Chris Writes.

Jessie Hirsh, it seems, is not a fan of facebook. In his recent cbc.ca article, he wrote a lengthy dismissal of the social networking site facebook and its new super-simplified system for 3rd party companies to integrate with facebook, called “beacon”. I think he’s hasty to dismiss beacon, because he presents it poorly to his readership, and he neglects to mention the ways that beacon might be a benefit to some of the zillions of people using facebook.

His key inaccuracy is his claim that it erodes consumer privacy. This is only true if the consumer loses control of the information about them that is made public, and in this case, the consumer does not lose this control. Amazon, for example, has signed on with Beacon. This does not mean that every purchase I make on amazon will be open for public scrutiny on facebook. My amazon purchases only appear on facebook if I’ve signed up for the “Facebook+Amazon” service – amazon.com merely makes it available by putting facebook code on their site. I can ignore it this feature if I want. Further, if I do sign up, and then buy a book from amazon, I still get a notice asking my permission to post the info to face book *each time* I make a purchase. (see http://www.facebook.com/business/?beacon for complete privacy details, including the part where it says “When a user performs the action, they will be alerted that your website is sending a story to their profile and have a chance to opt out. No additional user action is needed for the story to be published on Facebook, and users remain in control of their information.”)

So: Privacy not so much eroded. I have more opportunity to share my info with my friends on facebook, but zero obligation.

Then, there’s the other side: that I don’t think people will use this new beacon application to share info about book purchases or recipes they’ve read. The killer app here isn’t to tell people about such mundane things you’ve done, especially when your friends could often care less about this sort of thing. This is about sharing to a wider audience the things you’ve *already elected* to share online. Imagine, for example, that you’ve posted a new mountain bike ride for this coming Saturday on www.specializedriders.com, and so the people on that site now know that you’ve got a ride happening. But imagine if putting the ride on the riders club site also offered you the option to tell all your friends on facebook? They don’t have to be a member of the specialized riders club website, but now they’re finding out about the highly context-centric stuff you’re sharing there. Facebook can’t handle all the tiny details of the unique stuff you want to share (regardless of your motivation for sharing it), but now facebook can broadcast it if you want it to. But wait, you say – now facebook knows I’m a cyclist! they’re sure to exploit this, right? Um, wasn’t cycling was already listed in your personal profile anyway?

Beacon from facebook is just another tool. Like any hammer, it can be incredibly useful. It can also bludgeon people, or sink quickly to the bottom of a lake. It’s all a function of how it’s used.

So what does this have to do with bicycles? Well, my friends, this is what happens when you fall off sometimes. You get hurt. And bad. So bad, in fact, that it takes a doctor and some nurses to fix you. And then, thanks to the wonders of modern science, they give you a DVD with the entire procedure videotaped, from your insides.

I’ve heard a maxim that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result”.  I’ve heard it used in the context of work, often as a fancypants way of saying “we’ve done that before, and it didn’t work”.

Maybe it was the wrong time to try it.  Sometimes, doing the same thing at a different time WILL work.  Sometimes, timing is everything, and doing the right thing at 100 incorrect times is still incorrect.  But that doesn’t make the act itself insane.  It only suggests that timing is off.

Next time someone pulls this “insane” definition on me, I’m going to ask them when, and under what conditions, the action would be effective.  That’ll stump `em, I bet.

In discussions with Tom recently about my previous post on Brand Awesomeness (still, a term I first heard from the guys at threadless.com), he steered me back to the old marketing 101 “truism” that “brand awareness > consideration set > purchase decision”. And while I don’t know that it’s ever been true, I do feel strongly that it’s at least less true now, and may have fallen into the realm of pure gibberish. Reason: people today know too much. The access to information, to each other’s opinions, and to comparable products and competing sellers is simply too great. Awareness now can work against you as much, or more so, than being invisible. For example:

- I could be aware of a brand, and passionately dislike it
- I could be aware of 54 brands in one category, and be decision-frozen
- Awareness of one brand could now easily lead me to a competitor that I never knew about

And most importantly: mere awareness, and even a purchase, does not guarantee a loyal customer, or a referral, or any other long-term value. There are zillions of niche brands, each looking for a stronghold. And they’re clever. Precisely those that will survive the fray are those that know that each sale needs to represent future sales.

So, if that’s gibberish, what might the new dawn of branding look like? What if it was this:

Brand Awesomeness (%) x perceived need (%) = purchase probability

To explain: I’m suggesting that brand awareness is now redundant. Social media, the internet, and social networks render every brand as a potential consideration. Google makes everything a consideration. So it comes down to a simple function of Brand Awesomeness (do I like it?), and perceived need (do I need it?). If your brand is not awesome, but I really need it, then chances are I’m going to buy something else. But if your brand is awesome, and my need is only marginal, there’s still a good chance I’m in. And the real kicker: if your brand is awesome, that fuels BOTH the future awesomeness scores that others ascribe to your brand, AND their perceived need.

Let’s throw down a couple examples, with arbitrary numbers. Let’s say I absolutely need a new computer, and I want an Apple, but a Dell would be okay:

Apple:
BA 85%
PN 50%
PP=0.85×0.50=0.425, or 42.5%

vs Dell:
BA 25%
PN 100%
PP=1.00×0.25=0.25, or 25%

So, based on these numbers, I’m almost 2x as likely to buy the Apple. And if I do, I increase their Brand Awesomeness by becoming an advocate, and I increase the perceived need in others by being vocal about my opinions.

So, the next question, if this remains valid: how do you design Awesomeness into your brand? I may have scraped at that in my previous post, but there is more to do still. And it mostly, I think, involves making sure that your advocates (that’s your customers, your employees, and the non-customers that want your stuff but don’t have it yet) have reason to talk about your brand, and an audience to listen when they do. And it doesn’t all have to be positive. It just needs to be passionate.

In short, mediocrity is not the enemy of awesomeness. Apathy is. Awesomeness comes from social cues, as much or possibly more so than it comes from the product.