P&G Marketer Questions Social Media Scientology, Asks “Is Social Media Really Media?”
Ted McConnell is general manager of interactive marketing and innovation at Procter & Gamble and he has a simple question for social media folks: “What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?”
Telling the audience at a talk hosted by Cincinnati’s Digital Hub Initiative that he “really [doesn't] want to buy any more banner ads on Facebook,” McConnell provided some interesting perspectives that all social media proponents might want to mull over.
One of those perspectives might be considered heresy; McConnell essentially asked if social media is even media at all:
I think when we call it ‘consumer-generated media,’ we’re being predatory. Media is something you can buy and sell. Media contains inventory. Media contains blank spaces. Consumers weren’t trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody. So it just seems a bit arrogant. … We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.
He cited his ability to target a 22 to 27 year-old female Proctor & Gamble employee living in Cincinnati “who likes sex and Cocoa Puffs” on Facebook and questioned whether this is the type of targeting that consumers are comfortable being approached via.
He went on to state: “I don’t think everything every consumer says to someone else and writes down is somehow monetizable by the media industry.”
While he did note that he sees some potential in applications, I think McConnell’s comments highlight the fact that social media, in many respects, just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to a whole lot of marketers. At least not enough sense to be worth anything more than a few cents.
Social media proponents like Brian Solis and Jeremiah Owyang babble on and on about “being a part of the conversation” but the reality is that that most consumers don’t want to have a conversation with a company. They might have conversations about companies but that isn’t necessarily an invitation for the company to inject itself into those conversations.
To put it quite simply, a certain level of social ineptitude is required to believe that “you can monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend.”
While Solis, Owyang and other well-known social media hype promulgators shroud their “Social Media Scientology” in a cloud of feel-good hyperbole that seems benevolent, the reality is that much of the social media marketing techniques (”best practices”) they recommended are little more than subtle (and not-so-subtle) commercial intrusions on non-commercial, human interactions.
Sure, they talk about the value of “listening” but at the end of the day, it’s not about listening. It’s about delivering a commercial message, even if none is ever explicitly stated.
Words like “listening,” “feedback,” “community,” “engagement” and, of course, “conversation” all mask the fact that somebody is trying to sell something. It may not be a product or service, but users are being sold. On a perception. On a corporate ideal. On a brand.
Some company just wants to be your “friend.” It wants to get to know you. It wants to better understand your needs. It wants ideas about how it can better serve you.
This, of course, it utter bullshit. Corporations don’t need to hijack your conversations and become your “friend” to acquire feedback and to provide quality service.
The reality is that individuals don’t have “conversations” with companies. Companies provide products and services. They provide support. Yes, many will “listen” to your feedback and some do thrive on becoming a part of your lifestyle but make no mistake about it: a brand like Proctor & Gamble is not your “friend.”
Under law, it may be that a corporation shares many of the same rights as human beings but it is not a human being. It’s not going to buy you a beer. It’s not going to go be your wingman at a nightclub. It’s not going to be the best man at your wedding. It’s not going to hug you when you have a bad day.
Social media proponents would have marketers believe just the opposite. They want marketers to become corporate Nosy Nellies, listening to every “conversation” individuals have online in hopes that it can be turned into “an opportunity” to have a “conversation” (read: sell you something or influence your perception of them).
Where I come from we call that rude and arrogant, although I’d argue that many of the most prominent people in social media are less arrogant than they are socially inept. Case in point: have you watched Mark Zuckerberg? Why anyone would listen to him spout about helping people build stronger and more meaningful relationships on Facebook when he can barely hold a conversation and seems to have a real problem maintaining strong relationships of his own is beyond me.
But social ineptitude really doesn’t matter practically. When you’re trying to have a conversation with someone at the bar and some asshole keeps interrupting, you don’t care if the asshole is socially tuned out or just, well, an asshole.
At the end of the day, Social Media Scientology is rude commercial bullshit in a new age package and no matter how pretty the packaging is, it’s still packaging. And real friends never “package” themselves.
As I see it, good companies have always known what customers think of them and their products. It’s reflected in passive data such as sales, returns, marketshare. And they’ve always been able to “service” customers by making it easy for customers to contact them and providing quality support when asked.
Successful, highly-regarded companies have never needed a Facebook page or a Twitter account. They’ve always needed quality products and services, a commitment to customer satisfaction and a little bit of corporate common sense. That hasn’t changed.
Ted McConnell “gets it.” The promoters of “social media” don’t. Fortunately, Ted McConnell and Proctor & Gamble have the money.
Perhaps someone could build them a java script E-meter?
McConnell’s viewpoint seems to suggest that there is a moral limit to how far a company will go to sell it’s product.
Also who on earth lists their favourite breakfast cereal as an identifier?
spot on
I’m Koo Koo for Coco puffs.
Firstly, I think your blog is great and have plugged it a few times to my contacts.
Secondly, I disagree with your sentiments today and explain why on my company blog if you care to see (too long to paste here).
http://blogs.gcigroup.com/fineprint/2008/11/21/seller-meet-buyer-buyer-meet-seller/
Cheers,
John.
Thanks for the kind words, John, and thanks for the link to your post.
It’s somewhat amusing: there’s not much I disagree with in your post.
Except semantics.
My point is that great companies have always “listened” to and “engaged” with their customers.
You don’t need to monitor Twitter or Facebook to see what consumers are saying about you. Passive data such as sales, growth, marketshare, etc. gives you a pretty good idea of what consumers think. And traditional tools such as focus groups and controlled surveys are, in my opinion, far better at producing actionable data than trying to monitor everything that is said about you online.
When it comes to engagement, there’s meaningful engagement and there’s meaningless engagement.
A company that participates in some nebulous “conversation” for the sake of trying to influence consumers isn’t accomplishing anything and isn’t delivering anything of value to the consumer.
A company that is there to answer questions when asked engaging in a meaningful fashion. A company that is there to provide support when I need it is engaging in a meaningful fashion.
I think it really boils down to knowing who you are and where you are.
A corporation shouldn’t be trying to be my friend. It shouldn’t be trying to monetize the real estate in which I’m having a conversation with a human being.
It should provide me with quality products and services. It should be there to answer my questions. It should offer support when I need help with the products and services I’ve purchased.
At the end of the day, with no offense to the many decent people involved with “social media,” yourself included, I guess my question is simply – what exactly is new about what you’re doing?
It seems to me that the general notion that companies need to learn to “listen” and “engage” with consumers ignores the fact that good companies have been doing this for decades.
If you can repackage this and use new “tools” to do it and make money, more power to you. But I’d certainly pay attention to the fact that people in Ted McConnell’s position are asking questions.
Bit late in on the conversation here, but I’ve just read your piece on e-consultancy which linked through here and I thought I’d add my 2p.
I think that people optimising Social media don’t do it well because they don’t understand why they are doing it, who they are doing it for and how they are doing it. I don’t think it is wrong that they are thinking about it, but the methods are not great.
When you gave your standing in a bar analogy earlier where you were being constantly interrupted, I think you maybe hit the nail on the head. Social media is not the beer, it’s not the person interrupting you, it is not the barman. Social media is the bar. If you want a bar to work, you give it good ambience and you tailor it for your clients.
The same should be true of social media – you should give them an environment to talk about not the product or the brand, but about the subject. I’m sure there are enough beard websites out there where people would want to talk about how they like their beards, moustaches, side burns, etc where Gillette could listen in on conversations, occasionally spark their own topic (similar to theme nights in bars) and use the real estate to promote their brand. Will people click on the ads? No, of course they won’t. But they’ll remember the brand when they next go to the shop.
If the product is good enough, people will talk about it anyway and it is effectively providing a medium for the users to tell each other how good your products are. You shouldn’t need to do anything. And if you’re products are bad, then social media won’t help at all.
Creating a Gillette forum for people to talk about Gillette won’t work though. Creating a forum for people talk about razors or shaving foam won’t work either. It has to be the subject they are passionate about.