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Archives for 2010

Google Invites Investors Home

google-earnings-release-on-ir-website-page-1

When Google speaks, people listen. Whether it is the enormous market capitalization, the global reach of the company’s well-known brand, or simply the expectation that the company will continue to be a worldwide innovator, when Google does something new, it matters to more than just Internet searchers.

Recently, Google released its first-quarter earnings in a manner that broke the traditional mold for releasing financial information. Instead of posting the actual press release and financial numbers via one of the financial newswires, Google released only a short statement saying that its earnings statement had been posted on the company’s investor relations website. A link to the IR website at was provided. However, no actual numbers or commentary was included in either the release text or its headline.

The full text of the statement released on Marketwire was just 50 words.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA–(Marketwire – April 15, 2010) –   Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has released its first quarter 2010 financial results. Please visit Google’s investor relations website at http://investor.google.com to view the earnings release. Google intends to make future announcements regarding its financial performance exclusively through its investor relations website.

Releasing Financial Information on Company Website

This is not the first time Google has published its earning press release and materials on its investor relations website. In fact, Google and most other corporations routinely post such information on the IR websites in order to make it easily accessible to investors and potential investors. It also reduces the workload of the IR Department by freeing them up from responding to routine investor requests for publicly available information.

However, until this quarter, Google had always followed the time honored tradition of releasing earnings information via financial newswire. Like most other corporations, Google orchestrated a carefully timed dance in which a press release with the earnings data was submitted to one of the financial newswires. Then, they waited for the release and its contents to begin showing up in additional news streams to verify that the release had been done correctly. Only then, did the company release the earnings data online, thereby ensuring that the information had been publicly released in an unquestionable manner first.

With its first-quarter earnings, Google took a different track by simply releasing a notification that the information had already been released (or likely simultaneously released) on the company’s own website.

Google is not the first publicly traded company to release its earnings information on its corporate website, however, it is the first worldwide household name to do so. Ironically, the updated guidance giving companies like Google the green light to do just that came almost a year and a half ago. So, why did it take so long for companies to start using their websites to release financial information, and will other companies follow in Google’s footsteps.

Slow Moving Regulation Meets Internet Speed

In 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission updated its Internet guidance for publicly traded companies using websites and electronic media for the first time since 2000. The update brought the agency’s Internet guidance up from archaic to merely out of date. However, in doing so, it opened the door for exactly the sort of thing that Google did with its first-quarter earnings for 2010.

The SEC Interpretive Release addressed several issues, and just as tellingly, specifically did not address even more issues. However, the interpretation did bring acceptance to the concept that a publicly traded corporation’s website could be used in certain circumstances to release information and communicate with stockholders. As long as the company’s website was a “recognized channel” for distributing information, then publishing material on that website would count as publicly releasing the information.

The criteria for considering a company website to be a recognized channel included that investors know the website’s location and that the information be easy to find. Most importantly, the guidance required that the company inform investors that it publishes important information on the website and that it plans to do so in the future. Google has already been stating in its financial filings that it has a website, where it is, and that it does publish financial information there.

Despite this go ahead from the SEC, the vast majority of companies continued to operate under the old financial news release first, website second model. The question was whether companies were just that slow moving, or whether there was some fear about changing a paradigm that was already working.

Penguins must leave the safety of the ice in order to find food in the oceans. However, there is no way of knowing whether a killer whale or other predator is lurking in the waters below. The only way to find out is to jump in and see what happens. Of course, no one wants to be the first on into the water, so the penguins inch closer and closer to the edge until finally, one of them drops into the water below. If nothing happens, then the rest of the penguins jump quickly into the waters to feed. If, on the other hand, a predator appears, the penguins move back to try again another time.

In the case of corporate financial earnings, many companies figured why take the chance of angering shareholders or provoking the wrath of regulators. At issue were both the inertia of a long-used methodology, as well as the pesky problem of letting investors know exactly when and where financial information would be released in the sometimes unreliable world of the Internet.

Google’s press release, it seems was designed to take care of that last problem. The company did not abandon the press release altogether, it just changed what it said. Moving forward, the company has indicated that it will continue to release financials on its own IR website. The interesting piece of the puzzle is whether or not it will issue another mini-press release telling everyone that the data is ready, or if it will skip that step altogether and rely exclusively on its own company website.

Listening and Discussing – The Social Media Success Imperatives

listenOne of the most important aspects of any social media marketing strategy is research, which comes not just in the form of segmenting audiences and analyzing statistics but also in the form of listening to the conversations going on across the social Web.  For a company’s social media marketing plan to be successful, listening and joining discussions are the two most basic imperatives.

IBM understands that listening is the cornerstone of social media marketing.  In fact, IBM has a social media program called Listening for Leads that utilizes what the company calls seekers (who work on a voluntary basis) to listen to social media conversations happening on key Web sites where the company’s target audiences spend time.  When seekers identify conversations that could generate leads, they notify appropriate IBM representatives who join and follow up on those discussions.

According to an interview with Ed Linde of IBM, which was conducted by eMarketer last month, the IBM Listening for Leads program has been the company’s most successful social media marketing initiative citing millions of dollars in sales leads and a tremendous amount of closed deals.  Linde attributes IBM’s success from its Listening for Leads program to two primary factors:

  1. Using enough employees as seekers who each voluntarily spend a couple of hours per week listening to social media conversations (in addition to performing their regular IBM job functions) to uncover a good amount of credible leads.
  2. Knowing where to look for conversations (i.e., where target audiences spend time on the social Web) and what keywords to search for in order to find relevant, actionable discussions.

Thanks to the social Web, companies have the ability to legally and ethically eavesdrop on real-time conversations, join those conversations, and offer suggestions, help and solutions right when people are looking for information or assistance.  It’s an amazing opportunity!

Are you using your existing employees to help you keep up with social Web conversations that could lead to new business?  IBM’s Listening for Leads program is a perfect example of a company that understands the importance of social Web conversations and used out-of-the-box thinking to keep up with and respond to those conversations thereby turning them into tangible business results.

Image: Flickr

April Wrap-up


Spring Blossom

The customary updates, previews, and quick-takes!

More about . . .

Facebook: Big doin’s this month at the world’s second-most-visited website.  Now nearing 400 million users, Facebook announced it will go for even more dominance by introducing a further array of “ways to connect.”  We’ll check into the details next month—but meanwhile, those involved with social media should not ignore this development.

CERN/LHC: What’s been happening at the world’s biggest science experiment?  Quite a bit, apparently, though none of it easy to understand.  Get an inkling by reading about the first (ever!) “reconstruction of a Beauty particle” on April 21, 2010.  The CERN search for a Recruitment Specialist is now closed, though.

The Return of the Road Show?

In my little world, a key indicator of economic health is the number of road shows I’m invited to.  In the boom days, I could have had breakfast and/or lunch courtesy of some vendor(s) at least once a week, just for listening to panel discussions and watching slideshows.  And probably gotten a tee shirt in the bargain.  (Or a squeezy ball or a festive badge lanyard, or even a logo’d padfolio!)

No more.  Of course I’m not active in the event-rich IT world now, but I’m still on a lot of “lists,” so it stands to reason that I would get fewer invitations, but not necessarily zero.  Yet zero has been the exact number for the last couple of years.  Imagine my surprise, then, when I got several very nice opportunities all of a sudden.  A couple are in the careers/recruiting/HR arena, and I’ll report on those next month.

Meantime, I’m just wondering if the increase in events reflects/predicts improving economic conditions?

Update from the Undercover Employee

Yes, I’m still undercover—though only part-time now.  That gives me an opportunity to continue observing the culture at Company Big without using up too much bandwidth.  And the insight for this month is:  Keep emails short, or at least give them onscreen readability.  There have been dramatic developments at Company Big this month, and the well-meaning execs (those coming and those going) have sent out l-o-n-g messages explaining why, saying good-bye, saying hello, etc.  They may think lengthy blocks of text look more sincere than short paragraphs and bulleted lists, but no matter what the subject, an extended message really benefits from some amount of visual organization.  For a refresher on effective email, revisit a classic post from 43 Folders!


(This month’s “beautiful image” courtesy of Noel Zia Lee.)

Tiffany – Brand Longevity in a Blue Box

There is perhaps no other brand as closely tied to a color as Tiffany & Co. On September 18, 1837, Tiffany & Co. opened its doors for business and shortly thereafter, the iconic Tiffany blue color was selected to represent the company’s brand image as one built on solid craftsmanship and quality.  Now, almost two centuries later, the Tiffany blue box is one of the most iconic brand symbols in the world and instantly conveys a brand promise that few people are not familiar with.

It could be argued that the Tiffany blue color and box are stronger identifiers of the Tiffany brand than the Tiffany logo, itself, and that’s probably true.  The logo remains a simple wordmark and takes a back seat to the powerful perceptions that the Tiffany blue box generates in consumers’ minds.  It’s a one-of-a-kind story that succeeded for one primary reason: consistency.

The Tiffany brand has remained consistent throughout the past 150+ years, which means that blue box has remained a constant, trustworthy indication of what consumers can expect to get when they take out their hard-earned money and buy an item that comes in one of those boxes.  There is no confusion or question that the item in the box carries the Tiffany brand promise of luxury and quality.

The three main steps of brand building are consistency, persistence and restraint.  The Tiffany brand is a perfect example of a brand strategy that has successfully navigated all three steps of brand building.  At a time when companies are constantly updating logos to modernize them, make them more Web-friendly, and so on, Tiffany remains consistent, persistent, and restrained in its own brand identity initiatives.  Consumers can rely on the brand and the tangible representations of the brand promise.

Can you think of any other brands that can say the same?  Certainly, there are examples of brands that can claim similar successes thanks to their logos, but is there another brand that can claim brand consistency and success in whole or part to a color to the extent that Tiffany & Co. has?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Advertising, Social Media, and Neuroscience – Marketing by the Numbers

neuroscience_brainwavesIn the first study of its kind, NeuroFocus (a leading neuromarketing company) researched how consumers subconsciously react to ads viewed on different media.  Specifically, the company used its own brain measurement technology to analyze consumers’ responses to VISA’s “Trip for Life” television commercial related to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.  Consumers watched the ad on television during the Olympic Games, on a special VISA-created Olympics Web site, and on a VISA-created Olympics Facebook page.

Key results reported by NeuroFocus included:

  • Overall effectiveness for the ad, especially with women: highest on Facebook
  • Purchase intent generated by the ad: highest on both Facebook and TV
  • Messaging carried by the ad: strongest on the Internet, with Facebook stronger than the Web site
  • Attention-getting: highest on the Internet
  • VISA brand perception: lifted most strongly TV

These findings certainly indicate that social media marketing has strong effects on consumers’ subconscious minds and can even effectively boost purchase intent.  However, it’s also important to note that social media comes in many forms and those forms are multiplying and changing quickly.  With the widespread use of smartphones, the new iPad, and more gadgets undoubtedly coming soon to make it easier to access the Internet than ever, social media marketing is like the Wild West with few rules and even fewer people knowing what they’re doing.  Therefore, it’s not surprising that executives are afraid to take the risk necessary to build a social media marketing strategy that actually works.

For corporate brand managers and marketers, you can add the results from this report to your arsenal.  Next time you need to argue for social media marketing for brand building and marketing with senior management, take these statistics with you as evidence that social media marketing has tangible benefits in terms of motivating consumers to action just as traditional advertising and marketing does.  Ask them to argue the case for television advertising over social media marketing.  See if they can provide any argument other than “because TV ads are what we’ve always done,” and then challenge them to come up with a better argument.  You might not win, but you might successfully plant a seed that will grow into a bigger social media marketing budget in the future.

Image: Flickr

The Social Media Newsroom: X-Factor Style

sony ericsson social media newsroom
Sony Ericsson

Communicate Magazine’s Social Media in a Corporate Context conference yesterday ran a session examining social media newsrooms in the style of The X-Factor. Yes, really!

If we’d been assessing each of the sessions of the day to see whether they should go through to the next stage, this one would have got my vote.

Naturally, nobody was publicly humiliated and bleeped off stage, but the format of the session was entertaining, and enabled us to see 3 corporate social media newsrooms in some detail, with highlights presented by their ‘owner’, with commentary on each from the panel of 3 experts, and then questions from the floor.

First Direct social media newsroom
First Direct

This meant that we could hear from the inside about the issues involved in getting the newsrooms established, which included:

  • meeting the requirements of the Legal and Compliance teams
  • dealing with the difficulties of using legacy IT systems
  • and the organisational difficulties in dealing with large companies with a lot of historical momentum going in the traditional direction.

These issues, which were mentioned several times, received a lot of nods and smiles from the audience, who clearly recognised the situations the speakers had found themselves in.

GM Europe (Opel) social media newsroom
GM Europe

We heard about the intentions of the companies in moving towards a social media newsroom, and some of the benefits they found:

  • projecting good news, and news to interest consumers, not just professional journalists
  • supporting a brand refresh, with new brand values including ‘openness’ requiring that this be demonstrated on the corporate site
  • significant increase in the number of visits per week – from 5 per week to over 2,000
  • decrease in time-to-publish, so they were able to respond faster, which was of particular benefit in managing crises
  • the ability to provide embeddable, sharable content for visitors to reuse, reaching their target influencers and spreading the brand message.

I was particularly impressed by the astonishing increase in the number of visits to the newsroom achieved by going social. This, together with the statistics presented by Simon Henderson from Centrica in a later session – that visitors to their CSR blogs visited 11 more pages than the average visitor, spent 8 minutes longer on site and were 10% more likely to return – makes a good argument for moving in this direction.

The experts appeared to be enthusiastic about all the sites, picking up on different good features of each. There did seem to be a slight divergence among the three on whether or not it was a good thing to merge news intended for consumers, news intended for the professional journalist, and content intended for reuse or sharing, with a suggestion that it could be of benefit to have a dedicated area for the professional in case of crisis. Two of the responses that I noted to these questions were:

  • the ‘contestant’ (in this case Merran Wriggley from Sony Ericsson) responded that they didn’t mind who was visiting (that is, whether it was a traditional journalist or a blogger) but were much more interested in where their material was used
  • one of the judges (Stuart Bruce from Wolfstar Consultancy) later pointed out that one option could be a popup mini-site triggered in case of need, and available from the social media newsroom, to provide a dedicated area for crisis communications.

For me, this was the standout session of the conference, and it’s well worth looking at all three of the newsrooms examined. I’ve included images (just click the image to see a bigger version), but they don’t really do them justice. Why not have a look at the newsrooms (links under each image above), and then let us know which you’d vote for – and why?