True

We laugh at their mistakes, but sometimes it isn’t always laughing. Sometimes it’s angry twittering.

Take a look at this commercial:

This commerical was a headache for the Motrin company. It started a twitter uproar and almost ruined the companies reputation.

Here is just a sample of the outrage some of their market took:

This headache was so bad for the Motrin company that it was even talked about in the New York Times.

This just goes to show that companies need to look at what we are saying, because when we laugh they may cry.

True

With the technology available and the amount of communicating that is going on already, a company really has a fine line until blaming it on some external problem causes it to collapse on itself.

With the use of blogs and micro-blogging sites such as twitter, companies now have a 24/7 customer complaint line. There is no reason that they shouldn’t be hooked into this network especially when their markets are using it constantly.

For so long companies hide behind their excuses of lost e-mails and letters, and customer service reps that rarely ever returned phone calls or weren’t very helpful even if they did answer. Now they have the chance to see complaints and issues first hand right from their consumer’s mouth. If they choose to ignore it or pretend it doesn’t exist they won’t have the ability to redeem themselves. Not only is their one angry customer aware of their problem but so is every other customer and possible customer able to see the complaint. If companies don’t jump on this possibility and talk back they probably won’t be able to fix it.

I also am surprised that the authors thought of this in 1999 because blogging wasn’t really as mainstream as it is today. There was forums and chat rooms, but their popularity levels weren’t really threatening unless a major issue was going on.

True

It was easy for companies to go ahead and send out a commercial or a news story and realize that there are a number of possible ways a story could be interpreted by an individual. But any negative interpretation would most likely end with that person or with their close contacts they felt strongly enough to talk to about an experience or a feeling from an ad.

Now that I can go post my opinions on a company and many people can read what I say and talk back. We can share stories opinions and even make fun of one another. When we talk, we share ideas, feelins, opinions and beliefs. We might even suggest the best revision a company can do to make their product better and if they aren’t tuned in, they will miss what their biggest critic has to say.

Looking away from companies for a minute I want to show you how powerful it can be when we communicate,

Check this out:

This was a pretty controversial Ad that this organization put out, and if you go to YouTube you will find all the parodies before you find the Ad. We all have strong opinions and it is very easy to share them with the Web.

The best parody is from a Segment of the Colbert Report.

If we can come together to make fun of one Ad from a non-profit, what do you think will happen if a company does something that offends us. We will talk, and if they aren’t involved with our conversation then they will miss out on this great opportunity.

True

I find this response great insight into what has happened over the ten years since this book was first published. It is clear today that their is a different audience that focuses on the web rather than old style media.

Yes there is that exception of the over 50 web user that knows the in’s and out’s of more than e-mail and the occasional website. But the majority of people over the age of 50 have little to no knowledge of the web.  According to a study conducted by a Morrell, Mayhorn, and Bennett in an issue of “Human Factors: The Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society” we can see that people over the of 75 have little to no knowledge of the web and for people over 40, their primary use is to get their e-mail and book a trip.  This was a great study and if you are interested in the relationship between age groups and web use, I highly recommend you check this out.

As I said there are those exceptions but for the most part, especially in 2009, the under 30 crowd is getting almost all of their information via the web. The over 40 crowd is primarily sticking to old-school-main-stream media  and your 30 year olds are a mix of the two. Some want to hold on to the old school, some want the new style, and a majority use some combination of the two.

In my opinion, for the authors of the Cluetrain to catch onto this in 1999 is quite brillant. The web didn’t have as wide a variety of use as it does in 2009, but there was still the obvious forboding to the split of users and non-users and I am glad they caught this split back then.

False

This is also false, if they weren’t speaking to anyone then why would they exist 10 years later.

This one is short and simple to back up.

1. Car companies – that is all they do, pitch, pitch pitch,

2. Discovery Channel’s hit show Pitchmen with the late Billy Mays is so popular that Billy Mays III is going to be continuing SSN 2 this Fall.

If the language of the Pitch destroyed a business, why would two people be offered a TV show where their whole business was doing just that?

3. Ad Agencies – All they do is pitch to clients, and then pitch to the world. We still have ads don’t we?

Companies pitch every day and some might hide it better than others but it happens. A leading drug company pitches their latest drug to a doctor, then your doctor will pitch it to you. If it works, you might pitch it to your friends with similar problems. The pitch, and companies who pitch will never die and people still listen. The only difference is people know what a pitch is and use the Internet to get their own information about what has been pitched to them.

False

Here’s a point that I feel that they were completely wrong about. It may just be my way of looking at this but I feel that this point was wrong from the moment they wrote it and it wasn’t a result of society changing that made this one obsolete.  Mission statement and brochures may not be written in “conversational” tones, but that is because they aren’t meant to be.

Dictionary.com defines a Mission Statement as a summary describing the aims, values, and overall plan of an organization or individual.

When I look at that I see that I am meant to be told the 3 W. Who is doing What and Why they are doing it. I don’t want or need to be driven in many circles trying to figure that out.

Here is an example of Coca-Cola’s Mission Statement:

“The Coca-Cola Promise: The Coca-Cola Company exists to benefit and refresh everyone it touches. The basic proposition of our business is simple, solid, and timeless. When we bring refreshment, value, joy and fun to our stakeholders, then we successfully nurture and protect our brands, particularly Coca-Cola. That is the key to fulfilling our ultimate obligation to provide consistently attractive returns to the owners of our business.” (p. 40)

False

Yes in ‘99 this is how companies sounded, but what made it any different from their normal communications efforts. In ‘09, they have caught on and they may not understand everything but they know that they can’t have a stauncy, inhuman voice anymore.

I agree, there are websites and web presences that, pardon my French, suck. But I am having the hardest time finding one company that I can find that doesn’t have some sort of voice to their site. It might not be a good voice, but it’s a voice.

Since the knowledge is out there that companies need to have this new “personality” to survive and they can’t figure it out on their own, they hire someone. Whether it be a 20-something college grad that understands this “stuff” or a hip agency that will do the work for a price, the room in the budget will be found.

Even the New York Times knows the importance of Social Media and Web Presence enough to hire a social media editor.

So this is another missed stop for the Cluetrain, everyone has a live voice, if they didn’t they died a long time ago. But who knew you could be paid to be a voice?

The authors were wrong on this one. I don’t really remember 1999, as far as employee communications, (I was only 11 at the time) but maybe employees had the power to communicate freely and openly with the world. Now they do not. Companies are not as lost as they were in the world of On-line communications as they probably were back in ‘99. Look at the examples I gave in #8. There are now rules regarding what can and can not be said in an on-line setting now and if you don’t follow that contract you will be fired and sued.

Just look at the story of Ellen Simonetti, author of “Diary of a Flight Attendant”

Even people who aren’t in the Communications field are being thrown to the curb because of the paranoia of “Whats happening to markets is happening among employees”. They are still used to the Old school way of having a PR practitioner be the only person responsible for media contact, but with the freedom of blogs there are millions of employees willingly giving truthful information. To them, the truth may hurt.

I sympathize with all the people who have been sacked for this blogging paranoia, but I do know where the CEO’s are coming from. I just hope that soon we find a way to co-exist.

But regardless of what does happen or what has happened, the authors of the Cluetrain didn’t realize the possible reprocussions that many upper management have taken to prevent open communication. That is why their suggestion for #13 has failed.

TRUE

To show you where I believe how they were right on this one, I am going to take you away from the world of business and move you to a world very near and dear to my heart.

THE CINEMA:

There is nothing more publicized then a new movie coming out.

I am pretty excited for that movie, but the trailer is released over 8 months in advance of the release, and people in the entertainment world have been talking about it starting at least 5 months ago.

Now even a complete flop like this one:

Is heavily publicized by their production company and it’s band of press agents, trying to make millions opening weekend.

But no how good or bad the film is, people are not going to trust the weekly newspaper’s opinion of film, they are going to go to a site like this. Rottontomatoes.com

People are going to comment on the film the minute they see it and tell you exactly how they felt about it. Enough people like it, more people will see it. If it bombed in viewer’s reviews, then it will quickly leave theaters. Tons of other sites exist like this one or this one. Not to mention the thousands of personal blogs that exist, from avid private movie reviewers to a teenager that just really wants to talk about there latest experience at the cinema.

If a topic that is highly objective like films is this highly discussed on-line, how often do you think someone complains about a company selling them a bogus product or get a really great deal. It will be talked about, and that is where people will look. Not on a company press page.

Lost in Translation

Now the first sentence of number 11 is true. Just look back at my ideas on 1 – 10, you will see that we get better information from ourselves then from the companies. Where the authors of the Manifesto went wrong was in that second sentence.

Companies have to try much harder to make themselves stand out in the market. They have to show us they are better than their competitors, and Yes, they have to use rhetoric to do just that. The only difference now is that they really have to factually back up the claims, because we are digging.

Just because we don’t depend on companies for the sole source of information on their product, doesn’t mean they don’t have to fight for our attention.

Take Bounty and Brawny Paper Towels.

Both are paper towel companies, and what ever brand you go with isn’t really a life or death choice. We could survive without either of them existing, even if paper towels didn’t exist at all.

Now imagine Bounty launches a whole new Quicker Picker Upper Campaign, and Brawny cuts back on its Advertising to 10%. You see the Brawny once for every ten Bounty adds. They aren’t using rhetoric to capture the audience. So when you go to the store you reach for the Bounty Paper Towels because they are what is fresh in your head when you are at the store, and if you cared enough they probably are the first company you looked for their reviews. Unless you find something like “Bounty single handidly destroys 80% of the rainforest” you probably will still shop for them.

Brawny on the other hand fades into the background, and keeps its loyal clientel but eventually goes out of business. So we can see that it is important for them to still make a point that they are around and we should care because of x,y, and z. The only difference is that now we have to the power to make sure that x, y, and z are really present in their product. If they aren’t they certainly will be called out on it.