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Take a page from Obama, pragmatism works

Brad B. McCormick
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Social Media Posted on January 09, 2009

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Somewhere in the middle between throw-out-all-the-old-rules and without-definitive ROI-you-won't-get-budget lies the pragmatic sweet spot that social media needs to find.

Here is a few more yin-yang balances that I think will help steer social media into the next realm:

1. The success of the social media evangelists is the demise of the social media evangelists
From a business sense, social media represents a new transparency and a new informality of commercial speech. Yes, it is a signal reversal of the top down approach that has dominated the industry since its inception. But if social media evangelists are successful, eventually there won't be a need for the social media evangelist. The revolutionary ideals of social media should become conventional as they are proven to be the best way to reach and engage with a more sophisticated, evolved 21st century audience.

2. Function and form
It's a safe bet that search is going to continue to grow as a main target for online brand marketing. In a time when companies are looking to stretch their long term marketing dollars, the many indirect benefits of organic SEO's reliance on live text (better usability, easier content management system administration, quicker integration with mobile, the semantic web, and natural search) is going to push into the lead over paid search.

But before the digital industry begins to emulate the raw layout and clinical functionality of Craigslist, we must be sure not to veer too far. As Virginia Postrel has so brilliantly articulated, the population is more visually sophisticated than ever before. We expect good design. We use it as a way to detect and verify value. That's a lesson Target learned long ago when it began redesigning its department stores in the 1990s.

Whether it is a widget on Facebook, a new corporate blog, or a video submission contest -- social media strategy needs to be acknowledged and fit for this key balance.

3. Qualitative and quantitative
This is an easy one. Read this brilliant post (and watch the interview) on the essentialness and elusiveness of finding definite social media ROI.

4. Our walls are their walls
Crowd sourcing is a well-known part of social media's arsenal. Many of the startups that have incubated and developed some of the best examples of social media are among its most feverish practitioners. Crowd sourcing is a form of "Open Innovation" the business practice of partnering with other firms to develop new products and processes. In these troubling times, "Open Innovation" could be the methodology macro institutions adopt as they look for solutions for today's macro problems. This is actually one of those yin-yang balances that the social media world already does pretty damn well in and further proves that social media's ethos could truly help lead business in the 21st century.

5. Us and them
While traditional business and marketing leaders certainly need to acknowledge and yield to social media's influence, social media experts can greatly gain by acknowledging, and even yielding to certain aspects of business 101 culture. Understanding their perspective and framework will make us more effective diplomats and persuaders, it may even make us better understand our own craft. Social media cannot be an island onto itself.

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Brad McCormick is the executive vice president of U.S. digital communications for Porter Novelli.

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Brad McCormick January 11, 2009 at 11:29 PM

First, Mr. Bramwell, I appreciate that time you took to respond (3 responses in under a single hour!) to my article. Perhaps I should give those Rush albums another listen...

Ok, pragmatism, as defined by the Random House Dictionary (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pragmatism) as a "character or conduct that emphasizes practicality”, is not perfect. No belief system is. As I said in my piece, blind adherence to pragmatism (or any ideology, for that matter), can lead toward negative ends. That section did, after all, link to a piece on Henry Kissinger.

This publication is not a venue for complex economic theory nor do I take myself to be an economist. People will be arguing for years exact what caused the downtown, and certainly there are a number of factors at play.

Still, I stand wholeheartedly by my statement that certain policies based on laissez-faire ideology—namely a lack of regulation in the sub-prime mortgage industry—contributed to the crisis.

As the NY Times reported back in October (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all), lax lending standards based on a "hands-off approach to regulation” lead to the creation of "too-good-to-be-true teaser rates and interest-only loans” that were at the basis of the crisis.

Government regulation is complex and fascinating subject. I agree that much of the responsibility of the current situation lies at the feet of Mr. Greenspan, though we disagree with the nature of his offense.

While you may believe Mr. Greenspan's main flaw was too much regulation, others, like Economic Nobel Prize Winner and Columbia Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, seem to believe the opposite. As Professor Stiglitz wrote in a recently Op-Ed (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/17/stiglitz.crisis/index.html) about Greenspan's culpability on the downturn: "Greenspan didn't really believe in regulation; when the excesses of the financial system were noted, they called for self-regulation -- an oxymoron.”

I think it is best to agree to disagree on this matter (or discuss somewhere beyond Imediaconnection.com), though I will side with the Economics Professor on this one.

I am perplexed about you comment about me "flogging” social media and better search engine optimization when they are all "tanking”.

First of all, as most readers of this publication know, they are not tanking but projected to continue to receive an increasingly greater share of the marketing pie (http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006653). I I will admit , though, that in this economy, blind adherence to an assumption of perpetual growth is fool heartily-hence one of the reason I wrote my piece.

Secondly, those elements are some of the main ways that consumers go about researching and verifying products and services that have VALUE when they are online. Why you do not see the value in making sure your website organically ranks high for search for "children book reviews” is beyond me.

Finally, regarding your last comment about the refusing to buy a package of gum due to the absence of the word "chewing gum”, I think we may be in agreement. As I said in my piece, it is important to balance function (i.e. making sure there is a product description on the package) with form (i.e. making sure the package stands out against the competitions and visually appeals to the target market). Sounds like Excel's package did not emphasize the former enough. Oh well.

As you say, it is just gum.

Richard Bramwell January 10, 2009 at 7:48 PM

I just thought of the latest packaging for Excel gum. The package does not say "chewing gum", it is black, with some cryptic terms printed on it, and "Excel" does not stand out. I had no idea what was on sale beside the cash. Apparently, the Excel marketers think that less is more, i.e., the more vague and meaningless the marketing strategy the better sales will be. Well, I, for one, refused to buy the product. for all the blatantly fake suggestions the marketing projecting to me, all I could think was "IT'S JUST GUM, damn you". I did not buy.

Richard Bramwell January 10, 2009 at 7:41 PM

Pragmatism, I said above, does not mean "practical". When practicing, Pragmatists take a short term look at "what will fix this now" without reference to broader principles. Principles that over the long run prove the short term action to be destructive not helpful.

Brad McCormick is straddling the fence on this issue, because he wants rational solutions, but does not recognize that pragmatism is not going to provide them. What he is seeking is an objective way of making the right long term choices.

The bailouts in this financial crisis are a perfect example of the failings of pragmatism.
=> In the short term, i.e.,before Americans have to bear the true costs of redirected tax money or the printing of new money, bailouts will provide some solvency.
=> In the long term the failures will have been saved by sucking wealth from those few who had some left to be taken. Those saved are still billion dollar flunkies, while the ones who survived are parasitized & dragged down for the sake of those flunkies. No Good is achieved, but it sure seemed like the pragmatic thing to do.

Unfortunately the same problem can be seen in the pragmatic solutions McCormick offers. What good is achieved, when the economy is particularly tight, to flog social media, better search, proper ROI analysis, yin-yang partnerships, and traditional business viewpoints, when all are tanking?

What is needed is a focus on VALUE, particularly, the value of the product to the consumer. If you cannot market a product on the basis of its value, bow out of a lousy contract or take down your 'shingle'. Use the product being marketed. Compare it with that of its competitors, seek out a way to promote the VALUES that sets it apart from the competition. Consider a "blue ocean strategy" to bring the product to a new competitive level, or to an entirely new market. Consider the Blue Ocean Strategy minimally described here.

Richard Bramwell January 10, 2009 at 7:01 PM

Two comments that marketers MUST understand if they are to treat their clients sensibly and productively:

First, let's get something important, straight:
this financial failure is not a consequence of laissez-faire capitalism, it was a failure of intensive regulation —with Greenspan's hypocritical contributions.

From The American Competitive Enterprise Institute:
"While the Dow collapses, we have a bull market in government regulations. The 50-plus departments, agencies and commissions are now at work on 3,882 rules; 757 will affect small businesses. More than 51,000 final rules were issued from 1995 to 2007.”

That's nearly 54,000 NEW regulations, added to what was there before, in only 12 years!

Well before he became head of the Fed., Greenspan dropped any pretense of understanding the remarkable philosophy (Objectivism) of his brief mentor, Ayn Rand. Instead, his actions have contributed to this crisis. His monetary policy and suppression of interest rates at 1%(!!), when Rand would have said "let the market decide”, were an appalling government intervention. Add in the HUD, CRA, CDS, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Sarbanes-Oxley and the recipe for a catastrophically distorted market, including the trading of derivatives, was complete.

All those influences, from the government, masked normal indicators by which sensible businessmen act, & by which market corrections normally occur —in small contractions as businessmen learn from their mistakes— rather than in drastic failure. Those who suggest the cause was deregulation, or lack of regulatory enforcement, are not looking at facts.

The 'pragmatic' nature of bailouts, is simply another gouge in citizens' wallets. If the bailout is by spending of tax money, well the citizen has to pay more taxes next year. If the bailout is achieved by printing money (via computer 'accounting' at the Fed) than the government dilutes the value of existing money, effectively reducing the wealth of citizens, as surely as if they had simply taxed them more heavily.

The whole of this is a giant Ponzi scheme perpetrated by the government. But what is the solution offered? More regulation and more government spending, as if they are the practical thing to do. That is, the solution comes from the narrow, short term thinking of Pragmatism —which is NOT synonymous with "practical"!