social media

Facebook’s Meta transition. A mashup that proves hardware is the new tech.

Nader AshwayLeave a comment

Late last month, noted CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook is changing its name to Meta, and changing its official stock ticker from FB to MVRS.  The name Meta is a shorthand for the metaverse, which is itself shorthand for an almost fully immersed online world, where people can play, work, and gather in groups in the virtual sense. Zuckerberg is betting big on building it, even though it’s been tried before. (More on that in a bit.)

That this massive shift away from one of the world’s most recognizable brand names comes amid a slew of scandals is indeed curious.  But let’s leave all the political soundbites and sexy headlines aside for the moment.  This is not about the Facebook Papers, nor about Russian disinformation, nor about Cambridge Analytica, or data collection, or facial recognition…man, they do have a lot of shit swirling around the campus out there, don’t they?

Nah, this smells like a big bet hardware play, plain and simple.

This whole Meta rename is nothing more than a cosmetic corporate restructuring that will now control Facebook and its other well-known brands, including Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Oculus.  A lot like when Google changed their name to Alphabet, and rolled up all their brands, including Google itself, under the holding company.  (PS – only investors care about this stuff, and THEY still call it Google. And the stock ticker for the company known as Alphabet is…GOOGL.)

So why isn’t Zuckerberg saying that?

I have an idea. Maybe it’s because the metaverse isn’t a great idea.  Or, rather, maybe it isn’t a great idea to shelter it under the enormous loads of cash that the artist formerly known as Facebook has at its disposal.  It’s been widely reported that the year one budget is over $10 billion, and that 10,000 people, mostly in hardware, will be recruited to make it go.

When any entrepreneur wants to launch a new idea, especially a broad and ambitious one like the metaverse Zuckerberg envisions, it’s good practice to prove it can actually accomplish something on its own merits.  It’s a good practice to seek capital from investors and show milestones that prove the concept.  In the absence of that kind of oversight and objective grownups in the room that business incubator model provides, it’s just another lavish vanity project.  The Metaverse is to Zuckerberg what space is to Bezos, Musk and Branson: a vast unknown that he hopes to monetize.

And let’s remember two important things about Meta’s metaverse:
First, the road to the metaverse was paved by Second Life way back in 2003, a full year before Mark Zuckerberg’s “hot or not” turned into “thefacebook.” It is a metaverse full of avatars and provides an almost identical experience to what Zuckerberg envisions: an interesting alternative online environment, where you can have virtual meetings and other whatnots.  (Kinda mostly trying to ply a virtual shopping mall, though.)

Second, and far more interesting: Meta’s virtual world will require, not suggest, that you purchase some very real and very significant pieces of hardware to access it. Oculus VR goggles are currently retailing at around $300, and may not have the full range of capabilities to access what will eventually become the Meta metaverse. It’s a long way to go to sell a bunch of accessories, but it sure sounds like a hot hardware play, doesn’t it? Build the metaverse, get a lot of good press, then tell those who can afford it that the only way to get on board is to buy some rechargeable VR binoculars, now available in six avatar-worthy colors!  All of this is coming right on the heels of Facebook (can we still call it that?) inking a deal with Ray-Ban to sell some fancy Smart Wayfarers that take photographs and play tunes, also for about $300.

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Zuckerberg was trying to emulate Steve Jobs in some way. After all, Apple’s most successful product was/is the iPhone, not the Macintosh, its former flagship. It required the purchase of a significant piece of hardware. It was an ambitious project and came decades after the company launched. And Jobs didn’t just have the phone developed with a base OS and software.  He outsourced the smartphone “experience” to third party developers via the app ecosystem so every user could customize their device to their liking and have a uniquely personal interaction with it. It’s what ignited the phone’s insanely fast global adoption, and may be a route that Zuckerberg is similarly exploring.  The metaverse will require the purchase of significant hardware.  It, too, is an ambitious project that will launch decades after the Facebook flagship. Let’s all pay attention over the next couple of years and take notice when third-party developers – under a watchful eye and strict guidelines, of course – are invited to curate and broaden the metaverse experience in various ways, like shopping, gaming, utilities, fitness, and others.

Other tech CEOs have also profited marvelously in various ways on and off the Internet, and have pivoted to hardware in the process. Brin and Page monetized consumer intent with paid search advertising. Then they sold us Pixel phones and Google Home and acquired Nest for broader reach with devices. (And they’re betting big on Waymo.) Musk made his money online with PayPal when it sold to EBay, then monetized major hardware with Tesla electric cars. Bezos is a retailer and monetizes markup. He also likes hardware – Kindle and Echo both do just fine, thank you very much. With Meta, Zuckerberg seeks to do all of the above, just in the opposite order. He’ll first sell hardware to access the metaverse. Then he’ll sell advertising (likely highly contextualized) with a new model that combines search history, affinity, and basic demographics to a mostly Gen Z audience. He’ll build in some exchange system (maybe crypto-based) in the metaverse that costs real offline dollars. And he’ll most definitely build some kind of online shopping component.

So…what color would you prefer for your new goggles?

How to get control of your brand. Now.

Nader AshwayLeave a comment

It’s tough for brands these days. All the competition. All the change. And all that damn marketing! And perhaps most difficult is getting consumers to know you, then like you, and finally, to trust you.

Brands – and I’m talking about brands of all sizes, really – invest a lot of money in so many areas – it might be research and development, or operations, offices, showrooms or retail stores, or even the “perfect” ingredients for their recipes. These are all things that are relatively controllable for the brand.

But once they’re born, brands are basically out of control. Because, ultimately, consumers decide if the brand is good or bad, cool or “over,” worth the money or not. And in the age of social media, the lack of control can really get scary.

Consider the recent tweet by the then-President-elect Donald Trump:

trump_tweet

On the surface, it sounds like another one of the Donald’s weirdly-supportive and overly generalized ramblings. But there’s something really telling about this. The account of @realDonaldTrump has about 22 million followers. That’s a really lot. All of whom now have this “advice” about supporting and patronizing L.L. Bean.

We’ll stay out of the politics of this exchange, and whether or not it’s ethical for a candidate to receive a donation from an individual, and then use his massive influence to issue a sales pitch for her company after winning. Because eeeewww.

But what happens if that brand DOESN’T WANT that endorsement?

After the tweet, a group called Grab Your Wallet added L.L. Bean to a boycott list of any companies associated with Donald Trump. What if thousands, or even millions of L.L. Bean consumers got wind of that and decided to protest the man by dropping the brand? That has real consequences for the brand – especially if it’s publicly traded.  L.L. Bean quickly issued a statement on their Facebook page (that reaches just slightly over 750,000 followers – see the disparity there?) distancing themselves from alignment with any candidate and asking Grab Your Wallet to reconsider their position. [They haven’t.]

And if you’re a brand that’s invested time, and money, and millions of dollars and hired people all over the country and have supply chains in place and employees who count on your continued success for their livelihoods, it’s a little disconcerting to know that equity can all disappear – or at least be seriously compromised – with 140 characters or less. In this hyper-polarized age, it’s certainly possible that bonds are being formed and broken in more and more capricious circumstances.

So what’s a brand to do?

Well, it’s simple. Advertise.

While there are many ways to develop and grow a brand, advertising remains the most direct route to establishing your own position, and forwarding your point of view.

So, if you’re an apparel company, and someone does or says something terrible while wearing your clothing, advertise. If you’re a food brand that gets protested by a fringe group who claims you’re not environmentally responsible enough, advertise. If you’re a retailer and you’re losing share because some influencer tells millions of followers that she overpaid for your wares, advertise.

At the very least, you’ll have had your say. You’ll have run commercials and ads and said to the world: “this is what we stand for.” “This is who we stand for.” “This is who we are.” Otherwise, you might get hijacked by someone’s wayward ramblings…even if they may have had good intentions in the process.

CNN and its gentle social approach

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As the events of the horrific June 12th mass shooting in Orlando unfolded, news outlets around the country shifted their attention and coverage accordingly. CNN was covering it non-stop, from initial reports, through law enforcement and elected official press conferences and on to background information that emerged in the hours and days that followed.

But now, as the investigation continues and other stories begin to grab attention, CNN is using its social platforms – Twitter in particular – to continue coverage in a new and interesting way.

CNN’s Twitter feed is now featuring vignette Tweets about EACH deceased victim. Each tweet is designed and presented differently so that it stands out in the feed and features the name, age, a photo when available, and a short background of the person.

cnn_twitter

It’s a considerate and fitting tribute to what would have otherwise been a personality-less list of death. Instead, CNN is focusing on attributes of the victim’s personality, or sharing a brief description of what that person was up to in his or her life.

CNN has taken heart-wrenching news coverage, packaged it for social media, and has maintained what appears to be a healthy respect for the deceased. In the process, they’ve done more to add to the story of those people’s lives beyond where they were the night they were senselessly shot by a madman.

In the category of “I really like and respect this approach,” I think CNN has provided an object lesson for how a media enterprise can comport itself at the intersection of journalism and social media. Well done, CNN.

Rainbow-colored Research

Nader Ashway2 Comments

fb_pride_pic_maker

So, were you one of the millions who “rainbowed” your profile pic on Facebook to show your support following the SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage? I was, and quite happily. Then the Atlantic ran this story,  speculating that perhaps Facebook was conducting some far-reaching “experiment” on its users. It also speculates (in the subtext, of course,) that Facebook has likely done this before, and leads readers to surmise that the company may even be actively doing it for pay.

Facebook has never made any claims that it is NOT collecting your data, even on a random Wednesday. In their data policy, which you can find at  https://www.facebook.com/policy.php,  they clearly state – in a jillion different ways:

“we collect the content and other information you provide when you use our Services”

and

“we collect information about how you use our Services”

and

“we collect content and information that other people provide…about you”

and

“we collect information about the people and groups your are connected to”

and

“if you use our Services for purchases of financial transactions…we collect information about the purchase or transaction.”

Now, it’s likely that out of the billion or so users on Facebook, approximately 23 of us have probably read the privacy policy in its entirety. (Busted!) In a previous post on this blog,  I’ve asked about why consumers are so busted up about online tracking, when it makes our lives so much better, and more streamlined. As I said then, tailoring makes our lives better. Cookies make our lives (and our online experiences) better.

If we boil this down to its essence, we’d likely see that the average or typical social media participant is more than okay with the idea that their information and online activity are being tracked in an effort to achieve various ends, like a cooler/faster/more contextual social media experience, or more targeted advertising, or even for social studies. And although we don’t typically read the privacy policy, we’re probably pretty much okay with it, as long as you don’t snag my credit card and go buy $800 worth of frozen pizzas at Wal-Mart.

And so what if Facebook WAS conducting some big-data test with the pride-your-profile-pic exercise? Big woop.  It’s astounding that, in an age where we share more personal information than ever, that we’ve become so hyper-sensitized to that information maybe kinda sorta being “used” for some purposes other than my Grandma Susie seeing my latest motocross bike race. (It was kind of badass, by the way.)

Whether we like it or not, we’re slowly but surely crossing the threshold from web 2.0 to (the social web) to web 3.0 (the predictive web) as a result of all this data tracking that’s going on. It, too, will ultimately make our lives better in ways we probably can’t even imagine right now.

So let’s do a snap poll – provide a simple YES or NO answer in the comments section below (and of course, any comments you care to share are more than welcome):

Are you okay with social media corporations like Facebook and Twitter monitoring your online activity to make assumptions or test hypotheses, whether they be theoretical or commercial in nature?

I’ll start. YES!

Now That’s Punny!

Nader Ashway2 Comments

If you love advertising, you probably love good writing. Because, after all (with all due respect to the wonderful art directors and designers out there,) the creative side of advertising is, ultimately, a writer’s business.

If you are a fan of advertising history, as I am, you’ll know that, in the early days, clients went to ad agencies for one thing: superior writing. This was, of course, in the age before television, (when eye candy became the commodity of promotion.) But for more than 50 years, newspaper, magazine and radio – and the writers who developed all that copy – ruled the ad world.

In today’s more outsized, outpaced, hypertargeted marketing world, the ad agent has a much more robust toolset. Beyond words, there are pictures, video, and moving pixels virtually everywhere.   (See what I did there?) But if you want to reach consumers, it’s still a few well-orchestrated words that people will ultimately remember.

These days, it seems we’re writing for a different reason. It’s not so much for memorability as much as it is for virality. I would surmise that social media has pervaded the creative process so much that creative teams in agencies large and small sit in meetings and think less “how can we connect to consumers?” and more “what do you think will get shared?”

Let’s look at a few ads that are playing with words, using a sort of snarky pun game to gain some attention.

Sheets Energy Strips started their brand off with some word play in 2011. “I’ve taken a Sheet right in the cockpit.” Just what you want to hear from your pilot, eh?

 

Kmart sought to re-establish itself as a more current brand with some pun humor on their famous “ship my pants” spot from 2013. And whether or not you like this kind of humor, you might actually shit your pants when you hear that it has more than 21 million views on YouTube.

 

Verizon is out with a new campaign (and a corresponding hashtag, I might add) featuring the ever-so-homophonic “half-fast” meme for its Internet products with a “Speed Match” guarantee. Here’s a holiday spot:

 

If you look closely at the examples above, you’ll see an evolution of the form. Sheets simply did a play on words for the sake of it. But there was no real value to the consumer. (There WAS a value to the brand, in that the meme was a good way for consumers to remember the brand name.)

Kmart did a better marketing job, in that they had the fun, and at least communicated an important feature: that you can shop online at Kmart.com, and that they would ship your pants, or your drawers, or your bed. For FREE.

But Verizon seems to be going a step further, and trying to tie in a benefit. Or at least a negatively associated benefit. By playing on the half-fast theme, they’re communicating the important feature of upload speed that matches download speed. (And taking a shot a the “cable connection” competitors who don’t deliver matching speed.) But with the meme, they’re highlighting all the things that you CAN’T do with half-fast connections, like “I’ll be half fast when I’m sharing my photos,” and “I’ll be half fast updating my blog.” And although they’re negatively associated, those are still functional benefits, and they go a lot further with consumers.

Which is why it strikes me that more campaigns aren’t harnessing the power of language to its fullest potential. I see a lot of great work out there – meaning great ideas – but we rarely see a willingness to play with language the way we once did. Where’s the “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” or the “Leggo my Egg’o” lines for breakfast foods? Where’s the “Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz?” And heck “Where’s the Beef?”

If you’re going to go for some fun with your next ad, have at it. But note the conventions and craft it to take it up the ladder and deliver some actual value – like a benefit – to the consumer while you have your pun and eat it too…or something like that.