The women of the Mad Men focus group

But today the focus group is open to everyone with a search window. You can open up Twitter and be greeted by a flood of information or check out the LinkedIn groups to find out what business folks are truly feeling. You can even enter traditional forums and hear the complaints and concerns of thousands of people. However, like the PhD who is running the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce focus groups, people need a guide to understand what they're reading. It's very easy to get lost in the "Rats Nest" of social media.

In fact, sometimes you need to entirely dismiss what you're reading or, in other cases, provide additional emphasis. I was quoted in Mashable saying that the social media realm offers imperfect data. The point is, just a few numbers will never tell you enough of a story, you need to understand the context of the person conveying the information, online and off.

Coming back to focus groups for a moment, how they are compiled affects the information you glean from them. In Mad Men the group was made up of young, unmarried women. In fact, just before grabbing the last unmarried secretary an older secretary commented that she wasn't wanted in the room because she was, in fact, older and married.

The results of the session were that women want to be beautiful to attract a man, according to the doctor who ran it, but it could have turned out differently with the older women in the mix. Of course, this is where Pond's finds itself today, with an older, more mature demographic. The eventual conclusion that women are simply looking to be married and that's why they use beauty products was rejected by top Mad Man Don Draper, who noted that putting out a year's worth of messaging would change the conversation.

In the social media world, people put out information for a reason. When looking at social media for market intelligence you must ask yourself "why did this person say what they're saying." Otherwise you're only getting half a story. Social search tools can help you find information and many social CRM tools exist to help you get graphs, charts and numbers to show certain trends, but there is so much more available within the social stream.

Over here at Fresh Ground we have started working with customers on a social intelligence service. That is, we look at interesting pieces of information, put them in context and then distribute that information to the appropriate internal audiences. This is how we help our clients dig up everything from sales leads to competitive intelligence.

So what would Pond's do differently today? Well, first they'd have a lot more information about their target demographic. Then they would use that information to understand the individuals who visit their site. If they wanted to try out new messages they'd probably do a bit of A/B testing on their site to see what works. They may also test certain messages in certain demographic areas, either through online advertising, carefully located display ads or buying air time in specific programs. They'd also dig into the social media intelligence to find out what people in their targeted demographics are discussing, then find ways into those conversations.

And hopefully, when they're done, no one ends up crying or throwing heavy objects at Don Draper.

The story line pits the old-school copywriter, Freddy Rumsen, against Peggy Olson, the young, brash and bright copywriter who also happens to be a woman. While working on the ad the two argue over who should be the spokeswoman for Pond's. Freddy pushes for older actresses, some who have never left Broadway, while Peggy wants someone younger, like Elizabeth Taylor. Freddy also focuses on what Pond's does for your face and how it can help younger women find a husband, while Peggy wants to focus on the act of putting on the cream and how it makes you feel beautiful, not for a man but for yourself.

All very interesting arguments, so how does Pond's look in the cold, harsh reality of 2010? Well, it happens that it more resembles Freddy's vision than Peggy's.

Pond's is a subsidiary of Unilever, so this is a company that knows a thing or two about marketing. They've obviously positioned Pond's at the over-40 crowd. But one of the first thing that I noticed in looking for Pond's Cold Cream was that it's hard to find on Google. When you Google the brand a link to Drugstore.com comes up first, with the "Pond's Institute" the brand's main site, is buried deep in the selection list, though right above the Unilever brand site for the same product line. So the first thing we here at Fresh Ground would do is get a big jar of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and schmear it on the site.

I've also noticed that the forums seemed to be filled with people saying that they love the product, so why not try to capture that a bit? Sure, continue with the "over 40 celebrity" message, but start to incorporate some testimonials. In fact, start soliciting them a little stronger, both through forums and social sites like Facebook. Keep in mind that Facebook has great growth with people over 40, so it's a perfect venue for this kind of targeted demographic.

Message wise I may take things a bit further and look for mother/daughter combinations, or even grandmother/ mother/ daughter. A big part of the brand is that it has a long history, so why not bring that to the people? Actively look for mothers who helped their daughters discover Pond's Cold Cream and ask for their pictures together, either through a Flickr campaign or on Facebook by tagging images with "Pond's Cold Cream." You can drive that action by offering up something like product (free samples), coupons or even a chance to be featured in an ad in a major publication. This would be a great way to combine the social side of things with the tradition outlets that they're already accessing.

Dove, another Unilever brand, did something similar with its Real Beauty campaign, so it's certainly something that worked before and would work again.

All that being said, Dove is a sponsor of Mad Men, so I wonder if featuring Pond's in the script was part of the deal. If so, good move marketing folks at Pond's! Though, judging by the fact that someone started a Twitter account called PondsColdCream that appears to be a Mad Men thing, not belonging to Pond's, I'm going to guess that the folks at Unilever haven't yet figured out social media for this brand.

The fourth season of Mad Men opened up with an episode named "Public Relations," which, being a PR guy, got me listening pretty closely. The last time I heard PR mentioned on Mad Men, lead-character Don Draper was deriding the profession by saying that PR guys think they can change the conversation, but they can't. Only advertising can change the conversation.

But in this episode "changing the conversation" is just what PR is expected to do. We open on Don Draper in the middle of an interview being asked by an Ad Age reporter "Who is Don Draper," a question that Ad Age has already said doesn't fairly portray who they were at the time (or are today). Yet, in the PR world this is a pretty basic question and one that can take up hours of pounding out to get right. We often open messaging sessions by asking "what does your company do?" and then spend the next 3 hours trying to answer that question. Seems so simple, yet, it can be much more nuanced.

Don blows the question.

A few scenes later they get the article and a Roger Sterling comments "this was supposed to be an advertisement for the firm." Wait, and ad? If they wanted an ad wouldn't they have bought one? Why an article when they wanted an ad?

Ah, we have a misunderstanding of what PR can do and what it does.

Still, PR does play a role. In a side-plot a few characters stage a PR stunt that gets the client in the Daily News, an ultimately successful gambit as far as driving sales. Yet, one laments "we can't charge them for this."

Oh really? Sure you can, but you're not a PR firm, you're playing in waters you don't understand.

The episode ends with Don in another interview, ostensibly having learned his lesson and now creating a much more interesting fact-based story. He is, in large part, using PR to change the conversation about himself and his firm.

All that said, people today still don't fully understand what PR does and what role it plays in a business. The one thing the leadership at Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce never did was hire a PR firm. Why? Well, in a bit of fiction they just called up the Wall Street Journal and the reporter jumped.

What could a PR firm have done for the firm?

• Set the message: Very simply put an outside firm would have helped define what this company is, who it wants to target and what key messages it needed to get across.
• Position: Just a slight variation on the messaging, but during the episode you heard one of the sales executives trying to fit the new firm into the landscape of ad agencies around New York. A PR firm could help clarify this so they could speak to it in sales meetings.
• Tell the story: In the course of the show we hear a bit about a controversial TV ad campaign for floor wax that Draper had created. I'm sure the Ad Age of 1964 would have loved a story that told the origin of that ad, what it tried to convey and its results.
• Hit the media: Even in 1964 the Journal and Ad Age weren't the only two games in town. Not only were there the major daily papers, but there was also the evening newscasts as well as magazines and trade publications. I'm sure Supermarket News would have loved to know the results of a ham-selling campaign.

Yet, still today people don't fully understand what PR does. Not only in the context of needing a firm to help get the message out, but even in crafting what that message is. I recently watched as a group for which I do pro-bono work let an interview happen without my knowledge. The resulting article was of little help. It's not that the article is terrible, but it's just not as positive as it could have been. Just as the article about Don Draper wasn't terrible, but it wasn't nearly as useful to the firm as they needed.

So holding the event on a Friday at 10am PT (afternoon here on the east coast) was Apple's first great PR move in regards to "Antennagate." But oh, there were so many more.

The Song: Perhaps the best move was opening the press conference with a song that had gone viral thanks to a YouTube video and a bit of help from TechCrunch. It showed, up front, the key message Apple was trying to convey: our customers are happy, media are not. Of course, it also helped that TechCrunch promoted the video, so they felt good about themselves. Hold onto that fact, it'll come back later.

The Facts: Fact 1 is that Apple has facts and the media don't. Seems kinda obvious now, but it's difficult for people to argue for a recall when Apple can turn around and say that only .55 percent of people have complained about the antenna and the iPhone 4.0 has only a 1.7 percent return rate, far below that of the 3GS. Apple probably would have released these numbers over time, but Friday's event certainly gave them a bigger stage. Fact 2: All smartphones have the same kind of problems. This is probably the fact that will be most debated in the coming weeks, but it also turns the attention from the iPhone to the entire industry.

No Apologies: When Steve Jobs walks on stage you're not going to get an apology. No way, ain't gonna happen. He's there for good news and to tell you that the company is producing great things. He's not there to apologize. If you want that then you're going to have to speak with someone else. Still, he did admit that Apple isn't perfect, then positioned that in the age old "we strive to be better" message. That, of course, lead directly into the next positive.

Feel the Love: Oh how Apple customers love Apple. Even Michael Arrington is a fanboy. And Steve Jobs positioned everything perfectly, giving the press-conference equivalent of Paul McCartney standing on stage screaming to a loud fan "I love you too!"

Just one more thing: The iPhone will be available in white at the end of July. So I'm sure there are plenty of people ready to scream "shut up and take my money!"

Of course, not everything was perfect, but I have only one real criticism: Did Steve Jobs really have to spit in the eye of the media? He called a Bloomberg story "total bullshit," and called the New York Times liars by saying that their story about a forthcoming software bug fix was "patently false." Of course, the whole event was there to show how the Consumer Reports story wasn't worth the paper it's printed on, so I guess Apple did want to stick a thumb in the eye of the media. Though, starting with the Antenna Song certainly endeared Apple more to TechCrunch. So maybe Jobs is just playing to a specific audience.

In a piece on Digits, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries lists 5 things Apple should do today to make amends with its customers, including apologize and offer both temporary and permanent fixes.

But all this assumes that the antenna issue is an actual problem.

"But Chuck," you say. "How is this not a problem? Of course it's a problem!"

Well, it sort of is, but it sort of isn't. An iPhone 4.0 user said to me, after reading my last post, that the antenna issue is well overblown. Then he added "and the battery life is incredible!" The sarcastic side of me thinks "if you can't make calls that battery will probably last forever."

But the point is, he's willing to overlook the antenna so he can use the other features of the phone, provided it offers a lot more. And we all know how great Steve Jobs is at offering "one more thing."

That's sort of what's behind the blog post by Antonio Rodriguez, in which he points out that the antenna's internal design allows for a symmetry that will come into play later, possibly in the form of an active secondary touch surface on the back of the phone.

So is this a design flaw or a feature? We'll find out more today.

So, how many of you iPhone users turned to Consumer Reports before buying the phone? Anyone? Hello? Go ahead, raise your hand...

BusinessInsider notes that trashing the iPhone is a great PR move for Consumer Reports. That may be true.

You want a better phone than an iPhone? There are a number of better options, just ask my business partner who has a Droid. My wife got herself a Droid Incredible and loves it. Besides, we all know the iPhone drops calls and as a phone is pretty lousy, but it has a great UI and is very easy to use when it comes to apps. We live with the lack of Flash and other quirks because Apple has allowed us to purchase their piece of equipment. Oh, thank you Steve Jobs.

Droid Increidble Needs a Caption, the iPhone Doesn't

When a friend got her iPhone 3GS she told her husband that she had to give up a little love for him so she could make room for her iPhone. My wife's Droid Incredible doesn't have the same impact (or maybe she just hasn't told me about her Droid lover just yet).

Futurama had a great scene recently in which everyone wanted an "Eyephone." After standing for hours in a line Fry finally gets to the front where he greets an unsmiling clerk. "OK, it's $500, you have no choice of carrier, the battery can't hold a charge and the reception isn't very good."

"Shut up and take my money!" Fry shouts.

The scene is funny because it's true.

So what will Apple do? Apple doesn't do PR the way that other companies do it and I don't expect it to start now. Even if the PR team acknowledges hard-nosed tactics like taking down negative posts in their forums, they'll probably say something like "we own the forums and acted in the best interest of our community of readers."

And what about the iPhone 4.0 antenna issue? You can follow Consumer Reports' advice and put a bit of duct tape on it, but I doubt anyone will do that. Why have an iPhone if you're going to mess with it's beautiful lines?

As for Apple, they'll probably publicly ignore the problem, then come out with an iPhone 4.1 and offer all 4.0 people an "upgrade" for a small fee.

Then we'll all shout together "shut up and take my money!"

I'm also pleased to announce that we'll have an exclusive interview with Steve for next week's Fresh Ground Podcast. (We did not include this interview in our podcast feed this week -- stay tuned for a great interview with a creative young PR pro in this week's podcast episode.)

Update 23 June 2010: Tim Allik captured some video of Steve talking specifically about his BusinessWeek experience. You can read Tim's thoughts on the Tech PR Gems blog, and have a look at the video below:

Our opening music is "D.I.Y." by A Band Called Quinn from the album "Sun Moon Stars" and is available from Music Alley, the Podsafe Music Network.