Check Out Redcrosse by Brad Berens

I am delighted to offer this little review of Brad's first novel. Me likey likey.

I consider myself fortunate to know Brad, and was thrilled to hear that he had written his first novel. I approached the book with some misgivings, however, because it loosely falls into the scifi genre, which is definitely not my zone. But boy was I happy to read it.

Set in a time in the not too distant future, Brad's story takes place in an America where insurance companies and credit card companies have merged, and cash has been more or less eliminated. The result? Every purchase you make is known to your insurance company, which automatically adjusts your premiums for every donut and full fat milk you consume, and every moment on the treadmill that you skipped today. And we're not talking a nickel here, a dime there. Essentially, a full fat latte and one of those maple walnut scones at Starbucks would more or less raise your rates to levels even a Trump couldn't afford.

But don't think that this is some sort of polemic about private health care. Rather, Brad has used this construct as a surreal backdrop against which a thrilling storyline is juxtaposed.

The characters have a sort of theatrical flavor -- iconic and vivid. He has a gift for dialogue, which for me is about the most important thing the novelist can be good at. And there's a rhythm to the writing that sort of pulls you into the story until you emerge a few hours later wondering what happened to your Saturday morning.

One of my favorite things about the book is how Brad has used bit characters to reinforce the general malaise of the society. Beyond that tight circle of main characters, the rest of them (us?) are like zeks from a Soviet gulag. Or is that a WellPoint gulag?

Add all that to a message about the power of data in a society without strong privacy protections and you have a great first novel. Sci yes, fi, not so much because its imagined future isn't really all that far-fetched. And that makes it a good book for crossing genres. And potentially very pleasing to loads of readers.

Buy early and buy often here.

Start-Up Watch COD: Crowdtap makes influential people available to brands on demand

We all understand the value of consumer feedback for marketing ideas. By involving consumers at various stages of products and marketing program development, we can drive better results and a more efficient use of resources.

Of course, market research has been around for decades, and has helped brands get in better touch with how to meet consumer needs. But the costs, time, and complexity of developing and fielding traditional research studies make many companies decide to “wing it” instead of seeking feedback. The results often aren’t pretty.

Getting connected to consumers is even more important these days, because consumers play a much larger role in shaping the brand identities we work on. How can we get crucial feedback while also addressing some of the problems of the traditional market research process?

Crowdtap is a...hmm…how do I describe it? Social services company? Social research technology platform? The challenge is that it’s a whole lotta things. It’s a combination research sample/brand participation community/crowdsourced marketing/influencer marketing platform. Essentially they have recruited an energized and enthusiastic community, profiled them minutely, and made it easy for marketers to access them for a variety of purposes.

The profiling enables Crowdtap to give marketers REAL TIME access to populations within their target audiences. In addition to simply asking respondents questions, Crowdtap analyzes the content of their FaceBook pages to determine interests and eligibility for other marketing programs through which they can earn money,

In exchange, community participants get virtual rewards as well as cold hard cash for participating. When they reach a $10 earning threshold, they can take the money in the form of a gift card. In addition, five percent of their earnings are given to charity.

Another interesting layer for Crowdtap is a points system through which you earn badges and can participate in more activities. This adds a fun game mechanics dimension to the platform.

Here’s an interview of the CEO, from Served Fresh Media.



Crowdtap describes its value prop in terms of two key marketer needs:

Insight: The platform and community can provide real time research into virtually any question a marketer might have – about a product, about media, even a campaign. They offer multiple service levels, from a free version with limited capabilities for small business to larger versions geared to enterprise. Charges are based upon cost per action, so they relate to how many people you want in your sample. But the charges are quite reasonable, especially if you typically use conventional market research methods to communicate with customers and prospects. The platform includes multiple choice polls, open ends, and real time discussions with one or more respondents at once.The company can also establish “brand crowds” for more long term participation by respondents.
Influence: Crowdtap also offers brands peer-to-peer marketing opportunities by mobilizing individuals with high influence to communicate your product story to their social graphs. Influencers spread the word about brands in a variety of ways. Crowdtap can connect them to sharable/embeddable content that they can distribute across their social presences. Alternatively, they offer a sampling program that helps companies collect feedback about products and services quickly and easily. Third, they offer a program through which influencers host house parties in support of a brand.
One interesting use of this platform has been as a tool to help agencies gauge consumer reaction to creative concepts. Certainly the affordability of this solution makes it appealing to agencies.

CrowdTap is one of a growing number of start-ups that are causing genuine disruption in the market research world. Based upon the buzz they are getting, the disruption that this particular company is driving is very positive indeed.

Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first!

Start-Up Watch COD: Monetate simplifies the process of testing “anything, anywhere” on your website

If you are responsible for the website of your brand, chances are you have seen small content and design changes make big differences in metrics and site performance.

Especially if your site is an online store.

The most sophisticated e-stores are constantly testing and optimizing content. What’s most interesting about THAT, of course, is that often the most sophisticated sites sport designs that are anything but clean and simple, which is what I think most people would default think was most powerful.

My “home page” on Amazon, for example, features 62 products and two banners, along with a couple dozen tabs and what have to be hundreds of text links to various sections and content. Plus about 400 words of content. Who’d a thunk that this page would drive the best results? But it surely does if Amazon is delivering it to me. Over the years Amazon has tested and optimized hundreds of store page designs. It’s a process of continuing incremental improvement that has been a major contributor to their retail power.

But for somewhat smaller operations, there are often resource and “turf” challenges between marketing, website and IT teams that limit the scope and frequency of site testing. Which is rather a shame because little things can mean a lot. And while best practices provide general guidelines, you never know when a change in button color can drive a huge increase in sales.

Monetate is a SaaS offering that helps sites test, optimize, and personalize content quickly and easily. The idea is to ease the process of both directing, implementing, and analyzing testing scenarios. The service offers the benefits of one-time cut-and-paste integration, and enables a remarkably broad range of capabilities, including:

A/B/N testing of photos, colors, copy, headlines, offers, even sales “badges” like “our bestseller”
Multivariate testing to identify the best combination of components to drive sales.
Dynamic graphic rendering to add personalized text to pages
Audience segmentation and page personalization based upon a variety of criteria, including geography, gender, first time visitor/repeat customer, and environmental targeting.
Sentence-based campaign builder interface that makes it dead simple to identify the target, offer, layout, and testing scenario for the site.
CRM targeting and data appends
Easy to implement mobile solution
Catalog item and flow analysis

That’s a pretty darned cool feature set for a SaaS because it means that a marketing team could test virtually every aspect of a site to see how it impacts performance. And because of the simplicity of implementation, IT and the web team experience a whole lot fewer headaches.

Monetate already has a fairly long list of clients. A few tier ones and a whole lot of what I would call 1.5s, meaning national brands that likely sell millions online. But perhaps not hundreds of millions. That seems a particular sweet spot for this offering. If you know you should be doing more site testing in your online store, I suggest you give these folks a look.

Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.

Start-Up Watch COD: Wantlet helps consumers get recos and second opinions on what they want

The importance of personal recommendations in motivating purchase is well documented. Harris Interactive conducted a survey in June 2010 that showed that for 71% of consumers, recommendations from friends and family exert a “great deal” of influence on their purchases and opinions. Further, in February of last year, eMarketer reported that a personal recommendation exerts 12X the influence on purchase as manufacturer-authored content.

With numbers like this, it’s only natural that there has been a lot of start-up activity to harness and leverage the power of personal recommendations for purchase. One of the companies in this business arena that is drawing major attention is Wantlet.

Wantlet is an intriguing new service from an Helsinki-based start-up that helps people get recommendations and second opinions about products through their social graphs. You list a want and it appears both on your FB page and in the Wantlet community. From there, people can leave comments related to what they think about an item, where to buy it, and the like.

The idea, of course, is to get great tips and advice from really savvy people whose opinions you value. When you click on a link in Facebook, you are redirected to a page on the Wantlet site with your listing. Here your friends as well as other community members can leave you nuggets of sage wisdom.

Here’s the video explanation:



Wantlet offers a very interesting value prop to marketers and retailers. Essentially it works like a sponsored search word, only with a graphical ad. Your ad appears on pages listed with keywords that you select.

The ad includes information about your e-store or physical location, item photos, item description, as well as information about any offers you might have available on the product. You don’t need to offer a discount to use the service, though naturally it would drive a higher response rate.

So, for example, after I made my post asking for info about the CTS coupe, I might see an ad for a nearby Cadillac dealer, or perhaps a Lexus dealer, designed to attract my custom. The ad listing would include a map, dealer info, as well as any special discounts, low interest rate financing, or rebates that might be available.

The listing for a local retailer will appear in Wantlet listings in its immediate vicinity. A participating brand can also garner insights about local category wants and searches by joining the site for a minimal monthly fee.

Here’s a vid about how advertisers participate:



As a marketing tool, Wantlet is definitely a bottom-of-the-funnel offering, designed to motivate a more or less immediate purchase or visit from a customer. You’re reaching a group of people who have largely decided what they want to buy, at least on a category level.

By juxtaposing your message with all of the word of mouth dialogue taking place on a listing, Wantlet hopes to provide tremendous value to marketers anxious to capture and realize more potential sales. The appeal here is strongest for retail oriented businesses, though it’s easy to see how brand marketers could leverage this platform for their needs as well.

The company is more active in Europe at the moment, but North American people and brands can also participate, and the activity level in our region is sure to increase as the company gains more awareness.

Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.

Start-Up Watch COD: Analog Analytics “democratizes” daily deals with a white label solution for media companies

Billions of words have been written about the financial troubles of traditional media companies. While most of these entities have established websites with growing traffic, the declines on the traditional revenue side are very hard to make up with digital. How many billion banners do you need to sell to make up for the full page ad losses and the virtual demise of the classifieds sections?

But it would be a mistake to think that traditional media companies are giving up without a fight. Many of the leaders are innovating to find new revenue streams. And given all the hoopla about Groupon et al, it should come as no surprise that many media entities are implementing proprietary daily deal and couponing programs as part of their monetization efforts.

A company called Analog Analytics makes it easy for media properties and brands to offer their own daily deals and coupon programs. Their solutions makes implementing such programs more or less turnkey “Just add deals!”

The glass half full view of the success of daily deals is that pubs can capitalize on the trend. But the glass half empty interpretation is perhaps even more compelling. From their website:

Groupon operates by eliminating the role of publications through its direct-to-consumer “group buying” model. This eliminates the publisher from the traditional advertising model. In many cases, Groupon is signing local SMB’s to premium exclusivity contracts, which precludes the advertiser from doing a deal of the day with anyone else for the term of the agreement. In short, if you are a TV, radio, or news publisher, Groupon is stealing your advertising customers and signing them to premium, long-term contracts. This is the most significant threat to publishing since Google.

Analog Analytics gives pubs a way to fight back and claim their share of this important new promotional category. There are six components to their offering:

“Bigger Better Deal” is a hosted publisher-specific daily deal software platform, enabling the sales teams of media companies to sell and implement daily deals programs quickly and easily.
Hosted Coupon Platform offers pubs a way to display and deliver coupons to users, and sell these services to local advertisers.
Coupon Manager enables the seller to implement and manage coupons from hundreds of buyers simultaneously.
Manage My Coupons Portal is a hosted offering that gives consumers an environment in which to manage the coupons that interest them. In some categories the platform can automatically send offers to retail loyalty cards.
An Analytics Platform enables reporting and analysis to demonstrate marketing effectiveness and provide information to up sell and cross sell promotion programs to advertisers, related categories, and competitors.
“Super Banner” Mobile Couponing Solution enables click to call and click to coupon mobile advertising as part of an integrated program. Analog Analytics has signed a long list of media companies – more than 1000 -- to their service.

The brand has an impressive number of case studies demonstrating the positive impact their offering can have on the finances of their clients.

One of the more prominent case studies for Analog Analytics shows how the OC Register generated $188,000 in revenue for a daily deals program in a single day. The program combined an online daily deal with newspaper and local radio support. It would have taken about 38 Million banner views (at a $5 CPM) to drive that revenue figure with online ads.

But the immediate deal revenue was only part of the story. In addition, they garnered 750 new subscribers from the effort. At an average LTV of $200, those subs represented an additional $150,000 to the company. If you’re following along with your calculator, you know that’s another 30 million banners worth of green. That’s the kind of math traditional media companies – and pure play digital media companies – love to see.

Media companies are definitely excited about such services, in particular the daily deals. Witness this TV ad hyping the availability of such local daily deal offerings to consumers.



I for one am happy to see pubs finding new ways to make serious money. If we’re going to have professional content, we’re going to have to devise ways to help pubs have the wherewithal to produce it.

Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.

Start-Up Watch COD: Emdigo’s Get-It simplifies and streamlines mobile app distribution efforts

Once a brand or publisher has an app, the real battle begins: getting it in enough hands to deliver the impact it was intended to provide. But with hundreds of thousands of apps available, it can be hard to capture consumer attention. Brand use a variety of marketing channels to promote apps. But that breeds tremendous complexity into marketer efforts. Until now, according to Emdigo.

Emdigo’s “Get It” platform gives brands a simpler way to deliver app promotional messaging across a variety of consumer touch points. With Emdigo, all of these roads lead to a mechanism that lets the user download the app to virtually any mobile device. And do it quickly and virtually effortlessly. Let’s take a look at the many avenues in that Emdigo empowers brands to provide for their users:

Brands can use the Get It button on their web pages. A single click delivers the consumer to an interface that lets them type in a mobile number or send an email to their mobile device of choice. From there, the install process can begin. The screen even lets brands market other apps that might be of interest to the consumer.

Emdigo also offers online ad products including a Get It button that takes the user to the same downloading environment.

Users can also “Get It” from a Facebook page through the company’s social media offering.

For Print and TV, Emdigo can arrange for a brand to get a short code that gets the process rolling as well.

Get It emails can link to a web page that sells the app and allows one click start of the process.

Emdigo can also provide a QR code for additional consumer touch points where the format can be very powerful.

Here’s the how it works…



Emdigo and Get It are giving you more than just a set of links. Rather, they are facilitating better consumer and brand experience by automatically detecting the consumer device and checking to see if the app is compatible with it. If it isn’t, the platform can take them to a page with more information about the app, and how they might be able to get access to it from another device they own.

In addition to simplifying the dispersion of App marketing messages, Get It also offers a unified analytics platform that aggregates all activity from across your plan. No more cutting and pasting from separate reporting environments in order to get the complete picture. You can still analyze by distribution vehicle, but you can also take a macro cross platform view.

I’m glad a company is working to make this aspect of digital marketing simpler. One of the big reasons that mobile has not captured a greater share of marketing dollars is that execution can be so time consuming and labor intensive. If Get It does everything Emdigo promises, things just got a lot easier.

Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.