1. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Attentio Blog entries Social Media and Traditional Marketing with Attentio Booklet 1 of 5 Written while employed for Attentio SA 23 Rue de Fleurs B-1000 Brussels, Belgium Market intelligence. Real-time. Contact: Linda Margaret Phone +32 479622347 Linda.broughton@gmail.com TM 1

2. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Table of contents 1.Social Media Marketing and Traditional Marketing 1.Why Monitor Online Buzz? To avoid multiple choice marketing 2009/04/07.............................................................................3-4 2.How to manage Brand reputation online or Why monitor a Brand online? 2009/04/01............................................................................5 3.Where does WOM come from? 2008/09/17............................6-7 4.Marketing and Money 2008/08/25............................................8-9 5.WOMM. Simplified. 2008/08/11................................................11-12 6.Competing with traditional marketing is just not necessary 2008/07/29...12 7.Complement your consumers 2008/07/16.................................13 8.How to measure your market and make more than a momentary mint 2008/06/18..............................................................................14-15 9.Pitch my market 2008/05/22....................................................16-17 10.Celebrity Executive Officers 2008/05/05....................................18 11.Tracking Trends 2008/04/21......................................................19 12.Culturing the online community 2008/04/16.............................20 13.Getting into bed...and staying there 2008/03/23........................21 14.Spinning "Spin“2008/03/18.......................................................22 15.Infectious Ads 2008/01/31.........................................................23-24 16.Marketing makes sales 2008/01/30............................................25 17.Say it, don't spray it 2008/01/25.................................................26-27 18.The Media's Medium 2008/01/17...............................................28 19.Selling your facts 2008/01/15......................................................29-30 2.Additional Booklets for...........................................................................31 1.Industry Examples 2.Social Media and Search, Blogs, Forums, Twitter, casual gaming, and social networking 3.Health 2.0 Marketing Online 4.Online Culture: the European Union and the United States 2

3. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Why monitor online Buzz? To avoid multiple choice marketing 2009/04/07 Yesterday, to practice my French, I agreed to be interviewed for a traditional marketing survey. The survey was simple. A beverage Brand is considering a new package, a new can. The Brand wants to appeal to a younger audience (represented by me at age 26). The new packaging is a tall, slender can, a la the Red Bull can. The marketer interviewing me wanted to know my opinion about the new packaging. The marketer's interview went like so: Is this can trendy? A. Yes, very, B. Yes, rather, C. No opinion, D. No, not much, E. No, not at all Is this can attractive? A. Yes, very, B. Yes, rather, C. No opinion, D. No, not much, E. No, not at all And so on... Before long, I was irritated. As an interviewee and a consumer, I felt stereotyped and, worse, patronised. First of all, from just looking at the "new" packaging, I KNEW the Brand wanted to be the next Red Bull. But Red Bull, as my fellow youthful consumers will no doubt agree, is about more than just "trendy" and "attractive" packaging. (What is "trendy" and "attractive" anyway? At 26, I know what I think of as trendy and attractive. But the marketer interviewing me was in her 50s.) At no time within the interview was I allowed to express my irritation or actual sentiments regarding the Brand's new package or the Brand itself. Instead, I had predefined choices A to E. I had to decide whether I would give the "expected answers" about what the marketer thought I thought about the new Brand packaging (and, yes, we over-studied and over- stereotyped youthful consumers know EXACTLY what the expected answers are, especially when dictated to us, er, rather me, by a 50 year- old-woman who reminded me of my mother) or whether I could try to express my frustration with how the survey was packaged via answer C. (No opinion). 3

4. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Why monitor online Buzz? To avoid multiple choice marketing 2009/04/07 I and my fellow consumers have been inundated by such traditional marketing since the womb. And we know what these marketers really want. Like politicians, these marketers want your money and support (in that order). They don't really want your opinion. And while packaging is indeed an aspect of a Brand, I know when I'm being sold a "cool" copycat. A cool copycat is something that is the same old substance packaged in a "new" style "borrowed" from the latest trend to do well. And, despite appearances, a copycat is not cool. That's why I'm shocked that this type of traditional marketing survey is still used. It's ineffective, stereotypical, and can be perceived as patronising. The answers that the consumers give to traditional marketing surveys may be true, but they are not accurate. The survey costs a lot of money but earns very little real consumer insight or engagement. If anything, I will be less likely to buy the copycat Brand because I was first asked for anwers and then more or less ignored. Now for the real answers. Brands should be plugged into social media. Consumers there explain what they like and why, and they don't and won't do it within the traditional boundaries of A to E. These days, Consumers can and do create their own parameters when evaluating the Brand. They share these parameters with fellow consumers, constructing real-time, real word discussions about what they like and why they like, and also what they don't like and why. There are millions of Brand insights offered freely online, and a million opportunities to engage with customers and find out what they really think. Like, for example, that copycats are NOT trendy and attractive. 4

5. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com How to manage Brand reputation online or Why monitor a Brand online? 2009/04/01 Social media makes Brand reputation management impractical and yet absolutely necessary. A Brand's reputation is at the mercy of the media online. It is impossible to spin every single story someone posts about a Brand. And it's also not smart. Trying to hide or withhold information undermines consumer trust. Consumers WILL find out any story that a brand tries to suppress, and these consumers WILL decide that either A) the Brand team did not know something that it should have or B) the Brand team tried to take advantage of the consumers' erstwhile ignorance. Neither of these conclusions reached by consumer are good for the Brand or the Brand team. Instead, Brands online need to engage with their consumer communities and work to establish Trust. With social media, Trust is an investment that develops over time into a sustainable, social relationship between the Brand and the Brand's consumers. That's why the Brand HAS to manage, or rather monitor, its online reputation. The Brand has to know what's being said where and how. The Brand can't spin all its own stories, but it can respond to those stories that are spun--if the Brand team is paying attention. Attentio software offers Brand teams the "ears" and "eyes" needed to monitor and manage a Brand's reputation online. The software's sources span blogs, forums, news, and online video channels like YouTube and DailyMotion. Sign up, log in, and start listening. 5

6. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Where does WOM come from? 2008/09/17 As an analyst, I am interested in how people access information. House House is a particular cross-border favorite. The drama features the British actor Hugh Laurie as a sarcastic curmudgeon who also happens to be a brilliant doctor. Laurie plays the infamous Dr. House of the drama’s title. Each episode follows House and his team of diagnosticians as they pursue the cause and then the cure of an obscure disease. Viewers are attracted to the show by the drama’s colorful characters, but viewers leave each episode, buzz suggests, with more than just a sense of having been entertained. Viewers leave with information. Viewers leave with information about possible medical conditions, medical procedures, and medical knowledge. Viewers leave, ultimately, with modified expectations about what kind of health care they can and should expect for their family, friends, and themselves. I enjoy the idea of an American medical drama starring a British theater actor influencing Spanish and Dutch ideas of modern medicine. As an analyst, I also enjoy following the medications and procedures introduced, and watching the online buzz coalesce around specific ideas and procedures. I am interested to see how this is going to interact with the new options available to the European health care consumers and producers. 6

7. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Where does WOM come from? 2008/09/17 As an analyst, I am interested in how people access information. My focus is social media. And my geographical location is Europe. But I can’t limit my study of how information is accessed to either of these facts. I’d miss too much. I’d lose insights into what makes buzz valuable. As discussed in earlier blogs, offline events impact online buzz. For example, word-of-mouth in English is limited to neither a national nor a linguistic audience. blogs My most recent research into buzz and its origins has been in the realm of TV medical dramas. Why? A European Union proposed directive may open up the European market for medical goods and services. According to the Directive, an EU citizen will soon be able to mail order or even travel to another EU state to purchase a medical good or service. European health care consumers are encouraged to do this when in need of a medical good or service that they feel is not available or not adequately provided in their own state. The EU citizen’s home health policy must then reimburse the citizen for the cost of the procedure and the price of related medications. This at the same time that marketing regulations are changingdirective Citizens in the EU will have more choices when it comes to individual health care. But how will they know about all the different options available to them in medical care? In reading more and more forums and blogs, I noticed that the ideas and information accessed by potential cross-border European health care consumers came from (largely United States produced) medical dramas. House House is a particular cross-border favorite. The drama features the British actor Hugh Laurie as a sarcastic curmudgeon who also happens to be a brilliant doctor. Laurie plays the infamous Dr. House of the drama’s title. Each episode follows House and his team of diagnosticians as they pursue the cause and then the cure of an obscure disease. Viewers are attracted to the show by the drama’s colorful characters, but viewers leave each episode, buzz suggests, with more than just a sense of having been entertained. Viewers leave with information. Viewers leave with information about possible medical conditions, medical procedures, and medical knowledge. Viewers leave, ultimately, with modified expectations about what kind of health care they can and should expect for their family, friends, and themselves. I enjoy the idea of an American medical drama starring a British theater actor influencing Spanish and Dutch ideas of modern medicine. As an analyst, I also enjoy following the medications and procedures introduced, and watching the online buzz coalesce around specific ideas and procedures. I am interested to see how this is going to interact with the new options available to the European health care consumers and producers. 7

8. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Marketing and Money 2008/08/25 Was it Milton Friedman that said that there are four types of spending? 1. Spend your money on you. This makes the spender cautious--interested in acheiving an individual ratio of cost versus value. You want a nice car that you like to drive but that doesn't break your budget in gas bills. This is where the consumer gets the best ROI, return on investment, because the consumer dictates the value of a purchased good or service. 2. Spend other people's money on you. Now the spender can be a bit less concerned with price and more concerned with quality (or status). You can blow a bit more cash on a nice car if your parents promise to cover the insurance. Not such great ROI for the spender, but a lot of fun (or at least less cost anxiety) for the person that ultimately consumes the purchase. 3. Spend your money on other people. Do you buy Grandma a piece of jewelry or a nice sweater? What if it's for your girlfriend? For Valentine's Day? After a fight? The logistics involved in this question merit a certain amount of cost/value math modified for the person on whom you're spending the money as well as the reason why. ROI can be hard to judge here. As a consumer, Grandma may get a lot more satisfaction out of a sweater than a diamond ring, but the ROI on a ring for your girlfriend may make you, the spender, happier. 4. Spend other people's money on other people. This is where a spender generally wastes the most money and gets the worst returns. This is why a lot of government spending is notorious-there is too much cash with not enough accountability or consumer satisfaction. If, as some studies suggest, the United States economy spends close to 11.3 billion dollars on health care yet some 47 million Americans, 16 percent of the population and growing, are uninsured and unable to access satisfactory, much less appropriate care, one has to wonder where the money is going.ome studies16 percent of the population 8

9. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Marketing and Money 2008/08/25 Number 4 is also where marketers get stuck. They spend corporate cash on campaigns geared towards nebulous customer niches. Measuring the returns on some of this marketing can be difficult. Are consumers happier because they are consuming more? Or is a brand better off because consumers are more appreciative of the corporation's reputation and sense of civic sponsorship? How to tell? Measure online buzz. Most online communities attract like-minded individuals. These communities congregate around topics, ideas, events and even brands that interest them. They talk about these initial community interests, but they also discuss other issues of importance to them. For example, an online community built on interests in individual health and lifestyle will inevitably discuss favoured lifestyle trends and diets. Measuring and monitoring the buzz produced by these communities allows producers to anticipate the needs and desires of their customer niches. It lets them measure the possible returns on marketing before launching a campaign, identify where to launch the campaign and attract the most relevant and most reactive consumer audience. Lastly, after launching a campaign, monitoring and measuring online buzz can demonstrate how the buzz picks up and reacts to the campaign. Listening to buzz lets a marketer know whether Grandma would buy herself a sweater if she had the cash or a diamond ring. It lets a marketer know not only whenand why the girlfriend wants the ring, but how big, how many carats, and with what setting. Online buzz puts a marketer as close to the market as s/he can be by letting the consumer dictate the best way to spend corporate cash and get real, measurable reactions (and returns) from consumers. 9

10. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com WOMM. Simplified. 2008/08/11 There is a lot of WOM about WOMM these days. A study published by JupiterResearch suggests that advertisers under- spend on social media marketing. BuzzAgent has been stung by some bloggers for its recent campaigns to "prove" how WOMM works in social media. Advertisers complain that there are too many possible social media and other types of online outlets and no proof that any of these are especially effective.JupiterResearch stung complain Social media marketing, online WOMM, etc. is much like any marketing concept. It is an extension, not an alternative, to traditional advertising, market research, and PR. Successful communication with clients and stakeholders, along with customer engagement is as limited in methods of communication as are its customers. Customers, clients, and stakeholders are online, generating social media as well as other forms of online content, so advertisers and marketers are too. And determining how to listen to and engage with different groups online is as multifaceted as it is offline. Online content and strategic involvement runs the market research and advertising gamut, from online focus groups to online billboards. Social media, however, is something different. For example: SynthetronSynthetron, a neighbour or ours, identifies stakeholders and uses online formats to create targeted stakeholder conversations around an important issue. How? Synthetron first selects stakeholders for a study. Stakeholders must have an interest and a desire to impact a certain conversation. Invitation-only online discussions are then used to create an open forum for stakeholders to dialogue. Individual stakeholders included in a study remain anonymous; their ideas and concerns do not. This sort of online stakeholder forum aggregates and evaluates relevant stakeholder WOM, rather than target individual complaints and concerns. To me, it sounds like an online focus group, one in which stakeholders are invited rather than solicited. It permits incentivized stakeholders to be heard as a group without being hurt as an individual. 10

11. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com WOMM. Simplified. 2008/08/11 BuzzAgent is criticized for soliciting content in the manner of a traditional marketing focus group. As with any solicitation, the individuals solicited do not offer their information for free. They are not concerned stakeholders but paid informants--the information that they offer is rarely given for free. These individual informants want something for their time--free samples, extra influence, or face time with an influencer. This is not a new way of collecting ideas, and it can be quite useful in understanding why people are or are not discussing a particular brand or product. Focus groups can help stimulate conversation and generate new ideas. Holding a focus group online or offline involves parallel benefits and risks. Individuals can fib in person as well as in email. And then there’s social media. Conversation. Buzz. Creating a WOMM campaign online is not all that different from creating a WOMM campaign offline. But the means of measuring WOM online are more exact. That’s what the Attentio software targets. Attentio does not solicit online content. Attentio measures and monitors spontaneous buzz as it emerges online. The tools size a social media conversation and measure it in comparison with other conversations. What generates more buzz, pharmaceuticals or automotives? In which online media are cars more popular, blogs or forums? Within the automotive conversation, do people talk more about Opel or Toyota? Do they discuss car design or price more? Attentio monitors the conversation around certain topics as new government regulations are implemented or tax systems are changed or general social opinion turns from red to blue. These trends show up online in numbers that can be quantified and, with a little analysis, qualified. Unsolicited, self-identified stakeholder/client/consumer/producer conversation filed and displayed for anyone interested in a particular market. Knowing buzz numbers help a marketer—traditional, innovative, online, offline—plan an effective and efficient campaign. Knowing the buzz from social media lets a marketer know if a focus group might be useful, or a stakeholder discussion necessary, or an offline sale worthwhile. It is not a means of marketing; it’s a means of measuring the market and determining how to best engage. 11

12. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Competing with traditional marketing is just not necessary 2008/07/29 Buzz Agency is looking to compare (compete?) WOM with traditional media through a "WOM Impact Guarantee" programme. The challenge requires a 300,000 US dollar investment in both traditional and word-of- mouth media. If WOM doesn't outbase traditional competitors across four brand metrics--brand awareness, consumer opinion, purchase intent and actual sales, BzzAgent promises to refund the marketer the full cost of the campaign.programme Maybe its because we're Brussels based--and what is the EU if not a conglomerate of co-creation and (sometimes over-extended) collaboration?--but we just don't know if this kind of competition is necessary. WOM and traditional media complement; they don't compete. Successful media campaigns look to integrate traditional media and word- of-mouth, not to separate or isolate the results. We measure mainstream media trends at the same time we meausure social media trends here. Comparisons demonstrate the efficacy of both WOM and traditional campaigns, as well as where the interests of both intersect. Analysis suggests which consumer profiles finds which types of media campaign most appealing. This is the objective of online co-creation and collaboration. Allowing PR firms to create more effective and integrated campaigns that combine both traditional and WOM. Each industry, brand, product, and service requires campaigns modeled to suit the interests of the clients and the consumers--there is no one size fits all marketing campaign. The concept of the long tail is that more effective marketing money is spent on more receptive markets. WOM is definitely a strong aspect in this, but WOM itself is multifaceted. What creates buzz and generate conversation is never easy to predict, but with the right tools and a little time, PR Agencies use software to analyse what works for clients or consumer and what doesn't. A lasting market is an environment in which consumers and producers look to establish long-term relationships. A market is collaborative. Shouldn't marketing be too? 12

13. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Complement your consumers 2008/07/16 We often see things the way we’ve seen things. And we talk about things the way we’ve talked about things. Conversations are a reflection of reality. People go online to converse. They reconstruct and share their opinions of real world concepts, products, brands, and services. More and more, the online world is an evolving reflection of the offline world’s perceptions. Traditional marketing generates surveys and sponsors “opinion polls”. Traditional marketing depends upon samples of consumers willing to dedicate time and thought to questions and ideas carefully presented to them by corporate mouthpieces with an obvious agenda. This isn’t a bad way to go about collecting opinion, but it is limited. First, marketers must find individuals willing to respond, and then craft polls in such a way as to bypass predictable answers. Ultimately, the marketer risks pursuing topics chosen by the corporation or its representatives and not the consumer. How to address this limitation? Complement the offline research with online engagement: social media. Online conversations are a marketer’s every desire. Online conversations are real opinions, spontaneous discussions, and individually initiated networks and communities of clients, customers and potential customers. These netizens share information, opinions, and recommendations. And all this is recorded and stored forever on the Internet. The only issue then becomes finding it, measuring it, and monitoring the buzz for trends. Trends online can initiate offline surveys or validate a virtual or real world marketing campaign. 13

14. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com How to measure your market and make more than a momentary mint 2008/06/18 There are two central concerns in online marketing: creating attractive content and distributing that content effectively. Both factors are dependent upon the industry, product or service and the relevant online market. Rather, both factors require an accurate Q2 (quantified and qualified) assessment of said market. To address both factors, one needs a Q2 evaluation of the social media surrounding the target market. Content is three dimensional. It should be visual, viral, and current. Good content is visually appealing to one's clients or consumers. The content must be viral in that the information is info that the consumers wish to share--it must infect the individual's network and not just the individual. Current content is essential. Studies emphasise that WOM (word of mouth) in the chaotic market that is online social media has a "sensitive dependence on initial conditions".sensitive dependence on initial conditions That is, change one letter in the address bar and one's entire audience is new. Current content combines the past and the present. Current content knows the real time concerns and considerations as well as the history of the immediate trends. Current content connects the initial "sensitive dependencies" to the modern market. It is that connection and timely awareness, cleverly and creatively communicated, that makes worthy content viral. And zing, you've just infected a network of interested individuals, aka customers, clients, your market. 14

15. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com How to measure your market and make more than a momentary mint 2008/06/18 But wait. Content requires effective distribution. Despite the chaos of the online market, or perhaps due to this chaos, esoteric communities and networks specialising in equally valid content remain entirely sealed off from one another. In quantum physics, this phenomenom of multiple realities is called the multiverse. In business, it's called redundant. Successful distribution online is also three dimensional. Successful distribution needs to be authoritative, influential, and proactive. The distributor should have intimate knowledge of her market. Her authority should be obvious in her engagement with the online community. Distribution needs to be influential. The method of distribution must be broad, connecting several different networks and always searching for additional networks to add to the growing spiderweb of interconnectivity. This is why all distribution must be proactive, soliciting potential clients to access the content that will influence and create new markets. 15

16. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Pitch my market 2008/05/22 I've been doing some demos with the software recently, and I've come up with a general pitch that seems to appeal to our clients. I want to post it here, hoping for feedback on my powers of communication. Attentio is a personalised (or rather, industrialised and/or corporate) media manager. Acting as a filing system of all online content, Attentio organises and stores information as it is created in the Internet. It's one stop-shopping for all the information that you need, organised by source, subject, language, country, etc. For example, Attentio's tools note that MySpace is outstripping Facebook in overall popularity in forums and blogs, but Facebook users are more well-rounded than MySpace users. People that talk about Facebook also talk about books, movies, and Facebook's notorious privacy policy. MySpace posters tend to be less finicky about their privacy policies and more excited about music and cds. LinkedIn professionals, who prioritise privacy, are increasingly visible in the Spanish and French language blogosphere. LinkedIn's Facebook tool is also picking up in popularity as the first Facebook generation graduates from socialising to networking. All this Attentio presents in lovely graphs that allow you to clickthrough to access the content that's been filed for you. There's a joke that says the difference between business and economics is that business treats money as finite. The more money one person has, the less others are able to obtain. Economists know money is man-made, just like markets. Man-made markets are why social networks are online media superstars these days. MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and the like have bottled up beaucoups de potential markets. Individuals involved in the networks connect over common interests. These wants and desires are all bottled up online, waiting for some entrepreneurial genie to grant the multitude its mass of group wishes.

17. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Pitch my market 2008/05/22 The information in these networks is posted for free. The trick, as in any business, is managing the information. Monitoring and measuring the trends and receiving up to date details about what the people in the networks are discussing and why. Market researchers can waste hours every day searching for every article that mentions their markets or potential markets. Or they can use Attentio software. Where there is consumer will, there is a consumer market. And the success of any market lies in identifying the consumers, letting them know that they constitute a market, and organising their demands to meet your supply. Or is it the other way round? Either way, this is stuff any economist or business person needs to know.

18. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Celebrity Executive Officers 2008/05/05 Larry Ellison,Larry Ellison, the chief executive at Oracle, pulled in a cool 92 million pounds in exercised stock earnings in addition to salary last year. Howard D. Schultz, CEO of Starbucks scored a salary plus stock options that topped 50 million pounds. AC Milan's KakaAC Milan's Kaka is expected to gross (only?) 7.5 million pounds this year, and chances are the aforementioned chief executives will be spending more time at the top of their careers than the footballer. Physical ability tends to peak at some point, while CEO salaries...don't. It's a competitive corporate market, and CEOs are the new celebrities. These demigods of commerce are usually made up of a face, a known name, and a paycheck that sparks shareholder controversy.shareholder controversy Studies suggest that the share value of a company can be correlated to the "value" of its chief executive officer. This is part of what nailed Nardelli, the highly criticised former CEO of Home Depot. Yet despite Nardelli's short, less than shiny record at the head of that somewhat shaky ship, the man got a sweet send-off to the tune of 210 million US dollars, over 106 million pounds. Now that is heavy censorship.nailed Nardellisomewhat shaky ship CEOs are more and more the superstar, scapegoat, and celebrity of the modern corporation. They trade in trust and infamy, linking their own reputations to the firms they represent. A lot of the value of a CEO is tied up in his visibility. One has to wonder, who's the buzziest of the big business men, and in relation to which topics? And just how is that affecting share price? Or company brands and products? At Attentio, measurement is underway...

19. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Tracking Trends 2008/04/21 In trekking through the Internet, one looks for peaks from which to survey the landscape. It's a bustling and bewildering bombardment of information. Isolating a trend can seem impossible. You know you're not alone, but how to connect the scattered conversations that talk about your topics? Fear not, weary trend trackers. Trendpedia is here. Attentio has just created a peak for pinpointing the Buzz that you want to see. Trendpedia is a search engine that tracks social media trends throughout the European blogosphere. It's free, it's fun and it can be a bit prophetic.Trendpedia Consider this trendConsider this trend: There's talk of an EU President, a leader to rally the tribes of the European continent. The name that keeps popping up is the former Prime Minister of the UK, Tony Blair. His Buzz trendline on Trendpedia eerily echoes the trendline of the potential position. The two lines are moving closer and closer together. Could this be a match? Or this trendOr this trend: Out of the current lady soloists working their way up in the WOM (word- of-mouth) online, Yael Naim, the international Israeli-French vocalist swept the Palmarès Victoires de la musique 2008, and Leona Lewis got a number of nods at the Brit Music Awards 2008. But the real consistent crooner creating Buzz is the up and coming Welsh singer Duffy. She's belted out a few ballads that are attracting a European wide audience on the radios and online.Yael NaimLeona LewisDuffy

20. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Culturing the online community 2008/04/16 Things have been busy here at Attentio, limiting my time to blog. I've been reading blogs and forums, however, and I'm fascinated by the evolving cultures. Blogs range from introspective to soapboxing--blogs are just more personal and thus more political. People blog to tell you something. People participate in forums to discover something. They exchange experiences, advice and information. People on forums share. I'm researching more and more to the differenences in these online cultures. It's noticable more and more that online, expertise is not enough. People want experience to validate that expertise. Consumers today are suspicious of a news culture that vibrates between journalism and "churnalism", that is, journalists that spend hours reading public relations releases and "churning" the information presented into news stories. People turn to blogs and forums to find out which news to credit and which news to ignore.churnalism On that note, I'm glad to say that Attentio is once again teaming up with Emakina Academy, experts at mixing social media and PR with an impact, for another conference in Gent this Thursday. With Attentio's measurement and monitoring tools and Emakina's expertise, we're exploring the capacity for social media to create long-lasting and valuable relationships between consumers, brands, and products. Emakina Academy

21. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Getting into bed...and staying there 2008/03/23 Attentio pairs with Emakina, the largest interactive agency in Belgium, for conferences to educate Belgian marketers about the power of social media. The first conference this past Friday went well--Emakina's always attractive slides were especially "sexy", the market "mot" of the moment.Emakinamot Literally sexy. Emakina began the explanation of social media with an old PR Joke: If you see a beautiful woman at a bar, and you want to sleep with her, you have two options. One, approach her yourself and say, "Hey, I'm good in bed." Two, send a friend (preferably female) to give you a good-in-bed review. Chances are, the less direct method is more effective. Women tend to trust reputations rather than declarations. Call us cautious. This analogy seeks to describe the difference between direct marketing and social marketing. From that point forward, Emakina's slides made social media out to be the attractive, feminine audience buzzing at a mixer. Potential dates and consumers all comparing notes on their plans for weekend outings and possible purchases. Companies, Emakina suggested, could go in aggressively like the ancient cave men--or, in the very poignant Emakina slide, chauvanistic karate kids--and start a fight with the ladies. Emakina intelligently suggested that this approach is not wise. Cut to a slide of two women practicing judo. In light of earlier discussion, this was an apt metaphor. Instead of working against the women, slide into the discussion, listen to what they have to say, and use your own expertise and knowledge (and importantly, your new listening skills) to really contribute to the conversation. Be masculine but not machisto. Demonstrate commitment and credibility, not just expertise. Don't taunt, but rather tango (another slide) with the clientele. After some doubtful moments of intermittent feminism, I decided the metaphor was okay. After all, it puts the power in its proper place, with the clientele. After all, as the producer in the relationship, the company always wants to sell, rather like most men, let's face it, consistently want something else. But they only get what they want when the consumer, or the lady, decides she wants it too.

22. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Spinning "Spin“2008/03/18 Let's be honest. Spin is essential to a Brand’s reputation. While it may have a poor reputation, spin is not the sadistic misuse of naive consumer content. Consumers are far from naive, if their content has anything to say about it. Spin recognizes that while you can’t be in control of the content, you can impact where the content is going. Spin is listening to what consumers say online and responding with the targeted information that consumers want. Spin is putting a positive twist on UGC (user generated content). Successful spin keeps the big players on the court and in the game. (Just ask the NBA sultan of spin and former Rookie of the year, Chris Paul). Spin is about more than balls--you have to be a team player. Monitoring and managing spin is important in the uber market created by the worldwide web. Successful Brands and Companies engage with consumers online rather than lose influence in the conversation.Chris Paul They listen to the user generated content (UGC), evaluate the impact on their brand, and spin the results back to the consumer. If the spin has merit, the consumer content will receive the spin. The consumer will play with it. If the spin doesn't respond to the UGC, if it’s strictly the company talking to itself—well, a bad spin in the social media can spiral out of control.bad spin

23. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Infectious Ads 2008/01/31 The US Superbowl is this Sunday. Advocacy groups can't wait. Last year, General Motors featured a suicidal robot in its 60 second 5 million dollar ad. The robot's portrayal of mental health offended a loud percentage of viewers. This prompted the huge corporation to publicly apologise to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for its distasteful machinations.General Motors Snickers Snickers featured two masculine auto mechanics that shared a moment of physical intimacy over a candy bar. After realising their "mistake", they attempted to out-compete each other in displays of stereotypical masculinity. They pulled out their chest hair. This insensitive portrayal of chauvinistic male pride offended the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group. Mars sincerely apologised only days after the ad aired. Online viral videos--that is, user made or modified or just uploaded video content--generates huge audiences, and even its own content. Note the viral videos spiraling through the blogosphere for Nike. The brand showcased commercials featuring the hip hop basketball free stylings of streetball unknowns. Students, B-ball fans, and online netizens flocked to the YouTube and the search video sites to watch the show again and again. There were no famous celebs, no hulking (highly-paid) professional athletes. Just a bunch of kids and a ball in nicely woven montages that generated more wall-paper/screen-saver madness than ever before seen. People commented on and tried to copy the videos using their own computer equipment and inspired skills.commercials Ads today aren't made for a small space of air time. Like the French ad art nouveau posters from the early 1900s, ads today are cultural icons. They are copied, modified and re-spun, carrying the Brand, Product, or Name along with them into the virtual homes, hearts, and minds of millions of online viewers. They elicit comment and commentary. Pundits mention the most memorable in news and spoofs, both on and offline. Marketeers can find themselves prolonging pain or profit through the creation of one noteworthy 30 second video spiel.

24. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Infectious Ads 2008/01/31 On the other end of the spectrum of the GM debacle, in the 2007 Superbowl spectators gave Nationwide insurance an extra 24 million dollars into unpaid media exposure, according to USA Today estimates. Nationwide featured the infamous Kevin Federline as a wannabe rapper working at a fast food restaurant. The National Restaurant Association trade group complained, but their bickering earned the general amusement of the public rather than supportive condemnation. What had been a short commercial in a long line-up of expensively packaged product teasers suddenly became a national sensation. Online, people posted the ad to their webpages. On YouTube, uploaded versions received over 600,000 views.Kevin Federline This year, family, female, and gay rights advocates are already stocking up on potato chips and broadband in anticipation of a new line up of expensive commercials. One isn't exactly sure what to expect. Sure, the Superbowl is a family event, but advertisers know its not the acceptable ads that generate the additional free revenue. Advocate groups are equally aware that platforms for controversy are great marketing tools. As the two sides martial millions of spectators around the television, both may be hoping for a memorable post-season play-off.

25. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Marketing makes sales 2008/01/30 The traditional corporate model places a high premium on sales. In fact, industry sectors sometimes complain that salesmen and women push systems and merchandise that haven't been created yet. The favourite Dilbert commercial shows the hapless IT guy complaining to a sales guy, "you sold a system that won't be invented for the next two years! What do you think that means?" The sales guy replies, "it means that I'm a fantastic salesman and you are a terrible engineer!“ Where this is the case, the company's reputation is at risk. As competition heats up and the rush to force early systems adoption slows down, even monoliths like Microsoft begin to emphasise compatibility. This means that the sales guy that promises a product not yet on the market will be known as a hack rather than a hot-shot.Microsoft Salespeople (like politicians) are quickly becoming the menace of the marketing world when they promise products that don't deliver. Online, the social media results of these transactions can unravel expensive and carefully planned marketing campaigns. Consumers go to the web to vet a potential purchase--this goes for individual shoppers as well as corporate customers. Complaints and compliments are out there online. They are accessible, accessed, and more and more used in assessing a potential purchase. This is where marketers salvage the purchasing power that many over- enthusiastic salespersons spin out of control. Marketers collect the complaints and the compliments, pinpoint the issues, and repackage the relevant information where clients and customers can access it--without suffering the innate suspicion experienced by any person undergoing a sales routine. Marketers online have renewed power, if they have the technology and skill to access it.

26. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Say it, don't spray it 2008/01/25 Presidential candidates in the US race have spent a mere five percent of their campaign money online. Yet this five percent, "experts" argue, may prove to be the most effective money spent swaying undecided voters. Candidates can geo-politically target potential voters with information that is judged to be of immediate concern to the voter's profile. CNN reports that if a Democratic candidate discusses a penalising tax for SUV drivers on a morning TV show in Ohio, GeoVoter technology can identify all the SUV drivers in the area of the show's broadcast. Within hours of the show's production, a Republican campaign can send each of these drivers an email designed to pique the interest (and, it is assumed, the anxiety) of these potential voters.GeoVoter The Internet is an amazingly well-informed "invisible hand" that marketeers and their companies (or candidates) are increasingly adept at manipulating. But does this really mean that they manipulate the market? I would argue that we haven't quite come to that, and perhaps never will. Internet use is increasing apace, and studies demonstrate that more and more people spend time surfing the web. (This is probably a byproduct of the fact that few jobs allow employees to leave their computer space during the course of the work day. Even the guy who runs my gym spends 60 percent of his work time at his desk. And I suspect he is not looking at the spreadsheets covering the expense of the gym equipment--at least not the whole time.)studies Further studies (and there are always further studies) determine that most surfers are looking at content, not receiving or sending information. Being an avoider of email myself, I can identify with this. People are not paying a lot of attention to the arrows that the advertisers send to their inboxes. For most of us, it's all we can do to peruse the email from the people we care about, much less the people that care about us (or our money/vote, etc.).content What's a poor marketeer to do?

27. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Say it, don't spray it 2008/01/25 Target the content, not the consumer. Consumers look at content, consumers love content. They seek it out. They do not seek out emails, or sms, or targeted advertising. Quite the opposite in fact. Know your consumer, your voter, okay. Know what they like to read, watch, and listen to online. Then put the add or the information there. Let people discover what they want to care about rather than tell them what their consumer/voter profile tells them they should care about. Anybody in the virtual world or the real world can report that profiling is far from popular these days, most especially by those that are profiled. This is still targeted advertising. But it targets content, a far less threatening concept to most consumers. No one wants to be a target, especially for technologically guided SPAM designed to conform to your profile. Consumers personally engage with content, they duck impersonal bullet points. The most effective marketeer is the one that engages in return.

28. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com The Media's Medium 2008/01/17 Every marketeer needs a medium. Social media is a vast and growing landscape. It is so difficult to know all of social media, the abyss being so wide it is hard to see the bottom. Because of this marketeers need their W.H. Russell, their man in the trenches, up close and interviewing the parties most concerned with a particular industry in a certain market. Russell, the Irish Times reporter, wrote the interviews and the war stories that inspired one of Tennyson's greatest poems. The words of which used a suicide charge to market the chivalry and sentiment of English valour to middle- class Victorians with immense success.Russell Russell wrote good stories, accurate stories because he went where few reporters had thought to go. He went to the hospitals and he interviewed the men. He traveled to the battlefields and took accounts from the common soldiers as well as the officers. Russell was the best kind of social analyst, specialised in knowledge of his audience and expertise of his media. Russell was the medium of the war machine that was the British army, and as a result of his analysis, politicians, physicians, scientists, industry experts, and poets were able to alter the way that their markets perceived war, and even society.physicianspoets The role of any successful analyst is expertise. It is that expertise that enables a marketeer to craft the campaigns that are most effective. Politicians and industry experts today have a lot of information and (hopefully) sufficient wisdom to know that information of any kind requires analysis to be meaningful, to be effective. This role is something still carried out in the trenches, but not the trenches of the geographical landscape today so much as the infinite highways and byways of the net. Markets voice their concerns and audiences acquire a character through their social media. Knowing where to look, what to measure and who to believe is the realm of the social media analyst. The best analysis makes the best pitch possible, and the best pitch can turn a terrible mistake into a call to arms.

29. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Selling your facts 2008/01/15 Transparency is an Internet Buzz word these days. Any curious kid with access to a search engine can price shop, product compare, and peruse quailty reviews with a few clicks. All this leads some to believe the Internet has somehow empowered the consumer, putting them in charge of finding the best of whatever they want for the best price. Any lies will be routed by the power of the social media! All false promises will be exposed! The masses will not rest until their voices are heard! The truly democratic media has arrived. But anyone who's lived in a democracy knows it has very little to do with transparency. Transparency is a myth. Bias is ubiquitous. Just read Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. Decisions are frequently the result of a steady exposure to whatever cultural cocktail makes up your daily diet of sight, sound, taste and touch. You know what you know because somebody told it to you. Maybe not in words, but your ideas were communicated to you by your environment in some capacity. Blonde is beautiful. Tall is powerful. Red is tasty.BlinkTall is powerfulRed is tasty What does this mean? Consumers are culturally biased. They are not necessarily in control of what they think. Consumers believe what sounds right, and the facts, the multitude of facts found via the Internet, can usually agree with them, in sight and sound if not in words. Because as much as consumers online may value transparency, its the packaging that they buy.

30. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Selling your facts 2008/01/15 Let me explain. One of the most ubiquitous biases in all attractive Western media these days is the athlete--the lean, sculpted, healthy body dedicated to the pursuit of sport. In the age of the sedentary office lifestyle, practicing sport is a passionate past-time that is reflected in any successful advertising campaign. T Think of the popular Mazda6 campaign only two months ago. Acrobats flipping and flying around a sexy speeding car. As a product, a car may be far from aerobic (consumers can't burn calories pressing a gas peddle). But the fastest selling cars in all the European markets are the "sportiest". A car can be efficient, economic, eco-friendly (another contradiction in cultural understanding) and rank high in consumer-reviewed online blogs, but it is the "sporty" vehicle that draws the consumer's eye and subsequent word of mouth. Yes, we even describe it to each other in our cultural lexicon. The Fiat drives like a sports car. The Kia c'eed has a "sporty wagon" to carry all the buyer's potential athletic equipment (rather than groceries).like a sports carsporty wagon Logically, consumers know that not since the Flintstones have cars required athletic stamina, but our subconscious is so inundated with the importance of sport that we will gravitate towards the illusion. Marketeers are quick to pick up on this, photographing and filming car ads the same way sports reporters and action films shoot matches or breathtaking stunts. Of course successful marketers use the social web to corroborate with consumers and then everyone should get what they want...

31. ©2008 Attentio SA - www.attentio.com - tel. +32 (0)2 211 3470 - attentiocontact@attentio.com Additional Booklets of Linda Margaret’s Attentio Blogs include: 1.Social Media and Traditional Marketing 2.Social Media and Search, Blogs, Forums, Twitter, casual gaming, and social networking 3.Health 2.0 Marketing Online 4.Online Culture: the European Union and the United States 5.Industry Examples