Obama and Romney in the Digital World

As we all prepare to watch the last presidential debate tonight, I stumbled upon this article which I found particularly interesting. If you had frequented the nytimes.com, rr.com, oprah.com, reference.com, and yahoo.com then you probably have seen an Obama ad. On the other hand, Romney's ads were most commonly found on aol.com, rr.com, chow.com, gamespot.com, and Maxpreps. According to Moat, an analytics research company, the Obama campaign had a 93.3% share of voice in terms of display-impressions across the top 20,000 publishers for the month of September. In comparison, the Romney campaign had merely 6.7% of voice. However, October should prove to be a different month as political spending is up seven-fold from the 1st week of September to the 1st week of October.

For more information, check out the complete article: http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/obama-outslugs-romney-digital/237863/

Social Moms Lead the Way to Mobile

In developing mobile marketing campaigns, don’t forget a key (and surprising) target audience: mothers.  This article shows how in 2011 61% of moms (vs 44% total consumers) own a smartphone.  This is a tremendous jump compared to 2009, when 8% of moms (vs. 10% total consumers) owned a smartphone. Moms are using their mobile devices primarily for texting (86%), mobile internet (61%), and social media (53%).  These percentages are all significantly above those of the general population.  This article argues how moms are now not only digitally savvy, but also frequent mobile users. 

 

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009417

An interesting article based on a research from Forrester exploring future role of mobile within marketing and how to get ready for that.
According, to Forrester, the mobile space could be able to create a secondary parallel space where people live, an "overlay that augments and personalizes the physical world to allow product trials and create marketing services". The article continue saying "In the near future, mobile will be used to enable commerce via products and the physical world. For example, pill bottles will initiate refill requests and a purse seen in a magazine will be purchased in just a few clicks via a phone.
Mobile will also be a standalone service in purely digital scenarios such as banking or finance and will become the preferred tool for many tasks such as accessing coupons or paying bills.
There are examples of more sophisticated mobile services in the market today, such as the Nike Fuel Band and remote deposit capture."
Whether it is to complement in-store experience, like the pill refill, or to provide a healthcare service (like pregnancy test results today provided by mobile) or still as a self standing selling and marketing tool (for many financial services), it will for sure change the way we perceive reality.
I am a passionate runner and the Nike Fuel Band was a turning point in my purchases decision. I am still convinced that Asics are the best running shoes but was kind of forced to buy Nike to try it! And it's amazing. Not the same I can say for the shoes though...

Full article here:
http://www.luxurydaily.com/mobile-experiences-are-quickly-falling-short-of-consumer-expectations-forrester/

Newsweek Looks for Ways to Differentiate Online

AdAge published an interesting interview with the CEO of Newsweek following the company’s announcement that they would stop selling hard copies of the magazine in favor of going all-digital.  I was surprised to learn that the distribution of the print edition costs upwards of $40M.  This happens to be almost exactly the amount of money that the publication has been losing annually, according to The New YorkTimes.  Newsweek is now looking for ways to differentiate in a commoditized market.  IAC, the magazine's operator, seems to be having some success in doing this with another online news site, The Daily Beast, which (unlike Newsweek) is entirely free online.  Newsweek’s CEO said online advertising on The Daily Beast was up 40% last year.  It will be interesting to see if the once-popular Newsweek can make a comeback online.  

Tiny Road to Nowhere

As someone fairly new to website link shortening, I had not yet considered the potential problems associated with shortening a URL.  A recent article in The Economist outlines “the danger of short web addresses.”  The author explains that a shortened URLs—containing little to no information about the destination—becomes useless if the creator of the link shortener disappears.  This results in “link rot” or a growing number of links to nowhere. 

The article notes that there are still around 600 link-shortening services in existence.  A quick Google search for “short link” reveals the vast number of available options.  What you may not find in such a search are the ~400 link shorteners that have shut down in recent years.  It is hard to imagine all 600 of the remaining players sticking around indefinitely.  

The Real Secret to Digital Marketing

Everybody agrees that the advertising opportunity online is huge, but big brands and large corporate organizations are still weary of new monetization tools. In traditional marketing, before the digital age, advertising revolved around trading dollars for an audience. However, advertisers have understood that in the digital age, this recipe no longer works.

Social media and inbound marketing are still extremely novel and although there are billions of people on social networks, companies seem to be risk averse and are not fully embracing this trend organizationally. Allen Bonde, the CMO of the Pulse Network, and the organizer of multiple digital marketing conferences in the US, shares his key tips on how to succeed at online marketing today by reaching both the tech-savvy early adopters as well as the newbies. His main insights are the following:

• Use email as the delivery mechanism for the rich content you are creating, it will act as an amplifier to your social strategy. 
• Develop content that is concise but effective.
• Make sure you embrace an integrated digital strategy that includes mobile, social and email.
• The key to inbound marketing is the importance of creating great content to attract potential customers to you. 

Source

Amazon's Next Big Business is Selling You

As an advertiser, whose data is the most valuable to you? Facebook, Google, or Amazon's?

It's not an easy question to answer because each company has a unique value proposition. Facebook knows who your friends are. Google knows what you are interested in finding on the internet. Amazon knows what you have bought and can predict pretty well what you want to buy next.

Any company that is trying to sell a product invests a lot of time and money to figure out how to best target its ads. Even though people do not automatically think of Amazon when they think of advertising, it is a company that has huge huge amounts of data that they have not even begun to exploit. Amazon users are further down the purchasing funnel than users on Facebook or Google, which provides a huge opportunity to advertisers. With the amount of data they collect on each unique user, Amazon is uniquely positioned to match advertisers with shoppers.

Amazon plans to have display ads on ad-supported Kindles and continues to work on their ad-targeting data based on clicks beyond Amazon.com to their other owned sites, such as Zappos, IMDB and Diapers.com. Additionally, it has been its own demand-side platform (DSP) that they have been promoting to ad agencies. A DSP powered by Amazon's rich data disturbs the competitive landscape since they are uniquely positioned to best identify a user and match that active user with an affiliation that an advertiser cares about.

With these features still relatively new, many predict that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that Amazon has just started to scale the use of shopper data in its advertiser offerings. There is a lot more to expect!

Source

Facebook and Social Search

Both Bing and Google have dabbled in social search, but Facebook clearly has a competitive advantage if they do decide to enter this market. During an interview with CNBS, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO, did not want to comment on future launches but if Facebook does invest in search, it could disrupt the leader in traditional search, Google, as well as companies that focus on recommendations like Yelp and Foursquare. The social network currently handles a billion search queries a day, so scale is on their side. The assumption here is that people trust their friends and are more likely to act upon their recommendations than a stranger's.

Facebook can generate tons of data from its billion users and since search is moving from keywords and links to providing answers to users to questions like "Where is the best sushi in NYC?" Facebook can capitalize on generating conversions by providing social recommendations and can move from search to commerce as well. I don't envision Facebook just adding a search box on their platform, instead they will probably provide a whole new aspect of search that is targeted around a user's social graph and the connections between them. Every day, there are more than five billion actions involving status updates and likes, which is data that can be used to triangulate a user's interests.

Of course Facebook does have other priorities such as advancing its mobile strategy and reinventing advertising, so search might not be their focus for right now, but once it does become one then Google better watch out!

Source

EU Cracks Down on Google Over Privacy

Today, CNET.com reported that EU regulators are demanding Google make changes to its privacy policy.  In particular, the French Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL) has cited Google's  lack of commitment "to the principles of the European Data Protection Directive, which governs the rules of data transfer and storage across the 27 European member states."  Google has been given a few months to comply with the CNIL's recommendations which include creating a clearer divide between data collected for service improvements and advertising.  Specifically, CNIL wants Google to strengthen the consent required to combine the two forms of data.  The organization also recommended a central opt-out and clarification on how long it retains customer data.  The EU's reaction to Google's March 1 policy change is representative of the concern of many Google users who fear too much of their personal information will be given to data hungry advertisers.  It will be interesting to see if US regulators take a closer look at Google's policies due to the EU's response.

Google is Trying to Get a Chair in the Dinner Table

Google says that searches in mobile devices grow during mealtimes. The company still wants to be the preffered search engine but without disturbing people in social gatherings. Google Glass is just one of the many initiatives that the firm is looking into to achieve this objective. Read here why Google is at the forefront in this matter: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/technology/google-devices-integrated-daily-lives.html?ref=technology&_r=0

Social media in the arts: creating engagement through chaos

For the culture sector to thrive we need to communicate both ideas and intention with clarity, says Abhay Adhikari

The culture sector has begun to make a shift from using social media with a purely marketing focus, to sharing processes and insights. It's a step in the right direction for creating community engagement, but it's also a work in progress – and in the absence of standards and precedence it can be pretty daunting to figure out where to make a start.

Things are further complicated by the fact that most of us distribute our digital lives across several social networks as well as different devices and screens. Our notions of conversation are also constantly challenged.

Figuring out how to create engagement in the midst of all this chaos raises several questions: can we share this responsibility across an arts organisation? And how do we start to make this shift?

Model your digital space as a communal playground

Engineering and forcing conversations with online communities should be abandoned altogether – it creates pressure to be constantly switched on, and often results in a resistance from the community to be engaged. Everyone has something better to do than perform (what is perceived as) the role of a salesperson.

Consider the alternative. Think of the digital space as a playground: different groups will form over time, across multiple social websites or within one network. The trick is to moderate activity across these groups and encourage cross-connections, not control this space in its entirety. The added advantage is that when the occasional argument breaks out, it can be easily contained.

Conversations in this space can be based on an approach that works quite well in conferences – using social media for collective note taking. In addition to producing great insights and thoughtful commentary, it also creates room for everyone to participate without the need for role play.

From an organisational perspective, it's important to find a suitable context to put this idea into action. For example, this survey of 4,000 museum visitors shows that a connection to content creates meaningful experiences in museums. Curators and members of the public can exist alongside each other, talking about their individual experiences. It creates multiple threads of conversations, making it possible for curators to speak to their peers, to members of the public, or for museum visitors to talk to each other.

Encourage a culture of prototyping ideas

With a squeeze on resources, everyone is expected to do more with less. This pressure can be alleviated by inviting contributions from online communities, which is great, but we often persist only in sharing end results and outcomes – talking about how an exhibition was conceived after it has gone live is very different from sharing developmental processes in real time.

Prototyping ideas on the other hand is a great approach to co-production that can create shared ownership among a range of stakeholders. This format is already used in the tech industry to encourage different groups to collaborate and find sustainable solutions. Implementing this approach isn't the same as a crowd-sourcing activity where it can be difficult to manage the volume of information that's generated. A more pragmatic approach would be to find a niche platform, and define the core values of the community you want to create.

ArtStack is a great example of a niche social network. Galleries can share their collections online to prototype exhibitions based on discussions with a well-informed community. The advantage is that you can create a potential audience and grow your virtual network, while creating a physical event.

Impact vs metrics

It's easy to be seduced by the volume of likes on Facebook and RTs on Twitter, but these metrics don't necessarily benefit the approach of engagement based on creating authentic voices. The need to engage communities will continue to grow, and while technology makes it very easy to create and share content, we are constantly adding to the pool of transient data. What tends to stick in this fast moving landscape are ideas.

The people behind these ideas need to be able to use digital to drive meaningful change. For example, by encouraging intellectual consumption of digital archives, or by creating a culture of sharing emotional responses as metadata.

The problem behind implementing this vision is that individual practitioners often consider the idea of getting online communities to participate in specific tasks as manipulation, which is a result of the perception that engagement is about sales and marketing.

For the culture sector to thrive we need to enable practitioners to communicate both ideas and intention with clarity online. And this begins by finding a unique voice.

Creating a unique voice online will be the subject of two digital seminars Abhay is facilitating for the Guardian Culture Professionals Network – find out more here and don't forget there is a 20% discount for network members (sign up for free here)

Abhay Adhikari is a digital strategist for the arts, education and voluntary sectors – follow him on Twitter @gopaldass

Original article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2012/oct/04/social-media-arts-engagement-chaos

Social Media Begins to Drive the Political Conversation

This article argues that the 2012 election is the "first truly social" one.  While the candidates in the 2008 election did use social media platforms to grow their voter base and increase fundraising, I would agree that the 2012 candidates are relying on social media more than they did four years ago, in particular, to shape voters' opinions of them. 

An interesting note in this article is how people do NOT think that social media affects their political opinions.  However, a new eMarketer report shows just the opposite.  The report shows that people--especially those ages 18-34--depend on social media for political information. 

Overall, this article suggests that while people do (consciously or subconsciously) use social media to mold their political opinions, they are still resistant to this idea.  As a result, there are great opportunities and risks for marketers (and candidates) to consider when using social media to communicate political information.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009411&ecid=a6506033675d47f881651943c21c5ed4

Dark Social: Beyond Facebook & Twitter

The Atlantic has an interesting article on the idea of "dark social" or "direct social," which is the sharing of content over an non-standard social network.  This includes sharing a link via gchat or email or something outside the traditional channels of Facebook and/or Twitter.  What's interested is that we've come to consider Facebook and Twitter the "traditional" social media outlets, but the act of sharing links has existed well before these two companies.

It turns out that "dark social" is actually a bigger driver of traffic than all other social media channels combines.  Only search drives more traffic over the web than "dark social."  Yet, it is incredibly hard to actually track this dark social traffic, because there is rarely metadata attached to the referring website.  From the company's point of view, the user just showed up independently or via some secure site, which is not classified as social.

This presents an interesting opportunity for companies such at Bitly that offer link tracking.  Google has also gotten into the link-shortening game, so it will be interesting to see how this largely unknown area of internet traffic shakes out.

The link to the article is here (shortened with Bitly, of course!): http://bit.ly/V1IE6c

An interesting article on the growing role of Android, especially for Tablets.
What took  my attention is not simply the growing role of Android devices, but how different is the customer behavious in dealing with tablets vs. mobile phones. As the article outlines, the time spent on the device for each session is longer, concentrated mainly in the evening and obviously hradware features like the size of the screen for instance. These specific characteristics of the the usage are a really important when designing campaigns for tablets (vs. mobile and laptops).
A meaningful example, cited in the article, comes from Ken Sun, group product manager for Mint at Intuit,which stated, on the Android developer site,
“We have found that phone usage is indicative of a customer’s regular financial check-in, while tablet usage points towards more analysis and interaction with that customer’s personal financial data,[...]
This is the sort of immersive engagement experience we were looking for, [...] The tablet and phone apps serve as great complements to each other.”
What I found really important is the word he uses, "complements" when referring to the different devices. In the end, it's a different device, a different customer too probably, and so a different way of approaching it.


Full article here:

http://www.luxurydaily.com/how-to-drive-engagement-monetization-for-android-tablets/

Marketing in 5 years

This article discusses where marketing will be in 5 years.  The surprising statistic is that TV ads will still have the largest spend by companies (36%), with online advertising close behind at 31%. Mobile would have gained a small share from 1% to 5% by 2016.

The reason that TV ads will still dominate a large share of the budget is because of reach.  It's a great way to create a story for your brand and to share it with a mass audience. The problem is that it is not targeted at the right people.  However, in five years, they expect that data on consumers will be more granular, allowing advertisers to focus their campaigns more effectively and efficiently.

The writer acknowledges that mobile will continue to grow and encourages advertisers to increase their mobile spend now.  He points out that user experience has become increasingly popular and is an effective way to spread brand awareness.  He advocates for the integration of IT with the marketing department because technology goes hand-in-hand now with marketing.  Finally, he warns about patent trolls and advises companies to bring in their legal department to join the fight against them.

Thus, it'll be interesting to see how this industry will be transformed over the next five years.

Digital Ad Revenues Continue Double Digit Growth with Help from Mobile

A New York Times blog post discusses recent revenue numbers coming out of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Mobile ads continued to post strong results, and digital ads on the whole grew at a 14% rate year over year. Revenue in the mobile category increased 95% in the first half of 2012, growing to $1.2 billion. As we discussed in the first class, the digital marketing industry continues to be one of the few on a rapid growth trajectory. Areas that may be falling out of favor include
rich media advertising or digital classifieds. Digital video is showing signs of increasing popularity, with revenues growing at 18%.

Some of the industries using digital marketing the most this year included healthcare, financial services, and entertainment.


http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/digital-ad-report-finds-big-growth-in-mobile/

-Linda Lou

Continued Controversy Over "Do Not Track"

The NYTimes today (Sunday, Oct 14) published an article that highlights the ongoing confusion and controversy over the "Do Not Track" movement, reignited recently by Microsoft's decision to make don't-track-me features opted in on its new Internet Explorer 10. A few key takeaways (some surprising to me) that I gathered from the story:

• A group called the World Wide Web Consortium or W3C is trying to establish global standards for Do-Not-Track-Me functionalities and enforcement.
• The default setting on Microsoft's upcoming IE10 prevents companies from collecting data on them.
• However, these privacy settings are not entirely enforceable or standardized across advertising firms or corporations. The article describes them as "digital bumper stickers whose sentiments companies are free to embrace or entirely ignore." I did not know this before - I'd thought it was all technical restrictions vs. a courtesy.
• Privacy settings may get more complex, with users not just determining whether or not they want to be tracked, but HOW that information will be used. I see this as a win-win for both consumers and advertisers, as most people will likely be too lazy to go and check what is tracked, but those that do will have more choice and power.
• There is ambiguity about WHO should be the enforcing and standardizing body among internet privacy settings. No consensus as of yet, but lots of trade associations and alliances very invested in the decision.

U.S. Postal Service Turns to Ad Industry for Help

It's about time! At the annual Association of National Advertisers conference, USPS has announced that they hope mail will be a platform to launch digital campaigns. The USPS is hoping to link itself to the rising popularity of high-tech ventures by offering discounts to marketers that integrate digital marketing, such as quick-response codes, in direct-mail pieces. USPS also recently launched a branded stamps program in which marketers can use corporate images in the place of traditional stamps. Chrysler has recently tested the program, and I would be curious to know what their feedback is! This is an interesting first step in potentially getting the USPS out of their budget deficits. 

Read the full article here: http://adage.com/article/special-report-ana-annual-meeting-2012/beleaguered-postal-service-ad-industry/237757/

Digital = The New Cable?

At a recent industry conference, a Hollywood TV vet declared that digital is the new frontier for long-form original program. Although this isn't a new hypothesis, what was most interesting is the comparison made between digital and cable. Given that most of us were just wee babes when cable TV hit the scene, the parallels may not be so obvious...

Like digital, cable started out putting out short vignettes and music clips as seen on most digital platforms such as YouTube. This soon evolved into content that was longer in length which then led to a demand for the development of new, original content. Cable then transformed the landscape of broadcast television & now is the driver of revenue generation for the big networks. Cable networks like ESPN and BRAVO are the cash cows helping their parent networks survive.

So is digital the new cable? And what does original, longer-form content mean to the world of digital marketing?

Source

How Big Bird won on Twitter

You’re a make-believe puppet character beloved to children all over the globe. Suddenly, a U.S. presidential candidate decides he’s got a beef with you. How do you respond? For Big Bird’s bosses at Sesame Street the answer was: buy up ad space on Twitter and use it to poke fun at Mitt Romney and argue for PBS’ importance. Not exactly a brawl, but what do you expect from a puppet?
 

Here's how it went down: last week Romney said he liked the big yellow bird but didn’t want the government to support PBS, which airs Sesame Street. PBS bought up the “big bird” tage on Twitter and started tweeting messages that teased Romney (Example: “Still flummoxed we're the focus of budget cuts. Oscar lives in a TRASH CAN”) and pushed PBS’ mantra of quality programming (“PBS is trusted, valued and essential. See why at ValuePBS.org”).

Twitter VP Joel Lunenfield noted how quick PBS had to be to take advantage of the situation: Twitter memes that center on news events like Romney’s comments spring into being, generate tons of interaction and then disappear. So Sesame Street had to move fast or risk losing the audience for its re-messaging. Which brings us to the ads themselves. They’re not what you’d really call ads, are they? Not that Twitter is a platform that allows for what traditional advertising does but even in the limited confines of 140 characters PBS chose a very editorial message, not your typical “Buy what we’re selling” or even “Click here for the facts.” It appears Big Bird is savvy to digital marketing.

http://paidcontent.org/2012/10/05/pbs-shows-quick-ad-instincts-with-big-bird-twitter-buy/