Curing Fyre FOMO

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

This past week, I caved to the hype around Fyre and watched the Netflix documentary "Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened." You've likely heard of Fyre, if only because Ja Rule is making quite the comeback -- just when we were wondering where he disappeared off to. You may have also realized that Hulu launched a competing documentary in the same week, and that while both focus on the deep fraud that is the Fyre festival, they present strongly different undertones. In a nutshell, Fyre represents the failed attempt to throw a luxury music festival on a private island in the Bahamas, and was initially created by Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule. The reality ended up far from promises made.

Today’s post makes connections to our Digital Marketing class around the topic of search engine marketing and influencer marketing. Ifluencer marketing, which is heavily social media fueled, is incredibly powerful. In the case of Fyre, most influencers who promoted the festival were paid substantial sums and promised luxury accommodations (i.e. beachside cabana rooms). Background research indicated that over 300 million impressions were made in less than a day from the influencers involved with Fyre. 300 million impressions! Although those didn’t necessarily translate to ticket sales, this is a stunning example of the extent of which influencer marketing can impact ‘online society’ at both the micro and macro levels.

Early 2000's Tech Renaissance

If you rolled your eyes as the foldable laptop-tablet hybrids like me, you quickly realised much more utility you can get out of them once your own friends started using them (that sneaky look of envy when they they bring out their Apple Pencils and start scribbling away at their iPads to edit emails).

The foldable phone, although prototyped almost 15 years ago, is now slowly raising its head again, with Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi now releasing their own prototypes of foldable phones. Google backed these announcements by releasing their own Android Support for Foldables at the new AndroidDevSummit.

Android VP Dave Burke described it as “You can think of the device as both a phone and a tablet, Broadly, there are two variants — two-screen devices and one-screen devices. When folded, it looks like a phone, fitting in your pocket or purse. The defining feature for this form factor is something we call screen continuity.”

It'll be interesting to see if the phone and tablet industry coalesces around a single form factor here, but more importantly, it'll be even more interesting to see how the ad platform giants like Google Facebook and so on adapt to this new layout of screens, and the potential for new real estate for brands to advertise upon. The fold-out-ability provides interesting opportunities for ads to become more interactive - to the point of perhaps changing the definition of an engagement to go from just scrolling across the ad, to perhaps working with the ad layout to see what's hidden below the fold. 

MoviePass to Offer Unlimited Plan Once Again

In 2018, MoviePass made a huge bet in the viability of an affordable subscription model in the movie theater industry by introducing the ability to subscribe for unlimited movie tickets for $9.95 per month. At first the business was booming and consumers quickly adopted the model, but the profitability of the business quickly came into question. Soon after consumer flocked toward MoviePass, the business began to change their pricing and product strategy to attempt to attain and sustain profitability. The product was no longer unlimited. A limit to which movies you could select from was enacted. And MoviePass quickly began to lose customers.

As we move into 2019, MoviePass has continued to tweak its model to capture and cater to consumers in a profitable manner. According to an article on Mashable, MoviePass is moving back toward its unlimited plan, but now offers a stratified pricing and product strategy to cater to multiple consumer segments. From a value-based "Select" plan, to the unlimited "Red Carpet" plan, consumers can now choose which product suits them best.

As I look at what MoviePass has been able to achieve, it's impressive that a technology start-up was able to penetrate such an established industry - all through the digital space. While their business model hasn't been fleshed out, I believe that MoviePass was able to find a need in the marketplace, and has found ways to provide a product to fill that need. As MoviePass moves forward, their biggest challenge will be to continue to find ways to acquire new customers, while maintaining their customer base.

Free Streaming TV is taking hold

Roku was the only online streaming service that wasn't based on the subscription service whereas other companies tried to create stickiness with the customers like Netflix, Hulu and even Amazon Video as a part of Prime membership benefits.  Other developing countries with more price sensitive consumers already embrace the model of free TV subsidized by the ads and it makes sense that Roku is following the same model in the US. Given the success of the Roku, Viacom acquisition of the Pluto TV is a viable strategy to the market.
The streaming subscription model could a winner take all market with Netflix likely to raise prices or even introduce ads, so it's refreshing to see that free streaming TVs combined with digital advertising is a viable plan to reach a large number of consumers.

"The Circle" comes to life

In 2013 David Eggers' book The Circle paints a chilling near future that describes a company that houses most of the world's social media activity, search data, and commercial transactions.

Facebook's recently announced plan to integrate Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger is a significant step to making Eggers' fiction become reality. This will integrate 2.6 billion users across the three platforms.

While this might allow users to more easily communicate, think of the profound impact it will have on other areas of digital activity. Facebook's grip on users data across these platforms will be strengthened and the activity that users take on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp will no longer occur under three distinct platforms.

The former founders of WhatsApp and Instagram have recently resigned, under both explicit and tacit protest, being replaced by top executives from Facebook.

From Facebook's perspective it makes sense. To more easily manage (and build a business around) one distinct platform vs. three is logical. Additionally, Facebook has planned to extend encryption around all of the messages of users across Instagram and Facebook Messenger (it is the default for WhatsApp).  It would theoretically make it harder to build a data machine for advertisers if the company can't read the specific words in your messages. However, given that Facebook is a world leader at mining meta-data, this shouldn't assuage any fears that the company will not be in a better position to track - and eventually exploit - all of your activity.

Time for regulation? The FTC correct decision to force Microsoft to allow users to download the browser of their choosing in the early 2000s spells hope that the government is sophisticated enough to regulate a cutting edge technology company. Whether the government is sophisticated enough to remain open long enough to advance anti-trust proceedings is a different story. With Facebook now consolidating the the world's two largest social media applications and the world's largest messaging application - it is time to officially investigate the possibility of anti-trust violations.

Google will take care of your campaigns

Recently, some Google clients received an email with intriguing words inside:

“We’ll focus on your campaigns, so you can focus on your business.”

Even though this headline is quite inspirational, some other details of this cooperation are not completely clear.

It is worth to mention that function will be added automatically in 7 days, if a user won’t opt out within this period. This strategy resembles free subscription trap, which quite often we forget to cancel on time. However, Google seem to play if fair, saying that user can turn this option off at any point of time. This news make specialised agencies and consultants think that they are watching how a powerful new competitor appears. I would say that their suspicions are quite logical. Managing customers’ accounts with limited responsibility, since at this point service provider do not guarantee excellent results, might be a great learning opportunity for Google workers. Additional interesting fact is that this added feature won’t increase a budget and even refund might be issued in case of negative results, which also might lead to an idea that profit generation is not the main aim at this point.

Even though Google is a leading player in many fields of digital marketing, they still see some areas to grow and have all resources to enter those areas successfully.

Digital Marketing Resource

I have been trying to get smart on the digital marketing space and found a great resource that breaks the market up in a digestible way and also outlines the major players.

Link: https://lumapartners.com/luma-content/

While the Lumascape for the various channels (display, mobile, video, social, content, etc.) is a valuable resource, it  shows how competitive the market is. I would not want to be starting an ad-tech company or a digital agency at this point in time. There are hundreds of competitors that compete for the same ad spend across the major channels. I went to some of the company websites and they all offer an “ad spend optimization tool” that helps drive purchase decisions and minimize customer acquisition cost. It is very hard to tell what they actually do and how they differentiate themselves. If I was starting a brand, I would be happy that there are a lot of resources to help bring my product/service to market, but it seems difficult to know which tools to use.

Super Bowl Playbook: Time to Score a Digital Marketing Touchdown

Super Bowl Playbook: 

Time to Score a Digital Marketing Touchdown

With 30-second Super Bowl ad spots costing over $5 million, digital marketers must derive a game plan to maximize dollars spent. Brands are using digital strategies across mobile, social and other internet platforms to optimize content.

One strategy is to pre-release or leak an ad to generate buzz around the brand before the commercial airs live during the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, this tactic generated a mixed response from viewers who watched Gillette's newest commercial. For this year's Super Bowl, Gillette used a non-traditional approach. In the world of digital marketing, there is a segment of content called "progressive advertising".  Going out on a limb, Gillette released one of the most progressive pieces of content for this year's Super Bowl. 

In its two-minute digital ad entitled "We Believe", Gillette sends somewhat of a polarizing message to viewers addressing the topic of "toxic masculinity".  Touching on the topics of bullying, masculinity and harassment, the shaving company conjured up a roaring reaction from viewers. Interestingly, the ad doesn't even touch on shaving or razors. Not your typical lighthearted or humorous Super Bowl commercial. Despite the controversy, Proctor & Gamble, Gillette's parent company, has generated 65.4 million views on the internet. As the saying goes, "Any publicity is good publicity." 

Amazon Ad Business

Companies are targeting customers with ads based on related purchases made on Amazon. Like a meditation app advert if a customer bought a wellness book. Even credit card ads based on how you purchase on Amazon. The advertisers found those people by using Amazon’s ad services, which utulizes what the Amazon knows better than anyone: consumers’ online purchasing habits. Ads appear as promoted products but as well as very targeted ads banners. This is amazing for advertisers and very lucrative for Amazon.

Good-Bye Digital Agency.

JPMorgan, Unilever, P&G as well as NETFLIX have been doing it for years, but now everyone else is catching on!  There is an emerging trend amongst companies in all industries to bring media buying in-house.  Bayer is amongst the latest to join the ranks of this change in their digital marketing.

Why are companies doing this?  For many years companies have been relying on Digital Agencies to ideate campaigns, create marketing strategies and execute.  However as technology has advanced, digital has become more common knowledge and companies are under pressure to compete - the digital agency landscape has unravelled.  Long gone are the days of big accounts, fraudulent accounting, "skimming off the top," as companies have gotten wise to where their dollars are not going - to the ad campaigns.

As the demand for digital media presence increases, companies are taking back control of their media to have better ROI, effectiveness, efficiency and ROAS on their dollars.  In some cases, companies are seeing 20%-30% cost reductions for the same volume and presence of media as a result of the savings from doing it in-house vs with an agency and therefore re-investing the savings back into digital ads and online presence.

In-House killed the agency star!! *sung to the tune of video killed the radio star.*

Leveraging the "80/20" rule for optimizing online marketing.

The Pareto Principle, also referred to as “The 80/20 Rule,” is widely used in building out business strategy, but it can also be very useful in online marketing decisions.

The Pareto Principle is also utilized for campaign management or search optimization. The “rule” implies that in many instances 80% of events is caused by 20% of sources. In business this means that 80% of sales come from 20% of clients, and in economics it could mean 80% of wealth distributed amongst 20% of the population. The SEO application of this rule would be to identify 80% of organic search traffic going to the top 20% of search results.

A common method of utilizing the Pareto Principle in the context of online marketing is to identify the following -

• 80% of online sales are from 20% of products
• 80% of search visits are from 20% of the keywords (often from brand-terms rather than generic)
• 80% of leads in content marketing are from 20% of the content assets
• 80% of user tasks are performed on 20% of links offered 
• 80% of social shares are from 20% of the social updates

These patterns are also called as the long tail distribution in the in reference to product sales. Analyzing existing online marketing activity and identifying what drives majority of online leads and sales. This helps focus attention on areas where making changes will lead to conversion rate optimization

Correctly applying the 80/20 Rule to Search marketing makes the most and least profitable investments stand out quickly. It can result in pausing less profitable things like ad groups or keywords, in raising the budget to allocate more money to the top 20%.

Reference links - 

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/5-ways-use-8020-rule-adwords/134572/

https://www.makeitbloom.com/blog/the-80-20-rule-mastering-ppc-optimisation-when-time-is-scarce/

https://www.smartinsights.com/marketing-planning/marketing-models/paretos-8020-rule-marketing/

The Shift to Intent Based Advertising

As a practitioner in the B2B Advertising and Marketing industry, I have witnessed a shift in advertising strategy. The Account-Based Advertising industry started by leveraging its data sets to help clients target advertisements to employees working for their target accounts. The technology that empowered this relied on identifying employees through their IP addresses and/or cookies. Armed with this information, advertisers could bid higher to win the ad placement and charge a premium to their clients. This allowed clients to focus their advertising dollars towards employees within the accounts that mattered most to them.

What if, however, for argument sake an advertisement is targeted to a janitor within a target account. Most likely, he or she would not be a key decision maker for the B2B product being advertised. Although Account-Based Advertisers do claim to have the capability to target only key decision makers, in reality there isn't a strong enough data set on target audiences to fulfill that promise. Take for example, Matt Aaronson who is the Director of Product Marketing at Demandbase. According to data from an advertising Data Management Platform (screenshot below), he works in 7 different industries and at companies of 3 different sizes. If he is associated with so many different audiences, how can an advertisement focusing on just one of those groups be reliably targeted to him?

To mitigate the above risk and make sure that advertisements are targeted to in-market audiences, the industry is moving towards relying on intent data. Demandbase's next-generation Targeting Solution, for example, monitors more than 150 billion intent signals every month to identify employees at target accounts that are actively researching relevant categories. For example, they may be reading articles related to your competitors' solutions. Alternatively, their research may be focused on specific trends related to your industry and product offering. These powerful insights drive advertisement targeting to those specific employees at prospect accounts that are displaying these intent signals. This functionality allows clients to take hyper targeted advertising to the next level.

Digital Ecosystem in China

Global brands are flooding into China since the country has become one of the largest consumer markets. Many have realized that they cannot directly borrow the most popular digital marketing practices in the United States to apply in China. For example, email marketing is pretty much nonexistent in China at least in the B2C market. Chinese people prefer to use social media messengers rather than emails to communicate with each other--first a messenger called QQ (developed by Tencent), and now WeChat (also developed by Tencent). Even in professional settings, people in China use WeChat to make external connections or discuss issues with colleagues (in a group chat). 

For a global marketer, there are three internet giants they must know: BAT, which is short for Baidu (search engine), Alibaba (e-commerce) and Tencent (social media). And the "B" is changing. Some people argue it will become a double B--Baidu and Bytedance while others predict Bytedance will replace Baidu in the online advertising space. Bytedance owns an online news aggregator Jinri Toutiao and a short video app TikTok. 

In the United States, online advertising is dominated by Google and Facebook. But in China, search engine is in a weaker position. Alibaba and Tencent are currently the winners and Bytedance is catching up. Consumers don't use search engines to search for what they are interested in buying. If they want anything, they directly go to Alibaba or JD.com. Where do they see things they want? On WeChat or TikTok. 

WeChat is a unique combination of a messenger, social media (the Moments function equals Facebook), and an e-wallet. It has nearly 900 million monthly users and cannot be ignored if anyone is serious about reaching Chinese consumers. Numerous luxury brands, including Longchamp, Gucci, Michael Kors and Fendi, have already released mini-programs. In 2017, digital marketing company Yext incorporated WeChat's mini-programs. 

It would be interesting to see whether and when global marketers would start incorporating TikTok in their marketing strategy to leverage its 500 million active users. 

Interesting reads:

Learning From China's Digital Disrupters

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/learning-from-chinas-digital-disrupters/

Bytedance Will Take Over B In China's BAT

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-tech-breakingviews/breakingviews-bytedance-will-take-over-b-in-chinas-bat-idUSKCN1OR07Q

While The Rest of the World Tries to "Kill Email" In China, It's Always Been Dead

https://qz.com/984690/while-the-rest-of-the-world-tries-to-kill-email-in-china-its-always-been-dead/

For Brands, Alibaba Is The Gateway To China And Chinese Consumers

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hendriklaubscher/2018/06/28/brands-alibaba-is-the-gateway-to-china-chinese-customers/#7ed1dee01658

Authorities crack down on misleading influencer marketing

Last week marked a major new milestone in the evolution of influencer marketing and the way in which content is presented and labelled for consumption by the mass audience.

A number of celebrities, including Alexa Chung and Ellie Goulding, agreed to a new code of conduct for how they label social media posts. Essentially, they will no longer be allowed to be paid to endorse products without disclosing in the post that they are being compensated.

It is a move that has been long resisted by both marketers and celebrities alike but pressure has been brought to bear by the UK competition authority which has argued that the practice of stars being paid for endorsing products without disclosing they were being rewarded by the company is fundamentally dishonest. Moreover, the authority held that such practices risked inducing consumers to make purchases based on false and misleading information, namely that the star “organically” cared for the product.

It is still early days for this backlash against many of the practices of influencer marketing. But already the move will have put many involved in it on notice that change is coming.

Over the longer term, of course, it is likely to make the payment of both stars and non-stars less effective for companies and therefore there is a possibility that it will eventually greatly reduce the revenue earned by “influencers”. Time will tell.

The Wild West of Advertising on a path to be a Little Less Wild

The rapid rise of digital marketing has created an interesting dynamic between regulators and scammers as they innovate in attempt to stay one step ahead of each other. The latest trick from the scammers in the UK is to use fake celebrity endorsements to promote a brand and trick consumers. Celebrity Martin Lewis was the victim of fake ads falsifying his endorsement for new Bitcoin get rich quick schemes. In response Lewis announced that he was suing Facebook, claiming that the false ads caused damage to his reputation and his livelihood.

Lewis and Facebook recently reached a settlement on the terms that Facebook will provide a £3 million donation to the local Citizens Advice scams action project to establish a scam advice bureau to protect consumers from falsified ads. Additionally, Facebook UK will experiment with adding a button to allow users to flag ad as being “fake”. For now, the feature will only be tested in the UK but could be rolled out worldwide in the future.

The rise of digital advertising has certainly outpaced the regulations surrounding the space. As Lewis puts it, digital advertising is like the Wild West right now. As money continues to pour into digital advertising there will be an increase in focus placed on the regulation of the industry.

"This is an absolute Wild West with people sitting all over the world, and with very little regulation, no criminal enforcement" - Martin Lewis

Currently, Facebook is in the spotlight, but Lewis is also turning his attention to Google and Yahoo. The digital advertising platforms have made it incredibly easy to post an ad; which is a double-edged sword since it easily enables the scammers. As a result, the responsibility for policing these ads is rightfully being placed on the platforms who have the right to control who is posting these ads – not to mention the billions of dollars in revenue they pull in each year from advertising. With the enormous volume of ads served on these platforms each day, even filtering out 99.9% of malicious ads could still be problematic. Moving forward to what standards is the public going to hold these sheriffs to?

Super Bowl Ads

After perusing through the homepage of Ad Age, I was peppered with stories and articles about super bowl ads. Michelob Ultra is launching a new ad centered around robots; Coke is launching a new ad about social justice; this other company is launching a new campaign based on the super bowl ad; etc.

In the era of digital marketing, attribution, efficiency and targeted messaging, it amazes me how much emphasis is still put on Super Bowl ads. In 2018, the average price for a 30 second spot during the Super Bowl was over $5 million (not a small figure by any means), yet large and small companies alike are willing to pay this premium to be present during the marquee event. When comparing that price tag with what can be done from a digital marketing standpoint, an article by Digiday estimates that companies could spend the $5 million on the following, exponentially increasing their reach and number of impressions:

• 32 years of mobile video ads (~357M impressions) 
• 33 social games
• 4 weeks of Snapchat lenses
• 113M in reach on Facebook (2M more than the Super Bowl)
• 2.6B instagram impressions
• 2.6M paid search clicks on Amazon
• 1.85B display adverstising impressions
• 1,733 influencer posts on Instagram (173.3M in reach)

Given that companies still pay for the Super Bowl spots over the more efficient and trackable digital marketing tactics, it is clear that there's still something about TV that can't be (or hasn't been) replaced by digital. Many industry professionals are naysayers when it comes to the value of TV, but unless companies are presented with evidence that their TV spots are not reaching and influencing their intended audiences, we'll likely continue to see sustained investment in marquee events like the Super Bowl. 

China Blocked Bing: What does this Mean?

On Wednesday, January 23rd, the Financial Times reported that China has blocked the only foreign search engine in the country, Microsoft's Bing. Bing had only a 2% market share and was not particularly popular within China. Bing also censored and arranged content according to local government rules. Does this even matter, then?

In short, yes. We've evolved into a world where search is everything. It's in our pockets, on our desktops, and absolutely essential to completing nearly any task. Where are you going to go for dinner? Where can you get your dry cleaning done by your apartment? How do you make interesting graphics in PowerPoint?

Throughout the course of the day we use search to guide our every move. There's a lot of trust being put into search engines. China is a unique example. Already highly censored and quite cut off, I see significant value in a search engine that is not state-run. Although compliant, Bing offered an opportunity for a different perspective. As those perspectives diminish and are subsequently picked off, what do we owe the people of China to help ensure they have access to content from the world outside of their country?

Search is imperfect yet powerful. We should be doing everything we can to ensure proper controls are in place to reduce abuses of power while also bringing information to people who need it. Even with the low user rates, the loss of Bing in China is a loss for us all.

Personalize Bots to Perform Mundane Tasks? Implications for Off-site Optimization.

Bots are trending in the artificial intelligence industry. I don't mean the infamous Russian 'bots' which are mainly people-run, created to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. No. I mean online bots that receive, process and respond to information; they perform the mundane tasks that we'd normally complete. According to Kurt Wagner from CNBC, bots range from online chatbots that simulate conversation, to bots that schedule appointments and bots that provide customer service support (e.g. respond to inquiries). The bot industry is growing by the day and large companies such as Google (with Google Now), Microsoft, Slack, Kik and now Facebook are increasingly creating bots that perform simple tasks.

Google's Fresh Bots (which constantly return to updated sites) and Deep Crawlers (which scout sites monthly) index updates for Google, that is, perform a relatively simple task which would otherwise require an enormous undertaking for humans to complete. Just think about having to register updates as they happen, every day, hour and even minute for thousands of sites. If it were not for bots, this would be nearly impossible. What if we were to create a customizable bot service that performs one task for your regular, on a budget, entrepreneur? The bot can learn to send you reminders or schedule reminders, or to use your credit card to buy toilet paper every month. In effect, to complete one mundane task that you do often and would save so much time if it were outsourced to an online robot.

I've tried to search for a service like this, but I've come up with zero results and prototypes at best. I'd be intrigued to see where this opportunity goes and if something like this comes out in the near future.

In any case, these bots could completely change the possibilities for off-site optimization. Just think about it, a bot that messages companies requests for backlinks? Bots that check your site and make sure you're using internal links, deep links for other sites, or to make sure that "click here" doesn't appear but instead the name of the page, etc. A bot to complete the relatively easy tasks which a busy entrepreneur may not have time to complete or a novice start-up not familiar with optimization would know about. Bots that help startups to start up, by taking care of the little things that can make a big difference in the long run.

SEO

Recently, I launched my own startup and have been doing a lot of research regarding SEO and the interesting ways in which you can go to the top of the search list by generating content and using specific keywords in your blog or articles. In addition, I also learned that it takes a long time even months to see results after you have finalized your SEO strategy and put it into action.

Looking forward to learning more about how to generate credible content that can help me boost my pages in search. 

DM in 2019: What’s New

With digital marketing gaining so much speed, it will be extremely interesting to see how the landscape will be changing in 2019. What’s the new trend? What medium works best? What are we trying that we have not done before? I’m 2019, here are some of the features to expect in 2019:
1) Voice search
2) Video marketing
3) programmatic advertising
4) artificial intelligence in audience targeting
5) visual speach
6) Facebook popularity decline
7) personalization in email

To me, the most interesting will be the artificial intelligence for audience targeting. That could be a game changer in conversion rates, which could alter the entire cost structure that advertisers are willing to pay to advertise their product or service. The new normal could be a much higher spend because of better accuracy, meaning the industry growth in revenue could be propelled even further I. 2019 and beyond. Hold tight, because we are in store for some big changes in 2019!

AT&T back to advertising on YouTube

AT&T is back to buying and running ads on YouTube after taking a strong stance for over 2 years of avoiding the platform. It's rare for a company of this stature and with a massive marketing budget to avoid a huge advertising platform like YouTube for such a long time based on non financial motives. A number of large brands, like Verizon and Johnson & Johnson, left YouTube in 2007 when their commercials were used during hate speech and offensive videos. But after the outcry died down, they decided to quietly come back.
This is another example of today's difficult environment of how to control the digital advertising and how to make sure the company's brand doesn't suffer or create negative associations unless the negative headlines and public outcry make those companies aware of the problem. This issues can be more costly for smaller companies unable to fight those perceptions, where AT&T or other large companies can throw billions on TV ads, print and digital advertising to make consumers forget the crisis quickly.
These news further highlight the importance of "brand safety" for all companies and the close monitoring of what content is used along with purchased digital ads.

Buh-bye, Classifieds: Marketing Commercial Real Estate in the Digital Era

Buh-bye, Classifieds: 

Marketing Commercial Real Estate in the Digital Era

Digital marketing and real estate don't seem to have a lot in common. Except one thing - location, location, location. Real estate brokers and their properties need to be in front of buyers and sellers... and they need to be in front of them aggressively.  Digital marketing is the way to do that.

The real estate industry is driven by relationships and hand-shake deals -- does digital marketing really have a logical place? One start-up company thinks so. Buildout, launched in 2010 and headquartered in Chicago, is a real estate marketing platform. According to a survey conducted by Buildout, 33% of brokers spend eleven hours or more on marketing tasks and 26% of brokers spend six to ten hours devoted to administrative work. The time-constraint challenges represents a massive opportunity for an automated, digital marketing solution. In turn, Builout has created a software that enables commercial real estate operators to showcase and market properties. Think Zillow for commercial real estate.

Buildout is not alone. In January 2019, the world's largest commercial real estate brokerage firm, CBRE, made a big-time bet on digital marketing. CBRE announced a landmark 7-year deal with Co-Star Group. Co-star is a provider of online marketing, commercial real estate information and analytics.  Historically, commercial real estate was largely unaffected by digital market and high-tech solutions, but that it all changing. Social media, content marketing snd brand identities are becoming increasingly important in the world of commercial real estate.

So how are these companies taking advantage of the digital marketing marketplace. They are doing everything. Going mobile, using metrics, earning media, owning media, claiming digital space and integrating digital with direct mail. The digital revolution is upon us.

Are they trying to steal my face?

While some people find it funny to participate in #tenyearchallenge (303k posts Instagram as of today), others are concerned that it was initiated by Facebook in order to collect even more personal data for their own sake. It sounds quite logical that it might be a perfect database for creation and training of a mechanism, which will generate an image of a person in different age stage as well as recognize a current age.

“Imagine that you wanted to train a facial recognition mechanism on age-related characteristics and, more specifically, on age progression”, O’Neill.

However, Facebook representatives deny the fact that this challenge is initiated by them and have benefits to their company. Even though they are trying to be convincing, let’s not forget the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, when data of millions people was used without their agreement.

Why are we so afraid of companies having our face information stored? In fact, a huge amount of data has already been generated on each of us related to our preferences in food, web search and other intimate questions, and we just don’t want to admit it. According to The Guardian, in 2016 already a half of US adults’ faces were stored in police databases. It sounds scary that someone is watching you, but we also should not deny that it can do our lives better.

Firstly, face recognition system can make the World a better place. It can definitely serve the need to find people, who were lost, or those, who committed a crime. Aging part of the mechanism might be especially useful for searching kidnapped children after a long period of time. There is a case when facial recognition helped to find a child after 27 years.

Secondly, it might be an aid for providing a better customer experience using targeting. I can imagine Sephora scanning my face in order not only to know my skin tone, but also my age, making a better recommendations as a result.

It is a personal choice whether or not to raise a concern about privacy of personal data. But if it is inevitable, why not to focus on the bright side?