The Superbowl is over. Lasted for one day. Done.

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints on the win.

Congratulations to the advertisers that debuted their new commercials.

But let’s look beyond the Superbowl to the Pepsi Refresh Project.

For those of you who have not followed the story… In a nutshell, Pepsi decided not to advertise during the Superbowl. They decided to use the money that they would spend on “traditional advertising” on a social media project.

Here’s the background story (Dec 17, 2009) : Pepsi to end 23-year run of Super Bowl ads Company to focus on new campaign that will mostly appear online

This move changes everything.

A major traditional long time advertiser is making a move away from a traditional media channel.

• Advertising on television is a make-or-break, one-time shot. Money is spent. Media channel wins. Advertiser? Maybe, maybe not.
• Advertising online with a persistent presence is not a one-time shot because you can become a permanent part of the online landscape.

Hmm…

This is very similar to the way the social media technologies were used in the 2008 Presidential Campaign (Barack 2.0 Project). Obviously, I am very keen to this seismic shift in the marketplace. But even more importantly, we can learn from these moves and apply them to our businesses now.

Point 1:  Look at your actions and see if they align with your goals

Pepsi is redirecting their advertising dollars because they looked at the Superbowl advertising media as a channel. That media channel, they assessed, did not align with their goals. I speculate that they made this assessment based on the dynamics of the communication technology marketplace. Television as a media is being supplanted by online consumption of video content.

In other words, you can advertise once, but online you can create a presence that allows for people to consume your content over and over again.

** The ads that were shown on the superbowl are available online right now. So consumption, reach and exposure are no longer the only valid attributes to measure the effectiveness of advertising.

Point 2: Create an offer and environment where your audience can engage

Pepsi has created a community that fully engages the audience and “empowers” the audience to participate in a social improvement project that they support with hard dollars. This creates an everlasting ripple effect of good will and community support. This is priceless.

The new standard for effective advertising is engagement and ongoing participation with the audience. The audience is now in action for Pepsi.

• Are they becoming engaged with you and your offer?
• Are your dollars producing the returns that you are expecting?
• Are you doing what you have always done, expecting the same results?
• Are you still getting the returns from your actions?
• Is it time to think and act differently in the marketplace?

Point 3:  News Begets News Begets News

Run this search on Google: “Pepsi not advertising”. Here is the search link. At the time of this writing there are over 3.7 million listings on Google.

Major media has been covering this story for months.  Thus, the broad audience is well aware of Pepsi not spending money on advertising in lieu of spending money in the community.

Since Pepsi now has public support and media support, they have the advantage of good PR working for them.

Point 4: Supporting Marketplace Ideas

Social media is all about sharing of data and information. The most precious and most valuable commodity is a good idea. But a good idea is only the beginning. A good idea needs shaping and support to grow into anything that is valuable.

Good ideas are everywhere. But when you evaluate, activate and then support an idea with cold hard cash, you have the possibility of real success. 

Sharing ideas is just a “social and human” thing to do. Pouring money back into the community makes Pepsi a wonderful corporate citizen. They are using social media communication technologies to contain the messages from the marketplace, in the most cost-effective environment to let ideas flow, report progress and let the people continue to engage.

Idea, thinking, execution and community support are the cornerstones of human existence. The more that I see technology move forward, the more I see us as “just people” moving back to our core activities without restraint.

Bravo, Pepsi, for thinking differently and moving differently in the marketplace.

The question now becomes:

What can you learn from this Big Corporate example and how can this apply to your business?

By David Bullock

Social Media continues to disrupt the business of politics. While I continue working in the business sector, over the past year I have become increasingly engaged in the political vertical.

Neal Harrington of www.HarringtonFT.com and I had a conversation several months ago (July 2009) that proved to be very interesting. We are discussing the gap in technical expertise within the political arena in terms of social media deployment. These new communication technologies are completely disrupting the political marketplace.

If this is the case, this news that came out earlier this week is especially intriguing:  Plouffe to Play Expanded Advisory Role for Obama.  Who is going to step in to assist the opposition?

If both parties are using social media communication technologies effectively, what will be the deciding factor or secret weapon in the upcoming campaigns?

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• Media and Political Marketing- There Is No Middle (socialmediatoday.com)

By David Bullock

Howie Jacobson is a good friend of mine. Howie is the author of the “AdWords for Dummies” book.

I was looking on my hard drives and I found a folder full of interviews and conversations that I have had over the years. These are pure gold nuggets of information that I am so glad that I captured. Howie is featured in the interview below.  There is so much in this 7–minute clip:

• PPC
• Salesmanship
• System Setup
• SEO
• Social Media
• Passion For Work
• Media Repurposing

Markets are changing rapidly. Hope that you enjoy it. More to come.

By David Bullock

Is social media an effective tool for driving targeted traffic to a brand new website that is starting from a complete standstill?

Based on what we are seeing - yes. I am learning alot with this project, as it is in a market with which I am not at all familiar.

Getting traffic is only the first part of the equation. Motivating that traffic to take action is the part where most social media deployments break down.

More to come in a few days…

Be well…

By David Bullock

Apparently, the social media marketing playbook got lost within a year. Folks, we outlined the blueprint as it was happening in 2008 in www.barack20.com.

1. We did not go with a major publisher.
2. We did not spend a fortune on advertising.
3. We used social media just like the typical small to mid-sized business to prove the point that any business could use these new media effectively.

Guess what?  The methodology worked and continues to work. Now it seems that the political world is waking up to the fact the social media is powerful if it is used correctly.

Presidential, Senate and Local Elections: A Different, Closer Look

Doing the same things will yield the same results. The tools are available for use for those who have the foresight to use social media correctly.

Both the Democrat party and the Republican party have recently seen clear victories with social media as the apparent point of leverage. Is that really the case? Or are there other factors beneath the surface that we can uncover with a cross-discipline inspection? Let’s take a look.

2008 Presidential – National Race (Global Reach)

2010 Gubernatorial – Statewide Race (National Reach)

2008 County Election – County Race (Statewide Reach)

The major media and pundits have weighed in with very superficial analysis about the effectiveness of social media.

In the January 19, 2010 Wall Street Journal Article you can read about the large disparity in the number of:

• Twitter followers
• Facebook friends
• YouTube views

And don't forget about the "under the radar technology":

• Mobile Apps
• Social Networking Sites (http://brownbrigade.ning.com/)

Let’s take another look at what happened beneath the surface, away from the social media story that is dominating the landscape.

What elements are critical as any business looks to deploy social media? These political events are most telling because politics is the highest level of conceptual marketing.

Definition: Leadership is an idea that has no form until someone executes an order or creates policy.

Now follow me…

Selling an idea is the first crucial step for any business venture. Selling the idea is the bedrock of sales and persuasion. If you can sell the idea of the product or service, then selling a product or service can naturally follow. The critical path for selling an idea is to make it relevant to your listener.

Listener Relevance Axiom: No one has the time or the energy to deal with or listen to ideas that are not relevant, important and meaningful to one’s own life. We live in a world of information overload. If you are not relevant you will be filtered out and marginalized.

I spent several hours analyzing the messaging and positional setup of the Massachusetts state senate campaign between Brown and Coakley, and a few things became very clear.

Rule 1:  Use All Available Media Channels from the Very Beginning. Should the other opponent not use social media at all, the social media savvy challenger will win. It is therefore not so much that social media “won” the election for the candidate. Social media was used to disseminate the message to a space beyond the market boundaries. This was a statewide race that was promoted to a national market, with complete saturation of the target market and pressure on the local market to pay attention, mobilize and act.

• In 2008, the Obama Presidential Campaign embraced Social Media from the very beginning – not as an afterthought.

Rule 2:  Create a Short Meaningful Message, Speak It and Let It Work. Having a clear message and establishing a clear position in the marketplace is key to communication (Marketing 101).

• In 2010, Brown’s message was “This is the people’s seat.”  This powerful language cuts through the clutter of the marketplace and penetrates the mind of the listener. Take note that the Democratic Party had to use this same langauge to rebutt Brown. To make matters worse the message of “this is the people’s seat” came from this video.  Watch it here with Brown first at the 38 second mark.  He uses very powerful language and then pushes forward with data to support his position.

The opponent then had to use the very same language later:

• Do you see how you can surround your target market by using new media tools?
• Do you see the powerful use of language and messaging here?

These are the first of many lessons that can be derived from this campaign.

More coming…

____________________

We are dusting off the social media playbook that we documented in the 2008 Presidential Campaign in www.Barack20.com. Yep, we have the playbook and we have used our own playbook over the past year.

Here are the media and positional results based on using the strategies mapped out in the “Barack Obama: Social Media Lessons for Business” workbook.

The rules have not changed. The only thing that has changed is the players and the technological environment that continues to exhibit interesting dynamics.

This year will prove to be interesting.  This time we can refer back to over two years of real world experience as we read between the lines and extract the new media lessons for business.

Obama 2.0 Observed By David Bullock

Obama 2.0 is in all the headlines today. A friend of mine just send this to me via Twitter (thanks @JillKoenig).  What does this mean?

The question that comes to my mind is how can a business, the backbone of the economy, learn from these political campaigns?

There are true nuggets of marketing, positioning and execution gold that can be found here.

But I fear that just like during the 2008 Presidential Campaign – where a senator seemed to have come out of nowhere to rise to the highest office in the land – the world is paying attention to the politics and not the mechanics that they could use to gain market share, increase profits and reduce costs.

Here are some of the headlines that I believe take our eye off the ball.

Obama 2.0 Begins by Listening to Paul Volcker

Obama 2.0: Candidate Starts His Hard Move to the Center

Let’s focus on the lessons that can be learned for a business of any size to succeed against enormous odds.  That message is as true today as it was a year ago.

By David Bullock

Watching the market as I have over the last year has been very interesting. Reporting on the market and what the “social media” market is doing has become a big business over the last several years. Heck, just trying to keep up with the new tools is hard enough. So, as we look at a dynamic market, what is the first thing that we have to do?

Find an anchor point.

More on Creating a Workable Social Media Strategy: Thoughts, Tasks or Talking

Social media is part of the getting ideas into the marketplace.

Ideas are cheap. Ideas are everywhere. You just had another idea.  In fact, as you are reading this you will get a few new ones.

You can be inspired by anything. The key is what you do with the ideas that you or others have.  Innovation is the buzzword these days… but to truly innovate, someone has to build it and make it work.

In short, an idea that is not executed is nothing but a fleeting flash of brilliance.

More on Using Social Media: The Ideation-to-Transaction Process