There seems to be a growing tension in the world of social media!

Almost every client brief now asks how we would place brands within the social environment. And I find myself questioning if there really is a place for every, or even any brand, within our personal pages online?

Aren’t the likes of Facebook and Twitter the realm of mates rather than marketing, of chat instead of commerce, of sharing, not shopping?

Perhaps it is for these very reasons that brands are so keen to be part of the social sphere? Marketing managers doubtless recognise this ‘emotional’ environment as very different from the “rational” destinations they create for their own brands online. They no doubt also note their own changed state of mind, when looking at their Facebook pages or writing their latest Tweet? These are times when we are all off-duty, open-minded, less cynical and potentially more receptive.

As an agency, we DO believe there is a place for brands within the social sphere, but only if a certain mindset and approach is applied:

• social media is a personal, emotional space – standard advertising and promotion isn’t appropriate
• context and personalisation are key, relating to users, their likes and dislikes, preferably on an individual basis, are likely to engage and, therefore, succeed
• considering and involving friends and groups is a powerful way to achieve relevant and timely interest
• overall, this is a pretty intolerant space – ‘road-blocking’ or ’spamming’ is guaranteed to create a negative brand reaction

In summary, our belief is that there is no problem combining brand messages with our personal spaces, as long as sensitivity and care are used.

Playing devil’s advocate now, allowing advertiser access to our beloved social media sites may be a necessity anyway! Facebook, Twitter and other social spaces operate under generally unsustainable revenue models today. Inviting brands to get more involved may be the only way we can hold on to these sites we have become so attached to.

Indeed, it would appear that Facebook’s recent news about imminent profitability is heavily driven by The Gift Shop, Facebook Connect, and other ways brands can engage on a deeper, better informed level with consumers, as opposed to monetisation of display advertising alone.

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I really believe Ford has an opportunity to clean up here in the US. First, it’s more than likely that (at least) one of the other BIG 3 will go out of business and second, Ford has had this amazing, innovation base in it’s European franchizes. BEtween the two major development centers in Spain and the UK, Ford Europe has been pumping out fantastic cars and is, subsequently, seen as a quality brand. No, not as high as BMW, Audi, etc. but taking a step down, you would be looking at Ford. Boasting an amazing range to suit every need and budget, and with world beaters such as Focus RS, one of the meanest hot hatches around, Ford have an arsenal that none of the other Detroit manufacturers can truly compete with. And now it seems, they’re also rethinking their advertising and marketing philosophy. Maybe having financial hardship is a good thing for Ford!

Tameka Kee reported a campaign they’re running which is test to test the limits of social media branding:

“Later this month, it will hand over the branding and promotion duties for the car to 100 twenty-somethings who have no advertising experience.

Ford is giving each of them a Fiesta to drive around; recipients range from award-winning indie filmmakers, to single moms, to aspiring dancers, and even avid gamers, and they’ll document their experiences with the car through YouTube vignettes, blog posts and other social media updates for six months. The kicker is that Ford will have no control over what they post, meaning the effort could ultimately end up tarnishing the brand almost a year before it hits U.S. dealerships.”

But it’s a risk Ford has to take—since it’s in a fight (to the death?) to attract young, tech-savvy consumers that may have never thought about buying a domestic car before. The company believes that traditional marketing won’t sway this demographic.”

I really  think it’s a risk worth taken and definitely, highly calculated. The Fiesta platform has always tested well in Europe and often won “Best Small Car” awards, so the only thing to get over is the US perception that bigger is better – something that, again, is changing rapidly. The success of Mini and the surprising uptake of the Smart car is proof that attitudes are changing and it’s time for brands to experiement and discover the reall challenges and opportunites with online engagements. Time to move away from just doing funky, promotion-based micro sites and start considering the long tail of web marketing.

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According to numbers put out by eMarketer growth in the online coupon market is growing rather rapidly, infact as much as 32% from October to November.

In a rough economy, frugal shoppers are turning to coupons. comScore’s “State of the US Online Retail Economy: Q3 2008” report said that 62% of responding US consumers who were decreasing their shopping expenses in October 2008 were using coupons more often to do so—the third-most-popular strategy.

Certainly this not surprising considering the disintegration of the economy – but it’s also a good tip for anyone looking to drive traffic for their products/services. Standing alongside brand campaigns giveaways, coupons, competitions, sweepstakes etc. have proven to be a very compelling call to action offering real calculable return on investment. Currently, this kind of activity is making up a significant portion of the online marketing and advertising campaigns we’re running for some of our clients.

Personally, I love sweepstakes especially simple ones where participants are required to do nothing more than offer their contact info and refer a few friends – check out Flavorpill’s latest here.

“The rough economy has motivated consumers to become more resourceful in how they use the Internet to research potential online and in-store purchases,” said eMarketer senior analyst Jeffrey Grau. “The future looks bright for coupon sites as financially strapped consumers rely on the Internet to stretch their dollars.”

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Towards the end of 2008 I actively avoided reading any of the many predictions for 2009, most of them spelling out apocalyptic doom for the economy, for New York, the US and in deed the entire world. OK, OK – it is bad and is going to be bad but I believe that much of what we will experience will be the transformation of life as we know it. I’ll not get all existentialist, so I’ll focus on advertising/marketing shall I?

Knee jerk reactions tend to do the worst damage and every sensible person/company out there will realize that we still need to sell. That the vast majority of people still need products and services, albeit more effective, efficient and now more ‘green’, and the way we need to speak to this more demanding audience must also be lean and mean. Ten years ago we were enjoying life in the dot.com bubble as digital marketing began to enter the paradigm but it’s only been since the last bust and really, I believe, during 2008 that it has begun to take shape. In our industry we live among a an audience (our clients) relentlessly fixated on accountability. And so they should be and so can we provide and satisfy. Vague, illusionistic formulas for calculating ROI from traditional media will not cut the mustard during a troubled economy and, I believe, will not do so when we return to a stronger fiscal situation. Times are certainly changing. Whilst many companies are being forced into making redundancies, there seems to be many who are slashing head-count whilst reporting (still growing) profits – this might wreak of (traditional media) companies taking advantage of a convenient smoke-screen to shed weight in favor of people with more digital savvy.

The numbers for the close of the year point to good, not stellar, but decent months for all who can truly take advantage of the shift in the marketing mix and offer their clients something undeniably of value – real accountability. Media consultant and futurist, Jack Myers says it perfectly: “The best we can do is deal with reality…and not put our heads in the sand and just do what we have in the past. We need to see what is driving the most return-on-investment and identify where we think the communications business is going.”

Reports showing growth in display ads, search marketing, online video (which shows massive growth) and email, with all or a mix displaying value in both direct ROI to brand building, suggest that companies such as Last Exit, should have a good year and more importantly, that we guide our clients to plan, invest and deploy their marketing communications more (cost) effectively and establish new strategies for a new era.

So, with the digital fad finally over and the internet coming of age, it’s time get on with business in a new, new (media) world.

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If only it was 1999 again!  They were the days for digital innovation and creativity!

Back in the early days of digital media you could describe the times something like this:

• It was a frontier time for digital
• Client and agency focus was on creating innovation and firsts
• Clients were growing in confidence, but more importantly felt brave
• All efforts were focussed on creating user experience and impact
• There were high levels of creativity and opportunity within the medium
• There was a wide variety seen across final websites, making brand activity distinctive and memorable
• Agency teams were very young, wild-eyed and full of unbridled enthusiasm
• Dot-com finance was in full flow, helping to build digital exposure and adoption

Given all of this, things must really be fantastic ten years on then right?

Well maybe they are and maybe they aren’t?

Taking each of the points above one by one and comparing them with things as we approach 2009 you might describe things like this:

• Digital media is an established and key part of the marketing mix
• The focus is now on effectiveness and workman-like delivery within projects
• Client belief and confidence is high, but many fear ‘breaking any moulds’
• Most efforts are now focussed on DDA compliance, Search Engine Optimisation and Content Management
• Subsequently there are limited levels of creativity and innovation
• There is now quite limited variation across sites making branding more about the logo than about functional innovation or distinctiveness
• Agency teams are now older and far less wide-eyed, particularly at management level
• Dot-com is now a dirty word as opposed to an investment opportunity

Perhaps these things are not just true within the digital arena? Perhaps the same could be said for TV advertising and other types of media? The proliferation of digital channels and global or pan-European advertising  campaigns certainly seems to have had an effect on the creativity and sensitivity used when making TV spots.

All this sounds very negative but the reality is that there is as much opportunity, creativity and enthusiasm as there ever was, if not more, as long as you know where to look for it!

There may be some limitations to the amount of creativity on offer in the business to consumer area but in the business to business arena creative opportunities have never been better. In addition, whilst advertising on TV may be being dummed-down they field of online advertising still offers great opportunities to experiment, innovate and differentiate.

Google Analytics and other web statistics packages have greatly increased client interest, understanding and enthusiasm for the details of any digital activity – the ‘black art’ has finally seem some light and the ‘new’ has eventually been taken away from new media. Even the huge focus now directed towards Search Engine Optimisation has its benefits. Online content used to be largely inappropriate having often been ’stolen’ from elsewhere in the marketing department, as opposed to being created from scratch, but the importance of SEO now means far more attention is paid to the creation of online content, particularly in the written word.

Although the huge sums of money invested, even ‘thrown at’, any dot-com idea ten years back, certainly helped to grow consumer awareness of digital media, the checks and balances in place today mean that the days of ‘www.buy-pet-food-online.com’ are thankfully gone.  Projects in new online-only industries today, such as social networking, are with serious, diligent, experienced and committed clients as opposed to the ‘three mates from college’ teams so often ‘in charge’ of things back in the late 1990s!

Even within the core area of website design itself, there is exciting news. Developments in technology like PaperVision3D are once again encouraging clients and agencies alike to create online experiences, as opposed to just online services. In addition, the open-source roots of PaperVision, and other browser extensions, is creating as vibrant and innovative a space ‘behind the scenes’ as it is on the ‘main stage’.

There is no doubt that times have changed over the last 10 years or so, but surely the reality is that they have changed for the better, when one considers the details? Sure the late 1990’s were exciting, gold-rush, frontier-land times, but the mine is now built and it is time to start getting some of that gold out onto the open market!

I have been ‘lucky’ enough to experience both of these ‘digital decades’, and on balance I prefer the one we are in now!

Am I right, or am I just getting old?

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James Bond - 007 returns in Quantum of Solace

The latest Bond flick Quantam of Solace has just opened. I know this because I read a pamphlet about the development of the Ford Ka (a car so small Americans would be able to fit it in the trunk of their vehicles). The Ka is featured in the movie – in return for no small fee.

This got me thinking about products ‘placed’ in films and TV shows – no doubt a very good way to reach your audience. But how do we marketing folk know if a product has been selected because it is right for the character, or simply because of the fee received? I must confess to being rather more susceptible than the average bear to buying stuff I see on the screen, so now I am in something of a quandary. I love my BMW’s but even I winced when the Z3 served as Mr Bond’s wheels. Authenticity goes a long way and as I advance in years I find myself thinking rather fondly of the days when Aston Martin would lend the cars to the filmmakers. At least you knew where you were then.

The only car maker that is above the fray is that slice of British eccentric car making called Bristol. They won’t allow the press to drive their cars and if you’d like to own one you are interviewed first. James May, an equally eccentric host of Top Gear, a motoring show on the BBC, was recently turned down. How refreshing, if slightly quaint.

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According to latest reports from Cisco, video currently generates more traffic in the US than was transmitted across the entire Internet backbone in 2000. Even though video online collapsed for a short while after the internet bubble burst, the technology, bandwidth and desire to watch video online has bounced right back and this time, it’s no bubble.

Additional research is showing that people, and in particular, young men, are moving their entertainment centers to their computers and watching content online: what they want, when they want it. Along with the heightened experience, data shows that users/viewers are watching longer segments than before, further enforcing the idea that the computer is fast becoming a viable and desirable entertainment device. Interestingly, these migrants from TV to internet are much more accepting of inline ads (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll).

Content developers and other people involved i the traditional TV industry still argue against the ‘a la carte model’ and online remains to poor cousin. Despite of lower quality compression for online, people are voting with their feet and marching straight to their computers to watch only the (quality) shows they want to watch at time that suit them.

In my opinion, the advertising opportunities are far great here as we can truly create a targeted ad model against a medium that affords us 100% accountability. What’s not to love, eh?

Rather than preaching about why computers, internet and pay per view / a la carte are the future, I want to redirect my observations and questions to the delivery mechanisms themselves and the skill behind programming. For me, there are two things that must carry over from TV to our smaller screens:

1. Programming: I truly believe that web 2.0 has forgotten an important part of passive viewing, listening. We watch TV and used to listen to radio because we trusted the presenters, programmers, DJs to introduce us to something we might not have found by ourselves or via our peer groups. We need to re-introduce an element of programming and taste along with the content we create. Portals such as YouTube are good at what they do, but a vast majority of users only ever view content that is sent to them by the (much smaller) group of people who create or crawl. So much of YouTube’s audience is highly ephemeral and the related videos stream manages to capture the casual user for, perhaps, one more viewing.

My assertion here is that we need to find a new device for keeping people at the new sites/entertainment portals we create and the first part of this is a new approach to programming, perhaps though targeted content based on user profiles/behaviour. Pretty similar to how traditional programming is currently done on TV.

2. Interface Design: in response to this new targeted content, advertising and programming model we need to develop new GUIs for watching video that allow people to interact with the device in a simplified, more linear fashion. We still need to offer tools for customization, search, sharing etc. for the smaller percentage of more active people, but we must identify the elements that will keep people viewing longer and enjoy the experience more.

Apple does their part with the constant development of video codecs and even adobe with their Flash video platform is coming on leaps and bounds in terms of higher quality whilst maintaining, seemingly unfeasible, small file sizes. HD content is cropping up more and more to make our high pixel density screens sing and 5.1 surround sound is a reality. So, for 2009 I think we need to see video line take a different path to the less effective web 2.0 approaches we’ve seen so far.

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We all have some sense of the extent online research for product purchases and recent research in the US shows that 6/10 people make the internet their first choice for research items ultimately purchased in the brick-and-mortar-store. More an dmore retailers, therefore, are eliminating web-exclusive prices or extending them to instore pricing.

Some stores such as Staples, are offering kiosks where shoppers can peruse their websites and garner product information and reviews. The opportunity this offers is an ‘infinite aisle’, where shoppers are exposed to the stores full inventory regardless of what the store might currently have n stock. In response to this, it’s interesting to note that loss of sales to competitors due to stockouts measures $93 billion in 2008. Two reasons to have kiosks in store: 1) offer more information and empower your customers and 2) avoid losing customers.

The question this beckons is whether response policies, particularly regarding shipping and handling, need to be in place to ensure that custom is not lost, even with the ‘infinite aisle’ and, perhaps perhaps more importantly, whether retailers should consider how their website are planned and designed to allow easy or even seamless transition to an in-store kiosk application environment. The users extended cognitive architecture is completely different in this situation and as we research the psychographics as part of determining site strategy, instore browsing and researching probably should be properly taken into account.

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The lead article in todays Ad Age Daily news covers, in part, a study examining the effects and possible contribution to the rapidly growing (excuse the pun) obesity epidemic in the US. With particular focus on the African-American community, it suggests that marketing to this group has been squarely focused at fast food chains and not healthier options and complains that in poor neighborhoods all you can find to eat is bad food.

My concern with this kind of research is simple that it doesn’t capture the broader picture, e.g. that fast food, and in particular budget meals at fast food chains, is targeted at poorer people generally not just poorer African Americans. It also makes a very relative and unquantifiable statement, that the marketing “contributes”.

Well, how much does it contribute? Is that contribution 50% contribution to other socio-economical shifts, or is it a tiny/negligible amount?

So, my point, though more of a political one is that we are constantly moving towards a system or blame and lack of responsibility for oneself. Ignorance may have a part to play here: is it McDonalds’ fault if a person picks up a scalding hot coffee from a drive through, places it in her lap and subsequently burns herself as she pulls away? No!  And it’s also probably not their fault when people get fat because they eat McDonalds at every meal (including more than one sandwich, fries and a soda).

Of course I do appreciate that there should be boundaries: I don’t agree with soda drink manufacturers sponsoring schools and planting their vending machines in every vestibule, or misleading advertising. I also agree that we haven’t done enough, particularly in the last 8 years, to resolve our extreme poverty problems here in US, but ultimately, people must take responsibility: to educate themselves (the only way to improve your status) and to keep yourself fit and healthy. You don’t need an Equinox membership to do that.

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According to Bornstein Research, ad dollars being directed to the web by car manufacturers did not fall in Q1 of this year.  The industry has had a rough year and much it has to do with a lack of innovation and sudden panic to play catch up with the rest of the modern world, as I wrote in a previous post.  The good news is, that most of the manufactures and their brands are shifting gears and pushing marketing dollars behind smaller, fuel efficient models.  So, if your agency is currently working with an auto brand (as we are), you should be in good shape.

See the full article at eMarketer.

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