Ford Bold Moves Site Intolerably Slow

It looks like Ford is doing a pretty good job of linking out to bloggers and other folks who are writing about them and the Bold Moves campaign. What I really can't tell is who is behind some of the blog entries there. I've been trying to check on this since last week, an effort that's been hampered by an intolerably slow FordBoldMoves.com site that often times out or fails to serve up certain elements of the site. When I have managed to get through, it seems as if there's some nice commentary within the "Community Buzz" section of the site. My problem with it is that I don't know who's responsible for it. It doesn't appear as if Ford has identified the folks blogging within that section of the site. While the posts here seem written in something other than corporate-speak, the authenticity that might bring is offset somewhat by the fact that there's nothing identifying who is putting the content together. Is it somebody (or a group of somebodies) within Ford? At their ad agency? Another party entirely?

To me, the best blogs are written by real people who don't mind throwing their name (or a pseudonym) and a way to contact them (e-mail, Skype, whatever) out there. This approach brings some accountability to the situation, as well as some humanity.

I won't say that Ford has blown it here. Rather, I think they've made a huge step forward. Other marketers should follow in their footsteps. But I do think they could be doing a much better job if they identified their bloggers so that people could see how serious they are about changing their marketing dynamic from top-down to bottom-up.

That, plus they should get a better web host.

Bloggers Heed My Warning

It's highly likely you'll fail if you decide to play in the world of direct response offers and low CPM buys. That is the realm of the high-traffic portals, content sites and DR networks. Let them fulfill that function, since they've already chosen their fate and they have the traffic to make things sustainable for a bit. Bloggers shouldn't be taking $0.50 CPC and $5 CPM deals for advertising. That is, plastering their sites with "buy my crap" ads is only going to pay peanuts, and doing so fails to leverage blogs for what they're good for.

The name of the new game is engagement. And although the various advertising organizations are having trouble figuring out exactly what engagement is, there's a huge trend building behind the notion of advertisers actually communicating directly with their customers and prospects. It's what we're addressing with our Conversational Marketing practice here at Underscore.

Rather than advertise "buy my crap," certain advertisers are using online advertising to solicit feedback about their companies, products, processes and customer service. This is the space in which blogs should be playing a big role.

By way of hypothetical example, rather than take an ad that proclaims "Buy a Nissan Pathfinder," bloggers may soon have the opportunity to take ads that ask for feedback on how Nissan develops new models, or on an issue like fuel efficiency. Blog readers will then be able to follow the ad to a conversational forum (blog post, message board, e-mail discussion list) where they can give their opinions and the advertiser will respond.

In this way, blogs will be evaluated on the interactivity of their audience. Since people who visit blogs are more likely to understand the conversational nature of the Internet, they're probably more likely to respond to such solicitations of opinion. That's one of the things blogs bring to the table. And I'd rather see bloggers getting paid for the conversational nature of their audience than for how frequently they respond to "buy my crap!" offers.

Smart bloggers and blog networks will start talking about how engaging their audience is. We should start highlighting how blog audiences are more likely to give advertisers feedback, especially constructive feedback that can be taken back to product development teams, executive management teams and the marketing department.

I plan to do a follow-up post on this shortly, to highlight how we're helping to facilitate real dialogue using blogs for a particular client. In doing so, I'm also going to reach out to some of the marketing bloggers to help me tell this story. Why? Because it's worth getting out there, and it will help establish at least one more model by which independent journalism and commentary can make money on the web.

Stay tuned.

It Was Rove

Somebody needs to explain to me why Rove's ass hasn't been delivered on a platter. (Link) And someone should explain to Bob Novak that you can reveal the name of a source when he burns you the first time. You don't need to wait until he burns you a second time.

The Other Camp Chimes In

In comments on today's Spin piece, Chris Larsen from McDonnell Haynes Advertising says:

Re: “Internet is not a passive medium…”

While Web 1.0 and 2.0 may be all about interactivity, implicit in the strength of the Internet as a transport medium for all forms of communication is that the individual will ultimately dictate whether it’s active or passive. Aren’t you looking forward to a time when TomTV lets you program your own entertainment from billions of pieces available on-demand-pay-per-view content? I am (ChrisTV, that is).

This is what I mean when I say that the Interactive marketers are settling into two camps. One sees the Internet as a series of pipes through which they'll push "content" to "consumers." The other sees it as a natural extension of the dynamic of human interaction.

The first camp believes that if the "consumer" can pick the content they'd like pushed to them, that somehow makes up for the notion of turning the Internet into a one-way medium. Not so.

This is the kind of thinking that leads to tiered access and top-down control on the part of Big Media.