Modern Tribalism

Following on from the somewhat uncomfortable subject (for some) of racism as a resource at the 140 Characters Conference, @darenBBC, @kyraocity, @Dr_Black and I continued the debate at dinner. One of taboo areas, black on black racism, reared it’s head. Daren, been the inquisitive soul that he is, wanted to know why this happens and where it came from. This is how I see it.

This is an affliction mainly of big cities (cultural melting pots) in Western societies. The divisions are African vs West Indian especially Nigerian vs Jamaican, British born kids of Jamaican parentage vs recent Jamaican arrivals, the same for Nigerians and so on. It’s what I like to call Modern Tribalism where battlelines are drawn based on different facial features, accent, style of dressing, territory and even trivialities such as coarseness of hair. To understand it’s origins, it’s necessary to look at African traditional tribalism.

I spent part of my childhood in Nigeria where tribalism is the norm. Yoruba’s don’t like Ibo’s and neither like Hausa’s. Why? As stated by Kyra, in the old days villagers were threatened when strangers appeared or entered their village boundaries. They identified their own by markings, dress and weapons. Tribes in Nigeria can be easily identified by tribal markings, facial features, name and dialect. Fastforward to the 21st century and we have modern tribalism. Nigerians looking down on those ‘jamo’ because they were slaves so have been tainted. Yet, they fail to acknowledge the fact that the slave trade was fully supported by Africans who had an established slave trade before the Europeans arrived. Funnily enough, this aspect of history was not taught when I was at school in Nigeria. Now when the West Indians migrated here in the 50′s, there were the ones that fought and rioted, raised the batons and chop axes to the Teddy Boys clearing the way for the second generation Blacks to come here including Africans. Yet, when those of Jamaican and Nigerian parentage develop a relationship, they need to be thick skinned to deal with the continual disapproval from the parents especially the Nigerian side. Funnily enough, it’s acceptable if they’d decided to embark upon a relationship with a European.

The Jamaican parentage vs Jamaican and Nigerian parentage vs Nigerian is a mentality that has been mainly fostered by their parents. The first and second generation blacks are so aclimatised to the culture and nature of whiteness that it has become their norm. It’s not uncommon for mums to encourgae their kids to snub eating at their friends house because you don’t know what they’ve put in it (partly fueled by old world superstitions). Instead, actively encouraging them to go to McDonalds instead. There is an equal amount of parents that don’t speak about their country of origin as there is those that build a very negative picture of their life back home instilling fear into their children. The parents spend so much time scorning and berating their own that the kids, inevitably, do the same. Hence the battlelines are drawn – kids looking down on other kids for the way they dress, the way they speak, the food they eat, the style of their hair and so on. Those that have been here so long or were born here are so westernised that they no longer recognise themselves in the recent arrivals that stand before them. The essence of whiteness continues to divide and conquer.

Brands getting in the thick of it

Why are events on media always defunct of brand advertisers? Over the years, I’ve been to a number of seminars, summits, conferences or whatever you wish to call them. They’re full of the great and good from the media industry preaching to the converted.  We all sit there nodding vigorous at comments supporting what we already know or how we think. It almost feels like, we’re all there to provide comfort for each other for having “the knowledge”.

These events are put on in the hope that enough delegates from corporates will turn up. There is danger that they might actually learn something. The biggest talking point at the moment is about brands listening to conversations on social media, however the first step is for them to attend events providing thought leadership and invaluable insight, then be brave enough to engage in conversation with media people (and I don’t mean agency execs either). There seems to be a fear of conversation between brands and media owners, and creative agencies and media owners. Yes, media owner representatives can be a little bit over eager to sell sell sell but that’s because the opportunity to speak brand advertisers and creative agencies is so few and far between.

Event organisers are so desperate to get brand advertisers on the attendee list that they will either offer reduced price or free places to them. There is little point in media people just having a conversation with each other or industries merely finding comfort in their own company. This is why so many brand categories are so far behind the curve with online, for them it’s something others do. It is appreciated that brand personnel are busy but aren’t we all. Afterall they have the most to gain from these events.

For brands to gain the most from using media as a marcomms tool, there needs to be multiple conversations occuring between brands, creative and media agencies and media owners (sales and content creators).

The Art of Human Conversation

In the rush to join the latest online conversational offering, it seems we have lost the art of face to face conversation (if we ever had it in the first instance). Earlier this week, I attended an MBA open evening for INSEAD. This esteemed institution boasts an average of 30 nationalities  per year “each is eager to share best practices with people from other cultures and other industries”. The MBA’s are finance sector heavy, followed by the enterprise then a varierty of other indsutries. And at €90,000, it justifiable needs to be something pretty special as they develop business leaders of tomorrow..

As I enter the doors of Le Meridien Piccadilly, I am excited about the prospect of meeting some interesing individuals who I have nothing in common with but the fact that we’re all considering an MBA at INSEAD. When I enter the refreshments room, it’s buzzing with chatter so I head over to get my peppermint tea (I suppose they were worried we’d all be pissed by the time the presentation itself started). I grab a free space on a table, put down my tea and look to my fellow table huggers to make eye contact – not a bloody sausage. Everyone conveniently had their heads down in the brochure given out upon entry. Now, I can appreciate that been in the company of unknown individuals can be uncomfortable but we were all adults with a common factor here. So, I open my brochure and follow suit. After downing my tea and looking round the room rather awkwardly, I saw an opportunity to pounce. The guy diagonally opposite me, looked up. Feeling like a hunter capturing it’s prey, I said “Ok, I’ve got to say something. It just feels rude to be standing by a table full of people and not introduce yourself”. And I did, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Six business executives round a table yet nobody was comfortable or confident enough to simply say “Hello, I am …”

How is it possible for individuals to connect with other individuals on social media sites that they have an either tenous or no link with yet given the opportunity to do so face to face and we’re struck dumb?

Later that week, I was at the 140 Characters Conference. Again the one thing we had in common was our interest in the event subject. At one of the mornng sessions, the panel chair asked everyone stand up, turn around and introduce themselves to the person behind them. Now this a bit awkard as it meant we’s all talking to someone’s back but everyone followed  introducing to the person front and back – ice broken. From then on in, it was a series of “What do you think so far” while queueing in Starbucks or simply contributing to another groups conversation. The real high came when after the event when I introduced myself to one of speakers. That one moment turned an interesting day to one of the most enjoyable I’d had in a long time. I was invited to a dinner and networking evening. While, we didn’t make it to the networking party I had dinner with nine people I’d never met, five of whom were speakers.

Whether it was the context or the culture of the industry of the attendees that made the difference, I’m still left to ponder. But in an age where we are led to believe that we’re all making connections, the bravado of talking to strangers online has still not seeped into most day to day settings. We are still paralysed by fear.

The irony of the INSEAD evening was that there was a Japanese advertising exec from Dentsu currently an intern at Naked Communications and I know a fair few people from Naked. The Italian guy standing next him worked at the Mitsubishi Bank, the Japanese guy’s best friend worked in his department. A woman from the legal department of The Mitsubishi Bank joined us but the Italian guy has never met or dealt with her until then (he’d dealt with her colleagues). Here we were, four supposed strangers around a table who had more in common than simply wanting to do an MBA.

PR folk on social media

The Social Media Channels event by Lewis PR and Parity Group last night was billed as a debate to explore whether social media is a fad or the future for government and corporate communications. On the panel was Tom Watson, MP; Peter Whitehead, FT, Hugh Davies, 3, Ian McNaim, IBM and Shel Israel, a storyteller (as he describes himself).

Following a rather humourous video on brands discovering 140 characters as a communication tool, the rest of the evening was filled with anecdotes from Twitter and little else. While it is fair to say much noise is been made about the value of Twitter, partly fueled by it’s ability to influence immediate (or quick) action and bloody good PR, the panel seem to have forgotten there’s a whole plethora of other social media platforms out there. Surprisingly, Watson was the panellist to highlight the fact that Facebook still has the highest number of unique users (26m+ in the UK to be exact), so it should not be ignored. Rather than an evening of insights, Shel used it as “shameless self-promotion”, his words not mine, for his Twitterville book. What is with Americans assuming everyone around the world is interested in their social media conversations? He kept asking if we’d heard of Tweeters he referred to in his presentation. There are obviously little conversations of value happening elsewhere! Mr IBM mentioned their 14,000+ in-house bloggers – nice for them. And Tom tried to convince us all that he was an honest politician on the side of the citizen UK by illustrating his Facebook protest page in support of the gaming community against the PC brigade. I can’t help but think there is an agenda here. Honesty and politicians, isn’t that like chalk and cheese?

Whitehead and Davies made some sound points but nothing I hadn’t heard before. There were the ususal comedians in the crowd who thought it was an opportunity to re-enact the concept of disruptive conversations and play the arse on twitter trends. And someone continually spelt characters, charactures – the mother in me felt the need to correct him after a while, so I did.

It’s ironic really this event been held by a PR agency, as they’re a major force behind brands reluctance to use social media as part of their marcomms strategy. The nature of PR means control; every word is crafted, edited and re-edited before release. The immediacy of social media simply doesn’t allow for that, otherwise brands will miss the moment. Lewis PR may be social media saavy, but this certainly doesn’t ring true for the majority of PR agencies out there.

Thoughts on Qualman’s Socialnomics

Well media folk, everyone might as well shut up shop and give up now. According to Erik Qualman’s Socialnomics – how social media transforms the way we live and do business – traditional media, traditional advertising agencies and all middlemen will be the losers in the new world order of Socialnomics. Corporates businesses are not only able but unbdoubedtly will create internal departments to monitor and engage in conversations in the socialsphere. While the mentioned losers will not completely disappear, they will be become less significant. The fact that large organisastions have marketing departments with double figure personnel yet still retain the services of PR, advertising and creative agency to assist with the creation and execution of marketing strategy seems to have been missed. I believe the opposite will happen, the number of external services to cope with rapid evolution of online will increase. This is further supported by the number of social media specific agencies springing up. Specialist knowledge and skill is still required not only to find and aggregrate all the information/conversations occuring online but to analyse the information then understand how it should be used effectively as part of a marcomms strategy.

Orson Well’s 1984 has truly been born in social media. Apparently, social media = preventative behaviour (Chapter 2). So you can all forget about Friday afternoon piss ups, shocking dance moves at award ceremonies or “client entertainment” visits to Browns ;0). All bad behaviour will inevitable be captured on video or camera in boisterous jubilance, and be posted on Facebook or Tweeted the following day. These seemingly funny actions, at the time, will become something to regret. No matter how polished or professional an interview, the true nature of your character will be laid bare for all to see including the human resources department of a potential employer.

Ok, so doom and gloom scenario aside, Qualman makes valid points about how communications has changed in modern society. Corporate brands that choose to ignore the norms of generation Z do so at their own peril. With the flurry of social media events, synopsis and blogs out there at present, this book is very apt. It’s filled with great examples of successful exercises in damage control, brands using social media as an advertising, PR and customer services tool. Plus, there’s an entire section dedicated to Obama’s succesful use of social media. This is juxtapositioned with classic examples of how not to do it – corporates attempting to manipulate or control conversations, suing others or doing nothing. Other areas covered include developing successful ideas for social media, breaking down the commericial and content team walls and consumers influencing product development. Qualman even touches on the monetisation of content assuming that by the time the book was printed, media owners will have abandoned their attempt to charge for content. He obviously had not considered Rupert Murdoch in this equation.

There is no doubt that social media has changed the way we manage our relationships with family and frends, and Qualman argued these will become even more influencial in buying decisions. Be it buying a car or a car seat, we’ll be able to see who within our network has bought a specific product including brand, written reviews or commented on negative and positive aspects. This rather than expert views will determine what we buy – basically word of month online will become king.

While the book smacks of typical Amercian optimism citing how social media will change social behaviour and society for the good (something reminiscent of scenes from Stepford Wives), it is riddles with great insight from state side. Qualman’s book is a quick and easy read that provokes further thought on the inescapable facts of social media – we’re living through a paradigm shift and we’re only at the tip of the iceburg.

Social media robbing Generation Z

As a mother of 3, I spend more time than I can afford worrying about what will become of my children, how they’ll cope with peer pressure, have I done enough to instill them with strong ethics, am I too hard on them? And the list goes on.

My oldest (a girl) turned 13 this summer, it’s that dreaded age that we mothers fear cause we’ve been there. At the moment, my daughters’ happy to inform me of every detail of life. Actually she’s always eager to do so, I never need to ask as she’ll always tell no matter how grim.

When I was her age, you arranged a time to call your friends and you sat by the phone awaiting the call or you went to the phonebox with a 20p coin. My daughter communicates via IM, Twitter, mobile and Facebook, and does it all simmutaneously. She has over 100 friends on Facebook, every single one she knows from either primary and secondary school or summer schemes. She shows me photos (yes, even the boys), asks me to read her friends texts and Facebook posts. She’s even sent me an invite to add me to her Facebook, I’ve not accepted so far.

Now, this has got me thinking about how social media can and has changed how parents interact with their children. I love the fact that she feels comfortable enough to tell me everything, though I’m not holding my breadth that this will last. But with social media, it means that children no longer have that privacy of been a moody teenage who simply grunts one syllable answers to your question and never tell you anything, this is a rites of passage. But is this a good thing or taking away the essence of been a teenager?

There is a danger of over protective parents not allowing chidren to make the necessary mistakes required to become a fully rounded adult. Parents no longer need to ask their children about their day at school, they can just read their Facebook posts. For those, whose children don’t invite them, they simply pose as a teenager themselves. Now, while you could argue this is a good thing cause parents will be alerted of any issues early on allowing them to deal with it quickly, children need to be given the space to enjoy the same privacy that we did. Ok, they’re going to do stupid even dangerous things, those that we pray they never do but as parents we need to trust our children enough to reach a point where what we have instilled in them will kick in – ok, some will be later than others – but hey ho!

The fact that their lives is lived in the glaring light of the socialsphere is even more frigtening when you consider how a teenagers actions will affect them later in life. Universities can pre-determine the kind of individual is been accepted into their institution prior to a decision been made. But more frighteningly, any stupid action are there for potential employer to see. No matter how good your CV looks, your Facebook profile reveals personal and intimate information about who you are and what type of employee you will be.

While I live in hope that my children will grow into responsible adults, I’d like them to enjoy the journey to adulthood.

Social Media is more than just an advertising tool

As the utilisation of social media in marketing commmunications strategy is the hot topic of the week and weeks to come, if the raft of events coming up are anything to go by, I thought I’d better wade in with an opinion piece.

So far, all the conversations have been based around how brands should engage with and listen to conversations by site users. Lots of examples of corporates trying the take ownership of their brand in the social media space etc. However, everyone seems to have ignored why so many brands have made these mistakes in the first instance.

I remember two years ago when I started at 24/7 Real Media, sites like Facebook and MySpace were just emerging from the stampede of advertisers throwing money at them. Brands were disillusioned by the fact that plenty of ad dollars + huge audience didn’t = advertising success. Advertisers, agencies and social media owners all seemed to have missed the point. A viewer on You Tube watching his favourite artists latest video doesn’t care about the MPU at the side advertisng a car, travel destination or yet another credit card. The finger of blame should stop been pointed at just brands. Media owners, media and creative agencies need to put their hands up and take their fair share of the blame. Brands, afterall, are dependent on the advice given to them on how to use social media. The race to cash in such large volume audiences meant no one stopped to think about the most effective method to engage with this audience, the social media owners had not thought beyond standard ad placements which were merely pushing ads to consumers, as their main revenue generation option. The high churn factor, despite the large volume audiences, meant brands suffer from over exposure, users suffer from ad fatigue, agencies are left to report poor performance and the site is further devalued – it’s a vicious circle.

A couple of years on, everyone in adland are still on a uphill struggle trying to convince brands that social media is a must on their ad schedules. Those that are successful are the ones that understand that social media should be integrated into all aspects of a brands communication strategy rather than just an advertising option. Despite some of the brilliant integrated campaigns out there – T-Mobile and Compare The Market for instance – social media is still mainly used to push ads to site users just like traditional media does. Convenience, in social media, is not the easy option just the lazy one.

For everyone to benefit from what social media offers, a number of things need to happen:

1. Social media owners are responsible for understanding their product and how it can be utilised. This does not necessarily mean big ideas that sound good on paper but are impractical to execute and produce poor returns. It’s important to understand the clients overall objective and strategy not just the brief given by the agency. Secondly, share insight garnered about user behaviour and conversations about brands with agencies and advertisers. It’s information that will help both understand how to use social media better and more importantly, how to improve their product or services. This is an easy way to become invaluable.
2. Agencies are responsible for educating their clients, so there is no shame in getting the advertiser and sales person together. The advertiser feels loved, the sales person feels privileged and agencies look like heroes. Secondly, ROI in social media is not about CTR or CPA, nor anything that can be conveniently put on an excel spreadsheet at the end of each month. It is a long term strategy that produces returns much further down the line as long as its used as an integrated opportunity.
3. Creative agencies need to worry less about their next gong opportunity and create for social media, even if it’s not going to set the world on fire. Most creatives don’t, they just need to work for the brand and the consumer. Again, there is no shame in talking to the sales people if how to use social media is not fully understood.
4. Brand advertisers need to stop sitting on the fence. There’s always going to be an element of risk where social media is concerned. The issue is not the potential for brand damage but how the brand reacts to any unfortunate incidents that matters.

If social media is truly going to become the norm in how brands communicate with consumers, it is necessary to accept that they should be used in the vain in which they were created – as a communication tool!

Networking with the big boys

I had enough initiative to find myself at the AOP 3c Summit on Wednesday by pleading my way in (thank you Tilly). It was a must-attend event for me as AOPs’ members are exactly who I want to be consulting for – publishers – the summit would be riddled with them.

I was excited when I took my seat in the auditorium because I’d taken the bull by the horns to make a giant leap forwards. When we broke for coffee break, I realised my good friend and ex-boss, Si, was also there. It was a pleasant surprise, thank goodness I had someone to spend the day with.

At lunchtime, while we queued for lunch, it occurred to me that my moment had finally arrived. Problem – I was suddenly filled with trepidation. The old boss from Haymarket was there. “Why are hanging around here, go network”, he said. I was in a room brimming with some of the most senior executives in the media business and I was stunned into silence (a rarity for me). I had, yet another revelatory moment. I could easily go an introduce myself and launch into my schpiel but the likeliness of either sounding like I am or will undermine what they do or sounding condescending (let’s face it, many consultants do) was too real. By knocking directly on the front door, I could immediately have it slammed shut in my face – business over before it’s even got off the ground. Shit, what’s a girl to do now?

Someone once said to me, the graveyard is full of people who thought the world couldn’t go on without them (come on people, think about it), this is exactly reaction that I was trying to avoid. The reason why the majority of the attendees were there was in hope of getting answers to their business issues. Whilst these differ widely, the one thing most of the traditional media publishers had in common was trying to develop an online business thats growing at the same rate that their offline revenues are declining. But, for me to rock up to someone and say, I know you have a problem and I can help you resolve that problem is not the done thing. Again going back to my old boss from Haymarket, he put it like this “My MD thinks I’m shit hot because I tell I’m shit hot. You come along and tell me I’ve got a problem that I know I have but my MD doesn’t know about and tell me you can fix it. For me to get to fix the problem, I have to get my MD to sign off your fees and let him know I’ve got a problem that you can solve and I’m not shit hot”. This is the reality of my predicament. Rather than banging down the front door, I need to take a more indirect approach and shimmy in via the side door.

This is going to be a lot tougher than I envisaged.

You bloody consultants…

I went to see one of my first bosses from Haymarket last week to pitch my proposition. Now, I already knew they’d been through massive overhaul of their business as I’d read it in the trade press not long after my resignation. But it was important for me to see him because he is exactly whom I’m targeting and he’d be critically honest about what I was doing. I knew right from the start that a no bullshit chat was in order.

Bizzarely, I was a little bit anxious as I hadn’t seen him for over 9 years. Even after all that time, it was still important for me to have his stamp of approval – funny that!

Typically, I had an accident with a grapefruit while making my smoothie that morning but as I had a so much to do before leaving, I didn’t get round to changing clothes until 25mins before my train was due to leave. I then decided to have a wardrobe tantrum; nothing I chose was right. By the time I was finally dressed, I had 12mins to get my train. No surprises that I missed the train. Now, this meeting had already been rescheduled once as his diary was so hectic nowadays. It was a clear 2 months between first and rescheduled meeting and I certainly didn’t want to wait another 2 months to see him. The train was once every half an hour and his office was a 15min walk from the train station (and I’m no slow coach). 20 mins late, I dash through the gates to see him walking out. “Another 5mins” he said, “And you would have missed me. I’d assumed you weren’t coming” he says looking exasterbated. “You’re buying ’cause you’re selling”. “Ok”, I accepted.

We haven’t even reached the restaurant before he asks what I’m selling – talk about making it difficult. “Me”, I said trying to inject some humour. He was not amused; I managed to get back to chit chat about people I used to work with. Way too many were still there or were married to someone there.
When we finally arrive, it was time for me to sell my pitch. He was polite enough to let me finish before launching into “you people” tirade. It’s exactly what I expected and more, how else would I be able to get honest insight into the fears and true challenges of the people I will be pitching to. So, after a lot more of ‘people like you’, I got what I came for – how to position my proposition, what not to do and his stamp of approval. He made a very valid point that I will always keep at the back of my mind…Don’t take the watch off my wrist and tell me what the time is!

Networking…by the bar area!

I was lucky enough to be invited to my first networking event pretty soon as after starting Britano. Now, while I’m used to attending events and parties representing the the company I’m working for, it also means you know half of who’s going to be there so you’re in your comfort zone. On this occasion however, the only people I’d know were the two people organising it. They would be, rightly, playing the gracious hosts dividing their attention amongst all guests. I was on my jack jones!

I got little sleep the previous night worrying about what I was going to say about what I did. Let’s face it, I’d put little thought up until now how I was going to explain my business proposition without sounding like a typical media bod who relied on jargon to blind the unknowing.

I spent the day thinking it through and figured, I was happy with what was what I’d decided on. So, off I went on my first networking event under the Britano umbrella. I’d even had my business cards printed the same afternoon. Understandably, I was a little tentative when I arrived so I scan the roof garden (only in London, darling!) for one of the two people I knew. I saw one by the drinks table – here goes nothing – I approach looking him straight in the eye with a smile. He extended his hand with a polite smile of confusion and said, “ I know the face, but remind me where I know you from”. Typical, I dropped a hint about the location (which happens to be across the road) and the circumstances. Not a sausage, at which I point, I feigned offense. I gave up, told him my name and he replies, “yes from Ad2One”. Er, wrong company love. Anyway after that debacle, it was time to get on with the business of networking. Luckily, I was approached…by an insolvency practitioner. Now, either someone was trying to tell me something or it was going to be a long night. “So, what do you do”, she asked. I launched into my blurb, and I get the nod of confusion. You know, the one that says I don’t get it. I was going to have to work on my schpiel. Oh yeah, definitely a long night. The next person I met was in gas supply. Rather bizarrely, I met a Business Development Director who’d worked in the same building as me for the past 10 months until she left in June, yet we’d never crossed paths…funny old world!

I then met a fellow consultant in web analytics, well that was me for the evening, I’d found my comfort zone and fellow soul mate. We covered politics, race, religion, kids, marriage, basically put the world to right intersected with giggles about the most bizarre clients we’d had. We totally defeated the objective of the evening, by developing rigor mortis by the bar area. Anyway, we rationalised that everyone had to come to get nibbles and refill their glasses so it was the ideal place to stay…well, that was our excuse anyway.

It was the most eclectic group of people I’d had the pleasure of been in the company of in a long time. At the end of the evening, I’d met way too may people with a connection to Croydon (live there, grew up there or work there); two potential partners and the insolvency practitioner was part of a woman’s support network who’d launched their own businesses. Not a bad night all in all.