Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Google TV Works

Google's experiment with EchoStar is working and is about to incorporate a partnership with US TV metrics giant Nielsen.  This creates a platform that advertisers can trust because its built on the biggest computing network of all time and has the knowledge base of a company which has been in the TV business for 50 years or more.  So Google can now take the next big step and reach out for super-sized TV budgets.  Loved this quote from a media planning grand fromage: “For 40 years, we’ve been placing advertising believing that commercials are getting the same reach that programs are getting. We now know that’s not true.”  So, you were just following orders right?!  IMHO, this is a much bigger development than Microsoft plucking a fragment of FB.

Metrics-22

There is a wonderful irony in the current debate about marketing metrics.  For a long time the marketing and media world has used measurement techniques which are far from precise.  However, the industry knew they weren't definitive and established workarounds, whilst calling for greater accuracy.  Now networked media has arrived in full effect and we can measure everything to the nth degree.  But no one can agree on anything - because there is too much detailed data!  And thus the commercial growth of networked media is restricted because people are sticking to the traditional media metrics which aren't as confusing because everyone knows they are inaccurate!  Solving the problem may take a shift in the way we view the market because impressions and page views make less and less sense.  Google changed the game when they moved to CPCs because everyone agrees that paying for the right type of traffic, ie people who have demonstrated an intention, is a good idea.  And now Microsoft and Yahoo are trying to change the rules again to behavioural targeting where by people's clickstreams are constantly analysed to understand what they might be in the market for.  But for now, the old system doesn't work and the new one is too good!

Media Metrics Shakedown Begins

The potential for massive disruption within tired media metrics makes it an intriguing area right now.  The reason is fairly obvious.  As the money flows into online the bean-counters are right behind making sure that this isn't actually all just dotbomb 2.0.  As the market leader Nielsen's shift from page views to 'total-time' is significant but I like Internet Outsider's take that it's just the warm-up act for a real-shake-up.  There's a huge number of factors involved but one is that technology is making real-time data about individuals more reliable and that will always trump demographics and aggregated ranking systems.  So the best route maybe to simply distribute the online tools to the publishers and advertisers and let them get on with it.  At the macro-level that is why Google's EchoStar deal is causing waves.  At a micro-level it's why, for this blog, I no longer have to try and second-guess muddy site stats, but simply keep an eye on the Feedburner numbers for RSS subscribers.

[UPDATE: Edelman enters the fray and Jeff Jarvis offers a critique].

Heinz Opens Sauce And Discovers Free Speech

Heinz is running a user-gen campaign over at YouTube which the NYT has used to highlight that amateur ads are - wait for it - not like professional ads!  And what's worse, they're not even free! "Many entries are mediocre, if not downright bad, and sifting through them requires full-time attention."  Imagine!  It's all turning into a fascinating example of a brand testing its own control threshold but clearly Heinz needs to re-read their open source cookbooks.  Firstly, as any Linux programmer will tell you, it's only free if you don't put any value on your time.  So yes, "inviting consumers to create their advertising is often more stressful, costly and time-consuming than just rolling up their sleeves and doing the work themselves".  And secondly, it's free as in free speech not free beer.  So yes, "some contestants say in interviews that they prefer mustard or mayonnaise".  The cheek!  Really, why bother?  Well hard as it is to believe, some crazy folk actually like this free speech stuff.  Weird, eh?

Normal Order Restored?

It's a sign that the nascent world of networked media is maturing, slightly, that some traditional methods and techniques are creeping back into the area.  Albeit with a twist.  In the new world of mega-P2P-networks, BitTorrent and Joost are running a competition to see who can be the most respectable, in order to try and win over the old-school media barons like Viacom.  (Despite the fact that only a few years ago said barons were looking to wipe P2P off the face of the earth).  And in both cases it is very traditional run-ins with the law that have led to BitTorrent's Bram Cohen (post-Grokster) and Joost's Friis and Zennstrom (post-Kazaa) being so well behaved.  Indeed, BitTorrent came to agreement with its most powerful opponent, the Motion Picture Association of America (aka Hollywood) in November 2005, allowing it to announce it's very scrubbed up new Entertainment Network this week.  While the Joost founders go as far as saying about the new service, “It’s not Web video; it’s TV".  Meanwhile, over in the related world of user-generated video, a talent war has broken out for the most popular new video stars - motivated by good old-fashioned lucre and gelt.  The NYT reports that Revver has pinched LonelyGirl15...

Innovate or Litigate - The Choice Is Yours

Umair has summarised the need for more innovation in media organisations in an essay that you can read here.  It's full of pithy quotes such as this: "At the simplest level, media revolutionaries are embracing management innovation by simply learning how to interface productively with connected consumers, rather than get commoditized by them".  In the conversations I have with brands there is a sense that a lot of traditional media no longer offers the value they crave.  However, brands can lack flexibility, wanting sexy innovation, as long as it comes with guaranteed results - which is what BBH's John Hegarty was getting at in his recent speech.  Of course, if the idea of innovation is just too scary, you can always call the lawyers and get them to stop the world turning.

Community Values

It's not difficult to imagine a time when the most important marketing asset a company has is its community of customers.  What that community thinks of the company, its products, its management and its systems will be the number one defining factor in the company's reputation and brand.  Marketeers will be interested in systems, ideas, and techniques that can help them improve relationships with their community.  There will be a range of metrics used to assess community satisfaction and there will be a clear financial relationship between the community's health and the company's wealth.  Those metrics may even appear on the balance sheet as goodwill does today.  The word-of-mouth created by these communities will be the most powerful driver of sales.  Companies will spend considerable budgets trying to recruit people to their communities and will try and poach individuals who are active within competitors' communities. There won't be such a thing as a standard community.  Every company and brand will be able to create a version to suit the needs of its own customers and products. Moving from command-and-control to community values will involve some very painful reorganisation.

Prepare To Be Surprised

Asked about the future of the newspaper business at the Society of Editors in Glasgow the ever-articulate Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger summed it up thus: "The honest answer to the question is nobody knows....I think you have to prepared to be surprised and you have to experiment like mad."  It's useful advice for any industry trying to  adjust to the new networked world and reminiscent of the P&G strategy recently described by the company's boss AG Lafley: “Most of our experiments don’t work but we have to be out there, trying.” (Via Greenslade.)

Edelman's P2P Employees

Richard Edelman did a Q&A on FT.com yesterday.  I asked him this question: "If a company started blogging in October 2006, what would be the number one benefit it noticed by October 2009?"  His answer was: "The key benefit must be with employees, who will be empowered to speak peer to peer on behalf of the company. Note that Microsoft has also encouraged its employees to blog—over 5000 are doing so at present, with tremendous benefit to the company."  Quite an interesting answer I thought - focusing on the benefits to employees.

The Broadcast Bubble

Customer profiling create all sorts of problems in networked environments.   If brands stare into the blogopshere, or other user-driven spaces, looking for someone who ticks all the boxes on their psychographic models, they will be disappointed.  Worse still, some brands start looking over the shoulders of people who are talking about their products hoping their real customers are bringing up the rear.  You know, the eloquent ones who get the brand's aspirations and share its values.   This can lead to comments such as those made by David Hepworth in today's Guardian: "The best community tends to be driven by people who are essentially intemperate, possibly not the kind of people you want near your carefully burnished brand."  This mis-match can become quite surreal with brands becoming quite scornful of the people who really love their products - even dismissing them as a sort of lunatic fringe.  This appears to be a hangover from the broadcast bubble where people were orderly, submissive - but also Stepford shiny.  (Of course, they never were.) Today's networks are extremely sophisticated in their knowledge, opinions and viewpoints but they are also very messy.  Next time you venture into networked media, best to leave those 'bubble' profiles behind.  You'll get further without them.