Please pardon my bleeped out French, but that’s what the BP Oil Spill Crisis has been. So when I recently caught wind of a new marketing campaign titled UnF--k The Gulf, I thought heck yeah, good to see an organization getting real about this thing. I couldn’t help but immediately click on to their website, learn about their cause, watch the well-produced video, like their Facebook page, follow their Twitter account, order a tshirt and spread the word. Immediate emotional response and subsequent action, exactly what cause-related (as well as the majority of consumer focused) marketing campaigns strive to accomplish.

But you may be thinking, well yeah you have a personal interest in this thing so of course you did. Well not so fast. See, there’s this other campaign out there that rolled out at just about the same time. Be The One, presented by Women of the Storm, has a lot going for it, but it simply lacks the oomph and wowza factor of UFTG. It features a video call-to-action with bucket loads of celebrities, a well-designed identity and website plus a cool t-shirt with a QR code that links to a petition calling for restoration of the Gulf. Two great causes, two well-designed and well-implemented campaigns. But from an emotional standpoint, “Be The One” just doesn’t hit as hard as “Un F—k The Gulf.”  It is not “stop in your tracks I need to do something NOW” kind of message.

It should also be noted that UFTG is receiving a lot of flack for their message. I get the ruffled feathers, after all it shakes conservative wisdom up. But this is the largest environmental disaster that we’ve ever witnessed. This will affect us all. It deserves an in your face, we’re f-in pissed off kind of message. If you can’t say it now, then when.

In the end, I admire both campaigns, whole-heartedly love and appreciate the work that they are doing and the help and awareness they are trying to provide. So go like, follow, order stuff and tell others about both causes. The Gulf Coast needs all the help that we can give.

Our team watched a webinar recently that was marketed as a lesson in online versus traditional media buying. First, I'd like to say how proud I am of our media department. We could have easily taught the class. Wowza. All I can say is that it's a good thing the webinar was free.

We've viewed a number of these sorts of tutorials over the past few years and I've noticed some commonality among them. Namely, everyone seems to have forgotten the most basic lessons of media buying. For buying online is no different than buying television or radio or outdoor. Online advertising is just one more component to compliment the vast array of media options available. That said, firms shouldn't need a "traditional media strategy" and then an "online media strategy" – both should seek the same end: efficiency.

Now I'll grant that the focus of online advertising is a bit different than that of tradition media (niche audiences and high frequency versus lower-frequency and mass audiences), so it's a different animal in that respect. It combines the sight and sound aspect of TV advertising, the demographic targeting of radio and the frequency of outdoor....with state-of-the-art psychographic and behavioral targeting laid on top.

It's amazing and new, though in many ways its debut mirrors that of another media that we're all too familiar with: television. On July 1, 1941, Bulova Watches ran this spot for NINE DOLLARS in the New York DMA (side note - can you think of anything you can do for $9 in New York now?). A whole new frontier opened up, but the destabilization that resulted created something of a wild west in the realm of media buying.

Today we're witnessing a shift of equal, if not greater proportions. Standards have evaporated and it's every director, planner, buyer and publisher for herself. Nielsen didn't exist in 1941 when Bulova went on the air with its TV spot. With time regulations, measurement tools and standards emerged that helped buyers comprehend their new medium, and television became a sellers' market.

The same will happen for online, but just as then, it will take time. Until that day, we've all got to do our best as buyers to pull information from our publisher partners and make the most efficient, creative and smartest buys we can. Yippe-ki-yay!

Contextual advertising is not something that we get the opportunity to cash in on very often on a local level, but more and more national brands are gaining an edge with every marketing dollar placed within program content.

For your consideration:

Whitney Port of the MTV series The City was announced as the spokesperson for Zeno Hot Spot this spring.  Zeno introduced a blemish prevention kit earlier this year, which includes a hydrating anti-acne cream and a battery-operated device that produces heat to optimize the results.  Whitney appears in print ads, television spots and on their website.  The genius here is the placement of the television spots.  The spots are placed in nearly every commercial break leading into, during and leading out of The City.

Earlier this week on an episode of The Secret Life of the American Teenager Grace Bowman’s mother gives her the Morning Burst Surge by Clean & Clear and tells her that “you can wash your face with it in the morning and it gives you a burst of energy in the afternoon.”  Whoa!  Is that product placement or what?!   Rather than just placing the product within the scene, they’ve actually worked a description of the product into the dialog.  Clean & Clear could have not bought a better ad space, especially for a new product.

With consumers having a million choices it is only going to become more important to break through the clutter of traditional ad space.  The Coca-Cola cups are as much of American Idol history as Randy, Paula and Simon, however companies are going to increasingly be on the lookout for any opportunity to get within program content.

Last Thursday, I was driving past another McDonald's on my way home, when I saw a sign that read, " Try Our New Fruit Smoothies." Gross. Nothing about the infamous smell of a Quarter Pounder makes me crave a fruit smoothie.

This week I discovered that McDonald's has pulled out of their free smoothie sample promotion initially set to launch on July 22nd. A statement by their chief marketing officer, Neil Golden,  blamed "unprecedented demand" for the promotion's cancellation. The franchise introduced the new icy items last week and the promotion was scheduled to push the new product, as part of the expanding McCafe line of "specialty drinks" (not a fan of any of those, BTW). Now there is an apparent smoothie mix shortage......wait, you didn't actually think these fruit smoothies contained real fruit, did you?

Yikes.

Whether McDonald's recipe had you fooled or not, canceling free handouts that you've already promised your loyal nationwide customers is just not a smooth move. *insert awkward laugh here*

A better strategy, in my opinion, would have been to cut the free samples back a day, reschedule the promotion altogether, or at least honor another item on the menu; maybe a shake of equal fructose content. Deliberately canceling the promotion and offering no recourse is not only underdelivering, it's really bad for business!

My evaluation? Put sugar, yogurt, preservatives and frozen fruit into a blender, and anyone will drink it. If I'm on a health kick, I'm not going to McDonald's. Unfortunately, there are millions of Americans who aren't so worried about ingredients, much less accountability, and the invention and purchase of another disgusting smoothie by McDonald's will probably be in our future. Sip on.

You heard it here, on UnderCurrent, first! Miss Media’s pick for the #1 new comedy in the fall is $#!* My Dad Says, airing Thursdays this fall at 8:30 pm EST on CBS.

The series is based on a popular Twitter handle by the same name.  The feed currently has 4,136,799 followers and is run by 29-year old Justin, who lives with his 74-year old father and records the random things his dad says on a daily basis.  In addition to the Twitter feed and TV show, Justin maintains a blog and has written a book based on his dad’s little ditties.  Before you check out any of the links, please make sure you are over the age of 18 or have a parent or legal guardian’s permission.

The series stars William Shatner as Ed, a 72-year old divorcee whose slacker son, Henry, has moved back in with him.  From the clip that is available on CBS.com, the show looks to be full of classic one liners.  The cast is likable, it appears to be well written and it seems that everyone can relate to the having that one crazy relative.  Local affiliates are predicting great success for the show, based on ratings projections and the buzz the show is already receiving; I agree.

Look for my September post on UnderCurrent, where I’ll review this show, along with other fall series premieres.  What do you think, will $#!* be the next big hit?

OK, so you're British Petroleum and you've destroyed habitats in the Gulf of Mexico.  And in the process are killing birds, businesses and communities.  Yeah, you blew it on the whole safe drilling and reaction plan things.  But how are you handling the PR nightmare 100 times the magnitude of anything the John Wilkes Booth family ever dreamed of.

And stupid, insensitive comments like "I want my life back," from embattled BP CEO Tony Hayward don't score points with the Gulf locals, shareholders or the rest of the world.

Sure, it's an uphill battle.  But I've seen some bright spots.  Certainly, setting up the $20 billion damage claims fund -- shakedown or not -- was a positive if unavoidable first step.  Then I saw this commercial last night that made me think BP really does care.  I guess that's the objective.

I even read a letter to the editor in the Courier-Journal  this week encouraging people to buy gas from BP!  True.  The writer's rationale was that if BP goes out of business, who's going to pay for the clean up?  Made sense to me.

As of today, I'd give BP an F-minus for environmentalism and a C-plus in post-disaster marketing.  For the long term, I'm afraid the picture is bleak for both BP and the Gulf.  Though, I think BP has the better chance of coming out of this mess.  And, as a marketer, I must admire their efforts to keep a positive spin on things.  They have little choice.

What do YOU think?  We'd love to see comments from UnderCurrent readers on BPs handling of the Gulf Crisis.   There's enough fodder here for a wide spectrum on opinions on the PR/marketing aspect of this.  Heck, even congress has taken up -- believe it or not -- polar positions on it (pick it up at 6:00 into the show).  So please, chime in yourself!

Our own Queen of the Social Sphere, Angela Trumbaturi, will be featured in an upcoming issue of Velocity and the pub arrived today for her pampered photo shoot atop our Jolt table! She looks damned good, if we do say so ourselves - shortly after the shoot, Annie Leibovitz called!

When explaining my role to others, I often get the “that’s awesome!” expression or the ever popular “gosh, I’d love to get paid to mess around on Facebook all day.” While yes, my job IS awesome, and yes, I love getting paid to scan Facebook, there is obviously so much more to the job...I have to scan Twitter. (Kidding!) Again, there is SO much more to the job.

Like most careers, there are misconceptions. And over the past few months, I’ve received several legitimate requests for career advice and the recipients are often surprised at the aspects that they haven’t considered. The information that is out there often only teaches the tools, not the meat of the medium. So if you’d like to truly launch yourself into the field of social media, listen up. Here’s a list of the top 5 aspects that I think are crucial to a career in the field. P.S. You’ve got a lot more to learn about than just the mechanics of the medium.

1. Fundamentals. To be successful in this field, you need to know the business of advertising, including the principles of marketing, media and strategic planning, brand management, organizational behavior, market research, sales, public relations and promotion. Social media requires their application using new school technology. Personally, my best preparation stems from a degree in Advertising as well as from the social media internships and marketing jobs that followed. (ah hem, more than an understanding of social networks)

2. Brand Management. Branding is such a powerful aspect of the job. You either "get" branding or you don’t. And if you don’t understand branding, you won’t be successful with a career social media. So study all that you can because it must become second nature. Think of it this way, as a social media manager, you will be the online voice for a brand. (quite possibly the voice of multiple brands.) Every status update, every tweet, every response comment must represent the voice of a certain brand. I can’t say it enough - you better understand branding and you better understand your clients. You better live, breath and CONSISTENTLY speak any given brand at any given time.

3. Details. You MUST be detail oriented. The job is high profile in the sense that hundreds, if not thousands will instantly see one minor slip up. And it’s soooo very easy to post a typo, incorrect information or *gasp* even the wrong message. Never let a mistake happen. If a slip-up does occur, you better realize it quickly so that you can adapt and respond with corrections. Mistakes in social media are instantly seen by your fans, followers, customers, client, client’s employees, the competition, brand haters, your boss, your coworkers and heck even your mom. And they don’t only reflect on you, they vastly reflect the brand (HUGE!)

4. Nerd. If you’re not a geek at heart then take your advertising skills elsewhere. You need to be a sponge of technology and trends. Things are changing so quickly in media, you need to know tomorrow’s biggest trends yesterday. You should also understand the nuances of social networks and their applications in technology so that your clients will be in those spaces when they go mainstream.

5. Lifestyle. You must have a passion for social media because it is quite literally a 24/7, 365 kind of job. Primary messages, editorial calendars and postings can be done beforehand, but monitoring occurs well beyond the hours of 8AM-6PM, Monday – Friday. You must be willing and able to speak any given brand at any given hour. And you must always be on the lookout for your next bit of information. But if you love it, you won’t give a damn. Instead you’ll just keep pinching yourself while thinking “damn, I get paid to do this?” And if you’re good at it then yes, yes you will.

This gosh darn Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, there’s literally nothing pretty about it. It’s frustrating, sickening and disturbing. As some of you may know, I was born and raised in southern Louisiana. As most of you probably don’t, I’m from Plaquemines Parish - the long protrusion of land that stems from New Orleans and ends with the Mississippi Delta. So as you can imagine, this flippin’ oil spill is hitting me in the gut. It hurts to know what’s going on with our environment and the people of the Gulf Coast. It hurts to see my home covered in thick crude every time I turn on the TV or log in to the online social spaces.

Right now I could write an entire thesis on the whole subject, but well, no one wants to read that. So instead I’ll just talk social media. First and foremost, unfortunately it’s crisis that often shows the true breadth and power of social media. You know what I mean because it’s obvious. It’s the crowdsourcing of ideas, Facebook pages, groups, blogs, Twitter accounts, hashtags, link sharing, etc. Social media is becoming a major player in the way we consume our news. Personally, my Facebook news stream is flooded with updates about the spill from friends and family back home, from news organizations and from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal himself.

We often complain about the mundane/boring updates from Facebook and Twitter, but because of them, I’ve learned of friends who are devoting the next few months to the clean up and of family members who plan on closing their seafood businesses. I’ve looked at pictures from major national news organizations that are quite literally from my old backyard. And I’ve watched BP’s every (public) move. So have many, many others. They are organizing on social networks and venting their frustrations with groups calling for the boycott of BP. Not all of it is negative feedback, others are organizing in search of a solution.

BP has some representation in the social media space with @BP_America. The account is providing followers with updates and links to the situation. Even though it’s simple updates, it is nice to get information straight from the source. Then there is @BPGlobalPR. Nope, it’s not another BP account. Instead it’s a cleverly written imposter that has amassed 51,000+ followers since May 19. Speculation has it that it’s from one of the folks at Funny Or Die. And as reported in AdAge, BP currently has no plans to ask for the removal of the account. And I hope they don’t. Sure, they should clarify a few things so that people don’t confuse it with a real account, but I think it provides another outlet for us to vent our frustrations. It gives a few seconds of “humor” to the situation.  Plus, BP needs to keep all energies focused elsewhere for the time being.

I’ll continue with more on this topic next week. In the meantime, and if it’s within your means, please contribute to the cause: http://www.gnof.org

(And a personal note: Bernard Picone, an oyster fisherman featured on The Greater New Orleans Foundation site, is the brother of my sister-in-law. The fisherman and people of the gulf coast once again need all the help that they can get and that we can provide. But it doesn’t just stop there. The wildlife and seafood industry of the U.S. is truly in great peril, and that affects us all, regardless of geography. So please help in any way possible. Thanks y’all.)

We ad people spend a lot of time thinking about audiences. Most of us, as we design our tactics, try to appeal to the broadest audiences we can. Lately though, I’ve been reminded that the extremely targeted tactic can be quite effective too. Case in point, two television ads I recently came across.

The first, Flex by Old Spice. This ad, directed by Tim and Eric of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! features a heavily muscled character screaming loudly and creating explosions. Watching it, I thought: this sort of camp isn’t anything that any woman would be attracted to in the slightest. In fact, I wondered if men were really even attracted to Old Spice because of the commercial. It was that sort of a turn-off.

Shortly thereafter I was treated to a viewing of the Jillz Loves Football ad, which also features men, but this time hunky soccer players flashing their perfect abs, chests and backs. Again I wondered what audience this ad was designed to appeal to, and quickly determined it was me, since I’d try their product in a heartbeat if it meant I could get anywhere near those guys.

Thus I was taught a lesson in the power of target marketing. Old Spice turned me off in a rather big way, though the payoff for them is an ad that almost certainly sticks in the minds of their target audience. Was the turn-off worth the payoff? Probably. How do I know? Because I haven’t met many men who’ve been inspired by buy Jillz sparkling cider as a result of their ad. I on the other hand am checking out condo prices in Holland.