buckersphere

Few pics from the LT social brand day

2010-02-22T20:42:00.001Z

It's fair to say, people enjoyed the day more than they did having their pictures taken!

Thanks to all for taking part, for your efforts and for sticking with it.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Thoughts from Chris Buckley

Best bits of Figaro Digital

2010-02-18T17:13:00.001Z

Last week, I spoke at the Figaro Digital seminar on social media. It's always great to hear what others have to say, so here are a few of the best bits for me.

For those who still need a little convincing, we saw some compelling numbers around the adoption of social media by marketers. The rapid consideration and inclusion of social spaces in communication planning and branding is impressive. Also interesting was the number of people who feel training is a key area. It's nice to know brands recognise the importance of understanding what makes appropriate social behaviour in social media, rather than treating it like any other channel.

Tony Effik, Chair of the social media council at the IAB, captured a very simple truth that can be lost in all the noise around social media; people are still people. Some things change, other don't. In social media, we have found another form to express our basic social needs.

The Dunbar number, the magic 150, was highlighted as a phenomenon that continues to play out in social relationships.

Whilst we have the capability to reach many, do we have the capacity to maintain intimate and meaningful relationships with such large numbers? Anyone who has experimented with technology to swell followers and friends alike is probably at risk of pushing messages, rather than building relationships.

Nick Jones, Director of Interactive Services at the COI gave an interesting insight into how his clients perceive social media. As the Government's centre of excellence for marketing and communications, how this organisation approaches the opportunities presented by social media, and how it mitigates the risks, is very useful guidance for us all.

The quote from William Perrin (Policing 2.0 conference, National Policing Improvement agency) perhaps reminds us all of how our fears around social media need to be put into context?

"If you can let police walk the streets with guns, you can manage the risks of letting them use Facebook".

Posted via email from chrisbuckleyuk's posterous

Figaro Digital - disruption briefing

2010-02-11T16:10:00.001Z

Yesterday I spoke at Figaro Digital's social media seminar at the Hospital Club.

Was a cracking event and thanks to Neil and the team for their hospitality. Here is what I shared...

Posted via email from chrisbuckleyuk's posterous

UNIQLO CALENDAR

2010-02-10T23:12:00.001Z

via uniqlo.com

A curiously fascinating and immersive site. Simple with beautiful content. All this just to sell some clothes.

Posted via web from chrisbuckleyuk's posterous

Count-down to Figaro Digital social media seminar

2010-02-10T23:11:00.001Z

Looking forward to talking at the Figaro Digital seminar at the Hospital Club on the 10th Feb. My chosen subject? Social media disruption and its impact on the conventional marketing model.

We're all one click away from the perfect job, the ideal product, a damning video diary or the five star review. But for those looking to engage this hyper-connected audience, it’s not about blindly rolling out the latest tactics on the latest platform.

Brands need to develop their social brand strategy. The challenge is to navigate this changing landscape and create socialised brands that are valued by their communities, and deliver value back to their organisations. Put in simpler terms - create win-win relationships.

Posted via email from chrisbuckleyuk's posterous

Me and Michael Portillo

2009-04-28T20:39:00.002Z

Great event from Business Southampton. Bit of a show-off opportunity for me. Have a look at the write up.

Social Media - me on the BBC

2009-03-12T14:58:00.004Z

Doesn't happen as often as I would like, so here is me being interviewed about social media on our local BBC!

Doing it for real.

Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Recruit Thru Social Networks

2009-01-30T09:46:00.002Z

Taken from AdHocnium

Barack Obama used social media to get himself into the White House and thousands of companies are using social media to create brand awareness and an online buzz. However, social media can also be used for many other purposes as well. If you work in Human Resources, you may be thinking, “I dont want to get to the White House — I just want to recruit some employees”. Social networks are an amazing channel for finding potential employees and increasingly becoming an even expected way of finding them.

Social networking is a great recruitment tool for several reasons:

1. Social networks make it easy to build relationships with potential candidates and to create an open channel for discussion through which candidates can feel comfortable enough to approach you and ask you questions. It’s often the case also that people are dissatisfied with their current place of employment but are too afraid to actively look for a job online. By becoming their friend, you build a trusting relationship with them where they feel comfortable to let you know about their desire to find new employment. If you create real close relationships with people, they will feel comfortable enough to forward you their friends’ resumes as well.

2. Through social networks you can easily find relevant candidates for any position by searching for candidates with the skills your company is looking for.

3. When you recruit in social networks your company will reap the added benefit of spreading brand awareness and increasing the desire of others to work at your company.

4. One of the most popular ways to find a potential candidate is through connections. When you begin recruiting in social networks you expand your personal network so that you can reach a much larger number of potential candidates.

5. Job boards are on the way out and more and more employers are turning to social networks for recruitment. In fact, according to a recent survey done in the US, 78% of HR executives said that they use social media to recruit employees. If your company doesn’t want to be left behind in the dust, it’s important to start acting today. Especially since there are many unemployed people right now just waiting to find the right job for them.

We're not doomed, thank God

2009-01-28T18:26:00.003Z

Taken from Marketing week:

A record 2.4 billion ads were watched on television every day in 2008 in the UK, according to new research by the Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board.

The figure means that an average of 42 ads were seen per person every day, and it is up by 6.3% from 2.25 billion in 2007. The rise comes despite an increase in the number of people watching catch-up TV through digital TV recorders and broadband services such as the BBC iPlayer.

The report shows that overall broadcast TV viewing in 2008 was up nearly an hour a week on 2007, with the average person in the UK watching 26 hours, 18 minutes a week, matching the high viewing figures seen in 2003.

The positive research comes ahead of the Government’s Digital Britain report, which is expected to be published this week. The report was commissioned by communications minister Lord Carter, a former Ofcom chief executive.

Twitter error?

2009-01-28T18:17:00.003Z

Got this from Web strategy by Jeremiah.

It covers a US 'incident' on twitter. A guy called James Andrews, an executive who works at Ketchum, a well known PR agency is accused of bad form, and his company had to backtrack when he posted a tweet on the way to visit his client Fedex: “True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say “I would die if I h ad to live here!” it caused angst with the ‘location sensitive’ client, and they issued this comment, apparently on this blog, after it was run up the flagpole.

Rule of thumb: (fitting, if you tweet from a mobile device). When you tweet, you’re publishing, don’t say anything you wouldn’t say to someone’s face, and assume that your current and future boss, wife, and mother are reading it.

Creative Farm

2009-01-28T18:15:00.001Z

Doomed, doomed, we are all doomed.

2009-01-28T18:11:00.002Z

Old media will never be as profitable again, warns WPP's Sorrell

LONDON - The profit margins within traditional media, including television and newspapers, will never be the same again, according to WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell.

Sir Martin Sorrell: traditional media will never be the same again says WPP chief
Speaking to more than 250 media and advertising professionals at an IAA event yesterday (January 21), the leader of the group behind some £15bn in revenue last year, warned the media sector continues to be "disintermediated" by low-cost business models.

"The painful thing for old media is it will never be the same again," Sorrell said. "It will never be as profitable as it has been."

To underline his point, Sorrell, drew on the UK's receding ad market, which WPP's GroupM forecast to fall 5.8% and 6% in 2008 and 2009 respectively: "ITV and Michael Grade continually say it (TV airtime) is as cheap as it's ever been and impacts are up, so why aren't they buying?"

Turning his attention to print, Sorrell warned that the "structural changes" - referring to the many job losses, falls in circulations and drops in print advertising across the sector - were set to continue.

He said the seeds of the problem were sown when the people who created the new-media industry in the early Nineties, decided to give it away for free.

While he admitted this was the right move from the consumer point of view, it has changed the nature of the print business model.

"It is impossible to take it back up," he said. "You can always start up here and take the pricing down, but you can't start there and start moving it up."

He also drew on the fortunes of the British regional press, where revenues are set to plummet 19.1% in 2008 and a further 13.2% in 2009, according to GroupM.

Sorrell recalled a time not too long ago when Johnston Press was "the best run media company", noting that now its market cap has "gone from £1.2bn to virtually nothing in a very short space of time".

However, despite the fundamentally changes brought about by new media, Sorrell called the marketing and communications business a "vibrant" industry that remains "front and centre of importance".

"None of our clients will survive and prosper unless they continue to differentiate themselves in either tangible or intangible ways," he said, adding that this is where branding and innovation is required.

"Without innovation you can’t have branding. But the two go together. Differentiation, which is at the heart of everything we do at WPP, is critical."

Brand re-discovering a war time ethic?

2009-01-28T18:03:00.002Z

Really interesting report about how brands in the US are looking at brands from Landor New York's 2009 Trends Forecast: Market Trends and Their Impact on Brands.

Main thought is that brands are moving away from conspicuous consumerism to modesty and moderation. Put simply, the economy has meant that flaunting luxury is becoming bad taste.

Key points from LANDOR ASSOCIATES NEW YORK's trends outlook 2009

• 'Acceptable consumerism' is the new ethos

• Richer consumers will be less interested in displays of wealth

• Flaunting wealth will be considered bad taste

• Consumers will seek comfort and security rather than status

• Rise of old-world sensibilities in branding

• Home-care segment will be well-positioned

A few good creative men

2009-01-28T17:58:00.004Z

Men with big ideas. The size of the logo doesn't sell product. Time to pcik up a pencil I guess?

Predictions for 2009

2009-01-26T13:50:00.002Z

Always worth starting the year with a few guesses at what 2009 might bring. Cheezhead has done a pretty good job with their 2009 predictions. Usual suspect of mobile making it big is on the list. Will iPhone actually deliver the promise?

Social media in the workplace

2008-08-13T14:08:00.002Z

US based site where employees rate their company:
http://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm

Social Media Press Release

2008-08-13T14:06:00.001Z

http://www.shiftcomm.com/downloads/smr_v1.5.pdf

info on it:
http://www.pr-squared.com/2008/04/social_media_release_template.html

SEO friendly news releases:
http://www.pr-squared.com/2008/04/guide_to_seofriendly_news_rele.html

50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing

2008-08-13T13:57:00.002Z

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.
38. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
39. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.

How Brands Can “Buy” Social Media

2008-08-13T13:51:00.000Z

Advertisements: Nothing new here, from purchasing Google ads, cutting individual deals with blogs that cover your industry, or going to third party advertising networks like B5, Six Apart, Federated Media, Glam, or any other emerging network such as Technorati Media, launched today.

Sponsorships: Brands seeking longer term marketing gains can sponsor a popular media asset and benefit from association with an affinity. That’s marketing speak for ‘we’re like them, so you should like us’. I’ve seen some sponsorships that make a lot of sense such as Seagate and Scoble (he creates a lot of media, and his community does too, perfect fit for a personal data storage company) or the variety of places GoDaddy has appeared within the web community. Media networks such as Rev 3, Techcrunch networks, and fledgling Fast Company are examples in the tech industry.

Social Media Optimization Perhaps the most nefarious, or least understood, is the opportunity to purchase services from SEO firms that have retrained their skills to increase natural search ability for your assets, get your content on delicious, stumbleupon. I know of a few brands have been able to purchase their way onto Digg.com. While some may be critical of this activity, the upside is that these brands really want to get in front of this audience, so likely, they’ll be pointing to something worthwhile.

Five questions companies ask about social media

2008-08-11T13:31:00.002Z

Pinched from: Web Strategy by Jeremiah
Posted: 06 Jun 2008 01:25 PM CDT

What is Social Media?
For many folks, corporations, the question to answer was “What is a BloB”. Blogging was the primary tool that we saw in the marketplace, for some, it wasn’t taken seriously, for the savvy, they quickly adopted. We saw scare tactics from the threatened mainstream media, such as “Attack of the Blogs” and light of amateurisms, angry customers and crazies were painted. For many, we wanted to know what are these tools, how to they work, and what’s the impact. Early on, this impacted corporate communications, PR, and mainstream media.

Why does it matter?
As we’ve evolved, many were realizing the impact of exploding batteries, brand hijacking, and blog evangelism. Savvy companies were starting to adopt these tools, a few provided integrated communities that were scrapped together or built from existing platforms. For the majority, trying to understand why these tools matter to a business. In addition to corporate communications, PR, we started to see other marketing and business units being impacted by these tools, as well as adoption.

What does it mean to my business?
We’re here now. This is the year of ROI, measurement, and experimentation. Many corporations have deployed resources, headcounts and budgets. Corporations are afraid to make mistakes, so plans are created, and measurement is critical to help manage and prove the worth of new programs. ROI was proven, new social media measurement attributes were defined, and many new tools were deployed, I did what I could to further this industry (see all posts). In addition to Corporate Communications and PR, business units are starting to experiment with these tools, often out of the PR budget. A new role started to appear more frequently, the digital marketing manager, the community manager, the social media strategist.

How do I do it right?
Now that experimentation is done, and business units are starting to apply these tools, like advertising, PR, field marketing, and customer references, companies will want to do it right. Frameworks will be developed, consultants will offer packages, and a loosely developed process will be used. For companies that don’t have enough internal resources to listen, manage, and deploy, consultants will be a very sought after service. Nearly every brand will start to have an ongoing budget for social media, the new role to manage these tools will appear. IT departments will start to deploy enterprise 2.0 tools.

How do I integrate across the Enterprise
Normalization is happening, A checkbox for ’social media’ on every announcement, product launch, product development and support will be using these tools. Social media tools to listen, converse, collect knowledge, and build new products will integrate across the customer cycle. It’s not just external, intranets will start to deploy suites for collaboration, such as blog accounts issued to many internal and external employees. Product Teams, IT departments, HR, Finance, Executives, and of course Marketing will be using these tools.

Everything in one place

2008-08-11T13:27:00.002Z

Cheers Kate's Mum:

http://www.allmyfaves.com/

Social media - what are you?

2008-08-11T13:20:00.001Z

Pinched from: Social Media Early Adopters: Pioneers, Settlers, and Colonists
Posted: 06 Jun 2008 04:27 AM CDT

The key to adopting the right social media tools is to first figure out which persona you are. Next, you need to identify which persona your friends are, lastly understand how you can best observe, and learn from others.

Pioneers
Obsessed and enamored with the technology, this individual is always adopting the latest social technologies. This individual is fickle with tools, won’t establish loyalty to websites, may move when they see colonists adopt the tool.

Example: Often experimenting with products in their beta stage, this person will quickly move on to the next tool as fast as adopting the second.

Settlers
These second generation adopters look for key market or network indicators before adopting a new technology. This person is less enamored with the new technology, and more interested in the value that it provides.

Example: They may trial tools after seeing several people in their network mention or trial the tool, and may adopt after a beta or trial period is over.

Colonists
Colonists are the mainstream adopters, they are often our parents, non-techies, and the everyday people we meet. They adopt these tools due not because of an internal desire to stay cutting edge, but often because several people around them make it an attractive destination and the they see the utility to the communication. They are not late adopters.

Example:
Joins Facebook because colleagues, family, and friends are using it.

You can tell who the early adopters are on this video, pioneers sit in line, settlers come talk, but will by that week, colonists wait a few weeks/months/

Digital media carbon offset programme

2008-06-03T13:43:00.002Z

Nice idea and a way to calculate it....

http://www.imc2.com/csr/ClearSkyMediaTool.aspx

$1,000 to quit today

2008-06-03T10:06:00.006Z

Interesting employee engagement programme. $1,000 to quit today. If you don't like the culture, values, spirit of the business then Zappo will pay you to go.

http://preview.hbsp.permissiontv.com/?plid=869069&showID=868947

Twitter

2008-05-14T12:55:00.001Z

Nicked form Clickz

TweetBacks. These are folks who use Twitter as a real-time focus group for immediate feedback. Robert Scoble, Steve Rubel, and many others use Twitter like an open-end survey tool. Machiavelli wonders out loud whether these folks will get buried.

TimeTweeters. These folks just love to "punch the clock" with a time-stamped discovery before anyone else. Their social currency, Machiavelli says, correlates with the speed with which they can put a fresh link in play.

FlackSmackers. These are journalists or high-reach bloggers who use Twitter to publicly complain -- nay, groan -- about lame PR or shill-induced pitches. Machiavelli cites Brian Morrissey of Adweek, for example, as someone who's on a "hair twitter" to out bad pitches and shills.

SpamSneakers. These are the folks who use Twitter as just another marketing channel for preexisting content. They just drop the URL from the blog, newsletter, or Web page with something like, "Just blogged this." Machiavelli warns that such individuals still have an early-adopter grace period but warns of backlash and mass mutiny.

BrandBaggers. These folks "bag" anything related to their brands and use tools like Twitter as a customer-service or resolution proxy. Machiavelli points to Frank, a.k.a. ComcastCares, as a classic example of a brand using Twitter to reach and engage with consumers, or even sandbag potentially bad news. (Full disclosure: Comcast is a client.)

BankRunners. These are the folks who post "end is near unless you act now" messages, potentially eliciting a sense of panic -- a run on the bank, if you will -- among Twitterites. Here's a sample post from high-reach Twitter maven and search guru Danny Sullivan: "smx advanced 85% sold, less than 100 tickets left. today's early bird deadline so more will go. not joking, book now."

RingCiters. These are the folks with real or virtual ring-side seats at sporting events who can't resist sharing even most mundane play-by-play, as though the rest of Twitter Nation is glued to their modern day Howard Cossel-inspired tweets. Really exciting stuff like "he's about to shoot" or "Kobe's breaking a sweat."

Tweetniks. People who try to write literature with Twitter. Every once and a while you'll find someone turning Twitter into haiku.

FamilyTweeters. These are folks (like myself) who tweet about the most mundane of family-related issues. We're usually (mistakenly) convinced Twitterites are interested in our family drama and engage in silly comments like "Just changed a diaper," or "Back from childcare." Machiavelli warns me that family tweets will decrease the more my Twitter network grows.

ProudRouters. Quintessential connectors, these folks love to forward things from other Twitter posts. In Twitter parlance, the ProudRouter usually puts the @ in from of Twitter profiles. By definition, they're social connectors and love to bring folks together, make introductions, and take credit for matchmaking. Former colleague Max Kalehoffis a classic ProudRouter. Machiavelli urges moderation here.

TravelTeasers. These are the folks who create a bit of mystery about exactly where they are. Are they really on business? Could it be a job interview? A secret affair? Sometimes we just don't know, but we can't resist playing out scenarios when they say something like, "Here at Amsterdam coffee house" or something.

WeightWatchmen. These folks believe Twitter's potential for peer pressure might have motivational value for losing weight or achieving some other major goal. So they report results in real time, like "Just swam 20 laps." Machiavelli points to über early adopter Jason Calacanis, who now posts photos to Twitter of himself on the treadmill. Machiavelli has doubts about this tactic.

TweetSquaters. These are folks (sinister or entrepreneurial, depending on your view) who squat on well-known Twitter names. Machiavelli points to Judah, for example, the dude who registered an account ostensibly from John McCain. Then there are the bogus tweets from folks who falsely impersonate Steve Jobs or Chuck Norris.

AdverTweeters. Lots of brands are tweeting these day, observes Machiavelli. Tony Hsieu of Zappos.com has nearly 4,000 folllowers -- a sign of Zappos's appeal. In the process of his fans following his most mundane activity on the Zappos publicity tour, a whole heck of a lot of branding and advertising takes place.

Twitterazi. Even worse than paparazzi, Machiavelli warned. These folks send Twitter updates on any scoop or personality they see, touch, or even imagine. Sometimes it's supported with a link to a photo or video feed. Sometimes you feel like the Twitterazi are after you at conference.

GameTrappers. These folks post Twitter messages to an entire distribution list hoping to snare an unsuspecting target to respond (usually in error) to the entire group. GameTrappers try to force adversaries to take sides prematurely, especially when they know how others will pounce on the first responder. They also know it's extremely difficult to unwind a Twitter message.

What's The Social Technographics Profile Of Your Customers?

2008-05-12T11:02:00.000Z

Companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — a blog here, a podcast there — to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for. You can use the tool on this page to get started.

Forrester's Social Technographics® classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation (see a presentation, 8 slides). Based on our survey data we can see how participation varies among different groups of consumers, globally.

http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html

Onboarding new staff

2008-05-12T10:42:00.001Z

Getting people acclimated to their new jobs and bolstering the odds that they won’t jump ship are the top concerns of organizations for 2008, according to a Vurv Technology survey. Nearly 40% of companies cited “mastering the onboarding process” as a primary area of focus.
WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT | 4.8.08
source: iconoculture

Selling in social media?

2008-05-12T09:43:00.001Z

Start with Technographics
First, obtain the technographics of your market segment (we’ve made a sample free), if your customers are using social media tools, then you’ve a strong business case. Secondly, we’ve already concluded that decisions are based on trust, and trust is highest among peers, not from marketers. This disruptive change is enough to kick start the thinking gears of your executive.

Ascertain if this is right for your company
It’s important to note that social media may NOT be the best for your market or company, if the inactives are a significant amount of your technographics, or you’re in a very conservative industry, you may be ready to deploy a listening program, but may not want to participate. I really believe that social media isn’t for every company, and you’ll have to do an internal reality check to see if this is the case for you.

Focus on value, not technology
Next, don’t focus on tools, instead focus on the end result: value. How To: Effectively Talk to Execs and Clients about Social Media. This post teaches you how to talk about the end results of what’s expected, ever lead with “we want to start a blog”

Learn how to talk to immigrants about natives
Getting Your Digital Immigrant Executives to Understand the World of Digital NativesFrequently, the decision makers, are my parents age, and often their technographics usage is very low. I’ve found talking about Generation X and Y as the new workforce a quick way to open their eyes about the changes in communication.

Be prepared for the business questions
Lastly, before you go to your execs, be prepared to answer the tough questions, the one Legal, the CFO, the COO will ask. Be prepared.

Who got done on social media?

2008-05-12T09:42:00.002Z

Pinched from Web Strategy by Jeremiah

A list of companies that were blind-sided by the internet, they didn’t understand the impacts of the power shift to the participants, or how fast information would spread, or were just plain ignorant.

Criteria of “Punk’d” includes a situation where the story would have not been told if social media was not available, or if social media enhanced the situation.

This doesn’t include fake blogs, companies who deliberately tried to cheat the system get their own honorable mention.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2008

Burger King exec trash talks using daughter’s email
Not sure why he didn’t just create a new email address, that would have been a lot safer. Submitted by Hilker.

Johnson and Johnson to bloggers: Hurry up and get dis-invited
Sounds like a mis-coordination, bad timing, and not a well thought through process that ended up getting scobleized, and Maryamized.

2007

Target’s Rounders program “This is our secret game”
Target encouraged it’s premier members in the rounders program to pump up it’s brand in a Facebook group, sadly, the covert operation ended up on blogs and then mainstream media

HD DVD Decoded by Digg, unDugg, then Dugg again
Digg users publish HD code, industry freaks out, Digg maintains stance.

Wholefoods CEO caught being a troll
Whole Foods CEO, was anonymously trashing competitors and pumping company up on Yahoo finance boards.

Apple’s dirty little secret plastered over NYC
Apparently, 18 months is all the iPod will run before you’ll need to buy a new one, says this video, where street teams went around defacing ads. Submitted by David Churbuck (I got his name right this time)

Delta holds customers hostage
What’s worse than being held prisoner on Delta’s dirty plane? (Video), watching the crew getting off da plane. Oh, and no food, crying babies, but one talented videographer.

2006

Data storage blogger posts industry price lists, sales reps cry f#ck!
Robin Harris, one of the most well known of the data storage blogosphere posts price lists that were received from various customers.

Dell Laptop Explodes, news at 11 –on YouTube
More bad news for Dell, as laptops explode in Japan, all can see online.

Comcast suffers from Narcolepsy
Sleepy Techician caught on YouTube, then fired. Also see Comcast must die blog, submitted by Jeff Jarvis.

Hitachi Hell gets the finger
Angry customer gets bad service, writes long experience, and flips off HQ in picture, he’s also an influencer in the gaming community

The naked NOKA chocolate uncovered
A premium chocolatier (Noka) had a tremendous markup ($309- $2,080 per pound) of their secretly re-packaged chocolate, was exposed as a fraud and spread on blogs. And their google results is really painful. Submitted by Whitney.

AOL gets canceled –how to get get on my nerves
This guy really bothers me, I can see why Vincent Ferrari was miffed. It’s clear, he was dealing with the customer retention department. Nothing worse than the feeling of being held hostage. Submitted by David Alston.

Airplane fiasco’s spread online: JetBlue
There are so many examples, such as a YouTube testimonial about JetBlue’s 8+ hours stranded in terminal. Related: JetBlue’s CEO responds after flights are cut months later due to storm.

2005

Why we Dwell on Dell Hell
Jeff Jarvis launches blog post that sends a flurry of PR negativty at Dell’s poor service, it’s since been improved.

2004

Kryptonite unlocked
Locks were disabled using a simple bic pen cap, spread on forums and blogs, one of the earliest examples that got mainstream attention.

2003

The Barbera Streisand Effect
Singer star tries to remove content from internet, it all goes downhill from there. I actually learned about this from reading my colleagues Groundswell book

Facebook in reality

2008-05-12T09:33:00.001Z

Who trusts what anymore?

2008-04-29T13:36:00.007Z

Pinched from Web Strategy by Jeremiah
Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers)

Posted: 29 Apr 2008 04:47 AM CDT

The question many marketers are trying to answer now, is “Who do people trust?”

I’ve been spending more and more time pouring over data, medium usage, behavioral and preference data for clients, and am learning more and more about how humans behave on the web.

So who do people trust? Three research studies indicate it’s peers, or people they know. And social clout from bloggers, or those with a lot of online friends ain’t it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Forrester Research

What’s interesting is that colleague Josh Bernoff’s weekly post on who do people trust, indicates that people trust their peers the most, and bloggers last. Josh writes:

“What does this mean for your brand? It means that a focus on “influencers” is not enough. You never know who may be reviewing your product, or where. Influencers may touch a lot of people, but so do the masses of reviewers on Yelp, or Amazon.com, or TripAdvisor. And heaven forbid you get people talking about your brand on The Consumerist.”

If people trust the reviews of friend that they know and trust 14% more than your corporate website, what is your web marketing team doing to accommodate this? Are you spending 14% more effort to listen, learn, influence peer reviews? I’ll bet your not, as most brand marketers I know are spending time building microsites, and launching brochure ware on their sites, without think about the impacts of their corporate website becoming irrelevant.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Edelman Trust Barometer

In a confirming correlation, Edelmen’s research from Steve Rubel indicates the exact same findings, despite different phrasing of the questions. Steve writes: “both marketers and publishers - continue to focus on reach, they are missing the big picture. Trust is by far a more important metric, one that clearly rules when it comes to influence.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Pollara Research

Steve points to a third research report also validating this claim. Research firm Pollara found similar results:

“According to a new study from Canadian research firm Pollara, self-described social media users put far more trust in friends and family online than in popular bloggers, or strangers with 10,000 MySpace “friends.”

Of more than 1,100 adults polled in December, nearly 80% said they were very or somewhat more likely to consider buying products recommended by real-world friends and family, while only 23% reported being very or somewhat likely to consider a product pushed by “well-known bloggers.”

“This shows that popularity doesn’t always equate to credibility,” said Robert Hutton, executive vice president and general manager at Pollara. “Marketers might have to reconsider who the real influencers are out there.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Google

2008-04-16T14:02:00.001Z

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has raised concerns about the impact of Google's trademark policy change. The organisation warns that the move could cost advertisers considerable sums to protect their brands online.

The warning follows last week's unexpected news from Google that it will lift the ban on advertisers bidding on trademark protected keywords. The change will take effect from 5 May.

IPA Search and IPA Digital, two divisions of the advertising trade body, held emergency talks to share their concern about the implications. The discussions have led to IPA Digital recommending that clients meet their agencies to assess the potential impact on their search and advertising strategies.

IPA Digital will also seek a delay in the introduction of the changes and states that the short notice represents a "counter-productive move by a media owner".

The body also says it will seek a better understanding of Google's motivation behind the move and will express its dissatisfaction that Google failed to mention the change during meetings about its trademark policies during late 2007.

Google to allow bidding on Trademarks in the UK and Ireland

2008-04-16T14:00:00.000Z

by Heidi Edelmuller (gootaquirk.com)

Up to now it has been possible for brands in the UK and Ireland to prevent competitors from bidding on Trademarked terms by submitting a Trademark complaint. Adwords have also always disallowed competitors from using trademarked terms in Ad text.

While Google are retaining the ban on Trademarks within Ad text, they are now lifting the ban on bidding on Trademarked terms – effective 5 May.

Basically this means that Pepsi will be able bid on the term “Coca-Cola”, but still wont able to use “Coca-Cola” in their advert (if Coca Cola have registered their trademark with Adwords, that is).

This is worrying news for those with brands to protect. Up to now many advertisers have saved money by not bidding on their brand terms. With no competitor PPC ads to distract them, searchers simply clicked on the top organic results – which should of course be the official site for which they were searching.

From now on brands will have to start bidding on their own trademarks or trust that searchers won’t be tempted by tantalizing offers from competitors.

Pants, dancing, nice.

2008-03-28T15:16:00.001Z

http://jockeyunderwars.com/user/mirrormirror

Call for ban on employers searching social networking sites

2008-03-25T12:18:00.000Z

Call for ban on employers searching social networking sites
by Jennifer Whitehead Brand Republic 25-Mar-08, 11:35

LONDON - A group of children's charities has written to the government to ask for a ban on employers and universities looking up social networking websites for information on young people who have applied for positions.

The Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety, backed by charities including NCH and the NSPCC, has raised concerns over the practice of looking for information about potential employees on sites such as Bebo and MySpace, comparing it to looking at someone's diary.

In the letter, sent to Labour MP Margaret Moran, the coalition secretary John Carr writes: "When young people put up their personal profiles they are not thinking about job applications or university applications. Typically they are simply talking to their mates. Employers or admissions tutors who delve into these places are being highly and inappropriately intrusive."

He goes on to ask Moran if she would raise the issue with the government, and consider a Private Member's Bill, saying: "We believe the practice should be outlawed or, at the very least, major employers...should make clear that it is an unacceptable practice in their own organisations."

Research published by the Office of the Information Commissioner last November found that 71% of people aged between 14 and 21 would not want colleges or employers to do a web search on them before they had removed some material, and a report in The Times this year found that it was commonplace for employers to check social networking site profiles.

Social media ads

2008-03-07T14:57:00.002Z

What do social media ads mean for brands?

www.millwardbrown.com/Sites/MillwardBrown/Content/News/EPerspectiveArticles.aspx?

7 things you need to make a creative impact

2008-03-05T09:16:00.002Z

Impact and irreverence
James Aitchison
29 February 2008

Jean-Marie Dru: the seven rules of impact

Jean-Marie Dru, global boss of TBWA, drew extensively on his network’s show reel to open day two with a presentation built around seven points crucial for the creation of advertising with impact.

1. Creativity is not exclusive to specific categories
2. Be creative before the creative process begins
3. You need a big idea
4. Every touchpoint must be creative
5. The interactive world is one of infinite creativity
6. Simplicity is key
7. Creativity builds sales

http://www.warc.com/ConferenceBlogs/EFFIES-022008.asp

Who is reading newspapers?

2008-02-29T14:53:00.002Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxdMFRwztl4

Oxfam Overhall Database

2008-02-29T13:59:00.001Z

Precision Marketing: 29 Feb 2008. Gemma Hummerston

Oxfam GB is overhauling its database to provide the charity with a completely integrated single supporter view, and enable its marketing and campaign teams to get hands-on with core data.

The charity will use DataSalon’s MasterVision tool to segment and analyse its data, whilst working alongside databases for supporters, campaigners, e-commerce and donations to create a single view across all of these systems.

The single supporter view will further drive supporter insight, enable more highly targeted communications and lead to increased revenues, as well as major internal efficiencies which will see marketing staff able to work directly with supporter data themselves.

Oxfam GB head of business support Sioned Jones says: “This will put a much wider group of people directly in touch with our data and encourage lots of creative marketing with plenty of opportunities to increase revenue.”

DataSalon marketing director Jillian Monahan adds: “We are extremely pleased to be working with Oxfam to provide a truly user-friendly view onto their huge resource of existing supporter data.”

UK Media Landscape

2008-02-29T13:13:00.003Z

The media landscape in the United Kingdom is large, complex and mature, arguably ranking second globally to that of the USA. This status is derived to some extent from the use of English as the primary natural language of production and content. Although none of the major global media conglomerates is based in the UK, a number of media organisations, notably Reuters and the BBC, have international standing in their own right. UK activities also contribute significantly to the operations of global conglomerates, such as NewsCorp, Bertelsmann and Time Warner. A desire to be present in emerging global media markets led to increasing deregulation under both Conservative governments (1979-1997) and the Labour administrations of Tony Blair (1997 to date).

The UK media sector is relatively open, with participants from many countries active in almost all aspects – newspapers, television, magazines, radio, film, books, advertising, music and public relations. At the same time, UK media organisations have interests in many parts of the world. Since the late 1990s, successive Labour governments have attempted to elide the distinction between culture and commerce, leading to the adoption of the idea of the ‘creative industries’. This has been accompanied by widespread and vociferous concerns about media quality.

It should be remembered that, while, in many respects, the UK media landscape is a single entity, there are distinctive English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh dimensions, reflecting the composition of the State itself, and heightened by devolution in the late 1990s. The UK’s adult population numbers 47.5 million.

1. WRITTEN PRESS

Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of the written press is the existence of a large national newspaper sector, comprised of ten daily and ten Sunday titles. In February 2006, the total sales of national newspapers were 11.25 million daily and 12 million on Sundays.
This press is commonly divided into three sectors – ‘quality’, ‘middle market’ and ‘red-top tabloid’. For more than 20 years, all the papers in the latter two categories have been tabloid in size. More recently, three of the ‘quality’ titles abandoned the broadsheet format and adopted either a ‘compact’ (The Independent and The Times) or Berliner (The Guardian) size. This change stimulated much debate over whether the national press was abandoning ‘serious’ journalism in pursuit of popularity.

The distinctive characteristic is a dominant national press based in London. Regional and local newspapers comprise 98% of titles in circulation. The entire national newspaper press is owned by eight companies, of which the largest two (News International and Daily Mail and General Trust) had 55% of market share in 2005. With Trinity Mirror (16%) and Northern and Shell (14.5%), the top four owners control 85% of the market. A similar concentration of ownership is evident in the regional and local press. Newspaper sales are generally declining and have been for more than 40 years. Attempts to attract readers with alternative formats began in 1999 when Associated Newspapers launched the free commuter paper Metro in London. By 2003 total distributions of a series of Metro titles in British cities totaled 840,000, making it the world’s largest free newspaper.

The magazine sector is large and expanding. There is an estimated number of 8,800-10,000 titles, the two-third of which are ‘business and professional’ titles, the rest are ‘consumer’ magazines.

2. AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA

Television
The UK’s audiovisual media’s major defining characteristic is the existence of a strong public service broadcaster, the BBC. Supported by a universal compulsory television licence free, BBC is a major force in both radio and television. In all, it operates 14 television channels, an interactive TV set-up, a datacast operation, Ceefax. In all, BBC television attracts about a third of the total TV audience.

Overall around 70% of UK households have access to multi-channel television, and around 400 channels are available thus audience fragmentation is commonplace. BSkyB, controlled by NewsCorp, is the major satellite provider with around 8 million homes connected. NTL-Telewest provides cable services to about 3 million homes. Freeview, a set-top box system jointly owned by the BBC, BSkyB and Crown Castle, reaches 5million homes. Sky operates 26 channels of its own, including nine movie channels and five sports channels. Others available include those from the BBC and ITV and Channels 4 and Five, plus global offerings such as Cartoon Network, CNN, Discovery, DW-TV, Fox News, MTV, Nickelodeon, TCM and VH1.

Radio
The BBC operates five national radio stations; another five digital-only stations; the World Service; regional stations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (including stations broadcasting in Welsh and Scots), and 30 local stations.

Radio is also characterised by a multi-faceted commercial presence alongside that of the BBC. Radio services are now provided as well via Freeview, DAB, cable, satellite, mobile telephony and the internet. About 300 commercial radio stations broadcast across these platforms, the vast majority being local. The major national commercial radio station is Classic FM, reaching more than 6m people (compared to 13m and 10m for BBC Radio 2 and Radio 1). On the other hand, the reach of local commercial radio is about two-and-a-half times that of local BBC services. To help community radios, in 2005 the government initiated an attempt to persuade the hundreds of ‘pirate’ stations which broadcast illegally to convert into legitimate not-for-profit stations by offering five-year licences and start-up money.

3. DIGITAL SERVICES

Television is leading the ‘dash to digital’ with 17m homes connected since its introduction in 1998. Analogue TV signals are due to be switched off from 2008, a process which will see the end of analogue television in 2012. A projected switch-off for analogue radio signals has been mooted for 2014.

4. NEWS AGENCIES

London is a major global communications hub, and many news and picture agencies, working for all media, are located there. It is the world headquarters of Reuters, and a base for a number of other international agencies, including AFX, APTN and Getty Images. Pacemaker, which has an international reputation chiefly for photography, is based in Northern Ireland. Among the international agencies operating London bureaux are Agence France-Presse; Agencia EFE; AP; Bloomberg; Dow Jones; DPA; IRNA; ITAR-Tass, and Xinhua. The national agency is the Press Association (PA), based in London and with offices in Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow. There are more than 100 local agencies, supplying mainly the UK media. The National Association of Press Agencies is the industry body. In addition, many journalists work as freelancers.

5. ONLINE MEDIA

All significant media have online presences, a trend started in 1994 with the Electronic Telegraph followed by Guardian Unlimited, whose site has made the paper the most widely read in the world. BBC Online is one of the world’s most visited sites. BBC Online has almost 10 million unique users and Guardian Unlimited more than a million.

In 2005 the UK was the fastest-growing market for broadband connections. At the beginning of 2006 13.9 million UK households (57%) had internet access, of which 69% were broadband. It is government policy that every home in the UK will have access to online services by 2010.

6. MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS

The most prominent organizations represent media owners and operators, including online, radio, magazines, books, newspapers and independent producers. Trades unions and professional bodies represent media workers. Many organizations provide specialist services to the media.

7. MEDIA POLICIES

The UK identifies the media as part of a wider creative industries sector. Two government departments – Culture, Media and Sport and Trade and Industry – cover the media.

The future of public service within an increasingly commercialised media is a matter of debate. The paradoxical situation is highlighted by the continuing commitment to a large public service broadcaster, the BBC, which has also vigorously pursued a strategy of commercialisation and digitalisation. While the BBC is the UK’s most enthusiastic large-scale media innovator, a significant exporter and a provider of highly popular content and services, it is said by many to distort the market.

Liberalisation of media environments has been accompanied by partial deregulation. In 2003 a complex system of media regulation and oversight was partially rationalised through the creation of Ofcom to police broadcasting and telecommunications (replacing five separate bodies).

8. ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS

Voluntary and statutory accountability systems co-exist. It is estimated that more than 140 pieces of legislation have direct relevance to the media, and litigation is a favoured method of bringing the media to account. Privacy was not recognised as such in UK law; however, cases could be brought for breaches of confidentiality. Freedom of expression is protected under the 1998 Human Rights Act which enacted into UK law the European Convention on Human Rights, and a Freedom of Information Act came into force in 2005. The 1998 Act also introduced privacy as a statutory right.

External ‘watchdog’ bodies are an important element. Organizations seeking to explore media issues include the MediaWise Trust (ethics); Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom; Campaign for Freedom of Information; the Runnymede Trust (diversity), and the London International Research Exchange.

9. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND FUTURE TRENDS

Recent UK governments have attempted to bolster national media against competition from overseas predators. At the same time, it has been accepted that the biggest media are not national but global, and governed primarily by the market. Younger audiences are turning away from ‘big’ media and prefer niche digital services. The future of the BBC as a publicly funded, public service is in doubt. It is an unanswered question whether the BBC would continue as a publicly-funded national body or would become a commercial media entity from 2016. There is a lively debate about the quality and role of journalism and the media ‘dumbing down’ to try reduce costs and offer new ‘lite’ content.

10. SOURCES

The hard copy starting-point for research is the annual Media Directory published by The Guardian. There are several publications directed at trade and technical audiences. Historical and contemporary directories are held in the British Library Newspaper Library at Colindale, north London. Accessible journals include: the British Journal of Photography, British Journalism Review, Free Press (published by the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom); Press Gazette; Broadcasting, and Campaign. The Guardian has a weekly media supplement and an associated web site http://www.mediaguardian.co.uk. All the main media and media organisations maintain web sites.

11. AUTHOR

Michael Bromley is Professor of Journalism and Deputy Head of the School of Journalism and Communication at The University of Queensland (Australia). A former journalist, he has published widely on journalism and the media, and has worked as a consultant with the European Journalism Centre.

A recipe for talent?

2008-02-28T10:29:00.001Z

Case Study: McDonald's

A Recipe for Talent

How do you keep fresh ideas and innovation coming if your key people have never worked for another company? McDonald's looked to suppliers for inspiration.

McDonald's is well known for its rigorous approach to the training and development of its staff, or crew as it calls them. Depending on state legislation, teenagers as young as 14 or 15 can apply for a job.

If accepted, they start their training and embark on a well-defined path that gradually broadens their experience across restaurant roles.

This allows McDonald's to deliver consistent quality of service and, remarkably, to do so with people with no prior work experience. Many stay and it is not uncommon to meet someone aged 30 who has beenwith the organisation for 15 years.

"Training is the key to our success," McDonald's Australia vice-president of people resources Frank McManus says.

He is a case in point. Originally from Ireland, McManus has been with the organisation for 33 years, starting out as crew while travelling through Germany.

In Australia, 80 per cent of employees in restaurant management at McDonald's started their careers as crew. Of its seven global chief executive officers, four started as restaurant crew, including current chief executive Jim Skinner, who carries his career start in the kitchen as a badge of honour.

Another global chief executive who started as crew was the Australian Charlie Bell, who became chief executive in 2003 but tragically died of cancer two years later.

The ability of an organisation to grow and keep talent may well be the most important predictor for success. If its current success is something to go by, McDonald's must be doing something right in the way it manages its talent.

During the late 1990s, it lost its way for a while and the average net income for McDonald's Corporation per restaurant went down from 1999 to 2003, bottoming at $U528,900 ($32,564) in 2002. More recently, its 31,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries have been delivering outstanding results, with net income per restaurant at $US1l2,000 in 2006.

Australia, with some 65,000 staff, 760 restaurants and more than 1.2 million customers a day, is one of the restaurant group's seven big economic enginemarkets. Much of the success in Australia is driven by innovations such as McCafe (a Charlie Bell brainchild), salads, Deli Choice, low•fat muffins, Pasta Zoo and refreshing its brand image.

To maintain its success, McDonald's must maintain a relentless pace of innovation. However, having so many people who have been with the company for so long can be a two-edged sword when it comes to innovation.

"One of our biggest challenges is to come in to the business every day and look at it with fresh eyes," McDonald's Australia managing director and chief executive Peter Bush says.
This is particularly challenging for up•and-coming managers who started their career as crew, have never worked for any other company and have had to focus on short-term operational issues for most of their career. No matter how talented a person is, it is much harder to imagine a completely different future for McDonald's if their entire career has evolved inside the company.

Within the global organisation, McManus has a reputation for challenging the system and regularly coming up with new initiatives. In a world-first for McDonald's, he invited some of the company's suppliers to join its development program for high potential employees. This allowed the company's future leaders to benefit from exposure to external perspectives.

The development program, called McDonald's Australia Managing the Organisation (MAMO), was developed in collaboration with Melbourne Business School. The program falls under the Charlie Bell School of Management, the McDonald's training facility named after the former chief executive who was a great believer in training and development.

During a six-month period, all participants came together on four occasions for either two or three days. Much of that time was spent applying new concepts and ideas to professional and company challenges. In between sessions, teams continued to work on a company challenge with the aim of developing innovative ideas. At the end of the six months, each team presented its recommendations to the McDonald's leadership team.

The initial version of the program ran last year and was highly successful. Most McDonald's managers on the program had been with the company for more than 10 years, and about two out of three had never worked for another company.

The addition of managers from other companies to the program included participants from Coca Cola, IBM, McKey (supplier of food products) and H&K (supplier of kitchen equipment).
While it is not uncommon for companies to train their suppliers, this is usually done to help suppliers understand the client organisation or do a better job at servicing the client. An example is Qantas, which has trained staff from security companies that operate airport security screening points in customer service. McDonald's invites the suppliers because it wants to learn from, not instruct, them.

McDonald's managers on the program quickly recognised the value of external participation. "Having non-McDonald's partners in the program adds value to the whole journey, especially the project,"

McDonald's Australia senior legal counsel Duncan Mackay says. "Sometimes we need a non•McDonald's set of eyes to see solutions to McDonald's issues."

Examples include Coke's perspective on retail trends, or different ways to structure performance management. For McDonald's development manager Catherine Maddox, most value came from "obtaining feedback on McDonald's culture and how we are viewed in the marketplace".

McDonald's participants also felt they had learned how to view an issue from the perspective of a supplier, in this way improving future collaboration. This benefit was not limited to the suppliers that were in the program but will also extend to other suppliers.

Another benefit was the development of personal relationships across organisational boundaries. The national purchasing manager for McDonald's in Australia and New Zealand, Lisa Isaacs, believes the program improved relationships with its external partners.

"The intensity of working on actual projects combined with the personal nature of some of the program content has lead to some deep relationships that go beyond typical supplier relationships," she says.

Feedback from external participants echoes this sentiment: they have been able to obtain a much better understanding of McDonald's and have developed stronger relationships as a result.
Innes Belcher joined the program the week before he started as IBM's delivery project manager. It provided an invaluable induction into his new client organisation, he says. "Spending time with the team has given me a much greater understanding of what makes McDonald's tick. I've also built some great relationships along the way and really feel like a member of the business."

The strength of these relationships was illustrated last October when McDonald's held a getaway on the New South Wales central coast. The scheduled event was initially intended for McDonald's staff only. However, all external MAMO participants were invited by chief executive Peter Bush as members of the extended McDonald's family.

Published in BRW, 7 February 2008
This article was written by Maurizio Floris who is a program director at Mt Eliza executive education, part of Melbourne Business School. He also leads the MAMO program for McDonald's.

I'm down with the kids

2008-02-21T13:55:00.003Z

A phat site when I'm spittin jazz. This is wack.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/

Brilliant POS idea

2008-02-21T13:53:00.000Z

http://www.sensitivefloor.com/

Email, music and MMS to spearhead mobile boom

2008-02-20T09:34:00.000Z

Taken from Precision marketing - 20.02.2008.

Mobile marketing is poised to expand globally, according to a report into mobile messaging trends at a roundtable event held at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The report, carried out by mobile messaging and Internet provider Airwide Solutions, forecasts future mobile messaging trends.

It found that in the UK accelerated growth is expected in mobile versions of applications that are already firmly established and mobile email is expected to double its share of the total market over the next five years. Across Europe as a whole, mobile email, music and MMS look set to provide steady and sustained growth in revenues.

02 vice president of research and development Mike Short comments: “There remains much more to be done in 21st century messaging from CRM to enterprise messaging, from screen interactivity to better memory stores of your favourite messages from mobile marketing to personalised alert services.”

Success metrics for social media planning

2008-01-28T09:24:00.000Z

Taken from Web strategy by Jeremiah - posted 25 jan 08

So, you’re going to launch a social media campaign huh? You’ve got all the tools, resources, and processes together, but did you remember to set some goals?

I get to meet and talk to many companies that are adopting social media from a variety of levels of sophistication: unsure, scared, excited, embracing, overly ecstatic. One of the biggest challenges they have is forgetting to visualize what success looks like. In many cases, they are overly focused on fondling the hammer, that they forget about the overall goal.

Even if a company is doing a trial project (externally, internally, whatever) part of the expectations of the project should include a page, slide, or document that indicates what success will look like –even if they know that it may not be reached, here’s a few example to get you started:

A few examples of what success could look like for you:

We were able to learn something about customers we’ve never know before
We were able to tell our story to customers and they shared it with others
A blogging program where there are more customers talking back in comments than posts
An online community where customers are self-supporting each other and costs are reduced
We learn a lot from this experimental program, and pave the way for future projects, that could still be a success metric
We gain experience with a new way of two-way communication
We connect with a handful of customers like never before as they talk back and we listen
We learned something from customers that we didn’t know before

As you prepare your plans (you’ve got one right?) to use social media, don’t forget to include a section on “what does success look like”, and visualize and aim for you goals. Oh, and guess what, your goals can change over time, and they should.

Experimentation with these are important, these are radically different ways for companies to communicate with customers, so be sure to indicate to your management how this is experiment, and you’ll need a bit of wiggle room and latitude for the unexpected. It’s their job to empower and trust you, knowing the risks that could happen as you learn to let go to gain more.

It’s important to setup expectations for yourself, your management, and your customers (feel free to let them know why you are doing this) in order to give yourself a purpose as you embark on connecting in new ways.

Email Marketing in a Web 2.0 World

2008-01-23T10:02:00.000Z

Taken from http://www.silverpop.com

Gone are the days of brochure-like mailings that rely solely on the novelty of email and the Internet in general to get the kind of response needed for a successful email marketing campaign. As the Internet continues to evolve, so do recipient expectations. Customers and prospects expect a new kind of relationship with the companies they do business with—one that anticipates their needs, focuses on their wants and gives them a measure of control.

The future of email marketing in a Web 2.0 world must embody the desire to connect with the customer on a personal level. Here are a few tactics for operating in a Web 2.0 environment.
Talk to Customers IndividuallyUsing Web 2.0 technology, marketers can not only send personalized messages, they can send completely different messages to each recipient based on the recipient's behavior. Dynamic content can be created using a variety of factors including purchase activity, service inquiries, or downloading a coupon/white paper/newsletter, etc.

Because dynamic content allows you to build messages based on specific recipient characteristics, it is one of the best email marketing techniques for improving targeting, controlling frequency and driving relevancy. However, despite the success of dynamic content in lifting response rates and increasing relevance, marketers have generally shied away from it because of its perceived complexity and difficulty. But marketers working with one of the select number of sophisticated email service providers have found that integrated platforms take away much of the pain, leaving all of the gain of dynamic content. In fact, JupiterResearch found that 44 percent of email marketers using an ESP incorporate dynamic content into their email campaigns, compared to just 25 percent who use in-house applications.

Dynamic content delivers substantial benefits, particularly in a Web 2.0 world, where consumers demand higher levels of relevance than ever before. Email campaigns based on dynamic content help companies enhance customer relationships, loyalty and lifetime value.

Dive into AnalyticsHaving a targeted, sophisticated email campaign is only half the battle. Capturing your progress and analyzing the results is another facet essential to successful email marketing. To truly understand the results of your campaign, you must look beyond the basics of opens and clicks.

With the next generation technology of Web 2.0 comes sophisticated email marketing platforms that have reporting and analytics features that allow for massive amounts of data to be condensed into simple and actionable information. This information can be used to answer key questions to boost your bottom line results.

For example:
Does geographic location affect results?
How does gender or age impact the likelihood of clicking a specific link?
Analyzing information can give marketers significant insight into the thoughts and habits of their most active customers as well as those with only occasional or rare interaction.
Build Brand Along with ROIDespite all of the whiz-bang features of many Web 2.0 technologies, there is still no substitute for good, old-fashioned brand recognition. Even the most inactive customers will be less annoyed and more inclined to open the occasional email if it’s from a company they know, trust—and although not always interested—appreciate receiving offers from.

Keeping your brand in a favorable light with recipients can have a high return-on-investment in the long run. Consider the following tactics for a good relationship with strong brand recognition:
Establish and cultivate a trusting relationship with the recipient through relevancy and timing
Use your brand name in the subject and/or "from" line so recipients immediately recognize you as a sender whose email is safe to open

The availability of advanced and user-friendly solutions make marketing in a Web 2.0 world less intimidating. For more tips on email marketing in a Web 2.0 world, download the newest Silverpop white paper, "Web 2.0 Email Marketing: 5 Steps to Unrivaled Results."

Web Analytics

2008-01-02T16:09:00.000Z

Web Audience Measurement Clouds Build, Few Signs of Clearing in '08
By Kate Kaye, The ClickZ Network, Jan 2, 2008

Talk of online audience measurement reached a crescendo in 2007. Publishers, advertisers and measurement firms grappled with significant shifts in how Web content is published and how users interact with it. Publishers pumped up the complaint volume about reporting discrepancies. And the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) demanded the two biggest online measurement firms shed light on their methods.

While baby steps were taken in '07 to adjust audience measurement for a maturing Web, publishers remain disgruntled, Internet users continue to explore new means of consuming digital media, and, for better or worse, agencies have more and more data to decipher.

Perhaps the most significant event in the space occurred in April. In an impassioned missive addressed to the CEOs of online measurement firms ComScore and Nielsen/NetRatings (now Nielsen Online), IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg expressed dismay and frustration with discrepancies in site audience and ad impression reports. Calling for impartial audits of the firms' methodologies, the new IAB chief voiced his surprise that the main Web audience measurement systems employ panels, "a media-measurement technique invented for the radio industry exactly seven decades ago."

Web publishers, which comprise the bulk of the IAB's membership, have long dealt with audience measurement reporting discrepancies between their own site-side numbers and those from Nielsen Online and ComScore, contending those firms' panel-based measures underreport the number of users visiting their sites or mistake audience demographics. Advertisers and agencies insist publishers use third party reports to validate claims about the size and makeup of their audiences.

Spanish media outfit Prisa has filed a lawsuit against Nielsen in a New York court, claiming Nielsen's underreporting of its site audiences resulted in "serious damages" from ad revenue loss. Major League Baseball's MLB.com President and CEO Bob Bowman also recently took aim at Nielsen, stating in a press release,"we remain disappointed with the grossly inaccurate traffic reporting by Nielsen Online."

Both ComScore's and Nielsen Online's systems are undergoing full audits by outside auditors, monitored by the Media Ratings Council, a media industry-funded auditing service created in the 1960s by the U.S. Congress to create broadcast ratings standards.

While publishers gripe about mismatched panel-based numbers, the need for new gauges for online audience interaction is evident. Increased use of streaming video, music and online games on publisher sites or within other points of distribution across the Web is diminishing accuracy of metrics like unique visitors and pageviews. Media diffusion in widgets and small sites not easily picked up by panel-based systems, along with proliferation of technologies such as AJAX and Flash that dynamically alter content without the need to refresh Web pages, spurred ComScore and Nielsen to introduce new metrics this year.

ComScore unveiled new "visits" metrics for tracking the number of times a unique site visitor accesses content within a Web property, in addition to new reports showing the number of display ads viewed by particular audience segments. The firm also launched an initiative with blog publisher Federated Media to provide metrics appropriate for measuring blogs and other conversational media.

Nielsen launched its own "total minutes" and "total sessions" metrics this year, aiming to measure site audience volume more accurately. The company also announced an online video measurement service based on panel and census data this year.

"We need a much greater sample" to measure online user interaction, said Bill Tancer, GM global research at Hitwise, arguing panel-based measurements are becoming obsolete as people flock to smaller sites. Hitwise aggregates anonymous user data gathered through ISPs.

"The existing measurement solutions don't facilitate the level of granularity and tracking that this very complex media marketplace is going to require as it evolves," said Adam Gerber, CMO of Quantcast, a firm that combines panel and directly measured site data. Gerber believes the ultimate online audience measurement system will provide real-time audience interaction data that can work in conjunction with ad targeting.

The question remains whether advertisers and their media planning agencies will have the wherewithal to put all these emerging data sets to use. "There is a danger of data overload," said Gerber.

Though he'd prefer more rather than less data, David Smith, CEO of integrated media agency Mediasmith said, "We need better tools all the time to parse the data." Those tools, suggested Smith, will come in the form of Web analytics dashboards that allow for data to flow from the ad planning to buying to execution to post campaign analysis stages. "In the next year or two, dashboards to handle this data will be a big story," he continued.

In the meantime, the IAB hopes to refine the processes already in place. According to David Dody, SVP thought leadership and public communications at the IAB, its Audience Measurement Working Group will release guidelines in 2008 defining terms like unique visitors, pageviews and time spent, and reviewing factors that can tarnish panel-based measurements such as cookie deletion and Web spiders.

Web Playgrounds of the Very Young

2008-01-02T09:50:00.000Z

The future of virual worlds is kids....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/business/31virtual.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

In game advertising

2008-01-02T09:45:00.000Z

In-Game Advertising Built Momentum in '07
By Enid Burns, The ClickZ Network, Dec 28, 2007

While Microsoft's "Halo," the most anticipated video game to hit store shelves in 2007 was off limits to advertisers, the sector gained momentum both in games and around games.
Among the hot titles packed with advertising was Activision's "Guitar Hero III."

"The biggest thing this year is the momentum, the acceptance of the medium, the increase in size in the advertising buys, and increased acceptance in the publisher community," Cory Van Arsdale, CEO of Microsoft's Massive unit told ClickZ News.

In addition to advertisers and publishers, developers became more receptive to the appearance of brands into games. According to Van Arsdale, developers continue to obsess about the storyline, however they are considering advertisers in the process "They're increasingly thinking about[ad] inventory quality and how that might work."

Publishers are beginning to prioritize how and where ad insertion happens in a game. "There's only so much room in a game. When we look at priority, it's dynamic," said Shelby Cox, senior director of ad sales at Electronic Arts, the publisher of the "Madden" and "Need for Speed" series among other franchises. "The stuff we typically sold will now have dynamic tags on it."
Dynamic placements are able to be updated with new brand campaigns while static insertions are hard-coded into a game and remain with the same creative throughout.

"I think you'll see blurring of the lines between dynamic and static," said Van Arsdale. "Static ads that are in the game stay, they are shipped with the title, they never change, and you can't measure exposure. If you make those dynamic you can actually track that."

Earlier this year Double Fusion began offering dynamic product integration on its network. Massive has the ability to do the same, and expects to tag static items in games to provide metrics on gamer exposure and interaction. Without tags, a brand will know how many copies of a game are sold, but not how many gamers interacted with the brand.

Previously, marketers with large-scale integration bought additional dynamic ads to provide metrics, though the metrics didn't necessarily correlate with interaction with the brand in the game.

Momentum grew in in-game advertising in a year when the video game industry took part in a more businesslike Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Media buyers were privy to more meetings and invites than in previous years. "E3 of the past was a great place for [agencies and brands] to come get a snapshot [of the industry]," said Cox. "Some of the folks we talked with [this year] found it to be disappointing, but we did get a lot of business done meeting with the agencies that actually did come."

Many agencies, brands, and even in-game ad networks decided not to attend. Massive's Van Arsdale has only attended E3 in past years as a spectator. Though from a business standpoint, he said the emphasis for Microsoft is on the Game Developer Conference, Cannes, and Microsoft's Strategic Accounts Summits held throughout the year.

The next hurdle for in-game and around game advertising is to establish standards and metrics. "You have IGA Worldwide with one definition of an impression, and Double Fusion and Massive with another," said Cox. Massive counts a cumulative :10 exposure as an impression.

The onus is not entirely on the networks, but a general industry understanding. "We need to set standards and metrics buyers understand, and to come up with a vernacular," Cox said. "The research is there, but as an industry we need to do a better job making it easier for buyers to buy."

The Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) committee on advertising in video and Web-based games released its first findings. The document was primarily definitions and a baseline of information.

"I think [the IAB] is going to have an increasing impact going forward," said Chris Houtzer, senior director of new media and games at RealNetworks. "Having the IAB recognize in-game advertising as a significant media for advertisers and the games industry in general is really important."

The IAB's goal to establish standards and terms is agreed to be a worthy objective. "Hopefully it will keep my competition from obfuscating the definitions of things, because I think that's not helping the medium," Van Arsdale said.

Van Arsdale wants to see a designation between different media. "People will call it in-game when it's not in-game, it's around-game or a Web site," he said. This includes banners and interstitials in Web-based games, and sponsorship of tournaments and contests. While these are viable options for advertisers who want to reach a particular audience, or be associated with a specific game, there is a distinction. "People really need to understand the medium, and that's what this year's been about," he said.

Momentum built in casual and Web-based games in much the same way as console and PC games. "Instead of this being an experimental year, we've seen the transition in 2007 from experimental to a must have for advertisers," Houtzer said.

Casual games paralleled console titles in terms of advertising. "In general across the industry we saw a lot of adoption of advertising as a significant way to monetize games," said Houtzer. "Developers made a great leap in supporting advertising, instead of 2006 questioning the legitimacy. What's really helped them do that this year is initiatives that Real has, as well as others, the aspect of sharing revenues."

Casual game sites including RealNetworks and Microsoft began offering developers a share of ad revenues. Many publishers earned stronger revenues from advertising than sales.

In the coming year new opportunities for casual games will emerge. EA is bringing the casual game experience of its property Pogo.com to the console. "We are focusing on different types of products on the console that are much more suited for advertising," said Cox. "Like our Pogo model, there's going to be products out there where advertising is the root business model."
The console manufacturers have already realized the value of such products. An IDC report identified additional revenue streams the current generation of consoles bring in. "The installed base growth and connectivity growth helped," Cox said.

TV ads online

2008-01-02T09:31:00.000Z

Consumers Who Watch TV Online More Engaged Than TV-Set Watchers, Simmons Finds
by Mark Walsh, Monday, Dec 24, 2007

CONSUMERS ARE 47% MORE ENGAGED in ads that run with television programs that they view online than those watched on a TV set, according to new research findings.

A cross-media study by Simmons, a unit of Experian Research Services, also found that viewers are 25% more engaged in the content of TV shows that they watch online than on a TV.

The study defines "engagement" according to six characteristics that respondents identify with media: "inspirational," "trustworthy," "life-enhancing," "social interaction," "personal time-out" and ad receptivity.

Survey participants were asked, for instance, to rate TV shows, magazines and Web sites based on how "inspiring" they were or how much they provided fodder for conversation. Ad "receptivity" was gauged on how willing people were to view or read advertising in a given medium because of its relevance.

John Fetto, product manager for Experian Research Services, said that the research suggests that TV ads online are especially effective at reaching consumers.

"Web sites that are extensions of properties that exist in other media channels have great potential to funnel audiences that are highly engaged in the first place," he said.

TV aside, the study found that people are 18% more engaged in ads online, as opposed to print versions, of magazines--and that they are also 15% more engaged in magazine articles online than in print.

In demographic terms, women and younger consumers were shown to have higher levels of engagement online than men and older users. However, the differences were not huge. For instance, based on a 100- to 500-point scoring system, women on average were only slightly more receptive to online ads than men on average, at 236 to 228, respectively.

Also, those between the ages of 35 and 54 rated the Internet as being almost as trustworthy a source of information as did 18- to-34-year-olds (307 for the older demographic, 316 for the younger one).

Other findings:

• People are more receptive to ads on sites that they visit often. Those who visited sites two to six times per week or more are more likely to be responsive to ads than less frequent visitors.

• Among media overall, print rated higher in engagement than TV or the Internet. Does that mean rumors of print being dead are highly exaggerated? Not necessarily. Fetto said that the study showed that among those who read magazines, it's the most engaging medium--but overall, the audience for print media is declining.

The Simmons study was based on 74,996 interviews with U.S. adults about the TV programs, magazines and Web sites that they watch, read and visit. The survey was conducted online and

About time - Dove

2007-11-28T12:06:00.000Z

Dove viral has drawn heat from critics. To be honest, I'm glad.

The double standard of this campaign is pretty clear. How can one beauty product take a moral high ground against other beauty products when they still advertise in the same places, and are owned by the same company as those they are critising?

November 26, 2007
http://adage.com/article?article_id=122185

See the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaH4y6ZjSfE

Measuring Web 2.0

2007-11-22T08:36:00.000Z

Four different perspectives on measuring Web 2.0. Cheers Nick.

http://www.websocialarchitecture.com/community/2007/08/measuring-commu.html

http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=023001WVB6FE

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/10/nielsen_page_views/

http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/362048/measuring-web-2-0-the-death-of-the-page-impression.html

In summary

E-consultancy talk about approaching measuring Web 2.0 more like broadcast media than press. They believe the key metrics should be the number of users and the length of time they spend.

The new version of Google Analytics includes new feature such as site search reporting (identifing keywords, categories, products and trends across time and user segments) and event tracking (which enables users to measure visitor engagement with a site's interactive elements.

The Register reports that Nielsen Net Ratings have moved their emphasis on reporting from page views to total time spent on site and also that the measurement methods will be more akin to how TV audiences are estimated.

The Web Social Architecture community posting states that sign-in is the most important action, and therefore traceable stat. They also feel that page views qualified by either a time-based or action-based threshold would represent a valid measurement. Examples they give of action-based measures include file downloads, play embedded media, copy embeded code, forward via email, scroll to bottom of page, print, favourite.

Who's Really Participating in Web 2.0

2007-11-22T08:30:00.000Z

taken from time.com

We're very taken with the idea of consumers creating content for the Internet. With the advent of blogs, tagging, personal profiles, garage band music and amateur web videos, instant notoriety is just an "upload" click away. The sheer volume of user content is staggering. Wikipedia's user-created entries have surpassed the 5 million mark. In 2006 YouTube announced that it had served over 100 million video clips per day. With such vast libraries of lip-synched videos and episodes of LonelyGirl15, the numbers seem to indicate that this phenomenon has gone mainstream.

One of the exciting concepts of the next generation of sites is the democratization of the Internet. By enabling each of us to create and publish our own material, the power of deciding what we read and watch has spread from a handful of media companies to anyone with an Internet connection and a cheap webcam.

But the latest data on Internet participation reveals that only a very small percentage of Internet activity is related to users creating and publishing content. The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, states that 80% of all consequences stem from 20% of the causes. If true, the rule would then suggest that 80% of this new form of content is created by 20% of the users.

The rule, subject of countless business books, has no application when it comes to consumer-generated content. Far less than 1% of visits to most sites that thrive on user-created materials are attributable as participatory, the remaining 99% are passive visits.

According to Hitwise, only 0.2% of visits to YouTube are users uploading a video, 0.05% visits to Google Video include uploaded videos and 0.16% of Flickr visits are people posting photos. Only the social encyclopedia Wikipedia shows a significant amount of participation, with 4.56% of visits to the site resulting in content editing.

Not only is the percentage of participation very small online, there are some very strong skews as to who is participating. Visitors to Wikipedia are almost equally split 50/50 men and women, yet edits to Wikipedia entries are 60% male. The gender gap is even greater for YouTube, a site whose visitors are equally male and female, but whose uploaders are over 76% male.
With age comes experience, as well as the desire to disseminate knowledge. There is a clear age difference between visitors to Wikipedia and editors of its content. Over 45% of visitors to the site are under the age of 35, while 82% of those making edits to the site are 35 years old or older.

Web 2.0 has been successful in significantly broadening the amount material available to us, but reviewing the latest data reveals that we're still in the very early stages. Watching videos of Charlie the Unicorn or the latest interpretation of Star Wars Cantina music feels as though we're in the awkward and uncomfortable position of being one of the first guests to arrive at what promises to be a very cool party.
Bill Tancer is general manager of global research at Hitwise.

Guiness Ads

2007-11-08T13:31:00.000Z

Guinness hides new ad on Internet The drink’s new website will go live soon

Guinness has a track record of delivering award-winning iconic adverts such a ‘Surfers’ and ‘Hands’ so it seems bizarre that they would want to hide their latest work.

But that’s exactly what they have done.The latest ad is not to be launched on TV but has been hidden online for a Guinness fan to find and then launch to the world.

To be the first to find the new ad internet users are being asked by the drink’s ad agency AMV BBDO to solve a series of clues, codes and puzzles and piece together the new film.“Don’t expect it to be easy,” they warn. “As you know, it just wouldn’t be Guinness if the reward didn’t involve a little waiting.”The drink’s new website will go live soon, but in advance they have launched a teaser on You Tube.

It stars Juan Ramon, the mayor of ‘the village’ and contains some clues to get the search started.

SMOG

2007-11-08T12:49:00.000Z

How to measure the goobledegook!

http://www.harrymclaughlin.com/SMOG.htm

This will tell you how many years of education needed to understand what you have written.

Analyst: Social networking faces uncertain future

2007-10-23T08:52:00.000Z

By Natasha Lomas Special to CNET News.com
Published: October 19, 2007, 10:02 AM PDT

Social-networking sites will enlist 230 million active members by the end of the year and will keep attracting new users until at least 2009, according to an analyst report. But investors are still wary--and for good reason, as long-term growth is by no means certain.

A report by U.K.-based Datamonitor, titled "The future of social networking: Understanding market strategic and technological developments," predicts that growth in the number of people signing up to be a part of the cultural phenomenon, which has put the likes of Facebook on the map, will peak by 2009 and plateau by 2012.

It also suggests revenues from social-networking services will hit $965 million this year, swelling to $2.4 billion by 2012.

Growth in the membership of social-networking sites varies dramatically by region, according to the analyst, which predicts Asia Pacific will account for 35 percent of global social networking users by the end of this year, followed by EMEA (28 percent), North America (25 percent), and the Caribbean and Latin America (12 percent).

However, while Datamonitor likens the current hype and excitement around social networking to the heady days of the dot-com boom, it said there is anxiety as well, and warns that investors are pulled in two directions. They do not want to miss out on the "next Google or Yahoo" but are cautious of being overconfident about a Web phenomenon that is not proven over the long term.
It is for this reason that most social-networking sites would be wise to postpone an IPO, said the analyst.

Speaking at a Web 2.0 conference in the US recently, Mark Zuckerberg, this year's top Agenda Setter award winner and founder and chief executive of Facebook--very much the social network of the moment--said his company is "years" away from any such flotation.

Ri Pierce-Grove Technology, analyst at Datamonitor and author of the report, said in a statement: "The extraordinary proliferation of online social networks is fueled by real innovation and is substantially changing the way we communicate. However, the hothouse atmosphere of easy capital, media attention and user curiosity which stimulates creativity will not be sustained indefinitely."

The analyst added that players must develop a "two-pronged strategy in order to survive the extremes of heat and eventual chill which this market will undergo."

Datamonitor said the current growth in social networking offers opportunities for businesses to get involved in supporting the infrastructure needed to run such sites, and it advises technology providers to look for ways to support social-networking services in the areas of scalability and availability.

The analyst also takes the view that consolidation in the marketplace is likely as it becomes more crowded, but said this does not necessarily mean individual sites will be swallowed up. For instance, it predicts special interest social-network sites will continue to play a role.

Need a presentation fast?

2007-10-23T08:37:00.000Z

Slide Share is a really good slide sharing site. Loads of different stuff:

http://www.slideshare.net/

Why do clients dump agencies?

2007-10-22T15:31:00.000Z

Study reveals reasons for client / agency splits - taken from Precision Marketing. 22.10.2007

Breakdowns in client and agency relationships are due to failures from both parties to listen to each other and quality of personnel, a study from the AAR reveals.

A survey conducted by the intermediary shows that failure to listen to each other, quality of personnel and inflexibility are sited by agencies and clients as the most common reasons why relationships breakdown. However, 81 per cent of clients and 75 per cent of agencies believe setting clear expectations and clearly defining roles are the best preventative measures.

Over 80 per cent of clients said growing dissatisfaction with their agency’s service output was a key early warning sign to problems ahead. Over 40 per cent of clients are dissatisfied with agencies because of their lack of delivery, 34 per cent are dissatisfied with agencies who don’t meet briefs, and 33 per cent of clients are left unhappy because of declining agency work.

In contrast, only 41 per cent of agencies focused on clients’ dissatisfaction with output or service. Over half of respondents said their dissatisfaction with clients was due to people and relationship changes, while 21 per cent of agencies were left disgruntled because clients were not happy with their staff.

Kerry Glazer, chief executive at AAR, comments: “There needs to be a more concerted effort upfront to establish how the client and agency are going to work together. Our research indicated that a break up could be avoided if working practices were agreed and formalised in writing and practice at the start of the relationship, but the reality is that the focus is on establishing commercial arrangements. This type of forward planning could make for more enduring and successful relationships for both parties.”

Acquiring Market Intelligence through Social Media

2007-10-17T09:24:00.000Z

Friday 5th October 2007, Portland Place.

Introduction

According to Wikipedia there are 103 major social networking websites worldwide focusing on practically every type of activity from the making of dolls to the connecting of people - business to business.

From a market perspective, this translates into hundreds of millions of people regularly using sites for communication and interaction – thus the considerable business interest. MySpace with 200 million current users was acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in 2005 for $649 million. His rationale was that his empire had failed to engage properly with the digital world and risked losing its hard-won position in news provision. The purchase of Myspace was a start at putting that lack of engagement right.

Facebook, with 40 million users was started by the now 23 year old Mark Zuckerberg for colleges, then high schools, and now it includes everyone from newspaper editors to politicians. Viacom offered $750 million to acquire it. Yahoo then offered nearly $1billion. And according to the Wall Street Journal last week, Microsoft is interested in acquiring a minority stake - a potential investment of around $500 million for just 5% of the company. Google is also expressing interest in the same 5%.

As to which is the most popular social networking site, the latest audit announced a few days ago by Nielson/NetRatings puts Facebook ahead of MySpace.

From a business perspective, it’s clear that the social network is now one of the most effective ways of reaching people - new prospects, engaging with customers and finding out what’s going on in one’s market.

In the context of Microsoft’s marketing plans for its products and services, Steve Ballmer said to the New York Times recently “One pervasive change is the importance of community. It’s a big deal.”

Demonstrably, the social web is no “one off” phenomenon. The success of YouTube, Myspace, LinkedIn and Facebook is evidence of people wishing to take control of how they communicate, seek information, participate and interact. The marketing implications are very clear. Old style “push marketing” telemarketing or direct marketing is increasingly ineffective in today’s environment.

Web 2.0 enabled the development of the Social Network, which in turn has begun to change the role of the corporate marketeer from a broadcaster of messages to an aggregator of content and builder of online communities.

It means adapting marketing mindsets from companies only saying what they want to say to that of also hearing what their clients and prospects want to say. But what precisely is a social network and how does it work exactly? How scientifically can one acquire market intelligence from a social web?

To answer these questions, we were fortunate to have some great speakers: Michael Chin, Senior Vice President of the KickApps Corporation, and Ankur Shah, a director of Techlightenment.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Briefing

There were well over thirty companies represented including IBM, BT, SonyBMG, BBC, O2, AOL and many more.

Michael Chin identified the business imperatives, business models and strategies needed to succeed in the new age of social media.

KickApps is used by thousands of large global media and entertainment brands and independent publishers, including Scripps Network Interactive, VIBE Magazine, HBO, Cinemax, BET Networks, Kraft Foods and Procter & Gamble.

Michael's presentation: KIckApps Presentation

Ankur Shah discussed how communities and social interaction are inherently logical and can be analysed to enable the acquisition of market intelligence.

His company, Techlightenment is a new type of innovations agency. Its aim is to harness and embrace cutting-edge and disruptive technologies for the benefit of all market sectors. He believes that social interaction is an inherently rational act and can be understood and analysed.

To that end, Ankur demonstrated that mapping the influence individual nodes have on any given network, enables one to understand how individuals will respond to any given engagement.
Ankur’s presentations are here Socialistics and here Techlightenment

Things work better together

2007-10-17T08:58:00.000Z

Nice bit of research from Dynamic Logic to show that campaigns are more effective when you use more than one channel;

http://www.dynamiclogic.com/eu/research/WhatsInTheMix/

Popuri - social media

2007-10-17T08:52:00.000Z

Measure link popularity and social media coverage

http://www.popuri.us/

Cap Code food and drink for kids

2007-10-17T08:49:00.000Z

Food or soft drink product advertisements and children

47.6 Marketing communications should not condone or encourage poor nutritional habits or an unhealthy lifestyle in children.

47.7
(a) Although children might be expected to exercise some preference over the food they eat or drink, marketing communications should be prepared with a due sense of responsibility and should not directly advise or ask children to buy or to ask their parents or other adults to make enquiries or purchases. (see 47.4a).

(b) Marketing communications should neither try to sell to children by directly appealing to emotions such as pity, fear, or self-confidence nor suggest that having the advertised product somehow confers superiority, for example making a child more confident, clever, popular, or successful.

(c) Marketing communications addressed to children should avoid “high pressure” and “hard sell” techniques; they should neither directly urge children to buy or persuade others to buy nor suggest that children could be bullied, cajoled or otherwise put under pressure to acquire the advertised item.

(d) Products and prices should not be presented in marketing communications in a way that suggests children or their families can easily afford them.

(e) Marketing communications addressed to or targeted directly at children should not actively encourage them to eat or drink at or near bedtime, to eat frequently throughout the day or to replace main meals with confectionery or snack foods.

47.8 Marketing communications featuring a promotional offer should be prepared with a due sense of responsibility. Except those for fresh fruit or fresh vegetables, food or drink advertisements that are targeted directly at pre-school or primary school children through their content should not include promotional offers.

(a) Marketing communications featuring a promotional offer linked to food products of interest to children should avoid creating a sense of urgency or encouraging the purchase of excessive quantities for irresponsible consumption.

(b) Marketing communications should not seem to encourage children to eat or drink a product only to take advantage of a promotional offer: the product should be offered on its merits, with the offer as an added incentive. Marketing communications featuring a promotional offer should ensure a significant presence for the product. Marketing communications for fresh fruit or fresh
vegetable products are exempt from this restriction.

(c) Marketing communications for collection-based promotions should not seem to urge children or their parents to buy excessive quantities of food.

(d) Marketing communications should not encourage children to eat more than they otherwise would.

47.9 Licensed characters and celebrities popular with children should be used with a due sense of responsibility. Except those for fresh fruit or fresh vegetables, food or drink advertisements that are targeted directly at pre-school or primary school children through their content should not include licensed characters or celebrities popular with children.

47.10 Marketing communications should not give a misleading impression of the nutritional or health benefits of the product as a whole. Except those for fresh fruit or fresh vegetables, food or drink advertisements that are targeted directly at pre-school or primary school children through their content should not include nutrition or health claims.

47.11 Marketing communications should not disparage good dietary practice or the selection of options, such as fresh fruit and vegetables that accepted dietary opinion recommends should form part of the average diet.

Brand watch

2007-10-01T15:23:00.000Z

Online brandwatch tool. Subscription model. Looks good.

http://magpie.net/movies/BW_intro.mov

Personality test

2007-08-30T09:54:00.000Z

Really good personality test from Myers-Briggs

http://www.mypersonality.info/personality-types/

I am a ENTJ - The "Chief"

ENTJs are strategic, organized and possess natural leadership qualities. They are master coordinators that can effectively give direction to groups. They are able to understand complicated organizational situations and quick to develop intelligent solutions. ENTJs are outspoken and will not hesitate to speak of their plans for improvement. They are decisive and value knowledge, efficiency and competence.

How to get CEOs to buy into WOM

2007-07-25T08:35:00.000Z

Extract from Lois Kelly.

#1. Make meaning, not buzz
"Talk" marketing isn't about superficial buzz that sizzles fast and fades fast. The goal is to help people make sense of information through conversations. The more meaningful the conversations, the faster people are able to connect to your organization, product, or service. This shortens sales cycles and helps employees buy into change more quickly. For companies selling a considered product or service -- which includes most business-to-business companies, professional service firms, and pharmaceutical, health care, and educational organizations -- the goal is making meaning, not making buzz.

#2. Listening leads to innovation
Conversations are at least 50% listening -- and perhaps much more. Marketing's purpose today isn't just pushing out information and producing things; it's listening and bringing ideas back into a company. Ideas that can spark innovation, influence product development, and pinpoint ways to get access to and attention from decision makers. Listening is a new strategy, and it happens through conversations, whether those conversations are face-to-face or in online communities and social networks.

#3. Points of view are more interesting than your products
Unless you're Steve Jobs talking about the iPhone, people don't want to talk about your products or capabilities; they can look that up on the web. What they do want to talk about are your points of view about the industry or category. What common mistakes do you see? What are one or two emerging trends you believe may upset business as usual? In what area are most people wasting money and don't even realize it? What "best practice" do you think is a waste of time? Points of view jumpstart meaningful conversations and distinguish your organization on more than products. And every CEO has those points of view to share with their organization, with customers, with media, and with employees. So share those interesting views. They'll get talked about.

#4. Nothing to talk about is why people don't talk
The reason everyone in a company is often telling a different story -- or not saying much at all -- is that they don't have anything interesting to talk about. Elevator statements, product messages, and mission statements are -- let's face it -- pretty boring and not something that makes you want to get together with a prospect or an analyst. Nor are they something employees want to talk about when they get together with company partners and agencies. Take your points of view and set them free. Share them with everyone in the company and encourage everyone to talk about the ideas, as well as what they hear from the resulting conversations. People will remember and will talk about fresh point of views that get people to say, "Gee, that's interesting. Tell me more." But they're not going to talk about messages and value propositions.

#5. Measure involvement vs. awareness
The new measure of marketing effectiveness is involvement. The more involved people become with your ideas or your sales reps, the more vested they become in those ideas and people. More importantly, involvement is the prerequisite to action, whether that action is changing your mind, asking for an RFP, or making a decision to buy. The objective is to engage people in conversations that get them involved with you and you with them.

One last point that resonated at that skeptical CEO meeting: I played the new Paul McCartney song,"Fine Line," which includes the lyrics, "There's a fine line between recklessness and courage." Not embracing conversational marketing and letting go of some control is reckless because it puts a barrier up between you and your customers, I reminded the execs. Change that makes a big difference, however, requires just a small bit of courage.
And what CEO wants to be seen as lacking courage?
________________________________________________
Lois Kelly is author of "Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing" and a partner in WOMMA member company Foghound. She also blogs at http://blog.foghound.com/.

How online advertising influences search volumes

2007-07-24T08:30:00.000Z

Published: 04 June 2007

Mike Teasdale, Planning Director at Harvest Digital discusses the connections between online display activity and search and reveals some interesting consumer trends.

A recent Atlas survey on the ‘halo effect’ between display and search discovered an average uplift on conversion rates of 22 per cent on searchers who had recently been exposed to a display advertisement from the same company.

Research using adserving data like this has the advantage of using massive amounts of customer data across different companies, but there are some issues with the accuracy of the data – for example, cookie deletion by users can skew the results.

So we turned to primary research with consumers to ask them directly whether display advertising influenced their subsequent searching behaviour.

We ran a survey in conjunction with Adviva, the leading advertising network, to assess attitudes to online travel purchasing. Research was conducted and compiled by Nielsen//NetRatings with over 900 respondents.

Research findings
Respondents were asked whether they would click on an ad, do a search or go directly to the advertiser’s website if they saw an online advertisement.

We expected clicking on a banner to be the most popular option – but surprisingly only 26 per cent of our sample said that they would click on a banner to respond.

In fact search was the most popular option. This was split between searches for the advertiser’s name (26per cent) or for a general term relating to the advertisement (31per cent). So more than twice as many people are being driven to a search engine by banner advertising than by clicking directly on the banner!

Retail channels also benefit, with 4 per cent claiming they would visit a high street store having seen a banner.

What’s going on here?
At first, these findings seem counter-intuitive – after all, what could be easier than clicking on a banner?

Much web activity is task-driven. How much is that flight? What’s the weather like in Hull? Clicking on a banner distracts from the completion of a task, people tend to follow up on the advertisement afterwards. Many consumers seem to be treating the activity more like posters or TV.

Implications of this research
One key implication is in how we judge the effectiveness of online activity. Focusing on the last click before a transaction will often rate search marketing as the most cost-effective channel, underestimating the part display advertising plays.

Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings observes, "The unrivalled ability of the Internet to provide marketers with detailed information on direct user response to online ads often means the whole story is ignored. Our research highlights how 'click-through-tunnel-vision' ignores the larger or delayed impact that the ad can have on viewer behaviour or perception. After all, you don't just measure the success of a poster by how many people buy the product advertised from the nearest shop."

Todd Treusdell, CEO at Adviva comments: “Display activity gives clients the opportunity to reach large numbers of internet users at a relatively low cost. It’s important to appreciate (as this research underlines) that direct clicks are only one way that the advertising is working. Consumers are also doing searches, going directly to your web site and even visiting your retail store – all prompted by an online advertising campaign.”

The importance of an integrated approach to search and display
The most striking finding is how many searches are being prompted by online display activity.
Unfortunately for brand owners, the research suggests that more searches are going to generic terms like “package holiday Cyprus” than to the brand itself.

Search needs to be optimised to work with banner advertising, by anticipating searches that are likely to be prompted by the banner and ensure a higher rank for search results.
Although the speed and accuracy digital marketing enjoys is the envy of other marketing channels, the numbers do not always give a true indication.

Just as online is influenced by activity in offline channels, different online channels also seem to have a profound influence on each other.

This research strongly suggests that measuring display activity by CTR alone underestimates the impact of that activity. For every click on a banner, our research implies at least two related searches and a further direct visit to the advertiser’s web site.

Research on the Adviva network conducted by Nielsen/Netratings

What's a widget?

2007-07-23T08:06:00.000Z

Extract from ClickZ Experts

Widgets have a single, simple purpose: to connect you to a primary source of information. A weather widget looks up your local weather from a source like weather.com so you don't have to. An interactive widget may let you participate with a site while you're on another.

There are different kinds of widgets. You could have a Web widget on your blog that manages a user poll, a list of del.ico.us links, or even Flickr photos. You could have a desktop widget that captures the latest MLB headlines, provides calculator functionality, or even offers quick driving directions. Mobile widgets can run on your phone or a wireless communication device like Nokia's Widsets project, to provide mobile access to Web services. It could also be simple code embedded in a consumer appliance that provides local weather while you're making coffee.
The industry needs a little bit of clarification, so I'm pleading with this new vertical medium to better qualify its offerings before speaking with marketers. Otherwise, you may only be adding to the collective confusion.

What's an Ideal Usability Experience?
Widgets' essence, regardless of format, context, or intent, is usability. That's their primary reason for existence. Widgets that are too complicated violate their own intent. Widgets must be simple or they won't serve their prime directive.

How Do I Make a Widget?
Widget development isn't rocket science. Most Web developers will tell you developing widgets shouldn't take very much time if you're working with content that's already syndicated via platforms such as RSS feeds. Advanced functions require more advanced skills, but if you're already making services and content available, you're halfway there. Widgets should also be considered part of an overall Web production strategy.

Widgets are for people who want to be directly in touch with your brand. If you offer e-mail newsletters and RSS (as part of your Web development strategy and budget), you should also include widgets. There can be some variable costs, such as media streaming fees if you include rich media. However, as I said at the conference, I've never met a client who wasn't more than happy to pay for success.

How Do You Make Widgets Relevant for Different Platforms?
Furthering the point about usability, widgets must be contextually relevant and respect the user's environment. Desktop widgets reside on the desktop, so they can afford to be interface-rich and offer more options. A mobile widget, on the other hand, must be simple to reflect the complexity of a mobile user's situation: simple interface, immediate access, and lightweight results.

In consideration of context, it could be the development and use of widgets that could make the Web browsers on home video game consoles relevant -- optimized interfaces for living room content: YouTube video viewers, weather, and more. Widgets can help bridge the gap by giving users unique interfaces to get the information they want, when they want it, but in a contextually appropriate format.

What About the Users?
Users are at the heart of all of this. Let's not forget about them. Remember, they've downloaded or copied the code to bring your widget along. They like you and what you're offering. Respect users and be happy they've agreed to spend more time with you. They shouldn't have to suffer a flurry of advertising or over-communication. Users have let you in to their world. Instead of spending more against them, why not invest time and money in a deeper relationship? Enhance your widget's functionality and give them a reason to spread the word.

Managing towards virality

2007-07-02T15:20:00.000Z

Extract from Managing Toward Virality» Intellectual Capital
BY Gary Stein July 02, 2007

Creating a viral campaign to catching "lightning in a bottle."

Certainly, it's true it's nearly impossible to plan for a viral campaign. We can certainly create sites and films and banners that are clever and compelling and just beg to be shared. We just can't really plan they'll be spread, friend to friend, and become an Internet phenomenon that multiplies the ad's effectiveness and your reputation.

But we are still marketers? On the agency side, it's frustrating to have to tell a client something can't be done. On the client side, no one wants to hear her agency feels something's impossible. So we find ourselves in a stalemate over viral campaigns. Everyone wants one, the client's asking for one, the agency can't promise one, and nothing ever gets complete.

But there is an answer: You don't build a viral campaign. Instead, you manage toward virality.
Viral spread of your message is absolutely your goal. But we can't be so naive to think any old clever video slapped up on YouTube is going to spread like mad. Instead, we need to make extraordinary use of the data and the tools available to us to monitor and adjust campaign element performance, so we're driving toward a viral spread.

If virality is your goal, you can actually measure against it. And if you achieve just some percentage of your goal, you can begin to see a campaign as having a measure of success, even if it doesn't circle the globe 10 times.

The Tools of Measuring Toward Virality

There are three parts to any ad campaign:
The message
The medium
The measurement

Managing toward virality, as a practice, uses all three of these. Let's start with the message.

The Message
While we don't know everything about virally spread messages, we do know one thing: boring stuff has no chance at all of being passed along. The message itself must be viral-ready. It must generate either the pleasure of laughter, the shock of surprise, or the irritation of doubt. That's pretty much it. You can combine them in exciting new ways, but a GIF banner that claims your new soap powder will get whites whiter is pretty much a nonstarter.

There's absolutely, positively no short cut for this. The bottom line is you need a strong, clever creative team. And you'll probably have to pay for this. Rather than have them come up with the one grand scheme, have them come up with a few. You want to go toward virality with a portfolio of options, not just one thing you think is funny.

The Medium
The medium is a significant, critical element in this puzzle. There's been almost a bias away from media in discussions about viral spread. In fact, viral spread --where friends are sending content to one another -- is often offered as a new, exciting alternative to media. That's a huge mistake.

The sites on which the content appear and the people to whom content is trafficked are the hidden key to virality. Some campaigns spread not because of what they are but because of who first pointed to them. With blogs, in particular, the media is the message. The infamous SlashDot effect (define) is testament to that. The solidity of a media plan that understands which sites and which people have the greatest probability of spreading a message is often the simple secret to getting something to spread.

The Measurement
The last piece is measurement, but not the sort of measurement we've grown accustomed to: put it out there, see how it does. Instead, the practice of managing toward virality means you put the thing (hopefully, the portfolio of things) out there and watch each one very closely. When there's a hint of viral spread, the optimization process has to kick in.

Let's say you created five videos and posted them on YouTube. One really connects with consumers; it gets more views and comments. That video must then become the star of the campaign. That's the one that must be posted in other forums and placed in other buys.
Alternately, you may see video A does well with one demographic and video B does well with another. Maybe men like the funny one and women like the one with a message (or the other way around). In that case, you can begin to create a more targeted plan to get those videos spread to demographic communities that may be more likely to pass them along.

All About Management
It's pointless to give advice like "give your consumer's something great and watch it spread!" Certainly, it's inspiring to believe consumers will communicate for you. But the fact is, we're marketers. We create messages and manage their distribution toward the goal of increasing sales.

We can do the same thing with viral campaigns. We simply need to have a solid vision of what the goal is and manage toward it with discipline. Next time you're asked to create a viral campaign, don't roll your eyes. Accept the challenge, but make sure you communicate that virality is a goal, not a guarantee.

Key to model behaviour

2007-06-18T08:46:00.000Z

Improving the online customer experience is top of the agenda for many marketers – except, perhaps, for the 40 per cent who are already using behavioural targeting.

Speaking at a recent Alterian event, Rebecca Jennings, senior analyst at Forrester, said that this figure marks the (small) proportion of marketers who have adopted techniques to optimise their online marketing. And with the Internet Advertising Bureau putting digital marketing spend at over £2bn for 2006, there is clearly a need to ensure the money is delivering the maximum return.

The issue is how to achieve that. Web analytics is at a crossroads that could determine whether marketing spend continues to go into more than just paid-for search. To continue to lay claim to marketing budgets, the panoply of online ad inventory needs to be able to prove what it can do.
That is why one in five marketers plan to invest in better Web analysis and optimisation tools in the next 12 months, with a similar number planning to do so more than a year hence, according to Forrester. Technology and data must be better aligned to marketers’ needs to sustain the current levels of activity.

What is driving this investment? “Behavioural targeting is justified by 18 per cent on the basis of increasing site traffic and by 45 per cent through linking it to transactions,” said Jennings. “Some 20 per cent say it is too early to tell. And 49 per cent want measurement of the tools before they adopt them.”

Behavioural targeting is still in its infancy and there are relatively few success stories to speak of. For some marketers, there is still confusion about what it means.

Lucy Stafford, media director at Tri-Direct, says: “The type of behavioural knowledge you need is dictated by the indication of someone’s propensity to buy your product. This could be via a previous interaction with an ad or piece of content that flags up need.”

She believes historical insight into propensity towards a product is one of the most powerful findings. In offline marketing, this is usually built up within client organisations over many years and by commercial data owners through a variety of measures.

“But it can take several weeks to establish a consumer’s pattern of behaviour. It may depend on the urgency and flexibility of the campaign how practical that information would be,” says Stafford.

Between online publishers, ad networks and media buyers, there is debate on how that pattern of behaviour should be tracked. Most systems rely on cookies or capturing an IP address. Both have flaws. “Neither is too relevant or important. So long as you can identify the mass of your audience behaviourally to bring about an improvement in results, it is sufficient,” says Stafford.
Publishers face a crucial decision as to how far to develop behavioural targeting. They can already report on paths taken by unique visitors and segment their proposition according to popularity, length of stay and where visitors go next. Advertisers want a broader insight, however. What a consumer does on an individual site only allows them to optimise their expenditure on that site. As most campaigns spend across a range of opportunities, there is much value in a common currency that tracks behaviour more widely over the Internet.

Donald Hamilton, managing director of behavioural targeting provider Wunderloop, says: “Marketing at any level is about finding an audience that is most likely to buy your product. That doesn’t mean it has to be in the ‘right’ context.” Behavioural targeting has the advantage of being able to place ads in front of potential buyers when they are on indirectly-related sites.
This is especially valuable for portals and broad interest sites, such as online newspapers. While they may have specific content that advertisers can buy, they also have a wide variety of landing pages where an ad might equally trigger interest in a product or service.

“There is no point targeting pages if you don’t know who’s going to be there. You have to know who the audience is or you will only get a response rate of 0.001 per cent. In any other area of marketing, that would not be acceptable,” says Hamilton.

It might have been assumed that clickstream data and Web analysis tools would have generated better targeting facilities early on. Yet, as Hamilton says: “In the digital space, there are lots of people running around who don’t understand what marketing is about.”

While advertisers and online networks struggle over how to improve targeting, software developers are taking steps that could introduce a new era of individual-level behavioural targeting. Through a process of consolidation, Web analytics and offline business intelligence tools are converging.

Online optimisation software house Omniture acquired behavioural targeting provider Touch Clarity in March and is integrating the two propositions. “There is increasing interest not just in us, but in the whole Web analytics space,” says Neil Weston, senior vice-president and general manager at Omniture.

He believes existing Web analysis systems have offered weak data mining and simplistic reporting. “You can’t assess anything with them,” says Weston. He believes the fusion of business intelligence and Web analytics will deliver the “single version of the truth” about online activity that clients want.

Omniture already integrates data from 30 partners and aims to build that to over 100. Since each email broadcaster, ad serving network and Web publisher operates on a different data model, optimising multi-stream campaigns has previously been a nightmare.
“Touch Clarity is oriented to individual-level marketing. Where some people are segmenting users and offering demographics to marketers, behavioural targeting builds a knowledge base of every individual transaction the user has. It stores those and develops a profile of their characteristics,” says Weston.

Where this has been used to optimise online advertising, campaign performance has improved by 20 to 100 per cent, claims Weston. “Touch Clarity fills in one of the components of online optimisation,” he says.

Another acquisition has been by Visual Sciences of WebSideStory. The combination of data visualisation tools with Web analytics is intended to provide a new benchmark, not least in the ability to process the terabytes of data that clickstreams can rapidly generate.

“We’re providing a real time analytics platform that can scale up to the Web and is also usable for other channels. That is where we see the market going,” says Simon Gibbaud, business development manager at Visual Sciences.?“Multi-channel organisations are looking at the Web as strategic – most of their customers are now coming through the Web. They are using it as part of their core business. That places a burden on Web analysts,” he says.?Firms want answers to key questions, such as which page is most popular. But they want to drill into why that might be the case. “Web analytics has been very good at answering what happened. ‘Why’ is more difficult and questions are often unplanned,” says Gibbaud.

The volume of data generated by websites makes processing complex queries a challenge. Applications have used conventional relational databases to deliver table-based reports. Visual Sciences adopts a radically different approach, which yields more dynamic outputs of the sort marketers expect to see from offline data. “The interface is designed for business users, not hardcore analysts. It allows train of thought analysis,” says Gibbaud.

None of this technology is of value unless it is actively deployed by marketers. There needs to be a cultural shift that recognises online advertising as integral to the business.

Broadsystem chief executive Caroline Worboys says: “Customer data capture has never been so crucial. The insights drawn from customer data can shape an entire communications strategy and are key to its effectiveness.”

She adds: “Pushing the most relevant advertising and content to Web users is a giant leap forward and will serve to benefit our industry. But rather than pushing content, it is becoming increasingly important to allow customers to set their own agenda and pull the content they want. Not only is this true consumer choice, but also reaps even better returns.”?She cites The Times and Sunday Times weekly email newsletters. Content is based on recipients’ preferences.
Subscribers create their own profile via the Times website, ensuring the newsletter is as relevant and interesting as possible. Content is dynamic and evolves around how the customer behaves and interacts with the newspaper, both on and offline.

“This makes it possible for every email to be unique and personally tailored to meet the needs and wants of users. From the customer data gathered, it is possible to create a customer journey map and analyse the user’s behaviour to inform communication programmes, such as driving sales, engendering loyalty, or promoting a certain service and future acquisition activity,” says Worboys.

Few advertisers have integrated their digital activity in this way. To sustain the levels of investment in online advertising, many more will have to. In doing so, they will be demanding individual-level behavioural targeting.?Worboys summarises: “IP addresses and identified unique users are most certainly useful. However, there is nothing quite like individual data. It is this move towards individualisation that will deliver greater cut-through and results.”

The Un-siloing of media

2007-06-11T15:25:00.000Z

Extract by Rebecca Lieb June 08, 2007

Interactive media certainly has its share of vertical channels when it comes to marketing and advertising. There's search, display, video, classifieds, local, social media, e-mail, syndication -- the list goes on.

Traditional media has its own buckets: print is divided into magazines and newspapers. Broadcast has cable and network. There's radio, outdoor, direct, and a panoply of other channels.

With all those options, advertising agencies tend to specialize. The bigger shops have internal divisions specializing in buying and creating campaigns for different channels across different media.

And now, all these disparate channels and specialties are turning into a great, big jumbled blur. Blame the Web.

Google announced Google Audio Ads late last year and solidified the offering with its recent pact with Clear Channel Radio. The search giant is selling :30 spots on 675 of Clear Channel's AM/FM stations, including major markets such as Los Angeles and New York. That's the beginning of a serious business model -- one that traditionally resides in the offline-only world. Of course, Google's also dabbling in print and television advertising.

Another search giant, eBay (I'm not making this up -- company execs call what you may think is an auction marketplace "the biggest shopping search engine") has embarked on its own broadcast advertising brokering. EBay's Media Marketplace will auction airtime on 2,300 radio stations. On the payment front, eBay's PayPal is going head-to-head with Google Checkout.
It's not just online companies going after a slice of offline media. The inverse is occurring, too. Examples are particularly rife in television broadcasting. International cable powerhouse CNN recently acquired a stake in local TV network Internet Broadcasting, which, among other things, will place locally oriented ads on the global broadcaster's Web properties. CBS, meanwhile, is distributing its video content on Yahoo, for which Yahoo will sell the ads.

Speaking of Yahoo, that company forged another solid offline alliance last fall with major newspaper publishers, including Belo, Cox Enterprises, E.W. Scripps, the Journal Register Company, Lee Enterprises, and Morris Publishing, as well as Hearst, which has also partnered with Google to run its text ads in its print publications. The ranks have now swelled to 17 publishers, accounting for 400 dailies and a handful of weekly publications. Hearst is now building a sales center in Houston devoted to selling and promoting Yahoo's HotJob products. Yahoo also expects to start selling display ads on these newspapers' sites sometime next year.

A New Definition of Media Agency
Magazine publishers, meanwhile, are now in the agency business. A "New York Times" article earlier this week profiled a number of publishers, including Condé Nast, the Meredith Corporation, Reader's Digest, Hearst, and even indie "Surface" magazine, that have established creative agencies, either internally or as separate business units. These shops are handling creative; media, including print, online, video, mobile, and outdoor; and events and research. There's even occasional overlap into radio and TV, according to the article, as well as alliances that have "created some unusual partnerships (think of Vogue designing ads for Wal-Mart Stores)."

Clients are top tier: Chevrolet, Citigroup, L'Oréal, Cingular, Dillard's, Kohl's, Grey Goose, and Lexus. Their media agencies are watching, doubtless with a measure of alarm. "We don't have to make money from our creative, because we make money from our media," the head of the Condé Nast group was quoted as saying.

Advertiser reliance on media buying agencies might wane slightly in light of such developments as in-house media agencies, as well as the long-running roll-your-own media trend. American Express, a leader in this space, announced another new ad initiative this week that will result in minimal media buys -- online, at least. Even Microsoft seems to be realizing the cross-promotional potential of its own media holdings.

If you're a marketer or an advertiser, heed closely these developments in the media and creative landscape. No matter your size or scale, your horizons are broadening. You may be media and not even know it. You may be able to scale up to buying media you previously thought was unattainable due to budget or agency constrictions. The boundaries that once constrained your efforts are becoming porous indeed.

Online display advertising

2007-06-06T15:37:00.000Z

Thanks Jo

How online display advertising influences search volumes
Published: 04 June 2007

Mike Teasdale, Planning Director at online marketing agency Harvest Digital discusses the connections between online display activity and search and reveals some interesting consumer trends.

A recent Atlas survey on the ‘halo effect’ between display and search discovered an average uplift on conversion rates of 22 per cent on searchers who had recently been exposed to a display advertisement from the same company.

Research using adserving data like this has the advantage of using massive amounts of customer data across different companies, but there are some issues with the accuracy of the data – for example, cookie deletion by users can skew the results.

So we turned to primary research with consumers to ask them directly whether display advertising influenced their subsequent searching behaviour.

We ran a survey in conjunction with Adviva, the leading advertising network, to assess attitudes to online travel purchasing. Research was conducted and compiled by Nielsen//NetRatings with over 900 respondents.

Research findings
Respondents were asked whether they would click on an ad, do a search or go directly to the advertiser’s website if they saw an online advertisement.

We expected clicking on a banner to be the most popular option – but surprisingly only 26 per cent of our sample said that they would click on a banner to respond.

In fact search was the most popular option. This was split between searches for the advertiser’s name (26per cent) or for a general term relating to the advertisement (31per cent). So more than twice as many people are being driven to a search engine by banner advertising than by clicking directly on the banner!

Retail channels also benefit, with 4 per cent claiming they would visit a high street store having seen a banner.

What’s going on here?
At first, these findings seem counter-intuitive – after all, what could be easier than clicking on a banner?
Much web activity is task-driven. How much is that flight? What’s the weather like in Hull? Clicking on a banner distracts from the completion of a task, people tend to follow up on the advertisement afterwards. Many consumers seem to be treating the activity more like posters or TV.

Implications of this research
One key implication is in how we judge the effectiveness of online activity. Focusing on the last click before a transaction will often rate search marketing as the most cost-effective channel, underestimating the part display advertising plays.

Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings observes, "The unrivalled ability of the Internet to provide marketers with detailed information on direct user response to online ads often means the whole story is ignored. Our research highlights how 'click-through-tunnel-vision' ignores the larger or delayed impact that the ad can have on viewer behaviour or perception. After all, you don't just measure the success of a poster by how many people buy the product advertised from the nearest shop."

Todd Treusdell, CEO at Adviva comments: “Display activity gives clients the opportunity to reach large numbers of internet users at a relatively low cost. It’s important to appreciate (as this research underlines) that direct clicks are only one way that the advertising is working. Consumers are also doing searches, going directly to your web site and even visiting your retail store – all prompted by an online advertising campaign.”

The importance of an integrated approach to search and display
The most striking finding is how many searches are being prompted by online display activity.
Unfortunately for brand owners, the research suggests that more searches are going to generic terms like “package holiday Cyprus” than to the brand itself.

Search needs to be optimised to work with banner advertising, by anticipating searches that are likely to be prompted by the banner and ensure a higher rank for search results.
Although the speed and accuracy digital marketing enjoys is the envy of other marketing channels, the numbers do not always give a true indication.

Just as online is influenced by activity in offline channels, different online channels also seem to have a profound influence on each other.

This research strongly suggests that measuring display activity by CTR alone underestimates the impact of that activity. For every click on a banner, our research implies at least two related searches and a further direct visit to the advertiser’s web site.

Research on the Adviva network conducted by Nielsen/Netratings

D&AD - President's lecture and forum - Wieden Kennedy

2007-06-01T16:38:00.000Z

I recently attended a D&AD president's Dan Wieden and David Kennedy. Spiel from the D&AD site is as follows:

'Wieden + Kennedy, the world’s only independent, creatively-led global agency network, was founded in Portland, Oregon on April Fools’ day 1982 by creative partners Dan Wieden and David Kennedy. For the last 25 years W+K have produced award winning creative work for an array of leading brands including their founding client Nike, Microsoft, Coca Cola and Honda to name a few. A hugely successful global company, they now have offices in Portland, New York, Amsterdam, London, Tokyo and Shanghai.

W+K specialises in building strong and provocative relationships between good companies and their customers. They cite their strength derives from the fact that the agency is still 100% independently owned and run by creative people. This has drawnin a diversity of talent from around the world.

Dan Wieden and David Kennedy will be discussing the germination of their success, reviewing the stand-out work from the agency’s 25 year history, and talking about what the future holds.'

Whilst there wasn't too much about the future, (mostly a light hearted look back at times when our industry was a lot more fun), their presentation did highlight a few learnings for me.

The first is that if you sorround yourself with interesting people, who care about stuff, and bring their passion to each project, you will produce exciting work.

The second is that few things are original, but there are lots of things you can put together to make something new.

The last thing I took away is that you should always try to enjoy it. Creating great work and inspiring creative should be fun. It might sound a little cheesy, but looking at these guys on stage, I got the feeling that, whether easy of hard, they filled their time with doing stuff that they thought was a laugh.

Influencing the influencers online

2007-06-01T16:31:00.000Z

Exztract from How Do You Influence the Influencers? What's The Buzz? BY Rebecca LiebJune 01, 2007

For a couple years now, Yahoo has been presenting original research at a roving event for advertisers dubbed the Summit Series. The company has been commissioning original research on topics such as online demographics, Web use, ad creative, and such online consumer behavior as shopping and the purchase consideration cycle.

"We're spending millions commissioning this research," a Yahoo ad exec noted at a reception following the presentation of the latest study in the series. "I hope it's helping sales."
An understandable sentiment, but regarding this most recent study, "Engaging Advocates through Search and Social Media," I have some reservations that it is.

(By the way, yesterday DoubleClick released some very similar and corroborative research: "Influencing the Influencers: How Online Advertising and Media Impact Word of Mouth.")
The results of this, and other studies Yahoo has recently conducted, underscore that all this stuff is mightily complicated, even for professionals immersed in the world of interactive marketing and advertising. Yahoo's New York audience wasn't composed of the digerati. Grasping the significance of online advocates might have been more than a bit over the heads of many in the agency and client-side audience Yahoo assembled for the presentation.

As Michele Madansky, Yahoo's VP of corporate sales and research, was quick to point out, the advocate/influencer concept is as old as humanity itself. That people influence other people to buy and do stuff is hardly groundbreaking. But amplify these influencers through Web channels, and the influence equation suddenly becomes very complex indeed. Search, blogs, online video, IM, community forums, user groups, photo- and video-sharing sites, and social networks all form part of an equation that channels the "billions of dollars being moved by consumer advocates," as comScore's James Lamberti (who conducted part of the study) put it.

The qualitative portion of the research wasn't particularly revelatory. Word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing has been more than prominent recently. This has given rise to the formation of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), companies such as Nielsen BuzzMetrics and Cymfony to measure WOM, and shops like BzzAgent that purport to create it. It's gotten so big, even the FTC is paying attention.

Yahoo's study is of interest because of some interesting quantifiable data it presents. It found, for example, advocates have a 2:1 conversion impact across categories. In plain English, that means the researchers found an advocate talking up the virtues of her new car had at least one friend make the same purchase, to the tune of $718,000 in sales. A similarly satisfied non-advocate was responsible for only $502,000 in additional conversions. In consumer electronics, the numbers are even more staggering. For purchases over $300, advocates moved an additional $1.6 million of merchandise, compared to $570,000 attributed to their less vocal, less influential peers.

Advocates also tend to embrace consumer-generated media more than their peers, often to online retailers' advantage. When CompUSA integrated Bazaarvoice's consumer reviews into its product pages, the company quickly found its conversion rate was 60 percent higher for keywords such as "sony review" compared to its more conventional paid search ads. Given advocates review and search more, the results make sense.

Showcased were a handful of successful campaigns tied into the search and social media sites where advocates spend their time. Nikon on Yahoo-owned Flickr, for example, makes a whole bunch of sense. Honda building a MySpace page for a crab is less obvious, and, anyway, it's tied into a long-running, multichannel existing campaign. Similarly, Travelocity scored a top ranking on Yahoo for the not-terribly-expensive keyword, "gnome." But again, Travelocity's been tied to the roving garden gnome for years.

Indeed, these case studies highlight what works well in advocates' very social online spaces: major brands teamed with solidly integrated creative agencies. All have track records and spend considerable media and creative dollars in other channels, both online and off-.
What of other marketers hoping to capitalize on such a vast and amorphous world of media and creative? What if you're a B2B advertiser or a lesser-known brand?
Those were questions the audience was posing, but Yahoo and the panel of experts it assembled weren't able to satisfactorily answer.

Yahoo's reaching for those big brand advertisers, to be sure. But when the top sales executive expressed concern that the company's research and attendant events may not be achieving the desired ROI (define) for the company, I could see his point.

Yahoo isn't misrepresenting the online landscape, to be sure. Instead, it's laying bare all its complexity and confusion. It's marketing to an audience of marketers who are looking at the portal to provide answers. What it may be creating instead are many more questions.

Copy for email

2007-04-10T08:25:00.000Z

Short-Form Editorial

As the name suggests, these are short and sweet, and the primary content is editorial. One example would be the alert e-mail messages many organizations send on an as-needed basis. Also in this category: tip of the day or week e-mail.

This type of e-mail is great for:

Driving traffic back to your Web site
Generating qualified leads
Keeping a brand or company top of mind with clients and prospects so they think of you when they need your services (which may lead to direct sales)
Building a relationship with readers

You can sell ad space in short-form editorial e-mail, but I don't recommend it. Promotional space is very limited. You're usually better off utilizing it for your own brand. For this reason, I didn't include generating ad revenue in the list.

The heart of this type of e-mail is editorial, but the promotional element is there, too. The content ratio should be at least 50 percent editorial; there's nothing sadder than a tip of the day missive that's 25 percent tip and 75 percent promotion. Be sure editorial is pure. There's no room for advertorial in this e-mail type.

Long-Form Editorial
If you publish an e-mail newsletter, you're familiar with this type of messaging. Long-form editorial e-mail goes a bit further than short-form when it comes to meeting business goals. In addition to the above list, these can help you:

Position yourself or your company as an expert.
Provide readers with insight into how you work with customers and prospects.
Generate revenue from advertising.

Unlike with short-form editorial, here you have advertising space to sell to third parties. Be sure to do some careful analysis before you go this route. It takes resources to sell and incorporate advertising. Even if you only pay sales commissions, you still have increased production and management costs. You also have an opportunity cost (it's space you could use for your own products or services) and a competitive cost, as these ads complete with your own for your reader's attention.

Again, editorial has to be pure. An article about how your product helps people who purchase it isn't editorial. At least 60 percent of the content (yes, more than half) should be editorial; no more than 40 percent should be promotional. These are rough guidelines, but if there's any doubt in your mind, measure. To do this, I print an e-mail newsletter and do a rough area comparison (length by width) of each content type.

Short-Form Promotional
The best example of a short-form promotional e-mail is an e-mail postcard. A postcard takes up one screen. There's no vertical scroll, as there's no key content below the fold (perhaps standard footer information, but nothing critical to the message).
The content is strictly promotional, nothing editorial at all. What can be accomplished with these e-mail messages is different from what you can do with editorial messages:

Drive traffic back to your Web site.
Sell products or services directly.
Encourage readers to take part in a special event, on- or offline, such as a contest, course, or conference.

One of biggest mistakes people make with short-form promotional e-mail is to include too much content. A short-form promotional e-mail should contain minimal copy. Often (but not always) an image is what really tells the story. Focus is key. If you have one great seller, this format is appropriate. If you're looking to promote three or more items, a catalog e-mail is probably more appropriate.

Promotional e-mail can be very effective at motivating immediate action, but does little to build a relationship or reputation. It's completely a sales message.

Long-Form Promotional
This is like short-form promotional e-mail -- but longer. Catalog e-mail, which features multiple products, fall into this category, as does letter e-mail, which appears to be a multipage correspondence from an individual.

Long-form promotional e-mail can do all the things its short-form counterpart does, but it can do it for products that require more detailed copy. It's better at direct sales than lead generation, and it doesn't build a relationship with readers, since it's all about the product or service.

There are other types of e-mail, most notably transactional and press releases, that you should also consider.

Dullard Llama

2007-03-29T08:33:00.000Z

The only cure for boredom is curiosity. The teachings of a curious communicator

Well done Carl.

www.thedullardllama.blogspot.com

Why campaigns fail

2007-03-29T08:10:00.000Z

Extract from Antony Young 29 Mar 2007

According to a study by Copernicus Marketing Consulting, 84 per cent of marketing campaigns fail to drive value. Why?:

1. Failure to match the budget to the goals. Lofty goals and a low budget or simply having too many objectives, generally leads to poorly allocated spending across too many marketing programmes, communication channels or brand messages. We found that spending is inefficient if there is too little frequency, repetition and consistency.

2. Not setting out clear outcomes and metrics at the start of a campaign. Too many marketing campaigns lack clear objectives as a result frustrate their Boards and lead to weak communications. A survey by Wirthlin and Atlantic revealed that where no ROI goals or processes were established at the outset, 56 per cent of senior stakeholders judged marketing’s performance as unsatisfactory.

3. Unwillingness to be consistent with messaging. One of the prevailing trends we see from many companies is inconsistent messaging. For instance, with few exceptions retail banks generate multiple advertising and direct mail offers simultaneously originating from the separate product marketing units within their organizations. This often lacks cohesion creating competing messages and confusion rather than synergy of marketing effort.

4. Over-reliance on acquisition rather than retention strategies. Companies so often measure success in terms on acquiring new customers and growing market share. However, businesses lose half their customer base every five years. Bain & Co estimates increasing retention by 5 per cent can increase corporate profitability by 25 per cent.

5. Sameness of the communication. The few campaigns that stand-out are harsh reminders of the many you don’t remember. Brave marketers that step outside the expected in their category seem to be rewarded. Think Dove, Honda and Stella Artois … different and successful. With day after recall of advertising falling from 40 per cent in the Sixties to today just 6 per cent, where’s the real risk in being different?

Second Life

2007-03-27T16:05:00.000Z

Extract from lessons From Second Life BY Chad Stoller March 27, 2007

Is Second Life today's hottest emerging media fad or the future of online communities and experience?

I've been asked this question a lot over the past year as Second Life increasingly graces the covers of mainstream magazines and conference room whiteboards of communication agencies. While multiuser, networked platforms have a long, deep history, Second Life has become the poster child of multiuser, Internet-enabled environments because of its no-cost entry, universal access, nonlinear user experience, and multiplatform availability.

Sounds a bit like how people talked about the Web in 1995, doesn't it?

One thing's for sure. Second Life is going strong, with a community of over 4.8 million citizens and growing. Although there's been a lot of chatter in the blogosphere about actual (or repeat) users versus registered users, Second Life provides us with a glimpse into the future of networked communities.

Kids Are Getting Into the Act

The booming success of Club Penguin is a sure indicator metaverses (define) have appeal beyond early adopters. But don't go to ClubPenguin.com by yourself. Go with an 8-year-old power user and watch carefully. Social networking is a natural experience for kids as they learn to network, play games, earn coins, and budget their spending. And the recent launch of Nicktropolis only emphasizes that they're very comfortable with multiuser environment platforms.

Social Networks Affect the Web As We Know It

Though I can't predict the future, I can make a few educated guesses about what really works in Second Life and what's likely to influence the future of online communities from content and navigation perspectives. In addition, I'll provide an example of new platforms that might have been influenced by Second Life's success.

What really works and what might have influenced it:

More environments are going UCG. Second Life environments aren't predefined, story-driven, or liner experiences. In fact, the environment isn't driven by a single aesthetic or direction. It's a collage of different cultures, designs, and artistic expressions. Places look different because in the real world, things are different. Other than properties developed by Linden Labs or Second Life development agencies, most properties are another form of user-generated content (UGC).The media like to talk about UGC in the form of YouTube videos and blog postings and comments, but UGC is the least talked about (but most important) part of Second Life. Users don't create a piece of content to stick in a public system and hope they're viewed, rated, or commented on. These users are working with complicated tools to create environments, experiences, avatars, artifacts, clothing, vehicles, terrain, and more. This behavior, often considered a form of Second Life entertainment itself, provides a glimpse into the future of UGC.Sony recently announced its "Home" service for the PlayStation 3. To link members of its online network, PlayStation is taking a metaverse approach and building a multiuser environment users can explore and meet up with friends and other players. Additionally, the Home service will allow users to customize their own home that stores game rewards and artifacts collected across the network.

Navigation is increasingly a journey. Second Life residents do more than just point and click to get from A to B. They walk, fly, teleport, and ride objects. This physical metaphor brings a more varied navigation experience and transforms travel from clickstreams to journeys. When users embark on journeys, they'll find both well-traveled and secret paths. Club Penguin uses travel as an important part of the gaming experience. Players can choose to participate in episodic games that encourage players to explore the Club Penguin universe. Through these travel initiatives, kids are encouraged to look for secret places and methods to travel there.

Limitless customization will be required. Social networks are great platforms for users to define a persona, but the avatar design and customization system of Second Life offers limitless creativity options to every citizen. Although the system is clunky, its benefits certainly outweigh the process flaws. Anyone who's spent time with the Nintendo Wii will tell you how much fun it is to create a Mii (an in-game representation of the player). The process for designing a Mii is fun and painless and encourages you to keep going back to modify your appearance. In addition, WeeWorld's WeeMee (interesting choice of name, don't you think?) provides a simple character design process to build an avatar for use in WeeWorld and that can link to your AIM account.

If you can imagine it, you can be it. One primary reason Second Life (and most metaverses) is so interesting is it allows people to reinvent themselves. While observations by Linden Labs and other Second Life developers suggest people start off with a complete reinvention of themselves only to eventually pull back and create near-representations of their real appearance, the reinvention process applies to everyone, even brands. Imagine you're an automotive marketing executive and you're sitting in a room with several strategy consultants. They ask you, "What would your brand be if you didn't sell cars?" That's what metaverses offer you the opportunity to do. If people can be different, so can brands.

What Do These Things Mean for You?

It means if you plan on participating in Second Life or other metaverses, you should keep these ideas in mind. Ask yourself the following:

Does your initiative allow users to participate in and contribute to your efforts?
Do you provide tools to help them do this?
What does your brand journey look like to a metaverse citizen?
Are you taking advantage of the opportunity to reinvent your brand or maybe bend it to become more acceptable or interesting to the metaverse community?
Look for confident brands to take full advantage of these trends. Give them some thought, and let's keep the dialogue going.

Email strategies - how to get one part 2

2007-03-26T14:46:00.000Z

Extract fro, Ten Steps for Developing an Effective E-mail Strategy, Part 2
BY Jeanne Jennings March 26, 2007

If you do e-mail marketing without a formal strategy in place or have a strategy but aren't meeting business goals, you're in luck. This is the second is a series of five columns covering the 10 steps required to develop an effective e-mail strategy:

Identify qualitative goals.
Analyze the current situation.
Complete a competitive analysis.
Define the target audience.
Determine which types of e-mail meet your needs.
Develop a content strategy and a frequency and send schedule.
Design the e-mail template.
Create quantitative goals.
Compile budget and ROI (define) projections.
Evaluate results and tweak the strategy accordingly.

Complete a Competitive Analysis
This critical step in the process is one many organizations skip. Some feel funny "spying" on their rivals. Others don't believe there's anything they can learn from their opponents. Still others aren't sure how to go about gathering this type of information.

The short answer to all these objections comes from Michael Corleone in "The Godfather: Part II": "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer."
The easiest way to begin is to sign up for any e-mail newsletters your competitors offer. I recommend using a nonidentifiable address rather than a business or personal address; just get a free e-mail account. Not all companies screen competitors' e-mail addresses from their lists, but some do. Also, it's helpful to keep these e-mail messages separate from your regular correspondence. And if you're looking to gather data on how your competitors segment their lists, you may want to utilize one e-mail address for each segment or e-mail newsletter so you can see how they treat different selects.

From the subscriber side, you won't be able to get the detailed information you have on your house list, but you will be able to observe such things as:

How frequently they mail
What types of e-mail they send:
Commercial or transactional
Formats, such as postcard e-mail, long-form e-mail newsletters, and short tip e-mail
When they send: days and times
Whom they send to (which list segments
What products or services are mentioned
What types of content are included:
Editorial or promotional
Long or short
Content quality: great, fair, or poor

Define the Target Audience
The more you know about your readers, the better you can match content offerings to their interests. Focus on things that matter in the context of the relationship you want to have with them. For consumer lists, standard demographics such as gender, age, marital status, educational background, and hobbies may make sense. In the business world, those data points may be moot; title, seniority, and job function may be more appropriate.

Figure out business goals in respect to each group. You may be looking to generate qualified leads from a prospect pool while trying to sell additional products to current clients. Don't limit your audiences. You may want to communicate with the press for PR purposes or with companies offering complementary products to your markets in the hope of getting referrals.
Note features, benefits, and advantages your products, services, or information offers your audiences. These may differ by segment and product. You'll likely end up with multiple paragraphs or a grid-like structure. That's OK. The better you define your groups, the better you'll be able to target content.

Trends - crowd clout

2007-03-14T14:35:00.000Z

Crowd clout. I like it. Power to the people, all of them.

http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/

CROWD CLOUT: Online grouping of citizens/consumers for a specific cause, be it political, civic or commercial, aimed at everything from bringing down politicians to forcing suppliers to fork over discounts.

Social networks - how to get it right.

2007-03-14T14:31:00.000Z

Extract from Harness the Power of Vertical Social Networks E-Marketing Strategies
BY Chad Stoller March 13, 2007

Find networks that appeal to your audience. You know who your audience is and what they like to do. Chances are, there are already a handful of online communities and social networks that appeal to their interests. Check out LibraryThing, Yelp, and Meetup to get your feet wet.

Check out the community. Don't just jump in, check out the community to see how vibrant it is. Are they active? What do they talk about? Who's there?

Learn what works. Get a meeting with the people who run the site. Let them tell you about their firsthand experience with their community. They'll know what works and what doesn't.

Don't market; create a conversation. Resists the urge to buy a banner or brand a page. Instead, find ways to encourage participation and see if you can get the community to come to you through conversation and criticism. Create a contest or sponsor an initiative to start conversations.

Be transparent. Observe appropriate marketing efforts and let the network know who you are. Once you introduce yourself as a voice of a brand, you'll be impressed with the quality of your responses.

Study through observation. Reports provide metrics, but if you really want to learn more, you'll need to spend time in the network.

Near game advertising

2007-03-13T10:54:00.000Z

Extract from Near-Game Advertising - Intellectual Capital BY Gary Stein March 12, 2007

As gaming's reach has increased, so too has advertiser interest. Who wouldn't be attracted to a channel in which consumers spend hours upon hours each day, heavily involved? Advertising in games has exploded. We've seen a small flurry of interest as companies like Microsoft (buying Massive) and Google (buying Adscape) have made forays, investments, and out-right purchases that got them ('scuse the pun) in the game.

Essentially, the logic around game advertising has followed three paths. That is, you can do one of three things, based on three broad categories of games. Simulation games (especially sport simulation games) allow you to place a relevant product within the game. Tire manufacturers can have their products featured in a NASCAR game, for example. Games with broad landscapes (such as a first-person shooter) allow for simple display advertising; you can buy a virtual billboard.

Finally, there are the deep fantasy games that take place in Middle Earth, the Star Wars universe, or other virtual spaces. These games allow you to do a whole lot of nothing. Sorry. No Yoo-Hoo allowed in Middle Earth.

There's a new category of space quietly growing, however: the passage pages manufacturers offer as consumers access directly from their consoles, such as the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Portal to the Games
The Live Marketplace is an interesting space. In a way, its like a TiVo-style interface to the gaming universe in that it's a portal through which people can get new content or review the choices available to them. To date, there hasn't been too much interest in this sliver of media space. Everyone's been trying to wedge their ads into games. But this spot, while overlooked, could hold a lot of potential.

Consider the behavior around these pass-through spaces. Game consumers specifically go online to see what sorts of things are available to them, be they new games to buy, demos to try, or even video content to consume. This is a group looking for an opportunity to engage with content.

The normal set of tactics -- banners and buttons -- could certainly be extended to this space. But there's also the chance to bring in branded content and even behaviorally targeted ads. Because of the space's nature, a brand could even conduct e-commerce on the site, allowing consumers to purchase actual items via a simple interface.

More important, these middle spaces could represent real opportunities for brands to begin experimenting with that swirling world of games and advertising without having to totally understand all the delicate rules and balances of power brands need to negotiate, and still get plenty of exposure.

All advertisers who consider using video games must be cognizant of a simple rule: don't get in the way of the play. If Lara Croft has to stop and wait while Tony the Tiger dances across the screen, there will be trouble. But if the advertiser follows the rules and puts the logo or brand into a subtle corner, the impression's value begins to dissipate and get lost. How do you ensure you get the ad's value while not damaging the ad vehicle's value?

It's certainly a tough spot to be in, but as you can see with Xbox Live Marketplace and similar opportunities, there are spaces near games where an advertiser can simply be an advertiser. Since these spaces often offer casual, fun games, there may be a way for an advertiser to poke around and experiment with the space while not having to get too deep, too quickly.

Games Are Ad Disruptors
Games are advertising disruptors. Their increasing presence means more time in front of the television is dedicated to a space where the old rules of broadcast are destroyed like a Romulan being attacked by a Borg. That means advertisers who want to get a little slice of that sitting-in-front-of-the-box time must be creative, imaginative, and unafraid.
This doesn't mean advertisers need to be reckless. Instead, they should find the spots that allow them to engage and learn.

Email strategies - how to get one part 1

2007-03-13T10:45:00.000Z

Extract from Ten Steps for Developing an Effective E-mail Strategy, Part 1 E-Mail Marketing
BY Jeanne Jennings March 12, 2007

10 steps you need to take to develop an effective e-mail strategy:

Identify qualitative goals.
Analyze the current situation.
Complete a competitive analysis.
Define the target audience.
Determine which types of e-mail meet your needs.
Develop a content strategy.
Set the frequency and send schedule.
Create quantitative goals.
Compile budget and ROI projections.
Evaluate results and tweak the strategy accordingly.

Identify Qualitative Goals

What will the programme do for you?

Sell my products.
Deliver qualified leads for my services.
Entice people to register for my events.
Drive repeat traffic to my Web site.
Generate revenue via advertising.
Build my reputation as an expert in my field.
Keep my company top of mind with prospects.

There are a million ways to express qualitative goals. Use language you're comfortable with. That said, all qualitative goals tend to revolve around one of two things:

Acquiring new customers and/or revenue
Retaining or renewing existing customers and/or revenue

Your industry may use "clients," "members," "donors," "subscribers," "advertisers," or another term in place of "customers." Whatever you call them, it's all about acquisition and retention.

Analyze the Current Situation

Start with brainstorming and writing down the basics:

House list
How many e-mail addresses do you have?
How did you acquire them?
What's your monthly growth rate?
What are your best sources of new names?
How much, on average, does it cost to acquire a new e-mail address?
What else do you know about your house list?

Current e-mail campaigns
How frequently do you mail?
What do you mail? Include campaigns and one-offs.
What's your current e-mail marketing budget?
How much does it cost you, on average, to send 1,000 e-mail messages?
How does your e-mail perform?
Deliverability, opens, and clicks
Conversions and bottom-line success measures, like leads, sales, renewals, and revenue
Any other performance metrics relevant to your qualitative goals
What else do you know about your current e-mail campaigns?

Other marketing
What other online marketing are you doing related to your qualitative goals?
How well do they perform?
Are they related to e-mail marketing efforts?
Offline marketing
How well do these perform?
Are they related to e-mail marketing efforts?
What else do you know about your other current marketing campaigns?

Other aspects of your current e-mail situation
What staff or outside expertise on e-mail and your industry do you have access to?
How well does your current e-mail technology solution meet your needs?
What's the process for developing an e-mail from scratch?
How do you determine what gets sent to whom, when, and how often?

Random thoughts - why not?

2007-03-06T17:52:00.000Z

Random thoughts - trains

2007-03-06T17:51:00.001Z

Random thoughts - client service

2007-03-06T17:49:00.000Z

30 ways the UK has changed

2007-03-06T15:11:00.000Z

This is a great aticle (thanks Kelly) about how things aren't how they use to be.

Nice little reminder that things move on (with the acception of Noel Edmonds (No.25) who is ever present) and that brands and behaviours do change even in the shortest of time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6412083.stm

CGM glossary

2007-03-06T15:03:00.000Z

Extract from ClickZ Experts
The Official CGM Glossary› › › CMO
BY Pete BlackshawMarch 06, 2007

Consumer-generated media (CGM): At its core, CGM represents first-person commentary posted or shared across a host of expression venues, including message boards, forums, rating and review sites, groups, social networking sites, blogs, and, of course, video-sharing sites. It's commonly influenced or informed by relevant experience with brands (e.g., "I'm so angry with Jet Blue," "I love Target"). Although direct company feedback and general offline water cooler talk technically count as CGM, they have less of an enduring latency effect because they're not archived online for easy access by other consumers. CGM emphasizes the "media" rather than "content" precisely because it acts like paid media. Whether through search queries or serendipitous discovery, CGM frequently intercepts other consumers during the purchase cycle and, coupled with high trust levels, impacts business results.

Consumer-generated multimedia (CGM2): This subset of CGM is more anchored to "site, sound, and motion" components, each with the potential to dial up the effect and persuasiveness of the consumer storytelling. Visualization elevates drama, emotional resonance, and the ability to prove one's case through documentation (one big reason TV commercials have been so hard for advertisers to shake). Video is far and away the most significant form of CGM2, and sites like YouTube and MySpace lead the pack. By and large, CGM2 reflects unaided, or organic, consumer content creation. It may implicate brands positively or negatively, but the marketer has no direct hand in its creation. The Kryptonite lock video is one of the earliest examples. Brands like Apple have seen plenty of CGM2 on both the positive and negative side of things.

Consumer-fortified media (CFM): Unilever's Dove Evolution is a classic example of CFM. The advertisers created the spot, but its meaning was shaped, or fortified, by the conversation, commentary, and debate that wrapped around the content. The right combination can create an exponential positive buzz lift or outright disaster. In the case of Dove Evolution, tens of thousands of women talked about the ad, embedded it in their blogs, and wrapped fresh commentary around the core. The same thing often happens when the news networks drop enticing news segments on their sites or YouTube. Just think about the New York TV video on rats at Taco Bell or the TV networks seeding a Justin Timberlake "rap" on YouTube. The input is credentialed and formal; the output is fortified (and validated) by the consumer voice.

Consumer-solicited media (CSM): The term that most commonly captures this form is "co-creation." Others loosely call it "participatory advertising." In essence, the marketer sets the specs, and consumers exercise a range of creativity and brand evangelism within those parameters. It could be a create-your-own-ad contest, or an upload-your-experience photo or video utility on a brand Web site. Recent examples include the Dove ad during the Oscars (the product of a contest) and the Frito-Lay, GM, and NFL spots during the Super Bowl. One of the very first examples is MoveOn.org's "Bush in 30 Seconds" campaign three years ago. Think about an RFP (define) whereby we set criteria for suppliers to duke it out to win our marketing business. CSM has the potential to be hugely effective, but it's not entirely pure or organic.
Compensated consumer-generated media (CCGM): This is when marketers outright pay consumers to do certain things, or when publishers compensate artists or content creators for submissions. In a video context, there are both benign and inappropriate applications. Revenue-sharing models like Revver (potentially forthcoming on YouTube) apply an issue- or slant-agnostic approach to the compensation structure. Positive or negative, if your contribution draws the eyeballs (and provided you're not using illegal content), you take a piece of the revenue. On the less savory side, if your video model is like PayPerPost, where contributors are outright paid to endorse or promote a product and the disclosure factor is submerged in murkiness, there's a far higher risk and backlash factor. Lots more discussion is needed over this... soon.

Paid media: This is exactly as it sounds. Marketers buy media, usually in the form of impressions, to affect sales. Some call this "marketer-generated media" (MGM), but the old description works just fine. In the context of video, paid media may come in the form of the pre-roll, post-roll, or official sponsor link. Sometimes this, too, gets a bit fuzzy, but by and large the distinction is pretty clear.

Nice idea

2007-03-01T19:14:00.000Z

2007-02-26T12:49:00.000Z

I have been reading an excellent piece of research jointly done by the IPA, ISBA, MCCA and PRCA entitled 'The client brief - a best practice guide to briefing communications agencies'.

Well worth a read, even if it is 40 pages long. Key bits I liked:

82% of clients believe that briefs should focus on making sure the business problem is properly defined.

55% of clients agreed that the brief being worked on is often changed once the project has started.

'The main difference between a good brief and a bad brief is that a good brief leaves you with a clear understanding of what you are trying to do. Bad briefs drown you in contradictory information and objectives.'

'Ultimately, the point of communication is to get people to do things... Which people? What things?.. You've got the basis of the brief right there. Everything else is detail'.

I like this last point. How much of what we put in our briefs is just detail?

The value of questions

2007-02-26T11:54:00.001Z

Just a short slide show to pose a few questions.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/93401239@N00/sets/72157594557657573/show/

It will only take a minute to review.

Web 2.0 - two great views.

2007-02-21T16:15:00.000Z

This guy came across these two diferent views on Web 2.0. Carl found the page - I pinched it. Cheers Carl.

http://www.simon-law.com/archives/107

I kind of have to agree with the second view, not least for the fact that it recognises that what the web does is enable human interactions to occur but through a different media.

Consumer generated media - eh?

2007-02-21T09:18:00.000Z

An extract from the pocker guide to consumer generated media
Pete Blackshaw, 28 June 2007.

The fastest-growing media is one consumers create and share among themselves. It's trusted and TiVo-resistant. It presents long-lasting sources of influence. Listening to and leveraging such media may well be the most important source of competitive advantage for companies and brands.

Unlike paid media, CGM is created by consumers. It's often inspired by relevant product or service experiences and is frequently archived online for readers convenience and other consumers or key marketplace influencers. Examples of CGM include blog entries, consumer email feedback, message board posts, forum comments, personal Web sites, and personal email.

1.4 billion CGM comments are archived on the Web today. That number is growing 30 percent annually. None of this is terribly surprising when you consider the Pew Internet & American Life Project estimates 44 percent of online consumers have created online "content."

CGM can be influenced, but not controlled, by marketers. CGM delivers high-impact, targeted ad impressions well outside the scope of conversation among "familiars," a big reason it bears an important distinction from word of mouth. Search in particular magnifies CGM reach and effect by matching those who create it ("speakers") with curious, information-hungry preshoppers ("seekers").

Most important, CGM leaves a digital trail. It's highly measurable, allowing advertisers to gauge brand equity, reputation, and message effectiveness in real time. Advertisers must take accountability for the scope and effect of such media and use it to make more-informed decisions. One important first step is to understand CGM various forms.

blogs. The majority of today's blogs are rich, unaided first-person narratives across a host of topics. They mirror insight-rich focus groups but are even better. Though consumers rarely dedicate blogs to brands, brand experiences abundantly decorate blog narratives. Often, the texture of brand commentary is incidental, implied, even unconscious in nature. This can shed light on how advertising truly works. Thanks to RSS and blogs highly networked nature, they're quickly becoming the most potent form of CGM. They also index fastest on search engines.

Message boards and forums. These are industry- or interest-focused areas that draw consumers based on a particular product, specialty, or niche. Typically, they draw consumers interested in specific products (automobiles, computers, electronics, software) or issues (politics, baby/parenting, lifestyle, travel). Active participants tend to be folks who have experienced the products or issue in question. Buyers tend to be the listeners. Social network sites also make ample use of message boards.

Review/rating sites. There are far fewer CGM "impressions" in this venue, but the reach and effect are enormous, especially in regard to consumer purchase behavior. Reviews are typically grounded in relevant experience, which significantly dials up credibility and trust. Amazon.com, eBay, Edmunds.com, and Epinions.com all fall into this category. Ratings add an important quantitative dimension.

Clubs or groups. These are highly focused, often specialized sites where aficionados congregate around a single issue, product, or item. They can be public or private. Although membership is usually small (up to hundreds of users), tens of thousands of such groups exist. Groups can range from celebrity fan clubs to stamp collectors sites to automobile owners sites to book clubs.

Direct company feedback. This critical, often overlooked form of CGM is targeted directly to companies, but consumers who exercise this channel typically offer their feelings across multiple platforms. Some of our recent research shows nearly 70 percent of consumers who provide feedback through company/brand Web sites are active across other CGM venues, including boards and blogs. The good news for companies is this channel is controllable. The challenge is shifting from an operational, "I don't want consumer attention" cost-center mindset to a marketing-centered, "I'll take whatever consumer attention I can get" one.

Third-party Web sites. Smaller yet active groups of consumers generate high-impact CGM on third-party feedback sites such as Complaints.com and My3cents.com. The Better Business Bureau's online service also captures, archives, and makes publicly available certain forms of "escalated" CGM. Media writers and financial analysts often quote such sources.
Introducing CGM2

CGM is rapidly adopting the same rich-media formats we see in online advertising. This, too, needs to be understood. A few examples of CGM2, or consumer-generated multimedia:

Moblogs, photo sharing, and tagging. Moblogs are mobile-enabled blogs that let users post photos from anywhere. Interestingly, many of the online photos today are efficiently tagged with labels such as "BadMcDonaldsExperience," which makes them easier to find, organize, and index through search engines. Camera phones play a huge role in moblog growth.

Vlogs/personal videos. Vlogs are basically video-based journals, almost like reality TV for online. Thanks to iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, and other tools, it's getting easier to create sticky, viral, even incriminating online video.

Podcasting. Think of this as TiVo meets radio. Consumers create their own radio broadcasts and make them available for others. Because they're so darn easy to create, expect to see a ton of them.

Consumers are dictating the terms of media reach, frequency, and impact. We must stay on top of this. Increasingly, we live in a consumer-controlled surveillance society, and CGM the currency.

Data mining

2007-02-15T10:20:00.000Z

Extract of article from Search Engine Strategies

Data Mining: The Heart of Analysis
By John Tawadros Feb. 14, 2007

18 month ago showed that 31 percent of search marketers do not, or cannot, measure the ROI of their search marketing efforts.

Start With the Basics
Begin by thinking about the user behavior patterns that exist between queries and sites, and about the correlations between various online initiatives (not just paid search) and offline marketing activities. Which initiatives are driving which programs' results? Which programs' success depends on other programs? Are your TV and radio ads effectively driving prospects to search for you online? Are your search programs leading consumers to call your call center or walk into your stores?

There are also some fundamental and commonly understood steps that can be taken to gain efficiencies and improve paid search advertising performance:

Improve your call to action. Improving your click through rate (CTR) through a more persuasive call to action in your ad will allow you to gain higher positions within the sponsored listings, which may yield yet more volume.
Settle for second place. Decreasing your bid to lower your position in the sponsored listings can save click costs without significantly diminished returns.
Focus on the funnel. Improving your landing pages and conversion funnel can help to gain a better response rate and increase returns.
Look to the tail. Increasing the number of long-tail keywords on which you bid can typically produce traffic from less expensive clicks.
Go beyond Google. Expanding your bidding to tier-two engines or content networks can increase your reach to a broader audience.
Just by getting the basics in order, you should see some improvements. But when you take the next step -- to actual analysis -- there are creative and complex patterns that you may be able to observe that will help you better understand ROI and hence drive greater performance.

Then On to the Analysis
Before you begin any type of analysis, make a list of questions you'd like answered, or perhaps suggest a potential theory that you'd like to prove or disprove. You want to look for those answers that would make you to do things differently. This approach will help guide your analysis. However, it's critical that paid search NOT be examined in a vacuum. Too many marketers treat the channel solely as a direct response mechanism. Granted, this might be necessary from a financial perspective, but there is other valuable information in the data if it is mined and analyzed properly.

Relationships
There is typically some form of relationship between your audience's keywords. Many in the industry claim that searchers first search on broad phrases then narrow their query to become more specific; hence marketers shouldn't discount broad terms just because they don't look favorable from a ROI perspective. Clearly, there is some truth to this claim, but so too is the opposite -- specific queries can lead to broad searches. But don't take my word for it, look at your data!

By analyzing the cookies of your site visitors, exclude from your data all those who have only clicked to your site from an ad once and then have a look at the statistics and trends of the queries launched and ads clicked by those visitors who performed multiple queries. This will not only help you understand what keywords to buy, but also affect how you attribute cost and returns between keywords.

You should also look at the ROI value of early-stage keywords, by attributing the eventual conversion to the first keyword a user queried and clicked on to arrive at you site. Then compare that to the ROI value of keywords if you were to attribute the eventual conversion to the last keyword queried immediately prior to converting. This type of analysis goes by many names such as: Multi-Query Analysis, Search Funnel Analysis, or First versus Last Click Analysis.

There is also insight to be found by analyzing the search properties that your audience may be visiting. If you're running campaigns in multiple engines and ad platforms, you should examine the behavioral patterns of your audience segmented by source. You may find that there is a greater propensity for a user to click to your site and convert if they saw you on search engine XYZ.

For example, imagine for a moment that you observe that 10 percent of your conversions that came from Google had also visited and clicked on an ad in Yahoo. What would happen if you throttled Yahoo back? Surely, that would be nice to know before you negatively impact your overall ROI by neglecting to take Yahoo's contribution into account.

It would also be a good idea to observe the effects on conversion when ad messaging is kept consistent or varied across paid search sites. Again, too many people focus on ROI per engine, per keyword, without looking at any of the correlations between the elements.

Making it Happen
Obviously, tracking is a key factor in being able to conduct this type of analysis, never mind having enough in-house resources and the skill sets required to perform the analysis. And as good as you may be at managing paid search campaigns, it would behoove you to have a statistician or data miner analyze the data to find the interactions of these touchpoints and report back to you, especially if the data set is large. Ultimately, what you should find is a set of scenarios and circumstances that will guide you to either prevent losses and/or capitalize on newly identified opportunities.

PowerPoint - 5 tips

2007-02-15T10:15:00.000Z

8 minutes and 45 seconds of good advice about PowerPoint: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFQ7OMFAcl4

Blogenvy

2007-02-15T09:48:00.000Z

Here's another candidate. http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/

This guy's really got the planning blog sorted. Brilliant my sites, lots of depth, all the subjects covered. I may as well send everyone here.

Blogenvy

2007-02-12T09:47:00.000Z

The irrational dislike of others caused by their superior quality and achievement in relation to blogging. It's not made wikipedia yet, but it will.

My first candidate for blogenvy: http://www.mb-blog.com/

Check out this guy's archive on brand. I particularly like the article on scented outdoor advertising http://www.mb-blog.com/index.php/2006/12/08/fresh-baked-or-half-baked/
not least for the fact that we had a similar 'ish idea on a recent pitch.

Let's get started.

2007-02-08T14:57:00.000Z

OK. Blank screen.
Let's get started then.
Need to think about a place to start....

What do I usually suggest people do when faced with a blank screen? or a blank piece of paper? or just a blank mind?

Come on... think of something, you're suppose to be a planner.

Right got it. Why are we doing this?

I'll get back to you.