ChaosScenario

The Boy Scout tradition

The Boy Scouts have been an icon of American culture. Everyone recognizes their boys in uniforms. What I'm not sure that most people get, however, is what this organization does for young boys and men. Take a look at some of the Scout laws:

TRUSTWORTHY - A Scout tells the truth. He keeps his promises. Honesty is part of his code of conduct. People can depend on him.

LOYAL - A Scout is true to his family, Scout leaders, friends, school, and nation

HELPFUL - A Scout is concerned about other people. He does things willingly for others without pay or reward.

COURTEOUS - A Scout is polite to everyone regardless of age or position. He knows good manners make it easier for people to get along together.

BRAVE - A Scout can face danger even if he is afraid. He has the courage to stand for what he thinks is right even if others laugh at or threaten him.

A full list of the values is available here.

The difference between these statements and a lot of empty corporate mission statements is that the Scouts live by them. Whether it's weekly meetings, getting merit badges or attending a jamboree, each activity if focused on developing these skill in young men through activity and leadership opportunities that, unfortunately, are often times not offered in school or other sports activities their involved in. It's made a difference too. Take a look at the type of people who have been involved in Boy Scouts.

OK, so this is supposedly a marketing blog, what does this have to do with marketing? Well, the Boy Scouts are celebrating their 100th anniversary in a couple of years. As part of this program, they're encouraging troops to develop logos that will become the official 100th anniversary logo. Developing the logo allows these Scouts to express their creativity as well as begin to define for themselves through this logo development what the true essence of Scouting is. If your a Scout leader or know a Scout, encourage them to submit an entry. (Full disclosure, I'm working on this project. I don't cover all the projects I work on but I strongly believe in what the Boy Scouts represent, beyond my role on this project). - Paul Herring

P.S. It's Cam in the photo, not me. He's one of those guys that are teaching these values by being a Boy Scout leader.

AOL puts users in the drivers seat

Yesterday I had a "digital immersion" session with folks that, for the most part, work with traditional media. During the part of the training where we talk about online marketing, we reached the section where we talked about behavioral marketing... and then came the looks. (if you're not familiar with behavioral marketing here's a great resource from ClickZ)

Whenever we talk about monitoring people's behavior online and then providing advertising or content based on that behavior, people have that look. If they're tracking my behavior online, what does that mean? Can they read my email? Do they know what articles I read? What vacations I take? What photos I see?

When I've helped out with these types of campaigns in the past, I've never felt like they were that evil. Most advertising networks simply plant a cookie on your PC (or Mac) and use it as a unique identifier, track your surfing behavior and display banner ads based on things you might be interested in. They don't really know you as an individual, only a number. They don't track every site you visit, only those sites that are in their network, which for a typical users, isn't all that many sites. For example, if you visited five sites and only two of those sites were within the advertising network, they could only tell you'd been on those two sites.

AOL is one of the biggest behavioral marketing networks out there. They're making a bold move by not only sponsoring a campaign to educate people on what behavioral marketing is and is not, but more importantly allow consumers to opt-out of tracking if they want to.(tip of the hat to AdPulp) The latter takes a lot of guts. It's a direct hit on the effectiveness of your product (potentially). However, it's the right thing to put the power in their hands and allow them to make the choice. In the long run, it will create a better exchange between the advertiser and the target and maybe reduce the fear. - Paul Herring

Retailing in social networks

Social networks are the fastest growing properties on the Internet. Traffic to leaders in this category have outstripped giants such as Yahoo! and Google in terms of the total amount of time spent on the sites.

(Note: Attention is defined as "The total time spent on a domain as a percentage of the total time spent online by all U.S. internet users.")

Despite the traffic and engagement of these sites, it's been difficult for retailers to take advantage of the traffic. Despite the fact that a site like MySpace sends a lot of traffic to Google, and that frequent visitors to these sites tend to shop online more frequently, retailers haven't been able to take advantage of these sites and see the types of returns they see on other sites.

This could be changing. Both Facebook and MySpace are beginning to use the data that they have on their users to increase advertising effectiveness. It's actually a bit surprising that they've taken this long as this technology is used by other sites, including online newspapers.

There is also another way that retailers may begin to advertise. Recently, we were sent information from cartfly.com on a widget where people purchase items without leaving the blog, profile, etc. Extending this out, if I can pick the products that I want to sell from different retailers, then put the widget on my blog, I can then not only define my style but show people how to buy it.

Of course not everyone would be able to do this. Anyone who knows me knows that my sense of fashion is pretty much defined by what's available at Kohls. However, I could see other "cooler" people doing it. What do you think? - Paul Herring

What is RSS?

Ever had to answer this question?

"RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed," "web feed," or "channel," contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text." - Wikipedia

For some of us, this makes sense. However, I'm willing to bet that at least half of our audience is saying "um, what?".

Here's a video I uncovered over at PRWeb that explains RSS in plain English:

The video is actually done by vocus15, which has a few out on YouTube that address complicated "Web 2.0" concepts. I love the way it makes it simple, doesn't provide a definition but shows it in action with focus on "what does it mean to me". - Paul Herring

Keep your press release

We check the mail at ChaosScenario (chaosscenario@yahoo.com). As our readership has grown, a few PR companies have reached out to us for a review of a book or coverage of their clients product, story, etc. Like any blogger, if the subject peaks our interest, we'll cover it, especially if it's related to topics we cover on the blog every day.

What annoys me a lot of the time are people who blanket us with press releases. Maybe it's bugging me more lately because I've been working on some blogger outreach projects. Sending out a blanket press release may be the way that you reach out to traditional media but it doesn't work for bloggers and I can guarantee it won't work for ChaosScenario. In my mind, this is just lazy. If you want to reach out to bloggers, follow these simple rules (courtesy of Benjamin Koe at eok.net):

1. Personalize the pitch -  recognize that bloggers are real people and tell them why your pitch is interesting
2. Blogs are conversations - Communicate with bloggers. Your more likely to get a response if your involved in the conversations that are happening on a blog. Oh, and being involved is more than just posting a comment like "Great post, check out xyz.com".
3. Communicate online - If you don't have a decent website, start there first.
4. Web as a media platform - You should be involved in more than just "blogger outreach". How committed are you to the web as a communication tool?
5. Participation counts - If your involved in the blogosphere before your pitch, you'll have a better chance of being heard.
6. Start blogging - Bloggers will be more impressed if your not just reaching out but also going to the hard work of posting your own material.

- Paul Herring

100 books for 100 stories

If you've read this blog, you'll know that we love the book "Made to Stick". The concepts are so pertinent to what we do in marketing and really, what we do in every day life.

The authors are running a contest for teachers. They're giving away 100 books for 100 stories that teachers told in the classroom that "stuck".

Here are the rules from their blog:

1) It’s got to be the story of a specific lesson, recounted in enough detail that a general reader, who of course wasn’t there the day it was taught, can understand the power of it.

(2) You’re giving us permission to publish the story, along with your name.

(3) You’ve got to be a teacher – we’ll need a school address to send the book to.

If you know a teacher, pass it on.

I can't wait until to read what comes out of this. Teachers have to understand so much about how to reach their students with messages that are relevant, exciting and presented in ways that stick!

- Paul Herring

The best SEO technique

I'm going to bet that there will be a lot of people who read this article and are disappointed.

You see, a lot of people are looking for that search magic bullet. The things they can do to tweak the content of their website that will get them that all coveted number one position and will drive millions of people to their website.

Fact is, however, search engines don't actually use web sites, people do. On your website or blog, the value of the content to the reader will make a bigger difference in the log run than any tricks.

Some bloggers, such as Brian Clark of the Copyblogger don't even worry about search engine optimization. Instead he worries only about the three "S"s:

Subscriber - getting someone to visit your website over time. This is best measured by repeat traffic and especially subscriptions to RSS feeds. People won't subscribe to your feed unless

Social media - concentrating on links from sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious and links from other bloggers. Unless your going to be a jerk and add your own stuff into these sites or beg another blogger to link to you, you'll have to do it with good content.

Selling - not peddling your blog or website but building trust with your audience. I'd say the main way to do that is through good content.

So the secret to SEO success? Focus on the content first and foremost. Worrying about the best way to suck in traffic from Google can waste a lot of time.

That's not to say that you should ignore it completely. Bruce Clay has a great page on his website that describes how to go about optimizing your site for search. Understanding what phrases are being used for searches will help make your content more friendly to the user. There are also some basic ways that a site should be built in order to be read by search engines. However, I'd concentrate 95% of time into providing good content and 5% on search engine optimization. - Paul Herring

College coach communication

If your a college football fan, you probably saw Mike Gundy's rant on a newspaper article about one of his players. For those of you who haven't seen it, here it is:

His issue is over this article, written by Jenni Carlson.

It bothers me that Mike Gundy uses a press conference for this kind of tirade, it give the article more attention that it deserves. It also bothers me that the press is defending Jenni Carlson as a some type of persecuted journalist whose only bringing the facts to life. If you read the article carefully, most facts are from "unnamed sources" and really have nothing to do with the story but are more about making the quarterback look like a "mamas boy". The blogosphere gets a lot of criticism for not being true journalism but most legitimate blogs cite sources better than this reporter.

Of course all this happened a week ago so maybe it's old news. This week I noticed something different that another Big XII coach is doing. I noticed it because it was from the coach of my alma mater, Dan Hawkins, coach of the Colorado Buffaloes. There are a lot of problems with it both technically (no rss feeds, trackbacks) and functionally (lack of categories, comments). However, I think its a better way to get your word out to the community than losing it during a press conference. You gotta wonder if Mike Gundy's message would have been better received if he had a blog that he regularly contributed to and one that he could have laid out his arguments in a more rational, controlled manner. - Paul Herring

Can't I just get ads and a website?

  Every where I've worked I hear this from clients, many expecting incredible results after just an initial meeting. You have to know who you are and who your customer is before you start. A lot of agencies, maybe desperate for work, don't even begin to go through a  process that helps them uncover information.

Michele Schermerhorn President of Online Business Institute Inc.(via the brandXpress blog) has seven key steps that every marketer should go through before they begin developing ads and I'll add into that the brands expression online, websites (comments after the steps are mine):

1. Know Your Customers Better Than You Know Yourself - In my mind, this is really what planners and in some cases IAs are for.
2. Understand Your Competitive Environment & Competitors - Same thing here. It's important to define your competitors broadly, not just the ones that a client might list out in five minutes. Often a brand is competing with things that  might not  be in a 'marketing' category (like a TV show competing with activities that don't involve the TV)
3. Define Your Brand Personality - This is who you are. If you don't know, how do you expect potential customers to figure it out?
4. Make A Brand Promise - Remember that Janet Jackson song in the 80's (pre-wardrobe malfunction) "What have you done for me lately?", your customers sing it all the time. Define what your going to do for them. A definition should be definitive meaning it also says what your not going to focus on without necessarily listing those things out.
5. Define Your Brand Strategy - How will you get your message out their in the minds of your customer? Not the tactics, the rules and guidelines that will define and create boarders for the tactics
6. Identify Your Branding Game Plan - Now the tactics.
7. Be Consistent in Action - Too often we'll plan things out and then, due to expediency or laziness, we'll do things just to get them done. Plan the work, then work the plan.

- Paul Herring

Marketing the Greatest team you've never heard of

I know we've covered this campaign before, mainly from a personal perspective. Watching the FIFA Women's World Cup, though, I've seen the whole campaign unfold.

Nike (and Wieden + Kennedy) has produced advertising that crosses media channels and that, most interestingly, seamlessly transition between creative messaging.

From what I can see, the campaign started out with establishing the tag line "The Greatest Team You've Never heard Of". There was a series of print ads that highlighted the teams commitment to each other and their sport (tip of the hat to AdGrabber):

Find more photos like this on AdGabber

Then there was the website where you could meet the team members a little more personally:

Now that the games have actually started, they've take a slightly different approach. They've set up a series of commercials parading the adventure of Jim Mike (aka Dwight from The Office), the new PR manager for the team:

For the record, their are no three point shots in soccer, or two point shots for that matter.

It seems like each time they win a game, we get another ad. I think they're hilarious and well done so, Go Team USA! Beat England!

Of course there are a lot of interactive features on their website that I'll cover in another post.

Overall, one of the best executed campaigns I've seen. - Paul Herring

14 million people can't be wrong

A few months ago I built my Facebook profile, really just to learn about how the social network works. Here's a few things I've learned:

A lot of my friends are also on Facebook. Once I put my profile up and (automatically prompted) joined groups from former employees, schools etc., friends found me and became part of my 'network'.

Compared to MySpace profiles, Facebook profiles are pretty simple. There's not a lot that you can do with the look and feel of the profiles themselves.

There are a lot more applications for Facebook. As a matter of fact this really seems to be the focus of the social network.

So, for those of you familiar with these networks, none of this probably comes as a surprise. What was surprising to me was a recent post on Compete's blog that said 14 million people have used Facebooks applications in August. Take a look at the different ways they've interacted with the site. (if you're old like me, you may have to click on the graphic to enlarge it.)

   

This approach seems to be creating competition for MySpace in this area. As a matter of fact, according to Compete, Facebook is ranked third in terms of page views (an appropriate metric for this type of site) while traffic to MySpace is down by 20%.

Facebook has a long way to go before it comes close to the traffic on MySpace. However, from this data, it appears to gaining steam. - Paul Herring

The grassroots selling of the world's most popular sport

I've coached soccer for a few years. At the beginning of this season, I attended a coach's meeting where rosters are handed out, rules are reviewed, etc. These meeting typically involve a couple of groups trying to sell soccer uniforms, team pictures and FC Dallas tickets. I had an exceptional experience that can teach us all grassroot selling.

Grassroots lesson 1: A great foundation to a customer relationship is a good conversation

I arrived early to the coach's meeting and started a conversation with the rep from FC Dallas. We talked about the addition of Denilson, a star player from Brazil, the win against the Columbus Crew, etc. He was there to promote the youth soccer night, trying to get teams to buy tickets and be part of the opening ceremonies where soccer players lead the professionals out on the team (A great tradition by the way and probably a topic for another post).

Grassroots lesson 2: Make your customer feel important

We've bought tickets to these games. Usually it's the standard process of purchasing the tickets from the ticket office and then picking them up the day of the game. When I called to get our tickets, instead of talking to TicketMaster, the rep from FC Dallas that I met took my call. He remembered my name, my team's name and our conversation. I was impressed because I knew he had attended four or five other coach's meetings and probably met twenty to thirty coaches.

Grassroots lesson 3: Whenever possible, go out of your way to make the purchasing process easy, even when your customer isn't following the process.

After ordering my tickets, I received two different calls from parents who, although the initially didn't get their order in by the dead line, asked if they could go to the game, have their daughters participate in the opening ceremonies and sit with our team. The FC Dallas rep accommodated every request, found ways for us to sit together, even to the day of the game when a parent wanted last minute tickets.

Grassroots lesson 4: Make your customer feel at ease

At the game, the girls slowly came in. I was a little concerned that, because girls were coming in at different times, we would miss our opportunity to get on the field. This was a big deal to them and I wanted to make the experience special. I was a little bit flustered. The same FC Dallas rep met me at the team sign in desk and assured me that we'd get on the field once all of our girls arrived.

Grassroots lesson 5: Create a great experience

When we did get on the field, my girls eyes were wider than silver dollars. They were inches away from where the players were warming up. Although I'm sure the FC Dallas players had a lot on their minds, they still managed to smile, give high-fives and kick a ball every once in a while against the board that my girls were standing behind. When we got on the field, the FC Dallas players (after returning to their locker rooms) came out and, as part of the ceremony, either made eye contact or gave high-fives to all the players from my team. Suddenly my daughter looked up and there, on the big screen was our girls second grade soccer team name listed as a 'sponsor' for that night's game. You could literally hear their jaws drop. The game was a good time, mostly because all the girls felt that they were VIP guests of one of the best soccer teams in the US.

Grassroots lesson  6: Follow up

I never expected this but I got a call from the same FC Dallas rep the following Monday asking how the game went. Now I felt like a VIP Soccer guest and maybe more than just a coach for a second grade girls soccer team.

With Beckham coming to the US to play soccer, a lot of attention has been paid to the marketing of soccer in the United States, especially Major League Soccer. Maybe the right answer is to create great experiences among those who have children who play the game. My compliments to FC Dallas for not only how they play the beautiful game, but for the beautiful experience they are creating.

- Paul Herring

PayPerPost

I'm having a bit of a moral crisis about PayPerPost?

You hear a lot about it as blogs become more popular (38% of the internet audience reads them these days). It's natural that marketers (like myself) would want to use this emerging media to promote their products and services.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this new trend. On the one hand, updating a blog takes a lot of time and effort, mostly outside your 'regular' job. It's not only the writing but also the research, staying up to date, reading other blogs, etc. It seems like for that effort, there should be some type of reward. If your endorsing a product you really believe in and your transparent about it, why not?

On the other hand, however, it seems to me that there needs to be a DMZ between what's advertising and what's editorial. I guess I feel a little bit of responsibility to be free to say what I want to say and recommend things, not because I'm being paid but because I believe in them without the influence of getting paid for them.

I don't think there is any difference between PayPerPost and the type of stunts that Jaffe Juice pulled to get a laptop and an iPhone. Compensation is compensation. I'm not saying I'm against what he did, I'm just saying it's no different than signing up for PayPerPost and soliciting advertisers who will pay for you to write positive articles about them.

I don't think you'll see any PayPerPost on ChaosScenario anytime soon. Unfortunately we're still in the 200s on the Top Marketing Blog lists. Although I'm proud of the traffic we get, it's probably not enough to get the interest of advertisers.

That's OK. I think I can speak for Cam when I say we post on this blog because we enjoy writing, learning and interacting with the people who do come to our site. It's a labor of love. (That's not to say we'd wouldn't like to pull into the Top 150, we are somewhat accomplishment oriented!) - Paul Herring

Wii brings parties beyond gamers

People who aren't really gamers are getting into the Wii. Adage reports that Wii parties are all the rage. Retirement homes and cruise ships are planning parties where people get together and play the games.

"The Wii is great for parties because of the level of activity and the multi-player format -- it's fun to play and fun for others to watch," said Lariayn Payne, VP-marketing and public relations at Evite.

This is an interesting phenomenon to me because of how the Wii was created and how the community it creates.

Three or four years ago, Nintendo was struggling in an arms race with Sony and Microsoft. The Game Cube was becoming less popular because it lacked the graphic intensity and in some cases titles that the other platforms were getting. Instead of trying to catch up in the race, Nintendo thought outside the box. They created a platform that was about playing together, about activity rather than how quick you could click a button. Last Christmas season, when new platforms were released, Nintendo outsold the competition and hasn't stopped.

The article also mentions the Wii parties that are becoming more popular. What I really love about the Wii is that, beyond the games, owners can create Miis that look like a cartoon version of who they are or who they want to be.  These Miis can interact with other Miis. You can also participate in polls that are taken among other Wii owners around the world. What this does is goes beyond playing Doom online, it gets people to interact, communicate and try their hand a (albeit limited) physical activity. It's no wonder these parties are popular. They've tapped into ways that people have built communities through the ages. - Paul Herring

Life's priorities to an 8 year old

So much time working, reading blogs, trying to keep up to date and get things done...

I had the opportunity this week to have a "date" with my daughter and listen to what's going on in her life. I learned things I never knew before, like:

The two main characters in High School musical may actually be dating.

While other girls pretend to be Mia Hamm, she prefers to be Abby Wambach 'cause she saw how good she played when we saw her play against the Canadian's Womens Soccer team

• Kitty Webkinz are really hard to find (also, if you don't feed your Webkinz, they will get very sick)
• Although there are currently no Broadway Musical stars who are also professional soccer players, she'd like to be the first

Once she grows her hair so that it's pass 10 inches, she's going to donate it to locks-of-love. (you get a free hair cut AND they donate your hair)

Ok, this is boring stuff for all of our readers. But here's the point:

I'll try to remember this night forever because she'll never be eight again.

It's easy to get caught up in what doesn't matter. I've been on a lot of jobs that were going to "redefine the standard" or "change the game". At the end of my life, heck after a couple of years, all these projects will be forgotten. My daughter, however, will still be here, hopefully enjoying life as much as she does today.

Find someone who matters and take time to find out what's interesting to them.

- Paul Herring

Johnson & Johnson's new approach to PR

Last week Cam and I were talking about possible topics for blog posts. Cam mentioned the Johnson & Johnson issue with the Red Cross. In a nut shell, J&J is suing the Red Cross because of it's use of the Red Cross (or so it seemed at the time, read further).

I expected the old, traditional PR approach. Several press releases full of corporate speech, maybe a CEO or better yet PR speech where a bland prepared statement is read, and lot's of attacks from all sides on J&J for suing one of the most well respected charities in the world. Last week I was prepared to write a post scolding J&J for letting their legal team lead the company beyond common sense.

It turns out J&J chose to respond differently. Emergence Marketing points out the differences. J&J has had a corporate blog for some time. They used the corporate blog to address the issue, probably attempting to get their side of the story out to the blogosphere. Their communication was plain spoken and addressed the issue concisely. Bottom line, they simply told their side of the story plainly, yes using press releases and conferences, but also using their blog and new media tools.

So what was their message? Turns out the issue isn't about the use of the Red Cross in general but the fact that the charity is licensing the symbol to other companies, not just for first aid kits, but also for use in cosmetics, clothes, you name it. Turns out J&J owned the symbol before the Red Cross ever existed.

The issue has been covered extensively on the blogoshpere. Seth's blog and a host of others have covered it. Some have just taken the typical blogosphere approach and come out against the corporate giant (J&J). Quite a few, however, have defended J&J, not citing the press release, but quoting proof points from the well written blog post on the matter from the J&J PR department.

Most Fortune 500 companies are afraid to put up a blog, let alone one that addresses PR issues on it. This fear is mainly due to the time commitment to posting and getting those post approves through legal. There is probably also a hidden fear of not understanding and being able to control new media tools. Bottom line, it will require more work and learning for these staffs and frankly, they'd rather just ignore it. What they are missing out on is an opportunity to break through the clutter of traditional approaches and possibly avoid the negative backlash that often times comes with it.

Congratulations to J&J for at least having the courage to taking new approaches to getting their message out. - Paul Herring

Friday Freaks

It's one of those hot summer days in Dallas that make me a little bit stir crazy. Here's some fun things:

Mmm, Donuts

Guess what the only commercial endorsement Elvis Presley ever did? For Southern Maid Donuts - Jelly Donuts. If you love donuts, live in Dallas and want to support a great cause, why not enter the United Cerebral Palsy/Southern Maid Donuts “Jelly Jam” Jelly Donut Eating Contest

When: Saturday, Aug. 11, 2007 at 10:30 a.m.

Where: West Village (Blackburn and Cole, across from Tom Tom Noodle House), 3699 McKinney Ave., Dallas, TX 75204

Why: To support United Cerebral Palsy’s 12th annual Elvis Run on Aug. 18, 2007 at 8 a.m. at Reverchon Park in Dallas, and to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Elvis’ death (on Aug. 16, 1977).  All proceeds from the Elvis Run will benefit UCP’s programs and services for children and adults with cerebral palsy and other disabilities.

Details: Contestants will race to eat the most jelly donuts – Elvis’ favorite – in 2 minutes.

Free donuts donated by Southern Maid Donuts and free coffee donated by Starbucks will be available to those in attendance.

Bonus points if you win both the donut eating contest AND the run.

And now for something completely different....

Cat Stampede

- Paul Herring

Internet to takeover advertising blah, blah, blah

News flash -- in case you haven't heard it, "Internet advertising" is hot. Real hot. It's going to take over newspaper, radio, outdoor, and TV. In the not too distant future, it will create its own giant monster and take over the world.

A couple of years ago, articles like the one in Biz report titled "Internet set to become U.S. leading ad medium" would get me all tingly. Of course when you actually read the article, you realize that they are only talking about Internet advertising overtaking newspaper print ads. Um, does anyone under 50 actually get a newspaper anymore.

I'm tired of hearing about the might of Internet advertising or really advertising in general. What's more interesting to me are stories where industries understand their customers media habits and use them in combination.

This article from eMarketer showcases a good example. The insurance industry is pumping more and more money into online advertising.

  "Spending on Internet advertising for insurance companies and products will continue to grow to $2.31 billion in 2011. Online ad spending in 2007 by insurance companies will reach $980 million, up 36% over 2006."

At first glance, one might assume that this is coming at the expense of traditional media. That's where you'd be wrong:

"Unlike spending in other industries such as automotive, insurers continue to put more money into television, year after year"

Why do this? Because the insurance industry understands that these two mediums work best in combination. Television exposes people to the company or, in other words, gets them to think about insurance. Once exposed, these people go online to learn more about the company:

"comScore data show that 59% of respondents would go online first after seeing a TV ad for an auto insurance company, either to visit the Web site specified in the ad, to visit the company's corporate site or to use a search engine to find a site for the company."

What's sad is that many companies or brands feel like they have to "choose a medium". Either you're all online with a little bit of traditional, or you're all TV with a little bit of online. Not many people think about understanding how the customer interacts with the media and then devising a solution that gets them from exposure to investigation to purchase. - Paul Herring

Rethinking email design

Email marketing is quickly becoming pure communication strategy. Email is the preferred method to reach customers and other stakeholders because it's measurable and cheap.

However it's pure measurability causes it to suffer the same fate that a lot of online media has, namely that so much focus is put on gathering and optimizing the crap out of every little piece that the big picture gets lost. Subject lines, calls to action, links, all are tested again and again to squeeze the last little bit of money out.

All of this is good but it comes with a problem. In order to understand what works best, you have to produce multiple upon multiple versions of the same email. Compound that by the need to send out emails frequently and you get a code and blast mentality. The design of the email suffers and now (in many cases) the most frequent conversation you have with your customer is a disaster and is just another useless email in their inbox.

So what's an emailer to do? Before you code and test, take a step back and understand what works. eROI has a report that's put out quarterly that's a great resource. A friend of mine from a past life, David Baker's blog WhiteNoise is a great resource to stay up-to-date. Marketing Sherpa has a specific section dedicated to email marketing. All of these resources have a direct marketing bent to them but their a great resource to get a foundation.

Once you have the foundation, contrast, compare and evaluate. Look at your subject lines and determine if the fit your brand messaging. Look at your emails next to your online ads, next to your print ads, next to your brochures. Do the emails measure up? Are they appealing and consistent? Do they stand out? Be honest.

When designing emails, go through the same process as you would to design a web page (hopefully you go through this process!). Document what the objective of the email program is and of individual emails. Develop wire frames for the emails so that art directors can focus on the look and feel and graphical design.

Stop the code and blast madness. - Paul Herring

Save Business 2.0

I just learned that Time Warner is about to close down Business 2.0. I've always loved this magazine because it covered more than just the typical stuff you get in magazines like Business Week. You'd think Time Warner could look at some of their other properties (say like AOL) and see that Business 2.0 has more potential.

I should have known this was going to happen when they combined the Business 2.0 site with CNN Money. Yeah, it's owned by the same people and they rolled other publications into CNN Money but to me it doesn't seem like a good fit. I would think Business 2.0 readers are more inclined to get their information online than the other publications. I have no data to back that up, just my gut.

There's a campaign to save Business 2.0 launched through Facebook. It's a great way to use a social network to get the word out and show support. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I don't have a Facebook account. I'm creating one today, however, not only because I should have had one a long time ago, but to join this group.

Help us keep Business 2.0 open. Join the Facebook group to save Business 2.0 and while your at it, Digg the article. - Paul Herring

Kid's virtual worlds

My daughter has been saving her allowance up for (apparently) the latest fad, Webkinz. Webkinz are basically stuffed animals that you come with a code that allows you to adopt them online and play with them in a virtual world. The virtual world is full of all types of games and virtual accessories that you can buy for your pet with kinzcash, which can be earned by taking quizzes, playing games and I'm guessing can be exchanged for real cash.  Kids can also play meet friends pets online and have them play together in a vitual world.

A lot of attention is being paid to Second Life, and a lot of companies are setting up virtual environments. It only took Webkinz half the time to get the same number of registered users. Other toys are getting into the game as well. Classic toys like Barbie and Hot Wheels are revamping their websites to be more than places to advertisements, creating their own virtual worlds.

Makes me wonder if virtual worlds to our kids will be as common as a touch tone telephone is to us. How does this (or does it) affect the way they'll live as adults? - Paul Herring

The greatest team you've never heard of

They've won 20 straight games.

They play the best teams from all over the world.

They don't have big contracts or endorsement deals.

Despite representing the United States in the most popular sport in the world, they're lucky to get more than 5,000 people to attend their home games.

Some of them are moms and all of them have devoted years of their lives for the love of the game.

Meet the US Women's National Soccer team.  I'm inspired by their dedication despite being women and playing in a less than popular sport in the United States.

Why is this a big deal? It's a big deal because today's girls don't have heros that are worth a damn. All they have are spoiled rich girls who love the paparzi and are in and out of rehab.

Today's girls need inspiration. I know because I have a daughter and I coach a soccer team with fourteen eight year old girls. For my daughter and for my team, I want them to want more than a spot in High School the Musical Part XI. I want them to understand that, you can work hard and be more than just a peice of glitzy meat.

Support the US Women's team as they take on the world in the FIFA Women's World Cup.

- Paul Herring

BREAKING NEWS - INTERNET CRASH!!!

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Oh no!

"Suddenly my life seems so boring, I feel like ctrl+alt+deleting myself".

"Nigeria's economy implodes".

- Paul Herring

Chasing Cool - Taking risks

"The Greatest Risk is Not Taking One"  As you get older, you seem to take fewer risks. I first noticed this a long time ago when I taught skiing. It was a lot easier to teach children to ski than adults, probably because they don't fear the consequences. We learn lessons that help us avoid circumstances and situations that can get us into trouble. What's unfortunate is that these lessons also give us an unreasonable fear of risk and failure.

This carries into our lives as marketers. Trying something new, taking a risk without guaranteed success is certainly not encouraged in agencies or corporate marketing departments. Everyone wants a sure thing. Unfortunately, the sure things usually involve short-term, relatively minor results. The book brings up the case of Barney's, an upscale retailer who one of the authors worked for and guided to it's current success. Gene Pressman gives examples of how he guided the company into an expansion that, although seemed like a good idea at the time, ultimately resulted in the closing down several stores and damaging the brand. It's not too common to see the authors of these types of books admit mistakes. If Gene had not taken these kind of risks, however, Barney's wouldn't be where it is today.

Take risks, live. - Paul Herring

Movie advertising partnerships

In the last decade, major movie releases have always had advertising partners, especially for movies that are at least interesting for kids. Typically these movies just attach their characters to products by placing them on the boxes or incorporating some movie element into the product itself. (like Snickers changing the color of their caramel to green for Shrek III). I'd argue that these types of promotions aren't very effective but then I'd have to explain the wrappers in our trash from my kids last visit to QT.

At the very least, however, many lack creativity. They are typically one dimensional in that they rarely involve much engagement beyond packaging and product changes. There might be some type of sweepstakes, but the fail to leverage the personality of the characters that are being promoted, how the product relates to the movie, or even an experience that would benefit the brand and the sales of the product itself.

Two recent exceptions(?) are the GM promotion with Transformers and, to some extent, the Jet Blue promotion with The Simpson's Movie.

With GM, they've created a game that allows people to select their Transformer (a GM vehicle), challenge and battle friends. The community can work together to get special codes and ultimately beat the other side. A good idea but the game is really complicated. A little bit of simplification could go a long way to increasing participation.

For the Simpson's movie, the promotion with Jet Blue is a lot simpler. They have the standard sweepstakes and characters have selected cities that are their favorites. In my mind, however, the best part of this promotion is Mr. Burn's taking over David Neeleman's Log. I think this has a lot of potential. I'm concerned that they're posting least recent first (a sign of inexperienced blogging) and that the blog is hard to find. However, I'll be optimistic that it will be linked to and that there will be entertaining entries soon.

There's got to be a better way of creating these types of promotions. Let us know if you have better examples. - Paul Herring

Chasing Cool pt. 3 - Borrowing equity

I think that that Borrowing Equity was my favorite chapter so far.

Marketing people try to use celebrities or attach their product to a culture without really thinking if that celebrity fits or if there is any reason that a culture would want their product. The authors effectively use examples of where advertisers have tried to borrow the 'sound', 'street cred' or 'personality' to attach to their product to make it seem cool and boost sales. These schemes end up in boosting sales but only for a short time. If you're racking your brain  trying to think of an example of this type of advertising, look no further than ads on MTV or BET where every product in the world is trying to become 'urban'.

There are other times when a 'culture' or 'personality' finds or attaches itself to a product. Most of the times these are outside of where marketer's targets. How marketers react to this attention is key. Many marketers will turn their attention to the new audience without any research or investigation.

Consider Hilfiger. When the clothing line was first introduced, it was targeted to a young, upscale audience. It was embraced by urban youth, probably because it didn't represent who they were as much as who they wanted to be. It was also an expression of who Tommy Hilfiger was as a clothing designer:

"I knew exactly what I wanted to do: I wanted to build a brand of clothing around my own attitude and my own lifestyle." -Tommy Hilfiger

Unfortunately when Hilfiger saw the urban trend they re-focused their campaign on this audience, in other words, they tried to make their product more 'cool'. When they made this shift, maybe because they really didn't understand this audience and the reasons they were using the product, sales fell and the product was no longer cool. They've since reversed course.

There are other products who haven't lost their focus. An example from my own experience is Patrón. There are a lot of rappers and famous celebrities who mention the tequila in their songs and in appearances. However, the company hasn't attempted to leverage these relationships at all, allowing them to exist organically. Maybe that's why the popularity of the brand has increased dramatically over the last year, as well as sales.

Stay tuned, I'll be finishing up the book this week. - Paul Herring

Chasing Cool pt. 2: Buzz in a Bottle vs. Aesthetic Values

It's been a long time since I've posted <...insert obligatory blogger posting frequency apology here...>

The third chapter of Chasing Cool delivers. I can't decide if I like it because it so eloquently expresses issues that I face everyday. Anyways, the book takes head on the idea that really the aesthetic of the product and its relation to the audience is much more effective in the long run that 'buzz in a bottle' techniques like viral marketing, celebrity endorsements, events, etc.

"Buzz in a bottle" events, at best, get a lot of attention. What does it do for the brand? In most cases, they don't communicate anything about the brand or even begin to try to make a connection between a product or brand and their audience. I especially like the mention of Subservient Chicken. I've been in more than one client meeting where clients have asked for their Subservient Chicken. Not only does the request lack of originality, it also ignores the fact that the promotion didn't tie back to the brand or even help increase sales. There are a lot of people out there who will say it ties back to the 'get it your way' brand promise. I agree with the authors when they call that stretching.

The most important area to focus on is aesthetic. If you know your audience and you design your product around their current, or better yet future needs, you'll be better off in the long run.

"Long-term brand loyalty comes from real creative vision and a genuine connection to what's going on."

To me one of the best example was to the Motorola Razr. Such a simple phone design that was aesthetic pleasing made people take notice. In my mind, it was the first time that people started noticing phone manufacturers over carriers. However, cell phone releases happen fast. The true test will be if Motorola can keep up.

If I had one compliant about this chapter, it's that they don't follow their own advice. The chapter is too long. In writing, keeping things concise and too the point is the aesthetic. You don't have to beat me over the head with it a few times. Once was enough. - Paul Herring

What's Cool?

Following in Cam's footsteps, I've decided to review a book that. Full disclosure, one of the author's advertising agency reps contacted us and sent us a copy. So here's the summary according to the authors:

"Cool isn't just a state of mind, a celebrity fad, or an American obsession -- it's a business. In boardrooms across America, product managers are examining vodka bottles and candy bars, tissue boxes and hamburgers, wondering how do we make this thing cool? How do we make this gadget into the iPod of our industry? "

I'm a little cynical when I first heard about the book. All I need is a book out there saying that "you too can have your own subservient chicken with these three easy steps". I was pleasantly surprised when the authors came clean

Chapter 1 - The iPod of My Industry - Whatever they did, I want that

Everyone wants to copy someone else's success. In the places I work, I hear this all the time.  We want to be like X, can you make us one of those Y. The problem is, it isn't a formula. There are different ways to get.

The book points out the rise of Grey Goose vodka. Sidney Frank, the man who built Grey Goose vodka. Mr. Frank developed a plan to market Grey Goose by going against conventional wisdom. He priced his product at nearly two times what other vodka brands charged, packaged his product in frosted bottles and crated containers like those used to ship fine wine. Grey Goose became a status symbol in clubs all across the world. Not bad for a product that is, by definition orderless and tasteless.

Chapter 2 - Ordering in - why outsourcing vision doesn't work...

Know your audience and know what 'cool' is to them. No, I mean really know your audience. A lot of times companies outsource their brands to advertising agencies. They expect them to define who they should appeal to, what the message should be and, ultimately, who they are. The problem is that if your organization doesn't who they are, then really, why are you in business? If you don't understand your customer, then you're doomed. And knowing your customer doesn't mean running a bunch of focus groups or customer surveys, it means spending time in their world.

In this case, take a look at Tony Hawk. If someone from the outside had consulted on "building his brand" it probably would have involved black t-shirts, goatees and overly produced commercials. Instead, Tony Hawk's brand does what Tony does best on his skate board.

"If a business is so badly lit then you can't see cool when it's sitting right inside the organization, is there a point in going out and chasing it?"

So far I'm impressed. Stay tuned for chapter three and four. Check out the Chasing Cool site. - Paul Herring

In a different place

The job market is really hot right now for those who work in online. I remember when it was like this in 2000. This time, it's different. This time the growth isn't inflated, its reflective of changing media consumption habits and the coming of age of online.

I've decided to take advantage of new opportunities. I've left Click Here and have joined Fleishman Hillard Digital practice in Dallas. While I know for sure I'm going to really miss everyone at Click Here, and even some of the things that are part of The Richards Group culture, I'm excited about this new opportunity.

What this means to ChaosScenario is really nothing. I'll probably still struggle to get a couple of posts out a week and maybe I'll  blog more about PR related items. Cam and I are both part or the conversation.

As I transition, I'd like to thank Pete Lerma for encouraging me to start this blog and Cam for really taking it and owning it. As most of our readers know, he posts a lot more than I do. In some ways, it's his party and I'm just invited. - Paul Herring

Social information architecture

In cased you missed it, findability.org had a great post on how to evaluate 'social sites'. These Social Software Building blocks are not only a great way to evaluate all the different Web 2.0 sites that are out there, but I believe they also focus thinking while designing websites. From Gene Smith, here's what each honeycomb means:

Identity - a way of uniquely identifying people in the system

Presence - a way of knowing who is online, available or otherwise nearby

• Relationships - a way of describing how two users in the system are related (e.g. in Flickr, people can be contacts, friends of family)
• Conversations - a way of talking to other people through the system

Groups - a way of forming communities of interest

Reputation - a way of knowing the status of other people in the system (who's a good citizen? who can be trusted?)

Sharing - a way of sharing things that are meaningful to participants (like photos or videos)

You gotta love the way they've categorized sites like Flickr and Digg. Of course not every site can or should score high on every of the area. In addition, each of these areas can be implemented in different ways, and the way they are implemented makes a big difference.

One weakness of this model is that it doesn't really describe the relationship of the site itself or brand with the audience that uses it. It only evaluates the interaction with between participants. In my work, you have to build some type of affinity to the brand, if not actual sales on the sites we design. One might argue that if you are doing all these right, you'll get there. However, I believe it's an area that still should be evaluated. (original discover via the Digital Hive) - Paul Herring

The $100 laptop

I had heard about this idea but had no idea that it's come so far. As part of relief efforts, an MIT professor has developed a $100 laptop that's minimal in functionality but very durable and has web access.

It's pretty much water proof, can be powered with a hand crank, and has a lot of the same features you see on most low end laptops these days. It uses a custom operating system with limited functionality.

The great thing about these laptops is that it will provide a new level of interaction and learning to a generation who, in some cases, haven't even known electricity in their houses. They'll be able to get information from a number of different resources, not just what their government wants them to know. They'll also be able to interact with people from other cultures, as well as maybe even find ways to make money. What a great idea!

To learn more about the laptop, take a look at a detailed description here as well as a demonstration of what the laptop can do. (link via 37 Signals blog) - Paul Herring

Mergers, mergers everywhere

Hey, let's party like it's 1999. No, really, we can. Online is hot again and you can tell by all the mergers taking place:

Google buys DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.

Yahoo buys Right Media for $725 million.

WPP buys 24/7 Media for $650 million.

Microsoft buys aQuantive for $6 billion.

What's the impact of all these mergers? Don't get your hopes up. What I expect is that some of these mergers will have minimal impact and in some cases make things less efficient. These companies will struggle to create the synergy that was the reason for their mergers.

Yahoo buying RightMedia - I wonder if they'll still be a place where you can "find the best partners to do business with, transact directly and always at fair market value."

WPP buying 24/7 - I can't see WPP, or any of the big advertising conglomerates doing anything to make the company better outside of demanding financial accountability, and return, and sending a good chunk of money to headquarters.

Microsoft buys aQuantive - Microsoft doesn't know advertising. They're not a leader in search and their existing network is mediocre, especially when you look at the resources at their disposal. I look for Microsoft to leave well enough alone, possibly changing the technical architecture and forcing all the creative designers to get PCs.

The one that I think will be interesting is Google and DoubleClick. I believe Google will apply their engineering machine and combine their tools with DoubleClick to make something really interesting. Trafficking, tracking, optimization at a whole new level.

It would be a good idea for all these companies to take  look at the failed merger of Daimler and Chrysler. This was supposed to be the merger of two companies that brought different strengths to the table, namely German engineering and American marketing expertise. Now, it's not a pretty divorce. As pointed out in this great article from Business Week, organic growth beats synergy.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. - Paul Herring

Ignoring the target

  I'm a big fan of the show Heroes on NBC. I think that it all started with my obsession with X-Men which the show is really a rip off of. Because of kid's bedtimes, work, etc. I'm not always able to see every episode when it airs. I usually catch up either online or download an episode on iTunes.

Right before this last Monday, I went to NBC's site to see the previous week's episode so that I would be up to speed before the new one aired. I love the fact that I'm able to see episodes without commercial interruption. As an advertisers, I also like that a single sponsor pays for the entire program. What I don't understand is why "Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner" sponsored the show. Of course I don't have all the data but why would a product primarily targeted at women with a house and kids be sponsoring an online TV show whose audience is primarily (not only but primarily) males, and younger males at that?

Of course my first inclination is to blame NBC but they just sell the inventory. I'd think that Apple, HP or even Xbox or Playstation would be all over this. Am I missing something? - Paul Herring

YouTube commericals

If you haven't heard by now, YouTube will begin inserting commercials this summer.  I think we all knew this was coming. You can't justify the price Google paid for YouTube with the current advertising model. Plain and simple, there is not enough money coming in.

The issue with what these inserts, however, is that there doesn't seem to be a plan to make the commercials relevant. I'm not sure what the average clip length is for a YouTube video but if I have to spend 15 seconds watching a commercial in order to see a 30 second video, I'll not be pleased with the advertisers and will not leave with a great perception of their brand, let alone purchase their product.

It's also puzzling that they're talking about 3 second inserts. You can hardly say a products name or flash a logo in that time.

You can guess that a lot of advertisers are going to be taking their 30-second spots and slicing and dicing them down. Not only will they not be relevant, they'll be totally in appropriate for the medium and lacking in creativity. Sure, it makes sense from a cost perspective to slice and dice but not to the customer. YouTube and similar sites are not just another advertising media channel. The rules are different.- Paul Herring

Preempting American Idol snarkiness

I'm going to preempt a lot of the snarky posts that you'll see tomorrow about the American Idol - Giving Back extravaganza that will be on TV tonight.

It's a sure bet that tomorrow you'll see all types of posts about how bad the show was and how advertisers and artists alike should have just given money directly to the charity. There will even be some blogs that will calculate out how much money could have been given to Africa relief.

I don't think that's the point, and frankly, although they'll be raising money for relief, it's more about awareness and engagement.

If you haven't already, take a look at the About page ONE campaign site. The point of the campaign is not for people to donate money but for people to get involved, specifically:

"The ONE Campaign derives its name from the belief that allocating an additional one percent of the U.S. budget toward providing basic needs like health, education, clean water and food would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the world's poorest countries. We also call for debt cancellation, trade reform and anti–corruption measures in a comprehensive package to help Africa and the poorest nations beat AIDS and extreme poverty."

I know the conservatives out there (and sometimes I count myself as one) will point out all the aid the United States gives and the problems at home we need to address. However, I'll point out that ONE percent will barely put a dent in the budget and can easily be pulled from other programs. Africa's problems will soon become our problems if we don't do something.

In my opinion the idea of using pop culture to popularize a cause is brilliant. It can't be measured in dollars raised in the short-term. It has to be measure by people's awareness of the cause and their willingness to act. And if we make acting on behalf of a good cause cool, we'll live in a much better world.

If your willing to add your voice to the cause, join by signing the petition. - Paul Herring

The housing roller coaster presentation

Housing prices are a topic of a lot of discussion, most of it pretty boring. Good economic analysis dictates that you look at prices over time to see if current prices are at a peak, valley or just normal (prices adjusted for inflation of course). Here's a graph:

   Yikes.

One blogger has come up with an entertaining way to demonstrate the peaks and valleys by making it into a roller coaster.

Is this an effective way of demonstrating the peaks and valleys? Does it do a better job of telling the story or is it just a waste of time?  (Link from speculative bubble) - Paul Herring

Experience Planning

The discipline of information architecture is changing.

There was a time when the focus of information architecture was on content classification, or how content is organized and how that content interacts with other content on a site and on a page. The measure for success within the discipline has always been how the user (or customer) is able to find the information they need. Early information architecture owes a lot to library science for it's focus on multiple ways to find information.

With the advent of broadband and tools that allow different types of human interaction, simply classifying content and making it easy to find isn't enough. It becomes necessary to understand the most efficient way to complete tasks. And even more than that, it becomes necessary to develop an experience that elicits a desired emotion or feeling.

In advertising, this means we're designing experiences around brands in different ways. Traditional television, radio and print elicit an emotion through one sided communication in short bursts. Online the goal is engagement and ultimately endearment with the brand. We want customer to come and experience the brand for longer periods of time and maybe over and over again. We want two way communication, a conversation.

Information architects are becoming experience planners. They're the bridge between understanding what is done online  and the creative and technical talents that produce the site. In many ways they define how it will be done. They're influence goes beyond web sites, and extends into online advertising, community building, mobile applications, social networks and development of sites where customers generate their own content.

Take a look at the great post from the Experience Planner. It provides some great information on tools the discipline uses as well as the methods it uses. If you're not using these methods on your projects, don't be surprised if there's a disconnect between what you wanted and what you got.

- Paul Herring

Extending the brand in iTunes

In some ways, a measure of a good brand (or maybe a good marketing agency) is how well it can extend itself into different medium. Most brands (or maybe, again, marketing agencies) have struggled with extending the experience of the brand online. Nike and Starbucks have done a decent job extending their experience online. Now they're trying it on iTunes.

If you haven't noticed, there are prominent links in the iTunes music store to Nike and Starbucks. Nike's site really focuses on different types of workouts, some featuring specific 'high-energy' artist like Crystal Method. Others seem to allow people to upload their own mixes. There's even a special section for mixes from their athletes include Lebron James, Steve Nash, Vince Carter and Ronaldo.

The Starbuck's mixes are a little less focused on their product. I guess that makes sense, it's one thing to have a workout mix but I've never heard of anyone having a coffee drinking mix. The site has some of the mixes offered in their stores and is supposed to give a coffee house sound, whatever that is.

I think Nike does a good job bringing extending their message into music by associating with exercises and sports stars. Starbucks, in my opinion however, doesn't do much for me in terms of extending the brand. It doesn't encourage use of their product and it doesn't really give any kind of experience. It's just music that you can get on other parts of the site. I'm sure that these brands go through a lot of 'hoops' to get on iTunes. If you're going to go through the effort, seems like you should extend your experience like Nike has done rather than just uploading coffee house play lists. - Paul Herring

Mobile advertising has a long way to go

Mobile marketing today is what blogs where two years ago and podcast were last year, all the fad. I believe, however, it won't take off as quickly.

It's too difficult. It seems like most mobile website publishers forget that the bandwidth is a lot closer to dial up than to broadband speeds.Page designs are pretty poor. People forget that it's difficult to see the graphics and links on a screen so small.

And, unfortunately, the number of people that access web pages on their mobile phones, let alone watching videos, is still really small. You can blame the carriers for this. I believe many people are interested, however, they're not willing to be charged the high add on fees. These services could be reduced as long as people are willing to accept advertising. You don't see any of the carriers stepping up, though, they're more interested in making sure that they provide the portal, the content and the experience, none of which they are particularly good at doing or do we need them to do. Wake up and smell the turn of the century. Controling the internet may have worked for AOL in the 80s and 90s, but it wont work today. (some information via Advertising Age)- Paul Herring

NCAA March Madness out advertises superbowl

Saw this recently, turns out March Madness brings in more advertising dollars than the Super bowl. I guess this isn't too surprising, March Madness lasts longer. What is interesting is the way that it has increased over the last six years:

 

A 60% increase over that period of time is really remarkable. According the emarketer report, more advertising dollars are spent on NCAA basketball than Pro-football, Pro-basketball and Pro-baseball. Where will people be watching their game?

"For the second year, all games from the first three rounds of the tournament are being streamed live over the Internet for free. Ad units on the Webcasts will include billboard displays around the perimeter of the viewing window and video ads during TV commercial breaks. " Makes me wonder if they're watching their game at work. - Paul Herring

A couple of bad ideas

I wonder if there is a direct relationship between the amount of press a "new advertising idea" gets and how bad it is. Two bad ideas seem to be getting a lot of press this week:

ABC pilot with Geico's cavemen - I love the caveman commercials and all the ways the Martin agency has extended the campaign like playing golf with Phil Sims on Super bowl Sunday, interviewing celebs after the Oscar party. But a TV series? These guys are funny in small amounts. If movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding couldn't make it as a TV series, what makes you think a 30 second spot could do it? Making a 30-second spot into a TV series is lower on the creativity scale than coming up with a new reality series.

Mobile marketing explodes -  What bugs me here is that there is lot's of hype and lot's of solutions that seem to be just an extension of what's done on-line. In quite a few sites I visit I get Sprint's banner ad promoting "The power of reach and relevance" with a picture of a text ad at the top of a mobile phone display. When you click through there's no explanation of how their text links and banner ads are 'relevant'. What bothers me even more is that they're not even thinking about the differences in how someone uses the Internet on a cell phone as opposed to a personal computer. Seems like they're thinking "just slap a banner ad, hell, it seems to work on my laptop". I think mobile advertising is going to need a lot more maturity before it becomes a legitimate advertising model.

- Paul Herring

Red isn't, well in the red

Being cynical is easy. It's easy to look at something someone else has done and find fault with their motives. I'm not talking about constructive criticism that focuses on improvement but the kind of cynacism that questions someone's motives.

I'm having a problem with the criticism of the Red campaign, especially after reading about it in AdRants and in Advertising Age.

My first problem is with the math. AdRants says, "It seems it took up to an estimated $100 million to bring in $18 million for the charity effort. Not exactly the best ROI for a campaign of any kind."  That's not really the right calculation for ROI. It should be based on the revenue of the products sold,  not the donation to the charity. The marketers of red goods participated in order to raise money AND sell products.

Which brings me to my second point. The article seems to imply that it would be better for people to just donate directly to the charity. True, however, they could have done that for the last three decades. Relief fund raising for Africa is nothing new. The $18M that was raised (so far) was $18M that may not have gone to relief without the campaign. In addition, the campaign was also about awareness. In deciding to purchase Red products, consumers learned more about the problem of AIDS in Africa.

Sure, people could have just donated directly. The problem is, though, we've become too accustomed to seeing starving children or people in pain living in horrid conditions. It takes celebrities and more stuff to get our attention. It's just the way it is. AIDS relief in Africa can't wait. The Red campaign is  using pop culture to make a difference now.

You can see a response to the articles here.

- Paul Herring

Make a Starbucks

Looks like Starbucks is focusing back on their core competency instead of making movies. The great thing (and depending who you are maybe the worst thing) about Starbucks is that there are about one million combinations for coffee. They're highlighting this in their recent viral campaign, "Make it your drink".

It's a great site that allows you to enter your own drink and have a custom image of your drink produced that you can send to a friend, download as a avatar, or as a desktop image. You can see what famous celebrities are drinking, and if you get there in time, you can get a t-shirt with your image on it.

It's simple, fun, reinforces that brand characteristics, and, bottom line, it makes me want to go to Starbucks and order a drink. See you there.... - Paul Herring

Google may not be able to 're-invent' traditional

Google's ability to change the way that Internet advertising is done has been incredible. Search is now more than fifty percent of all on-line advertising, and no one can argue it's effectiveness. (Although I might argue that it doesn't deserve as much credit as it's given).

Google also has been aggressive in trying to re-invent other categories. The first time I recall this was when they came out with gMail, offered 1GB of storage forcing everyone else to do the same. Although they've received some great press, I'd argue that not much has really been 'game changing' beyond services related to search.

Then, the next big thing. They'll get into radio. They'll use their bidding machine to sell inventory. Completely different model for buying, completely different model for distribution, but this is Google, right?

Maybe not. It seems as if the endeavor is losing some steam. According to an article in Media Buyer/Planner,

"Station managers don't want potential advertisers to know they are selling remnant inventory for fear advertisers will simply wait until the station is desperate before buying, so Google doesn't allow advertisers to choose specific stations. That is a deterrent for most advertisers."

So what can work here? Maybe another company has figured it out:

"In the meantime, companies such as Bid4Spots, which offers a reverse-auction marketplace for radio stations to sell remnant space, compete with Google. The auction drives down prices for the buyer, and the company is growing by leaps and bounds. Currently, 2,300 radio stations sell inventory on Bid4Spots. "

Maybe Google should have done some research before entering this market. Maybe they were too arrogant and assumed they could make anything happen. Maybe their not invincible. Things don't look good when the founder of the company that Google bought to enter this market is leaving.

- Paul Herring

The difference between TV and online

I was in a meeting with the president of the company I was working for where I heard this quote:

"In two years, you won't be able to tell the difference between the browser and the TV screen. They'll be one in the same. Interactive TV will do to television what the browser is doing to retail."

The problem is that this was in 1999, just a few months before the crash. Although motivating, the prediction was uninformed. The broadband penetration wasn't even close to what it needed to be, and frankly, it isn't there now. (For interactive TV to work on this scale we'd need fiber optic to the majority of houses, not to mention new TV sets.)

A recent report from Insight Express and Advertising.com seems to indicate that the melding of the two mediums is beginning to happen, however.

What's interesting is that news clips, TV shows and sports clips are a great deal of what television offers. When you break the data down by age, it gets even more interesting:

Younger consumers are not only consuming more on-line video, but are also consuming different types of video, specifically TV shows, consumer generated content, and music videos. How will the networks, sports channels and music video channels react? And further, are they viewing these videos on on-line extensions of TV channels? If anyone has this information, it could help complete the puzzle.

On line video won't replace television any time soon. In the long run, however, the merger will take place. It's inevitable. - Paul Herring

Spin the News - Your Way

Scott Baradell is a man of many talents. Besides being wise in the ways of marketing, he also has some great ideas in how to make effective use of the Internet in innovative ways.

In addition to Blog Talk Radio (where he hosts the Dallas Marketing Zoo with Paul and I from ChaosScenario, Paul McEnany from Hee Haw Marketing, and Brian Clark from Copyblogger), Scott also has a great marketing blog (which is not shy about social commentary) as well as a new forum called Spin Thicket, which allows users to submit their own news articles for commentary by the Spin Thicket audience.

I like this idea for several reasons. First, it doesn't fall into the copyright trap that other community sites have been susceptible to in the past, such as FreeRepublic or Liberty Post, which must constantly monitor what their users post to ensure they aren't violating copyright laws. With Spin Thicket, users can link to the article in question and submit their own thoughtful (or smarmy) headline. Also, unlike regular blogs, Spin Thicket allows you to comment on a wide variety of topics, and you're not limited to talk about only what the site's host wants to talk about.

If my initial impressions are accurate, the political leanings of the audience differ in significant ways from my own, which makes for more interesting conversation. Let the debates begin! - Cam Beck

Planning Wikipedia

There's a phenomenon among planners in the United States and Europe.  Planners of all types from different agencies are getting together to discuss new ideas, what's going on and generally to share experiences.

As far as I can tell, this all started with Russel Davies and his call for planners in London to have coffee. Because, like me, most planners couldn't get their employers to spring for a the airplane ticket just for coffee, meetings were set up in major cities all over the United States. There's even a blog, likemind, that tells you where they are happening. If your out of town, you can attend one where your at.

Now comes the latest addition, a wikipeia for planners. What a great way to share information, ultimately leading us all to learn and know more. Of course the cynic in me says that some employers will have a problem with this as it could potentially be used to 'give away competitive information'. My feeling, however, is that 98% of what we do isn't really competitive information unless it's head to head with another agency. The key is not in the resources or research that's done, or sometime not even the thinking. It's the insight that's generated from these things. I hope this things takes off wildly. I expect to contribute.

By the way, if you're in the Dallas area, come to our likemind event at Pannera at North Park starting at 7:00am. We have a group of anywhere between five to ten planners who attend. There's even a blog for it a Plannera.com

- Paul Herring

Wal-mart is number one!

Yes, they're not only the biggest company in the world, but also officially make the dumbest mistakes according to Business 2.0:

"In an attempt to put a smiley face on its tarnished image, Wal-Mart hires heavy-hitting public relations firm Edelman, which sets about using tactics derived from political races to reverse public perceptions of the giant retailer."

Wow, how does Edelman get passed that press. I thought agency.com had a problem with the whole Subway thing but the kind of press their getting for their work with Wal-mart makes that look like nothing happened.

- Paul Herring

Dallas Marketing Zoo: Episode 3

This episode has been titled "Revenge of the Brian," as Brian Clark returns from his long hiatus in frozen carbonite to fight against evil with his good friends Paul Herring, Paul McEnany, and me, as well as Scott Baradell, who Brian will soon discover shares a common ancestor with him. Or something like that.

When: Tuesday, Jan. 16, 8pm CST
Where: Blog Talk Radio, Call (646) 915.8556
Topics: This episode is guaranteed to be memelicious. Since I tagged the real stars of the DMZ, they decided in their infinite wisdom to answer the call of my meme through a podcast. Brilliant bunch, they are.

As before, you are welcome to call anytime the show is on the air, which you can listen to live at Blog Talk Radio. You will also be able to listen to a recording of this episode the day after it airs right here at ChaosScenario. - Cam Beck

Stickiness

Over lunch yesterday, I heard a great interview on a local radio station with two authors of what sounds like a great book. Made to Stick is a book about why some ideas thrive while others die. They made a great illustration of their idea. When John F. Kennedy announced that he was going to escalate the space race, he didn't talk about all the technology and man power he was going to devote to the project. Instead he told a great story of the history of exploration with a central theme, "We choose to go to the moon". He inspired the whole country to take on "the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked". You don't hear inspirational speeches from politicians like that today.

In a far less noble effort, the best advertising does just this. It distills the "brand promise" into a single simple idea and forms a story around it that thrills the audience. Think of the CP+B's "Safe Happens" for VW. Each commercial begins with interaction between friends and ends with a dramatic car crash, ending in a "Holy---Safe Happens". The commercial communicates a simple idea, surrounded by a great story. The idea is prominent in all media.

The authors have a blog that's pretty good and includes lots of example of Stickiness.

- Paul Herring

Excuse Generator 3000

I know from experience that internet marketing is difficult for fast food companies. Sure, the Subservient Chicken is a legend, but even it got a lot of criticism for not promoting product. Check out the Excuse Generator 3000.
   
There's nothing really ground breaking about it. It does do a good job of promoting the product without it being in your face. Send an excuse to your boss isn't the best experience. The email that gets sent out it well written and funny. Gotta love the coupon on the side. Isn't really a coupon and although it's 'for a limited time' its the same price those things have always been (at least the last time I visited my local McDonalds).

You'd think that with their huge ad budgets, they could do better. - Paul Herring

WiMax about to unveil in SF

It seems like such a shame to push Cam's recent arrival down a post. We'll just have to get him to post more photos. Since it's prediction time of year, I think he should post on what the world will be like when his daughter reaches 16.

  AdFreak reported yesterday that ink is going to paper on the deal for free WiFi in San Francisco. It's a partnership between Google and Earth Link and will be supported by advertising.

What's the impact of this? For one, more people will be online more often. Most people already have broadband connections in their house but this releases them from their wire. What it also means is that there will be less time spent on television, and ironically enough, probably more people online when they do watch TV.

What will be really interesting is how the advertising is served and what it will be. Will Google serve search links, videos, banner ads? Will it be based on behavior?

Ultimately the test will have to be succesful in San Francisco before we can understand if it will be set up anywhere else. Stay tuned. - Paul Herring

Oh, Baby!

For those not aware, my wife, Janell, is set to give birth to a darling baby girl. It's been a challenging pregnancy, but we're both excited about both, 1) doing our best to raise her -- our second child, and 2) getting this pregnancy over with.

We had a little scare today with Janell's blood pressure, and I thought we'd be welcoming our baby before the sun set, but we were sent home, and then to the doctor's office, from the hospital.

Our scheduled delivery date is Thursday, but there's a good chance that it will happen tomorrow, as they don't want to risk complications due to the blood pressure issue. If that occurs, Paul Herring, Paul McEnany, Scott Baradell, and Brian Clark are going to handle tomorrow's episode of the DMZ (Dallas Marketing Zoo) without me.

On the other hand, there's always the chance that Janell will wait to go into labor until we're on the air, in which case we will know that my baby has a flair for the dramatic. Anything for ratings.

As before, you can listen and call in to the show live, or you can just listen in afterwards. Hope to see you there, but if I'm not there, you know where I am. - Cam Beck

What: Dallas Marketing Zoo
When: January 3, 2007 at 9:00 p.m. CST
Number: 646-915-8556
Where: Blog Talk Radio

Rosie, The Donald and new media

If you haven't heard about this feud, you must live in a cave. Frankly, I'm not all that interested in this, I think the Miss USA pageant is pretty stupid, a thinly veiled gawk fest. Mark Cuban's post this morning, however, got me interested. Trying to get their message out, Rosie is a clear winner in the use of new media.

The clear message here is that being genuine and transparent wins out. Rosie's blog is written by her, doesn't blatantly push her 'empire' down your throat (protecting the brand), and has content that has been referenced several times. The Donald on the other hand doesn't write his own blog post, and for the most part is just a thinly veiled way to push Trump University.

Bottom line, when it come to new media (and possibly all media) people don't want to hear about you and your product all the time. Being genuine and interesting means participating in a conversation, not just hocking your product. - Paul Herring

NBC finally gets it

Not more than a year ago, NBC forced YouTube to take down a digital short that was popular, namely the Lazy Sunday. At that time it really showed off traditional medias lack of understanding of new media.

Then NBC did an about face developed a partnership with YouTube. Of course you never know how some of these things are going to turn out. In this case, however, I have to hand it to NBC for really learning and using the outlet. They've developed a YouTube channel where a lot of their great clips are saved, allowing people to view and share them. Now it's easy to share those great SNL clips around the office. Here's my favorite from this weekend.

- Paul Herring

It's a Zoo Out There

Paul and I were recently honored with an invitation to participate in a new podcasting platform called Blog Talk Radio, hosted by Scott Baradell. Along with prolific Dallas bloggers Paul McEnany and Brian Clark, we will have a 60-minute roundtable discussion about whatever strikes our fancy, in a recurring segment called "Dallas Marketing Zoo."

The brilliant part about this platform is that, unlike other podcasts, ours will be cast live, and we'll be able to take calls from listeners as we're recording.

We pretty much have free reign over what we want to talk about, so if there is something on your mind that you want to address, send it here, or just call in with your thoughts.

The dial-in number will be 646-915-8556.

The segment starts Monday, December 18, at 8:00 p.m., CST, and can be listened to live from here.

See you there! - Cam Beck

What: Dallas Marketing Zoo
When: December 18, 2006 at 8:00 p.m. CST
Who: You
Number: 646-915-8556
Where: Blog Talk Radio

MasterCard toiletries

So I was on a plane on Wednesday and got this free from the stewardess. At first glance you'd think, what a great idea! With the new travel restrictions, this kind of thing could come in handy. People are having to throw away all kinds of items like this at airport security because they're over the 3 oz. limit.

Here's why it's not such a good idea:

It's late - most travelers by this point already have there baggies. Should have been done a few months ago.

What am I going to do with it - It was given to us while we were sitting. The only place people could put it was in their carry on, which leads to another problem,

It actually creates more problems - There were quite a few people on my flight who returned the next day. Guess what they forgot to take out of their carry on (most of the time briefcases). It  noticeably slowed down the security line.

From the perspective of Master Card, I have to ask what they expected to get from it. Inside the pack was a card with a small URL for a holiday site. Why didn't they make the URL more noticeable either on the bag or in more than 8pt font on the insert? It wasn't really clear what the purpose of the package was other than it was from Master Card. So what.

I think all this points back to a problem in a lot of agencies these days. Sure, you can come up with a good idea, but how you execute can make the difference between something that works or something that just makes needless noise. - Paul Herring

5 things

I've been tagged. Cam posted yesterday and tagged me, which means that I get to share five things about me that no one knows, so here we go:

1. I majored in probably the only field where the subject matter rarely changes, Geology
2. I was a special needs ski instructor in high school and college
3. Every five year my wife and I continue our quest to visit every continent in the world. So far we've just visited Europe and Asia, next stop, South America.
4. I was in one of the most dangerous tornadoes in US history when I was in fifth grade.
5. During one year in college I followed the Grateful dead for a few months.

OK, not that exciting, but it was the best I could come up with. - Paul Herring

Coke gives YouTube for Christmas

Coke has a Christmas promotion on YouTube that allows you to send a video  card. It's a relatively simple, you just upload your video, and you can email it to a friend and they can watch. The only real difference here is that your video and email can be wrapped in a Coke wrapper.

I should probably rant (as I'm sure other blogs have) about how this  lacks creativity. Maybe the holidays are making me soft. Although I don't think you'll be seeing this  at any industry creative or planning awards show, I like it. Perhaps it encourages people to use YouTube in ways they had not thought of before. Sure, forwarding videos has already been there. However, not as a Christmas card.

Videos can be shared or can remain private. Public videos can be used by other people and Coke has supplied a number of there 30 second spots that they have used over the years. I don't mind the 30 second spots, some are classics, but you would think they could come up with some original ones.

So I guess bottom line, I think it's a fine promotion. Not sure how much they paid for it, hopefully not too much. It's fun, works for their brand and it's simple, which is sometimes just right.

As an added bonus, take a look a this ad (I would love to go back in a time machine and be in the agency where this was developed):

- Paul Herring

A YouTube for data

I admit it, I'm a data junkie and I love economics. Not just all that stuff you hear on CNBC or coming out of the political talk shows, but applying economic analysis to everyday problems.

That's one reason why I'm such a huge fan of the Freakonomic's book and blog.

Now there's a sharing site for those of us addicted to data. Swivel allows you to upload data, graph it and share it with other people in much the same way that YouTube or Flickr allows you to share video and pictures. You can tag data, rate it, compare it, post it on your blog and have it automatically updated, all kinds of useful things. The amount of content is a little light right now, but I am forecasting many late night in front of my computer looking at all the weird combinations of data as content gets out there. It's also a great way for me to find information from all types of sources to support hypothesis.

Of course a lot of people will begin attacking the validity of the data, and it should be looked at with some skepticism. However, it should not be ignored, if you can validate where the data is from and that it's accurate, this can be a powerful tool.

Here's one of my favorites so far. Comparing violent crime to wine consumption:

Drink more wine, keep violent crime down. (link via Freakonomics blog)

- Paul Herring

Brand sites outperform

Why worry about your website if you don't sell anything online? Because it may be a better way to reach your audience.

Take a look at a most recent report from Ad Age. Corporate or brand sites, that are still for a large part ignored, are beginning to get higher reach numbers than some traditional media.

"While P&G sites captured only 3.3% of ComScore's U.S. web audience in October, that's more than double its industry-leading 1.3% share of U.S. ad spending last year and nine times its share of online ad spending, according to TNS Media Intelligence."

The article implies that the impression on the website is arguably more important than the other impressions. Why? Because the audience has chosen to come to their site as opposed to just being exposed.

So, I have to ask again, why is it that so many  companies do such limited research for their website? Is it because the cost of development is small  compared to the cost of media? Why aren't they evaluating their production budgets based on reach and value of reach instead of costs?

My sense is that it's the old guard. Viva La Revolución.

- Paul Herring

Doing it again and again

Let's see, it's been a few months so it's probably time for a rant about website research.

It continues to amaze me how many marketers want to build websites with little or no research. Everyone wants to jump to the creative (screen shot concepts) as soon as possible so they can comment on the colors and fonts. The same people wouldn't dream of putting a television ad out without some type of strategy and focus group. For some reason a company's or brand's website just doesn't get the same attention.

It should.

Take a look at this old post from Andy Budd's blog. It's all the things you'd like to tell a client but don't because you don't want to get fired. My favorite is from someone named melmyfinger (who apparently has his or her own blog)

1. Design is built around the content, not the other way around. You can’t just tell us, “build me a site and I’ll fill it up with stuff later.” I'd add that having the right content requires knowing what your business, customer and brand objectives for the site are. And that doesn't mean being stupid about it, you have to really understand these before you begin even the highest level design.
2. Designers need something to work with. Tell us your plans, your vision, your web design likes and dislikes. Give us an outline of what you want the site to have. Give us something to work with, god damnit! See, I told you so
3. Not everyone approaches the website the same way as you.  Usability testing is f’ing important, god damnit! So you focus group your copy, your TV ads, but not your website that will be around much longer? Bad idea.

We'd all like to get something for next to nothing. Unfortunately, a good website, means a good design which means it's designed for audiences with a purpose. Don't just slap something together, do the research up front. - Paul Herring

New Blog roll

It's been a while since we've updated our blog roll. We've referenced a few blogs in a lot of posts, so it's time to add them to our list. I asked Cam to also provide a list and nearly all of ours were the same! Here's a list of blogs that we think you should add to your RSS feed:

Adverb - Mack Simpson, creative director, writes about all things advertising and design. Gotta love the perspective of a Creative Director outside of NY or SF, and he's been writing for nearly six years.

Bill Tancer, Hitwise - A great blog that uses online activity to monitor trends both online and offline.

CK's blog - She covers all types of great strategies and executions. Also part of the Marketing Profs gang.

Freakanomics blog - Love the book, and the blog updates topics covered in the book as well as discusses new ones.

Hee Haw marketing - Paul McEnany's blog about what's going and advertising in general. Again, another great view of advertising outside of your traditional Madison Avenue guys.

Logic+Emotion - David says it best "The intersection of Marketing 2.0, Brand Engagement and Experience Design". Not that it's anything to brag about these days but he's a fellow agency.com alumni.

Marketing Profs Daily Fix - What if one of the most respected new marketing research group put together a bunch of great minds and had them blog?

Servant of Chaos - Rants on on the world of storytelling and branding. A great planner's blog from down under.

Russel Davies - Is there a planner out there who doesn't read this blog? If anyone 'gets it', he does.

- Paul Herring

Yahoo! and Google's newspaper deals, get real

Both Google and Yahoo! have announced deals where they will allow newspapers to sell ads on the networks classified service. I think this is a great deal for both the newspaper as well as the networks. But what about the real problem, like declining subscriptions and advertising revenue?

Internet advertising is already taking over other media outlets. Of any of these outlets, newspaper is the most susceptible. It's the least interactive, and takes the longest to update. Bloggers are increasingly becoming investigative journalist and a lot of journalist are feeling like more mainstream media is becoming too timid. After watching 'The Insider' (I know it's an old movie), I'd argue the press has been 'timid' for quite some time.

It's sad because arguably the best journalism is still done in newspapers (although bloggers are catching up fast). Let's just hope that those great newspaper folks make the transition and get picked up by online content providers, or better yet make careers out from their own blogs or contributing to others. (link via The Agency Blog) - Paul Herring

Becoming interesting

Reading Russel Davies blog inspired me today. So often, in marketing, creativity is left to 'the creatives". I think that's dead wrong. I agree with Russel that the key to any future creative business person is being interesting.

Here are the top five ways he suggest being interesting:

1. Take at least one picture a day and post it to Flickr. This is not something that I see a lot of people do. I see things all the time that are interesting and that inspire (or sometime anger) me that could be part of the blog. I even bought a Treo with a camera phone so that I could do it! Well, I'm going to start now. Send us yours if you like!
2. Start a blog. Write at least one sentence every week. I think I have this one covered. However, for those of you who aren't blogging yet, you should be.
3. Keep a scrapbook. Maybe you don't need to be a 'cropper'  but keeping pieces of advertising that inspire (or again anger) can help when developing your own ideas.
4. Every week, read a magazine you’ve never read before. This is a tough one since I feel like I barely have enough time to read the books I want to. However, I can download a new podcast and listen to it on a commute. I can take a lunch hour each week and check out sites that you might not have gone to before. Check out John's blog, Random Culture for new sites.
5. Once a month interview someone for 20 minutes, work out how to make them interesting. Podcast it.  For me, it's less about podcasting, and more about just getting to know other people beyond work or other activities, whether their colleagues, clients or friends. I hate normal people. Possibly because there really aren't any. Everyone has a story of joy, struggles and perseverance that is not only interesting, but also helps me go beyond just the surface and understand more about who they really are.

Check out the rest of Russel's suggestions here.

- Paul Herring

Comparisons, does it really matter

When you're deciding what to write, sometimes your experiences and what you read just points to the answer. Early this week I had a conversation with someone who cautioned me to not mention YouTube or MySpace since they were 'over used'. Of course this same person went back to work on his TV commercial. Then I had a meeting with Neilsen//Netratings where we looked at one of their tools that converted online metrics to offline metrics. There's the post from 'No Man's Blog'. Finally, there's the Ad Age article.

Comparing internet, word of mouth or other types of new marketing to traditional is pointless. It is like comparing apples and oranges. The real difference is the level of engagement. Let's face it, having an ad blare at you, whether it's an online banner ad, or a TV ad, isn't engagement. However, checking out a cool MySpace page, YouTube video or great site requires active participation and isn't just an interruptive tool.

Just developing a MySpace page, YouTube video or even a banner ad isn't enough. It has to be entertaining which requires a lot of work by talented planners and creative. It's a new way of working that's not defined or perfected, even by interactive agencies. (side note: How about maintaining a blog for say, more than a couple of weeks agency.com? Maybe you should talk to people at your sister company)

I get a little bit frustrated at times with how traditional creatives and sometimes media people just refuse to recognize this, or are too lazy to really work at producing work that can be used. I agree with what Asi Sharabi posted:

I say the same thing to my second grade soccer team each game that I think could work for people starting new campaigns:

1. Have fun
2. Do your best
3. When you do your best, you'll have the most fun

Let's engage.

- Paul Herring

7 days in a Sentra

Marc Horowitz finished his seven days in a Nissan Senata, which, as far as I know, is Nissan's first venture into social media. The campaign had all the components, a blog, podcast, video and a MySpace page.

This campaign seems to have all the right components. It's not over-produced and does a good job of showing what the vehicle has to offer, while not over-selling. It lacks a one thing though, it's not funny, outrageous, it's just kind of boring. Marc seems like he's stretching to come up with things to say and do. There's an attempt to entertain, but with all the other stuff out there, it doesn't have what it takes to go 'viral', at least in my opinion (we'll wait and see if any results are published).

I guess this goes to show you that it's difficult to just 'produce a viral campaign'. It takes a lot of planning and isn't guaranteed to work. If your off on just a little in the creative and audience planning, you'll miss the mark. - Paul Herring

A (More) Complete Internet Advertising Solution

Last month, Paul Herring wondered out loud whether paid advertising was getting too much credit. Contrary to what Jakob Nielsen and others say, he speculated that banner ads can work well, in spite of the fact that contextual links get clicked more.

Today, Seth Godin cited a study that seems to lend weight to Paul's theory. He says,

If you run banner ads ... you can increase your brand awareness about 7% after a reasonable buy of banner ads. ... The kicker? In the study, Harris did the banner buy and watched the number of clicks to their contextual ad (you know, the text ads) go up by 249% over the next week.

As Paul asked earlier, which ad worked harder? Perhaps this is a reminder that we need to take a more complete approach to our Internet advertising, and that there is no "Holy Grail" solution that applies equally to everything. - Cam Beck

MySpace and Facebook declining?

According to the Wall Street Journal, there was a fairly sharp drop in MySpace and Facebook traffic in September. MySpace saw a 4% decrease in traffic and Facebook saw a whopping 12% decrease. Although Nielsen/Netratings says that it's probably seasonal, the article should serve as a warning signal to marketers that use the site. (There's also a video providing an explanation)

Users of the sites are complaining because they're getting  friend request from people they barely know or from 'marketers'. Apparently some companies are using bots to create friend requests in mass, resulting in a new type of spam.

I'm a proponent of the right brands setting up profiles. Some of my favorite are the X-men profile and Sprite's. There's nothing wrong with brands having a profile online, no one is forcing you to go to there page or become their friend.

The issue is when these brands start to aggressively 'push' their way to consumers who haven't necessarily expressed an interest. It's a good way to get on their black list, and, a good way to find bad publicity.

If we're going to keep this new media viable as an advertising platform, let's learn from what happened to email. Set up a profile, allow engagement, have friends, even incent them to come to you, just don't push your profile on them.

They could have been contenders

There's one of the marketing paradigms that says there is a 'first mover advantage'. When it comes to online sharing sites, I'm not so sure:

Take a look at Photobucket, a fairly recent addition to online photo sharing, versus Kodak's offering.

My guess is that Kodak didn't really understand social networking, and were probably focused more on photo development. My favorite is Wikipedia and Encarta. Take a look at this difference.

Wikipedia has been getting a lot of heat recently because it's not written (necessarily) by experts. However, in most cases I'd put the validity of it's self policed data up against Encarta. Maybe Microsoft was too busy fixing security leaks to worry about Encarta?

And then there's the classic example of the iPod. Not necessarily a Web 2.0 example, I know. However, the fact that the iPod was not the first mp3 player but the best designed demonstrates the point. Maybe it's better to be second and better than first and copied.

Information from a recent Web 2.0 report from Pew Internet and the Hitwise blog.

- Paul Hering

Google analytics, google optimizer, what next?

Google beta released (invitation only) their Website Optimizer, providing an easy tool to test different offers, copy and content on landing pages. This just on the heels of releasing an online spreadsheet and word processing tools and, a little less recently, their analytics tool.

Is Google the new Microsoft? Some people think so but I think there are key differences:

1. Google's products are a result of their innovative culture. Using a model pioneered by 3M, Google allows their developers time to work on special projects that hold promise and doesn't punish them for mistakes.

2. Google actually releases products in beta, improves them, and doesn't allow a full release until it works. I write this after having got restart IE 7 twice.

The big question in my mind is how Google will monetize these products? Will they just use them to increase the use of Ad words and Ad sense? Maybe not a bad strategy since so much of interet advertising is devoted to search. Will they charge for them? I paid for a tracking program for this blog before Google Analytics and have clients that would definitely pay for Website Optimizer.

- Paul Herring

Proggresive enhancement, in your face

I sit behind a Chris, a Flash programmer at Click Here. Despite the fact that he went to the University of Oklahoma, he's talented and was the force behind the "Fruit Guys" site, as well as a lot of the rich media stuff we do for our clients.

One of the problems that Flash sites have is that they are pretty much unreadable by most search engine crawlers. Chris wrote an  article on his blog, Flash in Your Face, talking about Progressive Enhancement. It's a programming technique that not only makes a site more accessible to those less technically sophisticated, it also makes the sites easier to crawl by search engines.

I'd recommend reading Flash in your Face from time to time. I think just about every piece of advertising and new marketing online will use some type of Flash technology in the very near future (like within the year) if it's not there already. Understanding a bit about how this technology works will help everyone create more engaging sites in the future.

- Paul Herring

P.S. Man, I want a cool header image for ChaosScenario but I'm creatively and photo shop challenged. If you have ideas, send them to chaosscenario@yahoo.com

Nike Soccer -Join the chain

Nike has done it again with a great site that allows soccer players of all types to submit videos of themselves playing soccer, and passing the ball to people all over the world. Simple site features and a site that drives home Nike soccer's brand personality of "Playing Beutiful". Rather than me going on and on about it, check it out:

Wal-mart insults us

Why do big companies do this? Walmart has released a blog, Wal-marting Across America, not talking about their 'every day low prices', not telling their side of the story, but a fake blog written by two people who supposedly are going around the country staying at Wal-marts. Business Week outed them, their relationship with Wal-mart, and PR firm Edlemen relationship with Laura. Today they posted a whiny article about how they had this idea, asked Wal-mart if they could do it and Wal-mart was so cool they decided to sponsor it.

Even if that story is true, why not disclose it up front? Also, what sense does this kind of blog make? If you want to get Wal-mart's side of the story out, why not just create a blog that tells the story directly? This coming after it was discovered that Wal-mart was recruiting bloggers to write positive articles without disclosure. You gotta wonder what Edlemen is doing. This isn't good strategy, it's ill conceived tactics where the consequences haven't been well thought out.

I'm not a Wal-mart basher. I shop there and actually think they help the economy by lowering prices for consumers overall. However, this tactic is just stupid. There's a simple lesson here that Wal-mart doesn't get. When working in the blogoshpere, be transparent. (via Marketing Vox)
- Paul Herring

Online stores need to be improved

Buying things online has become mainstream. However, have online retailers kept up?

According to an article in the Internet Retailer, they haven't. Here's some of the findings:

"Among features that would make shoppers more likely to buy online included shortcuts (cited by 86%) such as express product information and pageless purchases; 360 degree product views (78%); the ability to customize a product from a catalog of options (74%); customer-generated product reviews (73%); product zoom (71%); and color selection (65%). " I've recently completed a competitive analysis for a few clients who are looking at either putting up an online store or redesigning an existing store. I'm amazed at how few sites include these features. Sure, they cost money but they clearly increase sales and have a bigger impact than just online sales.

"Only 36% of online shoppers preferred shopping online versus in stores." This isn't too surprising. I believe, although a lot of people buy online, most people go online to shop, especially for products that they would prefer to experience in person, and buy in store. This makes the website experience one of the most important branding opportunities as well as the way a lot of people select what stores to go to.

So should these online stores be set up to operate as separate store with a separate P&L? To me, this doesn't makes sense. It causes the online store to be undervalued and creates dysfunction between the online and offline channels. Unfortunately, this is exactly how most brick and mortar online stores are set up. Until retailers begin to understand the online offline retail connection, I think we'll still have poor retail user experiences. - Paul Herring

Searching

Finding the answer to a question online is getting more difficult. As the web grows there is more and more junk out there. Try searching Google or your favorite search engine and see what happens

I was reading No Man's Blog about his frustration finding information. He found his answer through emails to friends and has high hopes for tools like Yahoo! Answers where questions are posted and people answer for points. (Note: he didn't actually use the tool to get the answer but has high hopes for what it can be).

I think these tools can be useful, but I prefer the Wikipedia. I know Wikipedia has received a lot of bad press lately, but I think it provides a better model for community information. Still it's not enough. Sure, eventually, most of the time you can find the number and facts, but there's not enough interpretation, ideas and sharing that's going on.

I think what we need more of is people willing to contribute. There are way too many people fascinated by all that Web 2.0 has to offer but are just sitting on the sidelines, too afraid maybe try and fail?

It's amazing how many people want to start their own blog, podcast or contribute but don't. I guess if you never put your ideas out there, they'll never be criticize. Then again, if you don't participate, you'll never learn as well.

This blog is certainly not all that it could be. The more I write for it, however, the more I realize that it's about sharing AND my growth rather than publicity and recognition. Here's to participating in the conversation. I've grown because I've taken the time to put my thoughts and research out there for the rest of the world to see.  - Paul Herring

Improve Netflix for $1M

Netflix is offering a cool one million dollars to help them with their advertising. Ok, not exactly, but they're offering it for improvements to their recommendation engine. What used to be the work of computer scientist in the back room near the servers is being offered to young, up-and-coming engineers and marketers.

"The prize, offered in a contest beginning Monday, is part of Netflix's effort to sharpen its competitive edge as it continues a bitter duel with Blockbuster Inc. and prepares for an anticipated onslaught of services that make it easier to download movies onto computer hard drives."

I'd guess maybe iTunes is threatening to do to Netflix what Netflix is trying to do to Blockbuster.

So here's my own contest for a two dollars off coupon at Pizza Hut. What should I do with my VCR and all my old tapes? (Email chaosscenario@yahoo.com if you don't know what a VCR is.)

(via The Agency Blog)

- Paul Herring

 

Cookie deletion, year two

The buzz about cookie deletion is back in the press this week with the release of a new report. You'll probably recall last year when all types of reports from BURST, Jupiter and Webtrends and were predicting deletion rates of around 30%. I've always thought these number were a little overblown, and that it's really around 10%.

Now comes new research that says that not all cookies are treated equally. Revenue magazine covers the release of a study conducted by spyware expert Ben Edelman that tests different spyware programs. More and more spyware programs are leaving cookies alone. Even the most aggressive are only deleting 40% of all cookies. Cookies from Yahoo! and advertising networks are deleted most often.

One interesting development is that Google has apparently developed cookies that, not only aren't detected by spyware removal programs, but also maintain the anonymity of the user:

Edelman claims that Google uses an interesting cookie mechanism, which combines the “efficiency of third-party cookies (with easy and fast implementation by the network alone, without complicated merchant-specific integration) with some greater privacy protections (by partial data decentralization using limited-path cookie scope. Google's approach also ends up randomizing cookie filenames, making it harder for some anti- spyware scanners to identify which cookies are Google's, he adds.

Another part of this argument is whether or not cookie deletion is in the best interest of the user. Cookies are used these days to control multiple logins and display customized content. Check out what it's like for a typical user to go anonymous in this WSJ article. In the end, I think the benefits of cookies outweigh the advantages of being anonymous even for typical users. Cookies are here to stay. - Paul Herring

Online advertising, room to grow

The growth of online advertising has been almost unbelievable. In the first quarter of this year, it's grown 26%. With that kind of growth, you'd think that we're back in the dot-com days. Think again. A recent emarketer article points out that the time spent on the internet is 20% of the time spent watching television.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So you'd think that internet advertising would be 20% of television advertising, right? Wrong. Not even close. Where television received 44% of advertising, the internet lagged behind magazines, newspapers and was less than one-half of the next medium, radio at 8% of advertising spending.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can argue back and forth about the fragmentation of the internet but internet advertising spending is out of balance and primed for explosive growth. - Paul Herring

Is YouTube the next Napster?

Gotta love Mark Cuban, an Internet veteran whose seen it all. While the rest of us are talking about how social media is changing the world, Mark is talking about the demise of YouTube. Doesn't make him real popular with the Web 2.0 crowd.

But wait, if you look closely at what he's saying, you'll see it makes some sense. Basically he argues that:

1. YouTube can't consistently provide free bandwidth - Bandwidth is getting cheaper, but it's not free. Without a sustainable advertising model, you can't pay for it. Although there have been signs of advertising life, so far YouTube has had a hard time attracting substantial large advertising spending, especially considering the amount of traffic the get. Unless advertiser and YouTube figure out a way to take advantage of the traffic beyond just putting their latest 30 second ads on-line, YouTube won't be able to afford their current model.
2. Copyrighted material - Where's the first place you go when someone mentions a great moment in TV show they saw or bad call play in a game? The problems is that all this material is copyrighted. When a request to remove the material is made, YouTube is quick to comply. However, if YouTube to figure out ways to make money off this content, you can bet the people who own the content will want a piece of the action.

In the long run, YouTube has some big strategic business problems that must be addressed. They've been a pioneer in creating an on-line video community. Now the question is if they can create a sustainable business from it. - Paul Herring

Advice for those in online advertising

Mark Simpson is a great writer. Living in Texas, his dry wit and down home style are as familiar to me as a nice cold Shiner Bock on a hot summer evening. He recently wrote an article with advice to young creatives. I think a lot of his advice applies to those of us in internet advertising:

Don’t be an ass, you ain’t all that - Back in the dot com days, people were given extra options for being an ass. Those days have left us with a heritage of arrogance and aloofness. Being an ass is not tolerated in the long run.

Think twice, speak once - Ever been in one of those meetings where someone says something smart, and then five other people say the same thing, in a different way? Don't be a lemming.

Don’t be afraid to stay - Turnover at interactive agencies is higher than at general agencies. With online advertising growing, offers are plentiful. Be careful before you jump to the next ship. Make sure you understand the culture, who your working with, what you'll really be doing.

Learn mechanics - Mark was writing specifically to knowing about print. However, it's applicable online. You shouldn't be in interactive advertising if your not into the technology. This doesn't mean you have to be a programmer but you should understand the basics like how HTML, online ad serving and search work.

- Paul Herring

Is paid search getting too much credit?

I have a theory. I believe that, when measuring ROI on online media, search gets too much credit. Take the example of someone who buys a widget online. This person may be exposed to the widget through a banner ad online. Assuming they don't click on the banner (and not many people do these days), what's the next action they take if they want to find the widget? They go to Google where a smart marketer has paid for the search ad. They click on the paid search ad and the ROI on the paid search ad goes through the roof.

Which worked harder? I'd argue in many cases it's the banner ad. It was the initial exposure and engaged the customer so much so that they searched for the product on Google.

The problem is that when we're optimizing media, most company's optimize just on the ROI of the media placement. In the scenario above, the banner ad might be eliminated and paid search increased since paid search was credited with the sale. Even if you're tracking impressions, once someone has clicked on the paid search term, paid search gets credit.

Is this the reason that so many companies are dumping so much money into paid search? Are they getting rid of their online display adverting because they think it doesn't work as well? It's time to go beyond what seems like the easy answers and look deeper. - Paul Herring

Be your Levi's

Levi's has joined the 'create your own' commercial bandwagon, allowing people to put their faces and text into their own commercials. Here's one I created for John Keehler and I.

Of course since I created it, I get to be the hero.

Here's what I like about this:

1. They've protected the brand somewhat by limiting what can be changed in the dialog
2. It's easy to take your video and add it to your MySpace page or blog

Here's what I don't like:

1. Adding your face is a little bit 'cheesy' (as another account planner said)
2. The application is a little bit clunky.

Hey but at least their experimenting, which can't be said with 90% of similar brands.

- Paul Herring

Search engine activity as an economic indicator

Bill Tancer from HitWise wrote an interesting article on the Hitwise blog that compares the search term 'homes for sale' with the sales of homes. Although it's not perfectly aligned, the relationship is convincing. If he's right, then economist  predictions of a decline in demand may be wrong.

The analysis has received some attention from Reuters.

Of course this data is onlyfor one year, which isn't enough data to really establish a relationship. You could compare the data to previous years, however, you can't go too far back as the use of the Internet as a way to search for houses is relatively recent (years not decades). Can search predict the future? Only time will tell. - Paul Herring

Fans of Fruit

If you haven't noticed on TV recently, the Fruit Guys have changed. They had a successful release of their country hit "You can't over love your underwear", and now they have some more great hits and a brand new website, Fruitguyfans.com.

 

Full disclosure, the agency I work for, Click Here developed and released this site for Fruit of the Loom, a client of The Richards Group for some time. Of course we think it's great. This blog is all about taking a critical eye and commenting on everything, so tell us what you think. - Paul Herring

Email basics first, then play the days

This week must be the week to talk about email marketing. Just like a lot of people I receive email newsletters to help me keep up on what's going on (more and more I'm using my RSS feeds but that's a different story). Today, one of eMarketer's focus was on a recent report from eROI on the best day to deliver an email. Without even reading the article I knew that the day had changed. In the last years it seems everyone has been trying to guess the magic day. I sometimes wonder that, if the magic day exists, once it gets publicize it automatically becomes the worst day as everyone begins sending on that day cluttering in-boxes.

It seems to me a better approach is to get the basics right before worrying about the magic day. The Email Insider today written by David Baker lays out some pretty good plan for how to start the relationship once someone has signed up for your program. Among other things he recommends:

quickly identify those who show interest by opening and/or clicking;

test offers and response;

identify potential laggards (defined as those who do not respond at all);

systematically increase a subscriber’s knowledge about us and our products;

use consistent layout, copy, look, and calls to action;

build a relationship with subscribers while they are still in the “honeymoon” period; and

set the stage for future interaction

These activities require a little more work than picking days. In the long run, however, they'll create a much stronger competitive advantage than picking the right day. - Paul Herring

Marketing lessons from The Wiggles

This last weekend I attended "The Wiggles" concert with my son. When I tell people, I often get a snicker or sympathetic response. Seeing my sons reaction was great and it made me think of how these guys have built an empire among pre-school kids (and their parents). Here's what I learned:

Keep it relevant - every time when I mention the Wiggles, people groan. However, everyone I mention them to is above the age of five. Each member of the Wiggles study early childhood development and taught school for a while before they started the band. All of their material is meant to be relevant to a five year old.

Make it entertaining - if you get past the lyrics, the Wiggles music is pretty good. OK, not something that none of us would download and listen to on a regular basis, but it is well done. It's also simple.

Make it engaging - Because the music is simple, it allows participation, which is a big part of their program. When I was at the concert, almost all the kids knew the words and actions. Also, each Wiggle goes into the audience so that kids can see them up close. When time allows, they'll stop and say a special word to kids.

It's not too blatent, but the Wiggles know how to mrechandise. You can buy everything from Wiggles underwear to Wiggles guitarsThat's why the Wiggles are the highest earning entertainers in Australia, beating out Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe.

- Paul Herring

Subways at agency.com

One thing I hate about the blogosphere is that there are too many blogger just waiting for something to be created so they can tear it apart. It's easy to criticize and tear apart work. The hard part is to create. I'd like to see AdRants, AdFreak provide more insight into why work 'sucks' instead of trying to get people to  chuckle at how witty their copy can be.

If you haven't seen the video, here it is:

This video is weird. I'm not exactly sure what they are trying to accomplish. The most insightful post that I've seen is from Fresh Glue:

"Where it fails is in the execution: the creative team just can't get over how cool they are for doing this video. In fact, the video is ALL about them, and very little about Subway. And that's the lesson for everyone paying an agency — or getting paid by one."

At some point agency.com forgot that, even if Subway wanted to meet their executive team, it's still less about agency.com and more about what they can do for subway. The execution was off as well. The script is cheesy and it's poorly produced. ("if we roll, we roll big" followed by fist five) This won't be a popular comment, but it demonstrates that purely online agencies know very little about creating video advertising.

I left agency.com (the Dallas office) a little more than a year ago. I enjoyed working there and work with some really great people. One of the reasons that I came to Click Here (a division of the Richards Group) was that I realized as mediums begin to merge, the best advertising will be done by agencies who have teams that are experts in print, TV, radio, on-line and offline media planning, and on line and offline account planning. To me, one of the things that this video demonstrates is that purely interactive agencies have a long way to go in bringing great video advertising on line. - Paul Herring

UPDATE: Agency has created a new blog to go with the video. They're saying the video was for the advertising industry, and it's working because it's getting attention. I don't buy it. Sounds like an attempt to spin. Why didn't agency.com ever have a blog before?

Simply Perfect bragging

We release our own work on this website every once in a while, not just because we're proud of it, but also because this blog can serve as a forum to get feedback. Yesterday we launched a site and online ad campaign for one of our clients, the Patron Spirits company. The site uses the concept of debating perfection that is used offline and in some online ad units and allows customers to join the conversation by debating on topics with text, audio or video comments. Also, customers can suggest debates themselves. Check out the site at simplyperfect.com, and debate perfection with us. Add a comment here and let us know what you think. - Paul Herring

Here's the official press release detail the campaign:

Page views don't equal engagement

In the work that we do, we end up looking at a lot of web site traffic and reports from firms that monitor traffic of our clients and our competitors. I love this information because it provides feedback from customers in aggregate. However, it never fully tells the whole story. For example, page views...

Page views, as defined by OpenTracker, is each time a visitor views a web page on your site. The more pages a visitor visits, the more page views you have. However, what if your site has poor navigation forcing customers to search every to find the information they are looking for? That can result in a large number of page views.

The moral of the story is not to trust one metric. If one metric seems to lead to a conclusion, verify that conclusion somewhere else. In this case, if page views are high, conduct usability testing on your site or conduct a survey to make sure customer's are truly engaged. - Paul Herring

Where's your planning

Have you ever wondered how campaigns look so different across media? Ever seen a commercial and gone to a web site and wondered if it was the same company? Or even within the same media, seen a display ad that said and looked nothing like the website, that looked nothing like the email that you signed up for?

All of these are signs of lack of upfront planning. It's easy to preach integration but doing it is something different. It requires a thorough understanding of the customer and looking at the way the customer will react to the campaign across media, which, in a lot of agencies, comes down to the account planner or the account service team.

Account planning is relatively unknown in the interactive industry. In the traditional agencies, most account planners do not understand audience interaction and measurement online.

If integration is going to truly happen, it has to start with better upfront planning by not just those responsible for the brand, but those who understand how the audience will interact at different engagement points. If that's too much for one planner then they have to willing to put their egos aside and listen. - Paul Herring

 

Customer generated content and advertising

There are a lot of brands now that are trying to get on the customer generated content band wagon. Here's a couple of ones that come to mind:

• American Airline's "we know why you fly"
• Wal-mart's MySpace like site
• Secret and their Share your Secret campaign
• HP's What makes your PC personal again

I like the way that these type of sites allow users to participate in the advertising, making less advertising and more about building a quick community. What I don't like is when the site seems to be a knock off of another campaign or site and isn't really about brand participation but about trying to ride the wave of someone else's idea with little original thinking or extension of the idea.

I liked the American Airlines campaign because it was about the customer, and, in my opinion, was pretty original at the time (it was released a year ago). Wal-mart's MySpace knock off is an uneducated attempt to tap into the youth market. Secret's campaign is really just Method's confession campaign all over again. HP's site reminds me of the GM "create your own" commercial and is particularly bad because it is arrogant enough to assume you'd want to be in their commercial. 

Developing a site that invites customer's to participate is a great idea. However, if you're going to do it, be at least slightly original and come up with some idea extensions of your own. Otherwise it's really just plagiary. - Paul Herring

Time reports

There's nothing enlightening about this post, except for the realization that I forgot to do my time report for today (we must to do them everyday at ClickHere) and I must do it tomorrow. Check this out.

I know there are quite a few people who visit the sites from companies that require time sheets. You know my pain. - Paul Herring

eMarketer changes it's mind on blogging

Wow, nothing for the last three days. The ChaosScenario authors have been on the road and unable to post.

Last Thursday, eMarketer released a new report on the "business of blogging" (subscription required). If you don't have a subscription, here's some highlights:

"A year ago eMarketer looked at the business of blogging and said that blogs were a one-to-few medium, and they were not practical for most businesses. After years of meticulous branding, carefully arranged PR messages, and committee-developed corporate-speak that offends no one — especially lawyers — successful blogging requires ceding message control internally to a single, real voice, and externally to commenters whose feedback may not always be positive. A growing number of businesses, however, are moving beyond the blogging-as-sales-tool mindset that hindered adoption. GM and Sun, notably, are blogging with a one-to-many voice that gives them one of the most low-cost PR options available. At the same time, companies are learning, often the hard way, that monitoring blogs is becoming an essential part of brand management."

I have to applaud Sun and GM. Sun began blogging and started out the right way, not as a sales tool but a way to have honest and open conversation with their customer and those interested in their companies. They allow their CEO to blog, a bold step. GM's blog is about their cars and includes a pod cast.

Not to be cynical, but I'm skeptical about the ability and willingness of other large companies to do this. Unlike eMaketer, even a year ago I felt like blogs were practical for most businesses. The problem is not whether or not they will be effective, but if they'll ever make it out of committee, and will be positioned correctly by the companies that are publishing them. There are two main issues that companies trip on:

1. Blogs are not about promoting your celebrity or mascot, they're about communication with your customer
2. Part of that communication is allowing feedback, both positive and negative

It's not difficult, it can be done. It takes a different mind set, however, and finally understanding that, although you may think you own your brand, it's also owned by your customer. - Paul Herring

The internet's first brand reaches common use designation

A milestone was reached last week. Google was made a verb by Merriam-Webster. It joins the ranks of Xerox. Google is defined by Merriam Webster as a verb and means "to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web". When used as a verb it will be used as a lower case.

So, unless your playing Scrabble, why is this a big deal? Because it's a milestone in the acceptance of the  Internet as part of every day life. Xerox, Kleenex and Post-it have all fought the common acceptance of their product into the vernacular of every day life. A word that is used in common language looses legal protection. But it doesn't appear as if Google will follow suit.  As long as the word refers to their product. - Paul Herring

Online in my everyday life

When you're working in an online industry, you sometimes use the internet tools, like instant messaging, without understanding how they really change the basic way we can interact. I mainly use IM at work for quick questions, or when I can't find someone, offline. I have never used web cams in the past.  Because of increasing long distance phone charges and the desire for my parents and in-laws to see my grand kids more than twice a year (they both live more than a thousand miles away), I finally bought  web cams for all of us.

I know it's been around for while but this is amazing. To be able to almost be inside the living room with someone, see their facial expressions, it's really amazing. Of course the technology for video telephone calls has been around since the 1960's. Now, however, it's free with high speed internet access, and it's changing the way that families keep in touch.

OK, so maybe this isn't a major technology announcement or a cool site. However, cool advancements like this that just kind of find their way into my life keep me enthused about what I do. - Paul Herring

Ask a Ninja about Net Neutrality

I'm sure this has been posted all over, but if you haven't seen it, check it out:

We need to act on Net Neutrality. We've already lost some pretty big battles. Go to savetheinternet.com and join the fight. - Paul Herring

Take our talent survey

One of the issues that all internet marketing agencies are dealing with is finding the right people. During the dot comm boom people many people were hired immediately without even understanding what they'd be doing. With the bust, a lot of good people were left out of work for a long time.

Now that the entire industry is growing rapidly, again, finding people is becoming a real problem. It's limiting growth and opportunity.

I thought it would be interesting to find out how people find jobs, how happy they are in their current positions and what things affect that happiness.

Please take our survey and let us know about you. All answers are anonymous and we'll share the results of the survey on this blog when it's complete. Feel free to link to it from your blog. The more people that complete it, the better the data will be. - Paul Herring

Update: Not a lot of people took the survey. There's not much use in releasing the results if fewer than twenty people took it. I don't know why people would be reluctant? Leave a comment and let me know.

Yahoo, stop being evil

I had issues with Yahoo! yesterday. I use Yahoo's instant messenger, as well as others.  I received a message yesterday from the messenger asking if I wanted to upgrade. I'm thinking, sure, I've been wanting to try out the phone and web cam features on Yahoo, Click Here (where I work) has created some cool IMnvironments for some of our clients, why not? Somewhere through the process I downloaded the Yahoo! toolbar. I know I didn't check a box asking for it and it didn't even asked for my permission to install it.

I was able to get rid of it but it still sucks. Companies that are in very visible, leadership positions on the Internet shouldn't be involved in this kind of evil activity. In my mind this is no different than installing spyware, automatically checking an email opt-in or purchasing search terms that have nothing to do with the actual product or serviced offered. They fool customers into being marketed to, which is evil. What's really bad about this is that it's not done by some shyster in some third world country, but by a trusted leader on the internet. It's this kind of thing that continues to make people feel slimy about internet marketing and marketing in general. This needs to be stopped. I'm not sure who to contact at Yahoo!, they're not exactly up front about providing support email addresses and/or phone numbers. If you know how to reach them, post a comment. Or better yet, post an entry on your own blog coming down on this type of evilness.  Unless we put pressure on these guys (more pressure than I can put on them), it will continue to happen - Paul Herring

You Tube and NBC team up

Looks like NBC is going to be advertising on YouTube. According to the Hollywood reporter, NBC will provide promotional clips on a number of its new shows as well as purchase advertising and plug the alliance on air.  This from the same network that less than a year ago made YouTube take off the SNL Lazy Sunday short? Hopefully NBC will be able to take criticism for it's upcoming shows because they're bound to get it. And, if a show was really good, wouldn't it quickly appear on YouTube anyways? Hopefully both advertisers and content providers are beginning to realize that, if you're going to put it on the airwaves, putting out or allowing it to be put out on YouTube only makes sense. (link via MicroPersuasion) - Paul Herring

Folgers freaking out

What in the heck is going on at Folgers? Saatchi & Saatchi have launched a new campaign for them, and it's kind of a freak fest. First take a look at the commercial:

Funny, but also scary. Then there is the web site, toleratemornings.com. Lot's of downloads that are, again funny, but I'm not sure I want something on my computer from the people in the yellow suits with butterflies in their mouths. There's wake up calls that you can send to yourself or friends. They freak me out as well. Then there is the print ad.

(click to see the whole thing)

Not sure what the strategy is here except, keep them guessing and freak them out. - Paul Herring

MySpace cleaning up online

MySpace has been getting a lot of negative publicity because of the raunchy content and pedophiles who have used the site. Despite the fact that their traffic is approaching Google and Yahoo! proportions, advertisers have been slow to adopt the site.

MySpace has recently launched a 'Safe' content area. According to the Wall Street Journal, "The areas, which contain articles written by editors and links to related blogs and groups elsewhere on MySpace, are meant to be safe for advertisers that want to appear on the site but don't want to be associated with unsavory material."

It appears to be working. Advertisers are using the site to create profiles, and then giving special offers to people who add the advertisers as a "friend".  Take a look at what 20th Century Fox did with X-men:

X-Men III: The Last Stand" has attracted more than three million friends so far -- in part because of an offer that those who befriended X-Men would be allowed to boost the number of "top friends" permitted on their own profile pages to 16 from eight. Exit polling showed that 15% of the under-25 audience for X-Men heard about the movie on MySpace."

Pretty significant results. Check out the X-space Myspace page. - Paul Herring

Finally, a brand blog with a strategy

I've yet to see a brand blog really do something right. Usually, when compaines decide they need to blog, they create some type of blog for their character, attempt to deceive their customers by not associating the blog with the brand, and put very little thought into who would read the blog or how they'll generate content. Some time ago I posted about the Coke Zero blog tried to do all these things and failed miserably.

It appears Coke has learned from their mistake, or at least in Europe they have, with a new site, weallspeakfootball.com. Bloggers who win get to stay in a very nice flat in Berlin where they can blog, post photos and create podcast all about the World Cup experience. There is already some pretty good content out there with lots of behind the scenes stuff. From a marketing perspective, they've kept the brand in the background. There's still association, but it's not in your face.

From a football perspective, where the #$%@#! is the USA content? I'd love to vent a bit with my fellow fans about the stupid ref on Saturday who has an OBSESSION with red cards! If they'd like to invite me over for three days to blog about the US team, I can be reached at chaosscenario@yahoo.com. Something tells me I won't be hearing from them before (or after) the US is eliminated.

- Paul Herring

Update: Cam sent this to me. Is this the Italian team? Actually, I'm pretty sure a number of World Cup teams took these acting lessons.

Podcast pay per call

Even though Google has still not implemented pay-per-call, and I haven't heard anything about the success of Ingenio over at AOL, pay-per-call is expanding. In an attempt to monetize podcast beyond just sponsorships, Ingenio and Podbridge have teamed up  to offer pay-per-call ads that will be placed in pod cast. Apparently the ads will be able to target people based on geography and demographic since most of Podbridge's podcast are from sources like BBC, Clear Channel and Bloomburg. I'm interested to see it in action. I can see how you can geo target pod cast from local radio stations, however, for properties like BBC and Bloomburg, I'm skeptical. Perhaps with those you can only do demographic targeting. Ithink this will just have to be a wait and see. (via Marketing|Vox) - Paul Herring

Too expensive not to do

"Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as  he  knows,  the  only  way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it."

I've been developing internet sites and campaigns for nearly ten years now. I've seen a lot of new technology, ideas and features added over the year that have changed the way campaigns are produced and how customers interact online. However, as much change as there is, some things remain the same. There has always been very little time beyond Discovery to really understand how our target  interacts with a site or an ad. I've also been involved in analyzing results on the back end to determine how customers responded. What I haven't been involved in enough is usability testing during development and production.

It's time for those of us in the internet advertising industry to start taking this more seriously. We can make a lot of excuses but to not include some type of usability testing in a campaign is literally throwing money away. Cam posted on this earlier and pointed out there are few representatives from agencies, which is surprising. Seems to me we should be leading our clients, not coming in after the fact and seeing the impact of poor usability decisions. When a site or ad is released and it can't be used, it  gives us all a bad reputation.  Here are a couple of resources to learn more about it:

Don't make me think - A great book that's fairly recent. An easy read and a great reference. The author site is Sensible.com.

Prioritizing web usability - I don't agree with everything Jacob Neilsen says, however, to not at least consider what he's saying is a huge mistake. His site, Useit.com, is another resource to get more information.

Usability sciences - I've worked on and off again with this company. If your looking for a resource to do usability testing on a site, I've always had a great experience with them and they handle pretty much everything soup to nuts. They have a great newsletter that includes case studies. - Paul Herring

Blogging for AIDS awareness

Since I started blogging six months ago, I've begun to love the way that a small group of people can spread the word. The grass root nature and viral nature makes it a great marketing tool, but it's more than that. It's a way for people to share their stories, for people with similar experiences to connect and maybe even for causes to be re-born.

Ogilvy PR has released a new blog called HIV/AIDS 25, Just Talk About It.

"By communicating with one another about the disease, we can raise awareness - awareness that helps prevent new infections and reduces the stigma of living with infection. Awareness that helps us care for those living with the disease now. "

I'm saddened and inspired by the entries. Reading the stories makes you understand how devastating this disease is and how much further we have to go to control the disease, and it's impact on our society and our world.

Check it out, be aware and join the conversation. (via Influential Interactive Marketing) - Paul Herring

WOMMA conference in SF

If your looking for a great conference to go to learn about blogs, podcast and other types of word of mouth efforts, check out WOMBAT 2. This conference is bringing in a number of speakers including:
Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, co-authors of "Naked Conversations", Jackie Huba, co-author of "Creating Customer Evangelists", Ed Keller, co-author of "The Influentials", Emanuel Rosen, author of "The Anatomy of Buzz"

These people, in my opinion have some of the books and blogsout there and really know their stuff.

The conference is more than about speakers, there will also be companies and service providers including: Ammo, Bazaarvoice, Bebo, Beck Ag Com, BIGresearch, Biz360, Brains on Fire, ComBlu, Communispace, Disneyland, DuPont, eCRUSH, Electric Artists, Euro RSCG, ExactTarget, Freestyle, GolinHarris, Guidewire Group, Hill & Knowlton, Ice.com, Ignite Health, Informative, Intuit, Jack Morton Worldwide, Ketchum, Millward Brown, MotiveQuest, PopularMedia, RealTravel, Rowland, Slack Barshinger, Starcom MediaVest Group, Keller Fay Group, Umbria, Weber Shandwick, Wildfire, and more.

Get full details about the conference here.

I'm a big believer in these conferences. You can learn quite a bit in just a few days. With as fast as social media is expanding, learning the latest is very important. (Thanks to Michael Rubin of WOMMA for letting us know) - Paul Herring

Gamers are growing and OK with ads

Gamers are becoming a force on the internet. According to the "Players Study" recently released by comscore, game sites reach almost 50% of the Internet universe representing 76.9 million consumers in April 2006. What's even more interesting to me is some of the demographic data:

• 17 percent of Gamers are in the hard-to-reach age group of 18-24 years old
• 23 percent are in the advertising sweet-spot age segment aged 35 to 44 years old
• 20 percent have an annual income over $75,000 per year
• The typical Gamer has been gaming for about 9 years, has been online for about 8 years
• Gamers are equally split along gender lines

There was a time when there was a big backlash towards in game advertising. According to this same study, those days appear to be over:

• 50% of Heavy Gamers and one-third of Light/Medium Gamers are at least somewhat familiar with the concept of in-game advertising
• 35% of the Heavy Gamers disagreed with the statement "these ads interrupt my play and bother me
• Only 15 percent of Heavy Gamers claimed they would be "unlikely" to play games that included such product placements

Read more about the study in the Media Post article. In the upcoming edition of the Harvard Business Review there is will be an article discussing marketing in virtual environments. You can listen to an interview with the author on their podcast located here. - Paul Herring

A new design for ChaosScenario

I've spend some time re-designing ChaosScenario. I decided that, although black is always cool, maybe white on black text isn't the most readable. I've also added a few typepad widgets, like the latest posts, and finding posts by dates, and a poll. Although a lot of people visit the site via the RSS feed, I thought I add the poll to add one more feedback mechanism beyond comments. We know a little bit about the visitors to this website through the stats, but we don't really know all that much about your opinions. Tell us what you think about the design, the blog and the posts. Comment on the design and vote! - Paul Herring

Update: I changed the polling feature. It was taking too long for blogpoll to load.

Earn cell phone minutes by watching ads

I think we saw this coming and it looks like Virgin Mobile is the first one to do it. The program called Sugar Mama, allows people to earn extra cell phone minutes by watching ads and answering questions to prove they saw the ads. They've already got Pepsi, Microsoft's Xbox and the Truth campaign on board. The article is described in detail in this New York times article (registration required). It's the first program of it's kind in the US. Watch for other carriers to follow, as well as the addition of free or discounted services (like mobile video or cell phone internet access). Still, the ads had better be engaging, or it won't last. - Paul Herring

Can soccer save the world?

I'm a recent rabid fan of soccer. Never played but have really gotten into since I started coaching my daughter's team. As I've learned about the game, I've also learned how it's truly the one sport the entire world enjoys, however, we enjoy it a little less here in the US. Soccer doesn't get the attention of football (American) and basketball and so doesn't get the advertising dollars. This hasn't kept those promoting the sport from going online. Nike's sites is a great example of the power that this medium can have.  Each week the site is updated with new video segments, which are also put on YouTube. This week ESPN got into the game with a great campaign featuring U2. This ad really strikes at the heart and shows the true power of the game:

Pulling a country out of civil war, that's the power of the game. ESPN has a great site where you can see the other spots. I've yet to see these ads on television but I see it spreading all over the blogoshpere and elsewhere. - Paul Herring

eBay and Yahoo!?

This just in, there are rumors that Yahoo! and eBay may be in merger talks (via MarketingVox and the New Zealand Herald). Why the merger? According to J.P. Morgan, ""A combined company would have the leading position in auctions, communications, payments, graphical advertising, audience reach, and geographic breadth." What this means to me is that Yahoo! would have the largest purchaser of search terms and eBay would get access to one of the largest online media providers. It should be interesting, especially if they decide to create new customer and advertising options based on the two companies. - Paul Herring

Exposure and engagement

In an advertising agency, these terms are used every day. They are used so much that I think a lot of people forget what they mean. I recently read an iMedia article covering a speech by Esther Franklin, Starcoms director of strategic planning. This phrase in the second paragraph caught my eye and caused me to write this post, "When you think of engagement, it's easy to get wrapped up in the tactics. For example, you might consider a viral video here, a catchy community website there. But if you're focusing at that level, it's easy to lose sight of the overarching strategic goals, and if that happens, your tactics could fall flat." Ouch. How many times have we been in meetings where we are quickly try to come up with cool tactics without thinking about the big picture.

She goes on to describe a continuum where exposure is at one end, experience is at the other, and in the middle is engagement. Exposure is the easy part. The real challenge, as she puts it is to "ensure that we are contributing to memories that have a positive and meaningful relationship to brands". In order to do this she suggest that we "deliver the brand at places and times when consumers are likely to be paying attention...and will develop a positive brand association." Easier said than done for sure, especially when it's difficult just to integrate offline and online. However, it's a struggle that we need to take on, which means that instead of just coming up with 'ideas' we need to understand the customer, their life and then develop touch points that can create engagement. All the ideas should be created within this framework. Read the article for yourself and remember it in your next brainstorm. - Paul Herring

To tell the truth, in Levis

Levi's in Singapore has launched a pretty cool site that allows people to "tell the truth" by submitting text, audio or video comments. Similar to other campaigns, it's brings out the voyeuristic and show off tendencies in all of us. I think this site is really well done. People definitely are submitting a lot of text. However, there are a lot of video and audio updates as well and I think they tend to be the most interesting.

I'm not clear how this connects to the Levi's brand and product, outside of the details deep inside the canned pieces. Compared to a lot of customer generated content campaigns, this one seems to be most likely to hit a home run. - Paul Herring

(via Adverblog)

Google break up videos

Google is doing more and more partnership marketing. We've seen them partner with the release of the Da Vinci code movie, Nike and their soccer campaign, and now promoting Jennifer Anniston's new movie, The breakup.

It's really about time Google got into this game, in my opinion. They have great tools, a terrific audience, and it doesn't seem to be too blatant. It's not on their home page or really, as far as I can tell promoted on other areas of their site. I like the execution of this campaign because it's simple. I'll come back and check to see if there are any other videos of marriage proposals gone wrong, etc.  (via Google Blogoscope) - Paul Herring

Yahoo redesigns

Not a lot of fanfare around the event but Yahoo! has redesigned it's home page. I don't think this is part of any major product release. I have it from an inside source that they've been doing some usability testing and the changes are to address apparent usability issues as well as an attempt to get more content on the page.

Overall I like it. I think it brings more actual content, as opposed to links, to the home page. The most important content, like weather and news is at the top of the page. Custom modules (like mail and messenger) are also prominent.

What would be really interesting is to know whether or not they are planning on targeting content based on my surfing behavior. Also, what does the page look like when they know very little about the user. For instance, if I wasn't a Yahoo! mail subscriber or a My Yahoo! user. Of course, as an advertiser I'm wondering if there are any additional advertising opportunities.

Marketing Vox points out that it may not appeal to younger audience. Yeah, but I think the purpose of the Yahoo! home page is for search mainly and to introduce customers to Yahoo!'s services. For this, I think it works fine. - Paul Herring

Google trends hysteria

The blogoshpere is on fire this week touting the vitures of Google Trends. For the uninformed, Google Trends graphs a number of search terms and provides graphs about how the terms have been searched over time. The tool allows you to graph multiple terms on the same graph quickly and easily. It also shows you geographical popularity of the terms.

A lot of people are taking some pretty big leaps with the data, however. A post from Micro Persuasion lists 25 things I learned from Google Trends. Things like "Flickr is the king of tagging, followed by del.icio.us..." Does this really an indication of which tagging is more popular? Does the fact that Flickr allows people to upload and share photos  have anything to do with this?  How about "Hockey is starting to surpass baseball in popularity...". I think ticket sales would argue otherwise. 

If you read the Google Trends description, "Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results -- our search-volume graph." Nothing more, nothing less. Are Google searches indication of other trends? Possibly but you need support from other sources to make legitimate conclusions. - Paul Herring

Another new author

We have another new author to add to the mix. Let me introduce Cam Beck.

Cam has spent his career looking for easier ways of doing things. He does not do this because he’s lazy, but because he thinks the entire world should be more user-friendly. As an information architect and content specialist for Click Here, Cam takes full advantage of the troubleshooting skills he developed by working over 14 years in several online and offline disciplines to create an easily understandable, highly usable interactive land of milk and honey. Cam strongly believes that to maintain the viability of the medium, this land must produce tangible results for Click Here’s clients in ways that are consistent with the demands of the people who will be living there.

PayPal's mobile pay - the experience

John wrote about the in an earlier post. This week I decided to try it for myself. I set up my mobile phone with my PayPal account. The set up is relatively easy, and now I can pay with my mobile phone.

The big question is where. Sure if I'm on eBay, I can pay with my phone but it's easier to pay on my computer online. If I want to pay someone I meet on the street, I can pay them and they and get confirmation on their mobile phone. Outside of a drug deal or some other illicit activity, I'm not sure where I'd use this.

There are a million uses where I could see this being used to the extent that it could challenge credit cards. Retailers haven't set up their systems to take is and I'm afraid it will take some time, at least in the US for companies and people to program their systems to take it. Integrating GPS systems, mobile video and RFID tags with this type of technology could not only change the way we pay for things, but also the way we find and shop.

I think it will take a few years to get it together but I have a feeling my kids may wonder what a credit card was the way they wonder what an LP is.  - Paul Herring

Keep the internet free - act on net neutrality

There are forces in play, mainly the big ISPs like AT&T that are trying to control how you use and what sites you go to on the internet. If you don't know what I mean, watch this video.

In my opinion, this is just a move by a lot of very large, old companies, to fail to adapt to the times. The internet needs to  be a place where innovation is rewarded, not ownership of the pipes. If this means that the ISPs charge higher fees, so be it.

If you agree with me, go to savetheinternet.com take action and join the cause. - Paul Herring

Blogburst unites bloggers with online newspapers

May 2, 2006 is the big day for BlogBurst to launch. BlogBurst is a service that takes pre-screened, categorized blog content and pushes it to mainstream publishers for a fee (charged on a CPM basis). It's still in beta testing but I think it holds a lot of promise. They already have quite a few large news papers signed up.  To see an example, go to the Sf Chronicle Travel Section and look for the “Travel Blog Posts” area on the page.  I know newspapers are always looking for good content. I also know bloggers are always looking for new readers. Bringing the two together is, to steal the tag line from Guinness, Brilliant! 
(via TechCrunch)

- Paul Herring

Cookie deletion hysteria overblown

Last year a report came out from Jupiter Research and Nielsen saying that "39% of online users may be deleting cookies from their primary computer monthly, undermining the usefulness of cookie-based measurement and leaving many site operators flying blind."  This really shook the internet media world up. Without cookies, it's nearly impossible to measure the effectiveness of media placed on different sites.  Of course no one bothered to question Jupiter or Nielsen's methodology or numbers. These guys are trust worthy, right? I mean Nielsen couldn't make a mistake (except for that whole DVR measurement thing, and oh yeah, the fact that they only measure 5,100 households in the US).

Now that the smoke has cleared a little bit, it appears that cookie deletion is maybe not such a big issue. A recent study from Ponemon Institute found only 8 percent of consumers "very frequently" delete cookies, while as much as 24 percent don't delete them at all. (via MarketingVox).

I have a hard time believing behavior has changed that much so quickly. Could it have been a publicity stunt last year? A ploy to sell their product and services? A conspiracy? Or have I been watching too many trailers for the Davinci code?

- Paul Herring

AMEX 15 second clips

American express just got into the consumer generated content game with their 15 second clip contest. (via MicroPersuasion). The contest is pretty easy, you just submit your fifteen second clip based on pre-set topics. Submitted videos can be viewed online, downloaded to an ipod, sent to a friend and sent to a mobile phone.

I believe this consumer generated content campaign is well thought out. Unlike the Chevrolet Tahoe campaign, it's not really about the product, it's about the customer and their self-expression. There are restrictions on what can be released and posted, controlling the "bash the brand" movement that took over the Tahoe campaign, including:

• Is there any inappropriate content (nudity, foul language, violence)?
• Does the clip answer one of the 13 "My Life My Card" questions provided?
• Does the clip meet the basic technology requirements?
• Does the clip hold the viewers interest?
• Is the clip brand appropriate?
• Would card members and the Tribeca Film Festival audience enjoy viewing the clip?
• Does the clip have appropriate viral "buzz" value?

Although rules like "is the clip brand appropriate" may not be in the spirit of true consumer generated content, I think its appropriate for this type of contest. We'll see where this one goes but so far, it looks like a great idea. - Paul Herring

Click fraud not so bad

In a meeting last week, someone told me that click fraud accounts for 30 to 40 percent of all clicks on paid search terms. I just love it when people make those kind of statements without a source. The idea that someone would go to the trouble to hire people in a third world country or create software to click on competitors links seems like a little far fetched to me. Sure, it might happen but I have a hard time believing that it would happed at a rate of more than a third of all clicks on paid search ads.

A recent article in Information Week confirms my  suspicion. The average click fraud rate is 13.7 percent and even lower (12.1 percent) for tier one search providers like Yahoo! and Google according to a study conducted by Click Forensics.

Next time someone cites an outrageous statistic, ask for a source. - Paul Herring

118118 spoofs the Honda Choir

Remember the Honda Civic commercial I posted about. The one with all the "critical acclaim" for its creative but actually advertised or promoted nothing. A UK company has spoofed the ad in what is apparently a running gag with these two guys. Take a look...

I think this is hillarious. Sure, they're not really selling anything either but this ad will definately get you to remember 118118, which is the whole point after all. - Paul Herring

The collective intelligence

It's no secret that advertising is changing. The focus of a lot of advertising strategy in the past has been on creating "disruption", "controlling the message" and "brand creation". Experts were rarely questioned and communication about a brand, a message or an experience was limited to water cooler or backyard conversations.

As the internet ages, and as more and more people are online more often, things have changed. Communities of interest are virtually built and the limits of geography and time have been removed. In a recent article in MarketingProfs blog, Gerry McGovern writes about how collective intelligence has been used through the ages and how the internet is allowing collective intelligence on a massive and very cost efficient scale.

What does this mean to marketers today? What it means in the short term is being aware. Aware of how the collective intelligence is receiving your advertising and brand message. It also means monitoring how the collective intelligence is taking that message and making it their own. Practically this means monitoring sites like epinions where customer share reviews of products and companies. It means monitoring sites like insiderpages.com, Yahoo! local where reviews of individual locations are given. It means monitoring discussion on the blogosphere by using tools like Technorati and Goolgle blog search to monitor conversations within the collective intelligence.

Before you begin your "word of mouth" or consumer generated content campaign, spend some time studying what's already being said about you through the collective intelligence. A little research could help you improve your existing efforts and understand the type of reception you would have. - Paul Herring

Interview with Stan Richards

Stan Richards, the guy who owns the company all the authors work for, recently did an interview with the Dallas Business Journal (link via MSN) that I found on adland. I've only worked here a year. During this time I've been fascinated by the process that the agency goes through to create the foundation of brands. The process continues to evolve and we've had some pretty interesting outcomes as interactive begins to take a more prominent role.

One note, it's easy to quickly read things like the 'no email policy' and think its disconnected from the online world. It's really about good communication. Something that those of us who use IM and email without talking face-to-face with colleagues and clients should pay attention to. Read the article and form your own opinion. - Paul Herring

Adventures in MySpace

People at my agency are putting together a  concert for a charity we help out with. I volunteered to develop a MySpace music page for the concert that would serve as the official website. I have no experience with MySpace outside of reporting and reading about its astronomical growth and trouble with predators, etc. It took me a while to set up the page but I learned some things about MySpace including:

It's not hard to find risque content -  I went  looking for a cool profile to copy and it didn't take but a few clicks. Maybe I'm getting old but one has to wonder if parents are just uninformed or are OK with it.

Customization doesn't equal good design - There are way too many poorly and even illegible pages out there. Some people should not be allowed to 'pimp' their page.

Somebody is making a bun