Complex Moving Parts

Movement of 1850 Tobias Pocket Watch
Originally uploaded by The Ferret

What has social media done to marketing?

On one hand it has created an extremely complex and daunting set of relationships and touch points out of a variety of technologies. On the other hand, when it all comes together it runs very smoothly -- like this 1850's Tobias watch.

Designing marketing programs today requires using a wide variety of tools, all in sync with another to achieve a measurable objective.

Social Media as Predictor

How well does social media predict things?

The day before the election Jeremiah Owyang published a wealth of stats on the Obama and McCain supporters, friends, and fans use of social media. The bottom line was at least a 3:1 advantage in favor of Obama. As we now know the election was much closer: a six (6) point spread between the two candidates, 52-46.

Funny thing - that difference is roughly the same as the point spread between Democrats and Republicans that have a social network profile: 30% to 23% (based on 5,000 registered voters 18+).

So there is clearly a difference between having social network profiles and using social media. The comments and links in the original post to other analyses support the point that engagement is higher, e.g. the Kiva numbers. What we don't know is that elusive thing called "intent" or "purpose."

I wonder if it comes down to a society vs. individual question: We're all in this together vs. I'm going alone and don't need much help. If so, we need to figure out how that relates to marketing.

SWOMFest Summary

What was the key take away from a word-of-mouth conference?

Had the privilege to attend SWOMFest 1.0 last week in Austin - a gathering on 'word-of-mouth'. For an excellent recap of the events see Spike Jones' blog at Brains-on-Fire.

My take: word-of-mouth is an outcome, not an intention. You have succeeded when positive word-of-mouth occurs.

To succeed you must satisfy several criteria:

1. Know what you're doing and why: Purpose
2. Communicate through vehicles that tug at peoples' emotions: Stories
3. Recognize that things change in ways you can't predict: Adaptation

As Trey Reeme of Young&Free Texas said: be the mouthpiece, not the mouth.

Political Media

Where do viewers watch?

AC Nielsen and the Hollywood Reporter recently published some media consumption habits in the battle ground states by voter registration. Most of the commentary is about the media buying strategies of the campaigns. The last sentence is:

“Ads contribute to the overall narrative of the campaign and can
be used effectively as a tactical tool to shape press coverage,” he
said. “But overall, a lot of money is wasted.”

Given the nature of politics, it is unclear what 'wasted' might mean. Does an ad change a given vote (a direct response mind-set)? Probably not. Does a continuous presence affect tone and preference (a branding mind-set)? Possibly.

Are large TV buys the fastest way to spend money - yes.

Some tidbits: The networks that skewed one way or the other (index of viewership compared to average).
Republicans: Speed and Fox News
Democrats: BET and VH1
Independents: Speed and CNBC

And yes republicans lean toward Fox as a source of news (+48) while Democrats decidedly do not pay attention to same stories (-28).


Note: registration may be required to see the THR article.

Social Media and Counterknowledge

What is the biggest challenge of social media?

Stepping back from the marketing and social media question for a moment and thinking about the spread of information in general then the rapid diffusion and adoption of ideas has to be one of the greatest benefits of social media.

However, the distribution of 'misinformation packaged as fact', or what Damian Thompson defines as Counterknowledge in the book of the same name, may be one of the biggest downsides. In the past pseudo-history, quack medicine, and bogus science lived among the "cultic milieu" at the edge of society where it was tolerated and contained because the structure of society worked to weed out the riffraff. However, with the removal of hierarchy in our daily lives (school, church, jobs, government) we no longer rely on others to tell us what to believe but adopt ideas as part of our own brand. Thus the burden of proof, if one is even required anymore, now falls on the individual.

Social media, with penetration getting well beyond any tipping point, makes the transfer of ideas both meteoric, morphable and unfortunately too often presumed as 'true'. The result is the increased repeating of ideas and opinions based on facts that aren't facts. Example: pretty much any negative political campaign leverages counterknowledge.

If for no other reason than avoiding unwanted associations, marketers should listen to what now crosses easily into the mainstream.

Social Media Data and Our Day Jobs

How can social media data improve our lot in life? (or at least at work)

There is no doubt that social media produces a fire hose of data; there's even a Yahoo! Pipes application by that name. The question at the recent DMA in Las Vegas about social media was: How to make it actionable?

Now this audience is biased to a direct response view of things where every tactic has to be measurable in terms of sales, conversions, or other hard action. So, there is probably not much headway in using the 'Listen, Join, Participate' line of thinking. But how can social media data be used in direct marketing?

Here are three thoughts.

1. the language people use to discuss a problem becomes very evident and provides excellent ideas for messaging, offers, and copy
2. the social networks people use can be over laid onto a house file for both segmentation and modeling activities
3. the creative assets people produce can be leveraged and shared as part of the brand's community through other media

UPDATE: an article in MediaPost's Search Insider made similar points. Came across it later in the day.

Communities Impact Businesses

Just how do you measure the impact of communities?

I had the pleasure of discussing this question with Darcy Bevelacqua, a database marketing expert now looking at the impact of social media on business performance.

My takes:
1) It is the right question since impact is much more than what might happen via advertising. For a discussion of that view of 'impact' see the iMedia interview with Steve Patrizi of LinkedIn.
2) All the dots between cause and effect aren't connected and may not even be connectable.
3) It is not a short term stimulus response problem.

Communities, by their very nature, are participative. So the business questions become: Is it in our interest to participate or support a given community? What can we gain from participating in this group?

It may be a time for a combination of both inductive and deductive logic where we have both some data and some ideas. Ultimately it may be that we can simply do our day jobs better because we have a deeper understanding of how our products and services are used.

If it weren't for customers, this would be easy.

Social Network Penetration - GenY

How many GenY folks have social network profiles?

In a random sample of 10,000 people aged 18-24 we found that 39% had one or more profiles; with an average of 2.2 profiles per person. MySpace led the list followed by Facebook and Hi5.

Income might be only slightly related to social network penetration since it dropped from 41% for those making less than $30k to 38% for those at $150k+. Penetration across marital status or presence of children at home doesn't vary much either.

Clearly social networks play a role regardless of 'standard demographics.' Its not just for that guy.

Lotion Spreads Through Town

How does influence spread?

Vaseline's new Clinical Therapy product launch purposely tracked how people share or recommend a produce. In Kodiak, Alaska they gave out a few bottles and asked new customers who had recommended it. The epicenter of the recommendations, Petal Ruch, was then featured in a commercial. (Source: International Herald Tribune via colleague Andrew Re.)

The commercial ends with what is in essence a Conversation Network Map of how the product spread via social networks. These maps document what resources people use in making a decision and work in two directions; who do you trust recommendations from? and who do you think would benefit from the product? Thus, each decision creates a unique network or social graph. While Ms. Ruch is the influencer for lotion, it is unlikely she would be just as influential for a wide range of different products. Since men were found to be less accepting of a lotion then women it didn't spread nearly as well among that segment. This fact led to an improved creative brief and positioning as a performance enhancer.

Understanding how influence works, above the Petal connection, should remain a goal for marketing as it works to align the solutions it provides to the needs of its audience it serves.

Red Networks; Blue Networks

How does party affiliation relate to the use of social networks?

We've seen articles about the number of friends Obama and McCain have on various social networks, but before we assume it is just kids befriending people there is the larger question of how social networks are used by voters in the two parties. To answer this question we appended party affiliation to a sample of US adults - in the end there were approx 5,000 people (44% Republican and 56% Democrats).

Some findings:

• Democrats are more likely to have a social network profile than Republicans (30% to 23%)


• As with general social network usage, it skews younger and only slightly female (this sample is adults and the folks at mininglabs documented that the gender ratio among teenagers skews significantly toward females).
  
• People of both parties average 2 profiles, led by MySpace and Facebook


• While they have lower penetration, niche networks like Hi5 or BlackPlanet are nearly twice as likely to have Democratic members as Republicans

The following chart comes from a Social Network Footprint and illustrates where registered voters have their profiles.

Understanding where and how customers or prospects use social media should be part of your overall marketing strategy.

And yes, Democrats have more 'friends' - averaging 70 to 65 in this sample.

Note on sources:

Social Network Footprint - something we do as our day job.

Party affiliation - appended to a benchmark sample of US adults by Genalytics.

Social Network - appended to benchmark sample of US adults with emails by Rapleaf.

Political"Change"

Will the 'change' campaign succeed?

It is argued that changing a person's mind is the most difficult thing to do in marketing. This makes the focus on 'change' in the current political race such a fascinating challenge. The images of a 'tax-cutting, you're on your own Republican' and a 'government knows best, we can spend it better than you Democrat' are well ingrained in our minds. Yet it was the Democrats who did welfare reform and the Republicans did the most for AIDS in Africa. These attempts by both parties at remolding the cubby holes of our minds are a very tall order because the rules of the game are still the same - bills get proposed, details get worked out and pork gets added.

Two of the influential works on 'change' in a business context have been Christensen's "Innovators Dilemma" and "Blue Ocean Strategy" by Kim and Mauborgne. They argue that to shake up the establishment you need to change the rules of the game and first go somewhere the incumbents aren't - start by focusing on either the overshot or non-consumer. It's real hard to see how substantive change can occur when the political target market(s) are the same: Congress and the electorate. It may come down to the 'base' vs. the 'newbies'.

Why 'new and improved' usually doesn't work in the long run?

The 'new and improved' slogan might give a product a bump in sales, but unless the added features are truly beneficial to the consumer it ends up being more of the same.

Social Analytics

How should we frame the question to be answered?

In Simplexity, Jeffrey Luger's book about studying the continuum between the simple and complex he uses numerous examples of social behavior - traffic jams, evacuations, standing ovations, and other events. A point is made that the level at which you study these events dictates whether or not you can see the forest from the trees. Murray Gell-Mann's term for this is 'plectics' - which I take to be the understanding the granularity at which a problem should be approached.

Web 2.0 analytics, as reported in B2B poses similar problems. All those micro-events create a false sense of precision. If we can measure seconds of this, clicks of that, loads of something else, then we must be able to nail down this thing called engagement. Intent is still an abstract concept, even with tons of data about behavior.

Social media analytics seems to pose similar problems. There is a lot of attention focused on identifying influencers or an individual's web of connections. But since every decision is likely to involve a completely different network - my search for a camera involved a completely different social graph than the search for funding - maybe some attention should be on a more macro level.

Influence, like engagement, happens - no argument about that. But rather than who links to whom, shouldn't we be thinking more about how it impacts a business rather than a sale? What can we learn from social media data if we don't know the specific individual?

Marketing the Credit Crunch

How would a marketer approach this?

It seems that voter anger played a role in rejecting the first bill. The Wall Street Journal reported on a number of initiatives where people 'joined the conversation.' OK, so now we know groundswells work but the interesting marketing (social) question is why the outrage?

Some potential answers from Marketing 101:

1. The buyers' needs weren't satisfied or even recognized. "Why is this good for me personally?"

2. The solution didn't align with the buyers' needs. "Your money is going to somebody else."

3. The product features weren't wanted by the audience. "Wall street isn't main street."

4. The benefit wasn't simple to understand. "This is too complex to explain."

5. Price/value was out of balance. "700 billion for just what exactly?"

6. The explanation wasn't authentic and transparent. "Trust me."

7. The positioning was inappropriate: "Bailing out somebody else's greed."

8. We don't trust the salesmen.. "We buy from people we like and trust."

9. Brand name is awkward. "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and "Troubled Assets Relief Program." Huh?

No wonder it failed. Unless some basic changes happen to the product and the company selling it, it will fail again (or at least be begrudgingly passed and then completely messed up.) We can ignore how and why we got in this predicament for the moment because bashing the people incented to do sub-prime lending isn't going to help market this; although it might score some political points.

Let's assume there is a simple statement of the problem: credit is extremely difficult to get right now. Tight credit is bad because people's jobs, homes and dreams are now at serious risk. No credit means no funding of growth which drives jobs, homes, and ultimately better lives.

So, the product's sole purpose is to loosen credit to a level that gets us back on track with each of our personal ambitions and aspirations.

Introducing the "DREAMS Act" - Distribute Risk Economically and Mortgage Security Act with the corresponding website LoosenMyCreditNow.com . It's all in the name - nobody knows what PATRIOT act stood for but you weren't going to vote against that name.

The product accomplishes three things:
1. Reestablish confidence of people with money that they can safely lend it to you and me.
2. Clean up a spill so that it doesn't contaminate my part of pool of perfectly good money.
3. Provide a remedy so it doesn't happen again and I can continue pursuing my ambitions.

That's a message that might resonate.

Use of Web 2.0 Technologies

How do companies deploy technology?

McKinsey reports that the use of Web 2.0 technologies clusters in to two types of organizations - those who do so for communication reasons and those that are knowledge-centric. The former groups centers on Blogs, Podcasts and RSS. The second group leverages mash-ups, peer-to-peer networking and social networking. Both are underpinned by web services; now a basic ingredient.

When improving things it seems that not only are functional requirements needed; but so are communication and sharing strategies.

Answer the following three questions then pick your tools.
1. What do we need to do?
2. To whom do we need to communicate how we're doing?
3. How is the work going to get done?

Also, with the wide support for the collection known as Web 2.0 it is clear that this stuff applies to our day jobs.



NB: Free registration required to read article and a tip to Michael Gass for the link.

Social Media and Marketing

What did Decartes say about thinking?

Cogito Ergo Sum suggesting that the mere act of thinking proves existence.

The difference, and hence difficulty, between conversations and advertising is similar where the outcome is directly related to the action.

I participate, therefore I compromise.
I pay, therefore I control.

Social Networks as a Data Overlay

What's the value in a social network footprint?

Understanding where your customers participate among the myriad of social networks influences a number of marketing activities. Some examples include:

1. Social Media Strategy: Should we have a MySpace page or Facebook app or LinkedIn group? How do our current segments differ in their use of social networks?
2. Customer Relationship: Improve the understanding of the lives of customers
3. Direct marketing: Overlay house list with social networks and profiles/interests for segmentation

Companies that maintain active email lists of customers are already one step ahead of others in terms of understanding how and where their customers participate on line.

Advertisers Thoughts on Social Media

How do agencies respond to the 'social media question'?

For a series of thoughts see the post in iMedia most of which are about the relationship between advertising and the medium. In short, the old rules don't apply.

One of the first steps is to listen; but another good place to start is to understand the footprint your customers have in social media. Social Networks provide a good place to start understanding how people use social media. For example the following chart illustrates which networks a particular audience uses compared to a benchmark. While the top two networks are similar (MySpace and Facebook) there is a gap between the two groups for LinkedIn, Plaxo and Classmates. Exploring why people do /do not chose a given network provides insights for marketing.

Talking about Conferences

Need a place to be for Halloween?

How about Austin, TX for the Society for Word of-Mouth conference. Hope to meet and learn.

Birds of a feather...

Birds of a feather...
Originally uploaded by Light_Rider

Why do networks work?

One of the original roles of advertising was simply to convey information - availability, features, pricing, etc. In an iMedia article Cindy Gallop makes the case that marketers no longer are the fine purveyors of information. They have been replaced by a variety of nearly instantaneous sources.

People in the search or consideration stage turn to numerous resources for information, clarity, and reinforcement of their own opinions. If the resources are highly interconnected they are likely to a) share the same information often reinforcing the message and b) spread the information quite rapidly. These cliques (yep, that's the technical term) can either support a point of view or provide contrarian views.

For this reason understanding the flow of information and the architecture of influence is a new discipline for marketers.

Age Differences Among Social Networks

Should we consider different social networks when targeting based on age?

We know that social networks attract different audiences for different reasons - music, connections, and association. But can we see differences that help drive marketing strategies for specific age groups? The answer is 'yes.'

Rapleaf published an overall view of the gender and age of members of a variety of social networks and MiningLabs published some highlights of the differences in audience composition.

Consider an education marketer: If the objective is to attract high-school students then a social network dominated by the 15-18 year old crowd would be a logical choice. Similarly, if the objective is to increase enrollments among adults then a network with twenty-somethings (or older) might be a better choice.

Using the the information provided by Rapleaf - here is the age profile of two 'class reunion' social networks; Classmates and MyYearbook. One skews decidedly to the younger crowd while the other spans a wider, and older, audience.










This simple example illustrates that understanding your Social Network Footprint might help with developing a variety of acquisition and retention strategies.

Cowpaths Lead to Lemmings

What do bovine trails have to with marketing?

Chris Brogan has posted some videos on his current thinking - it opens with a story about why the roads in Boston are the way they are. Seems they were built on the wanderings of cows. I think the point is that we build on what we know - adjacent possibilities are easier to see (and implement) than starting afresh.

Social media is new(ish). The issue is that we often frame it in terms from the old world and have trouble adapting because the previous rules of the game don't necessarily apply. We blindly follow what has worked for us before.

As a result, people find fault with every new technology. For example, the Greek sages thought writing was going to make people to 'cease to exercise their memories and become forgetful' and that the printing press would 'weaken people's minds' and undermine authority. These predictions were in fact correct, but the unseen (and unimaginable) benefits of both writing and printing clearly out weighed the problems and democratized information. These points have been said before: the quotes above are from Nick Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"; Cathy Taylor's the problems with online video (social media) is another examples.

Applying metrics and rules from a previous generation of technology (brain to scribe, scribe to press, analog to digital, corporate to community) is risky business.

The Value of Influence

What price should we pay for influence?

In Cathy Taylor's post yesterday on the the IPG and SocialVibe hook up one of the reasons mentioned was that marketers could measure the influence of endorsements. Presumably the points earned in the SocialVibe model stand in as the metric of interest. Definitely an interesting way to learn how social networks work.

Influence seems to be just as thorny a problem as 'engagement.' How can we assign a value to it until we understand what it is. We might want to start by wrestling with some basic research questions: What is it precisely? How is it transmitted? How long does it last? These suggest a strategy of taking small steps first before deciding on a CPM-like metric. Who knows what the levers are that make it all tick and work together.

And a word to all who worry about the measurement question first: Any new media has similar growing pains - can you imagine the Bulova accountants trying to determine the ROI on the first TV spot in 1941; a $9 - 20 second ad during a baseball game. I doubt the marketing team used TRPs to make their case.

SPARKing Conversations

What actions can marketers take in a conversation?

Just like real conversations, marketers need to understand what their role is - listener, one of equals, or even instigator. We tend to talk about SPARK; an acronym for the types of things marketers can do. They are:

• Stimulate - provide people with the things to talk about. Inject something valuable then step aside. "Here's an idea we've been working on, what do you think of ....?"
• Participate - join the conversation as an equal. "We think ...., what's your opinion?"
• Amplify - provide the tools to allow people to broadcast their stories and opinions loudly. "This topic is important, we'll help you talk more about it."
• Repair - sometimes we must offer the other side of a story or simply correct facts. "We chose this course because ..."
• Kindle - bring together people of like minds and interests. "Here's a place for you to discuss ..... amongst yourselves."

One might think of these as different kinds of conversation objectives; each with its own strategy for implementation.

Creating Customers through Conversations

Where have I been for the last several months?

Thinking a lot about how the major trends in marketing will affect what we do. This may come as no surprise but the Internet has made everyone an expert. With answers to every conceivable question at our fingertips we have become collectively much smarter - and opinionated.

Conclusion: the traditional sales funnel leaks.

While media might drive awareness, it falls short in the realm of consideration. Report after report puts influence in the hands of other consumers or people like us. This fact raises some interesting questions about the role of marketing and how it works. Namely, if advertising effectiveness is eroding and people have more information - what is the appropriate way to participate?

So, this blog (and the company I work for Recipe 31) is focused on the question: "how to create customers through conversations?"

Mind Mapping Pigeon Holes

What's on your mind?

Noah Bier recently created 'brand tags' a word association game for brands -- the site shows you a logo, you enter the first thing that comes to mind, and then check out the cloud.

Two thoughts:
1. People will really define a brand; not just customers.
2. Not everybody sees the world the same (no real surprise there.)

Grammatical Pronouns and Marketing

What do pronouns have to do with marketing?

In an article on Chief Marketer I argue the answer is 'a lot'. The point is that one of the difficulties in monetizing social media may come down to an issue of grammar. Social networks are conversational and participative - that is first person: we, my, our, us, and I. In contrast, advertising has a long history of being targeted and direct as in "hey you, listen to me and do something."

Changing the grammatical person will do wonders.

Made Me Laugh - Nuts

Andy Sernovitz had a good post on 'nuts' the other day; liked both of them.

Nut Roaster and Nut Poppers

Product Requirements for an Ad Agency

How would a product manager design an ad agency?

iMedia's recent Brand Summit included some marketers describing what the ideal agency should be. This nine-minute video is all you need to define your requirements. I can think of a myriad of ways an agency could satisfy what these buyers want - integration with business and execution.

Power Points:

1. Know the client's business and how you can help strategically.
2. While you may be a specialist boutique with world-class expertise, work as part of the whole team.
3. Channels are tools, media is a tool, creative is a tool -- without working together to foster or stimulate the audience it just won't be worth it.

Marketing is the New Sales

What can B2B sales teach us?

The decision to buy almost any product now has a number of people involved providing their opinion, recommendations, and thoughts. A good B2B sales strategy identifies all the players: the emotional buyer, the financial buyer, and veto holder in addition to the user. As trust in advertising decreases and people turn to others for opinions and recommendations it seems to me that the approach of B2B sales should percolate into marketing.

Behavioral Targeting

What should this term mean?

A group of folks is working on defining 'behavioral targeting' and how to measure it. Here's what I said about it.

Working from a high level down:

I'll make the assumption that behavioral targeting is a marketing tool as opposed to a financial, operational or even a sales tool. If so, then a definition of marketing is in order first before defining the boundaries of behavioral targeting. A definition I often use is:Marketing is the alignment of needs and solutions to everyone's mutual benefit.

The above keeps the focus on the important thing and removes the tactical or implementation steps to another set of discussions: what needs, how do we align, how are we compensated fairly, where we should promote, etc.

In this context then it appears that behavioral targeting is both a method of inferring the paths used to satisfy needs and a method that allows a solution or message to be placed along the path.

An audience segment is a group of people that exhibit a similar need and is reachable in a reasonable manner.

While one-armed paper hangers is a group with a similar need, reaching them effectively might be difficult at best. People looking at and evaluating graduate programs is both a reasonably homogeneous group and is relatively easy to target.

On the measurement question, I'll go back to marketing, budgets and campaigns. The purpose of spending marketing dollars is to change someone's behavior (and I'll put attitude and awareness in that category for the moment). The other tongue-in-cheek definition I use is "marketing is behavior modification." Money is often allocated via a campaign which should have a measurable objective -- we want x people to take y action in z time frame. So, on one level Behavioral Targeting must support the metrics by which marketing campaigns are judged. In the end, this must be revenue with a few key steps in between.

Of concern, like most web analytics, is the temptation to measure that which is easy to do. We all remember 'hits' and then 'page views' and now 'time on site'.

Some other thoughts:
1. Behavioral Targeting is database marketing - using the best information available to get an offer in front of a prospect.
2. Behavioral Targeting should not be limited to the web - if we can infer a person's need and stage, then we should use all available tactics to reinforce that position.
3. The biggest challenge will be deciphering or inferring intent based on a small subset of information. Like the movie business, its one thing to watch the actions in a silent movie but quite another to hear the story. Why? remains elusive.

Bogus Leads

When is a lead really bad?

At a recent meeting of the Wasatch Online Marketing group there was a discussion of a search campaign that produced bogus leads. The client has a very technical product and a very narrow audience they are trying to reach. So, they introduced a white paper describing their solution and got a lot of leads. Unfortunately many were "bogus" and the discussion turned to search-bots, mad-robots, click-fraud, and auto-populating the form.

In reality, the issue was the offer and information had general appeal to a wider segment. While the audience that requested the report aren't buyers, many may be influencers or users of the category. So, before throwing the baby out with the bath water ask yourself: are other people interested in what I have to say?

If the goal is to increase lead flow among a highly-targeted group then there will be spill over into non-buyers. These may be useful or they may be chaff. If they truly are chaff then general search strategies aren't appropriate and vertical or niche engines a better option. The smaller the market, the more targeted you should be - up to picking up the phone and calling them.

Power Windows

What's happening online?

In my day job I read a lot of news letters and marketing pieces.  Thoughts of the week are now published on Power Windows on the company's site.   Hope you enjoy.

White Space and Market Sizing

How big is a market when none exists yet?

When looking at the white space of a category for new opportunities the wrong question to ask is: "How big is the market?"

By definition new areas have no defined market boundaries so the answer is 'zero'. This is hard for executives to hear - they want safety in numbers. Sure, we can come up with numbers but latent demand, like the advertising value of UofP's exposure on the super bowl, is a 'bit' difficult to calculate and defend. Any answer is wrong - just remember the need for 5 computers and 900,000 cell phones.

The objective of analyzing white space in a product positioning exercise is to determine if it is probable that a category could be created. Is there a need , or more often a combination of needs, that can be satisfied totally differently than alternative offerings? Note that most new markets tend to be a subset or reconfiguration of existing, larger markets. Consider that Billboard now tracks 45 charts for singles, 47 for albums and another 7 for videos. The second question is: Are we capable of satisfying that need? If you can articulate a need and envision a solution then you're on the right track.

The goal is very different than a line extension exercise.

Human, Social and Algorithmic Search

Can the long tail be segmented by style?

In a recent post on The Long Tail, Chris Anderson relates a discussion around how the 'tail' can be thought of in different ways in terms of search strategies. The idea is that the fat head will be human, the middle of the tail will be social and the long tail will be algorithmic. That seems logical since for my area of expertise I know what I don't know and who to ask, for related topics I'm guessing somebody I know might know somebody else who might know, and for completely new topics/areas I have no clue who to ask so let the machine try to help.

In support of the middle tail (or is this the 'belly'?) a friend of mine who runs echodonation has used LinkedIn as a social search tool. The ability to ask questions of a network of people has provided surprisingly good information along with the bad and blatant sales messages. A recent question about landing page design targeted to executives gave the development team good pointers - all for free and without advertising (I'm out of a job if this takes off).

So, what does Chris (my friend, not the author) do? He builds out a long tail of contacts in order enlarge his search network. From a handful of business associates and colleagues to a very large network he has created an extended search pool.

It is interesting to note that the market is determining the use of the product (again.)

The Day Google Died

When did the stumble occur?

It wasn't the day Microhoo was announced; nope it was before that when they migrated from their strength into other territories. Newspaper, radio and television advertising might be related to search or they might not be - doing an awareness campaign for a new category is a bit tough if people don't even know you exist. Those probes into the larger marketing arena haven't been nearly successful.

The recent bar codes for cell phones is another example of a forray of falling under the spell of the convergence sirens. It is presumed to be 'advertising' and everybody is worrying about that revenue pie. But is it? (Is it even necessary?) It is simply a form of cross-platform tagging that could take advantage of cell phone features, if we had them.

Reminds me: "If we had ham we could have ham and eggs; if we had eggs."

Google is known for search -- it is a verb, which is even better than being a noun or adjective (think scotch tape or formica). It should focus on improving that area since I still can't find what I'm looking for. Yes, the growth rate will slow. Yes, other firms will be experts in other areas. Yes, there's room for new kids on the screen.

MShoo!

What is the new idea?

The acquisition of Yahoo! by Microsoft for something north of $44 billion raises a set of interesting questions.

• Just what does the combined firm offer?
• Will the uniqueness of the brands be erased in the cause of economies of scale?
• Will people be forced to reorder their thinking?

The rational logical arguments is easy - combine two top 5 destinations and dominate display advertising.

Power Points on how I'd think about the opportunity; nobody is asking but here goes:

1. Establish Google as the 'evil empire' -- as the world's largest travel agency they don't really provide much in the way of given me a reason to hang around. MShoo! gives you what you want - right here on the page, content.
   
2. Own online branding - pay-per-click advertising is great for transactions and affiliates, but if you want to establish a brand you need to focus on awareness and interest, preferably using humor or entertainment to cut through the clutter. As we know, display advertising can't hold a candle to ppc in terms of efficiency; so blow it out and go where text can't.

Worst Pick Up Line

What were they thinking?

The history of Xerox is laid out on Laura Ries' "Origin of Brands". The print ad with the headline

This Xerox machine can't make a copy

makes me shudder. They owned the term, the category, the mind -- and lost them all.

If it can't, it must be broken.

Your Specialty is Your Brand

How do you link sales and marketing?

Offering 'wide selection, good service, and best prices' is a very common online strategy for retailers. It is also the most likely to guarantee mundane results. Everybody says it and nobody is different. Getting people to understand what it is that makes you different will help them understand why they should work/shop/visit with you. Thus, your brand is your specialty.

This is particularly true if you use search in your marketing mix. As that tactic continues to grow, both in terms of share of online spending and in absolute terms, the competition for general key words will get terribly expensive. To succeed you must focus on (and own) those ideas most closely related to what it is exactly that you do better than anyone else.

While William Bernbach of VW "Think Small" fame was referring to advertising most of the time, his quotes often reflect marketing. This one speaks volumes:

"In advertising not to be different is virtually suicidal."

If you can't find a way to differentiate yourself, then get out of business.

The Wanamaker (or Leverhulme) Question

Why is half your advertising wasted?

Seth Godin has reduced the answer to four words. Who vs. how many.

Hopefully you can figure out your target market and start there. Simply put, once you've reached your target; you should stop spending - no matter how 'big' the rest of the world is.

Help the poor soul who finds his target last.

Facebook Saving Face or Egg on the Face

Did I read this right?

In a post on GigaOM written by Stacey Higginbotham about Mark Zuckerburg's appearance on 60 Minutes there's a quote that I had to read a couple of times.

“I mean, there have to be ads either way because we have to make money…We have 400 employees. We have to support all that and make a profit.”

The quote is both short-sighted and immature.

Successful businesses align their solutions with the needs of their customers. Yes, advertisers and agencies (and I work for one) are enticed by the promise of social networks; but if people aren't there in the mood to shop then no amount of advertising is going to work. (ok, you can make a branding argument if you'd like, but the metric that matters at the end is revenue.)

Facebook didn't start as means of facilitating commercial transactions; the switch to another business model will be very difficult and if successful will be for a different audience segment.

Five Nines: 99.999%

Is that level of precision good?

Well, it depends on what you're measuring. For systems like 911 it is an indicator of reliability or guaranteed up time. Even at five nines the system could be down around 5 minutes a year; still might be considered too much. It is a very expensive proposition to get this level of service - triple redundancy, remote hosting across different parts of the power grid, etc.

In marketing, particularly lead generation in competitive categories, five nines is often the level of misaligned effort. Consider the following for display ads:

Click-through Rate: 0.1% (yes that is one tenth of one percent)
Convert to Lead: 1%
Convert to Sale: 5%

So, for every 2 million impressions you get 1 sale. This makes even bargain basement networks or sites look expensive in the end. A $2 CPM equates to a $4,000 Cost per Acquisition.

Since well over 99.999% of the impressions are "wasted", what can we do?

PowerPoints:

1. Target better - explore behavioral, geo, and related category options. But that still works on the assumption that a clear link from a click to a sale is the only thing on the path, so don't stop there.
2. Capture intent better - the standard 'give me your name and we'll send you' info may work in the CPL-compensated world but may not be the best strategy for this category
3. Treat it is branding - this alone is a cop out. But the impact of branding advertising on search and choice should be understood because it does help cut through the clutter of unknowns. Now it is true you end up paying twice in a sense - once for the display ad and then again for the lead from an aggregator/affiliate, but you do end up with the lead.
4. Say it differently. Even a slight improvement in the original CTR cascades into financial metrics that would make the CFO smile. And this means understanding your audience really, really well.

Collection of Ads

Where can you see current creative?

Firebrand, a site launched last month is dedicated to TV ads has some interesting pieces from television around the world. While still in beta (and having a few technical and layout issues) the idea of good ads as good content is interesting. Yes, they could be on YouTube but if I'm interested in what ideas actually get produced then this cuts through the clutter.

Particularly enjoyed the Braveheart ad for "The Mail on Sunday".

Marketing and Advertising Defined

What do these terms mean?

In a recent MBA course I taught at Neumont University on marketing I had to define these terms. While there are myriads of technical definitions; here's what we came up with to capture the main point.

Marketing: the alignment of a need with a solution to everyone's benefit.
Advertising: publicizing the fact

Thus, marketing must understand who has a problem to be solved and then figure out how to make the exchange of benefits profitable to both parties.

On a side note, Neumont is interesting in that it focuses on two-year Bachelor's degree in Computer Science -- that's it. Students attend college full time, work on industry-sponsored projects, and graduate with 100% placement and above average salary. The founders (and venture capitalist backers) designed the program for what enterprises need in software developers.

Sales and Marketing Babel

What if we shared a common language?

Sales and marketing continue to talk in different languages. Consider the 'sales pipeline' and the 'brand pyramid'. Both tools should focus on helping to align people and solutions better; but we talk about qualified, buying stage, etc. in the sales cycle and emotional benefits and brand essence in marketing. In the end sales and marketing want the same customer - one that is deliriously happy with the solution.

The brand pyramid should be held up as a sales tool and the sales pipeline should be as a marketing tool. Maybe we should have "brand pipelines" and "sales pyramids" to help with alignment.

Lattitude is the New Black

What do you do when your stuck for a brand name?

Well, two vodkas have used their location to create a brand. Both 44 North and 42 Below are flavored vodkas based on local fruits, huckleberries and manuka honey, respectively. Grizzly bears vs. bees; interesting positioning. Great ads as well.

I've had the one from Idaho; need to get to New Zealand.

Dove gets Axed

What happens when brand positionings collide?

We've all been taught that a product should own a place in a given target audiences mind. But what happens when two contradictory positions are attempted by the same company? Just ask Unilever. Their Dove brand focuses on 'real beauty' and 'self-esteem'. In contrast, Axe makes you think it is a pheromone in a spray bottle.

The press and YouTube (or should we consider that press now) are filling with stories and parodies about Unilever's apparent contradiction.

Now, when dealing with the essence of a brand one must also take into account the essence of the company.

Walls of Jericho Are Coming Down

What does open social mean?

First, what is it? Gabriel, I mean Google, is breaking down the walls between web sites by creating a means for functionality to be seamlessly shared across the Internet. Of particular interest is the ability to share functionality across a series of social networks.

Notice I didn't say 'site' above. The concept of open social implies that the web site is no longer a destination per se; but rather one part of the entire vehicle for interaction. This is a very good thing. As I've noted before, the concept of the Internet as a series of destinations is ultimately doomed because people want content to come to them.

In the past I sometimes wondered if I was inside those walls (corporate site) or outside (consumer). Today, its clear -- the wall is gone.

As Jeremiah Owyang recently wrote on MarketingProfs: " Web marketing no longer is limited to your corporate site. Let go of the concept of "driving traffic to your Web site" as a sole measurement of success. The Web, its message, and your battles are now fought on the open and distributed Web."

Sputnik Now Delivers Pizza

What is in a connection?

Like James Burke's show "Connections" from the late 70's on the BBC, Chris Linnet over on Search Engine Land also outlines the linkage between two disparate events. This time it is the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and today's ability to search for local options, like pizza.

Seems people really like connections, linkage, etc. -- something marketers should consider as part of branding. In fact, Hill and Lederer propose this notion in their 'brand molecule' approach where a product is part of an overall network of connections, some explicit some not.

Campaign Dips

What are the benefits of slogging through the tough patch?

In both Seth Godin's new book, "The Dip", and Chris Matthews' "Life's a Campaign" the central concept is about sticking with your dream/goal/objective and overcoming the hurdles thrown in your face; including the fact that most things take seriously hard work to achieve. The "Dip" argues that there is a trough between the beginning of something and a successful final outcome; "Campaign" argues that nobody wants a level playing field, no matter what they say. So, when launching a new campaign or product there is a very natural tendency for the world to conspire against you.

Sometimes it is worth the effort to persevere, sometimes it isn't.

"Superstars" know when they're in a dead end; they quit, move on and don't take it personally. Marketers should do the same.

Internet History and Web 2.0

How did we get to here?

In a recent article published in Chief Marketer, I argue that a fundamental issue with the Internet is that it was and remains a collection of destinations. Born out of the need to connect computers in the event of disaster, we're still leveraging destinations as a core marketing concept. So every new idea is yet another place to go. - just try to come up with a unique domain.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to go anywhere new anymore. Like any and all forms of advertising before it, the concept of a hot new website will diminish.

DMA - Buzzless Again, But Steady

What was new at the DMA?

Last year I wrote that the annual conference was a bit flat. This year was more of the same, but maybe that's the way it should be -- we're just working hard o achieve our clients' objectives. The best practices of 'being direct' are crossing the chasm with other forms of marketing. In a note on spending, "DM will make up more than half of all US advertising."

Another sign of the times, the interactive pavilion was integrated into the main area -- no more trudging underground to a place far, far away. More importantly the concept of integrated campaigns started to make sense to vendors from all walks of life.

Goldilocks and Article Length

What is the right length for content?

Readers' attention span varies by medium - print, online and blogs. Emailing with Tim Parry of Chief Marketer about an upcoming article we discussed a submission that was "WAY too long for the Web." This got us thinking about the 'ideal length'.

Here are my PowerPoints:

• Blogs -- 100 words or less and focus on one point.
• Online articles -- 600 to 800 words to communicate a single idea with support
• Printed articles -- 1,200- 1,500 words to develop and explore a concept
  

SEO Quiz

Want to understand search?

The folks over at Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies have posted a cartoon-based quiz for understanding search. Found the link in the "Sterne Measures" email from October 1st. (Here)

Unfortunately the graphic for passing, which I did, isn't available.

Management Summary

Where are the cliff notes for management?

You've heard people quote this strategy, method, or theory - Porter's Five Forces, BCG Matrix, Balanced Scorecards, etc. -- and want to know what the hell they're talking about.

For an excellent summary of hundreds of approaches to management the 12Manage site provides 1 page summaries organized in a spectrum of categories. Well worth a visit.

So the next time a consultant or job applicant spouts off "I'm a proponent of using Ohmae's 3C's Model tempered by Kapferer's Brand Identity Prism to develop a profitable CRM strategy" -- you can call their bluff.

New Visualization Element Discovered

How many ways can we look at data?

The folks at Visual Literacy summarized a wide range of visualization techniques in a periodic table format. It organizes approaches into data, information, concept, strategy, metaphor, and compound visualization. It covers 100 techniques ranging from the bar chart to the affinity diagram.

I submitted the data cloud (see previous post from August 02) for submission; might have a "discovered" a new way of presenting information.

Campaigning is Not Marketing

Just what do they think they are doing?

The coming onslaught of commercials, billboards, radio spots, banners, search jacking, etc. focuses on the immediate and short term world of getting a vote. It might be called advertising, PR, bullying, or just plain silly --- but it is not marketing.

Marketing takes (well it should) the long term view of what need needs to be satisfied. In the world of products, and what politician isn't a product at the end of the day, the prevailing wisdom is to focus the needs of a single user defined by a persona. This is our target market - nothing more - and the features align specifically to her. The trouble with the political and election process is that there fundamentally isn't any way to focus on the needs of one segment and still win an election. This flaw creates wish washing, flip-flopping, and some of the best sound bytes that don't really say much.

In marketing we should be able to clearly articulate a benefit statement -- politicians work hard to avoid that in fear of alienating some other group. No wonder they often fail in satisfying our needs.

Fast Tracking Startups

How fast can a company be created?

A weekend appears to the be answer. An interesting approach is being taken by Startup Weekend. Invite people (over 50 showed up), give them an idea (poll your friends via phone), put them in a space for a weekend and see what happens.

For an interesting read on what comes out and how it is progressing check out the first idea --http://www.vosnap.com/. While not fully formed yet, it is interesting to watch.

Clouds Aren't Just for Web 2.0

Can we treat old dogs new tricks?

The use of clouds to display information isn't just for tags and search terms. They are a useful metaphor for any repeated data. Typically a cloud represents the relative number of times a term is repeated by changing the size of the font -- think search or tagging. They become even more interesting when the color is used to measure another metric.

Here's an example of using clouds for lead generation based on TV.

The font size measures the frequency of airing spots and the red indicates the lead volume for that spot.

We can quickly see that the distribution of ads in the media plan is relatively flat (all similar sizes) but certain programs generate better lead flow.

The New Sticky Note

Where is text marketing valuable?

It seems that an under-appreciated value of text messaging from a marketing perspective is the ability to provide the consumer with a sticky note. Texting becomes the analog to jotting things down. Too often I see billboards with a long URL that I never remember or I'm in places where doing something else is not going to happen (like being in a theatre) and need a means to capture information.

The use of a short code to retrieve a reminder (phone number, URL, event, location) is an interesting approach.

I Don't Know Much

Why is there so much to learn?

I spend part of the rainy weekend catching up on newsletters, articles, and other general reading in the areas where I'm supposed to know a thing or two. Usually reading one or two emails a day gives me a glimpse into what others are thinking.

But running through 200+ in one sitting left me a) breathless, b) curious, and c) just a little dejected. There is simply too much going on at break-neck speed to ever hope to be 'on top of it'. Maybe this is why blogging, newsletters, feeds and other forms of communicating are becoming so much more important.

Now, to figure out the wheat and chaff.

Yahoo Widgets

Where's the beef?

Yahoo Widgets is a collection of functionality that are smaller than applications (applets??) and bigger than a snippet. There are thousands of them, kind of like tribbles, and I played around with the pretty little doodads over the weekend. On the one hand there are some very clever and elegant tools out there but as of today I don't see the killer application.

Not to mention installing them changed the behavior of my computer -- definitely not cool.

Worth checking out and following.

Innovation on Gilligan's Island

Why did the Professor and Gilligan succeed?

In a recent article Michael Megalli uses the analogy of Gilligan's Island to show the balance required between marketing and engineering to create innovative solutions.

The struggle to leverage both process and gut-feel is not just an issue with individuals but rather one of corporate culture since organizations take on the persona of their leaders. The risky part of all of this is that both points of view, while valid in certain times, are internal and lack the focus of understanding precisely what the customer needs done.

Who made a better customer: Mary Ann, Ginger or the Howells?

The referenced Booz, Allen, Hamilton report on global innovation can be found here.

Viral Marketing

Do viruses have sensibility (or branding rules)?

The debate over what makes a campaign interesting often ends up on those topics that restrict its spreading, not those that might accelerate it. For a campaign to sustain momentum the number of people reached in each succeeding generation must exceed the number who drop out.

In consumer packaged goods we might be concerned about repeat rate where successful products often have 'only' 40-50% of year-one buyers repeating the second year. Significant marketing effort is spent to both prime the pump with new buyers as well as limit the decay function.

Viruses kill their hosts. As a marketer I'm more interesting in keeping my customers alive and giving them the ability to leverage the message.

PowerPoints:
1. Marketing campaigns must be seen as beneficial by the host.
2. The message must reflect the host's point of view and reinforce their image among friends.
3. Control is a four letter word.

Lost in Transposition

Why don't these numbers add up?

The recent issue of Revenue Magazine has an article on fund raising for presidential elections. A number of the stats come from the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. www.ipdi.org.


One slightly confusing table in both sources is the breakdown of online vs. offline donations, by amount, by age group. So, we have three sources of information but only two are shown in the chart.





Were 87% of the <$100 donors under 35? Nope.
Did 87% of the 18-34 crowd give <$100. Nope.

Of those who gave less than $100 and were between 18 and 34, 87% donated online.




The communication of information on the web has about 2.0 seconds to register. This example takes to long to register and runs the risk of being misquoted.

Aggitation 2.0

Where do I find what others are thinking?

There's an interesting collection of blogs on the impact of participation on what it means to be in the 'media' arena. The Media 2.0 Workgroup highlights general commentary as well as specific aspects like PR/Marketing, Tools, Content, Social Media, and Analytics.

They're looking for additional insight.

Marketing Defined

Should 'testing' be part of the vocabulary?

Marketing Experiments' recent article on email copy and the book "Selling Blue Elephants" both loosely define marketing as testing.

Marketing's creative mandate to change the status quo has always involved experimenting and sometimes even taking a flier but more recently that concept needs to be backed up with a show me the money attitude.

The article covers a variety issues around email copy ranging from format to natural vs. artificial offers.

For those with a market research background, the book covers the use of 'conjoint analysis' as a discipline for concept testing. Basically, let technology do all the heavy lifting around which combinations of ideas to test and how they perform together. There are lots of examples across all kinds of industries and marketing issues; like magazine layout, package design and politics. Although the term "RDE" (Rule Developing Experimentation) didn't quite sit well with me.

Spreading the News: Evangelism

What's worth reading?

While John Mayer might be "Waiting on the world to change" Guy Kawasaki writes on "How to change the world." Nice set of interviews and 10 questions with .... series.

"Statistics aren't inherently helpful"

Quick, is 10,000 good or bad?

As always the answer depends on the context. In the book "Made to Stick" Chip and Dan Heath make this point several times using a variety of examples like movie popcorn.

Usually I'd consider these fighting words, but they are in fact very true. Without providing both context and scale people can't understand a number or statistic. Successful communication of quantitative information depends on relating with the audience in their terms.

Ways to improve understanding:
What was it then and what is it now? "before the ...." or "in the age of ....."
How does it compare to a common task? "faster than a speeding bullet"
What does it mean in everyday terms? "more fat content than 3 hamburgers"

PowerPoints:
1. Never report numbers without their context.
2. Put data on a scale the audience relates two; usually personal and human.
3. Keep it Simple and Jargon Free

Using Key Words to Build Barriers

How do you turn a competitive field into silos?

Utah is still at the "forefront" of Internet legislation by creating yet another repository of protected things within the state's borders that need to be checked. This time it focuses on keywords, you know those terms used to link consumer searches with relevant offers, even comparative ones.

It seems that the legislature thinks giving consumers choice is a bad thing. It's unclear who can register terms but local companies like Overstock and 1-800-Contacts are in the mix. From the article:

"...if you type Overstock.com into Google's search engine, you will get sponsored links to SmartBargains.com, Buy.com and webspawner.com. Under the new law, Overstock could sue the search engine and the competitor if such ads show up in Utah-based Internet searches. "

For a legal review see Eric Goldman's comments.

If this prevails, are tags next?

News Coverage

Why are we so isolated?

In a post on "Notes from the Digital Frontier" Naomi discusses how news differs around the world. Well, it really just differs in the US.

I lived in England in the mid-90s and was just as shocked as Naomi appears to be today. So, while a lot of digital, content, 'death of distance' has occurred since 1995 it appears that the ratings chase for marketing dollars and bragging rights still rules the decision process on what to air.

What a shame.

The Importance of "Why"

Do we always need to know why?

Today's 'optimost' newsletter compares multi-variate testing first to American Idol and then NCAA 'March Madness'. It argues that the second comparison is more appropriate because of transparency and the wealth of information available about why Florida won its second straight national championship. American Idol is shrouded in mystery, although DialIdol and others make it more interesting.

From a testing perspective, March Madness is clearly champion-challenger or A/B testing. Two teams play, winner advances.

When it comes to peoples' tastes, prediction is difficult at best. In a study by Columbia University on teen downloading it was harder to predict the 'success' of a new song when the people could see the download rankings. Seems that there are a lot of interactions and some sort of gestalt that make books, movies, bands, etc. successful. Marketing is about leveraging and building momentum, not necessarily decomposing things into a billion parts.

Testing, and I highly recommend it, is not quite the same as measuring success. It is about improvement and validating decisions (assumptions.)

There are times when 'why' is important and there are times when it isn't.

The Ad Generation

What exactly is brand advertising?

Alexis Lloyd produced an interesting tool for generating ads --- he took real corporate slogans, mixed them up and added an image from Flickr to create imaginative ads that look, feel, and seem to be real. The project illustrates

'how the language of advertising is both deeply meaningful, in that it represents real cultural values and desires, and yet utterly meaningless in that these ideas have no relationship to the products being sold. '

The ad generator is interesting way to spark thinking, particularly about linking values with products.

Below the Belt

It is sad when blogging comes down to threats and personally offensive posts.

Kathy Sierra of "Creating Passionate Users" discusses the impact of personal attacks.

It hurts us all.

Marginal Returns of Perfection

What to do when some says 'ideally'?

Like an upside-down car, the costs of many items on a wish list out-weigh their value. In short, they turtle. There is a strong temptation to deliver on ideals, particularly when stated by senior executives. The result is often over-budget and under-whelming.

Ideals are rarely thought through enough to be thought of as requirements. They are just that - "A conception of something in its absolute perfection."

The features in the ideal category are often not worth the development effort to deliver. It takes a strong constitution and a fair bit of politics to convince people of this.

Understanding Search

Where can I find how people find my site?

Hittail is a tool for understanding search traffic put together by the folks at Conner Communications. It is elegant in its simplicity -- it takes search strings, parses them into key words, ranks them into the head and tail, and then makes suggestions about how to improve traffic to a site.

It's a hosted site and all that is required is placing a snippet of code on a site. Free for small sites, reasonable for the rest of the world.

Very useful indeed.

Effect of Brand Name on Lead Flow

When is a good thing too much?

Licensing brand names can be good for business; but it can also be bad -- particularly in pay-per-click models. A popular brand like 'American Idol' can work wonders on impressions and clicks but if the lead funnel isn't shaped just right one ends up with a very low conversion rate. The result: extremely high cost-per-sales that risk eroding any or all margin.

Tuning lead flow for brands that attract interest is quite different than generating leads for either targeted, niche or new brands. It turns out you don't want to buy the brand name, you want to buy what the product provides and use the name as leverage. Yes, you get fewer clicks but the guys in finance like the numbers better.

Remember: the product benefit is what ultimately sells.

Marketing 101

At the sound byte level, content and advertising are the same.

Media Congnosticism

Do you believe in the effects of media?

More specifically, do you believe that different channels impact people differently and that the effects can be measured?

If yes, then 'media agnostic' isn't the right approach since that means 'without knowledge' or more generally something that can't be proven or the individual has no proof and thus ends discussion.

Defining audience targets and then building appropriate media plans for a desired experience outcome absolutely requires understanding how different channels work and interact (like radio impacting awareness among Internet users.)

What we need is more information, analysis, and proof about how things work in the real world.

Risky Assertions

What's wrong with executives having opinions?

Well, they're often wrong.

In IBM's recent paper on new media: "Navigating the media divide" there are a number of quotes from people interviewed used to illustrate the divisions in the industry.

Korean infrastructure is so fully developed ... Cell phones are used to control both online and mobile environment.

vs.

People will only use [mobile screens] if they have no other choice.

and

The younger crowd has a stronger and faster influence today than the same age group did 10 to 15 years ago.

vs.

Anytime you 'cross-collateralize' or converge, devices, it remains in the realm of the Gadgetiers. Portability is not key for Massive Passives.

Your business strategy depends on whether you pick option 'a' or 'b'. So here is the dilemma - a strategy depends on choices but choices are often wrong.

As with all technology introductions; what we think will happen doesn't. It neither happens as fast as we thought nor along the same trajectory, i.e. what does happen isn't what we expected at all. Just think of all the predictions:

The world needs five computers.
Cell phone penetration will not reach critical mass.
Internet will replace libraries.

Power Points
1. Stick with the facts; not opinions.
2. Experiment to understand
3. Don't issue a quote about 'won't happen'

New News Source

Where do I catch up on daily goings on?

The site Original Signals is a hyper-aggregator of all kinds of news/info sites. Well laid out and organized --- saves me the trouble from going to a variety of sources.

Interesting that is produced by the media company Stillpoint Media, a Dutch web-publisher which is based in Amsterdam.

Mundane but Critical

Once again, data quality has interrupted a very well laid out process intended to reactivate lapsed customers.

This time the house file had two understandable but damaging problems.

1. The address field was used by customer service for adding commentary based on phone conversations.
2. The first name field was appended with nickname in parentheses.

So, without scrubbing what was promised to be a 'clean' file we ended up with things like

Dear Patricia (Pat but not Patty) our records indicate the contact address is:

356 Sycamore -don't call on Fridays
Randolph, ST - Tuesdays are good in afternoon


Power Points:
1. Ensure everyone understands how information is going to be used across the organization.
2. Enforce data validation entries.
3. Add lots of space for comments.

New vs. Traditional Media

When did the change occur?

Remember when it used to be traditional vs. online media? Now the discussion is around social media vs. traditional online media like 'email and ppc'. It's funny how fast things change; in the course of just a short period of time the comparative position became the adjective.

Pretty soon, maybe next week, social media will become traditional and will be replaced by something else.

Things are Always Wrong

Why should we evaluate programs?

Assumptions, like forecasts, are always wrong. What's interesting is understanding why they are wrong. It is the understanding of how current programs work today that makes our jobs interesting. And since nothing is forever, although Google never forgets, tried and true methods that worked in the past run the risk of being irrelevant today -- particularly in Internet marketing.

So, here are my Power Points:

1. Never assume what worked will continue to work.
2. If somebody says "I think..." they're probably wrong.
3. Don't get in the rut of 'set and forget'; it will erode quickly.
4. Tweak, tinker, and test - continuously.
5. Know what you're trying to achieve in the first place.

Idol Voting

What's in a word?

Actually, everything on American Idol. Seems that forgetting lyrics is a sure way of getting sent off. Last night a contestant with commercial appeal was sent packing. The fan traffic this morning was that she should have stayed.

In the spirit of tracking opinions; here is a vote for Bailey Brown.

Marketing Duality

Is something I see content or an ad?

The lines between content and advertising are so blurred that it is much like physics where light behaves as both a particle and a wave. Okay, the concepts of particle and wave don't apply with really small things like those found in quantum physics but when viewed from those terms things behave strangely.

It seems that marketing is moving toward a duality where something we see is both content and advertising. At the scale of TV or even print magazines, it is relatively easy to separate the two concepts. One is used to financially support the other - everybody knows how the game is played.

But what happens when the unit of consumption is very small -- a search result, a blog entry, a posted video, a mobile message? At what point do 'content' and 'advertising' lose their meaning?

The rush to monetize ever-smaller pieces of content may reach a limit where uncertainty creeps into the equation and we're left in search of a completely new explanation and business model. If there are no direct costs of producing content, why do we need advertising?

For a variation of this topic see Steve Smith's post on the impact of mobile messaging on branding.

Social Search

Why can't I find what I'm looking for online?

On the heels of today's earlier post "Finding Optimal Relevance" Google has released personalized results. The 'one page fits all' model has been replaced with a collective understanding of what you do and possibly who you are in order to improve results.

Not surprising, optimizing for Google tools is recommended. A bit more interesting is "Social Search" - using the searches of others to find results; not unlike collaborative filtering for books.

Maybe I will find that SEM doesn't mean scanning electron microscope.

A New Acronym: FOR - Finding Optimal Relevance

What does relevance have to do with technology?

One of the current threads on the marketing blogs is around the value of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A recent debate is whether it is 'rocket science' or not.

Once again I feel that the tail is wagging the dog and a specialty is taking over the controls of the big picture.

As a searcher, I'm looking for results that match my current intent. (Which is sometimes date dependent and sometimes not; causing a lot of frustration.) So all that matters is relevance. Instead of trying to game the system and optimize around the internal machinations of search engines, why don't we work on Finding Optimal Relevance (FOR goodness sakes). This is a much bigger opportunity than the current SEO landscape.

The Problem of Choice

When does having choices make it difficult to choose?

I've been straddling the Mac vs. Windows fence ever since we got a G5 at home. At first, frustration -- it didn't work like a PC. We can argue the merits of that statement but 20+ years in Windows some things are ingrained. So I wait.......

But now that Vista is out I'm thinking about my choices. This is where stagnation comes in. There are, count them, six (6) editions.

1. Windows Vista Home Basic
2. Windows Vista Starter
3. Windows Vista Home Premium
4. Windows Vista Ultimate
5. Windows Vista Business
6. Windows Vista Enterprise

I simply don't want that decision forced upon me, I've got enough other things to think about.

Yahoo Pipes

What's new in the application space?

Yahoo has introduced "pipes" a way of linking disparate sources of data. It must be very interesting since the link to pipes.yahoo.com produces a humorous message:

Our Pipes are clogged! We've called the plumbers!

Glad to see a sense of humor.

Advertising Effectiveness

How to allocate sales to tactics?

A while back Kevin Hillstrom posted a challenge to figure out how multiple tactics worked in a multi-channel world. A set of catalog and online sales data was provided for 10,000 customers along with which marketing tactics they received, e.g. catalog, email, postcard, etc. He recently posted an answer.

The most important conclusion is that influence is multi channel. Just like "advertising drives search"

Some thoughts on the solution provided by Grigorios Tsoumakas.
1. It is based on the correct premise that the problem is one of allocation; not prediction. This makes it both simpler to create an answer as well as to explain. "Sales are allocated to individual tactics in accordance to their influence across all possible combinations of tactics."

2. The solution makes an assumption that one tactic was dependent on a previous one. In this case the second email was assumed to be delivered to the same customers as email 1. The data suggest that this is valid since everyone who received email 2 also received email 1.

3. Organic sales were those among customers who received no marketing. Simple but probably understated. It is close to saying that the level of sales would be $2000 if advertising was withheld. "Unattributed" might be a better label in this case.

4. This seems to be along the lines of an 'observed vs expected' problem. I wonder if there is an extension there to include costs to get to financial effectiveness.

5. No catalog sales were attributed to email. Given the large amount of sales that are attributed to the catalog, I'd 'expect' some. But the numbers don't lie.

So what would regression have told us? (And yes I was one of the 500 who downloaded the spreadsheet.)

1. It is fairly easy to distinguish between online and catalog buyers. If they shopped in one channel, they weren't very likely to shop in the other.

2. A large number of customers did not purchase in the month of interest, but were marketed to. Inclusion of these '0' sales will bias most models tremendously. So, should we look at only those sales that occurred in a given channel and only include the customers who made them? "Yes" since the problem is one of allocation, not prediction.

3. Mathematically, the role of the 'catalog' was interesting after segmenting the data. For online sales the presence of a catalog depressed sales -- okay, you're expecting that. For catalog sales, the presence of a catalog also depressed sales --- welcome to the vagaries of regression.

The math is about minimizing the error in the model, not about explaining it to your boss.

Dashboard Examples

What's new in the display of information?

Ran across a blog dedicated to the concept of dashboards. What's nice in the Dashboard Spy is the collection of visuals showing the craft in action. The emphasis is on design and implementation (as opposed to defining the metrics in the first place) with a couple of templates you can download to use as wireframes.

Nice service by a 1%er.

Customer Service - Not

What happened to falling on your own sword?

We're working with one of the ad serving technologies. Today it had some problems and posted the following error message:

Please contact the server administrator, customersupport@mediaplex.com and
inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done
that may have caused the error.

I really like the fact that they blamed me for a server error.

Applying Technology in Retail

What's Microsoft telling retailers?

While most of the press activity is around Vista and Office, Steve Ballmer recently spoke at the National Retail Federation's "Big Show."

His themes in a session called "Retail Innovation Outlook" covered four points:
1. The consumer is the center of the universe -- get used to it.
2. The competition gets it (or at least enough of them do) to make point #1 the truth.
3. Those that interact with customers should be empowered to say both 'yes' and 'no.' This means they need information and direction plus the authority to execute.
4. Technology should be implemented in a way that improves customer interactions; not existing business processes.

This make take a while.

Lombardi or Augie Trophy

Are the going to rename Superbowl the trophy?

It seems that the folks at Anheuser-Bush have the formula down pat; according to most polls this morning their spots ranked atop the Superbowl list. Different sites listed different ones as the 'best' --- "Classroom" which is all about getting the product name in the minds of the listener; "Rock Paper Scissors" sets up the audience for a laugh when one of the 'fellers' fighting over the last beer uses a real rock at the end of the challenge - although paper trumps rock in the game. "Crabs" worshiping a cooler on the beach didn't quite have the anthropomorphic punch line that I'd like to have seen.

Losers have to be King Pharmaceuticals for their strange "Heart" portrayal and GM for the suicidal "Robot." (Short Circuit it wasn't.)

The best part is that they're all over the Internet.

Social Networks meet Business Intelligence

What's new in answering tough questions?

There is an old adage that 'many hands make light work'. It appears that IBM has turned that around to be 'Many eyes make light work'. There is an interesting site that allows users to post data, create visualizations and allow others to post and discuss the insights. In the 'about' section it is described as follows:

Many Eyes is a bet on the power of human visual intelligence to find
patterns. Our goal is to "democratize" visualization and to enable a new social
kind of data analysis.