Category: Rant

I have been a migraine sufferer for as long as I can remember. As a child I used to lie on my mother’s bed and thrash around in agony, holding pillows against my throbbing head. At other times I would try laying quietly, listening to my breathing and the sound of the blood pulsing around my brain.

Sometimes nausea would come unbidden, rising like a hot stone from my belly. And at other times my sight would dim and I could see stars in everyday things. And while the wonders of my body were amazing my mind, I was also battling with the combination of weird physical and mental sensations and wondering when it would all end.

The thing about migraines is, however, that non-migraine sufferers (NMSs) just don’t get it. NMSs think that a migraine is just a bad headache. Worse … NMSs think that there is an element of drama or acting in migraines (oh, my headache is so much worse than yours …!), and that the migraine sufferer is somehow weak. I had a partner who thought this way for years. The NMS does not understand that the migraine is unlike anything else you have ever experienced.

Why I am I telling you this? Marcus Brown has this great entry on his blog today that demonstrates EXACTLY why just anybody cannot write good copy. Good copy is also unlike anything you have ever experienced. (Hey Marcus, can you fix your trackback system — it doesn’t work.)

As I watched this video I actually felt my pulse start to race. I was beyond excited at what I was seeing. As Marcus’s old boss used to say:

Just because you can hold a bloody pencil and write your own name doesn’t mean you can write copy.

Interestingly, my partner did not understand migraines, or believe my experience until she too experienced a migraine. She felt the fear of not being able to make it home from the train. She worried about what may trigger a recurrence. Me? I secretly liked her new experience (ok I never said I was nice).

Now, if only others could see the advantages of a good copywriter! Let’s start with this video.

Stopping by Seth Godin’s blog I found this after a little digging. Sure it is only a couple of days old … but he writes like a maniac. I quite liked this …

"It’s just business" …

Work takes too much time and too much emotion for it to be just work. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t want to spend time or money with anyone who has this particular attitude disfunction.

Reminds me again of Olivier Blanchard’s commitment rant. Life’s too short to waste your energies. Remember it!

S.

So you have all been spared a rant for a while … but this has been bubbling away for some time. It was fuelled by this great post by Ann Handley and the comments from CK.

Some time ago I am sitting in a meeting room. I am there as a guest of my client, along with a number of other people representing various agencies … and the conversation swings around to the online world … to the web, the value of sites, blogs, portals and online ad spending. The discussion was being led by the head of one of the big media agencies and all in the room were nodding in agreement with the general flow of conversation/presentation. And then came the bombshell … "ah yes, but you can’t measure the web".

Beg your pardon?

I thought I must have misheard. I looked around the room and the nodding continued. Then I realised that I was just living in a parallel universe … the one where SOME people get the Net and others don’t. Unfortunately, my world was the lesser populated.

Now I could have jumped in and launched a tirade … but I paused. I wanted to understand why this perspective was held. I am quite immersed in the world of the web and interactive media, so I wanted to hear what was going on in this strange other world. So I sat on my indignation and listened … I expected to find out that the focus of the measurement argument was around protecting the lucrative media placement business. But it was worse …

The "lack of measurement" claim was actually about owning "strategy". By pushing forward with a measurement system built around mass media — TV and radio — and using the sampling provided by rating agencies around the world, this agency was claiming the strategic highground — based on their research and demographic analysis. I shook my head and wondered if I was hearing right!

Finally it clicked.

The reason that no one in the room thought that the web was measurable was because they were trying to use the WRONG system of measurement. They were viewing the web as just another channel … like TV and radio. They were talking about (can you believe it) banner ads and interstitials. They were wanting one-to-many broadcasts (and associated metrics) without understanding that you CAN have one-to-one narrowcasts (and better, targeted metrics). Not only did this agency (and the others), not understand the web and its potential, but they were actively discouraging their client from experimenting and innovating. And they were trying to AVOID helping our client build real, interactive relationships with customers.

Interestingly, I noticed through my web analytics, that certain agencies were checking our names and histories … and ended up here. How do I know it was them? Google Analytics lets you cross-analyse data in all sorts of fun ways … I even know what kind of computer they use and the screen size of their monitor. No measurement? Ha! Sounds like a job for this chap below (thanks to CK for the reference).

S.

OK, I give up … I guess I can see Russell on this one!

There has been plenty of debate around Snakes on a Plane and the way it was picked up by bloggers. There has been a lot of discussion about how this has changed the game, or represents a significant shift in the nature of marketing. But it was this post over at MarketingProfs that really got me thinking about the way that the blogging community got behind the movie. Gerry McGovern asks us to consider what is free, and what is the hidden cost of "free" on the web, and as he says:

Free is a funny word. We all know that very little is really for free. If we go searching on the Web for free music and free screensavers, we know-or should know-that there are risks involved.

But what are the risks that we, as marketers take, when we get behind something like a movie that we have never seen? Are we taking Seth’s work in vain? Don’t we owe it to ourselves and our reputations to make sure that the product we get behind is, in fact, one of the famous Purple Cows? And if it is NOT purple, shouldn’t we check that it is a cow, and not some other barnyard animal?

Mack Collier has an interesting post that shows (again) how many traditional marketers don’t understand social networking and blogs. Through some traffic stats detective work he tracks down a newsletter linking to his site, and finds the newsletter exhorting readers to hire "unpaid interns" to produce some "low cost marketing" — ie blogs. Please check out the full post if you have not already.

But there is a greater problem here. I agree with Todd over at Advertising Ourselves to Death … the job of the citizen marketer is to "call bullshit when companies try to blow sunshine up the collective skirts of consumers". But we missed the boat on many counts. There were A-list through to Z-listers jumping on the Snakes bandwagon, lapping up some traffic, some referrals and a bit of the limelight. The product that we bought was the MARKETING, not the movie. The movie marketers, with all their finely honed skills persuaded, cajoled and seduced us.

So while it is easy to call this a win for Marketing 2.0, I call it the other way — a big win for Marketing 1.0. What is your reputation worth?  Maybe that isn’t the right question — perhaps it should be "What is the trust between me and my audience worth?".

S.

Google have been the darlings of the web world for quite some time, and yes, they have provided some pretty good stuff for free. But it is one thing to provide tools and technology, and quite another to actually ENGAGE with consumers … I think they prefer to call us "users".

My friend Terry has a website where he posts his flash games. He makes them for himself and gets a genuine kick out of the responses he gets from the people who play them. After quite some time, his site started to attract a bit of traffic, so he turned to Google Ads to help pay for his hosting. And while he thought deeply about placing advertising on his site, he also realised that he didn’t really have a choice … his hosting provider was already closing down the site due to its popularity — it was either upgrade or go home. And as you know, that costs money.

Things had been going well … until an email arrived from Google. They had detected fraudulent activity on his site and were cancelling his account. Immediately.

Of course, a number of Internet companies talk about openness and transparency … but it seems very few practise it. How do you appeal a decision to cancel your account? Who do you talk to? It seems that the only way to find out is to use a search engine to find out. Certainly there is nothing on the specific Google sites to help. And, of course, the best information was to be found on blog sites.

So after following an appeals process, Terry was duly informed that fraudulent behaviour (ie automated clicking) WAS detected on his site and that the appeal was rejected, and there was nothing more he could do about it. The behemoth had spoken. There is NO SOUP FOR YOU.

It is a shame that the companies like Google and Apple (who I have whinged about before … don’t start me on iPods again!) who have deep community support and the technology (and resources) to ENGAGE in dialogue with their communities simply refuse to do so. By doing so, they very quickly and radically turn evangelists into the opposite … these are the negative brand stories that can also spread quickly.

Did Terry cry like a baby? Well not that he told me … but it is nice to see that Google is starting to feel a little bit whiney.

S.

Blogging is a fickle business … When I first started writing the Servant of Chaos blog I had no idea what blogging was. It was really just a way of forcing myself into some form of disciplined thinking. The emphasis for me was on the discipline … and I hoped that the writing and the ideas would flow from there.

Along the way I started to find that a rant would disrupt the writing … finding myself engaged in a torrent of indignant words directed at some brand or other. And eventually the content of the site started to steer itself. So the ideas did come and the discipline gave me a focus and a direction for the site. But not all bloggers continue after a few posts.

While Dave Sifry reports on another spectacular rise in the number of new blogs, it is equally apparent that a large number of blogs disappear without a trace. They are like the small businesses of the Internet world … they start with a passion and a flurry of interest and dedication … and then often fold under the weight of the chaos of life.

I was loving the discussion that grew around this topic a few days ago and wanted to see where Adam was up to. To my disappointment I found this message.

It is a shame, because I loved the style and energy of his writing. I particularly liked the anarchic approach to ideas and the way he let the rant overtake all else. Let’s hope he makes a reappearance sometime soon … perhaps with that "book project" he was thinking of dusting off.

S.

OK … so you know I don’t want a job description. It would feel like I am wearing the WRONG kind of suit … but on the other side of the coin … do we need bosses? Seth Godin gives us a list of things that GOOD bosses do … and I am sure that someone, much more witty than I will come back with a list for BAD bosses.

But sometimes, it is the BAD bosses that actually make you achieve more. Yes, good bosses are … well, good. But the bad ones can inspire you to get out and make something of your life (perhaps out of fear that you will become like them). They can make you clearly see what YOUR skills are and also to help you plan your career by what you are willing to take on (responsibility, stress, politics) and what you are not (responsibility, stress, politics).

In reverence to all my bad bosses I used to love watching The Office … but then, I found Absolute Power’s Charles Prentiss. Bad bosses can make you cringe (in real life), but the truly evil bosses … well they are in a class of their own. They are so wrong they are right.

And if you want to see some fun image sets of lego bosses, try this.

It is funny how cows have become popular. I suppose it started with Gary Larson and was further bolstered with Seth Godin’s efforts.

I am pleased to see that this trend is continuing with the availability of the Strategy Cow. Richard Huntington has been so kind as to provide a fail-safe strategic assessment tool. No need for market testing now (not that I am a fan anyway), no need for crystal balls. Be sure to check out this invaluable new service.

With all this focus on cows, it makes this vegetarian wonder what a purple cow tastes like … and whether it is, in any way, better than the other kinds — strategic, brown or otherwise.

S.

Of course, the other reason that I quote Seth, put his name in the title of the post and so on, is to ATTRACT more and more trackback SPAM.

Can there be a better reason?

Well, the only other reason would be to get some blood boiling and receive a GREAT comment from the mysterious Adam C. Keep the rage alive Adam!

S.