Are you still talking and hanging?

This post is dedicated to my sentiment to this article which Nic had shared with me and a few work mates today aptly titled: OMG! Twitter is, like, so 2008.

A little over a few weeks ago, I had embarassedly admitted I was feeling idle on a Sunday night while ROVE came up interviewing Lily Allen. It was rather an awkward interview with little insights about Ms Allen, then to my horror ROVE had brought up the rise of Twitter.... like a huge majority of the poplulation who is not aware of the technology... This was a perfect sound bite for ROVE and the rise of curiosity has inevitable emerged across many mainstream media channels. It certainly seems like everyone is Tweeting but the question remain why bother at all?

In reference to the Twitter is so 2008 article “It wasn't too long ago that Facebook represented a semi-secret world that belonged largely to those in their teens and twenties. Today, however, the demographic has widened, and it is undeniably part of the mainstream. For better or worse, the space that was once the province of the young has been eagerly colonised by their parents and teachers, not to mention the marketing men with their slogans and special offers.”

I don’t know about the early adopter theory, I mean I am a little over Twitter now because it is largely irrelevant to me, but that's not to say it isn't relevant to millions of others. Also since when does cool or early adoption rule over functionality? Isn't that a bit misleading with the most popular social network.... it is fair to say if the network is decent in functionality and your friends are on it, you will probably not abandone it to join the next "it" thing.

As for my indifference.... I don’t use facebook status for the very reason I don’t want to let everyone suddenly become aware of what I had for lunch or what I am reading…. Will my friends really find it interesting/valuable to know my dietary habits or what I want to buy…? From a corporate point of view, sure it can be a form of PR channel or special DM Channel – perhaps even to organise flash mobs etc. Would be great to use twitter as an illegal party organiser – where profile is obviously set to private for legal reasons, and invitees are subscribed to get updates on the next party (value comes from exclusive info that you can actually use)

For the survival of social networks, as there are so many popping up now, it is probably a good time for networks to really think about what their offering can be of value to their community – like the spotify idea – with music sharing, that is pretty common and there are existing sites that offer similar functions… they should think about partnering with record labels and offer unreleased tracks to the most streamed users as an incentive to use the service more and additional usage means more consumer intelligence the site can offer to the labels. The ultimate problem comes down to revenue or the potential of future revenues....The music industry is constantly battling the online adoption of Music and even major sites such as Youtube and Warner can't get along anymore....

I guess we all just need to be a little patient and see how social media will actually impact our lives before leaving it for the next Twitter.

- jeff

Why do we still assume about the over 50's?

Picture a middle management type, 55 years old, worked in an office all his working life. Commutes to his office on George St Sydney from Ryde.

Uses email everyday, reads a couple of blogs relating to his industry and his Blackberry very rarely leaves his side. He's been using email and the web for 10 years, he's had a mobile phone for just as long. 

A quick profile of one of millions of over 40's and 50's working across Australia and the world.

So why do we assume that their not online? Why do we assume that the Internet is the domain of the under 30's? It is totally flawed.

In the UK in 2008 I conducted research with over 400 baby boomers, 85% of which were active online, and the level of frustration about their perceived digital understanding was incredible.

We've been running display and search campaigns for Travel brands targeting over 50's for the last 6 months, with incredible results - both in ROI and brand engagement terms. And as recently as this month drove 35,000 unique 50somethings to a travel website. Plenty of proof close to home...

Further afield, recent statistics from the US (Emarketer) show that 78% of over 50s are active online in some form, up from 68% in 2005. 

If we wanted any more evidence, Nigel's 84 year old Dad just bought an iphone, to back up the Ipod and Macbook he bought last year. Oh and my 63 year old Mum texted me yesterday "our wireless modem is broken so no Internet for 3 days. NIGHTMARE".

Tell us your views.

Nic

There's no such thing as a slow burn online

I was at the Acer Arena last night with 18,000 others for the Coldplay gig. I'm not a massive fan but it was a very polished performance all the same.

What struck me during the gig (and all others) was the volume of cameras and mobiles being used for pictures and videos throughout (all of which will be terribly dark photos, but people still persist - see example posted). In fact at one point Chris Martin asked everyone to get theirs out and wave them around - an impressive 5 minute mobile phone light show ensued.

Because of these images and videos this event will now not only be talked about, but it will be viewed, used and rated online by hundreds of thousands of people within the next 48 hours, which is very much a social media phenomenon. Same gig 10 years ago, you either heard it was good from a friend of a friend or you read the review in SMH weekend.

I've done a little back of fag packet (front of iPhone) to work out how quickly the events from last night will be seeded out.

18,000 people attended so 18,000 mobile phones
Let's say a further 4,000 digital cameras for good measure
Conservatively let's say 10,000 took pictures or captured video
An average of 5 photos per person should do it.
Let's then asssume that in the next 2 days 70% of these will post to a social networking site (or two)
And that 10% of the audience will tweet and/or write about it on a blog
Asssuming each uploader has 60 online friends (conservative given the bullseye coldplay age is 25-35), and the bloggers/tweeeters have 25.

That means that in 48 hours over 500,000 people will have seen or discussed something about last nights gig. That's not taking in to account all the non friend views on you tube, blogs etc...

What it displays in a totally unscientific way is the immediacy of todays media, and that digital doesn't really do slow burn. And as marketers we should look on that as an opportunity to generate immediate action and conversation. Now.

Nic

Breathing new life in to old things

I must admit watching Guinness book of records on TV is a guilty pleasure, it requires a little to none real concentration, something you can truely veg out to after a hearty meal.

The Guinness world records franchise brand was acquired by the Jim Pattinson Group (Parent of Ripley Entertainment) in early 2008. Since then with the help of modern marketing and some sweet co-branding ideas, there is a whole new lease on the products including interactive gaming and 3-D photography in special editions and now Wii and DS versions of the records are available in game form! The trailer is pretty wii fun looking, I think it is a perfect fit to reach the whole family with a bit of wholesome fun. 

Not a bad stint of rebranding considering the franchise is 54 years old. 

Jeff

303 Digital

Insights into allocating digital dollars

The penultimate question:
How do brands determine how much to spend on digital?

Why the question? Because throughout the course of my digital media career, no two clients I have worked on have allocated digital budgets in the same way.

Why does this matter? Individual marketing and advertising programs can live or die depending on the process of how budgets are allocated, approved, and modified over the course of the year. The subtleties of how a particular company allocates budgets ultimately have tremendous influence over strategies, tactics, and roles for particular marketing partners.

Unless you're a part of the budget allocation process, seeing what gets approved and what gets cut can seem strange or even schizophrenic. Digital programs can be funded from several budget areas within a marketing organization, some with their own predetermined roles for digital media and marketing. Where the money is coming from can be quite influential over the objectives, strategies, and tactics of a proposed program.

1. Some companies have a tough time putting a stake in the ground with respect to dollar amounts, so they first develop placeholder budgets by performing basic calculations that many of us might consider to be "back of the napkin." For instance, if a marketer wants to acquire a million new customers via digital channels over the course of a year, he'll try to get to an "all in" cost-per-acquisition number that includes all media costs, productions costs, agency fees and anything else he can think of. It will provide a starting point for the process.
2. Other companies will ask their agency partners for help in order to get to a starting point. However, some of the people I talked to expressed concern that agency numbers have to be taken down significantly, owing to any built-in biases they might have (commission-based compensation, discipline bias, etc.)
3. The most dreaded part of the process for most marketers involves taking the numbers to finance for approval. I heard a lot about difficulties communicating the subtleties of the marketing side of the business to people within finance or procurement.
4. Another problematic part of the process involved specific tactics coming up in the mainstream media, which may cause finance or executive management to question tactics without having a clear view of the objectives and strategies specific to digital. We spent some time talking about the dreaded "GMOOT Syndrome." (Get Me One Of Those) There was some frustration expressed around the notion that the best tactics aren't always the uber-trends discussed on the front page of The Wall Street Journal.
5. Several departments or marketing disciplines may be contributing to the overall digital budget, depending on how many roles digital can fulfill. Thus, money might be coming from direct marketing, brand advertising, ecommerce, or even IT. Sometimes that money comes with specific baggage, like preferred strategies and tactics. This can influence what the specific programs look like in the end.

Old school, yeah!

A recent study in the states found that 80% of marketers ranked email as their best performing channel. Whilst 57% said search, 33% said TV and 32% Direct Mail.  

Whilst the marketing world is being whipped into a frenzy about mobile, social media, widgets and emerging channels we'd all do well to remember how successful the digital 'old timer' email can be.

Whether it is buying cold email data or contacting your customers and prospects it shouldn't be overlooked. A recent acquisition email we created for Visit London got 25,000 clicks (forecast 3,000). I've seen emails payback 30x over through actual sales.

As a channel it is also valuable in terms of 'keep warm', Sainsbury's in the UK wish you a happy birthday via email, and even follow it up in the post with a bar of chocolate. Cold Stone Ice Creamery in the US email people on their birthday with a coupon for some free ice-cream - how good is that?!

There has been a significant increase in email use in the US in the last 6 months, partly because email is so cheap to create and send. Brands need to be careful not to over use though, don't bombard people... 

It can also be used to drive a conversation across other social media platforms, more on that here.

One of the common complaints I get is the inability to be that creative. True it can't work like a website and there are multiple email platforms to be wary of, but things are starting to change.

We've recently trialled video in email for the western force, as a teaser to view the rest of the video content online. Open rates were excellent and we'll continue to push this new technology forward.

If you've got any clients out there sitting on an email database, let's start thinking about how we can speak to them in a relevant and targeted manner and make the most of a chance to contact our customers/prospects.

Because there’s nothing wrong with old school.

Nic

Social Media where is it all going?

I got the chance to go a social media conference/showcase last week.

It was sponsored by Adknowledge, it was quite a stellar turn out and I wasn't sure what to expect but I was excited by the prospect of hearing discussion around the topic nonetheless.

It was refreshing to see a wholesome level of people from publishers to agencies turning up to spend the afternoon together listening to speakers discuss the power and future of social media. I really enjoy witnessing the change in the media landscape and that is pretty much what Brett Brewer from Adknowledge had emphasised the importance of utilising this social media space because that is where people are going when they are online and interacting with each other.

I don't disagree with this unavoidable trend however, after hearing a few presentations including the case study of V-raw, I can't help but wonder where will the future of social media go? Sure things are social and the web technologies are by nature social.... the metaphor of a network is made up of people, just like cavemen but now gone virtual. The question remains, how do you really monetarise on the social relationships without annoying or bombarding users with branded messages? Can advertisers really do content for free in the hope that it will go viral or even be consumed by social groups....

More interestingly, the recent changes of Facebook's terms of use.... basically you are never really gone once you leave the social sphere on the web.... There are lots of new signs on the social movement on the web and how will this affect advertisers who have so openly embraced this new trend?

Any thoughts..... 

-Jeff