Evolution of the newspaper business model

Savvy newspapers have finally realized their business models need to change and simply relying on driving users to their site to generate clicks and impressions is not nearly enough. The Chicago Tribune understands they have creative talent capable of producing content that can be used to help marketers. Marketers may understand the power of a great story, but journalists know how to tell a great story. The fusion and collaboration of these two professions can be quite powerful and help marketers solve the problem of consistently coming up with great content.

This article also briefly  touches on the issue of the separation of editorial and advertising during our last class. The Chicago Tribune seems to be taking the high road on this topic, but this article highlights how easily news sources can blur the lines.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/ct-tribune-digital-marketing-0401-biz-20150331-story.html#page=1

HALO: Marketing Evolved

Microsoft's XBOX One is gearing up for the next iteration of it's wildly popular HALO video game series which puts the player in the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetic super soldier, as he battles an alien race known as the Covenant.
HALO 2's marketing effort in 2004 involved an alternate reality game that let players solve real world puzzles that ultimately led them to a point where they could play a demo of the game. HALO 3, launched in 2007, followed up with an even more ambitious campaign that involved the release of action figures, a HALO branded soda, and video documentaries that cost $40 million. The big risk was a stunning success with 3.3 million units selling in the first week and total sales of $170 million in the first few days leading it to win several marketing awards. HALO 4 reverted to the same tactics used in the HALO 2 marketing campaign by challenging gamers with puzzles that unlocked promotional art which went viral in social media circles and on gaming blogs.

Needless to say, the series is immensely popular with many gamers and it would be easy for the developers to pare back the marketing budget for a brand that pretty much sells itself. The attached article is old, but it's really interesting because it dives into how the marketers have observed the evolution of their target market and how they view their different segments and I think the lessons learned can be applied to many different circumstances.

http://www.dmnews.com/halo-4-marketing-evolved/article/274185/

The HALO marketing machine is gearing up for the latest installment in the series with a Tumblr website that shows a picture of a bullet with the word "Traitor," written on it and a timer counting down to the next update. If history is any guide, this is just the beginning of a well orchestrated campaign to whip the loyal fanbase into a frenzy for the release of this title.

B2B Digital Marketing Challenges

I didn't truly understand the depth and the complexity of digital marketing before I enrolled in this class. Now I am armed with a rudimentary understanding of this subject and more intimidated than ever by all the different avenues available to reach customers. Fortunately, I don't work in retail, which seems to be a Pandora's box for marketers trying to figure out how to reach large diverse groups of people. Conversely, my business (high level finance) has a very narrow field of potential customers which presents its own set of challenges that I think many B2B marketers face.

This makes conversion optimization very important for B2B marketers when compared to their peers in retail who start with a higher number of potential customers at the top of the funnel. One guest speaker recommended "Words that Sell," as a resource to help with conversion rate and I've found it to be a very useful. My response rate to trade recommendations has improved and the number of colleagues re-blasting my material to their clients has increased by simply adding these words to my messages/notes.
This is great because the ROI on a higher conversion rate of existing customers is tremendously high. However, the next step is reaching new customers. This isn't exactly an easy thing to accomplish with a very fragmented, highly regulated, and finite universe of potential clients. I'd like to know if anyone else faces similar issues and how they are attacking them or what kind of solutions they have devised.

Amazing Wingsuit Viral Video

This video didn't quite receive the same attention that Psy did with Gangnam Style, but it still ranks as one of my favorite viral videos.

http://youtu.be/TWfph3iNC-k

I was totally amazed the first time I watched it and continued to watch it over and over to the point that it annoyed my wife. I had a short lived obsession with Wingsuit jumping that she crushed fairly quickly by continuously reminding me how dangerous it was along with the fact that I had a child. It introduced me to GoPro's product (the video was shot in 2011) and suddenly I found myself searching out other wingsuit jumping videos as well as others that were shot using GoPro cameras.

This clip doesn't have explicit GoPro branding, but there are other videos of Jeb which display the brand while showing people how creative they can get with the implementation of the product. I believe there are 4 or 5 cameras used in this to provide all the different angles. Overall, I think this was a great way for a brand to showcase their product in an obtrusive way and drum up interest from their target market while also interesting those who secretly aspire to be part of it

Uniqlo - UT Me

Uniqlo’s New Mobile e-Commerce Business Model

"They’re creating a whole new business model by taking the mobile platform to its logical conclusion.  Their app, which does a lot more than Instagram’s simple filters, works hand-in-hand with a business model to turn a T-shirt (commodity) into your own work of art (priceless.)"

Full Article

http://www.opensourcestrategies.com/2015/02/20/uniqlo-new-mobile-e-commerce-business-model/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenSourceStrategies2+%28Open+Source+Strategies+Blog%29

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4VBfwMwxSE

This isn't quite my style and I certainly don't have the time or talent to design something that I'd consider wearing. I'd rather leave that for professionals who specialize in this sort of thing. Besides, I don't think they are targeting 30-somethings with this product. On the other hand, I can see how teenagers would like this product, and it is a great way to get them to interact with the brand on the platform they are most comfortable using, mobile. Uniqlo gets the added benefit of reducing inventory and unsold product designs further reducing costs. I have to believe other brands won't be far behind.  

The Dilemma of Digital Marketing for Luxury Brands

http://www.theguardian.com/marketing-luxury-goods-feb-15/2015/feb/16/digital-marketing-luxury-brands

This article made me think about the difficulty luxury brand marketing managers face when determining their marketing mix. Many luxury brand customers are likely wealthy people over the age of 35 with a positive correlation between age and their status as a luxury brand consumer, so they are more likely to respond  to the old types of marketing channels. The younger generation has a smaller number of luxury good consumers, but they are the future (assuming we ignore all of the doom & gloom articles about the future written by baby boomers moaning about lazy and entitled millenials), and they respond to a whole different set of marketing tools.

This begs the question, “How does a  marketing manager determine their mix?” Customers who have the largest wallet are an easy target and produce immediate results, but focusing on this segment ignores the future. Does the marketing manager necessarily care about penetrating a segment that will pay off in 20-30 years? I would doubt it, since it won’t affect next quarters earnings.  I think this can be observed in the article with the following quote,

“ There were signs of scepticism in the audience over the merits of digital. One question submitted to the panel via the app quickly rose to the top as people voted for it to be discussed: “The return on investment (ROI) is not as big with digital, so why should we invest in digital advertising?”

And I thought the  response was perfect.

“You are building a relationship with people who may continue to use your product for the next 25 years. Those interactions that you have, particularly through social streams that you can get through digital, are super valuable. It would be a shame not to invest in that.”

It’s easy for a consultant on this panel to say the investment in digital is valuable, but it’s another thing for the practitioner to implement that when they are being pressured by management to produce immediate results.

I was blown away during Dan Rosenberg's presentation when he used the term "trader," in reference to marketing. I also was surprised to hear the term's buyside, and sellside since those are traditionally terms used in the financial industry. I suppose I'm a bit myopic and my own ignorance led me to be skeptical when he used those terms, but it made sense by the end of his presentation. It was really interesting to see how all of the players fit together to form this market and understand how it's not so different from what a trader in finance does on a day to day basis. That said, I don't think anyone will be comparing a great marketing trader to the great financial market traders like George Soros or Paul Tudor Jones any time soon.

The comparison of TerminalOne to the Bloomberg terminal is what really sealed it for me. I definitely recommend going to the website and watching some of the videos to learn more. www.newmarketinginstitute.com

App-Install Ads

Not a day goes by without my daughter asking me if she can get a new app for her Ipad. I can't count the number of times she has run out of space and asked me to make room so she can download more. The number of apps she has downloaded runs into the hundreds and she plays any one of those for 10 minutes before getting bored and never using it again. She gets iTunes gift cards at Christmas and on her birthday which get spent in a week on paid apps, but most of them are free. I've realized that short span of time is enough to slip in an ad to install yet another app creating an endless stream of new apps to explore.
The mobile app-install ad market generated $3.6bn in 2014 with an expected $4.6bn in 2015 and $6.8bn by 2019. This advertising arguably generates some of most easily measurable ROI and helps adds stand out among the droves of apps encountered in Google Play or the Apple App store. In other words, it's a great tool for marketers.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-mobile-app-install-ad-is-driving-a-boom-in-mobile-ad-spend-and-not-just-among-game-makers-2015-1

Facebook has also taken notice of the problem of finding good apps and they are jumping in with an App Ad Feed that will display targeted apps to users. I can't help but think this feels like a ponzi scheme. I can create an app, spend $X on App-Install Ads, insert App-Install Ads in my App, collect revenue on the ads in my app (hoping I earn more than I spent), use that revenue to create a new app and spend on the associated App-Install ads.

More Content Marketing

http://www.business2community.com/infographics/8-content-marketing-trends-watch-2015-infographic-01139640

I am piggybacking on AungMaw's post re: content marketing. I think it's fair to say most of us have become adept at avoiding/ignoring most types of advertisements. Traditional marketing techniques have become less relevant by the day and the importance of creating content that is valued by customers continues to grow more important with many marketing professionals claiming that 2015 will be the year of content marketing.

It's easy to see how this type of marketing can grab a customer. I think this raises the question, "How does this affect the cost of client acquisition?" Not all content marketing can be as clever as the campaign AungMaw cited. Large corporations will be spending great sums of money on writers and creative personnel to produce this product. The conversion from lead, to customer, to upsell may not be cheaper when we consider the costs associated with this type of marketing. Firms may gain new customers, but the increased cost structure may leave the bottom line flat.

Facebook May Be Getting Rid Of FBX, Social Media's First Ad Exchange 

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-set-to-close-fbx-2015-1

Facebook initially struggled with the shift to mobile and investors punished the stock immediately after the IPO. The stock languished for almost a year before taking off as they pivoted and shifted their focus to mobile, but it seems they have been relatively slow in fully embracing the change while the market was  quick to reward them with the stock slightly below all-time highs. I know this is a marketing class, but I’m a finance guy and I can’t help but think about the market impact of their strategy shift, especially because it was so impressive how  quickly the market moved.

FB was slow to shutter this exchange, but it highlights the fact that the landscape is shifting and the dust is far from settled. I can understand the natural hesitation to change and maybe Facebook, as well as the industry, underestimated the shift to mobile. Or maybe it was less clear how they would monetize it, “Unfortunately for ad exchanges that specialize in retargeting, cookies don't work on mobile. As Digiday points out, to overcome this, Facebook has been touting its Custom Audiences product, which uses a smartphone's unique identification number to allow advertisers to retarget people who have used their mobile apps.” It would like be difficult to convince clients to spend on ads if they couldn’t be targeted, so maybe it was simply a matter of figuring out how to adapt the model to mobile platforms. I don’t really know the history here, so it’s difficult for me to say how this has evolved and I’d be happy to hear from anyone that has insight on this subject.