Your Customer is the Editor in Chief. Controversy is Good. - Walter Sabo

Controversy is good.

• Consider the volume of media. You’re annoyed if you find out that someone has a cable box with 1500 channels and you’re still stuck with a measly 1,000.

• There are 41 hours of online video posted every minute. 99.9% of those will receive fewer than 300 lifetime views.

• You can hear over 35 radio stations in your car and thousands on line. Satellite radio has Howard Stern plus 150 other stations airing something. And Howard Stern, did I mention Howard Stern? Howard Stern is the reason satellite radio is a multibillion dollar business.

Controversy, contrarianism, crazy talk, takes the subject of conversation above ambient hum and turns it into buzz.

Our brand is part of a controversy, now what?

1. Let EVERYONE at your company participate in blog comments, make daily videos, produce live video webcasts. Different employees will connect with different constituencies.

2. Call the whiners. Nothing is as effective as a decision maker at a brand picking up the phone (the phone, of course, how quaint) and speaking directly to people who have concerns with your product.

3. Put your message in the hands of skilled online influencers: Video WebStars. On average your online video commercial, message, webisode will pull 300 views. A WebStar’s average is 300,000 in a day. Our company, HITVIEWS works with top brands to place their product and messaging inside WebStar videos to touch the conversation flow. Don’t try this yourself, it is hands-on and if you do it wrong, the online conversation will turn ugly. We prevent ugly.

The Genius of FOX.

HITVIEWS made an arrangement with multiple WebStars to create over 36 videos for FOX shows LIE TO ME, FRINGE and GLEE.

At one point there was a negative newspaper article about one of the videos. Since it was appearing in an Australian newspaper, I decided to call FOX quickly and let them know there would be a controversial article.

William Bradford, SVP of Program Marketing responded with,

“We’re FOX, we love controversy.” End of conversation.

FOX has a big payroll, popular movies and TV shows and a giant lot in LA. Things seem to be going fine. In fact their second biggest TV hit, MARRIED WITH CHILDREN started its 11 years in prime time with a boycott by some angry person in Michigan who was offended by the show. FOX embraced this and did not change a thing about the show.

“Corporate Communications” requires overhaul.

When controversy could be met with a press conference, a deferential letter or a private meeting with protesters at which free concert tickets were gifted, corporate communications served a nice role. Today, no single person, PR firm or silo-ed department can cope with thousands or millions of comments spreading worldwide online about your brand.

Yet, most companies require outgoing corporate messages to be sourced by one department or one person. They can’t keep up. Old corporate infrastructure shoves you out of the Internet conversation.

Corporate Communications is such a fear-based function that it actually prevents companies from doing good things. For example, there are moribund companies that think their endorsement of its partnerships is so valuable they must be denied. These companies will work with an outside firm, have a GREAT experience, everyone looks good, all goals are achieved and then “corporate communications” refuses to issue a positive quote on behalf of the outside company.

The fact that a VP has to take a positive endorsement request to Corporate Communications is symptomatic of deep disease.

• The solution is to encourage every employee to be pro-active online. The MOMENT a video, blog entry, news article appears about your company, every single employee should feel compelled to write comments, make response videos, get in direct contact with the consumer.

You may be thinking that “we can’t have all of those people speaking for the company.”You’re not. They are speaking for themselves and moving the conversation in your favor. Thanks to moments of controversy, customers actually want to talk about your company. If your team shows up for the conversation, you win.

Walter Sabo is the founder and creator of Hitviews. HITVIEWS is a company serving brands that wish to reach millions of customers using online video created by WebStars. Walter can be reached at walter@hitviews.com.

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