Would you want this place on your Visa bill?

Over the next weeks, Beg to Differ will be presenting some examples of brand names that are just bad – for a number of reasons. Today’s example is something we spotted over the weekend…

The Hav-A-Nap Motel

This bad brand – which, yes, also has a web site – is one that a friend pointed out to me in the Eastern part of metro Toronto, and it’s a classic. It’s one of those unintentional landmarks that everyone seems to know about (but no one will admit being a customer of).

And actually, while I usually criticize brand names that are un-helpful, this bad name is actually a customer service because it’s so bad. That is, because the name is so tone-deaf and slimy sounding, most respectable consumers will know better than to stay there.

This review from an Italian visitor on Trip Advisor pretty well  sums up the experience I’d expect to have from any motel called the “Hav A Nap”:

Sorry for my english… It was a very terrible experience… the room was very dirty, the bedsheets were full of spots (I think there were spots of previous sexual performances…), the bedcover had holes by cigarette… I left my cup of coffee in the room and when I came back I have found also mouse’s excrements… It was very very cheap, but I slept all dressed because of the disgust…

Funny, but when you don’t have enough energy to spell “HAVE” correctly, it’s not surprising that you don’t sweat little details like laundry, customer satisfaction, or human health for that matter.

Enough said.

I’d love to get more of your favourite bad brand names, so please leave them in the comments!

An experiment in “un-branding” to promote community health

Beg to Differ noticed this morning that Australia is planning to ban all logos and distinctive design elements from cigarette packaging. The point: to make them less attractive to smokers. The question: will it work?

Generic packaging

According to the UK Daily Mail, quoting the Australian newspaper:

The new laws, to be introduced in January 2012, will prohibit the use of tobacco industry logos, colours, brand imagery or promotional text on the packets. Brand names and product names will have to be displayed in a standard colour, font style and position under the new laws, says the paper.

And why? Here’s what one Australian researcher says:

Documents show that, especially in the context of tighter restrictions on conventional avenues for tobacco marketing, tobacco companies view cigarette packaging as an integral component of marketing strategy and a vehicle for (a) creating significant in-store presence at the point of purchase, and (b) communicating brand image. Market testing results indicate that such imagery is so strong as to influence smoker’s taste ratings of the same cigarettes when packaged differently. (2002 research review by Australian Anti-Cancer Council)

That’s all true. But is there any evidence that removing visible branding will reduce the sales of cigarettes?

Those of us in the branding industry would like to think so. After all, we tell clients all the time that consistently applying and reinforcing your brand elements (logos, names, messages, design motifs) over time will increase your sales. So shouldn’t the opposite be true?

I hope so – and not just as a branding guy, but as a human being who seen friends and family members struggle with cancer.

But don’t forget about filters!

On cigarettes, these don't work. But on your BRAIN?

We’re not talking about cigarette filters – although, ironically, the fact that they don’t work is one of the issues at play here. It’s HUMAN filters that are the biggest reason this effort may not perform as advertised.

“Filter Factors” to consider:

• The habit filter: physical addiction is powerful stuff.
• The social filter: but smoking is more than just a commercial or health phenomenon; it’s a cultural – or more to the point – counter cultural act. The more you crack down, the “cooler” it becomes in hard-core smoking circles.
• The neuromarketing filter: Roger Dooley discusses in this fascinating Neuromarketing blog post how a giant cancer warning on a box actually becomes an ad for smoking over time!
• The brand filter: the name is still a brand – and if that’s the only differentiator on the box, that’s what consumers will look for / form relationships with.
• The “quest” filter: by making something hard to get or find, you can actually increase people’s desire for it, or at least the “tribal” cachet of having it. The Gold Visa or the Costco card in your wallet are great examples. Why do you pay for them? Because you have to.

So what do you think?

Is “un-branding” a socially undesirable product a good way to discourage people from using it? We want to hear from you!

Apparently iPad has been enhancing feature sets for a while….

So of course, Beg to Differ was riveted on Wednesday by “The Big Speech”. No, not the State of the Union Address: it was the unveiling of a new product by Apple that had our attention. And apparently, we weren’t the only ones watching: so were trademark lawyers for several other “iPads”. But will any of it matter for Apple? Read on.

Trying to pad the feminine market?

On Wednesday, our big question was not “what will this miraculous new product be?” Everybody knew that already. It was leaked long ago that it would be a tablet device that would look something like a big iPod or iPhone.

We were watching to see what they would call it.

The “i” naming convention was a given with iMac, iTunes, etc. But would this one become iSlate? iTablet? iShtar? Surely not <gasp> “iPad”?

Nope, iPad it was

The Fujitsu iPad product

Now, we’re fans of Apple branding in almost every possible way, and we lauded the return of Steve Jobs in a previous post. But instantly upon the announcement, we watched the media and the Twitter universe light up with criticism, and some really off-colour humour, about the name sounding like a feminine hygiene product (see the MadTV clip at bottom).

Even more shocking: it turns out that the hygiene connection was just the beginning. Neither the name itself, or the association with products aimed at females, were unique.

Fujitsu has already filed suit based on its own iPad product (above), and several others are out there.

But the one that jumped out at us was the “iPad” product sold by a small Canadian company called Coconut Grove Pads Inc.. It’s a bra insert like the one shown at the top of this post.

But will any of this matter?

In a word: no.

Let’s be clear: I would never advise a smaller client to go with such a name. There are just too many risk factors, as the media have been gleefully pointing out.

But Apple knows this. And they went ahead in spite of it because, well, they’re Apple. Their market awareness is just too big, and the new product just too smart, for any of this to matter.

They will settle with Fujitsu after some posturing by both parties, the Twitter wags will get their “Maxi” giggles, and the bra company will get its moment in the sun.

But most importantly, the name “iPad” will quickly lose its association with MaxiPads and other feminine products.

Why? Because we will all take ownership of the name as the way to refer to the Apple device – which will push all other uses to the back of the collective consumer brain bus.

And in the branding game, that’s what really matters.

What do you think? Are we artificially inflating our opinion? Let us know in the comments!

Bonus: MadTV scooped Apple on the iPad name in Nov. 2007

NOTE: This is very funny – but mildly gynecological humour might be a bit “edgy” for more conservative work environments, so view with caution.

Thoughts on Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw – part 1

This week, Beg to Differ is savouring the new book by Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell, What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures. It’s really, really good (duh, it’s Gladwell). All the essays are from New Yorker Magazine, and in typically Gladwellian style, every page sets off fireworks in your neurons, lighting up a new part of your brain with every thought. So, since we’re thinking about this stuff anyway, we thought we’d share some thoughts. Today: is there really such a thing as “intellectual property”?

Cover image "borrowed" (stolen?) from the Australian edition of What the Dog Saw

Essay: Something Borrowed. Should a charge of plagiarism ruin your life?

In this essay, Gladwell begins by discussing a strange case of “plagiarism” involving an earlier article he had written for the New Yorker.  Seems a  Broadway play called “Frozen” by British playwright  Bryony Lavery “borrowed” lines, ideas, and biographical detail from his profile of Dorothy Lewis – a psychiatrist who studies serial killers. The similarities between the play and Gladwell’s article, and by extension, Lewis’s life, are extensive and unmistakable.

But is this a case of plagiarism? Lewis thought so – enough to take legal action against the playwright. And originally so did Gladwell, who quotes a letter he faxed to Lavery:

I am happy to be the source of inspiration for other writers, and had you asked for my permission to quote—even liberally—from my piece, I would have been delighted to oblige. But to lift material, without my approval, is theft.

I know how he feels (in my tiny-blog-kind-of-way). This was my response a few months back when a blogger informed me in the Comments to my 10 Brand Strategy Lessons from Princess Bride post that she had copied the entire text of my post to her blog:

But for Gladwell, as he thinks it through, and especially after reading, then going to see the play himself, begins to waver before ultimately retracting his objections.

Why? Because, as Gladwell puts it: the play is “breathtaking. I realize that this isn’t supposed to be a relevant consideration. And yet it was: instead of feeling that my words had been taken from me, I felt that they had become part of some grander cause.”

And that’s the problem with “Intellectual Property”

So here’s where I insert my own original content, lest you think I’m simply summarizing Gladwell for the entire blog post. (Malcolm: my fax machine is broken buddy. If you must protest, just leave your comments below).

Gladwell’s genius, here and everywhere is that he challenges all kinds of intellectual extremism. Where somebody else would assert that a thing is black or white, Gladwell shows us how it is not just gray, but a fascinating spectrum of intertwining shades of “off gray”. And then he helps us understand the patterns that emerge, which, like great art, are never quite as clear-cut as we might wish for, but all the richer for it.

In this case, he points out the extremism of our “intellectual property” conventions.  or as he puts it:

“So is it true that words belong to the person who wrote them, just as other kinds of property belong to their owners? Actually, no.”

The playwright Byrony Lavery took Gladwell’s words and made something beautiful and new out of them, and in the process, taught Gladwell a valuable lesson. But is it a lesson we’re willing to hear?

So branders: how about brand names, patents, and logos?

This is where I throw the ball to you. I believe in brand management – how could I not?

But I also believe that the brands we create enter the public domain the moment we create them – or there wouldn’t be any point. I also think we invest too much time on policing supposed brand “infringements” and not enough proactively cultivating positive expressions of our brands.

What do you think?

So what do you call a decade like that one?

So far Beg to Differ has resisted the urge to comment on the Tiger Woods scandal. But a friend posted a story on Facebook today that seemed like a great way to wrap up the year, and the decade. Her four-year old asked her out of the blue if he could take down his Tiger Woods poster – after two years on his wall. When asked why, he said “it just seems like time.”  Indeed.

As they say: it's hard to focus on the tree - or the Woods - with a driver in the rear view mirror: just one of the many brands that have decided not to invite the Tiger into their new decade.

The rear-view mirror: out with the old

The end of the year, or the decade, is of course a great time to reflect, dream, plan, concede defeat, or maybe just take a break from whatever little white ball you were chasing.

But one question burns brighter than any faded Tiger in my mind right now: what do we call the decade that was? Other decades have great names like “the Dirty Thirties,” “The Roaring Twenties,” or my favourite: “the Eighties” (the teenage rugby-pants, new-wave, drama-geek decade doesn’t need another descriptor – at least for me).

A few suggestions for branding the decade just past:

The Woods

Or “the Woodies” if you prefer. Oh those halcyon days when the Tiger was young and seemed infallible. Before we learned the awful truth: that he was all too human… er, actually a major sleaze-ball in his private life. And while that shouldn’t matter, we learned that when you build a brand empire around yourself, that brand is vulnerable to all the same failings that you are – particularly if your brand is built on a false perception of super-human purity.

But the thing I like best about “The Woods”, is that it implies we’re out of them now…

The Naughties

Or “The Naughts”, “the aughts”. Of course “aught” or “naught” are words for zeroes.  My blog-buddy Nancy Friedman favours “the Naughties”. But apart from the Woods, there wasn’t really that much decade-defining naughtiness when you compare it to the 60′s, 70′s, 80′s, and the “Bill Clintons”. Martin Bishop tallied some more here, but I’m not convinced.

The Zeros

Or the “nothings” Nope. Just too depressing.

The Ohs

Not bad. Positive spin on the zeros, with a touch of surprise and wonder, and perhaps a nod of the head to my old Denim Blues cast-mate Sandra Oh – but that was the eighties again…

The Terror Years

September 11 2001 cast a massive pall over the decade – as did the subsequent war-faring, drum-beating, and hysteria.

The O-amas

This one has a nice hopeful ring to it: we went from the evil of Osama to the fresh hope represented by (and hopefully fulfilled by) Obama. Time will tell on this one.

The Bloggies

Surely the emergence of social media and the democratization of the news cycle – for better and worse – is one of the defining themes. Or at least to the millions of us who blog about such things.

The Happies

Okay, this may just be for me again. But I have to say that this decade – whatever we call it – has been the happiest of my life. I started my branding business in 2000 and have had the privilege to help many dozens of companies, charities, and government organizations humanize their brands. I also got married to an amazing woman, bought a house, had three incredible kids (the diaper decade?), and started a little blog called Beg  to Differ.

It wasn’t all sunshine. I made some people angry, and didn’t always dot all my i’s or even deliver 100%.  But as I look back, I can’t help but feel great about the next decade – whatever we call that.

So as you take down the old posters from your wall, think carefully about what the next decade could become for you, your brand, and your tribe.

My four-word prescription for the next decade:

Keep making it better!

Happy New Year!

Ancient wisdom on Vision – from blind men

Part 2 on Vision Statements. In examining the many ways that our clients’ Vision statements have gone wrong in the past (and some spectacularly wrong), Beg to Differ can almost always sum up the biggest problem in one word: proximity. But don’t take our word for it; take it from an ancient tale of six men who tried to establish a common vision. And failed….

My photo of an elephant in northern Thailand (and no, that's not his real eye). From this close, an elephant seems like... well, a really difficult thing to move.

Six blind men write a Vision statement

The story I’m referring to is the Blind Men and the Elephant. Variations are found in cultures across Asia, but poet John Godfrey Saxe introduced it to Europe:

It was six men of Indostan

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the Elephant

(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation

Might satisfy his mind…

It’s a long poem (whole text here), but to sum up the action: six blind men approach an elephant and come away with six different impressions. One thinks an elephant is like a tree, one like a rope, one like a snake, etc. And while each of their descriptions is sincerely argued, and accurately reflects their observations, the poet laments that “each was partly in the right / And all were in the wrong.”

Now imagine pulling those six blind men into a room and trying to write a Vision statement.

Describing the elephant: where vision statements go wrong

In the story, here are the mistakes the blind men made – and I’m going to suggest that we make the same ones ourselves.

1) They are all blind (and so are we): When it comes to our own businesses and products, each of us is blind to the big picture – the whole animal. This is equally true of me and my company (note to self: update corporate Web site soon), you and yours, and blind elephant-feelers everywhere: we are all victims of habit, corporate silos, and unconscious vested interests.

There’s nothing wrong with blindness of course. But bringing in a “sighted” outsider can certainly speed things up.

2) They didn’t share their “visions” to create “Vision”: Notice that each blind man worked in isolation before comparing notes with colleagues. Imagine if they all had been talking to each other during the research phase. “What do you mean rope? This seems more wall-ish. Seriously, come over here and check this out… etc.” Wouldn’t they be more successful – and fight less?

3) Lack of common reference points: Saxe says that the men “Rail on in utter ignorance / Of what each other mean.” Because of the blinkers mentioned above, we need to check, double check, then write down our common understandings of corporate jargon, nomonyms, and other key language.

4) They ignored the elephant. These blind men SAID they wanted to learn about the elephant, for each to “satisfy his mind”, but they seem more interested in having talking points for the argument to come. Shame none of them examined the elephant’s navel. But then they’d have to take their heads out of their own.

5) Who was the exercise for? Perhaps they would have had more luck if they had a clearer goal in mind of who the customer for this information would be. Then they could test their theories against the only metric that matters: how much does their work help someone else understand the elephant?

6) Description is not Vision: even if all the blind men had been able to articulate a more accurate idea of the elephant, they still couldn’t get the elephant to do anything. For that, they’d need to study behaviour, capabilities, knowledge of how other elephants are being used and trained. And finally they’d need to correct one last mistake…

7) Vision needs direction: The blind men lacked clear goals and an audience. But they also lacked a destination or at least a clear sense of the direction they should be heading  - which is the “north star” that should guide any effective Vision exercise.

But then doesn’t that make this a Mission rather than a Vision? The next post in this series will take on that thorny issue. But in the meantime, we’re still looking for your help: vision stories; examples; thoughts?

The first Beg to Differ Branding Field Trip.

Last week, I blogged on Beg to Differ about the birth of my son. Thank you all for your best wishes and brilliant thoughts on this incredibly moving experience for my wife and other two kids. But on the silly side of my brain, the whole 3 days in the hospital, I had lines from the classic “Machine that goes Ping” sketch from Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life going through my head. And I was struck by how heavily branded the hospital environment is. So here are a few branding “pings” from the life and death world of the hospital.

The machine that goes Ping - The Miracle of Birth scene from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

Something completely different

I think Branders need to be students of branding trends, and have a big streak of geekiness. And it’s always best to look at branding practices from an outsider’s perspective. So as a non-medical guy, all these brands were new to me. A few random comments are below.

There’s a surprisingly hard-sell retro throwback feel to a lot of these product names. And in the case of the “V-LOK CUFF” a design style that looks like it came out of the back of a comic book.

Interesting story: at one point, a nurse was putting an intravenous drip into my wife’s arm and asked me to grab what she called an “eye-hand” from the cupboard. I couldn’t find it until she held up a package and I realized she was talking about the “IV3000 1-HAND” above. In our case, the misunderstanding wasn’t serious, but I wonder if that little brand misunderstanding has ever led to more serious consequences. Branding matters!

In a “serious” environment like a hospital, I’d expect muted, understated brand practices – heavy descriptive names and generic product numbers. But I was surprised how many of the product brands seemed to be using edgy or aggressive naming conventions. Notice a small sample of all the “X’s I found in brand names.

I especially like the “Stryker” beds I saw everywhere. Doesn’t that sound like the name of a hero from a cheesey pulp fiction thriller?

In the delivery room, the doctors and medical staff were giddy with excitement to try the  ”Rollbord” (above) which some were trying for the first time. I noticed that they didn’t call it a “SAMARIT” or even a “Samarit Rollbord” – even though the names are presented graphically at the same size. “Rollbord” is the dominant brand because it’s more useful.

This confused me. In the age of H1N1, I was diligently keeping my hands washed, and when I couldn’t, I would Purell them (note the verb).  But the distributor of the hand-pumps above obviously tried to standardize the look and feel of the labels, even though they are different brands (and add French for a Canadian audience). The result? I kept reaching for the Purell when I needed soap and vice versa. In this case, the manufacturer’s branding would have been more useful.

What do you think?

Beg to Differ wants to hear from you:

• Any thoughts on these brands? What other branding trends do you see?
• Any perspectives on other medical industry brands?
• Do you like the branding field trip idea? Thoughts on other field trips we can take?
• Volunteers to lead guest expeditions?

Has Disney finally figured out how to deal with the Muppets?

Yesterday, Beg to Differ introduced you to the brilliant new Bohemian Rhapsody parody from the Muppets – but with no brand focused commentary at all. Since then, we’ve realized that the big story here isn’t the video itself (or the others we’ve included below). The big branding story is the Muppet brand itself and its current caretaker: Disney.

Keeping your Beakers and Bunsens apart

A Disneyland attraction that visitors liked, but the problem: the kids didn't recognize the characters.

When I showed the Bohemian Rhapsody video to my kids – aged 3 and almost 5 – they laughed and laughed and laughed, just as my wife and I had done. Of course, they totally missed the parody, but it was heartening to me that they seemed to love the characters and hooted along with that trademark goofy, over-the-top vaudeville campiness.

But when I asked my 3-year old what he’d liked about it, he said: “Those Wild Things were funny.”

Anaheim, we have a problem.

It’s not like we haven;t done our parental duty by exposing him to the Muppets. This is a kid who has an Animal doll, 50 Sesame Street books, and has sat and watched the Muppets on YouTube, as well as the season 1&2 DVDs with the family. But even he couldn’t identify the “Muppet” brand, and couldn’t recall any names except Kermit and Miss Piggy.

Turns out my son is the market in microcosm (I’m so proud). Kids don’t get the Muppets. And I blame Disney.

Disney’s problem with Muppets

Since acquiring the Muppet brand in 2004 Disney has been widely criticized by fans for under-utilizing the Muppets characters and failing to re-invigorate the brand for a younger generation. For an exhaustive insider background, see Jim Hill’s blog post from 2007.

But in brief, I think this verbiage from the February 2004 press release captures the problem in humourless, corporatese:

The transaction includes all Muppet assets, including the Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo and Animal characters, the Muppet film and television library, and all associated copyrights and trademarks…

Now read that again in your best Rizzo the Rat voice to hear how ugly, inhuman and unintentionally funny it becomes. These are cartoon puppet critters people!

It’s not easy being green (but it’s worth a try).

And it went downhill from there. Disney efforts have included an aborted attempt to make Kermit more “edgy” for his 5oth birthday in 2005, and a tone-deaf attempt to exploit the lead characters as commercial shills. The Ford Explorer ad shown here is a great example.

Demographic fact: Muppets are loved by nostalgic 30-40 somethings. Frog-leap of logic: Hey! Kermit can sell SUVs!

But through it all, the big problems that were festering under the surface were 1) a failure to generate any significant new Muppets content (or that the new content was bad), 2) erosion of the brand equity of secondary characters, and 3) lack of respect for the real brand qualities that made the Muppets so charming and relevant, and sustain them to this day in the hearts of 4) the brand’s real owners: who are you, me, and hopefully, our kids.

The Muppets of the mind

So that’s why it was so nice to see yesterday’s Bohemian Rhapsody video get hundreds of thousands of hits and quickly become a trending topic on Twitter. It’s also nice to learn that more videos are coming (watch for “Dust in the Wind”, “American Woman”, “Popcorn”, “Carol of the Bells” and “Stand By Me”) and that a new Muppet movie is in the works – among other interesting projects.

But most heartening of all, there’s the tone of the new content – which finally shows signs that Disney actually gets the Muppets. The new stuff is funny, and the characters seem like themselves again. And that’s why I felt like I had to share that video immediately.

To us, the real owners of the brand, the Muppets are about creating a warm space where comedy, pop-culture, kid-culture, and pure unadulterated silliness can come together. The real Muppets in our heads never take themselves too seriously (see the “assets” quote above), and they are also never mean-spirited or even “edgy” (they’re refreshingly nerdy actually – kind of like Queen music).

Oh, and take note: the Muppets in our heads would never sell an SUV, so they won’t help us buy one either.

Welcome back Muppets

But lest we be accused of getting too serious ourselves (we beg to differ!), below are a few more recent YouTube videos featuring some great second-string Muppets.

Bohemian Rhapsody – in case you missed it

Beaker does Ode to Joy:

The Swedish Chef carves a pumpkin:

Sam the Eagle gets patriotic:

Part 3 of our series on our favourite posts of 2009″

October and November held a few more pleasant surprises for us here at Beg to Differ – from our Chicken Sandwich series to our first Slideshare cross-over hit, to  a Seussian Twitter phenomena, we continue to be surprised by the enthuisiastic response of our readers – but almosrt never in ways we expect.

What if restaurants charged like creative agencies? The other side

The branding business: we haven’t have a lot of posts about this topic area… yet. But we felt we needed to respond to a viral video which lampooned clients for not “getting” the value of the work creative agencies do. After all, it takes two to tango – or quibble over a giant invoice.

More on the biz: when branding, look outside;

How to name a chicken sandwich: thoughts for branders

Brand naming: When KFC launched a new chicken sandwich with a name developed by Brandvelope, we took the opportunity to toot our own horn a bit and talk about the process of naming a brand. And the results: our biggest single day tally of visitors as branders came by for a taste of what we do.

More on names:Sorry Shakespeare: names matter;  brandscape – a chicken or egg?

American Airlines meets Mr. X – a tragic tale of brand failure

“Whole brand” thinking: This short post on the failure of a giant corporation to understand  effective customer engagement in the social media era marked the first time a SlideShare deck  of ours reached 2000 hits – and climbing (in response to a tip from  Alison Gresik).

More on this:Toronto Web site fail; Human in five steps; the perils of too much choice; one immutable law

Green eggs & spam: a Twitter poem

Social media: Funny to talk about this one as a greatest hit – because we wrote it in the middle of the current “faves” series – and it’s really still going with more than 100 RTs to date. Basically, we wondered a) what @SamEyeEm would be like on Twitter, and b) what Dr. Seuss might think about the new “ReTweet” feature on Twitter.

More on this topic: Twiterloo; branding explained in Twitterese; “Social Media” needs a new name.

More in this series:

• Tuesday: Beg to Differ highlights from June & July
• Wednesday: Beg to Differ highlights from August & September.
• Thursday: Beg to Differ highlights from October & November (this post).

Oh, and another reminder: please sign up for e-mail updates (on the right) or our RSS feed, so you keep track of our future posts.

Soldiers at attention: awright Twitter conscript, you’ve probably heard that Twitter has finally enabled a feature it calls “Retweet”. Well, after years of hacking together manual ReTweets – cutting and pasting, editing, shortening, and workarounds by Twitter partner applications like TweetDeck, you’d think this would be cause for great rejoicing among the weary soldiers of Twitterland…

We Beg to Differ.

The invention of the ReTweet: Napoleon at Waterloo

What’s an RT?

For those new to Twitter (or with no patience for it), basically “RT” is a convention that arose among Twitter users as a way of sharing and amplifying content from other people that they agree with, find interesting or funny, or that adds to a discussion they’re having in some way. Here’s an extreme example of one message from last night:

Here’s a translation of the post:

• @brianlj read a blog post by Twitter CEO Evan Williams @eV, and wanted to share the link and to let others  know  he disagreed with it.
• He added the hashtag #Save ReTweet which made it part of a public discussion.
• I wanted to share his thought with my followers (I’m @DenVan). So, I copied it and pasted it, and added “RT ” at the beginning, then added a comment at the end “Ditto”.
• Then, my friend @zchamu did the same, crediting me and adding her comment “Me three!”

Think about how incredible that is. Four people’s thoughts are contained in the tiny, tiny space of just 140 Characters. That’s the power of the RT.

The revolution is ugly, but it works

Now granted, to the untrained eye, it looks a bit messy – okay really messy – so we’ve been hoping for some clean-up from the good people at Twitter for a long time. You know, a few simple tools that would respect the power and intent of the RT but would make it easier to use and scan.

But what happened instead? RT activist Dan Zarella puts it well when he says:

In a stunningly disappointing move, Twitter has threatened to completely eviscerate most of the value out of ReTweets by “formalizing” a feeble version of a format that was already well understood and functional for all users involved.

The leader on a high horse

On Tuesday, Twitter head Evan Williams wrote his first blog post since March, “Why Retweet works the way it does”, with these ominous words:

I’m making this post because I know the design of this feature will be somewhat controversial. People understandably have expectations of how the retweet function should work. And I want to show some of the thinking that’s gone into it…

Uh-oh. Bad sign. When a CEO runs to the battlements so early in a communications piece, you can just smell the restlessness in the troops – and not just in the Twitterati, but among the people working at Twitter as well.

He goes on to describe RT as cool, before listing off a number of “problems” that currently exist with the RT convention that, as he puts it, “emerged organically from Twitter users as a way of passing on interesting bits of information”.

The problems Evan Williams lists (in brief):

1. Attribution confusion – hard to tell who the “owner” of the originally tweeted content was.
2. Mangled and Messy – formatting makes message hard to read and author’s intent may be lost.
3. Redundancy – lots of “RePeets”.
4. Noisiness – RT @sycophant RT @wanker Blah blah blah
5. Untrackable – hard to collect RTs of a person or post in one place.

The solution from Twitter :

Let’s say that in the new Twitter RT universe, I wanted to share the incredible insight that Evan Williams actually posted last night (at right), with my followers.

• A single “Retweet” button would appear under his tweet.
• By clicking this, I would instantly create an exact verbatim copy of the original. My followers would see this exactly as @ev had written it, and what’s more, his name and avatar would appear beside them – even if my follower wasn’t following him.
• As the Retweeter, my name would appear in a small footnote on the bottom of Ev’s tweet, but not in the actual Tweet.
• Without any opportunity for editing or commentary, I couldn’t add context for my followers like “Can you believe this?” or “Me too!” or “What is this dude smoking?”.
• No “RT” or other prefix will indicate that the is a ReTweet. Only that small footnote will make it appear different from any other tweet….

Our take: the new ReTweet “feature” needs Re-bwanding

Sorry Evan.

You’re a genius, and we all owe you a tremendous debt for creating this Twitter thing, but this new feature you’ve created is not ReTweet. I’ve called it “RePeet”. Or maybe it’s “Copy” or “Clone”, or as one wag called it “Exact Tweet” (ET – and it phones home to Twitter).

Whatever it is, it’s broken.

And we’re not alone in saying so.
(this list is growing, so please send us more!)

• A great critique from TechCrunch
• The original rant from Dan Zarella
• Andrew Mueller muses on possible Google / Bing search motivators.
• Beth Kanter thinks the new feature will lead to RT bloat (but we disagree)
• RayBeckerman reflects on how he learned to stop worrying and love the RT.
• Alex Schleber on how Twitter doesn’t get the “Social” part of SM
• Lance Ulanoff from PC Magazine in disbelief
• Justine Bateman thinks new RTs are spam.
• Lisa Barone lists all the reasons to hate DUM-RT.

To the battlements! What you can do soldier:

1. Don’t use the new button! Just keep doing what you’ve always done.
2. Use the hashtag #SaveReTweets to register your displeasure.
3. Inundate @ev and @twitter with negative traffic.
4. Sign the petition Dan Zarella has put together.