1000heads: The 'word of mouth' election

Our word of mouth spider sense started tingling this morning when we came across this article from Labour Matters.

“Gordon Brown MP, Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party, and Sarah Brown, were joined by Cabinet colleagues today to personally canvass voters, up and down the country, by phone from Labour’s head office in London, as part of a mass canvass with thousands of supporters on the doorstep as well.

Labour’s “word of mouth” election campaign has seen thousands of activists spreading the word on the doorstep, by phone and through Labour’s cutting-edge virtual phone bank and iPhone App.

Both Gordon and Sarah Brown, plus several Cabinet Ministers, got to work on the phone bank and asked for people’s support at the ballot box, direct and down the line.

They called unscreened voters, listened to their views and explained Labour’s five pledges for a Future Fair For All – a Britain in which no one is left behind and everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their talent and share in future prosperity.”

We don’t think this qualifies as word of mouth.

At all.

In fact to us, this is broadcast in its purest sense; (cold) calling people and explaining pledges with one breath and with the next asking and soliciting support for the party in question. This really doesn’t qualify as word of mouth. Not in our book.

The piece continues with this quote from Harriet Harman:

“This is a word of mouth election, won by people not posters, and Labour is determined to make sure this is a grass roots election campaign, direct and authentic from start to finish.

“That’s why thousands of activists up and down the country are spreading the word on the doorstep and on the phone to warn that the Tories would wreck our economic recovery and leave families to sink or swim in tough times.“

This isn’t conversation. This is bringing those very posters to the doorsteps of the nation and whether it will work or not remains to be seen.
But one thing’s for sure – this isn’t how you start meaningful, long-term relationships with advocates or detractors. This is as close to old-school, scatter-gun marketing & advertising as it gets.
Will it work? I doubt it. Is it conversational? Not really.

Hilariously:

“During the phone canvass, Gordon Brown was told that the Party had made its 1,000,000th face to face relationship since Jan 1 2010.”

With respect Labour Matters, but… I’m not even sure what this means.

If you’re not registered to vote, do so now.

Pass it on.

1000heads: Talking about Jerusalem

This is London’s Apollo Theatre, currently showing The Royal Court Theatre’s production of ‘Jerusalem’.

This ‘comic and contemporary vision of rural life‘ has been the subject of many a rave review with such headline grabbing one liners such as:

‘UNARGUABLY ONE OF THE BEST DRAMAS OF THE 21ST CENTURY’
– The Guardian

‘AN INSTANT MODERN CLASSIC’
– The Daily Telegraph

‘A BRILLIANT HYMN TO A VANISHING WORLD’
– The Independent

These rather catchy and awe-inspiring reviews are in fact so good, that the company in question has had them blown up and put on the outside walls of the theatre itself.

However, when I buy my ticket later this week it won’t be because of any of the press that I’ve demonstrated so far. Nor will it be thanks to the rave review that my hairdresser gave me only a few weeks ago.

The reason I want to see Jerusalem (and in fact the only reason I want to see Jerusalem) is this:

See them?

This photo was taken at 9:26am on a Tuesday morning. Every day I walk past this theatre on my way to work and every day since the play first opened, there has been a queue of at least twenty people waiting in line, in the rain, to get their hands on tickets of their own.

Yes, the play really is that good.

But what of word of mouth? I already confessed that my hairdresser had told me herself that it was good. But that wasn’t enough.
I’d read the reviews, again – still not quite enough.

This final piece of the puzzle, this commitment to the cause made real, completed my purchasing journey almost instantly.

In short:

  • Your customer’s purchasing journey could start anywhere.
  • Is this WOM? No. But I’m telling you, right?
  • Did WOM help? Not really, but it was part of the journey.
  • Above you can see at least twenty nascent advocates CRYING OUT to be engaged with. Apollo umbrellas? A thank you for their patron? Something?

How can you make your guest experience more conversational?

Think. Just think.

1000heads: Word of Mouth Optimisation

I screamed at the TV this weekend. Twice.

Here’s why:

They did it. They finally did it.

After imploring them just over a month ago (and then watching Ikea getting in on the act), Homebase finally went and decorated a (very) public place, Carlisle Train Station to be precise, with all their latest furnishings.

Good job.

Photo via 28Gywn

According to some of the photos that can be found on flickr (which I can’t show you, as they’re not under Creative Commons but we’ll come back to this later), Homebase shot the ad above on February 10th. A mere two days after our post recommending they do so.

Just call us 1000-psychic-heads…

Joking aside, it’s good to see this kind of friendly disruption. Interruptive yes, but not combative. It looks like it was all rather enjoyable and fun and it would also seem that Homebase aren’t just stopping there either.

According to their latest promotion ‘Transforming the Nation‘ Carlisle Station won’t be the only place in the UK to get such a makeover. You too can get your community involved and nominate a public space near you to get ‘the Homebase makeover’.

While we applaud the over-arching theme and campaign mechanic (disrupting schemas and getting local community involvement; breadth and depth), we still can’t help but think that there are a few missed opportunities here.

Scott Gould recently spoke at the WOM Espresso about SPREADABILITY vs REACH and in doing so touched upon the key point of GUIDANCE vs GOVERNANCE.

This sign, posted by the Homebase film crew at Carlisle station reminded me of just that:

Photo via 28Gwyn

I’ve worked in television, I know that the above ‘waiver’ is a legality box that must be ticked. However, there are ways and means, surely? Why not have two signs? One with all the legal spiel on it and another…

Oh I don’t know, maybe one like this one:

So I’d like to give a gentle nudge in the direction of the content creators out there – and I don’t just mean those Flickr fanatics or YouTube aficionados, I mean content creators in their purest form: those that create conversation, those that will get to work and actively seek out their friends and peers to amaze and share with them what they have seen.

At the time of writing there are 139 photos on Flickr tagged with ‘Carlisle’ and ‘Homebase’ but only FIVE that are actually licensed under Creative Commons and are therefore spreadable.

Yes, this may have happened already. Of course it did. But there really is no harm in lending a guiding hand along the way.

Homebase shot a TV commercial that happened to take place in a train station.

What else could they have done?
Off the top of our ‘Heads:

  • Where’s the digital component?
  • Have we invited any bloggers along? (Trainspotters? Home Decorators?)
  • Should we invite the local staff along to meet and greet?
  • Is there a twitter feed or a hashtag for this?
  • Could we blog the progress of the build?
  • Should we set up a Facebook page: ‘My town was Homebase’d’
  • What about Easter Eggs? Can we make it more than just a sofa?
  • Is this driven by insights? i.e.: are the products on show there for their popularity?

Here at 1000heads we call this (and a whole lot more) ‘WOM Optimisation’, as in – what are the word of mouth triggers that we can put in place to make this event/activity/content as shareable as possible?

Next time you’re attempting anything like this, take a moment and think:

What can I do to to make this really spreadable?

Strange Days

The following entry is verbatim (unless stated otherwise), from the date given below.
Reading back over it all now, it seems so far away. Glad to finally put it to rest.

Cheers.

Wow.. Brick Lane is buzzin' this afternoon! :D

Moleskine entry: August 23rd, 2009

I haven’t written here for almost a fortnight. Instead I’ve been spending my time writing up my Moleskine notes to date and updating them to my blog – where hopefully you’re reading this entry now (albeit later than originally intended).

Sitting here on Brick Lane, sipping coffee and watching the world go by is allowing me time to reflect. The past few weeks since I came down from the Big Horns have been tumultuous at best and at worse, just plain upsetting. But here we are, just 24hrs before my departure from SpinVox is announced and I am full of glee; the future has never looked so bright and exciting. Opportunity really is everywhere.

Note to self: email Gary Vaynerchuk, say what you like about him. He’s an inspiration to us all.

Gary, if your Google alerts have just fired off and you’re reading this now, thanks for the reply – I know you’ll reply. That’s the kind of guy you are.

—— NON MOLESKINE NOTE ——

I wrote this entry on 23/8/09 and sent the following email when I got home later that day:

Hey Gary, not sure if you remember me, we met at the Blog World Expo last year*.
.

Your session was inspiring and when I asked you a question on scalability, you answered it well and then called me out on my girl back home 😉
.
She and I are still together and we’re very, very happy. I wanted to mail to let you know that tomorrow I’m quitting my job as Head of Digital & Social Media at SpinVox**.
I’ve been there for two years now and I decided not soon after I saw your talk that 2009 would be the year I made the leap to go freelance.
.
So yeah, here’s to the great beyond!
.
And thank you, Sir. I’m getting ready to KILL IT.
.
Cheers,
.
James Whatley

.
*It was a good day! 😀
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whatleydude/2872601269/
**Obviously this isn’t public yet! I’m going to blog it tomorrow morning 🙂

Gary always replies. Ten days later, he did just that:

“James, I wish you the best and luck 🙂 and thank you. PS: I’ll be in the UK soon, let’s catch up.”

Sadly, I missed Gary when he was over in London last, but I did finally manage to catch up with him when I was in Texas recently. He remembered our brief exchange and asked how things were getting on with both the new job and of course, my sweet love. It’s having that kind of memory for names, faces, people and places that really makes a difference sometimes. Like I said, it’s inspiring.

—— NON MOLESKINE NOTE ENDS ——

So what next?

The original plan was to go freelance. Yes, that’s right… FREELANCE. Freelance what though? That was the burning question and one that I had time to work out with the helpful guidance of my peers and mentors.

But, as we now know, what was originally scripted never came to pass.

August 1st, upon return from the good ol’ US of A, was to be the first day of the rest of my life. I had handed in my notice at the end of June, prepped a blog post and, with Lucozade ahead of me and who knows what after that, I was ready.

But instead, August 1st passed without event. I was still an employee at SV and, even though I had a couple of consultancy gigs lined up, suddenly I had no time. SV respectfully asked that I didn’t leave just yet and in all honesty, as far as I knew, we – as a company – were under attack. I wasn’t about to turn away in their darkest hour.

Turned out it wasn’t even midnight yet and the Sun had only just begun to set. SV’s darkest hour was a long way off indeed.

Come July 27th when I (almost quite literally) rode back into town, a fair few were waiting for me to put things right. And put them right I did. The internet was full of rumour and misinformation. Respected journalists and bloggers had been led a merry tale about the innards of our business and they swallowed every word.

“Silly.” I thought “Real silly. Surely it must be obvious that these are just ex-employees out there trying to bring us down?”

Surely? I set about putting together the most robust of rebuttals I could and based on what I thought was ‘the truth’, I responded…

“I was, alas, on holiday last week and all Hell seems to have broken loose and in that, a veritable maelstrom of accusations, mis-apprehensions and sometimes just plain lies have been circulating and permeating around this lovely world we call the internet. I am, to be honest, amazed at this – and would quite like to set the record straight…”

“Hoorah!” they exclaimed, “He’s back!” they cheered, “At last… this whole thing can be put to bed.” and, for a while, it was.

Naively, I had taken on the BBC and came away with a bloody nose. In the quiet moments that followed it slowly dawned on me the magnitude of everything that had happened.

The British Broadcasting Corporation James. Really? You didn’t think they might have actually researched their story somewhat?

But what of SV? My pride and joy?

Quiet. Nothing. Not a dicky bird. The silence was deafening.

We changed tact. A ‘tech demo’ was called for. What started out initially as (and I quote) “We’ll get that Rory chap in and show him the software, he can see we’re telling the damn truth!” slowly descended turned into a big blogger open day.

My trip to Africa [for Lucozade Challenge number three] had been delayed by a few days and by the looks of things, I was going to be around for this. Excellent.

Even before the first meeting, alarm bells were ringing. This really wasn’t going to work. Not this way. The company had effectively deceived their fans, betrayed the community I’d helped to build over the past two years and anyone they invited in was going to be out for blood. It was that simple.

Friday I told them it wouldn’t work.
Friday I told them what they were coming for.
Friday I explained that, if we were really going to do it, then this is how it should be done.

First we should address each and every accusation, tell the assembled guests what the accusations were and then completely blow them out of the water with the facts. Then – and only then – should we get on with any kind of demo.

I walked away. I remember it well. They ignored my pleas and carried on constructing their own death by Powerpoint. Good plan. Invite bloggers and journos all the way out to Marlow to show them a Powerpoint presentation. Yeah, that’ll work.

I went home, sad. Knowing that Monday would be the end.

That was until Sunday. About 22:07 to be precise, my Tweetdeck chirped with the following tweet:

I turned to my flatmate “Um….”

“What is it?”
“Apparently I’ve just quit.”
“What?!”

Well, yes. That was kind of my reaction too. First the tweets started flying in, then the blog posts followed and then, two hours later, an apology from TechCrunch Europe (a career highlight I promise you that).

As it turned out, one particular TC hack had written a pre-emptive story about my leaving and had accidentally hit publish. Thing is, and this is where things get muddy, as I explained earlier, I was all set to leave that summer anyway.

Step back with me for a moment back to Christmas ’08. I’m lying on the floor at my parents’ place, reflecting on the year gone by and contemplating on the year ahead. Things were good, great in fact. I’d just finished five months work on the SpinVox Wishing Well, Mobile Geeks of London was flying quietly and 2009 had the potential to be big.

Working in this industry you often find yourself surrounded by driven, entrepreneurial individuals who, by some personal endeavour, are out in the world to make a difference and hopefully a pretty penny or two along the way. Coming into contact with these types of individuals day in and day out, you’d be unsurprised to learn that eventually, some of it rubs off on you.

And so it was, on Boxing Day morning, I started laughing. Laughing and laughing and laughing. It was then I knew that 2009 would be the year that I left SpinVox and finally broke out on my own.

Fast forward to June 2009 and plans were in place. I’d spent sometime earlier in the year over in L.A. scheming with my good friend Matt Singley about the future and slowly getting my head around the next step forward.

However, the big SV also had change in mind. People started losing their jobs, friends of mine were made redundant and, although my role was safe, the team had changed considerably since I’d joined 18mths previous. My old boss who, due to some restructuring was now no longer my direct line manager (but still a trusted friend), he and I discussed the prospect of going freelance. There was potential for SV to help me through. My new boss was on board as well. It all sounded good enough, the company was happy to support me during the changeover period and didn’t actually want to lose me as an employee/advisor. So whatever they could do to help, they planned to.

While this was going on, I received an email from the guys running the Lucozade Energy Challenge:

As you probably know, I threw myself into that project and well, the rest is history.  It’s funny, the very day that SV and I agreed on the terms and conditions of my new job role/transition was the exact same day I landed the Lucozade gig. Like it was meant to be.

The following day I told the guys at SV that instead of aiming for a six month transition, it would be more like six weeks. I had enough holiday to cover off the first two Lucozade challenges and after that, I’d leave and be out on my own. Scheduled departure date; August 1st 2009.

Here I am, twenty-three days later and at last I’m leaving. When I was hired I made it my job to provide an open an honest voice for the company that I’d grown to care for so much. When this was no longer possible, I couldn’t do my job. Leaving the company has been one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make and it hurts. But I have to admit that the company lied: to its staff, to its customers and to me.

Tomorrow I get to tell the world I’m out of here, the sun is shining and the world is a beautiful place.

Who’s hungry?

Moleskine entry: August 23rd, 2009 – ends

1000heads: Twestival – Cake me up

…before you go go.

Following on from our first forays into Twestival love from just over a year ago. This year we’re helping out again by supplying the cakes for all and sundry that are attending and helping raise money for this year’s cause, Concern.

Thanks to the lovely guys and girls at Crumbs and Doilies we’re bringing along 42 dozen (yes, that’s 504 for the quick-minded of you) vanilla flavoured frosted cupcakes to share with you all.

As I said to Chris Lee for Twestival earlier today:

“We like people, we like talking to people, we like eating cakes with people. Nuff said.”

Alas I don’t have any photos of the three lovely gentlemen who we’re sending along to assist in the giving out of said sumptuous delights so instead you’ll have to settle with this picture of the cakes themselves…

Until tomorrow! 🙂

1000heads: SXSW – What did we learn?

Austin -> Washington

Last weekend 1000heads despatched a number of its team out to a certain convention in the good ol’ US of A.

Admittedly, while we were there supporting a particular client, I also made sure we had time to get into the Austin Convention Center itself and take in some of the more interesting panels and talks that SXSW has to offer.

Yes, but what did you learn?

First and foremost, while a fair chunk of the predicted chatter was indeed about location-based services such as Gowalla and Foursquare, what we found was a very low rumbling about 2010 being the year when companies and brands alike truly harness the power of crowd-sourcing. This piece from Fjord about the iPad cements some of the feelings I already have about it, but also talks about content curation and the knowledge of where as opposed to what.

Hat tip to the guys over at Genius Rocket by the way, good to hear some sense throughout all the noise…

We also learned that SXSW really isn’t as bad as some people say it is. Similarly to other conferences we’ve been to before, the real value lies within the many different opportunities to connect, learn and share… and, with a smattering of smarts, maybe do a small amount of business along the way. Those things themselves are worth the air fare alone.

Real life connections people- it’s the future

One session I personally really wanted to see was Battery Life, the Final (Mobile) Frontier, the description alone sold it to me:

Africa is a much misunderstood market, but potentially as large as China or India. Computer and internet penetration is extremely low, but cellphones are everywhere. How to tackle communication and social services on a continent where electricity – including charging cellphones in rural areas – is the greatest challenge.

Sadly, the panel was cancelled at the last minute as the key contributor was called away to a personal emergency however, I did get the opportunity to meet the lovely Gaby Rosario who gave me the rundown about how while there are only 65k iPhones in South Africa, there are in fact nearly 45million mobile subscribers. Unsurprisingly, in South Africa at least, the iPhone is not the be all and end all.

But we knew this already, right?
WW/N @ SXSW

It’s funny, even though the US-based event had such an international turnout, a lot of the content had a very US-centric point of view. The point about the iPhone for example, articulated so well by Gaby just hours before I first started writing this down, was a breath of fresh air against the constant stale wind of how mobile iPhone applications are going to change the world.

This is not to say it was a wasted journey, not by any stretch. Seeing people I haven’t seen since September ’08 – made it even more worthwhile. Being introduced to new faces through old friends and connections – given that 1000heads now has French, Canadian and US offices – again, also made it extremely beneficial.

Of course, working out there, meeting clients and competition winners… the list of how awesome it was just goes on.

Would I go back? Yes. Every day I was up at the crack of dawn to catch an early morning panel, be it on community building, crowd-sourcing, social media, blogging, mobile, neuro-science marketing… (no, really).

If the SXSW selection panel had picked someone to speak, it was (mostly) worth a visit.

Improvements?

Well, I’d still want to see a more clearer grading system for each session (like Vero mentioned the year before), and I think I could/should definitely speak about something at the next one.

Maybe my lucozade travels; staying mobile and connected ’round the world. Tips and tricks for the global traveller…

Or maybe even… …plain ol’ Word of Mouth? 😉

What d’ya think?

1000heads: IKEA on the French Underground

Thanks to Zee for spotting these images of Ikea’s latest fun and games in and around four key locations deep inside France’s Parisian Metro system.

If you think this idea sounds or looks familiar, take a look at this ‘Disrupting the Norm‘ post from last month suggesting the very same activity here in London.

I wonder if it would have the same effect?

1000heads: London Fashion Week

While a number of ‘heads are still recovering from a few days out in Austin after this weekend’s SXSW interactive conference, we’re taking a moment to look back at another recent event we attended – London Fashion Week.

Jaeger Autumn Winter at LFW

Photo credit – Swamibu

London Fashion Week – aka LFW – hit The Big Smoke in February and if you weren’t there, it’s the kind of event where it’s OK to wear barbie shoulder pads and underwear as outerwear. But how does this effect us?

Some of you may have seen the drama going on where bloggers are now bliggers and eating all the Danish pastries – all of this is giving our favourite blog-folk a bad name.  Not. Good.

We decided we wanted to big these guys and girls up again so we sent 1000heads’ biggest fashion fan, Camilla Brown, down to LFW ask the attendees a very important question…

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10234316&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1

And one last thing from Camilla:

“If bloggers were so bad, would the awesome Nat and Jenny be featured in this months Company Magazine?  I think not!”

So come on, who is your favourite fashion blogger, and why?

1000heads: Delight and Surprise

This is one of my favourite GapingVoid images of recent times. It’s printed and stuck on the wall next to my desk.

Hugging your client, it’s a good thing. How does it work?

I’ll give you a real world example. If I am your client and you make me feel special by delivering something personal or delightful or simply make me smile and laugh, then hurrah – you’ve hugged me.

You could, of course, actually hug me – that’d be cool also – but you get the idea.

Last week, I was out at lunch buying a couple of boxes of noodles to take back to the office -  c/o those lovely folk at Wok to Walk. The woman behind the counter told me as I was leaving – “I’ll mark it so you know which one is yours.”

I said thank you and headed back to the office. This is what I found when I got back…

"Yours"

Brilliant.

Look. I know this isn’t rocket science. I know this isn’t ground breaking. And I know that this isn’t part of some mastermind strategy that Wok to Walk have and adhere to.

That’s the point.

Just because you’re a brand/company/ship/purveyor of noodles, doesn’t mean you automatically forget how to be a human being. The title of this post is “Delight and Surprise”. What happened with my lunch last week made me smile and laugh….  and I shared it with everyone (including you).

So simple, so easy.. yet so many forget to do it.

Ask yourself – Have you hugged your client today?