Topics for 7/25/2010 Show

Here are the proposed topics for this week's episode of The BeanCast, and as usual we'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.

You have two ways to get in touch: 1) Send an "@" reply or DM on Twitter to @thebeancast, or 2) send an email to beancast@gmail.com

Please keep your comments succinct. Wordy comments need to be interpreted and I may not capture the essence of what you are asking. That's why I encourage the Tweet option to help keep the question or thought targeted.

This week's panel will be Bill Green (MTLB / AdVerve), George Parker (Adscam/The Horror!) and Åsk Wäppling (Adland.tv). (One more guest tba)

TOPICS

Who's Using Who Now?: We've talked about the Old Spice campaign to death, but an interesting twist brought it back as a topic this week. If you're familiar with the online campaign, you know that one of the video responses from towel man was given to actress Alyssa Milano. Now Ms. Milano has come back, after being the one to contact them and playing along with the effort, to say that since they "used" her likeness for the brands benefit, the only decent thing for P&G to do would be to donate $100K to the National Wildlife Federation Gulf Relief Fund in lieu of payment for her services. George, is this a reasonable request -- does P&G owe her something? Is this extortion -- I mean can a brand ever win in a circumstance like this, where if they pay they make a dangerous precedent and if they don't pay they look bad for not supporting the charity? One of the key talking points of the W+K effort was that they were targeting influencers with this campaign -- does that make them responsible for compensating these influencers as well? Is this something that brands need to worry about as the tackle online influencer efforts?

Be The One or Just UnF--k It: No one can knock a sincere effort to make a difference and help the Gulf to recover from the oil spill. But there are two contrasting video calls-to-action out there that highlight why mobilization in the hands of amateurs can be a foolish thing. Let's start with Be The One, Ask. This is Hollywood's usual star-driven vignette that gets famous Gulf-region natives to ask us to sign a petition to let congress know we want action. What are your thoughts about this one? Is it effective on any level? Is the problem with it the approach or just the lack of underlying strategy? Next we have UnF--k the Gulf. This curse-riddled video has a strong strategy (buy a t-shirt and $5 goes to a fund for clean-up) and is driving thousands more views online -- but is it effective? Obviously it's a stronger effort than the Be The One campaign because it targets real action, but is the attention mongering of it all over-shadowing the true message? Can it ever expand beyond a niche effort? Do these efforts wind up hurting legitimate fundraising efforts like the National Wildlife Federation's efforts or other established charities? Ultimately are they good or distraction?

500 Million Users Who Hate Them: Facebook got its 500 millionth user on the week that the American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked it among the lowest companies, with a satisfaction ranking in the range of the IRS tax e-filing system, airlines or even cable companies. Ben, is this low approval rating simple a factor of numbers (bigger audience, more haters) or is this a real problem that Facebook has to face? Is this something that a company can "PR themselves" out of, or does this come down to changing operational practices? Is it a factor of being a utility -- people hate utilities, but they buy anyway so the companies don't have to make changes? Is Facebook acting like a utility and if so, can they afford to do so?

Like Flies To Honey: There was a story in the Wall Street Journal this week about the big agencies rushing to offer social competencies. Bill, we understand that this was inevitable and flies are always attracted to honey, but is it a smart strategy on the part of the holding company shops? Should they be creating social divisions, partnering/buying existing experts or simply incorporating social expertise into the their existing operations?

Dr. Pepper's 2 Girls and 1 Cup: Finally, Dr. Pepper's UK agency, Lean Mean Fighting Machine, ran into some problems with a Facebook campaign. They were asking permission to take over your Facebook status updates in exchange for a chance to win a prize. But the plan went bad when the following post appeared underneath the name of a 14-year-old girl: "I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards." Obviously the girl's mother was not too happy to see the porn-referencing post and complained. The brand's response? We'll give you accommodations for a night in London, including a hotel and theater tickets. Bill, so many things wrong with this story, but ultimately does this come down to an agency relying on push communications when they should have been building advocacy? What about their response -- what should they have done? Does one complaint even matter, considering the attention they are getting now with the more age appropriate audience?