It's The Service Economy, Stupid

Advertising- a form of communication whose purpose is to
inform potential customers about products and services and how to obtain and
use them

In an era where consumers have the ability to tune out sponsored messages with
ease, many brands are left scrambling to find new ways to ensure their voices
are heard. Still, many advertisers, marketers and brand managers overlook a
fundamental change that is occurring in the advertising landscape.

No longer can we count on the traditional tactic of content to garner the
attention of consumers. For many consumers, content is a commodity that is
expected to be obtained at no cost (at least, non premium content).

So what is an advertiser/brand to do in a landscape where consumers no longer
value the content for attention bond that once fueled the ad economy?

Provide value added services (of course)!

I realize that this concept is not new. Advertisers have been doing this
for a while, but in the interactive space the opportunity is potentially much
greater.

One example from last year that I like to use (simply because it is funny) is Cosmopolitan
Magazines Fake Calls which provides the service of helping women get out of
bad dates. While this was a clever idea, it is certainly a one trick pony.

So what is the longer term solution?

While there are many long term "service as advertising" plays, one
thing that is extremely compelling to me these days (probably because I am a
search geek) is Google's recent move to enable their Google Docs
service to operate offline.

In a blog post this past Monday entitled, Bringing The Cloud With You (a reference to the
increasingly popular notion of cloud
computing) the big G announced that they would be making it possible to
access the Google Docs service (via Google
Gears) from your desktop.

Why would Google make such a move you ask?



The answer is simple, to take on Microsoft’s share of the
desktop while maintaining their own share of search (I would put an emphasis on
the latter). What is not as simple is the question, how does Google plan to
monetize this service? One may guess that Google will be placing relevant ads
next to text in Google Docs, but maybe there are other ways? Maybe there are
ways for advertisers to sponsor this service for a segment of users. What do
you think the consumer response would be to such a play? How long would it take
before consumers came to expect their services for free in the same way they
now look at content?

Can the service economy really be monetized and how long can
it last?

I would love to hear your thoughts!


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Why Sprockets Will Change Advertising On The Internet Forever

By Sean X Cummings and Adam Broitman



There has been an incredible buzz over the coming of
Sprocket technology, and many people we have spoken with agree that it will
fundamentally change the way we approach the interactive space at large. Much
in the way the explosion of Facebook enabled breaking down the barriers around
content and engagement as it relates to mining your casual friend network,
Sprockets will, for the first time, provide us with a holistic picture of what
our consumers are doing online, while providing the first truly intelligent
data-mining agent for ourselves.

More interactive than widgets
Sprockets are not widgets 2.0 any more than Facebook is
MySpace 2.0. They are, however, a technology that finally moves beyond the
two-way conversation with consumers, creating an enhanced, multi-directional
conversation among the consumer, company, site, data and -- more importantly
for advertisers -- among the Sprockets themselves.

Allow us to get technical here for a minute. Sprockets use
passive preference profiling (PPP) and interpretive semantics (IS), giving them
the ability to learn. What do we mean by that? Well, remember all the talk we
heard about "intelligent agents" or Google's dream of
"artificial intelligence?" Sprockets are the first applications to
truly approach that level of automated, interpreted content collection.

The beauty does not stop there. If all Sprockets did was
provide consumers with a way they could accomplish more online in less time,
and have it be more relevant, it would be a substantial breakthrough. The
beauty of Sprockets is that they provide advertisers, marketers and analytics
groups with the same type of automation through semantic interpretation; the
data, however, is passed along in the reverse direction.

Most companies are keeping their current strategy regarding
Sprockets fairly quiet, but by Q3 2008 anyone with a decent online presence
will be pushing ahead full-steam. If your company has not figured out how to
implement Sprockets, or you don't have a full-time Sprocket strategist on staff
by the end of the year, you are almost definitely going to be on the tail end
of this beast, and this is one place where you don't want to be riding the long
tail.

 


Benefits: real or imagined?
We are often asked, "Are Sprockets really going to
change the economics of the internet, or are they just another overhyped
technology?" and "What's so game changing about Sprockets?"

First: we have seen Sprockets work. We have seen them work
in the real world, not a demo. We have observed as Sprockets learn and grow in
complexity over the first two weeks of usage.

Second: Sprockets define simplicity. Anyone can develop a
Sprocket. The Sprocket Developer's Kit (SDK) has a simple drag-and-drop,
single-screen user interface. The user just connects tubes, called
"synaptic tubes," linking their basic interest points. This process
takes 15 minutes, tops!

From there the Sprocket takes over, filling in the gaps with
your internet persona while tweaking, augmenting or modifying the few data
points given. It does this by monitoring surfing habits, online purchase
activity and time spent on content, semantically absorbing the it. The genius
is that Sprockets do not store all this data. They retain meta-types of the
data in real time. In essence, every page you hit is crawled, indexed and
semantically related to your entire history. It is then meta-typed and
discarded, retaining only the meta-data.

 


An open-source legend is born
This is one of the most important developments to ever come out
of the open-source community. The initial kernel was programmed by Alexander
Dorsay III over the summer of 2006; however, community did not adopt the
concept initially. It wasn't until Anya Khait, an environmental architecture
student with a Ph.D in genetics decided to apply techniques and theories from
the Biomimicry Institute to the Sprocket kernel that the true power of
Sprockets was realized. She developed the "synaptic tubes" and the
core engine behind the algorithm modifier based on the growth of Ivy, which is
able to grip around any surface and adapt to its environment.

Without getting too deep into the science, let's say that
Sprockets, by design, have a "public you," and a "private
you" setting. By nature, most consumers exhibit a personal dichotomy --
their private and public selves. With some, those two personas are almost
identical; with others they are quite divergent. Other Facebook-style
properties treat you as one self, but you are never just one. The Sprocket
dynamically adapts to your activity, not the other way around. You do not
choose to tell it "I want to be private today." The Sprocket
dynamically adapts "on the fly" to activity that obscures your
secondary profile. They are not separate, but they are distinct. A single
synaptic tube links the two personae as it grabs information.

When a Sprocket shares any of the data in the outward
direction the entire profile is made anonymous, even down to erasing IP
histories, or what is referred to as digital public memory. The intelligence
sits in a data-hash in the Sprocket, changing the internal Sprocket algorithm.
That is what is different about Sprockets, the algorithm itself dynamically
adjusts; not just parameters, but the fundamentals of the algorithm.

The same Sprocket you develop for a website, can be used on
any mobile device, or converted with the Sprocket converter to any computer as
a standalone app -- although you will lose much of the semantically dynamic
algorithm modifying aspects of Sprockets that way. They are what the promise of
Java was supposed to be before Microsoft derailed it with their own version.
However, since Sprockets were built on the foundation of the web, that fear is
somewhat mitigated. In fact, it takes advantages of some of the same AJAX
technology framework that Web 2.0 does.

 



Sprockets are not AI
They are merely a highly sophisticated algorithm that uses
the collective intelligence as a decisioning engine. The advantage is they
don't make the mistake of using the collective intelligence of the web as it
exists now. The sheer volume and mess of the organization of website content
makes the collective intelligence there somewhat. well, stupid. If it wasn't,
you wouldn't need search engines like Google or Ask.com to make sense of it.
Instead, they use the collective intelligence of the
"Sprocketosphere," which uses only the intelligent decisions in the
data, and not the data itself.

Take a look at comparisons to other popular platforms:




  • Standard website: one-way pull request from the consumer

  • Rich media: one-way pull request from consumer, with
    engagement

  • Widgets: customization by consumer and selective
    identification of interest

  • Sprockets: multi-directional conversation with consumer and
    website, customizable ad tracking, alignment checking and reporting, semantic
    web gathering and inter-Sprocket communication.


The user no longer has to request the web pages; the
Sprockets talk amongst each other, among the web, among your email, SMS,
address book and social networking to dynamically deliver to you the zeitgeist
of you. When you choose to surf manually, the Sprockets learn your behavior and
communicate in-between the other Sprockets to adjust your "algorithm"
on who you are and what your interests are online. Best of all? They can do it
with the existing structure of the web, requiring no more tagging or special
codes to be inserted.

We have heard many promises of the next 'big' thing. We have
heard about many hyped technologies. Let's hope that Sprockets don't go the way
of Cold Fusion. In the end Sprockets can only be as intelligent as the user
they are learning from. Hopefully, the users reading this article will be one
step ahead.


Sean X and Adam were so taken with the potential of
Sprockets that they formed SprocketX.com. An open-source company that will
produce tools to leverage the potential of the Sprocket kernel.


www.sprocketx.com


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Let's Just Call It Mobility Week At aMediacirc.us

Here at aMediacirc.us, I tend to respond to things that are prevalent in the news. The number of posts about mobile this week is a direct reaction to the volume of news stories pertaining to mobile (I also have a love of mobile, maybe I just seek this stuff out).

I have a ton of work to do today for my "day job" so I am going to do a little roundup of some things that are on my "mobile mind":

That is all the mobility I have for you for right now but there is a lot more going on. Stay tuned as aMediacirc.us Mobility Week continues :)




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The Mobility Is The Message (Part Two- The Whites)



Okay, so my reference to "the whites" in the title was simply a way to indulge my Lebowski fetish (if you don't get the joke, I recommend going out and renting The Big Lebowksi, today). I am sorry to say that this post will contain no information about The Dude, Walter or Donnie. No, we have more important things to talk about- namely mobility!

In yesterday's post I presented a product that Google is working on that furthers their foray into the wild world of mobile computing. If all goes well Google will be one of the major catalysts behind another giant stride in the mobile world.

According to Google (reported by CNET), if all goes well we will have an extra special holiday season in the year two thousand and nine. It will not be stocking stuffers or Hanukah gelt that will make us cheer. What we will have to be thankful for will be quite different than the usual holiday charms. In 2009 we will have what Google is referring to as Wi-Fi 2.0, or super fast bandwidth for our handheld devices.

Google is currently outlining a plan that will have consumers surfing the web from their palmtops at gigabits per second. This plan takes advantage of unused TV broadcast channels commonly known as "white spaces" (now you see where Lebowski reference comes in).

Google is looking for a "unique opportunity to provide ubiquitous wireless access for all Americans"- Richard Whitt, Google's telecommunications counsel.

One of the ramifications in a world of ubiquitous computing is ubiquitous marketing. Are we ready for that?


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The Mobility Is The Message

Upon the completion of my master's degree I swore that I would never repeat the much touted Mcluhanism, "The Medium Is The Message". Since that time I have come to realize the phrase that I thought was mere puffery is actually deeply ingrained in the communications fabric of the 21st century. And so this phrase has, yet again, become an integral part of my life.

I came across a short blog post on ZDnet today about a mobile feature that Google is launching. The purpose of the feature is to allow one to search without actually entering a search query. A user can sift through relevant content that has been grouped into verticals.

At first I thought to myself, "who cares?", but for some reason I kept thinking about it. When Google makes a move it is hard to avoid scrutiny.

My analysis of this feature can be summed up by a few ideas:

  • Google's realization of the importance of both search and discovery

  • Google's insight into the mobile consumer's behavior


As soon as GPS enabled phones reach critical mass, searching your environment will take on new meaning. It is apparent that Google realizes this and is taking steps towards taking advantage of the impending shift in consumer behavior.

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Two Weeks Of Travel and Marketing Dataportability

I just returned from a long (but enjoyable and very valuable) two weeks of travel. It began at SXSW where I got to hang out with Rynda Laurel of Jet Set Studios, C.C Chapman of The Advanced Guard, John Swords and Giff Constable of The Electric Sheep Company, Mark Wallace of Wello, Kristin Cruscius (Kroosh) of Morpheus Media, Steve Hall of Adrants, Ian Schafer of Deep Focus  and many, many others.

It was awesome!

We even got to hit a local Flickr meetup where we scoured through a massive tower of trash (one man's trash...)



I got back to NYC and in two days it was travel time again. This time on to the iMedia Breakthrough Summit where I was to be speaking on a panel with some brilliant industry leaders.

Here was the breakdown of my panel:

"Data Portability and the Social Graph"
Presenters: David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy, 360i
Adam Broitman, Director, Emerging and Creative Strategy, Morpheus Media
Ben Pashman, VP, Business Development, Gigya, Inc.
Leader: Peter Shankman, CEO, The Geek Factory, Inc.

It was my estimation that the panel was a success, but I cannot say that the panel was a big hit (I am actually not sure, but about 10 people walked out so I know it was not a favorite) even though I got great feedback after the panel was done.

The questions were posed, "What is Dataportability, and Why Should Marketers Care?"

While the answers were not even apparent to myself and the other panelists, I have and will continue to explore the marketing implications of the distributed web. I feel this concept is paramount to any modern marketing strategy and we all must be aware of what this entails.

All of you out there that are working on the Dataportability movement from a purely technical side, I would love to hear what your thoughts are in regards to how this notion impacts marketers. In many instances these days the marketers are at the mercy of the software engineers and programmers (many do not realize this but I certainly do) and we could use your help.

Let's get a conversation started!

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Google: The Web Is Your Facebook

Here is a thought; when everyone has a blog (or something tantamount to a home base) and can easily push and pull data to applications of their choice (in a well structured web), will we even need Facebook?

Here is another thought; I have often heard people refer to Facebook as the new AOL. Despite Facebook's many open API's, are they simply, Walled Garden 2.0 trying to control as much as they can, for as long as they can?

I am beginning to think that Google's thinking is not far off from mine.

Yesterday Google announced the Contacts Data API. Here are some of the things that Google is claiming the API will do:

  • Synchronize Google contacts with contacts on a mobile device
  • Maintain relationships between people in social applications
  • Give users the ability to communicate directly with their friends from external applications using phone, email, and IM
Another important thing to note is that Google Contacts data will be available in the form of Google Data API feeds (can someone say "news feed"?). Here is how Google defines GData (or the Google Data API);

"The Google data APIs ("GData" for short) provide a simple standard protocol for reading and writing data on the web."

When you take these two components together, you can begin to get a glimpse of how Google is attempting to structure the web as an open platform for social interaction. The difference between what Facebook and Google are doing is that Google is adhering to current web standards, and third parties (including Facebook) can easily co-opt the data organized by Google's API's.

Facebook is doing the opposite. They have created a proprietary system whereby anyone can develop something for their system, but it will not necessarily be usable by the web at large (this point is changing, but it is still a proprietary language).

What This Means For Me

I have been using the term "identity syndication" a lot lately (not sure if anyone else is using it, but if not, I am happy to take credit :) ). As someone concerned with my identity and my personal data, I am more apt to use a system that allows me to own and control my data and the uses of it. I would rather have my blog be my home base (In Theory, it is Google for the win, at least long term).

What This Means For Brands

Another term I have been using a lot lately is "brand identity syndication" (same rules apply). For brands, it may be a bit simpler to set up shop in an environment that already has an audience to leverage, however this is only temporary (in my opinion). In the future brands will certainly have to spend a lot more time on their "brand identity strategy" and think a lot more about the distributed web.

What GData Can Do For You

Here are some of the current API's that you can use to make your Open Social experience richer:











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Passive Collection Of Presence And Activity

By now, many marketers (and some consumers) are beginning to recognize the power of the social graph in regards to spreading word of mouth messaging. I get the sense that many equate the notion of the social graph solely with Facebook and other online social networks.

What if I were you tell you that the social graph begins online for most people, but the true power takes place in the real world?

What if I were to tell you that as you sip your coffee at the local coffee house, your social data from online networks is playing a role in how you can be addressed by others around you, and even targeted by advertisers?

While this is not widespread reality today, it will not be long before this becomes a widespread reality.

related note: Think for a moment about Neal Stephenson's vision of the metaverse.  In Stephenson's metaverse, one must enter by using a visual altering hardware device (in his case goggles). Now think about the questions I posed above. What if we did not need to enter the metaverse, what if the metaverse was slowly brought to us and we were already in it (willingly or not)?

Back To Current Reality For A Moment

I just got done reading a post on Read/Write Web entitled, "Yahoo Experiements In Reality Mining With Bluetooth My BlogLog"

According to MyBlogLog, their new mobile tool, m.mybloglog.com will do the following;

"Bind your Bluetooth address to your MyBlogLog account and discover others nearby and [sic] find out if you have any shared interests. Meetspace keeps track of time spent with others so you have a running log of people to meet and things to talk about."

Google's Dodgeball service has provided similar service for quite a while, but my sense is that what Yahoo is trying to do is garner user data for the marketing purposes.

It will be very interesting to see if this service is adopted by bloggers who use MyBlogLog however, my feeling is that they will run for the hills




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Google Continues To Gear You Up For Mobility

As the advertising/media world becomes more and more enamored with the mobile space, Google continues to provide innovative ways to enhance the mobile experience.

In America, one of the major barriers for many advertisers (and consumers) in the mobile space is connectivity. Well, Google has a solution.

Google Gears allowed us to take certain things like RSS feeds in Google reader offline for when we are not connected to the Internet. Google Gears for mobile will potentially have impact than Google gears, as our handsets are always with us (for most people anyhow).

The irony here is, as Google continues to position itself against Microsoft to be the kings of the mobile future, the first version of Google Gears for mobile was built for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. A very interesting, but potentially brilliant strategy.


Test Of ScribeFire/Geek Heaven

As I have written, in the past few weeks I have been incredibly busy and have not been posting as much as I would like to. I have a big pitch coming up and then I am headed to SxSW (on the 7th) and the iMedia Breakthrough Summit on the 16th.

Despite the fact that I have not been blogging, I have uncovered a new blogging tool and I think I am in love!

The tool is ScribeFire, and so far I am in love! Here is what I like about it;

  • In Browser blogging

  • Integration with del.icio.us

  • Integration with Technorati

  • Pulls in latest posts

  • Spell check (hey, some tools don't have that)

  • Very useful notes page


There is a lot more that I am slowing discovering about this tool and I am loving it more by the second.

Note: I am in no way affiliated with ScribeFire, just a fan :)

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Yahoo Continues To Prove The Future Is Open

Those of you that followed my "Trends and Truisms" series at the beginning of this year know that one of my major focuses was openness. I gave a lot of credit to Google and many others- but I did not give enough credit to Yahoo.


Yahoo has long been a proponent of open standards. Two years ago, before the openness rush of 2007 Yahoo Local adopted the open standard;  microformats. Since that time, Yahoo has adopted other open standards such as Open ID. They also created their Mobile Developer Platform which they described as;


"...a one-stop solution for developers to create mobile-optimized applications that are easy to build, quick to deploy, and run across a wide selection of devices, thus making it much easier for Internet content and services to "go mobile." By providing developers with tools to write code once and efficiently publish their content instantly across hundreds of devices - accessible by hundreds of millions of users - Yahoo!'s Mobile Developer Platform is expected to usher in a dramatic acceleration in the adoption of mobile services by creating an explosion of new choices for the consumer."


So what is next for Yahoo Open (I made that name up, Yahoo if you are out there, feel free to use it :) ).


Open search!


Yahoo plans to unveil a project code named, "Search Monkey" and I for one am a huge fan of the idea! In certain ways this project is similar to Google Co-Op ( you can see this on the sidebar of this blog, it is the button that says, "Add My Expertise To Your Google Web Searches").


What Google Co-Op does is add a human filter  to your searches. The human filter can be anyone who signs up for the Google Co-Op beta. They then s set certain parameters that act as the filter. The idea is, if you feel we have similar interests, and you trust the editorial twist I have placed on search results, you will find more relevant results. There is an element of this in what Yahoo is doing (in this sense that sites, blogger's and other content providers can annotate search results), but they are positioning the project in a way that is much more consumer facing, and a whole lot sexier.


This is the pic being used at TechCrunch and Search Engine Land to show SearchMonkey in action :



According to TechCrunch, Search Monkey will "consist of a set of APIs that allow third parties to modify search results on Yahoo by adding images, structured data and additional deep links".


This is a brilliant move on Yahoo's part (in my humble opinion). It has been increasingly tough for Yahoo to compete with Google in natural search market share, and while it is important for Yahoo to continue to improve upon it's algorithm in order to compete with the Big G, projects like this add to the variety of ways users can interface with the Yahoo search engine.  This product also makes it attractive for content producers to add value to their own services (which inevitably results in a wider distribution of Yahoo products).


Yesterday I had a meeting with a new Mobile Startup called Buzzd. They are doing some really cool things with mobile discovery on the local level. By powering local WAP sites they are creating a local directory for events, parties, bars and many other things. One thing I did not talk about with the people from Buzzd is more general search (I have no idea what they have up their sleeves, we simply did not talk about it). In light of what I am reading about SearchMonkey, it seems like the perfect product for a company like Buzzd to partner up with.


The reason I am using Buzzd as an example is that I feel that SearchMonkey has huge potential for mobile providers, given that it allows content providers the ability to structure information that is suitable to power the search function of their mobile web property.


One thing that many have still not comes to terms with information architecture for small location based devices. I often talk about the fact that the mobile web is an extension of a the overarching web, but content needs to designed differently with different usability standards.


I am excited to see how Search Monkey is used, and whether or not it is as significant in the mobile space as I think.





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Good Ideas; The New Viral

Photo credit: Valentina Degiorgis


Many have heard me rant about my hatred of the term "viral" (yes, I hate it in both a marketing context as well as a health context). While I think the power of the interactive space is incredible in its ability to spread ideas around the world, I feel that the lazy marketer has displaced the term "good" with "viral".


I recently came across a press release that made me smile. The press release was about a poetry contest run by a diamond company called A&W Diamonds whose specialty is loose diamonds for sale online. I have never heard of this company before (that does not mean they are not well known, I guess I am just not "in market") but I imagine they don't have a multi-million dollar marketing budget (again, I could be wrong).


So what does one do when they don't have the money to hire a big fancy agency to create them "some killer viral" campaign (that sounds so dirty, huh?).


They come up with a good, smart idea!


Being a seller of diamonds, I imagine that Valentine's day is a big time of the year for A&W. Due to this A&W went ahead and created a poetry contest. Here were the rules;


The Poem Competition:
Write a romantic Valentine’s Day poem using the phrase "Heart Diamonds" or "Heart Diamond"
and you can win a beautiful Heart Shaped Loose Diamond!!!


Pretty simple if you ask me.


By the looks of things the company received hundreds responses. What is more important, I bet that each respondent told an average of 3 people about this contest, and each of those three probably told one person (10 relationships or 5MM impressions anyone?)


A&W then produced a press release about this contest, and here I am writing about it (this may lead to a hundred more impressions).


So what is the ROI here?


Well, all of this cost A&W one Heart Shaped Loose Diamond. I don't know what that costs but if it is under $10, 000 I would say they have done a pretty good job!


You can see the winner of the contest here, but my winner is a variation on an old time classic;



roses are red violets are blue, your heart belongs to who?

Carol Craig, 01/17/2008



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Kevin Riley: From Delivering Manure To Delivering Site Traffic

Do you know who Kevin Riley is?


I did not know who he was until today (I wonder if he is someone I should have known and missed...) when I saw a press release entitled:


Video Search Marketing Comes Of Age As YouTube Crowned World's Second Most Popular Website


Being the self respecting, future minded search marketer that I am, I had to check this out.


 Did I miss something here?


Was this a recent movement in the industry that I had failed to notice (and didn't video search marketing come of age a while ago?)


Lo and behold, this was no official statement by YouTube or Google (or any other measurement body that I had ever heard of). In fact, this was, for all intents and purposes, and advertisement for a web marketer based on simple Alexa numbers, brilliant :) !



This was not a press release about web traffic at all. This was an opportunistic marketer using web statistics for his own purposes, and quite frankly, I think it is very smart.


Head over to Kevin's blog and see what the results of his efforts were, quite staggering.


I always tell clients, "put out press release's and put them out often. There is someone out there who cares, you may as well feed them the content they want"


...and never forget Riley's pearl of wisdom :) Video Search Marketing is here to stay :) :)



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How Important Is Media In Education? (teachers and students we need your help)

Teachers and students alike, we need your help!


PodcampNYC, the new media unconference is almost here!


 This year there will be a special focus on education. In order to promote this focus we are having a media festival where student of all ages can submit their ideas on what school will be like in the future. There rules are pretty simple and are outlined in the video below.


This is not a contest!


All who participate are winners.


The goal is to raise awareness of the education track that will be taking place at PodcampNYC 2008. We are hoping to facilitate productive conversations on how new media can impact education, and how we can create a brighter future for the next generation through the use of new media tools.


Feel free to contact me to learn more!



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The Worlds Largest Social Network

We have been social network crazy for some time now. Since the inception of the moniker Web 2.0 droves of social networks have sprung up. As I have noted before, the wealth of social networks has become overwhelming for many, so much so that people are beginning to delete accounts from various social networks.


What if there was one standard for all social networks?


While many of are trying to forward standards that will achieve this end, Google made an announcement a few weeks ago about a social API that will assist in achieving true data portability.


After you watch the video below, I would love to hear your thoughts on Google’s move to create an Open Social standard, and whether or not you think this is just a move by Google to be able to place ads across social spaces.  







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Blogger Apologies

As you may or may not have noticed, I have not been blogging a lot lately, but there are some very good reasons.




  • Things have been pretty crazy over hear at Morpheus Media.

    • We have some new clients and some new employees




  • I am taking classes at NYU

    • This semester I am taking Mastering Product and Service Innovation. It is part of a graduate certificate in Marketing Management



  • I am preparing for a number of speaking engagements including ones for the PRSA, Digital Hollywood, iMedia and a few others

  • I am working on organizing PodcampNYC and a special initiative centered around Media and Education (more on that to come)



With all of that going on it is a wonder that I am even able to get some sleep :)


Anyhow, I am going to do my best to get back into the swing, and if anyone wants to contribute posts in this ever so busy time, feel free!


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OMMA Mobile February 7th

Steve Smith



  • It is a marathon not a sprint

  • We are still in the compuserve days

  • Apple has reached number 3 “smartphone” manufacturer in the worlds

  • Mobile Wars are here

  • How does this effect marketing?

  • Are the entries by the giants making it easier for media planners?

  • How can TV exploit mobile?

  • What is this open platform all about—Google?


8:45am: Metrics Wake-up Call: Evan Neufeld, VP Consulting and Senior Analyst, M:Metrics



  • Mobile is and extension of something that has been happening for a long time



    • Death of mass marketing

    • Multi Mobile consumption

    • 360 campaigns

    • Decreased impact of advertising overall



      • Over messaging



    • Era of consumer control



  • 215 MM cell phone users in the US

  • Mobile devices are convergent devices disrupting multiple sectors



    • Bridges the gap between what you do and where you do

    • They are not just about voice anymore



  • 80% of adults in the US have mobile phones

  • 45% of US adults sent text messages

  • 7.4% of US adults got news via mobile browser

  • Mobile 2.0



    • People who sent video via MMS up 51% YoY

    • Watched TV up 19% YoY

    • Ringbacks 40% up YoY

    • Sent Photos 49% up YoY



  • 34MM users in the US access the web via mobile browser regularly



    • Those who do, do it often



  • Mobile content mirrors content on the web



    • Weather

    • Search

    • News



  • Google, Yahoo, Live, Go.com, Myspace some of the top mobile players

  • 1 in 5 phones now play music

  • 50% of US phones have cameras

  • What is driving us forward, holding us back



    • Pricing



      • iPhone vs. Blackberry



    • Devices

    • Bandwidth

    • Subsidization



      • Advertising





  • 58% of consumers have a data plan

  • 84% of iPhone users versus 11.8% of regular market access news via phone

  • It is not about the iPhone, but about services and features

  • Test messaging is the best reach vehicle for advertisers

  • SMS advertising



    • 13% responded

    • 5% bought




9:00am: Introduction by Steve Smith, MediaPost Columnist and Emcee


9:15am: Keynote: Enter the Giants: The Impact Media and Tech Companies Will Have on the Mobile Marketing World?
The biggest impact companies like Nokia will have on the market is by creating a mobile advertising ecosystem that is more flexible and open so all parties, including brands, agencies, publishers and operators will all have a piece of the still-developing mobile advertising pie.

Jeremy Wright, Ad Business Global Director of Brand Solutions, Nokia


·        7th year feeling, “is it just taking off now”


·        The sense of community felt real (about PC—the third screen) but it was virtual


o       Welcome to the fourth screen


·        Where will mobile take us?


o       3.3b mobile phones double the number of TV’s and PC’s


o       Advertising Forecast


§         2011 $531 B


·        Key Growth Drivers


o       Reach


o       Personal


o       Cost


o       Commerce


o       Subsidization will help drive traffic which will in turn drive activity


·        The convergence box


·        We need to resist the tendency to think of the mobile phone as a small version of the PC


·        Acting on impulse as on of the value propositions of mobile advertising


o       “it’s essential for brands”


·        What do consumers want from mobile


o       They want it all


o       Great services at low or no cost


§         Advertising can help make that happen


·        It has to be relevant


·        It has to be respectful, make sure the user has control


·        Use the wealth of data that mobile provides


o       Locations, place, context, time


·        Advertising stops being advertising when it is really relevant, it becomes content


·        Searches are different on a mobile device


·        22% response rates on average for the Nokia site noki.mobi


·        Why isn’t mobile advertising bigger today?


o       Fragmentation


o       Defining and measurable ROI


o       Engaging consumers post click


·        Best practices


o       Relevance


o       Snack sized content


o       Capture impulses


o       Instant Reward


o       Exploit Unique Features


·        The real value is integration with other media


9:45am: A Conversation Between David Verklin and Bob DeSena
David Verklin, CEO, Aegis Media Americas
Bob Desena, Managing Director, North America, iO Global Limited


·        To young people mobile phones are fashions statements, virtual hangouts etc.


·        Mobile is the next big thing—Verklin


·        Young people, when asked what they would give up first, the PC or the phone,  many responded, “stupid question”


·        Mobile as portable interactivity


o       Net Biscuit


§         Purpose built mobile web sites


·        Location to keywords making search the killer app


·        Adding transaction and action to information


·        What do we have to do to know down the barriers in order to create integrated plans?


·        The immediate plan of the future is a mosaic


o       Media Mix


o       The media plan of today and tomorrow has many components


o       Mobile should be a piece of every campaign in the future


·        Advertising to the interested


·        One of the barriers is the fact that many agencies do not have ample database skills


·        Data is the new creative—Verklin


·        We are seeing the resurgence of the full service agency—Verklin


·        6 companies to watch-- Verklin


o       Net Biscuit


o       Admob


o       Veritalk (lets not forget the voice segment of mobile marketing)


o       Shoptext (very enthusiastic about mobile as payment device)


o       Three Jam (allows consumer to do 1 to many marketing)


o       Myxer


·        The crackle of change is in the air


·        Check Out PayGo in New Zealand—Cannes Lion Media Campaign winner


·        In mobile you have to pay attention to other markets—Verklin


·        Lower hanging fruit technologies are still ringtones etc.


·        The biggest issue is TV surrogates


o       2/3 of all spending on TV


o       Today it is about 50%


o       The money is going to things that look like TV


§         Broadband


§         Electronic out of home


§         The more mobile can feel like TV, the more money their will be


·        Engagement=Time


·        Gaining 100% composition by corralling audience from one place to another


·        This year we lay the tracks, 2009 will be the big year for mobile  

10 Relationships or 5MM Impressions; Join The Conversation @JaffeJuice

A few months ago I spoke at the iMedia Agency Summit and the I made a statement that I would prefer 10 quality relationships over 5MM impressions. The audience was asked how many agreed with me and only one person stood up (I am used to people not agreeing with me, so it is cool :) )

Last week I created an audio vignette to start a conversation based on this experience. I sent it over to the Jaffe Juice podcast. Go have a listen and join the conversation.

Over the last few years I have really learned the quality of relationships in marketing. A catalyst for some of this learning has been my interactions with Joseph Jaffe. I attended a lecture that Joseph gave in 2005 (approximately) and immediately read his book and pulled in the feed for his podcast.

Over the years we have corresponded (despite the fact he has thousands of listeners, he has always gotten back to me, even before he knew who I was). As a result of my belief in Joseph's ideas, and his genuine nature towards his community, I have bought many copies of his books (potentially even 30...and I am not done buying yet) for clients and colleagues (Joe, I don't know if I ever told you but we try to keep at least 5 copies of "Life After The 30 Second Spot" at the office at all times. People are always taking them though!)

So What Is The Lesson Here?

By nurturing one quality relationship, Joseph Jaffe has sold more copies of his book than if he had gone out and bought 5MM impressions on an ad network, hands down!

Furthermore, for each 5th person that I bought a copy, there is probably one that bought a copy (or recommended a purchase) for someone else. Joseph did not need any sophisticated technology to make initial headway into my social graph.

...and not this blog post. This post may reach a few hundred more people and one or two of them may buy a book by Jaffe, and so on and so forth!

I am thinking about putting together a spreadsheet for media planners (as a joke, it is really not necessary) with different media scenarios based on what has been discussed here. Feel free to send ideas!

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MMA Forum On Mobile--January 31, 2007

Speakers:


(sponsored by Admob)




  • Danielle Rollo


    • Message as marketing versus advertising

      • Marketing- mCRM

      • SMS-- 160 characters, links etc.

      • Ubiquity of SMS

      • Bringing interactivity to offline media

      • Advertising

      • high attention level

      • contextual targeting

      • fully engaged users

      • Mobile Search- Medio search engine for mobile

      • major growth opportunity

      • gateway to content


      • search as utility-- location based search

        •  relevance=response



      • CPC model

      • Highest payout for search is for DUI's (hmmmm)






  • Mark Donovan

    • Secular trend called digital convergence, our lives are turning into ones and zeros

    • 219 million mobile phone users in the us (over 13)

    • 3 MM 3G phones in the US

    • Suggests that we are not behind, suggests we are different

    • Mobile web 20% YoY

    • 101 MM people sent text messages last year

    • 13% of people that received a text ad responded

    • Mobile as conversation starter

    • Of 101 people that sent a text 9 MM sent a short code promoted by advertising

    • 29% of mobile ads are about selling mobile content



  • Mickey Alam Khan


  • Rebecca Barnett

    • 34 MM actively using the mobile web

    • 20% increase over 2006

    • Disconnect between media buyers and creative

    • CPM's from 7-40 dollars

    • CPC's range from 15 to 50 cents

    • creative must be heavily considered for this medium

    • challenge for analytics because you cannot cookie users

    • Downloadable Content

    • ringtones, games, wallpaper, applications

    • You can deliver a richer media experience

    • high frequency of use

    • challenge-- fragmentation, limit of users

    • CPM's 20-50 dollars




  • Tony Nethercutt

    • Addressable media

    • The media turns into something you have with you

    • Extending the campaign to mobile-- stay consistent with your brand

    • Challenges-- reach, fragmentation, costs

    • Snack sized content

    • Carriers similar to ISP's in the early days




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The Advertising Club Meetup January 28th 2008 at Google

Tonight, Google has opened their doors to the public in what feels like a surreal almost wonka-like experience. Sure I have been here many times, but tonight, amidst an industry riddled with speculation about what Google is up to, the office looks different.


Here is the description and speakers for tonight’s event:


Google is leading an integrated marketing revolution with search, mobile, radio, video, television, maps, email, social networks and more. Six Google Execs will lead a discussion on the latest from Google in advertising and integrated marketing.


Our format will be a panel discussion followed by Q&A. Panelists include:



  1. Tim Castelli, New York Sales Director

  2. Derek Kuhl- Agency Relations

  3. Long Ellis, Head of Sales, Television

  4. Joe Anastasi, Team Manager - Audio East

  5. Tiffany Shen Miller: Account Executive - Print Ads

  6. Sarah Carberry: Team Manager: Consumer Packaged Goods


Notes:



  • It has become clear that Google has become a major player in integrated communications. With tools such as analytics and AdWords, Google provides a full service marketing dashboard.

  • “Google is really in the connection business” Castelli



    • In the ad business, it is about connecting consumers and marketers

    • Buying across platforms



  • Predictive analytics for ROI on TV?



    • Correlation between web traffic and TV



  • “When Google announced this platform (television) it sent shivers down my spine”—Long Ellis—Google TV




    • Google has a certain % of Echo Star local avails

      • About 200 advertisers on the platform




    • Take the benefits of online and move them to the TV (analytics, optimization etc.)

      • Second by Second Metrics

      • Engagement metrics



    • “We do not package our dayparts”—Ellis

    • Optimization—Reacting to the marketplace on a day to day basis

    • You only pay for impressions delivered

    • Reach and frequency coming to the platform

    • No winner’s remorse. Same style bid as AdWords




  • Google Audio—Joe Anastasi

    • 1600 terrestrial stations

    • A digital connection has been made to these stations

    • 100% US coverage

    • Ad serving engine

    • By the end of this quarter we will have the functionality to correlate radio and web metrics

    • By the end of this quarter we will have the functionality to correlate radio and web metrics

    • “Google will bring radio back in a big way”




  • Consumer Package Goods-- Sarah Carberry\

    • The power that YouTube has brought to the consumer

    • Meritocracy of ideas

    • 6th largest destination on the web

    • Storytelling for the world

    • 57 MM uniques on YouTube


    • “You Choose 2008”

      • eMarketer says this will decide the election this year



    • How do we connect Youtube with offline media


    • Heinz Case Study

      • Google and YouTube drove sales through create your own commercial






  • Agency Relations- Derek Kuhl

    • There is a lot of fear and trepidation in the industry world


    • Four key themes

      • Online is an unbelievable creative palette


      • Analytics not being relegated to web analytics

        • Media planners looking at web metrics, not just webmasters




      • Finding common currency across media channels

        • How do you evaluate CPC versus CPM etc.




      • Agencies Rethinking Structure

        • Clients are demanding something different







  • Print Ads—Tiffany Shen Miller



    • “We are going to make newspapers sexier”

    • Efficiency and Scale

    • Single web interface to research across multiple papers etc.

    • Not an auction. Bid to publisher directly through the tool

    • This year the goal is to incorporate Google Analytics



      • 2D Bar Code—QR Codes



    • Marrying print and mobile



      • This is making offline trackable







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