Marketing with Technology and More

Caveat Venditor is the new Caveat Emptor

Many of us grew up in a society where the consumer mantra was always caveat emptor – let the buyer beware.  Beware for the world was filled with unscrupulous marketers and businesses that would rapidly remove hard-earned cash from your pockets and fill them with cheap products that didn’t work as promised , or deliver as required. 

The world is changing rapidly, and the old maxim of caveat emptor is rapidly changing into a new warning of caveat venditor – let the seller beware.  Today’s consumer no longer is powerless to change things, upset them, fail to deliver on your promises, anger them and you will find the tides of enterprise rapidly shift against you.  Upset enough of them, and the world as you know it may come crashing down on you.

This weekend it happened to the makers of Motrin.  They developed what I am sure both they and their ad agency thought was a “cute” ad that promoted their product by poking fun at mothers and baby carriers (Marketing 101 - never make fun of mothers or their children – very bad idea).  What happened was a literal firestorm of consumer action in the form of extremely negative feedback from consumers (many, but not all mothers) on blogs, Twitter and even in at least one case a 9 minute “protest video.” 

If you are on Twitter, check out the hash tag #motrinmoms, there are literally hundreds of postings about the offending ads.  By Sunday evening, close to 70 blog postings had been tracked mentioning it.  The video poster/blogger Katja Presna received an apology from the VP of Marketing - Pain, Pediatrics, GI, Specialty at McNeil (the makers of Motrin), and the Motrin web site had been completely taken down. 

I think McNeil got the message, unfortunately, there was much more they could have done to avert this disaster, and they could have been a part of the conversation rather than just sent out an email to one of the bloggers.  In the new age of Caveat venditor, if you are the seller, be prepared to play by the new rules.  They are:

• Think before you act – the consumer is watching and if they don’t like your actions, they will report on it (via email, blog, micro-blog, video, pod-cast and other social communications tools yet to be developed.  Ask a simple questions, “if I was my consumer would l like the action I am about to take”? 
• Listen – there is a global conversation happening and some of the talk is about you.  Good or bad, you must know what is being said and you must be listening.  Do you know the places where the conversation is occurring?  Do you have a method and a plan for gathering the rivers of conversation that pertain to you?  You should. 
• Converse – You must be part of the conversation.  This doesn’t mean you get to control it and it doesn’t mean you get to advertise in it.  The great part about today’s social media world is that it is like a giant cocktail party and everyone is welcome as long as they obey the norms of the group.  As a participant you will reap much in the way of rewards that go beyond anything you would find in any other one-way customer communications medium.
• Learn – No one has yet figured out this massive new world.  The great opportunity is if you participate now, you get to learn along with the others who are developing this new field.  The only failure will come from failing to participate.

The Invisible Hand Can Be Seen

Back in my University days I took quite a number of economics courses.  One of the first books most  economics students read in those days (and maybe still do) was Scottish economist Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations originally published in 1776.  I enjoyed that book immensely and thought it gave a great explanation of how an economic system was driven by individuals.  One key premise that Smith built his economic treatise on he dubbed  “The Invisible Hand.”

“The Invisible Hand,” was a great metaphor for how markets used to work.  The basic premise was that in free-markets, individuals, driven by their own-self interest, will act in a way that ultimately maximizes the wealth of a community.  “The invisible hand” will guide each in a way that ensures that by maximizing their own self-interest society as a whole gains the most.  Individuals neither intend to promote the public interest, nor do they even know that they are doing so, yet they do, by trying to maximize their own lot in life.

We know much more about economics today than we did in Smith’s time (yet we still manage to screw it up), however this is not my point here.  I believe that “The Invisible Hand” can now be seen in a way that it has never been visible before.  I was first excited by the Internet and what it initially did to reduce friction on economic activity.  Now, along come social networking tools, and I think they are in the process of severing the invisible hand.  For if you are listen to the social media/net world, it is easy to hear discussions that lay out market direction, before the market actually move.

Honest dialog is occurring about products, companies, politics, ideas, movements, organizations, events and tribes (to use Seth Godin’s metaphor).  People may still operate in their own self-interest, but communicate about it in a rare and extended way that distributes that which is of value to society at lightning speed.  So, self-interest that is self-serving is self-destructive in an unprecedented way.  We are at the dawn of the social network era (think Internet 1995) the basic social networking tools of today, blogs, wiki's, photo sharing, etc along with popular commercial resources (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Plurk, etc) are empowering people to help each other in ways that are extremely transparent and would have been impossible in the past. 

If you are in the conversation, you know what I mean.  If not, be prepared to wake up some day by being slapped in the face by a very visible hand that you just haven’t been looking at.

Magpie in Twitter

Magpie is the new ad serving solution in Twitter.  What are your thoughts about putting ads in your Peeps?  Would you do it?  Would you follow anyone who does?  Take our five second survey.  The results so far from the survey posting on Twitter are posted below.

Personalization in more detail

The other day I posted about the personalization index.  I realized that it was the perfect subject for one of our Email Marketing Minutes.  Et Voila.

New Video Series - The Email Marketing Minute

SubscriberMail just launched a new series of videos.  We hope that they are easy to watch in a short period of time (ok not a minute, but usually pretty darn close), and cover topics that are relevant to an email marketer.  Literally if you have a couple minute pause, you can take a break and learn something that can improve your email marketing.  Here's the first - focused on subject lines.  I hope you enjoy them, and welcome your comments and ideas for future topics.

AOL Postmaster Moves Delivery Blog

If you are in the B to C email space, knowing what is happening with delivery at AOL is a critical part of your job.  AOL recently shut down their blog software service, leaving their postmaster without a tool to update the community on delivery happenings.  Fortunately, the blog has moved to a new location.  They don't update too often, but it is worth monitoring.