Mr. Adam Bergman has made a delightful pledge on his blog. I love his "Rants of a Modern Day Elitist" and the things he has to say about everything.
Occasionally he also virtually invites me into Shoe Culture, though as a Boomer I use the word "Shoe" begrudgingly.
Because as anyone over the age of 45 knows, a shoe is leather, and comes in black, cordovan, or with a certain generosity of spirit, brown. What he writes about are those colorful abominations that pretend to be shoes but are actually souped up Keds. But I forgive him, because he's an amazing guy and an amazing thinker.
But just so we're clear:
This, my friends, is a hot shoe.
This, however, is an overpriced piece of plastic and polyester.
I just dumped the iPhone for a G2 from T-Mobile. I am so happy. It wasn’t a magical transition. T-Mobile transposed my home phone with my ATT celly number, so that took a day, and then there was a bit of a problem with what services I had ordered. That took another day. But through it all their customer service people were magical. They made it clear that they cared and wanted to put things right.
The G2 is very nice, but not as easy or intuitive as an iPhone. But then, much of the capability of an iPhone was theoretical given that I live in the Bay Area and mostly travel to NYC.
Their Australian partner managed to give me five bars most everywhere I traveled, but ATT itself couldn’t consistently connect me from my bedroom in Oakland.
Oh, I know, the iPhone users on ATT suck down a lot of bandwidth. More than anyone if I remember that market research correctly. But here's the deal, if your network can't handle more iPhones -- phones that cost a mint every month -- perhaps it's time to stop selling them until you throw a few more towers up in t he SF financial district.
I had no complaints about ATT customer service. There people were lovely as well. Imagine what it is like to deal with jackass digital netizen webizens who are striken with the world’s most overtaxed network.
ATT had been my choice two years ago because of the mind bogglingly dreadful customer service from Sprint. And because they had iPhone. But mostly it was because being a valued Sprint customer, whose calls were very important to them, was equivalent to constant dry heaves.
I swear that their endless IVR reached through the phone and shoved needles in my corneas. Oh my god that company was the worst! I don’t blame the reps. After all, they didn’t create the system that made me wait hours only to tell me I had to call someone else. They weren’t the MFs that sent me four phones I didn’t order, charged me $2000, and then had the audacity to say it was my problem to ship them back. That EVO is darned cool, but nothing is worth the walking on hot coals required to be a Sprint custo—be a warm blooded serf that the Sprint leech drew hemoglobin from.
Off that soapbox. This is about lovely T-Mobile. Cheaper by far than ATT and Sprint were. And get this – I actually have a signal in my living room. Something ATT only managed on cloudless days, and Sprint only managed so they could deliver the cornea needles, or so I always imagined.
I wuvs you T Mobile. I wuvs my new phone. I wuvs actual mobile phone service. I wuvs the T Mobile people. If they got rid of their IVR at the beginning of a call, this would be what I imagine Heaven is like. Being with them hasn’t been perfect, but when they screw up, as everyone and everything does at times, they apologize. That’s all I ask. Well, that and not shoving needles into my eyeballs.
I'm a nice person -- ask anyone. So I suppose I should apologize for my Sprint bile above. But I've wanted to pee on Sprint for years ever since they treated me like so much gum on a shoe solle, and now that I have T-Mobile, I know that a mobile company can actually be pleasant to work with.
Each year, the organizers of the Sunday “Agency Only” program of the iMedia Agency Summit bring in an expert to focus on addressing on the most important challenges facing our industry. This year’s speaker was Tamara Birdsall, Chief Creative Officer of Real Girls Media and a veteran of both the buy and sells sides of the business.
For Tamara, the most important thing that we can do to create a more creative environment – whether we are in Creative or in another Agency discipline, is to make a commitment to walk the walk of making the time and practicing the art of creativity. And then actually walking that walk.
She demonstrated her long running belief that a series of exercises can help us:
• Break out of our linear “ruts” • Improve our own individual creative thinking • Drive richer and more valuable group creativity
To help attendees address these three challenges, Tamara engaged the group in three critical exercises.
1. Creative description. Tamara underscored the importance of switching gears – to break out of our day to day activities and busyness with a purely creative exercise. For the purpose of the session, she asked attendees to come up with innovative descriptions for a Granny Smith Apple. Now, obviously, this exercise was not directly applicable to a business challenge. But to Birdsall, that’s the point – that breaking free of our patterns of thought and behavior is a critical first step to being more creative more regularly. And it is the sort of exercise we should be making time for in our daily work life.
2. Mind Mapping: to help us unleash our own internal creative juices, Birdsall had each member of the Agency Day develop a Mind Map for a specific marketing challenge. The nonlinear nature of this exercise proved tremendously valuable to expanding our horizons. Birdsall asked the group to consider a fictitious financial institution considering opening a bank especially for women. By asking each of us to riff individually on the idea of “women and money,” we were each asked to create our own mind maps on the topic. When it came time to review peoples’ maps, it became clear that taking the time to stretch our own thinking can help create more truly innovative concepts.
3. Brain Writing: Her third exercise focused on the technique of brain writing, which asks people to do some initial ideation on paper, and then passing their ideas to the next person for them to build upon. For many people in the room, this written method of ideation was cathartic in that it offered so many advantages over the sort of freeform “brainstorms” that are core to the way most agencies operate, and yet don’t always yield great results.
Tamara was quick to point out that these exercises are only a starting point set of examples of things we can do – that we should explore online resources that further explain these and other tactics so we can find tools that work for us.
What made the session so powerful was the tremendous number of innovative ideas the group was able to generate in only a few moments using the exercises. For those of us who have sat in a tremendous numbers of ineffective freeform brainstorms, Tamara’s suggestions and her passion for trying to find new and more disciplined techniques were a refreshing call to rethink the tactics that aren’t unlocking our full potential.
I know I speak for dozens of attendees when I extend a personal thanks to Tamara for her passion, ideas, and participation.
I’ve talking to my Father a lot over the past few days, and one of his favorite topics is the Dodgers.
The Brooklyn Dodgers. He was a proud Brooklynite. And a major Dodgers fan. Until they moved. For him, the move was a betrayal. A realization that the team owners cared not one whit for Brooklyn or its people.
Which was, in his view, a violation of the brand though he wouldn’t use those words. But the nature of Brooklyn and its people was a big part of the Dodgers brand. They weren’t just a group of players brought together by paychecks – they were an embodiment of the spirit of the Borough – always in the shadow of Manhattan, and determined to scrap and scrape to be on top.
In my 25 or so years in marketing, I have been struck by the number of people I’ve met who were charged with building brands they disdained. People who had contempt for their targets if they were downscale or religious or extremely pedestrian in their aspirations and dreams.
Enter social media. The powerful thing about a TV ad you produce once a year or a print ad you spend thousands on is that it gives the savvy the opportunity to pretend – to pretend to share the values of the users that drive the brand. To pretend that a product is far better than it is. Car photographers and food stylists and supermodels can also be used to obfuscate product issues instead of focusing resources on fixing them.
What I love about social is that there’s no place to hide anymore. No way to paper over fundamental product issues or elitism. In this new environment, truth will out. If we don’t believe in what we are selling, we’ll surely be found out.
We have instincts about which brands care about their products – and us. Is there any doubt in your head that Steve Jobs is a believer? Jeff Bezos? Tony Hsieh?
Even when we don’t know who is behind brands, we love it when brands and the people behind them demonstrate genuine belief in their offerings. Take Cadillac. There are lots of reasons why Cadillac is back, but I think a big part of it is that Cadillac got its groove back – the brash, in your face, look at me sense of this aspirational brand returned as the design team started designing actual Cadillacs again, and everyone else – from the dealer to the men and women on the line – felt good about what they were making and doing. You could feel it. You can feel it.
What other brands feel like they believe in what they are doing? • Tide • Hyundai • Contadina • Ford • Flip • Tyler Perry Studios • JC Penney • Tourism Australia
Those are some on my list, anyway.
The popularity of cause related marketing is an interesting side to this belief thing. Many brands are using borrowed interest to give their brands a sense of purpose. I think that’s great – but it doesn’t replace the need for everyone involved in a brand to actually care about their product. Because cause related marketing makes me feel good about this purchase, whereas brand pride and brand belief make me feel good about being loyal to the brand. Now, causes can make me feel better about buying a brand, but they can only supplement – not replace – genuine belief in the things were are making and doing.
Let’s head back to Ebbets Field for the closer. There were a lot of reasons why the Dodgers moved, not least a big fight with the city over a new stadium. Sound familiar?
Anyway, whatever the reasons, there’s no doubt that most Brooklyners felt betrayed. For the Dodgers it didn’t matter much – after all, baseball was a local business and LA was a long ways away from Coney Island. But when we fail to believe in the people that buy our products -- and in those products themselves, the consumer can sense that betrayal.
Think about that the next time those consumers you disdain aren’t signing up in droves for your FaceBook page.
There's nothing like a Youtube video to show you that you are serious need of a diet. Beyond serious. Not that I didn't know, but ouch this is painful to watch.
But what I had to say was important enough for me to post this.
Thank Heaven that there are lots of companies trying to make the process of managing and analyzing social media presences better. As more and more brands recognize the importance of social, most have also concluded that they cannot effectively deliver positive social experiences manually. They need automated tools to make the process easier, more dynamic, and easier to track.
The need for powerful and efficient management tools is there whether you have one presence or hundreds, whether you’re only on Facebook or have outposts on 50 different platforms. Since we’ve helped a number of companies with social media program management, I thought it might be useful to share some of what we have learned with a larger audience. So here’s a summary of some of the most important features to look for as you choose a social media management platform to deploy across your clients or company.
1) Content Management System Features
We often think of a “CMS” in the context of a major corporate site, but it’s just as important in a social media management platform. Perhaps even more important. Because the need for constant updating is so acute in social. Here are some features to look for as you weigh alternatives.
• Ability to deliver content to lots of social platforms. As with anything else, you are going to want to work with a versatile platform. Because social is so dominated by FaceBook/Twitter, it may be OK to work with a Facebook/Twitter only tool now, but make sure they are planning to cover more platforms in the future. Because if there is one certainty in social network history, it’s that market hegemony isn’t forever. Ask Compuserve, AOL, Napster, Friendster, and MySpace. Further, you should be able to choose social media destinations for each piece of content. Because what you send to Digg should be very different than what you send to FaceBook. The easier it is to decide where a particular piece of content goes, the happier you’ll be in the end.
• Ease of Content Creation: Some platforms allow you to create content right in the platform. Is the process easy, or is it complex? Intuitive, or convoluted? Easy is going to be important to any social manager, but for people managing multiple brands, or multiple presences for a single brand, it’s going to be critical. The number of steps required for content creation is important because social managers are going to spend only a small portion of their time creating content. Most of their time should be spent on listening and responding.
• Page Aesthetics Tools or Helpers: Some social media presences open themselves to more custom tailoring of page appearance. Having ways to quickly and easily alter the aesthetics of a page can help brands reinforce messaging with their proprietary look and feel. Some services offer very easy to use tools, others don’t. If you don’t have designers on staff, easy to use tools can be a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that you won’t have to involve a designer every time you make a small change. A curse because most nondesigners have a knack for shocking colors and turning on the wet floor, shadow, outline, and ripple effect simultaneously. Ask our team what it’s like to deal with two color blind partners. LOL.
• Post Aesthetics and Content Helpers: There’s probably a cooler name for this. But what I am talking about is the ability to post content and ensure that a screen shot or key image are posted, not just a link. And the ability to change the text of a post is also useful. Similarly, an automatic URL shortening tool helps immeasurably. Instead of making trip after trip to Bit.ly, you can just have the platform do it. Some solutions also let you customize the shortened urls to give you an additional level of brand impact.
• Collaboration: Two things to look for here. The first is the ability to create, edit and manage content across people within an organization. Ideally, a platform lets content developers input their work, and then manages the flow of edits, updates, and approvals across an organization. Permissions capabilities are going to be important here for many companies, especially those to the left of the “risk-o-meter”. Obviously, the need for failsafe procedures and processes varies somewhat depending on the size and type of organization. For example, a large company in a highly regulated category like pharma would probably want features that prevented posting of content without prior approval from legal, etc.
• Multimedia capabilities: You’ll want to be able to post a variety of file types. Text is so cheestastik. Actually that’s not true. But brands cannot build by text alone.
• Prefab applications: Every social program I have worked on benefitted from interactivities that tackled the challenge of making passive likers into brand participants. A platform can make that much easier by offering built in applications that work on at least some social media sites. A drag and drop poll. Virtual gifts. Ecards. People are far more likely to respond to “apptivities” than to make freehand comments or take it upon themselves to spread your message virally. Most of the current social service offerings provide these features primarily for Facebook.
• Provisions for scheduling of posts: I’ve seen a lot of data on the relative effectiveness of pre-scheduled posts. By which I mean the use of a platform that allows you to specify the date and time of future posts. From the anecdotal info I have seen, it appears that for many brands advanced scheduling can be just as effective as managing everything in real time. Of course there are exceptions. If you are BP trying to message during the worst ecological disaster in North America, you aren’t going to want to “set it and forget it.” But if you are in a fairly sleepy category and realistically don’t have a plethora of posts to make every day, scheduling tools can reduce the time commitment necessary to operate an effective social media program.
2) Listening, Response, and Analytics Tools
Listening to fans, followers, and likers – really really listening – should be the primary task brands assign to social manager. We all talk about the 20/80 rule – the principle that a small number of users purchase the lion’s share of your product is well known. So, if you accept that your social media “fans” are in the 20%, then shouldn’t you take loads of time to listen and understand what folks are saying in the aggregate? In my view, there are two kinds of listening that are critical.
Identification and escalation of “acute” response needs: For this challenge, you are going to want a service that makes it easy and fast to review site posts and comments. From policing profanity and personal attacks, to responding to questions and requests for information, to quickly identifying and escalating complaints or other acute problem posts.
Aggregated insights into all of the commentary: Simply responding to issues and problems only scratches the surface of the value you can glean from social media fans. By pairing the richness of being able to see real commentary with the ability to use quantitative analysis to assess the overall tenor of discussion and topics, brands can get ideas and feedback that can fuel a host of marketing initiatives.
As you evaluate platforms, consider whether or not the alternatives offer the following:
• Automatic escalation of posts and comments containing profanity, or posts and commentary that have been flagged for review. Keeping a “clean” group generally helps grow brand connection and group participation.
• Console showing all recent commentary from users so the social manager can scan posts for items needing immediate follow up. Obviously a service that includes these follow up needs within its CMS would make things easier for all parties.
• Platforms that flag competitor names and keywords to make it easier for the social manager to spot and address the comments, or escalate them to appropriate team members.
• Ways to respond to the comments from the CMS rather than having to manually find the comments within the social media presences.
• Tools that provide insights into ALL of the commentary on a group. Measures like sentiment, KW analysis, themes, etc. can help a brand gain insight into what consumers are really saying and needing.
Many of you may find this last point a bit of overkill, especially if you are already monitoring social through a listening or analytics platform. But remember that some of the most popular social platforms, including FaceBook, are very challenging for social listening tools to monitor.
3) Metrics Considerations
While most brands still find it difficult to track social media activity back to sales, we can do better at using surrogate indicators and other admittedly “softer” metrics to assess impact. Many of the platforms available today are quite effective at providing this sort of information. I suggest you look to insure that the platform you select be able to track the following:
• Clicks on Posts • “Likes” • Clicks on Links • Plays of Multimedia Content • Responses to Interactivities • Shares/Retweets • Time Spent
Further, the ability to get reporting on these measures in real time or near real time will help you make timely decisions on how to alter or augment your social activity with regard to a piece of content. For example, you may post a video to one Facebook presence, and see that it gathers significant views and shares quickly. This could help you decide whether to expand the reach of that content across more sites/presences.
4) Price/Value Concerns
Social media management tools can have wildly different pricing, from free to quite dear. Cost of services broadly relates to the extent to which they make tasks, easier and more intuitive, as well as the availability of “drag n drop” apps. In working with clients on this challenge, I have found it helpful to do some simple calculations to identify money versus time tradeoffs. Social media management has both direct and opportunity costs, and it’s relatively simple to compare the cost per year of one service versus another if you have taken both for a test drive.
Final Thoughts
The number of social media management tools out there is mushrooming. One rule of thumb I suggest people use is a simple annoyance test. Take the platforms you are considering for a test drive. If you find some aspect of it unintuitive, talk to the seller about how you can address it. But do talk to them. Because something that is annoying to do once is rage-inducing when performed 192 times a day.
There are certainly very good platforms that don’t do every single thing I have mentioned above. I suggest you work closely with your marketing and social media teams to identify the features that are going to be most important to your business. This is definitely NOT a decision to make in an afternoon because the effectiveness and efficiency of what may well become your most frequent consumer connection is at stake. What’s also at stake is the sanity of your social media manager. Choose wisely.
Recently I had the good fortune of getting to go to Le Web, the biggest digital conference in Europe. As I wandered the booth section, I came across an interesting participant: Enterprise Ireland and some of the start ups they are helping to support and promote. Enterprise Ireland is the Irish State Development Agency.
EI reports that The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Ireland 17th in the world in digital activity. Not impressed? Well, consider that it’s 4.6MM population ranks it 119.
As a deeply committed Hibernophile who actually once turned down a trip to Hawaii to vacation in Cork -- in February -- I am never above giving shameless publicity to Irish things. So I thought I’d give some ink -- err, electrons to some of the interesting companies emanating from the Emerald isle. There are clearly some sharp people working away every day there.
PinPoints
Pinpoints is a mobile application from Limerick-based Cauwill Technolgies that automatically programs your mobile phone’s navigation software to provide turn by turn directions to a destination. It converts a given location to a shortened url, and when you click it, it uses the native GPS in your phone to plot your starting point, your end point, and the best available route. It works on all smartphone platforms.
Teamwork PM
TeamWork PM is a web based project management platform that I found very easy and powerful. Simple, intuitive, and graphical, it offered great usability versus other platforms I have tried. Pricing ranges from a free limited features edition to an enterprise version costing €149/month. From the nine year old (that’s 63 in Internet years – a testament to good products) Digital Crew Developers in Cork.
Feed Henry
FeedHenry offers a development and deployment platform that makes it easy to create and distribute apps across all types of smart phones, and across the organization. “Build once, deploy to all.” Further, it makes it easier to integrate with existing business systems, report and optimize, and defend via enterprise quality security.
Gruupy.com
Gruupy.com is a Groupon-style deal a day site focused on offering Europe’s best deals on electronics and gadgets. Discounts of 50%+ seem to be the norm, though it’s a bit challenging to evaluate because most stuff is cheaper over here, what with VAT and all. What interests me here is the vertical play – that with Gruupy you will generally know what sorts of things to find ad you go back every day. And because the deals are relevant across Europe, it’s focused on goods rather than local services.
Louder Voice
Louder Voice is a tool that adds reviews, ratings, and commenting to a web site in just a few minutes. With offerings for everything from SOHO websites to enterprise ecommerce sites, Louder Voice is focused on improving sales for businesses by including personal endorsement and recommendation in more selling experiences. Integrated with FaceBook profiles, registration for consumers is easy, which increases the number of comments on a site. The reviewer also has the opportunity to send their review to their own FB page or twitter stream. The tool also offers SMS and Android review tools.
Weedle is a massive network of “people with skills.” You join, quickly create a skills summary web page, and connect it to pages and profiles of people you know. Photography, web development, catering, you name it. The personal networks feature is important because it serves to highlight your profile when someone looking for your skills is just a degree or two of separation away from you. Their studies indicate that, not surprisingly, these sorts of connections can be very valuable ways of improving your close rate.
There are lots of other companies – these are just a few of the ones I felt qualified to briefly describe. It appears that there is also a robust sector for enterprise security and SaaS offerings in the snake-free land. While many of the companies are in Dublin, there are also a surprising number in the other cities and towns.
The economic news from Ireland has been rough of late – but it appears that whatever happens to the budget and relationship with the IMF, Ireland’s tech sector is going to continue to perform well.
In this fourth installment, I’ll continue to provide capsule descriptions of the companies that iMedia Agency attendees expressed excitement about in a recent survey. Before anyone contacts me wondering why their company wasn’t on the list: If your company is on the list, its’ because you were listed in at least one survey response. If you aren’t, it’s because no one listed you in their survey response.
TRAFFIQ: Traffiq is a web based media management platform that automates many of the processes of planning, buying, reporting, and optimizing digital media. Using TRAFFIQ you can: • Discover the best sites for your effort • Distribute and manage RFPs • Buy inventory • Bid on audiences in real-time • Deliver and serve campaigns • Analyze performance • Consolidate billing
Transis: Transis also promises to simplify the media planning, buying and reporting process. A significant area of focus for Transis has been automating the RFP and negotiation process by eliminating the emails, faxes and spreadsheets that fill a planner’s day and inbox.
Tube Mogul: Tube Mogul offers a variety of video distribution services, from content to advertising. All the services share a foundation level of tracking and analytics that helps provide marketers greater understanding of the impact they are driving with their efforts. TubeMogul's core business is a video DSP service that they say offers greater analytics and transparency than other video options available. Many know the company as a video distribution platform that helps brands distribute their own content across the web. The company offers both a free distribution service (OneLoad®) and an ad network (Playtime) that generates views of brand videos by featuring them as standalone content on players across the web. Both services offer extensive analytics to understand who, how, and where videos are being watched.
Visual IQ: Visual IQ is a marketing analytics and intelligence products company that promises to improve marketing performance. Their Visual IQ Marketing Intelligence Platform is an online based set of analytics tools that help transform raw marketing data into actionable intelligence.
In this third installment, I’ll continue to provide capsule descriptions of the companies that iMedia Agency attendees expressed excitement about in a recent survey. Before anyone contacts me wondering why their company wasn’t on the list: If your company is on the list, its’ because you were listed in at least one survey response. If you aren’t, it’s because no one listed you in their survey response.
Qponomics: A location based mobile couponing application that enables smart phone users to explore relevant offers available in their areas. To use the coupons the consumers presents their smart phone and the bar code is scanned. The coupons work on iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, Android (Google), Windows Mobile and Palm platforms. A slide show how to lives here.
RocketFuel: A network platform to help manage, run, evaluate, and optimize online campaigns, the foundation of RocketFuel is what they call “progressive optimization” – a process by which automated testing and user level targeting are deployed. Rocket Fuel claims to combine a host of types of data to help deliver more relevant ad experiences at the user level - demos, behaviors, dayparts, creatives, etc.
Shazam: A mobile music discovery engine that lets users identify and purchase music they hear while on the go. For the life of me I cannot figure out how brands might participate with this, but it is cooler than dry ice.
Track Simple: Track Simple is an open platform that accepts data from multiple sources and enables users to combine and examine that data easily and effectively. For agencies, this automates the collection of data (no more Control C Control V into Excel) and then enables point and click analysis. The system then generates easy to use and interpret live reports, and offers an optimization engine that lets an analyst runs scenarios and assess the impact of their decisions on results. Data can come from search, display, rich media platforms, social, mobile, video, email, online couponing, site side, ecommerce, and proprietary brand data sources.
In this second installment, I’ll continue to provide capsule descriptions of the companies that iMedia Agency attendees expressed excitement about in a recent survey. Before anyone contacts me wondering why their company wasn’t on the list: If your company is on the list, its’ because you were suggested in the survey. If you aren’t, it’s because no one listed you in their survey response.
DataLogix enables DR marketers to connect online and offline data for more effective targeting. They do this by applying the offline data to their Affiniti™ tags. This enables a marketer to target based upon “real world” behaviors. In addition to offering their own ad network which touches 210MM consumers monthly, they also work with a variety of networks and exchanges to make access to this connected data easier.
Efficient Frontier is a leading digital media optimization engine that improves the performance of auction based online media buying and execution. Results are optimized based upon the key metric that is most desired by an advertiser, and are optimized across engines or platforms, not piecemeal. They are most known for their SEM optimization offerings, but also can optimize auction based Display. Here’s a vid on their Search service:
InviteMedia is the DSP platform acquired by Google for $81M earlier this year. Their Bid manager® service enables you to buy across multiple exchanges, as well as offer a proprietary exchange practice. The Google acquisition reflects the desire to make Display media buying more like search.
Media Mind: Eye Blaster has changed its name to Media Mind to reflect a sea change in its positioning and capabilities. Once content to bill itself as a turnkey solution to deliver richer rich media, it now messages as an everything platform that serves, delivers rich media, search, standard banners, video, dynamic ads, and mobile ads and lets brands manage and execute it all on a portfolio level. Data is also a big part of their new message, reflecting the ability to target with, collect, analyze, and optimize to relevant data.
One of the new traditions of the Agency Only Day at iMedia Summit is to survey attendees about the things that most intrigue them for the months ahead. This year, we surveyed the agency leaders asking the following question:
We'd like to get the group sharing about the innovations they have found/are impressed with. Are there specific new companies/offerings you find particularly intriguing at the moment and are seriously considering for use in 2011?
In total, the group identified 21 companies they found noteworthy. The key themes seem to be analytics, automation, and simplification, which makes a lot of sense in our increasingly fragmented environment.
Because several of the companies were new to me, and on the principle that there may be others in the iMedia Connection audience who could not attend the event but still might find these companies interesting, I put together the following summary. Before anyone contacts me wondering why their company wasn’t on the list: If your company is on the list, its’ because you were listed in at least one survey response. If you aren’t, it’s because no one listed you in their survey response.
AdKeeper: is a virtual clipping service that enables consumers to clip ads that interest them for later review. AdKeeper overlays a “keep button” on every ad you see as you browse the web. If you are interested in the info, or video, or offer in an ad, you simply click the keep button and it is placed in your AdKeeper. Yu can later review these offers, send them to friend, and print them. Here’s the explanatory video:
Better Advertising is a privacy and choice platform for media delivered through advanced targeting. It gives businesses an easy, standard method to provide evidence of compliance with industry guidelines and provide consumers with more transparency into, and control over the interest-based advertising (another term for BT) they receive. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in BT with confidence and generate better advertising results.
Clear Saleing is a marketing optimization engine that helps agencies and marketers measure the success and impact of various digital marketing efforts, and optimize the mix based upon profitability. Best suited to online purchases, the offering tracks profitability across media, ensures the impact of various media are accurately attributed, and helps optimize digital plans with a portfolio perspective. Get the sponsored Forrester report on the profit impact of Clear Saleing here.
Many of us are already familiar with Clear Spring as they have been around for a while. Their message for advertisers today is as an “Audience Platform” that enables advertisers to reach the right users at the times they are ready to act. They focus on two kinds of audience aggregation: intent-based segments at various points in the purchase cycle, and influence segments composed of people likely to share messages to social media. These super sharers help brands generate a greater virality in social media. Clearspring segments/data are available through the leading demand side platforms. The basis of their data collection and segmentation is gathered from their “Add This” button network that makes content sharing easier. By collecting data at the point of share, Clearspring gets a strong picture of people’s interests, intents, and passions.
Clovr Media is a consumer service that lets consumers send offers directly to their credit or loyalty cards. These Card Linked Offers (CLOs) replace coupons, digital coupons, and other tangible discount media. They also make the results of online promotional activity trackable with 100% attribution. There are consumer advantages, of course, but also tremendous advantages for manufacturers and retailers. The process of manually dealing with printed coupon redemption is one that resembles the children’s game Mousetrap, so having it all occur digitally is a boon for all. Here’s the vid that explains it all.
ChaCha is a mobile answers service that lets consumers ask questions from a variety of locations (mobile, iPad, PC) and receive answers quickly from human guides. Advertisements support the service and are delivered in text messages, as graphical phone ads, as sponsored online results, and as in app ads. A sponsored frost and Sullivan white paper on how brands can work with ChaCha is available from this page.
Teaser: One thing that's apparent in the rush toward engagement -- there is no one way to drive it. But here are just a few of the solutions that can help you sustain the vital marketing relationship.
Highlights:
Solve Media's Type-In replaces captchas with relevant brand messages
EXPO TV leverages consumer insight to create a video community that advice seekers and brands can join
AOL's Project Devil enables consumers to explore brand messages and information on their terms in a low-distraction environment
The Meebo Bar gives publishers an easy way to make their content social and drive incremental viral traffic
Gigabytes of speeches, articles, and blog posts have pointed to the need to drive deeper engagement with consumers. It's a topic that goes right to the heart of digital media's advantages -- two way communications and the opportunity to deliver bona fide experiences. But in all of this discussion, the definition of engagement quickly gets squishy. • Is a click engagement? • How about a "like"? • Is there a minimum time threshold required to qualify as an engagement? • Do we need engagement standards across the industry?
One thing that's apparent in this rush toward engagement -- there is no one way to drive it. Both new and established companies are taking different approaches to the goal. Today I want to discuss four companies with that are making distinctive in-roads toward helping marketers forge deeper connections with audiences. Each company's product is designed to create ongoing brand impact -- a rich real-world experience, or greater message recall, or delivery of deep and compelling information to drive brand choice.
Solve Media: Engagement inspired by your third grade teacher
What do you do if you want to make sure you don't forget something? Solve Media hopes we remember the advice of our third grade teachers (in my case Mrs. Briggs): You write it down, or type it into something. Solve Media (disclosure, a Catalyst S+F client) was founded to leverage that idea for marketers.
The core offering is the Type-In -- a unit that replaces the frustrating "captchas" that confront us when we want to register or gain access to content. Every day, almost 300 million of these exasperating captchas get filled out; many more than once because they can be so difficult to decipher. Enter Solve Media.
See the ad, type in the message, and you're done. Here's a short vid that makes it all clear.
"Type-Ins are dead simple," says Ari Jacoby, co-founder and CEO of Solve Media. "Lots of companies are focusing on layers of technology and data sets to coax higher response rates. All of that is important work. But we took a different road. Our platform offers a genuine and guaranteed value exchange, without new infrastructure or privacy issues for clients. The consumer gets what she wants, and the client and publisher get real value."
Does it work? Solve commissioned a third-party Wharton School of Business study that showed a 111 percent higher level of brand recall from Type-Ins versus banners, and 12 times the level of message recall. Further, it appears that people are at least as likely to complete a Type-In versus a captcha in order to get what they seek. Internal Solve Media data indicate that 40 percent of consumers who encounter a Type-In engage and type the information correctly.
Mrs. Briggs from third grade was right.
Type-ins are sold by pay-per-completed-type-in. You only pay for those instances when consumers type the message correctly. Many large publishers are implementing this new platform because it creates new inventory, reduces customer frustration, and gives advertisers impact. Some pubs are also exploring the platform as an alternative method of paying for content. For example, a major metro newspaper could deploy a Type-In instead of charging a monthly fee for content. Since so few consumers are willing to pay cash for content, this technology offers a way to get consumers to pay attention and for publishers to monetize their product.
Solve is newer than the other companies discussed in this piece, but they have already garnered an impressive client list, including Toyota, Microsoft, Expedia, Universal, and Dr. Pepper.
EXPO TV: Engagement through personal endorsement
We've all seen the data that consumers trust the recommendation of a regular person -- any regular person -- more than ads. More and more consumers are turning to the web to find consumer POVs before they buy. EXPO TV http://www.expotv.com/, a New York based start-up, is leveraging this consumer insight to create a video community that advice seekers and brands can join. In just a couple years, they've cultivated a remarkable client list.
Endorsements online aren't new. But EXPO TV has created a community of product fans and reviewers who volunteer to deliver their thoughts in stand-up-presenter videos. Consumers appear onscreen to discuss the merits (and issues) of products.
This video and several others were tested in a comScore study measuring the effectiveness of consumer word of mouth videos versus commercials. The study found that these homemade creations, despite their decidedly unslick production values, have comparable persuasive power to professional ads. It's easy to see why so many consumers find this sort of video compelling. So compelling, in fact, that some progressive brands, like Gain do, have made these the centerpiece of their brand web presences.
Consumers can rate any product that they like, but brands can encourage consumers to rate their offerings in a variety of ways. You can sponsor a contest, use their Tryology program to send out samples in exchange for honest reviews, even build dedicated brand pages on the site. Additionally, EXPO can distribute videos directly to retailers, who use them as an aid to sale, as in this example from Amazon. By partnering with EXPO, you get rights to use consumer videos whenever and wherever. All videos are transcribed and matched to products, right down to the SKU. One result is that when you look up consumer products in Search, EXPO videos are often among the top 10 results.
EXPOTV lets consumers speak freely. They ask consumers for honest opinions. Fans praise freely. And consumers that have questions or issues are welcome to respond and add videos to the EXPOTV site as well. But what's interesting is that the tenor of video is almost universally positive -- 85 percent.
EXPO TV has more than 75,000 regular video-making participants, and its vids have garnered more than 40 million views since the platform was launched.
AOL Project Devil
A major new engagement initiative from AOL, called Project Devil http://advertising.aol.com/creative/projectdevil, has just been launched with a premier list of charter advertisers including General Mills, Unilever, Lexus, Sprint, and Procter & Gamble.
This new creative execution enhances consumers' experiences as they interact with content, and drives significantly greater engagement. Devil does this by enabling the consumer to explore brand messages and information on their terms in a low-distraction environment.
Devil ads are larger units, 400x1200 compared to the standard 300x250 units. That gives brands a 100 percent voice on the page and offers a multitude of content in a single, unbroken space. The modular unit enables the brand to insert virtually any form of content into one of the template unit zones.
These zones can include video, interactivities, choosers, store finders, deep product information, and the like. In essence, they treat the product and the process of learning more about it as "news". Here's an explanatory video:
The Devil offering also makes significant changes to the overall page experience. Rather than competing for attention with a bunch of sponsored messages, Devil ads are the only paid marketing offered on those pages.
To really see the experience, you need to look at a Devil ad in the context of a web page on which it appears. This view gives you a sense of what they are going for -- genuine content integration rather than garish, blinky "click now" annoyances at the periphery of the screen.
According to AOL, Devil is a paradigm shift for digital advertising, where ads have historically been designed to distract users from the content they sought. Their website puts it this way:
Most online ads today are designed to distract the user. So as ads have proliferated, the user experience has suffered -- along with the user, of course. In many other media, ads are part of the experience. Far from detracting from the writing or programming, they contribute to it. Nowhere is this more possible than on the internet. Project Devil is our first step toward realizing this potential. A nice vision and a cool unit.
Meebo: Connecting brands to my social graph
Given Meebo's http://www.meebo.com/ heritage of making social sharing easier, it's only natural that their solutions for brands focus there as well. Last year the company launched the Meebo Bar http://www.meebo.com/websites/. It gave publishers an easy way to make their content social and through that functionality drive incremental viral traffic.
Meebo users that arrive on the participating sites automatically see the toolbar at the bottom of their browser, in front of a small strip over the site content. As the user scrolls down, the bar is persistent, moving with the user's field of vision. It's polite yet intrusive -- let's call it "poltrusive."
The toolbar offers brands several ways to communicate with consumers, drive engagements, and spread messages virally. Here's a picture of the "unopened" toolbar, which features what they call a "media alert."
The user hovers over or clicks on the alert, which opens a large 900x400 window. What appears in the window is up to the marketer -- video, Flash, static images, interactivities, advergames, store finders -- virtually anything a brand might find useful.
Engagement times average 30-50 seconds. Advertisers only pay for engagements, not impressions; the settings on the bar are such that accidental rollovers are not counted.
Consumers can also drag and drop marketing messages into their social media platforms -- Facebook, Twitter, AIM, email, and more. The sharing feature encourages both longer and stronger interaction by the user, as well as free distribution of brand messages across users' social graphs. A recent program for Hershey's Kisses invited users to customize the wrapper on a virtual kiss and send it to friends and family through their favorite social channels. It gave Hershey a presence on lots of social networks through a single buy on their platform.
Of course, consumers' willingness to take a message viral depends upon the creative, and Meebo offers advice to marketers on how to make messages more viral. Additionally, because the platform is a permanent part of participating sites, it affords the opportunity for dayparting. Said Carter Brokaw, CRO of Meebo: "One way in which we differ in the marketplace is that because we have a platform that is persistent on websites, we can serve impressions based on time, and that drives engagement."
Targeting naturally improves response rates. Marketers can choose demographic as well as psychographic and interest based targeting, or a combination of these techniques.
Conclusion
I like what these four companies are doing because their approaches start with a consumer insight and use it to create something unique.
For Solve, that insight relates to how human memory works. With EXPO TV it's our innate desire to understand what others think. AOL's Devil uses size, functionality, and low distraction to break through our distraction filters, while Meebo leverages our desire to interact with friends to drive advertiser value.
Leveraging consumer insight is surely essential to driving sustained engagement, and it's great that these and other companies are taking such distinct approaches to realize the same goal.
Everyone loves a good blooper -- until your own brand becomes the butt of the joke. Let's examine some digital flubs and what we should take away from them.
Who doesn't love a TV blooper? They are fun to watch -- flubbed pronunciation, forgotten lines, double entendres. You don't even need to be a mean person to enjoy them because bloopers are mistakes, but not deadly ones.
In an environment as dynamic and ever changing as digital, it's natural that even the smartest in the digerati make bloopers in judgment or execution. Many such online marketing bloopers are the result of the changing reality brought on by the advent of digital, and as such are quite understandable. But that doesn't mean we can't learn from them.
If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, then perhaps this article can help us avoid straightjackets by pointing out a few digital bloopers and what we should take away from them.
1) Don't assume you can isolate messages
The web provides enormous opportunities to segment and tailor creative messages. But it also breaks down demographic, geographic, and other boundaries. Segmentation and tailoring does not prevent some segments from hearing and seeing what you are saying to others.
Remember this ad from Absolut, which depicted the pre-1848 Mexican and U.S. borders? Run only in Mexico, the ad was designed to be a funny nod to Mexican pride. The brand surely felt it had found a powerful visual to help la gente identify with the brand. Unfortunately, right-wing American bloggers got hold of the ad, and within hours were lined up to ban Absolut, call it reverse racist, and on and on. Former CNN personality Lou Dobbs switched to Grey Goose over it.
Now, in large part due to income disparities and population, Americans drink more Absolut than Mexicans. So the company had to scramble to apologize to Americans who might have been offended. Here's what the brand issued:
"This particular ad, which ran in Mexico, was based upon historical perspectives and was created with a Mexican sensibility. In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues. Instead, it hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal." -- Paula Eriksson, VP of corporate communications, V&S Absolut Spirits
But from a digital perspective, the key takeaway is that you need to assume that everyone can see everything.
2) Avoid building the branded destination website
Most of us have created a digital something in the misguided hope that significant numbers of people care about it and our products as much as we do. If you're like me, there's a $500,000-plus error in your past that reflects this sort of "Field of Dreams" mentality.
It wasn't so long ago that lots of brands were building massive websites in hopes that consumers would spend half their online time interacting with branded games, participating in brand chats, talking to brand experts, etc. While less common these days, the branded "destination" site still appears periodically in the digisphere.
It's fairly unlikely that you can attract and hold the sort of audience you are dreaming of. Why? Because just as The New York Times shouldn't go into the chewing gum business, you probably shouldn't go into the content business. It's not what most of us do. Better to stick to what you know.
The classic example of this is Bud.tv, a $30-million experiment that folded in 2009. Now, hold the phone. I am not ragging on Bud here. If any brand could develop a compelling content destination, it'd probably be these guys. After all, the company "gets" its customer and knows how to bring the funny in a 30-second spot.
But even Bud couldn't define and deliver a place where its customers would want to "live" online. The hype and anticipation of Bud.tv were ultimately met with lukewarm consumer response -- despite a broad range of decent-to-good video, activities, and game content on the site.
The hard, cold reality: Bud makes beer, not movies and games. And you make pine-scented air fresheners or electronics or weekend getaways or whatever it is that you make. Not entertainment.
3) Don't field social media programs just before the weekend
Arguably, no one is better at marketing to moms than Johnson & Johnson, so its misstep on Motrin was a bit surprising. Motrin developed a tongue-in-cheek ad that poked fun at moms who love baby slings -- fabric baby carriers that keep your child right next to your body. Motrin suggested that moms who wear them cry more than moms who don't, presumably due to back and neck strain. Here's the ad:
The video went up late on a Friday. While of course social media is a 24/7/365 proposition, most marketing and PR people are at home on Saturdays, and probably not monitoring the social sphere for consumer reaction. But as Motrin soon learned, mommy bloggers and mommy Twitterers do not take Saturdays off.
The maelstrom of negative reactions was fierce , and it built throughout the weekend. By the time Monday came along, Motrin faced a tsunami of angry moms.
Motrin responded quickly. Down the ad came, and with its disappearance the controversy more or less ended.
We could dissect the ad and try to take creative lessons. But hindsight is 20/20. I think its best that we remember that we live in a connected world, and individual opinions matter. And when we don't participate in the dialogue about our brand, bad things happen. So never field campaigns or social media on the weekend. Because listening to early reactions is critical to ensuring success. Had the campaign gone out on a Monday, J&J could have addressed the concerns in near real time, provided it was using one of the many social insights platforms currently available. Nothing good comes from not being around at launch time.
4) Never claim "hackproof"
When a medium reaches more than a billion people, it's safe to say that there is someone out there who can hack whatever you can make. How long does it take before Microsoft launches its latest security update before the next virus hits?
It's not just software that has been hacked as well as shamed online. The people who make Kryptonite bicycle locks found themselves in a whole mess of negative publicity http://www.engadget.com/2004/09/14/kryptonite-evolution-2000-u-lock-hacked-by-a-bic-pen/ way back in 2004 when Engadget was able to pick its signature high-end lock using only a ballpoint pen.
And of course there's LifeLock http://www.lifelock.com/, which famously posted its CEO's social security number everywhere to prove how protected its members are. While said CEO was able to use the service to avoid damage to his credit, his identity was stolen many times. Meaning people used his social security number in a variety of ways, but none had material impact on his credit. Because LifeLock had stated or implied (tomato-tomahto) absolute security, it lost the PR battle, even if its CEO can still easily get a new mortgage.
In short, claiming hackproof is like waving a red flag in front of 6.5 billion bulls. You might be able to outrun the pack, but at least one is getting its horn into your gut.
5) Don't "wing" it without a social media policy
It seems that many companies have recognized the importance of social, and the value of a "live" company presence in social media. Unfortunately, some jumped straight to social media execution without first developing a sound social media policy.
Hospital nurses cell-photoing an embarrassing X-ray and posting it on a social net . Earnest social media managers making statements that are inappropriate. The number of examples in which companies would have been helped by offering explicit and well-considered social media policies is legion.
Fortunately for those who made or are making this misstep, many organizations have made their social media policies public, and reviewing these can help companies understand, anticipate, and address potential issues before they arise. With all these examples publicly available, there's no reason or excuse to wing it anymore. Naturally, companies need to strike a balance between natural and genuine thoughts and opinions with the need for strong corporate controls. Fortunately, more and more companies are succeeding.
6) Don't ignore privacy concerns
Most industry participants are certain that advanced targeting technologies pose no threat to consumer privacy. That doesn't matter anymore. What matters is that consumers and the government think that they pose a threat. The WSJ article last July was just one of the stories that are slowly rousing public concern about online privacy.
You can say people are confused. You can say people are being paranoid. Or moronic. But you are in the people-pleasing business, not the people-judging business.
"Judge not lest ye be booted out on your snotty arrogant a*s, you self righteous b*stard." (Book of Jim 1:1).
The self-regulation efforts from a cross-industry coalition, encapsulated in the "Power i" program, have created a great means of informing the public and enabling cool, rational decisions about advanced targeting. Get on board.
Many thanks to the fine people at iMedia Connection for publishing this first.
I love the idea of this video. I love that Pixar and Disney sanctioned it. I love the joy in the eyes of the people in the video. And I love it that this giant corporation values struggling kids more than the bigoted opinions of those who have criticized them for this video. But most of all, I love the people for whom the video was made. It DOES get better.
Excuse me if I make this column rather personal this week. Because I am feeling rather thankful.
• Thankful that my Mom beat cancer this year. • Thankful for being able to work with people I genuinely love. • Thankful for working in a media environment that is more tsunami than placid sea. How fun is that? • Thankful that I am one of the lucky people who has a job and an income, in a nation where far far far too many people do not. • Thankful for health, joy, and my little ginger pup. • Thankful for the blessing and curse of my work life: Powerpoint. • Thankful that I get to write something and post it somewhere and people find it worth reading. All one of you. (Hi Dad!) • Thankful for my own health and modest prosperity. • Thankful for friends, family, and a roof over my head. • Thankful for my Toughbook that takes a lickin and keeps on tickin. • Thankful for Bridget Jones, my Scion XB, whom I love just the way she is. • Thankful for the People’s Republic of San Francisco and all its quirky peculiarness. • Thankful that the Governorship of California cannot be bought. Whatever your POV on policies. • Thankful for Season Three of Jersey Shore. Yes, I know. • Thankful that I have gotten to know fabulous people like Lissie Heinkele, Coco Jones, Lucy James, John Furey, and Joy Nestor this year. • Thankful that I got to reconnect with magnificent people like Carol Phillips and Lori Xeller. • Thankful that I got to keynote at iMedia Sydney and meet so many brilliant people with sexy accents. • Thankful that my neglected friend Grecia got his teaching degree and is now surrounded with screaming 9 year olds. I hope they know how lucky they are. I expect they do. • Thankful that I got to spend 8 hours at Powell’s bookstore in Portland last weekend. • And while I still don’t care what you had for breakfast, I’m even thankful for Twitter. • And 127 other wonderful people, places, and events. • Thankful that Bill Bryson released a book this year. And Ian Sansom to boot.
Whether it’s things, people, relationships, bookstores, or your fingerprint-covered iPad, please take a moment to think of a few things you are thankful for. In this business it’s easy to get caught up in mayhem and tempests in teapots. But there is so much we can all be thankful for. What about you? What’s on your gratitude list this season?
For me it's about the whole "insider" psychology. That I am in on a really special offer, thanks to my personal network. I never thought I'd find anything involving a screen that's more fun than last instant bidding on eBay, but group couponing is it.
What it is
If you're not in on this particular trend yet, let me give you a nutshell explanation. A company puts a great offer (like 50-75 percent off) up on one of the couponing sites, and makes the offer conditional on enough people accepting it. If you're an interested consumer, you actually buy the coupon (for example, paying $5 for $10 worth of store merchandise credit) and then publicize the offer to as many people in your network as possible, so that enough people indeed do buy it. When the hurdle is crossed, the offer is yours. If not enough people decide to buy the coupon in the time allotted, the offer vanishes.
Mr. and Mrs. America are definitely spreading the word on their favorite offers. This business segment is arguably the hottest in digital at the moment. The largest player, Groupon, has experienced more rapid growth than any tech startup ever. Ever.
That's what's in it for the consumer. But what about for brands? Some early mover brands have seen blockbuster results. Gap, for example, issued a coupon for $25 off a $50+ purchase, and more than 440,000 people bought in. If you factor in the greater than 80 percent redemption rate on the coupons, that's a helluvalot of arses in skinny jeans.
But did they make money on all those rump covers? Gap sells the coupons through Groupon, and Groupon takes a cut, reported to be 20 to 50 percent of the revenue generated. Assuming Gap got the 80/20 rate, Gap got about $11 million in revenue. The key to whether such deals are profitable is the margin on the apparel and whether coupon redeemers spent more than the minimum of $50 each. Spending $50 is pretty easy to do in a Gap, but that doesn't mean people actually did. I suppose only Gap knows for sure.
But getting more than 400,000 shoppers into retail locations is an absolutely remarkable outcome, and one that lots of businesses -- small and large -- have noted with prodigious saliva production.
If you look out into the social sphere for business comments related to group couponing, the tenor is quite positive. Certainly some retailers have noted a paucity of profitability when many customers only shopped to fulfill the coupons' minimum requirements. But most seem happily shocked by the response.
• Some businesses report jammed phone lines • Others report fast out-of-stocks • Still others have seen slow days and nights turn into Black Friday clones
Imagine that you own a taqueria. And on your feature day, 350 people come in for chile rellenos. It's a tremendous trial mechanism, and a way to crank meaningful brand awareness -- provided you can offer a great product at that pace and volume.
Who offers it
I cannot hope to list all of the companies that have jumped on this train. But here are summaries of some of the larger and more interesting players to get your search started. One of the big ways these services vary is in the number of local markets they serve. Some may have expanded in the brief time between the writing of this article and its publication date. so rather than listing markets, I have hyperlinked their names so you can see the latest information.
Groupon
The big daddy in the market has well over 15 million members, up five fold from just six or so months ago. Of all of the players, Groupon seems to have attracted the most national brands, though in keeping with the original vision, the consumer experience features a great many small business and local offers. Groupon essentially defined the model others are cloning, and has garnered strong press attention. In its latest money round, the company's valuation was raised to $1.35 Billion. That's with a B.
Homerun
Homerun works to inject more fun and engagement into the space, with special rewards, points systems, levels, and private offers. In sum, more of a sense of participatory community. Private offers entitle members to special deals available only to this most loyal of audiences. They also offer what they call Avalanche Deals – ones in which the price declines as more people capitalize on an offer. By taking the core offering and layering on these additional capabilities, Homerun is working to create a more consistent community with greater long term prospects. In essence, they are injecting game psychology into the process.
Wow.com
AOL http://www.aol.com/ has announced it is entering the fray with Wow.com. AOL has promised some interesting twists, as well as huge potential reach by delivering offers to the vast AOL community. That reach may be a significant advantage for leading national brands or national footprint retailers that need big volume to impact their businesses. The site isn't up at the time of this writing, but it's a potential partner you might want to look into.
Living Social
Living Social is another leading group couponing community. One of their growth strategies is to incent users to socialize deals by making their coupon purchase free if they get three others to buy. Living Social also offers something they call Deal Bucks -- a frequent buying program that rewards people for buying more offers. Using these strategies, Living Social seems a great platform for the most offer-sensitive consumers. It is likely that these people will be strong opinion influencers, given that they have chosen a platform that rewards them for having a big personal network.
KGB Deals
Similarly, KGB Deals offers KGB Cash to reward referrals and purchases. The site also does not require a minimum uptake of coupons to get a deal. Users simply need to buy the offer before the expiry.
Crowd Savings
Crowd Savings has a similar model in that they do NOT require a minimum uptake of coupons in order for consumers to get the deal. The site also makes the case that because its sales team actually lives in the markets it serves, users get an insider's perspective on the best venues and deals in a market.
Dealster
Dealster uses a referral marketing program in its battle to garner industry share. When members get their friends to sign up, they receive a $10 credit for future coupon purchases. It's a great way for them to attract the most highly connected people.
Tippr
Tippr's angle is accelerating discounts. Specifically, their program incents users to share offers by increasing the discount based upon the number of people who sign up.
There are literally dozens of others, and you should choose a partner that has strength in your core markets. Many companies currently focus on the major metros, especially in coastal "blue states", where digital acumen and interest in web-based offers is stronger. But the largest players are now available in dozens of cities nationwide.
When it makes sense
Because of the high discount required to get strong consumer uptake of an offer, it's important to really think out your social couponing strategy before you act. Basic horse sense suggests that this marketing challenge works best for brands with:
• Significant awareness and trial goals: The combination of a hot offer and the social endorsement from the sharing process can drive strong growth in awareness and trial. One might equate the impact with a sampling program except that you're actually earning some revenue, and you're connecting only with the low hanging fruit.
• Businesses trying to reactivate lapsed or infrequent users: A coupon can be a great way to stimulate former users to come back. The key to making this work for your business is a follow up strategy to get these retriers to keep coming back.
• Service businesses: Not to discount the potential value of group couponing for goods sellers, but there are clear advantages for service businesses. In many cases, a service business has lots of fixed costs (people, development, office space, utilities, etc.), with commensurately lower variable costs, because no physical good is actually changing hands. If you have the people and the locations out there, group coupons simply mean additional marginal dollars.
• High-margin goods: At more than 50 percent off plus the cut that goes to the site, you're offering a strong discount with a program like this. While this may make sense for many different kinds of businesses, it's plain that the higher your margin, the lower the risk and the higher the potential payout
• Retail businesses with uneven demand: Lots of national restaurant chains, for example, find themselves packed on Fridays and Saturdays, but slow on Tuesdays. A group coupon for a specific day can fill the seats by driving impulse dining and impacting restaurant choice at the last minute.
• Businesses expanding their retail footprint" By targeting an offer to a city or neighborhood, you can drive awareness and demand for a new location or a new offering exactly where you need it most.
Another consideration to make is cash flow. The sites typically pay their business customers in three installments, meaning that it can take some time to get all of the revenue. This shouldn't be an issue for most brands, but if you're running "dollar in/ dollar out" it's something to keep in mind.
Finally, preparation is critical. The Street recently published highlights from an interview with Utpal Dholakia, associate professor of marketing at Rice University's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. Dholakia interviewed 150 past Groupon customers to understand how they fared using the service.
So what makes for a successful social-promotion effort? "For the most part, it comes down to expectations and preparation," Dholakia says. Owners who lay the groundwork for a rush of customers do well, while those who don't prepare their employees adequately can face a backlash. Groupon's success in drawing subscribers can also be the biggest challenge for the businesses it features. Not everyone is equipped to handle hundreds of new reservations. One business owner told Dholakia about a receptionist who couldn't handle the deluge of phone calls and ended up in tears.
Conclusions
The Groupon model clearly has tremendous consumer and business appeal. Based upon the dozens of case studies that are circulating, it's plain that the tactic can move the needle on sales and customer counts. By carefully considering your business goals, the dynamics of your business, and your cost structure, you can quickly find out if the model makes sense for you. For marketers who like to dip a toe before they take the plunge, these platforms are geographically based, and it is easy for a national marketer to make an offer in a single region to better understand what they can expect from a national campaign.
Group couponing is powerful, addicting, and a whole lot of fun for consumers. And for the right kinds of businesses, can be just as compelling.
Thanks to MediaBizBloggers for publishingn this there first!
It's no new observation that digital enables marketers and their agency counterparts to access tons of metrics. So many that for many media people, two days of the week are devoted to collecting and visualizing bajillions of data points in complex reports.
Reports that, let's face it, are often given no more than cursory examination. Why? Because most of the numbers are meaningless, or at least are meaningless until someone takes the time to really examine them, which few actually get around to
Most of us digital marketers have spent years channeling Count Von Count, the affable vampire from Sesame Street who, upon entering any room, would begin measuring virtually every object in his line of vision. 7! Seven apples! 6! Six balls! 1. One Snuffalufagus!
A good way to teach kids numbers, but not a great skill for cocktail party success. Or, for that matter, brand marketing.
Our medium gives us access to data on every aspect of consumer exposure and interaction. Impressions, clicks, interactions. Interaction rates, Interaction times. View through conversions. Interaction rates by spot on the ad. Video views. Video view times. Impressions by in market shoppers. Impressions by metro. Interaction rates by daypart. That ability to count has turned us into 100,000 Count Von Counts.
7 million! Seven million impressions! 6 thousand! Six thousand complete video views! 74 thousand! Seventy four thousand clicks during the period 12-4 PM!
Trouble is, many of these metrics aren't in and of themselves terribly relevant at answering crucial marketing questions. Sometimes some of them have value, but often they don't mean much at all. And the most commonly referenced one of all, CTR, is about as meaningless as they come for most brands.
The traditional side of media often feels smug about our incessant counting. They know that many of our metrics are of little value. But at the same time they aren't offering anything better. For a decade they have been doing jazz hands to cover up the fact that they have few reliable metrics to offer.
The solution to tiresome and irrelevant counting of everything is NOT counting nothing.
As new platforms and technologies raise the value of digital impressions and make TV and Print impressions less passive and transitory, our converged industry needs to take a new approach to measurement. We need to figure out the data points that matter and only count those. With this smaller number of metrics, we can devote more of our time to figuring out brand impacts and optimization strategies to improve effectiveness.
If clicks don't matter to your business objectives, why count them? Having access to them almost inevitably leads to using them as a surrogate measure of brand impact. They are, after all, eminently understandable, and can be boiled down into a simple figure. This makes them almost magnetic.
With the myriad opportunities available for data collection, we can do a lot better than we are now. But doing so requires the time and focus to devise a real measurement strategy.
