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Blog Potomac - Interview With Lionel Menchaca, Cheif Blogger and Social Media Advocate at Dell

By Li Evans

I'd been told about Lionel Menchaca of Dell by numerous people in the Social Media space.  Someone even said he was the "Rockstar" in this space.   I started looking into and reading more about Lionel and his journey with Dell as they stepped deeper and deeper into Social Media. 

At WOMMA's WOMM-U I had the opportunity to listen to Bob Pearson speak about Dell's efforts, and I had to opportunity to speak with Liana Frey about an employee's feelings about Dell's social media efforts.  Dell's taking this seriously, Dell really believes in utilizing social media to reach is customers both tech savvy and first time computer buyers.  To Dell, social media is about holding a conversation and engaging their customers, to Dell Social Media is not about links.

When I saw that Lionel Menchaca was the keynote speaker at Blog Potomac, I was really excited to actually meet him and hopefully get to talk to him at length about what Dell's doing and where they are going.  I have to say, Lionel is one of the nicest people I've ever met.  Not only that, he's passionate about social media and what Dell's doing with it. 

Thank you Lionel, for taking the time to speak with me and the SMG audience!

Full transcript after the jump....

Fun Photo Fridays: Mark Condell & Liana Frey Enjoying the Fun at Big Fish During WOMM-U

By Li Evans

I am a few days late with the weekly picture, life it seems, gets the better of me and time just slips by.

However, I do have a picture this week and it features some brand new friends I met at WOMM-U.  In fact, one of my new friends has the exact same spelling as my first name - which, trust me, is rare!  It was one of my goals to meet Liana Frey of Dell, when I went to WOMM-U.  I wasn't disappointed in any way, she's sweet, gracious and fun!  I envy her - getting work on Dell's marketing team with all the Social Media initiatives they are putting in place is just awesome!

I also got the pleasure to meet Mark Condell, from the marketing side of Virgin Mobile.  He tolerated my questions about Sir Richard with such grace and a great smile, and we had a great time while networking at the event at Big Fish in Miami.  Later after the 2nd networking event down in South Beach he ventured with Simon and I up to the beach and watched as I acted like a kid in the waves. 

If you like this photo of Mark Condell & Liana Frey at Big Fish During WOMM-U, feel free to comment and favorite it as that's how we'll be judging the photos at the end of the year! Check out the rest of the fun at WOMMA's WOMM-U Event, there's over 175 photos to view.

WOMMA WOMM-U: Jen Gulvik Presents Houlihan's WOMM Case Study

By Li Evans

Houlihan's went through an entire restructuring, down to even changing the forks and the music.

Half the people who live within a 3 mile radius of the restaurants, have never been to a Houlihan's or were lapse customers.  The only people who really knew about Houlihan's was employees, current customers and a "few" others.  They do limited mass media advertising.  They really win their customers over one at a time.  They are in an environment where their competition have millions of dollars to spend in mass media.  That climate made them look at other ways to work with marketing.

They started with emails to 100,000k members.  Customers are focused on culture.  And Houlihan's focuses on the customer.  The CEO reads every single customer comments, Jen responds to 70% of them.  What they have noticed lately, they have been getting more fan mail.  She believes this is because of the change in the environment, that customers want to help take control of the brand.

They get a ton of fun, funny comments.

WOMMA WOMM-U- Pick a Charity Workshop Results

By Simon Heseltine

Following on from the Pick a Charity Workshop sessions yesterday and this morning, the ideas and results for each of the 3 different charities were presented over the lunch sessions.

Overall, some interesting solutions were generated and presented, with ideas ranging from generating basic awareness to eco-terrorism.

So here's what each group came up with, just to give you an idea of how the thought processes differed within each group:

WOMMA WOMM-U- Jordan Corredera Keynote

By Simon Heseltine

With the previous keynote running 10 minutes over it's timeslot, and technical issues further delaying the start, this keynote shrank from a 45 minute presentation to a 30 minute presentation, which as it turned out was probably a good thing.  Unlike the previous, more polished / rehearsed presentations, this one came off as more like a time filler.  Which isn't to say that there weren't a few interesting pieces of information, but they did tend to be few and far between. 

The presentation was given by Jordan Corredera of Carnival Cruise Lines, the Head of the Interactive Strategy Team, and was moderated by Ted Wright, the founder of Fizz.

WOMMA WOMM-U: Bob Pearson from Dell Keynote

By Li Evans

Bob Pearson, of Dell is presenting the first keynote of the morning.  He hates podiums so he's actually walking through the crowd.  So what Dell's Learned so far?

#1  the online world is undergoing the most significant transformation so far.  There is growth ever second.  A month ago China over took the US with the number of people online.  Over 500k people go online for the first time everyday. Do we know their purchase habits?  Do we know their searching habits?  No!

#2  The # of conversations is exploding.  Digital data is exploding. It's increased 6 times over the past 4 years.  The amount of conversations is going up exponentially.

#3  customers want to speak with us in their first language.  English reaches 1/3 of thw orld in a good day.  People want to do business in the language they are comfortable in.  2/3 of what happens in the world is in 9 other languages.Japan is actually the #1 country in the world for conversations - text messages and blogs contribute to this.

WOMMA WOMM-U- Carla Hendra Keynote

By Simon Heseltine

The last keynote of the day is delivered by Carla Hendra - Co-CEO Ogilvy North America, Chairman of Ogilvy New York.  Her take on WOM - "Brand Marketing: It's all word of mouth now!"

There currently exists the opportunity to engage a global network of brand activists, and what's better than having the consumer do our jobs for us?

WOMMA WOMM-U- Pick a Charity Workshop

By Simon Heseltine

One of the elements of the WOMMU conference is interactivity, and working together on case studies.  To this aim, over lunch (a lunch with  choices of sandwich, none of which a vegetarian such as myself could eat, grr), three different nonprofits were presented. 

1. The Wilderness Society
2. The Overtown Youth Center
3. 1 Sky

WOMMA WOMM-U: OPI Cosmetics Case Study

By Li Evans

Judy Stonefield begins by explaining some myths in marketing.  Then she shows a video of super star impersonators at Hollywood and Vine who they interviewed about OPI.  What did they learn?  That they should make a line of colors for super heroes, yes, that is funny!  However, this isn't where their customers are.

OPI and SheSpeaks commissioned a survey of 600 women of what brand nail polish and where they bought it.  IRI measure Food, Drug & Mass Sales, not Salons, Beauty Supply & Beauty Chain stores.  When they included these, it showed, 1 in every 4 bottles of nail polish is OPI.

Internet WOMM campaign.  They created a community, members got an OPI Lip coulor as a thank you gift.  Thousands of women talked about OPI.  She speaks generated thousands of more in WOMM advertising than any print advertising.  Now they are going to also use coupons to help track with conversions.

WOMMA WOMM-U- Jeffrey Graham Keynote

By Simon Heseltine

When Li asked me to write on SMG I jokingly said to her that I'd make sure not to work 'blue'.  With that said, the first session of the WOMMA WOMMU conference that I'm covering was by Jeffrey Graham, the Executive Director of Consumer Insights at The New York Times. amd was titled "Word of Mouth: Marketing's Butt Crack"...  (ok, that was his alternative title, the one published in the agenda was "Using Word of Mouth as a Measure of Advertising Effectiveness").

Given that the most commonly used marketing objectives are branding, direct response and product trial, and that the most common measures of marketing effectiveness are direct response and branding, the interesting fact is that the most influential contact point is Word of Mouth Marketing.