AT&T is pretty happy with its 2 million adoring fans...

The Wall Street Journal article on GM pulling its Facebook advertising mentioned that General Motors is third in U.S. advertising spending, behind P&G and AT&T. This prompted me to go take a look at what the other two companies are doing with their Facebook presence.

P&G does not appear to have a corporate Facebook page. That is, if you search “P&G” or “PG” or “Proctor & Gamble” you’ll come up empty except for some odd special-purpose pages. Makes sense because P&G does not generally market itself as a brand but rather as a family of brands, each of which has its own brand manager. And indeed a random search turned up pages for Charmin which offers “SitOrSquat”, an app for finding clean public restrooms, and “Charmin Fan Perks” which are cents-off coupons available in limited quantities at preannounced times (generated repeated visits to the site).

There’s no brand page for Prilosec, another random choice, but there’s one for Pringles. Here you can find the “Tournament of Flavors”, a collection of fan-submitted videos, and “Make Us Laugh”, a joke contest which seems to be in Arabic. In short, P&G’s brand managers seem to have figured out how to use Facebook in a way that is appropriate to the medium and encourages user involvement.

...but the feeling is not entirely mutual.

ATT, on the other hand, makes GM look like a social media maven. Their page is all over the fact they’ve gotten two million “likes” (Pringles has 19 million) with a big “two million thank yous” graphic at the top and a “two million thanks” link just below this. (The link actually leads to something interesting: on May 22 the ATT “house band” is going to start pumping out “thank you” songs written for people who sign up and submit personal information to be used in writing the lyrics. Sort of like the Old Spice Man.) Yet the rest of the page is full of gripes from customers about AT&T. They should do something to moderate these, or at least respond to them.

The moral of this story? With three so different approaches to Facebook, by America’s three top advertisers, this is still a very young medium. Or as Clint Eastwood might put it, we’re still waiting for the ball to come down after the opening kickoff.

GM's got a fan page on Facebook!

So General Motors has pulled its Facebook advertising because it determined its ads had little effect on consumer behavior, according to the Wall Street Journal. Marketing VP Joel Ewanik says the company “is definitely reassessing our advertising on Facebook, although the content is effective and important.” And by “content” he means the pages GM isn’t paying for, as opposed to the sidebar ads.

The story goes on to say that GM had a $40 million Facebook budget, only $10 million of which actually went for ads. The rest “covers content created for the site, agencies that manage the content and daily maintenance of GM’s pages, people familiar with the figures said.”

I took a look at what we can assume is the flagship page for the company, http://www.facebook.com/generalmotors. You can see it pictured here, but you should go check it out for yourself. Then go check out a few other pages, like Chevrolet (NOT “Chevy”) , Camaro, Chevrolet Volt and Corvette. Notice anything interesting? Yeah, the layout and content design is all the same. The whole thing is probably auto-filled by a content management system. If this is worth $30 million I want that gig!

Now notice what GM is doing to promote itself: promote ITSELF. There’s news of what this brand or that brand is doing, Guy Fieri driving a Corvette at the Indy 500 (let’s hope it doesn’t get stolen like his last car) and some proud customers pulling up to a plant in their car on a road trip. Yes, there’s a blurb at the top, “Welcome to the official GM fan page [sic]. Share your thoughts, tell us your story and join in on the discussion.” But nobody’s actually doing that. How about inviting readers to interact with you by sending in photos of their cars, telling stories about their first car, and maybe giving them a chance to WIN something?

And, almost none of these pages has any sidebar advertising. I’m guessing that Facebook pulled all the ads in a fit of pique, to make the pages even less interesting than they are. But here’s an idea: now that you’re spending 75% of your budget to build a “web presence”, is it worth the other 25% to give people a call to action and maybe buy something?

Probably not, if everybody is like GM executives and other WSJ reader: in a poll accompanying the article, 93.4% said they “rarely or never” are affected by Facebook advertising. What more proof could you want that this whole Facebook thing is a flash in the pan?

But actually, it’s a pretty good video and you can watch it right here. (No freeze frame to click, sorry, and you have to sit through a long disclosure/disclaimer crawl before you ever see the people.) It’s the clearest statement yet of “who we are and what we’re trying to do” from a company that is usually very opaque about what it’s up to. And their explanations of the Facebook phenomenon make a lot of sense. Eg. At the beginning user profiles were static and the only thing users could easily change was their profile picture so they constantly changing them. Then they let users tag friends they saw in other photos and the whole social network thing took off. (That from Chris Cox, Vice President, Product in tandem with Mark Zuckerberg.)

The investors were apparently pissed off that after the video there wasn’t enough time for questions. So now there’s no video—and also no Zuckerberg. Did he skip Boston because he was disgusted with the reception to the video, which obviously they’d worked hard on? Time will tell, maybe, but meanwhile look at the video before they take it down. It’s about marketing, just like we are.

Rovi "Bridzilla" Ad in today's Ad Age. Thanks to client Bill Smith and his trusty iPhone.

I’m on a panel at this fall’s DMA called “K.I.S.S – Keys to Copy & Content that Generate Results”. My partners in crime are Dawn Wolfe from Autodesk and Philip Reynolds from pharma agency Palio. The idea is to talk about strategies for translating complex products or services into simple and universal human language that sells.

I’m thinking of using this Rovi promo, which appears in today’s Ad Age, as an example. Rovi does the ads that appear within onscreen television guides and other formats where the viewer is actively involved with a remote or other electronic device; viewers aren’t dozing or distracted so this is an attractive option for media buyers, our target audience. A bit complex so we boiled it down to this idea of the bridezilla who is so enamored of her remote that she can’t put it down even in the wedding chapel.

The antonym of this is the ads you’ll find in any issue of Wired or Fast Company for high-performance automobiles or audiovisual equipment. Those ads typically use visual metaphors of power and performance and expect the reader to be awed, not involved.

The session is happening on October 17, so plenty o’ time to noodle on this. If you have any thoughts or examples on this topic, please send them along!

I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin’ about half past dead;
I just need some place where I can lay my head.
“Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?”
He just grinned and shook my hand, and “No!”, was all he said.

(Chorus:)
Take a load off Anny, take a load for free;
Take a load off Anny, And (and) (and) you can put the load right on me.

I picked up my bag, I went lookin’ for a place to hide;
When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin’ side by side.
I said, “Hey, Carmen, come on, let’s go downtown.”
She said, “I gotta go, but m’friend can stick around.”

(Chorus)

Go down, Miss Moses, there’s nothin’ you can say
It’s just ol’ Luke, and Luke’s waitin’ on the Judgement Day.

“Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?”
He said, “Do me a favor, son, woncha stay an’ keep Anna Lee company?”

(Chorus)

Crazy Chester followed me, and he caught me in the fog.
He said, “I will fix your rack, if you’ll take Jack, my dog.”
I said, “Wait a minute, Chester, you know I’m a peaceful man.”
He said, “That’s okay, boy, won’t you feed him when you can.”

(Chorus)

Catch a cannon ball now, t’take me down the line
My bag is sinkin’ low and I do believe it’s time.
To get back to Miss Fanny, you know she’s the only one.
Who sent me here with her regards for everyone.

Explanation:

The whole business about Nazareth, PA which is mentioned on Wikipedia is a total misdirection. This is a song about Jesus’ crucifixion and “Nazareth” fit better than “Jerusalem” in a melodic sense.

The “he” in the first verse is of course Jesus. The anonymous narrator comes off the dusty road as Jesus is about to be crucified and runs into him coincidentally. Jesus in spite of his larger concerns addresses the insignificant narrator… a frequently seen scenario in ancient runes like Beowulf by the way.

“Anny” and “Anna Lee” are amalgams of Mary Magdalene. Who was not a real person but a composite representing a flawed, all-too-human follower of Jesus.

The “Miss Moses” verse is simply a nod to Biblical characters, Jesus speaking to his tradition.

Crazy Chester is Judas. The “dog” is a metaphor for any situation in which somebody comes out of left field and imposes themselves on you and you feel oddly compelled to oblige. “Fix your rack” can be taken as a prevision of Jesus on the cross.

Time passes after this verse. I think the gap in time was informed not so much by Bunuel (which seems like total horseshit and misdirection) as by the films of Peckinpah and Bogdanovich popular at this time, which typically featured a sequence of individual set pieces adding up to a total narrative. It’s as if a couple of verses were written, then deleted. “Fanny” is both Mary Magdalene (not that surprising that somebody dying of crucifixion would confuse “Anny” and “Fanny”) and God.

That’s what the song is about. [This post has been updated.]

My invitation from BarclayCard. Click to see it on their website full size.

Well, this is different. This afternoon I got an email from BarclayCard, with the subject line “Crowdsourced Credit Card – Join the Conversation”. Inside is a message that starts:

Believe it or not, we’d like to see the credit card industry change just as much as you would. We’re people, too. With bills. With families. And we think it’s time for a change. We believe we can give you a simpler credit card product, still make a profit, and then ultimately share that success with you. We’re inviting you to join Barclaycard Ring—a credit card that’s driven by its community of cardmembers. Your actions will determine the financial performance of the community, and the better the community does, the more profit we’ll be able to share with you through our estimated profit sharing program called Giveback.™³

The actual terms of the card are pretty good. 8% annual APR, no annual fee and no balance transfer fees. But what’s really interesting is the Giveback feature. So it’s like a rewards program, except the reward will be determined in part by the above mentioned Giveback program.

There’s very little about this card in Google at the moment, and it appears I may be an Alpha recipient. Nerdwallet has a good writeup in which they quote this little bit from the Barclay’s website: “This profit sharing feature is not based on the actual profits of the program. Instead, the Giveback program contains a transparent calculation that is used to determine what will be shared with the community members and which may or may not approximate actual profits.”

Color me a bit suspicious and cynical, especially because I have no idea how this solicitation made its way to my inbox. There is no attribution to a third party transmitter, and looking at my email archive it does not appear that I have a relationship with Barclay’s unless they are the same folks who sell wine by mail. But, I’ll go ahead and check it out and report back if I find anything interesting.

Ford "Focus"? Yeah, sure...

How would you like to win a new Ford “Focus”? Probably not a lot because putting the name in quotes is akin to a wink. It’s not really a Focus but a Yugo with a Focus skin of some sort. Or, it’s a cake in the shape of a Ford Focus. Whatever, your response is likely “do not want” and that’s bad news if there is a copywriter who wrote that promo and is getting paid for it.

I mused on this when I saw this ad in the NY Subway last week. And those aren’t really quotes around the word “Focus”. Click on the thumbnail and look at it full size and you’ll see there is actually a register mark after the “Ford” and a TM after “Focus”. WTF?

What is happening here is that some legal beagle is trying to justify their paycheck, unfortunately at the expense of yours. By mindlessly second-guessing the concerns of some other legal beagle in a second company who is also trying to justify their paycheck, they will insist on a trademark or register mark every time a brand is mentioned. They may also insist on the insertion of qualifiers when none are needed, eg changing “you’ll enjoy driving this car” to “you may enjoy driving this car”.

Why is this harmful? First because it’s idiotic. Second because the little rat-turd looking legal marks clutter up the visual appearance and make the copy difficult to read. Third because it removes any artifice that makes it seem that your communication is “real” vs. hucksterism.

I once backed a very senior legal person into a corner at a large publishing company. They told me that if you use a register mark or other qualifier the first time you mention a brand name on an element, and either credit the owner in a footnote or else simply say that “all trademarks are the property of their respective owners” then you’re good. If it’s a multi-component direct mail package you’d need to do this once on the outer envelope, once on the letter, once on the brochure and so on. Then you’re covered. Anything beyond this is legal self-gratification and self-manipulation and you should fight hard against it.

Got to love an all-copy cover!

In my copywriting class I use the Lands End catalog as an example of great catalog copywriting. They are unexcelled at building on details about a fabric or a tailoring process until it becomes irresistible. The story may be about a buyer’s obsessive desire to solve a fitting problem, or about the scientific process by which a synthetic fleece can be light yet warm. Often it’s accompanied by personality profiles of a tailor or a happy wearer.

If you are used to seeing Lands End catalogs in the mail, you probably have no idea what I am talking about… because in fact the examples I use are well over a decade old, before Lands End was acquired by Sears. Recent Lands End catalogs are pretty much like any other midrange fashion retailer’s.

Which is why I was so excited by the spring Men’s book in the mail last week. The cover and the first six pages are all about Irish linen. “We could bring you assembly line linen at a lower price but wouldn’t you rather have the real thing? Here’s the very best, the linen of knights and kings, fearless RAF pilots and world famous rogues.” That’s the headline of the opening spread and I’m already reaching for my credit card even though not a single product is sold here.

The sell begins comes on the next spread, which educates us about the fabric: “Linen comes from long, golden fibers encased inside the woody stalks of the flax plant. Extracting them takes months, which is why fine linen is so prized. The basic steps have changed little from the time of the pharaohs…” Note that these are generic descriptions of linen, but because Lands End takes the trouble to research and tell us its story, the fabric becomes uniquely theirs by default.

The next spread is about linen pants and it has a little repetition, making me wonder if they hired some superstar copywriter and could only afford a few copy blocks, which were then cut and pasted to create new ones. If so, I hope it’s one of the old crew lured out of retirement.

If you received this catalog, take a close look at it… there’s much to be learned. (And order from it, so Sears will discover hard sell is not always the best sell.) If not, I’m delighted to find there’s a continuing feature online called “Anchors of Style” (terrible non-descriptive title incidentally) in which part of the linen story is currently available here.

I found an interesting example of specific selling on the Marketing Experiments Blog… the same folks who brought us the fascinating subject line contest. A marketer changed this line on an ecommerce page:

Simple Fix for Blown Head Gaskets

to this one:

Repair Blown Head Gaskets in Just One Hour

The result? Combine with some other redos, the second headline brought a 58.1% (no, not “nearly 60%”) increase in conversions. Of course you want to know what those other redos are and in fact there was a considerable redesign. But the most important thing about the page didn’t change: a decision to show the actual product, which is obviously a liquid in a bottle.

If you have ever done work on internal combustion engines, you know that a permanent solution for blown head gaskets does not come in a bottle. You have to take the heads off and replace the gaskets which is a time consuming, dirty job. Presumably this liquid is some kind of magic sealant which will ooze into the cracks or warped areas and plug them up, thus reducing the loss of compression which is why blown head gaskets are a problem. But it sounds kind of too good to be true, right?

So if I see “a simple fix” and then a bottle, I’m going to reject it before going further. But if I see “repairs in one hour” then I might consider it; that’s not a big commitment and I will also notice the page offers a money-back guarantee. The ad is engaging with me in a context where I will find its selling proposition acceptable.

This case history (which is presented in an online class that lasts nearly an hour, so it’s great value for the bargain price of free) demonstrates the importance of the RIGHT specifics in your marketing proposition. “Simple fix” is actually a pretty good phrase… two powerful selling words in there. But it’s the wrong message to this audience about this product. “Repairs in one hour” is more specific but more important it’s credible. Good job to the copywriter and the rest of the team for doing their homework.

Specific numbers and statements help prospects visualize what they’re actually going to get when they respond to your advertising. Specifics are more believable and smell less like puffery. Specifics are also a kind of rite of passage for a copywriter… they show your bosses, your clients and ultimately the recipient that you’ve done your homework.

Which is more credible? 100% pure, or 99.44% pure? The latter, obviously. It’s also better than 99.99% (a number you frequently see applied to IT system uptime and other quality-controlled processes) because it’s so random it could only have been arrived at through careful research. (Bonus question: what is the product, and when was the slogan first used? You probably know the first answer but I’ll bet you’ll be surprised at the second. Proves that good copywriters have known this strategy for a very long time.)

Which is more credible? 30 days to a better figure, or lose weight fast? The first one, and 29 or 31 days would have been even better because of the apparent randomness as noted above.

Bad: many reasons to buy now. Better: 10 reasons to buy now. Best: 9 reasons to buy now. If there really are only 9 reasons, why pad it to get to a nice round number?

I realize I’m far short of 47 reasons, but I think I’ve made my point. And by the way, have you ever noticed how often the number 47 appears in narratives, especially science fiction narratives? One reason is that it appears to be the ultimate random number. But actually, it isn’t.