Facebook recently introduced a new feature whereby it allows users to share links to articles, blog posts and other web content under the title of “sponsored stories”. While this seems like a way for many companies to try to syndicate and socially share its content, the authenticity of voice seems very contrived when the stories being promoted are about new innovations in home roofing. There lies a tremendous opportunity for Non Profits and Charities to utilize this feature however. Non profits and charities have a unique ability to use social media to share their voice.

Due to the very nature of the work that they they do, Non Profits inevitably have tremendous stories to share but often not enough avenues or channels in which to find a wide enough audience that those stories have impact. There have been no shortage of social media success stories for Non Profits so I want to focus on how I think that Facebook’s Sponsored Stories can specifically be used.

Simply having a good blog post that is promoted via Facebook and utilizing Sponsored Stories is a start, but to fully get the most out of a true social campaign I think that Non Profits would do well to pick a few stories that fall under the same campaign and build a nice microsite with stories, video and where community can be formed so that people can track their dollars at work. Taking the time to invest in a truly integrated social media, email and traditional media campaign will benefit each of these channels individually and of course the campaign overall.

Sponsored Stories will have the most impact if you give people more than a simple blog post to share. That blog post (or article) should be part of a larger well weaved campaign that allowed you to give people the opportunity to not only share the single story but land on a site that had a single campaign theme with multiple stories using mixed media (don’t just use text, get video and photo essays in the mix) that they could easily share and continue the social efforts on your behalf.

By giving people a variety of stories/personas to learn about on your microsite you will increase the chance that one or more resonates with the visitor and that you will gain more social traction as well as campaign dollars.

I highly advise Non Profits to take advantage of this new marketing option (learn more about  the options) from Facebook, however to achieve the largest and most eerily tracked results first invest in building out multiple stories to share via a mixed media microsite.

Are you a Non Profit using Sponsored Stories? What about other businesses, how will you use this new marketing option?

Your comments and Tweets are always appreciated.

Image from http://www.facebook.com/weday

If you live in Canada I certainly do not need to tell you about the level of anticipation, excitement, passion and collective hopes that were riding on yesterday’s men’s Olympic hockey team selection. For my non Canuck readership the things I can compare it to include the lead up to a national election or for the techies, speculation on the next product from Apple all with coverage more intense than that of the flight of Balloon Boy. Just the selection of the team is a national moment and one which I’ve decided to turn into 5 business lessons you can learn from Steve Yzerman and crew.

So here goes my attempt at 5 business lessons from Canada’s Olympic Hockey Team selection.

1. The Roster Announcement – Build Buzz By Being Quiet

Of course not everyone is able to garner the media attention that Hockey Canada achieved but one of the major take aways from Yzerman and crew is that regardless of the amount of speculation (again think Apple Tablet hype) surrounding the Team Canada roster there was a set time and place where the team would be revealed and nobody from Hockey Canada would remotely comment on the roster before yesterday’s press conference. The secrecy only lead to more people talking about the press conference and just like an Apple media event, the take away is that giving pre-interviews or sharing tidbits prior to launch might be appealing, if you can build a buzz by setting a firm date and time for the magic reveal, then allow your launch (roster announcement) to truly be an event by sticking to your guns and not letting loose lips sink your ship.

Take Away: Pick a launch date and stick to it, it might be tempting to talk to reporters or analysts about your product pre-launch but nobody’s interested in the launch of a product that you’ve already essentially launched via a collection of bits and pieces in multiple spots. Build a buzz and make your reveal the main event.

2. Players In Uniform – Show The Product & Have Media Available

People all across Canada were not only excited about today’s roster announcement but were instantly given a jolt of national pride by seeing all the selected players pictured in their red and white Team Canada jerseys. I can’t tell you the number of times I saw news orgs using these photos and of course they were flying around the blogosphere.

In the same way that people were clamoring to not only hear the Canadian roster but actually get a glimpse at what it looked like, you too should never launch a product with a flashy video or presentation and not have product shots and other media ready for press and blogger consumption. In fact, the more you can provide, the better. Taking a page from the playbook (and they’ve provided a good one) of the smart people @Hubspot, you want to provide as much media and as many inbound hooks as possible. Dropping a press release is simply not good enough, you should be prepared with images, a podcast (why not use video), something for YouTube, a blog post, at least a few Tweets (try CoTweet for the ability to allow multiple people to Tweet under your corporate identity – there is power in using different voices) and at least one custom landing page on your website.

Take-Away: If you want people – reporters, bloggers, customers etc – to talk or write about your product (and why wouldn’t you) then make it easy for them. By giving them media to share with their audience you not only make it easy for them to tell your story, but as importantly you get to have way more control over the way (wouldn’t you rather people see your high quality product shots than something a blogger shot on his iPhone) in which that story is told.

3. Balance Your Roster – Surround Yourself With Greatness

Looking up and down the Team Canada roster one of the things that becomes apparent is that there is a mix of young (Sidney Crosby) and older (Scott Niedermayer) talent, players with pure speed + finesse and those who don’t mind grinding it out with some physical play. The team is comprised of not only terrific players but also players that compliment each other’s skill-set and looking at your own management team, why should it be any different?

While the Olympic roster needed to be set by a certain date and is not supposed to change, in business you want to always be evaluating your team and it is important to get the right people on that team and get the wrong people off it – more on that in Jim Collins “Good To Great”.

Taking the analogy a step further, although the Team Canada alternates (in case of injury) have not been named yet, it is safe to assume that a couple of those spots will be filled by young up and coming players like 19 year olds Steven Stamkos and John Tavares. These guys are not quite ready to crack the roster today, but they’ll be counted on in 2014 and so giving them some experience now is in both the team and their best interests That same idea easily applies to business and your management succession planning. Evaluate your company and find out who your future 50 goal scoters are, who will you want at the table in the future? It’s not only an important exercise to identify these people but it’s more important to let them know you recognize their talent and to offer them experiences, training and other ‘perks’ that not only benefit them but will pay off for you and your company down the road when they’re ready to fill the shoes of someone heading out the door via free agency (i.e. another job), waivers (i.e. necessity when they’re not right anymore) or retirement. By recognizing this young talent today you signal to them and the rest of your organization that you’ll always reward top talent and will both cut the risk of losing that talent and have the benefit of more fruitful recruiting of other young budding superstars.

Take-Away: You can’t do it alone in either hockey or business and in both it’s extremely important to ensure your team has a mix of levels of experience and skill-sets. It is also vital to your business that you too identify your future superstars and start bringing them along today, in doing so you will be positioning your company as one that not only can challenge for your equivalent of a gold medal today but (like Team Canada) is a contender each and every time you compete.

4. Everyone’s A Critic – It’s Best To Have A Passionate Base

In the months leading up to todays roster announcement everyone had an opinion on who should wear the Maple Leaf and who should be watching from their couch. In the weeks from yesterday’s selection all the way to beyond the Olympics (especially if Canada does not win gold) the decision of Yzerman and Hockey Canada will be as hotly debated as the ongoing US healthcare reform.

My point being that whether you’re Barack Obama making decisions of national importance or Steve Yzerman picking a team that feels nationally important, people will always second guess you or be quick to point out what they would have done differently and it’s not necessarrily a bad thing. First, remember why you became the boss. At some point wasn’t it so the buck would stop with you and you’d be able to stand up and say this is my decison and I stick behind it? Second, I can’t imagine anything better than having passionate consumers (fans), employees and other stake holders. The people who comment on blogs, review your service on Yelp or converse with you via Twitter are your equivalent of Canada’s army of hockey fans – these people are the ones that will be first to tell you when you piss them off or they disagree with a decision you’ve made, but they’re also fiercely loyal and given the alternative of having people who just don’t care trust me when I tell you that you’d rather have a few pieces of opinionated feedback than a business that is full of yes men and women.

Take-Away: Creating a brand where your customers, employees and other stake holders are passionate is one of the biggest achievements you can strive for. With passion comes opinion and while you might not always appreciate being second guessed remember that it comes with the territory and it’s a thousand times better than nobody giving a damn about you or your brand.

5. Go For Gold – Second Place Is The First Loser

While we might be ok telling our kids that there are no winners or losers in life, let’s be honest and say that there is indeed a scorecard in hockey, life and business. Someone is going to win the gold medal (or be the global market leader in your space) and if you’re going to go to the trouble of putting together a team it should be with the goal of being number one. Yes I am sure there are teams (and businesses) that are content or even thrilled at just getting a medal, but ask any elite athlete (CEO) what they’re striving for each time they lace’em up and the answer will always be the same – “I (we) play to win”. Your business is no different, you should get up each morning with the goal of taking one step more towards the goal of market leadership.

The other major point to note here is that while Hockey Canada has not always returned with a gold medal that has never changed the goal for the next Olympics. Again this applies directly to business in that the recognized leader in a space today is not necessarily going to dominate that space forever – heck of the 500 companies on the Fortune 500 in 1995, less than half remain on the list.

Take-Away: Always go for the gold and strive to do better each day – you may not win today’s competition but you’ll certainly lose tomorrow’s if you’re not in the mindset of a champion.

I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t end this post in true Canadian fashion and let you know that it’s gold or bust for our boys in Vancouver so Go Canada Go!

Thanks for reading, your comments, feedback and Twitter retweets (here is the tinyurl – http://tinyurl.com/ybvmwz7) are always appreciated.

Public relations is a funny business, many times you are trying to get people to pay attention to a press release or event you are holding and the job is really about creating a buzz. Other times public relations becomes more about either quelling some bad publicity or having the foresight to recognize an opportunity for good press. It’s not always so easy to spot the great public relations efforts (though a company like Zappos does pretty well) but it is certainly easy to spot when your public relations team has failed and even more easy if that failure is on a global stage. In particular I am talking about the utter failure of the corporate PR team at the Marriott Hotel Chain to react to a groundswell of poor press, tweets and blogs after staff at the Times Square location did not recognize that kicking the new fan favorite of the US Open out of their hotel would be a boneheaded move…Allow me to elaborate.

Even if you are not a tennis fan, it is hard to avoid the hoopla and hype surrounding the US Open.  As one of the tennis majors and hosted in Flushing Meadows, New York, the tournament is extremely well covered and televised both domestically and internationally. As there is almost every year in major sporting events,  this year the tournament provided fans with a real feel good story in Melanie Oudin. Oudin, the previously 70th-ranked 17 year old shocked tennis fans by defeating fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva and former world No. 1 Maria Sharapova and was only recently defeated by ninth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark in a 6-2, 6-2 loss. However it is not Oudin’s remarkable tennis run that caused this post, rather it is a story making the rounds (and the news) about how Oudin was forced to leave her hotel and move across the street because Marriott wanted to jack the room rates.  The story goes this way…

Oudin was staying at the Times Square Marriott — because if you’re 17 and in New York, you want to be in the middle of the action – But because she’s never advanced this far in a major and her path was littered with high-ranking players whose last name ended in “ova,” Oudin booked her hotel room for one week. She shared the king-sized bed in the room with her mom. Then down went Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (ranked 36). Then Elena Dementieva (the 4th seed). Then Maria Sharapova (the former world number one). Then Nadia Petrova (the 13th seed). So Oudin, whose stay in New York had been elongated, needed a place to hang her racket at the end of the night. The Marriott Hotel made Oudin and her mom leave when their reservation was up or pay an increased (doubled) room rate.

Now I can understand the front line hotel staff not having the foresight to realize that this was going to be a public relations disaster but doesn’t someone at the Marriott head office stand up and take notice when reporters start calling to ask about a guest. I mean shouldn’t your public relations team have heard of Twitter and started to see the buzz growing? Apparently not at Marriott as the hotel chain said it was shocked to hear the news of an ousted Oudin.

“We had no knowledge Melanie Oudin was staying at the hotel. There were no guests registered under her name. The hotel was absolutely shocked to receive this media inquiry,” a hotel spokesperson said.

Even if the hotel chain had no knowledge of Oudin’s ordeal, I find it tough to believe that when reporters started calling nobody thought to pick up the phone and call the manager at the Times Square location to confirm what had actually happened. Surely the people working at the hotel knew who Oudin was and recognized the fact that this 17 year old girl now had to employ security guards to protect her when she makes the short walk from the locker room to the practice courts or when returning to her hotel. Even if the front line staff did not recognize the poor move of having this girl leave their hotel, how could nobody at the corporate level recognize the opportunity to turn a PR disaster into something remotely positive. It would have been extremely easy to turn this situation around even after Oudin had found a room at another establishment. Here’s how I would have played it

First, once I realized that head office getting a call from a reporter about a teenage tennis player in the US Open was not a hoax I would have immediately made two phone calls. I would have the manager of the Times Square Marriott on one line and begin explaining to him that I didn’t care who was in the nicest suite in the hotel, s/he was to turn that sucker into a 17 year old tennis phenom’s dream. Lavish pillows, bubble baths and whatever else is saved for the top guests. Then (and I am assuming that there is some level of authority granted to the executives at Marriott) I would have made it my business to figure out who represented Ms. Oudin (which is not very hard considering for this article I found it in two minutes) and would have called her representative to not only offer apologies but to let them know that the hotel had prepared the best suite for Oudin and that of course her and her family were guests and did not have to pay for their stay. Of course that seems like the easy way to stem the negativity that was already brewing in the press. I probably would have even taken it a step further and paid Oudin so my  marketing team could whip up some quick viral advertisements that played on Marriott’s error in judgment. Giving the girl a lavish suite and showing that the hotel chain could laugh at itself would certainly be better than the absolute nothing that they did do.

Great job Marriott, now you have America’s newest sweetheart booked as a guest on “The Tonight Show” and “Ellen” where no doubt the easy story to tell will be about how big bad Marriott kicked her out of her hotel. Ya, that’s what you want. For a company that tries to espouse a commitment to community and family values I’d say you could mark this as a pretty complete failure.

USA Today recently reported that the NBA and NHL were both looking into allowing some form of advertisement directly on game (practice) uniforms – see below the post for examples and the various league’s stances

Although this practice has been around for many years in European sports and many sports purists will make their argument from a sports perspective, I thought I would try to give a more economic look at the same issue. I think the thinking behind advertisements on jerseys as a revenue generator is pretty straightforward but I really think that by not having a league-wide policy or making this a league-wide initiative there is a major potential pitfall with respect to corporate naming rights and conflicting jersey advertisements  for all the major sports. Please allow me to explain…

Naming Rights & Brands Collide

The idea of putting your corporate name on the outside of a stadium or theatre is not new, but the money that has been spent on these naming deals over the past decade is staggering.  I believe that a significant amount of the money currently being spent to purchase the naming rights (see ESPN’s list of naming right deals) will either be cannibalized by this way of affiliating with sports or that more likely the owners of the naming rights will want to start imposing restrictions on who can or cannot be a jersey advertiser. Let’s take that last point a little bit further.

I do not want to debate the branding merits of attaching a corporation’s (or product’s) name to a building that most people will associate with the team(s) that play in. However what I do want to point out is that a major problem is brewing if leagues start allowing advertising on jerseys and those advertisements start to become a part of the way people recognize that team. Then you are faced with a situation where a company has poured millions of dollars into an affiliation that they really thought would be with the team that played in their stadium only to now really only have the affiliation with the stadium. No company really cares about people driving by the stadium who take note of their brand name. They care about the millions of people who come in person or watch on television and hear their brand name repeated over and over againg in the same breath as the team name. Just think about every sports broadcast and the opening that goes roughly “live from Company Name Field, today’s game features the Insert Team against the Insert Team.” Now fast forward a few years when teams have been wearing advertisements on their jerseys for a few years and people start to recognize a team’s jersey based partly on the branding on it (are Air Emirates and Arsenal Football (see jersey here) not intrinsically linked?) and tell me that problems will not arise if the stadium naming rights owner does not purchase the jersey advertising space. Do you think Coca-Cola wants to see the Houston Astros running out onto the field at  Minute Maid Park (naming rights that cost $6 million a year and $170 million over the life of the deal) with Tropicana advertisements on the jersey? What happens when Coca-Cola  says to the Denver Nuggets that they are willing to pay Carmelo Anthony’s entire contract (over $15 million a season based on 2009) for the right to brand their jerseys? Will that mean Melo suits up sporting a Coke Zero patch while running out the tunnel in the Pepsi  (a name that cost over $3.4 million a year) Center?

Even if teams are going to give current naming rights owners the first opportunity to advertise on jerseys there is a potential major issue on the horizon and not having a concrete league-wide (see below) policy is going to come back to bite one of the majors (NFL, NHL or NBA) right in the arse.

Of course while this purely a revenue play and I’ve tried to look at it as such there are still times where a sports league needs to think about its fan base rather than its corporate customers and need for a boost to the bottom line so I’ll conclude this way – I get that sports teams and leagues are looking for revenue. I get that as a sports team owner you need to constantly be looking for revenue sources and ways to generate the humongous payrolls that star players demand. I get that iff you are an athlete you are already throwing on a jersey where you generally care more about the name on the back (your own) than the team name on the front (Hockey Canada excluded) and as such what do you care if there is advertising patched on your shoulder. Most star athletes already have endorsement deals and so the fact that their employer signs a few shouldn’t bother them…BUT if you are a fan and purist you certainly won’t love the idea of jersey’s being covered in advertising and (at least IMO) may feel that the leagues are really doing themselves a disservice by cheapening their sport with gimmicks that do nothing to improve the game or the fan experience.

Bottom line is that whether advertisements and naming rights collide or fans are just turned off there is potential for a major pitfall here and the revenue earned from additional advertising might be wiped out in the lessening of naming right values and a decrease viewership and replica jersey sales.

As always I would love your comments and feedback…Retweets are greatly appreciated

The NBA & Advertising on Jerseys

Beginning this season the NBA will let teams sell ads on their practice jerseys, says deputy commissioner Adam Silver, who adds the league is continuing to explore the issue of ads on game jerseys. “We are operating a diverse business all around the world,” Silver says. “(The sponsored game jersey) is a well-established practice in other countries. Ultimately, I think our fans will come to accept it.” WNBA teams were allowed to sell ads on game jerseys this season and two teams took advantage. The WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and Los Angeles Sparks featured LifeLock and Farmer’s Insurance, respectively, prominently featured on the front.

The NHL & Advertising on Jerseys

The NHL which pushed the envelope 30 years ago by allowing teams to sell advertising on the boards — is going high-tech to attract corporate dollars by offering marketers the chance to insert so-called “virtual” ads inside national game telecasts on NBC and Versus. These computer-generated signs, typically superimposed on the crowd, are only visible to TV viewers. and not to fans at the game.

“As with anything new, you weigh tradition with the commercialization of sports,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly says. “Obviously, sports are becoming more commercialized each and every year. We have that debate internally all the time. Where do you draw the line? How much is too much? You have to protect the look and feel of the game. You look at professional hockey played in Europe and there’s advertising on jerseys and on the ice. You can have so much advertising on the ice that it can be distracting to players. There’s a balance there.”

The NFL & Advertising on Jerseys

The Tennessee Titans have had a small patch for a local hospital on their practice jerseys since relocating from Houston more than a decade ago, and the league put rules in place last spring to permit the activity league-wide. Five teams — the New York Jets, New York Giants, Indianapolis Colts, St. Louis Rams and Chicago Bears — have taken advantage, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy says. The Jets will get more than $2 million a year from a deal with Atlantic Health that includes practice uniform patches and its name on the team’s training facility, says Matthew Higgins, the team’s executive vice president of business operations.

MLB & Advertising on Jerseys

Major League Baseball has no plans to add such advertising, says MLB president Bob DuPuy.

I came across this article in the New York Times almost a month ago and have been meaning to blog about it ever since. For those not familiar, a brief synopsis of the storyline at play.

For the past several years people in countries around the world have begun to purchase bottled water in astronomical numbers. According to some research 12,000,000,000 (12 Billion – that’s 9 zeros) gallons of water were sold in 16 Western European countries in 2007. For the North Americans in the audience your fact is that between 1997 and 2007 per capita consumption of bottled water more than doubled to 29 gallons.

As we have seen in most if not all of these countries, the environmental and economic impact of these empty water bottles is a huge headache for municipalities.  Now put yourself in the shoes of the Mayor of Venice. Beautiful Venice has no roads so trash must be collected on foot and while plastic bottles can be recycled, the process is not exactly perfected. Trash collection on the mainland in Italy costs $84 per ton. Collection in Venice where it is collected by men with wheelbarrows along the canals costs $335 per ton.

So what has the city of Venice done? Did it ban plastic bottles or start charging a premium (see Toronto’s policy of charging 5 cents for platic bags) to those who use them? Nope, the city went in a completely novel direction and decided to brand their tap water. For years many people have claimed that bottled water was marketing and hype at its greatest or ugliest point in that you were paying 12 cents for the water and another buck fifty for the name on the label. So putting that theory to the test officials in Venice decided to meet bottled water’s branding with some of their own and renamed Venice’s tap water “Acqua Veritas.”

Ok so you are thinking, “who cares if they rename tap water, that’s not branding” which would be true, but the Venetians understood your skepticism and backed up the name change with a slick logo and a billboard ad campaign that included local politicians. Even taking a page from comedy 101 which teaches you to poke fun at yourself, the advertising campaign plays on the fact that tap water is often referred to as “the mayor’s water” and has used this as a slogan where prominent Venice personalities are pictured with a glass of Acqua Veritas and the phrase “I, too, drink the mayor’s water.”

I decided to highlight this campaign not only because of its novel nature, but also to remind that there are often times where a brand (in this case any bottled water) has taken control of an industry and most would write off other brands (in this case tap water) where the other brands are not dead, they just need to reinvent themselves or reeducate the public. In the case of Venice’s tap water they have done both and to some early success.As Silvia Vatta a 25 year old student noted, “we used to use bottled water because we grew up with it at home and didn’t know any better.” Now Ms. Vatta is a regular Acqua Veritas drinker and the number of Venetians who drink tap water has risen 7 percentage points over a two year span.

My point to this post is that while we might see some companies as industry leaders who cannot be unseated, it is only that way because we let our perception become reality and don’t think we can change the “staus quo.”  What we seem to forget is that the status quo today was probably not the status quo five years ago and something worked to change it. Whether it is a marketing effort or collective social conscence (e.g. going green being top of mind today when just 5 years ago it was for “tree huggers”) that moves that status quo my point is that it can and does move.  Think about your own industry or even walk into your local grocery store and scan the drinks shelves. Ten years ago we had Gatorade but little else that would be considered a specialty drink. Now I step out at lunch and see people chugging everything from “Viatamin Water” to “Viatmin Enriched Coke” – So kudos to Venice for a well thought out and well executed campaign, now if they would only fly me down to do a taste test.

As always your thoughts, comments and feedback are appreciated.

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