From Ad Age Sept. 4...A Patrick Rant About Madison Ave. and their frequent inability to drive Brand Performance from any/every marketing component.

By PATRICK | MIAMI BEACH, FL September 4, 2009 02:53:36 pm:

Michal, great input.
Here is where Madison Ave. misses the boat when producing print ads, and even TV/radio, banners in some cases, etc.
THE ACTIVATION HOOK: every piece of creative has to think about how to drive an action, a behavior, some form of engagement beyond the delusional "impression value".
As a young brand person at Gillette, we were taught and saw in MRI type research that adding a dotted line coupon to the corner of a print ad drove recall by 32%! And the head creative directors would scream that the brand mgrs were adding coupons to the print ads. Reality check: we are in the business of moving product.

Now fast forward to 2010 where 108 mm US pop are projected to have smartphones ( & watching TV, 40% are using laptops or they are open within arm's reach ). Every marketer/agency person must RETHINK how to connect the ad with immediate action or engagement.
What type of action? Google the product, buy it on Amazon, download or open an iphone app to learn more, text or tweet a friend, or demo it on your iPhone or laptop screen, etc.

To illustrate: Two automotive TV ads were running during 2009 American Idol. The ads produced by Madison Ave. at big price tags. One was Big 3, one was an import. Both delivered 40mm plus viewership. Both ads were compelling.But there was one difference:
-- One had the obligatory tag line and faint URL
--The other had a smart call to action: "Go to Kelly Blue Book.com...KBB.com..then come do a test drive at our website"
250,000 consumers went to the websites or Google!

Why does this work now more than ever? 4 reasons:
1. Lifestyle Technologies now empower the consumer to engage (and it will increase exponentially in 2010/2011)

2. The number one driver of purchase (from BIGResearch and other studies) is live brand experience--which can be done or begun with these activation hooks

3. The number 2 driver is family/friends word-of-mouth ( enabled by new tech)
4. The number 3 & 4 drivers is 3rd party endorsement and personal search on the internet--all possible with lifestyle technologies.
Does this matter to CMO's?
Damn straight.
At NOW We focus on one thing for CEO/CMO's and their teams..."driving brand performance now". They are looking for ways to drive performance from EVERY marketing component--thru innovation, new approaches, new metrics and analytics, and new mktg-technologies.
Time for marketing/advertising to shift with the customer and technology.

Patrick Meyer
CEO
NOW
Twitter: patrickmeyer

Capture Their Hearts...$$$ Follow

Dog & Cat Lovers (& marketers)
Sometimes you can move massive numbers of people...with their heads (savings, smart choices)...but even more with their hearts.

Check out this...never have i seen people move so quickly: think puppies and "someone else's money " (aka free coupled with emotion).

The challenge: help Animal Rescue site drive viewership.

Solution: create a viral campaign to drive your numbers and click thru rates thru the roof.

here is the email (with the picture to the right to make you pour your heart out):

"Hi, all you animal lovers!

This is pretty simple.... Please ask ten friends to each ask a further ten today!
The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily so they can meet their quota of getting FREE FOOD donated every day to abused and neglected animals. It takes less than a minute (about 15 seconds) to go to their site and click on the purple box 'fund food for animals for free'. This doesn't cost you a thing.
Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate food to abandoned/neglected animals in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Please pass it along to people you know.
http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/ <http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/>

AGAIN, PLEASE TELL 10 FRIENDS!"

INsight: In your brand's positioning there is an emotional lever--understand it and then couple it with head & heart ideas.

BTW, this effort will catapult this site and its longevity (how do you cycle it next year? hmmm...have iNOW do iphone/Blackberry and Facebook apps)

Puppy kisses from the Beagle,

P.

What Should Marketers Do With Apps?

(from Ad Age Response)

see:

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=138355

Good input. The key is to think beyond the apps to:
--How is an app going to drive my brand/business. That is the ultimate gauge. Most clients/marketers do an app and they or the digital boutique have no clue as to how to linking it back to driving brand objectives other than awareness (same madison ave. problem usually) or downloads. Implication: do an integrated, business driving app.
--Use the iphone as the anchor until the massive fallout occurs. By 1st quarter 2010 it will be clear which platform and smartphones. Our bet: iphone and the ipone operaing system, Android, but lord knows which phones survive( there are about 10 here or coming with Android). Microsoft Mobile is on its 4th failed launch. so forget it. Implication: start iphone then do and Android lead phone next.
--Make Facebook the lynch pin in whatever you do. Connect your app to the 25mm users by adding in the FB link. Implication: built it in from the beginning
--Get ahead of the curve. Most USA app and even website developers are a generation back (not all but most). We just spent 10 days scouting and partnering in India. The are a generation ahead. Why? Because the big USA players have their software work being done there on stuff coming 1-3 years out. Work with the right Indian partner--who also is working on an Apple, Google, Infosys, etc. and you have the knowledge of where it is going--built into your digital solutions.
Implication: look at domestic and India resources
--Be smart and efficient and most of all quick: apps are coming at light speed. You can be obsoleted quickly. So spend 10k to 40k on an app, do it right, do it fast. 
Our experience after doing 10+ apps and doing them for marketers and also entrepeneurs' development and launch work--India resource--they are a "Generation ahead, at half the cost".

The Agency Is Talking To Themselves--While Palm Pre Will Crash & Burn

  By PATRICK | MIAMI BEACH, FL August 3, 2009 02:37:13 pm:

New Palm Pre Campaign...see:

 http://bit.ly/XwZf3

OMG! Classic case of the agency talking to themselves--and with a weak and intimidated client!. The advertising has zero chance of driving the objectives that the CEO of Palm or the Board or the shareholders are focused on: driving trial, purchase, positive WOM and total revival of a badly sagging Palm business.

Specifically:
--The chinese field spot was introductory and intriguing (but little RTB's about the product other than standard/parity functions like camera/picture taking).
--The next 3 spots were empty and no way delivering on the Brand Positioning (if there is one) and the true drivers of purchase/business building. 
Yes, be creative vs iPhone and others...but understand your situation. I/we just completed a total review of "where mktg tech is going?' with input from very smart savvy people on the mobile 2010 direction. Smartphone success demands:
--Innovation & Differentiation: not accomplished in the campaign.
--10+ players are all scrambling (after Iphone) and only 3 or so will make it to Jan. 2010.
--And you are also at a disadvantage on apps (the new differentiating bonus), memory and many features.
So write off the this advertising and its value. The only hope is the Sprint effort that will drive hard since they have nothing strong enough to counter ATT with Iphone.

But, the agency might win big at Cannes with the very avant garde
advertising, even if the Brand dies by next summer

Microsoft & Yahoo News and Conference Call This Morning (But Who Really Cares?)

As a marketer/business person, we will be inundated with this topic for the next 3-6 months and it will likely provide options in many forms.

--So I am giving you a link to their announcement in the last 24 hours so you can listen to the LIVE conference call at 8:30 am EST with CEO's Bartz and Ballmer.

Go to:

http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/pressroom/Default.aspx

My take:

--Who really cares?!!! 

--Yahoo is a lost player, no vision, wandering in the last 5 years.  Most legacy users who came for its Yahoo Groups 5-10 years back (and groups collapsed when the sex oriented posting aspects were filtered out) are gone or Yahoo is a second priority tool on their desktop (only Yahoo IM saves their relevance.  The numbers don't stand up in anyway to Google. The best it is ...is as a counter in online media negotiations...maybe (at best).

--M-soft gets the best deal. No upfront $$$, all shared revenue percentages. And they get a platform--albeit a tired one--to drive their tech solutions and applications thru.

--And Microsoft continues as the 1000 pound gorilla you have to watch...yet the gorilla is getting long in the tooth. How? The Bing browser is not a step beyond Google. Second, the era of "pay a lot of money for this software" model is done. Enter the OPEN-SOURCE era. Apple and Google are giving the software away free or $.99. Android. Chrome. 75,000 iphone apps. And this is going to explode in the next 12 months. And where is the tired Microsoft Windows?  Going thru its umpteenth release again (and no one cares..unless of course it comes FREE!)

The big asset that could be their breakout play is X-box. A high speed, multi-platform wrapped in total experiential strength...with a jillion young to medium age game fanatics devouring it everyday. This is the powerhouse that could emerge...X-box as your everything 

tool (not just gaming).

So listen to the call, think...Bartz had no option, Ballmer had no option...big layoffs are coming for the Yahooers...and Google is already 2-3 years out focused on where it is all going.

From my marketer-tech perspective that is all about:

-- online 3.o where the  empowered search/value consumer drives it

-- where high speed allows the user to have movies and user generated video anywhere, anytime...either free or so cheap (there goes the TV network model as the record label/retail model did)

 --where social network interaction emerges at the 5X level because it is about  friends/passions (and Facebook is the force)

--AND MOST IMPORTANTLY...where MOBILE 2G/3G phones shift the game the most. The handheld "key to my life" device is now able to deliver everything. And it does it not via the internet but via "the cloud". It does it without a browser and the antiquated scrolling thru "pages".  It is about your chosen APPS making it happen fast, in a fun and relevant and semi-customizable way. Yes it is still coming...but it is coming at Warp speed. And it is coming with younger, more progressive, passionate people having jumpstarted it all with the iPhone and the 10+ clones coming now.

(and yes Twitter is significant as a spin and customer service tool and with 35+ people; but no one under 35 is using it, as they are using Facebook and its functions to do the same.  Twitter will be bought and incorporated into an existing offering. And all major platforms will deliver a Tweet-like function)

Just a little bit of input. No you can go back to driving your business and enjoying the summer.

I just wonder where the upstart, break the rules, innovative spirit is that founders  Gates & Yang had...because it is not there with Balmer and Bartz.  

Patrick

 

Re: Softness In Online Weekly Hours? Caution...

Re: Softness In Online Weekly Hours? Caution...Ad Age & Forrester's Missed A Big Detail...The 25mm 2G/3G phones, "the Cloud" that enables them and the millions of apps that bypass browsers/internet.

Here is the Ad Age article link from today for your reference:

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=138159#comments

And here is the counter to their explanation of softness:

By PATRICK | MIAMI BEACH, FL     Ad Age Blog July 28, 2009 02:31:46 pm:

"Great bit of data on the softness online in hours spent weekly...BUT you missed the key piece: the massive shift to mobile 2G/3G phones, where apps replace browsers and "the cloud" replaces online.

Millions and millions of iphones led the way. Now Android equipped options are coming quickly from the all other in cell phones. So the hour softness can be explained by cell/mobile time spent multi-tasking thru life.

And one other factor: apps on a phone or on Facebook have empowered the consumer to work smarter...and they are just breaking out (as iphone's stronghold has its competitors running quick with their versions).

Last 2 points: I just spent 10 days in Bangalore, India (india's Silicon Valley) scouting and partnering for our clients on where it is all going. The big brand tech players are making their bets across hard/software, alliances, apps, etc. And it is all being developed in India now for 2010. Based on previews we saw...A barrage of Apps and select integrated, cross platform solutions will be the focus.

(and USA digital firms are a generation off from what is coming out of India)

And my CMO clients are confused by the agency reference to "its non-traditional media" and by digital boutiques doing one-off apps that have no effect on business building. One marketer theme stands out:

"if it doesn't drive my brand/business performance-we are not doing it"! So the unique deliverable is taking all this digital activity and traditional mktg in a new form, channelling it into a 2010 marketing plan that delivers share/sales/profit that the CEO is screaming for."

                    

  Let's talk soon. We have a full review of "Where Mktg-Tech Is Going In 2010"   

and how you can deliver an added performance edge to your marketing efforts.

The Pivotal Pieces: Insight--> Implication

As we focus on driving brand performance for our clients--particularly going into 2010...it keeps coming back to a thought process...actually a mini-reflex mechanism in my brain.

Insight--> implication. Stimulus...implication. Business and marketing objectives, context, business inputs---then implications into strategies.

Insights into implications then ideas/innovation--> action.

"innovation out of insight"

One of two strategic planks that drove our success and client desire to buy. The other was our relentless focus on: "aggressively driving brand/business performance" (the cornerstone to NOW and iNOW).

So i was just part of roundtable Tech Dinner where everyone serves up perspectives and then they are debated and shared. Just great coming off of our MKTG-TECH Mission in India last week.

So here is why i am snap reflexing on stimulus and implication:

--Open Sourced Software---> Apple/Goggle playing as a new set of rules---> M-soft and its expensive software model is challenged today..tomorrow...while no one is watching

For more on Google Chrome:  http://bit.ly/PEqjt

--Digital content at your fingertips and free---OMG...the newspapers, the local stations, radio...major landslide is coming..and the impact on industries and the content that is underwritten thru std means is going away. Creates new opportunity.

--Marketer shift to new performance model--spend a dollar get performance results or not-->coupled with what drives consumer shifts...personal brand experience, WOM from family and friends (partic digital WOM, then Martha Stewart and Food Network or DIY shows) (AND NOT TRAD MEDIA!!)...causes the entire marketer focus on the purchase funnel to shift.

It is shifting...we are doing it for our clients..and the big implication: Madison Ave. is toast! As one person put it, "big agencies are like frogs on the griddle...just getting fried!"

Why can't the agencies get it for the most part? Clients want solutions that will drive their business. Not build awareness. Drive the hell out of sales!  And agencies are not trained or experienced in this performance skillset!

Big implication!

So hold and watch the shifts. Start with the insight and stimulus. Because it is going on fast and furious!