the frequency a kenny chung blog

April 29th, 2014
according to

Survivor was the first hit reality show in the United States (if you don’t count MTV’s The Real World), and with it, came many implications for the way viewers consumed content. Outside of news and game shows, it was the first time a lot of consumers were actively watching “real” people – People they could connect with and relate to. It made for more engaging television.

One could even say that the logical extension of this was the celebrity-obsessed culture in which we currently live. Millions hang onto every letter of Lady Gaga’s Tweets. The President of the United States was elected partially as a result of his campaign staff’s ability to reach young voters through new media. Television shows invite people to live Tweet to feel like they’re part of the show.

But before Twitter was invented, and before Survivor aired on CBS in America, there was a different type of television entertainment that blurred the lines between reality and entertainment, where the viewers “knew” the people they saw on the screen. This medium was professional wrestling.

In professional wrestling, there’s a script and there are actors (both in-ring wrestlers and outside talents, such as managers, interviewers, etc.). Wrestling differs from a lot of other types of performance art because the action doesn’t just take place on stage (i.e. the ring). Instead, viewers are privy to backstage segments, where they can learn how feuds start, see who books the matches, and even witness the preparation that wrestlers have to undergo before and after their matches. And all throughout, they are in character. Imagine if you watched a Shakespearean play on Broadway, and then were able to see the actors backstage preparing to enter the scene. Except they wouldn’t be actors playing the characters; they’d be the characters themselves.

The term “kayfabe” was invented to describe the act of purporting all on-screen wrestling events as real life. This extended beyond the ring and beyond pro wrestling television programming. Hulk Hogan and Mr. T appeared on late night talk shows in character to promote the very first WrestleMania (Hogan also infamously choked out Richard Belzer and was successfully sued). It was a big deal when the public learned that Hacksaw Jim Duggan (a “babyface”, or good guy) and Iron Sheik (a career “heel”, or bad guy) were travel buddies and drove together to events (this was an example of “breaking” kayfabe). And in possibly the most famous example of kayfabe dedication, Jerry “The King” Lawler had a feud with Andy Kaufman, which saw them meeting in the ring across various territories, appearing together on late night talk shows (which resulted in fisticuffs), and Kaufman taking with him to the grave the degree to which all of it was scripted. It wasn’t until 11 years after Kaufman’s death that it was revealed with certainty that the feud was a “work”.

Jerry The King Lawler delivering a piledriver to Andy Kaufman

So how does this relate to marketing? Let’s use Samsung as an example. As of late, they’ve been insistent on blurring the lines between reality and marketing. The Oscar selfie with Ellen DeGeneres was probably the most popular instance. The actual photo, along with many of her shout-outs to the brand during the Oscars, were just part of a well-coordinated promotion for the new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phone. That selfie also broke all sorts of Twitter records.

Even more recently, “Big Papi” David Ortiz signed a private deal with Samsung prior to the Boston Red Sox’s trip to the White House. When Ortiz met with President Obama, he asked for a selfie; this selfie was taken with his Samsung phone. The White House was not pleased after finding out that the POTUS would be used as part of a marketing campaign without his or their consent.

In these two instances, Ellen and Big Papi took these selfies in kayfabe. We were led to believe that Ellen genuinely wanted to make social media history by taking a photo with other celebrities. We were made to believe that David Ortiz simply wanted to document meeting President Obama (Samsung denies asking Ortiz to take a photo with the POTUS). Both of these tactics worked, and got Samsung the type of buzz (and notoriety) they presumably wanted.

But sometimes, when you break kayfabe, it has severe repercussions on your brand. Another top Samsung spokesperson is NBA star LeBron James. He has starred in commercials for the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which portray him using it in everyday situations. But the audience knows that the LeBron featured in those commercials is putting on a show because it’s clearly a product ad. So what happens when LeBron’s Samsung phone malfunctions in real life, deletes all of his data, and he Tweets about it to his 12 million followers? Well, for one, some quick social media backtracking. And then damage control by Samsung.

LeBron James' now deleted Tweet

In professional wrestling, there’s always an assumed suspension of disbelief on some level. Otherwise, how would it make sense that two guys who hate each other will wait every week and travel hundreds of miles to fight each other in a squared circle via non-lethal means in front of a referee?

This new type of reality “viral” marketing is essentially real-life product placement. Maybe it’s time that all consumers start sharing the same level of skepticism.

September 24th, 2013
according to

Communication scholars are sure to be familiar with Marshall McLuhan’s famous phrase “The medium is the message”. In lay terms, McLuhan proposed that how you convey a message to your audience is just as important as the message itself. For instance, McLuhan believed that television viewers were less objective and less literate than readers of print publications. He states this at around the 4 minute mark of this video:

In the same decade that McLuhan first published this phrase, America experienced its first televised Presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon. At this point, not everyone had a television set, so many families were still listening to the debate via radio broadcast. It was widely reported that radio listeners believed Nixon to have won the first debate, whereas TV viewers believed Kennedy won. The difference? Nixon was recovering from an illness and as a result, was pale and sweaty.

Also take for instance the introduction of movie theater advertising from around the same era. At this point, most people have heard tales of Coke’s supposedly subliminal movie advertising (the results of which were later found to be dubious). These days, pre-movie commercials are also accompanied by the sneaky-as-ever phenomenon known as product placement, a practice which has also received considerable backlash. Contrast these two types of movie advertising – one is expected (the time before movies start has always been reserved for advertising snacks and other movies), while the other can appear naturally if done right (consider all movie scenes that take place in Times Square). People receive these types of advertising much differently according to expectations. Studies have shown that product placement plays an effective role in cuing brand recognition.

Utilizing Digital Marketing Mediums to your Advantage

It’s been over half a century since McLuhan shared his pervasive line of wisdom with the world, but it’s as true as ever. With the ever-changing landscape of technology and ways to reach consumers, brands must be careful with how they advertise and take advantage of the channels available to them.

Twenty years ago, search engine marketing was not really a viable industry. Nowadays, brands can bid on individual keywords or groups of them. Search is a pull medium rather than a push medium (in theory, brand messaging can be presented only to qualified users who express an interest in that brand’s product offerings via their search queries). So you craft the messaging of your paid search ads differently from your TV or display ads, which are both mostly forms of push advertising. Within search, you can customize your messaging even further. For example, if someone searches for your brand name, you can tell them about a specific sale you’re having (fall sale, 20% off clearance items, etc.). But if someone is searching for a general product that you sell, you could use your ad to tell them about the benefits of shopping your site instead of going to the competitors (free shipping, widest selection, lowest prices, etc.). The possibilities are as endless as the permutations of words consumers type into that all-important Google search box.

And ten years ago, we didn’t have Twitter or Facebook. The only real ways for consumers to communicate directly with brands were via telephone, email or in-store with other customer representatives. Now, I can post a Tweet to complain about Time Warner Cable service or to commend Chex Mix for being delicious (both things I’ve done in the past year).

Those who work in brand management know the importance of keeping messages on-brand. But on the flip side, the people you reach on Twitter on a Friday night are likely not the same people you would reach with a TV ad placement during a noon soap opera. Granted, that’s an extreme example, but it still hammers home the point that it makes sense to craft your messaging according to who will be receiving it. The barriers to entry for social media marketing are so low that it doesn’t make sense for most brands to be uninvolved (regulated industries excluded). Tweets can be sent out as soon as they’re thought up (and approved).

Super Bowl ad junkies will remember this amazing Tweet from Oreo last year following the in-stadium blackout that occurred. That image was created and the Tweet was approved to hit the web before the lights came back on in New Orleans. To date, it’s received over 15,000 Retweets. Utilizing your channels properly can be a powerful vehicle.

On the other hand, bad social media strategies like Kenneth Cole’s can lead to a backlash. To call it a strategy isn’t too much of a stretch, as Cole himself has mentioned that his Tweets are meant to “provoke a dialogue“. It’s just a strategy that associates negative feelings toward the brand.

Then there’s also this amazing parody Burlington Coat Factory Twitter account, with such gems as this:

Apparently, a lot of people were fooled into thinking this was their official account. That doesn’t bode well for their actual social media team and its official Twitter account.

5 Tips to Improve Your Social Media Messaging

So how do you customize your marketing for the social web? Research. Tons of it. Here are 5 quick tips to get you started:

1) Know your audience. Not all social media channels cater to the same audience. Pinterest skews heavily female. Reddit is more techy than Facebook. Keep facts like this in mind when deciding what to share and where to share it.
2) Tag your campaigns! Use your visitor analytics to see what types of content resonate with which audiences. Do Twitter followers tend to stay longer on articles with lots of images? Are email newsletter visitors more likely to read long-form content? Do Facebook users share your content more if they read it before they leave the office?
3) Maintain Brand Messaging. Connect all of your advertising in some way. For example, in support of a single campaign, it may make sense to include the same hashtag across TV, social, and print. For some brands, having a discordant messaging works for them (consider Geico’s multitude of mascots).
4) Don’t be afraid to experiment! Short of creating offensive Tweets for the heck of it, you can test out different formats for your social strategy. Again, the lifespan of most Tweets and Facebook posts are short, so you can accumulate a lot of data in a short amount of time. Test things like the background color of your images, the URL shortener you use, the pronouns you use, etc.
5) Interact with your (potential) consumers! The best way to avoid negative PR or to encourage brand loyalty is to show customers that you’re listening. Responding to valid online complaints, Retweeting compliments, and even Liking Facebook comments can be enough to show followers that people are listening. Airlines (which get truckloads of complaints) are actually some of the best at responding to criticisms. Whether they do anything worthwhile with that information is another issue altogether…

At the end of the day, happy consumers have the propensity to be as passionate about your brand as you are. So perform the due diligence, get your feet wet, and good luck!

July 18th, 2013
according to

Yelp seems to polarize most mixed company. There are some who are part of the “Elite” (myself included) who think of Yelp as a social club with private events and great food. There are business owners who love their high Yelp ratings for providing incremental business and digital word-of-mouth. There are also the owners who claim Yelp extorts them for positive rankings. And then there’s the casual user.

Most of the casual Yelp users I speak to fall into one of two camps – they either trust the wisdom of aggregated reviews, or they think the opinions of strangers are largely useless. Well, as the title of this post states, both of those groups are using Yelp wrong. Here are a few simple tips to improve your Yelping experience:

1) Create an Account!

The first mistake casual users make is not creating an account. There are many benefits to having an account other than being able to draft reviews. An account allows you to bookmark restaurants/other establishments, and allows you to check into places and receive deals (like Foursquare). There’s much more, and I could go on and on about these features, but the most important advantage of having an account (in my opinion) is the ability to friend and follow other users.

2) Find People Who You Trust!

If you use Yelp a lot, you inevitably start seeing the same faces over and over. For instance, if you’re often perusing restaurant reviews in Downtown Brooklyn, you’ll likely see Peter D’s profile pop up quite a bit. After reading a few of his reviews, you realize that you like his writing style and that you go to the same types of places that he does. So you send him a friend request. What this does is bring your friends’ reviews to the top of business pages, no matter how recent or favorable. If you’re shy, you can also become a fan of someone; this means they won’t know who you are, but their reviews will still come up first when you’re logged in. Think of it like Google’s personal search results.

Yelp Review of Mable's from Peter D
This is how reviews of people you’re friends with or following show up at the top of Yelp pages. Above is Peter D, Brooklyn’s Community Manager and all-around good guy.

3) Engage With Other Users!

Lastly, one of the major quality control components of Yelp are the compliments and comments. If you like someone’s work, you can say so on their profile; this gives authority to reviewers. And if you like a specific review, you can give it a “Funny,” “Useful,” and/or “Cool” vote (what Yelpers affectionately refer to as FUC-ing reviews); this gives credibility to individual reviews. In fact, this is how the Review of the Day is calculated (I have a few under my belt).

Yelp Review of the Day for Fette Sau
My ROTD for Fette Sau. You can see how many times it’s been FUC’d at the bottom of the review.

Last, but not least, you can actually meet people at events or connect with existing friends on Yelp. It is, by all definitions, actually a social network. If you start treating it as such, then you’ll find that it’s a much more useful tool in your planning decisions.

4) Be My Friend!

By the way, if you need a recommendation of who to follow in New York, here’s my Yelp profile!

March 28th, 2013
according to

The following notes are from the presentation titled “For Good Measure: Brand Measurement in a Digital World” at SES NY from Wednesday, March 27, 2013.

Note that these are just my notes, and I am not necessarily endorsing any strategies, tactics or POVs stated therein.

December 20th, 2012
according to

Note: Like my last post regarding the Newtown shooting, I am not intending to make light of the tragedy that occurred or the 26 lives lost. This post is written strictly from the perspective of a mass communications scholar.

1) United States vs. China

On literally the same calendar date as the Newtown shooting, a man in China attacked and slashed 22 schoolchildren with a knife. The similarities between this and the Newtown tragedy are jarring. In addition to the choice of weapon, the most noteworthy difference was that not a single child died in China from that incident. It’s also well known that China has very strict gun control laws.

I won’t make the leap to causation, but it’s very hard to divorce the two ideas. The fact that two attacks on different sides of the world took place on the same day, and the one that occurred in a country with strong gun laws meant all of those schoolchildren are still alive today.

This story has the potential to be a very important talking point in the impending gun control debate in the States. But what I find most interesting is that this anecdotal evidence can be reasonably used by both sides of the debate. The pro gun control group can say that if guns were not as easily available, then Newtown may have ended the same way as the incident in China. The anti gun control group can say that violence is going to occur anyway and that it’s in our human nature, and that we need to be able to protect ourselves from those who are unbalanced. Also worth noting is that schoolchildren attacks in China are surprisingly and disturbingly not uncommon.

Smoking gun HDR photo
credit: HD-Photography2000

2) Social Media as News Sources

In my previous blog post, I touched upon how I think CNN’s over-reliance on social media and crowdsourcing for their reporting is lazy and bad for the news industry.

But that’s not the whole story. Consider the fact that if Facebook didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have firsthand accounts of Ryan Lanza declaring his innocence (and the fact that he was alive).

Consider this Reddit thread in /r/Connecticut, where a user made up-to-the-minute updates regarding the latest breaking news. In a world where it’s hard to recant statements or reports, the ability to edit or update content on the web makes so much sense.

3) News vs. Pseudo-News

Regarding that last point, I would not consider Slate a source for breaking news. I have long viewed it as an editorial and blog-like news magazine. But when CNN misreported the identity of the Newtown shooter, it was organizations like Slate that responded with the truth.

With the Internet becoming the preferred choice for receiving news from a larger percentage of people, the line between strict news organizations and “pseudo-news” sites is further blurred. Consider a site like Buzzfeed, that largely started out as a gossip and funny image-sharing site. During the last election, they had a Mormon writer on Mitt Romney’s bus reporting from his perspective how religion was involved in the campaign.

With the reliability of the big name news organizations increasingly being called into question, it’s getting hard to know who to go to for the hard facts.

Just ask NPR. They took a big shot in credibility back in 2011 when it misreported that Representative Gabby Giffords had died.

4) Racial Issues

It’s no secret that ever since 9/11, the race of violent perpetrators is always brought to the forefront. For instance, when someone of foreign descent commits an atrocity, it’s usually quickly chalked up to terrorism by select members of the media (e.g. the Fort Hood shooting from 2009). But how many times have you heard Timothy McVeigh called a domestic terrorist? What about extreme zealots who commit crimes against abortion clinics? These are clearly acts of domestic terrorism, but they’re very rarely addressed as such by the mainstream media. Which is what led to Bob Schieffer making a very poignant hypothetical on Face the Nation. Schieffer said, “If this person had… an Arab name, people would be going nuts.” See the abbreviated video clip below:

There’s no doubt in my mind that that would’ve been the case. In fact, I know that some people of Middle Eastern descent hold their breath whenever they find out that an act of violence has occurred on American soil, hoping that it’s not someone of their ethnicity. I even remember two years after the Virginia Tech shooting, there was another act of violence in Binghamton, NY where an Asian man went postal at an immigration office and killed 13 others. There was a short-lived time when race relations between Asian-Americans and other Americans suffered, but luckily, there weren’t any real residual effects. However, Muslims and Arab-Americans have not been so lucky.

As insensitive as it may seem to state this, the fact that the Newtown shooter was a white, American male (and not anyone with a foreign sounding name or skin complexion) is a lot better for our national discourse. The media can focus on the two biggest issues at hand that they usually throw to the wayside for sensationalist, xenophobic fear mongering. Gun control and mental illness are the major topics of discussion, rather than the race or nationality of the shooter.

There are many more reasons why the Newtown shooting can and should be one of the biggest stories of the year and also a media case study for years to come. I’m sure once the gun debate actually happens on a national stage, it will become clearer how these factors helped shape the narrative. And hopefully for the better.

« Newer Entries
Older Entries »

© Kenny Chung
Creative Commons License
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.