positioning strategy in the first place.  Second, does he or she still have a job? Third, was that person forced to eat his or her own weight in the product—if no, why not?

In the end, SapientNitro discovered that, after listening to customers, no one liked the product.  And its brilliant solution?  Call it a niche product and shove it in a tiny category  What the hell was this product anyway, almond encrusted cat turds? If that’s the case, it's a niche market snack for dogs in the "This Tastes Like Ass" category.

The other case study comes from Scot Wheeler (I thought there were two Ts in Scott—unless he's trying not to be confused with Irish Wheeler)  of Critical Mass.  Scot used sentiment analysis on behalf of a US medical imaging company that markets radiological dye and injection systems. The company wanted to know what emotions people experienced in radiological treatments.  (Hmm... I wonder how people feel when they start cancer treatment... ) The emotions chosen by Wheeler ranged from “anxiety to dread to appreciation and resolution.”

Surprisingly, among the groups Wheeler looked at, he found that nurses were worried about safety and being stuck by tainted needles.  And administrators were, shockingly, worried about costs and if other cost effective alternatives were coming so they wouldn’t have to lock-in to long-term service contracts.  The solution? Answer their concerns.  Whaaa?

Just wondering, Mr. U.S. maker of radiological treatment stuff, why you thought the opinions/emotions/fears of these nurses and administrators using your product would differ from nurses and administrators using other similar products in radiological/cancer treatments and therapies that involve bodily fluids?

It staggers me that the manufacturer didn’t consider these “feelings” or hear about them from their field reps before wanting to know what conversations their end users were having.  This is where I see Scot as being the smartest one in the article.  After all, he found a company—or better yet, it found him—that didn’t listen to its sales staff and field reps and paid him a lot of money to learn about their customers’ feelings.  Nice score, Scot old bean.  Git it while you can ‘cuz it ain’t gonna last. 

Friday, November 30, 2012

Mewing Nuns, Disappearing Dongs, and Socialmania

 
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles McKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841)


It’s a human trait that whenever we start gathering in groups, we tend to act like idiots or believe in the absurd.  The behaviour of soccer fans or the success of Bernie Madoff stand as examples. 

Delusions usually start off when one person acts out of the ordinary.  OK, way out of the ordinary. For instance, during the Middle Ages at a convent in France, a nun began to mew like a cat.  And she mewed to two nuns, and they mewed to two nuns and so on and so on and so on… Pretty soon all the nuns were mewing.  And everyday they gathered at the same time and mewed for several hours together. Now, during the Middle Ages cats were considered to be BFFs of Satan and when the all the sisters in the nunnery started sounding like cats, the local citizenry sort of freaked out and called the cops.  These kitty koncerts continued until the fuzz arrived and told the nuns that soldiers were coming to block the entrance to the convent and would use their wooden rods to beat the tar out of any nun who mewed until they promised not to mew anymore.  This may be where the expression “cat got your tongue” originated because the mewing stopped shortly afterward.  (Heckler, J.F.C. Epidemics of the Middle Ages (1844):117 4n)


Then there is the case of the disappearing dongs.  In 1990, years before Nigerians figured out how to use the Internet to con gullible Westerners out of their money, the men of the country were losing their dongs.  It all started, apparently, when a man accidentally bumped into a stranger in public, and moments afterwards the victim supposedly had a strange feeling in his scrotum and had to grab his junk to make sure it was intact.  He believed it had disappeared.  This caused him to chase after the stranger and accuse him in public of being a genital thief, which, of course, would attract a crowd—who in their right mind wouldn’t want to see where that was going to end? 

The growing mob demanded proof that the pecker had been purloined and forced the victim to drop his pants.  Of course the victim, now standing half naked in the street, fell back on the Monty Python “She turned into a newt” defense. He claimed that while there was, indeed, a penis where his penis was supposed to be (he got better), it was, however, a lot smaller than before, or it was a “ghost” penis—really, what man wouldn't say that?  The poor accused would then be subsequently beaten until the penis was restored to it’s original size.  There were a few cases of some being beaten to death—the accused that is.   

 Whoomp! There It Isn't

The mania spread quickly and believers became so convinced that genital thieves lurked everywhere that the streets in Lagos looked like a Michael and Janet Jackson video because men clutched their crotches, or kept their hands in their pockets to maintain a good hold of their block and tackle.  Women even got into the act by gripping their mommy bags or crossing their arms over their chests whenever they were in public.  A lack of vigilance and weak willpower, it was believed, led to the stealing of the weenies.  (Ilechukwu, S.T.C. 1992. Magical penis loss in Nigeria: Report of a recent epidemic of a koro-like syndrome. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review 29:91-108.)

There are hundreds of other examples—single tulip bulbs worth a year’s salary, flying saucers (a purely 20th Century delusion), and the mid-'70s, early-'80s El Chupacabra, the rat faced, kangaroo-legged, blood-licking, sulphur emitting goatsucker of Puerto Rico.  Today’s delusions and episodes of crowd madness usually involve money.  Lots of money.  Think of the biggest chain letter in history and multiply it by a hundred million.  

Whether it is about climate change, running your car on your own urine, or phenomenal returns on investment, when someone says that he’s an expert and he knows that X is happening right now or will likely happen in the future, and that other experts like him agree, grip your wallet like a Nigerian.  Anyone who has a grounding in Critical Thinking recognizes two logical fallacies in play here.  One is the basing of an argument on the knowledge of experts (argumentum ad verecundiam).  Just because a group has a reputation does not mean it is right.  (Thomas Sowell has a great line about experts:  “Intellectuals are the last people to realize their own vast sea of ignorance surrounding the small island of their knowledge. That is why they are so dangerous.”)  And, face it, experts know shit. When measured over time, experts are only slightly better than random guessing—chimps throwing darts at a stock page kind of random.  And it doesn’t matter what field they are in—stocks, technology, marketing—experts are no better at predicting the future than the guy on the street.  Don’t take my word for it, though, have a read through these: Wrong: Why the experts keep failing us and how to know when not to trust them, The Management Myth:  Why experts keep getting it wrong, and Everything is obvious: *Once you know the answer

The Opinion of Experts Matter
 
The other logical error, that other similar experts agree, is the Consensus or Head Count fallacy (argumentum ad populum).  The flaw is that just because we are told that a group say X will happen is not evidence that others say in X will happen, that they even believe in X, or that they even believe X is true.  The existence of consensus cannot tell us whether X is true or false. 


The Consensus Says We Should Hang Him. Now.

All this brings me to the socialmania that’s swept like a prairie fire through the advertising and marketing industry, through boardrooms and the minds of CMOs (there is no one more gullible). Social media, the experts tell us, means the death of traditional advertising, television, marketing, whatever.  And because all the experts agree that social media will change the landscape for good, you need to change your foolish ways, change if you want survive in the new future of social marketing.  How does one change, you ask?  Well, paying the experts handsomely to tell you what you need to know is a start.  Then develop programs that introduce social marketing into your media mix—plans that can never be measured in any meaningful way. 

Well, eventually nuns stop mewing, wieners suddenly grow back, and chickens start coming home to roost.  It seems that some people have broken free from the herd and are starting to see things for what they actually are.  One is Todd Wasserman of Mashable Business who on Tuesday 28 November, wrote: “The social media marketing backlash has begun. Blame the unlikely team of The Onion and IBM. The former dropped a pitch-perfect take-down of socmedia “experts” right before Thanksgiving. Then Big Blue released data that showed Facebook had almost zero effect on Black Friday sales, and Twitter actually had zero.”

If you haven’t seen The Onion Video, have a look.  It is brilliant:



The IBM study Todd mentions declared that its own study found that shoppers from social networks , such as Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, generated 0.34% of online sales on Black Friday—down 35% from 2011.  Twitter?  Effectively 0%.  These figures are not even close to rounding errors.   

I foresee the Socialmaniacs being held to account and measured against their wild and unfounded predictions soon (I won’t say when).  I imagine, tho’, they’ll behave like most experts and come up with more excuses than “Joliet” Jake  Blues.


Sunday, June 3, 2012

Velocitize Me



 A Pet Project

In the current issue of Marketing Magazine is an article titled, Around and Around We Go that is about shopper marketing in Canada.  The piece discusses all the tools that we marketers have at our disposal to push consumers along the path to purchase.  But now, with the rise of digital and mobile media, that path has transformed from a classic funnel model to a loop.  A Loyalty Loop.  To build that loopy thingy you need to:

·      Collect names, addresses, and email addresses with permissions
·      Push messaging of products and activities with texts and social media
·      Monitor social feeds like Twitter Facebook et al
·      Share consumer feedback of positive experiences and referrals

One proposed method to use positive consumer feedback is to create microsites populated with all those glowing reviews.  After all, according to Nielson in its study of the blatantly obvious, it found that 92% consumers trust recommendations from the friends and family over opinions expressed in advertising.

To Mike Farrell of Conversion Marketing Communications, these kinds of microsites are important because they are about humans communicating with humans.  Now I’m sure Mike is a nice affable chap, that he’s kind to children, old people, and dogs, but I have to call him out on this.  First off, humans communicating with humans, as opposed to what, the Dead? (a Ouija board already has that covered), animals? (see Doc Dolittle), Gaia? (peyote and LSD can do that for you).  He then goes on to say that if you can get someone to say something positive about a deal or new product and drop that onto your Facebook page, you’re velocitizing your communications.  *Sigh*

I don’t think it’s a good idea to get someone to say something nice, AKA paid endorsements, if you’re planning on keeping it authentic. How about just letting it just happen. Then again, using people’s comments has it problems. Take Nick Bergus, for example.  Nick spotted something unusual on Amazon:  a 55-gallon drum of personal lubricant—how or why he found it I don’t want to know.  According to the NYT, Nick saw it as an object deserving of ridicule, so he shared that link on Facebook and added the pithy comment: For Valentine’s Day.  And every day.  For the rest of your life.  Well… things, uh, sort of slid, um, downhill from there: Within days, friends of Mr. Bergus started seeing his post among the ads on Facebook pages, with his name and smiling mug shot. Facebook — or rather, one of its algorithms — had seen his post as an endorsement and transformed it into an advertisement, paid for by Amazon.  
Oh bugger! Better call the lawyers.

The Marketing Mag article goes on to say that mobile has a lot of promise, especially for sending alerts about discounts and special offers that can drive people into stores because, according to Rico DiGiovanni of Spider Marketing, bricks and mortar is where it’s at.  This is the first sensible and empirically proven point to appear in the article.  People prefer to see, touch, and feel things before buying them, especially big-ticket items.

Unfortunately, this moment of clarity was fleeting as next came a description of a possible scenario that shows the increasing potential and power of mobile.  In it, a customer comes into a store looking for a particular TV; he then proceeds to use his phone to read blogs about the item and do a price comparison with other vendors, all while in-store.  If he finds a better deal from, say eBay or Amazon, he’ll buy it that way and will leave the store before the sales staff has a chance to talk with him.  Really?  What kind of knob would actually stand there, chewing up his data plan, to do this?

It seems to me that anyone using mobile to check out a product is pretty damn close to buying it, probably within hours—it’s only a question of which store.  He did all the reading of blogs, product reviews, and price comparisons days or weeks earlier from home on a desktop.

Anyway, I know that all these new technology toys present an irresistible chance to flood people with messages, but geeks, brand managers, and CMOs, please understand this key truth:  People don’t care.  People don’t want a relationship with a brand, they don’t care about interactions or conversations with a brand, and, acting like the drunk on the all-night bus who keeps trying to strike-up a conversation, forcing the issue usually results in the intended target ignoring you or getting off a stop or two early.

Stolen from:  Sellsell.co.uk


People go online to look for discounts, to buy things, and get information about things they want to buy.  In that order.  Which is almost the inverse to what businesses believe the reasons are for why people go online.



If this keeps up, we will become like the stream of door-knocking itinerant duct cleaning peddlers, the students flogging chocolate almonds, cheap light bulbs and shitty garbage bags, or those devoted humanitarians who want me to sponsor them for some charity run/walk-a-thon/hand-holding Affirmation Circle of Life event—but want me to pay upfront.  Bombarded consumers are going to tell us, Get the fuck off my front porch and don’t come back

Pretty soon, some twenty-year old will develop a killer app that sends a screw off message to technology-obsessed marketers each time they try to clog up our inbox and mobile with conversations.  I can see it being be named after a breed of dog spelled with more consonants than vowels, with a couple of umlauts thrown in, and is best pronounced with a heavy German accent.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

A One-Trick Pony

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For the past two weeks I’ve laid off commenting on Facebook and its IPO, deciding instead to watch the frenzy from afar.  Wow, that was fun.  Looks like retail clients will get hosed, along with some institutional clients (that weren’t privy to Morgan Stanley’s earnings warning to its “select” clients before the IPO) who got a load more shares than asked for.  So, the stock is now down over 20%—likely on its way to about $15 where it belongs.  The future for technology stock IPOs has been tainted for years, perhaps permanently.  And the best part: the hair-pulling, name-calling slapfest between lawyers, bankers, NASDAQ and the SEC has begun.  Couldn’t see that coming at all.

The Morning After at Morgan Stanley

The one benefit of the Facebook fallout is that publically-traded social media companies are now under intense scrutiny. Because they are no longer funded with private equity—start-up capital that was returned with a handsome profit with the IPO—they have to face public shareholders who want performance and results.  If the Facebook doesn’t deliver they will hammer the stock and demand changes, despite Zuckerberg's controlling interest.

This, in turn, puts pressure on agencies.  All those hyped metrics they’ve been touting—engagement, conversations and brand awareness—now have to translate into dollars. Serious dollars.  And with shareholders breathing down the necks of their clients, it seems that the days of no accountability are coming to an end. Almost. 

To stall for time, I imagine the bean-counting holding company behemoths and their C-level executives will shift the blame wholly upon the working stiffs—the creatives who do the work while the others make the arrangements (h/t Bob Hoffman)—to protect their mega-million dollar salaries.  Expect layoffs galore as they point fingers, distract, and deflect blame away from the real reason for declining earnings and shrinking client base.  But the day is coming when shareholders will realize these highly paid executives are enriching themselves at their expense and they’ll storm the annual meetings with torches and pitchforks looking for someone to blame.  It’s likely, though, they’ll run out of tar and feathers before they get rid of the lot.     

Playing to Strength

The real value of Social Media is in managing existing customers.  With a new client in the fold, over the next few months I’ll be using Facebook to its fullest.  It will be part of an integrated campaign (mass, OOH, Web, radio) to support the re-launch of a +100-year old brand.  The product, unavailable for close to a decade, was brought back three months ago.  It is only available at just a handful of locations for the moment, yet its Facebook and Web pages are receiving the most incredible unsolicited testimonials.  People have written about how they have missed it, and how relieved they are that they can get it again—one guy and his buddies went on a 90km road trip to get some.  Remarkable for something that hasn’t been around since 2004.

Orange Appeal
 The creative challenge for the re-launch is to let the tens of thousands of past users know that the product is back on the shelves.  The main tactic in all media will be to highlight the product’s distinctiveness—not its differentiation from others in the category.  The product is immediately recognizable to those who remember it; there is no need for persuasion, no hard sell.  Just the sight of the packaging will be enough to remind people how much they trusted a product that was a part of their family for generations.   As the campaign rolls out, I’ll tell you what it is and ask what, if anything, you recall of the product.


Friday, May 11, 2012

Time to Break a Hip-ster



I was reading a blog post by the Mensch of Manhattan, GeorgeTannenbaum, where he talks about Coming Apart; the growing disconnect between we advertising people and the consumer:
Do we, anymore, know our consumer. Know how they live, think, feel, buy? Do we understand their concerns, fears, senses of humor?
No.
We're too busy trying to be cool.

Then, today I saw a related piece at fasctcocreate.com.  It’s called, Infographic Confirms it: Advertising People are not Normal.  (Like someone needed to do a poll to find this out.)  It is about a study done by Heat, a San Francisco agency and what it highlights has some bearing on how we view brands and social media.  Of note, the study finds:
• 71% of advertising/marketing professionals say they pay attention to brand posts in their Facebook news feed “all of the time” versus 23% of the general population.
As for Twitter: 92% of advertising/marketing professionals use Twitter to follow brands they like. 33% of the general population does so.
Should brands put more effort into interacting with consumers via social media?
• 63% of advertising/marketing professionals “strongly agree” that they should; 23% of the general population “strongly agree”
Meanwhile, digital marketing campaigns that are endlessly discussed in the advertising industry aren’t so well known in the wider world. Chew on this:
• 70% of advertising/marketing professionals were aware of Burger King’s “Subservient Chicken” digital marketing campaign vs. 8% of the general population; as for the mega-award-winning Jay-Z "Decoded": 63% of advertising/marketing professionals aware of campaign vs. 9% of the general population.
And the study also seems to suggest that the Mad Men stereotypes aren’t off the mark: Subjects were also asked about how they act at office holiday parties, and it appears that people who work in advertising are more likely to puke from drinking too much (37% vs. 9% of the general public); do drugs (26% vs. 3% of the general public); and hook up with a coworker (26% vs. 8% of the general public). If you work in advertising, these results likely aren’t surprising to you.
You're right, they aren’t even though there are many who will scoff at the results. There is, however, a home truth here. Within agencies, we tend to look inward, towards each other more often than outwards, where the rest of the world lives.  What we believe is happening on the street appears to be more a case of confirmation bias than of reality.  More important, this bubble we’re in can impair our judgment.

  © Heat 2012
 
Maybe the zeal we have for social media platforms is because we are always trying to chase the youth market.  But here are the facts, Jack, about the state of the economy and why chasing this crowd is wrong-headed, courtesy of Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian and Nielsen. People over 50:
• control 77% of all financial assets
• control 50% of all discretionary spending...
baby boomers dominate 94% of all consumer packaged goods categories.
• they purchase almost 40% of consumer packaged goods
• they account for 1/3 of all TV viewers, online users, social media users and Twitter users.
• even in technology categories, where marketers assume young people dominate, baby boomers  "are purchasing at rates just as high as other segments, and because they are often buying for their kids, many are double-dipping."
• less than 5% of advertising is aimed at them. 

Maybe we should pop this bubble and keep Yogi Berra in mind more often: You can observe a lot by watching.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Corelius Trunchpole

In an industry overrun with hucksters, pimps, and bean-counters (I'm talking advertising not politics), it is refreshing when the true masters show up and tell us a story.  This is a brilliant piece of work.  I wish I had helped.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-oT3zt3K_k&list=UUWwJzgpwVHr6wu7YD2itrtg&index=1&feature=plcp

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Food for thought


Herb-crusted Rack 'o Lamb





I had a request for the recipe for the crust on a herb-crusted rack of lamb I posted on FB a while back.


I wish it were my recipe but it belongs to Thomas Keller, the über-chef of The French Laundry fame, taken from his Ad Hoc cookbook.  Here it is:

2 frenched 8-bone racks of lamb
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
Canola oil
¾ cup Dijon Mustard
3 tbs honey
6 tbs (3 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tbs garlic puree*
3 to 5 anchovy filets, salt packed or oil packed, rinsed, dried and minced
1½ cup dried bread crumbs or ground panko crumbs
3 tbs finely chopped Italian parsley
1 tbs minced rosemary
grey salt or coarse sea salt

*Put 1 cup of peeled and trimmed garlic cloves into a saucepan and cover with enough oil to cover them by about 1 inch.  Set the saucepan over medium-low heat.  The garlic should cook gently; very small bubbles will come up but they should not break the surface.  Cook for 40 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes until cloves are completely tender when pierced with a knife.  Remove saucepan from stove and let cool.  Once cool, put the garlic in a food processor and blend, scraping down the sides often, to puree. For a finer texture, pass through a small, fine-screened sieve or  tamis.

Score the fat covering the lamb in a ½-inch crosshatch pattern; be careful not to cut into the meat.  Season all side with salt and pepper.

Set a roasting rack in a roasting pan.  Heat some canola oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat until it shimmers.  Put 1 rack fat-side down in the pan and sear to golden brown, 1½ to 2 minutes; carefully move the lamb as it sears to brown as much of the fat as possible (it is best to sauté 1 rack at a time, so the temperature of the pan doesn’t drop dramatically).  Transfer the lamb to a roasting rack, meat-side up.  Drain off the fat, reheat the pan, adding fresh oil, and sear the remaining rack. 

Combine mustard and honey in a small bowl; set aside.  Combine the butter, garlic, and anchovies in a small food processor and puree until smooth.  Transfer the puree to a medium bowl and stir in the bread crumbs, parsley, and rosemary to combine.  Do not over-mix; the mixture should be moist, but it may not all come together.

Brush the mustard mixture over the fat and meat (do not coat the underside of the racks.  Spread the bread crumbs evenly over the racks pressing gently and patting them so the crumbs adhere. (The lamb can be refrigerated, on the rack in the roasting pan, for up to 6 hours.

Position an oven rack in the bottom third of the oven and preheat the oven to 425°F.
Put the lamb in the oven, with the met side towards the back, and roast for 25 to 35 minutes, until the temperature in the centre of the meat registers 128° to 130°F.  Let the racks rest on the rack in a warm place for about 20 minutes for medium-rare.

Dee-lish

You heard it here first

http://swimminginbs.blogspot.ca/2012/04/reading-week.html

From CNBC, it seems investors are starting to clue into some of the fine print in Facebook's latest SEC filing:

Increasing Mobile Usage. Increasing use of Facebook on mobile devices will also affect our performance, particularly if mobile use substitutes for use on personal computers. Historically, we have not shown ads to users accessing Facebook through mobile apps or our mobile website and we cannot be certain that our mobile monetization approaches will be successful in generating meaningful revenue. We cannot quantify the extent to which mobile usage of Facebook is substituting for, rather than incremental to, usage of Facebook through personal computers, but we generally expect mobile usage to increase at a faster rate than usage through personal computers for the foreseeable future.

It should get quite interesting over the next week


Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Facing the Wall Street



With Facebook’s IPO set to debut on May 18, investors are starting to take a well-advised closer look at the new issue. Analysts expect Facebook to be valued at $100 billion after the share sale, which is 33 times over ad revenues—Google trades at 5.5 times. (Google is worth $200 billion and has ad revenues of $36.5 billion.).  According to one analyst, to justify the $100 billion valuation, Facebook’s revenues will have to increase 41% annually for the next five years.  This compares to Google’s revenue growth of 24% in 2010 and 29% in 2011.

The big question for Facebook’s clients (advertisers, not users) is how to accurately measure the performance of their ads because Facebook is making a pantload of money from them—ad rates increased 41% over the past year.  Webtrends produced a study in January 2011 that assesses Facebook’s performance.  It’s important to note that Facebook results are no longer as specific; we only hear about percentage changes so you know they’re piss poor and likely below the industry average:

Year                    CTR                    CPC                    CPM                   CPF
2009                    0.063%                US$ 0.27             US$ 0.17             N/A
2010                    0.051%                US$ 0.49             US$ 0.25             US$ 1.07

Meanwhile, ad agencies are still dodging accountability for the performance of their clients’ social media campaigns. They say click-through rates are not important anymore, now it’s all about  hover rates, engagement, and awareness.  In the Wall Street Journal, Sarah Hofstetter, president of digital ad agency 360i, a unit of Dentsu Inc, says, If a marketer measures [return on investment] as direct sales from the Web, then Facebook may not be the ideal platform. But if the goal is to move the needle on brand health metrics, whether its awareness or engagement... then Facebook should be a key part of the marketing mix for most consumer brands. So, Sarah, how do you measure all this awareness and engagement stuff?  How do you give it a monetary value so you can quantify its worth?

Then again, Kia’s VP of Marketing, Michael Sprague, seems to be cool with no accountability.  Sprague says, Being on Facebook sends a message… Consumers they say 'Facebook is working with Kia, I like Facebook ergo I like Kia.' That's what we are hoping for.  *sigh*  Hey Mike, I'm hoping to see a unicorn one day but wouldn’t you rather like someone to buy your vehicles instead?

Hopefully, investors will press Facebook to reveal its results and explain how it plans to maintain revenue growth now that mobile usage is expanding much faster than online (which may have reached saturation), a platform Facebook is yet to effectively monetize.  Failure to properly address these issues  could end up costing plenty to those investors who aren't in it for the quick flip, just like so many of the hyped online IPOs have of late. Groupon anyone?

Fanboys like Facebook because its fun.  It where you can share cat videos, photobombed pictures and tell everyone that you’ve just become the Supreme Ruler of Bob’s Tattoo and Meat Emporium—all while you give away all your personal data for free to Facebook so it can make a killing selling it.  Face it, advertisers will have more success showing a guy being bludgeoned with a 30-inch, 7-lb dildo than they will trying to get a fanboy to click on a Kia ad… unless, of course, the guy being bludgeoned is driving a Kia.

And for your enjoyment, I provide this handy Web Economy Bullshit Generator.  Brilliant!
http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html

Monday, May 7, 2012

Asshats Abroad

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Recently, I’ve been getting email from YouTube saying that my video is on the top of YouTube. It doesn't tell me which of my videos is wildly successful or what top I'm supposed to have reached. Having posted a few on YT, I know they don’t send emails out saying such things.  Anyway, for fun I thought I’d succumb to the link bait.  




 




It took me to Toronto Drug Store, a very patriotic place that declares itself an Essential Part of Canadian Rx Network. I guess it must be true because there is a photo of a serious but handsome doctor—he’s in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck so he’s got to be one.  Behind him is what I assume to be a nurse holding something that’s supposed to look like a patient’s chart and she’s got a stethoscope, too. (I figure that if she were a doctor she’d have to be wearing doctorly glasses.And, she’s got her head tilted to the side and her expression is reminiscent of someone watching kittens play with balls of yarn. Awwwh, how cute is that??



So, it’s an online pharmacy that features Viagra and Cialis (aka le Weekender) and the picture at the top right of a laughing couple drinking tea or coffee or maybe Jack Daniels suggests these pills are effective, because, well… LOOK at them! Actually, he may look like he thinks he’s about to partake in some serious rutting, she’s smiling because she spiked his tea/coffee/Jack with enough saltpetre to knock the sex drive out a 2,300 lb. bull for a month. 

To my surprise I discover the email and the pharmacy operate out of Russia.  Whaaa?  It seems that Ivan the Terrible Marketer, an asshatski sitting in Minsk, actually believes that when he lies to people to get them to his site, when he posts fake pictures of his offices with fake addresses, and fake diplomas, people will gladly order and pay for his boner fide pills.  People will trust that he sells the real deal, not the ones made with dead baby skin—oh, sorry, that’s the Chinese doing that (and why I never ever buy produce and seafood from China).  Man, he must be huffing some pretty powerful adhesives to think that this is the path to success.  I much prefer the Nigerian/UN/FBI scams—at least those are worth the read for their sheer entertainment value.

Friday, May 4, 2012

How consumers think

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In Testing to Destruction (London, 1974), Alan Hedges offers a remarkably accurate breakdown of the consumer’s decision-making process.  It’s worth keeping in mind that, while this was written in 1974, a time society’s roles were different, the way people process advertising is the same today as then, regardless of the platform.

"Traditionally we have tended to think of an advertisement as something whose properties and powers are intrinsic to itself and capable of being studied quite in isolation.

"In reality the way an advertisement is perceived and the kind of influence it has will depend intimately on a whole host of other factors external to the advertising itself.

"Take a typical housewife and her relations with (say) the floor polish market. Let us trace her contacts with this market through an imaginary week, not forgetting that this is just one tiny thread among thousands, which I am drawing out and magnifying for purposes of illustration. The housewife herself would certainly not have it in sharp focus.

"Let us suppose that this market (for simplicity) contains only three brands. Let us imagine they are called Lewis’s, Whistle and Glo. New Glo is our brand.

"The lady starts the week with an inherited bundle of impressions of floor cleaning and of the three brands. She has some Lewis’s in her cupboard. She has also used Whistle on odd occasions, but she has never tried Glo. Her impressions which are vague and hazy in the main, are a compound of her own experience, odd remarks from neighbours, past advertising seen or half seen, the look of the products and their packages, a fact or two from a Which? report she once started to read, some bits of lore learnt at her mother’s knee, the names of brands, the reputations of their makers, and who knows what else.

"Monday is her regular floor cleaning day. She gets out the Lewis’s and sets to work. She sees the pack. She doesn’t really look at it, it is so familiar, but perhaps just the way it looks reinforces a tiny particle of an impression. She doesn’t read the words on the pack (maybe she did years ago, when she first bought it, perhaps not even then), but perhaps she half notices an odd word, and another flake of meaning joins the mixture in her mind.

"Even after all these years of using Lewis’s she enjoys the smell of it, it reminds her of the way her mother’s floor used to smell. She thinks about her childhood home; polishing the while. She hardly notices how long it takes her to get a really good shine to the floor. After all, Lewis’s gets you good results, but you have to be prepared to work at it. Another image crystallises a fraction.

"She puts the polish away, noticing that the pot is nearly empty, and making a mental note to get some more.

"At lunchtime, flicking through a women’s mag, her gaze wanders over an ad for Whistle for a few seconds. She doesn’t think about it, but somewhere her mind ticks up the impression that she has heard a lot about Whistle recently. A bit further on in the mag, there is an article about labour-saving types of flooring. She wonders for a moment whether all this polishing is really worth it, when you come down to it. A tiny curl of displeasure winds around the Lewis’s she has been using.

"Later that afternoon she goes shopping. On the way she passes one of our new Glo posters. She doesn’t even glance at it, although later in the week she will notice the Glo on the supermarket shelf and wonder for a split second where she saw it before. The poster shows a beautiful, highly polished wooden floor, and a pack of Glo.

"In the supermarket she checks off her shopping fairly methodically, although she forgets she is running out of floor polish. She even passes the polish shelves without the penny dropping. There is a good long facing of Whistle in that eye-catching new pack. If you asked her leaving the shop she wouldn’t remember seeing it, but that is the second time already today that it has flashed in front of her eyes.

"There is that familiar old Lewis’s pack on the shelves too. She doesn’t look at that either – why would she? But every time she catches sight of it, it reinforces that familiar old image. It looks so old-fashioned, but so good. Satisfying, somehow.

"There are some of our Glo packs there too, although not many – the trade promotion hasn’t really got off the ground yet. But we’ve done a good job with the pack – even at a glance you feel that here is a modern brand which will really get results good enough for the fussiest. But the lady doesn’t look. She is worrying about the meat and keeping an eye on the time for meeting the kids from school.

"That night, watching the television, she sees two of our ten-second launch commercials for Glo. When the first one comes on she is trying to shoo the children off to bed. Second time round she’s still laughing at the show she’s just seen. If you rang her that evening and asked her what ads she had seen she wouldn’t mention Glo, that’s for sure. But by the end of the evening her latent interest in the brand is a little higher than it would have been that morning. She has no occasion to think about it yet, but when she does she will find that she has a few small and elusive impressions tucked away.

"In the morning she opens the hall cupboard to get out her dustpan and her eyes slide over that familiar old Lewis’s pack. On the way to the shops she passes the Glo poster again. In the housewares store she visits for some clothes pegs there are big stacks of Whistle right inside the door, and some kind of competition. She doesn’t look at them.

"In the afternoon she goes to her sister’s for a cup of tea. Leafing through a magazine she passes the Whistle ad again. She recognises the pack in the ad... where has she seen that recently? And stops for a couple of seconds to look at it. Mmmm, might be worth trying, looks a bit easier, like a sort of spray. But she passes on without reading the copy. Her sister comes in with the tea. Later she notices a can of Whistle on her sister’s windowsill. She picks it up and looks at it. She glances at the instructions on the pack. It does sound easy to use. She puts it down and turns to look at the new snaps of her sister’s children.

"On the front of the bus that takes her home is an ad which tells the world that Whistle is the cheapest floor polish on the market. She doesn’t notice it, but a faint impression slithers into her mind.
The bus passes a store with a big stack of that attractive Whistle pack in the window. It goes past a Glo poster. She doesn’t look at either, not more than a passing glance, anyway.

"That evening she sees a commercial for Glo again, and one Whistle. The Lewis’s pack is still there when she opens the cupboard.

"In the morning she remembers she needs polish. When she arrives at the store (passing but not noticing the Glo poster), she goes in due course to the polish shelves, where she reaches instinctively for the Lewis’s. Her eyes pass the Whistle display, and slide back to it. She picks up a Whistle pack, reflectively, and looks at the instructions again. She looks at the Lewis’s pack, indecisive. No doubt about it, that’s the one for results. You can’t beat the old stuff really. But this does look a bit easier – and probably cheaper. Her mind runs over the article on labour-saving floors. She looks at the price. It is heavily cut. She shrugs and drops it into her basket. Her brow furrows. Can she really afford the steak she was planning? Mustn’t forget mother’s birthday card...

"At home she unloads her purchases. She doesn’t remember having passed the Glo poster again on the way home. She holds the Whistle in her hands for a second as she puts it in the cupboard. She looks at the Lewis’s pack. She shakes her head. There’s really no substitute for the good old stuff. This new stuff just doesn’t look like proper polish. She begins to feel a little sorry she bought the Whistle. She pulls out the Hoover and forgets all about polishing floors. Catching sight of the magazine she was looking at on Monday, she wonders for an instant as the memory darts through her mind if she could persuade her husband to lay out for some floor coverings that don’t need polishing. Still, the wood looks nicer really. She compares her home with her sister’s, which is a bit plastic. She hoovers on.

"The week goes by. She passes heedlessly the Glo poster a dozen times. She flicks past press ads for all three brands. When she notices a Whistle ad she stops to look at it, remembering that she has a can waiting in the cupboard. She reads the copy idly, reading of the low price, the miracle ingredients, the special high-gloss finish and the ease of use. She frowns absently. Not like a real polish. Still she could do with saving a bit of time. She passes on. She sees at least half-a-dozen commercials for the various brands. She half-notices the Whistle ad and nods agreement at the mention of cheapness. She doesn’t give it a second thought. Every time she opens her cupboard she sees the Whistle and Lewis’s packs but she has lost interest in them – although seeing them half-a-dozen times gradually reinforces the polarisation in her mind. She sees other displays around.

"On Monday she opens the cupboard to get the polish out. For a microsecond she wonders whether to finish the Lewis’s first, but she is a bit curious to see whether that Whistle is as easy as they say it is. She glances at the half-remembered instructions and misapplies the polish. It’s easy to put on, bit hard to get off. She looks at the instructions again, and corrects the procedure. Well, it is quite easy. It polishes all right... but it’s not the same really. There’s not the same sort of feeling about it. She probably won’t buy it again.

"Her mother calls while she is finishing the polishing. Her eyebrows rise at the sight of the Whistle. Their brief conversation confirms the housewife’s tentative resolution to go back to good old Lewis’s, after all, that’s what polishing’s really about, isn’t it.

"That afternoon she goes to the shops again, once more passing the Glo poster without a glance. In the supermarket she is walking past the polish shelves when she notices the display of Glo, slightly bigger than last week. She doesn’t stop – she has a lot to get, and she won’t need any more polish for a month or so yet. Her brief flicker of interest in new polishes has died. Well, more or less died anyway. As her eye lights on the Glo the thought crosses her mind that she has heard good reports of it. With that one you really would get a finish you could be proud of. Now, where did I see those tomatoes.

"She has this vague feeling about Glo now (which strengthens a tiny bit as she passes the Glo poster on the way home, and gives it a quick sideways glance as she wonders whether the last shop short-changed her). It comes partly from the look of the pack, which has a kind of traditional polishy feel about it; and partly from that beautiful shiny floor she keeps passing on the Glo poster without apparent recognition; and maybe even partly from the brand name, who knows. The lady herself certainly doesn’t – and wouldn’t care much if she did. After all, it’s only polish.

"Maybe if this seed of an idea germinates and is properly nourished she will buy Glo next time round – or the time after that. Maybe she will just go back to good old Lewis’s (she knows where she is with that one). It all depends what happens next week – and the week after that – as the same processes go on and on.

"Even this long account has had to be concentrated and dramatised, and the real-life processes are probably even more diffuse and casual than those depicted, for many markets at least. Advertising is certainly less prominent than I have made it sound.
What I have been trying to make clear in this fictitious account is how interdependent our advertising is with the advertising of our competitors, and with the nature of the products, the packs, promotions, names, past experience, hearsay, editorial matter directly or indirectly related to the product field, and so on.

"In my example the stimulus which really opened the lady’s mind to the idea of a new polish was an article about labour-saving flooring, nothing directly to do with polish at all.

"Then again her reception of our messages about Glo might very well have been quite differently interpreted if it had not been for her recent flirtation with Whistle, and her rejection of an important part of the Whistle copy platform (the bit about getting good results).

"I hope the foregoing passage also makes it clear what I mean about advertising having its effect gradually, and largely at lower levels of consciousness. It would be very difficult to put one’s finger on the precise point at which our housewife really decided to give Whistle a try, or the precise influence which tipped her into doing it.

"Finally it should show just how difficult it is to separate the influences of advertising, promotions, distribution, packaging, naming, public relations, product formulation and so on; and conversely, just how important it is to see advertising as just one manifestation of the product which needs to work in harmony with all its other manifestations in order to be truly effective."