Comments (2)

By Vegasbab, July 29, 2009 12:56 pm

Holy cow! Clearly Thought Leader vs. Practitioner was quite the burning topic. But, it also seems like people are getting bogged down in names and favorites. You have your Brogan defenders and I have my Sharpie biases. Seriously and honestly, I’m obsessed with how Sharpie has integrated their brand into the social web.

So… let’s take away all the names. Let’s play in theory and thoughts with this scenario:

I’m a client/advertiser. I’m looking for someone to put together a complete Mobile Marketing program for my Brand (yep, I’m even taking social media marketing out of the mix). I bid out the project. The following two bids come back:

Bid #1 from Thought Leader A: Proposal is great. Theories, ideas are spot on. Thought Leader A even has an existing platform for me to use. But then, I ask for a client list. No relevant experience and/or clients. No understanding of how I house my customer data or my Point of Sale (POS) systems. Bottom line: Bid #1 has the ideas. It talks the talk. BUT, it’s never walked the walk.

Bid #2 from Practitioner B: Proposal is great. Theories, ideas are spot on and similar to Bid #1. Bid #2 has an existing platform as well. They also have similar industry experience AND they understand my POS system. In fact, they’ve linked to it for other projects, so they know some of the ins, outs and potential quirks. Bottom line: Bid #2 has the ideas AND the experience. It talks the talk AND can prove it’s walked a similar walk in the past.

If cost was the same, I’m choosing Bid #2 aka the Practitioner. Which bid would you choose? If you chose Bid #2 as well, why and how is this different from choosing a Social Media Marketing Practitioner vs. a Thought Leader?

Comments (10)

By Vegasbab, July 29, 2009 7:33 am

Over on twitter and a certain blog, there’s been much debate about a Thought Leader vs. a Practitioner. As the saying goes, “those that can’t DO, teach.”

The ideas and arguments are fine and dandy. Although I’m honestly more on the side of the Practitioners. But, here’s my rub:

People like Brogan and Fitton (aka @Pistachio) should NOT be the people in our industry we look up to. They can’t pinpoint a single thing they’ve done for a major company nor have they duplicated what they’ve done for themselves for a company. Yea, yea, they’re working for big companies like Pepsi and Sony, but that’s like saying, “I worked on BMW films.” Everyone and their sister has; even the guy with the gmail address. Show me the specific piece YOU did for the big company.

The REAL people we should be looking towards are people like Susan from Sharpie, Frank Eliason from Comcast and Paula Berg from Southwest. Names don’t ring a bell? Yea, that’s because they’re the people actually DOING. They’re the people with case studies. They’re the people that started programs from the ground up, are growing and expanding them and oh, yeah, their programs are working.

By all means, please continue to listen to the theories. Me? I’ll be watching what Susan, Frank and Paula are doing. I like taking my cues from them.

Comments (0)

By Vegasbab, July 28, 2009 10:00 am

Courtesy of Post Secret

Comments (0)

By Vegasbab, July 27, 2009 4:54 am

Thanks to theKbuzz for the cartoon

Comments (0)

By Vegasbab, July 26, 2009 5:48 pm

I love working in Vegas. Honestly, I do. I mean, I just bat my eyelashes and everyone and their mom wants to work with a “uber cool” Strip property. Think Pepsi, Ford, Coca-Cola, AMEX, Absolut Vodka, Panasonic, Nintendo, Southwest, Travelocity and the list goes on. From sports to food to alcohol to you name it, we’ve been approached, and often work with, all the Prom King Brands.

Okay, now you have the background. On to the rant

These days, thanks to forays into Social Media, many of these brands now have a “face”. A Virtual Star if you may. Unfortunately, similar to my earlier discovery, even big brand virtual stars are disappointing.

Admittedly, I have yet to meet most of the Big Brand Stars in person, so, I’m not sure if they’re cheaters and cheapskates. But, I have had one too many phone conversations and emails with them. Sadly, they have few operational let alone marketing thoughts outside of their little silo.

Here’s a quick breakdown of my latest experience. Names, facts and details are vague to protect the innocent.

Me via Email: Hi! The document I received says, “X, Y and Z”. I’d like to understand how we need to implement, when we will receive assets and how else we can help.

Star Handler via Email: Let’s chat via phone. I’m cc’ing my BDA and we’re free anytime today.

Big Brand Virtual Star via email: [AFTER we set up the phone meeting] You can find everything I do at GenericBrandWebsite.com. [In my head: Oh boy. HELLO did you even read my email. Thanks for putting in your unhelpful two cents, but really not necessary AFTER others had answered.]

After that exchange, I knew I was in for a very “special” phone call. As you can imagine, I was spot on.

I open almost every call in a similar fashion, “We support our partners 110% and I’d love to understand what we can do to help, cross promote through our channels, what your goals are and how we can help you accomplish them… blah, blah, blah.”

Needless to say, Star Handler was very excited about my excitement and offer. We’re hitting it off fabulously and we both got more than what we originally set out to get. Big Brand Virtual Star? Yea… we didn’t quite get it. Not only could he not see past his piece (aka Social Media opportunities) but he also didn’t understand why I needed to know the operational pieces. The embarrassing part? It seemed like all the Star Handlers already knew this and were slightly apologetic for said Virtual Star.

Me? Yeah, I’ll stick with the Star Handlers and anonymity. I get a lot more done.

Comments (0)

By Vegasbab, July 26, 2009 10:03 am

Just two months after writing it, my wish sort of came true. United Airlines broke Dave Carroll’s guitar. He, understandably, was very upset. After almost a year of trying to navigate the “normal” channels, he wrote a song. He posted it to YouTube. What happened? Well…

In 20 short days:

• - The YouTube video has 4,136,582 views
• - The news made CNBC, USA Today, LA Times and The Huffington Post among others
• - Carroll did interviews with CNN, Fox News, The Today Show and Jimmy Kimmel
• - Dave got a record deal out of it and is being called a hero in some music circles
• - On July 23 his song, “United Breaks Guitars” was the #1 country download on the UK iTunes site
• - A UK writer for Times Online did the math and is convinced this incident cost United Shareholders $180 million. Ouch.

Ironically, United did respond within the first week of the video being posted. But, that piece has slightly been ignored. Maybe it’s because they haven’t made a strong public statement. Their response is one sentence – they wanted to talk to Carroll privately and asked to use his video for training. Maybe it’s because it theoretically took them over a year to respond.

Unfortunately for United, this plane has already left and continues to plow full steam ahead. But, will it continue to damage United’s reputation and more importantly, their bottom line?

Comments (0)

By Vegasbab, July 25, 2009 5:53 pm

For the past few days, the little voice inside my head has said, “Stop. Cancel. No.”

Maybe choices shouldn’t always be made by a spreadsheet. Deals are better done with a handshake over drinks and with the people who are informal enough to roll with the ‘Vegas Way’.

Comments (1)

By Vegasbab, July 20, 2009 8:36 pm

I LOVE Augmented Reality. It’s my new favorite bright and shiny object. If you’re not sure what it is, Matt Dickman does the best job explaining it.

Some of the latest ways it’s being used are:

1. Online shopping / Trying on clothes
2. Trying out a new hair cut
3. Finding your way around Wimbledon
4. Finding your way through the New York Subway system
5. If your package fits in a certain sized box
6. Business Card enhancement

I have TONS of ideas on how it can be used for my industry. I’d love to implement a few of them. However, the reality is the rest of the world just isn’t ready. It reminds me a bit of Second Life – Joe Blow doesn’t get it nor does he have the proper technology to use it.

I spent the weekend doing the research. Among other technology impairments, penetration just isn’t there.

But, here’s what is possible… a partner that shares these ideas and excitement with you. But, then does the dirty work and says, “Nope. The ROI just doesn’t pencil out… yet.”

Comments (0)

By Vegasbab, July 19, 2009 9:31 pm

I gotta jump on the bandwagon and do a Michael Jackson post if only for posterity.

So, if you’re a hermit and didn’t hear, Michael Jackson died. The “cool” part? The online stats that came from this are staggering. Since I’m a sucker for random trivia, here’s a few of them:

• - During Jackson’s memorial service, people changed their Facebook status at 6,000 per minute. During Obama’s Inauguration? 2,000 per minute.
• - iTunes downloads skyrocketed, spiking 1,735%.
• - 50,000 tweets in a single hour about Jackson. Oh yea, and twitter crashed the day he died.
• - Google slowed for about an hour as people frantically searched for info.
• - On Yahoo, their Jackson story received 800,000 clicks in 10 minutes. This made it Yahoo’s most-clicked story every. It also set daily and hourly visitor stats for Yahoo.
• - Within the 24-hour period, 30% of tweets were about MJ. Farrah Fawcett and Iran? Less than 2%.

So there you have it folks. Want to make online history? Forget politics. Go with pop culture.