Social Hallucinations

The Source of Trends

Me and a couple of my colleagues we are working on the project called Vizeum Changes where we take look at the changes happening in the society and how do they influence people. It requires a lot of curiosity, being patient observer and mapping the possibilities, evaluating them and constantly asking questions. It isn't easy but exciting and rewarding process...and have a huge does of humor...cause some of those changes start in the most unexpected places and in the most unexpected ways.

Thanks to Syamant for inspiration!

Why "Danish mother seeking" campaign failed

This is guest post from Karim Stoumann

I must say Danish Mother Seeking campaign for Visit Denmark fails in many ways which is a shame for such a good idea and brand with a good reputation. 

my opinion failure of the campaign was caused by the lack of strategy, clear message and branding / payoff. What seemed to be a unique and successful campaign with massive exposure and response has seriously backfired and created a incredible media storm in Denmark and very negative reactions abroad, which resulted in non constructive reaction like taking it down from YouTube (I hope they didn’t hope to erase it from the internet as it’s not going to happen, even TV2 has ripped it and posted it on their site).
 
Danes are neither presented in the best light, nor is the campaign message well crafted. The biggest problem is that Visit Denmark didn’t include their payoff and brand in the film at all. The few times other brands have tried it as for instance Smirnoff Ice is doing a spoof on PaperBall campaign (Papirkugle). They made a film without the payoff and brand. It was not very well received by the bloggers; you can read a bit about the story on Germ blog.   On the other hand we have the campaign called Speed Bandits that used humor as naked breasts to attract attention and even though people knew it was advertising as film had both payoff and branding, it appeared to be a huge success. Unfortunately Danish Mother Seeking lacked all those elements.
 
What characterizes internet today is transparency and anarchy; it is harder, almost impossible to cheat people nowadays. People will figure out sooner or later whether it is hoax or nor and react. Companies must learn to listen first and avoid talking down to people. This is Rule # 1 of social media marketing: don’t be afraid telling that it’s an ad. If it’s a good ad people will still spread it widely because people are interested in good and entertaining content in general.
 
Danish Mother Seeking film is well made and there is good acting, if they only had included payoff at the end of the film, something like: www.visitdenmarknow.com (please) that drives viewers to the campaign site where they can learn more about the campaign...It would still got a lot of publicity and diminish risk of negative reactions. It took us 2 minutes to make. I believe everybody would still have bought the story and after going in to the campaign site they would find out right away that it’s was fake and there feeling would be “Aha I knew that” or “That’s was fun” like the campaign for TicTac Micha where the video that balance on the verge of fake vs. real but it gives viewers opportunity to find out more on the campaign site
 
It is so important to give people opportunity to find out and understand that it was a joke when doing viral / social media campaigns. Visit Denmark failed badly here.
Of course, there will still be controversy and some people will be offended but it would be the matter of taste, not lies. The powerful reaction campaign evoked was caused not just by the message but by the fact Visit Denmark tried to cheat people and make them believe it was real. They got incredible publicity but one can ask was it worth it?
 
I feel sorry for Visit Denmark. They have dared trying out viral and social media but missed on being well prepared – apparent lack of strategy and crisis plan. They dared to be edgy but when the things heated up they stuck their heads in the sand. Neither running away, nor views are social media strategy.  Huge potential was wasted, but hopefully it will be a lesson for many.
 
I really hope that this is not the last time that Visit Denmark tries out viral/buzz marketing but next time they will be better prepared.
 
 

"Social Media Makeover"

This illustrates pretty good the last to days of advertising mistakenly called for viral and social media marketing in Denmark.

"Many businesses treat social media tools the same dropping an FSI or placing a grocery cart ad.  It becomes just more superficial window dressing.  I think it would be far better to apply that investment toward actually making the brand and products more interesting and remarkable."  (Tom Fishburne)

Danish Mother Seeking - Update

Video was removed was YouTube .... well it just proves all my points. However video can be seen here.

______________________________________________________________________________

Danish Mother Seeking is busted! Karen26, Danish mother seeking... was hired by Visit Denmark to promote Denmark abroad. This is rather disappointing that such a good idea that would work really good to promote safe sex, was used to promote Denmark. That's also pretty shocking that such an angle was chosen to tell the story of Denmark. 

After finding out who was behind the campaign, I must say I asked myself about the ethics - not about the ethics of use of social media, but about the ethics of the content, about the way the governmental company chooses to present Denmark for the world. Respect is missing.

Let's look at aftermath first: over 1 million views, over 5.000 comments and lot of commotion on blogs and in mainstream media...primarily in Denmark. It is pretty understandable Danes are shocked over the way their compatriots have chosen to promote their country. It is like a bad reality show. The comments from Visit Denmark and agency behind - Grey Copenhagen heats the situation even more up. I heard Peter Helstrup, strategic director at Grey Copenhagen say:

"I think, this is the most effective campaign, that was ever created for a danish company" 

Well, this is impressive viral campaign that used controversy, fake & real approach and delivered over million views in just 3 days. As I wrote yesterday views, buzz has nothing to do with effectiveness, it has nothing to do with social media. This is just a tactical and short-term solution, deeply rooted in traditional media thinking focusing on creating controversy in order to boost up views numbers on YouTube (views are still shiny objects for so many). They could as well just show bare breasts. (Btw I would like to hear more about the goals that were set up for the campaign apart from views and appearance on TV2)

What about relevancy of the campaign? I keep on asking myself, how this campaign is relevant for Denmark? Isn't Visit Denmark's major goal to attract tourists to Denmark? It seems like the major efforts were put into promoting this video in Denmark. Apparently, Denmark is where the most response came from. I googled this morning to find any comment, any blog post about the campaign outside the boarders of scandalized Denmark. I found one at Mashable titled: Danish Woman’s One Night Stand Video Is a Government Hoax. Not to mention the comments that appeared on YouTube.:

"its amazing to see all the foreigners who have lived in denmark for a long time (decade or more) come out and slam Denmark. I lived there for a decade too, and was disgusted by the petty racism and xenophobia. Not to mention shallow women who will fuck you but not even hold a civil conversation."

"Lets get to Denmark, and get laid! that its all folks! Nobody is interesting in little right wings shiit Denmark!"

No one can deny it - the campaign has backfired and it seems there is no plan to handle the crisis situation. I've heard around that Visit Denmark is deleting comments from people that criticize the campaign.Is it true?!

This is where public engagement begins and we can talk about social media marketing and Visit Denmark seems to be unprepared to handle it. This is when the real things happen - not while the views counter is going up and people leave comments hoping she will find the father of the child, but when the discussion gets heated and opinions about content appear all over the Internet.

Visit Denmark got blinded by the shiny promise of millions of views and lot of buzz. They got those views along with disgusted, disappointed, shocked people and apparently no plan how to handle the bad response video generated.

Companies and agencies chase the shiny objects like buzz and views, missing the big picture and opportunities that are available for creating the public engagement and relationships. Using social media tools will not make you social. We keep on mistaking traditional media campaigns using social media with social media marketing. Social media marketing is about ideas that are rooted in understanding of human behavior and emotions and that get people together, make their lives more exciting or easier. Social media marketing is about people (not views)

Is the next episode coming: Danish Tourist Agency Seeking the lost trust...

Busted Buzz - The Story of Karen26

A few days ago video of young and very cute Danish mother seeking for the father of her baby appeared on YouTube.

Funny story that made Danish socialville into the detective quest on proving the video is a scam. They succeeded in a very short time. Found the actor who played mothers role and now speculates on what company is behind. It is impressive how good people are today at using internet to solve advertising mysteries in a real CSI style. Just read it here, here, here, here and here. It takes us definitely towards more and more transparency and helps us to avoid being cheated by companies making fake ads. It requires pretty good skills to hide the evidence from the ominous eye of internet panopticon nowadays.

What's interesting about this story is to see how hype gets build along the social media experts and mainstream media pick-up the story and boost the hype even more and drive traffic to YouTube video and "campaign website".

The video raised even the question about ethics! You can read about it on Mindjumpers and Virkeligheden blogs. I find the ethical aspect rather misplaced in a situation when we talk about campaign which focus is on creating buzz, not any public engagement. YouTube here is just a channel that is used to present the content balancing in the grey zone, on the verge of mystery and reality. This is not social campaign, this is broadcasting that gets people to view the video and talk about it and wonder whether it is real or fake. The fact that buzz marketing is using social media tools like YouTube or Facebook doesn't make it social marketing. As Anders on Virkelighedens blog wrote - the video fulfills the requirements for viral campaign. However, it is not a social campaign, as it doesn't involve any interaction with people, as I mentioned before it doesn't create any public engagement. This is very tactical viral solution aiming at creating fast response.              

Of course, it still needs to be ethical, meaning being respectful, which I can't see violated in this case. There is also the question of deceiving people, as there are many people who express the compassion with Karen26. Yes, people get deceived in this video, but we have seen this before - blurry boarders between reality and fiction are broadly used mechanics in viral videos - Quicksilver- being the most popular example. There were plenty of people all over the world who were convinced it really happened. Videos gain viral effect from creating speculations - fake or real and the viewers tend to accept this as this is the part of story telling. The rule of tactical buzz marketing is: the more controversial you are the more people respond (see examples from Cult and Fleggard) and Karen26 seems to get it.

Anyhow, video with Karen26 is entertaining and it would be great buzz for "De unge mødre" TV show (Young Mothers), but I doubt it's them. My guess goes for condom producers.

Secret Life of Fliers

While most of researches stays grounded (mostly to computer screen), there are two guys who decided to take off to conduct very fascinating consumer research. Dustin Curtis and Alaska Miller have bought JetBlue All-You-Can-Jet Pass that allows one month of unlimited travel, any available seat for $599 and took off for 30 days adventure to talk to "hundreds of people with rich backgrounds and histories" that can be found on planes. 

As they put it on their website 30dayflight.com

"(...) They have fascinating stories. We want to tell some of them. Our plan is to strike up conversations during our flights and see if maybe, after 30 days of constant flying, we can get a good understanding of the average jetBlue flier."

They took off for their adventure on Tuesday. You can follow the trip on 30dayflight.com and their twitter streams: Dustin Curtis  / Alaska Miller.

I wonder how JetBlue will capitalize on this great initiative. There is the serious possibility for JetBlue to get interesting knowledge about their customers and their secret lives, none of questionaire can reveal. Plus there is plenty to learn about how their own services and staff works. There are already some complaints from Alaska Miller.

If they should live up to their claim about bringing humanity back to air travel, they should listen and learn from the real people.

I look forward to seeing final result of this 30 days trip into the secret life of fliers.