Community Guy – Jake McKee

Stealth Marketing and Ethics Code

Kate Kaye has written an essay on word of mouth marketing. It raises some interesting discussion points, not least of which being her belief that stealth marketing isn’t a significant issue in Word of Mouth issues.

Jonathan over at the Mouthpiece blog responds:

Completely agree. Those of us working to create marketing efforts based on creating connection between consumers and companies know that there’ s no issue more significant than stealth marketing. Let’s call Stealth Marketing what it really is – Traditional Marketing. It’s more of the same: playing loose and fast with the facts.

If marketers working in Word of Mouth, Consumer Interaction concepts want to continue in this field, they’d better do everything in their power to root out and destroy Stealth Marketing efforts. When people wonder what the true motivations of their friends are for suggesting certain products/services, we’re all out of a job.

The rest of the ethics discussion doesn’t matter if Stealth Marketing doesn’t take top billing.

Tapping in, creating relevance

Sometimes it’s the simple things -



Roller Warehouse, a supplier of goods for skaters, has created a simple ad/news box that you can quickly and easily place on a web site. They’re specifically marketing it to MySpace users as a way to allow those users to add cool content to their MySpace profiles.



They’ve been getting quite a bit of PR coverage out of this, and they’re telling MySpace users "We’re a business, but we get you and what you’re interested in".



And the best part – this is simple, cheap technology.



So how about you? What’s your company doing to actually connect with the 66 million MySpace users? Or the millions of FaceBook users? Or Friendster users?

Pointless Projects

Sometimes I look at really cool online marketing projects and scratch my head for days trying to figure out how the project delivers on the marketing mission.

Sony put together a really great web site at www.pspartgallery.com. Specifically, they have an area called Portable Gallery.

From name alone the assumption is that there will be art of some sort and that it would be portable – perhaps even tying in somehow to their portable device, the PSP. Of course, this is Sony we’re talking about, so it’s not suprising that the content isn’t portable. The site has some amazingly cool functionality allowing you to upload/create/share artwork. Funny thing is, there’s no easy to to move it to the PSP for viewing or showing to friends.

I have to imagine that during the develop of the web site with the agency doing the work, both the agency and the marketing manager in charge forgot the core mission of the site – creating value for (and thus interest in) the PSP.

It’s sad to see a cool project like this not used to actually meet the marketing mission.

Gaming Theory

In doing some work research, I came across a couple cool game theory blogs. There’s a ton of great content on these.

Terra Nova

A blog about “emerging social phenomenon called ‘virtual worlds’ — computer-generated, persistent, immersive, and representational social platforms”

PlayOn

From the smart folks at XEROX PARC

How did they sell that??

Norelco has launched a new site: shaveeverywhere.com

This is absolutely one of the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on the internet. It’s a must see, but make sure you can turn your speakers up. It’s mostly safe for work, depending on how stuffy your office is.

The funniest thing to me was that the first moment I realized what it was I asked myself “How did that agency sell the brand manager?!?” I’m not sure how they did, but they are my new heroes.

Just goes to show that with a smart agency and a brand team that is willing to push the limits you can do amazing things.

I’m assuming the goal of this project was driving awareness. I’ve posted on two blogs today and shown to countless people. The last time I was this excited about talking up razors? Never.

Bono in person!

I know this is a bit off-topic, but so what – it’s Bono! That’s right, I’m going to see Bono speak.

The Wife got two tickets for us, and as you can imagine I’m quite excited. I’ve been very impressed with Bono for years now with his approach to truly helping out Africa’s poor. He’s one of the experts on the subject, and has used his celebrity not to feed his own ego but to put the right people in the same room.

If you’re interested in going, here’s the details:

Southwest Blogs

I love finding new corporate blogs that show companies who are really "getting it". On Friday I found the new Southwest Airlines blog – Nuts About Southwest.

Nuts about Southwest is all about our Employees, Customers, airplanes, and airports. We really are Nuts about Southwest and we hope that our Readers will share that passion by posting their own comments.

For more information about the blog and participating, please visit our User Guide.

I was happy to see that our neighbors and friends at R2D built the site.

Southwest has also launched a blog for their Adopt-A-Pilot program.

On a related note, it’s interesting to see that the Southwest blog is built on Wordpress, and the Adopt-A-Pilot blog is built with Typepad. No need for expensive technology, no need to even host it yourself if your business requirements allow it.