Advertising With Apps: Sherwin-Williams

Like many people, I held any number of odd jobs to pay for my education. I did a stint as an assistant manager at a 7-Eleven. I set up, tore down, and worked spotlights at concerts, including Pink Floyd in Sacramento. I painted murals along several college dorm walls; they have long since been painted over as the director allowed students to crowd source the concepts.

And, among other things, I worked as a colorologist at Sherwin-Williams every summer. A colorologist, by Sherwin-Williams' definition then, was someone who could match paint by sight to virtually anything and everything that customers brought in.

Nowadays, most clerks attempt to use computers to do the same job with mixed results. However, despite knowing the shortcomings of computer-aided color matching, the new ColorSnap app for the iPhone from Sherwin-Williams caught my attention.

Why it works as an advertisement.

As simple as it sounds, the Sherwin-Williams ColorSnap application is inspiring in that it allows you to match, coordinate, and save more than 1,500 paint colors. It's an advertisement for Sherwin-Williams, but works hard to add value for customers. And when it comes to apps, ads have to be useful.

• You can find some inspiration anywhere and then save those colors.
• You can browse colors, coordinate them, and save them for future paint jobs.
• You can add purchased colors and save them for future reference or the next homeowner.
• You can use the Sherwin-Williams store locator to find the nearest store.
• You can take a snapshot of a photo and match colors to what you see on the screen.*

It's apparent that considerable thought went into the application. Resource Interactive did a fine job with the design as a source of inspiration for customers. It's almost unfortunate the application falls short on practically, not because it doesn't do what it says it will do, but because it failed to set appropriate expectations.

Where it falls short of a success story.

I added an asterisk to the photo snap feature because what would otherwise be the coolest feature (giving customers the ability to match colors by taking a photo) is flawed. It's flawed for several reasons, but most of all because it sets the expectation too high.

• Much like ink, colors act differently as a light source and paint product. In fact, ink and paint act differently too.
• The matching function is matching to a picture on the screen and not whatever the customer takes a picture of.
• Shadow, dirt, and intense light can all affect photos (the same reason some humans beat computers at matching).

In sum, the app falls a bit short because the coolest feature doesn't really do what it says it can do. And while that doesn't mean it fails as an electronic color deck, it is the primary irritation noted by half of the customers who left reviews. That's too bad, because ColorSync is a handy little app for several other uses.

The human workaround, by the way, is as simple as narrowing down the colors with the app and then cross-checking them against the chips in the store. It sure beats attempting to match colors by memory.

How apps and social media make advertising useful again.

There are several people kicking around publishing as the next direction for marketers. Mitch Joel has been kicking the idea around lately. I kicked it around several years ago, with the focus on program development over publishing.

In 2007, the primary disconnect between marketers becoming publishers was that some marketers felt such measures meant managing a dual business, with one foot in manufacturing and another in publishing. While there is some truth to that, you only need to look at history to find where it worked before like the original Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog. It was first published in 1888.

The concept that you can add value to the customer experience isn't as new as some social media experts pretend. It's as old as advertising. What's not so old is "attention-getting" ads that fail to educate, inform, or persuade in favor of selling the cleverness of the creatives more than the product or service. That advent in advertising came along in the 1990s with the rapid adoption of Photoshop and SFX. Advertisers convinced themselves that people didn't read anymore.

It wasn't like that during what many people consider the golden era of advertising. Those folks aimed at having a direct conversation with customers in order to add value (despite some of it being contrived) to the lives of consumers. Social media and apps can work just like that.

Although the ColorSnap app doesn't measure up as a completely practical application, it represents a thinking that more advertisers ought to embrace. Marketers need to be thinking about communication that adds value with a bit of persuasion again.

Searching For Meaning: Prosumers

Euro RSCG Worldwide has completed a new travel study with an emphasis on prosumers, who tend to be influential early adopters. According to Euro RSCG Worldwide, they also adopt a more mindful approach to consumption and incorporate concern for the environment, local communities, and global citizenship similar to the attitudes expressed in A Darwinian Gale.

"For years, people have regarded travel as a way to splurge, an indulgence centered on escapism and fun," said Marian Salzman, president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, North America. "Now, we're looking to make our travel experiences more meaningful and better aligned with our personal values and goals."

According to the study, prosumers will lead the way in travel trends. Generally, they consider themselves citizens of the world, believe travel is the key to making people more interesting, and contend that where people travel says a lot about them.

Four elements that are vital to capturing prosumers.

• Accept and embrace "green" as the standard way of doing business.
• Provide more products and services that satisfy the desire to live mindfully.
• Master social media to engage them before, during, and after travel.
• Embrace new models for luxury and customer service.

According to the interpretation of the data, companies need to engage prosumers well before and long after each travel event if they hope to be successful. As an example, the study cites The Pod Hotel in New York City that experienced a 40 percent increase in reservations after developing a site called the PodCulture, which is a closed network in which guests can connect with one another and synchronize their travel plans.

Highlights on what Euro RSCG Worldwide calls prosumers.

• 79 percent of prosumers believe society is too shallow, focusing on things that don't matter.
• 74 percent of prosumers feel good about making environmentally-friendly choices.
• 66 percent are concerned that people are too disconnected from the natural world.
• 63 percent pay attention to environmental and social impacts on the products they buy.
• 53 percent believe that the emphasis on digital communication weakens human bonds.
• 84 percent are making a concerted effort to improve who they are and how they live.

Interestingly enough, prosumer qualities mirror many of the those identified as important by social media enthusiasts. Most no longer see social media as a means to connect with strangers as much as a means to meet people around the world and eventually meet them while vacationing or traveling for business. Simply put, they want to connect with the human experience. Is your business ready for them?

Getting Glimpses: Fresh Content

While most people are attempting to figure out social media for fun and profit (they never will), the Internet has become an ultimate fish bowl for human behavior. Everything that used to happen offline is happening online, except it comes with a trackable truth meter for anyone who happens to look for the truth.

The five best fresh picks all share a small slice of the human condition. People air their offline laundry in public, attempt to control information, steal ideas from others, mistake buzz for branding, and struggle to distinguish amateur from professional as both roads might lead to the same destination. All of it makes you realize that when people ask what happened on the Web today, the only real answer is that everything offline happened online today. It's just like any other day.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of March 8

• For Many Families, Facebook Is The Real World Web.
Louis Gray paints an interesting picture of how family connections on Facebook mirror offline relationships, even in his own family. He presents both the good (the ability to disrupt separation in between gatherings) and the bad (when an in-law unfriended everyone on the other side of the family). All of it is presented with sparkling transparency in an accidental life stream.

• A Challenge To Open Democracy – Bloggers Excluded From Council’s Twitter Accreditation.
A few weeks I ago, I mentioned how for every leap forward in setting communication free, new measures are made to control and manipulate it just as fast. Carl Haggerty captures one such move north of England, where the Devon County Council applies a rule that only allows accredited journalists to "tweet" live within council meetings. Apparently, accountability is a dangerous thing.

• Attribution is the Sincerest Form of Flattery.
On the flip side of the information free-flow control, Ike Pigott shares a cutting case study of how information shared across the Web tends to lose its original source. Sure, sometimes people come up with similar concepts. Other times, the disintegration of attribution is accidental. This time, it's hard to mistake the obvious. One blogger cherry picked content and then promoted it as their own, creating the illusion that they were the original source.

• How Much Buzz Do The Top 10 Global Brands Generate On Social Media?
There has always been a big difference between buzz and brand and Jeff Bullas found a clever way to convey it. By tracking the online buzz of top global brands, he verifies that top brands do not necessarily generate the top buzz, which is why Toyota finished much higher than its brand value for the all the wrong reasons. Where is the lesson? Our takeaway is common sense: events generate buzz; brand value is earned.

• BBC News - Music Stars 'Still Need Labels.'
While most fresh picks are linked toward original content, this story by Ian Youngs (BBC News) as featured on Jeremy Meyers' "posterous" blog was too good to dismiss. Meyers also offers up his own take on the piece, saying that the music biz remains in denial. Our takeaway is a bit different. Much like daily newspapers, the industry still needs to find a model to make managed artists manageable. Eventually, they'll find it. Expect it to be different.

Writing For Public Relations: On Advertising

There is always something strange about dedicating one Writing For Public Relations class to the subject of advertising. Sure, public relations professionals need to understand it, especially those who work within the communication or marketing departments of small- to medium-sized companies.

They will no doubt write advertisements, brochures, scripts, and other advertising material. And yet, I cannot help but wonder how well those advertisements will turn out. Writing for public relations is a fundamentally different skill set, and not all writers have enough talent to toggle between the two disciplines.

At the same time, I think, at least they can learn a few things from advertising that they need to know, especially if public relations continues to pursue social media. Many blog posts, after all, are much more similar to an advertisement than an article. They aim to persuade more than they ever hope to inform. And the best ads always aim to have a conversation with the consumer, which means the only difference between ads and some posts is that the consumer is allowed to talk back.

Writing For Public Relations: On Advertising

View more presentations from Rich Becker, Copywrite, Ink..

The above is a supplement deck for Writing For Public Relations at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The intent of this deck is to provide students with an understanding of advertising that goes beyond the "rules" posted on dozens of blogs every day. Because in advertising, anybody who is any good at it will tell you that there are no rules.

Shopping Psychology: How Consumers Connect To Brands

A new study of social media from Chadwick Martin Bailey reinforces what many people already think they know: 60 percent of Facebook fans and 79 percent of Twitter followers are "more likely" to recommend a brand after becoming a fan or follower. And 51 percent of Facebook fans and 67 percent of Twitter followers are "more likely" to buy from brands they connect with.

And yet another study recently conducted by trendwatching.com, a consumer insight firm, revealed that consumers do not identify with brands. In fact, not a single consumer said they believed any brand cared about them, except as a source of profit. And many, according to the study, said they have no love for any brand and found loving a brand to be unnatural.

Can they both be right? How about wrong?

Marketing's Understanding Of The Brand Relationship Is Digressing.

I tend to advocate for the brand definition as proposed by Phil Dusenberry, former chairman and chief creative of BBDO Worldwide. Dusenberry, if you don't know, was responsible for campaigns such as "We bring good things to life," "It's everywhere you want to be," and "The choice of a new generation." Those campaigns belonged to GE, Visa, and Pepsi. He also helped elect Ronald Reagan and co-wrote "The Natural" with Robert Redford.

“Brand is the relationship between a product and its customer,” he said.

Dusenberry was right. (He was right about several things, which you can glean from one of his last interviews. But where we can deepen his thinking is understanding that brand relationships do not always occur because of a direct connection between a brand and a consumer. There are some degrees of separation between the consumer and the brand.

Consumer-to-brand. Some brands do have a direct relationship to the consumer. Most notably, Apple and Coca-Cola have some of the strongest direct relationships. We can see it in psychological studies and intense interest.

Consumer-to-experience, tied to brand. Some brands rely not on a brand relationship, but the consumer experience provided by the brand. Offline, the Four Seasons has mastered the experience. Online, Facebook delivers. On a smaller scale, horseback riding might be the experience people connect to, regardless of who delivers it.

Consumer-to-product/service, tied to brand. Some brands win because they deliver a specific product or service people expect. The concept has propelled McDonald's to the top of quick service restaurants. Amazon demonstrates it online. Or, a consumer might love their car, but not the manufacturer.

Consumer-to-idea, tied to brand. While he might not have framed it up this way, Dusenberry's initial success with the Pepsi Generation concept was directly tied to association of an idea to a brand. The idea of "change" propelled Barack Obama to his presidency (and has also contributed to declining poll numbers as the "idea" has not materialized).

Consumer-to-group identification, tied to brand. One of the most recent success brand stories is undoubtedly Zappos. And although Tony H. was wrong to think the Zappos branding strategy is unique, he created a culture people wanted to belong to. In the 1970s, so did Kiss.

Consumer-to-individual Identification, tied to brand. If you ever wondered why Chris Brogan or Seth Godin are popular, it is because people identify with them. Offline, it's any number of celebrity spokespeople and motivators like Anthony Robbins.

Consumer-to-friend(s), tied to brand. Most recently, Geoff Livingston demonstrated friends will support friends and personal connections, especially to do good, because it brings the degree of separation between the cause and the friend within two degrees. It motivates people to join fan pages on networks like Facebook, even if the friend or follower has no connection to the brand.

Keep in mind, that many brand relationships work across several of these connections. Many of those mentioned above do not rely on one connection exclusively. And, there are several other relationships not listed here.

However, it can also illustrate how some social media and marketing constructs weaken relationships between a brand and the consumer. Ergo, if the only reason a consumer buys a book is because they have a connection with Oprah, the connection to the author is three degrees removed (consumer-to-Oprah-to-book-to-author) and the publisher could be as many as seven degrees removed from the publisher. Or, in considering the primary difference between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, the former has a direct connection and secondary connections whereas the latter has relied on secondary connections.

How does this help us decipher two studies? People do connect to brands, but they often do not connect to them in any way they can or want to articulate. Conversely, the majority of people who follow a brand on Facebook or Twitter are "more likely" to buy from those brands is virtually predetermined. Why else would they follow a brand? Well, we provided several possible reasons above, most of which people would not want to or cannot articulate.

So what is really going on? It seems evident that social media can help companies benefit from secondary connections — individual identification, friend identification, group, experience, idea, and so on — stuff that they never considered before. However, relying too much on social media can also cause interference between the consumer and the brand.

Choosing Truth: LifeLock, Inc. Settlement

Last week, we shared four different versions of the $11 million settlement LifeLock, Inc. agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission and $1 million to a group of 35 state attorneys general over deceptive advertising. We then asked readers to compare these truths, choosing the most likely truth.

There wasn't enough data to call this poll scientific, but there was enough to prove a point. When faced with four stories, the truth is often left behind and consumers are baffled.

LifeLock Poll Results

• 28.57 percent said they were most likely to believe the Federal Trade Commission.
• 28.57 percent were not inclined to believe any of the four stories released.
• 14.29 percent said they believed LifeLock worked with the FTC to set new standards.
• 14.29 percent were inclined to believe all of the stories, assuming each had some truth.
• 7.14 percent thought what CEO Todd Davis said in interviews was the most accurate.
• 7.14 percent believed investor David Cowen that the FTC was politically motivated.

Interestingly enough, poll participants do not match the greater online sentiment. Online coverage is overwhelmingly negative, with approximately 85 percent of the conversation centered on the FTC release, and only 15 percent accepting any version of the LifeLock story.

Sentiment is overwhelmingly influenced only by which release mainstream and new media decided to cover. However, based on cursory research, the FTC release, which dominated the conversation on March 7, seems like it will have a much shorter shelf life than LifeLock public relations efforts.

The Public Relations Lesson

With some certainty, LifeLock had an opportunity to move beyond the settlement and return to business as mostly usual, but the public relations message is largely inconsistent and overreaches, undermining its own attempt at damage control. In addition, Cowen would have better served the company if he had not offered his opinion. The best the company can hope for now is that the settlement issue will eventually fade into history.

It's very possible it will, given the company partners with the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Association on training programs. And, despite Nevada being one of the settling attorneys general offices, it is also hosting a cooperative identity theft town hall meeting.

Still, LifeLock is probably fortunate so far that the FTC has not sought to penalize the company in its handling of communication regarding the settlement, given the FTC barred LifeLock from overstating protection against all types of identity theft and the risk of identity theft to consumers. After all, LifeLock's settlement release clearly overstates its role in the settlement, which is ironic given the settlement was all about reigning in overstatement.

The Truth Lesson

While truth is not relative, the facts chosen by all parties seem somewhat selective. But most people will only be exposed to one of the four messages, which will shape their opinions about the company. And yet, none of those stories provide a full accounting of the truth.

Chances are that the truth resides somewhere in between everyone telling the truth and nobody telling the truth, depending on how you want to look at it. All of the releases seem to contain some truth and some spin, which prompted some poll participants to conclude all of them were true while others, given that a partial truth is not the truth, all not true.

For instance, Cowens' post is true in that the FTC is under greater scrutiny from the current administration, which may prompt it to pursue some cases that do not warrant it. It is also likely true that LifeLock accepted the settlement even if it felt it could win the case in the court of law because settlements seem cheaper (not always). His opinion, though, overreaches on speculation of a very specific agenda. It seems unlikely the ties are that tight, specific, and planned.

Still, the FTC release is heavy-handed. Usually, settlements come with some sense of resolution between the two parties, but this release is clearly punitive and doesn't provide a timeframe of when the deceptive advertising supposedly occurred. The FTC clearly wanted the settlement to be seen as a win, even if its own disclaimer admits that the settlement is no indication that the defendant violated the law.

Given the heavy-handedness, it seems painfully clear that LifeLock and the FTC were not cuddling up together in order to set new industry standards as LifeLock alleged in its release. And, at least one of the commissioners was not even interested in accepting the settlement. LifeLock also overstates that everything is business as usual as there are tighter guidelines in how it communicates its advertising messages in the future.

The message is further complicated by conflicting interview messages. Those messages seem to be closer to the truth but still overreach in communicating that the settlement did not have an impact on the company. That statement alone contradicts its claim to have set a new industry standard.

Another lesson here is how "he said, she said" journalism does little to get at the truth. When time-strapped reporters increasingly rely on reporting statements as opposed to investigating facts, nobody is served. It's especially par for the course for more complex subjects where topics like health care and TARP money give consumers the choice of believing the person who says the sky is "green" or the one who says the sky is "purple" while leaving "blue" out of the options all together.

In Conclusion

The real trouble spot for the FTC in this story is that there seems to be some dissent over whether such a service is needed. Based on the varied releases from attorneys general offices, identify theft is a problem, nothing is foolproof protection against it, and consumers can take steps to increase protection without such services (and thus companies like LifeLock are not needed).

However, such logic could lead one to conclude all sorts of services are unneeded, including everything from house cleaners and accountants to restaurants and pet groomers. Of course consumers can take measures into their own hands. However, if they want the convenience or peace of mind of having someone do some of it for them, then they might consider a service.

That aside, the FTC was right in taking this case but overzealous about periphery topics on wins that amounts to less than a 10 percent refund per consumer. LifeLock seems to have misrepresented its service by its own admission but seems unlikely to stop spinning the truth. And the decision whether or not a consumer chooses an identity theft protection service or does something on their own (none of which is 100 percent) amounts to nothing more than asking whether they want to clean the house or have someone do it for them. Ergo, everyone tried to be honest, but nobody was truthful. Not really. Case closed.