I’ve been thinking about the iPad backlash and decided it isn’t because the device is subpar. Instead, the device is disappointing to many. When I ask myself why, I see a rare but significant problem for Apple: the Curse of Brand. It’s a syndrome that occurs when the expectations of a brand are so precise (and high) that it can only appease them in a very specific way. I thought of other brands that have suffered from the Curse of Brand and realized the same could be said of Muhammad Ali. In fact, looking at these two brands side by side, I’ve concluded Jobs strategically navigated this curse, while Ali did not.

Apple and Muhammad Ali are two of the most prolific brands in history. One is arguably the technology company with the most passionate following and the other was once the most famous athlete (if not man) in the world. Both dealt with the Curse of Brand. Apple did so with the launch of its iPad and Ali in his rivalry with Joe Frazier.

From 1967 to 1971 Ali was an undefeated boxer who was suspended from his sport because of his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War. During that period, Joe Frazier rose to prominence as the undefeated heavyweight champion. However, without having the opportunity to fight Ali, his title was marred by a cultural “asterisk.” Ali and Frazier eventually went on to fight three different times, Ali winning two.

What many people don’t know is that Ali and Frazier actually had a relationship prior to their first fight (Ali was reinstated, in part due to Frazier’s efforts on his behalf). The two considered themselves friends and, according to Frazier, he even loaned Ali money during his suspension. This is shocking for most people who only know the relationship as one of the bitterest rivalries in sports history. (Frazier in a recent documentary takes subtle credit for Ali’s Parkinson’s disease and coldly states that God gave Ali what he deserved).

How did this relationship end up here? Ali was consumed by the Curse of Brand. He was re-entering a sport he once dominated and was known for his provocative, charismatic shenanigans. The poetry with which he insulted rivals and rattled opponents was the calling card of this man who’d been out of the sport’s spotlight for years. So, what did Ali do upon his return? He attacked Frazier verbally with barbs that struck a deep chord (understandably, as he called Frazier everything from “gorilla” to “Uncle Tom” at a time when race relations in the U.S. were the tensest in history). He gave the crowd exactly what they wanted. The press ate up the sound bites, replaying them incessantly. His fan base and influence grew before each Frazier fight (there were three). Yet, Ali had acted in ways he later regretted. Not too publicly of course—it was Ali after all. But he did apologize to Frazier (indirectly) after the final epic fight and retracted comments he made in various pockets for years to come. He made bad decisions (by his own value system) because he believed he had to live up to a certain set of expectations.

Looking at the reaction to the iPad these last 2 weeks, it accomplished the opposite of any Ali press event. I was stunned that such a significant launch could elicit a reaction I can only summarize as a universal “meh” (a feeling Denuologist Caroline will fight for until her dying day). How could a brand viewed by many as incapable of doing wrong ever leave so many people shrugging? Apple’s pre-announcement hype was nothing short of frenzy. And understandably so. When Apple released the iPhone and Macbook Air, both devices extracted a global cooing sound from consumers. The iPad certainly did not. But it might have if it wasn’t an Apple product.

The iPad is an unprecedented device in terms of usage. It falls between phone and laptop, a rapidly growing space. Yet, because it’s a technology region between two existing, familiar points, people were left disappointed. So, the usage is new, but the device doesn’t feel new. Isn’t it just a big iPhone? Or just a cooler netbook?

Once again, it’s the Curse of Brand. If Apple is known for innovation and unprecedented design (see Apple’s brandtags here), this particular device actually suffered from the pre-launch buzz. It was innovative consumer usage, not innovative tech or design. Thus, expectations were inadvertently set by the brand long ago that the product couldn’t (and dare I say shouldn’t) deliver.

Which is exactly why I give Apple kudos. Time will tell, but I’m betting the iPad will be a success. It uniquely fits in a usage gap that only netbooks could feasibly occupy, and I just don’t think cloud technology has enough appeal to consumers yet (not to mention the hardware limitations as entertainment devices). Apple knew the expectations of its brand and still built a product many people don’t yet know they want. Think about it: the same could have been said of the iPod. The iPad is a highly strategic decision that deftly avoided the much bigger trap of succumbing to the pressure of its brand.

When I hear Jobs’ vision for the iPad, I see a man that isn’t letting the brand decide anything for him. His vision for the future is the core decision engine. That takes courage and a strong will in the face of detractors, two traits most people would attribute to Ali. However, Jobs applied these traits to challenge the Curse of Brand. Ali certainly did not. He left with a heavyweight title, but long-term regret about his decisions. I don’t think Jobs will have many regrets at all. In fact, I think he’ll retire with a title of his own: a man that better understood the role of brand than any company leader in history.

And that kinda makes me want to curse with envy.

Related posts:

1. Sit. Walk. Slouch. Communicate. Create. Consume. Why the iPad will be a hit.
2. Brand Sites Are No Longer the Digital Thoroughbred
3. PLAYED – February 2010

I’ve had multiple clients in the last few months ask how to better collaborate with consumers. The one thing that’s clear from those conversations is that “collaboration” is a vague term. From what I can tell, marketing people focus on only a fraction of its potential, and it’s the wrong fraction. In fact, I’ve become convinced an expertise in collaboration may just be the catalyst for agencies to reinvent their business models— and the industry as a whole.

Loosely, there appear to be 3 major ways companies collaborate with their customers. They vary dramatically by synchrony of collaboration, the potential audience that is likely to engage, and the commitment required by the company leading the effort.

CROWD-SOURCING

I list this first because it consumes about 95% of conversation about collaboration. Multi-national companies look covetously at Starbucks and Dell, trying to quantify the benefit they’ve seen from such efforts. Media companies (e.g., Digg) and some retailers (e.g., Threadless) have shown the most democratized type of crowd-sourcing when they employ an audience vote-driven model. Yet even when voting is employed, crowd-sourcing appears to be the least collaborative of the options (which might be exactly why it’s the first to be embraced). In most cases, crowd-sourcing is the equivalent of a suggestion box on steroids. Most importantly, it’s unique in that it is asking people to turn over their intellectual property for little to no reward. Thus, it tends to limit collaboration to a brand’s most loyal consumer base. These aren’t necessarily weaknesses, but not understanding those dynamics tends to be the primary cause when it fails. In many cases, the economics of crowd-sourcing can be easily manipulated by simply increasing the reward for those involved. NetFlix managed to get even non-customers to participate in improving their algorithm because the stakes were a million dollars. However, it should be telling that something else is at play when teams collaborated with one another even though they were supposed to be competing.

Other examples: Jovoto, Victors & Spoils*, Fluther

GROUP ACHIEVEMENT

This one has its roots in multi-player gaming. The best example is when World of Warcraft required masses of players to come together before opening The Dark Portal, which was a gateway into an entirely new area of the WoW universe. Until enough players had gathered, it simply wasn’t available. This may not sound familiar to marketers on the surface, but brands are starting to use it more often. It just happens to be limited to promotional activity. For example, Groupon has built an unbelievably successful business getting local establishments to provide a discount once enough consumer volume has justified the coupon. This model is really interesting because of the transparency involved. In this case, the end game is known, which serves as a unique promise and motivation to potential collaborators. This is in sharp contrast to crowd-sourcing, in which consumers are motivated by rewards or goodwill for a brand they care about, irrespective of the outcome. It’s this distinction that makes it highly relevant for those considering collaborative product development or testing, especially for a new target audience.

Other examples: The Point, Kickstarter, Buying Pabst

CO-CREATION

This model is the one that best delivers on the promise of ‘collaboration’ in my opinion. In it, customers come together to achieve something of superior quality or quantity than the company alone or any smaller group of customers is capable of. Success here has been almost entirely limited to the tech space. Shaun Abrahamson, CEO of Mutopo (who may just know more about collaboration than anyone else in the world) has introduced me to a number of intriguing examples of what he terms “mass collaboration.” He argues that it’s the ability to collaborate at this higher level that allows companies like Wordpress and Craigslist to service huge numbers of customers with a disproportionately small number of employees. This form of collaboration involves the least amount of centralized control, which is likely why it’s also the most ignored form. It’s especially tough to build an infrastructure to collaborate effectively (Shaun has labeled these systems “scaffolding,” a term Denuo has lovingly stolen), but when done correctly, the rewards are staggering. Yet for some reason, this one is regularly dismissed by marketers due to an antiquated perception of communication as a masterpiece—an entity to be revealed, not iterated.

Ironically, brands that have built themselves iteratively through this form of collaboration, like Mozilla, tend to have incredibly loyal customers (not surprising given the sense of ownership that comes from co-creation) It’s co-creation as collaboration that may be the potential savior for marketing agencies in the future. For all the noise agencies make about no longer being treated as partners, but instead being relegated to “vendors” as a result of pricing pressure and unrealistic client demands, they seem to be ignoring this unprecedented opportunity. If brand communication is going to resemble more of a dialogue than ever before, and companies want to ask consumers for more than a purchase, brands will inevitably want to find a way to create collaborative dialogues. That’s not something that can be farmed out to a “vendor.” It impacts every level of a client’s business and therefore, by its very nature, demands a partner that fundamentally understands their business and vision for the future. Yet, at its core, it’s about communication, the lifeblood of existing agency expertise. In fact, the parts of a business that can benefit most from collaboration are generally the parts that struggle to communicate the most. As marketers, we take for granted the difficulty of outlining a vision and responding to various feedback loops, however most R&D or product teams will tell you that communication is, in fact, one of the biggest challenges in an innovation process that’s difficult to map out.

For agencies, the leap from communication creator to collaborative dialogue facilitator isn’t small, but it’s certainly not insurmountable. In fact, it’s quite a smaller gap to close for marketing agencies than it is for any other type of business (including technology companies building collaboration tools). Take for example, the recent release of the game Modern Warfare 2, which employed a “community manager” during development. Infinity Ward, the game’s developer, tasked Robert Bowling (of a marketing background) to make the game design process collaborative with consumers, thousands of whom have strong opinions about features and experiences they are regularly expressing via social media. When the crowd tells him things Infinity Ward simply isn’t going to do, it’s also his job to manage them with reasons for the rejection (when was the last time a suggestion box did that?). He’s a core part of the team with formal accountability for collaboration. His primary means for accomplishing this feat: communication. This type of activity requires thinking of collaboration as more than just crowd-sourcing. Ultimately, it’s not about defining these various tiers, but understanding collaboration’s potential when customers are brought into the core of a business rather than sitting on the periphery tossing over suggestions. Determining the potential value for a client, building the communication scaffolding to do it effectively, and managing it throughout seems to be a huge opportunity for agencies in desperate need of innovation. The question is: who will capitalize on it?

Related posts:

1. Collaboration: A Conversation With Your Consumer
2. The Marketing Implications of CES 2010
3. Denuo @ Media 2010 Sydney to Debunk Sacred Cows of Marketing

Everyone is talking about the real-time web. Which of course means, brands are asking questions about it. Which has ad guys and gals quoting pundits and regurgitating sound bites. Currently, most talk about real-time is specific to search. Which makes sense because search is a huge industry, used by most brand marketers. But, search really isn’t the easiest initial foray for brands interested in real-time information.

Currently, real-time themes are starting to show up in the work of a few forward-thinking agencies. Goodby’s Sprint Now Network is a personal favorite because it takes the idea and delivers it entertainingly across the perfect collection of media from the Now widget to clever TV spots. It does so, however, by not actually limiting the creative to real-time— just the premise of real-time. The same can be said for Droga5’s work on behalf of Puma. They created the Puma Index, which undresses models as stock prices fall. Both campaigns help keep their respective brands relevant by actively gauging what’s happening today. Both use real-time as a creative engine of sorts and to great results.

However, I think the big role of real-time technology for brands will be via curation. Curation as a marketing mechanism is easy if your brand has the credibility to pull it off. Lots of brands have played in the space (Denuo’s on that list, having created Purina PetCharts in early 2008), but most seem to miss the mark. They focus on real-time curation of content about themselves (skittles.com is the most notorious example), which basically takes a traditional media brand-centered approach and applies it into new technology where it’s much less relevant.

Instead, why not curate what’s relevant to your consumers, but credibly reinforces your positioning? It’s possible real-time curation might facilitate marketers striking the balance of providing utility, while still doing brand-level marketing. There are two simple ways to do this:

Curate Content.

This can be as simple as applying RSS technology. It’s an obvious idea and lots of brands are doing it (Steve Rubel cites some interesting examples here). In most cases, this will be limited to consumers that are already loyal to the brand. For example, when AmEx tells me about products or events I might enjoy, I listen. They know my spending habits better than I do, so I feel like I have a personal curator. It makes sense for AmEx because they’re inducing spending. Real-time is critical to this type of curation because of the urgency tied to limited opportunities or restricted purchase windows. The premise starts to get a lot harder when you’re talking about a canned beverage though.

Or does it? Red Bull is a brand that is so well respected in extreme sports, that it credibly invented a few (e.g., FlugTag). So, when Red Bull wants to tell me about videos, news, or events in that space, I trust them. However, Red Bull currently (beautifully) produces much of what it curates, which can’t happen in real-time. Instead, the two experiences should live together. Sure, I want to see the edited, kick-ass wake boarding video from a month ago, but I also want to know if I should turn my TV on right now or open up a Twitter Search because extreme sports are better live.

Curate People.

Yikes, the idea of a brand connecting people makes most of them nervous, but I believe social media flings are the most under-utilized experience for brands (I wrote a post about flings a while back). Brands love to connect around consumer passion points, as most media planners can attest to. Anything from the NFL to indie rock is a passion point. Real-time is clearly important when talking about news (thus the focus of most blog chatter on search), but it’s also relevant to any subject someone’s passionate about.

So, if a brand can serve as the connection between people for a brief instance, that’s potentially powerful. For instance, people at a sporting event have a shared passion. If the brand can connect them in real-time during important moments, the brand is providing an unprecedented level of relevant utility (aided by the rise of geo-based social networks like Foursquare). Brands can even curate people even when they aren’t all at the event, but they care about it. Almost.at is a favorite site of mine because it lets people engage in real events in real-time without actually being there. Users can see videos or read tweets from people at an event they couldn’t personally attend.

Real-time flings can happen irrespective of geography; for example, take a food brand posting a recipe to Facebook (Denuo recently launched General Mills’ Tablespoon on Facebook). When the brand posts a recipe and users that don’t know each other start to comment on it by adding tips, asking questions, or altering the content, the brand is working in real-time to connect people. These people in many cases go on to help each other, serving as part of the brand experience (after all, they’re not Facebook friends). The brand starts by curating the content (in this case a relevant recipe), but ends up curating connections simply by administrating the environment and instigating conversation. This is important because these connections wouldn’t happen if they weren’t in real-time. A user wouldn’t be motivated to weigh in if they didn’t think they were part of a conversation. They expect responses back from someone who’s still (briefly) paying attention, and their threshold for weighing in is much lower as a result (compared to say a blog comment or wiki entry, which is more akin to encyclopedic reference than a conversation). Thus, timeliness is driving the connections. The brand is the engine behind those connections by serving as the curator. It’s an incredibly unique opportunity for a brand and it’s only possible because of a shift toward real-time.

In conclusion, real-time search will continue to be the subject du jour, but brands shouldn’t start there as they seek opportunities. In fact, the way brands think about real-time, might be closer to “almost” real-time. Thus, they should start with a different question: how can I be a relevant curator for my consumers in an increasingly real-time world?

Related posts:

1. Social Media: Creating Value that Matters
2. CES 2011: Trends, Implications for Marketers
3. Campaign of the Future

There aren’t a ton of things I agree with Craig Newmark about (which may be why I was once hustled on Craigslist), but one of them is that people are inherently good. So, I’ll have to disclaim that point of potential naiveté before I pitch you all the following idea. Especially because it involves people staying “good” as they make decisions about personal profit.

We live in a time where people are more socially aware than ever before. Coupled with the tendency for Millennials to talk about things with unprecedented transparency, there’s a unique environment for change available to the financial sector.

I’m referring to solving a major, fairly neglected issue: as socially conscious as Millennials are, this is still a generation of individuals that unknowingly invest a tremendous amount of money in companies whose views they drastically oppose. The same guy who’s updating his Facebook status to drive awareness of an environmental cause is “responsibly” putting 5% of his gross salary into a 401k; unfortunately, this fund is likely investing in companies whose practices he’s raising awareness to stop.

Frankly, it’s not his fault. Employers have done a great job making saving for retirement easy for young employees, but this convenience generally comes at a cost: investment distance. In other words, a generation that does a lot to support various causes is inadvertently undercutting its own behavior through investments of much greater aggregate quantity.

So, I got to thinking: what would it take for people to give their most valuable resource (their attention) to something that’s painfully uninteresting? The solution that came to mind was “transparent investing.” Now, this means something completely different right now, referring to what brokers should be transparent about. But, it’s interesting when one applies the term to the investor herself. What if she were as transparent about where (not how much) she’s putting her money as she is about everything else?

I know this sounds insane to American audiences. It’s inappropriate in our culture to explicitly discuss such matters. However, this behavior isn’t frowned upon in numerous Eastern cultures (China being a prime example). If we were to apply it in North America, specifically in social media environments, it’s not unreasonable to think that where we put our money would be as relevant a statement about ourselves as our favorite movies or our Facebook group memberships. In fact, it could be treated like religion or political views currently are in that environment; some choose to label themselves, while others don’t.

As this type of behavior generates awareness about the discrepancy between beliefs and investments, demand would grow for services to close the gap. Socially responsible investment (SRI) opportunities exist and are growing in popularity, but until they’re as easy to engage as company 401Ks, they’ll never be mainstream. What if certain employers could actually use such offerings to entice young, digitally savvy talent? It certainly couldn’t hurt. I can’t imagine a better way to get companies to evolve their investment offerings than to tie them directly to talent recruitment.

Of course, all of this requires a series of 3rd-parties to evaluate a fund’s “causes,” but this is the easy part. Behavior like this isn’t unprecedented (check out covestor.com where real investors let you follow their trades). An organization of individuals could keep the entire system honest. Or the employer itself could take on the responsibility of evaluating its investment offering.

This isn’t about imposing political or social views; it’s about giving people the context to align their own views with their financial prowess. The tools are there, and I think the desire is there.

It just needs a push.

Related posts:

1. Impressions of CES 2011: Matt Story
2. Brand Sites Are No Longer the Digital Thoroughbred
3. REFLECTEUR – Issue 69

1. Start by listening, not talking

Instead of starting with “what’s my Facebook strategy” or the even more dangerous premise that social media is just a new channel to broadcast your brand message, it’s actually easiest to start by using social media as an input. What most brands balk at when they first consider making that Facebook page or Twitter handle “official” is the pressure of always having something to say. Well, it turns out that it’s a lot easier to respond to people already saying things that you want to address. I’ve always dismissed the idea that you must have a well-articulated strategy for such responses. The very nature of social media environments is the same as conversations—that is, one of ongoing action/reaction. A fully developed strategy might help, but simply acting human when someone says something to or about your brand is surprisingly easy. Just be sure someone is given that responsibility, the appropriate “voice” and the commensurate authority to make things happen inside the company. Just look at the humble beginnings of @comcastcares or our recent work for @tacobelltruck. The former has very humble beginnings and now is a case study to learn from, while the latter is still nascent but evolving week by week.

If that’s still too intimidating, why not just be a silent eavesdropper? Knowing what people are saying and seeing the ebbs and flows of the brand conversation is an amazing set of data. It often provides that coveted and easily lost facet of brand effectiveness: perspective. Most brands spend lots of money gathering other types of data to fill the equivalent need, and generally yield more biased results, contrary to the claims of their research vendor.

2. Have a fling if you’re not ready for a relationship

Probably the biggest missed opportunity for brands in social media is the temporary communities that are created within it. There is a preoccupation with ongoing relationships. An obsession with Fans on Facebook or Followers on Twitter is a myopic view of this landscape. In fact, those are the objectives that tend to be most daunting once brands think through what level of commitment they’re signing up for. Some brands do this phenomenally well (multiple P&G brands illustrate this pattern of having an editorial/promotional calendar that’s used to scale up ongoing relationships) and I would encourage any brand capable of it to start there; it’s too valuable an opportunity to pass on if feasible.

That said, many of the more hesitant brands might find it much easier to capitalize on communities of non-friends. “Social media” as it’s written on marketing department whiteboards tends to convey networks of people that already know each other using digital tools to STAY in touch. But, what about those relationships that exist only as a RESULT of social media? The communities that pop-up via YouTube video responses, @-mentions on Twitter, mobile networking at the same event, or shared comments on a piece of popular editorial?

These clearly aren’t communities of “friends.” These people aren’t looking at each other’s family photos or inviting one another out for dinner, yet they share powerful connections nonetheless. Most brands neglect this facet of social media, but this more fleeting end of the social media spectrum offers the easiest entry point. These opportunities to engage momentarily require few resources, yet are potentially powerful. Sure, credibility is a concern as no one wants to have your brand pop into a conversation and talk about themselves, but joining a conversation with a relevant point-of-view or contribution is simple if you know what your brand stands for. In fact, using questions rather than statements in this scenario tends to be met with acceptance and a surprising amount of interaction.

Yes the points above are only a first step, but in all the talk about brands in the social media space, it’s easy to forget that this step tends to be the hardest.

Related posts:

1. Brand Sites Are No Longer the Digital Thoroughbred
2. Social Media: Creating Value that Matters
3. Ali vs. Jobs: The Curse of Brand