And few companies have mined the threat prospects better than Symantec, which frequently gets high-profile television exposure whenever a worm or a new phishing scam is unleashed on the Internet.  With the backdrop of a situation room that resembles the CTU intel center from TV’s “24” series, Symantec execs have been interviewed on “60 Minutes,” standing in front of monitors that flash with warnings of new viruses and bots. Wait, there’s another one! Incoming from eastern Russia!

So at San Francisco’s recent RSA Internet security conference, which featured  speeches from FBI director Robert Mueller and Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano,  you would expect that Symantec would do something interesting to showcase how insidious and destructive these cyber attacks can be.  What better venue to promote paranoia?

Sure enough, next to its main booth in the south exhibition hall, Symantec unveiled its Black Market Store, a cleverly conceived iteration of how cyber crooks might peddle people’s identities.  There was no company press release about this display, though anyone who took the guided tour, including a few journalists, invariably came away with a sense of shock and awe. 

Was there a missed PR opportunity here?

The Symantec trade show team crafted as close to a Disneyland e-ticket ride as you can get in this environment.  Even if you knew nothing about cybercrime, you’d leave this place with a sense of dread.  I just gotta have the anti-virus, firewall and security software. Isn’t that the idea?

Entering the store with a group of eight people, we were greeted with bins of “stolen” credit cards and shelves of scam software, some that come with “technical support,” explained the guide.  There were also bundles of data with bank account numbers, driver’s licenses, Social Security cards, passports and ATM numbers.  The fresher the data, the higher the value in the underground market, he said.

But wait — there’s more. The guide flings open the neon lighted door of a soft drink vending machine and – voila – behold a secret room!  This is obviously the shadowy lair of cybercriminals, the very heart of darkness.

Indeed, it is dark inside, except for some flickering monitors. The walls are lined with LCD screens, and you just know that malevolence is brewing here.  In one corner the guide demonstrates how quickly a phishing scam, using the logo of a reputable bank, can snatch an account number and post it to the black market.  On another screen, lines of apparent gibberish – code for new “merchandise” and bidders for it – scroll up continuously.  This, explains the guide, is actual video capture obtained a few months ago. 

Yet another screen highlights a bot scam, which involves planting malicious code on unsuspecting PCs.  Bots lay dormant until the master (called the botherder) commands these machines, like robots, to carry out missions such as denial-of-service attacks and mass spam emailing.  Bot programs have fearful names such as “Piranha.”

And to underscore the ease with which cybercrooks can steal your identity, the guide punches a number into a machine about the size of a breadbox and within 30 seconds out pops a new credit card with a magnetic stripe.  The bad dudes don’t need your actual card; just the number will do.  This machine is similar to those used by hotels to make card keys for guests and is not all that difficult for underworld minions to obtain, said the guide.

On our exit from the Black Market, attendants handed out a mock tabloid newspaper called the BLKMKT News, which provides a glossary of hacker lingo and a list of the most popular web scams.  With the front page headline of “A Shadowy Economy Comes to Light,” this is a handy reference in case you forgot anything you heard on the tour.

The entire display was well-executed and provided a compelling, interactive experience even for reasonably tech-savvy visitors.

So why, I asked, didn’t Symantec promote this more heavily?   Well, I was told, the display had appeared at a few consumer events, so it wasn’t brand new.  Still, some journalists and TV crews managed, largely by happenstance, to discover the booth and develop their own reports, said one booth attendant. 

Most of the Symantec PR that came out of RSA involved new product press releases, with the usual language, and interviews with Symantec brass – certainly among the normal activities for a trade show.  Companies typically create cheesy dog-and-pony acts to get attention at their booths, and the PR staff seldom considers them worthy enough to hype.

But what struck me about this particular display was that it connected with people on a personal level, with enough realism to make the point of vulnerability.  The apprehension of opening an unknown email attachment or doing an online transaction through an obtuse website is a powerful motivator.  Maybe it’s even enough to overcome the computer repairmen and magazine writers who routinely advise consumers to skip the expensive software and just download a free anti-virus program.

Perhaps Symantec has such a well-stocked arsenal of reports to scare us witless that its Black Market scenario was seen as little more than a cabaret show in the worldwide theater of evil.

Still, I came away wondering whether one of the best media opportunities at RSA slipped under the radar.

– Ken Castle

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This U.K. car leasing site is ugly. It's like taking a brutal time trip to 1998. Flashing animations, banners, crazy fonts and headings… but it works! How well? The little business that Ling Valentine, a Chinese immigrant, started with her husband leases around £35 million worth of cars each year. Ling gets commission on each one, but she gets more than that. Her business gets reactions and loyalty from her customers: check out these letters.

Ling's Cars embodies the best advice anyone could take in creating a remarkable word-of-mouth business: whatever else you do, don't be boring. The whole site is driven by Ling's manic personality and sense of humor. Her business is a classic example of Seth Godin's purple cow – the distinctive, compelling business that is just different.

How many other ecommerce sites let you play hangman with car model names? Or let customers contribute their car lease-related poetry? Ling is a born self-publicist and knows how to make things fun for her customers. My favorite thing on the site is the hilarious build guide for the "Nuclear Missile Truck" that she created to advertise her site.

Under it all, of course, is a rock-solid business: the site boasts of quick response to customers and an efficient order handling process, all driven by software that Ling designed herself.

Can you imagine wanting to visit, much less talk about and share, a car leasing site? Me neither… but somehow Ling makes it work!

We love predictions. There's something about the transition from one year to another that makes us all want to try our hand at telling the future.

We're not very good at this business of predicting what's going to happen… And we're particularly bad about understanding how technology will change our world. When we predict the future, we don't imagine the next disruptive thing, we think about what we have today, just faster and better. We don't foresee the Internet; we imagine pneumatic tubes that go really, really fast.

Some great examples of smart people making spectacularly off-the-mark predictions on new technology:

Radio has no future.
-Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1897

Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
-H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
-Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

640K ought to be enough for anybody.
-Bill Gates, 1981

Today, our culture and industry are clearly changing at record speed. As social technologies and new forms of communication become more popular, they are affecting how how interact and reach our audiences in fundamental ways. Chances are, however, our efforts to predict these long-term impacts are no better than those of the experts who came before us.

Now that I got that out of the way… here are my thoughts on the top trends I think will influence our business over the next five years.

1. Customers revolt over privacy

I see this trend gaining momentum and forcing us to change the way we work. Almost everything we've done here as brands and companies has been relatively superficial; offering opt-in vs. opt-out, for example, or changing the way we manage and secure customer data. Compared to the challenges ahead, however, we have simply been playing at the edges of what will be a much bigger set of challenges. The issue of privacy in the Google age goes far deeper and quickly leads to thorny issues.

Who owns information and data about a customer? Under what circumstances can it be shared? If inaccurate or damaging information is shared on a website or social network controlled by a company, what are its responsibilities? Can businesses make hiring decisions based on what they find online about an individual? Companies simply aren't prepared for the cultural, legal and technological challenges they will face in the years to come. I look for customers to demand increased accountability from the brands and services they interact with, and for that challenge to shape the way we reach and market to customers.

2. Marketers learn to manage complexity

Marketing has never been simple, but the core challenges underlying it – find, reach, and persuade customers – have always been straightforward. Certainly, as new technology and media offered us more possibilities for reaching and interacting with customers, our work has become more complex. I believe we are now, however, at a critical tipping point in terms of complexity.

Think about what is involved in having even the smallest product and business today. You still need everything you've always needed – a great product or service, a compelling message, a good understanding of your customers. But now you need a whole new set of things, all of which matter. A great website. A social presence that fits your customers. A content plan to keep them interested in your business. The ability to show up in search engines, so they can find you. Diligent tracking of your brand and reputation online, and the ability and resources to enter into conversations where necessary.

Can one person carry the load of marketing a small usiness on their own anymore? In some cases, even a small team might not be enough. We're entering the age of specialization, as even small companies turn to SEO experts, content people, web design folks, outreach marketing experts, and so on.

The challenge over the years ahead will be to manage that complexity without fragmenting resources and losing the unifying thread of customer experience.

3. Focusing on the 95%

Think of your customers as falling on a bell curve of technology and social media adoption. Companies today face overwhelming temptation to serve the top 5% of passionate, engaged, responsive customers. Over the years to come, marketers will have to learn to serve the other 95%.

The argument for serving the 5% goes something like this. After decades of wondering what our customers think of us, and paying market research experts to help us find out, we suddenly have access to the unfiltered, honest perspective of real customers. We need to do everything to understand them, and adapt our product, message and activities to suit them.

The problem: for most brands, particularly non-technology brands, that 5% is not representative of the great mass of your customers. The people who are most active on your blog, or Twitter feed, or who talk the most about you, may not behave at all like the ones who are driving your sales. But because you don't have the same access to those customers, you make it all about the 5%, and push through major changes to your brand and service to accommodate them.

Here' s a lesson we all need to learn, in this age of increased customer feedback: you can't please everyone. A while back, to prove this point, I did a few searches online that began with the words, "I hate ___." "I hate the Salvation Army" pulls up 87,000 hits; "I hate the Red Cross" 166,000. Even "I hate puppies" returns over 230,000 hits. 

Successful brands will have to figure out how to temper the feedback they get online and focus on the needs of their core customers. This will be a key challenge for our business in the years to come.

Check out the other panelists:

• Meredith L. Eaton, Blog Panel – Part 3: Public Relations Past 2010
• Frank Strong, Blog Panel Part III: Outlook for PR Beyond 2010
• John Sidline, link coming soon
  

Presenting: a marketing fantasy in three parts…

WORK LIFE

Several young, attractive, well-dressed men and women of various ethnic backgrounds are gathered around a conference table. A slightly older, distinguished-looking man is addressing them, a thoughtful expression on his face.

BOSS

…So as you see from this chart we have just over two months left of cash flow, and diminishing customer orders. Any suggestions?

FIRST MAN

Well, I found this website for a vendor that says their software can solve all of our problems.

BOSS, whips off his glasses:

ALL of them? Wait, how do they support this claim?

FIRST MAN

Well, they have a mission statement on their home page that says that their software is "industry-leading." And I downloaded a white paper that is… oh… 27 pages in tiny font. Also – and I think this is what convinced me – they have a Flash product demo.

WOMAN

Does it explain how the product works, what it costs, and how it would impact a business like us?

FIRST MAN

No, but it has some nice animation and features really cute little people icons.

BOSS

I'm convinced! Sign us up!

Everyone nods happily.

HOME LIFE

The setting: it's morning in the Brown household. BRAD, SHEILA, and ADORABLE CHILD are gathered around the breakfast table. The soft light of the morning sun is filtering through the window.

BRAD:

I am really liking this orange juice. It's more orange-y than regular orange juice… It's got this super orange kick to it.

SHEILA

Let me try. Oh my gosh – you can definitely taste the orange in there. I feel like I'm actually in an orange grove right now. I'm running through the trees, I can feel their leaves touching my skin now. It feels amazing.

BRAD

It feels like it's a hot day, and I'm diving into a cold, pure pool of orange juice. It feels so right, like I'm going home.

ADORABLE CHILD

I wanna twy da owanj joooz!

Everyone laughs. SHEILA wipes away a single tear of pure joy.

SHEILA

I forgive you for the affair.

TEEN LIFE

Setting: a high school. Two pretty girls are chatting in the hallway as students come and go around them.

FIRST GIRL

OH MY GOSH you have got to see some of these super-cool interactive brand assets that Brian sent me last night.

SECOND GIRL

Really? I was also interacting with some totally engaging social media brand presences last night. Did you Facebook-friend those new digital brand assets that he sent you? They sound SO fierce!

FIRST GIRL

I really like it when companies try to create edgy, teen-savvy content and rich, interactive web experiences. I feel like most brands just get me.

SECOND GIRL

Me too!!!!

They giggle and high-five for no apparent reason.

Welcome to the “gotcha” economy.

Some companies operate in the gray area that exists between what is legal and what is right. Their whole business model is to trap customers, taking advantage of a moment of inattention. Call it the bottom-dwelling business model. Read this article about Intelius for a great example.

Most customers don’t mind paying a fair price for a fair product. More than ever before, however, today’s consumers feel beaten down and powerless, victimized by an unending stream of “gotcha” tricks. While some companies exist only through such practices, many others have them in their bag of tricks. They include: 

• Credit card interest rates that change based on hidden factors
• Extra airline fees for bags, ticketing, “convenience”, others
• “Free” online services that bill after the first month
• Poorly defined and named cell phone charges

Modern consumer living means maintaining dozens of financial and business relationships – with banks, credit cards, cable companies, and other merchants. No one has time to read the fine print, and companies know this. They make their pricing and policies as opaque as possible to try to maximize profit.

If your business does this, stop. I won’t waste energy going into the long-term argument against deceitful practices (alienated customers, complaints, customer service costs, etc.). If you have any standard of ethics, your business should be about doing what’s right, not what you can get away with.

Don’t do this. By not turning your customer into a victim, you can gain their loyalty.

It’s hard to get a clear picture of how far small businesses have gone down the social media road. Frank Reed has a great post on this topic on Marketing Pilgrim that really started me thinking about this (I posted some of this as a comment on his blog).

It really depends what survey you believe:

• According to new survey commissioned by Citibank, three-quarters of U.S. small businesses say they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn helpful for generating business leads or expanding business in the past year. Eighty-six percent said they have not used social networking sites for information or business advice. Just ten percent said they have sought business advice and information on expert blogs.
• According to the survey from Internet2Go, 45 percent of those surveyed use social media (including Facebook and Twitter) to promote their business. Seventy-five percent said they monitor online reviews of their business.

Two very different pictures of small business adoption. Frank does a great job of breaking down the data on the Internet2Go survey on his post, suggesting that "meaningful" social media adoption – e.g. making it a sustained, rewarding part of their business – remains relatively low among SMBs. This is the view I hold, based on years of consulting with companies selling to, and reviewing research on, the messy, heterogenous small business U.S. market.

I don’t have data to support this, but these are what I feel are the four big reasons that hold back SMB social media adoption:

1. They have little or no existing marketing behaviors. A surprisingly small number of small businesses have any level of marketing practices in place. They get customers because they have a storefront, or through pure, undirected word-of-mouth. Saying they don’t have a marketing strategy doesn’t get at their reality: they don’t even have an awareness of marketing as something they need to be doing. It makes sense that to understand the value of social media approaches, you first have to have an existing set of marketing practices that you can plug them into.
2. They find technology hard to understand. This is getting better as social media goes so mainstream… but the vast majority of SMBs are not at all tech-forward, and in fact strongly tech-averse. I’ve worked with Microsoft to launch small-business focused products; time and again, I’m always struck by their research showing the huge portion of the market running completely obselete applications and operating systems. Most small businesses still don’t have on-premise Internet access, many don’t have a dedicated business PC, and relatively few have a positive attitude towards technology.
3. They don’t have the time or the skills for social media. Social media means creating content – which means steady, diligent focus on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. That takes rigorous application of time and also requires the ability to communicate and tell your story in an interesting, distinctive way, that fits your customers and the SM platform that you’ve chosen. Both resources are not broadly available in the small business population.
4. They are in a business type that is not ideally suited for social media. I know that many think that *every* business can be made better with social media; I don’t disagree. But some products and services can more easily be translated into the type of customer passion that leads to ongoing relationships. Would I follow the blog of my quirky, knowledgeable local cheese shop, or the pet store where I get my dog stuff? I probably would. Would I follow the Twitter feed of the guys that change the oil on my car? Or my drycleaner? Probably not. If they created really great content, then obviously, but my baseline level of interest in that product type is just lower.

Where I see a small businesses doing well with social media, it’s usually because they have a charismatic, passionate owner or manager who is great at connecting with customers. Social media didn’t make them this way. All the social media platform does is give them the way to express it and scale it in a way that lets them reach and touch more people. Customers are attracted to them and excited by their product, and they learn enough about the technology to make social media work for their business.

A great example is our favorite grocery store, Sigona’s, just down the road in Redwood City, CA. Although technically very basic, their blog attracts large numbers of customers who love their organic vegetables, grass-fed meats, and attentive customer service. Try making it all the way through their store without someone on their team starting a conversation with you. I like them, I love food, and I like the discounts they offer only on their site and blog; so I follow them. Most businesses, even those with much more polished approaches to social media, don’t have those elements; so I don’t.

What do you think? What is the right recipe for small businesses with social media?

How To be Yourself in Social Media

1. Don’t read stupid bullet points about how to be yourself, write your own.
2. Don’t be witty, unless of course you already are witty, in which case: carry on.
3. Don’t look for exposure by doing something uncharacteristic.
4. Don’t follow the leader and hang out with the cool kids.
5. Talk about what you enjoy and makes you happy.
6. Quit trying to be something and just be you.

Of the hundreds of posts I’ve seen offering "rules" for social media, this might be my favorite. Fail to follow these, he warns, and you’ll come off like this guy:

Source: Flickr; Marketing Pilgrim; your worst nightmare

The relentless crush for attention and traffic online can make normally sane, interesting people act like idiots. Idiots get attention, yes; but is it really the attention you want? If you really are the guy dressed up as a unicorn, then great, and God bless the Internet for making it possible for you to find others like you and celebrate your shared, um, interests. Most of us aren’t that guy.

I would add two more rules to the list above… these aren’t principles that relate just to how people interact online; they simply describe how people relate to each other, in any way. They will hold true in every situation.

1. To be noticed, you have to stand out
2. To be respected and trusted, you have to be yourself

If you are in a room full of people shouting, you have two strategies to get attention; you either shout louder or you do something different from everyone else. A quick turn online will show you how many people are stuck on the first strategy.

Methodology: Segmentation for Growth from Patrick Doherty on Vimeo.

I’m fascinated with how people make choices. If you are too, I suggest Jonah Lehrer’s excellent book, How We Decide. I highly recommend it; you can get a flavor for some of it in his interview on this podcast (around 10:05 in).

He does a great job of exposing the fallacy of the "logic model" – the idea, which many people have, that they make decisions on a purely logical grounds. We actually control fewer of our choices than we realize, and instead are driven by three factors.

1. Expertise – what feels right?

If you have real expertise in something, you make decisions almost without thinking. This is very instinctive decision-making. Think a writer picking out his next word, a mechanic working on an engine, or a musician playing. They are making thousands of little decisions very smoothly, often without even realizing they’ve just made a choice.

2. Self image – who do I think I am?

With many decisions, we’re really answering the question, "who am I?" Am I the type of person who buys a sports car or a minivan? Am I the type to stay out late or go home at a responsible hour? In the end, we are all trying to square our decisions with our sense of ourselves.

3. Public image – what will others think of me?

The flip side to #2. More than we believe, we are driven either to conform or rebel against others’ perceptions of us. If I take this job, what will people think of me? If I choose this vendor, what will my boss say?

It’s actually harder to fool people into thinking you are something you are not than many realize. Others might not be able to put your finger on exactly what struck them as off about you, but they will sense that there is something not quite right.

The same effect holds true for companies. Your business has a personality; think of it as the sum total of your employees, policies, products, public image, and market position. While you can evolve that personality over time you can’t just redefine yourself and hope to come off as anything other than inauthentic.

Customers have a desire for authenticity. They are bombarded with fakers, wannabes, and liars. They are spammed, robo-called, and mass-advertised without mercy. Be different: be real. They will be able to tell the difference.