Communications Strategy

Just a few thoughts on the dark art of corporate communications and how one should approach it – and when you’ve approached it, whether you should embrace it with open arms, or simply walk away. Quite quickly.

Social networking ‘dehumanising’ – who knew?

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Corporate Religion, Social Media and tagged , , .

I’m a little bit cross today, gentle blog trotters, and – although it’s unlike me to burden you with my problems – I’m going to tell you why.

First off, you should know that I employ the services of an accountant, for the simple reason that I am not an accountant myself, and I cannot be doing with all this numbery business. What I didn’t cop on to was that, in the eyes of the law (quis aliem facit, facit per se), if you employ an accountant to do your numbers, you are effectively doing them yourself. It’s a great gig (for accountants), as – in the (obviously) highly improbable scenario that they should f*ck it all up – they are not responsible. Nope. You are. Because – get this – you should have checked their work. Which, to my mind, kinda implies that everyone should be qualified as an accountant. Either that, or accountancy is such a piece of piss that anyone can do it, in which case, why are we paying the horrible f*ckers so much money? Eh?

Anyway, long story short, yadayada, my accountant f*cked up, I got hit with a £700 penalty by the revenue. Accountant ‘fesses up. Accountant agrees that I am in no way to blame and says that accountant will pay the 700 notes. Payment day was last week. Accountant now refusing to take my calls. Hence I am cross. And poor.

Anyway, today’s post is about a piece in the FT this morning, which I cannot post a link to because I do not wish to register with the paper and therefore cannot view its content. And no, Mr FT, I’m not going to buy a copy of the paper either, so, in both ways, you lose. That’s the thing about the internet, d’you see, you can’t eat it. What I mean is, that you can’t have it and eat it. It’s free. So you can’t post your content and then expect people to pay for it, either on-line or in the crinkly newsprint. No. What they’ll do is ignore you.

Anyway, in the FT. The headline ‘Sean Parker Unveils Facebook Video Site’. Apparentky he’s launching some  video chat site to counter the ‘dehumanisation’ of social networking. Sean Parker is the President of Facebook (no, all you foursquareys, that’s not like being the Mayor of the Copacabana Club in Leighton Buzzard), which, given that, with its many hundreds of millions of slaves users, the ‘book is the (I think) third largest nation by population on earth, is somehow quite appropriate. Anyway, Seanio has obviously come quite late to the party and realised that spending half your life in front of a computer or glued to the tiny, twinkling screen of your handheld of choice, is – or could be – quite isolating of the human condition, rendering one – yes – almost dehuman.

Anyway, he seems to think that videochat will solve it. Poor deluded soul. I also hear he’s thinking of opening a chain of ‘meeting places’ – where the dehumans can go and interact in real time. Places with smells and sounds and warmth and three dimensions. And, probably, coffee. I came up with a name, which they’re free to use, if they like. Try this. (Ready?) “Facebucks”.

See what I did? It sounds a bit like ‘Facebook’ and a bit like ‘Starbucks’, but, in melding the two, you’ve got the unwritten promise that you too, yes, you, the retail investor, can make some easy money out of social networks…er….when they…mmm…..d’you know….when they…er…like….float?

On second thoughts, how about Faceb*ll*cks?

 

Vindicated at last!

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Marketing, Social Media and tagged , , , .

Or I could have titled this post ‘justified’, but then someone would have accused me of being a Belieber. When, in fact, I am simply Marked. Mark Borkowskied, to be clearer.

Here you are, all of you who have sneered at my take on social media. All of you – I believe the term is – ‘haters’. All of you gurus, you charlatans, you bearers of Greek gifts, you purveyors of snake oil. You clothesless Emperors, you herd-following sheep, you shiny-object-collectors. You next-big-thingies. Yes, you. And who’s laughing now. Eh?

See!

I’d like to quote Mr Borkowski – a real PR guru, with lots of experience mind, not a pretend guru, who is using the bauble of social media to fleece gullible clients who should know better. Here you are – if you want more, clickety-linky, read fulsome!

“Twitter and social media is not a marketing platform, it’s a channel to engage with an audience. It’s not a way of actually selling more. It’s totally about visibility.

This is nothing new, this is nothing interesting.”

Nothing see here, then.

Public Relations – Image Problem? What Image Problem?

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Public Relations and tagged , , , , .

(Heaves sigh of despair.)

Right, dearest blog trotters, and especially those of you who labour, as I do, in this vale of tears we affectionately call ‘spin’, here – I am afraid – we go again.

Just before I get to the point – and those of my most faithful snorkellers will know how partial I am to a nice bit of a ramble – the PRCA (that’s the Public Relations Consultants’ Association, for those who aren’t familiar) is muscling in on territory hitherto trodden solely by the CIPR (that’s the Chartered Insititute of Public Relations for those etc etc etc). Which means that two bodies, supposedly with the same interest in promoting and assisting the growth and welfare of the communications profession, are at each other’s throats in a fight over memberships. A fight which, may I say, is undoubtedly consuming some of their time. Time which I pay upwards of £200 a year for.

Time which could be spent doing something more useful.

Like working on changing the general perception of the Public Relations industry, as defined by what our friends in the media have to say about it. To whit, and to be admitted as evidence, m’lud, this little piece from last night’s Evening Standard. (Is it too much to ask of you? Just one small click? Just this once?)

OK, so it’s a fairly jocular piece about immigration and the current hoo-hah about supposedly lax UK border controls. It says that most immigrants making their way to this country are determined and hard-working – which, when compared to the workshy, thieving, poorly-educated and boorish UK natives that I see down my street every day, they quite clearly are – and it says that they are keen to work and that they find jobs in flexible sectors of the economy such as labouring, fruit-picking, public relations, terrorism and the sex-trade.

Whoops! Did you spot that? Public Relations compared to terrorism and the sex-trade?

OK, OK – keep your hair on. I know it’s a joke and – in all honesty – it was the only thing I read yesterday that made me laugh.

But is does highlight, underline, reinforce and generally illuminate the same old problem that our profession has faced at least since I started to work in it. We have an image problem people – which is like saying that the Pope has a balcony and Pippa Middleton, a derriere. We have always had an image problem, and we all know it, and we’ve all – at one time or another – been involved in a debate about it.

Personally – to my mind – it’s what the PRCA and the CIPR are there for. And they’re not being terribly effective. Mind – we none of us are, truth be told.

Definitely The End Of The World As We Know It

Posted on by in Communications Strategy.

In my last post I mentioned the theory that the world is about to undergo some sort of epoch-defining, socio-economic mutation, possibly in the form of a cataclysm, or maybe as some sort of spiritual transformation or, just possibly, in the form of a very big bang. And then dust and bits swirling about the infinite emptiness. All on December 21 2012.

I went on to point out that there’s a whole lot of strange doings going on around the planet which might – if you were in a conspiracy-oriented, ‘signs-are-all-there’ frame of mind – lead you to believe that, well, the signs actually ARE all there.

And I was, in a gentle and jocular way, taking the pish.

But, blog trotters, rollers and snorkellers all – check this out.

The End Of The World As We Know It

Posted on by in advertising, Communications Strategy, Marketing, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , .

Occasionally, as you will know, faithful blog trotters mine, I get a little bit taken with a prime example of the admaker’s art, and all overcome with how brilliant they are at selling stuff. I know how sad this is, but, still, credit where credit is due – when I have been presumptuous enough to try and identify key trends in communication (any communication, nota bene), I have always put humour right up there at the top of the list. Make people laugh in an unexpected, wry, self-deprecating or genuinely funny way (and you’d be surprised, or maybe you wouldn’t, at how much humour isn’t, actually, genuinely funny – and is none the worse for it) and you’ve got ’em.

Everyone likes a laugh – better still, everyone likes a clever laugh – and never more so than when everyone’s hurting financially, as we all are currently. (As those who were elected to take care of the world instead f*ck it all up on our collective behalf. Thanks.)

Now, obviously, not all brands or companies can use the humour route. Oil exploration, energy generation, financial services (and related industries) and funeral directors – amongst others – face something of a challenge if they want to make funny, and my advice would be not to try. Thus and therefore it actually behoves those brands who can do it – mostly fast-moving consumer goods with personality (think beer and crisps and smoothies) – to get to it on the hurry up. Take, for example, the truly magical ‘Good Call’ Fosters adverts – if you’re not familiar, can I suggest you do a YouTubey on their ass – which never fail to make me feel better about life in general.

(However, and extraordinarily germane to this post, have a look at this link and breathe a collective ‘wtf’. )

So, the latest commercial execution to make me feel so much better about things in general, to restore my faith in humanity, is the latest Lynx ad, for its 2012 Final Edition deodorant. Yes, snorkellers, I am going to post a link to it, but before I do that, I need to make the odd incisive observation – as is my wont.

For those who don’t know, Lynx is a (sorry, Lynx guys) fairly downmarket range of male grooming products – shower gels and deodorants. But the brand has become iconic through its marketing communications – it’s clever, it’s tongue-in-cheek, it’s not too serious – hell, it’s sexist, but even the laydeez have a laugh (*). Personally, I’m a customer. Those who are familiar with the products and what they appear to promise will share my frustration at the fact that, to date, no angels, or bikini-clad women have actually invaded my personal shower space while I have been using said products, but I look at it like the lottery – gotta be in it to win it.

(*) How do I draw this conclusion? Read on, blog rollers, read on.

Anyway, long story etc etc. As you’ll all know, the world is going to end on December 21 2012. Or perhaps not – perhaps it’ll be more a sort of cataclysmic event, and not an end. Or possibly, it’ll be a sort of spiritual transformation and things will not only not end, they will positively continue, but perhaps in a different fashion.  (NB again – I have to say, all this strange stuff going on in the world currently – continent-sized icebergs in Antarctica, earthquakes in Japan and SF, flooding in Thailand, 29 degrees in the UK in October, social unrest globally, the Arab Spring and Greece about to cause the biggest period of economic instability since economics was invented by that nice Mr Milton Keynes – does make you wonder whether we’re not, in fact, lining up for a cataclysm. Just me?)

So the nice Lynx people make a fabulous leap of creativity, announce their Final Edition body spray and make an ad – well – watch it for yourself here. I like this a lot. It is clever. It looks good. It has a nice soundtrack and, best of all it completely embodies what I perceive the brand to be about. Tongue-in-cheek – we all know that no amount of body spray is going to render a bearded carpenter (hey – new connection! One I’d missed! It’s sacrilegious as well!) magnetically attractive to women – but, well, I’ll keep using the stuff. You know, just on the off-chance. Anyway. Enjoy.

Finally, and tying up all the loose ends. I’ve posted a link to a Lynx Facebook page deliberately. I’m drawing the conclusion that the laydeez are having a laugh as well, despite it being a tad sexist, because they don’t appear to be complaining.

I posted a link to the Pink News and its questioning around the homophobic nature of the Fosters Good Call ad as an illustration that no matter how clear you are about your intentions, no matter how obvious the comedy, not matter how clearly it is a case of ‘laughing with you, not at you’ – there’s always space to be filled, comments to be made and, yes, people who will take offence at anything.

And with social media, these joyless, humourless, literal and narrow-minded curmudgeons get their say. Check out the comments on the Lynx Facebook page. Here’s an example:

“This is a really sick fuckin ad, playin on peoples fear and vulnerability. take it off tv ads idiots…..”

There are those who champion the use of social media in a marketing context because it’s all about the conversation, the learnings from the consumer – well, you try having a conversation with, or learning from, that particular fucknut.

Facebook – Show Me The Money

Posted on by in advertising, Communications Strategy, Marketing, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , .

Today, I present, for your delight and delectation, a piece from the Wall Street Journal, a regional newspaper with a reasonable circulation, entitled ‘Big Brands like Facebook But They Don’t Like To Pay’. I am not going to paraphrase or summarise the article so, lazy blog trotters, you’ll have to get all clickety wid it for yourselves.

So, to my mind, there a few key points to be dragged out of this, and you’ll forgive me for re-ordering them, but in the following sequence, they make more sense:

  • Facebook’s global revenues were ‘not as robust as I would have expected”, said eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson.
  • Facebook’s estimated market value, now in the neighborhood of $70 billion, is founded on the belief that companies will spend big to advertise on the site. Facebook’s revenues, which come largely from ads, were $1.6bn in the first half of this year, up $800m from a year earlier.
  • Facebook is expected to capture just 6.4% of total online ad spending this year, according to estimates by eMarketer.
  • EMarketer expects Facebook’s ad revenues to reach $2bn in the US, from 162 million unique users, according to comScore; Google is expected to earn $12.8bn in US ad revenue from 184.6 million unique US users, according to comScore.
  • The auto maker (Ford)……….said it spent less that 5% of its total online ad budget for the (Ford Focus) campaign on Facebook.
  • Martin Sorrell………..said Facebook works for brand building, but companies that use traditional advertising “are invading a social space. You have to be extremely careful”.
  • “You can give them money, and they can give you Likes,” said Mr Kelly (Scott Kelly, Ford’s head of digital marketing), “but the question is, what is the value of those Likes?”
  • “Likeonomics.” Rohit Bhargrava, SVP with WPP agency, Ogilvy.
  • Facebook says 96% of the top 100 US advertisers, as ranked by Ad Age, bought ads on the site in the past year. Of the world’s 100 largest companies, 61% have a presence on the seven-year old company, up from 54% last year, according to Burson Marsteller.
  • Sony Corp is shifting 30% of its traditional ad budget into social sites, including Facebook, for its Playstation console. Diageo, maker of Smirnoff and Guinness, committed in September to spending more than $10m on Facebook ads.

So, snorkellers all, I’m just throwin’ this out there:

  • Facebook’s immense valuation is based on its certainty that companies will spend big on ads. They’re not. Most of the ‘Book’s ad revenue comes from SMEs.
  • Ford used Facebook for its ‘viral’ possibilities – it spent a little and then pulled the spend once momentum had been achieved. Ford’s head of digital raises questions over value.
  • Martin Sorrell issues a warning against traditional advertising on Facebook and even Diageo (one of ‘Facebook’s recent successes’) is only committing $10m to Facebook ads – which is hardly the big bucks Facebook needs.
  • 61 of the world’s top 100 companies have a ‘presence’ on Facebook – define ‘presence’, please

I’m still looking for the Emperor’s underwear here.

My perception is that Facebook is finding it tough going monetising its undoubtedy enormous user base – and this is partly because savvy companies (Ford amongst them) realise that – whetever value there may be in using Facebook as a marketing and sales tool – it is not delivered through advertising on the site.

Facebook themselves are not helping their cause as David Fischer, VP of advertising and global operations for Facebook, has said that the company is “building our business for the long-term” – and turning down ads that compromise the user experience. In addition, Facebook ads are small – because of an early decision by Zuckerberg to keep the site uncluttered.

Sorry Facebook – you can’t have it both ways. You can either liberate the revenues and sell companies what they’ll pay for – or you can stick with your ideals, and never realise the potential that might (just might) justify the frankly obscene estimated market value that’s being bandied about.

My bet is that Zuckerberg will attempt to have his cake and eat it – and the rumoured float next year will be a car crash of epic proportions.

Made-Up Jobs In Communications – Chief Content Officer

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Corporate Reputation Management, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , .

Once upon a time, there was a chap called Nicholas Graham, who (in 1985) started a company called Joe Boxer, which sold (and still sells) underwear. Nicholas Graham syled himself  ‘Chief Underpants Officer’. I have often wondered whether I should give myself a spurious title (rather than simply ‘Managing Director’ (of The Wordmonger Limited)) but, honestly, I’ve not been clever enough, to date, to come up with something that works.

And, let me tell you, Chief Content Officer is something that doesn’t work. I have difficulty with the concept of content anyway – it smacks of a term coined in desperation to describe a disparate and amorphous group of extraordinarily different concepts and products with the idea of somehow ‘bucketizing’ it (thank you, America), thereby rendering it somehow harmless, easy-to-understand and pigeonhole and – above all – non-threatening. The content conceit has developed in parallel with the proposition that we have never faced such corporate communication complexity and an entire industry has grown up around it, propagating fear and awe in equal measure and taking a large cut of the content investment it recommends.

So I’m not really a believer then.

Anyway, here you are, snorkellers, here’s a piece from Forbes, asking the question ‘Do organizations need a Chief Content Officer?’ and, as far as I can see, failing, abysmally, to answer it.

Apart from the fact that I started to get a headache when I read this – which is a sure sign that it’s more complex than it needs to be – it’s also got a diagram, reproduced below.

Which, frankly, gives me the heebeejeebies.  This is trying to put a forced order onto a naturally chaotic process. Trying to define what things are, identify where they come from and map out where they go. This is trying to create a science around what is essentially an art. This is all about complicating something intuitive with badly-drawn rules. I could go on.

Content? It’s the same old stuff that we communicators have been producing since time began, with a few new bits. Audiences? The same old audiences, with some new points of access. And the audiences vary from topic to topic, product to product, concept to concept – there is no hard and fast set of messages or basket of content that will suit every audience, every time (what you tell your investors will be different to what you tell the community in which you operate and different again to what you might tell your employees). This is not to say that there shouldn’t be a single central theme on which you hang the audience-driven elements – but still, trying to diagrammatize it (thank you again, America) is a pointless exercise in navel-gazing – thought and talk, for thought and talk’s sake.

Chief Content Officer? Librarian, right?

A Response From Orange, Mobile Network Provider of This Parish

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Corporate Religion, Crisis Management, Social Media and tagged , , , , , .

So, Blog Snorkellers all, I got my mobile network problems sorted and am now up and running with email onna go. Amazing how quickly these things get sorted when you loop in the senior personnel of a company.

In fairness to Everything Everywhere – I sent an email to their CEO, CMO and Chief Performance Officer late on a Wednesday evening and by Thursday midday, everything had been rectified. I got an email from the CMO and a ‘phone call from the office of the CEO. It became the sort of experience that, as a loyal customer of ten years’ standing, I would have expected from the off. (Well, I don’t actually expect a ‘phone call from the CEO’s office, every time I renew my contract, but I do expect easy and quick.)

But I guess you can see where I’m going with this. Why does it take several hundred words of borderline crazy rantiness, delivered directly to the C-Suite, to get a result?

This is the digital age. This is the age where anyone can broadcast their thoughts and opinions far and wide, easily and instantaneously. As my faithful few followers will know, I’m not a fan of social media – but I do recognise that where it comes into its own is during a crisis, either as a response, or as a crisis creator.

Customer service is key. No matter how good your corporate reputation, no matter how loyal your customers, they can be turned against you almost immediately by one person’s bad experience. In days gone by, you could let it slip occasionally, safe in the knowledge that – as long as no-one died, and you didn’t annoy a journalist (or a journalist’s friend) – no-one would find out.

No more. The bigger you are, the more important it becomes that you get it right every time.

A learning, I think.

A Letter to Orange, Mobile Network Provider of This Parish

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Corporate Religion, Crisis Management, External Communications and tagged , , , , , , , , .

Here, dearest Blog Trotters mine, is a letter sent, via the medium of  ‘e’ mail, to the CEO, CMO and (oh but yes) the Chief Performance Officer of Everything Everywhere, the company formed through the alliance of Orange and T-Mobile. I’ll let you know whether I get a response.

(Still have no email on my B’Berry, by the way.) (I knew you’d be concerned.)

“Dear Olaf, Pippa and Ralf
Having been, finally, beaten by your impenetrable ‘customer service’ network (a completely new and totally unexpected definition of the term ‘customer service’ that I’d not encountered before), I am really, really hoping that you will be able to solve my Orange problem for me. (Congratulations on the company name, by the way – genuinely visionary and grandiose. If only it wasn’t the complete opposite of my experience to date.)
A long story short – as I’m sure you’ve all got better things to do (I know I have) – I’ve been a genuinely loyal customer of Orange for over 10 years and, to date, while it’s been (with hindsight) a bit pricey and I don’t like being sold insurance that I don’t need, I’ve been happy with it. Never even considered moving. Over the last four days, however, all of that has changed – rarely have I felt so powerless in the face of complete corporate ineptitude. Seriously, guys, whoever designed your call handling systems, the automated responses and the customer-facing website functionality should be tracked down and punished, in a cruel and unusual way. And so should the person who sold you the idea of outsourcing your call centres (I’m guessing that they are outsourced) – as the systems don’t work and even if they did, the call centre staff don’t have the knowledge to do anything with the account data the system is supposed to provide. I suspect it’s cost-cutting and lack of forward planning – but, whatever the cause, it’s frustrating and it will lose you business.
So – I’ve got an upgrade to a new Blackberry device. There was a slight delivery snafu, but it arrived. I’d been told to ring a number to activate the SIM. Did that on Sunday – the rather irritating call centre chap told me I should have done it online (incidentally, when I DID try to do it on line, the service didn’t work), but then said he’d be able to sort it out. Monday morning – not done, so I called again. Monday afternoon, nothing happening, called again, assured that a supervisor would be activating my SIM. Late Monday afternoon, call again, recorded message tells me that a problem precludes me being connected to an operator, and I should call back. Monday evening, nothing doing, call again, put on hold for 20 minutes, then cut off. (Meanwhile, and while I’m on a roll, why do I have to go through umpteen ‘if you want this, press that’ prompts, every time I ‘phone, when I still end up with the same lacklustre call centre staff, all of whom (without exception) have to contact someone else to address my query? And what, in the name of all that’s holy, is a ‘magic number’?)
Tuesday morning – hallelujah – SIM activated. Attempt to connect to my internet email accounts. Wah-wah and, indeed, oops. Either I’ve got a purely enterprise device, not allowing (as I’m sure you know) connection to internet mail accounts, or I’m being stupid. Let’s take the latter option – it’s been known. I visit your Orange website – again, do you know how difficult and painful it is to find things on that site? Couldn’t find anything helpful. Today I braved your call centres again, looking for a resolution to the problem – who knows (not me) maybe Orange can tweak the B’Berry enterprise software and provide me, remotely, with a consumer-facing device. Suffice it to say, your operative either couldn’t, or didn’t, address the issue. Nor did she call me back when she said she was going to.
So, here I am, with device, without email. Perhaps unfortunately, I tend to rely on email to keep me in touch with career and business opportunities, so I’m a little stifled right now. Two questions:
How has Orange come to this? It was brilliant – now it’s rubbish. Is this the Everything Everywhere influence?
Can you sort this out for me – or do I, and with regret, take my business elsewhere? I know I’m just one punter, but on the basis of my recent experience, I won’t be the last.
Perhaps a little less spend on marketing and a little more on nuts and bolts and getting the experience right.
All the best
The Wordmonger
PS And, lest I be accused of not making enough effort (sigh), yes, I have emailed Orange, via the same difficult website, twice, once asking advice and once complaining. No response to date. I know it says ‘a response within 48 hours’ – but, really, 48 hours? In today’s social media-driven world? Time for reflection, I think.
PPS I know I wrote, earlier, ‘long story short’ – but, well, hey……….”

So Terribly Wrong

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Corporate Religion, Social Media and tagged , , , .

Not, not me. Although it appears that I HAVE actually been wrong – there was I, giving it large with the old ‘that Facebook, right, doesn’t make any money, right’ while all the time the odious Zuckerberg is busy turning in halftime revenues of $1.6bn and incomes of 500m of the same splendid currency over the same period. Numbers such as these, ladies and gents, while not actually being handed in by someone from the ‘Book itself, are not really to be sniffed at. Read about it here at The Huffington Post. Thank you, Huffers.

No, no. What’s wrong (on a veritable Dante of levels) is how Horrible Mark and his evil creation have managed to achieve these numbers – it’s through getting so many users that they cannot fail to get at least some of the large global advertisers (Diageo – are you listening?) to spend at least some of their enormous advertising budgets with the Facemeister. Proving, once and for all, that you can fool some of the people, some of the time and they’re the ones you should concentrate on.

But then. Look at the numbers, would you – here they are! (Thanks MediaBistro!)

Yes, that’s right – 800m users. Just think about it. What’s the population of the world – what, around 7bn? Thus – and I know you can do maths – more than 10% of the population of the Earth are registered users of Facebook. Given the great swathes of the world that haven’t got internet access, that means that practically everyone you know (except me) is a slave to the ‘Book. How long before someone coins the phrase ‘the Good ‘Book’?

So, you’ve a heady mixture of 800m users and quite possibly 1bn greenbacks of income for this financial year. You’ve also got, therefore, a valuation of as much as $80bn for the ‘Book when it floats – supposedly in 2012.

Those of you with memories will remember Goldman Sachs, busy doing God’s Work (thanks Mr Blankfein), and the bank that took a position in Facebook and started up a Facebook investment vehicle (that their very own private equity arm would not invest in  and that they were only allowed to sell outside the States – where’s Britney Spears when you need a burst of Toxic pop?).

The same Goldman Sachs you’d hope would be handling the flotation of Facebook. The same Goldman Sachs whose shares have fallen 43% this year. Have they been Zucked?