Digital Marketing

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Silo vs. Integrated

June 29, 2010 in Marketing Strategy | 0 Comments

In the advertising and marketing business, digital is its own channel.  Rare is the vendor that provides a truly integrated single source worldview of a brand. A really smart person once said to an important client “campaigns are overrated” which stuck me with a ferocity that shook my world, but he was right.  A campaign, when well-defined and well-equipped is a powerful selling mechanism.  It’s what people talk about. But translating campaigns across silos is not easy.  Heck, anyone who has ever worked at an ad agency knows campaigns don’t always transfer across media.  A great design-driven print campaign may not work well in radio or a murderously effective TV campaign may not work as out of home.  It’s tah-woooh.  And those silos are under one roof.    

Competing Market Forces

A bunch of hearty souls are trying to bring online and offline selling under one roof.  Yet a greater number of very skilled entrepreneurs are out there selling against the one roof approach — creating even greater and greater specialization.  A friend at CatalystSF told me that there are over 200 social media agencies in the New York area alone.  So what do you do about these two competing forces — the shops who want more pie and are trying to integrate and the shops selling best of breed, stand alone digital marketing specialties?  Well the planner in me usually starts problem solving by “following the money.”  In the case of integrated vs. stand alone I say “follow the strategy.”  

If you find a potential partner with a sense of business strategy that transcends tactical discussions, listen. Business strategy first. Marketing strategy second. Message strategy third and tactical fourth.  I don’t care if its RGA or TBWA. Peace it up! 

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Spotlight On Social Media – Today and…

April 28, 2010 in Digital Marketing, Facebook Marketing, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, twitter | 0 Comments

Spotlight on Social Media was held yesterday in NYC, put on by the Participatory Marketing Network (PMN) and Direct Marketing Association (DMA).  There were a couple of important takeaways every marketer should think about. 

Intent.

Search is still important, no doubt, but it’s a little 2008.  Immediacy – what’s happening now — is the rolling thunder these days, so services like Twitter and Foursquare are the rage but the marketing future is something Rapleaf’s co-founder Vivek Sodera calls “intent driven” applications. Think of a suped up Four Square To Do tab. Facebook will certainly build an intent-based app and others in the VC pipeline will emerge, but just know intent+social+search+moblie is going to pay out lotto style. 

Unanonymous

I know, I know it’s not a word. But it’s a better word then unanonymize, which is the word that clanked like a dropped crowbar off Mr. Sodera’s tongue during his presentation.  Hee hee. That said, it’s a word that wonderfully describes what Rapleaf does. Rapleaf crawls the web and creates single records of an individual’s behaviors, activities and associations.  And surprisingly, it’s not that scary.  They do this using your email address and a cool piece of software. In email or direct parlance they append records using the social web. When I asked to be unanonymized, the Rapleaf software generated 100 of my web proclivities, the first of which was something called “Social Care” a membership I did not recall.  All the rest were spot on. 

Facebook

Facebook also presented at Spotlight and mentioned its 60 million daily logins put prime time television to shame. Sean Mahoney’s case studies of marketer successes were very impressive and prove that Facebook is the “new” digital. Its targeting capabilities are phenomenal.  There are specialty ad and marketing shops opening up just to handle Facebook-enabled selling and they’re worth looking in to.  It’s a cottage industry on the way to becoming transformational.   

Others

Other smart companies worth mentioning include Acxiom, a behemoth company that also transforms social data into social profiles (for targeted marketing), Cisco which has a neat B2B app in its NowVan program (like Kogi BBQ trucks for routers) and Air Miles a rewards program out of Canada, trying hard and having very good success. 

 Michael Della Penna of the PMN and Conversa Marketing and Neil O’Keefe of DMA deserve shout outs for empanelling a great program. Peace..it together!

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Look Behind the Digital Curtain.

December 7, 2009 in Digital Marketing, Marketing | 0 Comments

oz curtains

There is an amazing theory in physical anthropology called phylogeny recapitulates ontology which suggests that the ascent of man from micro to human form is recreated every time a baby is born. From fertilized egg the form grows fishlike, reptilian, birdlike, to muuun-key (as Peter Sellers used to say) and finally goo-goo gah-gah person.

I think every marketer needs to experience life as a small business before making decisions for a large business – and that doesn’t always happen. Small business owners have to do it all and be responsible for all. They may not be good at everything, but they need to experience and understand everything.  Only when they “get” each business and marketing function can they make fair decisions about execution. Not all large business marketers see the whole picture and it’s a shame.

Noah Brier a smart digital strategist at the Barbarian Group has said every marketing who uses the Web should take an interest in and learn, however rudimentary, to write code. Most slough off this advice, but he’s right. Like the marketer who needs to understand the evolution of the business from small to large and the scientist who should be aware of single cell to complex organism, the online marketer is better off if understanding just what’s behind the digital marketing curtain. And understanding its power. Peace!

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Awareness vs. Action.

February 6, 2009 in Marketing | 0 Comments


A smart General Motors marketing executive (no giggles) once said “Good advertising makes you feel something then do something.” All “feel” and no “do” can make a dull marketing effort.  Here’s a digital example: Sony Pictures recently used Facebook’s engagement ad program – a vehicle directing Facebook friends to an app that creates an action, which is shared with other friends – in which they provided a commenting object about a clip from the film “Rent.”  It was tested in a particular city. According to Ad Age, the app doubled awareness of the movie among Facebook members.  Well, did anyone care to see if incremental movie tickets were sold in that city? I’m betting it was measured and the program didn’t translate into ticket sales – that’s why it was left out of the Ad Age story. 

This effort may actually have created some initial “do,” perhaps a little “feel,” but none of the most important “do” which was go to the movies. The target, it seems, may like to hang out online.  Peace!

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