Influential Interactive Marketing

The Word of Blog

Imagine if online media outlets only ran advertising that they agreed with?  Of course, this level of censorship would never be tolerated (or legal), however blogs hold a special distinction when it comes to running advertising.  As a blog owner, you have complete control over what ads you display.  Unfortunately, the most prevalent form of advertising on blogs is Google's Adwords program, which is automatically served through keyword matches.  BlogAds offers more control, but there are still limitations and many ads served are for commercial products (t-shirts, etc.).  Like many bloggers, I consider my blog a valuable place for me to not only try and share some of my thoughts on the world of marketing - but also as a venue to help to promote services or ideas that I believe in.  What about bloggers who want to spread the word about something they believe in, but don't necessarily have the right fit to make a blog post about it?

I came across an intriguing eAdvocacy site several weeks ago called the Word of Blog.  The mission of the site is described as:

Word of Blog enables blog owners to spread ideas and influence throughout the blogosphere, promote causes or services that they believe in, recommend products and organizations they like, and create communities of like-minded blog owners, all through blog word of mouth.

The site offers a listing of small banners and HTML code to be pasted onto your blog site to tell users about a particular cause or website.  The Word of Blog team cleverly includes a link below each banner driving users back to their own website, effectively branding every banner as part of their network.  What I love about this idea is that it delivers on the promise of the Internet from the 90s to be the great leveler, allowing smaller companies to finally compete with larger ones.  Now small nonprofits can reach out to bloggers and receive help in driving traffic on topics they both care about.  It's a great example of how the power of word of mouth marketing and consumer generated media can be amplified by simply making eAdvocacy and marketing messages available for use on blogs hosted by those who believe in those messages.

The Window of Suckiness

Google has mastered the power of the Beta release.  They have equated the term "Beta" with the idea of exclusivity so strongly that to be invited by Google to become a Beta tester of a service is the ultimate sign you are a technology insider.  Other online services themselves have Beta testers - and in each case it is a focal feedback point for developers of new products or services to learn about the flaws and weaknesses in their products before launching, as well as building buzz prior to releasing.  But aside from this valuable feedback, there is another reason Beta testing is so important -- not only for online services, but also for other many other industries ... the window of suckiness (the time a anything can exist in the marketplace while temporarily sucking) is decreasing.

For example, between five and ten years ago a Hollywood release could depend on a big opening weekend to recoup the majority of the production costs - before word really got out that the movie was crap.  Now people find out almost instantly through online reviews, SMS and word of mouth from friends and family.  The window is disappearing.  Similarly, blogs and consumer generated media are allowing individuals to have a far more vocal voice about their opinions on what's good and what's bad on practically every product or service out there.  This is not a post about the power of blogs to spread negative information.  Rather, I think it illustrates just how powerful the online world has become in helping influential thoughts spread from person to person faster.  Opinions travel farther now in less time, regardless of whether they are good or bad. 

So with this vanishing window of suckiness, is it ever ok to release something unfinished and ask for feedback?  Does the beta version have to be good?  Not necessarily, but what I believe this means is that honesty is becoming even more important as a key part of any release.  If you are going to ask for feedback on something that is not quite finished, tell your customers that's what you are doing.  Don't be afraid to promise improvement, or share your knowledge that there are some kinks still to be worked out.  The only way to deal with the window of suckiness is to be open with your target audience about it's existence -- and your dedication to closing the window as soon as possible.

NY Times Admires Brand Bloggers & Consumer Evangelists

In a presentation I gave last week, I spoke about the passion that many people feel about their technology choices as a key reason why our technology clients who are not aggressively pursuing a blogging strategy need to tap into this conversation.  Of course, passion can be positive or negative and being in the world of public relations, many of our competitors have focused on the risks of blogs.  They drive their client advice from a crisis management point of view, developing terms like the "determined detractor" to characterize individuals bent on destroying your company and encouraging clients to get involved in the blogosphere as a strategy to minimize this risk.

Is there risk in the open conversations taking place on blogs?  Without doubt.  The problem with blogging for crisis management is that it fosters the fear many communications professionals hold of giving up control of their message.  As a result, it ignores the most powerful potential of blogs and other forms of consumer generated media ... providing a voice for your brand enthusiasts, and letting them speak loudly.  In today's NY Times, Tania Ralli explores the idea brand bloggers - individuals who feel so passionately about a brand that they write about it, share their view and often serve as a brand's most compelling ambassadors.  She writes:

Most consumers are searching for unbiased opinions, a niche that blogs can fill. A testimonial from one blogger can speak directly to readers in a way advertising does not.

As more and more of our clients begin to realize this, communications agencies like us will need to develop stronger and smarter ways of helping each client to understand the value these brand enthusiasts bring, do what we can to help them (transparently) and then step back, shut up and let them have their say.

Technorati Tags: Branding, Advertising, Consumer Evangelists, Interactive Marketing

BLOG = Better Listing On Google

Shawn Gold shared this great soundbite at the AdTech conference in Chicago more than a month ago, and it stuck with me as a wonderful distillation of what many bloggers and non-bloggers have already noticed ... search engines love blogs.  In a way, the structure of blogs is a throwback to the days of academia where hyperlinks brought the ability to connect disparate sources of content, and relevance rankings were developed based on the quantity and quality of these links.  The modern (and more complex) search algorithms, in part, came when cross linking could no longer be used as the sole metric for relevance.  Sites were not relevant because they linked to many others and others linked to them.  The Nike.com site was relevant for the keyword "shoes" because they sold shoes and because people were seeking the site, even if no one linked to it.  For many years, hyperlinks were on a slow spiral towards obsolesence as navigation became the most important element of interface design (the hundreds of books on information architecture over the last five years prove this point).

With the rise of blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, folksonomy and many other growing elements of this new media landscape, the importance of hyperlinks is once again on the rise.  Technorati changed their ranking structure recently, giving many bloggers a big jump in their readership stats almost overnight, partly due to the fact that more importance were given to hyperlinks into and out of content.  While many bloggers used to ask to be added to a blogroll -- now trackbacks have become the new standard of acceptance (at least for business blogs).  This symbolizes the increasingly interdependent view of the Internet, where the value of content is determined by how valuable the rest of the Internet population thinks that content is.  It is a self selecting model where often the best content or sites will rise to the top.  The best thing about the Internet startup days of the 90s was that a small company could easily compete with a big one by focusing online.  Blogs offer the modern equivalent, often bumping far larger and more corporate sites further down the Google page listings.  For our clients concerned about their Google page rankings, entering the blogosphere in some way may be more than a smart move.  It may be a necessity.

The Storyteller Instinct at We Media

Attending the We Media conference last week, one key theme began to emerge for me from the many insightful panels  -- that the "storyteller instinct" is the driving force behind much of the change happening in the media industry today.  Consumer generated media, in large part, is driven by individuals' need to tell their stories.  For a long time now (for better or worse) reporting has been more about telling a story than about reporting on fact.  Good marketers and salespeople tell stories that consumers want to believe. 

The instinct itself is not new - storytelling as a form of keeping history has been a key part of many native cultures across the world.  But as the We Media event showed, the difference today comes from the diversity of voices that are now able to add their stories into the previously closed world view of "mainstream media"  (the Global Voices blog remains my favourite example of this).  As people continue to read blogs, use RSS feed aggregators and selectively seek out new stories and new forms of media - the dangers for mainstream media to grow obsolete are ever present. 

The even greater danger many panelists in the conference from the media side noted, however, was the rise of the "comfortable cocoon" (as termed by Andrew Heyward of CBS News) - where people only consume a narrow band of information and never expand their world view.  This is the phenomenon which may present the greatest challenge to the media industry in the coming years.  Given the breadth of content and rise in technologies which allow us to filter our media choices - what we may really be facing is the death of debate.  The challenge for the media industry in the coming years will be to keep the collaborations and conversations happening.      

Sneak Preview: Ogilvy PR BlogFeeds

As part of our sponsorship of tomorrow's WE Media Conference in New York, we started thinking about how we could offer something of value to the conference attendees beyond a typical brochure about our services. The conference aims to explore the ways in which new forms of communication are changing the way that we converse with one another.  Blogs are vital to that conversation, but with nearly 20 million blogs indexed on Technorati - a key challenge for all of us (particularly the ones less familiar with blogs and blogging) is knowing what to read and what to dismiss.  What is influential?

The Ogilvy PR BlogFeeds which we are distributing and publicizing at the conference tomorrow are an attempt for us to share a list of blogs that we consider influential ... the ones that members of our teams in multiple disciplines across the agency are reading.  The feeds are currently offered in ten different categories, with plans to add more over time.  The Beta version of all feeds are online right now, with final version to be launched later today:

• Advocacy - http://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com/advocacy/
• Business-to-Business - http://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com/b2bblogs/
• Business-to-Consumer - http://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com/b2cblogs/
• Branding - http://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com/branding/
• CEO - http://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com/ceo/
• Health - http://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com/health/
• Ideas - http://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com/ideas/
• Marketing - http://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com/marketing/
• Politics - http://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com/politics/
• Technology - http://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com/tech/

Obviously we can't include every blog on each feed - but have a look and let us know if there are some big influential ones that you think we might have missed.  We're always open to suggestions ...

Also, below is a sample of the card that will be given to all conference attendees tomorrow:

The New Game of TV Marketing

A rising trend with the coming fall lineup for US TV networks is the desire and necessity to make shows more interactive.  Though the leap of making all show content available online seems a stretch for most shows (FOX's Reunion being a notable exception), legions of shows are using non-traditional ways to deepen their relationships with show viewers this season.  The Simpsons publishes podcasts with episode summaries through iTunes.  Entire season DVDs are out within 12 months of airing.  Lost is working with Entertainment Weekly on an integrated campaign to deliver cards informing about backstories for characters.  All the while, supplanting more traditional online banner advertising, on-air promos and episode trailers and show-related websites.  But unlike the past, TV show marketers is no longer focusing on a one way message.

For many years now, there have been message boards for show fans -- but now TV shows are starting to encourage and capitalize on them.  Last year several cast members of Lost were active contributers to fan message boards.   MediaPost reports today that a growing number of shows are choosing the BlogAds network to connect with potential show watchers and influencers.  And it helps that marketers are not *exclusively* promoting the same old shows either.  Content is getting better (due in no small part to the shrinking popularity of reality TV).  Movie stars are "defecting" to TV including Geena Davis, Chris O'Donnell, Kiefer Sutherland, Melanie Griffith, Dennis Hopper, Benjamin Bratt, Freddie Prinze, Jr. just to name a few. 

The bottom line is, even as experts predict it's Tivo-assisted demise, some TV marketers seems to be getting smarter about what it takes to engage an audience.  Fantasy Football helped the NFL to deepen it's connection to fans in a powerful way.  The use of new marketing ideas during the leadup to the new TV season echoes of achieving the same goal.   TV can be a popular driver of consumer generated media - and the more shows that recognize and tap into this - the more chance TV has of surviving greatly exaggerated reports of it's death.

BridgeBlogging for Social Awareness

The launch and initial success of Current TV is just one of the many new manifestations of this idea of citizen journalists who are augmenting, and some would argue, overtaking traditional media in terms of credibility in reporting real life as it happens.  Aside from empowering individuals and growing from its small and dedicated audience base, the network also symbolizes the potential power of consumer generated media to affect social change through accomplishing the first hurdle in this process: raising awareness.  Indeed, raising awareness is something that has become a forte for the web and for blogs in particular.  Through the intersection of search, email, cross linking, personalization and the trackback nature of blogs, ideas can spread from individuals to hundreds of thousands of others.  None of this is new - however an interesting emerging category in eAdvocacy blogs (grouped through their intention to influence on social issues) is the BridgeBlog. 

As a Harvard sponsored site Global Voices notes, "Bridge blogs” are blogs from a country or region that speak to a global audience.  In particular, the intention of the index they are building is described below:

This index, as it grows will be a resource for people who want to understand what's going on in different parts of the world from a personal perspective, as well as a journalistic or encyclopedic perspective. We hope this will be a resource for the mainstream media as they look for local voices to expand coverage in parts of the world they routinely fail to cover, as well as for individuals.

The Global Voices index of Bridge Blogs is different to Current TV, or a number of similar citizen journalist sites out there in that it aims to become a resource for traditional media - representing an underutilized opportunity of blogs to influence traditional media directly, rather than to compete with it.  This is the true promise of Bridge Blogs - to connect the sometimes irreverant conversation in the blogosphere to the arguably still influential world of mainstream media.  The more blogs out there that can fit this category, the more influential (ital.) blogs will truly become.

BlogDay2005

Yesterday was Blog Day 2005, a day when blogger Nir Ofir suggested everyone post a recommendation of 5 new Blogs (preferably, Blogs different from their own culture, point of view and attitude).  Looking at the list of posts about Blog Day, it was fascinating how far the idea travelled, from Ofir's original posting on June 21st through to Blog Day 2005 yesterday.  Timsoft, a Romanian site posted a great review of the impact of Blog Day, including Technorati's account of more than 300 posts that linked about the day.  It's easy for blog readers to retreat into just reading RSS feeds that they subscribe to, or links from blogrolls on favourite blogs.  Blog Day certainly forced me to think outside my world and find new sources of inspiration and information.  And here are my five favourites:

1. Accidental Hedonist - Lots of great content about food and drink - and a really useful list of products containing high fructose corn syrup (in case you were wondering about the source of America's obesity problem - look no further).
2. Global Voices Weblog - A compilation of many international blogs out there ... one of the great blogs I uncovered in my quest to find several new global blogs to add to my reading list.
3. DesiPundit - A listing of sites and news from the Indian blogosphere.  Thank god at least one of the "something-pundit" sites out there is actually Indian ...
4. Scappleface - This has to be my Washington DC based contribution, an anthem of a blog for those who reject traditional news media for it's biases - at least there is a site out there reporting the news "fairly imbalanced."  If only it were true.
5. Adverblog - This blog is in my industry, but all about new campaigns across Europe.  It's a continual source of ideas and inspiration for my work in the US.

(Via Hans Mestrum)

360 Degree Digital Influence

Though I consider myself a marketing-guy at heart ... the past few years of my career have been spent working first in advertising agencies, and most recently in a large public relations agency.  Ok, I know they're all connected - but today I'm glad that I'm in public relations.  With the rise of blogs, and the entire world of consumer generated media - this idea of personal influence in the digital world intrigues me.  But more importantly, I love the opportunity to join and become a part of it through the discussion of my PR peers through blogs.  Somehow, I feel the online PR community has embraced this medium more than other marketing disciplines, perhaps due to our affinity for the written word.  In any case, I think our place as [interactive] PR professionals uniquely qualifies us to advise clients on the topic of digital influence online.

Based on our initial successes in working with several of our clients on this subject, today Ogilvy PR formally launched our expanded 360 Degree Digital Influence capability.  As John Bell notes in the press release (and blog post):

The growth of personal media—blogs, wikis, podcasting—combined with the exploding importance of search have kept us busy throughout the year. We actually see these trends as part of an overall shift in digital influence.  With our new expanded offering we have a more sophisticated approach to help our clients really connect with a whole new breed of influencer.

Of course, I know you could look at our new offering as the latest announcement from yet another PR agency on how to "harness the potential of blogs."  Let me say for the record that there is currently no "Ogilvy Blog" (though we are planning one and have jokingly called it the "Blogivly" internally).  But if you look at our team, you will find that we are bloggers, and we do understand what makes influential communications messages online.  We routinely read, analyze and discuss blogs with clients, we are already helping clients become involved in the blogosphere - and most significantly we were recently able to use blogs (with the help of several generous individuals from the online PR community) to spread the word about our dying colleague Shari Kurzrok in order to help her get a new liver.  That experience continues to inspire our team to build our capability in helping clients use blogs and more consumer generated content for social marketing, awareness, eAdvocacy, as well as consumer marketing, or healthcare communications.  360 Degree Digital Influence is about all that.

Are Bloggers the Historians of our Time?

This weekend I came across Joel Achenbach's weekly article in the Washington Post Magazine on the topic of blogs.  In it, he satirically notes the growing influence of bloggers and blog culture on himself and his readers:

I constantly tell myself: Ignore the blog. Do your work. You are an enormous literary figure and cultural icon, not a mere "blogger." You must produce high-end journalism with grand themes and huge groaning multi-syllabic words like "eschatological," and you can't be dribbling away all your ideas on the blog. The blog originated in January as a catch basin for mental detritus, for the kind of stuff not good enough for print, but too good to waste on casual conversation or, worse, mere thinking. But this spring I began allowing "comments," and the blog suddenly mutated. America, it turns out, is full of smart, clever, creative people who happen to have no interest in working and whose employers have unwisely given them Internet access.

It's true that bloggers see the world differently once they start blogging - my own experience being an example, where often I see marketing or advertising messages and think about them in terms of blog posts.  The concept of influence, central to this blog, is the question that the blogosphere is struggling to answer.  Beyond today's readership, is there any truth to the grandiose view of bloggers being the chroniclers of our time, recording a "chorus" of daily observations for future generations to look back on and know what our time was like?  There are some vocal resistance to this vision - and attempts to place blogs on a new level of importance:

The word "blog" is literally shorthand for "boring;" a vulgar, overused word that strikes your ear with the dull thud of a cudgel to the soft spot of a child. It's an abbreviation used by journalism drop outs to give legitimacy to their shallow opinions and amateur photography that seems to be permanently stuck in first draft hell. (from The Best Page in the Universe)

Ok, so not everyone is a believer.  Truly, with the glut of consumer generated media content on the Internet growing at an astronomical rate - there are millions of discordant voices out there, rather than the chorus it may become in the far future.  But if my blog is a way for me to leave my thoughts behind, even though it may only consist of my "shallow opinions and amateur photography" - it still feels like a contribution.  At the very least, so I can share those thoughts that I believe to be "to good to waste on casual conversation" - as Achenbach writes.  Whether or not they survive as time passes ... I don't believe that's really up to me anyway.

Geotagging, Virtual Earth, and Local Search

With all the recent press about the largely two player race towards local search with Yahoo and Google battling for control of the bulk of local searches - I came across an interesting blog from Mark Law, MSN's lead project manager for Virtual Earth.  Ok, we knew Microsoft would get in the game - and they are, with not only localized search for restaurants and businesses locally - but also localized browsing through an interface which would allow users to hone in on particular locations and see exactly what exists on each street corner.  It is an extremely promising (and somewhat scary) idea that every physical location on earth can be visualized locally.  But one with obvious consumer benefits.  They have a funny viral launch video about the new service.

An additional idea I read about from a developer blog was the idea of geotagging content (via Chandu Thotha), including Flickr photos, so that consumer generated media content is now also associated with a particular geography.  The combination of local search, geotagging content - and initiatives like Virtual Earth point to a vast new equalizing opportunity for large and small companies alike to connect with customers in particular geographies.  In many cases, location matters - but information overload online makes it difficult for users to get the right information when they need it.  Making information accessible locally adds the next dimension of relevance beyond just targeting messaging - and makes it possible to achieve a level of targeting for interactive marketing efforts that will be unmatched by any other medium.  MSN's Virtual Earth offers an interesting model that might lead the way.

NOTE:  Visit www.flashearth.com for a great flash site using both Google and MSN maps.

Yahoo Taps Celebrities to Blog about Cancer

In a fascinating combination of blog culture and pop/celebrity culture (something Yahoo is getting better and better at - probably thanks to Terry Semel) - the new Blog for Hope is a partnership between the site and the American Cancer Society designed as a 30-day event which enlists the help of celebrities such as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Fran Drescher (aka The Nanny) and Deepak Chopra to "share the triumphs, insights, and personal stories of how cancer has affected their lives."  Ultimately the goal is to connect individuals and build awareness and help bring an end to cancer.  Check out Lisa Brown's post for some great details on how the idea got started.

The idea of enlisting celebrity posts is not new - notable examples such as Huffington Post have been out there for some time ... however this combination of celebrity, health and social marketing is a new manifestation of eadvocacy that I find intriguing.  Will this effort result in a groundswell of activities among bloggers to build awareness of an issue that has relevance for the entire world?  It was a similar question we began to explore through our efforts in the blogosphere to help a friend and colleague, Shari Kurzrok, to find a liver donor.  Yahoo, the American Cancer Society, and (to a lesser degree) my colleagues at Ogilvy have all struggled with the same challenge recently: harnessing the power of blogs and consumer generated media to build awareness of a social issue, and move readers from awareness to belief.  In our experience, awareness was significant - with hundreds of sites talking about Shari and linking to her blog site.  I imagine Yahoo's Blog for Hope will accomplish the same thing on behalf of cancer and cancer research.   

Announcing a Blog Social Network Experiment

Connecting with an influential group of individuals is a necessary component of every viral marketing campaign.  In any social network, there are the groups of individuals Malcolm Gladwell calls the "Mavens" - who will evangalize a point of view to all in the network because they believe in it or because they think it is interesting.  Comic-Con is an event that illustrates this phenomenon ... one that movie producers believe in so strongly that they market their films knowing the buzz at an event like this can either make or break a film's box office success.

But knowing who the influencers are (and where they are) is only a small part of the battle - for often they are independently-minded and less likely to be influenced by typical mainstream marketing or advertising messages. The question this leads to is where do blogs fit in when it comes to delivering marketing or advertising messages?  Can they be used to build a buzz about an online campaign in a more credible way than other marketing mediums?  In an effort to answer this question, this post is an experiment.  And yes, it's for a client campaign that we are running right now.  I want to understand who the "Mavens" (the most respected members of the group) are in two large online communities:

1. Comic Book/Superhero Enthusiasts
2. Environmental/Green Enthusiasts

Though it may seem like an odd combination, it is for a PSA campaign we recently completed for the Alliance to Save Energy, a group working to promote energy efficiency worldwide.  We want to build the buzz and see how far we can get this message and our viral site www.projectsuperpowers.com to travel in the blogosphere and beyond.  To accomplish this, I am going to be reaching out directly to some A-list individuals in these communities ... and inviting them to become influencers for the campaign, and to get others to write about and link to the campaign.  In addition, there will be many others that I hope will offer their support by visiting this post, writing a quick note about the campaign on their blog and providing a trackback to add their name to the list.   

After two and a half weeks, on August 15th, I will publish another post about the results of the experiment and whether we were able to build a groundswell - or at least what we learned about connecting with influencers in the blogosphere through the process.  Stay tuned ...

The Personal Reputation Tourism Phenomenon

I love the concept of financial tourism - a term referring to the act of logging into an electronic bank account to "visit" your money ... just to check and verify that it's still there.  But what about personal reputation tourism -- the idea that some Internet users are spending minutes each day, hours each week simply engaging in activities to validate their egos and see what others have said about them?  When I started on ebay, I found myself logging in on occasion to check my feedback rating.  No other reason.  Sometimes I still do it, and it got me thinking about where this might fit in the spectrum of online activities.  It's not online shopping, not online information gathering, just online validation seeking.  I am not talking about Googling my own name, though that may be a part of this idea.  I mean the phenomenon of logging into my Typepad account before heading into work to see any new comments, trackbacks or visitor stats.  I mean looking at a comment that I've posted on Amazon to see how many people have rated it. 

People care about their reputation, and in the online environment, they have a much more quantifiable way of measuring it (a group called Opinity has published some interesting thoughts in this area).  Do people like me?  Do they think I'm smart?  Well, no matter what someone may tell me - online I can look at what they have posted anonymously, or traffic levels to a particular blog post and get an idea for myself about where the truth lies.  And this external validation feels good - in a grade school kind of way, I begin to understand who likes me - and who doesn't.  That in itself is a powerful notion, and one that I think has been a big part of what propels ecommerce sites, online communities, and even marketing campaigns to success.  Having the biggest product selection or the best interface cannot in themselves provide an emotional connection.  Personal reputation and ratings systems online can do that.

Social Networks and Blogs to Save a Life

The response over the past few days in support of Shari has been immense across the Blogosphere -- a stunning example of the power of this new consumer generated world to rival and even surpass traditional media outlets in reach and influence.  To help visualise this sphere of influence, Valdis Krebs has kindly provided a map (through his product InFlow) of the social network that has evolved through the last 48 hours in support of finding a donor for Shari:

Keep in mind, this is just a sampling from two days of a message travelling virally through dedicated friends, family, colleagues and media.  No updates on Shari's status yet - but there is some media coverage which offers more details.  Any health related updates will be posted on Shari's blog. In the meantime, please know that members of our team have been supporting Shari's family through this and they are hugely appreciative of all your efforts ... particularly online and through the blogosphere.

UPDATE:  Shari got her liver!  Visit http://helpshari.typepad.com for more details and thanks to all the bloggers who posted about her to help.

NOTE:  Map graphic and link to map was updated on 07/26/05 - click here to see the old map

The Power of Random for Marketers

Random is the New Order -- Welcome to a life less orderly. As official soundtrack to the random revolution, the iPod Shuffle takes you on a unique journey ... Lose control. Love it.

If Seth Godin is right about every marketer needing to tell a story (to help consumers believe their own lies) - then the power of random is like a Choose-your-own-adventure.  You're never quite sure where you'll end up, but the anticipation of seeing the next thing propels your interest. Riding the front of this random curve is Apple with their ipod shuffle ... but there are many more examples of the power of random.  Blogger has a popular feature where you can go to the "Next Blog" - www.amihotornot.com has an addictive quality, and even Subservient chicken used this idea of random (with an added element of control for users). 

What makes random such a powerful marketing tool?  Is it the promise of surprise?  Or the fact that it stands out from more traditional and predictable marketing messages?  Consumer attention is precious and most theories today focus on how attention can be driven by credibility, trust or brand authenticity.  While I agree with these theories, there is another force that works outside of any of these.  Curiosity.  Randomness drives curiosity, and curiosity drives attention.  Anyone who has worked with children knows this to be true.  Children are inherently curious - and this curiosity drives their attention.

Adults are no different.  John Bell (a colleague at Ogilvy and founder of the Digital Influence Mapping Project) had a great post several days ago about an interesting social computing site -- www.justcurio.us.  The site offers an intriguing study into the power of random and how compelling it can really be when combined with anonymity and voice (definitely a tough combination).  On the site, it is the anonymity that drives honesty and a "what you always wanted to ask" confessional type of feeling.  Confessions are fun to read, as the award winning "Come Clean" interactive marketing campaign from Method Soap also illustrated.  Randomizing an experience can offer an unorganized, unsystematic means to the same end: driving curiosity and building a brief yet powerful emotional investment in what happens next.  For marketers, random can really be the new order.   

Hyper-Targeting and Why TV will Lose Smart Advertisers

Orbitz Chief Marketing Officer Randy Wagner says [in this week's BusinessWeek article - "Cable's Big Bet on Hyper-Targeting] reaching consumers with ads they won't skip is a priority.  She likens the goal to Amazon.com's strategy of recommending products based on past purchases.  "It's so relevant, it feels like a service instead of selling."

I had the chance to meet with Randy several weeks ago to speak about the marketing challenges facing the Orbitz brand, as well as the travel industry as a whole.  The interesting insight from those meetings which I can definitely attest to first hand, having spent the past week on the road ... is that the travel industry has weaned customers away from the idea of expecting service more than any other industry.  If a plane lands on time, and the staff isn't rude to us, we're thrilled.  In this environment, there is an erosion of expectation coupled with the erosion of trust written about often by media and advertising skeptics.  How do we rise above this?  How does the Internet offer a way forward unlike TV, or radio, or print, or any other medium?

I think the difference lies in a passive experience versus an active one.  Targeting on television, as written about by David  Kiley in BusinessWeek (available online to subscribers only) is inherently flawed, in my view.  It  attempts to measure what people are watching and then group attitudes based on shows.  The problems with this method are numerous:

• Multiple people use the same television
• People often "watch what's on" - not indicating a preference for that show or even a belonging to the target audience group, but rather a laziness in changing the channel ... not a great metric to target with
• Televisions are often running when no one is watching

Contrast this with the Internet and a similar targeting exercise in this medium.  The potential is vastly different:

• Users are profiled based first on what they tell you - from having registered
• Sophisticated profiles can be created based on what they do, not just who they might be
• New options can be presented real time to interact with this audience
• You are guaranteed that someone is at the other end of the line, because they are interacting

For any of our clients trying to avoid the "ad skipping generation"  - the fact that the Internet is the medium to focus on seems to be the clear conclusion.  At least, until Cable can come up with a "hyper-targeting" technology that can come remotely close to what we already have on the Internet.

Do blogs matter?

I have heard that once a "hot new technology" makes it onto the cover of Business Week, it's already on the road to mainstream.  Blogs have been heading that way since all the publicity during the 2004 election around the "citizen journalists", and even before.  But do they matter outside politics?  Apart from providing information, can they really have an impact on an organization's bottom line?  Apart from often quoted stats from Pew Internet about the number of people reading blogs, I believe there are other significant signs that companies should take their impact very seriously:

1. Journalists are reading them, and using them as sources for stories and background research
2. Many popular "A-list" bloggers are extremely influential among their readership (often more so than any other third party source)
3. Blogs are often returned in the top five search results on Google and other search engines because they are so search engine friendly (and more than 80% of users don't venture past the first page of search results)
4. Blogs can be one of the most viral forms of good or bad publicity, with cross linking, comments, and trackbacks - enabling a message to travel many times beyond it's original audience
5. With the eroding public confidence in mainstream media, and growing cynicism and ability to filter out advertising (Tivo, Firefox Ad Blockers, etc.) - blogs power to influence is growing because they remain one of the few genuine voices of truth in the media landscape (if done right)

As a recent example of how blogs matter, check out this post from AdPulp about prominent blogger Jeff Jarvis (BuzzMachine) and his recent problems with a new Dell computer.  Jeff's bio is "former TV critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor and associate publisher of the NY Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner" - in short, a pretty credible and influential guy.  When he has problems and writes about it, it makes for a pretty compelling reason to avoid Dell computers and choose a different brand.  When I read his article today - there were 9 comments.  I bet there will be lots more by the end of the week.

Digital Influence in Two Letters

Recently we have been asked by a number of clients to explain the concept of digital influence.  How are people influenced through digital communications media to purchase, believe, or become involved in something?  We always say it's a combination of blogs, search engines, online (and offline) media, and yes, even advertising.  But it all sounds too complicated.  What about boiling it down to a simpler concept?  Digital influence in two letters ... FW.

Forwarded emails are a good analogy for digital influence.  At work, when I see those two letters in the subject line, I am likely to assume that the email comes from a trusted source, and that it has been filtered by the sender for relevance.  From the point of view of the sender, it requires low involvement.  If I find an email that communicates a position or has information that is valuable, forwarding it to a friend or colleague is often the best way to share that knowledge.  In my work inbox, I am likely to trust and be influenced by emails that have FW in the subject line. And most importantly, I tend to read them more often.

One Launches the Biggest eAdvocacy Campaign Ever

For all of us who have struggled to pitch and get a client free PSA placements for their banners (good cause in hand) - here are some numbers reported by ClickZ that offer hope:

The One campaign, which aims to raise Americans' awareness of global issues like AIDS and poverty, is making inroads online. Rich media firm Viewpoint has coordinated the donation and placement of $5 million worth of online advertising across the Web on behalf of the advocacy group.

The One campaign has had some great media hits recently, including the special with Brad Pitt visiting Africa, and all the fanfare around the Live 8 concert.  Even the ebay story about hawkers selling Live 8 tickets for profit had added to the hype.  Comparing this campaign to a recent experience I had working with Oxfam America to drive membership in their own eCommunity, one big difference stands out ... the power of celebrity.

In this case, the recipe is simple: 

1. A single celebrity chooses the cause (ie - Bono). 
2. Single celebrity puts pressure on other celebrities to join (ie - Brad Pitt, etc.). 
3. Celebrities make it a high visibility thing that media wants to get attention from. 
4. Media donates advertising space and ad dollars.
5. Internet offers a lower cost alternative for media to donate these dollars
6. $5 million donated eAvocacy campaign is done online.

Not to be cynical about it, though.  Here's the best part of the entire story ... the range of media partners that are signed on:

Ad space was donated by AOL, 24/7 Real Media, MSN, Google, MSNBC, About.com, Burst! Media, Gamespot, Accuweather.com, Right Media, ValueClick, CBS.com, CBS News and UPN. (Currently delivering 30 million online ads per day and hoping to serve a billion units before the G8 summit begins July 6).

I wonder when Yahoo's going to get on the bus?

Quark skips integrating direct mail campaign with website

I got my second great direct mail piece today from Quark selling the features of their latest release, QuarkXPress 6.5.  They are a series of postcards, and each highlights a different feature of the software and explains it through targeted copy and testimonials aimed at print graphic designers with language like "No doubt about it.  You don't know anything about Microsoft Excel, and gosh darn it, you shouldn't have to!" Aside from outlining some new features, the postcards include a discount offer to upgrade and a contest to win an iPod mini by entering online.  In short, a very effective direct marketing campaign.

Unfortunately, if you venture beyond the campaign landing page, it seems the Quark.com website is from a different company.  The website ignores the compelling style of writing from the direct mail piece and instead uses the incomprehensible marketing-speak we are all used to seeing (and ignoring) everyday. For example, a concept simply termed "Image Optimization" in one of the postcards, is described online as "Picture manipulation and color management."  The page dedicated to describing the features of the new product is confusing and unbranded. 

Ordinarily, at this point, I would thank god for campaign microsites - which usually give the best creative campaigns a small chance to exist outside of the canopy of a client's stagnant website.  I've worked on more than one campaign where updating the client's site to reflect or cross promote the new campaign was out of the question.  We needed our microsite.  Unfortunately for us, it happens all the time.  But Quark's microsite does little more to sell the product and only focuses on contest entry.

My point of view is that for Quark to simultaneously promote the ability of their product to help their target audience manage campaigns across print, web and TV -- while not using this advantage to deliver an integrated marketing campaign themselves undermines the power of the print campaign.  But at least I can take solace in the fact that whoever managed the print campaign knew about this.  They did what most of us have done when faced with a similar situation--they deliberately left the site URL off the postcards.  Sometimes you just have to work with what you have.

Store Wars Viral eAdvocacy Campaign Uses Popular Culture to Influence the Public

The first component of eAdvocacy is getting your issue on the radar screen.  Piggybacking on the release of the new Star Wars movie, a viral campaign supporting organic produce offers a new take on eAdvocacy with a Star Wars parody at  http://www.storewars.org/flash/.  Produced by the same team that developed the award-winning "Meatrix" about the true story behind animal treatment at meat farms, this site is another strong viral effort to build awareness of a somewhat stale (no pun intended) current issue ... pesticides and chemicals used on corporate farms. 

The site uses characters like "Dark Tater" and "Chew-Broccoli" to make its point encouraging users to choose organic fruits and vegetables and reject the produce from large corporate farms.  Clearly, the smartest angle on this eAdvocacy piece is using the marketing dollars of Hollywood to help build awareness.  We face similar challenges on all of our non-profit work.  How do we get viral traffic with no marketing or advertising budget?  Sure, humor helps to build buzz, but Store Wars shows that timing can be just as important.  What are people interested in today?  What's getting coverage in the media?  And what has the most marketing dollars behind it?  Yahoo's buzz index, focuses on what people are actually searching for.  It's worth checking.  The creative concept for the next big eAdvocacy campaign could be there. 

Content Creation - More than just Blogs

Content creation online is exploding, with over 53 million people (or 44% of all Internet users) having created and posted content online in 2004 - according to a Pew Internet Study.  While the entire category of content creation sometimes seems hijacked by blogging and podcasting, another content creation activity is noted by this same report to be more than ten times as popular as blogging ... posting photographs online.  It was the most popular online content creation activity in 2004 with 21% of all Internet users having done it.  And it shows no signs of slowing down with the rise of digital photography. 

In the corporate world HP acquired Snapfish, Google bought Picasa, Kodak has Ofoto and Sony has Imagestation ... so it seems the big guys are dedicated to growing online photo services as a channel for engaging customers in an ongoing relationship online.  It points to an interesting opportunity for retailers to create that coveted relationship with their customers post-purchase through online photo albums, or even through customized blogging.  Offering a site for users to create posts on experiences online, add photos, and invite contributions from others would be an interesting way to invite customers to serve as intentional (or unintentional) brand ambassadors. 

Nike could offer Golf blogs with photo albums to record and share photos and scores.  Cheaptickets.com (a current client) could enable their customers to share travel experiences and photos.  The Hard Rock Cafe could allows visitors create albums with photos visiting multiple locations across the globe. 

Online Photo Gallery Sites and Corporate Sponsors:

• www.picasa.com - Picasa and Google
• www.snapfish.com - Snapfish and HP
• www.imagestation.com - Sponsored by Sony
• www.flickr.com - No affiliation
• www.ofoto.com - Ofoto and Kodak
• www.shutterfly.com - Seeking corporate partners
• www.picturetrail.com - No affiliation
• www.amihotornot.com - No affiliation

Anyone know of other companies that are using online photo galleries as a way to engage and build a relationship with their customers?

eBay and Online Reputation Systems

Just a few weeks ago I got my blue star on Ebay.  Aside from signifying that I've now successfully bought or sold 50 pieces of junk - it also felt like validation in the purest kindergarten way.  Somebody likes me.  50 somebodies.  And they even said so when they rated me positively.  It also got me thinking about the power of online ratings systems.  How do millions of strangers transfer hundreds, or thousands of dollars from one to another on Ebay with no other proof of honesty aside from those little coloured stars and a list of 20 word comments from other random strangers?

A Pew study on online ratings systems noted that "26% of adult internet users in the U.S. have rated a product, service, or person using an online rating system. That amounts to more than 33 million people."  The report notes that "these systems, also referred to as 'reputation systems,' are interactive word-of-mouth networks that assist people in making decisions about which users to trust, or to compare their opinions with the opinions expressed by others."  Are these online reputation systems the first blogs?

Before I ever heard of influential bloggers, I knew that if I went to Amazon.com, I could read what people said about pretty much any book or product and decide if I liked it enough to buy.  In the world of consumer electronics in particular, 79.8% of men search online and read online reviews before deciding to purchase an item.  The same behaviour in other industries is growing.  I'd say it all seems to point to the power of the online rating systems as a tool to influence opinion or action among the general online population.  It could be the most often utilized tool in all its forms, from Amazon reviews to niche blogger postings.  Either way, it's all about ego and trust.  You can trust what you read if others trust it.  And once you are trusted, you have the power.  Maybe that's why Ebay calls the big guns the Power Sellers.