Your Email Signature

If you have the following footer in your corporate email signature:

PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL | PROPRIETARY INFORMATION AND/OR TRADE SECRET
This e-mail, including any attachments, contains information belonging to the sender which may be Confidential and Legally Privileged. This information is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to whom this e-mail was sent as noted above. The unauthorized use, distribution, copying or alteration of this email is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure or action taken in reliance on the information contained in this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please advise the sender immediately by return e-mail and then delete it from your system.

I'd suggest that you take a big bold step against your paranoid corporate overlords and delete it.

It's 2016, people. This is bullshit.

Ken Fox - Strategist!

Cue a cool theme song that is reminiscent of the old private-eye or cop dramas.

Cold Call Carl - No. 15

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See all the "Cold Call Carl" comics here.

The Adventures of Jim - Mayan Scribe 2010

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Twitter Powered Agency Website Has No Soul

I was making an effort this week to be less cynical, when along comes a letter from Claire at EuroRSCG to ruin my vow. Seems the London agency's new "Twitter powered" website is up, "letting the 200 people within its office power its website in real-time."

Russ Lidstone, CEO Euro RSCG London, said, “The agency listens to its employees and connects with its clients on a completely new level. This new Twitter centric website embodies our belief that social media should sit at the heart of what we do.” OK, Russ, now let's change your title to CWO, Chief Wanking Officer.

Why won't this work? First, employees are going to be cheeky yet careful, not allowed to reveal their true thoughts, which is half the fun of Twitter. They will always be mindful of the boss and the clients watching.

How to get around that? Create fake profiles, or alternate profiles for real people so they can keep their normal lives off the homepage of the agency. What do you get? Boring, safe, company shills alternately touting client sites while trying to make life in the London office appear light and fun. This won't last, and what is its point anyway? To show clients that we understand the crazy new world of social media?

Here are the profiles of some of the recent tweeters on the EuroRSCG page:

Seeing a pattern?. All new accounts. Either EuroRSCG's employees really weren't all that into Twitter in the first place, or more likely, brass made them create alternate "work" accounts for this endeavor.

Naomi, from one of the profiles above, offers a link to her personal blog, however, where her bio tells it all:

London girl in the soulless world of advertising, seeks outlet for obsessive need to consume and own many pretty things.

Finally, honesty. But I'll bet you some money Naomi's bosses will ask her to remove the link very soon. Too much transparency. Too much truth.

If You're Not a Guru By Now...

The preponderance of experts in the field of social media is astounding. It really shouldn't be such a mystery anymore, requiring a conference per month and seminars out the ass. It's basic common sense, but we had to turn it into an industry. A recent visit to my Linked-In network showed me people I know who couldn't compose a paragraph in an email now touting themselves as experts in the oh-so-mystical realm of social media. Here is one such person conducting a recent seminar. We catch up with her just after she prompts the audience, "Let's think of some social media tools we use today!" Thankfully, there were a couple of smart-ass bastards like me in her audience.

Guinness Denounced the Ad, Embraces the Notoriety

I saw a Guinness ad during a football game and went looking for it on YouTube and on the Guinness site. Couldn't find it. Nicely shot close-up from an in-the-glass perspective of beer being poured, but with a lame and taunting tagline that said something to the effect of "Maybe it's not for you." You're right, Guinness. It's not for me. And your attempt to make me feel like I'm not worthy of your beer didn't work. You're not the Marines. You're a thick beer. If I want to feel as though I've ingested a loaf of dark bread I'll just toss some pumpernickel in a blender with a couple shots of whiskey and get the same effect. But in my searching for this ad I think I may have uncovered a little bit of "wink-wink, we're so naughty" on the part of Guinness.

You may remember a couple years ago when some director released what he called a "banned Guinness ad." It was a spec piece, hoping to catch the attention of the Irish brew maker. It was during those naïve days of the late summer of '08, when the words "banned commercial" on your upload were a sure ticket to viral success, back before people realized there was no such thing as a banned commercial. It caught plenty of attention, but mostly from angry people who objected to the objectification of women. In the ad, a woman is used as a human coaster, her body gently rocking back and forth. We see only her mid-section while three separate hands reach for the bottle, presumably take a swig, then return it to her undulating form, the bottle staying balanced in the small of her back. Clearly she's supposed to be in the throes of a four-way, though she appears lifeless and limp.* Guinness and its agency were very quick to denounce the ad, saying,

Guinness is in no way associated with this video, and approached YouTube to have it removed. We are proud of our brands, and our commitment to responsible marketing, and this is not how we want our brand portrayed.

Fine. Nice job. Appropriate PR move. Nevermind that the ad is back on YouTube, with 1.5 million views this time around.

Also, nevermind that for sale at the Guinness store for $25 is the CD, "Music From the TV Ads." The cover art, with its pronounced line of beauty S-shape, bears a striking resemblance to the shape prominently featured in the "banned" spot.

I'm sure Guinness will claim this is merely the top of the harp that serves as their logo.

* Which reminds me of a joke. Use your mouse to highlight the invisible text below.

What's the difference between spaghetti and a sorority girl?

Spaghetti moves when you eat it. 

That's Right, - "And Associates." The Return of Ken Fox!

See more Ken Fox wisdom.

Some People Should Stand When They Talk

The Guru at His Twitter Avatar Photo Shoot

Twitter has enabled a lot of people to take themselves way too seriously.
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Serial Entrepreneur

Somewhere right now, a snake-oil salesman is devising his next killer app, one that will "revolutionize social media as we know it" or some such crap. Ten years ago, he was going to "take the dot com world by storm!" with SEO. He will survive, because bullshit is his art, and he knows how to sling it.

 

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(Yes, there are people out there calling themselves "serial entrepreneurs." That's like telling a venture capitalist, "I can't stick with anything for too long. I like to set it up, run away with some cash and then watch it crash because it was a dumb idea all along.")

OK, Gurus, They Did What You Said. Now What?

Last night I heard a phrase that catches my ear every time I hear it used in advertising, "Log on to our..." It irks me because we don't "log-on to" anything unless it's secure and requires a user name and password. We simply "go" to your website, we don't log onto it.

Anyway, that's a minor and debatable point. This time the ad said "Log-on to our Facebook page." The ad was for a group of regional medical centers, but everything else in the ad was lost to me, as I wasn't listening until the Facebook part. I'm sure it had to do with the chain of hospitals' commitment to "quality care, innovation and helping our community," three bullets that took the internal CMO and his committees 18 months to agree on.

And now they're on Facebook, just like the big boys. They're using Social Media! Just like they've been reading about in every magazine, probably including a very interesting piece in Hospital Marketing Monthly titled something like "Opening the Conversation: 10 Ways to Engage your Patients and Prospective Patients using Social Media." Just like a bunch of consultants told them they should. Just like their incompetent marketing agency pretended to know all about. It probably took them forever to get it all approved and there is probably a rigorous process of checks and edits before anything gets posted on their Facebook page, but they're finally there. And I'm sure someone in HR or Communications sent out a notice, or wrote a nice story in the company's employee newsletter, announcing that "We are Moving into Social Media!" and urged all hospital employees to friend, fan or follow their employer, thus instantly creating the illusion of popularity.

I'm sure they're patting themselves on the back at this point, delighted that they finally did what they've been hearing about for so long. And now they will sit and wait. And then they will start to wonder, "Was the only reason we did this so that we can post press releases and photos of employee events?" Then the CMO will say to his team(s), "I'm hearing a lot about this Twitter thing. I think we should create a committee to study a Twitter strategy and then recommend some initiatives." And in about six months they might set up a Twitter account, and within it they will post links to their Facebook photos and generic, mundane press releases. They might even hire a consultant who is an expert in Twitter Strategies, who will show them a presentation saying as much.

Everyone's on Facebook now, gurus. And they all have a Twitter account. Are you going to now recommend they be on Google Buzz? You used to tell them they needed a blog, and so they started a blog. Then they abandoned that because it quickly proved to be a pointless exercise in self-promotion that no one ever read, much less commented on. (Hell, even the new media agencies that used to advocate blogs don't bother to update their own blogs anymore.) And the YouTube channel you insisted they create isn't getting any views. And their MySpace page is dormant. (Yeah, you recommended a MySpace "presence," remember?) In their ignorance, they accidentally but wisely declined your urging to open up a shop in Second Life.

At some point, the game is going to be up. The doors are starting to close as everyone tells you, "We already have someone working on that," or "We took that in-house last year." And even you can't fool the laundromat, the local pack-and-ship place or that quirky-cool restaurant you found downtown that they need to hire a Social Media Expert. Perhaps after the speaking gigs dry up and your vast knowledge of how to navigate this "crazy new frontier" is just plain old common knowledge, you will close up shop and start looking for a real job. Maybe the hospital chain will hire you as their New Media Strategist, and you can sit in a cubicle and update the Facebook page and monitor talk of your company on Twitter, where you will be pasting pre-approved 140-character responses to angry customers in between linking to photos of the employees at their recent 5K run.

But you and I know an intern can do that.

The Best Decade Ever

The lists are being created with wanton abandon. Give it a rest, already. Rolling Stone wants me to know what songs and albums were "The Best" in the last ten years. Hey, Rolling Stone, fuck you, OK? Every month you create a list, from the 100 Best Guitarists of All Time to the Top Ten Best Eddie Vedder Impersonators. (Scott Stapp, please Stopp.) When Rolling Stone isn't on their knees fellating Bruce Springsteen or praying to John Lennon, they're busy at the List Machine, making lists.

Time magazine has a whole bunch of "Top Tens." Top 10 Heisman Trophy Winners, Top 10 Beauty Pageant Scandals, Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About Hanukkah, even the Top 10 Disney Controversies. Those are real lists at a real news magazine's website. Maybe we should blame "Countdown" with Keith Olbermann. "Which of these top stories will you be talking about tomorrow?" he smugly demands at the beginning of each broadcast, with that stupid animation of a steel ball rolling around a track in a desert landscape. Hey, Keith, when I start looking to you to tell me what I should talk about tomorrow, I will start wearing ridiculous 1930s era gangster suits and pinstriping my hair.

Movies, food trends, notable deaths, vacation destinations, shoes, cars, purses, toys, Xbox games, hairstyles - you name it - we can find a list for it at year's end. A Top Ten list. A Top 100 list. A "Best" list. And it's all based on the musings of a panel of assholes emailing their suggestions to a bored editor, who compiles the submissions into a neat little list and then tells the readers what they should like or what they should've liked. It happens every December, but it's always worse at the end of a decade. I don't mind reading lists, just don't present them as the authority. It's a list of your favorites in a category.

I can't wait for January, when they start doing their Top Ten Predictions for the Year lists.

UPDATE: A commenter says I sound like Andy Rooney. Shit. I blame last night's tequila for making me a temporary curmudgeon today. And the beer. And the wine.

Trust Your Future to a Man in a Feather Suit Who Rips Hearts Out

What is it about the Mayans that has everyone so fascinated? I'll grant that the new movie "2012" looks like some fun Armageddon footage that must be seen on the big screen to be appreciated, but I don't know why we hold up this primitive bunch who practiced human sacrifice to appease the sky gods as some sort of wise society. I guess we always need some sort of doom hanging over us to make us feel alive in some twisted way. That's why everyone loves the hack poet and drug-addled dickbrain Nostradamus. (I got your Nostradamus right here.)

Just 'cause the Mayans didn't plan ahead and ran out of room on their stupid circular calendar doesn't mean they knew shit about shit. Didn't see the Spaniards coming, now did they? I for one am getting ready for 2013 with these t-shirts.

Let's Run That By A Few More People

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10 Year Time Travel

Wake up and smell the bullshit.

Ken Fox - Social Media Strategist!

I get Linked-In updates about former colleagues who now include "social media" in their list of "core competencies." Most of these people were highly incompetent to begin with, now they're going to charge you to set up a Twitter account and show you how to "follow" people. "Look! Now you're following him! Once he follows you back, you can start to engage him in a conversation!"

Chris Houchens also has a nice take on how everyone is now a social media expert.


SEE MORE "KEN FOX - STRATEGIST!"

When Gurus Have to Find Work

Lots of people aren't nearly as active on the BS speaking circuit as they once were. How sad that the gravy train jumped the tracks on them. Learn a trade and maybe you can buy your soul back.

You Could Spend Your Life Listening to Gurus

So you just left SXSW and you're down in the dumps 'cause now you have to actually go to work and pretend to apply all the fascinating things you "learned" at the conference? Why bother going back to work? There's another conference going on right now in NYC! (And look! They used the tired old "silhouetted young business people doing business in a take charge, business-like way" image. BONUS: The take charge business-doers are reflected in the floor in a very serious Web 2.0 way.)

Your average social media guru has 15,000 followers on Twitter. (Thankfully, I'm not following them.) But he is, in short, a bullshit artist. He's got his hands in every new thing that comes around, but I don't think he could show you a single case study of how any of it has "worked" for a client. He was one of the first to tell everyone they needed a blog. And then corporate blogging failed. He was early on the podcast bandwagon. And then corporate podcasting failed. He thought everyone should create their own branded social networks, until it became obvious that not too many people wanted to join a brand's "community." Undeterred, he created numerous fake profiles and spent his days "seeding" comments on forums and blogs. His clients employ him for as long as it takes to uncover his game, or until his iron-clad three-month contract is over. He is adept at making himself look important and in another time he'd have been the perfect carpet-bagging seller of Dr. Swindle's Cure-All Tonic.

Now maybe there are some people out there selling social media consulting services who are actually telling clients stuff that their teenage kids couldn't tell them. Maybe there are "strategies" that aren't obvious to the average Joe, Jim, Khalid and Britte. (Actually, I can think of a couple of practitioners who are on the right path. They don't create the illusion of mystery and the're upfront with their audiences.)

Those of us who deride the consultants and their magic shows are branded "old-school" or "resistant." But I've seen nothing from the new school that warrants four conferences a month and a growing army of "experts."

There is no old vs new in this. It's just new packaging for an old product. The principles should remain the same: treat your potential customers with respect; make them laugh or tug their heart-strings as you're getting their attention; don't hide behind a bunch of fine print; and if they become customers and then complain, resolve their problem, refunding their purchase in full if need be.

Call it "the conversation" if you have to, but it's nothing more than old-school customer service.

I Don't Disagree. In Fact, I'm Mostly in Agreeance.

Main Entry: agreeance
Part of Speech: n
Definition: the act of agreeing
Example: Usage of the site constitutes agreeance with these terms.
Usage: considered obsolete and a bastardization of 'agreement'

Don't be a bastard.