Author: Jeff Larche

If you are a brand steward and follow the online buzz about your product, you may have wished for a way to swing your computer screen around and show the world the great things users are saying about your brand.

It’s the online equivalent of word-of-mouth. When you hear something good, you want to hear these endorsements shouted from the rooftops. Well, the PR group Edelman, in collaboration with RSS distributor Newsgator, have found a way to do just that.

Edelman’s clients can now order up ad units that are essentially “widgets” displaying headlines linked to user-generated content (UGC) about a brand. You’ve heard of testimonial ads. These are the dynamic equivalent of them. And because they carry the credibility of UGC, I predict Hosted Conversations will be extremely successful if done correctly.

According to this piece on the recently unveiled Hosted Conversations:

The NewsGator-powered product tracks media relating to pre-specified subjects, extracting nuggets from blog posts, mainstream media, and video and photo sites. The PR firm will pluck the highest quality content from those sources based on criteria set by its clients; the choice bits will then feed dynamically into the chosen advertiser-branded units. We’re determining the “memes in conversation, who’s saying the most interesting stuff,” said Rick Murray of Edelman.

What do I mean by executing these ads correctly? I would say they would be doing the brand a favor by sprinkling the glowing reviews with some dissenting opinions. Although they would have no control over these criticizing posts, they Edelman would be able to provide their side of the story in comments associated with the piece.

Although these folks have stumbled publicly lately, I suspect that if anyone can pull of this feat they can. For example, read Rick Murray’s quick response to this criticism of the very concept of the new ad unit. When you browse down past the blogger’s post, the very first comment you’ll see is by the owner of the brand in question. And a very tactful response it is. Well played, Rick!

In a previous post, An online ad tip from an eye-tracking expert, I described how the only consistently successful online advertising tactic found by one researcher was the use of a pair of human eyes staring directly back at the web page visitor. These ads drew visitors’ attention like magnets — an important factor, since you must attract viewer attention before you can do anything else (like generate a click from that person).

Now a study conducted by Newcastle University in the UK finds that being “watched” by a poster showing a pair of eyes has a startlingly large influence over consumer behavior. It suggests other ways that images of eyes (whether they are on a wall or on a web page) can have an effect over those in their “gaze.” Here’s an excerpt:

We all know the scene: the departmental coffee room, with the price list for tea and coffee on the wall and the “honesty box” where you pay for your drinks — or not, because no one is watching.

In a finding that will have office managers everywhere scurrying for the photocopier, researchers have discovered that merely a picture of watching eyes nearly trebled the amount of money put in the box.

Melissa Bateson and colleagues at Newcastle University, UK, put up new price lists each week in their psychology department coffee room. Prices were unchanged, but each week there was a photocopied picture at the top of the list, measuring 15 by 3 centimetres, of either flowers or the eyes of real faces. The faces varied but the eyes always looked directly at the observer.

In weeks with eyes on the list, staff paid 2.76 times as much for their drinks as in weeks with flowers. “Frankly we were staggered by the size of the effect,” [reports] Gilbert Roberts, one of the researchers.

This morning I heard political pundit Paul Begala make a great point about politics and the media. What he says has lessons for all marketing, but especially marketing online.

He says that a fault of the Democrats is they tend to communicate to the media in lists. “They have a four-point plan for solving every problem.” Conversely, Begala says that Republicans tell stories. Policy decisions aside, clearly the latter strategy works better in today’s media landscape.

What does this teach us about selling things other than political ideology? A lot. We all know (or should!) that benefits have to be communicated along with features. But if you simply list them off in quick succession, you risk diluting any potential to resonate with the consumer.

Go ahead and create the list. But make the benefits of the list clickable. Send readers to a single, strong, supporting story for that benefit.

Then rip another page from the political playbooks. Conduct your online PR one message at a time. Today focus on reliability. Next week, tell your flexibility story. And after that, hammer home the next story, and the next.

It’s important because we all need many rational reasons to buy a product, but before we go seeking those supporting reasons (additional features and benefits), we need that first single story to inspire us to look further.

This technique is especially effective with online marketing because people can arrive at those stories from various ways. Also, satisfied consumers can help, by backing up your story with their own comments, containing unique details and similar stories.

Takeaways:

Always look for your dramatizing story — in your press releases, on your product information, and wherever people gather to find out about you. Then focus on those stories, one at a time.

Reading about the Grand Opening of PA Consulting’s Second Life office reminded me of our own impending move. Our agency has bought a century-old, bricks-and-mortar building, located on Wisconsin Ave. near Lake Michigan. Last Wednesday the team got a tour of the mid-renovation, construction-zone-cum-office-building.

When I read about the unique challenges of staffing a virtual office with a receptionist, I couldn’t help but think of the very different challenges we’re facing with placing the reception area in a part of the building that is both publicly accessible and able to accommodate the other physical needs of the space. Here’s an excerpt from the news item liked above, describing the unique requirements of putting out your shingle in cyberspace (including a payroll in Linden Dollars, the currency of the virtual world):

Claus Nehmzow, who leads PA’s Second Life initiative, admitted that he had never met, in real life, the people who designed and built PA’s virtual office. When it was decided to hire a receptionist to greet people at the virtual PA office, interviews were conducted in Second Life. He joked that he was waiting to find out what would happen when the human resources department discovers that he has hired a person without knowing their real name and that the receptionist avatar is being paid in Linden Dollars.

It’s taken us more than a year to plan our physical move. But somehow I suspect that PA Consulting’s branch office on a virtual patch of land wasn’t much quicker. Probably less dusty, though.

Related entries:

• Selling policy and teaching law on virtual islands
• Interactive, synchronous theater