Every time I log on to my RSS feeds recently, I seem to be greeted by a score of stories about Twitter; and never more so than in this past week.

The news that the social site had hit 20 billion tweets last Saturday – doubling its volume in just five months – was followed by proposals to allow tweeting of court cases, an announcement that Twitter would now pair you with your ideal ‘stalkers’; and what’s been hailed as the first anti-celebrity in the form of student Steven Holmes.

So it’s interesting to see that a study from US/UK digital agency 360i has concluded that Twitter is still a long way off claiming a place in the marketer’s kit of essentials. Twitter & the Consumer-Marketing Dynamic examined a statistically significant sample of 1,800 tweets over a six-month period, and found that just 12% of tweets sent by individuals included any reference to a brand – and most of the time, that brand was Twitter itself.

Admittedly, if you consider the study’s finding that 94% of all tweets sent by real people were personal in nature, the figure becomes less surprising. Consider this: how many of the personal emails you’ve sent in the past two weeks made mention of a brand? If you end up with a figure that comes in much above 12%, I suspect you’ll be very much in the minority.

Just as with other new media channels, Twitter has been hailed as a ‘bright new path’ for brands to communicate with consumers. Again just as with those channels, early adopting brands have tended to use it as a broadcast medium rather than to establish any form of dialogue.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that tweeting will never be a useful medium for brands. Nor am I saying that there isn’t any interesting brand activity already taking place on Twitter. As we saw in the early days of the internet, email and social networks, any new technology will gain immediate advocates and naysayers from within the marketing community.

The polarity is not unexpected: we marketeers have long been haunted by the idea of a ‘holy grail’ of communication: a tool to teleport our brands directly into the minds and repertoires of consumers. Perhaps the only revelation is how much people want to believe each new development will be that tool; naivety from an industry that prides itself on a reputation for hardbitten cynicism?

Actually, there’s support here for something I began to suspect some time ago: that we marketers are actually more susceptible to messaging than other people, rather than less. Talk to enough consumers and you’ll see a growing unwillingness to articulate any connection with the vast majority of brands. Even the hard-core loyalists feel a need to ‘justify’ their loyalty with rational explanations around value, quality or service.

But all that is by the by; a topic for another day, perhaps.  In the meantime, the fact remains that Twitter is still very much a consumer-to-consumer medium, not brand-to-consumer or vice versa. Will that change?  In due course, I’ve no doubt. After all, as the new British Gas radio campaign has reminded us, it’s not so very long ago that people were claiming that the telephone could never be a brand medium…

M&Ms are launching a new variant in the US: M&M Pretzels. It may have been a good piece of insight work which helped them identify the opportunity for the launch, but it took something else to communicate it this well. To me, the new ad ticks the most important boxes for communicating innovations:

Explains what it is (easy): Tick

Generates interest/curiosity for trial (moderately difficult): Tick (for me anyway)

Stays on-brand and establishes it as a natural extension of the brand (difficult): Again tick

Do all three at the same time (the most difficult of all): Absolutely. For me, that’s what makes this ad fantastic. See for yourself:

• ‘The value of a social network is defined not only by who’s on it, but by who’s excluded’ (Paul Saffo)
• ‘The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate’ (Joseph Priestley)
• ‘A website should be a holistic experience channel’ (Anon)
• ‘If content is king, then conversion is queen’ (John Munsell)
• ‘New marketing is about the relationships, not the medium’ (Ben Grossman)

Borrowed with pride from all over the place.

You can always rely on Michael O’Leary to play the pantomime villain.

True to form as Britain’s skies opened for business, Ryanair’s Chief Executive told passengers his airline would not meet hotel and subsistence expenses incurred while stuck abroad. Ryanair would reimburse travellers the original price of their air fare and no more, he said.

Ryanair’s deal is pretty clear – and the brand has been very appealing. A cheap, no frills service that gets you to your destination and if you want a bit more in the way of service, you will have to pay a bit more.

But is Michael’s declared refusal to abide by European legislation on looking after stranded passengers a step too far? Giving a no-frills service: fine. But, if you run an airline in Europe, you probably have to put up with European aviation laws.

Ryanair is already reaping some pretty venomous criticism from the stalls.

‘You can’t say, as O’Leary has, “the laws weren’t designed for these circumstances”.  Everyone understands that you’re just saying “the law is there to ensure that money goes into Michael O’Leary’s pockets, not out of them” – Telegraph April 22nd 2010.

“This is shocking behaviour and rubs salt into the wounds of those who have been stranded overseas” - Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat transport spokesman.

When does cheap become mean? Michael may be one brand owner who should get closer to his customers but might find the experience a bit uncomfortable in the near future.

There are always winners and losers. 

 
As with every event there is an opportunity for a brand to turn a problem into an opportunity – or a crisis into a disaster.
 
Winners

• Eurotunnel, Eurostar and the ferry companies – clearly the financial winners
• KLM – for being the first with test flights and a proactive drive to prove safety
• French railway company SNCF – for offering additional trains at reduced prices – a great gesture of goodwill
   

Losers

• Labour Government – blamed for a lack of coherence and action
• Iceland – yet again being blamed for all the problems with the British economy
• The airlines – moaning about their losses – but unhelpful, unfriendly staff and signs of opportunistic pricing are leading to swelling tide of bad will… ($6,000 one way from London to New York anyone?)
   

Missed opportunities?

• Communications companies – opportunity to push telephone conferencing, Webex solutions – with no need to travel
• Estate Agents – a brief spike in sales of houses under the Heathrow flight path?