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The Kevin Smith debacle on Southwest gives us a glimpse into a new future of customer relationship management. In the past, companies would have had procedures to cope and manage the treatment of VIPs.

Obviously, whatever processes Southwest had in place clearly failed, but given their positioning, it's possible they did not have such a thing. It's also likely that if another VIP had the same experience, the impact might not have been as strong.

Kevin Smith's social media savvy and 1.6 million Twitter followers made him a dangerous person to mess with.

While much has been stated about social media strategy and policy and how to deal with crisis, I haven't seen a single example and suggestion for how do to deal with a situation like Kevin Smith's.

Apparently, it's not in the social media expert's playbook.

Could this signal a new era in customer relationship management as the S.I.P. (Socially Influential Person) becomes just as important as the V.I.P.?

This leads to whole load of challenges.

How would companies identify S.I.P.s?

How would you know if S.I.P.s are your customers?

How would measure the influence of S.I.P.s?

How would you try to keep S.I.P.s happy?

Would you worry about the balance of power?

Expect to see lots of presentations on Slideshare about this topic in coming months.






Posted by Ed Cotton The pressure on communication agencies is intense, clients are constantly hoping for breakthrough ideas that are powerful enough to transcend the typically narrow media window and make it into popular culture.

As agencies work on these ideas they are increasingly looking for ever more promising hooks that are able to get the news media's attention, advertising as PR, as an example, Crispin looks at much of its work through the lens of a press release.

While this is great and a valuable awareness builder, do these efforts suffer because they are so focused on the news media as the target vs. the real audience?

SF Eater recently posted a graphic which they took apart Denny's recent Grand Slam breakfast promotion from the perspective of the end user and came up with a nice piece of math to quantify the opportunity cost of free.



While this is extreme and I am sure the Denny's promotion was a huge success on all fronts, it pays for planners and the media folk to work out whether these big ideas can really do all that's promised.

Of course this should all be in the brief, but if it is not, perhaps we need to employ some kind of bullshit filter to see if the proposed "big PR idea" has legs with consumers.


Posted by Ed Cotton According to Campaign, VW is looking for a social media agency in the UK.

This will add another partner to the company's already expansive communications roster, add incremental fees and mean there's more to manage and co-ordinate. In a an environment where budgets and resources are being challenged, it seems counter-intuitive.

However, the media has done a good job, Influx Insights included, in hyping the social media space to such a point that client's probably believe the need a specialist to help them in this complex and challenging environment.

On the surface, at a moment in time when the CMO and his or her bosses seem fixated on the thrills of Facebook and Twitter, holding a review and hiring a specialist seems like a problem solved.

In reality, it might be more trouble that it's worth. If you take a step back and look at how social media breaks down and what's needed, it's pretty basic.

1. Someone has to listen and respond- probably best for the in-house customer service team to work on this.

2. Posting relevant content to get conversation-likely to be split between PR and advertising who both play a role in getting content out to the crowd. Good companies in these fields are already up-to-speed and know the world of social media.

Social media is another channel that must be a part of the communication mix, but fragmenting responsibility, while it seems like a sound plan, might make a marketers life a lot more complicated.

It would be great to get people's thoughts on this topic.


Posted by Ed Cotton As another manifestation of brands moving into the content game, Innocent drinks, Britain's favorite smoothie maker, has just made a series of short films about fruit.

1. Polish Strawberries



2. Damsons



3. Blackberries



While these might not be the biggest YouTube hits of the Autumn season, they are a fun, affordable way of communicating the company's passion for fruit.

I expect more companies will embrace the idea of creating their own video content in documentary form to tell real stories.

Obviously, these films must be creative and compelling, but at the same time they need to come across as genuine and authentic.


Posted by Ed Cotton Cisco's Dan Sheinman spoke at this week's BPCC conference about the revolution in corporate communication. He suggests PR is "the new advertising" and companies need to embrace the fact they are now media companies.

He showed stats (shown below) highlighting how Cisco's web traffic has swtiched from page views to RSS feeds and blog posts.



Although Cisco and its users represent the cutting edge of technology, there's a broad desire from consumers for richer informaton from companies, material that goes beyond the press release.

Whether all companies can create their own TV networks, like Audi and others have done in the UK, remains to be seen. However, there's certainly the opportunity to move well beyond the static web site and press release.

Ad agencies can either sit on the sidelines and watch in-house teams and PR agencies help make this a reality or bring their creativity to the party and help create compelling media content for their clients.

Via PopPR


Posted by Ed Cotton YouTube explains itself using its own technology.

It's a great example of getting beyond corporatespeak- real people explaining things in a way we can all understand, not hiding behind a product or a press release.



Via Beet.tv