I often start my posts with a joke, so here it is:

Klout.

Not laughing? That’s because the joke may be on marketers who think Klout is a good tool to promote their brands. Why? Because not since spam has any marketing tool engendered this much hostility. Foursquare comes close, but Klout occupies its own circle in marketing Hades, nestled between telemarketers and those talking banner ads that proclaim you’ve won a free iPod.

Consider this cartoon from the popular webstrip xkcd:

It was featured in TechCrunch by a sympathetic writer and—

What’s that? You don’t know what Klout is or why it should provoke such raw anger from a cartoonist? Lucky soul. That’s like not knowing what waterboarding is. I envy your innocence. Now let’s despoil it…

What Is Klout And Why Should You (Not) Care?

Klout is a tool that measures your “influence“ in social media. I emphasized the quotation marks there, because that “influence” is completely metaphorical.

What Klout truly measures is your celebrity status combined with your willingness to play the game. For all its hype, Klout is essentially an online contest where users compete for points and imaginary accomplishments that they can drone on about. Kinda like Farmville without cute animals.

The game uses a secret algorithm that measures how much time you waste on invest in social networking, your number of fans/friends/followers on those platforms, their Klout scores, and how much you all repeat each other. I know, sounds like watching paint dry, grass grow, and continents drift. The secret algorithm then assigns each player a numerical rating.

Who has the highest Klout score and is, by definition, the most influential person in the world? No, not the Dos Equis man. (That would be cool.) It’s Justin Bieber. Yes, really. Need I say more? The Bieb outranks President Obama, Rupert Murdoch, Oprah Winfrey, and all the VC’s in Silicon Valley who funded those social networks in the first place. All bow before him.

Among the noncelebrities, I recently met a guy who kept droning on and on about his Klout score, and how he was the most influential man in the world in three categories. His real-life social ineptitude would have prevented him from selling water in the desert. In fact, the only thing this tool convinced me to do was RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!

In short, Klout measures whether you’re already a celebrity, or whether you have the time (or staff) to play around on social networks all day. If you’re a busy CEO who’s trying to actually run a major corporation or nonprofit organization, tough luck. According to Klout, you have no influence.

The Marketers Fall For It

Now, in normal times, Klout would be dismissed as fantasy football for the Wired crowd  — except that even Wired doesn’t dig Klout that much.

Unfortunately, these aren’t normal times: we’re still stuck in Web 2.0 (at least until Facebook’s stock price hits single digits), so some marketers are latching onto anything that has the word “social” associated it, no matter how much it could eviscerate their brands (see “Groupon”).

For example, Cathay Pacific is inviting anyone with a Klout score over 40 to freely join their business and first-class passengers in their SFO lounge. Sweet perk, huh? Beats anything you get from playing Angry Birds.

What will Cathay Pacific get out of it — besides ticked-off business and first-class passengers who suddenly find themselves surrounded by living tools? Well, the airline did score a lot of publicity from this stunt (including my rant here). But primarily, their hope is that these “influential” types will tweet/post/spew something positive about Cathay Pacific.

So what’s wrong with that? That’s just managing “word of mouth,” right? To give Cathay Pacific the benefit of the doubt, some Klout leaders do have legitimate influence, and what crumbs they fling out get snapped up ravenously by their social flocks. For example, if Justin Bieber were to say, “Ooh, baby, baby, Cathay Pacific is, like, my baby, baby, you know, baby, baby?” then millions of 12-year-old girls would want to fly Cathay Pacific, too.

But there are two potential pitfalls:

1. That “influential” person might say something negative, like, “I can’t believe how freakin’ late my flight is, and how much longer I have to hang here in the Cathay Pacific SFO Lounge with some old farts, baby, baby.”
2. People who don’t like Klout will react negatively to the promotion.

In fact, the backlash has already begun. Look at these first three comments in TechCrunch regarding Cathay Pacific’s Klout promotion:

I particularly like the second post, which shows you the sentiment of a young techie in Silicon Valley — precisely the kind of person Klout should be attracting. Then there’s TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, who knows a little about being ridiculous, calling something “ridiculous.” And last I checked, he has real influence.

So What If You Can’t Please Everyone?

Defenders of Klout (mostly Klout players, self-proclaimed social media gurus, and people who sell books about Klout), will argue that if it works for some people and some companies, why knock it? It’s just another medium.

Case in point: in that TechCrunch article featuring the xkcd cartoon, here’s a comment by Mark Schaefer, whose Twitter bio proclaims him to be “Chieftain of the social web’s most unique blog” (yes, he wrote “most unique” and he’s a marketing professor)…

“I’m wearying of articles that are anti-something just because somebody thinks it’s ‘stupid.’ If anybody wants the real low-down on Klout, I have written a book on the social influence trend, including research on how power and influence is evolving online and what Klout really does. It’s called ‘Return On Influence’” Please read it if for no other reason than we can stop seeing garbage like this.”

Nice self-promotion there, prof. My response? A true researcher of Klout wouldn’t “weary” of articles like these; he would include them in his data and analysis. If the very tool designed to measure “influence” is engendering public hostility, that’s critical for marketers to know. If a significant percentage of social media users — including truly influential ones in TechCrunch and Wired — believes that a particular tool is “stupid,” what is the risk and return for the marketer who uses it?

We marketers should start seeing Klout in the same light as spam, telemarketing, talking banner ads, gratuitous sexual imagery, commercials during the Rush Limbaugh show, Foursquare check-ins, sticking flyers under the windshield wipers of cars, and the “Head-On” commercials…

Yes, that’s an actual commercial.

All those tactics work to some degree, otherwise marketers wouldn’t still be using them. But all those tactics also annoy a lot of people. If that’s how you make a living, all the power to you, but be prepared to undermine your brand.

And that’s no joke.

Don't know what kind of player it is, but that's sure a lot of bull...

Imagine that you own a basketball team, and you send your talent scout out to find a new player. He comes back and presents two options:

• Player A: averages 9 points a game, including 1 three-point basket per game
• Player B: averages 24 points a game, including an average of 2 three-point baskets per game

Both play the same number of minutes per game, and both want the same amount of money. To your surprise, your scout recommends hiring Player A. “Why?!” you ask incredulously. “Because,” the scout replies, “Player A gets 33% of his points from three-point shots, and Player B gets only 25% of his points from three-point shots. That means Player A gets 32% more points from three-pointers than Player B.”

As you stare in stunned disbelief, the scout takes it as a signal to continue…

“Now you know that three-point shots are worth 50% more than two-point shots, so if we multiply the 50% by 32%, that makes Player A 1600% more valuable than Player B.”

Of course, that makes your choice easy: you fire the scout.

Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But that’s how some people are measuring social media “effectiveness.”

I came across this recently in an article that claimed, “Top B2B Firms Gaining 230% More Leads via Social Media Than Peers.”

“Best-in-Class B2B companies generate on average 17% of their leads from social media channels, roughly 230% more marketing-generated leads than other companies (5%).”

That’s some mad mathematical mayhem there – what my financial-analyst friend Ron Shevlin would call “quantipulation.” Where did that figure of 230% come from? I tried to do the math: 17 is 240% more than 5, so somewhere along the way, we lost 10% and…

Hold on there: this whole case smells like something beached itself and died. I find myself suddenly remembering Darrell Huff‘s classic book, How to Lie with Statistics, which demonstrated how you can say anything you want with numbers — particularly if you use those ever deceptive percentages. But since I took graduate statistics from a professor who couldn’t teach a fish how to swim, I don’t trust my calculations.

So I contact Shevlin, who’s a professional marketing analyst in the financial services industry. He cuts to the chase:

“NEVER EVER calculate the percentage difference between two percentages.”

Thank you, Sensei, for dispensing with that nonsense.

But I wasn’t done with this article yet.

The So What Factor

As I tell my students, the most important question to ask when analyzing social media in business is, “So what?” It’s the perfect response to any of these statements:

• “I’ve got one quadrillion Twitter followers!”
• “My video went viral!”
• “I just became the Mayor of my favorite coffee shop!”
• “According to Klout, I’m the world’s most influential person in three categories!”

Ask “So what?” — and the answer better have a $ sign attached.

So let’s look at our 230% overachievers, shall we? And let’s be good sports and grant them that number. So here it goes: so what if you got 230% more leads?

• What are the absolute numbers? 17% sounds like more than 5%, but you don’t need a good statistics professor to understand that 17% of 100 is a lot less impressive than 5% of 100,000.
• What was the ultimate value of those leads? Did they all convert into sales? And if they did convert, at what dollar amount?
• What was each of those firms selling? Some products and services are a lot easier to sell through social media than others. (Say, marketing consulting vs. nuclear accident clean-ups.)
• Are the top firms getting more leads because they’re good at social media, or because they’re top firms?
• If a higher percentage of a company’s leads comes from social media, couldn’t that mean that they suck at traditional media? Or, conversely, perhaps the 5-percenters are so good at traditional media, that they don’t need to bother with social. (There’s a company like that you may have heard of called “Apple.”)
• How much did the 17-percenters spend in time, money and opportunity costs to land those leads? What did the 5-percenters spend? Of course, EVERYONE knows by now that social media isn’t free and can be even more expensive than traditional media, right?
• If the firms had invested all that time and money into traditional media – from which 83-95% all leads in this case come from – what would the results have been?
• And, wait, if non-social media is generating 83-95% of all leads for these firms, why is this even a story? I know where I’d invest my time and money, don’t you?

Now don’t get me wrong: social media has actually generated leads for my own B2B agency, almost entirely through LinkedIn. So yes, it can be productive and lucrative. For some… at some times under some situations for some prospective clients.

The key is being able to discern what that “some” is, and we won’t be able to discern squat if we keep getting thrown distorted stats. Silly stats are no way to pick a basketball player, and certainly no way to run a business.

I’m 230% sure about that.

Freddy’s Intro: Why is there a diatribe about New Orleans Saints football, crime, and punishment in my marketing blog? A lot of reasons.

• First, it’s a knee-deep, Mississippi-mud-thick, Tabasco-and-vitriol-infused jambalaya about football, and I love me some spicy good writing about the world’s greatest sport.
• Second, I came this close to becoming a New Orleanian: I reluctantly turned down Tulane Business School to stay in L.A. and attend USC instead – two years before Katrina struck. Funny how life can be massively altered by one decision.
• Finally, for us marketers, this fan’s rant is a classic example of how one of the most powerful brands in the world, the NFL, is far from being “customer centric.” Customer-centricity is the trendy new strategy favored by almost no one but naïve marketing writers.

As the case of the New Orleans Saints bounty program demonstrates, brands have multiple stakeholders they need to consider. Realizing that it’s impossible to please everyone, the NFL went ahead and pissed some fans off – such as my friend here. The strength of a brand can then be measured by how many of those fans stay loyal despite being mad as hell. (And I know that Emir will continue to watch every Saints game this season and beyond.)

I agree with a lot of what’s in his post, and disagree with some of it. (I’m a huge fan of Peter King, who Emir maligns below.) But what matters here is the passion: a sign that a brand has achieved marketing nirvana (beyond sales, of course).

Warning: lots of semi-obscure football, religious, historical and literary allusions ahead, but that’s half the fun of this piece. As they say in New Orleans, laissez les bons temps rouler!

Who can argue that not all sins are created equal?

I have it on Good Authority that The Cheatriots committed a mortal sin and His Saints a venial one. Not only would all the Saints agree with me, but more to the point, so would St. Amani Toomer, a longtime Giants receiver now retired, who said he would place an asterisk next to the Patriots’ three Super Bowl victories. “I would, I definitely would without question,” Toomer said on the Jim Rome Show. “If you know what their adjustments are and what their signals are and you practice those signals, it’s cheating. I feel very strongly about it because this game is as much about the level playing field of the NFL, and the league has built up so much goodwill to let everybody know that what you’re watching is the real deal. The fact that the Spygate thing goes directly to the core that the NFL is, to me it is a big deal.” Some cretins might not see this insight as miraculous, but anyone who doesn’t heretofore refer to Amani as at least Venerable Amani (Blessed seems more accurate to me) is to miss a beatification right before their human eyes.

Undoubtedly, one such cretin with his snout-like parotid glands is our very own Peter King. And to think this nave was named after the King Apostle. Judas Priest would have been much more appropriate. And clearly, screaming occasionally discernible devil music his more suited vocation. He should never have taken those 30 pieces. They rattle when he writes. It bugs me. I am a fly to him.

Oh how glibly Peter King glosses over what the Cheatriots did. Spygate, we called it. The fact is, Coach Bill Belichick’s Patriots were caught red-handed in 2007 secretly taping opponents’ coaches’ hand signals and, presumably, matching them with video cutups of plays in order for New England’s defense to know which offensive play was coming. And on that day, not this one, the NFL FELL.

This systematic affront to the very core of the Spirit of the Game also happened to have violated NFL policy. The Law. And so on Sunday in the dead of night, Goodell fined Belichick the maximum of $500,000, fined the Patriots $250,000 and docked them a first-round draft choice in 2008. “This episode represents a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid longstanding rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field,” Goodell wrote in a letter to the Patriots explaining his disciplinary action. And throughout Boston they did weep… from laughter.

From that “disciplinary” letter, who could foresee Roger Goodell’s head-twirling ghoulish possession by a red-eyed Richard M. Nixon. So much so, that this debacle would conclude with: Spygate=Watergate. Don’t believe me, ask Carl Bernstein. He’d tell you how the Nixonian Commissioner destroyed the evidence, the very tapes that prompted him to levy the punishment. Instead of initiating a Saints-like 50,000-page investigation into Spygate, Nixon had the tapes destroyed. I can hear clearly the justification to erase the tapes: “We have a cancer within, close to the Commish, that is growing.”

One theory (not from Peter King mind you) is that those tapes may have provided such clear evidence of cheating that to be made public would be to forever call in question New England’s three Super Bowl victories. So Goodell erased them — or did Liddy do it? Don Banks? Bob Haldeman perhaps?

Dean: “It is not going to go away, sir!”
Nixon: “It is not going to go away.”

Some say History repeats itself (usually tenured Professors trying to justify their tenure). But in this case…

By destroying the tapes, Roger Goodell is lying by omission. Please read St. Aquinas for further edification. When the NFL is long gone, who knows where in the Inferno Goodell will ultimately reside? Perhaps, only Dante knows. But more to the point, who will light a candle for his Purgatorial release? No Saint that’s for sure. Maybe Coach Belichick can ignite the mystical transformation in which one’s suffering can benefit someone else based on God’s ability to take any negative and turn it into good.

Problem is, Coach Belichick didn’t suffer. Not one iota. Unlike the ineffective “Bounty-system,” cheating worked. It paid off. Thanks to the very man for whom he’s now trying to light a purgatorial candle. Alas, Goodell shall remain in the mire to which he deserves. In fact, henceforth I can actually see our Archbishop publicly forbidding any New Orleanian from lighting a candle for any Cheatriot Fan, dead or alive. Sacrilege takes many forms, and we in NOLA vehemently oppose each one (except during Mardi Gras).

But unlike the Saints, at least good ol’ Coach Belichick didn’t lie. Well, since he didn’t have to endure a 50,000-page investigation, he really didn’t get the chance to strut his administrative dark side. His nasty streak was primarily confined to the Jets and Steelers. Their seasons were the deaths to which all sins flower. But of the two, it was my second favorite team (Terry Bradshaw is from Louisiana) that suffered most from the Dark Shadows of Belichick and Co.

“They definitely cheated!!!” decried Hines Ward, suddenly edified by a Black-and-Gold nimbus and whose opinion, like those of most Steelers involved in the 2001 and 2004 AFC championship games, seethed Apocalyptic Fury at how the Cheatriots won both of those games in Heinz Field solely because they cheated, cheated and more cheated. The Steel Curtain was shredded, impugned and trampled upon by illegal, immoral and nefarious means. (This always happens when Boston Blue-Bloods befriend Red-Headed New Yorkers). And the tapes to evidence this debacle are in ashes, and Peter King has typed it up like some parking ticket. It’s a well-known fact: Peter King does not own a Terrible Towel. Nor should he.

At that point in time, if perceived rightly, America lay in ruins.

And yet there was no Patriotic study on the Cheatriots. But the one on the Saints indicates the Saints were second in the NFL with 17 regular-season defensive flags for violating rules intended to protect players from being hurt, just behind the Oakland Raiders’ 18. The league averaged nine per team (really, who wants to be average?).

Hey stat genius, weren’t the Saints in pass defense much of the time, and didn’t the Saints blitz most? You are much more likely to get called for such flags when blitzing the quarterback and laying out receivers. Admittedly, we had no choice but to be in Pass Defense. You see, we are cursed by the Prince of this World for having the Greatest Offense in Sentient History (angelic and UFO teams included). By angelic, I mean Fallen and Un-Fallen. Thus, the Prince’s envy.

And so despite what a coach might think, it is not always good to always have the lead. Look at the tape of the game in SF where we won twice and lost. Alex Smith was possessed by the Devil in Cleats. Apparently at key times, the Spirit of Joe can be plucked from those Napa wineries. Damn that man. He ruined my childhood, and that of so many others. Jesus in Cleats my foot. But I will say this about Mountain Joe: he wouldn’t have whined about the hits the New Orleanian Favre took. (Kiln, Mississippi is within the cultural gambit of NOLA as with Memphis, Birmingham, Mobile, Little Rock. But for some reason we stop abruptly along the Sabine. I suspect Jerry Jones has something to do with it.)

And to think this entire 50,000-page investigation into the Saints reached critical mass when our beloved Brett Favre got hit on a play that was not penalized, and for which Almighty Goodell did not fine anyone in his Monday Morning Lightning Strikes from Mt. Olympus.

How many other NFL teams could survive a 50,000-page investigation into improper motivation to play aggressive, naughty, nasty, even wrongful (Think Raiders!). Answer: none.

But enough theology many moderns would consider medieval (everyone knows how much I disdain modernity). Peter King says (please genuflect) that Roger Goodell had to send the message out of concern for player safety.

What a crock!

If Goodell cared about player safety, he wouldn’t be pushing for an 18-game season. He wouldn’t have spent last off-season fighting the NFL Players Association on expanding health benefits or limiting “voluntary” off-season workouts. He wouldn’t be promoting Thursday-night games, which will accelerate injuries by giving players a shorter week to heal. Tell me, St. Peter, how honest was the NFL about players’ long-tern injury rates, the concussion epidemic and the history of sending concussed players back into games? Please, Pete, tell all. Only that, and more, could remove your toady status. In fact, when you come to Heaven for our Super Bowl, I hope you choke on the King Cake Baby.

Petra Rex, please parade before us each and every NFL player who was illegally injured by the wayward Saints… None. I thought so. Also, if the hit was illegal, it was flagged. And if particularly egregious, then promptly fined from on high by Roger Goodell. Did Father Zeus miss any illegal hits from the Saints Bounty system that he now deems should have been fined, as opposed to when these alleged criminal hits first occurred? If so, then Roger Goodell is admittedly incompetent in meting out punishment, and needs to delegate such Zeus-ness to someone who can effectuate the rules within 48 hours, and not 3 years. I nominate Sean Payton.

Conveniently enough, Roger Goodell now has decreed that all NFL teams certify they do not have a bounty system. As of today, who couldn’t and wouldn’t? Not even the Devil himself. Why doesn’t Goodell ask for a certification that no bounty system of any sort was in effect since the day the 50,000-page investigation commenced against the small-market Saints? Now that would be honest, even fair. Not gonna happen, is it, Mr. Toady Peter? Your legs would make a great appetizer.

Y’know, on further thought, I really think it was Ernie Adams who destroyed the tapes (mystery man and Director of Research on the Cheatriots who is not a coach, doesn’t really talk to players, but talks to his lifelong friend, Darth, after each practice. They say he sleeps in snowdrifts, fears garlic and is the sole reason coaches talk with mouths unseen during all games.)

The Saints and their QB Drew Brees under fire… Photo by U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. James Frank via Wikimedia Commons.

And still Peter King bullfrogs Spygate a venial sin. Enough!!!

For disrespecting the Proper Order of Naughtiness in the World, you are hereby consigned to Purgatory unless you…

1. Say 50 Hail Marys and mean it…
2. Predict the Saints will win the Super Bowl…
3. Never-ever disparage the Lord’s Team (America’s Team may reside in Dallas, but the Saints reside in the City That Care Forgot as an Incarnation)…
4. And order Drew Brees to take the $90 million over 5 years, since his value is in relation to the Salary Cap and not the Federal Government’s ability to print money.

If Drew can’t live off the $250 million he will make from NOLA in pay and endorsements by the end of his career, then he is either a scalawag from Texas or a carpet-bagger from Purdue. This part of my diatribe is erased from print and from the Akashic record if Drew comes to his senses and takes St. Loomis’ offer. And to think I was in love with that 5’11 man.

By now, isn’t it going much too far to assume the New Orleans Saints are a dirty team on defense or otherwise?

In fact, the defense has been porous for years. We compulsively blitz because prepubescent zombies pass-rush more ferociously than our front four. Don’t believe me, ask Vernon Davis.

But enough denigration of the Saint’s defense. Let’s cut through the cannoli: truth is, not one single solitary NFL team could withstand a 50,000-page investigation as to whether they improperly motivated players to hurt players from the opposing team. For some reason, I kept thinking of Conrad Dobler. And he played offense!

Peter, you have glibly asserted that Roger Goodell’s friendship with Bob Kraft would amount to no more than buying him the first rounds of drinks. That relationship would have to be acknowledged in a Court of Law and would no doubt trigger an effective recusal motion.

But justice and legal procedure don’t have a lot in common — just look at the appellate process Coach Payton must undergo. Who can deny that Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Dennis Rader, David Berkowitz, Gary Ridgway, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Ramirez, Coral Eugene Watts, Dean Corll, Richard Angelo, Albert Firsh, Eddie Gein, Belle Gunness, Angel Maturino Resendiz, Derrick Todd Lee, John Allen Muhammad and Herman Webster Mudgett all belong to en extremely elite Hall of Fame? Each and every one of them without exception received more effective Due Process than Coach Sean Payton, aka: Lord and Protector against Nefarious Souls who would try to take the team Elsewhere (like San Antonio).

And by way, the Saints are not innocent, but let any other team sinless of any sort of Bounty-system cast the first stone… publicly. Yeah, I didn’t think so.

In the end, it is clear that to give up coaching is what Big Brother wanted from Winston Smith all along.

His spirit broken, Winston is released to the outside world. A year later, Winston meets NOLA but no longer feels anything for her. He has accepted the Party entirely and has learned to love Big Brother.

Or is this a ruse? For Winston also seems fixated on a powerful Party member named Parcells, whom Winston believes is a secret member of the Brotherhood — the mysterious, legendary group that works to overthrow the Party for whom Don Banks and Peter King re-write their History, so eloquently denying that football is inherently a violent game and that 99.99% of its worst injuries take place within the rules of game (just ask Pierre Thomas). I won’t even discuss the multi-million dollar incentive clauses DEs have to sack the QB. What’s $1000 when sack #10 is worth $1,000,000.00? But who discloses these salient facts? Where’s Bob Woodward when you need him?

But when it comes to yellow journalism, Don Banks and Peter King can’t compete with the scion of William Randoph Heart: Roger Goodell. In order to enable a better legal defense against the Concussion Class Action Lawsuits and deliver to the owners their billions via the 18-game season, Roger Goodell has donned the wig and rouge to hoodwink us into believing his Unholy Sanctions against the Saints, new and improved helmets, and some high-tech padding by the NFL empowers players to engage in the violent game of football WITH NO ILL CONSEQUENCE.

This multi-billion dollar deception (mortal sin) cost the Saints dearly, and will cost the Players when they take their millions, while the owners pocket their billions.

When you get old, you think you might pass the time by meeting an NFL player in your convalescent home. Given the shortened lifespan of elite athletes, not to mention NFL players, one can almost guarantee that such a meeting will be more rare than an honest NFL Commissioner.

I doubt you will reply to this Peter, since censorship takes many forms. One of which is: toady-ism. H.L. Mencken would agree with me on this.

Not yours, although truly,

Ignatius J. Reilly
(Who Dat member #43384903849317510292305490579573928. The burdensome numberage is a direct result of an active fan base existent in this world and the next.)

P.S. We are invincible. We actually live and breathe beneath the waterline, and our dead parade themselves above land, encaved beautifully. For all to see there they wait. For those who have faith, this is a transition, not an end. Sean Payton is nothing but a grain of wheat fallen to the earth. This will all bear much fruit.

Emir Phillips

About Emir Phillips: A Comprehensive Financial Planner and Asset Protection Specialist by day, Emir Philips is a history and football buff at all other times. For this former LA native now living in L.A., the Saints aren’t just a team – they’re a sect. Emir is also the author of Lucitan: A Christian Punk Novel, which tells of the Devil’s attempt to save New Orleans.

Freddy’s Update 4/2/12: Emir isn’t the only New Orleanian who’s upset. “Free Sean Payton” T-shirts are being seen on everyone from Jimmy Buffett to roadside vendors. As I noted above about passion, the scandal is actually leading to more ticket sales. In other words, Saints fans are pissed off at the NFL, and they’re showing their anger… by buying more tickets. Guess who wins? Now, who’s reporting all this? Emir’s favorite writer, Peter King, of course. In addition to the reports from New Orleans, King discusses the history of violence and bounties in the NFL.

How's white with markings? Is white with markings tasty enough for you? Photo by Bakasama at fr.wikipedia.

True story: A man walks by a pet store and sees rabbits for sale. He tells the clerk that he’ll take one, and she asks him what color he’d like. The man responds, “I don’t think the snake cares”…

I know, I know, not the most heartwarming Easter story ever told. (If it’s any consolation, the clerk refused to sell a rabbit to the man, who replied, “Snake’s gotta eat, too.”) The reason I’m blogging it is that, in classic business literature fashion, any unusual story can be warped into a business lesson. (Seth Godin has made millions doing it, so why not play along?)

And here’s your lesson du jour: The snake is the consumer. (Stay with me now.) And all he wants is lunch — just something to tide him over for a couple of weeks. Yet here comes some know-it-all (the clerk) foisting upon him some features he couldn’t care less about.

As consumers, we’ve all experienced this feature creep: products with capabilities we don’t need or even want…

• “No, I don’t need a TV with 3D…”
• “And when exactly will I use four-wheel drive in Santa Monica?…”
• “This textbook comes with a DVD? Can I get a $100 discount if I just go with the paper version?”

In her highly insightful and engaging book, Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd, Harvard Professor YoungMe Moon describes this mad proliferation of features — what she calls “augmentation-by-addition” — as a sign of creative failure. Rather than being truly innovative, companies just cram feature after feature into a product, since piling on commoditized features doesn’t take a lot of money or skill or imagination.

“It used to be that toothpaste offered the singular promise of cavity-free teeth: today, toothpaste offers the additional promises of fresh breath, tartar control, and a whiter smile. It used to be that laundry detergent offered the singular promise of clean clothes; today, there is static elimination, stain protection, and fabric softening.”

Such feature creep makes brands indistinguishable, so, as Moon notes, consumers stop caring about brands at all. Think about the low-end of the computer market: Toshiba, Lenovo, HP, Compaq, Dell, Asus, Acer, Whatever. “What does it matter,” says the snake. “They’re all the same anyway, so give me a deal.” The end result: companies start competing on the basis of price instead of brand in a disastrous race to the bottom.

This trend of imposing unwanted features on consumers is not limited to retail products.

Take Facebook’s timeline, for example. When did people start demanding to know their friends on a chronological basis? It’s even more nonsensical when it comes to business pages. How often do consumers want a year-by-year history of the brands they buy?

In fact, let’s take a step back and point out something that should upset all new-media marketers: most consumers don’t want interactivity in advertising. Video games? Of course they want interactivity. Ads? Not so much. In fact, way less than not so much. My favorite new blogger, The Ad Contrarian, points this out in a vicious but oh-so-true rant, “Interactivity: Get Over It”:

“Every experiment with interactive TV (ITV) has been a disaster. Click-through rates on banner ads are below 1 in a thousand. Engagement rates on Facebook are below 1/2 of 1%. It turns out that people on line react to ads the same way people off line react to them — mostly they ignore them. And when they do bother to read them, they overwhelmingly do not interact with them… In the digital world, people are passionate about interacting with each other — not brands, not ads, not you, not me. Get over it.”

And don’t get me started on QR Codes. (My other favorite marketing blogger, Ron Shevlin, recently pointed me to the ultimate QR Code analytics site.)

What’s this all mean? It’s simple: we marketers need to think twice – even thrice –  before hopping on every tech trend that comes out of the chute. Want to play with something new because it excites y-o-u? By all means, go play. You might get lucky, just as you would with a roulette wheel. Want to use new tech because it excites consumers? Yeah, well hold on there, Buck Rogers, and determine whether your target customers are truly excited, or whether they just want something to tide them over a couple of weeks.

The snake doesn’t care – but he’s hungry. What are you going to do about it?

"Social media marketing suits me perfectly..." (illustration by Shane Clester)

If this is the social media revolution, wake me when it’s over.

Social media was supposed to forge stronger relationships between companies and customers. It was also supposed to provide a massive improvement over traditional advertising, since social media doesn’t “interrupt” people when they’re trying to enjoy their favorite reality shows set in New Jersey.

In this revolution, customers aren’t pestered by marketers; rather, they give “permission” to marketers by visiting their websites, signing up for their newsletters, or following their social media accounts. It’s an idyllic marketplace where companies and customers all like each other and swap +K’s in exchange for “value” and “utility.”

Too bad it doesn’t exist.

Plus, we all remember what lurked in that other Garden of Eden…

In Twitterland, amidst the chirping blue birdies and plummeting whales, a new creature has emerged from the undergrowth: the Twitter Stalker (a Twalker?). He won’t interrupt your valuable stream of tweets about where you had breakfast, the deaths of celebrities who haven’t really died, or retweets of articles talking about other people’s thoughts about Twitter.

No, interrupting all that would be sacrilegious.

Rather, the Twitter Stalker just follows you. He doesn’t attempt to send you a message or even comment on your tweets. He just saw that you tweeted something about, say, SEO, and since he works in SEO but isn’t very good at it, he decided the best way to sell you his services would be to simply follow you…

Silently…

In hopes that you’re one of those tweeters who mindlessly follows everyone back, so that you might see his tweets about algorithm tweaks. And then, maybe, you know, hire him.

It didn’t have to be this way…

Had he done any research, he might have learned that you have no interest whatsoever in search engine optimization — indeed, you don’t even have a website — and that you meant to type “SFO” at the airport, but the damn autocorrect changed it.

But he’s a Twitter Stalker. He don’t do no stinkin’ research. ‘Cause everyone told him “Twitter is revolutionary” and “all you have to do is start an account and start following people.” He was told not to try to sell anything — that would violate Twitterquette — but to just build relationships.

But they never explained to mediocre SEO guy how to start and maintain relationships with thousands of people at the same time. Indeed, he turned to the Internet in the first place because building relationships in real life wasn’t his thing, either.

So he just follows. And follows. And waits. And if you don’t follow him back, he might unfollow you… wait a few weeks… then follow you again, so that you might respond to the second notice that you’re being followed. And somewhere in the background, you hear The Police singing, “Every breath you take…”

You may think I’m exaggerating, but some guy from something called Social Media Marketing Magazine kept doing this to me again and again and again. Given this demonstration of his social media prowess, I ignored him. But he kept trying and trying and trying. A regular Energizer Bunny of Twitter stalking.

But he’s not the only one. I also have all these tango schools and instructors and nightclubs following me, failing to note that Atomic Tango is a marketing agency, not an explosive new dance program. They all follow. They never say a word. I do like the image of being stalked by tango dancers, though.

And the stalking isn’t limited to Twitter.

LinkedIn seethes with stalkers who barely have anything on their profiles, and who invite you to their networks by claiming that you’re a “friend.” I’ve messaged a few of them with a, “Sorry, my memory cells are toasted. Where did we meet?” but they never respond. Some are obviously spammers. Others are apparently startled that their stalking generated an actual human conversation. “Wait, you mean we’re supposed to talk to people in our networks? I thought we just connected with them, and they would offer us jobs and money…”

To all these people, I just want to say, knock it off. If you want to sell me something, fine, just go ahead and interrupt me already. Look up my contact info and drop me an email or a letter with a thoughtful offer based on my interests. I have actually responded to some of those.

And just run some freakin’ ads already.

Particularly clever and creative ones. I’ve responded to more than a few of those, too. Really.

In fact, lots of people do. For all the claims of social media’s superiority as a marketing tool, there’s far more proof that traditional advertising drives conversations and sales, and that social media rarely sells anything but kogi tacos. (Hint: “friends,” “fans,” “followers” and other f-words do not necessarily translate into sales.)

What I don’t respond to: silent lurking in the background of my social networks. When it comes to marketers like that, I don’t want a relationship — I want a restraining order.

An uncut industrial diamond ready for hyping. (photo by Shieldforyoureyes Dave Fischer, via Wikimedia Commons)

When I was fresh out of college, I met this millionaire who made his fortune selling diamond jewelry through supermarket tabloids. You may be wondering, what kind of jewelry sells through the cheesiest rags on the planet — newspapers that you wouldn’t dare use to line a birdcage lest you kill the bird?

That’s a good thing to wonder.

These were genuine diamonds — genuine industrial diamonds, that is, worthless in the general jewelry market. Yet the tabloid readers saw the word “diamond” and their eyes lit up and their mouths watered and their hands reached for the telephone as the words “my precious” escaped from their lips…

Of course, we poke fun at these tabloid readers, even though many of us consume a giant digital tabloid, 140 characters at a time. And we roll our eyes at their gullibility when it comes to jewelry, because we know that even gem-quality diamonds are mostly the product of marketing and monopolization, right?

(Tip: look up Australian brown diamonds, which were worthless until a massive marketing campaign recast them as “champagne” diamonds. Yes, we marketers can sell anything.)

Seeing that I was a business newbie, the millionaire taught me that some people will believe anything — you just have to find the right people and feed them the right magic words. He also advised me that if something sounds too good to be true, it’s too good to be true.

And that doesn’t just apply to shiny rocks…

Faux Facts About Facebook

Fast forward a couple of decades. That advice came back to me a few weeks ago when I read a headline on AllFacebook.com proclaiming, “96% Of Small Businesses Are On Facebook“.

Hmm, that didn’t sound right to me. Most of the small businesses in my neighborhood aren’t on Facebook, and this is a busy part of West L.A. I also know that most of the businesses (small and large) in my hometown of Roseburg, Oregon aren’t on Facebook, either, which I’m guessing is true of most small towns. So 96 out of 100?

Odder still was the attribution: “These figures from engagement marketing company  come in higher than anything we’ve seen yet…” (sic). In addition to the awkward phrasing, that sentence contained an extra space where the name of the “engagement marketing company” should be. That’s some odd editing.

Finally, near the end, the article acknowledged that the stats came from a study by email-marketing firm Constant Contact of 1,972 organizations, “ninety-five percent are Constant Contact customers.”

Really, AllFacebook.com? You’re hyping the fact that small businesses who employ an email marketing service are on Facebook? Why not go a step further and tell us that they own computers and use electricity, too?

Let’s play with numbers a little more…

That 96% is only 1% more than the number of Constant Contact customers in the survey. That tells us that, among the NON-Constant Contact customers in this survey, a very small percentage (as low as 25%) are on Facebook — and that still sounds high to me.

Like the diamond-hungry tabloid readers, today’s social media zealots see any remotely shiny factoid about their industry and their eyes light up and their mouths water and their hands reach for their keyboards as the words “my precious” escape from their lips…

They seldom dig deeper, and even when they do, they refuse to acknowledge that the shiny nuggets they dig up are actually worthless junk. To validate themselves and their efforts, they spin marketing tales in hopes of convincing us that imperfection = champagne.

Now Facebook can be a useful tool for small businesses, but exaggeration and misdirection will only turn off savvier small business owners — the ones who could actually create success stories worth talking about. Until more of those stories emerge, just repeat what that millionaire told me: if it sounds too good to be true, it’s too good to be true. And if you meet anyone who still believes the hype, let me know, ’cause I can get them a great deal on some diamonds…

It’s predictable: Apple releases a new product, and the devout start camping out at the Temple O’ Jobs to be one of the first to lay their hands upon it.

And just as predictably, people will ridicule these fanatics, usually with aspersions about their sex lives (or lack thereof). Note this tweet from comedian Aisha Tyler…

These same cooler-than-thou critics, though, never mock the thousands of fans who line up for nosebleed seats and overpriced food and even inclement weather at a sporting event, even though the same game is on TV and could end in a depressing way.

Nor do they mock the Hollywood entourages who absolutely MUST see a movie on opening night, even if it’s been ripped by critics and will appear on DVD in three months.

Indeed, I know people who will spend hours in line for a food truck.

So what’s the difference between the Apple fanboys and those who line up early for rock concerts, conventions, sporting events, autographs, theme parks, Black Friday shopping, hot Christmas toys, a new designer line at Target, or some trendy nightclub?

The answer: the hardcore techies actually provide value to the rest of us.

The faithful wait to enter the shrine (photo by Rob DiCaterino from Jersey City, NJ, via Wikimedia Commons).

1. They test the waters. Any new product, whether it’s a car or Broadway play, usually has glitches when it first hits the market. I dig Apple products, but usually wait three months so Apple can kill the bugs. But someone has to go first, and ideally it’s someone with the tech savvy (and enthusiasm) to identify and explain the glitches. While the rest of us blow gaskets when our tech toys develop problems, the techies not only don’t get flustered, they relish the opportunity to flaunt their bug-hunting savvy. We count on these unpaid product testers to write the early reviews on Amazon and CNET that guide our delayed purchases.

2. They serve as influencers. Early adopters, particularly hardcore fanatics, help spread the word as other consumers seek out their insights. Whether we’re talking a new phone, horror movie, or restaurant, marketers have always leveraged influencers to spread the word — early religions called them “preachers” and “evangelists” — since that’s far more efficient and cost-effective than targeting millions of consumers one-by-one or running a Super Bowl spot. Influencers are particularly valuable in social media, since they rush to issue their passionate verdicts on blogs, YouTube, and message boards, where followers await their word from on high. Their early enthusiasm or disdain also tells marketers whether a product is worth further investment or should be quietly shelved.

3. They initiate the buying that leads to economies of scale. New tech products are expensive to begin with, since they haven’t been manufactured in enough quantity to reduce costs. Some companies intentionally cut their margins (or even take a loss) to have a low “penetration price” from the get-go. But most companies need to charge full price at launch, and the early adopters willingly pay those “skimming” prices to be first (they’re the fashionistas of tech). Because they get the ball rolling, providing essential early profits for the company, the rest of us can wait. Without a sizeable crowd of early adopters, the rest of us only get a lower price when the company dumps its remaining inventory (see “$99 HP Touchpad”).

4. They raise the bar. Those queues in front of trendy clubs are a form of marketing, since they signal to passersby that there’s something inside worth wasting hours of your life. However, in order to ensure that fanatics will line up not just once but on every occasion, a company needs to consistently innovate and conjure up something OMG-worthy. When the lines disappear (or fail to materialize), you know your products have become commodities, right Dell?

Now, I love Apple products, but I won’t camp out for them or even wait in line. (I’m generally allergic to queues, particularly if they involve velvet rope.) However, I give serious iProps to those who do. These tech adventurers go out of their way at their own expense to facilitate and popularize our favorite toys — technology like smartphones and Twitter that some comedian will later use to ridicule them.

Now if I could only find someone who’d wait in line for me at the grilled cheese truck…

How business terminology is cooked up.

My friend Nina writes…

“I’m reading this article, and I can’t help but wonder: who comes up with the names for various consumer groups, like Millennials or, as in this piece, ‘X-fluents’? How do they gain traction? I think ‘X-fluents’ is stupid. It sounds too much like ‘effluent.’”

My response…

You remember the commercials that used eggs to symbolize a brain on drugs? Well, terminology fabrication is like that, but think of some mighty big brains and a drug called “fame.”

The perps include ad agencies, consulting firms, marketing writers (Seth Godin coins a term every 5 minutes or so), self-proclaimed social media gurus, research agencies, and professors trying to get published in the Harvard Business Review. For these guys, coining a term that gets adopted by society is like recording a #1 pop song or concocting a hit cocktail recipe. Since the theory-class doesn’t actually create anything that everyday people need or use, new terminology serves as their ticket to fame and immortality,

It’s a strategy that we didn’t study in business school (self-promo for wonks), but it’s a contagion that’s spreading. At least, according to us X-fluent wannabes (XFW’s).

This could only work in Texas.

In the Lone Star State, there are two dominant religions: Christianity and football. And I would dare say that if there were a Cowboys game on a Sunday morning, most Texans would opt for football first.

As a Texan for one year and a football fanatic, I can attest to that. I lived in Austin the year that the University of Texas Longhorns beat my USC Trojans, and I’m still haunted by the whoops and hollers of Texas football fans. I also loved the book “Friday Night Lights” and watched the TV show of the same name before it devolved into “Texas 90210.”

So it doesn’t surprise me that a Texas university would file a lawsuit and pander to statewide jingoism in order to save a religion from breaking up. And, no, I’m not talking about Christianity…

Bear Necessities

Baylor University, a Christian college in Waco, is threatening to sue one of its rivals in the Big 12 Conference, Texas A&M, to prevent it from joining the much more successful Southeastern Conference. And it’s not because Baylor loves the hedonists and heretics of Texas A&M. It’s because of that other religion: money.

If Texas A&M leaves, that forebodes an exodus of biblical proportions from the Big 12 (which was already down to 10 members before the season began — the ability to count is apparently not valued by its member universities). Already, Oklahoma and other Big 12 schools are flirting with other conferences, including the hated left-coast conference, the PAC-12.

If the Big 12 conference were to break up, that would likely leave Baylor as the wallflower, standing alone. That’s because the Baylor University Bears have been less than almighty on the football field, achieving just 18 wins and an Alamo-sized 101 losses in the Big 12 prior to this season. Baylor endured these gridiron indignities since being part of the Big 12 is (was?) extremely lucrative.

The way college football is structured, all teams in a conference share in the major bowl game winnings. Since Texas and Oklahoma regularly appear in the BCS bowls, Baylor scored big on its financial ledgers if not on the field. If relegated to a lesser conference, Baylor would see all those millions generated by Oklahoma and Texas dissipate.

Time to Mount that Sermon

So naturally, it’s suing to protect its finances — and that makes sense. What I find amusing is Baylor’s publicly promoted reason for doing so. It’s not about money — nosireebob! — it’s about preserving Texas culture and tradition and “great minds.” In a sermon entitled “Don’t Mess With Texas Football,” Baylor sings the praises of Texas football tradition, and makes the other schools look like they’re planning to physically uproot their campuses and relocate to the Sodom & Gomorrah of Florida & California…

Nothing is more beloved in Texas than Texas football. Entire towns travel to neighboring communities on Friday nights as rivals meet under the Friday night lights; Saturday mornings find families rushing out to pee wee football games and spending their afternoons with friends tailgating or watching some of the most historic and storied football rivalries in the nation; Sunday afternoons see families gathered in living rooms across the state to cheer on the Cowboys or the Texans. Football in Texas is more than a passing interest, it is a part of the fabric of this great state.

• Will Texans stand by and watch hundred-year-old rivalries be cast aside as the state’s largest universities align themselves with other states across the country?
• Will Texans sit and watch as Texas’ flagship universities pledge their loyalties to other states?
• Will Texans stand by as our most promising student athletes are lured out of Texas by new rivals?
• Will Texans watch as our most precious resources—the great minds of the next generation—are exported to new conference institutions?

Texans must stand up and call the leadership of the University of Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech to clear-headed thinking about the state’s future. Texas’ flagship institutions of higher learning are the guardians of the state’s future—their loyalties must first be to Texas and to her citizens. Ask these leaders to take a stand for Texas and to stop this madness that will lead to the dissolution of the Big 12 and the end of an era for Texas.

Last I checked, college football teams have about 100 players, most of whom aren’t known for “great minds,” compared to the tens of thousands of students on their campuses not playing football. But this is Texas, so let’s not let facts get in the way.

Also I don’t recall Baylor taking such umbrage when Texas Christian University joined all dem libruls in the Big East conference.

Finally, if Texas football tradition is what matters most, Baylor could still honor it by joining the West Division of the much less lucrative Conference USA, which includes four fellow Texans: the University of Texas El Paso, Rice University, University of Houston, and Southern Methodist University. That’s as many Texas schools as are currently in the Big 12.

I speak blasphemy, don’t I? Damn Californian.

Causewashing 101

Baylor’s sermon is a new twist on causewashing, which usually involves corporations adopting some charity or cause to cover up pure greed (“Do People Care? People Do”). But if self-interest disguised as state jingoism is going to work anywhere, it will work in Texas. After all, this is the state where the governor threatened to secede from the union before deciding to run for president of that same union the very next year while begging for federal aid.

So I applaud Baylor’s stand for its financial interests, and as a marketer who loves football, I admire the school’s creative approach. But there are much bigger forces in play — the financial interests of Texas A&M and other apostate Big 12 schools — so if Baylor thinks it’s going to win this game, it will need more than a few Hail Marys.

***

Check out these related articles:

• Keeping Score: Oklahoma Football $4.3 Million, Boys & Girls Club $1 Million
• Buffaloed in Boulder: University of Colorado’s New $780,000 Logo
• What Will You Start? West Virginia is Wired In

"Buy now, and I'll include this squiggly hair that appeared in the frame!"

Just read a Mashable article by daily-deal entrepreneur John Amato, who trumpets how great Groupon and other discountosaurs are for everyone (“Why Daily Deals Are Here To Stay”).

His key points: people have always loved discounts, the customer acquisition costs are relatively low compared to other methods, and the market is still maturing. He’s right on the first point, needs to provide more data for the second, and is completely off point with the third. (The market is still maturing? What’s that got to do with whether a tactic is worth employing? And isn’t that an argument to hold off until the market’s ripe?)

My thoughts: While there are certainly some businesses that benefit from offering deals, let’s not apply this tactic too broadly…

First of all, discounting devalues the product.

If you have a luxury or prestige brand, you will destroy its hard-won position with overzealous deals. Also, any kind of discounting, whether a coupon or a clearance sale, teaches consumers that they shouldn’t pay full retail, and they should simply hold off until the next sale. As advertising legend David Ogilvy once noted, discounts are addictive. Give them once to a consumer, and the consumer will want them again and again.

The second problem is that this kind of daily deal is not discriminatory enough.

A company should make special offers to the kinds of customers and the kinds of behaviors it wants. It’s a waste to offer a money-losing deal to a short-term bargain hunter who has no brand loyalty and will not return. It’s also a waste to offer a massive discount to a regular customer who was going to pay regular price anyway. A more strategic approach would be to offer special loyalty rewards to current customers, and special long-term incentives to prospective customers. And those rewards and incentives don’t have to be discounts.

There are other issues with daily deals…

Retail staff and inventory managers may be unprepared to handle rushes, and consumers are already suffering from daily deal fatigue. (I’ve personally unsubscribed from the onslaught of discount emails that were little distinguished from spam. Really, how many tanning offers do I need?)

So while daily deals offer some benefits, such as a performance-based advertising platform, they’re definitely not a good deal for everyone.