Technology as a Driver of the Consumerization of B2B

I am at the Founder.org conference right now, where I see many young B2B and B2C startups pitching to silicon valley investors (Founder.org is a VC fund investing in student founders in North America and Europe. I am working for the organization as an associate who sources and screens startups in Munich, Germany and New York City.)

What I found interesting among many of the B2B companies here is how they approach marketing and sales and how it differs from how traditional B2B marketing is often understood and taught. It's not just that their technology is the necessary 10x better (according to the rule of thumb for adoption) than the current market solutions, most of them are also trying to create a competitive advantage by using marketing technology to outpace traditional players.

There is Konux for example, a sensor startup that develops the hardware and software for the future of industry, an internet of sensors. They are automating and structuring marketing in a way that traditional sensor companies just cannot perform because they lack the digital mind set and skill set. They are doing content marketing to tell stories about their team and how their sensors are being used. They build up a CRM and an automated sales cycle that allow a leaner organization, wider reach and faster and more personalized follow-ups.

There also is Building Radar, a lead generation platform for the construction and interior design industry. Their algorithms not just screen the internet for future construction projects, their data management system also allows them to personalize their service and address the best matching supplier for any project.

I've talked to both teams and studied how their competitors are doing marketing and sales. For a so called digital native it is shocking how manual they still work and how slow they have grown over the years. Leads are being generated mostly offline, sometimes fax and telephone still are their preferred means of communication. They are operating in multi-billion dollar industries and they are now threatened by new companies who not just disrupt the technology used but first and foremost the marketing and sales technology. The Economist already brought up the topic in 2014, hinting to the fact that technology is one of the drivers that leads to a personalization of B2B sales. The core idea of this trend is that also businesses are run by people and business to business sales decisions are being made by human individuals. For me, it is exciting to see how digital technologies allow to transform not just products and services but also all aspects of business in any particular industry.

The Age of YOU: the Future of Business Is Personal

Last month, the worldly renowned brand consultancy firm, Interbrand announced their list of the 100 Best Global Brands. With it, the company also declared that the future of business is personal. The Age of You has arrived. See the full article on the website.

On a short 1.5-minute clip, Interbrand's Global CEO Jez Frampton congratulates the top 100 brands and addresses the increasingly complicated nature of building brands in today's minutely transforming society. He says, "It's not just about having a great idea, a great identity, fantastic communications. Nowadays it's about building a tight, seamless experience -- an ecosystem if you'd like."

That is, the Age of You signifies customers' increasing expectations on getting personalized services. Frampton calls this the "mecosystem."

As soon as I saw this, I instantly thought -- digital marketing! Digital marketing strategies actualize the mecosystem in businesses through tactics that target intent-driven searches and activities. But how is this manageable to YOUR business? And how does this affect YOU as a customer?

The Cutting Edge of the Mundane

Accenture has been buying up companies recently, quite a few of them in the digital marketing space. A cynical interpretation is that this is merely an example of a big fat company trying to use M&A to show that it is keeping up with the times, like an old guy on a scooter. But we know that the major players in corporate IT all watch each other's moves closely. If IBM, Cognizant, and Oracle see Accenture adding digital marketing capability, they are not going to ignore that.

The big IT consultancies always try to offer a complete service package, so that their clients never have to call another company to order something. That is a very big deal to them. The next obvious step for digital marketing at the capability level is to integrate it with corporate technology systems, so that DM becomes an organic blend of marketing, product development, and operations. For a large company with an existing corporate IT vendor, the ability to integrate marketing systems into their existing (complex) technological structure would be a godsend. Then they can just call their guy at Accenture instead of trying to remember which oddly named startup it is that handles that part of their marketing stack.

As digital marketing moves into the realm of the large corporate IT vendors, parts of it will become standardized and commoditized, and a significant amount of effort will be spent not on disruptively innovating the next big thing but on not rocking the boat. That will be a huge cultural transition for practioners who enjoy the current entrepreneurial climate, and it will be interesting to see how the industry communicates between its startup wing and its mega-IT wing.

Social Media Is Not PR

If you've been using your social media platforms as a way to broadcast your messages, it's not going anywhere but lost amid a plethora of contents that a viewer sees every day.

You must create a context; conduct and execute a strategy to start a conversation with your viewers. Create a value that will endure in the consumer's mind that he/she will want to follow you, like your posts, share them, and become your loyal consumer for -- who knows -- a lifetime. *marketer's dreamy sigh*

"I LOVE THAT BRAND" is what you want to hear; qualitative measurement of success right there folks.

So how do you do that? Create a story and narrate it creatively through your social media.

Yes, creativity is key. Don't just publish a picture of your product; get to the consumer's end goal of your product and trace back.

Example:

If you're an art museum, it's not effective to publish pictures of your artworks everyday. People care less about static images; they simply see too many.

Alternative strategy: do something like what these guys are doing - Dave Krugman and Zach Glassman. 

Krugman randomly dresses up and goes to the Met after its hours, takes some baroque pictures and publishes them. Zach is a wonderlust who takes astonishing yet enigmatic photographs around the world.

We get curious. We want to know more about their story and what places they're going to. So Krugman has 155k followers on his Instagram, while Glassman has 199k on his. 

Social media posts that tell people what to do (i.e. "Exhibition opens this Friday! Come check it out!") won't do the trick anymore. Compel your audience.

2015 is no longer the year when you tweet, people will buy. Social media is not a PR means; it's a marketing strategy. Think creatively and curate your story. 

 

Zach Glassman @zachspassport

Dave Krugman @dave.krugman

The New Wave of Social Marketing

According to it’s website, Niche is “a community of relevant and influential social media creators, prominent on rising platforms like Vine, Instagram and Tumblr.” The company, founded last year in New York City, matches social media stars with marketers and advertisers.

Brands and advertisers are always looking for new ways to reach audiences beyond print publications and television screens. Now, they’re turning to social media stars—paying them to pitch products online to their massive, “cult-like” followings. According to Niche, it’s not just the brands that win in this scenario. Niche endeavors to give these “campaign creators” a new way of making income doing what they love to do.

For example, Niche connected the start-up, Blue Apron, to a handful of creative photographers, videographers and animators, who have impressive social media followings across various platforms. The influencers then created small, personal marketing campaigns for Blue Apron, and posted them on their own accounts. This generated a tremendous amount of chatter and buzz for Blue Apron.

A 60 second advertisement on Vine can be worth anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000, according to Rob Fishman, co-founder of Niche. Some brands that have already used this model are Gap and GE, and startups such as Lyft and BarkBox.

SOURCE: http://www.inc.com/christine-lagorio/niche-next-wave-social-advertising.html

PINTEREST - the new way to do marketing

PINTEREST

Pinterest is a new social media, where users can share images online, pin them and organize them in differents categories.

As Facebook, linked in and twitter, this new media is helpful to drive people to companies websites

How can be Pinterest  useful for a business?

Companies can use Pinterest  to increase brand awareness. Through photos or boards related to interesting topics, they can catch the attention of the Pinterest users that will start following  them.

A combination of great pictures with an interesting content can inspire and appeal the interest of the users of Pinterest.  This content can additionally link to the home webpage of the company, to increase the flow of visitors.

Pinterest has also ,as Facebook does, some metrics to control the success of your pictures. This tool helps us to understand  which pins have the most click through to the company website and  how many times a blogspost for a webpage has been pinned. This information is available through Pinterest Pin count tool and Pinterest free web analytical tool.

Some examples

Four Seasons is one of the most successful examples as how a business can share images in Pinterest to create experiences and promote their hotels. They have actually 25,623 followers and  153 pins. Their visual content goes from  photos of dishes of their restaurants to images of their hotels and amenities. This marketing strategy has helped them to increase awareness in this new channel.

7 Content Marketing Buzzwords you should know

1) Content Marketing

Who uses it: Everyone. SEO marketers trying to steer their careers out of a tailspin. Opportunistic MBAs attempting to build branded content farms. Agency folks touting a new content service that they just made up six days ago.

What they think it means: Doing a bunch of random crap and praying that it works. Blog posts! Vines! In the cloud, dude. It’s all about the content marketing cloud.

What it really means: The overarching practice of creating content to promote a brand or product. At this point, it pretty much encapsulates everything that isn’t a static ad (print, display, billboard, etc.) or a radio spot. (Those still exist, right?) Content marketing has even swallowed social media marketing, which is so 2012.

2) Brand publishing

Who uses it: All the cool kids cherishing the few months before it’s co-opted by every marketer this side of Madison Avenue.

What they think it means: Creating branded content that doesn’t feel like a slimy advertorial or a display ad in sheep’s clothing.

What it really means: The practice of a brand telling stories about the things they care about, their brand, and their brand’s products in a way that’s genuinely engaging and not promotional.

3) Contentvertising

Who uses it: People who should be fired.

What they think it means: That they created a clever new word for content marketing.

What it really means: That the buzzwords are mating and multiplying. Run for your life.

4) Native ad/Sponsored Content

Who uses it: Publishers desperate for a new revenue stream. Agencies freaking out over a dwindling media spend. Ad-tech dudes who know that talking about banner ads at a party is never going to get them laid. Ever.

What they think it means: A sponsored listicle on BuzzFeed.

What it really means: An ad that mimics the experience around it. Google search ads are the granddaddy of native ads online. Sponsored Facebook Newsfeed posts, Promoted Tweets, and, yes, BuzzFeed Sponsored Posts are all examples of native ads.

5) Brand Newsroom

Who uses it: Hip CMOs. Agencies that just dropped a half mil designing a command center with more screens than Minority Report. Old-school media types while rolling their eyes.

What they think it means: Gathering a bunch of people in a room and totally crushing the Super Bowl and Oscars. What time is it? IT’S REAL-TIME.

What it really means: The fundamental restructuring of brand communications to mirror those of a media organization able to publish great stories swiftly; the group of people who publish content on behalf of your brand consistently, improving and growing an audience over time.

6) Brand Journalism

Who uses it: All those people talking about brand newsrooms like it’s the latest Beyoncé album.

What they think it means: All the content a brand publishes.

What it really means: The specific practice of a trained journalist reporting on the inner happenings of a brand on behalf of the brand.

7) Content Marketing Cloud

Who uses it: People who apparently think that you just can’t wait to get rid of your content marketing mainframe.

What they think it means: That you will give them lots of money.

What it really means: Cloud-based software that lets you manage your content marketing operation and analyze your success. Not to get too SaaSy (see what we did there?), but is there any other kind?

Source: http://contently.com/strategist/2014/04/18/the-best-branded-content-of-2014-so-far/

Branded Content: Is it better to own or sponsor?

As branded content surges as an alternative to digital ads, many advertisers are facing essentially the same question - do they make their own content, or buy it from somebody else? Creativity, control, speed, quality and cost -- all are at stake. Which do they choose?

GE makes its own media for brand properties like Ecomagination.com, its informational site about technology and environment. Cadillac, on the other hand, elects to sponsor a travel site, Gallivant, for a month at a time. Virgin Mobile's model is to create innumerable lists that it posts on BuzzFeed.

It's all branded content, but each is a vastly different investment. Sponsoring content on a media property can cost much more than generating content on your own property, such as a microsite or blog. But there are plus and minuses to both approaches. What you gain in ease, you could lose in control and vice versa.

Katrina Craigwell, digital marketing manager at GE, which is still experimenting, says her publishing medium of choice is Tumblr, which offers a massive built-in network of a certain demographic -- mostly teens and tech-savvy bored-at-workers. (GE's newest content property, txchnologist.com, runs exclusively on Tumblr.)

Owning the media in this fashion gives the sponsor full control of the message, allowing it to develop a unique and memorable voice, and to engage with readers and viewers on the brand's home field, with the brand's own design. But, as anyone in media will tell you, building a devoted audience as a publisher requires patience, coordination and leadership, not to mention talent to create appealing stories. Brands face the additional challenge of pacifying the variety of corporate cooks who typically want to weigh in on any outbound communication. 

The internal complications lead many advertisers to chicken-out and buy interruptive, shot-in-the-arm banners and TV spots. The average click-through rates and user-engagement time on owned media can be 10 times that of banners. But persuading one's boss to wait six months for results to grow, when superficial results can be bought now, can be a magician's feat.

That's where sponsored content comes in.

Last year, GE sponsored a short series on BuzzFeed called "The GE Show." One of its stories, "The 60 Most Beautiful Cinemagraph GIFs" which showed examples of a new type of visual media (essentially, high-definition still images with overlaid video), garnered nearly 120 responses and 1,000 shares. The post became instantly popular, garnering tens of thousands of views from being on the BuzzFeed homepage, plus extra traffic from friends of the 1,000 readers who shared. It was a powerful alternative to annoying readers with a takeover ad, and just as easy to buy.

As was the case with BuzzFeed and "The GE Show," content sponsors typically get story ideation and approval rights, and the publisher creates the stories in its own voice and style. The publisher can then maneuver posts in order to obtain the number of impressions the advertiser paid for. With ease come downsides: lack of control, both creatively and process-wise; the audience is loyal to the publication first, advertiser second (BuzzFeed users are there because they love BuzzFeed); and it's difficult to capture traffic for content retargeting from a sponsored slot where the content is blanketed in the media company's design (placing a sponsor's code for a newsletter subscription form or a cookie for content retargeting requires custom programming, which requires code reviews, contracts, etc.).

However, when brands team up with established publishers like Forbes, The Atlantic and Gawker, which are among several media companies to have created BuzzFeed-like sponsored content programs, they can inherit audience trust. Said Mashable COO Sharon Feder to me on one occasion, "Our readers love our advertisers, because of the content they sponsor." When BMW underwrites Mashable's "Innovation Series" and refrains from speaking about cars (per Mashable's editorial policy), readers appreciate and respect BMW more than if it had smooshed ads in their faces.

It's probable that the most successful content programs will always contain a mix of owned and sponsored. And while both media and advertiser make out well in this model, the real winners are consumers, who benefit from great content.

Read the full article here.

Uber: marketing strategies with a twist

Uber has been walking a fine line between marketing genius and absurdity.

At the end of last year, it ran a promotion in honor of National Cat Day, offering to shuttle kittens to your home or office for the 'low' price of $20. A couple of weeks ago, the company presented customers with the option to order a 'wedding on demand' as part of the its promotional campaign during Pride Weekend.

The wedding campaign was cute, but for me, it had Uber opportunism written all over it.  The question is, where do we draw the line on promotional creativity, particularity when it leverages symbolic community events as flagrantly and inappropriately as it did last month. 

All the big brands have been guilty of distasteful event appropriation at one point or another, but with the backdrop of price gouging accusations and ongoing conflicts with resident taxi associations, I wonder whether Uber might be pushing its reputational credentials a little too far.

----------------------------------

http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/26/uberwedding/

http://www.seattleweekly.com/promo/freestuff/949566-129/uber-kittens-cat-kitten-mail-national

You Tube: a new way to do marketing

You Tube started as a web platform to upload, share and view videos. However,through these last years, You Tube has become much more than a place to see videos. This web has created new ways to communicate and  generate new business , catching the attention of important Brands.

NEW BUSINESS

One example is Michelle Phan, the You Tube celebrity with more than 6 Million subscribers. She started in 2007 posting videos of You Tube to teach others women how to do their own make up. Using some simple but effective special effects, she was able to attract new fans over the years. This opportunity to connect with a large group of people helped Michelle videos to become a good marketing media for big Cosmetic Companies. In 2010, Phan became the official video make-up artist for Lancôme. Later on, she signed a contract to launch a new line of cosmetics called EM by Michelle Phan with L’ Oreal Group.

Another example is Rosanna Pasino, an unknown actress who started posting videos about cupcakes recipes in order to practice in front of the cameras.  Just an attractive topic to talk about and creative designs were enough to help their videos to become viral and be, in 2014, promoted by You Tube all over NY City.

The communication through You Tube has opened the door to new ways to reach potential customers. Understanding how to use YouTube to promote a brand can be a succesful and cheap Marketing strategy that every marketer should analyze before launching a Campaign.

Viral Digital Marketing Campaigns

Some brands are just light years ahead of their contemporaries in terms of their digital marketing campaigns which directly (and positively) impact their brand image. Here are 5 favorites that I find

A) Innovative

B) Funny

C) Heartwarming 

D) Or all of the above.

1) Who doesn't love Oreos? With campaigns like these - you can’t help but like them even more!

Check out how Oreo celebrated it’s 100th birthday! - Oreo video

2) I’d probably never heard of West Jet before this video but it definitely made me want to fly them if I ever go across to Canada! The company was hoping for 800,000 views - till date this video has 36M! Warms my heart every time I see this - West Jet Christmas Miracle

For more information check out this link.

3) How do you make Water interesting? Well, the marketing team at Smart Water solved the conundrum by putting all the elements of a viral video (at that time) in one video. Watch Jennifer Aniston for Smart Water. They followed it up recently with another.

4) I was working for P&G during the 2012 Olympics and when they showed this video to the employees there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. The Thank you Mom campaign has thus grown from strength to strength with it’s own dedicated Twitter page.

5) Finally - this P&G campaign was what a digital marketer’s dreams are made of! The man you’re man could smell like was a simple concept with a clever tag line. But it was executed so brilliantly that it became an instant hit. With 45 million views to date and many follow up videos (by the brand and others) this definitely deserved all the awards it won. Check out the behind the scenes which itself has 1.69M views and the Sesame Street Parody with 10M Views! Now that’s powerful :)

Please do share videos that you have found interesting.

ABC's Deal with Facebook Creates a First in Television and Marketing Analytics

Dancing With The Stars, ABC's celebrity reality competition, made news a few weeks ago as the first network show to get access to real time access to fan feeds and relevant conversations and posts. This partnership allows Dancing with the Stars to use facebook as they would Twitter, but this time they can track statics abut facebook chatter as it occurs amongst their fans and followers.

This kind of data, while seemingly useful, hasn't yet proven to greater insights than what can be garnered n Twitter, but this type of leap take by ABC's executives is helping to shape the way networks interact with fans, how digital marketers cultivate data point to prove campaign effectiveness. The general focus on viewer's social media content and buzz creation may provide feedback that could make Dancing with the Stars a more prominent player in its category via potential increased sponsorship and ad sales.  Overall the show hasn't preformed well and it is doubtful that these metrics will sway ad revenue from other networks that have already proven success by way of ratings and social media trending. 

The only benefit can come from this venture with Facebook would be ABC's ability to increase in capacity for targeted advertising revenue when tied to real time demographics of the Facebook users who choose to watch and comment about the show.  If this is part of ABC Executive's strategy, than with time, we will see if target ad revenue will be the ticket that brings Dancing with the Stars to a more prominent place in the reality competition genre.


http://allfacebook.com/dancing-with-the-stars-apis_b125093

Snapchat Timeline. What does it mean for digital marketing?

The short answer is... no one knows.
The slightly longer answer is... no one's yet figured out the secret of how to leverage this rapidly growing platform for marketing purposes and for those who have just begun experimenting with the tool, they have to re evaluate their snapchat strategy.

This year, several companies (16handels, Lilly Pulitzer, and Taco Bell to name a few) have joined snapchat and included it in their marketing strategy.  These companies used snapchat's disappearing image and video feature to their advantage by running campaigns that required people to come to the store and show instant coupons at the register.  The also used it to share secret messages and insider information with loyal fans. 

A new update for Snapchat that just rolled out adds an option to create Snapchat Stories, a new type of sharing for the temporary social network which allows users to build chains of shared content that can be viewed an unlimited number of times over a 24-hour period.  Now that the platform has incorporated the 24 hr timeline feature, it is very unclear how such consumer facing companies will make the shift or how consumers will respond to 24 hr snapchat messages from marketers.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/03/snapchat-gets-its-own-timeline-with-snapchat-stories-24-hour-photo-video-tales/

The touch, the feel, of digital: The new fabric of our lives

             We live in a time where everything revolves around the growth of digital and e-commerce. “Soon, everything we purchase will be online,” “Mobile spending is increasing 2000% annually,” “Computers will take over the world,” etc.  The reality is that as these statistics are unavoidable and accurate, they do not full consider the human element of purchasing power.

            You would think that I am biased towards shifting to digital marketing since my core business and experience is in the space. I’ve been developing digital marketing strategies and monetizing social media since its inception. However, my tenure at Variety Magazine proved to me a valuable lesson in traditional media. That there is significant value in utilizing our most underwhelming sense in advertising: touch.

            While our team was working frantically to create engaging, disruptive digital advertising phenomena to satisfy our clients with video, high-tech graphics and gameifying initiatives, we consistently found ourselves hitting a brick wall. The CMOs and heads of marketing for various clients such as Major Film Studio X and Global Production Company Y (no need to expose the culprits as they all partake in this practice) would still have their eyes glued to their hands in the form of tangible advertising.

            Call it nostalgia, call it product life cycle, call it whatever you want. The reality is that the people with purchasing power for these marketing departments value advertisements that they can hold in their hands; ads that don’t disappear into thin air as they Yelp their dinner reservations.  

            I am curious to see how this behavior shifts as these executives age out of the industry and younger, more tech-savvy Gen X’s take their place. But until then, the reality is that large traditional consumer-facing companies will prefer print advertising over digital, and the majority of their ad spend will reflect as such. 

Google Explores Tracking Alternatives

The Financial Times has reported that Google seeks to adopt an alternative to the tracking cookie, which is a device that allows websites to gather information about people who surf the internet.  Tracking cookies are limited in their usefulness because people have different web surfing habits across different devices.  For example, people look at different sites on their mobile phones than they do on their work computers.  Google is attempting to develop a personal identifier that would allow users to adjust settings about how much information they provide.  Other companies, such as Acxiom, are developing products that will allow marketers to to target consumers across multiple devices without using a tracking cookie.

But how much is this information worth?  The average person's data sells for less than one dollar, while generalized information such as age, gender, and location sells for only $0.0005.  If it is known that a person is having a baby, buying a car, or planning a vacation, that person's information becomes more valuable.  The Financial Times has a tool that allows users to estimate how much advertisers would pay for their data.  Mine was approximately $0.55.  How much is yours worth? 

The Impact of Facebook Tabs

There are a few best practices that can be instituted in creating an effective Facebook page that garners customer engagement. I've always heard that pushing content to a Tab within Facebook instead of featuring information on the main page is a bad idea as customers won't see or access it. But a recent article on Mashable talks about the impact of tabs and how to make them work. The key is not just creating content that appeals to your target audience, but also ensuring you have a clear strategy with tabs. Tabs shouldn't require too many actions and should exist within the context of each other. But the most important thing is staying on top of driving traffic there. You can't just expect customers to keep coming back without being directed there. Definitely changes my perspective on things.

http://mashable.com/2011/12/09/facebook-custom-tabs/

HBO's BloodCopy on Gawker

HBO's idea is to play along "that fine line of fully disrupting someone's experience and at the same time immersing them in your experience," said Zach Enterlin, vice president of advertising and promotions for HBO.

HBO, in promoting its new series True Blood last summer, created a blog for vampires, BloodCopy.com - Vampire News with Bite. The show True Blood is based on the premise that due to the creation of synthetic blood, vampires are now free to walk amongst us humans. As part of HBO's marketing campaign, it aimed to create the world that the premise of the show is based on; vampires are out, working/loving/walking alongside humans (at night anyway, of course). BloodCopy.com is where these vampires interact online, posting on current topics such as politics, entertainment, news, and fashion as it pertains to their particular community. Posts sound like this one: "Every hipster with a neckerchief and an MFA is reading Pride and Predjudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. If the L train were a famous talk-show host's book club, PAPAZ would be its Eat, Pray, Love."

This season, taking BloodCopy.com and the campaign to the next level, HBO has teamed with brands such as Harley-Davidson and Monster.com to create vampire-targeted advertisements. These ads are displayed on the blog and on the 'official' True Blood website.



A bit of controversy erupted just the other day, when Gawker picked up BloodCopy.com for inclusion in its roster of very popular (and all legitimate/'real') blogs. "Gawker Media announced last night that it acquired BloodCopy.com," Silicon Alley Insider (an industry news blog) reported last Saturday morning. "It's a blog about vampires. Really." The next day they apologized for the misunderstanding, but also added, "We also think that HBO, Gawker, and the marketing agency crossed a line ... We're all for experimental online advertising, viral marketing, etc. ... In our opinion, however, this campaign is designed to trick people."

Zach Enterlin at HBO replied with, "The goal isn't to really mislead at all. It's just igniting curiosity. I think the way the ads are done, there's a certain amount of known quantity with a wink. It inspires a double take. We're trying to make them as authentic as possible, but it's an absolute necessity that they have that element of 'wink'."

I can see how the broad issue of setting up a fake blog as part of a marketing campaign and then somewhat staging it as real could certainly be inappropriate and even dangerous in some situations (medical products and services, for example). But I think that in entertainment it is a natural extension of creativity, and HBO is just really good at being creative. I also think it's somewhat telling that the criticism came from someone who didn't get the joke, or as Enterlin puts it, the wink ;)....

Official True Blood site – http://www.hbo.com/trueblood/
BloodCopy - http://www.bloodcopy.com/
Article by Brian Steinberg on AdAge.com –
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090529/FREE/905299988
Gavin O'Malley's post on Online Media Daily –
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?art_aid=106720&fa=Articles.showArticle

Facebook becomes a utility - or has it jumped the shark?

An interesting and flattering portrait of Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg appeared in Fortune, and aside from glossing over the current privacy and valuation concerns, glossing over less than expected revenues and the not unexpected lack of profitability, it does provide a window into the rapidly growing company's current status. Where it seems to be: consolidating its vision, its platform - even its real estate in Palo Alto.

There's no question that it's Facebook's moment - the story opens with a reluctant baby boomer being forced to join by a friend's assumption of its ubiquity in posting his photos, etc. But what's not as clear is why the dismissal of Myspace as having "jumped the shark" will not also be applied to Facebook down the road.

Consider this scenario. Facebook Connect, openSocial, or other open and portable data arrangements began to allow users to actually port their social info - their list of friends for example. Third party functionality becomes available to easily and painlessly reproduce your photo albums and other personal content, ostensibly in the name of backup or management tools, and cross platform widgets maintain your personalization across multiple sites.

Then, in a Beacon-like crisis of monetization, Facebook's recent privacy policy deterioration (they own your info for life now!) coupled with heavy handed commercialism (advertisers and marketers customizing messages to your status updates) piss off one too many people. Perhaps Facebook Connect allows someone unscrupulous to do something illegal like answer the security questions for a bunch of 401(k)s and empty the accounts; perhaps something merely vulgar. (A marketing message like: "Your friend feed says you just got dumped... Wanna buy some Ben and Jerry's?) Suddenly, a large group of users begins to use the open standards and tools to simply replicate their online profiles and lives in an alternate network - perhaps led by tweens to a mobile social network or Twitter and Youtube to status updates coupled with UGC... Much as Myspace became painted fairly or unfairly as a prowling place for sexual predators, Facebook could suffer a similar seismic shift in perception.

The threat could come from any direction - many of these possibilities are all to real - and Facebook is only one of many trying to capture the energy of social networking. Much like Friendster and Myspace before it, and countless others whose names are not even remembered, it's tough to catch the lightning in a bottle, but even tougher to keep it.

So what can Facebook do to keep the people it has fought so hard to attract? Well, the rude awakening to find coworkers and parents with access to your personal info formerly accessible only to your peer group could be mitigated by allowing for the much talked about 'persona management' of profile information: perhaps restricting different views to different classes of 'friends'. For example, someone in the work category could never see anything not categorized under work. Easier management tools and default settings that protect privacy more effectively would help promote this. At the very least, they will help avoid "Michael Phelps" moments of explaining certain behaviors to Grandma.

Perhaps most important, however, is that having built a platform and ecosystem around it, it's now up to Facebook to manage it. For it is most likely that this is where the crippling blow would come from: from those closest to Facebook. The marketers partnering with Facebook for monetization; the widget developers extending its platform; the Connect adopters supporting its single sign on and social graph. Managing the privacy standards, security risks, and threats from its very openness may be the challenge that Facebook needs to address most.

Leveraging Old Media with New

Often we focus more on how digital is supplanting traditional media and less on how a nicely integrated campaign can leverage the best (or worst) of each. One area of TV advertising that has to-date remained more or less sacrosanct is the good old Super Bowl spot. While no longer breaking price records year-over-year, in an era of fading revenue the spots seem to be holding their own. But these costs create a new demand: in this austere media environment, how to maximize and measure the productivity of these budget-busting ads?

This short article (non-subscribers) in the Wall Street Journal discusses a number of innovative means of creating stickiness and/or measurability being tested by several of this year's advertisers. New (to me) is a product in the Canadian market that allows consumers to use their digital cable remote to watch a longer version of an ad or bookmark that longer version for later viewing; the revenue model is decidedly new media: cost-per-click. A simpler tactic among several being used by Castrol is the purchase of keywords related to their ad to assure primacy in post-ad search. Doritos is likely going to take the prize for a second year with their viral ad contest:

“…offering $1million to anyone who can create a Super Bowl commercial for its Doritos tortilla chips that scores No. 1 in USA Today’s …ad competition.”

And, finally, what marketing opportunity would be complete without yet another brand attempting to create an online community, (this one is about Pedigree dog food under guise of pet adoption) which lets you download a barking dog ringtone for your iPhone....

My bets? Simplicity wins. Harnessing true consumer passion for your product wins. Forced community, maybe not so much.

And so the post microsoft decline of facebook begins...

So facebook just announced a new way to create marketing revenues. The basic jist is that consumers, based on their profiles, will be contacted by branded companies and asked to promote the brand among their friends. It sounds like most marketers are pretty excited about this and are comparing the ingenuity of it to that of adwords, when it was first released.

My own gut tells me that this may work initially and that some people will feel honoured Americans take note of the correct way to spell this word) to have been selected as a 'social networking hub/leader/influencer' and will probably start encouraging their friends as designed. However, as soon as people start to feel like branding tools, they will rail against what's going on. Additionally, formerly 'cool' friends may quickly turn into 'spammer buds' that are to be avoided at all costs. Then people will see facebook as not being a safe online environment anymore and will feel tracked and monitored too much. What will they do? They'll leave and go wherever is next.

If you want to read more about this, there's a decent enough article on adsense