In the battle between AT&T and Verizon, who wins?

You’ve seen them. The Verizon ads that mock AT&T’s 3G coverage with the cheeky tagline “There’s a Map for that.” So has a federal judge in Atlanta who says AT&T can’t count on the courts to block the competition from pointing out the truth.

In case you’ve missed all the hubbub, Verizon – after months of erroneous speculation the iPhone was finally coming to the V-network – launched a series of ads showing how much 3G coverage Verizon offers compared to AT&T’s puny 3G footprint.

Rather than let the ads run their course, the rocket scientists at AT&T decided the correct course of action was to go to court and claim the ads were misleading. “Look at how big our 2G and EDGE coverage is!” AT&T cried, ignoring the obvious and indisputable facts about their 3G network.

Sensing a nerve had been hit, Verizon made the ads available for sharing online and ordered up a whole new series of attack ads, including the retro “Island of Misfit Toys.” “There’s a Map for That” remains at No. 7 on Visible Measures’ list of top viral ad campaigns.

Within hours of getting booted from the courtroom, AT&T launched it’s own rebuttal ad using actor Luke Wilson. Hopefully AT&T has something better up it’s sleeve because this ad won’t move the needle or, more importantly, make the cash register beep. (They don’t ring any more people. Catch up.)

So, what should we make of all this?

It’s clear that both company’s actions reinforce their brand perceptions. AT&T has flashes of brilliance – the iPhone exclusive agreement – followed by poor execution and indifferent customer service. Verizon, the polar opposite, has generally great strategy and service backed by the occasional bone-headed move. Remember, they passed on the iPhone (Are you kidding me?) because they wanted the handset to be branded Verizon, not Apple.

It remains to be seen, however, if the ads are having a lasting financial impact at either company. And if this smackdown benefits any one other than the lawyers and ad agencies.

Some Things Should Remain a Mystery

Like most controversies, this one started small. A photo of French president Sarkozy canoeing with his son, shirtless and noticeably slimmer, appeared in a French publication that was later forced to admit that Le Président had lost weight courtesy of Le Photoshop.

Then, Ralph Lauren (the company, not the man, presumably) decided it was a good idea to alter the photo of a model by putting a regularly sized head on an impossibly thin body. Worse yet, they used the face and body of a model they had fired, allegedly for – wait for it – being too large (read: fat) to model the company’s new clothes.

Worse still, they did it again after claiming it was all a big mistake. That’s not an “Oops.” That’s a head-slapping “What were they thinking?”

The issue here isn’t that marketers use re-touched photos. It isn’t even that consumer advocates over-react and demand full disclosure when a photo is altered. (French lawmakers want to take it a step further and require warning labels that disclose when a photo has been altered. Viva la France!)

People pretty much expect marketing materials to be “improved.” Not only do we embrace using technology to make things appear better than they are, we all but demand it through our consumer behavior.

We buy Ralph’s clothes because we want to look like the people in the pictures. We pick a beach resort from a photo that crops out the dumpster and parking lot that stands between you and your “beachfront suite.” Add to that all the Botox, Spanx, Alli, and Viagra we buy to create an altered reality.

No, the issue, my friends, is not that photo editing occurs, it’s that marketers don’t think about the risk to their brand when they engage in extreme alteration. I dare say sales of Ralph Lauren brand clothes won’t be significantly impacted by this dust-up, but it is a distraction. And, there is a nice new ding in the reputation of RL.

In this economy, no brand – no matter how strong – can afford to be distracted from their mission by needless controversies like requiring photo disclosures.
Besides, where would you put warning label?

Lessons from the AMP and Illegal Alien Controversies

In the world of digital brands and social media, people have power over brands like never before. Well, yes and no.

This time last week the tweet meter looked like a fan, so fast people were registering their outrage on Twitter about the new AMP energy drink iPhone app that let guys shoot lame pick-up lines and alert friends in the unlikely event they scored. Surely, the conventional wisdom went, PepsiCo would pull the app immediately rather than risk brand damage.

To the soft drink brand’s credit, they apologized to anyone offended by the app. But, to the surprise and chagrin of the offended, the good folks at AMP returned to selling energy drinks and kept the app on the shelves of Apple App Store.

Contrast that with this week’s consumer brouhaha – the sale of a Halloween mask depicting an obvious space invader with a heavy mustache. Think E.T. meets Frito Bandito (for those of us of a certain age), hence the name “Illegal Alien.”

Once the complaints started on- and off-line, Target and other retailers (rightfully) pulled the costume faster than Speedy Gonzales could say “Andale`!”

Why did outrage have immediate effect in one case and seemingly none in the other?

Simple. Because the people offended by the Amp iPhone app are not buying Amp drinks and aren’t going to do so. Offended Target shoppers, on the other hand, are far more likely to leave stores shelves clogged unsold items.

So what lessons can we learn from these two events?

If you’re a consumer, use your brand power wisely and pick your battle’s carefully. You may be offended by a company’s products or actions, but shooting at the wrong brand – one that isn’t likely to care if they’re in the bull’s eye because you have no relevance to the brand – only diminishes the power people have to influence business decisions.

Adult women complaining about an obscure, downloadable iPhone app attached to a product purchased in bulk by twenty-something single males is the wrong group to prompt action. Parents and social advocates complaining about an offensive product targeted to children are the perfect people to force change in Halloween costumes.

If you’re a marketer, make sure you really do know your customers/prospects and the people who influence them before launching a controversial product or promotion. Be ready to pull the plug in a nano-second, but also be confident enough to know that not all critics are right and not all criticism requires a dramatic response.

You can't ignore the conversation, but sometimes, all you need to do is agree to disagree.

The End (of the Legacy Media) is Near

The End of the World is suddenly cool, what with the movie 2012 debuting soon and cable TV airing a program a day about the Mayan calendar or Nostradamus. I’ve made my own prediction about the End of Times, or rather the end of The Times (metaphorically speaking). Events of this past week make it clear the end is getting closer.

All you have to do is look at the illustration of Rupert Murdoch in the latest edition of Vanity Fair. He’s holding a laptop, sideways as if reading a newspaper. Murdoch - never especially Internet savvy - wants to charge for online news content after proclaiming at Beijing’s World Media Summit there is a trend toward charging for content. Never mind that most analysts, academics and other prognosticators say it’s too late to charge readers for general news content.

Murdoch had at least one ally in China - Associated Press CEO Tom Curley who complained that search engines and bloggers are siphoning off revenue from content creators like the AP and Murdoch’s News Corp. Both were quoted as saying it was time for content creators to take back “control.”

By control, of course, Murdoch and Curley mean revenue.

Murdoch’s a master at the legacy media, but his inability to manage technology ventures is legendary. Take a look at what's happened to MySpace since NewsCorp paid $580 million for the once high-flier in 2005. MySpace has lost more than five million monthly visitors, four million last month alone, not to mention the more than $350 million in red ink spilled this year by the once profitable MySpace.

Likewise, the AP has other avenues for making money without attacking the very people who have keep general news content alive while printed pubs decline. Hint: it’s online readers who drive Web traffic to AP member publications by sharing news content on personal blogs, Web sites and social network sites.

And if you needed any more evidence that printed newspapers are doing everything they can to make themselves irrelevant, the Atlanta Journal Constitution announced with great fanfare they will no longer endorse political candidates. Local content is supposed to be the savior of daily print publications, but clearly Cox Newspapers has other ideas.

Change is coming. Even Mr. Murdoch predicted it in 2005 when he said “Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are taking control.”

The only question is when.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

My Mom, a person of deep faith, on more than one occasion assured me while I was growing up that if I would only fess-up to my alleged youthful indiscretions, my life would improve. Seems my Mom and the Federal Trade Commission have the same instruction manual. In the first major change in endorsement rules in nearly 30 years, the FTC’s new transparency rules apply to bloggers and user generated content.

While there is some wailing and gnashing of teeth, the Commission’s rules for disclosing endorsements are really common sense and in keeping with the best practices of social networking. Transparency is at the heart of the new rules and bloggers and content creators who remember that will be fine.

Those who don’t may get to contribute $11,000 to the federal treasury.

If you’re a blogger or you create content for social media, all you have to do to comply is disclose you are being paid or provided with free product in exchange for your words or pictures. Most legitimate content creators do that now, but the FTC rule is a good reminder that transparency is the currency of the social media realm.

If, though, you’re rating products for hire, ghost tweeting or blogging for hire without revealing your sugar parent, then the new rules are trouble for you.

This is when my Mom would tell me that “be sure your sins will find you.” This time, though, it will be federal regulators who are watching.

P.S. – Mom, it’s possible I did relocate the neighbor’s fake pink flamingos from their yard in 1980. It’s been so long ago, I just don’t recall.

The (Un) Friendly Skies

I have a confession to make. I don’t turn off my mobile phone on airplanes. Yet, I have never failed to make it to the correct destination because of some mythical “interference with the aircraft’s navigational equipment.”

Keeping mobile phones in the off position on US airlines has always been more about making money and keeping the peace than getting lost in route to LaGuardia. Thanks to non-US airlines, that may be about to change.

Just about all the US legacy and low-cost carriers are rushing to add wi-fi to their domestic fleet. What they are also finding is that crafty passengers are (easily) finding a way around the blocks that are supposed to prevent VoIP calls in the air. Browsing and chatting online are okay. Talking, according to Delta, AirTran and others is not.

The airlines claim the FCC, FAA and passengers themselves want to keep the friendly skies a call-free zone.

While I’ve always enjoyed the sanctuary offered by hurtling through the air in a toothpaste tube at 600 mph, I’ve also longed for the option to make or take a call if I wanted to do so. There’s that whole consumer control issue again – I’ll make the decision, don’t decide for me, thank you very much!

Without knowing it, I had allies in my clandestine fight to keep my phone powered up after the boarding door has closed – European and Asian airlines. They, it seems, have cracked the code and figured out how to solve the real technical issue – interference with cell towers – and how to make money while doing so.

Emirates Airlines already offers the ability to use your mobile phone in the air and British Airways will offer the same in its new London City airport to JFK all business class service.

US regulators and airline operators take notice. No passenger riots from too loud phone conversations and no planes landing on taxiways in the wrong cities. Imagine that.

Chalk up another win for those brands that believe in letting the customer decide.

The Return of the Brand

You may have missed this tidbit - what with Kanye stealing a little girl's limelight and Joe Wilson forgetting he was a US Congressman not a member of the British Parliament during PMQs - but it seems there's a whole lot of trust going on in the world of brands. How'd that happen?

We all know that brands have been beaten and battered by the double whammy of a shattered economy previously built on consumption and the rise of social media, where a company becomes the caretaker of a brand - not the owner.

Consumers, too, have become incredibly mistrustful of institutions - especially large corporations, the government and the media.

I take heart that perhaps the tide is about to turn. The brand and reputation equivalent of "the recession is over, but the recovery will be slow." Here's why:

A study by Capstrat of Raleigh, NC shows the slide in consumer trust in brands has stopped the death spiral and is now climbing back up in some cases - including trust in bank brands. Trust in the media continues to spiral down the drain, though.

Trust is a two way street and it seems that Wall Street is also more willing to trust Main Street, to use a well-worn cliche`. Nine companies have announced they will follow new executive pay rules proposed by The Conference Board that is based on increased public transparency and shareholder involvement. Among the first nine, AT&T, HP, and Cisco Systems. Microsoft has adopted a similar policy.

"You can't be in the top 25% in pay if you're in the bottom 75% in performance," Bill Ide, director of the Conference Board's Task Force on Executive Compensation told CNN. "That's universal. We think all regulators and policy makers would be comfortable with that."

With trust breaking out all over leading companies, let's hope the rest of the brand community falls in line, too. Soon.