Big Data and Social Media Catalysts for Total Integration

Today’s sophisticated online content monitoring systems capture and decipher in seconds ions of real time chatter across Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. Brands analyse this chatter to deduce conclusions pertaining to perceptions people around the world have of them and their products. Technology has transformed chatter into something that can have potentially incalculable value; Consumer Insights which come directly from consumers’ mouths or, to be more precise, straight from their social media accounts. Uncensored and un-vetted, impulsive and emotional ‘Likes’ and ‘Dislikes’ of the very people marketers vie to attract. Pure gold!

Possession of such insightful information is manna from heaven for the marketing community giving its privileged members a power that knows no boundaries, has no restrictions or limits as to the type of information, messaging and content they can put directly in front of their target audiences.

Companies the world over have jumped on the social media bandwagon to develop integrated campaigns that appeal to the billions of social media users. Brands have become more globally relevant than ever before as they can now talk directly and in real time to almost everyone in this planet who’d lend an eager ear to listen or rather anyone with an Internet connection and the right hash tag.

PR, digital and other communication specialists have also become a lot more social media savvy and should now work together and in unison more than ever before to provide clients holistic integrated communications solutions to satisfy the yearn for social.

This is not only important as an enabler to produce results-driven campaigns that are strategically solid and effective but it is a matter of survival in the fast-changing communications industry. Social media sits right at the middle but instead of dividing opinions as to who is its rightful owner it can serve as a catalyst for authentic integration between the disparate marketing disciplines to the benefit of agencies, clients and consumers.  

In the pre-social media world, there was only so much one could do as a marketer, an advertiser and a PR man to bring a product to the attention of the masses. It would either be through a TVC, an outdoor or print advertisement, a press release, a promotional campaign at high footfall areas, an invitation-only event, a celebrity brand ambassador or at the shelf of the supermarket or store the product was on sale at. Consumer feedback was non-existent, at least in real time. There was no real conversation between products and consumers, just a one-way monologue.

Social media has changed all that for good and for the better and has unlocked the full potential of communications leaving it up to the industry itself to develop a disciplined path to actual integration.

 

There is no such thing as unbiased news coverage

The recent debacle that has plagued the reputation of the erstwhile seemingly pious and virtuous Al Jazeera TV network comes to no surprise.

Having for many years managed to successfully portray an image of a neutral and impartial broadcaster of news and analyses on Middle Eastern affairs, albeit from an Arabian standpoint, the Doha-based network has recently been openly attacked by its own staff for deliberately skewing news coverage of the latest Egypt street sentiment with a blatant twist in favour of the Islamic Brotherhood.  

It emerged that  Al Jazeera  beamed archive images of a vastly empty Tahris Square to dress up a live news report suggesting that the turnout of people supporting the ousting of President Mosri was rather poor and was against what the majority of Egyptians wanted.
And why would it? Simply because of the vested interests its owner – the Qatari government – has in maintaining the brotherhood’s grip into power for reasons that are totally indifferent to me.

Compare this, with the way the Western media preferred to report on the same story; In what was a blatant coup de’ eta against a democratically elected government, European and US media adopted a rather subdued and low key news and analyses agendas in an obvious attempt to depolarize the situation and defuse the dynamic of the demonstrating supporters of the Brotherhood by appealing for calm and a return to order. None made any reference to a coup de’ eta, neither did they question the sanity or long-term consequences such a violent removal of a democratically elected leader from the office is likely to have in years to come.

And why is that? Because the media, anywhere in the world, follow their owners’ agenda or that of their owners’ bosses agenda, for there is no such thing as a mainstream independent media outlet at an age when, he who controls information, and its flow, controls the world itself.

This is true in both the industrialised world and in the so called BRICS, emerging or third world economies, albeit on a different scale and for varying reasons.

Contemporary research demonstrates increasing levels of consolidation, with many media industries already highly concentrated and dominated by a very small number of firms

Globally, large media conglomerates include Viacom, CBS Corporation, Time Warner, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Sony, Comcast, Vivendi, Televisa, The Walt Disney Company, Hearst Corporation, Organizações Globo and Lagardère Group.

In nations described as authoritarian by most international think-tanks and NGOs like Human Rights Watch (China, Cuba, Russia), media ownership is generally something very close to the complete state control over information in direct or indirect ways (see Gazprom Media).

So who controls information, in its totality? Who is masterminding and authorizes the information consumed by billions? Who has such unfathomable power to be able to dictate communication policy on a global scale?

Is it the US resident and the CIA? To a certain, microscopic scale, this is true. Is it the Greek government? Yes, from a small nation’s microcosmic viewpoint Prime Minister Samaras controls the way Greek media report on the longest ever recession that has affected a European nation since the end of World War 2. Is it the BBC? Yes, to a degree which protects Her Majesty’s interests at home and in the Commonwealth, it does. We all know that.

But, what if, these disparate media and those who exercise control over them have to report to someone or some others, whose job is not to micromanage?

Those few, who perhaps, collectively possess enough influence to rule over those who rule us. A group of elite, super wealthy individuals – some recent estimates during the occupy Wall Street movement put them at 1 per cent -  who design long-term policies on all major issues impacting on our lives, from energy supply, to food security and from health services and pharmaceuticals to job creation and religious strife.

As an ex-journalist and a PR man, I have always loved working for and with the media; but as a maturing father growing up in an era marred by conspiracy theories, social injustice and increasing gap between those who have and the ‘have nots’, I maintain my right to be skeptical about the power of the Fourth Estate.

Because, if this power, is indeed being misused and misdirected from protecting the weak and the innocent into becoming a propaganda machine for the handful, then it better had seized to exist.

 

 

A new brave word

Words mean things. Each word evokes a certain reaction or emotion because it is the most descriptive and direct form of human expression. Be it verbal or written, Greek or Chinese, words are highly effective communication tools. Without words, the human race and our civilization would not have evolved through the centuries. There are more words today than ever before in history and there will be more words tomorrow than there are today. How am I so assertive? Because I have coined a new word which I’d like to share with you today. It is a word which I created because I feel there is a need for it as no other existing word can convey the same meaning in such an all-inclusive, all-encompassing way.

PRANDING

It is coined out of four different words which jointly comprise three marketing communications disciplines:

•       Public Relations (PR)

•       Branding (PRANDING) – in Arabic P is pronounced as B

•       Advertising (the letters ‘ad’)

Pranding does exactly what the three disciplines do, only better, by reversing the traditional sequence of campaign origination; by having the end in mind it works backwards to achieve the specifically planned output.

Because of its complex nature and multi-meaningful disposition I also felt compelled to create a logo to help the word convey its core substance in a visual way.

Before Pranding

Company X briefs advertising agency Y for the launch of a new product. Y develops campaign, presents to X for sign off. Y’s objective is to create a campaign that sells the product regardless of any likely implications to the product’s brand equity or reputation.

Once campaign is signed off, Y will brief branding agency Z and PR agency Omega to support the campaign. Z and Omega discover many, some or few issues with the campaign likely to cause brand image or reputational risks.

That’s because branding (influential at the POS) and PR (influential in shaping consumer’s emotional response to a product), did not participate or input during the campaign’s development process.

Let’s take a look at how X is structured internally today and how its various departments are interfacing with Y, Z and Omega.

 

 

 

Even today, before Pranding becomes an established concept, the PR agency which works closely with the Corporate Communications department is already much more attuned to a more holistic picture of what is going on within X as it enjoys a 360 view of the entire operation.

It is actively involved in content creation for the financial reviews and quarterly results media material, it is privy to confidential and public sales targets and marketing strategy, it has also probably helped formulate content about X’s values, mission and corporate principles, is working on X’s CSR strategy, has helped put out a fire or two on operational level (crisis management) and has contributed in and attended numerous occasions where the CEO of X shared in public or during on-on-one media interviews his views or speech on certain industry issues with an impact on the company. And due to its contribution to internal communications, Omega understands HR and staff issues better than any other external supplier. Who would argue with that?

On the other hand, the branding agency is very hands on X’s various branding requirements, from letterheads to the newest web site design and from packaging of products to PoS representation. But have they ever heard the CEO talk? Do they know how the media perceived the latest corporate announcement? Do they even care to know? More or less the same could also be said for the advertising service team. Wrong? 

Post-Pranding

Omega receives client’s initial brief and plots the campaign’s holistic narrative having the end in mind. The end in mind is how the product is likely to be perceived by the consumer through its portrayal in earned and social media. If perceptions created at that level are negative, consumer mindsets will be resistant to any form of paid-for advertisement. Advertisers are not equipped or inclined to weigh in their campaigns the intangible cost of reputational backlash or lack of branding values and overall identity alignment between the master brand and the product in question.

In the age of Pranding, PR takes the lead by plotting the desirable happy ending to the story, then unravels Ariadne’s thread towards the drawing board for the planning stages of the campaign.

If an attempt at reinventing the marketing communications wheel doesn’t warrant the creation of a new word, then I don’t know what is.

Be Brave. Prand!  

 

From the Press to the Polls and the Parliament

After yesterday’s Greek government reshuffle, no less than six ex journalists will occupy ministerial roles in the new bi-partisan cabinet under Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. It would have been seven if one of them hadn’t turn down the opportunity offered to her.

And I can recall at least three more MP’s in the current Greek Parliament who used to be professional journalists before they decide to drop the art of headline writing in the name of headline making…So, at least 10 out of 300 MP’s have worked as journalists in the past and 70% of those have been assigned senior Ministerial positions.

As an ex journalist myself, I should be delighted about this tremendous ability of Greek journalists and their appeal amongst the electorate, for, who knows, one day I may also become an elected official for my country.  Do not despair people, I have a day job!

But on a more serious note now, this observation says much about a Greek society which for decades has been brainwashed by the media into believing that our elected officials mirror the people of the country. In other words, we can only get what we deserve in terms of the quality of our leaders.

So, by the media’s own admission, journalists are nothing but an average-intelligence, corruption-prone, self-centered and egocentric bunch, whose only interest is anything else other than serving the people who vote for them.

I have tried to google ‘journalists turned politicians’ to be able to compare Greece with other countries but got little to no results, which makes me think that this is a phenomenon and a privilege mainly reserved for the demagogic demographic of Greek journalists.

If anything, this propensity to politics, demonstrates one more, well known fact, which mostly goes unnoticed; the bias and lack of impartiality in how political news are portrayed by the various journalists who have clear political aspirations and party allegiances.

One Greek National TV reporter who covers the Socialist Party reportage comes to mind as he was a candidate during the June 2012 elections – he failed to be elected – and he continues to cover the beat of the same party from the now illegal channel.

Shame, because had his campaign been successful, I would have had a really catchy headline for this post: “The ELLEVENTH PLAGUE”

Freedom of Speech vs Freedom to Think

With its decision to terminate the Greek national broadcaster, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has committed a major blunder that is likely to cause the dismantling of his cabinet, threatening to plunge Greece to a new round of uncertain electoral infighting during the most tense, turbulent and terrifying period in the country’s modern history.

The closure of the country’s only national broadcaster was the latest in a series of unpopular decisions that have only cemented the conviction that the crisis is far from over and solidified the resolve of the electorate to rid of a government that is considered to be authoritarian, aloof and totally disconnected from the Greek society.

Through his actions, Samaras has achieved the unthinkable; overnight he’s managed to create heroes and martyrs out of a privileged group of Greek workers with very few friends and sympathisers due to their organisation’s proven association with corruption and fraud. The continuous rainfall hasn’t deterred tens of thousands of Athenians to rally behind the journalists and technicians of ERT flocking outside its headquarters at the northern suburb of Aghia Paraskevi.

In doing so, the long whistling sound that accompanies the frozen picture in the frequency where ERT broadcasted continuously for decades, blanked out every other sound in Greek households across the country bringing shivers down to the spine of every Greek old enough to remember the night, back in 1967, when democracy in Greece, was replaced for seven long years, by the dictatorial regime of the junta.

In footballing terms, Samaras and his advisors have scored an own goal of epic proportions as they failed to fully analyse the likely impact and outcome of such action. In political terms, they have opened a door that no one knows where it is actually going to lead the nation to. In laymen’s terms, he has proven that, despite his above average height and the untouchable image he is trying to project around his persona, he remains anything but a mediocre, unreliable and dangerous little man who happened to make a career in the Greek politics, just like thousand other morons  before him did.

Samaras pulled the plague in an unconstitutional act that may bring unpredictable dimensions as far as freedom of speech is concerned in the country which built the Acropolis and gave birth to Socrates. Let’s at least hope that they don’t have the means to deny us the FREEDOM to THINK.

And talking about thinking, think this: In the last few hours the Greek government has issued an official warning to the various private broadcasters who are currently relaying ERT’s illegal programming that they will face penalties unless they stop. The irony is that none of Greece’s private TV and radio stations have actually obtained a legal license to operate rendering all of them illegal. KEEP THINKING...

 

A Lost Signal - Symbol of a Lost Generation

 Greece’s national TV stations ‘ERT’, ‘NET’ and ‘ERT3’ as well as the network’s associated radio stations  stopped  broadcasting last night as the government ordered their closure in the name of fiscal reforms and public finance restructuring imposed by the IMF, the EU and the ECB.

The government has pledged that a leaner and more efficient public broadcaster will emerge in the next few weeks to fill the information gap, especially for the 10 million Greek expats who heavily relied on the services of ERT for the goings on back in the motherland.

My immediate reaction was that of anger and bitterness against the Greek government and those representing it. It was not only that I was bereft for losing the only Greek language TV station I had available as an expat but also because 2,600 more unemployed are about to join the doll  queues in a country flooded by 1.3 million who rely on government handouts to make a living.

But then, I became a bit more open and receptive to the various opinions on the same subject that started creeping in the Greek blogosphere which as I am writing these lines, is the only information channel dealing with the issue in depth, since every other Greek mass media has gone on strike – and in a classic irony, self- imposing an information blackout on yet another Greek tragedy.

Those views are as diverse as the interests and motives of those expressing them – of course, nothing new there.

But if I could add my view to all those scattered across the full spectrum of the land’s digital landscape, whether from the right, the left, the centre or the extremes, I would conclude that:

1)      ERT has been a villain and victim at the same time. It has been victimized for sucking the oxygen out of the Greek tax payer for nearly half a century and it has also been praised for the mostly neutral approach to its current affairs coverage and for giving a forum to the complete political spectre, irrespective and away from party allegiances or vested commercial interests.

2)      However, those who blame it, tend to forget that its blemishes have been due to the relentless cronyism practices precipitated by the interchanging socialist and conservative governments’ insatiable greed for corruption and voracious appetite for votes.

3)      By the same token, those who applaud its contribution to the news industry also prefer to ignore that the antics and archaic – almost primitive – attitude and mindsets of the few Unionists who festered inside ERT’s ailing body for 42 years helped create a monstrosity whose only goal has been to reward a large number of mostly inept, incapable and inefficient public servants who lived a life of luxury at the expense of the vast majority of the Greek people.     

Who is right? Who is wrong? Who is accountable?

In a country where democracy, meritocracy and egalitarianism have lost their true meanings, in the land of the beautiful blue where the society’s dominant colour is grey, in the Greece of 2013 which has been enslaved to international creditors for generations to come, there can only be two answers for each of the above questions: “WHO ISN’T?”  and “WHO CARES?”

Signal is lost. Let’s at least make sure hope isn’t…

Any desperate publishers out there?

As promised previously here is another chapter from my book-in-the-making The Future Of Marketing:

 

Let me start demonstrating my Pythian prowess by making the following statement: In the future products will talk directly to consumers and I don’t mean that in the metaphorical sense of the word. Cookies, detergents, packs of crisps and cereal, apparel, toys, cars, soda cans, tablet computers and smart phones, drugs, cigarettes, gum, you name it, they will all talk. And they will be multi lingual of course; in fact each product will speak nearly every language spoken anywhere in the world. Nonsense you’re saying? Science fiction? Well, let’s unravel the thread which led us here.

Rewind back to 1994. My first year in PR. I never looked back ever since. Those were the days…The fax machine was always busy sending press releases or receiving supplier invoices, relationships with clients were much more intimate as email hadn’t been invented yet and mobile phones the size of a shoe size 43 had just made their debut. The mobility I felt the minute I felt my first Erickson (not erection) in my hand was liberating. The magic of being able to have a conference call with your client while sitting at you favourite café in town was such a novel feeling. What about SMS? OMG! Back then this acronym was yet unknown, CYBI? (Can You Believe It?)

In the early 90’s, British Airways (my favourite client) was the world’s favourite airline, Marlboro (my choice) was very much everyone else’s choice, the dominant mobile handset provider was Nokia (what happened to them?) and only a handful of us had heard of the word Internet. It seems now that the world back then was a crazy place. Who would have back then been able to predict that in August 2012, Curiosity would become the first unmanned vehicle to stroll on Mars? Ok, maybe that wasn’t that hard to predict, here is another one; who, back then, would have dared utter that Greece would win the UEFA European Nations Cup in 2004? Gotcha!    

In the 90’s, there was only so much you could do as a marketer, an advertiser and a PR man to bring a product to the attention of the masses. It would either be through a TVC, an outdoor or print advertisement, a press release, a promotional campaign at high footfall areas, an invitation-only event, a celebrity brand ambassador or at the shelf of the supermarket or store the product was on sale at. Consumer feedback was non-existent, at least in real time. There was no real conversation between products and consumers, just a one-way monologue.

Nothing much changed till the early naughties other than Greek football fans’ perception of their national team. But then, it was Armagedon personified. In the early years of social media, a Google executive said that: “Social media is like teenage sex. Everybody is talking about it but no one knows how to do it.”  That statement has held its truth for a while, but bears no relevance anymore. Marketers’ approach to social media has matured and companies the world over have jumped on their bandwagon to develop integrated campaigns that appeal to the billions of social media users. PR, digital and other communication specialists have also become a lot more social media savvy and are capable to throw them into their mix offering clients holistic integrated communications plans to satisfy the yearn for social.

Technology is a funny thing really. In the early 90’s Concorde passengers would get to New York from London in less than five hours travelling on supersonic speeds in earth’s stratosphere giving those willing to part with the asking fare of 2,500 GBP a memorable view of the planet’s curvy shape and more free time to hit the Big Apple’s shopping malls to spend even more of their disposable income.

Banks were experimenting with ATM manufacturers the introduction of Iris technology. Surely, this was destined to revolutionize the security of our banking transactions, but decades later, consumers still fall victims of ATM scams costing banks millions of dollars each year.

In both cases, the merits of those technologies were outweighed by the hidden risks. I am not sure what held back the ATM iris technology, but as far as the Concorde was concerned, the tragic Air France accident which killed nearly 100 passengers was the turning point for the aircraft’s ultimate withdrawal from operations.

No looking back though for the Internet. Despite the many hazards associated with its usage, from child pornography to bank account hacking the Internet is here to stay and with it the social media revolution. 

Aphrodite Drowning

An ugly Greek tragedy in Cypriot dialect is unfolding at the home of the Goddess of Beauty.

 

The blood-thirsty, self-proclaimed financial rescue institutions have found in Cyprus a new prey to nimble on as they are officially and by law amputating 60 per cent of depositors’ savings above Euro 100K!   

I have many reasons to have this south eastern Mediterranean island very close to my heart and that's why I was heartbroken with the recent developments which have deprived dozens of thousands of hard-working people of their hard-earned savings.

What's more, what we are seeing in Cyprus these days is just the tip of an iceberg so deeply submerged in the abyss of southern Europe’s banking bubble and fiscal fuck ups that would even make Aphrodite herself struggle to stay afloat.

Cyprus must resurface soon, but the recent experience of its Greek neighbours suggests that one, two, three or more lifelines are not enough to help one swim when surrounded by the loan sharks of the IMF and ECB.