Random

    Digital Marketing

    How Stuff Works Online.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Here’s how retail works.  You build, lease or buy a store, fill it with stuff, promote it and people come and buy its wares.  Or they don’t.

    Here’s how TV works.  You build, lease or buy a program, fill it with entertaining or informational stuff, promote it and people come. Or they don’t.

    Here’s how the web works. You build, lease or buy a site, fill it with stuff, promote it and people come and buy its wares…if you happen to be selling anything.  Sometimes the web is used to help people decide if they want to buy your stuff, because it’s sold elsewhere.  And other times the web is about entertaining visitors encouraging them to come back so ad revenue allows the site owner to buy stuff.  And sometimes still, a website is created to just simply to impart knowledge, altruism and community. 

    That’s the thing about the web — visitors don’t always know if they are on a site to be sold, entertained or informed. Sometimes the builders of websites don’t seem to know either.  And when that happens the sites tend to provide a little bit of each.  And a little bit of each often leads to a lot of none. Fruit cocktail. Tricky stuff.  Focus is your friend.

    Apple Tablet + RE (Reader Experience)

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The Apple Table launches today and it makes me think about its transformational nature.  If the tablet is a combination of reader and iTouch as most report, with a few extra wireless bells and whistles, it should be quite so. 

    Some articles appeared yesterday that suggested print media companies will be developing reader experiences (RE – just make that up) to make reading digital content more enjoyable.  Think the printed word with sound, video and geo-linking.  But here’s my prediction — rather than embedding links in situ in a story, they will be organized at the end of the story or chapter, like a bibliography.  The written word needs a flow and pacing. A thought stream.  In both magazines and book form.  Clicking out to videos, communities, maps, audio files, etc. while reading is a very ADD and though something we’ve become accustomed to in the digital world, a behavior that good publishers will want to minimize. 

     There will be great attention paid to Reader Experience over the next couple of years.  It should be interested to see who establishes leadership.  I’m thinking the MPA (Magazine Publishers of America) should step up.  Tablet ho. Peace!

    Photomontage: Robert Galbraith/Reuters

    Creating a Social Media Monster?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Mission Control is a well-produced 76 second video by PepsiCo’s Gatorade ‘splaining how Gatorade marketing monitors the web for comments, chatter and potential product improvements. The “war room” at mission control is filled with AT&T NOC (network operations center) -like people in front of multiple monitors — their fingers on the pulse of Gatorade enthusiasts.  Looks like they are a busy bunch.

    Interspersed with the mission control pictures are great shots of Kobe, Serena, etc., helping viewers work up a sweat…which is what Gatorade is and should always be about.

    Right now this vid is kind of inside baseball for the marketing, advertising and social community – plus I think it’s being used in and around Cannes to round up votes. It’s a great spend, by Gatorade as they “set the stage for digital leadership.” I’ve written before that every large corporation in America will have a social media dept. and I believe it.  Smart senior agency people have nodded in agreement yet told me that the truly creative ideas and productions that hit wire/less will still come from agencies.  That, too, I believe.

    After a while though, after all marketers have jumped on this listening bandwagon and consumers are conditioned to provide product input, message input and marketing input, it will begin to dull the strategic senses. It will turn the world into a place filled with screen-scratching marketing interns, when what we really want to do is listen to the influential “Posters.” (Google whatstheidea+posters.)

     

    Let’s watch out for that monster that we are creating. Peace!

    Twisted Juice.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    2

    Mitch Joel and Jaffe Juice’s Joseph Jaffe squared off yesterday in a podcast that was a good deal of fun.  Each agreed they were good friends but that was about all they agreed upon — save for the obligatory strokefest at the end.  Mr. Jaffe is a principal at Crayon now owned by Powered and Mr. Joel is president of Twist Image a leading digital shop based in Toronto.  Both are published (books, blogs and pods) and practiced “duelists.”

    The discussion with which they played pong was “Is social media a discrete marketing practice?” Mr Jaffe says “yes,” Mr. Joel “no.” 

    The crux of the debate is this:  Social media needs to be well integrated into the marketing and digital practices of corporations. Today, it’s not.  Mr. Joel says there are smart companies doing so and he’s right.  Mr. Jaffe says those companies are the “exception not the rule” and he’s right. Powered is betting that specialized shops – best of breed social shops – will be better positioned to make waves and earn low hanging engagements.  Mr. Joel believes that cleanest most likely social successes will come from integrated digital shops, and in the long run that is probably more correct.  But his approach is less promotable and less newsworthy.   Social media is the haps today.  There is demand for it and a social marketing swell surrounding it. 

    Da Monies.

    So where is the money in social media?  Tweeting buy the pound? Friending by the hundred? In strategy?  Yep.  Where is the money in the integrated approach? The answer is tweeting by the pound and building websites – a more lucrative approach.  

    Win by Knockout?

    No. Both arguments are very compelling. Mr. Jaffe and Powered CMO Aaron Strout are loudly breaking new ground. (There are supposedly scores of quiet social media agencies in NYC alone.) Mr. Joel gets it for sure, and though his sound bite is not as powerful he will probably have higher margins this year. Were I a marketing director and these two pitching my business, I’m sure the last one to present would win the business.

    Look Behind the Digital Curtain.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    oz curtains

    There is an amazing theory in physical anthropology called phylogeny recapitulates ontology which suggests that the ascent of man from micro to human form is recreated every time a baby is born. From fertilized egg the form grows fishlike, reptilian, birdlike, to muuun-key (as Peter Sellers used to say) and finally goo-goo gah-gah person.

    I think every marketer needs to experience life as a small business before making decisions for a large business — and that doesn’t always happen. Small business owners have to do it all and be responsible for all. They may not be good at everything, but they need to experience and understand everything.  Only when they “get” each business and marketing function can they make fair decisions about execution. Not all large business marketers see the whole picture and it’s a shame.

    Noah Brier a smart digital strategist at the Barbarian Group has said every marketing who uses the Web should take an interest in and learn, however rudimentary, to write code. Most slough off this advice, but he’s right. Like the marketer who needs to understand the evolution of the business from small to large and the scientist who should be aware of single cell to complex organism, the online marketer is better off if understanding just what’s behind the digital marketing curtain. And understanding its power. Peace!

    R/GA Creating the Law?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    R/GA is a bold leader in the digital marketing area. As all advertising and marketing shops move toward the middle — toward the strategy — only one digital shop aspires to be the agency of record: R/GA. Most digital shops rue the fact that they don’t get a seat at the big table, R/GA wants the table.  And they make quite a case.  Their entrée is the “platform.”  

    In a video by Nick Law, R/GA’s chief creative officer (thankfully, he’s not goofily titled), he says advertising needs to move “from metaphors that romance a brand to seductive demonstrations of a brand platform.”  Agreed. Were he to have substituted the word “strategy” we’d be in perfect agreement.  The word platform, you see, is a euphemism for website (and other digital stuff residing on the website). Brand strategy is hard to put a price tag on and websites and digital assets are easy estimate. 

    Mr. Law is correct campaigns come and go. He’s right that tactics need to feed the brand strategy. He’s right that utility and community are the source of sales growth and retention. And he’s certainly not being disingenuous in suggesting that something needs to hold and tie all the brand building work together. So I’m going to cut him some slack and not argue the noun platform and favor a more verb-like version of the word. 

    In the video Mr. Law refers to one of R/GA’s most famous successes Nike+.  “Nike+ is a platform fueled by campaigns” he says.  Nike+ was first a product and it’s growing into a branded utility. Is it growing into a platform? You tell me. 

    These guys are the real deal. And as good marketers they are trying to create a new language for the marketing world.  As I said, bold.  

    How to Charge for Social Media.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I was chatting with a friend at JWT the other day about how agencies can’t make money in today’s social media entranced marketplace  — and I may have solved the problem.  Here goes:

    Say you come up a with a big engagement idea. It’s for a new product launch and you have created a fun video demonstration of the product.  A couple of graduate students from NYU did the production at a cost of $4,500.  You work at Publicis and know you can post the video for free and the mark-up won’t pay for the pastry at the presentation meeting.  How do you price it? Staff it? Measure it? Is it done under a retainer? Oy.

    The answer is simple: You price it based on delivered reach, with a smidgen of frequency.  If the video is viewed 0-24,999 times (uniques) you charge $2,500.  If seen 25,000 to 75,000 times $4,500….and so on.

    If the video is linked to another site, Publicis earns a bonus based on other site’s traffic plus the additional views. If the video gets played on TV or a big portal, another bonus plus those views. Think of the model as part SAG/AFTRA, part pay-per-view, part Nielsen Ratings.

    Now that wasn’t that hard, was it? Piece. I mean Peace!

    Google Buzzed?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    “Fall forward fast” is a marketing maxim many have followed with great success. Be bold, be quick, correct as needed. It’s a fist-mover approach and it was good advice back in the day.  But the Internet has sped things up a bit don’t you think? Fast today is a lot faster than it was 4 years ago.

    Google Buzz was brought to market too fast. Is it correctable?  Sure.  Will Google take some heat? Sure. Will it recover, sure.  That said, I suspect there’s a little tainted blood in the Google bloodstream thanks to this effort and Google needs to take a breath.  When you launch a new service and the phrases “opt-out,” “disable,” “sorry,” “feedback” and “critics” become keywords of the coverage you have not done enough homework.  Google “google buzz”+”critics” and see what pops up.

    Facebook‘s Beacon advertising program wasn’t thoroughly vetted before launch nor was the Google Nexus One, released before back-end customer care issues could be properly handled.

    Overdogs.

    Did you watch the Superbowl? Which team did you root for?  The overdog or the Saints? Overdogs are leaders.  They, more than anyone, need to be careful when bringing new services to market. Take a breath. Do some reconnaissance. Let power users spank the brand a bit (“brand spanking” is a great overdog research methodology). Then launch. Too much Starbucks, as Zack de la Rocha might say, “can killa man.”  Peace!

    ROI and a Field of Weeds!

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    People sometimes jokingly ask me “What is the idea? referring to the name of my consultancy. My answer, borrowed from Sergio Zyman of the Zyman Group, is “sell more, to more, more often, at higher margins.”  That’s the ultimate goal of marketing, no? The quadruple crown.  Interestingly, unit sales, market penetration, per capita consumption, and higher margins are different measures. Linked, yes, but different.

    When writing a marketing plan I typically start out with an exercise called The 24 Questions.  It’s traditional marketing, follow-the-money kind of stuff. Who’s buying? When? Who is involved in the decision? Most profitable customers? Margins? Channels?, etc. Once I get the money part of the equation I delve into brand questions — from the points of view of management, employees and customers. Some of the questions are designed to get to the truth and bypass the drama and ass-covering.

    Prioritization.

    The hard work is in ranking the business objectives. Most of my decks (PPT presentations of findings) array a healthy number of business objectives. Prioritizing objectives leads to prioritized strategies which require someone at the company to put one objective at the top: “On a sinking boat which child would you save?” kind of question. These decisions are the provenance of the brain not the algorithm.  

    ROS

    ROS (return on strategy) is a metric that measures business and marketing strategy. ROI, on the other hand, ties marketing tactics to dollar return.  Not to minimize tactics, but you can buy a tactic from any marcom agency on the street. And thanks to the web – the greatest marketing tool since paper money – we’re in the midst of something I call Tactics-palooza.  ROS allows you to measure business objectives through a strategic lens. ROS is the way to go. Think of it as a crop-producing farm next to a field of healthy weeds. Peace!

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