Asheville Marketing and Advertising - Renovo Technology

Read an interesting article this morning about social media marketing being an exercise in listening.

“In financial services, where many social media efforts are dominated by one-way conversations, it was refreshing to hear this.  Unfortunately, many institutions have it backwards.  Rather than viewing social media as an extension of the conversations they’re already having, they view social media as another venue to promote their marketing messages – most of which are nothing more than one-way communications.  There’s nothing social about these efforts.”

Recent experience with social media outlets such as Twitter, show me that a lot of marketers out there just don’t get that.  Or, they don’t care.  Many marketing conversations are one-way.  Think about it.  Aside from new kinds of digital marketing, traditional advertising and marketing mediums such as print, TV, radio, and even billboards, are one-way.  Might be one of the reasons that the ‘old-school’ doesn’t embrace social and digital media as much as we young pups…too much feedback.

What could be more effectual than feedback, often real-time feedback, on how to shape messages that the marketed-to actually want to receive…the way they want to receive them.

In the 2001 Dreamworks smash Shrek, the lead character of this animated feature, (voice provided by Mike Myers of SNL fame,) trys to explain to his new found companion, Donkey, how much emotional depth he has.  Shrek compares himself to an onion.

Shrek:  “Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.”

Donkey:  “Oh, you both have layers. Oh. You know, not everybody likes onions.”

Donkey, (voice provided by comedian Eddie Murphy,) could not have put it more succinctly.  “You know, not everybody likes onions…” which leads me to a commentary on the state of British Petroleum‘s unfathomable lack of quality damage control.  TOO MANY LAYERS!

History is by no means short of man-made disasters provided to us by large corporations that subsequently fell completely flat on their faces trying to deal with them.  BP’s latest fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico will surely go down in the books as another huge blunder.

FACTS:

1. On March 23rd, BP CEO Tony Hayward gave a speech claiming,  “Five years ago on this day, fifteen people died and many more were injured, when an explosion tore through our Texas City refinery. That tragic accident has changed in a profound and fundamental way our approach to safety and operations integrity — providing a safe working environment is a paramount responsibility, and our first and foremost priority.”
2. April 20th, 2010, the offshore deep sea drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, explodes killing 11 workers, and beginning an oil spill that is “guestimated” to be between 5,000 and 70,000 gallons of crude oil per day.
3. As of May 24th, 2010, more that 30 days since the spilling began…it has not been stopped.  We can build the largest buildings in the world.  Massive suspension bridges.  The Hoover Dam!  We can’t stop this oil spill.  What’s worse is we didn’t have something completely fail-safe in place.
4. Earlier in May, Tony Hayward was interviewed NBC‘s Today Show and said, “It wasn’t our accident, but we are absolutely responsible for the oil, for cleaning it up, and that’s what we intend to do,” in an attempt to try to shift some of the blame for the disaster on to Transocean Ltd., which owned and operated the rig.  We are not on the playground here Tony!  It is your oil, and you hired them.
5. Today, May 25th, a CBS News poll showed 70% of Americans disapproving of how BP has handled the oil spill crisis.
6. BP CEO, Hayward continues to claim that BP’s response to the crisis has been “extraordinary”.  But has it been enough