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Orange and Bebo tie-up. A mismatch?

I saw in Revolution magazine that Orange and Bebo have recently signed an exclusive agreement to bring mobile social networking (or chatting to mates as it also known as) to Orange customers.

For many this might seem to make a lot of sense. Bebo is big and growing, so this is a great deal for them. For Bebo users, the mobile element will be a positive addition.

However, two issues bother me about this deal.

Firstly, why are both parties entering into an exclusive deal? Bebo users might feel shoehorned into using Orange when they prefer other mobile players. Similarly for Orange customers who would prefer alternatives to Bebo. Exclusivity brings benefits to the Brand partners, but where is the benefit to their customers?

Secondly, Orange like many other mobile operators, have invested heavily into offering music services for their customers. Yet in the world of those kids who create distribute and consume music with their phones, myspace is the social network of choice, not Bebo. Having spoken to a number of young people about music as a bond amongst their community of friends, no-one mentions social networking, they all mention myspace. It is their tool for social networking, not Bebo. Maybe Orange is going for a different profile of people with Bebo, but rest assured on the music front, they are seeming to be missing out considerably.

POST SCRIPT: Are there examples of exclusive Brand Partnerships that have benefited the customer in ways that a non-exclusive deal would not have done?

Listen to the consumer...

Alan Rutherford, Global Media Director of Unilever, spoke at the MTV Generation XY conference last week. He gave the attendees a whirlwind tour of some of the global issues facing brands who wish to connect with the youth market.

However, the most critical piece he shared was in many ways the most obvious: Never forget the consumer; if you fail to do this, then brands (and agencies) fail full stop.

Such a message is not new, but was definitely ready for another outing. Some years ago, when the BSE meat scandal hit the UK, McDonald's immediately switched their beef supplies to non-UK suppliers before the government ruled on the fitness of the meat. Burger King waited. The outcome was McDonald's minimising the drop in sales as the understandable public fear of eating beef hit in the UK.

One UK company has recently brought it's call centre back to the UK from abroad, having listened to their customers complaining about the service levels of the non-UK based call centre. Meanwhile a batch of petrol bought at the UK supermarkets Tesco's and Morrisons was found to be contaminated, Cars have broken down with the cost of repairs for those cars affected being covered by the supermarkets. However, the two companies did not immediately offer compensation, putting out statements that they found nothing wrong with the petrol. It could have been touch and go with regards reputations, but they seemed to have reacted quick enough to avert a PR disaster.

So Alan was right to call for a greater focus on the obvious: Never forget the customer. Every time a brand does, it will do so at it's peril. Old lesson for us all, but still a good one.

V is for Very Simply Put

Alice Taylor, founder of gamer friendly wonderlandblog and builder of bridges between the traditional TV channel and the digital channels gave one one those rare conference speeches which mixed knowledge, modesty and turning complex into simple.

Sweeping through a quick tour of the world of MMORPGs (see previous posts) she shared some recent research from the US. It was found that amongst youth the average time spent on MySpace was 21 minutes whilst on World of Warcraft it was a whopping 197 minutes spent per day.

TV stations and brands are focusing so much attention on the myspace/bebo phenomenon, yet connecting with the gaming experience is still in it's infancy. Yeah, but the research was from the U.S. I hear you cry. That might be true, but in my straw poll of two (One 30something in the U.K. and a young 22 year old czech person), 2-3 hours on World of Warcraft is not unusual.

Alice herself is a big gamer, and highlighted the point that whilst many young women are gamers they get ignored as a viable market. So a missed opportunity, or will 2007 see both the gaming industry and brands review their approaches to gaming from their 'it's a boy thing' perspectives? Alice suggests that Wii has already made a move for the female gamer, so maybe things are going to change.

Alice stressed that Gaming and MMORPGs are in direct competition for the time of the young person across a number of countries. In the U.S. the average TV consumption is 28 hours per week, whilst in MMORPG households, TV consumption drops to 7.7hours per week, over 70% of TV viewing gone! Meanwhile in these MMORPG househols, playing the games takes up 21 hours per week. A sign that such gaming eats away at TV viewing time.

It is clearly time that gaming is looked at more by brands, if only to understand better how young people tick, wherever they live.

More on MTV Circuits of Cool

Andy Davidson of MTV Europe delivered a fascinating presentation at the GenerationXY? conference last week. Delving into his box of tricks, otherwise known as the MTV Circuits of Cool research, he shared little nuggets including:

1 Technology helping to build friendships, not alienating kids.
2 Digital fills the void for adolescents who are too young to go out and too old to stay in
3 Youth are never separated from their friends. They are connected all the time. Marketers need to be aware of this when connecting. There is no point in pushing to the individual when the tribe is more important to youth.
4 Online usage is chaotic and random. They don't go to youtube, but go there from a clip sent to them from a friend.

Andy summarised with some advice to brands who wish to connect with youth.
Be relevant
Don't talk about technology
Understand their needs
Take account of cultural and climactic differences
Entertain kids and connect the adolescents
Use the right channel for the job

All of this in forty minutes. Normally we are lucky to get a sliver of such insight and comment in a conference.

Mum what is a social network?

I chaired the MTV/CSquared Conference in Prague last week, and was treated to some great speakers. First up was Andy Davidson, Research Director of MTV Europe. He gave us a peek into some great fresh research from MTV called Circuits of Cool. This piece of research aims to understand the digital generation, answering such questions as how digital impacts on youth, why new platforms have been so popular and how best to engage the digital generation.

First up he made the salient point that young people do not live in a world of digispeak (hello folksonomies!). Taking Poland as an example, only 39% talk about 'blogging', 16% refer to 'social networks', whilst only 8% mention 'multi-platforms' or 'web 2.0'. Shock horror! Andy rightly stressed that young people are interested in what the technology can do for them, NOT the language itself.

The classic chart where we find out that youth love their friends, family and music more than anything else appeared again. All fresh and up to date, yet ultimately stating that some things do not change for youth with technological advancement.

In the Top Ten things youth love doing, being with the boy/girlfriend, hanging out with friends and spending time with family came out as the top three, followed by 'Listening to Music'. Also in the top ten were 'going to music gigs' and 'chilling out/relaxing'. Music, friends and family...still critical to youth.

Furthermore, the research has found that the impact of technology on youth depends on where you live. In Japan, they have become tired of technology, whilst in India the mobile and ipod is a status symbol. Meanwhile in China, the land of one-child families, kids were found to have an emotional attachment to the net in their search for peer friendships.

Andy also drew attention to the impact of climate on youth trends, which got me thinking: if young Morrisey was born in Puglia, would his melancholic genius have been channelled into opera?

More from Andy coming up...

Shock - marketing people meet young people face to face!

A great part of the Understanding Digital Youth conference was run by Rob Cowan of Point Blank. Now you know I am not a fan of the one way mirror style focus group, enamoured by many an agency and marketeer to justify their pre-destined strategies. Some of my best friends are researchers, but something just doesn't seem right about the falseness of the scenario.

So imagine a conference full of marketing folk and people interested in connecting with youth, faced with five people under the age of 22 in front of them...with no mirror to hide behind. Would we cope with such intimacy? Would the 'kids' shock us out of our cozy views?

Rob brought along with him five young people he has come across through the work that PointBlank does.

The five 'kids' did what all us us do in a conference: show a bit of bravado, a bit of wanting to say the right thing and a dose of truthfulness. If anything was gained from this session, it should be that one-way mirrors should be bannded from the land. A simple conversation with young people, even in such a false setting as the conference, is better than some 'controlled' environment.

One of the most fascinating responses came from Matthew, when asked about the question about guilt arising from downloading music for free. An emphatic no resounded around the hall along with the words "It's free after all". Parallel to this Matthew announced that he wants to focus on being a musician. When challenged about how wanting to be a musician squares with refuseing to pay for music, he merely repeated :"But it's free!"

Now either Matthew will realise that to survive as a musician people need to pay for his music, or he is just reiterating the belief that making music and not wishing to pay for it, is not a dichotomy. Think gospel, the blues and folk music for starters.

Are we returning to the Renaissance movement as Andy Melchior once suggested to me? Will musicians seek benefactors to pay for their creativity, so their music can be shared to the world? Are the benefactors the brands? Is it us that need to deal with facing up to the new realities rather than Matthew?

UGC is like football...

So more thoughts from the Understanding Digital Youth Conference of last week.

In football, a few gifted individuals create magic on the pitch (though being a life-long Leeds United supporter, I am having trouble finding the magic right now).

A lot more people go along to the stadium to watch the game live. They feel involved, they cheer their team on, they feel suffering and elation in the space of 90 minutes. They then share with others the rollercoaster experience they had at the game.

Even more people get connected from much further away...through their TV (and computer) screens and on their radios.

A bit similar when it comes to UGC really. A few create, a bunch of others come to have a look then help to disseminate the UGC, then a whole host of others pick up through wider channels.

William pointed out that Youth have always been a creative bunch, but that the digital age has enabled them to have greater ACCESS to the tools to create and share.

He finds them to be more media creative, more ready to write and turn to film. He did emphasise though that whilst some create, many more are watching from the sidelines...

When he mentioned this at the conference, I immediately thought of Bradley's Pyramid. Bradley Horowitz, a clever guy at Yahoo came up with a simple little pyramid which showed the following:
1% of the user population might start a group;
10% of the user population might participate actively and respond to a thread;
100% of the user population benefits from the activities of the above groups.

I wonder if Bradley likes football? You can find his blog Elatable here

As an aside, Ed and Martin also referenced this neat little pyramid, but had morphed it into a pie chart...

We want customer feedback, but only the nice stuff please...

I was intrigued by the speech by Kathryn Hellewell from Vue Entertainment, the cinema chain business.

She rightly pointed out that the trailer (in whatever format) continues to be critical in driving people to the cinema. Having seen the trailer for 300, you can't help but agree with her of the power of the trailer to drive footfall. Personally, knowing that this film comes from the graphic novel of the legendary Frank Miller is only a further enticement.

So imagine my surprise when Kathryn introduced us to deck collector. Having informed us about the power of the trailer, she then showed us a trailer of what deck collector is all about. It is a trading card game based on images and elements of a film, with participants collecting digital cards across the net. Part mystery part rewards, the idea is not new, but could be a great idea. Vue Entertainment have got films such as Cars involved, so clearly there is interest. However, I am not sure what anyone else thought, but in my mind the deck collector trailer was as enticing as a rainy night in georgia. Poorly sold, lots of overpromise and a terrible voice-over. It seems that Vue Entertainment need to pick up some tips from the film companies on how to pull together short communication messages...

Also concerned about Vue Entertainment being reticent about negative customer feedback on a film. Kathryn showed us some negative feedback received for a film online. She shared her concerns about the impact of such criticism on other potential cinema goers if it were to sit on a VUE UGC site. All completely understandable really. A tough call for a business based on encouraging people to go to the cinema and keeping the film distribution companies on their side. Yet the criticism of a poor film will appear somewhere anyway. Film-goers will find out whether a film has got good reviews or not.

The critical piece here is what Vue Entertainment wish to be. They cannot be half-committed to UGC. They are either in or out, no halfway house.

Vue Entertainment is in the business of offering up the cinema experience in all its glory to paying customers. At a time when the competition against the downloadable broadband experience or even the plasma screen TV experience is hotting up, the company surely has to be doing everything they can to build a trustful relationship with the movie loving public. Filtering out honest comment of a film is not the way to do that.

No to Fake Blogs

A couple of mentions at the Understanding Digital Youth conference for the Fake Blog. Poor old Sony, but they got a kicking at the conference (along with everywhere else) for their disastrous alliwantforxmasisapsp.com campaign. As I raised in an earlier post, if you fake it you get found out.

Pete from Mentos stressed that brands should be Authentic in their actions. Fake does not work.

Brands that DO, not Brands who THINK they do...

At the Understanding Digital Youth conference yesterday, a clear message across the whole day was that young people have more control than ever over their relationship with brands, with the consequent result that brands are having to adapt their marketing strategies. Nothing new there. This has been said many a time.

I am though fascinated at understanding what drives the Brands that DO versus the Brands that TALK a good talk or Brands that THINK they do.

Definitely in the Brands that DO camp sits Mentos. Pete Healy is Vice President, Marketing of Perfetti Van Melle USA. He spoke eloquently and with such fizz (sorry!) about the Mentos and Coke phenomenon.

He laid out how Mentos defined their brand position, then went about creating a bunch of activities to bring life to the brand...with fun at the core.

When they came across the two guys who launched the eepybird site, Mentos got involved. The Brand supported the guys to create Experiment 214, Blue Man Group wanted in, and the guys got onto Letterman and beyond.

By spotting something fun, then helping the fun to spread, Mentos is a Brave Brand in my book, a brand that treats people as equal, a brand that sees others as the source of Big Ideas.

The result of this bravery?

Immense coverage, web impressions through the roof, and significant sales for Mentos. Pete shared with us a host of other activities that Mentos are supporting, all focused on co-creation and enabling people. My favourite is Steve Spangler, who is taking the science behind the mentos geyer to teachers and classrooms...

And Coca Cola's reaction to eepybird? They first distanced themselves from the geyser phenomenon, then reticently got closer. A sense of a Brand missing the point or not spotting the way the wind was blowing perhaps?