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?

Working in a Data Mine

I’ll admit it. I can’t get the old Divo version of the song “Working in a Coal Mine” out of my head while I write this. Bet you can’t either, now.

But there is a serious point to this analogy. Data mining is as important, if not more so, than ever. How you do it is, too.

I was reminded of this by a new client who wants to find business prospects with a very specific profile. I mentioned these businesses are easy to find, just pull permit records from local government agencies. A little digging proved the data was available from an information aggregator who collects the records on a daily basis.

In this particular case, these were businesses engaged in a very specific activity and all the information needed to contact the business was right there in black and white. So were all the details about the permitted project.

For my client, this was the Mother Lode. It might as well have been rocket science, too.

In the rush to Social Media Marketing (SMM), we tend to overlook some of the tried and true means of finding customers and prospects. We often overlook the oceans of valuable information about the people who pay the bills sitting in our own databases or those we can access for free or a low fee.

How you collect and use the information is just as important. If you’re new to the data-driven world, there are strong restrictions with serious penalties (if regulators decide to use them) for using a consumer’s personal data for marketing. Protecting that data once you have is also a deadly serious issue – just ask any company that’s lost control of personal information.

While integrating SMM into your business practices is the price of admission these days, don’t forget there are still “old school” techniques that are still valuable.

What other strategies and tactics have you or will you import into the digital marketing world?

For more information about data-driven branding and marketing, send me an email at james.lee@c2m2a.com or visit www.c2m2a.com.