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This is the best online video I’ve seen in a while on any subject. I hope more businesses take it to heart. My take on the subject comes in the form of two lessons. Lesson one — lighten up and show a little personality. That’s what will let people connect with your brand on an emotional level. Lesson two — ban writing by committee. Brainstorming as a group is good. Writing as a group is bad. If this process is mandatory, have the testicular fortitude to be the guy at the end of the session who steps up and points out that the vapid, milquetoast crap you all just hammered out is just that.

Thanks Fast Company!

Come on, Delta, understanding social media isn't hard -- the Golden Rule is that the community comes first

I recently heard a tale of sadness and despair from my normally cheerful and up-beat father. He is a member of the Delta Sky Miles Dining program, which offers extra bonus miles when you use your Delta credit card to pay for meals at certain restaurants (three miles for every dollar spent).

As part of this program, diners may leave reviews on the Delta Dining Website about the participating restaurants they visit. More specifically, they may leave POSITIVE REVIEWS. Alas, dear old dad had a terrible experience at one of these restaurants and submitted an appropriately negative review to the Delta Dining community. Sadly, his review was never posted. Concerned for his fellow diners, he called Delta Dining to find out what happened. Point blank, he was told that they can’t post negative reviews. They have a policy that forbids it. After all, these participating restaurants pay good money to be included in the program and bad reviews would make them sad.

It doesn’t take a genius to see how short-sighted Delta is being here. In fact, this provides a stellar example of a company not understanding the whole point of social media. If you are going to ask for feedback, you have to take what you get. Otherwise your credibility is shot. And once that happens, the backlash can be severe.

Since Delta is pretty much ripping off CitySearch or Yelp, by adding a reviews component to the site, they should take a few minutes and realize WHY those sites are successful in the first place. The reason is obvious — credibility. While there will always be positive reviews for crappy restaurants and crappy reviews for excellent restaurants, the reviews for any given establishment — when taken as a whole — are usually pretty accurate.

You can almost always weed out the reviewers who don’t know squat (or don’t care) about food. You can also easily spot the people who are just looking for a venue to bitch because that’s what they like to do. Even if you aren’t sure, if someone is really far off, the community will let this be known. And that’s the whole idea. Because when it comes to social media, you need to trust, respect and protect the interests of your community. Sponsors may come and go, but once the community realizes you have sold them out, they are gone for good.

For the record, the restaurant my dad visited is Joseppi’s in Tacoma, WA. His chief complaints were that the restroom was dirty and the hostess was too busy talking on the phone to her boyfriend to do her job. He also found the food to be mediocre.  Looking at reviews for Joseppi’s on Citysearch and Yelp, most people find the staff friendly and helpful. Some like the food and some find it so-so.

Taken collectively, I think I get a pretty good picture of what to expect — decent service and lousy food. I’d expect the food to be bad because a large number of people in this part of the country don’t know  good Italian food from Chef Boyardee. If several find it mediocre, that’s a bad sign.

Regardless, if I visited Joseppi’s based on a bunch of glowing reviews from the Delta Sky Miles program, I’d almost certainly be in for a nasty surprise. And that’s just not cool. Sorry Delta, but you blew it.

Harley doesn't have to pay for it -- they get it for free

Branding is a very powerful thing. One of the best ways to know your brand has truly struck a chord with customers is when it starts showing up in tattoos. It is entirely possible that, at this very moment, someone somewhere is getting the words “Harley” and “Davidson” forever inscribed on their skin. After all, Harley is a truly iconic brand that, for millions and millions of people, defines cool (despite the fact that Harley makes crappy motorcycles).

Unfortunately, over the past several years, there have been some marketeers who have seen fit to create marketing campaigns involving tattoos. Perhaps the most famous is Golden Palace, an online casino that actually found someone so desperate for cash that she was willing to have the company’s logo tattooed across her forehead for $15,000.

The move was demeaning and sad, but generated a ton of publicity. While nearly all of it was negative, the campaign met its objective — to get the company’s name out there. It’s OK to be gross if you are an online casino.

Earlier this month, a video of a guy getting a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses tattooed on his face went viral. It isn’t clear whether Ray-Ban or one of its agencies was in on it (or even whether or not it is real). If Ray-Ban is behind it and actually paid this kid to get that tattoo, that is pretty awful. Even if they got away with it without being directly implicated, I still don’t think it does anything to help the brand. Unlike Golden Palace, Ray-Ban does have an image to uphold. Convincing some rube to get a terrible tattoo on his face as a marketing stunt isn’t hip — it’s immoral and wrong.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should

Right now, Titus Cycles is running a campaign on Facebook where people design a Titus Tattoo and tell the community of Facebook fans where on their bodies they would put it. Fans vote on which concept they like best and the “winner” is flown to Titus headquarters in Arizona, gets the tattoo (applied by an artist of the company’s choosing) and is awarded a mountain bike worth about $5,500.

It is true that Titus does make one hell of a mountain bike (I actually own one and love it). Some might even say the brand is tattoo-worthy. But this campaign is sophomoric and shows the company doesn’t truly understand either branding or tattoos. Titus makes high-end, high-dollar bikes. While I’m sure there are plenty of potential Titus customers who dig tattoos there are many more who probably don’t. Tattoos just aren’t an integral part of the cycling or mountain biking culture. And, while tattoos are a lot more mainstream than they used to be, they are still pretty edgy.

The problem is, Titus doesn’t come off as a particularly edgy company, nor should it. Titus has actually earned the right to position itself as a premium brand. When a company legitimately can position itself that way, it absolutely should. Obviously someone at Titus understands this nuance because the company’s new Website does just that. It is gorgeous. It is worth noting that most of the riders pictured on the site are conspicuously ink-free.

Then there’s the matter of the tattoo itself. When people choose to get a tattoo of a brand, it’s because they identify strongly with that brand. In a way, they are using the meaning of the brand to help define who they are. They are doing it because they want to, which makes it an authentic form of expression. Paying someone to get a tattoo of a brand changes all that. At the end of the day, it just turns the person into a living billboard. At that point it stops being authentic and is just lame. In addition, no serious collector of fine ink will let just anyone slap a tattoo on them. Many people — at least those with truly great work — will wait months or even years to get an appointment with the right artist.

At the end of the day, there will always be people willing to do all sorts of odd things for a little bit of notoriety and a few dollars. But just because you can find people to do those things doesn’t mean you should. That tattoo is going to last a lot longer than any buzz you generate and, quite possibly, longer than your company will even be around.

I’ve written a lot on this blog about edgy vs. inappropriate advertising and where to draw the line. There’s a new controversy afoot over a KFC ad from Australia. When viewed through American eyes, it is nearly impossible to see this ad as anything but racist. However, apparently when viewed from an Australian context, it is anything but racist. You can read all about the controversy in Mashable. The sad part is that the outcry was enough to make KFC chicken out and pull the ad.

Worse yet, pulling the ad caused a bit of an outcry with Australians — and rightly so. If the ad wasn’t intended for an American audience and wasn’t ever going to run in America, why should the campaign be changed just because some ignorant whiners in the US didn’t understand it?

Yes, companies do need to realize that even local campaigns may be seen globally thanks to social media. And, yes, this is something global companies might want to consider. On the other hand, perhaps the people who are always on the lookout for things to become offended by just so they can feel “progressive” should be ignored from to time. Getting all worked up about an ad meant for another culture (even if that other culture happens to speak the same language) is lame. Part of being politically correct is accepting that you don’t know everything and minding your own business.

Another sign that we are doomed as a society or just some juvenile humor?

Last year, Pepsi found itself in the middle of a controversy over some suicide-themed ads they put out that were pretty tasteless. My assessment of that particular issue was Pepsi messed up good and proper. Now the company is back in the hot seat over a (sort of) tasteless iPhone application it created to help promote its AMP energy drink. The application — like the drink — is marketed to pubescent males. The idea is they can use the app to get advice on how to score with different types of chicks. Unfortunately, they took it one step farther by also building in a feature that lets them brag about their conquests to their friends.

As was obviously expected, the campaign got Team Political Correctness all up in a tizzy. Pepsi then “apologized” to those who were offended on Twitter and asked people to Tweet their opinions about the issue. They even asked people to use a pepsifail hashtag.  Brilliant. What they didn’t do is immediately kill the application (which they have since done).

CNN had Adam Ostrow of Mashable and PR “guru” Kevin Dugan on to discuss the topic. Both made some excellent points about the pros and cons of the campaign and whether or not Pepsi should pull it from the Apple App Store.

I tend to agree with Adam on this one. Yes, it is tasteless; but, at the end of the day, it is designed to appeal to young boys and that’s what young boys like. Yes the “brag about it” part was a little over the top and was probably not necessary. Yes, it was bound to piss people off — and get a lot of publicity in the process — and there is no doubt that this was a calculated strategy. But should Pepsi have pulled the app?

Ultimately, I say yes but ONLY because AMP is owned by Pepsi and the Pepsi brand needs to stay squeaky-clean. If AMP was its own company, I would have said there would be a strong case for keeping it, political correctness be damned. It might get some people’s panties in a bunch, but not AMP’s target audience. In a way, the controversy is good for the brand if the goal is to appeal to pseudo bad-boys. And, as Adam pointed out, a “sister” app. that poked fun at guys would have been another legitimate way to mitigate the “outrage.”

I also suspect that the reason Pepsi didn’t pull the app right away is because they wanted to get the Twitter publicity first. By “admitting” they screwed up, they had already set the stage to later make it right. I also suspect that if the “it’s a joke — lighten up” crowd dramatically overwhelmed the “oh my heck, I’m so appalled” crowd they would have kept it up.

Pepsi took a risk. I think it paid off. They also provided another great case study for savvy social media marketing.