The White House Social Media Policy: Is Ray-Ban Really Different From Samsung?

A few weeks back, the Boston Red Sox visited the White House to meet with the President because the team won the 2013 World Series. David Ortiz snapped a selfie with Obama and posted it to his Twitter feed, garnering thousands of favorites and retweets. A few days later, it came out that the selfie loosely came as a result of a newly signed sponsorship deal Ortiz had just started with Samsung. Lots of people threw hissy fits about marketing, advertising, authenticity, etc.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was quoted saying "As a rule, the White House objects to attempts to use the president's likeness for commercial purposes. And we certainly object in this case."

Two weeks later, a funny thing happened involving the White House once again (albeit, not with President Obama this time). Vice President Joe Biden joined the Instagram community today and his first photo looks awfully promotional, doesn't it:

For all of the ire that the Ortiz-Obama selfie drew, the reaction around the Biden Instagram photo is quite different. Time called the photo "utter perfection." Business Insider said that it was "incredibly on brand." Buzzfeed said his "'gram game is perfect Biden.

Sure, there are some differences between the two photos. Biden posted it himself. Obama did not. Biden was aware of the purpose behind the image. Obama was not.

But if you are going off of Carney's statement above as a general rule of thumb - and it is not an unreasonable assumption that the White House doesn't want the VP used for commercial purposes - explain to me how this is not commercial. Yeah, Biden wears Ray-Bans all the time and it is a trademark of his. But isn't a trademark of Obama being a fun guy who would participate in a selfie with a jubilant David Ortiz anyway? The tweet didn't even mention anything about Samsung, nor would your first thought be "oh, that's a Samsung Galaxy 5 in Ortiz's hand!!" That couldn't have been any less in-your-face branding.

Meanwhile, the Biden/Ray-Ban photo looks like it was taken straight from a final cut of advertisements for the company. It couldn't be any more promotional if it tried.

I understand that the White House would like to control the likeness of the President and Vice President to avoid any unknowing promotional purposes. But this does seem a little off, doesn't it? The White House shouldn't get to pick and choose when it is promotional, whether intentionally or not.

PGA is to NFL as Apple is to Orange

Following Bubba Watston's second Master's victory in three years, I fired up Twitter to see what people had to say about the conclusion. One particular tweet from Bomani Jones caught my eye and it was actually about Jordan Spieth, who finished three strokes behind Watson and tied with Jonas Blixt for second. Spieth is a 20 year-old on the PGA Tour who was nipping at Watson's heels all day. He was one missed birdie put on 16 to cut Watson's lead to two with two holes to play and put a little pressure on him.

Needless to say, it was an amazing performance from the young man and we should expect to see him competing at a high level for many years.

But the tweet stood out to me because of how the individual commented on Spieth's play to address an issue in another sport:

"anyone think golf needs a rule requiring players to stay in school for three years? or that only apply to sports that you like to watch?"

My first thought here was that Jones was talking about the NBA where the age limitation has always been a hot-button issue for the league. But that only requires individuals to be one year outside of high school in order to enter the draft. The only sport that requires three years is the NFL.

I'm not totally sure what Jones is going for with his tweet, to be honest. But it sounds like he is suggesting that the rule for making college football players be three years removed from high school is detrimental to the league/players. I hope that isn't the case, because that just wouldn't make sense.

Say what you will about the NBA's age limit, but the NFL's is a necessity from a very basic level - it makes athletes take a few years to continue growing, becoming bigger, faster, and stronger to take on guys who may be more than 10 years their senior. The NFL has an age limit because if it didn't, then college students going any earlier would get seriously hurt. And I just don't think that there is any question about that.

To suggest that there could be a discussion around abolishing the age requirement for the NFL is absurd at best. There is no chance of an 18 year-old golfer getting hurt playing with men twice his age. It is almost a guarantee that an 18 year-old football player would get hurt by a man twice his size due to the extra years he has had to develop.

The argument isn't just apples to oranges. Its just straight bananas.

David Ortiz and Samsung Challenge Authenticity with White House Selfie

The Boston Red Sox visited the White House on Tuesday as the reigning World Series Champions. The tradition of inviting the winning team of a professional sports league or national championship for college is a little cliche at this point, but I think I am just saying that because none of my teams have ever had the opportunity to visit the POTUS. Regardless, it makes for an easy day for the media to post a couple of pictures and generic athlete quotes about how happy they are to be there, slap it together and there is your story (or lack there of).

David Ortiz decided to spice things up a bit at the White House visit by grabbing a hilarious selfie with Obama and tweeting it out. It has picked up almost 40,000 retweets and more than 45,000 favorites. Everyone had a good laugh about it, it added a little more color to the "story" of the Red Sox visit and then we continue to live our lives normally.

Today it came out that Samsung was up to its old Oscars tricks again and that this was a planned selfie by Ortiz  that Obama did not actually know about beforehand. Okay, whatever. It is still a funny tweet and a good reminder that both professional athletes and the President are human beings with senses of humor. There wasn't any promotional branding in the tweet that suggested Samsung was behind this and it wasn't screaming at me to go buy a Galaxy or Note.

Well, I guess that not everyone felt the same way about it...

"Hang on. Did Samsung really use the word ‘genuine’ in its response? The moment was about as bona fide as the Grade A meat in Hot Pockets. I mean, if there is indeed any purpose of the "selfie," it’s about capturing something impromptu." - Eric Wilbur, Boston.com

"Spontaneity is dead. Samsung killed it." - Chris Cillizza, Washington Post

"Duping the president of the United States into participating with your social media campaign has to be anew low for advertising. It’s flat-out shady. And Ortiz should be embarrassed." - Joshua Green, Bloomberg

Holy shit, these are serious quotes about this? I can't actually believe that people would get this upset about it. Here's a question for them - does you think that because Ortiz did this because Samsung asked him to that it made his smile, his excitement and everything associated with the picture any less sincere? If you honestly think that, then your cynicism has reached an unhealthy height.

As I said above, Samsung wasn't in-your-face about the tweet. They didn't ask Ortiz to use any promotional branding and Ortiz didn't try to force it in there either. Sure, it is an old trick and not a terribly creative one (although, it does raise the sentiment of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'). But I don't feel duped by Samsung because of it. When I look at that picture, I see a professional athlete who is an idol to thousands of people with a smile that is ear to ear as he is with someone who is actually more recognizable than he is in public.

So I would highly recommend to anyone who is upset by this to just stop and reevaluate what is worth getting irritated about these days. Because a hilarious picture that came about of a corporate sponsorship should not be high on the list of righteous indignation triggers.

Sidenote: When has a selfie EVER been impromptu? I would argue that a selfie is honestly as far from an impromptu action as they come. For the love of god, and I hate to even have to point to the song "Selfie" but if that doesn't show that they are as calculated as they come, then I don't know what does. Please, don't age yourself like that Boston.com.

Care.com & The NYSE: Humanize The Brand

In January of this year, Care.com listed its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Care.com is a basically an e-commerce website for baby-sitters. Rather than dealing with word-of-mouth referrals or asking your niece or nephew who may not know how to boil a pot of water, Care.com gives parents a chance to scope out their baby-sitter ahead of time. The industry of full-time nannies and dedicated baby-sitters is booming and Care.com jumped on it early, making the lives of parents easier and more assured.

While watching major cable news networks over the last couple of weeks, I have noticed the commercial where Care.com's CEO, Sheila Marcelo, is ringing the opening bell of the NYSE on the day of the company's IPO. The advertisement can be seen here. Essentially, Marcelo is talking about how happy she is that Care.com has been such a success, how she is living the American dream, etc. It is definitely a great story, especially given that probably not very many people would have thought that she could have taken this company public when she first came up with the idea.

The story is all well and good, but the interesting thing to me in this advertisement is that it is actually a NYSE advertisement. The closing image is of the NYSE logo, but the whole focus is on Care.com.

So why is this significant?

Listen carefully to the messaging that Marcelo uses when she is talking. Love, caring, live, reliable, perfect. Those are all words that Marcelo and Care.com wants associated with their brand for obvious reasons. But the NYSE wants to draw off of that positivity of the Care.com mantra, whether that is explicitly stated or not. The association factor is key here for the NYSE as - let's be honest here - nobody will use any of the above adjectives to describe its brand.

The finance industry is still suffering an image issue following the financial crisis of the past few years. By highlighting the success of a company like Care.com, with a founder who even describes herself as "living the American dream", the NYSE humanizes its brand. It helps dispel the myth that anyone involved in the process is a white male in a stiff suit who only cares about tax breaks and bigger dividends.

Care.com and the NYSE is a natural pairing from a branding perspective in this regard. Both have something to gain - Care.com gets great national exposure, particularly to a more affluent audience that will help generate greater revenue and the NYSE gets to highlight a lovable brand with a founder who is the antithesis of the public's perception of the exchange.

It may be subtle, but I think that both come out ahead in this instance. It isn't going to dispel the belief that the stock exchange is the epitome of greed, but it is one smart step in that direction.