ThinkTank Blog

Coke’s Content Strategy: Creating Emotional Connections

The concept of brands becoming publishers/media channels is not new, but Coke just took it to a new and exciting place.  They just re-launched their website, the first refresh since 2005, and turned their online presence into a consumer magazine called Journeys.  Specific details from the New York Times can be read here.

The key point is that Coca-Cola realizes they need a smarter approach to selling a commoditized product in a new media world.  Advertising is getting less effective as technology gives consumers more ways to avoid it.  And, media savvy people are comfortable getting information and entertainment from brands.  What Coke really understands is the need embrace their role as a lifestyle brand and create lasting emotional connections with consumers.  They are using content, entertainment, video and storytelling to engage customers.  This approach works naturally in the social media and mobile world as those platforms become distributions channels for the original content.  And, provides a venue to encourage user generate content and sharing.

There is a good lesson here for companies who battle on price or features and often have a transactional relationship with their customers. These types of competitive situations become a war of attrition as marketers’ battle over discounts and promotions.  Supermarkets and consumer electronics are examples in addition to consumables like cola, coffee, bottled water etc.  If these companies can make the transition to lifestyle brands they will be able to leverage loyalty and maintain margins.  Apple, Starbucks, Wegmans and Whole Foods are good examples, not to mention Harley-Davidson, LL Bean, Nike, Ritz-Carlton and Patron.  They can command a premium vs. similar competitors because they have pivoted to a lifestyle brand.  Being a customer of these brands allow you to say something about your personality and enables people to feel they are part of a community of like minded people.  This dimension cannot be underestimated in a world were people are sharing much of their lives online.

Coke’s strategic commitment and investment is a smart one and will likely be duplicated by many other brands in the near future.  Smart marketers should be thinking about how their customers perceive them in relation to competitors.  In the new media era you need to be more than a company that just sells “stuff” at a good price.

Simplify Your Marketing Messages

A few weeks ago my wife and I made a trip to Walden Pond to see where Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden. Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years in a cabin he built near Concord, Mass.  One of his famous quotes should be a mantra for every marketer – Simplify.   

(Me at Walden Pond)

Consumers are overloaded with marketing/brand messages on every platform, it is estimated we are hit with nearly 3000 messages a day.   As a result attention spans have become shorter and more distracted.  We have less tolerance for how much content we will consume at one glance.  Our brains are now used to processing short bursts of info – texts, tweets, FB posts, broadcast/print ads, email, etc.  Given this backdrop, marketers need to craft their messages with brevity in mind.  

One of the most important duties for a marketer is creating the description for your company – positioning statements and “About us” copy for your web site and collateral.  In addition, it is valuable to arm your employees with a quick verbal “elevator/cocktail party” pitch version so they can successfully articulate the company’s value.  This description should be from your customer’s point of view – what benefit do you provide for them.  Key point - It is about the customer, not you and your award winning technology or world class production facility or sigma six processes or your diverse and happy employees.  

So many companies (especially in the B2B world) have buzzword dense, convoluted descriptions on their web site.  How many times have you visited a site and not been able to figure out what the company actually does.  Too often a committee writes these statements and everyone feels they need to shove in extraneous words to make it sound important.  

For effective marketing, the opposite is true.  In today’s cluttered information world you need to be able state your position in a clean simple sentence or two.  To get to this description you must think about the essence of your brand promise in one simple concept – why do people ultimately buy your product or service.  This exercise will also help your SEO and inbound web traffic.  A clearer description can help lower your bounce rate and encourage people to go deeper into your site.

Craft your statement in a few words as possible and test it out on a few people.  It should convey a simple message to someone outside your industry.  Once you have this down you can then further build your case with supporting points, facts and research.  However, you should lead with a simple statement that instantly lets a prospect know what you can do for them.  Simplify.

50 Is No Longer 50: What It Means For Marketers

While many marketers are apt to lump all Boomers into one bucket, there is a large enough age variance in the demographic so that Boomers fall into two distinct groups. There’s the older Boomer, who is marching into retirement, and there’s the Boomer at the younger end of the generation, who’s now hitting his or her peak buying power. Younger Boomers (roughly ages 48-58) really don’t have as much in common with the older portion of the cohort as commonly believed. While their older brothers and sisters transition to retirement, the 48-58 year olds are in positions of leadership and in their top earning years. The most significant difference, however, is their mindset. Younger Boomers will forever redefine what it means to be 50.  

 

It may be trite to say “50 is the new 30”, but it’s also true. Younger Boomers don’t want to hear about AARP cards or other products traditionally aimed at the demographic. A cursory review of my friends in this age group (on Facebook, of course) does not turn up people sifting through retirement home options. They feel and act the same as they did 20 years ago, albeit with a few more miles on their bodies, which they take very good care of with diet and exercise.
The younger group does not self identify as a Baby Boomer; culturally, they have more in common with Gen X, in terms of attitude and sensibility.

 

They are also a long way from retirement and slowing down. It is a time in life when people become more reflective and take the time to broaden their interests and try new things such as a second career or giving back to the community. They’re looking inward and thinking about the second half of their lives.

This mindset makes them a vital target for a host of marketers who need to think a bit differently about how to reach them. It is time to consign the old demographic targeting to the dustbin of marketing history. In this age of media, you need more nuances when looking for your customers. Plugging Male, 45-54, HH+ 75+ into a spreadsheet is yesterday’s news.

Today, the consumer is in control and has an unlimited number of choices when it comes to getting information, content, and entertainment. The commonalities between people of the same age and gender are few, which is due in large part to the diverse array of products and activities available to them at any given time. This is not to say that the people of today are more complex; it’s more so that they’ve had the luxury of developing their interests more acutely. So, whereas a person’s sense of self used to be more prominently defined by things like gender and age, people now are far more apt to define themselves by their interests, passions and hobbies. And this is great thing for advertisers and marketers.

Targeting younger Boomers based on their interests allows advertisers to make far more accurate blanket statements about their buyer personas. Behavioral targeting and content marketing, for instance, can be combined to reach customers who have shown a real interest in your category and product. Targeting customers with content that maps to their interest can also build long-term relationships rather than just an impersonal transaction. At a time when consumers are looking to be engaged in conversation, wouldn’t it be better to treat them like a person rather than a number?

This can have real implications for companies such as consumer electronics, sports and fitness and apparel/footwear to name a few. These marketers should create integrated campaigns with younger Boomers in mind for products not often associated with people 48-58. They are heavy users of social and mobile platforms so they should be surrounded with content and stories about what your brand can do for them. Content and interests are self-selecting so put it out there and they will find you. Just remember, don’t treat them like they are ready for the rocking chair; they’re active just like Gen Y—but they’ve got two to three times the amount of disposable income.

Big Surprise: When Customer Service or Sales Go Rogue, You Lose Customers

Post by King Fish Senior Account Manager, Michele Campbell

 

I recently experienced two epic customer service fails. Like many things in life, we can all learn a lot when things go awry—that is, if we pay attention.

Epic Fail #1:

After a three-hour drive to a New England timeshare property, we were greeted awkwardly by a woman behind the check-in desk. She tried to engage us in conversation: “What do you do for work, Mr. Campbell?,” she asked my husband. “I work for PBS.” She immediately went on a tangent about how she doesn’t watch TV and reads instead. It was more than just friendly banter though; it was accusatory. Clearly watching TV and reading aren’t mutually exclusive, but the point here is that once you’ve engaged a customer, you should try to keep them around, not shut them down. 

Next, we met one of the property’s sales representatives. He was a very nice gentleman, but he was using old-school selling methods, and we ended up sitting through a 1.5-hour verbal presentation with zero wow factor. If a company wants to get the attention of Generation X or younger, they’ve got to do more than flip through a huge paper catalog pointing to location options in an effort to get them excited about their product. 

I mentioned to this particular salesperson that we like to play tennis, camp, and trail run (all amenities available at the property), but instead of showing me these things, digitally or physically, he showed us the pool where all the screaming kids were hanging out (after we told him we have no kids). Game over. “Dear Sir, you aren’t listening to me; if you want me to even consider buying a timeshare here, you better show me things that get me jazzed.” 

Here are some common-sense takeaways for all of us:

• Be sincere. When you attempt to engage a customer or prospect, do not dismiss what they say. It’s fine if you don’t like their answer, but keep that to yourself. Try to have a real, meaningful conversation that would make a person want to return.

• Get with the now. Use modern tools to excite prospects in a way that speaks their language. Had I seen the campgrounds and tennis courts on an iPad during the talk as a tease, and then been shown these things during the tour, I would have been a lot more excited. Instead, I got a wave toward the car window and a drab “tennis courts are over there.” Great.

• Just because you’re in an older industry doesn’t mean you have to use dated tactics. Infuse some life into a slow and sad presentation model. The old saying, “We’ve always done it this way,” no longer flies in today’s fast-paced world of fractured attention spans (and wallets). We saw a 7-minute film that was better at explaining the timeshare than the live person’s 90-minute overly rehearsed scripted version. The timeshare business model itself needs more work, but that’s a conversation for another day.

• Listen. Listen. Listen. Prospects send cues all the time — body language, facial expressions, words. We expressed a lot of things that were all lost on this salesperson. We have no reason to want to continue the conversation because he never listened to us in the first place. We told him more than once we don’t have kids, but he continued going on about how family friendly the property is. Where are those tennis courts, again?

Epic Fail #2:

I was recently robbed a vacation day thanks to an airline. We arrived at Boston’s Logan airport excited to get to Chicago for a marathon weekend. A 7:34 a.m. flight would have us there by lunchtime — a museum tour and dinner with friends to follow. Flight delay. Another delay. Flight canceled. 

I am a reasonable person and understand that mechanical problems occur. But what was most frustrating about this from a customer standpoint is that no one would talk to us. No one would tell us what was happening or give us any attention at all. The airline decided only to speak with people connecting through Chicago first -- they literally turned us away. Then the screen displayed our flight as “now leaving at 8:00 p.m.” That’s over 12 hours later than our original flight.

We finally decided to try and speak with someone again. We had two options at this point: angry customer service lady with a loud speaker, who repeatedly announced what her “limited responsibilities” are in this situation; or quiet customer service lady who kept tapping at her keyboard, finding people random seats on other flights, one at a time. She was very kind to us, as we were to her (none of this was her fault). She was unable to get us on anything earlier than the 8:00 p.m. flight. But, she gave us $60 in food vouchers knowing we’d be at the airport all day, and suggested we try standby on all of the remaining flights. She didn’t solve our ultimate problem. But she made things better. Meanwhile, angry customer service lady kept insisting there was nothing she could do for anybody. Her co-worker quietly made her a liar.

More common sense takeaways:

• Be transparent. It’s better to let people know more than less in a stressful situation like this. Everyone has plans that are ruined by a canceled flight. But instead of keeping people in the dark and refusing to speak with them, give them the information they need to make an informed decision for themselves. You may not have a solution for them, but if they are equipped with the knowledge that they’ve got 12 hours to waste, they very well come up with a different one on their own. Also remember that a little kindness (and some free food) goes a long way.

• Remember the “service” in customer service. It doesn’t take much to keep customers happy. If they offered us a flight voucher for a future trip, I would return. I gave them 14 hours of my life waiting for a plane and I didn’t get much of a peace offering. That’s not a lot of incentive for repeat business.

• Make a negative into a positive. The second attendant did just that. She gave us some vouchers and a kind apology. We made the best of our “Logan Day,” sampling food and beer at different gates. Sure, I would have much rather been in Chicago, but at some point these things are just out of one’s hands.

The obvious lesson here is that both of these experiences were sour enough for me to cut the cord. I’m not going back to the vacation property, and I am not using this airline again. Make sure that whatever service you provide, it includes a positive experience for your constituents. Customers and prospects deserve a good encounter -- one that will keep them coming back, time and time again.

 

Using Content to Nurture Leads Between Prospect and Sale

Of late, marketers have mastered using white papers, eBooks, webinars and other free content to pull prospects into lead management funnels and keep sales teams busy for months. This is in contrast to a time not too long ago, when marketers' toughest challenge was generating qualified leads.

But the increase in prospects brought the challenge of lead conversion. And in some cases the marketing department—and not the sales staff—is better suited to meet this challenge.

Salespeople have discovered there can be a grey area between lead and conversion, such as when the prospect has indicated interest but is not quite ready to commit. The prospect needs to be courted first. And while the ultimate proposal—the sale—still may be the job of the sales team, the courting (or lead nurturing) should be the responsibility of marketing.

Lead nurturing takes place after the prospect has been acquired and is safely inside the lead management or CRM system. Content marketing can have a powerful impact on this activity.

It takes five to six high quality touches to turn a new lead into a customer, according to estimates by Forrester and marketing automation firms. As such, it is critical for marketers to understand how to use authoritative content to move the lead to a loyal customer.

What should these touches look like? In the business community, narratives such as case studies enable prospects to participate in the story, which makes them more open to internalizing a marketer's messages.

For example, marketers seeking to generate prospects and build awareness should focus on creating content that educates and informs. At this stage, most prospects are researching vendors to learn more about a topic or product category. They respond well to best practices white papers and research reports.

Once prospects identify themselves as a lead—by registering for a download or attending a virtual or live event—marketers bring them into the consideration/short list phase. To take them to this next level, the content provided should be richer and give a deeper understanding of the offering. Case studies, testimonials and demos show expertise and build trust in the company.

As prospects get closer to a purchase decision, marketers can help them build a business case by providing evidence demonstrating their products as the right choice, whether by cost savings, improved results or mitigated risks.

The content-focused outlook does not end once a prospect becomes a customer. Instead, the objective focuses on retention with an eye toward building long-term relationships, and turning customers into advocates. At this point, marketers should develop content that continues to inspire customers and convinces them to buy more.

Importantly, marketers that want customers to become advocates must design content easily shareable via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or other social platforms.  There’s more to creating a good narrative than just hiring a writer. Marketers first need to rethink how they perceive their customers and prospects. Traditional business-to-business lead generation programs focus on groups segmented by job title, company size, or other demographics.

Telling stories that cut across demographics can expand the market potential and create multiple touch points. Doing so enables marketers to better target messages among customers and prospects. Marketers can then segment based on where a prospect is in the purchase funnel—awareness, research, consideration, etc.—and bring to bear more specific storytelling that delivers real value.

Content plans and schedule must deliver different types of content based on where a prospect or customer is in the sales funnel. Delivering an increasingly deeper level of content will enhance permission-based relationship with prospects: The more they ask for content, the stronger the relationship becomes.  The ability to nurture prospects and customers with highly relevant content builds trust, affinity and loyalty—and drives sales.

Telling the Stoneyfield Farm Story

Last week I enjoyed hearing from Erik Drake, EVP of Stoneyfield Farm Yogurt who was a guest speaker at the Ad Club’s CMO Breakfast series.  Stoneyfield is the leader in organic yogurt in addition to being a leader in the new model for consumer packaged goods customer engagement.  They have chosen to move beyond the traditional model of one-way ads based on features and benefits to a true content-based customer outreach model. 

For their business it makes perfect sense for several reasons.  Being organic costs more, so margins are tighter and Stoneyfield is higher priced in the supermarket.  Because of the finances they can’t allocate a large budget for advertising to reach a relatively small target of consumer who prefers organics to mass-market brands such as Yoplait and Dannon (both owned by large global corporations).

Additionally, they have an interesting and in-depth story to tell about their brand that is not done justice in a 30 second spot or print ad.  It is more important for Stoneyfield to be in a relationship and dialogue with customers to keep them loyal and turn them into advocates.  They were one of the first to understand that in the social media era, brand experiences are interactive and shared.  Organics are as much as a lifestyle brand as it is a product.

Their goal is to engage, educate and convert with an authentic message about their values regarding health, wellness and being a good steward of the planet.  They rely on earned and owned media with smart PR and social strategies.  Stoneyfield focuses on storytelling and creating emotional bonds.  Much of their sales come from a strong core of customers, so creating loyalty is paramount.

The web site is packed with content in the forms of articles, blogs and videos.  Each tells a different story for consumers – Why Organic, Farm to Table, Health Benefits, Recipes and a fun feature – Have a Cow.  This program allows customers to get up close and personal with the cows being raised to produce organic milk.  The story continues to social media where they have 187K Facebook fans and 22K Twitter followers.

These new models for interactive customer engagement will soon become the norm as content-based programs begin to cut into mass advertising spending.  Today’s consumer wants to be part of the brand and conversation and not sold.

Marketing Technology: What it means for your career

Recently I came across some data that illustrates a trend for marketers – the convergence of technology and marketing.  Gartner found that 72% of companies have the equivalent of a Chief Marketing Technologist and 87% will within the next two years.  Granted, this is among tech companies who are more inclined to invest in tech, but the trend is clear.   You may recall that Gartner predicted that by 2017 CMOs would spend more on IT than CIO’s

Read more about it here on the Chief Marketing Technologist blog.

This is all being driven by a media landscape that puts power into the hands of consumers and away from companies.  Today’s consumers and marketers share the essence of a brand, particularly when it comes to online conversations. 

There is an endless need for technology solutions for websites, content development, social media, virtual shows, marketing automation, ecommerce, CRM, customer experience, lead generation, lead nurturing, and a myriad of advertising tools.  Major advances in tech have put much of this power into the hands of everyday users.  More companies are managing all of this internally or with specialized agencies.  This has major implications for training, hiring and career management.

The very nature of what it means to be a marketer has changed dramatically over the past 10-15 years.  If you are not adept at technology you will be left behind, it is as simple as that.  When I started out you could be successful as a marketing generalist who understand promotions, ads and PR.  A specialist was considered someone who worked in marketing research or events.  To be relevant today you must have a deep understanding of social platforms, mobile marketing, search, web user experience, content marketing and how they all tie together to support your strategy.  And, everything needs to be aimed at your customers and prospects to impact the bottom line.  A marketer who does not think about driving sales will not be a marketer for very long. 

Young people entering the workforce with many of these technical skills will accelerate this evolution.  They may not have the strategic understanding yet, but that will come with experience.  This could be intimidating for those in mid career, but the choice is clear.   Current and future employers will be checking out your digital footprint and how influential you appear.  What comes up when you are Googled? Do you have a blog? How many Twitter followers, and how many LinkedIn connections/groups?  Do you comment on other sites?  If you have a low profile, it will project an image of not understanding or embracing the technology – fair or not, it is the perception.

The advent of technology has radically altered the job of a marketer and made it much more challenging and complex.  Some may view that negatively, but I think the opposite is true.  Having all this technology in our hands has made marketers more valuable to their companies than ever before.  It is hard to imagine a company succeeding in the future that does not have a tech savvy CMO at the right hand of the CEO.

 

New eBook: From Storytelling to Sales

We have just released a new King Fish eBook now available for free download in our resource center.   Storytelling is one of the most critical aspects to content marketing and is often the reason why it works so well engaging customers. 

Customers have always been in control of their information sources.  Now, however, they have a seemingly infinite number of choices at their fingertips, thanks to a rapidly evolving digital ecosystem that makes it easy to create, store, find and share information on virtually any topic.

But here’s the challenge: Now that so many companies are practicing some form of content marketing, it’s becoming even more difficult to distinguish your brand with compelling content that truly engages customers and prospects — and, most importantly, leads to action. The missing link in most content marketing playbooks is good storytelling.

By helping prospects find the information they need — wherever they are in the purchase cycle — brands will create greater levels of trust and affinity which will impact your bottom line.

The ebook will cover:

• Why storytelling is an essential element of content marketing
• How it is time to move past labels such as B2B and B2C and practice P2P:
  Person to Person Marketing
• The three steps to better storytelling, and key Dos and Don’ts
• Several real world examples to show how storytelling can drive sales

Please download the eBook here and we hope it is helpful.  As always, please contact us with further questions.

 

 

Advice for Back to School Marketers: Keep it simple

By Kimberly Jackson, Editorial Strategist, King Fish Media

As summer comes to a close I can't help but wonder if some marketers should go back to marketing class.  My kids still have a lot to learn and based upon my recent shopping endeavors, many marketers do too.  Customers are looking for decision simplicity, good customer service and deals.  

The National Retail Federation projects that parents of children in grades K-12 will spend nearly $689 on their children's back-to-school needs, almost $85 more than last year.  I have 3 kids, so doing some old school math; I'm going to spend nearly $2100 in the next few weeks.  So here is some advice family facing businesses on what you can do to get your share of the BTSD (Back to School Dollars).

1.  Office superstores please help me: I bring my kids there every year to get supplies. Many stores have numerous computers on display and employees walking around trying to help.  How about setting up a PC station so I can print out the supply lists for each grade? Even better, how about posting the lists from local districts so busy moms and dads can save time.  This service would make a great commercial  - telling parents to come in, grab a list and shop?

2.  Grocery stores: how creating aisle that is dedicated to a back to school “stock up” aisle? It could include snacks, drinks, refillable water bottles, plastic containers, etc.  I would heartily appreciate an organized row of everything I need to pack up the little learners with healthy and clever nourishment for their busy days.  
 
3. A Gold Star goes to Bed, Bath and Beyond for back to school marketing for collage bound kids.  BB&B was genius for taking the simple Wedding Registry strategy and adapting it for college bound students. Not only can the items be bought and/or sourced at any BB&B location, but the items can be picked up in a city closer to the campus, avoiding need to schlep one more thing in the family mini van or the long plane flight.  It also means that Grandma and Gramps can pick up a few things easily with no shipping or hassle.  This is a perfect example of making it easier for the customer to do business with you.
 
4. Car rental companies could use a good dose of the "pre-registration" strategy embraced by many institutions of higher learning.  How about if we fill out all the paper work, answer all the questions and decline all the insurance before we travel, so those lines are not ridiculously long upon arrival.  How about you see my license and we move it along?  Nothing is worse after a long flight than filling out information I could have done weeks before and answering questions that I answer the same way, over and over.  You will get my business immediately if you tell me there is NO LINE for registration!
 

5. LL Bean, you have already graduated, keep up the great work.  Everything is organized by activity; appropriate size for age (critical for back packs) and the free shipping makes it even better. Quality and price also make a mommy happy.

As all parents know, it's the little things that make a difference. If marketers thought more like parents, they would get my BTSD and then some.

NBC’s Olympic Coverage: A peak into the future

 

 

After a few days of action we are getting a glimpse into the future of broadcast TV with NBC’s somewhat brave “experiment” in real time.  NBC’s challenge was strike a balance between the way people consume information in 2012 with the need to make back their more than $1billion investment in the games.  The network has to satisfy all the audience segments and stakeholders at the same time.  The audience ranges from super savvy social media savants to grandma and everything in between  - the very definition of a mass audience on a nationwide scale.  And, they have to balance the needs of their sponsors with their distribution partners (cable/satellite) and reconcile that with the International Olympic Committee.  The reality is the only way NBC can make it work financially is with expensive broadcast commercials and lots of them.  Perhaps that equation will change in the future, but for now, mass marketing is where the money is for NBC.  The Olympics offers one of last remaining programming assets to draw big numbers across all demo groups.  

 

NBC made a correct decision offer all of the coverage live via their many cable channels and the web/mobile app.  Nothing else would have made sense given the real time nature of media consumption today.  However, given the business realities they need to make a few compromises.  The marquee events are shown on tape delay at night though many people already know the outcome.  Additionally, to see the live streaming video (and on demand) you need to sign in with your subscription to your cable or satellite provider.   According to this Reuters article, about 90% of Americans subscribe to either cable or satellite.  The requirement seems reasonable and the iPad App/web streaming worked great for me, though there have been complaints of spotty service.  After using my Directv log in I was instantly browsing hours of events that were never broadcast over the air in the past.  The videos are no frills, almost raw footage of low profile sports like weightlifting, judo and badminton among others.  No announcers or commentary, just a feed.  

I could make a few suggestions – perhaps offer a paid version of the App to people without existing cable/satellite subscriptions, or a no ad premium version.  The commercials on the App are tedious.  The bottom banners are fine, but the video pre-roll is way too long and obtrusive.  The commercials are the same 30-second spots from TV.  If they were cut down to 10 or 15 seconds it would be easier to digest.  Also, the App does not make it clear you can fast forward during the coverage. An arrow in both directions would be helpful.

As you may have seen there was a lot of controversy and internet/twitter outrage over some elements of this plan – particularly around the use of tape delay.   Many were calling for NBC to broadcast the Opening Ceremony live, which would have meant 4pm on Friday afternoon east coast and 1pm west. Perhaps the twitterati are home and in front of their TV mid day or maybe they wanted to spend the afternoon huddled over their laptop or mobile device watching it stream.   NBC needs to move product (ad space) and needs the biggest audience possible and that means prime time.

The prime time shows are about storytelling and drama, not just results.  So far the ratings confirm the strategy – a record 40 million watched the opening ceremony on Friday and another record was broken on Sat. night to see events that were long over.  Many people already know the outcome; often from NBC’s own Twitter account, as they can’t pretend the event didn’t happen.  It is seems like a strange contradiction, but NBC needs to maintain authenticity, while promoting the evening’s programming.  

The Sunday night ratings were also up over 2008.  In an era of media fragmentation, more people are watching the Olympics than ever before.  I would surmise that all of the social media and streaming activity has increased overall interest.  The raw results of who won/lost are becoming secondary.  The story and the personalities are what draw in viewers.   Social media enhances the storytelling and lets people interact with the athletes who all have twitter handles.  

As for the twitter outrage and use of hashtags (#NBCFail and the equally charming #NBCsucks) they may not be reflective of a very large group of people.   The incident is a good lesson for brands on social media in particular, Twitter.  Some of the culture of Twitter seems to encourage complaining about old media and lavishing praise on the new and obscure.  Kind of like your friend in college who only listened to bands no one had heard of except him.  There is also a pack mentality that can grow over time and snowball.  No one wants to be left out so they start retweeting and soon it a “movement”.  

Heavy users of Twitter may not accurately represent mainstream TV viewers and they are often heavily invested in social media.  While it is critical to listen to all customers and respond to their needs, it is also wise to remember the context.  Having spent the past several years observing this group of early adaptors, I don’t think NBC could have done anything to truly make them all happy.  For the first time in history, every minute of hundreds of events across thousands of hours is available to almost everyone across multiple platforms – live and on demand.  An impressive achievement by any measure, but apparently not good enough or fast enough for some.  Reminds me of this great bit by Louis CK – enjoy.