Jan

The Real Power Of The Super Bowl – Conversation

I was recently asked by ADG Creative to write a blog post. I thought I would add what I wrote for ADG to Typos & Mispellings.

The Super Bowl is Sunday with many people in Charm City still bewildered about a drop and a 32-yard field goal sailing left. This got me to thinking about how we are about to be bombarded with 13 million blogs about the best and worst Super bowl ads. Intending not to be one of these posts, I thought about writing about the best social media campaigns of 2011. But something funny happened on the way, I kept stumbling back into the idea of the “integrated” advertising campaign.

This isn’t to say that there haven’t been great social media campaigns in 2011, there were The Dark Knight Rises campaign was inventive, if not pure genius. Greenpeace’s Ken breakup with Barbie was an effective campaign that achieved real and valuable results. And the Mexican soccer club Jaguares de Chiapas replacing the players name with their Twitter handle was well… unique (although you should probably make sure you sure your players actually tweet.)

The problem is that each of these examples isn’t a social media campaign; but an integrated campaign. Greenpeace combined social with guerilla to great effect. Jaguars use their jerseys and television platform to promote brand engagement through Twitter. And in its own unique way, The Dark Knight Rises integrates Twitter, video and website content in an attempt to earn media through WOM and PR.

For years, the advertising industry has wrestled with the “integration” issue. All too often campaigns begin with the media first (TV, print, digital, social, etc.) and when the media comes first, friction is inevitable. In reality, all are vehicles that seek to reach people. TV and print, and even digital banners, are the catalyst. They get attention, plant the seed, make people notice. But if we stopped there, we will have failed. The next part of the puzzle is to have your brand engage with the audience and provide interesting ways for the audience to engage with others within their network.

And that is where digital and social shine. When I sit down on Sunday, I hope to see a great game and to once and for all leave behind the isolated TV ad. I look forward to discovering which brands have moved on and use the Super Bowl’s incredible reach to start a conversation using social networks, websites and living rooms across America.

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Advertising/Media/Technology

Nov

Is the Facebook iPad App A Disappointment For Brands?

Last month Facebook finally released its iPad app. I stayed away from writing about it until now because I figured that the industry would detail the features and functionality better than I. Overall, I am impressed with the app, but I have noticed one similarity with the mobile app that I find curious. It got me wondering about the effectiveness, impact and interaction brands are able to have on Facebook.

The Facebook mobile experience limits brand’s Page functionality to Wall, Info and Photos. None of the custom created content that appears within the desktop navigation is displayed within the mobile or iPad experiences. While there are certainly technical reasons for only displaying the default Facebook content, I had always assumed that the information would be pulled through and that the brand would have to make tweaks to the content if it wasn’t iPad friendly.

With Facebook becoming more and more of a destination / platform for marketers, I find it curious that the mobile Page experience was carried forward. I wonder if brands are pushing Facebook to enable richer experiences on the iPad and when (not if) future app updates will implement this change.

13 years ago Short URL Comments

Uncategorized

Oct

Do Marketers Need To Become 10x Developers?

From 2001-2007 I worked heavily with offshore developers in India and to a much lesser extent in China and Brazil. During this time our “onshore” firms always sought and cherished 10x developers.

I am guessing that many are wondering what the hell is a 10x developer? The simple answer is a single developer that can do the work of 10 developers. While we can argue whether they were actually 3x, 5x, 7x or 10x developers the value and expertise of these individuals can’t be questioned. These were people that could take project from architecture to execution with amazing efficiency.

I’ve recently been wondering if ad agencies (and on a much broader scale America) need to adopt the 10x developer mentality. This isn’t about becoming web developers, but rather developing service resources that are extremely efficient in concept, creation and delivery.

The global economy, freelance and the emergence of templates/api’s have created a price competitive model for once highly regarded, valued and expensive service. We now face some of our services becoming low margin commodities. There are a million reasons why this commoditization wrong, but instead of fighting an inevitable force the industry needs to develop an offering that protects against it. My solution is to become 10x developers. To become an industry that is so efficient that our “important” clients don’t consider the nickel and dime route.

So how does an industry make this change? In my last post, I talked about how the online space has created a divide between awareness and conversion expertise. A fair amount of discussion has occurred around user experience, egos and how you can’t create a great communications without an understanding of both awareness and conversion. I greatly appreciate the discussion and feedback, but still hold to the premise.

Egos and trust are certainly the key (aren’t they always). But they way the 10x developers (and really any successful individuals) grow their expertise is potentially a path forward. 10x developers don’t try to be everything to everybody. They grow their craft was by developing an expertise and then adding a complimentary skill set. The good ones understand their expertise and look ahead to new technologies / related elements that they can master. The important thing is that they only try to develop related expertise and not try to be a little of everything to everybody. They also trust that others are becoming experts at the things they have limited expertise with. They value the other person’s experience and expertise. The results are extreme efficiency where trust, expertise and a history of implementation success often trumps cost.

If the advertising industry (and America) adopts this model we can succeed in a lower margin / cost driven market. Success and results are what matters most to clients. Adding a bunch of lower cost employees or outside vendors doesn’t ensure success. It all too often only meets the pricing requirement while increasing the workload inside the agency. I propose that the industry requires more senior level expertise that is developed along defined career paths. Agency’s must develop staff and personnel that grow their expertise through related technologies / mediums (dare I say awareness and conversion tracks). If we chart our internal employees career growth along fixed paths / expertise we can deliver better results that are price efficient (but not the lowest cost). And delivering the results consistently helps all of us avoid the conversation devolving into the lowest bidder wins.

13 years ago Short URL Comments

Advertising/Technology

Oct

Awareness vs. Conversion – An Ad Agency Problem

Ten+ years in ad agencies are still undergoing the “great integration”. After years breaking down the silos and “integrating” I question if it is the right approach. I wonder if something that sounds right in concept is flawed because it doesn’t factor in the greatest change that the industry has undergone. Reporting, and specifically how today client’s look past raising awareness and towards mastery of user experience and conversion.

In a gross generalization, outbound advertising goals have been traditionally to raise awareness and interest/response in a product or service. Ad agency expertise and success has always been based on these abilities. The kpi for advertising has been either direct response or brand / product / service awareness studies.

Awareness and response are extremely important and integral to any businesses success. Unfortunately (or fortunately) this measure is no longer enough. Reporting and data integration changed the game. Today, nearly every business leverages these tools to create advertising to sales tracking that extends past awareness / initial response. And these tools will only become more sophisticated over time (and the talent and expertise to leverage these tools will become even more in demand).

It isn’t that the advertising industry has been slow to respond. It is responding at breakneck speed. The problem may be just that. The Industry knows what it must understand but it might be that they are responding too quickly without assessing organizationally how to staff and empower teams with defined roles and responsibilities.

Website user experience and data tracking within the on and offline spaces is today a sophisticated offering that has been developed through years of experience and expertise. The very nature of the services do not care or pretend to have an expertise in raising awareness or interest.

Website visits by their very nature assume that person has found the site through advertising, search, wom, etc. Data tracking is similar. It assumes a starting point to track from. The trained professionals in these practices are undoubtedly experts at what they do. No one though would expect them to become experts at raising awareness and response through advertising tomorrow.

Their expertise is in converting the interest. It is rooted in understanding how to prioritize and present the right content and information to the interested party at the right time. It is rooted in testing and understanding how to move someone from the second to third, fourth and fifth steps in the purchase process. The process sounds similar to how ad agencies create awareness and response, but the mindset and approach to the work is fundamentally different.

Why then do we expect the advertising professional who has spent years of training and focused their professional work on the first step of generating response to naturally be experts in the conversion process that occurs after interest is raised? It is a tall order.

For the agency of today to be successful it needs to let the experts be the experts. We shouldn’t expect user experience designers to all the sudden be experts at raising awareness and interest. We shouldn’t expect the reverse from the trained advertising professional. When a campaign or initiative is undertaken we should organize teams between awareness and conversion. The awareness teams can control the message and focus their efforts on generating response. The conversion team owns the destination and creating the content and materials that move the purchase along the decision process to eventually convert the interest. I know it isn’t just that easy, but maybe this type of focus and structure will make it a lot easier.

13 years ago Short URL 6 Comments

Advertising/Reporting

Sep

Facebook – One Account or Two?

Marketers and advertisers have been driving more and more of their ad campaigns to Facebook. A question that rarely seems to be raised is whether business and corporations should have a single Facebook accounts or multiple accounts?

Recently one of my clients scoffed at my suggestion that we create a separate Facebook account for a 15-24 month initiative. His reaction was so strong that it set me back and made me question the strategy. Looking back I wish that I’d communicated the rationale and strategy more effectively. I’ve done a lot of thinking since and have come to the following points of view.

1. User experience outweighs any lack of content need

If you are successful (or fortunate enough) to have a client reach your Facebook page it should quickly communicate the type of content and information they will receive by liking the page. Don’t have schizophrenic wall postings. If you are posting something about one topic one minute and a completely unrelated topic another it is near impossible for the person to understand the value they will receive by liking your page. It is much better to have fewer and less frequent posts around the one or two topics than 10 different posts about 10 different things.

Schools like the UWGB (http://www.facebook.com/uwgbadmissions) tend to do a decent job of this seperating admission pages from alumni pages.

2. The Wall is where you deliver frequency

Receiving a Like is a huge deal. It enables you to deliver content to a customer or prospect with regular frequency. To be effective and have the person connect with your brand the content strategy must deliver the relevant information they expected to receive from the Like. This kind of goes without saying, but Facebook is an incredible awareness vehicle precisely because of the frequency it can deliver. Having a strong content strategy around one or two specific topics is another strong argument for a second Facebook account.

3. Always respect your audience regardless of how small it is

Communities are built in a single day. Communities need to be cared for and grown. All too often marketers are willing to change direction and make strategy changes based on the rationale that the existing community is small. This doesn’t take into account the influence and clout (or Klout) that members may have. This isn’t to say that a content strategy isn’t sometimes warranted or something the community demands, but you shouldn’t look away from a vibrant and active community just because it is small.

What are your thoughts? Let me know.

13 years ago Short URL 5 Comments

Advertising/Media

Advertising/Facebook

Sep

Is Path To Conversion As Bad As Behavioral Advertising?

For the past two years I have been doing a lot of path to conversion reporting for one of our financial service clients. Path to conversion utilizes cookie based technologies to record the advertising views and engagements that occur during a prospects decision to purchase. This cookie technology is similar to the technology behavioral advertisers utilize to track online behavior and display advertising based on past user visit, interest and intent. As someone who believes behavioral advertising is bad for the industry (due it tracking behavior without asking for opt-in permission), I’ve been wondering if path to conversion also breaks this covenant.

Advertisers and consumers let me hear your feedback.

After mush back and forth I have concluded that path to conversion is different. Path to conversion seeks to understand the top of the conversion funnel and sites that influence conversion. It tracks influence related to a single product purchase and doesn’t track online behavior outside of the advertising for the single product. The path to conversion goal is to develop cost efficient media plans that focus the buy and presents more efficient and less advertising.

Behavioral advertising utilizes the cookie to collect data on my overall web browsing behavior and display advertising that is correlated to my browsing behavior. It tracks my online behavior to create a profile, place me into a “look alike” group and serve advertising messages to me based on my profile. In my opinion this feels much worse.

What do you think? Do you think path to conversion is the same or different than behavioral advertising?

13 years ago Short URL Comments

Reporting

reporting

Sep

The Advertising Agency of TODAY

If you think about our industry it is undergoing seismic and fundamental changes. Five years ago we talked about the power of integrated campaigns. Today that is past history. It is a cost of doing business. We have to think in an integrated way, but today demands a different type of thinking and a different type of organization. Listed below are thoughts on the successful agency of today.

Start By Listening And Understanding
Today every prospect / customer is a publisher. The conversations are going on with or without us. Understanding where the prospect and customers are and what their unfiltered comments (positive or negative) is essential to marketing communications today. This means social media monitoring, Google Alerts and other listening services is how we start each day. We begin our day by reviewing prospect and customer conversations. These comments ground us for the challenges ahead.

Reporting Has Created A Divide Between Business & Advertising Goals

Reporting has changed how marketers corporately promote themselves. With the exception of PURE awareness campaigns that have tracking studies every campaign and media plan is being measured in some way. Reports with more and more detail are being provided to CMO’s and C-Suite. These reports are specifically talking about ROI and the direct results of the marketing expenditures. We can argue about whether this is short sighted, but every one of our clients is doing it. It means that we must clearly understand the advertising goals and how they impact the larger business goals. We must create campaigns and executions focused on delivering the advertising goals because our clients success and failure (and in turn ours) are often measured by the REPORTED advertising success. Note: Print, Newspapers and Radio especially provide difficulties in reporting. If you look at the media channels that are often challenged in plans these buys are often questioned the most. This is a little short sighted. It doesn’t mean that print and radio aren’t important or successful. It means that the agency has to develop the response metrics to report on the overall media mix driving response instead of reporting response from the individual media channels.

Paid Media To Drive Direct Response, Action Or Engagement. That Is All. Ever.

Paid media should focus on successfully doing on of three things. From a commerce perspective, sales. Here we talk about offers or driving checkouts, phone purchases, etc. From an action perspective, getting an interested party to take the next step. Here we are in the pre-sales process and trying to provide valuable information to a prospect. Think whitepapers, webinars, prospectuses, brochures, etc.). From a brand perspective let drive engagement / connection so that the next step fo the campaign can have a broad audience to execute a clearly defined content strategy.

Two-Way Communications Are Becoming The Lifeblood Of Marketing

Communications has moved from one-way to two-way. To be successful you must understand two-way communications, best practices and be on top of new ways to connect with prospects/customers. When we evaluate a concept, execution, or campaign we should ask how does this connect with the prospect / customer? Will it make them engage? The idea isn’t about a bulleted list of what ifs? It is about executing in the medium or channel where you are communicating. It is about concise, detailed, well thought out executions that understand the procedures, trafficking, technology (if applicable), reporting and having a roadmap for implementation and ongoing success. Remember effective campaigns don’t have an end date.

Response Is No Longer Enough. The Destination Is The Most Important Element

If everything is being measures the destination is now often the MOST important element of the campaign. The industry a as whole need to become obsessed with the destination experience. This isn’t just landing pages, websites, Facebook, Twitter and microsites. It is in-store materials / experience. It is driving to phones and understanding how phone calls impact sales, etc. If you think about successful agencies they spend a significant amount of time / effort worrying about the destination. The successful agency doesn’t fulfill the destination requirement because they have to. They get excited about it and keep it at the core and center of the idea. If we aren’t understanding how to take the interested party and get them to purchase, take the next step in their decision process or connect with the brand we fail our clients.

Social Media Is In Contradiction With An ROI Driven World.

No one knows really how to measure the impact of a social media campaign. In an ROI driven world social media stands as a powerful element without a true reporting metric. What is a like worth? Ware are 10,000 likes worth? What is a follower worth? What are 10,000 followers worth? We should stop measure likes / followers and begin measuring the content strategy and how many of the followers take action on the content and materials we publish. By doing so we measure how engaged the community is and how effectively we can push content, promote offers, deals and materials to our engaged prospects / customers.

Content Strategy IS The Idea. Social Media Delivers Frequency & Engagement

Concepts, ideas, campaigns and brands must find ways to reach their customers without paying for every media impression. Start thinking about Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Google+, RSS, Blogs as brand building vehicles that can increase brand sentiment by providing frequency. The key is to use these platforms to create a compelling content strategy that provides valuable information to the client. Content is king because it keeps the community engaged. Good content creation isn’t cheap or easy to produce. But when we think about concepts, ideas and campaigns the content strategy isn’t something to figure out later. The content strategy and delivery are the IDEA. A well executed content strategy is what will increase brand sentiment. It isn’t something to be figured out later.

Social Media For Advocacy And Good

Corporations have always been focused on corporate responsibility. They do so because it is who they are and what they believe it. They don’t do it to win clients and new business. They do it because they believe it is the right thing to do. Corporations shouldn’t use advocacy and social media just to build positive sentiment towards the brand. But for those who corporate mission is committed to advocacy they should use social media to amplify the message and a way to spread awareness of a cause for a greater good. Admittedly this is a slippery slope, but people within the US are more than ever committed to advocacy and improving the world around them. Individuals and even corporate efforts will never be as effected as the effort of an engaged community. If a corporation is truly committed to advocacy they should use social media to build community or drive its like minded people to an existing cause to deliver more impact and a greater good.

PR Is About To Dominant The Advertising Industry

The new communication model is more relevant to PR agencies than it is to advertising agencies. Ad agencies must remain focused on their expertise and understand how they do what they do. Check our egos at the door and learn from successful PR agencies. Learn how to connect and communicate in this rapidly changing landscape. By doing so you will learn how to effectively connect.

Thanks for taking the time to read. Let me know your thoughts.
GJ

13 years ago Short URL Comments

Advertising

Advertising/agency