So why is Domino’s campaign so engaging and Red Lobster’s so boring?

I think it’s because transparency is not an end in itself. If every business pulled back the curtain to show us what really goes on, we’d be bored silly by almost all of it. Red Lobster proves this with videos like this one:

This guy is a crab fisherman—an occupation so exciting that there’s a TV show around how dangerous it is. But Red Lobster doesn’t want to show the excitement, so instead we get placid seas, clear skies, and calm words about how this guy loves his job and his boat.

Yawn.

And then there’s this video, abouta grillmaster who (surprise!) “loves food.”

The point of the second spot is probably to show that Red Lobster uses real wood-fired grills, but they hide that information behind a bland interview. The main takeaway from these two spots is that Red Lobster gets crab from crab fisherman, and there’s a guy in the kitchen who makes your food. I knew that already.

On the other hand, Domino’s spots are fun and engaging—because the campaign doesn’t use transparency as an end in itself, only as a means. Their spots introduce us to various people in Domino’s corporate kitchen, all of whom have the same basic message: If you don’t like our new recipes, we’ll be fired.

“Here’s the guy the handles customer comments about our new chicken recipe. We hope you like it, because if you don’t, this guy has to deal with it.”

“Here’s the guy that redesigned the crust and the sauce—you’ve hated our crust and sauce for years, so we challenged this guy to fix them.”

The spots are great because they match up with our perceptions of Domino’s pizza (that it has sucked for a long time), and gives us a reason to want to change our perceptions. Transparency isn’t enough to make something interesting, we want drama or surprise or conflict.

McDonald’s used surprise + transparency in its original Brand Journalism campaign back in 2007, when the company invited a group of moms to tour McDonald’s facilities. These moms got a behind-the-scenes look at the farms where the potatoes for French fries are grown, and the kitchens where the cooking happens.

According to a Washington Post story from 2008, a group of moms “crowded into the walk-in refrigerator at the Baltimore restaurant. There were eggs stacked in a corner. Kelle Evans, a single mother from Woodbridge, said, ‘What are these eggs for?’ Answer: McDonald’s makes Egg McMuffins with them. Evans was stunned.”

The element of surprise is what makes the campaign’s transparency interesting. There might be people who are surprised to see a wood-fired grill in a Red Lobster commercial, but that doesn’t play with my perceptions the way McDonald’s did when I found out they use real eggs.

Ford, on the other hand, used transparency + conflict for its Ford Bold Moves campaign back in 2006. The company was undergoing a major transformation, which involved layoffs, struggles, and re-designing their cars from scratch. Ford allowed JWT to document the entire process with video teams and independent journalists, in order to give the public an inside look at what Ford was going through, and what the company was trying to accomplish. They were capturing the conflict in a transparent way.

I get very similar vibes from the Domino’s work. I don’t get any vibes at all from the Red Lobster work.

Still, it could be worse. They could be Olive Garden.

Related articles

• Advertising: Red Lobster Campaign to Showcase Some of Its Own Workers (nytimes.com)
• Red Lobster: We Sea Food Differently (adrants.com)

We talked a lot about the attention dynamics of IM–specifically, Yanda said “the beauty of IM [is] continuous partial attention. The predominant way to use IM is when you’re doing something else.”

As such, it makes perfect sense for IM to live within the Facebook environment. And as we know, Facebook ended up deploying its own version of SocialIM a few years ago.

The other reason IM makes sense on social networks is because social networks own the most robust versions of our social graph. Why should I maintain a separate contact list for AIM, MSN, or GChat when Facebook has a much more complete list of all the people I’d ever want to talk to? Trillian and Digsby smartly export Facebook Friends lists into traditional IM applications, for just this reason.

The recent Facebook announcement of adding Skype video chat to Facebook was met with a collective snore for a couple reasons. First, Google+ had just launched as a whole new social platform with a similar video chat feature. Second, video chat is just not a natural fit with social networks, for the reason that Yanda outlined so well. Video chatting is not a format for “continuous partial attention,” and more and more, that’s the kind of format we want. I can maintain 30 email threads, 10 IM conversations, and 5 Twitter back-and-forths at the same time; or I can have one video chat.

Video chatting is still an appointment form of communicating. Google+ is trying to change that by making “hangouts” (video chatting with a more casual name), but typically, we set up a video chat by sending a text or an email first. Frankly, I consider it rude for a Skype friend to randomly call me expecting me to fire up my webcam and chat with them. No thanks, I’m doing stuff (that’s why I’m logged onto my computer). Send me an IM instead.

The truly useful feature that comes out of Skype/Facebook integration is being able to use Skype with my Facebook social graph. Of course, MySpace had video chat in 2004 and Skype integration way back in 2007.

I’d posit that the survey points to dissatisfaction with Facebook tactics, rather than dissatisfaction with the Facebook platform. Users love Facebook, and the social graph that Mark Zuckerberg created is built for rapid influencer amplification. Perhaps marketers just aren’t using it in the right way.

The coverage of the Forrester report looks at Facebook’s efficacy as a brand-building platform, but that’s not really what Facebook is about, even though we try to use it that way. Take The New Yorker’s promotion last week, for example. Anyone who “Liked” The New Yorker’s Facebook page got free access to an excellent Jonathan Franzen essay.

But here’s the thing: The Franzen essay appeared concurrently in last week’s print issue. So all those people “Liking” The New Yorker probably weren’t subscribers—they didn’t necessarily “like” The New Yorker. The program was deemed a success, in that the page got 166K new fans, but how many of those will last? Engagement is still relatively low on the page, given the number of Likes it has.

We’ve seen Facebook campaigns like this in the past, and while some of them might succeed, I don’t think they’re the best use of Facebook (and neither does Forrester). Instead of using the platform to win people over with deals and discounts, why not take a page from fan clubs and use our Facebook pages to engage brand advocates? In other words, try to collect “Likes” from people who really do “Like” your brand, and trust them to spread the word.

Fan clubs have been around for decades, and they succeed in whipping fans into a frenzy by offering them niche, highly valued brand experiences that aren’t available elsewhere. A rock band might offer unreleased tracks to the fan club, or early access to concert tickets. A football team hosts a barbecue with the cheerleading squad, but only premium season ticket holders are invited. The point is that whatever you offer is going to be spam to almost everyone, and gold to a select few. So find the content that will pull in that select few, and their friends will notice.

To go back to The New Yorker example, instead of offering something online that subscribers already get, offer something valuable that will be more likely to appeal to your fan base. Here are all the cartoons that ended up on the cutting room floor last week; here are the 10 WORST entries for the caption contest; here’s an exclusive track from the guitar player that Sasha Frere-Jones profiled in the most recent issue.

This changes the Facebook model somewhat. The current strategies tend to revolve around getting as many “Likes” as you can get, so you can push content out to the News Feeds of a huge number of Facebook users. Instead, I’m recommending going after a much smaller number of genuine fans. When you post content, those fans will be more likely to comment on it and “Like” it.

The difference between the two models is that in the first one, content is being distributed under your brand’s name to people who don’t necessarily care about it; in the second, it’s being distributed under your fans’ names to people who care about them. You’re trading reach for real community, so you can use that real community to increase your reach.

See the difference?

Related Articles

• The New Yorker Puts Jonathan Franzen Story Behind a Wall of Likes (mashable.com)
• The New Yorker Hides Jonathan Franzen’s David Foster Wallace Story Behind Facebook ‘Like’ Wall (businessinsider.com)
• Was ‘The New Yorker’ Facebook Campaign a Winner? (mediabistro.com)

We knew when we submitted the panel idea last summer that we would need to explain and perhaps even defend brand journalism—it’s not a practice that many are familiar with, even though we at JWT have done it with huge clients like Microsoft and Ford. And we knew that brand journalism, and branded content in general, would be a hot-button issue at SXSW this year.

As such, our best bet for having a successful, insightful panel would be to find someone like Bob to be an independent, skeptical moderator. The panel needed to incorporate its toughest potential critic, who would serve as the audience’s stand-in, asking questions and poking at the panelists the way the audience would want to. The SXSW crowd is a sophisticated one, able to smell BS a mile away; anything less than an unvarnished look at brand journalism would be called out as such. So we paid an independent expert (Bob) to keep us honest, and we involved Pepsi’s Shiv Singh to provide another perspective. We didn’t ask either one to pull their punches; quite the opposite, in fact.

This panel was brand journalism in action, and the crowd responded accordingly. I was tracking Twitter conversations during the panel, and saw several tweets that praised us for being so open and engaging. I think we drove actual perception shifts, thanks to a great moderator and an attitude of honesty, openness, and a very public search for truth.

Bob, in light of your column today, it’s worth pointing out that Chrysler wasn’t doing brand journalism last week. You were.

Related Articles

• Chrysler’s Twitter Controversy Teaches Us ‘Brand Journalism’ Is a Lie (adage.com)
• Recaps from Brand Journalism: The Rise in Non-Fiction Advertising (adgeek.us)
• Brand Journalism: Ethics, Opportunities & Outcomes (prnewswire.com)
• Brand Journalism: The Rise in Non-Fiction Advertising recap (digitaria.com)

At SXSWi last week, I bumped into a friend who is studing at Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute. That friend introduced me to another friend at HCII, who introduced me to another friend at HCII, and now I’m in thick with these geniuses! Anyway, one of these new friends, Nisha Kurani, sent me this note this morning, regarding the program’s mind-bending Kinect-hacking projects:

As we discussed, the Kinect Hack was a class project that lasted a little over 2 weeks.  Our course titled, “Special Topics in Interactive Art & Computational Design” taught by Golan Levin and teaching assistant Dan Wilcox (you may know him from the Titty Tracker Kinect Hack) is an interdisciplinary class with students from Art, Design, Architecture, Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Robotics.  Our professor passed out Kinects to the entire class and asked us to work in teams to push the limits of our creativity while exploring the many uses of its depth-camera.  The unique mix of Golan’s exemplary experience, Dan’s mad skills, and innovative students who are eager to learn has resulted in several really cool projects that you should definitely check out: http://golancourses.net/2011spring/projects/project-3-interaction/. 

Here are a couple of my favorite student projects:

“Boo, a Super Mario ghost character, appears when the Kinect senses a person’s body. He’s shy and always stays behind the person he is following, while floating gently and laughing manically. The size of Boo is depth dependent as well.”

“Alex and Ray created a particle system that exhibits flocking and swarming behaviors when the user is moving, and flocks to the participant’s depth field when they’re standing still. The resulting simulation ebbs and flows between the recognizable and the abstract.”

“roboScan is a 3D modeler + scanner that uses a Kinect mounted on an ABB 4400 robot arm. Motions planned in Robot Studio and Robot Master control to the robot as well as the 3D position of the camera. The Kinect depth data is then used to produce an accurate model of the environment.”

Check out all the Kinect-hacking projects here.

This year’s SXSW Music Video program featured “a range of classic, innovative and stylish work showcasing the scope of music video culture.” The low tech, lo-fi videos, created for little money and/or without sophisticated production tools, were the most remarkable. They prove that compelling content does not have to be expensive, elaborate productions.

U.S. Girls “Red Ford Radio” dirs. Jacqueline Castel, Preston Spurlock

This lo-fi animation was created on a photocopier and shows collage animation of 1950s – 60s era print advertisements featuring women, domestic appliances and electronics. This video’s simplicity makes it more poignant, highlighting the ever-changing and never-changing aesthetic/style of advertising throughout the years. It’s using popular culture as a counter culture statement (nothing new) but has stand-out power when compared to the hyper-produced videos of today that look more like cell phone commercials that artistic statements.

Hollerado “Americanarama” dir. Greg Jardin

This is a single take Hollywood Squares-style neo-8 bit, live action animation. The director said it took 1 day to set up the scaffolding, 1.5 days to rehearse and 1 day to shoot. They shot 12 takes, of those 8 were usable; of those 3 were actually editable. This is the 2nd to last take.

The director and AD used After Effects for the animatic, then made commands for each square based on hundreds of cues for the duration of the song. They did playback at half speed and the performers all had their commands on excel sheets posted at their feet. You can see them looking down the entire time.

Honorable Mentions in Lo-Fi:
Humans “Bike Home” dirs. Peter Ricq, David Poirier
Puppet cops bust a house party in Vancouver… kinda.

Toby Goodshank “Track 5/Untitled” dir. Preston Spurlock

How can you make the Hindenburg explosion fun? Draw a happy face on it and put the film to lyrics like, “I’m gonna jerk your boyfriend off.”

Eyes Lips Eyes “Pretty” dir. Collin Mapp
http://www.eyeslipseyes.com/p/video.html (halfway down the page)
Huge baby kidnaps a band.

Best of Hi-Fi videos:
Cathy Davey “Little Red” dir. Lorcan Finnegan

This mixed media Little Red Riding Hood is colorful, multi-textured and fun. The performer is a singing and dancing lollipop-shaped little thing and the big mean wolf has a paper mache head. The backgrounds and sets have a hand made feel, augmented by subtle, stylized animated textures and the occasional hand puppet.

The interactive portion of SXSW is behind us, and with it the guilt associated with sleeping past 8 in the morning (the guilt associated with not staying out past 2 still lingers, and promises to grow throughout the music festival).

As I try to make sense of the cascade of 4 days of information and keep the lid on my excitement about prospects for the future, I keep coming back to one truth I found interwoven throughout all the seminars, movies and events:

At the end of the day, it’s about human connection and connectivity, and the core fundamentals of communication have not changed.

Let me repeat that, loudly: THE CORE FUNDAMENTALS OF COMMUNICATION HAVE NOT CHANGED.

Whether you’re writing a coupon ad, scripting a :30 second TV spot, creating augmented reality documentaries or leveraging mobile check-in platforms for an international bot-avatar game, you need to appeal to humans.

It sounds simple. And that’s because it is. But in a world of overwhelming advances in technology and ever-increasing CPU speed, it’s easy to forget the fundamentals: advertising and marketing are here to communicate with people. Just slapping your name on the latest post-Twitter, post-Foursquare, post-Whatever-Is-Already-Old-News-By-The-Time-You-Read-This Technology doesn’t make you a better or smarter or more likeable advertiser if there is no reason for being and no personality to the way you use that form of media.

In some of the highest-tech seminars, here are some fundamentals I heard repeated that David Ogilvy or Bill Bernbach could have easily stated 60 years ago.

Advertise Where Your Customers Are

You wouldn’t place an ad for Mad Dog 20/20 in the New Yorker (I actually don’t know where you would place an ad for Mad Dog 20/20). So think about media placement before development. If your target is young, create something on mobile that they can carry around with them and actually use. But if your audience is 55 year-old men who watch TV, you don’t necessarily need to create even so much as a Facebook page.

Have a conversation with your audience rather than talk generally to everyone.

Every brand needs to imagine they have just walked into a party. What do you do when you get to a party? Do you make a speech to the entire ensemble about how interesting and likeable you are? No. You talk to the people who already like you and have such a deep or funny or interesting or dynamic conversation that the entire party wants to join. Social media allows us to interact with your fans in real-time. So get to the party. But if you choose to act like a yutz when you get there, don’t expect to be invited to other parties.

You are an invited guest; so act like one.

One speaker made an analogy of the difference between tipping big in a restaurant and tipping big at a friend’s dinner party. The former would be deemed generous; the second would be deemed rude. When a user chooses to interact with you in social media, they are looking to befriend a brand that they admire or like. So with that in mind, don’t be the friend who is always, like, “It’s a great day for a friend like you to buy something from me.” Instead, bring something to the conversation like a friend would.

Eat Your Own Dog Food

Believe in what you’re creating. If it’s not something you’d interact with (if you were in the target) or use, don’t create it.

There are opportunities at every turn.

A mobile game creator spoke of designing for failure. He waxed on about how his group turned an error message into a part of the game. They just figured, hey, people’s devices aren’t going to connect all the time. So why not create for it? The result is a richer experience that keeps you immersed at every turn.

Have a great client.

This last one will be as true today as it will be in ten thousand years. Even if we are advertising to the robots then. And from what I heard over the last few days, we probably will be.

Judging by the amount of people who attended a SXSW session entitled “Your Meetings Suck and It’s Your Fault,”  it’s clear how frustrated people are with not only the amount, but also the level of inefficiency that exists in group gatherings. I realize as a project manager it may be hypocritical for me to say that meetings are inefficient, but that’s not exactly the point I’m making, nor the one the speaker delivered.

Meetings have become, in part, a solution to challenging issues that colleagues have a hard time understanding. Ken Hoffmann, User Experience Director at Happy Cog, blames this (as well as other inefficient use of group time) on the fact that there isn’t as much thought put into the design of meetings as their is to the design of an app or a print ad, or what you’re cooking for dinner.

Though meetings aren’t always pointless, Hoffmann explains that each meeting should be designed in a similar fashion to the way we design an experience. And this is for the simple fact that it IS an experience. We focus a great deal on designing interactions between things, whether a site, a computer, a piece of furniture, but few spend the same amount of time designing an experience between humans.

And this is the point. Every time people get together to tackle a problem, or a project, or make something, this is an experience that needs crafting. Not only do we need a goal, but there needs to be a structure to achieving that goal, and to make the meeting efficient the goal of every meeting should be grounded in “making something in the real world.” Brilliant.

So yes, maybe we do all need to spend some time thinking about what we do in these meetings, and how to make the time used more efficient. But it’s all of our fault. When we all agree that getting into a room in the simple sense of the concept is no longer enough, maybe then we’ll see less sneers or crinkled faces on people who get one meeting invite after another.

During his presentation at SXSW this year, Gary said a lot of things that appeal to the social media strategist in all of us. But he also said some baffling things–like this quote: “Content calendars suck; that’s like bringing a script to a cocktail party.”

That one cuts close to the bone for me, since a lot of my work involves making sure we have a central calendar to plan our campaign around. The calendar coordinates the teams, the messaging, the distribution channels, and the voices that go into a sophisticated content-centric campaign.

Here’s my three-part response to Gary’s statement:

1. Content calendars are extraordinarily hard to build when you’re dealing with complex campaigns for global brands
2. When done right, content calendars unify disparate silos within an organization, providing cohesiveness to a campaign with lots of stakeholders. Think PR, AR, C-suite, product teams, legal, global subs…all with their own timelines and messaging priorities. A good calendar imposes order on the chaos and helps everyone align their goals across all channels
3. There’s no reason to sacrifice planning and quality on the altar of speed and responsiveness. Clients can and should expect both from a content-centric campaign

Pick up a magazine or read a newspaper, and you’ll see the output of a content calendar: Publishers carefully blending long-lead feature stories with quick-hit breaking news. Every magazine issue and every newspaper section is driven by a content calendar, because calendaring is essentially planning. And who’s against planning? Should all content be seat-of-the-pants? And what would that world look like?

The trick to succeeding with an editorial calendar is knowing how to blend it with real-time responsiveness–you have to know when to chuck the plan and crank something out now now now. And that is probably what Gary was railing against–companies that appear clueless because they’re mindlessly sticking to their talking points instead of participating in conversations.

That I get. What I don’t get is the idea that we shouldn’t be planning our content creation.

1. The SXSW program guide was the size of a phone book. And it was packed with ads
2. Most of the new startups I saw that had recently landed funding were completely silly and useless (always a good sign)
3. Ad people were everywhere at the show, as were their clients. I sat next to Draft FCB and BBDO on the plane to Austin, and Digitas on the return flight
4. Even the publishing companies were feeling flush, sending big teams and throwing parties
5. Cocaine