The Streaming War is on – Pass the Popcorn!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment 

Gone are the days of going to the movie theater or renting a DVD especially now that Blockbuster has filed for bankruptcy.  With the rise of Netflix and other companies that stream movies and television shows online, it makes it easier to watch new releases at home – and has subsequently started an online streaming war.

The New York Times recently reported that Netflix is the front runner in the online streaming world with its subscription service, Watch Instantly. With the ability to watch movies on a computer, television, iPad or iPhone, a whopping 61% of Netflix’s 15 million subscribers streamed movies in the second quarter.

Netflix CEO CEO Reed Hastings - living large in the streaming wars.The only downfall is that Netflix’s catalog of 20,000 steaming movies doesn’t include many recent hits because the company hasn’t been able to negotiate rights from all the Hollywood studios. Most of Netflix’s deals require the movie to be on store shelves for 28 days before it can be available on DVD or online.

Not having the most anticipated movies and television shows available to stream when they are released makes other options very tempting. For example, “Robin Hood,” is available to stream on Amazon, but will not be available on Netflix until mid October. The online video hub, Hulu, which recently launched the subscription service, Hulu Plus has the current season of “The Office,” while the most recent episodes on Netflix are from last season.

What side will you take in the streaming war? Will you stick with the leader, Netflix, or the up-and-comers who offer the most recent releases? I’m voting for the underdogs!

-Contributed by Jena Coletti. Follow her @jmcoletti.

A Mesmerizing Publicity Stunt by Google

Wednesday, September 8, 2010 | 1 Comment 

I’ve always been a big fan of Google Doodles (the stylized Google logos on the homepage) – whether it’s the elaborate April Fools’ Day “Topeka” logo and fanfare, the infamous PacMan logo or any number of the hundreds of other novel doodles.  This week’s doodles, particularly yesterday’s, are the best to date – bar none. And wow, did these logos get the press (and the public) talking!

Most notable was yesterday’s doodle, an animated “kinetic” Google logo made up of tiny bubbles that reacted to a user’s cursor by scattering. Words simply don’t do it justice; it was utterly awesome and mesmerized millions, if not billions of giddy site visitors.

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Speculation about the significance of the unique logo exploded. According to Google Trends, searches about the distinctive doodle made up about 20 percent of Google’s most searched terms and ranked among the top searches for September 7.

Taylor Buley at Forbes, among others, pointed out a mysterious tweet from Google, “Boisterous doodle today. Maybe it’s excited about the week ahead…” In response to press inquiries, Google made the following statement: “Today’s doodle is fun, fast and interactive, just the way we think search should be…”

Further stoking the public’s fervid curiosity was today’s doodle, a Google logo that lights up as a user types into the search box.

So what does it all mean?

Today there was a resounding “ahhh,” as the spellbound speculators finally got some answers. Google made the big announcement about its latest offering: Google Instant, which enables users to view search results as they type a query.

This is word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing at its finest. Attract attention, build suspense, play hard-to-get and most importantly, have compelling news that comes close, or even better, lives up to the hype.

Still wondering whether the “Google balls” had any effect? See for yourself.

Contributed by Anne Norris. Follow her @anne_norris.

Game Boy? What is that?

Thursday, August 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment 

I grew up playing old school Nintendo. My favorite game? Duck Hunt. I would spend hours at a time holding the Nintendo Zapper Light Gun as close to the television as possible to hopefully knock down a duck or clay pigeon. I remember when Game Boys were all the rage and you had to blow inside your game cartridge to make sure it worked properly. I’m most comfortable with console games, but clearly the industry has changed over the years and it’s booming online. 

This week, the market research firm NPD Group distributed a study that showed that one out of every five Americans over the age of six has played an online social game at least once. That’s nearly 60 million Americans! That figure leads me to believe that consoles, like Game Boys, will soon be a thing of the past and games will strictly be played online. To back up my point, most of the NPD study respondents had never played a traditional video game and 35% had no previous gaming experience whatsoever.

With games like Duck Hunt, practice made perfect; you didn’t have the option to buy skills or items that would make you a better player. Today, gamers can buy virtual goods to improve their game play. The virtual goods market has become a cash cow and Mashable reports that by 2013 it is expected to hit $6 billion in sales. Now, games provide entertainment and cash rewards.

Do you prefer a console or focus exclusively on social games? I predict that user adoption of social gaming will continue to rise and one day, kids will wonder why their parents ever played games on a television screen.

-Contributed by Jena Coletti. Follow her @jmcoletti.

Hang Up and Drive

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 | 1 Comment 

We announced some exciting news at Greenough today – we’ve been selected as the PR agency of record for the Arbella Insurance Group. Our major focus so far has been the Arbella Insurance Group Charitable Foundation’s groundbreaking Distractology 101 program, which educates new drivers on the dangers of distraction at the wheel. The centerpiece of the effort is a mobile classroom created to change the driving behaviors through real-life driving scenarios demonstrated in the company’s state-of-the art simulators. Arbella CEO John Donohue felt strongly that something needed to be done to stop the epidemic of distracted driving. And it is an epidemic – more than 6,000 people are killed each year in accidents involving multi-tasking at the wheel. That’s a shocking number.


I’ve had the privilege of working with the Arbella team on the Distractology 101 program and can tell you it’s definitely been an eye-opening experience. I’ll reluctantly admit that before getting on board with the program, I’d been known to read or send a text or two while behind the wheel. Not anymore. What I’ve learned has surprised me. Sure, we all know that looking away from the road and at the cell phone in your hand is dangerous – but most of us think we’re safe as long as we’re using a hands free device, right? Not necessarily so. According to a study done by the University of Utah, there is little or no documented difference between the risks associated with handheld and hands-free devices. Researchers found that the distraction actually comes from the conversation, not holding the phone. Even more surprising? The study also found that using a cell phone will driving, whether hands-free or handheld, delays a driver’s reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. And all of us are paying the price for this deadly multi-tasking: the annual cost of crashes caused by cell phone use is estimated at more than $43 billion, according to the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.

So how do we stop the madness? One answer, certainly, is legislation. Seven states have banned driving while talking on a handheld cell phone. 22 other states, including Massachusetts, have enacted legislation that bans text messaging while driving. But the fact is, as with drunk driving, laws just aren’t enough. As Donohue says, it’s about changing behaviors – not just with teens, with all of us. I realize now that every time I pick up the phone while I’m at the wheel, I’m sending a message to my kids in the backseat that it’s ok to multi-task while driving. It’s not ok. We’re all so used to the immediacy of communication these days and sometimes we have to force ourselves to step back and unplug for a bit, especially when we’re behind the steering wheel. Believe it or not, the world will wait.

-Contributed by Amy Erickson. Follow her @amyerickson.

Should You Give Away Your Product for Free?

Friday, July 30, 2010 | 2 Comments 

Should you give your product away for free? Consider the Wikipedia entry for freebie marketing: “Freebie marketing, also known as the razor and blades business model, is the concept of either giving away a salable item for nothing or charging an extremely low price to generate a continual market for another, generally disposable, item.” Seems temptingly simple, doesn’t it?

The concept of free isn’t new and it’s actually not that simple. There are different models for free, including the razor blade model made famous by King Gillette; cross-subsidization; which somehow (magically it seems) shuffles cost among related products or consumer sets; and “freemium,” which provides free basic usage, but then charges for upgrades. This last model can require an alchemist’s touch, however, because you must pick the right break points and really understand the conversion process (what, for example, is the tipping point for users upgrading to a “Business Plus” or “Executive”  account on LinkedIn?).

In recent years, many marketers have been fascinated by free. Chris Anderson of Wired fame wrote a book entitled Free, but his controversial argument seems to fall apart outside the digital world where information, not tangible product, is the thing of value. When you hear “free eBook,” do you feel the same instant excitement you’d feel if someone said “free iPod?” Of course not. Seth Godin, another deep thinker on the issue of free, recently wrote the following on his blog:

In an attention economy (like this one), marketers struggle for attention and if you don't have it, you lose. Free is a relatively cheap way to get attention (both at the start and then through viral techniques). Second, in a digital economy with lots of players and lower barriers to entry, it's quite natural that the price will be lowered until it meets the incremental cost of making one more unit. If a brand can gain share by charging less, a rational player will.

What this says to me is that business is becoming a game of chicken. Company A will sacrifice margin to get more attention so it can stay alive to sell more product. This is an exhausting, but true scenario today. So let’s go back to the question about whether you should give your product (or service) away for free. I’d say no, there’s another way. Perhaps the answer is a hybrid that both Chris and Seth would say is reasonable: charge whatever you want for your product or service – treat it as a commodity – and focus your business instead on earning the most valuable asset businesses trade every day: trust.

Is trust really valuable? If you don’t believe me, check out Francis Fukuyama, whose book, Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity, argues that the U.S. has historically been a “high-trust society” but that the erosion of that threatens our very economic security. We live during a time of tight supply chains and even tighter margins, and risk is everywhere. Is my food safe? Is that product well-made? Will that marketing initiative really work? When health – business or personal – is at stake, will you turn to the best price or most trusted? I’d say you’re much less likely to leave a product or partner behind because of price difference if the relationship you have with the brand or individual is based on trust, not price.

Your trust is more valuable than your product. Give that away freely, but not cavalierly. How? Start by listening to and engaging with your customers and clients. And don’t be that company that’s talked into “using social media” to sell. You won’t build trust that way. We use a methodology, FUSE, which forces us (our clients) to see themselves through the eyes of the customer. We look for ways to freely give away trust in exchange loyalty. We look for areas where a trust deficit exists and recommend ways to fill that deficit with honest, relevant, ongoing and valuable assets (I don’t say content, because I fear the word content has been cheapened to pablum status).

Don’t give away your product or service for free. You have something more valuable to give away: trust. But don’t blow it, trust is more perishable than you think!

-Contributed by Scott Bauman. Follow him @sbauman. 

Time for Parents to Unplug?

Tuesday, June 29, 2010 | 1 Comment 

A recent New York Times article has spurred some interesting conversations among my friends with children. In “Parenting While Plugged In” reporter Julie Scelfo examined the issue of whether parents’ increasing use of cell phones, blackberries and other mobile devices is harming their kids. 

We already know it isn’t healthy to let our children spend hours each day on the computer or playing video games. But in her article, Scelfo poses the question of whether we as parents are harming our children by not restricting our own use of technology in their presence. She cites a 5-year MIT study which found that children often feel jealous and hurt when their parents are constantly checking their devices and logging on to social networks instead of parenting. One mother from Chicago is quoted saying that her 3-year-old son now sets the microwave timer to let her know when she’s spent too much time on her smartphone and not enough with him. 


Reading that made me stop and think about my own habits, especially when I’m around my young daughters. Do I furtively steal glances at my phone during playtime if I get a notification about a work email? Guilty. Do I occasionally pop on to my social networks to catch up with my friends when the girls and I are curled up on the couch watching a movie? Guilty again (side note: I cringed a few months ago when I watched the girls play with my camera and one of them exclaimed “Oh! Great picture! I have to put it on my Facebook!” She’s 5 and doesn’t have a Facebook account, but still, you get the point).

So what am I teaching my girls when I read that work email during playtime? Am I subconsciously telling them that work is more important than they are? I hope not, although did give me pause. I’d like to think that the amount of quality time I spend with them more than makes up for those brief time-outs I have to take to respond to an urgent email request.

Interestingly, one expert Scelfo quoted did point out that parents have always had distractions, and it’s impossible to say whether mobile technology is actually causing more distraction. Frederick J. Zimmerman is a professor at UCLA’s School of Public Health. He says: “Distracted time is not high-quality time, whether parents are checking the newspaper or their BlackBerry.”  He also notes that not all distracting technology is bad news for kids. Zimmerman points out that technology now allows many parents to work from home, giving them more time with their children. 

Although the article scared some moms I know into imposing temporary Facebook and email bans on themselves, I’m choosing instead to simply reevaluate how often I reach for that phone when I’m with my girls. Granted, ignoring that flashing green notification light can sometimes be tough, but they’re worth it – without a doubt.

-Contributed by Amy Erickson. Follow her @amyerickson

Be Careful Where You Click

Tuesday, June 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment 

There are endless reasons right now to dislike BP. The company will now always be known for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and its immense environmental costs, most of which have not yet been fully revealed.

In another Greenough blog post, Jennifer Eberline asks: Is it even possible to lead a strong communications strategy during a crisis like this? My answer to that question is: “not really.” Especially in the case of BP who is spending significant dollars buying up all of the “oil spill” terms on popular search engines like Google and Yahoo so users can “Stay Updated On BP's Gulf of Mexico Response Efforts.”  See photo below, courtesy of the Mashable article, “BP Buys Top Google Result for “Oil Spill”. 


Although the sponsored links are labeled as such, should BP have the privilege of giving anyone searching for information on this catastrophe its side of the story first?  In my opinion, no!  As someone who works in the PR industry, I can sympathize with how difficult a task it must be for their PR team to continually put out fires left in right – and there have been many. However, when clicking on the BP-sponsored “Oil Spill” link I find it insulting to watch Tony Hayward talk about how they have taken full responsibility for cleaning up the oil spill, let alone watching all the wholesome images of workers cleaning up the spill in their clean white shirts.

As one journalist said, “While it may take BP years, or even decades, to clean up the worst oil spill in U.S. history, the oil giant is wasting no time to attempt to clean up its tarnished image.”

When it comes to public image, what do you think (if anything) BP could do better?  Would painting a more honest picture of the crisis (as Jennifer suggested) be enough, or should they tone down their PR efforts and lay low for awhile?

-Contributed by Chantal LeBoulch. Follow her @cleboulch

Has Facebook Gone Too Far?

Monday, May 3, 2010 | Leave a Comment 

It’s a good time to be Facebook.  Not only is the company’s homepage the most visited Web site in the United States, but many [exciting] new developments were announced during the company’s f8 conference a few weeks back. As with any change Facebook makes, there are a number of users that are outraged by the changes and question what the implications of these changes will be on their privacy. 

Let’s take a look at some of the new modifications the company is rolling out:

• Instant Personalization: Anyone that has logged onto Yelp, Pandora or CNN recently—the three “preferred partners” of Facebook— will have noticed that their profiles sync up to the site. For instance, when using Pandora, you can opt to have music played from your favorite bands listed on your Facebook profile.  By doing this, your settings across third party sites are further customized based on your interests listed on Facebook. 

• Facebook Connect Platform: The Facebook Connect Platform has been replaced by a new set of social plugins, which will allow the site to expand its presence across third party sites. Users can choose to click a “like” button on a Web site, and this information is then fed back into the user’s Facebook page, in addition to linking back to the “liked” site. 

• New Virtual Currency: The new Facebook currency, “Credits” will allow people to buy virtual currency that can be spent on applications across the site. The applications this will have the most obvious effect on will be the social games market on Facebook. For now, “Credits” is still in beta, however, according the article, “How Facebook plans to fuel the app economy with Facebook Credits,” on VentureBeat, the company hopes to increase the percentage of users willing to purchase virtual goods to between 8% and 20%.

According to a Facebook representative, “these features build on the same benefits that brands have experienced with other Facebook integrations. As sites offer people more relevant and personalized experiences on the Web, brands can benefit from richer engagement with their fans." For more information, visit ClickZ article, "Facebook Pushes 'Like' Button to Many Sites."

Now, I’m a fan of the new settings, though I can understand why users would be apprehensive of how much new personal information will be pushed across the Web. As always, Facebook allows users to opt out of these instant personalization settings, and for instructions on how to do this users can read this article in the New York Times. 
 
I’m most interested in seeing how the “preferred partner” program will expand to include other types of services, and which companies will benefit (or suffer) from this alliance the most.  What implications will this relationship have on companies that choose not to join Facebook’s partner network? At what point will users think the company has gone to far to personalize the Facebook experience?  It will be interesting to see how many people will choose to opt out of these new settings.
 
Will you be one of them?

- Contributed by Chantal LeBoulch. Follow her @cleboulch

Skype Mobile Comes to Verizon

Friday, March 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment 

Last month, Verizon Wireless and Skype joined forces to create a global mobile calling community, which will bring Skype to select Verizon Wireless smartphones this month. The new Skype mobile product enhances Verizon smartphones for users who have data plans by offering a new way to call around the globe, while also giving hundreds of millions of Skype users the opportunity to communicate with friends, family and business colleagues in the United States.  For a video of how Skype mobile works, click here.

At first, this partnership may seem counter-intuitive—a wireless company teaming up with a free service provider to offer cheap ways for consumers to communicate.  And with a much easier and cheaper way for Verizon subscribers to make VoIP calls, some are curious about whether this partnership will eat up the company’s income from international calls. 

I happen to think this is a smart move on Verizon’s part.  For one, Skype is already responsible for 8% of global international calling minutes—with its users making 3.1 billion minutes of calls to landlines and mobiles in the third quarter of 2009.  Additionally, though calls will be cheaper, you’ll still need to purchase a Verizon data plan and international calls won’t be free.

Furthermore, this partnership represents a change in sentiment for mobile operators.  Not only are they beginning to embrace VoIP technologies, but they also realize that the ability for consumers to communicate is no longer the only reason for owning a phone.  With all the available software and applications that consumers can download, mobile phones have become more like a personal computer these days, with more options for operators to make money than just calling plans.

However, as an iPhone user, I wonder how this exclusive partnership will affect Skype.  Now that the company won’t be able to make another application for the iPhone, will other VoIP providers try to partner with Apple?

For those Verizon customers out there, will you be getting Skype mobile?

- Contributed by Chantal LeBoulch. Follow her @cleboulch

Who doesn’t love Pandora

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 | 1 Comment 

Thanks to a successful iPhone application, people are starting to show their love for Pandora in a big way – the 10-year-old company is finally starting to make money. The New York Times recently reported that for years Pandora has “been on the verge of death, struggling to find investors and battling record labels over royalties,” until now. Its iPhone success is starting to attract attention from investment bankers and there is talk about the company going public. Congratulations, Pandora! Well deserved.

Personalization is key in today's market, so it comes as no surprise that people love having the option to customize their own radio station based on their favorite tunes. What’s up next for Pandora? Ford is including Pandora in its voice-activated Sync system and consumer electronic companies like Samsung and Vizio are integrating the program into their Blu-ray players, TVs and music systems.It’s only a matter of time before other companies in the auto and tech industries jump on the bandwagon.

The ultimate goal for the company’s co-founder and chief strategy officer, Tim Westergren, is to “develop a location-based service that alerts people that an unknown band they heard on the site is coming to their city that weekend.”  I’m not sure if Pandora will get off the ground in that big of a way, but I will continue to support the company while enjoying my Michael Jackson station in my cubicle!

- Contributed by Jena Coletti.  Follow her @jmcoletti