Advocacy, Twitter and the Pope

When Hamish Pringle and I were writing our book Spending Advertising Money in the Digital Age (still available on Amazon at the very reasonable price of £26.39), we identified that advertising has five – and only five – communication functions. These are: to create Fame; to create Advocacy; to provide product Information; to promote the Price; and to provide Availability information.

This we then cunningly turned into the acronym ‘FAIPA’ – clearly this theory could only carry true authority with its own acronym.

We were making the point that media strategy should be influenced by the advertising and communication objectives. And, though all media can legitimately claim to deliver any and all five of our FAIPA considerations, clearly some are more suited than others to deliver certain tasks. For example TV for Fame, the print media for detailed product Information, the internet for Availability and so on.

Slick ad for our book out of the way, let me concentrate on just one of the five communication functions: Advocacy – and specifically advocacy in the new media environment.

Unlike the other four FAIPA considerations, Advocacy is arguably more challenging and can be potentially tricky (I don’t think any of the rail companies would consider rerunning British Rail’s ‘This is the Age of the Train’ campaign any time soon, which of course featured Jimmy Savile).

However, with product placement, ad funded programmes and the rise and rise of the social media, we now have a whole raft of new opportunities for advocacy. (Or are they just a new set of pitfalls?)

We already know about the power of Facebook, with over one billion monthly users and 1.13 trillion ‘likes’ logged last year. That’s a hell of a lot of advocating – even if it didn’t include the tax authorities – though I’m not sure Facebook has quite delivered its promise of revolutionising the role of advocacy yet.

Interestingly, Twitter is now the fastest growing social network with over 200 million active users per month, which has grown by over 40% in less than a year. Well, I can tell you that it’s two hundred million and one this month because I’ve just signed up to try to understand what it’s all about […but I can’t find him! Ed].

I was also interested in better understanding Twitter because it has recently announced that it is introducing keyword targeting for advertisers and is therefore looking to leverage its considerable power and reputation. But is it in danger of ‘over cooking’ the commercialism and alienating users, as indeed Facebook has been accused of?

What are my thoughts so far? Firstly, as a follower I’ve been somewhat underwhelmed by my experience to date. It’s probably my fault because I’ve chosen to follow some obvious tweeters – a smattering of personalities, some sports stars, some of my favourite bands and of course, Chelsea FC.

So far it has been low key stuff, almost entirely information updates. I was rather hoping for something more insightful, amusing and even maybe scandalous. For example, as opposed to: ‘Great Goal by Lampard,’ I would have preferred: ‘Lampard scored, but did you see him picking his nose? No wonder Abramovich isn’t renewing his contract.’ Or: ‘Blimey, was that Fred and Jane from the accounts department holding hands in the stand behind the goal? Aren’t they married, but not to each other?!’ But no, nothing as daring so far.

Second, ads have been relatively few and far between. There have been a couple for Adidas supporting Chelsea’s push for further European glory, some inevitable alerts from Ticketmaster and a notice from the Black Keys that they will be performing at the KROQ Weenie Roast on May 18 – useful information and the opportunity to buy tickets, but unfortunately I won’t be in California on that date so they will have to make do without me.

Clearly there’s going to be a lot more advertising activity once the key words targeting is in place on Twitter. But I suspect that it will create a lot of alerts that will often only duplicate what is largely known already (if you’re a fan of Robbie Williams, you will already be very aware of every CD and concert coming up), and could also prove an increasing irritation for its information hungry customers.

Finally, what about the advocacy opportunities on Twitter? Following the golfer Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) is interesting because he is both amusing and doesn’t shy away from a bit of advocating. For example he openly promotes IJP Design clothes (silly tartan golfing trousers), Fudgehair (hair thinning remedy!) and Oakley Sun glasses.

But you get the impression that he may be benefiting more from the commercial relationship than the Twitter follower…and he comes really unstuck when he tweets a promotion for GolfPunk UK and gets a response: ‘GolfPunk Mag thought you lot had gone outta business?? Where’re my bleeding magazines and free golf balls??’

So Advocacy is arguably as tricky now, in the new media environment, as it was when British Rail were paying Jimmy Savile to tell us that ‘This is the Age of the Train’.

OK, I admit that I’m still very much a Twitter novice and there will inevitably be an ever increasing number of ways to run smart campaigns, including creating product advocates. But I also feel that there are inherent risks in using the new interactive media to promote/advocate the use of certain products.

And not only because consumers are wise to the ‘commercialism’ involved but also because it is too easy to undermine instantly either the tweeter or the product being tweeted about.

Consequently, I feel that there is still a lot of mileage in traditional advocacy campaigns (they used to be called testimonial ads), whether it’s Michael Parkinson promoting retirement products to oldies or Jamie Oliver wowing the UK’s aspiring cooks with his latest culinary inventions.

It also reminds me of the story of what was arguably the most dynamic Advocacy proposal ever – though admittedly it may be apocryphal. It involved senior executives of Kentucky Fried Chicken securing a meeting with the Pope and proposing that – in return for many millions of dollars to the Catholic Church – the Lord’s Prayer would be slightly amended from: ‘Give us this day our daily bread…’ to: ‘Give us this day our daily fried chicken…’

Surprisingly, the Pope didn’t dismiss the proposal – probably partly because he was mindful of the potential financial benefits and partly because he was known to enjoy a Bargain Bucket from time to time. In fact he agreed that he would discuss the proposal with his Cardinals. He promptly convened a meeting and made the following announcement:

“Your Holinesses, I have some good news and some bad news. Firstly the bad news: I’m afraid we’ve lost the Hovis account…”