Social Cache.
A Nemo blog. Dealing with uncommon cents.

In an attempt to boost its lagging profits, Starbucks has developed an instant coffee called Via. According to the Starbucks press release, it is being touted as “a transformational instant coffee that replicates the body and flavor of Starbucks coffee in an instant form.” 

Via is supposed to recreate the Starbucks experience at home or on the go while costing slightly less than a Tall cup of their regular coffee. The company has high hopes for its launch since instant coffee represents 40 percent of all worldwide coffee sales (that translates to $17 billion dollars).

According to Starbucks, Via has been an idea that they’ve toyed with way before the current recession. “We have worked for nearly 20 years to develop an instant coffee that offers customers the quality and taste they expect from fresh-brewed Starbucks coffee, and a unique and convenient way for them to enjoy it,” said Starbucks’ Howard Schultz.

Starbucks may have a fantastic product on its hands, but they are overlooking one key principle: most of Starbucks’ die hard customers frequent its shops for the experience. Starbucks has done an amazing job of branding their stores and creating a warm, inviting atmosphere coupled with great customer service. The folks that frequent their shops love having the ability to customize their drinks in ridiculous ways. It remains to be seen if a packet of instant coffee can live up to the hype.

As Twitter’s popularity continues to skyrocket (in 2008, it grew by 752%), securing usernames on social networking sites has become even more important. It may come as a surprise then that 93 out of the 100 top global brands have not secured their names on Twitter.

Twitter is supposedly considering a monetization model that allows brands to set up corporate accounts for a fee but it may be hard to pursue this if they aren’t in control of their names. Though the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy exists for domain names, nothing has yet been put into place for usernames on web services…

Absolutely everything you need to know about using Twitter for Marketing and PR here.

Thanks to @alisamleo

Finally, an advertiser being honest about social media advertising. Ted McConnell general manager-interactive marketing and innovation at Procter & Gamble Co spoke recently at a forum on Digital Media where he came across as rather negative about social network platforms and advertising. He singled out the Facebook platform, saying “I really don’t want to buy any more banner ads on Facebook.”

Other key phrases of his that stand out –
Social networks may never find the ad dollars they’re hunting for because they don’t really have a right to them.
What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?
I don’t think everything every consumer says to someone else and writes down is somehow monetizable by the media industry.
Fragmentation thwarts artificial scarcity.
Performance-based advertising will gain share over CPM

Ted McConnell. [Pic Ad Age]

McConnell’s premise is that social network platforms won’t be able to collect ad dollars because they don’t really have a right to them, which I believe is entirely accurate. And his negativity about the platforms appears to hinge on the wrong-headed idea or a misunderstanding of the meaning of the term “social media” – he asked – “Who said this is media? Media is something you can buy and sell. Media contains inventory. Media contains blank spaces. Consumers weren’t trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody. So it just seems a bit arrogant. … We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.”

McConnell’s ideas strike a chord with me as I have found myself on the contrarian side of the social media argument recently. I have argued on panels and in essays that technology did not transform the way we socialize –

When we wrongly consider technology as a ‘new’ medium that simply and efficiently transformed culture, business and society, we forget our own human ancestry. We leave out Nature. In our hearts we want to belong, to share; we fear dying alone and as we age we become thanatophobic – we fear dying. Individuality is an illusion. [By that I don't mean an individual's style, taste, fashion etc, things that set us apart aesthetically from others, I mean we are forever bound to being social animals.] Read the rest of these thoughts here.

We need to rethink the term “Social Media.”

Pepsi has just announced a massive undertaking that involves relaunching all of their branding and packaging. The new imagery is supposed to hit the market by early 2009. The most noticeable change is the iconic ‘Pepsi Globe’ logo which is now supposed to represent a smile.

Major fail? I think so. Come on Pepsi, you can do better than this. Pepsi should have hired Turner Duckworth to update their brand, who recently did an amazing job stripping down Coke to pure class.

A shadowy social network group.

Facebook is getting an assist from Visa Inc.’s marketing machine in its struggle to lure more advertisers. To date, Facebook has not had as much success as was expected in garnering revenues from advertising. The plan with Visa appears to be aimed at small businesses who are using Facebook to look for new customers.

Michael Liedtke reports:
Visa’s service is designed to provide small-business owners with tools and tips on attracting new customers, trimming costs and other ways to make more money. Businesses that belong to the Visa network on Facebook also will be able to communicate with each other to share ideas or even negotiate deals. Internet search leader Google Inc. is providing some of the features on Visa’s business network, including maps, calendars, word processing and a new template for creating expense sheets and business cards. And The Wall Street Journal and Entrepreneur magazine will contribute articles addressing questions posed by businesses that belong to Visa’s Facebook network.

Facebook’s struggle to produce revenue from its site sounds similar to the problems that MySpace has been having. Facebook has 80 million users who play games, share photos, rate music and track their friends’ activities – the idea that they can be bothered to click through on an advertisement that is not relevant to them, and one that just randomly appears on their home page or profile, is a marketing stretch.

As Michael Liedtke writes:
…while the array of applications have helped make Facebook even more popular, few programs are producing revenue for the site, and Facebook still hasn’t proven that its social playground is an effective advertising forum. Finding the right advertising approach also has been a challenge for other social hangouts like News Corp.’s MySpace. Even Google, which runs the Internet’s most lucrative ad system, has had trouble marketing on social networks.

Advertisers and marketers are labouring under the assumption that the information that Facebook has gathered about its users makes it easy to target different groups of them. This is a dubious notion at best. They are a moving target.

As Liedtke points out: …..some advertisers fret that Facebook’s audience will resent commercials amid all the site’s frivolity. Others are leery about their brands showing up on Web pages featuring racy or unsavory content.

Stay tuned.