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    Digital Marketing

    R/GA Creating the Law?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    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.  

    Corporate Social Media Departments.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I met with someone smart yesterday and shared my view that in the future large corporations will have their own social media departments — staffed with writers, videographers, photographers, coders and digital editors.  This senior strategy and innovation officer processed the thought, nodded in partial agreement, then noted that the level of creativity likely to come out of this type of group would be modest.  He was right. 

    An internal social media department will do a good job of relating the corporate viewpoint, organizing proof and demonstrations of product value, and it will do so accurately… but in the end it will lack that creative oomph provided by an agency. And here, I mean a digital or a brand agency. 

    That’s not to say internal social media departments won’t happen, they will. They already are.  But the talent level required to do it BIG, won’t be found on staff.  Sure, some implementation can be handled inside, but not the big honkin’ creative idea. Not the polished sight and sound. And agencies need to figure out how to charge for that idea? Beyond production and mark-up that is.  Does the answer reside within Google?  Hmmmm. Peace!

    The Ascent of Marketing.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Back in the 1700-1800s (in the U.S.) if you needed stuff you either made it or went to the general store.  The Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogue was the next marketing innovation (1888), showing pictures of products and published prices, allowing customers to purchase by mail. Among the 322 pages in the catalogue published in 1894 must have been products didn’t sell and had to be replaced. The birth of ROI? 

    Television

    The next massive marketing innovation was television. Television commercials which began in earnest in the 1940s became the most popular, effective form of advertising. But can you imaging trying to track sales to media and production back then in the very beginning? “Where’s the ROI? How do you measure this stuff?” Mad men. 

    The Web

    Fast forward to the Inter-nech. Banner ads and ad serving allowed us to count clicks. 2% click thru rates. Whoo hoo. Click to buy. Whoo hoo. But not everything could be bought over the web. (Discussion of that for another day.) CTRs diminished and web display ads became, so said the salespeople, a branding mechanism.

    Social Media

    Enter social media.  And consultants. When consultants out-number practitioners you know the market is in flux. The Altimeter Group, some very smart people let me just say, created a social media presenttion ‘splaining how to measure social media via a marketing analytics framework. Here are some of the measurables: share of voice, audience engagement, conversation reach, active advocates, active influence, advocacy impact, customer problem resolution rate, resolution time, satisfaction score, plus a couple of metrics tied to gathering input for product innovation. What’s not mentioned here, something Messrs. Sear and Roebuck might have added, is sales.  I love consultants ( am one) and the Altimeter Group is growing like a dookie, but until they and all of us tie these type of metrics back to da monies, we’re just making paper.

    A smart client at AT&T once said to me, “we collect all this data now we have to do something smart with it.”  That’s business. That’s return on strategy. Peace!

    Apple Tablet + RE (Reader Experience)

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    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

    Paid vs. Free Media.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There are big discussions these days about whether or not media properties will continue to offer their products for free over the internet.  Will newspapers begin charging for daily news? Will magazines require subscriptions for articles and analysis? Will TV programming sites like Hulu submit to a fee structure?  There’s no question in my mind they will, so enjoy the free ride while it lasts.

     Citizen journalism will continue to grow and be free. It will be localized, time sensitive and a very vibrant source of news.  #carcrashamityville will turn up a story beating the local newspaper filings by hours. Blogger journalism and analysis will continue to be free but subsidized by book sales and speaking engagements. (When music piracy became a thing and musicians could make a living selling CDs, they acknowledged da monies was in concerts and merchandise sales.) Back in the day, valuable analyses and insight was sold in the form of paid newsletters, but that’s another business that has been drained.

    Professional journalism and media production (audio and video) will have to be paid. Why?  Because it will come with a branded, marketing infrastructure that requires upkeep. And though ad revenue will help, it can’t cover all the expenses. Peace!

    Aol. vs. Yahoo

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Aol. and Yahoo have both finally figured out that good content begets readership, viewership, referral, and participation which begets — the same.  These two seminal online brands will be dooking it out for years to come. They both took different paths to get here and both have CEOs with unique perspectives, but the battle should be fun to watch. Coke and Pepsi, AT&T and Verizon fun.

    Armstrong vs. Bartz

    My bet is on Aol. Tim Armstrong hitched his ride to a rising star (Google) and got that success smell on him — but I think he created some of that smell with his focus and good leadership. Carol Bartz’s career advanced by good blocking and tackling and good business decisions, something Yahoo hadn’t had for a while prior to her arrival.  Yahoo made lots of decisions, just not with a solid brand idea driving them. Until proven otherwise, I’ll give Mr. Armstrong the edge and write it off to “derring do.”

    Ad dollars are moving online, no doubt, but those in the know will tell you the lion’s share are going to Google thanks to AdWords and their direct-to-consumer, DIY, analytics-powered ad model. As Aol. and Yahoo re-create their online brands and lead the market in the generation of original content (paid and contributed), search will stay a powerful, lucrative utility, but won’t be the best way to find good content. That will be the domain of Aol and, hopefully, Yahoo. Peace!

    Screen Grab Retouching for All.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I suck as an art director but that doesn’t keep me from appreciating art and wanting to play at it. Having looked over the shoulder of some pretty good art directors, watching them silhouette and manipulate images and color, I know what can be done with the right tools. The problem is the tools aren’t ready for mainstream.  And they are not free.

    Polyvore

    Polyvore is a women’s fashion website gets this and has developed a smart application where users drag and drop various clothing and accessories together into “sets” or looks. The UI (user interface) lets you flop things, flip things, enlarge, reduce, change color and purchase. By surrounding that functionality with comments, a community of fashionistas, and smart curating (showcasing Taylor Momsen and Keira Knightly sets, for instance) Polyvore has created a business. 

    Snagit

    Polyvore has tapped into people’s need to art direct or fashion direct and it points to a business I think is ripe for the taking.  A company by the name of TechSmith is aware of this and sells a product SnagIt that lets you grab and copy pictures and images via screen grab and do with them what you will. It looks fairly easy and for active users is a deal at $49.95. But the web needs an ad-supported version of this software for free. Think of it as a rudimentary retouching site – much like Flickr was to photo sharing a few years ago. Make it simple and they will come.

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