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Canon Service Gets Poor Rating…Buy a Canon HV20 But Don’t Bruise It. November 30, 2007

I’ve advocated buying the Canon HV20, and I remain a fan of the camrea. In fact when mine broke last month (and I needed a functioning camera immediately) I researched the marketplace for an alternative $800-$1200 HD camera I could buy right away. Guess what? I decided to buy a second Canon HV20. (Sony had models of similar quality/price, but alleged software issues that create problems with iMovie- a deal breaker). If you can overlook mild low-light issues and a weak internal microphone then the Canon HV20 is a great camera for about $800 (see Canon HV20 at B&H photo). But…

But just like you don’t know your spouse until the honeymoon is over, you don’t know your manufacturer until you break your camera. Canon gets a D minus on repair, based on these problems ranked according to severity.

1. Difficult to do business with. Website wasn’t functioning correctly and poor user-interface, phone hangs up on me after suffering long hold cue, invoice comes via snail mail without easy way to transact via web.
2. Voicemail and representatives lack any humanity. Call the Factory Service Center in NJ yourself for the smarmiest IVR, including the awkwardly phoney: “oh, and by the way. We may record this call to serve you better.” 732-521-7007.
3. When I finally got a human, she was impersonal and robotic. When I asked for clarifications about why they rejected my warantee and required me to repair external damage, she said “like I said before…” which is almost as annoying as hearing “you need to…” Even when she offered to knock 25% off the repair it didn’t feel good because it was delivered with all the love of a department-of-motor-vehicle clerk screaming: “sit until your number is called.”
4. They rejected my warrantee because there was physical damage to the unit — but I can accept that. It’s just annoying that they need to repair the shell of the camera. I’d just assume they fix the problem with the image output and give me back my bruised camera shell. It’s like worn shoes- my camera feels more “mine” with all the bumps, scratches and bruises (each of which is attached to a fond memory) and would reduce the repair cost.
5. The repair does not extend my warrantee at all. Just gives me a 90-day period, and the camera is already under warantee through April 2008.
6. So I got ‘tude, lost time, convoluded process, and ultimately paid ~$150 to save a camera that cost $800 new. Could be worse- the repair could have been so expensive that I’d have abandoned the camera like a 1980 Geo with a blown engine.

And what good is a warantee if it expires when you drop, scratch and bruise your camera a bit? Show me a videographer that keeps his camera protected in a soft bag, and I’ll show you a lame videographer (who probably wraps his wires in perfect circles with little velcro cords).

Will this stop me from buying Canon? No. Will this compel me to buy Sony? Nope- I had a worse experience with them due to a crappy digital still camera about 5 years ago. But I hope it will make others expect bad service. And if I’m on the fence between equipment by Canon, Sony or a third brand… I’m taking my chance with the third brand.

I write this post in keeping with the great unwritten rules of blogging. Complete transparency (about smarmy Canon and, of course, why my personal debt continues to grow). And providing you, dear reader, the service of accountability… to companies that haven’t realized we live in an age where product excellence can substitute for weak customer service. Hmmm…. Time for my Consumerist.com campaign like I warned Canon in this November 7 YouTube video seen by 11,000?

Quiz: You’re the Head of PR for Unilever November 28, 2007

You’re the head of public relations for Unilever. Time for a quiz. But first, a background to our case study.

Your company’s Dove Evolution campaign was a great success (see video) with more than 12 million views. Meanwhile you’ve got this other lil’ brand called Axe, that happens to be using viral video to relentlessly position itself as the secret ingredient to being a chick magnet. Dove’s Evolution successor is called “Onslaught” and Axe is running with Bom Chicka Wah Wah.

Fortunately your employer read enough of Al Ries to know that megabranding is a really, really bad idea. So the brands live in separate worlds for separate targets, not ever united with the Unilever brand (at least for consumer marketing). Until…

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=SwDEF-w4rJk[/youtube]

A mashup video titled “A Message from Unilever” appears on YouTube on October 19, and parodies the marketing contradiction by interlacing footage from Dove’s ads with some of the sexy and naughty clips from Axe. Ouch. Then this issue surfaces in a less visceral but perhaps more widely distributed medium as old as time itself... the newspaper.

In an op-ed titled “A Company’s Ugly Contradiction” in The Boston Globe November 5 contributor Michelle Gillett said, “Viewers are struggling to make sense of how Dove can promise to educate girls on a wider definition of beauty while other Unilever ads [for Axe] exhort boys to make ‘nice girls naughty.’ … Unilever is in the business of selling products, not values, and that means we, the consumers, are being manipulated, no matter how socially responsible an ad seems.”

Seems that YouTube video was posted by Rye Clifton, who a senior strategic planner at Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Martin Agency in Richmond, Va. In his defense, Clifton said it “was his own idea and done on his own time. But it’s hard to overlook something AdAge uncovered: Martin recently parted ways with Unilever’s Burt’s Bees. Hmmmm. Smoking gun?

A little bummed about losing the account, Clifton? No sweat. We’ve all been there. We just didn’t have YouTube at the time, so we resigned our frustration to internal e-mails busting on how the client “didn’t get it” and the next agency is doomed to relive the torture we tolerated. Then again, those e-mails did accidentally get forwarded to the client, which is almost as awkward as getting exposed for this.

See this AdAge article “Dove Viral Draws Heat from Critics” for the “blow by blow.” The article should really be titled, “Critics Identify Unilever’s Contradictions of Marketing from Dove to Axe.”

So now… You’re Unilever’s Chief of what do you do?

1. Get in front of the issue- declare — with transparency — that the brands are run like separate companies with separate targets and values? And, yeah, Unilever has a few values of its own. After press briefing take Axe Product Director into the janitor closet and punch him in the crotch.
2. Hope it goes away. Tell leadership you’re “on top of it,” then play Minesweeper in your closed office.
3. Secretly pay bloggers to come to your defense? (thint- his is not the right answer).
4. Decide that you can’t, as one company, have a soap brand (Dove) launching a public-service like campaign about daughters and natural beauty, while another brand exploits sex to sell cologne (Axe).
5. Find someone else to throw under the bus. After all, this contradiction is not unique to Unilever (I know at least one company that sells baby products and birth control).

Oh the poor flack… er… public relations professional. Mass media “issues management” was hard enough in the 90s. Now the consumer has a visceral, persuasive and powerful new trick (online video) to expose corporate contradictions and shape public opinion. And our PR agencies certainly can’t afford to take them all out to lunch.

The Internet’s New “Viral Video Villain” November 28, 2007

I’ve been called everything from a sellout to Satan (this video is the best hater video I’ve ever seen, and features me with a sign “Will Video for Souls” as I transform into Lucifer). So it gives me some relief to know that the online-video community has found a new Osama.

His name is Dan Ackerman Greenberg, and his lightening rod was a ‘guest post’ he wrote for TechCrunch that generated nearly 500 comments (mostly negative) and incensed me into writing this post about how to bust cheats.

I hereby dub him the “Most Despised Guy of Online Video Since ZeFrank,” and have parked www.ViralVideoVillain.com to redirect to his profile. My way of pouring oil on the fire that happens to not be burning me.

Favorite comments:

1. What next, an article on how to make money from stock market scams and flogging dodgy pills?
2. Idiot. The reason your trickery is necessary that your venal predecessors in advertising have burned their credibility in other media already. And now here you are, a leech on a new medium, feeding off the trust that other people have built up. Pathetic.
3. I wonder how many of these comments are employees from his office “creating controversy”

At issue was the ethics of Greenberg’s strategies to get promotional videos a viral-video injection. While some techniques were legitimate (careful titling and selection of thumbnails), his piece boasted some bottom-feeder approaches like rigging comments via sock-puppet accounts. The backlash was so severe it prompted Greenberg to convince TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington to give him a “another word” in this post that has already generated about 150 comments.

• Greenberg says: “The original post was framed quite differently, but after going through the TechCrunch editorial filter, it ended up sounding like a tell-all about our shady business practices.”
• Arrington responds: “I am not aware of the edits that were made to his original post, but we are reviewing it now to see if any changes altered the original meaning. It is a fairly serious allegation, and we will follow up appropriately.”

(Insert screeching-cat sound effect here).

Meanwhile my less controversial but broadly distributed Advertising Age piece on “Ten Lessons for Marketers Using Viral Video” was either perfectly or horribly timed. I knew I should have advocated Lisa Nova spamming to get views.

Your Brand Isn’t Yours Anymore (and Never Was) November 27, 2007

I’ve long preached to fellow marketers that consumer-generated media means they no longer exclusively manage their brand. Part of marketing today means that a viral YouTube video can eclipse even the most crafted marketing and public relations campaign.

Sure this has been an issue since I invented the Internet, but the easy sharing of video (the most visceral of electronic media) has given consumers a louder voice than ever.

This is, of course, an easy message to preach until you realize that the same is true about your own brand. This beast I’ve created, “Kevin Nalts” is not mine. Others share in the creation of this brand (which bears some resemblence to me, but in a concentric circle kinda way).

After all, a “brand” is the position something owns in the minds of others. So Coolkid1993 has as much to do with the Nalts brand as I do.

Who is Cookkid1993? I don’t know him, but he is one of the most frequent contributors to the Kevin Nalts wikipedia page.

Have I ever interacted with Coolkid? I imagine so, and hopefully I was pleasant. He has a Wiki page of his own, so I know he:

• Was born in Indiana
• Is right handed
• Was born on May 16
• Supports Mike Gravel
• He likes The Simpsons
• He eats at Burger King

I don’t know how to reach him, but I like to imagine myself hanging out with Coolkid as we have so much in common (except that I don’t support Mike Gravel because I’m hopelesly bored by politics). Then again, maybe I’m just being nice so CoolKid keeps my Wikipedia page kind.

I think it’s illegal for me to edit my own Wikipedia page, isn’t it? Can anyone else change that photo? I look like a big fatty.

Dear Stupid Marketer and Your Clueless Agency November 27, 2007

“Dear Stupid Marketer and Your Clueless Agency” was my original title for this article in Advertising Age. Fortunately I tamed it down given the audience. But hopefully a few folks will read it and overcome the myriad of myths about online video and marketing.

If I can just change one clueless agency or stupid marketer, it’s all worth it.

Picking New Writers November 27, 2007

My former writers all went on strike, so I held open auditions for new writers at the studio of For Your Imagination.

The studio was like a whirling assembly line of “up and coming” web talent, and I probably could have parked there all day and made videos without annoying SAG negotiations or pesky release forms.

I do quite miss my old writers. But they got a ‘tude when I told them I’d only pay them for anything that was sold via BETA or VHS, and they’re all “wah, wah, wah… we want a piece of the Internet revenue.”

So short sighted. So short sighted. But they are, after all, writers not business people.

Using Online Video to Promote Business: BS in WSJ November 26, 2007

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article by Raymund Flandez called “Lights, Camera, Sales: How to Use Video to Expand Your Business in a YouTube World.” It’s positioned on the front page as “Small Business: How to Use Video to Grow.”

I’ve got some issues with the piece, and not just because Flandez didn’t interview The Viral Video Genius. The article lists some nice case studies — from Blendec’s popular “Will it Blend” series (which drove sales up 500% to $40 million) to a clever “Free Range Root Beer” campaign by All Natural Main Root. I hadn’t heard of this series, yet the late-night breakin by root-beer activists is clever and only mildly over acted. But…

But there are a few things in the WSJ article that make my BS alarmgo off. Buckle up, readers, this is an must-read WillVideoForFood post.

• The WSJ reports that Moe’s Southwest Grill did a video contest where it received 40 submissions and got 211K visitors. That’s not bad vital signs for a video contest, although I’d guess the cost per lead was exponentially  more than it would cost to run a decent paid-search campaign– given the fixed costs of promoting and running the contest. Hopefully the video entries were viewed in other places beyond the contest site (a vital element to the performance of a campaign unless it’s a strict “lead generation” or transactional direct-response play).
• When I read that Moe’s “email marketing database also grew to 200,000,” I can’t help but wonder if it was 195,000 before the contest. Something tells me just a few thousand of the 211K visitors signed up for e-mails (maybe 5 percent) from Moe’s Grill. I can’t recall if providing your e-mail was a prerequisite to voting, but that’s the only way the conversion was higher (and are those good email leads or sock accounts for someone who wanted to jack up votes for their friends’ video?). The contest site, like many of its kind, appears RIP right now (this is why we outsource contests, marketers): http://www.moes.com/burritosforlife. Here’s a link to a rap entry to the Moe’s contest.
• The Kelsey Group surveyed 501 adults in February and reports that 59% had viewed a video ad on the Internet. Technical foul! That question leaves way too much room for interpretation– was it a preroll ad or an entertaining promotional video like those highlighted in the WSJ article?

There’s a big difference between vaguely recalling a Toyota video preroll ad that tortured me as I an anticipated an SNL clip, versus buying a painting on eBay because the artist posted videos of herself creating the piece (Valentina Trevino).

• Finally, the WSJ reports that the Kelsey Group claims 59% of adults answered “yes” to viewing a “video ad,” 43 percent “checked out a website.” A professor once told me that statistics are like hookers — you can get them to do or say anything you want. That number simply means that almost half of folks who once saw an ad once checked out a website… at some point in their lonely life. People- rest assured that this is the most misleading statistic of online video, and sets brands up for horrific disappointment. Your online video “ads” will not get many people to check out your website. Sorry. If you get more than a few percent you should be delighted. If your campaign hinges on a view-to-visit ratio (especially if you’re selling something with small margins), then your ROI will simply depend on keeping your production costs down to barely nothing or getting the video miraculously viewed 10 million times.
• Yes, there’s “lights, camera, sales.” But there’s a lotsitting between “the lights and camera” and “sales.” For every Blendtec there are countless failed online-video campaigns that were over-baked and lost in the shuffle.

Ahh. I feel better now that I’ve done the standard “arrogant blogger throws mud at WSJ writer who didn’t interview him” drill. Now it’s time for some basic reminders, and this should be required reading for anyone that got googly eyed from reading the WSJ article:

KEY VIRAL VIDEO REMINDERS

1. You gotta throw a lot of spaghetti on the wall and watch what sticks. It’s still hard to say what people like about online videos (although funny, short, visceral and “big finish” are important ingredients). I’ve done more than 500 online videos and still can’t predict what will sail or sink. For every “Vals Art Diary” there are thousands of overproduced (and sometimes even clever) marketing videos that are buried in the bowls of YouTube. For every “Farting in Public” (which just cracked 4 million views) there’s a “Prisoner of Best Buy” (a video I shot this morning, but is doomed to never be seen beyond 20K times because I actually like it). So what’s that mean? Experiment.
2. To get a decent ROI, you need to keep your costs down. Otherwise you’re going to have a tough time capturing measurable value that offsets a $50-$500K pilot. You can dip your toe in the water for just thousands simply by partnering with known “weblebrities” who often promote products and services for a small fee, and already have an established audience. A few grand with a weblebrity gets you a video, their halo effect, and nearly guaranteed views of 10-100K. That same amount will get you an afternoon of a large agency fees.
3. If you decide you want to produce your own content, be prepared to market the heck out of it. The viral video is just the germ- you still need to help spread the virus on airplanes, door knobs and at Chuck-E-Cheese. And don’t trust that “interactive guy” at the ad agency or PR firm to promote your baby. Find someone that has driven lots of views, and put that experience to work.
4. When you measure return, consider the total video views beyond your site. Only a few percent will veer off the YouTube highway to visit your promotional rest stop unless there’s food and bathrooms. To bridge the gap, lure viewers with additional entertainment or value, or at least a unique URL. Those viewing MrComplicated (see background on CNN Money) were obviously far more likely to visit MrComplicated.com than Clear-Point.com (the sponsor’s site).
5. Be sure to decide the objective of the campaign and remember that objective when it’s time to assess performance. I’ve seen too many companies begin with a goal to get e-mail addresses, for instance, and then get giddy about total views and the homepage feature on Eefoof (yes, Marquis, it’s finally dead- I checked). Similarly, some brands plunge into online video simply for the public relations value, and then lament low views. Who cares about visits to your stupid brochureware site if you got the views and press (even if it’s consumer-generated media) you were after? People don’t need to lick a Coke billboard to be compelled to buy colored sugar water with red wrappers instead of blue. Dang I’m full of metaphors today. Is anyone writing this stuff down?

For those of you with short attention span, I’ve summarized this post in this visual of a video virus magnified 2 billion times:

Sidebar: Flandez interviews David Meerman Scott, author of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” in this interesting video that features an obnoxious preroll. I hadn’t heard of Scott, but was pleased to discover his books and blog.

Ed Helms as Zombie American November 25, 2007

You’ve seen him on The Daily Show and The Office, but now Ed Helms follows Will Ferrell to FunnyOrDie.com.

Folks, the pros are moving in. Time for amateurs to “step it up.” I, for one, am going to start focusing on quality instead of strictly quantity.

Here’s Zombie American chapter one, two and three.

P.S. Do you suppose his makeup artist is the same one that over pancakes him for The Office (see video for reference). For the record, Helms was makeup free at The Office Convention.

How to Bust Cheats in Viral Video November 24, 2007

What’s the fine line between marketing your video and cheating? Comotion Group cofounder Dan Ackerman Greenberg certainly dances along that gray area between marketing and cheating. In this self aggrandizing article on TechCrunch, Greenberg boasts about how he’s getting clients views (thanks to InsideVideo for helping me find this one).

His techniques fall into three areas:

1. Basic advice: being careful about tagging, titling and thumbnails.
2. Interesting techniques: Greenberg encourages clients to release all videos at once instead of batching them. I agree, and hadn’t considered that there’s really no benefit to pulsing them in intervals. Greenberg claims to have created what he calls “rabbit holes,” where he provides unique tags so that his other videos appear in the “related video” section.
3. Cheating: Greenberg encourages “fake titles,” and uses puppet accounts to create controversy in the comments so that the video gets ranked high in “most commented.” These set false expectations and typically piss viewers off.

I’d caution clients when dealing with promoters who use deceptive means to drive views because it points to a lack of ethics. So I’d wonder if the reported views are, in fact, real. It’s fairly easy to create autobots that drive false video views, and most clients aren’t savvy enough to double check reported views (some agencies take liberties with the data they provide). That doesn’t do anything for the product or service, and gives the marketer a false sense of success.

How to Bust “Cheats”

1. It’s a good idea to have some ways of tracking impact beyond views. This means looking at conversions (clicks to website after watching video) or brand recall (through Dynamic Logic or similar studies).
2. The conversion rate from a video to a site is very low, but if a video spikes to 100,000 views and fewer than a hundred people visit your site I’d suspect foul play. Especially if the URL is in the description tag and there’s a good reason to visit.
3. Watch out if your video has excessive views but very few comments. If the ratio of views to comments is atypical then the views may not be real. My videos range from 10-30,000 views and I get 200-300 comments on average. That’s about 1 in 100 making a comment, which is a fairly typical number. Naturally this ratio varies based on the content and where the video is seen (my regular subscribers are more likely to comment than those viewing a video on a homepage).
4. There aren’t yet good techniques to determine if a video has been played in its entirety and this is quite important. Most videos aren’t completed, but most online-video sites count a “view” if the viewer watches at least 15 seconds. As a YouTube partner I have “autoplay” on my channel page, which drives significant views but limited interaction.
5. If your agency is providing you with feedback or verbatims from the comments (like “that was the best video I’ve ever seen”) you may want to check the username to see when the account was created and what other activity that individual has. A sock puppet account usually has few views, no videos of his own, and a fairly incomplete profile.

Who’s The REAL Winner of “Next Internet Millionaire”? November 22, 2007

Well the Next Internet Millionaire is over, and it was between YouTube Weblebrity Charles Trippy and some other Canadian gal. The Canadian gal took the $25K prize, but Trippy proposed to his girlfriend in a hot air balloon. So who’s the real winner here?

Oh. And Trippy’s still “selling out” (see video) his Viral Video Fever with lots of upsells, value-adds, extras, and “wait- there’s more.”

Trippy got some coaching from Joel Comm on how to propose, but they edited out the “wait- before you say no, I’ll toss in a lifetime of devotion, complete honesty and this Adsense book.”

• About...

  Kevin "Nalts" Nalty is one of the most-viewed YouTube comedians with nearly 800 short online videos seen more than 74 million times. He also consults with top brands to help them engage in social media & video (check www.NaltsConsulting), and is chief strategical officer at Hitviews.com.

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