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    Digital Marketing

    Look Behind the Digital Curtain.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    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!

    Direct and Participatory (Tee-shirt Saying?)

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    1

    I attended a really great event in NYC yesterday put on by the Direct Marketing Association and Participatory Marketing Network (shout out to Curley, the DMA’s receptionist of 26 years).  Called Social Media Spotlight, it really exceeded expectations. Steve Rubel of Edelman Digital got things started.  Steve is the Obama of the social media space.  Unlike most speakers about social media, if Steve trots out a statistic, it’s a good one. “More digital information was created last year than in all of history combined.”   Steve, thanks to his PR training, talks in tee-shirts. About the growth of Tweeting vs. blogging he said “A lot more snacking, a lot less meals.” He’s memorable and inspiring.

    Rob Krin, a digital dude from Castrol, showed great élan and marketing smarts by suggesting a strategy to “Be everywhere his customers are.” Is that a strategy?  Oh yeah.  A media strategy – but a strategy nonetheless. Castrol has an on-staff photographer who takes awesome action shots at car races and posts them to Flickr.  That’s what car heads want, that’s what Castrol gives them.

    Involver

    But one of the biggest surprises of the day was @rahimthedream. I’m not going to undignify my send-up by talking about his age—but Rahim Fazal, CEO of Involver, is da monies. I walked into the meeting not getting Facebook Fan Pages, thinking they were a time kill where people went to build their friend lists (which is still partially true), but I left eating some serious crow. Involver is the “app store” for Facebook marketing tools. Think of Facebook as television and there is only one ad agency.  That’s Involver. It’s pronounced Rah-Heem.  Peace!

    Accelerator Pedals and Online Ads

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    There was an article today in the New York Times by Stephanie Clifford about new ad serving technology supported by real-time bidding, allowing ads to be served based on keywords and cookied behavior.  Supposedly everything takes place in milliseconds — before the page even load. (Is it me or are page loads getting slower and slower?  Thanks ads. Thanks beefy Web 2.0 apps.)

    It stands to reason that as this technology matures a good deal of these immediate, personalized ads will be price-based. And how do marketers lower prices?  By cutting margins elsewhere, meaning brand advertising budgets, etc.  Fast forward a year or two and think about all the low-cost, challenger brand/no brand, tailored ads filling up your screens. Likely, you will have bitten on a price ad or two and had a poor experience and now avoid these ads altogether. Your avoidance behavior may be similar to that toward telemarketers.  And it’s too bad because as the behavioral modeling grows it has an opportunity to be an important selling mechanism.

    But initially it will be price, price, price!  A word of caution marketers: Don’t fall into the price war — web ad bidding war.  It will be hard to get out of. And some of your accelerator pedals might stick. Peace!

    Where you at Rock, where you at?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    RFID stands for radio frequency identification.  It is a really haps technology with great marketing upside. If you have a phone that is RFID enabled and walk by a pastry shop with tarts fresh out of the oven, you might get a special alert. “Hot apple tarts.”  If you don’t pay attention and continue walking the shop may ping you with a coupon to slow you down. (Nuisance? Perhaps. Smart? Very.)

    Checkin

    Checkin (a term that foursquare would like to own) is a manual geolocation application that allows your followers on foursquare to know where you are. If you checkin to Mary Carrol’s Irish pub on St. Paddy’s Day, your friends can find you. If Mary’s Carrol’s knows you have lots of friends, they’ll be smart to encourage you to checkin.  Should you decide upon stealth mode, don’t do it.    

    These services subscribe to the marketing view that where you are is more important than what websites you visit.  Don’t get me wrong, visiting websites is a directional indicator of interest, but feet on premise or near prem is a big driver of da monies. And thanks to social media apps like foursquare, gowalla, loopt, etc. we marketers have new exciting mobile toys to play with.  Peace!

    What to Expect From Ads on Apple iPad.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Where to start?

    The ads that will adorn the Apple iPad on April 3rd are going to be pretty interesting.  First, if they are good, they’ll be more like selling applications than ads.  Those who create selling apps rather than Adobe InDesign and static display ads (iPads don’t take Flash yet) will have the early wins.   

    Selling Apps

    Selling apps that come from ad shops where the creative dept. was the lead (not the media dept.) will also win. That said, brands that team up on the selling app will do even better.  Those who team the objective, strategy, measurement, idea, creative, digital production and follow-up are more likely to have an app than an ad.   But that takes time, resolve and a new process…which is expensive.  Did I mention time?  If you started this week, you’re toast.  The best iPad selling apps won’t be the result of a great piece of “creative” or creative media buy, they will result from cross-silo efforts.

    Super Pasters

    Just being there on April 3rd will be a win for advertisers. There are currently 200,000 pre-orders for iPads. How may of those people do you think have taken the day off? Exactly.  Followers of What’s the Idea? know about Posters vs. Pasters. Well, in terms of the tech target, the first people seeing iPad ads will be Super Posters. Their blog posts, vlogs, podcasts and Tweets will abound. The iPad’s first audiences will be techies and those in creative businesses – a very viral and powerful target. And the world will be watching. Interestingly, the first big brands buying ads will be: Unilever, Toyota, Chase, Fidelity, and FedEx — not what you’d expect as a high indexing techie target. Korean Air, on the other hand, that’s a good fit. Should be very interesting. Peace!

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