FLUID MARKETING

Buy Facebook; Don’t Buy The Hype

So, the prevailing winds are blowing against Facebook. Here’s just one of the current streams – “A poll by the Associated Press and CNBC reveals that 83% of Facebook users report never or hardly ever clicking on ads or sponsored content, despite frequently visiting and spending lots of time on the site, which translates to a conundrum for advertisers.”

This is exactly the kind of uninformed analysis we would expect at this moment in time. It’s the first step in the now-public process of reviewing exactly what Facebook is versus what it is not now that the IPO is done. The fact that display ads are performing poorly on the platform would appear to the uninitiated as conclusive evidence that Facebook is a failure at connecting people with brands, or driving people to actually buy something. But, this theory assumes that Facebook is just like any other web domain, that it’s just another web site. However, dive even one level deeper – let alone into the multitudes of engagement layers currently in play for nearly one billion members – and a far more complex and compelling picture emerges.

We in the industry toss the term “platform” around far too casually. But there’s truthiness as it relates to Facebook. There has never been, nor will there likely be during the next few years, a singular digital environment that offers brands the variety and depth of opportunities to engage with people and enable people to engage with each other – both within as well as outside Facebook. That the media focuses so narrowly on ads simply illustrates that business and media journalists have not bothered to spend the time to understand Facebook as a marketing platform – they still think of Facebook as an advertising venue. It is not – it is a social business, social commerce, social gaming, and social marketing platform. There are dozens of entertaining and immersive ways for brands to engage with Facebook members – ads are simply the easiest to recognize.

In the same way that Facebook has enriched the member experience over the past 5 years, they are similarly building the infrastructure and business models to enable brands to engage members in ways we have not yet imagined. This is where business and marketing magic likely will occur – hence the massive valuation. We’ve seen innovation trickle out within Facebook’s many engagement environments – from in-game commerce, to Timeline, to API integration with Pinterest, Spotify, and dozens of other external environments. In short, brands are now just starting to figure out how to innovate – many leading brands are tasking their agencies to figure this out for them. Laggards, however, just task the purchase of Facebook ads or branded content, and find that like most things in life, you get what you pay for.

It’s time to be bold. Truly innovative brands, in concert with or pushed by their agency partners, will exploit the network effects of Facebook’s social graph to create real brand impact. Now public, there is no reason to believe Facebook will not continue the march toward creating even better opportunities for brands to create disruption.

As an agency planner at [wire] stone watching all of this unfold, it’s clearly too early to reach any conclusions. I would caution brand marketers from believing the current anti-Facebook hype. Conventional wisdom among savvy marketers (brands and agencies alike) is the opposite – that we are still in the early days of understanding how and why Facebook is a brand engagement platform, not just another vehicle for advertising.

So, don’t buy the rhetoric that Facebook is tanking because GM pulled funding for display ads on the platform. Challenge your internal marketing leaders – and your digital agency partners to define what digital influence really means to your brand. Task them to rank every digital environment on its ability to influence brand sentiment, engage in relevant and immersive activity, or propagate positive sentiment about your brand or product. And dare them to find a better digital space to be bold. I’ll bet they’ll still bet on Facebook.

Flight of the {Air Jordan} Concords

No foot-covering, magic-inducing sneaker has ever looked as good as the Air Jordan 11, Concord blue edition. I can remember watching Jordan rise in ’96 wearing a variety of colorways of this insanely crafted and designed flying apparatus. So when the Jordan Brand chiefs decided to drop the Concord retro edition last night (well, December 23, starting at 12:01 am est), which most of us heard about as early as August, my Jordan retro crack addiction kicked into high gear.

I jumped onto nike.com at exactly 8:58 pm pst – opening not one, but four browsers – to ensure my IP address would be as early in line as possible. Nothing. No picture in the “new releases” tab; no link on the home page. 9:08 – a picture appears in “new releases”…but clicking brings me to a blank page. The site is down. Footlocker.com is down. Hordes are collapsing every possible digital outlet. I can envision millions of snearkerheads hacking nike.com, and I’m lamenting the fact that some, who Jordan brand managers from Beaverton court for their overt enthusiasm online and at sneakerhead conventions, are already in and ordering away. @dabu85 (former Jordan Brand client and one of the coolest people I’ve ever met) tweets “footlocker site down, another one bites the dust”, so I feel pretty good that even he hasn’t been able to get through.

Some perspective. There is more magic here than the mere fact that there are so many people coveting this most baddass sneaker ever invented that the Nike.com site has crashed. The brand sprung from the other-worldliness of MJ’s athletic domination and indominatable personality, and it’s now as relevant and pervasive 26 years later than it ever was. Old white guys like me still wear and covet the sneakers, millions upon millions of younger fans literally in every corner of the world can be found wearing apparel. If you’ve ever experienced MJ entering a room, it’s like the air is sucked out behind him as he enters. Think Neo, twisting around bullets. As a 25-year marketer and media analyst, and now a strategist at a digital marketing agency, [wire] stone, the only comparison I can think of to the Jordan retro phenomenon are lines forming around Apple stores in anticipation of i-anything introductions. I just can’t help but think that every brand would love to have this kind of passion for its products, for its history, for its presence, for its imagination. True, most brands were not birthed by larger-than-life, globally recognized icons. But the strategist in me thinks this is a standard to shoot for. Damn straight it is.

Okay, it’s 9:23, and I’m refreshing four browsers every 15 seconds to “be there” when the content is actually loaded and I can click onto an image that gets me to an order page. Wait – an email has arrived in my inbox from Nike: “Introducing the Air Jordan 11 Retro Concord. Click here to buy now.” Click. Nothing. Blank page. A bad joke. 9:”23”. As in MJ – 23. Now it’s 9:28 and one of the browsers connects. I am in. ordering two size 13’s, knowing I can find a buyer somewhere for the other pair. I get to checkout, click submit, and wait. Purchase denied, session timeout. It was only about 45 seconds, and I’m shut out. Try again on browsers 2,3, and 4. I get in on all three, go through the ordering process on one of them, shut out again. This browser dance goes on until 9:50, when I reboot to change IP’s and I’m back in – yes! Click through again to order 2 pairs of 13’s and…shut out again. Session timeout. Okay, this is f—ked. And I’m pissed. Try another new browser and … wait… I’m in, but no 13’s left. Also no 12’s, or 12.5’s, or any size between 6 and 15. It’s 10:23 and I’m done. I go to flightclubny.com and spend a crap-load more than I ever thought I’d have to. But I have Concords on the way, and I’m pretty damn happy. Poor, but happy.

What I haven’t mentioned is that I’ve gone through this three years in a row. Every December 23^rd the Jordan team perpetrates this cruelty on willing fanatics. Lines to buy them in person at FootLockers and other retail stores stretched into the thousands here in Sacramento, and in bigger cities ran ten times longer.

There is nothing like having passion for a brand. I am fanatical about a very small group of things, starting with my wife. Ferrari, siberian huskies, Hendrix, Lance, to name some of the others. But it is an irrational thing, passion. An unwieldy beast. We as marketers spend way too much time rationalizing the metrics and analytics of marketing instead of understanding why people have, or don’t have, passion for the products we are asked to help communicate and sell. Some products are necessities; some buyers have to buy because their bosses ask them to. So passion isn’t always a part of the equation.

But I don’t buy that. Marketers, and the agencies they ask to help them connect with people, are obligated to help people tap into a latent passion they may not even know they have, generate a higher degree of passion than they currently have, or create it out of thin air. Regardless of the route or path, there is no connection without passion.

Hey Sean, Reggie, John, Gentry – anyone at Jordan... Let me into your friggin’ site so that I can feel, again, the passion!

Live From New York, It's All About Innovation

I recently attended two events in NY – the 4A’s Strategy Festival and Pivotcon: The Rise of the Social Consumer. Big brands, big agencies, big egos presenting big ideas, and there really was lot to take away for [wire] stone as a midsize agency to help us get better at what we do.

But more than any specific social campaign or keynote on how to handle big data, there was an undeniable theme that spread across nearly every aspect of these two events. Innovation is happening in every aspect of a digital agency’s world, and new, innovative thinking is spawning transformation of the very definition of what it means to be a digital agency today.

At the heart of this movement is new technology – but the innovative spirit that is driving media and marketing is no longer about technology in and of itself. It’s about how innovative technology is deployed, how brands and their agency partners are using technology to engage, to facilitate and nurture meaningful, relevant, and scalable relationships between people and organizations.

For agencies, nearly everywhere we look we see new models popping up, spawned by a proliferation of technologies and applications that create diversified revenue streams, new corporate ownership models, re-considered operational infrastructures, and new spins on the traditional agency-brand relationship.

Beautifully articulated by John Hayes, CMO at American Express, here are the attributes defining the spirit of innovation that is facilitating transformation:

• Speed – change happens at unprecedented speed because information is propagated through social channels instantaneously and people are informed in real time -- only the nimblest agencies who adopt an agile and lean business philosophy can keep pace or ahead of industry and market movement;
  
  
• Disruption – innovation is again a guiding cultural, political, and economic mantra, driven by the proliferation of digital code and a creative design renaissance that enable nearly anyone (tech labs, global brands, governments, general consumers) to create paradigm-shifting experiences;
  
  
• Listening – in an era where people are increasingly in control of their own relationships with brands, agencies must master the art of listening to people to fully understand consumer motivations, needs, and wants – listening is at the heart of all brand engagement and relationship building experiences;
  
  
• Losing control – agencies must help brands become comfortable with and ultimately exploit the fact that they have already lost a significant amount of control of their own image as well as their ability to direct or manipulate sentiment about their brand, products, or services.

Change is happening in real-time for digital agencies -- “full service” firms are now offering interactive services, public relations firms hold firm as lead social media providers, and some media firms are now offering digital.

This is leading to an increasingly competitive marketplace that can make it hard to successfully differentiate one agency from another. In response, a new era of mergers and buyouts is underway as large holding companies aggregate social, technical, and other niche technology and services agencies to aggregate the focused talent pools they offer to support existing teams or augment their own portfolio of service offerings.

Potentially more threatening for agencies, however, is the trend that many brands are developing in-house capabilities once core to the digital agency portfolio. Some believe the situation could become even more destabilizing for agencies -- as an example, tvguide.com recently consolidated their mobile development capabilities in-house with a new staff that is several dozen deep.

Brands, on the other hand, are also savvy, and sophisticated marketers know full well that no agency can “do it all”. Agencies that represent they are experts in every area increasingly run the risk of not being credible in the minds of brand marketers.

Within this miasma of change, however, we can see the following “innovation waves” driving the formula for agency differentiation:

1. Strategy
   Miles Nadal, CEO of MDC Partners, stated “strategy has become a critical differentiator for agencies, and there has never been a better time for strategy to take its rightful position as primary in an agency’s portfolio.” “Strategy innovation” is one of the core areas [wire] stone is differentiating, and we fully suspect brands will increasingly consider our ability to create innovative consumer engagement strategies a determining factor for picking us versus competitors. A recent survey of CMO’s indicated that the #1 reason agencies were fired is a “lack of innovative thinking and strategy, the ability to develop strategies that drive innovation across the brand’s business units that are primarily derived from insights derived from an understanding and optimization of data and information”. At a higher level, there is another perspective agencies simply must adopt -- as I learned from my favorite strategist, planner (and curmudgeon) Farrah Bostic, to lead, innovative digital agencies must adopt lean, agile strategy planning and technology development philosophies – leading shops must think and act like startups. Nuf said.
   
   
2. Social + Mobile
   The tsunami of social engagement protocols, technologies, and techniques continues to transform every aspect of business, as well as cultural and societal change. Some posit that “social agencies” are the only ones capable of leading brands in the connected, networked social future because they represent the seamless blend of technology and social interaction / engagement understanding. Further, there is a shortage of talent among agencies in this space – agencies are investing rapidly and deeply in training and skill development, including at the programmatic level with efforts like social marketing certification programs. Mobile (i.e., device / screen proliferation) has also become a core capability – enabling brands to connect with consumers anywhere and any time is no longer an option. [Wire] stone believes social marketing is not a silo-d arm of the marketing or PR department; rather, it is the glue that connects everything a brand does both internally with employees and stakeholders as well as to the external world of consumers. It is a philosophy of business that integrates a brand’s entire portfolio of marketing and business operations together into a connected enterprise built around people. Social media and marketing places people at the center of relationships between brands and consumers, disrupting traditional marketing model brands have typically organized themselves to execute.
   
   
3. Disruptive Technology Deployment  
   At the heart of the rise of digital and social media is technological innovation. There is no shortage of disruptive technological change -- the challenge for agencies is that brands have become enamored with bringing new tech development in-house. The availability of inexpensive and highly efficient tools, and the talent needed to turn tools into dollars, potentially marginalizes the role of the agency. If it is simply using an analytics or social monitoring or digital media tool then the agency risks becoming unnecessary overhead. Successful agencies will either be able to demonstrate strategy combined with mastery of the tool or they will invent the tool.
   
   
4. Creative + Design
   A renaissance in the philosophy and role of design is propelling innovation across the agency landscape, and leading digital shops are taking a design approach to everything from consumer marketing creative, to emerging and immersive technology experiences, to proprietary technology and product development, and to the agency’s own business model. Design is increasingly a core pillar of our philosophical approach to everything we do, and we are in the process of “designing our business” for the future, incorporating a new design perspective to what we do.
5. Execution
   Brands are more discerning than ever about how agencies price and deliver services, forcing more openness and transparency during sales and account/client management processes. Similarly, agencies are increasingly being judged more on the ability to deliver high levels of quality work at extremely rapid speed because brands are forced to respond to more rapidly shifting consumers than ever before. As a result, developing new and more efficient executional processes and models are more important than ever, and agencies who are not efficient AND nimble in deploying high-quality resources risk losing new and existing business opportunities. See lean planning discussion above.
   
   
6. Analytics
   Big Data. It is everywhere, overwhelming, and unstructured – therefore, increasingly critical to brands as they search for ever-more granular insights into consumer behavior and keys to building relationships. Search – both SEO and SEM/PPC -- as well as social analytics, social CRM, data mining, and a host of other sub-disciplines are must-haves for agencies, either as core practice areas or strategic consulting capabilities.
   
   
7. Diversification
   Independent agencies are exploring and experimenting in social and mobile technologies to develop new, proprietary products to sell or license (i.e., see Buddy Media). Some agencies are building incubation hubs and technology labs specifically to invent new services and innovate core capabilities. Pepsi, for example, has an “official” desk at one of the largest technology incubators in New York city so that they are at the origin of new ideas and applications. Holding companies like MDC Partners are expanding into pure consulting, think-tanks, and product development in an effort to define entirely new revenue streams.
   
   

 

There's No "User" in "Personalization"

One of the hottest topics in today's fluid media and marketing morass is personalization -- creating experiences defined by a person's behavior, or desired outcomes, or stated preferences. Yet, so many of us still use the term "user" far too often. It's wrong -- and dangerous for brands and agencies.

I just watched another series of video cast studies, these from Adobe (here) that feature how T-Mobile, MTV Networks, and  Martha Stewart Living created cool implementations of Adobe products and services. Nice pieces. But "user" is used all over the place by people who sound like experienced and savvy product, creative, strategy, and brand leaders to describe or define people, consumers, customers, individuals, or even simple human behaviors.

Forrester's Josh Bernoff wrote about why the term "user" is risky years ago. He was right in 2007. Moreso today, however, because digital tools and analytics suites, among other techniques, have progressed so far. The ability to obtain, synthesize, and exploit digital data to construct profiles specific to individual people is no longer an insurmountable problem. It's actually a point of brand differentiation leaders are using to distance themselves from competition. He who truly knows their customer -- and calls her by her name -- will likely win her loyalty.

We should send "user" into the deadpool. It's not just semantics. It's the philosophy behind the linguistic transformation Josh proposed and I'm now supporting. Marketers and advertisers talk a good game about "personalizing" digital brand experiences, but are they really delivering? If we still call people "users", do we truly believe in the vision of personalization? How are we defining personalization in an era of increasing privacy concerns -- do we understand the balancing point?

Most marketers and digital agencies have invested significant financial and human resources in data mining and analytics platforms and software to better understand the landscape in which they do business -- specifically the people they want to connect with. [wire] stone's experience clearly indicates that smart brands are banking future success on developing these skills -- deep, granular understanding at the individual, genetic level, can unlock long-term engagement, affinity, and loyalty. There's little chance they'll get there if designers, engineers, marketers, analysts, or sales teams continue to think "users".

Institutionalizing the culture of "personalization" may become the defining attribute for success in the next digital decade. In the same way that we all want to be treated by friends, family, and profession as an individual, do the same for the people your brand needs to connect with. So throw "user" out with the trash. Make a contest out of it within your company. Fine people who use the term $1 and buy cookies with the bounty.

Twiteria: Who and Why I Folllow

This post is two years late.

Most of us pimped the size of their follow lists long ago whether Twitter delivered real value or not. Twitter became, as @armano eloquently opined today about Facebook, like high school, more of a status heirarchy than value driver.

Putting celebrities and their followers aside for a moment, marketing analysts, planners, and pundits began figuring out the how's and why's of Twitter over the past couple of years. It took me a while, but the fluid marketer in me has found a sweet spot. So much so that I don't foresee going back any time soon. Why? Because Twitter delivers three things I need:

1. Brand marketing information from a wide variety of quality content publishers that would otherwise be difficult to obtain at all or as quickly as Twitter can deliver; 
2. Access to perspectives from bona fide analysts, planners, and brand leaders in close proximity to cutting-edge marketing and consumer-focused strategy;
3. Incisive commentary that about the larger world from likeminded (okay, and some not so likeminded) cohorts that typically either makes me think deep or crack up.

Creating a Twiteria of meaning turned Twitter from an also-ran to a must-use channel. Here's my Twitter "who" and "why" short list. Some are on the marketer's usual suspect list, others you might not have heard of or thought about. Have fun:

• @jowyang: No hyperbole here -- Jeremiah Owyang is a thought-leader; social influencer; and marketing / strategy pundit. Able to consistently push envelopes in under 140 characters. Every day.
• @charleneli: Both my mentor (from my former life working for her at Forrester) and mentor to brand leaders around the world. Charlene Li spawned the Groundswell (with J. Bernoff) and set the bar for social marketing. Great writer, too, able to see things most others don't.
• @edwardboches: I've not met Edward Boches but he seems to be the rare blend of "creative" and "strategist" many of us pretend to be. Clearly understands the interplay of media, brand, and person.
• @nickbilton: Gotta love the New York Times because people like Nick Bilton have transformed the way we think about and consume electronic media.
• @armano: It's one thing to make pretty pictures as a designer. David Armano tells marketing stories unlike anyone else, uniquely mixing marketing savvy with great design abilities.
• @briansolis: I like the way he develops strategic constructs out of simple points or disparate inputs. He also gets the interplay between messaging and the medium, has been instrumental in defining the role social media plays within brands in terms of both PR and consumer convergence.
• @cr1sa: Wired mag founder Chris Anderson doesn't post a lot, which might be a good thing, because like a lot of others I admire speaks when he has something interesting to say, not just to say something. In typical Wired fashion, it's usually interesting and different. Free, too.
• @psaffo: For those of you who know Paul Saffo, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's simply not possible to interact with him -- including reading his Tweets -- and not think differently about the world. And in most cases chuckle at it. Can bend time by looking both around the corner and through it at the same time. The world's smartest, funniest curmudgeon.
• @karaswisher: Love Kara Swisher's posts -- an unwavering snark. Knows what the difference is between what is news and what isn't; brings it to us first and provides meaningful context.
• @dberkowitz: David Berkowitz just knows his social-stuff. Consistently shares high-value digital media perspective and information.
• @marobella: @wirestone co-worker and mentor, Paul Marobella knows electronic media and how to post. Marketing, retailing, and hockey in his dna; great comic sense too.
• @the_real_shaq: Funniest man alive. Laugh freaking out loud Tweet-monster.
• @lancearmstrong: Cycling fan or not; cancer survivor or not; Lance is great to follow. Funny, insightful, and intuitively keen on Twitter's best and highest use.
• @fastcompany: I pick up new information and perspective on marketing and digital technology nearly every day from these guys. They've set the bar for transforming print to digital and social. Really high-value information, their tweets help me as a planner / analyst stay informed and smart.

A New World, A New Word: Digitization

In my recent post, 2011: Year of the Wave, I proposed that digital applications, experience layers, game play, and social commerce are massive, rising waves, elevating brands who understand them out to new heights, potentially crushing others that don't. 

Today, my co-worker, and [wire] stone's analytics guru Wendy Ertter found an eConsultancy blog post full of account planning presentations (here). Sorting through the fluff lurked an intriguing-yet-simple framework from Zigurds Zakis called "Account Planning in the Digital Age" slideshare:

Looks pretty simple, right. The big issues, interconnected. Technology is clearly now a key part of the account planner's formula, as Zakis represents here. Adding "technology" to the standard mix of people, culture, and economy -- the general landscape -- is a major step forward. The right planning perspective.

Viewed through the account planner's lens, however, there's a lot more to consider. There's a problem with the word "technology" -- it falls short in capturing the essence of how transformational technology has become. Technology change moves faster and in many respects is the catalyst for cultural, economic, and human behavior change at an increasingly faster pace, some would argue with a more pervasive scope. 

Clay Shirky's prescient review in Foreign Affairs argues that social technologies are have become the catalyst for driving political transformation -- amazing that he published literally within a month of 26 year-old Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation. Paul Saffo recently quipped, “Connectivity has become like oxygen. If you don’t have it, you notice its absence at about two seconds,” and has for years projected a vision for human behavior change transformed by digital technology -- "We're going to put eyes, ears and sensory organs on our computers and our networks in absolutely unprecedented ways. We're going to ask them to observe and manipulate the physical world on our behalf.”

For years, account planners trained themselves to look at the world through the eyes of the brands they serve; really talented planners honed an innate ability to construct 360 degree views of the environment within which brands connect with people -- key social, cultural, political, economic, and scientific inputs. No small task. And none of this has changed. Except to say that the planners universe has become infinitely more complex, on orders of magnitude, by the tsunami of digitization and the spinning, convulsing "waves" digitization continues to create.

I'm a planning hack, like most of us trying to figure it all out. My gut tells me, though, that "technology" just doesn't capture the essence of it all...that we need a new word. I'd propose replacing "technology" with "digitization". From artificial intelligence; to cracking the genome; to validating string theory via the LHC (which might actually happen); to the elevalation of women's rights in the Middle East; to Watson winning on Jeopardy; to bio-engineering; to virtual worlds; to transforming the way we teach and learn...the common thread among all of these things is the digitization of everything, along with the interconnectedness created from it.

To ensure we truly capture the breadth and depth associated with our task of bringing a 360 view to our business, account planners must see a the new lens of "digitization" as the filter that provides perspective beyond the nuts and bolts of new digital hardware and software -- to truly "be insightful", we must grok how human behavior adjusts and responds to our increasingly digitized world.

 

2011: The Year of The Wave

While we can't see most of them, waves of all different shapes, sizes, sounds, dimensions, and dynamics crest and crash around us all the time. I’ve been thinking a lot about waves lately -- 2011 is shaping up to be the "Year Of The Wave".

From the most astounding we can imagine (Japan's quake, resulting tsunami, and still-unfolding recovery and nuclear meltdowns); to the bizarre (anti-union and small-government movements in the US and Europe); to geo-political transformation (Tunisia, Egypt, maybe Libya, Syria, Yemen, Ivory Coast), these things don’t seem like isolated moments in time.  

For global brands, the world is no less undulating. Troughs and crests seem to rise and fall at unprecedented scale – Facebook and smartphone adoption are two obvious examples. But this year, a few are beginning to crest into massive forces -- and brands find themselves going back to school to re-learn the physics of wave dynamics. Here’s a short list of others to consider:

 Apps: 

• From a recent Pew Internet and American Life study: “Every metric we capture shows a widening embrace of all kinds of apps by a widening population. It’s too early to say what this will eventually amount to, but not too early to say that this is an important new part of the technology world of many Americans.” In or out-of-browser, people are increasingly consuming information and media as applications. And the US trails app adoption in countries like Japan, India, and China;

Layers:

• The ability to overlay various types and levels of information to digital experiences on any device is has changed the way people expect their interaction to unfold. Digital information, media, and entertainment are now mashed-up aggregations of content designed to enhance and expand the relevancy and depth of any digital experience -- augmented reality adds social information to smartphone cameras; iTV overlays shopping opportunities to standard television viewing; Bing adds the social graph to Facebook search; soon, Kinect-enabled gaming will feature social connection; and global positioning -- already standard -- will soon bring remote experiences to us wherever we are via any connected device. Our expectations of media and information are no longer uni-dimensional;

Game-play:

• Gaming — and the protocols inherent in game-play -- have leapt out of the playroom and devices and are increasingly defining the protocols for how people interact with the world at large. Airlines and weight-loss hucksters perfected behavior modification through game mechanics. Today, banks, political campaigns, media organizations, governments, and educational institutions employ game-play to motivate and reward behavior. With or without joystick, online or offline, people respond to playing games…even when they don’t think they are playing.

Social Commerce and Social Gaming:

• The confluence of social media / marketing and e-commerce. People can browse and buy almost anywhere, anytime through an increasing variety of connected devices -- social commerce adds the dimension of social connection (see previous post on personalize shopping here). Some great statistics provided by social commerce analyst Paul Marsden:
  
  • According to a recent comScore report, nearly one in four Twitter users (there are 15 million active accounts) follow businesses to find special deals, promotions, or sales.
  • A study by iModerate Research Technologies found that people are 67% more likely to purchase products from brands they follow on Twitter and 51% more likely to do so if they follow a brand on Facebook.
  • Research from Efficient Frontier indicates that to-date, 53% of retail transactions involving Facebook directly convert from Facebook to checkout
  • The online gaming market is worth $15 billion today; In 2009, social gamers bought $2.2 billion in virtual goods; this is predicted to increase to $6 billion by 2013. (NPD Group).

So if you’re the George Clooney of your brand, captain of the marketing ship trying to avoid the “perfect storm”, how do you deal with big waves? How does a brand avoid getting rag dolled? How does a brand set up to drop into the tube and ride the delicate dance? Global brands have to figure this all out as the next digital decade unfolds.

Last week I attended Forrester's Marketing Forum where Chris Stutzman and Emily Riley detailed ADAPT To The CORE, their prescription for brand positioning in an era of transformative waves. Stutzman’s ADAPT construct drives home the requirement for brands to establish both the mindset to move quicker than the market as well as the organizational flexibility to reset as change unfolds:

 

 

Emily Riley’s CORE framework springboards off ADAPT by delivering the formula for optimization – it’s a roadmap for how brands should do the work.

What I found equally as thought-provoking, though, was L’Oreal’s interpretation of engagement. The $27 billion global beauty leader simplifies their engagement approach and aligns their “digital” marketing ecosystem to these four pillars -- enabling both ADAPT and CORE along the way:

What struck me most is L’Oreal’s emphasis on innovation. Like Kraft's Dana Anderson recommends (interviewed here by Forrester's Christine Overby; covered by David Berkowitz of 360i here), brands need become badass, and “pilot, pilot, pilot!” (i.e., try new things all the time). L’Oreal is steadfastly committed to developing new technologies, communication techniques, and thought leadership. In this view, complacency is failure. Moreover, L’Oreal strives less for pragmatic KPI’s in favor of a psycho-social vision of success – without passion, consumption and loyalty are always at risk.

I am fortunate to work at a company that, from its very beginning more than a decade ago, has always known how to surf. [wire] stone’s DNA is a double-helix of adaptability, integration, innovation, and digital. As marketers AND technologists, we’ve created a formula for helping brands achieve their ADAPT To The CORE vision and foster long-term passion. We call it Experience Engineering. More on EE in my next post…

“Do Not Track”, Privacy, and the Struggle for Relevancy

A Great Data Debate: Keep it Fluid and Future-focused

by co-[wire] stone thinkers Zach Melchiori, Neil Michel, Kevin Gamache. And a little help from me.

The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce took a hard stance in the online privacy debate last week, stating that self-regulating marketers are not doing enough to keep consumer information safe. The FTC released a 79-page report that advocates the creation of a “Do Not Track” system that would require online marketers to disclose what information they gather from users, how they use the information, how long they store it, and ultimately, provide a way for users to opt out of any tracking mechanisms.  

Regulators have increased their attention towards online privacy after recent highly publicized security gaffes like Google’s WiFi data collection and what seem like weekly privacy concerns over Facebook’s ever expanding collection of personal data. The FTC notes that their main concern is the use of a user’s web history and personally identifiable information to customize a user’s experience.

The idea behind “Do Not Track” has been compared to the popular National “Do Not Call” registry. However, a similar approach to online tracking is unlikely to gain momentum since users now access the web thorough multiple computers and a variety of devices. What is more likely to occur is an expanded emphasis on the “privacy mode” capabilities of modern web browsers.

What the FTC and the Department of Commerce either fail to realize or have chosen not to publicly acknowledge is that behavior tracking in general is a benevolent movement toward the creation of higher-value, more personal and therefore relevant experiences on the web. Tracking helps users find the signal in the noise. To [wire] stone, if an 'ad' or personalized content offering actually helped you solve your problem or relieve your pain, then technology actually acted in your interest.

Two sides in the debated have emerged from the fog: 1. those who come from a cold-war "privacy and paranoia" paradigm that distrusts systems perceived to be out of our "control" (Leslie Stahl described this user as a “fuddy-duddy” when referring to privacy concerns at Facebook on Sunday’s 60 Minutes), versus 2. younger internet denizens who accept the notion that technology can enhance our lives despite the fact that we do not control it and often do not understand how it works.

The debate over online privacy is likely to continue unabated for a while as parties on both sides tout the benefits and drawbacks of online tracking. The real debate, though, should be about whether or not the value that marketers, search providers, social networks, and other intermediaries assign to tracking is outweighed by the fear of losing control of personal data. Our hope is that all parties understand the “best and highest use” of our digitized world and exploit the personalized relevancy new tracking tools and techniques are creating every day – that we not fold in response to those who prefer “shotgun” marketing approaches that we know under-serve both marketer and consumer.

Reach us directly:
Zach Melchiori -- [email protected]
Neil Michel -- neil [email protected]
Kevin Gamache -- [email protected]