John Drake

"The good thing about getting older is you learn what's worth spending time on, and what's not." -Tom Petty

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The Tech We Bring In

Rethinking_Retail

When Genevieve Bell was studying the car industry, one of the things she reportedly discovered what that the technology in the car wasn't as important as the technology that people brought into the car.

Our music, podcasts, address books and recent destinations are with us everywhere, so why try to duplicate that in the car? Just create the ability to hook up the phone.

Which makes sense. Our cars are full of personal items we brought in.

It's a very smart piece of ethno research. And it might be the philosophy that helps retail, too.

What if instead of a retailer investing huge amounts of money into physical things, location by location, they focus their attention on reacting to a phone once it arrives? I think this goes beyond apps and beacons. Target and Starbucks and more could tie together on one platform, not separate ones that they each have to build, market and grow an audience for. Like our playlists of hundreds of bands that share a channel. 

Maybe the answer is something like MyShop Companion?

August 22, 2015 | Permalink

Jay Chiat on Web Ads

Why do you think no one has figured out a way to make traditional ads work on the Web?

"It’s the same problem we originally had with television. We had the new technicians doing it first, you didn’t have the artists. That’s where we are now. We’re just beginning to get the artists. Once they get a hold of it, and grasp it and understand how to use it, it will get better."

-Jay Chiat, 1999

 

July 18, 2015 | Permalink

What If We Reversed The Order Of Technology Adoption?

Most likely you own two connected devices. Actually, according to Forrester Research, one third of the US under the age of 50 owns three or more. And with each passing year these connected devices are growing in adoption and use. New devices are not necessarily forecast to replace each other but rather to add on to your technology portfolio. Which makes sense. For now, it's hard to imagine creating a robust Excel spreadsheet on a tablet or phone. 

 

State_of_Consumers_and_Technology_ConnectedDevices

 

State_of_Consumers_and_Technology_MostRecentDevice

So what are we doing with this technology? First we're texting. Research says that most of us send between 500 - 800 texts per month with teens sending over 2,500 per month.

We are also reminded by the widely-respected Mary Meeker that we're getting our music, our information and our updates through the phone at an amazingly-increasing rate:

MeekerRampingMobileUse

 

It's also very interesting to learn that 85% of the world's population is now covered by commercial wireless signals, providing greater reach than the electrical grid, which rests at 80%.

Mobile is efficient.

But next time you're at the airport, mall or other public place take note on how many people are using the phone versus how many people are on the phone.

On average wireless customers use 450 minutes per month, a decline of 77 minutes just two years ago. And if each text, call or email is counted as an "interaction" then 80% of interactions with our phone is non-voice related.

Furthermore, when we do talk on the phone these days we're talking less. The average length of a phone call in 2008 was about two-and-a-half minutes. Today, it's thought to be around 90 seconds.

Did we all of the sudden develop a resistance to speaking to other people?

Not really. (Although everyone can support and be thankful that we can communicate in multiple ways rather than just default to the telephone.)

What probably explains it best is something Clay Shirky wrote in Cognitive Surplus about technology adoption and age:

 

"1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really."


But what if the technology was reversed?

It's helpful to think this way sometimes.When you do, perhaps it changes perception.

What if we started off with texting and data and online networking capabilities and then all of the sudden one day we could actually call people. We could talk to our friends as they we're enjoying some far off land. We could hear them laugh on the other side of the country. We could catch up on old stories without having to type everything.

Anthony Tjan had a good post on HBR recently where he talked about how important it is to sometimes pick up the phone...

"The bigger need is for more live conversations to occur, period. This is especially true when people are trying to resolve a conflict or communicate an important business decision. There is a rising and unproductive trend towards people trying to do digital conflict resolution. The de facto path for issue resolution seems to be increasingly via email. More accurately, email has become a convenient mechanism for issue-avoidance."

To help with this it's important not to confuse media with interpersonal communication.

Our mobile devices are becoming more about media which, because that's so cool, applies a hit on interpersonal communication, such as phone calls.

Back to Cognitive Surplus:

"Media is how you know when and where your friend's birthday party is. Media is how you know what's happening in Tehran, who's in charge in Tegucigalpa, or the price of tea in China. Media is how you know why Kierkegaard disagreed with Hegel. Media is how you know when your next meeting is. Media is how you know about anything more than ten yards away."

Our devices provide us both media and interpersonal communication abilities. But technology will continue to build the bicep of media much more than the tricep of interpersonal communication. So it's up to us to keep the latter as strong as the former.

If cellular voice calling had just been invented I have a hunch we'd be talking more. Perhaps we might even avoid some issues, speed up decision making and get to know each other a little bit better.

November 14, 2011 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

A Collection of Thoughts And Stats Around Online Advertising Today

We've reached a time in online advertising where it's good to pause and reflect. Consider that today the majority of the US has become digitally social, smartphones are now used by 40% of us and the last several years of sizable tech adoption, brand trial & error and numerous research studies have all enabled an opportunity to see what's working.

It's also nice to observe that what was once overwhelmingness has now faded to normalcy...

If you work in marketing you've probably seen this logo collection several hundred times in presentations talking about what to do online:

Social-media-logos

When we first saw this we all panicked because there was so much to learn and we all felt so behind. But today we know that such an exercise was kind of like putting up a logo sheet of all the restaurants in your city. Yes, there's a lot of places you could eat but you'll get along just fine not spending time at all of them.

We seem to be settling in; not becoming complacent but, rather, comfortable about what each of us like online and what we don't. What's right for our brand, and what isn't.

So taking all of this in, when it comes to online advertising planning and spending in 2012, what are some good insights to consider?

 

Online Display Advertising

Here's a good question: If you primarily sell things offline what's the value these days of buying display ads online?

A recent study by comScore and dunnhumbyUSA revealed that display ads may be working harder than previously thought. When offline buying habits of households were compared between two different groups--those exposed to online ads and those who weren't--offline sales increased 21% among those who were exposed to the online ads.

What's even more telling is that when predictive targeting was applied to online ads the study showed an in-store sales lift of 42%. So even though nearly three quarters of us say that we're opposed to such behavioral targeting tactics being applied to our web habits, when it comes to our actual actions, we don't seem to mind after all. (Wonder what we'll think about this?)

What's interesting to note here is the value beyond click-thru. Browsing the web is like strolling through town... as we stroll we see billboards. But the narrowest those can get in a city is simply close to the retailer sponsoring the board. They don't get to our unique lifestyle because they're designed for mass awareness. On the web, billboards can get amazingly close to our lifestyle. And it's confirmed that the closer they get the more we click...

Long-tail sites, as they've been called, are the millions of smaller websites for niche audiences. Advertisers too often avoid buying these because they don't have as many eyeballs as short-tail sites and the pages aren't as polished. But click-thru rates of long-tail sites outperform short-tail sites by a healthy 24%.

Click-thru rates have also been measured in relation to their location on the web page; ads that appear above-the-fold are seven times more effective at getting click-thrus than those below-the-fold.

 

Online Video Advertising (Not the viral stuff... That's a different post.)

Russell Davies once wrote:

Something That's Growing Is Not The Same As Something That's Big.

Something That's Declining Is Not The Same As Something That's Small.

He probably didn't intend for it to be used this way but this is helpful to keep in mind when thinking about entertainment online. What was forecast by some to be the end of TV hasn't proven to be the case as it's the second fastest growing medium today behind the web. And what's interesting is that web video providers have found that the best online video advertising format is... what's done on TV.

Studies show that when users view full episodic 22 minute dramas online 94% of them will watch a standard ad break. For short videos and clips 59% of us will watch an ad.

And while we watch how do we click?

In general terms, it turns out there's little variance between who clicks and why. However, according to eMarketer/TidalTV, the best performing day of the week is Wednesday for whatever reason. 

That's not very helpful.

But this is: While the creative may be similar to standard TV the magic comes in the ad buying. The rise of behavior targeting models have created demand side platforms (DSPs), such as MediaMath, that can serve ads to specific inventory slots based on relevancy to individual consumers and are priced based on the demand for that target audience.

At Ignited, an agency that oversees digital media buying for many Hollywood studios, they look at it like this:

We need the reach and efficiency that you can only get from DSPs. They help us achieve scale and better returns on our ad spend... We measure cost per video completion as our primary success metric. Unique reach and frequency are what really matter to us. 

 

Search

When asked which marketing channel small business marketers couldn't do without, word of mouth was highest at 50% and search marketing was last at a mere 3%. 

But paid search is growing at 15% annually and accounts for half of all online media spending. Some forecasts are expecting this to lessen as more is spent on banners, video and email.

Search will be most interesting to watch on mobile. Mobile search is growing 6% month-over-month and search companies are predicting that mobile will become the dominant search form in five years.

Five years.

Consider how important being top ranked will be in 2016 when most search is done on a mobile device...

Let's look at a current search.

Searching for "mens shoes" on a desktop returns this:

MensshoesBing


That same search on the phone returns this:

MensShoesSearchMobile

Note Zappos.com. On the desktop they're one of four on the top along with many down the side. On the phone they have the only top sponsored site on this search, flanked with the SEO in the third position.

Building search strategies, best practices and budget allocations now is of the highest importance as future search on the phone will be more visually pleasant for the users and more difficult for the advertiser to be a top selection.

 

Social & Email

In the US total social media use is up 25% over last year. Additionally, Internet Retailer says that Facebook accounts for about one third of all online display ads. However, their click through rates are small at less than 1%. Facebook's Sponsored Stories will help as studies have shown them to boost those click through rates by about 46%.

But even Sponsored Stories don't get Facebook close to the effectiveness of email. While Sponsored Stories might get a 1.5% click through, email marketing can average an 11% click-through rate. Apples and oranges? Maybe, but it correlates. Fan/Like growth is sexy because it's public and there's tertiary benefits of known popularity and an owned channel of what can be a staggering number of fans. But classic, well-scrubbed database building remains golden.

For Facebook, here's what their Sales Director said earlier this summer:

I see Facebook as a complement to other forms of media. What sticks out is that Facebook is a much more social and personalized experience. In the age where people are getting hit with hundreds of marketing messages a day -- depending on what study you use, it can be as high as 700 messages a day -- how do you stand out from that? I think a recommendation from a friend is extremely powerful.

Which gets us to that 'fingernails-on-a-chalkboard' expression of 'joining the conversation.' (They're each seven syllables.) Facebook has always been the place to connect. Honda does a terrific job of this. Their page is based around the common bond of owning a Honda, not just the Honda company. And it starts with their Facebook page logo--all about connecting:

Honda_Facebook_Logo

But we don't all connect physically. Sometimes it's just connecting through observation. And observation is hard to track as engagement. Half of us are introverts which means that comments, likes and shares largely done by the extroverts are telling what could only be half the story. In addition, a recent study reported that 77% of consumers interact with brands on Facebook primarily through reading posts and updates.

For organizations connecting with people on social networks is becoming more challenging as engagement on brand Facebook walls is down 22%.

Perhaps the reason is because brands can do a better job posting content that rides the edge of pop culture. People want to talk about pop culture, especially in the US. Take this year's Royal Wedding, for instance, where 65% of social media chatter came from America.

When something positively big happens in culture we should try to roll with it when it makes sense. And having a relevant twist for your own audience is what's important. Tim at Snarkmarket phrased this well recently when analyzing his most popular Tweets:

People love pop culture references... What people really seem to love are oblique, unexpected pop culture references that hit a particular niche. They’re tweets that say: “this message was only for you; now share it with everyone you know."

This is something we talk about a lot at the agency.

And it's good to see we're not alone. Tim Leake likens much of the successful marketing today as that of an Improve Group. And one of the core principles of an Improve Group is that of "Yes, And..." Or, in other words, taking what's happening on stage and riffing on it versus talking about something entirely different and selfish.

"Yes, And..."

So, in the end, we all should look to do something like Anthony's Pizza did when Dominos spent tens of millions talking to us about their new recipe:

AnthonysPizza

 

 

Sources: Please see links next to stats throughout post.

November 08, 2011 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

America Has Voted And...

Idollogo2
If you're a fan of American Idol my guess is this season has been both excellent and an emotional roller coaster for you. The new judges are extremely likeable and give feedack that is both constructive and empowering. The addition of Jimmy Iovine not only produces amazing performances but superb behind-the-scenes insight. And the field of talent has, arguably, never been better. But it's worth noting the voting procedure: vote as many times as you like on your phone (toll free or text) or up to 50 times online. It is here where the brand may be off its namesake and its signature weekly Seacrest line: "America has voted and..."

If America is voting than everyone should have equal representation enabled by the structure--everyone gets a set number of votes. The lower the number the better. Perhaps one.

But unlimited, free text voting? Who has that kind of time and texting affinity?

The average teenager sends 3,339 texts per month. And this number is rising.

No other age group even comes close:

TextingbyAge

The final two contestants are Lauren who is 16 and Scotty who is 17. Of the final 13 contestants this season, three of them we're under the age of 17 and two of them are in the finals.

On many people's minds have been the particular elimination of three constestants: Pia who is 22 (but seemed more mature than that) was voted off surprisingly early. Casey, 20, a jazz fan, was voted off even earlier than Pia before being saved and voted off again. And James, 22, who often chose 70s and 80s rock songs didn't make the final three... 

So there's no conspiracy. 95 million votes were cast. The final two are great and deserve to be the final two because they earned it. This is more about brand... If the brand of American Idol is truly built upon America deciding then the voting process probably shouldn't significantly engender a specific age group.

May 20, 2011 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

This Unpredictable Life

The team behind Honda's Grrr returns. Enjoy. 

February 02, 2011 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Two Key Stats About Mobile

Keeping up with everything can sometimes feel overwhelming. Or, at least I sometimes think so. Which is why I love quick data points that clarify. Found two such points yesterday on mobile and wanted to share...

1. People who engage with Facebook on mobile devices are twice as active as those who only use it on their computers. From here.

2.  86% of us use our mobile devices while watching TV. And when we do, here's what we do:

86% Use Mobile Devices While Watching TV
From here.

January 27, 2011 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Searching, Sharing and Getting

Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semi-closed platforms (apps) that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It's driven primarily by the rise of mobile computing. The Internet is less about the searching and more about the getting.

That was Wired's Editor-In-Chief, Chris Anderson in a recent article that Media Post included as one of their four Trends that will shape Q4 and beyond.

It's the 'getting' terminology in the last sentence that's worth paying extra attention to, I think...

Are we providing enough 'getting' in our digital strategies?

We use our websites primarily as the general information portal to a brand. Where the unfamiliar go first. Where those looking for solutions are sent after their search query. Hopefully, the site does a good job at enticing a call-to-action or capturing some type of data for analysis or further customer engagement.

We then use our social sites as a forum to encourage interaction and positive sentimate. Environments where discussions and real-time information can be passed along and shared. A public proclimation of affinity.

These, of course, are about searching and sharing. Always have been.

And now we have getting. Which is where apps come in.

Long has the question of the value of apps been circulating throughout marketing war rooms. But we are now at the point where we have some answers. Smartphones have brought technology to a point of consumer adoption where ROI now isn't just reserved for major companies.

People still want one-on-one relationships with their favorite and most used brands. But there are many times where a semi-closed platform is preferred to an open one. And within such one-on-one brand relationships people want to know: 'What can I get right now?'

If a business is one that's made up of re-occuring sales and frought with competition (e.g. retail, fashion, food, airlines, etc.) then it's perfect for an app solely about 'getting.' An app that showcases the five things on sale this weekend. An app that delivers the newest fashion arrivals tailored by age and gender of the user. An app that reserves one of the limited dinner specials on Friday night. These things might not be grand enough to list on the homepage to entice a new buyer altogether, but they're surely powerful enough to get a known user back again. Multiply that out and the ROI returns quicker than we might think.

Currently, 38% of users are not satisfied with their branded apps. Let's make them useful and drive this number down. 

As we move into 2011 the app is speeding up the convergence of the physical and digital worlds. And now we have distribution channels... In all liklihood, the social audience building of the last few years has produced a good batch of people of which to launch a new or refined app to.

November 10, 2010 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Facts on Mobile

Morgan Stanley - The Mobile Internet Report - Summary 2010
View more documents from Andrei Marinescu.

BBH Labs alerted me to a very informative report by Morgan Stanley on the Mobile Web. And while there's lots of data to absorb, several pages stuck out to me...

It's not entirely about Facebook and Apple, but this is what's happening:

FacebookiPhone

We've been calling it a "phone" since 1876, so we need to re-frame our thinking:

Data

The lion's share of revenue comes from users voluntarily paying for content that adds value:   

MobileRevenue

Brands and organizations can, indeed, enhance mobile experiences... Embracing findings such as these is the key. View the full presentation here.

January 18, 2010 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Nike True City

When it comes to location-based stuff, Nike True City looks incredibly cool... Unique insight into six European cities, making the hidden visible through the knowledge and insight of local Nike Insiders. You can update content and suggestions as well. Selection options go from sport to art to music and there's a cool QR Code component to interact with. It launched yesterday and the agency behind it is AKQA. Will be cool to see how it takes and where it goes. (Love the mission of "making the hidden visible.") Found on Adverblog. 

January 15, 2010 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

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