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Archive for January, 2009

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Studeo

Illinois Governor ImpeachmentSo, I was totally caught off guard the other day while watching CSPAN. They were airing the Illinois Impeachment trial of Gov. Rod Blagojevich and one of the State Senators began quoting from the FBI wiretap. He mockingly said, “I’ve got this thing and it’s “effin” golden, and I’m just not giving it up for “effin” nothing. I’m not gonna do it.” Of course he was referring to Gov. Blagojevich’s attempts to auction off the vacant U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder. Politics aside, what really struck me was that the state senator used the word “effin” on a public stage to replace the traditional four letter word (it rhymes with duck).

At what point did this behavior become socially acceptable? Why is “eff” okay to say, it’s just one less letter –the expletive meaning is still the same. If President Obama said on the evening news, “Chill the eff out, I got this!” would you respect him more?–would you consider the President to be more in-tune with Main Street? I think not.

Actually, I’ve seen many variations in the online arena. F, F’n, eff and effin seem the most common. It seems our youth have found creative ways to circumvent the obscenity-censoring programs that many online communities implement to keep things clean. The popularity of “eff” has transcended the blogosphere and is quickly penetrating corporate and political America.

When does a phonic word become so well used that it replaces another word? Shh!? Already taken. Bee!? Already taken. The answer is never. Once hipsters get wind that their parents and politicians are using the word “eff” it will quickly lack the creative luster it once adorned. The raw four letter form will rise again.

In the meantime, I predict that baby names starting with the letter “F” will decline, and I’m adding “eff” and “effin” to my dictionary for good measure.

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Studeo

Cash4Gold.com is 2Legit2Quit

January 31st, 2009 - By Andrew Re

Two days ago, I said to a group of friends, “Who would ever put gold in an envelope and expect to see any money in return?” The whole business model just didn’t seem ethical. It reminded me of my high school days, when I used to stay up late and watch a gold miner on TV sell his “Gold Panning Kit” to any moron who was drunk enough to dial at 3 am. I was so wrong. Cash4Gold is legit and it’s dropping $3 million for one of the few available Super Bowl ads. At least in the modern era, this marks the first time a direct response advertiser will join the ranks of Budweiser, Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

Is this a bad move for Cash4Gold? According to Nielsen, the company spent over $160 million in advertising for 2008. The company claims it will refine around 200,000 ounces of gold in 2009– that’s only $180 million gross ($900/ounce). I’m guessing the company pays around 65% of the gold’s market value back to the customer. So, a $63 million profit is far short of the $160 million it’s spending in advertising.

What gives? Why not stick with the easy, affordable world of direct response? What benefits would there be to spend $3 million on one, 30 second spot? Think of the volume of DR spots you could buy up with this kind of dough.

Cash4Gold has enlisted the help of MC Hammer and Ed McMahon to deliver their message—two images of self-destruction in their own right. It’s pretty obvious that the company needs to bring legitimacy to its brand, but is it worth the hefty price tag? Other “onliners” have seen success, GoDaddy.com managed to separate from the pack when they were virtually unknown and CareerBuilder.com claimed a 68% increase in online job applications directly after the big game. But will the past success of others translate when the current economy is teetering on an implosion of its own? Personally, I’d rather talk about punching a koala bear, or where I was when the Jackson nip-slip happened.

Good luck Cash4Gold and “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em.”

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Studeo

Twitter Thoughts

January 30th, 2009 - By Anthony
Twitter gets a lot of mentions, activity, and comments - just what’s it all about?
First, twitter is the ability to create and then watch a river of snippets about items of interests, conversations, or just the plain weird. It is interesting what you can do in 140 characters; thank goodness for tiny url options.
Second, twitter doesn’t have a business model yet, ie, one that produces revenue.  Cathy Taylor ran a contest back in November and the winners were announced at OMMA. And the submission had to be a tweet.  Finalists
  • Ads will disrupt twhirl et al.; sub. model based on TPM rate. Doesn’t punish occasional users & feeds off tweet addicts who won’t mind paying.
  • Charge each company in the CPC model: Each visit to a corporate Twitter site and each corporate tweet should be charged just like a click.
  • Twitter should offer a premium version for biz use, similar to Yammer. Create private networks. Charge based on # of users. Def. winner!
  • Users must follow any 5 ’sponsored feeds’ of their choice from list. Sponsored feeds compete to add real value so chosen and actually read.
Third, twitter has been used to find jobs, bone marrow transplants, houses, and anything else you can imagine.
Fourth, companies are making money selling via twitter - it is a build the relationship first; then offer something of value. Intense at the moment.
Fifth, the brand that use twitter the best are outlined on Mashable.
Sixth, following and being followed is the name of the game.
Seventh, twitter is good for redirection to new thoughts (blog posts) because it is usually a personal recommendation.
And yes, I tweet - @apowerpoint.

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Studeo

I have often heard the phrase, “Your brand is not what you say it is, but what they say it is.”  And one of the great thing about social media and technology is the ability to get in and look at the conversation about your brand and see “what they say  it is”.

Do you wonder what people what people are saying about your brand?  Here are a few tools to give you a glimpse into what people are saying.  These two tools will help get an idea about the answers to two very important questions

  1. Are people talking about my brand?
  2. If so, what are they saying?

Social Mention

Social mention is great for helping you to see  if your brand is being mentioned in the blogosphere.  Go to www.socialmention.com and type in your brand name and see if and what people are saying.  They provide a social rank box to the right to help you understand how frequently your brand is being mentioned.  I like to use this box to compare one brand to a competitor or to a related keyword.  The left side of the page will give you a small idea of some of the things that people are saying.

Twitter Search

Another way to see what people are saying is to use the Twitter search.  Twitter is like a bunch of giant chat rooms and can give you a good idea of what people in general are talking about.  Go to search.twitter.com and type in your brand’s name.  See what comes up.  You will be able to see the conversations that are happening that involve your brand and what people are saying.  I think one of the coolest things about this is that you can see what people are saying in real time as its said.

For example, the Superbowl is this weekend.  If I were running and ad in the Superbowl, I might watch the search feature as the ad aired to see what people said as they saw the commercial.  People will Tweet about the ad they are watching as they watch it and you can get genuine response from your audience.

This is  a breif glimpse into the mountains of data that can be gathered from social media.  As we go through this data we will come to know our audience better.  Once we understand our audiennce better and understand what people are saying about our brands, we can design better strategies and campaigns to connect with our consumers and meet their needs.

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Studeo

Jaffe Juice: If you don’t blog, you can’t work at crayon….

… asked the question do you agree that people have t0 be active players in their space.

I’ve always worked on the vendor/supplier/partner side of the equation - be it syndicated data, market research, software, analysis and now agency.  In my experience clients choose to work with people they 1) trust us and believe can solve their problem and 2) they like.  The first requires demonstrating that we understand their problem clearly and can articulate a path forward.   The second requires a cultural fit.

While skills can be taught and experiences gained (the aptitude part) it is from passion that creative and innovative solutions emerge.  Participation is an indicator of passion.  So if you’re in social media - blog; if you buy local TV - watch; if you create - doodle.

So, yes you should blog.

But sometimes, on rare occasions, a person walks in where we should throw out the rules and say, “gotta find a place for this person”.

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Studeo

Marketing from Films

January 21st, 2009 - By Anthony

This being mid-January, the Sundance film festival is in town.  Last night I saw “500 Days of Summer“, the comedy that is romantic in a different kind of way.   The tagline of “Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t.” sums it up pretty well.

500 Days of Summer

Since this is a work of fiction (sort-of), what can we learn from these characters as brands?

First, be true to who you are - don’t try to be something you aren’t.   Second, figuring out if  we’re right is often trial and error because we’re learning about ourselves as much as the other person.   And third, while fate may be serendipitous developing chemistry takes work.

Our objective is to help build a strong relationship between a brand and the consumer.    Too often we see “Brand meets consumer, brand falls in love, consumer doesn’t.”

Good film by the way.

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Studeo

The President Gets Social

January 20th, 2009 - By LJ Jones

This morning, our office gathered around the bank of TV’s to watch the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, President Barack Obama.  And as millions of Americans watched, the President’s team was hard at work, implementing the White House’s new social media strategy.

At 12:01pm as the President gave his Inaugural Address to the nation, www.whitehouse.gov switched from the old administration to the new and added a few features, one of which was the new White House Blog.  Along with the website, another item to transition from the old administration to the new was the White House’s Twitter account @thewhitehouse.

With accounts on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, President Obama was the first Presidential Candidate to effectively use social media in his campaign.  He will likely also be recognized as the first President to actively use these platforms during his administration.  He recognizes the value of using these channels to communicate with the public(his audience) as he serves as President of this Nation.

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Studeo

Salt Lake City: Fit and Healthy

January 18th, 2009 - By Anthony

We know we live in a great place.  And it seems like the folks who make lists agree.   Men’s Fitness recently ranked Salt Lake City the fittest city in the country.   Men’s Health ranked us third.  We’ve got a wide variety of options - right outside our office.  Not surprising, the team takes advantage of them.   So, if you’d like to rock climb with our creative director, ski with our partners, fly-fish with our head of strategy, or just enjoy the out doors - let us know.

Here’s our conference room:

Moving Conference Room

Moving Conference Room

Photo: Lietmotiv.

As to what we don’t have - we don’t offer deep sea fishing or big-wave surfing.  You’ll need to find another agency to satisfy those needs.

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Studeo

30,000 Fans in 1 day

January 16th, 2009 - By LJ Jones
Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger

Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger

Yesterday January 15th 2009, a US Airways jetliner with 150 passengers and 5 crew members plunged into the icy Hudson River.  Due to the heroic actions of Capt. C.B. Sully Sullenberger and crew, all 150 passengers and crew are safe.

What does this have to do with Social Media?  When something happens in the real world it also happens in the so called “virtual world” of the internet and social media.  Today, less than a day after the crash, Capt. C.B. Sully Sullenberger has over 34,000 fans on Facebook.  Scratch that, its up over 36,000 just in the time that I am writing this post.  In fact now I am watching it grow real time, with about 100 joining with every refresh.  This also doesn’t take into account the Flickr images posted, Tweets from Twitter and blog posts about it over the next few days.

The offline world and online world are in fact so connected that one affects the other and vice versa.  They are no longer seperated by the closed off walls of “virtual worlds”.  Social media and new technology have just made it easier for people to communicate about what is going on in their lives, and have made it easier to talk about the real world in real time.

UPDATE:  Two days after this post there are now over 385,000 fans.  I also just learned that the first pictures of this event were posted Twitter by a person on the Ferry that helped rescue the people from the plane.  This means that, before a news crew or anyone else could get word out about the plane, it was likely first reported over social media via twitter, by a person who watched it happen.

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Studeo

Social Media Opportunities

January 16th, 2009 - By Anthony
The “Power Windows” category contains a series of posts that provide a view into a particular topic.
Thoughts on ways social media can help an organization.

1. Social Media Insurance — while good things might happen, bad things definitely do happen.  I’m thinking of it like ADT or other security alert system – “we’ll monitor your world so you can do your day job.” Scalable because it is defensive, systematic, and requires strong processes.

2. Briefing Book - answer the question ‘what do I need to know?’ about social media in my category.  Given the singular focus on a category or segment, this becomes a potential syndicated service (like an ACNielsen) where multiple divisions or business units benefit from a shared perspective - a beautiful thing.

3. Conversion - use existing profiles as part of the recruitment or conversion as opposed to lead gen process.  In education markets, when I think about this as a sales problem, then anything that can make an outbound contact more personal and relevant is useful.   This requires an ongoing data feed and training on the use of the information.

4. Participation - there are five ways a marketer and SPARK a conversation:

Stimulate - provide interesting things for people to talk about; product plans, exclusive stuff

Participate - join as one of equals; usually an act of desire and best done by the client.

Amplify - provide the platform, tools, and connections for an existing conversation to spread

Repair - correct facts, offer the other side of the story (part of the insurance above)

Kindle - nurture a group of people in the first instance and let them grow

5. Data - still the wild west here with all the unstructured stuff and the fact that we only collect what we can.  “I can’t get intent, but I can get the search term - thus I’ll infer intent”.   As an industry we don’t have the answer yet, but several possibilities could emerge.   The idea of interests is obviously of ‘interest’ but difficult for two reasons - low penetration (can’t get them all; and not everybody does it) and lack of categorization into useful or bite size chunks.   There’s no dimensional model yet for this stuff - just a bunch of words.  I’d treat it like tags and search clouds.

6. Advertising model - we need to rethink the intersection of message, medium, and immediacy.  Direct response doesn’t work in this space.  Is social media really a PR play in disguise?   Is it really the next iteration of telephones and email as a communication platform - advertising doesn’t work there; but other models do.  The key question is what aspects of marketing are best supported by social media?

7. Marketing Mix Models and Lead Scoring - given #5 there opportunities to look at both the high-level impact as well as the effect on a given individual. Marketing, pr and advertising are so intertwined these days that maybe we need to step back and take a fresh look at the problem of return on investment.

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