Every Monday, it’s an example of a business, non-profit, or website doing something interesting to promote itself online. Got an idea? Let me know!
Now I’m not a big fan on national cable companies but I thought how Time Warner is handling their Disney/ABC negotiations pretty interesting.
They are keeping customers informed via email.
I’ve gotten a few updates about the current negotiations via Time Warner Cable email (and yes, I opted not to receive anything extra). I haven’t unsubscribed because these emails aren’t frequent. Also in their favor is they tend to be short and all driving customers to another website if they want longer versions of anything:http://www.rolloverorgettough.com/
They are driving their customers to a separately branded website.
Time Warner needs to keep running its day-to-day operations going on their company website, and these cable negotiations are a small part of what it does. So, for this ‘campaign’ they’ve set up a different website for educational (and political) purposes. I appreciate how they have their company name in the sidebar (as in they aren’t pretending to be some third party group). But it is smart of them to keep their advocacy separate from their business, at least in terms of branding.
An informative graphic: saying more to people than they'd typically read.
They are concentrating on education versus telling people what to think.
With graphics like the one above and other visual (and written) information, Time Warner isn’t telling customers what to think or do. Instead, they are educating and providing a forum. As anyone who has ever taught can tell you, allowing someone to discover for themselves (versus telling them) not only helps them learn better but helps them take ownership of the knowledge. Time Warner wants its customers to protest ABC/Disney’s price increases because they understand that the price increases mostly go to the programmers.
(Actually if you think of the info graphic above, not taken into account are the costs paid to run ABC/Disney’s business. Also if I did this for my business, you’d see almost the entire Breaking Even dollar goes to run Breaking Even Communications but that’s another story all together…)
In other words, if your company or non-profit is doing some advocacy around a specific issue, it might be a good idea to set up a different website.
I feel like there are other businesses/groups doing this separate website for an agenda idea but much less transparently… Can you think of any?