Symantec has partnered with hip-hop mogul and porn producer Snoop Dogg on a cybercrime rap contest which invites participants to bust rhymes on the subject of malware for the chance to win an all expenses paid trip to attend a Snoop gig and meet his peeps.

Ummm, what?!

When I first saw the news, I instantly recalled one of the best SNL parodies ever aired: Bad Idea Jeans. Remember David Spade’s line?

Normally I wear protection, but then I thought…when’s the next time I’m going to be back in Haiti?

Symantec’s contest, which is being promoted via Facebook and a dedicated Twitter feed, falls into the Bad Idea Jeans category for me. Consider this: Symantec is the largest security software company in the world, with two of its main constituents being very large enterprises and families who use their antivirus software on their home PCs.

Last May, I wrote a blog about why being more social doesn’t always increase brand loyalty. The impetus of that post was a study by Vivaldi Partners and Lightspeed Research examining how companies create true value from social media and online community. The central message was that any social media initiative needs to be authentic to the brand’s identity and engage its audience in the way they expect and want to be engaged with.

At face value, this might seem like a clever social media campaign and ploy to generate buzz. Perhaps Symantec is trying to reach a new audience, and feels that this partnership will broaden their appeal. But when I glanced at the contest’s dedicated micro-site, I noted that someone wrote in the comments that they filmed their video while they were high at 4 a.m. For a company that’s supposedly committed to social responsibility, this “bad boy” image doesn’t seem one that Symantec should be reinforcing with its core customer base.

Am I missing something? Is there something about Snoop that screams security and safety?  I love the Dogg, but his extracurricular habits alone conjure up another apropos pop culture reference.  “Isn’t it Ironic….”

Behold the Labor Day edition of the Bateman Buzz Meter (technically #5), our semi-regular ranking of recent newsworthy events based on PR and Social Media effectiveness.  As always, please comment on any current news headlines or PR stunts you think are worthy of the Buzz Meter we may have missed.

(Remember to click on the image to view it in full screen)

Will Foursquare still be popping its collar next year?

On August 18, Facebook announced its new location-based feature – Facebook Places. Places allows users to “check-in” to local businesses, public places, etc. Check-ins are then posted on one’s wall and included in one’s newsfeed. Mark Zuckerberg might have tried to sell the announcement as an extension of Web 2.0, but it’s clear that Facebook has now positioned itself to move into the local ad space.

In March Facebook rolled out the “Like” button under the guise that it was making the Internet a smaller place. They encouraged organizations, non-profits, businesses, and famous people to create a Facebook Page, so that they could be “liked” by fans/customers. Through the Places announcement, it has become evident that Facebook wants a piece of the multi-billion dollar local ad pie.

Many local businesses have already created Facebook Pages, and by connecting that page with the new Places feature, Facebook can directly show ROI to local advertisers – something the online local ad industry has struggled with for years. (Yelp – you should’ve take Google’s money and run when you had the chance.)

Part of the reason why the geotagging space has become popular recently is due to the hard work of startups like Foresquare and Gowalla. I’m an avid Foursquare user, and I think that it’s a fun way to explore a city’s cool local businesses. When I heard the Facebook Places announcement, my first thought was what does this mean for Foursquare? And if Places takes over the location-based space, does this mean that I’ll lose my prized ‘I’m on a boat’ badge and my ‘Mayorship’ of Hawaiian hotspot Hukilau?

I certainly hope not, for small companies drive innovation and create ideas that big business, which now includes Facebook, tries to steal. So let’s continue to support the little guys, because without innovation and improvement, Facebook would still be Friendster.

iPhone 4

In recent months it seems like Apple is becoming the company that everybody loves to hate. Scratch that, Apple is becoming the company that the media love to hate.  As the old adage goes, the media can build you up, but they can just as quickly knock you down. Media attention is indeed a double-edged sword and the backlash can cut deep and do irreparable harm to a brand. So, can the swarm of Apple-hating media knock Apple off of its pedestal once and for all?

The mounting iPhone 4 controversy is reaching a crescendo. Christ, you’d think Apple blew an oil line in the Gulf of Mexico with the way the media has reacted to this week’s Consumer Reports review on the iPhone 4, suggesting that it was recall worthy. But what effect, if any, is all of the negative press having on Apple’s sales of the new device?

Consider this: In today’s widely anticipated press conference, Jobs said Apple has sold more than 3 million iPhone 4s since they launched in mid-June, making it one of the most successful releases in the company’s history. Only 1.7 percent of those devices have been returned, compared with a 6 percent return rate for the iPhone 3GS during the same time period. And if people are so unhappy with their “lemon” iPhones, wouldn’t there be hoards of unhappy customers lined up outside of Apple stores, demanding refunds?

According to CNN’s coverage of the press conference, users who are unhappy with the iPhone 4 will get a free bumper case to prevent the so-called “death grip” that interferes with reception. They’ll also be able to return the phone for a full refund up to 30 days after the purchase date, and AT&T will let customers out of their two-year contracts penalty-free. This seems pretty reasonable and fair to me.

As an iPhone user for the past two years (my iPhone 4 arrives next week!), I can empathize with fellow iPhone users who think the network coverage sucks, as it certainly does in San Francisco. But for some reason, I keep coming back. Why? If you’re an iPhone user, you know the answer.

So…is all PR good PR? I personally think for Apple, this statement holds true. As a shareholder, I’m bummed that the stock price is down due to the media feeding frenzy, but I know it’s just a temporary setback. Only time will tell what longer term impact all of this “bad” press will have on Apple’s sales. My prediction is that the company will emerge from this unscathed.

You might think the connection between popular reality TV shows like American Idol and business strategy is fuzzy at best, and on many levels you’re right. But there’s actually a lot that businesses can learn from these programs – not from Randy Jackson or Paula Abdul, but from the social media data.

Bateman Group’s client Kapow Technologies just completed a really cool project, dubbed Reality Buzz, which was created to see if real-time analysis of social media conversations could predict the outcome of two popular reality television shows: American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. After collecting tens of thousands of tweets, comments and discussions about contestants each week (down with Kate Gosselin!) and applying a dash of sentiment analysis, Kapow batted well above .500 on its predictions. In fact, Reality Buzz predicted 80 percent of the elimination rounds for Dancing with the Stars correctly!

In a great guest blog post to ZDNet, Kapow’s Rick Kawamura offers five lessons learned from Reality Buzz that businesses should apply in order to extract real value from social media data. Here are a few choice excerpts:

Rule #1: Data trumps conventional wisdom

While Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, would say otherwise, data-driven business decisions definitely outperform guesswork.

Rule #2: Timing is critical

Any data more than 24 hours old is pretty much worthless for predicting who will be eliminated from a reality TV show. The same holds true in the business world, where it’s imperative for the data to be as close to an event as possible, as this data has the strongest effect on sentiment.

Rule #3: Don’t be blind to the noise factor

It’s easy to understand trends, changes in momentum, volume of traffic, and ratio of positive to negative sentiment. However there is a lot of noise that can easily skew the data, especially with large, very public shows like American Idol. The bigger the show, product, etc., the more noise.

Rule #4: Not all social media sentiment created equal

There are differing degrees of sentiment, and not all translate equally well. Companies also need to consider how to weigh one tweet versus a Facebook comment versus a blog post. Each is just one piece of data, but does each one count equally?

Rule #5: Don’t look at data in a vacuum

Having knowledge of the events and circumstances surrounding the data sets is critical to understanding and extracting intelligence from social media. In the case of Reality Buzz, it was helpful to watch the performance shows for added context.

Today’s post is the third in our series introduced in January on Bateman Banter called The New J-School in which we examine the evolving nature of journalism in today’s digital age.

Tom Foremski, publisher of Silicon Valley Watcher, recently posted this interesting piece entitled MediaWatch: Journalists Won’t Report News Unless It Can Drive Page Views, which was based on a recent panel moderated by well-known media watcher Sam Whitmore. Tom pulls out this excerpt from the conversation:

“It’s now a luxury for a reporter to write a story about an obscure, but important topic. That used to be a job requirement. Now it’s a career risk. Example: let’s say an interesting startup has a new and different idea. Many reporters now won’t touch it because (a) the story won’t generate page views, and (b) few people search on terms germane to that startup. Potential SEO performance is now a key factor in what gets assigned.

Two reporters from two different publications this month both told us the same thing: if you want to write a story on an interesting but obscure topic, you had better feed the beast by writing a second story about the iPad or Facebook or something else that delivers page views and good SEO.”

Tom summarizes:
“Page view journalism also means that smaller companies will be crowded out by their larger competitors. And with the current media tsunami out there, if you aren’t seen by your potential customers, you don’t exist.”

As we have several start-ups on our client roster, we have experienced first-hand the impact of the changing landscape of the media and page view-driven journalism. Getting coverage for an unknown brand has always been challenging, even with existing media relationships, but the economics of online journalism has changed the game a bit. And I get it ─ we are a generation of headline and excerpt readers, and news outlets are fighting for our eyeballs. Literally, fighting. The frenzy created around announcements from various news outlets that they would be breaking embargoes is an indication that the gloves are off.

If any of you follow journalists on Twitter, you will see them vigorously promoting their own content. Personally, this feels a bit sad to me, like companies begging people to come into their booth at a tradeshow, luring them in with sticky Jolly Ranchers or USB drives shaped like hands. I understand it has to be done. Tom points out that journalists are just following their management’s direction: “It’s not the journalists who are at fault, it is their management, and their management is merely following the actual economics of online journalism.”

We certainly try and help out, employing various tactics to promote our client’s coverage, but I agree with Tom in thinking that this model is not sustainable for media properties. And frankly, it’s also boring. Combing through various online publications, I’m hard pressed to find an article not written about the iPad, Facebook or Twitter. Interesting topics, sure, but not interesting enough to read about their every move, every day.  I look to the media to give me a new perspective on current events, or help me discover a company/service/product that can somehow enhance my experience.  If we make a comparison to the consumer world, I don’t want to read about Nobu or Shake Weights every day. Sure, they are cool, but everyone goes there/uses them (or wants to!), and I would rather discover hidden treasures like the new brick oven pizza place that opened in my neighborhood, or a magical tool that can help me get more sleep while raising a newborn.

So how can we change this? We’ve talked about the corporate blog as a platform for thought leadership. More and more companies are investing in their own blogs as a place to share their perspective on the industry. Also, as Tom mentions, media outlets will need to get more creative with their revenue-generating activities: “Multi-revenues means incorporating lead generation, affiliate marketing, custom advertising packages, virtual currencies, and more.”

Call me old school, but I still believe that if your client is solving a problem in the market in a unique, differentiated way, you should be able to secure your client press. Not in a gimmicky, “we shot our CEO out of a cannon” type of way, but in the thoughtful approach that PR practitioners have used since Edward Bernays opened the first PR shop in 1919 and pioneered the use of “third party authorities” to plead his clients’ causes.

To do this, you need to think like a journalist and make sure you have pulled together a compelling and supported story. This underscores the importance of having all of your “tools” in place: legitimately tying your story to a current trend or news event; having customer references that can speak to how a certain technology has impacted their business; hard data to support your angle; accessible spokespeople able to speak freely about the topic; third party references that can comment on the industry as a whole; etc.