Brand Fail Whale: Restaurant Owner Turns Negative Yelps Into T-Shirts

If you've shown up here, why don't you mosey on over to my new blog? Yeah, I just soft launched The BrandForward Blog. It's at http://michelletripp.com. You can find all the same posts you can find here. But it's a bit more pretty.

Yeah, go on! Scoot! Nothing to see here!

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Yelp's had some publicity lately, and not a lot of it good.

Let's forget the "holy crap" moment this week when a judge ruled that Yelpers can be sued for libel. And let's move on to something a little less disturbing. If only slightly.

I just finished reading an article from NPR's On the Media http://tr.im/otmy that was basically an interview with a San Francisco restauranteur who got upset about some bad Yelp reviews and "confronted" the issue by turning the offending Yelps into T-shirts. "This place sucks" and stuff like that.

Clever idea but it seems the opportunity to improve and connect with some very important customers was lost. By taking a complaint and essentially turning it into a joke, the restaurant owner made a statement. A big one. Basically that he doesn't take his customers seriously. And if you're particularly demanding (or just expect things to be right), instead of being respected as a paying customer you're going to get called out and put in your place.

Business-to-consumer companies are admittedly having it a little rough right now. In the past, a company that didn't make customer service a top priority or provided an inferior product or service had total impunity. The customer could walk away upset and the company didn't have to care. Now with Yelp, companies are all of the sudden being forced by the customer to do the right thing. And a lot of companies aren't exactly prepared for that.

To prevent bad reviews, companies now have to hire better people, have a more positive management style, and produce a better product. They also have to get serious about their total offering and be prepared to satisfy every customer. Like as in ALL of them.

So back to the whole Yelp factor. Yeah, I know there's always going to be "that" customer who thinks it's funny to give one star and say they saw a rat run across the table. But I went to the Yelp page for the restaurant in question http://tr.im/delfina and the bad reviews were pretty reasonable. They were completely believable, criticizing mostly product quality, atmosphere, and employee behavior. No vicious rats, no people lying in the streets convulsing from food poisoning, no swill dripping from the rafters. Everything was pretty straight-forward.

But instead of looking at these Yelps as an opportunity to see things from a different perspective, the owner of the restaurant looked at it as a way to show he's more clever than his customers and that he doesn't take negative reviews seriously. Even if he's privately using Yelp to improve in small ways here and there, the T-shirts (while a successful media grab) are a total brand fail whale.

News Flash: Demanding customers are the ones that can be evangelized.

You think people don't realize when they're being demanding? You think they don't know they expect a lot? They do. But that doesn't soften the blow when they realize you don't care to please them. They take it personally. They think you're doing a bad job because you don't care about them. They think you want to take the lazy way. Tip the scale in your favor at their expense. These customers don't suffer the mediocre, and they're not about to let you get away with giving them the bum's rush. They want justice. And with Yelp they're going to get it. Let's count the number of times Best Buy has recently found itself on page one of Digg. Companies that fail to meet "demanding" customer expectations are in a bad place to be.

But the flip side is that if a company does meet their needs, they're going to tell the world. Cue the fireworks. They appreciate when a company can meet their expectations because it doesn't happen very often. This means they're going to love you. A lot. These are the customers that will Yelp your establishment in rainbow colors, and confront other Yelpers if they criticize you unjustly.

Still annoyed by those demanding customers?

Yelp is a gift. For brands and companies that honestly want to do the right thing, and value customers as unique individuals who don't want to be herded like King Ranch cattle to the cash register, Yelp is an amazing social media tool that can be leveraged to cultivate and celebrate brand evangelists.

For the companies that don't want to bother, there's always the T-shirt business.

Social Media Experts Are Scary.

If you've shown up here, why don't you mosey on over to my new blog? Yeah, I just soft launched The BrandForward Blog. It's at http://michelletripp.com. You can find all the same posts you can find here. But it's a bit more pretty.

Yeah, go on! Scoot! Nothing to see here!

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This is the kind of post that gets you unfollowed. A post with some very unpopular ideas. We'll call it the Hitler of blog posts. And considering it's a Twitter #followfriday I should probably come up with something a bit more butterflies and sunshine. Or at least margaritas and martinis.

But no. Not me. I like to live on the wild side. Kinda like companies who hire "social media experts."

So here's where I get in trouble today: I think this whole "social media expert" thing is getting really out of hand. Really. And not just because every other person with a Facebook account, a plane ticket to Austin, and a Twitter badge is claiming to be one. It's because even if a true social media expert actually exists, calling yourself one is just another way of saying "I know enough to be dangerous."

By even using the words social media expert it's like you're intentionally not choosing to say marketing expert. Because that would be hard to pull off if you're not one. But social media expert. That's easy. Have Twitter account, will travel.

Which is why social media experts scare me. Because by definition they're not marketing experts.

DOH!

For all the flashing lights and shooting stars, social media is simply a tool. Technically it's an advertising medium. When someone says they're a social media expert it carries the same weight as if someone said "I'm a cable media expert." Okay. That's just one medium. Yes, being an expert of a medium does have value. But I'm not going to hand over a blank sheet of paper and expect my cable rep to write a comprehensive marketing program or decide what the best message is, or work on creative or manage the client's brand. Or (gasp!) all of the above.

Which is what I'm seeing a lot of social media'ers trying to do. Using the term "social media expert" interchangeably with "marketing expert." Which is why it's so scary.

So with all due disrespect when I see iPhone app writers and web site designers and 26 year-old "self-employed" twitterers and mommybloggers claiming the title of "social media expert" I feel like I'm Alice in Wonderland. Falling down a really deep hole. Into a world where anyone can be an expert, and having a few years experience and barely any real marketing under their belt somehow confers the status of rock star. It's like strategic marketing never existed. Like Elvis walked in and everyone lost their head and started throwing panties.

A lot of people with knowledge of the internet but little or no marketing experience are riding the social media hype to make a buck. Or launch a new career. And because a lot of companies don't have the first idea how to proceed in the social media space they're forced to trust these "experts" for marketing advice.

A train wreck we are a'pproachin.

So let's digress for a moment. Let's assume there is such an animal. The social media expert. The rock star. Versed in all things Twitter, Facebook, Flicker, YouTube, Vimeo, and you name it. Let's just call them channels. Thing is I don't ever remember any of my cable reps fancying themselves up and announcing they're an expert. I respect them for that. Which is why I have an issue with the social media variety. The humility is missing. They're not happy as simply the purveyors of media planning information. They want to be on stage. With the panties.

So panties aside, I trust cable reps to provide recommendations that include (quantitative) demographics, reach, frequency, GRP, CPP, and CPM for every channel on the line-up. Similarly I would also trust a social media rep for the same type of advice for social media. Am I going to let them dictate what percentage of my budget belongs in social media? No. Am I going to let them have carte blanche to develop creative and determine the best message? No. Am I going to trust them to handle Adsense and affiliate marketing? Unless they can prove they were too busy with clients to get anywhere near SXSWi, probably not.

What's truly the scariest part of the "social media expert" craze is a lot of companies are getting caught up in the glitz and glam of social media and letting these "experts" have a go at their marketing budget like Mike Tyson at a casting call for America's Next Top Model. And even a lot of ad agencies are parading their shiny, new "social media departments" in front of clients. Further feeding the frenzied perception that social media experts are the second coming.

Now don't get me wrong. Social media and internet marketing are good things. And I believe in SEO, SMO, SEM, SMM, CGM, PPC, CTR, PFI, SERP, CPC, SES, and OMG. And I love love love social media. I'm right there with it. No fewer than a hundred beta accounts to prove it. Internet is an effective advertising medium. And social media is an amazing marketing tool. But it's just a tool.

Kinda like the Twitter search tool I'll be using later to check my #unfollowfridays.

Bloggers who pop the big smiley-face balloon of social media can't exactly expect to be a twitterverse favorite, now can we?