Topics for 2/6/10 Show

Here are the proposed topics for this week's episode of The BeanCast, and as usual we'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.

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This week's panel will be Bill Green (MTLB), Jim Mitchem (Smash Communications), Dirk Singer (The Rabbit Agency) and Ian Sohn (Ogilvy Public Relations).

TOPICS

It's Just Keeps Going: Toyota has a crisis that just keeps giving. Already paralyzed by a recall of faulty gas pedals that has suspended all sales, now a new problem has arisen with the breaks in the Prius. So many angles to discuss here, but Bill, let's start with their handling of this to date. Obviously there's no way to get past the negative buzz of this magnitude, but are they managing things well? People have likened the situation to the Tylenol scare. Is this a fair comparison? Both brands hung their hats on reliability and trust. But unlike Tylenol, Toyota created much of this problem themselves through faulty design? Can they ever regain that trust or do they need to evolve the brand to survive? They've been trying to leverage PR, including using YouTube to distribute a video response. Are they being effective at getting the message out? Where are they failing? Joe Jaffe had an interesting take on his blog. Unlike the usual blanket recommendations about using social media to manage crisis, he points out that social takes time to build and it's something that can't be leveraged without that investment. Is this a good warning that other brands should heed? It's ironic that as loyal as Toyota owners have been to the brand in the past, they seemingly have very few advocates now. Does this highlight that there's a huge difference between loyalty and true advocacy?

PR Takes Over The Bowl: A brand's Super Bowl buy has been a signal to fire up the PR engines for years now. But this year the extent of the PR plays is just mind-Boggling. From the uproar over Focus on the Family's ad to the rejection of ManCrunch.com, everyone seems to be playing an angle. Jim, I think it was even you who said this week that it may make more sense to make a thoroughly objectionable ad, get it rejected and ride the PR wave of free publicity. Who has been best at leveraging the PR wave so far? Who has been lacking? (Reference BrandBowl and the sentiment tracking there.) Two of the most interesting plays, for me anyway, are the ads for EA and for Snickers. EA has been pulling out all the stops to sensationalize their upcoming video game Dante's Inferno for a year now. So I have to ask, would this Super Bowl buy really have been as effective for them had they not been sensationalizing this all year long? Does is prove that a Super Buy in itself is not what makes these spots so effective, but rather it's a mark of street cred for a brand that already has a loyal following? As for Snickers, Mars is running a viral campaign for Betty White to promote the spots. But an astute listener of the show, Craig Baerwaldt, pointed me to a Facebook effort to get Betty White on SNL. What makes it odd is that both campaigns suddenly grew in 10s of thousands of follows and views since last night.What do you think? Another viral effort by the agency?

Glee's Perfect Marriage: In a world searching for revenue models, Glee has hit the jackpot. Compelling DVD/Download sales. Ad Revenue. And original music sales. A case study in Ad Age points to the numbers and they are staggering. What is unique about the Glee model, Ian? Can it be recreated? Is this proof that good marketing works or simply that good original content is always valuable?

Second Life's Second Life: Second Life is buying Enemy Unknown, a Swedish company with tech that augments an avatar with information from across a user's social spectrum. First, Dirk, does Second Life even have a chance of surviving? If it does survive, is it's future tied to connection to the greater social space out there? Is the bridge to the service (the change in mindset, if you will) still to great when it comes to virtual communities? Can you see a future where virtual communities actually thrive again?

Pay-4-Square: Finally, the popular location-based game 4square may be looking at a pay-per-check-in model of revenue, where a brand would pay based on check-ins and then gain access to stats and be able to run targeted promotions to users. Bill, is this a good model for them? Will brands accept it? Will this tarnish their reputation among users?