Canadian Marketing Blog

The Digital Footprint

One's digital footprint is becoming more real than reality - for the simple reason that many more will come across a 'cyberpersona' and assume truth in what is seen and read.

Therefore there is a greater need to safeguard what, where and how digital data is accessed and 'leveraged' just as there will be an increasing need to question the veracity of the cyberprofiles accessible to marketers.

The Pew Internet & American Life Group recently released a report “Digital Footprints - online identity management and search in the age of transparency” that offers a glimpse into the issue.

They classified Adults into 4 groups:
1. Concerned & Careful (21% of online adults)
2. Worried by the Wayside (18%)
3. Confident Creatives (17%)
4. Unfazed and inactive (43%)

Of the 4 groups, only the Concerned/Careful and Confident Creatives have stated they are taking steps to limit the amount of information available about them online – although the study did not list specifics. The Worried/Waysiders are concerned but not taking any action.

Demographically, the Concerned/Careful group profiles more like ‘established’ individuals compared to the Confident Creatives in term of income and education level. But that's a simplistic summary - because the concern dimension cuts across all demographics, income levels, education levels. This tells me it is an issue affecting one's state of mind rather than any generational distinction the press might make it out to be.

Take for example the results of a British privacy commission study found that as many as 4.5 million British youth would not want a college/employer to do a search on them without first removing content from social networking sites, yet many are naïve about their digital footprint and only slowly coming to recognize that the internet does not come with an undo button.

“Initial thoughts - who cares? Subsequent thoughts - omg!!!”(Female, 14, Scotland)”

"I think its quite daunting as it could hinder my career choice."(Female 19, West Mids)

"It sort of scares me to think that what I've written at my age now (17) may come back to haunt me in later years. I did not know this."(Female 17, NW)

The second part of this issue is the digital data trail itself. Facebook raised the stakes with Beacon and had to deal with a backlash that proved embarrassing, potentially costly and conceivably disastrous.

“I feel like my trust in Facebook has been violated,” said Christopher Lynn, 30, a Facebook user who also writes a blog on social media. “Facebook created this space that was a private space, where we share our experiences, and to share this data behind our backs is upsetting.” Source: NYTimes

“Thanks for bringing this up. I have followed your lead and blocked beacon. I think this is really a bad development of a good tool. I even thinking of deleting my profile with Facebook, because of this programme.” November 24th, 2007 Jake

“I’m always careful to not post on my Facebook, or anywhere else, anything that I’m not happy for the whole world to know. That does NOT include my shopping and web-surfing habits. Thanks for alerting people to this, and showing us how to block the beacon.”November 24th, 2007 Sarah

But Facebook isn't alone - Yahoo, Google, AOL, Microsoft, My Space have collectively spent over a Billion dollars acquiring or developing Behavioral Targeting capability. And while ROI driven marketers salivate at the possibilities, we must never forget to tread carefully - mindful that a brand is a promise kept, a promise that is both strong and fragile. As consumers begin to (reclaim )control of their digital foot prints, these issues will resurface and those who assume too much might be trampled underfoot in the stampede.

“Toto – I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more”

Miro
PS.
For those interested, some additional reports available from Pew:

Social Networking Websites and Teens: An Overview

The Internet’s Growing Role in Life’s Major Moments

A New Year's Resolution That's Easy to Keep

I'd like to suggest a New Year's resolution to you:

Don't "lose" your domain name.

What am I talking about? Well, every day my colleagues at Tucows deal with business owners who are in a panic because they "lost" their all-important domain names. And by "lost" this (upon further investigation) usually means the business owners forgot to renew their domain name on time.

Now, I'm sympathetic to a point, however the responsibility for renewing a domain name ultimately rests with the owner of the domain name and no one else.

Sometimes, I'm proud to say, we can help reinstate the "lost" domain name. And sometimes we simply can't. Which, for some businesses, is a disaster. Yet it's a disaster that could have been so easily avoided.

Here's how:

Take 30 seconds, RIGHT NOW, to find out when your domain name is going to expire. (Do a WHOIS query at whois.tucows.com, then check to see what expiration/renewal date is listed.) Make note of this date.

Now, take another 30 seconds to write a reminder to yourself to renew the domain name a few weeks before it expires. Go ahead, I'll wait while you do this. Use Outlook or whatever calendaring system you use. Just make sure you set a reminder!

Finally, when you get your reminder to renew your domain name, RENEW your darn domain name! In most cases this takes less than two minutes, and you can do it online via the company your registered the domain name with.

See, that wasn't too difficult, was it? Especially compared to how difficult "losing" your domain name would be...

Happy New Year!

2008 - "The Return of the Brand as King"

Yes I know, it’s a poor word play on the final installment of Tolkien’s famous trilogy, but I couldn’t help myself...

Every New Year brings with it lists of glorious predictions for the upcoming 12 months and an equally glorious set of lists recapping the trends that defined the outgoing year. The pundits are abounding with opinion; there is some interesting stuff out there. I’ve posted a few good links at the end of this entry, enjoy at your leisure.

Some common themes for 2008 cited by the experts are social media, all things digital and the morphing of various disciplines (media and creative, advertising and marketing etc.)

It is now accepted as a universal truth that advertising/marketing is a permanently dynamic practice. There is no single best practices hand book to help us navigate this progressive new world, just the one that is being rewritten in real time, as we all learn from experience.

But you already knew this. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 3 or so years, none of this is new anymore. It is all that we have been hearing about, and consequently agencies and clients alike are responding, slowly but surely.

But how much during the past 3 years have you heard about branding?* Especially branding as it relates to today’s environment where consumers are exposed to thousands of messages a day and a new media outlet is created roughly every 7 seconds?

Well no matter how much you have already heard, I don’t think it is enough. 2008 should be the year where all we hear about and discuss is the brand. It is no longer about media (gasp, I can’t believe I just wrote that), technology or even the consumer for that matter. It is about the brand and media, the brand and technology, the brand and the consumer and most importantly the brand and long term strategy.**

The landscape has shifted so radically, most of us are so busy trying to keep up with the changes and the impact of these changes on our businesses that we are failing to see the forest from the trees. Former Adage Publisher Scott Donaton coined a great term, which epitomizes the situation, GMOOT- short for Get Me One of Those. It refers to a “…phenomenon that helps explain why there are so many lousy viral videos and half assed new media initiatives out there. They’re not the result of a real end strategy, but are done for the sake of doing something…”

It is time to step back and take a holistic view of our business – a 50,000 foot view if you will.

I think what we will find is that many of the fundamentals of branding still apply. Brand strategy is still the key to success, and your brand’s core values, the essence, the DNA, must remain static. We as marketers have never been in charge of our brands, this notion of consumer control is nothing new – a brand has always resided with the individual because a brand is a gut feeling*** of how a person feels about a product, service or organization. We as Marketer’s have always provided a framework for how we wish our brand to be perceived but we have never been able to control the end result of how it is finally internalized by the individual. The difference is that in today's WEB 2.0 era, we are now forced to hear what individuals really think and feel about our brands – and I say forced because this happens, whether you like it or not. Embrace it, factor it into your brand strategy. Now more than ever we must do as we say.

In 2008 watch for “The Return of the Brand as King.” Interestingly enough a sequel is already rumored to be in the works, the working title is “Brand Strategy leading Business Strategy…”

Some notes:

* The CMA put on a great conference 2007 entitled “Branding in a Sea of Change.” The follow up conference in June 2008 is one to mark on your calendar from now

**A great article in the July/August issue of Harvard Business Review, titled, If Brands Are Built over Years, Why Are They Managed over Quarters?, provides great support to the seemingly forgotten notion of long term brand planning.

***Marty Neumeier thoughts, a good read.

Links:

The Pundits - Media In Canada

Marian Salzman - EVP/CMO JWT Worldwide – especially insightful, the mention of radical transparency and cooperative consumption.

Sunni Boot – President/CEO Zenith Optimedia

Scott Goodson – CEO StrawberryFrog - mentions QR codes, a few campaigns have been executed in Canada using this technology but it is still far from mainstream. Semacode is a great Canadian company that has been involved with using the technology since 2003.

Maggie Fox – Founding Partner Social Media Group. Kudos to Maggie about being more optimistic than I am on the state of the nation. See “What surprised you this year.”

Bruce Claassen – CEO Genesis Vizeum

Tony Chapman – CEO Capital C

An Aggregation of great digital and internet prediction lists, a must view!

Please, please can you give us a gift before the end of the year...

As the end of 2007 approached, the number of email requests flooded all of our inboxes. Most had a very similar strategy - encourage recipients to give an additional gift before the end of the year.

They all accomplished the task of getting an ask into the inbox of their email supporters. But for the most part, they did not contain compelling reasons to give to their solicitation over all of the others. With so many competing asks being received, an opportunity to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack was missed by most of these groups.

I am happy to say that in my inbox, a few did stand out. One example was an erequest I received from Save The Children USA.

Their esolicitation included an interesting matching gift opportunity.

....Special opportunity to have your donation DOUBLED by Sam Simon, co-creator of The Simpsons ends tonight at midnight!

Between now and midnight (EST) tonight, December 31, Sam will match every donation that supports our mission made through our website, up to a total match of $1,000,000....

Using a well known personality helped to add confidence and excitement to the ask. In addition, offering a compelling matching gift opportunity with a timeline to match the end of year deadline gave potential donors a compelling reason to choose this ask over a multitude of esolicitations sent at the same time.

The twist on the 'end of the year' theme provided a winning combination for a very worthy cause.

How Tweet it is

At first I didn't like Twitter. I found nothing wrong with using IM so I thought, who needs it? I remember saying that about cell phones too... and email... and Facebook.

For me: I don't like it, I try it, I'm hooked.

If IM is the cocaine of internet communication, then Twitter is surely the crack.

Don't know what Twitter is? Some call it Micro-Blogging, Tumblelog, Thumbcast, Sideblog, and more. Last November, Robert McIntosh did a great post on it. Check out Wikipedia here, or Twitter's Twitter about page, or check out Gaping Void's take.

How do you use it? Let's get started.

A) Go to Twitter.com and get a profile going.

B) Now you have a platform, but you still need an audience for your "Tweets". Look for a friend. (Go ahead and pick me, http://twitter.com/collindouma, the first tweet's free kid). Find the button that says "Follow". Now you're following my Tweets.

C) For more people, return to my Twitter page (http://twitter.com/collindouma) and click on the word "following" (right nav bar, below Stats heading). Recognize anyone? Click "follow" for the ones you know too. They'll receive notification that you've subscribed to their tweets. If they know you, or are interested in you, they may reciprocate. That's how you build an audience. You have to listen to be heard. Strange how that works eh?

You can do the same over and over and over, but there is plenty of time for that. I suggest you stop for now, and start to tweet.

D) Click the Home button, and then start Twittering. Maybe start by saying "Hello", and pressing "update". Remember, you only get 136 characters, be brief.

That's it. Your first Tweet. Try a few more.

E) To target a specific person, try putting an @ sign in front of a name. Use me, I don't mind. Type

@collindouma : Saw your post on the CMA blog about Twitter. Trying it now.

Remember, even though it's addressed to me, it's still a public statement. I'll get a little nudge which lets me know you said it. And you'll know if anyone has said anything directly to you by clicking "Replies" on your home page. It's the tab, just below the update button.

Basically, that's all you need to know.

I'll leave you with one last tip for your new Twittering habit.

You might want to share a website on your Tweet but the URL is very long. Try using this site: http://tinyurl.com. It turns long URLs into short ones that still are clickable. By making the URL nice and short, you can better add a description or comment without maxing out the 136 character limit.

For example, here's a Tweet I sent recently about a YouTube video:

Too funny... David Lynch re: watching movies on iPhone : http://tinyurl.com/2xsk89

Here's another recent Tweet.

Join the new Facebook group "Petition to Get Sean Moffitt On Twitter" Today! http://tinyurl.com/26bnm3

You don't have to use tinyurl.com if the url is short.

hey world, check this out : http://www.radicaltrust.ca

There isn't much more to it. You just have to do it.

Welcome to the world of Micro-Blogging. Good Luck

http://twitter.com/collindouma

Why Consumers Prefer the Extremes

One of my favourite topics is innovation. Everyone talks about it. Few actually practice it.

That’s one of the reasons some brands fade faster while others weather the transition to immense popularity. The obvious ones that continuously reinvent themselves are Apple and Blackberry. Others such as Crocs, Lululemon have faltered in early stages of innovation.
Consumers get bored with brands. Or look for reasons to find new and improved products. But in increasingly commoditized and price driven categories like clothing, cars and personal care, it’s not clear that one model is necessarily better than another. And such products fall in and out of style with such swiftness that boredom hardly seems to be the issue. So what’s going on here?

In a recent paper, Stanford researchers found that consumers may abandon products as soon as chic goes mainstream. When similar people buy the same brand, it translates into social meaning. But when the wrong kind of people start buying it that object loses its meaning, these early adopters start seeking new identity markers. In their research, Berger and Chip Heath, Stanford Business School professor of organizational behavior, found that product categories that are more utilitarian are less likely to be used to communicate identity and hence less likely to try to separate themselves from specific social groups.

Alignment of options is a key factor. In a study of different sets of shoppers (Harvard Business School working paper, May 17, 2007), John T. Gourville and Dilip Soman tested whether avoiding extremes depends on the menu of choices. They say, “In a sense, you are buying none, a little, more, or a lot of a feature.”

So when options are nonaligned, consumers tend to like extremes. Ironically, consumers prefer compromises when the options are aligned. Consumers can’t decide, so they simplify their choice. They tend to say “give me the basic version or give me everything”. The last thing they want to do is pick some of the options but not all of them, and find out after the fact the ones they picked weren’t the right options. Consumers reflexively eliminate the middling options so they won’t kick themselves later.

According to Gourville and Soman, sometimes choices are not so neatly aligned, and consumers face tradeoffs when they make their decision. If you have a complex, nonaligned assortment, you really have two alternatives: to simplify that assortment — reduce the number of options to decrease the difficulty of making any one choice — or to help people along on the [decision-making] process. So hand in hand with adding more non-aligned choices, marketers could offer tools or advice to help consumers make their choice. For example, a car dealer might offer a sporty SUV with four-wheel drive, or a luxury SUV with leather seats and a sunroof (but no four-wheel drive). When those nonaligned choices multiply and the tradeoffs become complicated, consumers tend toward a stripped-down or a fully loaded model instead.

What does this mean for marketers? A deeper interpretation of the context of product features and benefits can have a substantial impact on a brand’s credibility. Go back to basics. Keep a close tab on where Product and Brand positioning intersect. An emotive brand promise is important. But it’s no substitute for a persuasive product story. I can think of over 20 marketing campaigns launched in the past 6 months that have a disconnect between product and brand promises, one of the reasons consumers prefer the extremes.

Boomers Motivated By Mind-Stretching Games

Age-defying boomers are proactively seeking to increase their mental activities so that they can slow the ageing process. A number of things happen normally such as memory loss or forgetting things once in a while.

According to Dr. Roland Auer, neuropathologist and professor at the University of Calgary, there are four elements that are required to keeping your brain healthy even into old age. "Watch your calories, do mental exercises, get active physically and get some sleep," he says. "Eating less and eating the right foods feeds your brain. Sleep boosts immune system activity and the physical interacts with mental fitness."

As boomers are becoming more comfortable with technology, manufacturers and web site producers are also introducing quick and effective brain games at low or no cost. From Nintendo's Brain Age game to rock-paper-scissors, there is a variety of activities that stimulate the brain. According to Future Shop, brain health games are by far the best-selling items among ageing boomers. People can play and have fun, and they can work on vocabulary, memory and life skills. More and more boomers who travel a lot also want something for the road, the hotel room or the plane.

Baby boomers are well-educated and adventurous. The demand for different cerebral activities will grow and expand.

Viral Is Not A Strategy

Marketers have to deal with a lot of tough questions like "how much will this cost?", "can you guarantee it will be successful?" and "what's the point in Marketing, shouldn't we be focusing on sales?" Lately, there's an even tougher hill to climb. More often than not I'm hearing a statement - in client, business development and at seminars/conferences - that goes something like this: "we need our program to go viral."

Viral is not strategy. Viral is an outcome. You can plan for it all you want. You can implement the right hooks that makes something go viral. You can even trick components of it to get passed along, but in the end, you don't decide if something goes viral... everyone else does.

Viral is the effect of doing everything right - strategy, design, content, creative and marketing it in the right channel - the added layer that makes something "go viral" comes through community acceptance and embrace. Stuff we think should go viral never does, and the stuff we think nobody would ever care to play with always goes viral.

If a Marketer claims that they can make something go viral, be sure to steal their crystal ball on the way out of the meeting.

This is not an anti-Viral Marketing post. Not in the least bit. If I could make everything I touch go viral, I would (including this post). All a Marketer can do is their best. Typically, if you're really doing your best stuff, the outcome will be viral - it will get passed along, it will spread, people will talk about it, and people will do something about it.

Last thought on viral: adding in a prize can help. It will get passed along more and create more awareness , but Marketers need to understand that it's the prize that went viral, and not the product/service. The brand takes second fiddle. Never the sexiest part of the orchestra.

How do you get Apple style media coverage? It's a secret.

If you're only slightly interested in technology, no doubt you've seen or read about Apple Computer's new MacBook Air this past week, announced at MacWorld 2008 Conference and Expo in San Francisco. Already there are more than 5 million Google hits for a product that was announced less than a week ago.

Weighing in at 3 pounds, measuring just 0.16 inches at its thinnest and costing $1,799US, if MacBook Air catches on, it will no doubt force other PC manufacturers to roll out slimmer, lighter laptop designs in a hurry. Similar to last year’s iPhone announcement, Apple generated incredible global media coverage with their latest product announcement.

So how are they so successful?
I’m sure all over North America executives at Sony, Dell and HP are left scratching their heads, wondering how they can generate this level of product buzz. Paradoxically, Apple’s media success can attributed to their obsession with secrecy. They carefully guard product information announcements and plans until MacWorld. Then the products are demonstrated by Mr. Jobs himself.

It you host it, they will come.
According to the show site, the annual Macworld Conference & Expo is “the world's most comprehensive event for the Mac operating system. Only Macworld brings together the loyal yet diverse base of Mac users in creative services, education, entertainment, application development, enterprise and small office/home office environments.” For Apple fans, it’s one of the few opportunities to hear firsthand about the company’s focus and product priorities for the year ahead.

When Steve talks, people listen...
The keynote address by Steve Jobs (some people wait up to ten hours in line to get a coveted seat to see him), began with a recap of Apple successes from the past year, which focused on the iPhone launch. According to Gartner research, it sold 4 million units in its first 200 days in the US, garnering 20% market share of the smart phone market. Mr. Jobs says this is equal to the smart phone shares of Palm, Nokia and Motorola combined.

The next order of business was a sneak peak of the new TV spots planned for the fall. Then he shared the stage with Intel’s CEO. It was Intel who collaborated with Apple to redesign the core 2 duo processor chipset to fit into the Air’s all aluminum case. After watching the show, what’s undeniable is Steve’s passion for Apple products – he directs their design and knows them intimately. Anyone watching him talk about the iPhone can attest to this.

So, it’s no small feat that in our media saturated world, Apple was successful keeping the MacBook Air out of headlines until they were ready to announce it. These other factors likely played a role too in the product’s coverage:

1. By hosting a ‘one size fits all’ show format, organizers maximized the number of ears and eyes attending.
2. Steve communicated meaningful corporate information to customers so they felt ‘privileged and on the inside track’ with the company, perhaps predisposing them to writing favourably.
3. Apple effectively leveraged blogging and chat room communities to fuel product speculation and buzz leading up to the event.

But the only sure fire way to getting folks to pay attention is to announce something truly new and innovative that we simply didn’t see coming. Apple proved there is power in the element of surprise. Judging by the smiling faces of attendees ogling over the MacBook Air, the surprise was worth waiting for.

From the User Experience Trenches…websites, mobile, IVR – we’ll cover it all!

As a User Experience Expert who lives usability on a daily basis, I thought it would be beneficial to provide the CMA community with some valuable ‘must reads’ – they are all free online posts. Books available for download on user experience (UX) & usability tend to be outdated at best. I promise that my recommendations will always be worth your time and certainly will make an impact on your user experience! I will try to post a blog update every two weeks as the world of UX moves almost as fast as lightning!

So, for January 2008 here are my ‘must reads’ to help you make your digital experiences more consumer friendly and therefore more profitable – one click at a time… enjoy!

Website Usability in a Nutshell
Using a variety of best practice case studies, this paper, “A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Obvious: Web Usability 101” outlines three key design practices for usability and suggests how they can positively impact a company’s bottom line. It also provides concrete guidelines on how to test for website usability on a shoestring budget. The 20 page report is designed to be read and digested in under 20 minutes.

News sites, Large and Small, Can Measure Usability
Through a variety of methods, newspaper professionals can enlist consumers in evaluating their websites' designs. This is a great read if you have a heavy content-based website.
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/080117stewart/

Airline Websites Tested for Usability
A new report from www.webusability.es looks at the usability of several airline websites, including leading budget airlines and two national carriers. A great read for anyone who works on a travel-based website or has a shopping cart!

Also take time to download a brief two page document showing two example usability problems found on many websites. It offers problem descriptions and better yet – solutions!

Searching for Better On-Site Search Usability
This article examines why, not every site needs, nor should have, an on-site search feature (AMEN!) but also why those that do must be sure that the search isn't just an after-thought (PREACH!).

Yours in user-friendliness,
Tara O’Doherty

PS – if you come across any hot reads (only the good stuff please) that you think I should include in my next post do email me at: tara.odoherty@momentum.com

The high price of mail-in rebates

If you have ever gone through the process of sending in a "mail-in rebate" form, you know what level of frustration this can cause.

There is fine print to read, and deadlines to meet. You must remember to include everything that is required, or you will not receive the money. You invest your own time and energy, not to mention the postage stamp. However when you've finally completed all the work, you mail off your forms and expect a cheque back. In most cases you wait 8 weeks at a minimum. 8 weeks in a time when anyone can order almost anything from anywhere and receive it within a week.

I went through this process with a mail-in rebate offer from a major home improvement company. I had to purchase some paint one weekend and decided to go with a particular brand because the nice lady behind the counter suggested that there was a mail-in rebate offer of $20 if I bought 2 cans. Frustrations started when I received a letter back from the mail-in rebate company suggesting I was past the due date. I sent a letter back reminding them that I had sent it in on time and that even the date of their letter was, in fact, within the rebate due date. I received another letter stating that I had not included the correct information. I sent them a letter back reminding them that they had kept my original letter with all the correct information and proof of purchases. I received nothing in response.

I know that retailers "farm out" the mail-in rebate business to third-party fulfillment companies. According to this website the agreements between the two companies have a lot to do with guaranteeing the retailer that no more than a certain percentage of rebates will be mailed in. If there are more actual Customer rebate requests than the guaranteed percentage, the third party company will absorb the refund themselves. This doesn't convince me that these mail-in rebate companies are working in the best interest of the retailer or the Customer.

Retailers rely on the fact that the majority of people do not send in the rebate offer. The retailer gets the sales because of the rebate offer incentive, but is not on the hook for the full rebate amount. We are in an age where Customers are losing their patience and are looking for a retailer that can be open, honest and provide the best experience. There are too many retailers to choose from today. Those that still offer mail-in rebates are putting themselves at risk of losing those Customers in the long run for a quick one-time sale.

Is it worth it? Best Buy has decided it is not. They announced about a year ago that they will phase out all mail-in rebates. They are one of the first major retailers to realize what the rest of us have known for a long time. Mail-in rebates are good for sales in the short term, and bad for business in the long term. The long term plan is to implement the following: when you buy something at Best Buy, the "mail-in rebate" is given to you at the check-out counter. No forms, no proof of purchase requirements, no stamp and no waiting for 3 months to see if an invisible company has deemed your submission to be valid. In the mean time they have made things easier by allowing you to submit a rebate offer online, and track the progress.

If your organization offers mail-in rebates, perhaps it's time to ask your Customers what the cost is to their loyalty?

Under Marketing’s Influence

With marketing now involved in more tasks from cold to close than ever before, it's time to re-examine the potential span of its influence, and in turn how this influence should be pursued and reported up to the higher levels of the organization.

It’s often easy for marketing leaders to become so fixated on having to generate a tangible “lead” with everything they sponsor in order to justify its cost, but this ignores critical areas of influence that must be sponsored, actively driven and measured. The four types of influence include:

Sourced. The generation of an opportunity that can be tracked back to a marketing-sponsored program.

Recycled. Leads that should be recycled back into marketing for additional nurturing/management until they exhibit certain characteristics or behaviors, thus reducing lead waste.

Touched. A hybrid of programs and support designed to help others source and migrate opportunities.

Facilitated. The targeting of and messaging to the sources that are internal or external to an organization that play an advisory (but not final decisionmaking) role at key junctures in a buying cycle.

By changing the paradigm on which we evaluate marketing’s influence, we widen its charter and provide additional opportunities for it to make a difference.

The 2008 Superbowl welcomes women

The Globe and Mail recently published an article about how women's products are going to be featured in advertisements during the superbowl this year. Companies are realizing that women watch sports too (surprise)! This is a huge opportunity for companies to promote products directed towards women, rather then the usual beer and food ads that target men. I am wondering how men are going to respond to these ads? Will it affect viewership? I am interested to see sales results for women's products advertised during the superbowl. It has been proven in past years that products advertised during the superbowl are linked to an increase in sales for that company. Will this prevail for women's products? Men, move over. Companies are making room for women at the 2008 superbowl!

Marketing Campaigns Integrate:How to Make them Great!

I really get a charge out of attending marketing industry events. It’s a great opportunity to meet up with friends, colleagues and clients. At a recent outing, there was one topic that everyone was talking about – in the formal presentations and during informal discussions. The buzz was ‘marketing integration’.

Now, if you’ve been in this industry as long as I have, you too would find this curious; it’s extremely rare that the digital marketing industry achieves complete consensus on any topic. So, I took the time to discuss some specifics on how to successfully integrate marketing campaigns.

Here’s what I concluded after hearing what other industry leaders had to say: there is indeed consensus that the growing complexity in planning, implementing and measuring online/offline marketing campaigns has caused agencies and in-house marketers alike to seek ways to work together ‘smarter’. Specifically, marketers in all industries are looking for ways to:

• Simplify campaign/program administration and coordination;
• Ensure consistency of messages and brand throughout campaigns; and
• Ensure compatibility of evolving online and offline technologies.

All of these goals are laudable (and worth striving for) because they help businesses control their marketing costs and achieve/improve measurable results.

But, integration – i.e. trying to bring all campaign-related suppliers ‘under one roof’ – isn’t required to achieve all of these goals, nor is it a panacea. At ThinData, we have successfully achieved these same goals by taking an approach that can be best described as establishing respected-partnerships. Some of the critical elements of this approach include:

• Strong Project Management. This is one of the cornerstones to success. Clear, concise, and updated instructions that are regularly communicated between suppliers help to prevent confusion and conflict.

• Focus on the Client. Keeping clients actively involved and at the centre of the campaign helps to ensure that their goals – which naturally evolve – remain relevant throughout short- and long-term projects.

• Creating a Safe Learning Environment. Marketers in different agencies have different biases and skill levels. Bringing out the best performance in everyone requires jointly establishing practical ground rules for meetings, communications, acceptable standards and dealing with unexpected contingencies.

Here are some metrics that you can use to determine if integration is working for you and your clients:

Project Metrics – Projects are on time, on budget and run smoothly.

Business Metrics – Reduction in costs and risks regularly associated with project disruptions.

Interpersonal Metrics – Shared enjoyment working with respected partners and jointly discovering opportunities to innovate.

Client Metrics – Clients express their appreciation for working in collaboration throughout projects and regularly contract with you and your respected partners.

By adopting this disciplined approach to integration – as opposed to applying a more traditional method to integrating suppliers – you, along with your clients and respected partners will successfully address campaign complexities and truly thrive.

If, as a member of the interactive and digital marketing community, you have struggled with or overcome the challenges associated with marketing integration, I would be interested in your insights. Send an email to ceo@thindata.com or share with us here on the CMA Blog.

Google my brand

How important is Google to brand building?

If one were to type ‘brand’ into the Google search engine; it brings over 40 pages with 792,000,000 matches. The matches are ranked, so that the most relevant ones come first. But what influences these rankings? Every major company along with non-profit groups are now concerned about their Web reputation and ranking and pay very close attention to that first page of search results. The reputation of a company can be affected by their position on Google and this online presence can in effect, determine the strength of their brand. Google now ranks among the top 10 brands globally and is growing strong. More and more companies are competing for that top rank which in turn will facilitate their on-line brand awareness. So what in reality benefits the company – is it their own online brand experience or is it their presence on Google and hence Google’s method of branding?

The truth is, with the highest market share, the most visitors and the most powerful brand 2007, Google’s brand plays a major role in brand building. Presence on Google more than any other search engine has become a priority for companies, helping justify the strong effect of Google’s brand on individual brands. Investing in Google ad words and selecting your brand name keywords can lead to a boost in awareness and eventual revenue.

In my own business experience, we tested on-line brand building six years ago with Google Ad words, to see if it would increase lead generation for our marketing consulting practice. After twelve-months of paying for on-line advertising, we ceased as not a single new lead was generated through Google. Four years later, we tried again and this time, new business interest multiplied. Our brand awareness increased, new leads multiplied and our marketing investment paid off. This also goes on to show that now consumers/customers have become more trusting of online information which in effect has made superior online presence more valuable.

2008 will bring new dimensions of this shift to online brand awareness building and of course Google will play a key role in it. Although Google will of course be faced with greater online competition itself...not just other search engines but all methods of online brand building.