Influential Marketing Blog

Inside the 5 Badges of the Conference Caste System

At every conference or tradeshow, you get a badge.  I have a box full of them on my desk, an increasing number of them with the title of "Speaker" affixed beneath my name.  I recently had a conversation with some colleagues about the importance of being a speaker at an event.  Often, the most important benefit is not just the visibility of speaking, but the license that speaker tag gives you to have a conversation with other speakers.  If you think about it, the badges at a conference are like a caste system.  Your badge identifies which group you belong in and can often dictate how people embrace or shy away from a conversation with you. 

There are usually only five types of badges that you can get at a conference (listed in order of importance):

1. Speaker
2. Media
3. Sponsor
4. Attendee
5. Vendor

Being a speaker is usually the best choice, because it positions you as an expert at the event and you also have a chance to demonstrate your expertise in front of a subset of attendees.  Media is usually second best, because just about all the sponsors and vendors want to get media coverage.  Last week at an event like the Consumer Electronics Show, however, most people would agree that media was definitely number one because of the relative importance of media coverage to that event.  The interesting thing about "media" at CES (as well as at most other large events today) is that this group is usually divided into two categories: bloggers and press.  For CES, the blogger badges were gray, and the press badges were red.  Thinking this would be a good chance for a bit of a social experiment, I went and got both badges ... the blogger badge by virtue of my blog, and the press badge as a result of my writing being republished by the good folks at Digital Media Wire (sorry I missed the Insider event, Ned).

What did I learn?  Probably not surprisingly, the blogger badge got a lot less attention and special treatment.  It was an odd feeling to walk through certain booths first with my gray badge and then switch to the red one.  There were different rooms for bloggers versus press, and in the press room there was real food (not just snacks), rows of press releases that you could pickup and many invites for private parties or events.  Clearly, there is a gap in perceived value between bloggers and journalists from the organizers of CES, as well as many of the vendors exhibiting at the event.  It really is no different than a caste system where individuals are judged based on the color of their badges.  The question is, when will we see this situation change?  Already, there are signs that it is changing.  Most notably, the fact that there is a blogger room and blogger credentials at an event of this size at all.  The way I see it, in another few years, events like this will start to embrace bloggers and media on the same level and apply a similar criteria to who gets credentials.  This means the real metric will be audience and reach.  Regardless of whether you write for a blog or something else, your credentials will be based on the number of people you reach.  It's just a matter of time before it happens.

Announcing The Ultimate Marketing Bookstore

Several months ago I participated in the LitLiberation Blogger Challenge launched by my friend Tim Ferriss to try and raise money for DonorsChoose.org (a site which allows teachers to submit funding proposals to ask for help doing something they don't normally get the funding for).  Around the same time, I started playing around with Amazon Affiliate links and made more than ten bucks on links by just using a few links on several blog posts.  That's only a small amount of money, but it got me thinking about the potential of using an affiliate program to generate money for charity in the marketing world.  Over the time that I was away from blogging, one of my side projects was to start contacting several influential people to see if they would be willing to participate in a new kind of bookstore - which I called The Ultimate Marketing Bookstore.  Today I am launching it (although I will resist the temptation to call it a "Beta launch").  Here's how I described the purpose of the site and what makes it different:

This site is different because it features all the reading lists of marketers that you already know and respect in one place.  From CEOs to marketing directors to top marketing bloggers - The Ultimate Marketing Bookstore lets you see and shop from all their reading lists ... and all for a good cause.

The way most of us find out about great marketing books is the same way that we learn about great products ... through recommendations from people we trust.  Most online bookstores are just categories of books selected by one or two people.  They are great if you trust those people, but they are not comprehensive. 

As I describe above, all the proceeds from affiliate commissions that this site generates will be donated to DonorsChoose.org on a monthly basis and I plan to try and spread the word in the marketing community about this new bookstore and will be adding new names on a weekly basis.  Here are a few reasons why I think this idea can work:

1. Collects a central hub of reading lists from marketers that are currently widely distributed online. 
2. Encourages marketers who are not sharing their reading lists to do so in an easy way.
3. Makes great marketing books easier to find and buy.
4. Creates a community of marketing book readers and allows them to contribute to a good cause
5. Offers a platform for new marketing books to get promoted to an interested audience

That's the initial idea, but I'd love to hear some feedback on what you think could make it better.  I am still reaching out to marketers to add their book lists, so stay tuned in the next few weeks as I will likely be adding lots more names to this list, and I plan to publish updates with money raised and associate this bookstore with a challenge on DonorsChoose.org so the amount raised (and what the dollars are being spent on) is highly visible.  Blog badges and other tools to promote the site are in the works as well.  Any other suggestions?

Note: A big thank you to all the people who responded to my LinkedIn question about which charity could be the best to support for this.  DonorsChoose.org was the most popular suggestion.

Influential Marketing Blog Featured in Wall Street Journal

Many of you may have already caught this yesterday, but this blog was cited in the Recommended Reading  section of the Wall Street Journal yesterday in an article by Keith Huang.  As Jay Berkowitz from Ten Golden Rules shares on his team blog, my blog was one of 60 resources that they recommended to the journalist as part of their reading list and was selected from that list as a recommended resource for companies looking to "optimize their online presence."  Here's the writeup:

Influential Marketing Blog, rohitbhargava.typepad.com
Rohit Bhargava's blog is intellectual and educational. In a recent post, he discusses the art of stamp collection and how, even today, many smaller countries use stamps as a key marketing tool. He writes, 'Next time you pass a post office in any country, pay attention to how they are using their philately to promote the country, cater to tourists, or commemorate moments of significance.'

It is a great media hit and to be selected from a list of what I am guessing were 60 stellar resources is flattering.  I'm in awe at being included among the other bloggers and authors mentioned in the article - including Seth Godin, Steve Rubel, Matt Cutts, John Battelle, Chris Anderson, Joseph Jaffe, and Danny Sullivan. Thanks to Jay for including me in this great list, and to Keith for selecting to include my blog!

Three Simple Words And Three Sites Every Marketer Should Read

There are a lot of resources out there for marketers.  We read books and blog posts and articles and magazines and podcasts and video blogs and ... well, let's just say the list goes on and on.  Like a lot of people in our industry, I follow a lot of links and have a lot of opinions that I respect.  One of these days, I plan to publish my must read list of blogs, but I have to confess that this list is not as static as you might think.  There are many times when my reading pattern tends to be visiting a favourite blog of mine once a week due to client workload or my travel schedule, even though I wish I could read them more often. 

Still, when it comes to the usefulness of the marketing content that I read, there is some that is mostly about new ideas or news in the industry.  In fact, that's the category that most of it fits into.  There are three sites, however, that stand out because they are in a different league.  The reason is because instead of ideas, they offer tangible real case studies of what brands are doing and how effective it is.  Those sites are WOMMA, MarketingProfs and MarketingSherpa.

If these three sites are not on your reading list, you need to add them.  For any practicing marketer, the lessons you will get from the cases here will likely offer you pieces of information that you will not only find useful, but just might give you the reasons for your peers to envy your level of knowledge and new insights.  For example, a recent MarketingSherpa article (open access until tomorrow - 09/18/07) pointed out that the three most effective words for getting people to read more of an article were "click to continue."  Not "continue to article" or "read more" but the option with the word "click" in it.  I didn't know that, but now that I do - you can bet we will be using this information in our email marketing work.  That's the power of reading case studies like this.  They give you actionable insight and also great information to justify doing something or a benchmark to evaluate performance.  I love ideas and innovation, but sometimes what you really need is a good case study.   

Measurement: Creating A Social Media Impact Factor

There is a metric used for scholarly journals called the impact factor (IF).  In the world of medical and professional journals, the criteria for influence is citations.  Similar to how much of the social media world uses inbound links - the citation metric carries significant weight in scientific and academic communities.  It also raises significant debate from critics who feel it is an incomplete measure.  A few shortcomings of the impact factor include:

• Ability for original authors of an article to affect the IF by citing their own publication in other articles
• Too short a time window for citations, ignoring ongoing citations to older "classic" articles
• Only counting the frequency of citations and disregarding the prestige of the citing journals
• IF is only relevant for certain fields like science or economics, but not for other fields like literature or less citation based

BUT it is the best that the scientific community has and it is used extensively.  Does any of this sound familiar?  Many of these are the same issues that bloggers are raising with services like Technorati and sparking discussion about what influence and authority really means in social media.  I like the word "impact" because it seems concrete.  Impact seems measurable.  But what is the model that should emerge for how to measure it in relation to words already in use like authority or influence?  I think part of the difficulty in finding the right model comes from not really understanding the right elements to measure.  Right now, the most popular metric for bloggers is Authority from Technorati, and this is based mostly on volume.  Most people agree we need more sophistication, but rather than massaging existing models ... we need to have a common understanding of what the most important criteria are to measure to really understand the impact factor of a particular blog. 

To that end, here are the five areas of measure I think we should be focusing on:

• Volume - how many unique mentions did it get?
• Prestige - how influential were each of the mentions?
• Depth - how detailed were each of the mentions? 
• Time - over what period of time did the mentions happen?
• Reputation - how well regarded or well known is the author in their area?

What do you think about these?  If there were a measurement model that could account for each of these criteria, would it paint a complete picture of influence and allow comparison between blogs?  More importantly, has anyone already sorted this out and managed to built a model to go beyond volume and encompass some of the other areas?

Why Everyone Hates To Love Technorati (But Does Anyway)

For all of the criticism about Technorati's inconsistent ranking figures or recent team changes, the one thing the site has intuitively understood from the beginning is the inherent desire for bloggers to be ranked.  Though there are lots of industry based lists (such as the Power150, Viral Garden Top25, and Peter Kim's newly launched M20) for marketing and advertising bloggers, Technorati still holds a unique place as the main blog directory for the worldwide blogosphere in every category.  They now index over 100 million blogs, and even if you believe that 99% of these are abandoned blogs or spam blogs, that still leaves more than 1 million blogs that are being authored by people passionate about something and actively creating content about their passion.  For those people, the Technorati Authority ranking is likely something that they watch on a consistent basis.  It's a guilty pleasure for most bloggers - who know that there are other things that probably matter more, but watching that Authority figure grow day by day is irresistible.  The only problem is when you reach the hump.

The hump is the moment when you have had a number of good posts that were highly popular and resulted in lots of Technorati links, that are now getting to the end of their 6 month window - after which, Technorati no longer counts them as part of their overall authority ranking.  As a result, there are some days, where you might drop 40 or 50 points in Technorati rankings (and even more for higher ranking blogs with more links).  Watch the Technorati rankings of high traffic blogs like PostSecret or Gawker and you will see this phenomenon in effect.  This is the hump, where you have great content ranked, but expiring according to the way Technorati indexes and are faced with the challenge of continuing to create linkworthy content so you can keep your Technorati number up. 

There are really two ways to deal with the hump.  The first is to worry about it, get frustrated about Technorati's shortcomings and performance problems (not to mention their instant dismissal of all your content older than 6 months), and do everything you can to pump your numbers up again by getting links from everywhere and anywhere you can.  The other is to think beyond links as a currency for how to rank your blog and think more in terms of engagement.  RSS subscribers, email subscribers, people bookmarking your posts or commenting on them ... all are more valid measures of engagement than just links.  If only someone would find a way of putting that into a satisfying little single ranking like Technorati.  Until that happens, hump or not ... Technorati will continue to be irresistable for most bloggers.

How To Find Sites Faster Online Without Using Google

Google is great when you are searching for a single webpage or source of information.  Many of my searches still fit that category - so I'm a big Google user.  The problem is, more and more often I find myself searching not for a single page, but for a web site.  A lot of times that may be a new website or a popular website that many people have found useful.  When it comes to a search like this, Google is not so helpful.  Here are a few reasons Google doesn't work so well in these situations:

• Newer websites seldom appear highly because they have not been out long enough to get ranked and assessed in Google's algorithm
• The most useful content is sometimes not optimized and therefore appears too low in results to ever be found
• Crawler brings back any page, and not just the homepage of sites, not useful if you want to find a site instead of a page
• There is no popularity index to see what sites or pages people recently found useful (pagerank is based on links and clicks)
• Using keywords and algorithms is sometimes not as powerful as using tags and keywords other people have assigned to content online

Instead, I use del.icio.us. Rather than using an algorithm, you can use del.icio.us to "search" using the tags that people have assigned to links.  Each link has a rating based on the number of others who have also saved that link. The difference is, you are finding sites instead of individual web pages.  For an example of the difference, here's an experience I recently had when seeking new online food communities to check out:

Google search for "online food community web2.0"
(Useful sites returned in first page: Tablefinder - if only I could read Swedish)

del.icio.us tag search for "food+community+web2.0"
(Useful sites returned in first page: foodio54, OpenBottles, Cork'd, Tastefora, GroupRecipies, OpenSourceFood, Imcooked, Chowhounds, TheDailyPlate)

Just this week I have already used del.icio.us to find usage statistics for women online, popular new online food and cooking communities (example above), and a list of green blogs.  Each search was much faster on del.icio.us and yielded useful results much more easily.  This is the power of using tagging and social bookmarking to find information online.  It is also the reason why the next time you seek information online you might want to start on a site like del.icio.us instead of with Google.

The ROI of Blogging: Share Your Top 5 Stories

Two months ago, Charlene Li of Forrester produced a report on the ROI of blogging by comparing the relative spend on blogs to the spend required for focus group based research.  While some people immediately pointed out flaws in this reasoning, it was a great first step towards trying to define a model for measuring the true return on investment for blogging at a corporate level.  For individuals dedicated to creating their own microbrands and blogging to network with others in the industry, better connect with customers or simply participate in the conversation ... the ROI is not likely to be tied to focus group research.  Rather, the ROI in these cases comes from the opportunities that become possible through having a blog that wouldn't have happened otherwise.  These are thought leadership and brand/microbrand benefits, but they are ROI nonetheless. 

Taking this idea further, it would be interesting to see blogger's responses to what I think may be the ultimate question in helping to understand ROI of blogging on an individual basis:

Since you have been blogging, what would you consider your top five most effective blog posts and why?

To get the conversation going, here is my list of top five:

#5 - The Human Side of Search
The human side of search (everything that happens outside the almighty algorithm to organize information online) is an idea that I had been thinking about for some time and finally explored in a small presentation I gave at the Search Insider Summit event last year.  Since then, the concept has really evolved in the search industry and beyond.  It remains a topic I am passionate about following and continuing to do more with.

#4 - Brands I am Passionate About
I shared five brands that I truly love, and was contacted by one of them after seeing my blog post.  Briggs & Riley's team saw my post and asked me to try out a range of bags from their new line and offer feedback.  It was the most significant of a few product related pitches I have received, and one that I was most excited about due to my professed passion for their brand.

#3 - Tips on Pitching Bloggers
Originally published as a thought piece on the Ogilvy PR website, this 2 page PDF has been one of the most linked on my blog and also downloaded frequently from the Ogilvy site.  It has also been a great tool for our internal teams as well as a useful piece to give to clients.

#2 - Top 7 Marketing Trends of 2007
When I first published this, I figured it would be one of many trend related posts coming into 2007.  There were several links, but the amazing thing is that the post continues to draw significant traffic and clicks.  The image above is from the cover of Marketing China magazine, which was my most significant media hit to date in the traditional media - where our office in China helped to translate the piece to be included in this cover feature story in Marketing China.

#1 - Social Media Optimization
This will probably come as no surprise that it makes #1 on my list of most effective blog posts.  Since the original article in August of last year, the SMO phenomenon has gone through a very interesting cycle of global awareness, adoption, refinement, and even a backlash within certain circles.  It's amazing to watch how far and how fast the idea has taken off.

From a thought leadership and visibility point of view, blogging clearly has huge potential for individuals and for corporations as well.  To keep the conversation thread going, I am going to tag Hugh, Paul, Anastacia, Steve, and my colleagues in the Social Media Collaborative (including Charlene) to blog about their thoughts on this topic and how the ROI of blogging for most blogs might be far more about the stories and experiences made possible by blogging than by the dollar value of the traditional marketing efforts it is beginning to replace.

Suggested tag for all posts on this topic:  BlogROIStories

technorati tags: blogROIstories ROI blogging blogs measurement forrester socialmedia rohitbhargava
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3 Big Reasons I'm Not An Apple Enthusiast

As a marketer, I should be in love with Apple.  After all, I have an iPod and a Mac at home - and Apple's marketing success offers lessons for anyone wanting a great case study on how to position products, launch them into the market, and use distinctive product design to connect with consumers.  Getting underneath this polished exterior of brilliant products, however, the culture and identity of Apple leaves much to be desired in my opinion.  They are notoriously closed, have rarely embraced any of the potential of social media -- very few blogging employees or podcasting (apart from Job's product launch presentations), and a corporate policy discouraging active participation in the many Apple communities online.  None of these are new complaints, but the one that seemed to be picking up steam in the early part of this year was criticism of Apple's obstructive DRM policies governing music or movies purchased from iTunes. In response, Steve Jobs recently created waves in the music industry by publishing an essay where he defends Apple's stance on Digital Rights Management for music by outlining how the big 4 music studios have forced Apple into this situation and that it could be solved if only these big labels would allow Apple to sell DRM-free music.  It was reading that essay that inspired this post.  At the risk of sparking disagreement with many readers of this blog who are loyal Apple fans - here are my three big reasons why I am not an Apple enthusiast:

1. Aside from Product Design, Money Comes First:  There is a very customer-centric approach to product design from Apple, but when it comes to marketing products - moneymaking seems to come first.  iPods configured for a Mac cannot be used on PCs until they are reformatted.  You no longer get a power charger with an iPod - that must be purchased separately.  The Green my Apple campaign is a great collective example of all the policies that Apple has which are anti-green.  Ironically launched by a group of admitted Apple enthusiasts, the website does a great job of breaking down the popular myth that Apple is a green environmentally-friendly company.  A quick visit to their site shows many areas where Apple is far behind PC manufacturers and many other companies.  It is a perfect example of some truths about Apple well hidden by smart marketing.
2. Two Sided Approach to DRM - Despite Jobs recent effort to deflect criticism of Apple's DRM policies to the movie studios, the current situation works in Apple's favor.  Most content that is purchased on iTunes can never be used on any other device, or moved out of the iTunes.  Even if all music is opened up, the situation would still remain with movies and TV shows sold on iTunes.  Each offers the same controls and it was recently reported that the sole movie studio holdout for offering films through Netflix's impressive new video download service, as well as Walmart's collection is the Disney collection.  The reason?  Most point to Disney's ties with Jobs and the studio's dedication to iTunes as the key barrier.  Even as Jobs asks for music studios to allow open access to their content, he is contributing to Disney preventing the same access to movies controlled by their studio for Netflix and Walmart.  That seems wrong.
3. Spoiled Brat Reputation for Business - As the recent iPhone case showed, as well as the brilliant VH1 satire ads of the "I'm a Mac" campaign pointed towards ... Apple does have a bit of a reputation among tech companies as the spoiled brat that always wants what it wants regardless of rules or laws.  They wanted the iPhone name, so they took it.  They notoriously control marketing and PR - not letting any partners speak about any initiatives unless they allow it.  The "green fees" for working with Apple are very high, as any reseller, vendor or supplier would tell you.  It is like negotiating with a child, and often seems like a necessary evil for doing business with Apple.

At the end of the day, Apple has an admirable marketing machine and great product design - which has fostered lots of Apple devotees.  I understand that, and admire how they got there.  My criticisms are not likely to have much of an impact, and I may be alone in these views judging from my many marketing and blogging peers to seem to be big Apple devotees.  But for me - until any of these big three issues change, Apple will continue to be a company whose products I use on occasion, but whose brand I just can't get passionate about.

Comment Spam Update (02/23/07): Apologies to all those who tried to post comments but got the comment spam warning.  It turns out I added "MP3" to my blocked word list due to a load of spam about free MP3 sites I had gotten several months ago.  I have removed the word from the blocked list and this should allow you to make it past the filter.  Let me know if you are still having problems posting a comment.

Update (5/2/07): Steve Jobs has published an open letter about Apple's new green policies addressing some of the criticism and laying out changes for the future and steps Apple is committed to taking to become more green (and Greenpeace takes credit).

Update (7/5/07): Engadget just published a story about Apple's history of taking what they want and "ripping off artists" in their marketing and advertising.  Apparently this is a trend that did not start with their grabbing of the iPhone name outlined in point #3 above ...

Jaman and The New Global Niche

Ethnicity has always been an appealing niche for foreign language newspapers and magazines to local cable television programs.  Restaurants, churches and temples are all centers for exploring global cultures in the real world.  Yet on the Internet, the most successful ethnically focused sites seem to be the online dating sites such as Shaadi.com, JDate and Corazones.com - as well as online communities targeting ethnicities for networking.  The problem with this is that most of these sites are not inviting others outside a particular ethnicity to interact and learn about a culture.  If online networks focused on getting together those of a particular ethnicity, we risk alienating each other as everyone only joins their own ethnic group online and doesn't venture beyond. 

Countering this trend to a degree are sites that take a more global view of the world, targeted at those who consider themselves more than just citizens of a particular country.  There are sites like Worldchanging and GlobalVoicesOnline that offer global news and a collaboration of voices from many countries.  Other online news and video sites offer a more global view on world news and reporting such as Current.tv.  Campaigns such as the One campaign or Product Red are also taking a global view for cause related marketing.  Yet when it comes to sharing the best of global cultures in a way that is not cause related, there are surprisingly few ways people have found to do it online.

One site that I came upon recently which seems to have a different vision is Jaman - a social network and website where you can sign up to rent or purchase foreign films from around the world.  Uniting the world through cinema has long been the charge of many independent film festivals and other such events, but online this mission has not really taken off.  There are strong online communities that relate to film, such as Flixter - but none focus as uniquely on global cinema as Jaman.  The site is still in beta, and the film collection relatively small ... but as more and more global cinema labels sign onto the service and see it as a profitable distribution channel, the collection is sure to grow.  It's one of those sites that is helping to define a new global niche for sites that are focused on bringing the best of global cultures to everyone ... without the necessity for an underlying cause.  After all, even the global citizen who wants to learn about or save the world need some old fashioned entertainment every once in a while.

technorati tags: jaman global world cinema film marketing independent flixster niche trend
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Screenshots of Jaman Service (click to enlarge):

     

Yahoo! Pipes Offers The Next Evolution of Marketing with RSS

RSS is one of those technologies that has a relatively enigmatic name for a very simple concept.  The idea that you can provide a feed of content that others can subscribe to is the ultimate simplicity.  Yet so far, RSS has been used primarily to push content that is offered by one group to many subscribers.  The power of RSS is mainly in the fact that I can pull multiple feeds from very different content providers into a single location.  My RSS aggregator has news from MarketingVox, the NY Times, my upcoming Netflix movies, and tips from Lifehacker (among lots of others) all on a single page.  That's powerful stuff.  But what if I want to have an even more customized view?  There are plenty of services like Squidoo and Rollyo that have pursued an idea that in the past I have termed "human filtered search."  Whatever you call it, this is the growing trend of people filtering content for other people.  It's the idea behind those sites, as well as the basic concept behind social news sites like Digg or iceRocket. 

Yahoo's recently launched Yahoo! Pipes service offers what may be the missing piece to help RSS evolve into an even more useful tool.  Mashups, already hugely popular for music, involve taking unique bits of content and putting them together to create something new.  Until now, mashups with RSS have been limited mainly to people using extended tools like OPML to create single RSS feeds out of multiple feeds.  What if you could go even further and filter RSS feeds to include parts of content from multiple feeds, and present this all together in a single interface?  You could aggregate data to help customers with product searches, mashup online reviews into a single feed, offer ongoing updates on product buzz and help your brand ambassadors share their affinity for your brand through multiple sources of content.  Yahoo Pipes is a great concept that could just redefine the way that RSS can be used for content aggregation, as well as for marketing.

Some useful resources to read more:

• O'Reilley Radar - In depth coverage of creating pipes and potential for uses
• Yahoo Discussion Forum - See the conversation about Pipes (and user suggestions)
• Technorati WTF - Blog buzz about Yahoo Pipes
• Robin Good - Great in depth coverage about Pipes with lots of resource links

technorati tags: yahoo pipes yahoopipes marketing rss opml mashup socialmedia rohitbhargava

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The iPhone Controversy and Apple's Big Brand Challenge

Every news media outlet and just about every blog in the universe is buzzing about Apple's big iPhone announcement Monday at MacWorld.  It has been a busy few days of announcements with CES, MacWorld and the Detroit Auto Show all happening this week and fighting for the headlines.  As it turns out, the real headline grabber has been the rising battle between Cisco and Apple over the rights to the trademark iPhone name.  Despite it's perfect consistency with the rest of Apple's product line, it turns out the branded trademark "iPhone" actually belonged to Cisco since 2000, and they are also promoting a smart portfolio of products bearing the same name that quietly focus on reinventing the home telephone to include some of the features available in mobile phones.  In a blog post about Apple's move of announcing their own iPhone, Cisco offers a thoughtful response painting Apple as the spoiled child who tried to get the name they wanted, couldn't reach an agreement in time, and decided to move ahead with announcing the name anyway.  Paul Kedrosky has some interesting further thoughts on this, including an analysis of a part of Cisco's suit against Apple that points to some corporate espionage-like efforts from Apple to try and steal the rights to the name.

With this situation and Apple's choice of using proprietary formats for music and video throughout iTunes (insuring purchased digital music and video cannot be played on other devices) - they continue to risk being labeled as a brilliant product design company with a flawed approach to industry openness and interoperability.  So far, they have weathered this storm because consumers that have a Powerbook, iPod, iTV and (eventually) an iPhone don't realize this flaw.  But there are a growing number of customers unlikely to change their entire life into an "iLife" and who will continue to mix and match their technologies and products.  For these customers, Apple's iconic product design is only one piece of the puzzle.  There are lots of anti-Mac videos on YouTube already, poking fun at the elitism and arrogance that is becoming a growing part of Apple's brand reputation.  This controversy with the product name and Cisco is also fueling this reputation.  Ultimately, I think taking on Apple will turn out to be a smart marketing and PR move for Cisco to ride some of the media interest in Apple's iPhone - as well as another blow to help redefine Apple by it's business practices rather than only on the merits of their stunning product design.  Realistically, for now the product design will probably be enough to keep them ahead.  Not unlike the old Microsoft of the late 90s, in the longer term they will need to find a way to refocus their brand away from becoming the evil corporation bent on world domination - and more towards a brand that uses stunning product design to enable the creation and sharing of digital content openly in a world that will continue to realize the promise of personal media.

Update (1/11/07): In just a day, there have been hundreds of comments added to the post on Cisco's blog explaining their position while Apple remains silent because they don't have the same direct dialogue with customers.  The backlash is coming, and interestingly, it is coming even from Apple loyalists.  Clearly the real reason Cisco is starting this fight is because they see Apple's next move may be to shift into VoIP and perhaps start to build out the AirPort product line to directly compete with Linksys.  It's a fight the entire consumer electronics industry will be watching very closely.

technorati tags: iphone cisco apple macworld ces 2007 branding marketing advertising
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A Recap of 2006 on Influential Interactive Marketing

Let's start with a warning ... this is the "clip show" post where I recycle a lot of old material so if that causes you extreme pain, please close this window now and come back tomorrow.  For all the rest of you, it's the holidays and a quick glance around the marketing blogosphere will show that these clip show posts are in right now.  With nearly 400 post on this blog already, there is lots of content to choose from ... allowing me the luxury to conveniently ignore those posts from the past year that are outdated or that I just don't like anymore.  Here is a sampling of the rest:

Concepts & Ideas:
This is a collection of concepts and ideas that were introduced or discussed on this blog and then travelled virally to other blogs and were discussed elsewhere in media.  A good collection of ideas, many of which I still hope to implement on a client campaign (but haven't yet).

• Soundbombs
• Virtual Hugs
• Placecasting
• Widget Marketing
• Text Messaging Customer Service
• Tagging with Domain Names
• Social Media Optimization
• Automated Blog Translation
• Photopedia
• Human Search Filters

Rules & Guides:
These are a group of "Guy Kawasaki style" posts written in list format as guides to various topics from SMO to viral marketing.  It's a format I have always liked and you will probably see many more posts in this format going into 2007.

• Avoiding the Dark Side of Social Media
• 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization
• Signs Your Viral Marketing May Flop
• 7 Tips on Pitching Bloggers
• Golden Rules of Blog Etiquette

Presentations & Published Work:
Links to presentations given at industry events as well as guest contributions to other blogs.  There is some good powerpoint link bait in here, useful for those who are interested in any of these topics but couldn't make it to the events referenced.

• 7 Rules for Getting into Search (Search Engine Strategies Conference)
• 7 Tips on Pitching Bloggers (White Paper)
• The Human Side of Search (Search Insider Summit)
• Guide to Blog Marketing (SixApart Seminar) 
• Finding your Personality in Personal Media (Guest Column on Strumpette)

That's it.  Look out tomorrow for an all new post about what I think the top ten marketing ideas to watch will be in 2007.

Quantcast Offers Free Audience Data on 20 Million+ Sites

Yesterday I had a chat with Konrad Feldman, one of the co-Founders of a company called Quantcast that quietly launched an online measurement tool about two months ago which is currently in beta mode.  The tool is one of the first free resources I have seen focused on offering a complete picture of audience composition for just about any site.  In the past, I have found Alexa.org (the main competitor for free data) to be notoriously unreliable, and other options such as Nielson Netratings and Comscore are wonderfully thorough - but often out of the price range for many smaller organizations and clients (and therefore not as widely used).  The beauty of Quantcast's solution is in the dashboard view (see screenshots below) that allows you to now compare sites large and small to one another.  In speaking with Konrad, a key challenge he noted for advertisers is finding large pockets of a particular audience on sites beyond the top tier media properties.  For smaller publishers, the corresponding challenge is that they cannot field a large sales force to promote their sites and therefore must rely on online channels.

Good media planning is an art - but when it comes to interactive many media planners are taking the easy way out ... simply skimming the surface, picking the largest sites in a particular category without much thought.  Aside from the inventory glut this is creating on the largest players, it is also leaving a large number of sites either ignored, or only approached by the saaviest of interactive media planners.  The mission of Quantcast, as Konrad described, was to even the playing field by allowing advertisers easier access to consistent data, and giving publishers more visibility from advertisers and the chance to be judged based on metrics and quantifiable data.  Taking Quantcast for a spin, it's obvious there is lots of potential in this tool.  As Quantcast gets more sites to become "quantified" by registering their site and adding a tracking GIF - this data will continue to improve.  In the meantime, the site is already a very useful tool for anyone looking to better understand audience figures across a range of sites and verify the inflated numbers some sites have put out to entice advertisers.  Keeping publishers honest and helping advertisers think outside of the box ... seems like a great combination to me.

Note: For a more PR centric view of the potential uses for Quantcast, check out my post on the Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence blog.

Screenshot of Audience Data for www.dooce.com:

Screenshot of Comparison Data for ESPN, Paypal, MTV, Macys and Target:

Screenshot of Audience Data for YouTube.com:

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5 Reasons the NFL is the Dominant Sports Brand in America

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About two weeks ago, I was travelling on a Sunday evening - the first Sunday evening of the NFL season.  That evening, there was a brilliantly scripted game scheduled to pitt the New York Giants against the Indianapolis Colts.  The "drama" came from the game being a nationally televised chance to see Eli Manning (quarterback of the Giants) take on his older brother, Peyton Manning (quarterback of the Colts).  In the Washington Dulles airport, at every gate the game was on television.  And not just on, but everyone was watching - even people who never watch football.  What is it about the NFL that commands such attention, even from those who hate sports or even who hate the game?  Why does the NFL deserve to be mentioned in the context of successful brand marketing, and perhaps could even be considered the most successful sports brand in the US (even more so than Nike)?

The answer lies in a combination of the structure of the game and the brilliance of the marketing strategy behind the league.  Here are just a few of the reasons why I believe the NFL is the dominant sports brand in the United States:

1. The NFL has the money: Perhaps more than any other sport, the NFL is positioned to make the most money because the sport is extremely advertiser-friendly.  Though other sports have tried, this remains the one unique trait that the NFL has claimed above all others.  The game has natural stops and starts, a 60 minute game lasts three hours, and all this time offers plenty of empty space needed to be filled by TV advertisers.  Add to this the fact that a far fewer percentage of viewers are likely to Tivo a live NFL game, and you have an advertising gold mine.  The most obvious symbol of this is the ad frenzy that accompanies the SuperBowl every year with advertisers paying millions of dollars for a 30 second spot.  The NFL can charge what it wants, make billions, and bring TV networks along for the ride.  This flow of money allows the sport to have the freedom to do many things to build the brand.
2. Fan's love the game, not just their team: This is a powerful statement, and one that social marketers will understand well.  A football fan loves the game, as well as their team.  It is not just a game for many people, it is a belief.  Through a combination of the power of fantasy football (where fans choose players from multiple teams for their own "fantasy" team and earn points based on those player's individual performances), to network highlight reels like the controversial "Jacked Up" segment or Chris Berman's "Fastest 3 minutes" - the game is fun to watch.  NFL Films, with it's trademark music and voiceovers, complete the picture. And when a sports brand connects on this level, fans remain constant - regardless of individual team performances. 
3. The NFL community is united in promoting the game: The NFL has realized early that players, former players and coaches are the best brand ambassadors for the game, and they are united in promoting the game.  In almost every local community across the US, former players host camps for kids, contribute time and money to charities through the league's United Way partnership, own restaurants, run local radio programs and find other ways to live football during and after their playing days are over.  This combination of grassroots activity and genuine passion is infectious - and helps a new generation of sports fans grow up loving the game.
4. Focus on expanding appeal of the sport to new consumers: While may have started as the perfect sport for guys drinking in bars on Sunday afternoon, the sport has steadily focused on improving it's appeal with new demographics, and new geographies.  The Super Bowl may help, with it's advertising bonanza sure to draw equal crowds of women and men, but more and more women are watching football.  The NFL has also launched NFLLatino.com featuring hispanic players like Tony Gonzalez and spanish language content (via Hispanic Trending).  The league has been doing preview exhibition games in international markets and has a dedicated area of their website to promoting the game internationally.  When I lived in Australia, games were abbreviated to 2 hours and commercial breaks also featured football education on the nuances of the game such as how to score a safety or what is an onside kick.  All of these efforts are helping to give sport a more widespread appeal and make the NFL a more international and universal brand.
5. The sport represents the country: Aside from all the benefits above, the most impressive brand positioning victory for the NFL is that the sport has come to represent the entire country of the United States (displacing baseball as America's real love).  When troops are sent to "war" - the NFL does the over the top tributes to the troops with incessant flag waving and patriotic commentary.  The NFL owns Thanksgiving day (arguably the most American of holidays) with their two game "doubleheader" tradition.  The ideals of the sport mirror most American's ideals they wish to see in themselves: patriotic, tough, perseverance, etc.  In short, the sport represents everything American, therefore the brand represents more than just a sport.  The NFL has a brand that means something deep to many football fans, whether they realize it or not.  And this is the most powerful statement one can make about a sports brand. 

Recently, the architect of much of this brand power (Paul Tagliabue) retired and passed the torch to Roger Goodell.  By all accounts, he is seen as the right kind of successor to nuture the strong brand value of the NFL and continue to expand the appeal of the sport internationally and in new demographics.  Judging by the recent moves from the NFL to launch the NFL Network and add Saturday and Thursday evening games to the schedule in the second half of the season - the brand looks to continue it's reign as the premiere sports brand in America - and well on it's way to becoming a more globally recognized and loved brand.

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JupiterResearch Tries to Redefine "Social Marketing"

Today's Adotas email newsletter carried the story of JupiterResearch's new initiative they are calling their "Social Marketing" service.  The offering is described in the language below and is further explored in a launch announcement blog post from Emily Riley, their lead analyst:

Social Marketing helps companies capitalize on cutting-edge marketing techniques. Through best-practice analysis and consumer and executive surveys, the research shows marketers how to profit from the use of Weblogs, podcasts, really simple syndication (RSS) and other emerging marketing tools, as well as how to develop, execute and measure word-of-mouth campaigns.

There is one big issue with the service that needs to be noted right away -- which is that social marketing is a recognized term for an entirely different type of marketing that relates to social issues and advocacy.  JupiterResearch certainly won't be winning any fans in that community among the likes of Nedra Weinreich or Craig Lefebvre by choosing to hijack the social marketing term for social media.  Aside from this oversight, there are some subtle signs that offering this new service may be a bit of a stretch for JupiterResearch.  For example, though they have launched a large number of Analyst blogs, readers cannot leave comments or trackbacks on their posts.  With many smart agencies, research organizations and independent consultants launching services in the social media space - it is no longer enough to issue a statement declaring a new expertise.  To make it credible, organizations need to demonstrate a commitment to social media in everything they do.

Eons.com Offers a New Online Community for Boomers 50+

Several weeks ago, I had the chance to speak with Jeff Taylor (founder of Monster.com) about Eons.com, his latest venture launching today.  The site is targeted to the increasingly influential group of boomers aged 50+ who are now either contemplating retirement or engaged in "active retirement."  Aside from the new advertising opportunities the site offers, there are many choices from an interface point of view that just strike me as smart and unique from other sites in the market.  Jeff has a keen understanding for his target market, and though he joked in our meeting at BuzzAgent about finally being one of the younger guys) in his team, this understanding of his target market shines through in the design and content on Eons.com. 

Here are a few key reasons why Eons.com stands out from other sites targeted to the boomer audience:

1. Smart and inviting design - The main problem with most portal sites is that they are too cluttered, or unfocused on content features.  Eons.com features a clean and simple homepage with minimal text, plenty of open space, and inviting features.  The site has an easy to find button to make the text larger, and more importantly - other pages within the site carry through the uncluttered design by using plenty of white space, ignoring the temptation to make the homepage simple but lose that simplicity throughout the site.
2. An "Age Relevant Search Engine" - As anyone who has been forced to deal with the millions of search results returned for nearly every term by Google, complicated results and too many text ads reduce the simplicity of using search.  Yet when people are searching for broad terms, they are most frequently looking for the same content.  So Eons.com features "cRANKy," an age relevant search engine which ranks search results and filters through to only return the most commonly clicked results and omits the rest.  Keyword ads are still displayed, but are clearly indicated as sponsored links and limited.
3. Content that doesn't focus solely on health and retirement - This is the major mistake made by many other sites focusing on this audience, and Eons.com avoids it in a novel way by choosing to focus the site instead on "life goals" and asking users to create top ten lists for their life.  The site launched with more than 50,000 life goals and there is a ranking of the top goals most often cited.
4. The world's largest obituary database - Perhaps the biggest taboo is to focus morbidly on death, so many sites targeted to boomers avoid the topic altogether.  Not Eons.com ... which features "the world's largest obituary database," tools to make the process of sending condolences easier, let's you create "tributes" to departed loved ones, and even offers an irresistable feature called "Way to Go" which highlights obscure deaths in the news around the world.  The philosophy goes, death is something that will eventually come to us all ... we may as well have fun with it.
5. Coolness and a Hip Factor - This element might seem out of place on a site like Eons, but it is actually a key element in the overall experience of the site.  Features like the LifeMap and Longevity Calculator allow users to have a more interactive experience and not limit themselves to only reading content or browsing photos.  T