The other night at a cocktail party a good friend asked “so Drew, give me three good reasons why brands should Twitter?” I offered five off the top of my head; deliver news, manage crises, enhance customer service, build loyalty and drive web traffic. I didn’t have time to explain to him the substance behind these reasons which of course is very Twitter-like. You tease in Twitter, you consummate via blogs. So indulge me while I finish the conversion on why brands should Twitter.

1. Deliver news

Presumably, if someone bothers to follow a brand, first and foremost that individual wants to have the inside track on news about brand related activities. Depending on your category, the news could be related to product development, distribution changes, customer successes, promotions, stock price or what have you. This is the very essence of PR, you either have news or you create it. Twitter is a great channel to deliver that news as @DellOutlet with 760,000 followers demonstrates daily.

2. Manage Crises

You never know when a wacky employee might stick a piece of cheese up his nose, drop it on a pizza and then serve the sizzling video up on YouTube. While this particular example presented a challenge for Domino’s, every mass brand is vulnerable and needs to have a crises management plan in place. These days, Twitter should be part of that plan as it provides one of the fastest ways to mount a counter-attack to your core audience. Domino’s set up the Twitter account, @dpzinfo, after the fact but was still able to use it as part of its effort to successfully defuse the crisis.

3. Enhance Customer Service

Ever since Bob Garfield set up his Comcast Must Die blog, at least one company has come to see customer service via social media as a “must have” versus “nice to have” component of their on-going marketing activities. Comcast, which went from laggard to leader in this area, created a digital customer service director, Frank Eliason, who as the voice of @ComcastCares now has over 24,000 followers. JetBlue, another brand that faced a PR crises after an extraordinary service gaff, has become a huge voice on Twitter, engaging over 780,000 loyalists with a steady stream of helpful twavel tweets.

4. Build Loyalty

While cynics might say “get a life,” a lot of people enjoy engaging with their favorite brands on Twitter. In fact, one study found that 97% of Twitterers think brands should Twitter and 80% feel comfortably recommending a brand based on its presence on Twitter. Twitter can give a real voice to a brand and provide a level of engagement that goes well beyond the initial purchase. @WholeFoods cooks up healthy tips for its ravenous followers (907,000+) faster than an Emeril “bam!”

5. Drive web traffic

Twitter need not be an end in and of itself. In fact, it is a great way to start a conversation with your customers and prospects, a conversation that can be continued elsewhere. If the tweet is tantalizing enough, the consumer will thirst for more and follow you just about anywhere you suggest. @Marvel directs its 28,000+ fans to a variety of other Marvel sites including its official home on Flickr pages, “free Monday” comics posts and online polls on Marvel News. I have also since this work on a microlevel as my Twitter posts dramatically increase my blog traffic.

Keep in mind that the costs of keeping up a Twitter account are quite small compared to brand advertising. Of course, the reach is too unless you can achieve the kind of followings that Zappos and JetBlue enjoy. And that begs the question “how brands should Twitter” which I’ll just have to leave for another day or cocktail party, whichever comes first.

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In the spirit of my last two posts, here is a quick overview of the liquor brands that use Twitter. For the most part, the well established brands are sitting on the sidelines while the younger upstarts figure out how to gain traction via this nascent channel.

• @BaconVodka: Living up to its porcine name, Bakon Vodka provides tasty drink recipes while keeping their 2,055 followers informed on where and when they can buy this product.
• @MR1X supports a relatively new line extension from Belvedere Vodka that is imbued with the lifestyle of Parisian graffiti artist Andre. With over 880 followers, the tweets track Andre’s world travels and endless nightlife. MR1X aggressive use of Twitter, Flickr and YouTube may make it the first generation of truly social media-driven spirits.
• @Belvedere_Vodka keeps their 539 followers buzzed with a steady stream of summer drink recipes and other self-promotions.
• @Blackbottle: This whisky brand enthusiastically covered their appearance at the Taste of London for its 353 followers which may be just enough for them.
• @CieloTequila: This Mexican based tequila has 300+followers and claims to be “the smoothest tequila on the market” but with no events listed it would be hard for anyone to know since it hasn’t updated its page in over a month.
• @NudeVodka09: This scantily veiled brand keeps its 300+ followers updated on events and new concoctions. They seemed to be more engaged than most as many of their posts are fan offered thank you’s.
• @RepublicTequila: By Texans for Texans, this brand seem to focus solely on The Lone Star state reporting on local promotions for its 230+ long horned followers.
• @SoloranzoTkila: …..Tkila…..get it? The text-friendly name is about all this tequila twitter page has to offer its 178 followers unless they’re into historical facts about tequila, such as one of its most recent posts “For many years it was known as “mezcal wine” or “mezcal tequila,” since mezcal or mexcal is another Nahuatl term for agave.”
• @PinkyVodka: Despite this vodka’s small following (only 91), their enthusiastic self-promotion of the “world’s most beautiful vodka” and constant reminders of Pinky-drink ideas lets one know how to get and what to do with this product.
• @Mragave: After reading this site’s post you will know how strong this tequila is- but not much else. With a mere 37 followers, this brand claims to be more popular in “Agave Friendliest States” like CA, TX,NY, IL,FL,AZ, and CO.

Noticeably absent from this list are any Diageo mega-brands like Smirnoff, J&B, Captain Morgan and Johnnie Walker. Since there is no way currently to “age gate” your Twitter followers, perhaps they are simply electing to “keep on walking” rather than risk the potential wrath of watchdog groups. Given the relatively small size of the followings of other spirit brands, at the moment being “ready to Tangueray” need not include tweets.

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In the spirit of my most recent post on Beers that Twitter, here’s a quick look at some more active wine brands that Twitter. What’s interesting to me is that twinos (Top 12 wine twitterers) seem to get a lot more traction than the wine brands themselves.

Top Wine Brands that Twitter

• @EaglesNestWine: With over 2800 followers, the owners of this Ramona, CA winery provide a steady stream of wine-related news without too much self-promotion.
• @LynFredWinery: The largest winery in Illinois (who knew?) has about 1700 followers whom they update almost too frequently with drops of relevance.
• @SokolBlosser: This Oregon winery actually engages its 1500 or so fans with an occasional provocation like “if Pinor Noir were a celebrity, who would it be?”
• @Veuve_Clicquot: True to its upscale nature, this classic bubbly indulges its 1200 or so followers with tales from VIP parties and polo matches.
• @ChalkHillEstate: This Sonoma winery offers a clear window into their wine making world complete with updates to their 900+ followers on currently blooming vegetation.
• @KimCrawford: This New Zealand-based winery, now owned by Constellation, is famous for its crisp Sauvignon Blanc, has close to 800 followers that it updates constantly with fun facts from festivals like SXSW.
• @ManoSinistra: This French wine is aggressively tracking the wine world, following about 2000 yet only gaining about a 1/3 as many followers. Since most of the posts are in French, I can’t offer much insight as to why its tweets aren’t gaining traction.

Please note that this list is by no means comprehensive and is based on the wine brands that show up in the top 250 when searching “wine” on WeFollow.com. With few exceptions, most of these wines have built up their followers by aggressively following wine people who Twitter. While there is nothing wrong with this approach, it certainly suggests that none of the wine brands themselves have cultivated an “organic” following. Clearly, the seeds of successful Twittering have just been planted and a bountiful harvest awaits the wine brands that find the recipe for enlightened engagement.

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Woke up this morning to discover that Corona Summerbration was now following me on Twitter. Since I don’t recall tweeting about beer or Corona or summer, I can’t figure out what I did to deserve this honor. Sure I love an icy cold one as much as the next guy, but I’m hardly in Corona’s prime demo which incidentally is the slowest to embrace Twitter. Perhaps Corona is hoping I’m an “influencer” and simply by blogging about the brand here I’ve rewarded their faith in me. Regardless, this made curious about other beer brands that Twitter so I put together the following round up:

Beers that Twitter:

• @EpicBeer: this chatty New Zealand brewery has over 2200 followers and provides a steady stream of information-rich updates from the brewery (over 2200 tweets to-date)
• @GooseIsland: with over 1200 followers, this Chicago microbrewery pushes out offers on a regular basis to its fans
• @EdisonBeer: a Boston brewery with 1150+ fans that it mainly ignores tweeting only 11 times in the last 6 months
• @CrispinCider: a Minnesota beer alternative with 1100+ followers that it updates frequently with news about events and product development
• @Michelob: trying to remake itself into a craft beer, Michelob is the only national brand with over 1000 followers to whom it pushes rapid fire reminder tweets to buy, buy, buy
• @BreckBrew supports Breckenridge Brewery, a Colorado maker of craft ale with about 680 followers that are treated to tweets by a real person with whom you’d actually want to share a beer!
• @Corona_Beer has 586 followers that it hasn’t updated once
• @heinekenBeers has about 350 followers and appears just to aggregate other tweets that mention Heineken or Heiny.
• @heineken_beer calls itself a “global forum for beer” and provides a steady diet of updates from Heineken related activities around the globe to its 250 or so followers.
• @budweiser: the king of beers snubs its 214 followers with nary an update. Whassup with this?
• @summerbration: Corona’s promotional site has attracted nearly 200 followers in under a month as it offers a daily tip on how to celebrate the summer with Corona of course!

It probably shouldn’t be a surprise that the craft beers tend to lead the way having the most loyal and engaged fan base. These seem to be manned by real people who like talking about beer and the craft of beer making. The big brands either don’t bother to have a voice or it’s so forced like Michelob’s that it is actually off-putting. Given that Twitter hasn’t taken off among 21-29 year old males yet, these bigger brands aren’t necessarily missing out…yet. Also, many of these brands like Bud and Coors have done an admirable job building up and engaging their fan bases on other social media like Facebook and MySpace.

Before I wrap up, I wanted to raise the issue of brands following people. Personally, I’m still a little startled when a brand and not a person elects to follow me on Twitter. Some of the beer brands listed above have been aggressive in this area. For example, Epic follows 2109, Edison follows 1997 and Michelob follows 1097. This activity has driven up their follower numbers but in doing so also diminishes the power of their fan base. More impressive are the brands like Goose Island and Breckenridge Brewery who only follow 5 and 53 respectively yet have hundreds of followers.

Bottom line: Twitter is an opportunity for brands to engage with people as if they were people. To do this well requires the brands to behave like real friends not aggressive pitch men. If a brand elects to follow someone, it should have a good reason, a basis for introduction and not drop in out of nowhere like an uninvited guest. Just like people who tweet, brands should avoid becoming a Twitcher or Twitter Whore by maintaining a healthy following to followers ratio. Cheers.

UPDATE 6/15: @coors_light is not run by the folks at Coors so I took it off the list. See comment from the company below. Also, Molson is taking a multi-tweet approach with the following major brand tweeters:

• @MolsonFerg: Molson’s VP of Public Affairs has 2100+ follower.
• @toniahammer: Community relations, PR and social media girl for Molson has 1700+ followers.
• @MolsonMoffat: Manager of Brand & Marketing PR at Molson and member of Molson’s social media team has 800+ followers.

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A few weeks ago I had an interesting conversation with Todd Wasserman of BRANDWEEK about the evolving role of the CMO. Todd’s insightful article appeared this week in both ADWEEK and BRANDWEEK and included a few quotes from yours truly which he interpreted as complaints. Since my thoughts were more observations than laments, I figured I’d post my notes from our conversation:

The CMO has evolved from Chief Miracle Officer to Chief Minutia Officer. The CMO used to be charged with creating a marketing miracle, finding that magical ad campaign that would have a multiplier effect on awareness, excite the trades and ultimately drive sales. If the CMO couldn’t deliver such a campaign either he/she or the agency lost their jobs and replacements were found. Just about every CMO wanted a mass media brand-building campaign like the Aflac Duck or the Geico Gecko.

Then along came Google complete with truly measurable results and tectonic plates of marketing started to shift. Suddenly CMO’s were emboldened to say “I only want to do what produces measurable results” and the super savvy ones had a dashboard with real time information from search clicks to web traffic to online buzz to 800# calls to retail sales. Jim Garrity, the former CMO of Wachovia was on the forefront of this trend, studying all the data points with unrelenting passion. Business Week profiled Garrity back in 2006 and noted he “sounds like a man who never met a data point he didn’t like” and “Garrity and those like him are quietly reworking the advertising mix of the American corporation.”

This new kind of CMO is less interested in the monumental and more in the incremental, seeking a steady diet of singles and doubles over the infrequent but more showy grand slam. This is not necessarily a bad thing either. The more metrics that a client has in place the more likely that an agency can prove that what it does for the client actually works. It also means that the CMO has a better chance of keeping his/her job for more than 24 months. CFO’s are far more likely to increase the budget if the business case is there to justify such an increase. This methodical approach also dovetails nicely with the current “make more out of less” economy.

For the record, I applaud this new kind of CMO since they make sure marketing aligns with sales and the metrics for success are clear from the beginning.  Without these two factors in place, it will take more than a miracle for even the best of agencies to build a successful partnership.

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WAD TXTG is ABT2 B come a P2C2E. B4YKI U-L B a 4NR or ACORN. 4tunitly, LG cre8d a DTXTR. Bcuz this is a P2C2E, c MediaPost (and if you’re curious see translation below):

Parents who are having trouble understanding what their teens are saying to each other via text messages have a new resource for translation. LG Mobile Phones has set up a new Web site, www.LGDTXTR.com, that gives the meaning of more than 2,000 popular text abbreviations, such as MOS (mom over shoulder), PRW (parents are watching) and RUSOS (are you in trouble).

“Teens are constantly creating new ways to communicate, and while texting is not a new phenomenon, the unique shorthand phrases that have been created as a result are growing daily,” stated Ehtisham Rabbani, vice president of product strategy and marketing for LG Mobile Phones, in a statement. “LG DTXTR (detexter) is a tool to keep everyone — young and old — current with the language, and as it grows, it enhances our understanding of what’s important to teenagers.”

Seriously, this is a fun example of Marketing as Service demonstrating that LG both sympathizes with the challenges of parenting and wants to help parents keep up with latest texting lingo. This kind of empathy and support certainly creates an opportunity for engagement that goes well beyond a :30 TV spot.

TRANSLATION OF INTRO: Without a doubt texting is about to become a process too complicated to explain. Before you know it, you will be a foreigner or a completely obsessive really nutty person.

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Late last year I grew a beard, part out of curiosity and part out of solidarity with the down and out. Someone called it a “recession beard” and that suited me fine. Today I shaved that beard. After three days of beautiful weather, I felt I was depriving myself of sunshine, both literally and figuratively.

In a sense, we’ve all been depriving ourselves of the sunshine that comes with optimism, talking about the recession as if it was an inexorable force, a cloud that simply couldn’t be blown away. We’ve bathed in recession-strategies, cynical proclaiming that a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Enough already. As far as I’m concerned this recession is over.

That’s right, you heard it here first: The recession is over. Now go tell someone else. And encourage them to do the same. Think of this as a logarithmic round of “pay it forward.” The more we tell each other that the recession is over, the more we will start to believe it and the more we believe it the more real it will be.

Of course, I have no rational evidence to support this proclamation. In fact, rationality has nothing to do it. What we need now is seismic emotionality. What we need now is a tremor of mini-indulgences and perhaps an earthquake of irrational exuberance. Meet a friend at Starbuck’s and splurge on Venti Caramel Frapuccino with whipped cream just because. It’ll do you both good.

No, I did not suddenly take some happy pills. Consumer sentiment is the fuel that drives our economic engine. When we feel better, we spend. And up until recently, we’ve been reveling in our collective misery, and turning penuriousness into an oh-so-chic art form. Enough is enough. Everything is on sale. Buy something already. Nothing like a little retail therapy to shed this malaise.

Earlier I mentioned that I had no rational evidence that the recession is over. And that is true but there is plenty of evidence that our worst days are behind us. In April, consumer confidence actually “soared past forecasts” according to this Yahoo News article. Investor confidence is also growing as the Dow spends a couple of months over 8,000 and the world markets show significant gains. Add it all together and its time to shave those recession beards and let the sun shine in.

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At The CMO Club Summit this week there were lots of offline conversations around monitoring the online conversations about brands. CMO’s were particularly interested in the tools available to track these conversations. To help me participate in this particularly conversation, our digital director put together this mini-directory of online resources that I figured some of you might find helpful as well:

GENERAL SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING TOOLS

Social Mention aggregates user generated content from the web into a single stream of information. It drills down into these individual category levels: blogs, microblogs, bookmarks, comments, events, images, news, videos, audio, Q&A, and all.

Addict-o-matic instantly creates a custom page with the latest buzz on any social media topic on channels such as Twitter, Friendfeed, YouTube, Google Blog, Wordpress, Digg, and Flickr.

BackType is a conversational search engine. It indexes and connects conversations from blogs, social networks, and other social media so people can find, follow, and share comments.

IceRocket provides real-time blog, Twitter, MySpace, news, and images search engine with trends tracking.

BLOG MONITORING TOOLS

Google Blog Search is Google’s index of blog posts. The advanced search tab allows you to search based on additional criteria.

Trendpedia searches blogs to find out who’s discussing what, where, when and how and displays it via a blog trend chart.

BlogPulse.com is a blog search engine that also analyzes and reports on daily activity in the blogosphere. BlogPulse.com is owned by Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

TWITTER MONITORING TOOLS

Twist shows aggregated data about what people are saying about your brand on Twitter.

TweetGrid creates a Twitter search dashboard that updates in real time.

Summize, a very popular Twitter search tool, was purchased by Twitter last summer so now it’s Twitter’s official search engine.

Twithority lists Twitter search term results by rank and time.

Twitrratr categorizes searched terms into positive, neutral, and negative buckets and assigns percentages to each bucket.

Tweetbeep is like Google Alerts for Twitter. It also has an email service.

Feel free to let me know what we missed or if you think any of these don’t merit further investigation.

ADDENDUM 5/22/09

Eric von Coelln (@evcinnyc) recommends Vitrue Social Media Index and Facebook Lexicon .

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Had an interesting conversation today with fellow guerrilla practitioners in a “teleseminar” hosted by Bulldog Reporter. Other participants included Julian Aldridge of Ammo Marketing, Christian Jurinka of Attack! Marketing and Drew Livingston of FreeCar Media. The moderator did a great job keeping the conversation moving and hopefully the folks listening found it as interesting as I did. Before the call, I prepared some notes that I thought were worth sharing here since most of these didn’t make into the call. Please note that these are pieces of the puzzle and not whole answers since the other members of the panel brought lots of insights to the table.

Define Guerrilla PR
For Renegade, Guerrilla pr is an attitude not a tactic. It is the belief that you can make up for a lack of resources with ingenuity. As such, the possibilities are limitless even if your budgets aren’t. Like all marketing, guerrilla PR needs to be grounded in strategy with a keen understanding of your target. Once you know thy target, then ask yourself, what can you DO for them NOT what can you say to them. We call this approach Marketing as Service. Samsung figured out they could help road warriors by putting charging stations into airports. This service spoke volumes about Samsung and offered proof positive of their commitment to helping the mobile professional. KFC recently started filling potholes as a service to its customers who had to drive to their stores over bumpy roads. A Colonel Sanders look-alike did the repair work and spray painted KFC logos on the fixed potholes ensuring that the brand got lots of exposure for their efforts. Every company big or small can do something for its customers—the trick is to find something to do that is also newsworthy.

Some Emerging Categories to Consider in Non-Traditional PR Programs
There is definitely a rush by marketers to capitalize on the iPhone app craze. Zippo has enjoyed tremendous success with its virtual lighter (that you can blow on to affect the flame) and is currently the #1 downloaded app in the lifestyle segment. Kraft created the iFood Assistant which for $.99 puts 7,000 recipes at your fingertips. Consumers don’t mind paying the cost of one song if the app delivers real value. But this is definitely a category in which the early bird catches the worm. With over 25,000 apps already out for iPhones, you better make sure you have a fresh, fun and simple idea for another one.

Guidelines When Planning Guerrilla PR
Obviously knowing your target is critical to any successful marketing effort, guerrilla or otherwise. For guerrilla, it is particular helpful to understand the pain points of the target on both a general (lifestyle) and a specific (product category) basis. Knowing this will help identify things you can do for the target rather than just what to say to them. For example, we knew that New Yorkers have a love hate relationship with taxis, they love the convenience but hate to pay for them. So for HSBC customers, we created the HSBC BankCab which gives free rides all over Manhattan. HSBC customers simply can’t believe its free and feel like they’ve won the lottery and end up telling at least five friends about it after every ride.

Guerrilla PR Makes News When You Don’t Have It
Ideally, if you have some real news about your product or service, then it will be a lot easier to spread the word. If you product is better, faster, cheaper or ideally, a combination of the three, then the press will want to talk to you. If not, then you need to use marketing to create the news. And if what you are planning to do isn’t newsworthy, I would reconsider. If its not newsworthy, don’t’ bother. To make sure the press noticed the HSBC BankCab, we launched with a “search for the most knowledgeable cab driver in NY” that generated over 20 million PR impressions.

Low-Cost PR Tactics

Facebook can be very low cost and very effective for the right brands. Renegade recently created a social media program for Toasted Head Wine. Since no wine brand had gained more than 1000 friends there was a lot of question about this being the right place. But our research suggested that TH had a passionate yet down to earth following that just might enjoy engaging with the brand and other fans. Positioned as brand that can “fire things up,” our goal was to fire up Facebook providing provocative conversation starters like “its 60 minutes before the bachelor party and the stripper just canceled, now what?” The answers were hilarious and a real stripper chimed in defending the professionalism of her peers. We also used applications like Social Calendar to encourage Toasted Head fans to share their love which they did. In the first four weeks of the program, Toasted Head has picked up 3300 fans. Better yet, these fan are highly engaged, joining the conversation with “Barry the Wine guy” and leaving a steady stream of comments about their favorite variety of Toasted Head.

Twitter is another low cost option. Despite all the hype about Twitter, there is one really profound reason to use this channel and that is the role role Twitter can play in crisis management. Domino’s used Twitter and other social media to fight back when a couple of employees filmed themselves sticking cheese up there nose and then putting it on a pizza.

Real-World Tips for Incorporating Guerrilla Tactics and Techniques into Traditional Programs

As I mentioned earlier, it really helps to have a deep understanding of your target. When we developed the “Hell Cuts” program (see video) for Ubisoft’s Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway game, we were fairly confident that our hard core gamer target would do just about anything to get a free copy of this game. Sure enough, it took no persuading at all to get 157 “recruits” to have the head’s shaved and the word Hell spray painted on top. Seven of the recruits were reporters and the resulting PR coverage was extraordinary. And while this was a stunt, it related directly back to the product, a highly realistic WWII action game which required players to recruit a squadron to take on the Germans. And of course, no soldier entered the service without getting a buzz cut first.

Common Traps When Venturing into Non-Traditional Outreach
• Don’t bother with the Protest thing. Its been done a zillion times and its fake.
• Don’t bother with stunts that have nothing to do with the brand or the story your trying to tell. You can always get attention by putting a gorilla in a jock strap but unless your selling jock straps, monkey suits or bananas, find another idea to get attention you so crave.

Measurement and ROI Tips: How to Track and Show Value for Non-Traditional PR Efforts
Net Promoter Score—one simple yet instructive measure to consider is Net Promoter Score or NPS. Developed by Bain consultant Fred Reicheld who determined that customer likelihood to recommend a product/service to a friend is the single biggest factor in determining a brands success. To measure your NPS, ask your customers “on a scale of 0 to 10, how likely they would be to recommend your product to a friend.” You then add up the 9-10s and subtract them from the 0-6’s and you have a net promoter score. We use this on pre/post basis for all our programs.

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Event Marketer ran an interesting article on the importance of using research to increase the effectiveness of experiential marketing programs. The article includes some great quotes from Renegade client, Tom Hantson who talked about some research we conducted while activating Panasonic’s sponsorship of the AST Dew Tour. The following provides some additional thoughts on the subject of research at events.

Pre/Post Surveys are Mandatory

Because event marketing is “live theater,” you need to monitor impact from get the go and adjust accordingly. For 95% of the events we execute, we run pre/post experience surveys with typically under 10 questions and always including Net Promoter Score. We use Net Promoter Score to provide benchmarks from event to event and also because it is the simplest measure of potential word-of-mouth. For Panasonic which was a four-year sponsor of the AST Dew Tour, our pre/post surveys were particularly helpful. We were able to make subtle adjustments to the experience after each stop (it ran in 5 markets each year) based on the input we received from the consumer. We also made adjustments from year-to-year based on the feedback and reactions to various program elements.

For example, 2 years ago, we signed skateboarding phenom Ryan Sheckler to do appearances for Panasonic headphones at their booth and retailers. Unfortunately, the number of fans that wanted Ryan’s autograph were far greater than we could accommodate and some expressed their disappointment. We made a couple of adjustments at the next event that helped. First, we began to offer 50 VIP guarantees to anyone who purchased Panasonic headphones. Second, we added a brand ambassador to take photos for the fans to speed up the process allowing us to accommodate another 25-50 people per signing. Third, we created a couple of life-size cut-outs of Ryan that everyone could stand next too and thus get a photo with Ryan! Since we had digital cameras and printers handy, we were also able to give the consumer a positive experience even if they didn’t mean the phenom himself.

We have found that the most important thing when surveying is the speed from start to finish. As such, we have found that asking no more than 10 questions and filling out the forms with the consumers, increases both the accuracy and the timeliness of the responses. Ironically, after trying self-administered computer surveys, we went back to old fashioned clipboards. The consumer experience is better and faster and arguably the results are more accurate since the consumer tends to blow through the PC tests like they’re a joke. We are typically looking to gather 100 pre-event surveys and 100 post-event surveys per location which is sufficient to be statistically significant but not so many to make hand tabulation overwhelming.

Track Online Comments From the Beginning

It is also imperative to track blog comments. This was very much the case for the Ubisoft Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway “Hell Cuts” promotion which received comments on over 30 gaming blogs. Since all the feedback was extraordinarily positive from the opening minutes of the show, we didn’t have to make any program adjustments.

Make Adjustments to Your Experience Based on Experience

Another important aspect of measurement is less quantitative but no less important and that is having a feel for the pulse of the crowd at live events. If your experience is fun but the consumer is not getting into it, then adjustments need to be made then and there. Sometimes this means upping the volume on the music, getting your MC to spice things up with competitive giveaways or changing the way the crowd winds around the exhibit. In some cases, it can even mean replacing brand ambassadors who simply don’t have the spunk needed to create a memorable experience. It is amazing what consumers will do just for a free t-shirt so there is always something you can do to crank up the crowd.

We always budget for a senior partner at Renegade to attend the first stop on a mobile tour or a traveling trade show experience. If you have been doing this a while, then you know how to get valuable qualitative feedback from the consumer right away and make any needed adjustments within the first 24 hours. Sometimes this means working with the sales force to help them sort out the tire kickers from the real prospects. Sometimes this mean increasing the frequency of the “live show.” Sometimes this means removing a component that is bogging things down. The key thing is to make sure that everyone on the team knows that continuous improvement is not only possible but also mandatory for a successful tour.

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A few months back I had a long conversation with the editor of Event Marketer on the subject of random acts of kindness. Their story on this topic ran in the April issue and featured Renegade’s long-running HSBC BankCab program. With Absolut Vodka promoting random acts of “Absolut Kindness” around London (as reported by PSFK), I figured it would be worth sharing the notes from my call with Event Marketer:

One could argue that it is more important than ever for companies and brands to show their good side. With Wall St. crumbling, Main Street welcomes every act of kindness regardless of the source. That said, like everything in marketing, some acts work better than others. In 2007, there was spurt of Random Acts including random visits from 76ers in Philly to “Pass the Cheer” ecards from Starbucks to “Be Hospitable” acts from Hilton. Arguably, none of these provided any lasting value for the brands. And there’s the rub. If they are truly random and just a brief moment in time, the consumer quickly forgets. For random acts to work, they need to be consistently delivered and of course, quickly become the opposite of random.

Marketers who embrace “random acts” do so at their own risk. The fundamental premise of “random acts of kindness” is to do something to make another feel good while expecting absolutely nothing in return, not even gratitude. Marketing by definition is about ROI, building brand preference, sales and repeat purchase. Thus random acts that are truly random and unbranded have limited impact on the brand and those acts of kindness that are well branded are simply not considered random. So the key here is not to worry about the random and focus on the kindness. That is the very notion behind Marketing as Service. I would argue that Samsung’s charging stations in airports are as a welcome act of kindness as any offered by any marketer.

The bottom line is that consistency carries the day. Random acts might generate a quick PR hit but everyday acts of service in one form or another will actually attract and maintain paying customers.

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Providing free rides is not exactly a new idea even in the alcoholic beverage arena–Captain Morgan’s has been helping out party goers for a couple of years in select markets. So MillerLite’s decision to support the Kentucky Derby with free rides is hardly big news:

Thank you for visiting the Miller Lite Free Rides™ web site. The Miller Lite Free Rides program is a collaborative effort between transit systems, community organizations, law enforcement agencies, civic organizations and others to help keep our streets safe and prevent drunk driving on major holidays and throughout the year.

Take advantage of a safe transportation alternative during your Derby Eve celebration on May 1st. Miller Lite Free Rides will provide evening service to many popular destinations, including the Derby Eve Jam concert on the waterfront, restaurants, bars, local family events and neighborhood celebrations.

So why then am I writing about it? Well, simply as a reminder that Marketing as Service requires just as much consistency, commitment and creativity as other marketing approaches in order to cut through.  A one-day free ride program is hardly a sincere commitment to public safety.  Because free rides have been done so often they can’t really expect much PR or points for creativity.  I’m not saying Miller is wrong for doing this just that they should be careful not to offer it up as a meaningful pro-social activity.  Now if this is the beginning of year-long program to offer free rides at major sporting events then let me know and I’ll buy a couple of six packs and toast to their health (at home, safe, far from a car!)

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Last week, I sent out the following tweet:

Thinking of going to NYC auto show just to observe scaled back mktg. If u have been let me know must sees.

Within five minutes, I had a strange new follower which I revealed in this tweet:

Feeling a bit like Cat Stevens… I’m being followed by @VolvoXC60 . How weird is that?

A couple of minutes later, this direct tweet arrived:

@dneisser We think the Volvo XC60 is worth seeing. We’re running demos of its City Safety feature outside the Javits @ 11th & 37th for free!

So, of course, I did end up checking out the Volvo XC60 (see photo ) and followed with interest how Volvo was using Twitter to engage prospective customers. Turns out there was a lot more to their twittering efforts as report by Adweek:

Volvo is promoting the Twitter feed for the 2010 Volvo XC60 crossover vehicle through the biggest ad placement YouTube has run to date.

Volvo shop Euro RSCG created the rich media ad, which stretches across the YouTube home page today. It shows the XC60 auto-brake “city safety” capability, then gives users the option of seeing videos, photos or playing a game from within the unit. The banner also includes a live feed of Volvo XC60 Twitter updates from the New York auto show.

All in all, this seems like a smart use of social media to cut through the general malaise surrounding the Auto Show. Though I’m not really interested in talking to a car on Twitter any more than I want to watch reruns of “My Mother the Car,” Volvo was actually trying to provide me a service on a several levels. First, they had some news about a new car model. Then they wanted to engage me via a physical demonstration. Then they were prepared to educate me via videos and finally, they were prepared to entertain me with an online game. All this just for little old me, perhaps the bulls eye of their target audience, a middle aged married white guy with two kids, a dog and a cat all worth protecting via a safer ride. If only I didn’t have another 18 months on my Civic lease!

NOTE: The auto show itself was modest in all respects. The Detroit automakers were falling all over each other trying to out “un-extravagant” the other, canceling press conferences, eliminating glitzy displays and talking up value. Booth babes were in slim supply as if one more might have been considered a misappropriation of government funds. So what you had left was just the sheet metal and the throngs of tire kickers. No wonder a tweet from a Volvo was big news!

ADDENDUM: Got another Tweet from VOLVO this week:

That was a nice blog post you wrote. If you want to include it, we’ve archived the YouTube banner here: http://bit.ly/sPao9

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To earn a return on your cause marketing efforts, you must spread the word. It helps you and it helps the cause. It’s not a case of bragging. If you do good — share it. No one expects marketers to be shy — good corporate citizens maybe, but not self-effacing saints.

Earlier this year, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes used the Super Bowl to tell their cause marketing story, which is about as big a stage as one can find, featuring a TV spot for its “Earn Your Stripes” campaign.

The Earn Your Stripes campaign, first launched in 2004, according the website, “Aims to inspire kids to work hard, eat right and believe in themselves in order to achieve their goals and “be their very best” on and off the playing field.” The “Plant a Seed” spot which aired on the Superbowl, provides a warm-hearted look at how athletics help kids grow both physically and emotionally, thus rationalizing its effort to renovate playing fields. At the end of the spot, Kellogg’s invites viewers to nominate local playing fields for renovation at FrostedFlakes.com.

On this site, visitors are encouraged to “earn your stripes” by taking these four steps:
• PLANT A SEED. Nominate a field in your community.
• NURTURE IT. Show support for fields across the country.
• HELP IT GROW. Create your own seed packs and spread the word.
• STAY INVOLVED. BECOME A “plant a seed” SUPPORTER.

According to a spokesperson for Kellogg, “[they] are fully committed to supporting programs that encourage kids to be active and that have a positive impact in [their] communities.”

Kelloggs.com & Frosted Flakes enjoyed a substantial boost in traffic to its websites immediately after the Super Bowl. As you can see from this chart courtesy of Alexa.com, traffic tripled and continued to be strong long after the Super Bowl. In the three months since, an amazing 3,184 fields have been nominated.

Visitors are encouraged to email their friends about the contest, and since Frosted Flakes allows the consumer to vote on the nominees to select the 100 semi-finalists, there is a strong viral effect to this campaign. Kellogg’s also supported this effort with a major search buy to help steer interested parties to the Frosted Flakes site.

Because Kelloggs shared their story offline and online, they have ensured that a broad swath of consumers were made aware of the Frosted Flakes “Plant a Seed” program and had an opportunity to participate. Now that’s grrrreat.

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I recently completed a brilliant (says me) speech on Cause Marketing that was recorded for release later this year. In the course of my research, I found a number examples of cause marketing that are worth sharing in bite sized blog chunks.

Brita has found a highly relevant cause with its Filter for Good program. While transparently self-serving, this program promotes the environmentally friendly case against drinking bottled water. The Filter For Good.com website encourages consumers to “pledge” to drink less bottled water, noting that one Brita pitcher filter can effectively replace as many as 300 standard 16.9-ounce bottles.  (Feel free to take “the pledge” like I did–it’s a quick and does make you think about buying less bottled water.)

On the site you can find out about all the layers of the program, including the recent Brita Climate Ride and The College FilterForGood Eco-Challenge, that solicited eco-friendly ideas from universities and from which Brita was so overwhelmed by good proposals that they elected to fund 5 of them.   The relevance of this effort is irrefutable, providing Brita a pure and simple way to do well by doing good

This example shows how Marketing for Good and Marketing as Service can overlap, as the cause is the service. From where I sit, its all good.

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I’m not sure how America at large will feel about being weighed at bus stops, but I think it definitely tips the scales as a not so heavy example of Marketing as Service. Here’s what the folks at Cool Hunter had to say about it:

No more living in denial about the size of your waist line, thanks to this fantastic albeit terrifying guerrilla marketing initiative from the health club chain, Fitness First. Unsuspecting commuters in the Netherlands are faced with viewing their body weight in bright lights - quite literally - when they take a seat at this Rotterdam bus stop. Scary to say the very least, but extraordinarily clever and likely to increase membership numbers at the local Fitness First. The brainchild of Netherlands’ agency N=5, the initiative takes the concept of guerrilla marketing to a whole new level.

Assuming the news about one’s weight is not always welcome, it will be interesting to see how the Dutch weigh in on this one. Guess we’ll have to weight and see.

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Another example of Marketing as Service is rolling out in Motown this weekend as Captain Morgan does his best to make sure Final Four revelers don’t end up falling off the plank. Gawker described the annoucement as the “best press release ever.” Here’s what fellow Renegade Steph Isaacs reported about the program:

In an effort to curtail people from getting in their cars after celebrating in the host city of the Final Four this weekend, Captain Morgan will be offering The Captain’s Caravan as March Madness takes over the city of Detroit. The Caravan will be there to make sure that those in the area for the big event are staying safe while having a good time. While in Motor City The Captain’s Morganettes will offer free shuttle service dropping off adult consumers at hotels in the downtown area. The Captain’s Caravan includes two 20-passenger shuttles and one 56-passenger bus that will be available from 2:00PM to Midnight, April 3rd, 4th and 5th. Marketing As Service disguised as an escort service, or vice versa?!

This is certainly not the first time The Captain has mixed in a “drink responsibly” service into its overall campaign. Last year, they ran a “Don’t Go Overboard” sweepstakes in Canada (grand prize was pizza and taxi service for a year) and offered a late night shuttle service in a few markets in the US. They also aired the commercial below which features two “happy” gents finagling a ride home with a pizza delivery guy.

With all these efforts, The Captain is certainly driving home their commitment to responsible partying and performing a genuine service to those who might otherwise forget to do so.

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Last year, Starwood orchestrated a search for a Chief Beer Officer, providing a wonderful example of PR-generating Marketing as Service. Here’s a drop about this story as report by NPR:

Scott Kerkmans recently bested nearly 8,000 applicants hoping to be chief beer officer for a national hotel chain.

You read that right. It’s an actual job. The Four Points by Sheraton hotels chain created the position because it wants to market so-called craft beers as one of its specialties

Recently, Starwood renewed Scott’s contract which calls for him to blog weekly about beer, help various Four Points hotels with their craft beer selections and to educate Four Points’ guests about beer. Scott is an affable guy and especially good at matching beer with food. One of the ideas he brought to the table was a “flight of beers” which allows guests to try four craft beers at a time. Now that’s what I call pouring it on.

Kudos to Starwood for finding Scott and adding this service to their marketing mix.  I suspect beer fans, and there are a lot of us out there, will drink this one up.

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