Clients and prospects often ask us how to create a viral campaign. It’s a tough question to answer because as soon as you start “trying” to be viral you’ve likely done just the opposite. Some of the best viral videos were never intended to be as big as they became. Think about the wedding entrance that made its way into the storyline of The Office or the Mentos and Diet Coke “experiments.”

There’s a new video making its way around the Web today from a company called Grasshopper, which markets virtual phone systems for entrepreneurs. I found out about it when a friend of mine (who’s also a reporter at Fast Company) posted it on Facebook. I subsequently saw that it’s been featured on The Huffington Post.

In one day, the video has garnered nearly 200,000 views on YouTube. It seems well on its way to going viral. Why does it work? A spoof of Jay-Z and Alicia Key’s wildly popular “Empire State of Mind,” it pays tribute to the New Dork instead of New York. It’s well produced, clever and speaks directly to what makes entrepreneurs tick (in this case, I am their target audience).

This is the kind of “advertising” that people are responding to in 2010 – Grasshopper has shown through this video that they get the world I’m living in and they want to entertain me as much as they want to inform me. I may just give them a call.

What happens when one of the world’s biggest – and arguably best – brand marketers loses control?

I recently read a fascinating case of a product launch gone wrong. Or rather, more accurately, not gone at all. Here’s the story:

According to P&G, the new Dry Max diapers represent the most substantial product improvement for Pampers — the consumer packaged goods giant’s biggest global brand — in 25 years. Company executives thought Dry Max would be lauded as the iPod (or should I now say iPad?) of baby care due to its improved performance, thinner profile, and reduced environmental impact, among other attributes. Instead, the diapers got slammed by a group of critics who treated it more like the new Coke.

What happened?

Due to the complexities of roll-out logistics, the company put the new Dry Max diapers into the old diaper packaging in some markets over the summer without alerting customers to the change. This was two months before the Dry Max launch, which was slated to be P&G’s biggest marketing campaign EVER. Consumers in the early markets who felt blindsided by the change reacted strongly – complaining the new version felt stiff, papery and cheaper, and caused more leaks and rash – and they spread the negative word online to markets that had yet to receive the diapers. There were hundreds of posts on both pampersvillage.com and on diapers.com, among other places. As a communications exec and a mother-to-be, I have both a professional and a personal understanding of the sway online consumer opinion can have, especially when it comes to kids’ products. Parents trust other mothers and fathers and make buying decisions accordingly.

Some of the Dry Max critics were incredibly active. For example, one dad posted on 75 sites and wrote more than 50 posts on pampersvillage.com alone. Pampers proceeded to remove the reviews on its site as it switched to new ratings system. Predictably this caused a significant outcry, so they reinstated the posts and P&G is now addressing consumers who’ve complained on an individual basis.

A woman who started a “Bring Back the Old Cruisers” fan page on Facebook said, “We could move on and just buy the Target [Up & Up] diaper [which she said is now better]. But the principle is that they’ve slipped this inferior diaper into the existing packaging without notifying the consumer.” Several consumers who hadn’t even tried the diapers joined the Facebook page because they felt P&G was being deceptive by making the change without announcing it.

The communications and marketing lessons here all come down to a simple truth: It’s a new world. Evangelists can morph into detractors overnight if they’re not properly educated and nurtured. If you don’t actively engage in conversation, the consumer can and will take control and you might not be so happy with the outcome. We’ll never know how the marketplace would have responded to the innovation if P&G had actually educated consumers about the changes and their many benefits before slipping the new product into old packaging.

P&G believes the tone of the discussion will change when it turns on marketing support starting this month, and it very well may, but there’s no question that they’re starting with an unnecessary deficit. article

I am not alone. The end of a year compels many people to reflect on the passage of time and consider or even predict what will happen in the coming 12 months. It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: 2009 presented a number of challenges for our industry as it did elsewhere.

Not only did we face the worst economic crisis in recent history, but journalism — the very profession upon which so much of what we do depends — continued its downward spiral. According to a story earlier this week in the Los Angeles Times, the presses stopped at nearly 150 newspapers this year alone. But, as the cliché goes, challenges are opportunities in disguise. We believe the field of public relations is well positioned in this new era of anyone-can-influence, authentic, two-way, direct-to-customer communication. Those principles have guided those in our profession since its inception.

To that end, we have lots of ideas about what’s coming in 2010. Our three top PR predictions for 2010:

1) Testing, testing: Media executives will stop talking about the downside of making most Web content free and analyzing the few paid subscription models that work (WSJ.com, ConsumerReports.org, et al.), and start testing new business models to see if and how much they can charge. Consumers will begin to face the reality that they either have to pay for content or consume the advertising that supports it. Publishers and advertisers will get smarter about how to reach consumers in a way the target audience won’t immediately reject. When real solutions are explored and not just discussed, we can get to the task of preserving quality journalism.

2) Taming the social media beast: The Wild, Wild West will become less wild as social media sites, professional organizations and corporations create rules and ethical guidelines. Facebook has already developed new, relatively restrictive rules about fan page promotions. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) plans to publish a new Guide to Social Media Disclosurein early 2010. It reflects new regulations created by the Federal Trade Commission that require any online influencer to reveal if they received sponsorship money or free products from companies about which they write. (Disclosure: We’re card-carrying members of WOMMA.) Expect several more social media blunders (ala Domino’s and Motrin) as all this gets sorted out.

3) Keeping it real: American consumers will continue to live a more grounded existence as a result of the recession. This coupled with the green movement creates the perfect storm for consumer change. Reusing is not only good for the bottom line; it’s better for the environment. Handmade gifts, home-cooked meals and swap meets will remain popular. And brands will work hard to stay relevant in this context while also attempting to preserve their margins. At the beginning of the decade, the casual dining concept took off because people wanted the convenience of eating out without the guilt of fast food. Just this week, Kraft announced it’s introducing a line of restaurant-inspired foods because people now want to create the dining-out experience at home. Stay tuned for more product introductions and marketing campaigns like Kraft’s.

We’d love to hear your predictions. Best wishes for a joyous, prosperous 2010!

Considering a promotion to drive fan traffic on Facebook? Not so fast. Facebook recently updated its promotion guidelines and it’s not as straight-forward as you might think.

Thousands of brands, celebrities, sports teams, musicians and other entities have launched fan pages on Facebook. And Facebook is wisely doing everything it can to monetize fan page traffic (for example, last week it announced advertisers can target friends of their fans) and protect itself against any liabilities from the promotions fan pages are hosting.

Most of the guidelines are intuitive – like you can’t offer prizes to people who are under 18 or require a purchase to enter. Section 3/Administering a Promotion through the Facebook Platform, though, was more than a tad surprising. If you are planning a promotion through Facebook, you must receive written approval from Facebook to do so. And, you must administer the promotion through an application (i.e. not via status updates).

Facebook has been a boon for small and mid-size businesses looking for cost effective ways to engage their customers. I haven’t tried to reach a Facebook representative to get approval for a promotion yet. But something tells me these kinds of restrictions are going to make it difficult for the vast majority of organizations that don’t have endless resources to optimize their presence on Facebook.

Fortunately these rules don’t apply if you’re promoting a contest you’re administering outside of Facebook. When we hosted a Twitter scavenger hunt earlier this week for the Radio City Rockettes, we posted these rules on the company website and only used Facebook status updates to alert fans to the opportunity.

Stay tuned as the rules are likely to change again. In the words of Section 6/Facebook Rights, “We may modify these Promotion Guidelines at any time without notice to you. You will subject to the most current version of these Promotion Guidelines then in effect.”

Just after posting this photo of my daughter on my Facebook profile today, I received an email from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) saying that Facebook now has over one petabyte of photo storage.  I did it.  I know I did.

our little environmentalist in training

We’ve been guiding a number of clients on setting up Facebook profiles.  For example, we’re promoting a book that chronicles the journey of a home-birth midwife.  We’re helping the author set up her profile.  A non-profit client is becoming a cause that Facebook members can join.  Needless to say, our team spends a lot of time on social networking sites.  In my personal (i.e. non-billable for any clients who are reading this) time, I use Facebook for the same reasons most people do: to reconnect with old friends and colleagues, to check out people’s kids and to find out who just got back from a vacation or is missing their spouse.

In the last week or so, I’ve connected with a number of high school friends.  You know how it works: Join one person’s friends list and their friends see and connect with you.  And so on.  And so on.  All this social networking got me to thinking about the fact that my 20-year (gulp) high school reunion will happen in 2009.  It seems the people who are inclined to go to such events are likely the same people who are on Facebook.  On the one hand, Facebook may expedite the getting-in-touch part of the planning process.  On the other, how anxious will people be to see each other, since we’ve already reunited online?  I’ve seen what they look like, how adorable their kids are and know what they do for a living.

I recently read an article that suggested the demise of local newspapers is in large part due to the newsfeeds people receive on sites like Facebook — the newspaper is no longer the place to find out what’s happening in a community. I am not sure I agree with that.  But I do wonder: Will Facebook kill the high school reunion?  Maybe that’s also an overstatement.  After all, I can’t dance to 80s tunes in a bad hotel banquet room on Facebook.  Or can I?

In the words of British Futurist Peter Cochrane, “If you’re not online, you don’t exist.”

With billions of Web sites, millions of blogs and hundreds of social networking sites, the internet is king – not exactly an earth-shattering revelation in 2008.

All PR professionals must adapt accordingly – knowing and learning new technologies and becoming comfortable with them is essential. It is imperative that we blend the traditional skills of writing and media and communications knowledge with online skills.

As the youngest member of Rose Communications, I have a unique perspective on PR and the online world – as I don’t know the PR landscape without the internet.

I often wonder how media lists were built and clips tracked. I find it hard to imagine calling a reporter with a pitch when I can simply drop them a less intrusive email or message on MySpace or Facebook. I don’t know how releases posted to the wire prior to the web and I’d probably enter a deep depression if forced to work without my laptop or Blackberry for a week. In fact, I’m not sure I’d even know how work without the internet. Far from a crutch, online access enables me – and my Rose Communications colleagues – to successfully practice 21st century public relations.