Writing Wrongs: Haste Makes Waste

Deanna Wright seems to be one of the most recent candidates wounded by the double-edged sword that seems to accompany politics and the Internet. While Web sites and blogs can provide a competitive edge, they can also cut away at credibility if they’re not managed properly.

Last week, the Las Vegas Review-Journal skipped past Wright’s positions and went right for the prose, citing that she wants to play an “active roll in the future of education.” And while the leading daily might not have given the mistake a second thought, it was one of a dozen errors.

It’s bad enough that Wright is running for the Clark County School Board, but to make matters worse, she blamed the mistakes on haste and a bad spell checker.

Blaming spell checkers is a poor excuse, mostly because there is no such thing as a “good” spell checker. More concerning is how the errors are handled.

Anyone who writes with frequency on a blog will find a few errors sometimes slip through the cracks. Most of us correct them as soon as they’re spotted. But what stood out to me about this story is that she said she knew about the problems on her site, but hadn’t had time to correct them.

Ironically, this is precisely what is wrong with our school district. There are too many known problems that no one seems to have time to fix.

But more to the point, the easy accessibility of the Internet and the ability to quickly share information is changing the electoral process in that voters have a real opportunity to learn about various issues from each candidate in almost every race. It also takes a brave candidate to share ideas on blogs, knowing that critics are likely to hang on every word much more than any supporters.

Candidates might keep in mind that while the Internet is a great opportunity, bad writing can kill even the best ideas. Slow down and appreciate that there is something to be said for the idiom “haste makes waste.”

It always takes longer to undo the damage caused by careless errors than it does to make those errors in the first place. Ask anyone.

Paying $1 Million: Pepsi Banks On Consumers

According to the Wall Street Journal, PepsiCo will be awarding $1 million if anyone can create a Doritos Super Bowl commercial that beats out all other Super Bowl ads based on viewer rankings.

"We've always believed our fans have the talent and passion to compete at the highest level, and we are putting $1 million on the table to demonstrate our confidence and also help our winner fulfill their own destiny," said Ann Mukherjee, group vice president of marketing for Doritos. "Whether it goes toward funding a short film, opening an ad agency or anything in between, we're empowering them with an unmatched stage to compete on and a motivation to make it happen."

Winning the $1 million will not be easy. After consumer-creators submit their entry, it will be up to fans to vote online for five finalists (including the one advertisement that will air during Super Bowl XLIII). All finalists will receive $25,000 and a trip to Tampa Bay, Florida, to attend Super Bowl XLIII.

Additional details for the "Crash The Super Bowl" contest are posted on the Doritos interactive Web site. The contest represents an increasing trend among companies to engage consumers by asking them to create original advertising and marketing.

Related thought: For the all these efforts to turn consumers into brand ambassadors, one wonders why there is ever any debate on employees becoming brand ambassadors too.

Communicating Change: Where Utterz Went Utterli Wrong

"The initial reaction to the name change is mixed. People don't generally like change, unless things are going really poorly. As a company and community, we've never been better, so I've expected push back on the identity change." — Aaron Burcell

It’s almost cliché to say that change is never easy, especially during an election year when change seems to be the synonymous mantra of every candidate and politician in the running. However, for the multi-media presence application Utterli, formerly Utterz, change — the recent identity change, not necessarily its new interface — is suffering more than push back. It’s a disaster.

Never mind the comments that keep popping up online; consider that any time I mentioned the Utterz identity change at BlogWorld, every communicator and blogger I spoke with rolled their eyes and expressed a complete dismissal of the idea.

Some even wondered who was paid to push that idea through, speculating that such an identity change would carry a mighty price tag. Others suggested it would take months or even years to undo the powerful brand they had established with Bessie, the lovable cow. A couple said they never heard of Utterz anyway.

In fairness to Utterz, while the name change might have been a surprise to most members, it was leaked the same time it started rubbing Aaron Burcell’s head for luck and made him CMO. The leak, however, never made it beyond the whisper stages. And that’s too bad. If it had, I don’t think they would face so much “push back” as they call it today.

How Utterz Could Have Better Communicated Change

• Utterz could have released its interface change without the identity change, ensuring the new features would have been the story. It would have also captured its audience’s attention, providing a better venue to suggest the identity change might be in the near future, opening dialogue.

• Utterz could have remembered that it would need to be responsive to the identity change. For all the claims they expected “push back,” the post communication comes across as dismissive. The “we’ve grown up” message is weak and distances the company from its community because maybe its customers don’t want to grow up.

• Before committing to the change, Utterz could have promoted the idea of a name change, providing a forum for feedback, allowing people who feel vested in the service an opportunity to share their questions, comments, and concerns.

• Open communication is critical during change, but most Utterz members seem to feel that there was no communication by the company until after the fact. The change has left them feeling that any feedback is futile.

• Utterz, like so many Web 2.0 companies, need to consider the length of the change initiative. Communicating change is actually very easy, provided a company can extend the change cycle and adjust during adoption. Steady will always win the race.

• Too many online companies rely exclusively on their blogs to communicate change. Considering how many companies employ push marketing at the wrong time, not enough use it at the right time. When communicating change, one communication vehicle, such as a blog post after the fact, is not enough.

Successfully communicating change, especially when it impacts an identity that customers feel vested in and a part of, requires a controlled pace and deep engagement. For all the praise Utterli has received on being responsive with the interface, it’s always buried under the name change that exemplifies the opposite.

For Utterz, communicating an identity change would have played better after the service changed, especially if it would have been rolled out in several phases.

1. Announcing that an identity change was being considered and clear reasons why the change was being considered.

2. Collecting community feedback on the name change.

3. Announcing decisions based on that feedback, such as keeping a significant portion of name as the brand.

4. Providing some sneak peeks to the spontaneous stakeholders that become interested in the process, which would certainly include the most vocal critics of any change.

5. Finalizing the identity change and revealing it from the inside out — employees, hard stakeholders, community stakeholders, the entire community, and then outside interests such as the media.

Instead, now they are playing catch up. As they do, it seems more likely the name change had less to do about this and more to do with the fact that Utterli, formerly Utterz, wants to be acquired.

Communicating Disparity: Reuters On Wall Street

There is an interesting communication insight that emerges after reading Reuters collection of public opinions on the recent market drop.

Wall Street workers said:
• People are in misery. You can see it, you can feel it.
• It's at the level of 1929, I'm sure.
• It's mind-blowing. There is no place to hide.

Non-Wall Street workers said:
• Look at this -- it's jam-packed with people and they don't look too stressed.
• If the market dropped 25 percent like it did in '87, I'd be worried, but a 400 point drop isn't that much.
• Today, anyway, the money that the Fed put into the markets seems to have straightened things out.

Communication can be decidedly different depending on vantage point. It's something to keep in mind when deciding whether to run with a campaign based on insider or outsider perspectives. Here's an idea: stick to the truth and manage from a point of authenticity, never minding what either group says. It's your message as long as you manage it.

Uttering New Identity: Utterli

Utterz is dead. Long live Utterli.

Mashable called it an impression of Prince. And another member, Jason, who is bullish on the cross-posting service, says he’s utterly confused. Jason doesn’t seem to be alone. Confused is what most people seem to be.

According to their blog, Utterz has “outgrown” its identity, but Mashable offered a more plausible explanation. After conducting some market research, they learned that many people, especially females, did not like the name Utterz.

That might make sense to folks like Sheryl Altschuler, president of A-Strategies Marketing Consultants, who subscribes to the idea that the “the customer is in control from here on out …”

This is also one of several places where I depart from the construct that the “customer is in control” of the identity and the brand. In fact, this thinking might be precisely the reason that Utterli has taken some people aback. What customers are they talking about? By some accounts, including their own, Utterli seems to be relying on input from some people who aren’t customers at all. And, the identity change is barely half and half.

They killed Bessie, but insist members can still “utter” and can continue to use meaningful references to “utterers” and “utts.” They put up the new logo, but any marketing and instructional videos will have to change; it will be a long time before all the directories and databases can be updated; and the new name will forever remind people of what it once was, perhaps using it when feeling sentimental much like they did after trying New Coke.

(I don’t even want to talk about the mark, a generic identity that looks something like a cross between a lemon-lime soda logo and a Partridge Family partridge, other than to say it's utterly unmemorable compared to the cow that pops up all over Flickr and elsewhere.)

Of course, even if everyone liked the new name, you have to wonder about the execution. Social media companies have a nasty tendency to spring change on their communities, which is the opposite of being responsive or responsible. Some customers, women included, are even wondering why they weren't asked and a few are considering a petition to change it back.

While it is too early to say in this case, the social media contract that proposes that the customers are in control, might have led Utterli, formally Utterz, astray. No, customers do not control the brand or the message. No one controls it.

“If you don’t manage the message, the message will manage you.”

Of course, none of this is to say that I don’t hope for their best outcome. I’ve met some of the folks behind Utterli, formally Utterz, and believe they were probably convinced it was the right thing to do. It's still a shame though. The name change keeps drowning out the more important message — they’ve enhanced some services.

Who did? Utterli, formally Utterz.

Communicating Politics: Has The Bar Dropped?

It’s a good thing I watched the John Adams miniseries this summer because I might otherwise believe it when many news outlets call the 2008 elections the dirtiest, ugliest, and meanest in history.

Somehow, for me, being reminded that Jefferson vilified his longtime friend and colleague Adams in 1800 or that Jefferson himself was later vilified by his political opponents, helps keep things in perspective. Joseph Ellis, in his book The Revolutionary Generation called this rivalry unequalled in terms of “shrill accusatory rhetoric, flamboyant displays of ideological intransigence, intense personal rivalries and hyperbolic claims of imminent catastrophe.”

Although, when you think about it, Ellis really could be writing about 2008, with the only notable difference being that many poorly executed ideas like Obama Waffles or the now debunked claims by the DailyKos that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy are often beyond either campaign team’s control.

Much more manageable are the messages being put into play by both campaigns. Obama’s claim that McCain votes 88 percent of the time with President Bush is disingenuous at best, given that the reality is Obama and McCain voted together nearly as much. And, I’ve already commented on the McCain team’s silly Obama is like Paris Hilton comparison ad. Both were wrong. Both were ineffective. Both backfired.

The excuse? Everywhere I look, “they’ve” lowered the bar “first” seems to be the prevailing mantra. Yet, nothing could be further from reality. Somebody, eventually, has to be the better person and not expect voters to ferret out the truth on their own, just as I’ve been advising closer to home. As expected, the nasty national tactics have been spilling over into local and state races.

“The Nevada Democratic Party is showing an analogous moral bankruptcy in its effort to oust state Sens. Joe Heck and Bob Beers because it must believe the end — returning the upper house to the Democrats for the first time in 18 years — justifies the execrable means.” — Jon Ralston, Las Vegas Sun

Ralston is referring to a smear campaign being promoted by the Nevada State Democratic Party to help lift up their candidate who professes not to know who is behind the campaign (um, the same people financing her). yet, she is more than happy to benefit from it. You can find one example of the fictitious campaign claims on another local blogger’s site. You can find the truth here or here.

Since the campaign was launched, several communicators have asked me what do you do when the opposition intends to spend $1 million on a mountain of lies? Don’t you hit back?

Sometimes you want to, but that’s no answer. Reactionary communication is not very effective communication. So as much as the media loves to cover such conflict, there is only one remedy for political campaign lies, in my opinion. It requires more and more truth. And that is what Sen. Beers is doing.

Now, only if national campaigners would learn, because they have set the bar lower and some local campaigners seem to have set the bar even lower than that. Enough so, that I’ve already told most of my friends that I’m not making any national election decisions until after the debates and asked some not to subscribe to or promote sound bites from either side until it can be verified as fact.

Otherwise, we risk making liars of ourselves, even if it seems justified by the audacious notion that the sun will not rise on Nov. 5 if the other candidate is elected. On the contrary, the sun will rise.

The sun will rise on Nov. 5 just as it did on July 4, 1826, after two longtime adversaries realized that for all their wanted differences, the rest of the world perceived them to be largely the same. And “Thomas Jefferson survives.”