Eight Marketing Blunders to Avoid

History lessons

While the world economy has been bouncing back of late, we are all more than aware that the recovery is fragile -- and so are many of digital's companies, small and large. Thus, it's more important than ever for us to be smarter and learn from our own mistakes, as well as the mistakes of those around us.

The beauty of digital is that there have been so many initiatives in this fragmented arena that history's lessons come fast and furious. And yet, it's human nature to assume that our individual situations are somehow unique. We are, of course, wrong.

I say "we" because I have made such mistakes many times over the years, dashing down the seductive path of feeling my challenges are unique, only to realize some months or years later that, nope, my situation was not at all special -- and that I am at square one just like those who came before me.

There's an adage that says the essence of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. Here's my take on eight things we all need to avoid doing again.

1. Trying to Outcool Apple

Can't be done. There are ways to compete with Apple. But "outcooling" isn't one of them.



2. Shiny Object Syndrome

Oh, where to begin on this one? Remember when every brand and its mother were launching widgets?

Remember when most brands sites were trying to be destinations? When chatrooms were popping up on toilet paper sites? None were bad ideas per se; the problem was that we ran into these shiny spaces willy nilly, without a reason or a strategy.

Are brands still doing this? Sure. But fewer. Let's keep that trend going.

3. Fostering consumer control without guidance

Usually it's not what people want. I once worked at a startup that boasted that its database was so big, consumers could search for something and get 1,200 options in results. Wouldn't they looooove that?

Of course, people don't want 1,200 options. They want the best outcome for them. Most of the time, they want three options or so to choose from, with a big blinking arrow over one of the choices that says, "Best value!"

OK, that was comment bait. But I assure you I don't think consumers are stupid. They are smart. Smart enough to realize that three choices are about all most decisions are worth when you have to decide and run and buy the Dragon Tattoo book for book club and pick up your daughter from Scouts. All in 30 minutes. Most things just don't matter more than three choices' worth. And the human mind can only process so many choices anyway. Heck, ask a realtor about the advisability of showing someone 30houses.

There's more to this point, though. Consumers want control of outcomes, not process. Witness MySpace. MySpace gave people total control of their pages. Here's the result:



And here:



What people wanted were profiles that allowed them to express themselves. Without guidance, they got profiles no one wanted to visit out of fear of visual and audio assault.

The new MySpace profiles address this issue rather well. We'll see if it reverses the slide.

4. Trying to make up for it in volume

Lots of yummy morsels here. Let's start with Kozmo.com, the company that would deliver virtually anything to your house for nothing. What's wrong with this picture?



Or Webvan, the company that -- oh, I'll let Wikipedia tell you:

While Webvan was popular, the money spent on infrastructure far exceeded sales growth, and the company eventually ran out of money. For example: Webvan placed a $1 billion (USD) order with engineering company Bechtel to build its warehouses, bought a fleet of delivery trucks, purchased 30 Sun Microsystems Enterprise 4500 servers, dozens of Compaq ProLiant computers and several Cisco Systems model 7513 and 7507 routers, as well as more than 80 21-inch ViewSonic color monitors, and at least 115 Herman Miller Aeron chairs (at over $800 each).

You've got to sell a lot of Cookie Crisp to make up for those costs.



Or, my personal favorite, Pets.com, which thought it would be good business to ship 40 pound sacks of dog chow by UPS and beat retail prices. During one period, according to Wikipedia, they spent $12.8MM in advertising and sold $600K in pet supplies. And the pet supplies went out the door at 1/3 of the price they went in for.

But on the other hand, consider Amazon. Now the world's largest bookseller, I have the personal satisfaction to tell you that during 2000, I don't think I ever paid more than a nickel for a hardback. I became expert at getting $25 off $25-plus purchases and ringing up totals of $25.05 with shipping.

Now, Amazon survived this largesse -- God knows how -- and in the end I became addicted to receiving daily deliveries of boxes with smiles on them. Since that time, I've spent more than $20,000 with Amazon over the years -- so perhaps that strategy wasn't so dumb after all. Though I'd never say giving me "Nothing Like It in the World" for a nickel was a smart thing. But it was a mistake the company survived, to flourish in the end.

5. Marketing on attributes versus benefits

Much hardware and software promotion focuses on data points indicating attributes that are expected to serve as sufficient inducement to purchase. There are certainly segments of the audience that already understand the benefit of something and find the data valuable as a way of distinguishing between items.

But history shows over and over that benefits and brands can trump attributes in most B2C businesses, including hardware. Which of these two players do you think will make your music sound better?

Player A:



Player B:



In fairness, some of the sharpest big companies in the Valley have figured out how to make attributes into benefits.



It can be effective, but it often costs a ton of money to do it.

6. Thinking "better" is always better
In digital, lots of time and energy gets spent building that better mousetrap. Which is excellent. But by what person's definition is "better" defined? In our industry in 2010, trash bins are full of the stationery of defunct startups that focused on things that people didn't actually care about.

Henry Ford once said, "If I had asked consumers what they wanted, they would have told me a faster horse." So it's important to innovate in areas that aren't necessarily things people are clamoring for. But at the same time, having a rich understanding of the target's problems and tastes is also important.

7. Confusing your needs with target needs

Recently a publisher tried to sell me a heavily male-skewing site as a great place to connect with women. Now, I get it that technology makes it possible for a site to predict gender reasonably well, but do you honestly expect me to say, "Hmm. I could message on sites that attract 90 percent women and have relevant context. Or! I could choose a venue with 15 percent comp that has nothing to do with my category. Hmm. What to choose? What to choose?"

8. Ignoring privacy concerns

Two years ago, two companies called NebuAd and Phorm launched services in conjunction with ISPs that tracked every activity of customers for the purpose of gathering data for ad targeting.

In the U.K., Phorm was partnered with three ISPs -- BT, Virgin, and TalkTalk -- which make up a large portion of total U.K. connectivity. As part of the process, the company quietly worked with BT to test its platform on thousands of consumers who were not informed of the test. Consumer anger and regulatory ire ensued, and all three ISPs have dropped out of the plan. The company has shifted to a consumer content personalization strategy (eventually including ads) and an opt-in versus opt-out model. According to The Register, it has lost more than $100 million, with little possible revenue for the foreseeable future.

Today, consumer groups and the FTC are voicing concerns about cookie-based targeting, especially behavioral targeting. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz has demanded industry action. While our industry has made efforts in the past to address privacy concerns with regard to ad targeting, these measures have been widely viewed as inadequate. Now a cross-industry coalition has proposed a self-regulation program centered on the "Power i," an icon that will appear on ads. Clicking on the icon will offer consumers information about the companies collecting and using data to target, along with choices in how they participate (or don't.)



Our industry would do well to embrace this program and raise its level of vigilance regarding privacy and ad targeting.

Conclusion

People far wiser than me say that if you don't make mistakes in digital, you aren't doing your job right -- because there are no certainties in a medium that changes hourly. And because part of the magic of digital is that innovation requires tons of trial and tons of error.

I once heard a speaker say we should rejoice in our mistakes. I am too much of a boomer to rejoice in anything other than hard work that leads to incremental success. But I do believe that failure should not be a source of shame. The decision to rejoice in errors is entirely yours. But we can all agree that it makes sense to concentrate on making new mistakes rather than repeating old ones.

But should Amazon ever want to repeat its $25 off $25-plus purchases couponing...

Power.com: The Connector of Social Networks

You have have seen a press piece or three about Power.com lately. If you haven't lemme tell you about it. Basically, it is a service that interconnects presences across multiple social networks. SO you can monitor and update your presences and personal contacts from a single location. So what networks are Powerable at this point?

MySpace
Orkut
Hi5

And, according to Tech Crunch, Facebook soon. Wrote Erick Shonfeld:

Power.com lets you sign into multiple social networks and manage them from one place, but it did not use Facebook’s API or Facebook Connect. As part of the settlement, Power will access this data via Facebook Connect. Power was scraping the data from Facebook and caching it, which it won’t be allowed to do with Facebook Connect.

Facebook is very particular about how it wants other Websites to access its user data. Facebook had similar problems with Google’s Friend Connect, although it simply banned Google from using its API rather than bring a lawsuit.

For Websites and services that want to tap into Facebook’s rich trove of user data (it now has 150 million active users worldwide), it has to do so by Facebook’s rules. But one of those rules, in particular, many partners are finding restrictive. They are not allowed to cache any data, so they cannot build their own user profiles or make their services smarter over time. There are good privacy reasons for not allowing other (possibly unscrupulous) sites to cache the data, but it also serves to limit innovation.

Here's part of what Claire Cain Miller's Bits blog at the NYT has to say about Power:

Venture capitalists have turned a cold shoulder to new social networks. Many of those still interested in Web 2.0 investments are seeking ways to streamline the social Web.

“We’ve been looking at this overarching question of where does social networking go in the longer term,” said Andreas Stavropoulos, the Draper managing director who led the investment in Power.com. “A lot of properties, like Facebook, MySpace and others, become these islands unto themselves. What we saw in Power was a way of opening up these islands and connecting them.”

Once a user enters his or her log-in information for a social network, Power.com accesses the site as if it was the user. Power.com does not have permission from the social networks to use their sites in this way. Mr. Vachani compared it with the way social networks import users’ e-mail address books to connect them with their friends, or the way Meebo, also backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, accesses users’ instant message accounts.

Most of the time Power.com displays the user’s social networking pages without changing them, keeping the original advertisements. But in some instances users can read and respond to a message received at one of those sites without actually visiting the site. That could potentially irritate sites that do not want to sacrifice page views.

Power is based in Brazil and has great backing from VCs. As they have already attracted more then 5 million members, it's clear that there is a tremendous consumer need to simplify this world of closed gardens into a cohesive whole. We need ways to bring us closer to all our contacts, not separate us with arbitrary walls. Power.com is doing just that, and by all acocunts doing it very well, indeed.

MySpace Signs Ioda

Ioda is an amazing distribution and marketing platform for more than 50,000 indie labels, and now it has signed to distribute via MySpace, helping Rupert's social net get even stronger on the music front. Music is the killer app for MySpace, and this addition really helps them solidify their dominance.

Wait, I'll go a little farther. Music is what keeps MySpace on top. Without it, their site really isn't competitive with Facebook or even Bebo in my book. But because music is so thoroughly integrated into the MySpace offering, thinking about it without music is really more an academic exercise.

As Facebook reportedly begins earnest development of a real music offering, it's clear that MySpace ain't gonna roll over.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper WEDNESDAYS: Social Platform Wars!

Yep, I've moved the day to Wednesdays. And to get it started, I am flagging a preso especially for the ADD-afflicted. A ONE SLIDE explanation of the three major social platforms and their arsenal in the platform wars. Enjoy!

Social Graph Platform Wars

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialmedia flixster)

Music: MySpace's Killer App

Tech Crunch offered an interesting piece last week about how, while Facebook is larger than MySpace globally, MySpace still dominates the US. Why? Well, they postulate that is MySpace's stranglehold on music.



Here's an excerpt from this excellent thought piece:

Facebook, by contrast, has no real internal music strategy. Artists can set up Pages to promote themselves, but the pages are no different to any other fan pages (for example, no streaming music) - there is nothing music or artist specific on the site.

Next month MySpace is rolling out a new music joint venture with the major labels that will have music streaming, playlists, downloads, merchandise sales, ring tones and other features. It’s not only likely to be a major destination site for music but also a significant revenue driver for MySpace and the labels (a little may trickle down to the artists as well).

Music is a huge part of what drove historical MySpace growth, and I believe it is a major factor in perpetuating their lead over Facebook in the U.S. market.

Kablam! 25% Worldwide Growth in Social Network Users

Comscore released a recent press release that demonstrated 25% growth in worldwide users of soc nets, versus just 9% in the US. As the business has begun to mature here, the nets, most especially FB and Hi5 have been driving massive growth via localization and cultural relevance. Check out da stats!







Facebook's localization efforts have been faster, according to reports, because they are leveraging team members for translations, etc., while MySpace has taken a more top down country team approach.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

A Peek Inside Politics And The Internet

I started a subscription to Politics, the magazine arm of campaignsandelections.com. Or perhaps it is the other way around. I am a political junkie, and one of the reasons I started the sub was to get a look inside how political campaigns are using and viewing the web.

The first first conclusion I reached, and I could do this without cracking open the pub, is TV TV TV. Take a look:



The mag and site are for campaign professionals and consultants, and by saying TV TV TV I am not making a criticism that is also not valid for many brands in that most consultants, like most old school marketers, would prefer to conduct campaigns by TV rather than in participatory environments online because:

1. As we all know, it's a lot easier to make money off TV buying.

2. TV ads are 100% controllable. By contrast, remember the macaca story that brought down George Allen with taped evidence of the not-even-veiled racist message. One of the positive and constructive messages Allen promised in this clip. When he welcomes a citizen of the US to America.



3. TV is better understood in DC, by consultants and of course candidates, who tend not to have an intuitive understanding of the YouTubes.

4. Did I mention you can make more money on TV ads?

So much of the content is about TV -- ads, how to be a pundit, that sort of stuff. But there are a couple of articles on the Internets, and I am struck by how similar are the challenges facing campaigns to those that face brands.

There is a big article about how The Twitter and the Tubes and the FaceBooks and the MySpaces are going to transform both the speed and the range of opinions out there about the goings on at the conventions. This poses challenges for both parties:

For Dems, it'll make it tough to put that unity veneer on a party that LOOOOVES to squabble and argue over issues both large and minuscule. And fringier bloggers and attendees disrupting the effort to appear more centrist that it did in the Primaries.

For Repubs, I think the big risk is in unfriendly bloggers exposing the rather monochrome and male and elderly composition of attendees. And friendly bloggers deviating from the party's message of centrism when sitting among a group of singularly pro-life, pro Iraq war party footsoldiers. On the plus side, I am expecting lots of good viral photos of those elephant hats GOP women make.

For candidates, the challenge is that one cannot do the ole "I never said that" when someone with a Chocolate or an iPhone is there taping their messages to the hard core bases. Or the danger of embellishing one's record when it's all out there on tape. Remember this?



And if I may get on my soapbox for a moment, what is all this "I am saddened" crap. Sad: I am sad. Not saddened. I now see people-on-the-street in interviews on the news saying it. YOU are responsible for this, Washington! But anyway.

Well, I'm glad Twitterers and Bloggers and Camera Phoners are asking for some truth from both orgs and from both sets of candidates.

There are also bright spots in that article -- the opp for attendees to the conventions to give their citizen journalism coverage a focus on issues that matter to people in states, counties, and towns back home.

The mag also talks about a new multicandidate donor destination app. Choose all the campaigns you want to support and with one click the money goes out. Orgs like Emily's List, which supports campaigns of female and female-issue-friendly candidates, is just one of the orgs using it. So there it is, Open ID of a sort in the world of yard signs and :30s.

Another piece focuses on a hand held printer, which reveals both the arrival of advanced technologies geared to campaigns and the continued focus on printing despite the increasingly digital world.

The other major story is about brand - err, candidate -- reputation online. They do a piece in consultation with a company called International Reputation Management that focuses in part on keeping unwanted negativity off the first page or two of Google search results for a candidates or issue.

Phase one of their strategy consists of creating multiple web sites in a candidate's name. "Having one official campaign site is no longer enough, according to the experts. Candidates need to own their own name. That means registering for as many blogging and social networking sites as possible and filling them with useful content - before someone takes them first."

Truer words were never spoken.

The next step, according to the piece, is driving traffic to all these web presences so they are the ones that appear on top in search. They point out that the results for Obama include the official campaign site, his Twitter page, his Linked In profile, and his MySpace page. That's four slots on page one checked off the list. Actually, when I checked the page, the other slots were news of his Afghanistan trip, a YouTube channel controlled by the campaign, a WaPo campaign profile, and an MSNBC profile. Nothing unfriendly or ranty there. If you are the Obama campaign that means that there is nothing nasty on page one.

Blogger outreach is the third strategy. And they wisely point out that this is a long term effort, not a one time full court press. They also point out that bloggers don't want the same nonstories that the mainstream outlets want. Seen the below:



They want tailored info, and more specifics. They also state that threatening legal action against negative blog entries will only begat more.

Creating and maintaining your own Wikipedia entries is also on the checklist. Another wise move brands would be smart to follow.

So now onto the ads I found in the pub. Most are for Republican consultants, with several promising to "bag donkeys." One from The Traz Group even features donkey heads as animal trophies -- I suppose there are relatively few Repub candidates that are also PETA activists, so Traz is probably safe there. ;-)

Direct mail houses abound, with some also offering email lists of people with high giving propensities.

In sum, it appears as if there are a few orgs that "get" and embrace digital, and a lot being dragged kicking and screaming into it by...consumer eyeballs and dollars. Just like the brand world!!!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Comscore Reports FaceBook Surpasses MySpace in Uniques

Well, it finally happened. According to Comscore, and as reported in this WaPo article (reg required for WaPo), FB had 123.9MM uniques and roughly 51 Billion pageviews in May, versus MySpace's 114.6MM uniques and 45 Billion pageviews.

FaceBook's strength is overseas, reports WaPo's Mike Musgrove. In the US, MySpace still pulls in more than twice as many people in a given month.

Perhaps in response to all Facebook's growth, MySpace debuted a new design in May as well. We'll see what is the impact of this change in the months ahead.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

MySpace and NBC Partner for a UGV/UGC Political Journalism Contest

I've long been thinking that UGC is poised to earn some respect as a potential media platform, and this contest from MySpace and NBC is some evidence of that. The contest offers a prize of a free trip to one of the two conventions to act as a journalist on the NBC team. How cool is that! The folks at MSNBC's Morning Joe are to act as judges -- if you aren't too familiar with the Morning Joe, check out the integrity of one of their anchors when asked to lead with a Paris Hilton story.



Morning Joe is an odd show, so it is only natural that they would judge this delightfully odd contest.

This thing is getting hyped six ways to Sunday on MSNBC so I spect it'll be big Big BIG!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Niche Social Networks: Post 1: There. I Said It. Small May Be Better.

As in virtually every digital category, bigger is a hard fought over selling point in social media. Who's winning the race? Who has the most monthly uniques. Well, of course that is MySpace.com, and here's the top ten, according to Nielsen, as reported in this post on Social Media Today.



But is this really the big story (arr arr) in social? Lately I've been thinking that it is in the little social sites focused on specific demos and targets.

Part of the reason for my new interest in the small fry i open social and open id, which would appear to hold the promise of making it easier for users to choose to participate in small, niche sites that truly deliver on their passions. If you have to reregister 25 times to participate in a host of social communities, you're not going to do it, at least if you are not monumentally bored or a freak.

But the advent of open id and open social, we'll be able to participate in these communities far more easily. And what I think THAT means is that over time people will be spending more and more time in passion communities. Whether that is at the expense of the biggies is something I cannot predict. But Niche Social, one of the voices of the genre, says in this post that it already is.

I think this because we ALL have those sorts of interests that really tickle us. Each of my business partners have them. John D's is wine, Cory's is music especially Pearl Jam, Chris, Kevin, and Adam are very passionate about pro soccer. Among other things. And for me it's collecting communist party propaganda. Not, I hasten to add, because I AM a communist (Hello! I work in advertising, which must be the antithesis of communism in about 25 ways...) but rather because I just like them.

Who knows why some of us will travel 4000 miles to watch storks nest, or buy hundreds of first editions of books, or spend $20,000 souping up a $13,000 car.

I had a friend in college who collected power line insulators. I pooh poohed his interest until I learned that there are dozens of organizations for this particular passion. And they actually are kinda pretty.

We also all know that it's a big world out there, and there are likely thousands of others who share our passions and are ITCHING -- ITCHING -- to talk about this stuff. So today I am going to be posting snippets about some of the niche social communities online that I think are over the top full of marketing and economic potential. Regrettably, I have not found a social network for communist party propaganda collectors (could we call it Redstr.com?.) But I did find some cool ones, so please read on...