The Internet is THE marketing channel
Posted: January 18, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Earlier this week I read about how the Internet advertising industry continues to grow at an incredible pace. It’s still smaller than traditional channels such as TV and print but while these channels stagnate, the Internet, it seems is growing like the proverbial weed. This will not surprise anyone in marketing. We all know that fewer people are reading newspapers and sitting down to watch the news on TV. Despite this, many in marketing still view the Internet as just one of several important channels. If anything they view traditional channels as still having the edge. Is this because they still spend large percentages of their budgets on big TV ads that we all avoid with our DVRs? Or is it because we view traditional media as the root of content and the Internet as merely a convenient distribution channel? Whatever the reason I’d suggest such thinking is outdated. The Internet is, in my book, now officially king. Youth audiences view the Internet as their primary source of content to the point where they almost ignore traditional forms of media. Even older audiences, thanks to smartphones and tablets, are now turning to the Internet as their first point of content consumption. Think about it. When did you last use a physical newspaper as a real source of news content? Today’s news is real time and completely digital. We simply don’t wait for the printed word anymore. TV still plays a role on major news items like the death of Osama Bin Laden but even there the Internet helps us get deeper perspective and raw content. But the Internet offers more than just content delivery. The Internet has become a fabulous research tool, enabling us to price and quality check products and services in ways that were unimaginable a decade ago. The Internet now handles the sales and support of a large number of products and in some cases has revolutionized whole industries – music, books and video being obvious examples.
All of this shows that the Internet has become an incredibly important channel for businesses, governments and other organizations. But my belief that the Internet is now THE marketing channel is perhaps best illustrated by imagining a day where the Internet was shut down. Just think about how difficult it would be if you could not use the web, email and VOIP? It would be catastrophic for some businesses to lose the Internet for just a day. Imagine if it went away altogether? Replacing the role the Internet plays in commerce is hard to imagine. We now use the Internet to drive so many aspects of our business. Again, though it shocks me that so many people in marketing are not viewing the Internet as king. From where I sit, the Internet is THE marketing channel and the sooner people start putting the Internet first in their marketing plans the better. The disappearance of newspapers would be sad and irritating but we’d survive. Losing cable or satellite TV would in some cases be desirable. I for one could live without Judge Judy and Oprah for a very, very long time. But if you unplug even a portion of the Internet, commerce would grind to a halt and democracy would take a huge blow. So when you next sit down to write that marketing plan on your computer or tablet, make sure the first thing you work on is how to harness the full potential of the Internet. It’s a fabulous place that, while not perfect, quite simply rules.
Has Apple changed the game with Siri?
Posted: October 5, 2011 Filed under: Apple, search | Tags: iPhone 4S, New types of content, Search, Siri 3 Comments »Few will have missed the unveiling of the iPhone 4S. Central to the launch was the introduction of a voice activated assistant which allows users of the phone to talk to it and get information or perform commands. Questions such as “do I have any meetings on Friday afternoon?” change the way we think about a mobile phone. I use my smartphone as a communication device and as a source for information but even with a highly visual interface I don’t really enjoy searching for content on it. It’s just not a big enough form factor. Voice commands change all that. By simply talking to it, I can get the information without having to type it several 
times. I think voice will change the way we use smartphones but also what kind of content we access. The old adage that only get what you ask for applies. When we type we express ourselves very differently from when we talk, so what we get back is different. It’s the difference between calling someone to ask a question and emailing them. We get subtly different content. I’ve no real idea where this takes us but I’m pretty sure that we’ll see an explosion in news types of content that voice driven requests will create. As someone yesterday suggested, imagine using the voice command to enable your phone to talk to someone in another language. An instant translator if you like. Lastly, voice commands pushes natural language searching miles forward and as we know, when we improve search we improve what we find. When we improve what we find, people get very rich…
PR PROs should drive insight not just news
Posted: September 1, 2011 Filed under: News, PR, Twitter | Tags: Insight, news, PR, pr consultants 3 Comments »PR agencies do more than drive news BUT they do tend to focus on the news cycle a great deal for obvious reasons. Yet PR has to recognize that the way we consume news has changed drastically in the last five years. Five years ago people had a primary news source, either via broadcast or a daily newspaper. Today they have a broad array of news sources that includes these same outlets, albeit online, but also includes bloggers, friends and people they follow on Twitter or are connected to on LinkedIn. In such a fragmented market for information it is harder for companies to control their message. This makes it far more important that companies determine the insight they want the news to create, which in will in turn drive the way they engage with the brand. Yet all too often companies are so focussed on how to best to get the news out that they spend little, if any, time on what the news means and what they expect the people who should be connected to that news to do as a result. In a world where we are drowning in information, the brand that goes the extra mile and helps us figure out how to make use of that information will win. For PR agencies this means changing the way we think about the news cycle. We need to work with our clients to make sure they understand the real and or desired implications of the news they want to promote. There’s an old saying – there’s no such thing as bad news. Perhaps PR consultants should worry less about the news and more about the insight. Insight drives behaviors and actions and without these a client may well wonder why they engaged with you in the first place.
EBAY IS A MEASURE OF BRAND VALUE
Posted: June 14, 2011 Filed under: brands, eBay, Measurement | Tags: brand value, eBay, measure 1 Comment »
There are lots of ways to measure brand value. For marketers it’s a very important metric, which is why they often end up spending large amounts of money trying to measure it. It occurred to me yesterday that, while not perfect, eBay provides a very good way to measure the value of a brand. This thought sprang from the fact that the Blackberry Playbook is already being sold at a discount on eBay. For a product that has only just been launched this speaks volumes for the current state of the Blackberry brand. Indeed eBay can give you a very accurate read on consumer sentiment towards the ‘value’ of a brand through this kind of price analysis. eBay can go further though. The site gives you a clear sense of the popularity of a product both by the volume of products being sold and by the number of bids on each product. Lastly it gives you a measure for the reliability of a brand. Search on digital cameras and you will find a host of ‘broken’ items. If you were to tally the number of broken items as a percentage of those for sale by brand you would a) demonstrate what a sad geek you were and b) get a read on how reliable that product was. I’m sure people with more brainpower and time than I have could come up with a host of other eBay metrics that would help derive the value of brands. At the very least though, I would highly recommend that marketers scour eBay to get a sense of the competition and of the community around their or their clients’ products.
How many Fortune 100 CEOs use Facebook or Twitter?
Posted: June 6, 2011 Filed under: CEO rankings, Facebook, Twitter | Tags: CEOs, Facebook, Fortune 100, Twitter 2 Comments »
Back in 2009 the numbers were very small. Only two used Twitter or Facebook. Two years later and things have improved dramatically, well at least in percentage terms. Based on our latest research, just four Fortune 100 CEOs have Twitter feeds and while the total number of Facebook users approaches 700 million, just nine Fortune 100 CEOs make some use of Facebook accounts. The four using Twitter are:
Warren Buffett – Berhsire Hathaway – @WEBuffett
Michael Dell – Dell Computer – @michaeldell
Brian Dunn – Best Buy – @BBYCEO
Craig Herkert – Supervalu – @herkc
When it companies to the companies themselves it is a very different story. All but 19 of the Fortune 100 companies have Twitter feeds and almost all the CMOs do. What is interesting is that Apple has no Twitter feed, nor does its CEO while CMO was recently lauded for his use of Twitter. Jobs also has no presence on Facebook. The absence of top CEOs on Twitter may seem surprising to some. These CEOs would likely all attract large followings and could use their accounts to add to the company’s personality through their tweets or Facebook updates. The challenge seems to be one of time and priorities for many. What several rightly want to avoid is have a ghosted twitter account. If they are going to tweet they want to be the ones doing it. Ghost tweets (tweets written by someone in their team on their behalf) lack authenticity and may in some cases give the impression they have too much time on their hands – not something investors would like to think.
So while I think the number of CEOs who tweet is bound to rise, especially as younger CEOs take over from today’s generation, I suspect it will be a long time before even half the top CEOs are tweeting. Twitter, Groupon, Zynga and several other companies will likely have gone public by the time we get to anything approaching a high percentage. Until then, you can continue to follow the fake Steve Jobs tweets like the one shown above. Who knows, their tweets may prove more interesting, even if they’re not very accurate.
It would be easy to view the low CEO numbers as a sign that all is not well in social marketing. Quite the contrary. Indeed it’s great to see the number of businesses that have embraced Facebook and Twitter at other levels. These social networks are now used to engage with a host of different stakeholders from customer, though investors to analysts. Indeed the level to which brands are now engaging online communities is staggering and goes a long way to explain why traditional forms of media are fighting for survival. So while Fortune 100 CEOs may be taking things very slowly, the businesses they oversee are most definitely not.
Microsoft shows Apple it can innovate with Windows 8
Posted: June 1, 2011 Filed under: Apple, Microsoft | Tags: Apple, d9, Microsoft, Windows 8 1 Comment »
Apple has been grabbing all the innovation headlines with the iPhone and the iPad and its iMac business has benefitted in the process. Microsoft showed off Windows 8 at D9 today and in so doing showed the world that markets are always open to those who innovate. Windows 8 has a completely different look and feel to the current operating system. Gone is the start button and the icons for apps. Instead the new version will use live tiles. These will be familiar to those who use a current generation of Windows phone. Indeed this is part of what makes Windows 8 so clever. It shares the same interface across mobile and PC, meaning you learn one way to find and access content. It also makes it easier to share content between systems. To get a good feel for Windows 8 see the demo on YouTube. Windows 8 looks very cool and may well be the kind of innovation that will draw Mac users back to the Windows platform. It also demonstrates why Nokia may have chosen to go the Windows route for its mobile products. I love it when you can actually see innovation and with Windows 8 that innovation is not just visible it’s also screaming at you.
Is the PR pitch process back to front?
Posted: May 11, 2011 Filed under: pitching new business | Tags: back to font, backwards, pitch process, PR 2 Comments »PR agencies know the ropes. You get invited to pitch for a certain account against other firms. You then throw a ton of time and effort into it. At some point it becomes clear that you’ve been chosen by the internal team and then you are passed over to procurement to ‘dot the Is and cross the Ts.’ In most cases that process is also quite familiar. Procurement comes with a huge list of things they want agencies to give up (most of them involve some form of discount). Now most procurement departments are quite reasonable while some push things to the limit. I don’t really blame them, after all it’s their job. But what this can result in is a situation where you simply can’t accept the terms the procurement people are seeking and you have to walk away. This is frustrating for everyone concerned. Should we therefore consider negotiating the contract and financial terms before pitching? I appreciate that may mean more work for procurement as they may have to try and negotiate with all the potential vendors. However, they could also simply say these are our terms and if you accept them you can pitch. If you don’t then you should withdraw now. Such an approach would save everyone a LOT of time and money and would result in clients only getting pitches from people willing to accept their terms. As I say, I have nothing against procurement departments being aggressive. Again, it’s their job to get the best deal for their business. What is frustrating for the agency is this notion that if you win the pitch that you should then be prepared to sign up to terms that don’t work for your business. To be clear, this post doesn’t relate to a certain pitch we’ve been involved in. In truth it related to several that have taken place in the last few months. Just want to propose a better way for client and the agency to get engaged.
