Dichotomy Consulting

When I arrived at my job at TBWA\Chiat\Day in New York, the fact that I was a bilingual writer had preceded me.

“Would you listen to the Hispanic radio spots we just recorded for Chivas Regal?” they asked.  “Sure, I’d be happy to,” I replied.

I was handed a cassette–yes, it was that long ago–and I made my way back to my cubicle to sit down to get an earful. And, boy, did I.

What I heard was a single radio spot, but read by three different voice talents. One stereotypically Mexican, the other just as “central casting” Puerto Rican, and the third labeled as “Cuban” though it was no more than what is known in Hispanic broadcasting parlance as el acento neutro, or “the neutral accent.”

What in the name of all that is holy was this?

My first agency job was in the South Korean office of Ogilvy & Mather. There I was brought up on the Ogilvy “Brand Stewardship” model and a central tenet of that model was that a brand has a voice. Literally and figuratively. Why did Chivas have–in the same market–not one, but three voices?

Recording different Spanish accents for this spot made as much sense as recording “general market” Chivas spots with regional accents for different sections of the U.S. Would the voice of Chivas have a “twang” in the South? Of course not. Read the rest of this entry »

Being that Twitter is part of that amorphous amalgam that we know as social media, it should be abundantly clear that Twitter is inherently–for lack of a better word–interactive. It is supposed to be a venue for a dialogue between users of all stripes: corporate and indie, amateur and professional, old guard and avant-garde.

However, some people just don’t get it. Let’s round up the usual suspects (current numbers as of this posting):

News Organizations

CNN: 1,258,000 followers; follows 6

CBS: 192,000 followers; follows 80

Government Officials

Senator John McCain: 522,000 followers; follows 42

Senator Claire McCaskill: 22,000 followers; follows 1

Celebrities

Ashton Kutcher: 1,494,000 followers; follows 132

John Mayer: 872,000 followers; follows 30

This is, of course, a small sample. Yet it is representative of some of the hubris that is alive and well online. The celebrities are one thing; they are inherently self-involved and those that slavishly follow their movements will dream of reciprocation but won’t expect to get it. The newsies and the politicians are another matter altogether. Why in the world should I follow you if you won’t reciprocate?

Why should I follow CNN when the news will probably get to me faster through other–more organic–means on Twitter. The millions of Twitter users outnumber journalists in the service of mass-media outlets. The odds that a lay eyewitness will tweet a big story before any journalist even gets wind of it are increasing every day. Stories like the crash of Turkish Airlines flight 1951, the recent Mumbai terror attacks, and the US Airways Hudson River crash all broke on Twitter.

So, if you won’t follow me, what real benefit is there to following you?

The politicos? As far as most of them are concerned–and there are a few notable exceptions–Twitter is a bullhorn or a bully pulpit from whence they can shower their subjects with their wisdom and eloquence.

So, if you won’t follow me, then why should I follow you, let alone vote for you?

Twitter is a conversation. We put things out there and hopefully connect with people. Or maybe we connect with organizations or brands. The point is that there is as much (if not more) value in the listening as there is in the speaking. (Or, as the case may be, bloviating.)

If you want to be followed, you need to be willing to follow. Fortunately for you, on Twitter you can do both.

We’ve all had those followers. Maybe they promise that we can get rich if we do X, or that, if we just follow their this-many-steps plan, we can be making $10K a month from home within three days. No matter what the creepy, too-good-to-be true come-on, we decide to do them a “solid” and follow them back.

So it is that a constant stream of lame drivel enters our lives. Kind of like an infomercial but without the charm. Suddenly it feels as if you just got a really pushy friend that keeps trying to get you to sell Amway for him. Un-follow and goodbye!

Like many of you, I have a strategic reason to be part of the Twitterverse: I want to find an audience for my inane musings, especially if I ever get around to publishing some of them in bound, dead-tree form. That said, I cannot flood the Twitterverse and my poor followers with incessant pleas for them to engage in some sort of commerce. They call this social media for a reason, and it stands to reason that any behavior that is verboten in a social encounter in meatspace is a faux pas online as well.

You have a business? Great. Welcome to the Twitterhood. We’d all love to interact with you, but please remember that we aren’t here for the sole purpose of being sold to. Socialize. Engage us. You have an offer? Sure, put it out there. Just remember that it’s also important to let us into your world from time to time. Was that Kung Pao dreadful? Let us know. Did your kid do a face plant while trying to ollie the couch? Share it with us. Bonus points for making us laugh.

But, please, pretty please with Splenda on top: don’t be another tool, will ya?