Marketing Roadmaps

Ethics

Wrapping up loose threads — things remembered and wal-gate

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My posts on the Wal-Gate fiasco and the gift chain Things Remembered have both gotten a fair number of comments, so before I move on to my next topic, I wanted to wrap up the loose ends on both of these threads.

First, Things Remembered. A number of commenters wrote about their great experiences at the chain and thought I was perhaps too harsh, expected too much. Perhaps, but that is one of my points. Sometimes you do only get one chance with a potential customer. We should always strive to make every customer service moment a great moment. The day I was there, there was one clerk to wait on about four potential customers. He clearly didn’t want to be bothered with my oddball request. For all I really know, they DID have something that might have worked just fine, but he didn’t want to bother. It was too hard. Much easier to sell an engraved pen.

The other point, and you are welcome to disagree with me, is that companies should strive to deliver extraordinary customer service. That means meeting the customer’s needs, and helping them out even when the customer might end up buying from someone else on that day. It is all about recognizing the lifetime value of that customer, and recognizing those moments when extraordinary service is possible. Things Remembered has an opportunity to deliver extraordinary service by referring customers with oddball requests to other vendors. It won’t happen very often, but when it does, it will be a defining moment for the customer, as it was for me. Can a company be successful without delivering extraordinary service? Sure, but why settle?

To the company’s credit, a vp from Things Remembered did leave a comment on the original post. Will I shop there?  I am more likely to now, knowing that at least they are paying attention.

Final thoughts on the specific incidents in Wal-Gate: late Friday, both Richard Edelman’s and Steve Rubel’s blogs had news of the agency’s initiatives to fix the ethical problems surfaced during the whole nasty episode. They’re going to do an audit around the world to make sure they are applying best practices, everyone at the agency is going to have to attend an ethics in social media class, and the me2revolution team is going to be available in some fashion 24/7 to consult anyone in the agency on social media projects.

Umm. Why weren’t they doing these things already? And will it really be enough to change the agency culture? While it doesn’t seem like enough, I’ll reserve judgment on what they’ve said until we see what they do next. And I don’t mean whether they do the "Edelman University" or what great external experts they get to speak.

Let’s hope the next time we hear about a social media project driven by Edelman, we hear about a project that met everyone’s expectations: the client, the customers, the community and the agency’s PR colleagues and peers. For Edelman’s sake.

Because I do think they are now out of chances. They have got to get it right or get out.

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Flogging, this horse just won’t die, more Wal-Mart and Edelman

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It must really suck to be Richard Edelman this week.

I had decided to stop writing about Wal-Gate, even after no WOMMA sanctions for Edelman because it seemed excessively cruel to keep beating a dead horse. Give them a chance to get their house in order, I thought.

Until today’s news that there were two more "flogs" for Working Families for Wal-Mart written by Edelman staffers without attribution.

Enough already.

This can’t be simply  "one bad apple" who didn’t get it. There are just too many rotten apples and too much evidence that this is culturally acceptable behavior at Edelman.

Far from transparent or honest, it is Fifties-style PR with a social media patina (paraphrasing a comment by John Wagner on an earlier post here.)

And it is most certainly not what we did, or should, expect of a social media leader.

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Some more recommended posts on this topic: John Wagner, Katie Paine, Tom Murphy, Constantin Basturea

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Coda: Wal-mart and Edelman

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Some final thoughts. The reaction to Richard Edelman’s apology in the PR blogosphere has been mixed, with some bloggers accepting the apology and others aghast that "we" should even consider accepting it when Edelman violated so many ethical principles, including the code of ethics of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). Hugh MacLeod, in inimitable fashion, has the usual cartoon.

Here’s the thing. I don’t think it is up to "us" (whoever "us" is) to accept or refute the apology. It really does not matter. Sure, this fake blog was a serious ethical lapse by an agency that should know better. An ill-considered campaign, it did not achieve its goals for the client, and spawns far larger problems for the agency. How come the top bloggers at Edelman didn’t know? If I were Richard Edelman, I’d find out. And I am sure he is. For the sake of his business.

But it wasn’t mass murder. Or financial malfeasance. It was a blog. Really, a blip on the radar screen of life.

Yes, it makes PR look bad, and critics of the profession will waste no time in tarring us all with the same sticky Wal-Mart brush. But it’s a big leap to say that any of the PR and marketing blogosphere was actually harmed as a result of Wal-marting Across America.

So, I’m not going to forgive Edelman. I’ve got nothing to forgive.

But we also shouldn’t forget. If Edelman wants to be a social media leader, it really has to start acting like one. There’s been a lot of talk about the me2revolution at Edelman, but not a lot of tangible proof.

Remember: it’s not what you say. It’s what you do.

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Epilogue: Wal-Mart and Edelman

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Well, as many PR bloggers have already reported (best round-upto date is Constantin’s), Edelman has emerged from the cone of silence around the Wal-Mart fiasco. On Richard Edelman’s blog, an apology and acceptance of total responsibility. And on Steve Rubel’s, a short comment and link to Richard’s blog.

Quite frankly, I do not see how the agency could have done anything else. It could be Edelman’s fault. Might not be. Probably is. Doesn’t really matter. Whether it was their fault or not, the agency must fall on the sword for the client. Or lose the client.

I know a lot of folks would love to be privy to the post mortem on this disaster. To them, I say, how does it feel… to want. We know what we know and we ain’t likely to know much more. And I don’t really care. I’m more interested in:

  • what Edelman does in the future. Will they finally learn and get it right the next time? What Richard and Steve say is all good and well, but the proof is in what they DO;
  • the lessons we can all learn about honesty and grassroots marketing from this fiasco.

I’ve commented on a number of other blog posts about this mess, among them Kami Huyse and Peter Himler, that the real shame is that had they done this right, with honesty and clarity about the sponsorship, this RVing blog might just have worked. People with RVs do stay in Wal-Mart parking lots. That’s not an invention. They might have rallied around a blog that focused on them, their lives, their culture.  If it was well written, corporate sponsored or not, the public might have enjoyed it. Many do shop in Wal-Mart, image problems notwithstanding.

Bottom line, had there been truth, I would have given it a big, so what. A good idea is still a good idea even if the corporation has it. The error isn’t in sponsoring a blog to advance a corporate objective. The error is the lie. People can forgive many things. But generally and pretty universally, we hate being lied to.

I’m pretty sure the folks at Edelman and Wal-Mart get this now.

There is nothing wrong with trying to spark something in the "grassroots."  If you’ve understood the situation, and deliver a compelling message, it will take fire. That’s what viral means — the message is so compelling it propels itself through the social network. But we cannot create a grassroots effect   Artificial, the campaign has no life, no community and cannot spread without more artifice and manipulation.

You must tap into something in the community for grassroots efforts to bear any fruit. Two recent examples come to mind, and I’m sure it will surprise none of my readers that both come from science fiction television, Firefly and Farscape. Momentum came from the community and the producers were smart enough to engage with, to love their communities. They treated them with respect and love, and guess what? When the franchises needed support, the communities around them sprung to action.

In both cases, the TV shows were cancelled and fan support had a great deal to do with subsequent movies. In the case of Firefly fans, strong DVD sales provided further proof for the movie studio that the decision to greenlight a feature film (Serenity) was the right one. And when it came time to promote the film, no fan base was more loyal than the Firefly fans.

Except maybe the Farscape fans, who lobbied for a resolution to their much loved and highly acclaimed series, and finally got it in 2004 with the Peacekeeper Wars miniseries. I wasn’t a Farscape viewer when it was on TV but now, having seen all the episodes, I can say without hesitation that it is a damn shame the show was cancelled. Can we have some more, please?

In both cases, the grassroots communities were there, and the shows were able to tap into the love to make things happen. Fans didn’t mind when Joss Whedon asked them to do something for Serenity. They knew he’d pay them back in spades. In fact, both fan groups are still going pretty strong online and to date, there are no (public) plans for more of either on TV or the big screen. [Boo Hoo]

That’s how a company can tap into the grassroots. And I do not believe that it  is only possible for science fiction franchises.

However, it is only possible when we understand that a grassroots campaign only works when the initial impetus comes from the community, not the corporation that benefits.

It’s grassroots marketing when the roots really are in the grass. When they are not, it is probably astroturf.

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Wal-Mart and another lesson from Science Fiction

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Yesterday and today, the blogosphere has been a-buzzing with the latest Wal-Mart social media faux-pas. Short version: the much-heralded Wal-Marting Across America blog turns out to be… not a grassroots blog by a couple of independent RVers, but rather a Wal-Mart sponsored blog written by paid bloggers (one of whom is a photographer for the Washington Post) and created by the firm’s PR agency Edelman.

Ouch, blecch and all those other nasty words. I’m not going to go into an analysis of Edelman’s second (or third depending on what you count) social media strike with the same client. Others have done a brilliant job of this already. So if you haven’t already, read about transparency and honesty and what WAS Edelman thinking ? on these great blogs:

Suffice it to say that Edelman’s reputation has taken a deserved hit and they should be embarassed.  Publicity and high profile hires to the contrary, they just don’t seem to "get it," and also seem determined to prove that at every turn. One thing for sure, they should be taking a long hard look at their social media practice. Will they? That’s Richard Edelman’s problem, not mine.

What can we learn from this latest fake blog? Toby’s post above, which talks about the importance of the blog culture, and a separate post by blog buddy Mary Schmidt Why Sci-Fi is Relevant to Business (and Life) got me thinking.

Mary’s post covers a bunch of things we can learn from science fiction. To her list, I’d like to add one more "rule" that drives the ethos in much of the science fiction I really love, from Star Trek, Foundation and Doctor Who to Farscape and Stargate, and can also be considered a key rule for working in the blogosphere. To sum it up: don’t f*** with the natives, don’t hurt the humans.

Starting with  the Three Laws of Robotics created by Isaac Asimov (Wikipedia):

  1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

and the Prime Directive of Star Trek, which "dictates that there be no interference with the natural development of any primitive society, chiefly meaning that no primitive culture can be given or exposed to any information regarding advanced technology or alien races. It also forbids any effort to improve or change in any way the natural course of such a society, even if that change is well-intentioned and kept completely secret." (from Wikipedia),

science fiction understands some fundamental principles about human nature and culture to which we should pay attention.

Even shows like Stargate, Doctor Who and Farscape which aren’t quite so hands off as the Prime Directive understand quite clearly that you have to fit in with the culture and do your best to not let your technology, or values, overly color where you are or what you do. And more than anything, first, do no harm.

And that is what we have to do with the blogosphere. Because the blogosphere isn’t a thing. It’s people. When we lose sight of the people, when we stop respecting the people, we make stupid mistakes. We think that because, yes, there are stupid people in the world, all people are stupid. They won’t penetrate our fake blog (flog). They just wanna shop at Wal-Mart. Wrong.

We need to understand that our Prime Directive, if we choose to engage with bloggers, either on their blog or our own, is to be honest. About who we are, why we’re doing what we do, and who is paying the bills. It’s okay if you have an agenda. People expect, and respect, that. I’ve done a number of blogger outreach projects for clients, and I always identify my interest in the project. Why wouldn’t I? Doesn’t make the story any less interesting, and it respects the intelligence of my correspondents.

And that’s the lesson, my friends. Respect. For differences. For opinions. For the culture. When we have mutual respect, we have a conversation. Without it, it is just vocal chords moving, bits and bytes shifting.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice.

Jees, I don’t know. Whaddya you think?

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