By Diego Vasquez

Last month online video sites held their own version of the upfront, where they gave elaborate presentations to media buyers and advertisers aimed at convincing them that they should allocate more of their budgets to online video. It was the first time these sites had laid out their visions for original and re-packaged video content for an entire year, instead of simply rolling out new programs throughout the year. The aim was to draw attention to new media at a time when buyers and planners are making up their TV budgets. Though online isn’t expected to steal much of the networks’ share this year, media people predict that over the next few years that will change. Already sites are offering “ratings” guarantees similar to those found on broadcast, and a large chunk of the estimated $3 billion to be spent on digital video this year will come from newfront commitments. All this is to say that the newfront should be around for years to come. Steve Kerho, senior vice president of strategy, media and analytics at the San Francisco agency Organic, talks to Media Life about the newfront’s prospects for stealing TV money, how many dollars will be committed, and which sites have the most impressive plans for the coming year.

Why is online video so hot with advertisers?

I think there’s a couple things. One is we live in this world of media fragmentation. That’s making it more difficult to get in front of a large-scale audience. I think the ratings for the top 10 primetime TV shows are about a third of what they were 10 years ago.

And of the total internet population, about 60 percent of that will watch a TV show online. It’s reached a tipping point and it’s been empowered by iPads selling like hot cakes. With tablets we genuinely have a third screen in the home right now.

So it’s fragmentation and increased penetration of video-friendly devices.

How does presenting the major online video players’ coming attractions all together in one event help strengthen their case to media people?

You’ve got this great confluence of all the decision makers being there. The clients are there, the agencies for the clients are there, they’re figuring out how they’re going to allocate their dollars, so it makes sense to try and plan the media at the same time.

Even if you don’t buy it at the same time, at least you’re planning for it.

It was always a challenge going to the TV upfront and then planning print buys, and then online was spread throughout the rest of the year. When online was 2 or 4 percent of the budget that’s one thing, but some clients are now spending 20, 25 or even 30 percent, so that number’s big enough where it has to be planned more.

For the YouTubes, AOLs, and Hulus of the world, they want to get in the minds of the brands at the same time they’re planning the rest of the media. And more of the content they deliver now is broadcast content repackaged to be on this other device. So in some cases it’s just repackaging it, and so that also makes sense to plan it all together.

And as more and more custom content comes out, they want to make sure they have share of mind with their advertisers at the same time they’re looking at new content on broadcast and cable.

Do you think they would have gotten as much attention if they’d done their presentations individually rather than as a group?

They definitely got more attention. I think it was a really smart move by the industry to help get more attention.

The broadcast networks will always lock down dates for their presentations. And the past few years you’ve seen some cable networks wedge their way into the broadcast week. So it’s not really surprising that the digital companies entered the field this year.

It was a concerted effort by Hulu, Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft. They all had their own upfront-like presentations and they were all showcasing video content.

How much money do you think will be committed to digital video as part of the newfront?

I have some idea of what we’ll end up spending for 2012. The current estimates that we see between our clients and some third-party reporting is around $3 billion for online video for 2012. That’s the whole year. So what percentage of that will come out of the newfront? That’s hard to say.

I’ll put a stake in the ground and say a quarter to a third, so a meaningful amount.

Did it help the “newfront” that media people were familiar with the format because of the tradition of the upfront?

It did.

Online media compared to broadcast, it’s sort of the stepchild who doesn’t get a lot of attention. This helps validate and justify its importance. Its Thanksgiving and we’re not at the kids table anymore.

And the growth forecasts are really incredible. Some numbers take that $3 billion for this year and by 2015 it could be $7 billion. So more than double, it’s really significant growth. And up until now and going into next year we see a lot of that spending coming from search and display media [budgets], but there will be a point where it comes more from the broadcast budgets.

Will digital video steal dollars away from this year’s cable and broadcast upfront? Why or why not?

I don’t think it will this year.

We’re still living in the world, despite the fragmentation, where broadcast has incredible reach. It’s the fastest way to reach a large audience in a short period of time. But we’re nearing a tipping point, and there’re a lot of shows that will need online video to show growth and meet their numbers.

But some of the things that need to happen to see significant dollars move is there’s a lot of advantages to buying broadcast in the upfront. The biggest is you get an audience guarantee. If it’s a new show on ABC and I’ve got a guaranteed number for an audience share, if those numbers aren’t reached then they have to make that up.

So we’re seeing those types of guarantees making their way to digital video. And as more of that happens you will see a significant shift in dollars.

Also, the broadcast world is about gross and total ratings points [GRPs and TRPs], that’s how you build out a media plan. In online it grew up with a different set of metrics. It was more about impressions, view-throughs, I had so my people complete the video–it was completely different and it’s hard to compare the two.

There’s been a lot of back-and-forth in the industry, and Nielsen just launched this online GRP ratings system [which promises comparable ratings for online and TV viewing]. It needs to be proven out and people need to get used to it and get confidence with it, but if it happens it will make the content providers able to take similar metrics to broadcast and apply them and give you similar guarantees online.

Which sites’ presentations impressed you and why?

Some of the things that were interesting is a lot of these players are coming up with their own content–it’s not just about broadcast content and distributing it. Hulu is creating a market for independent TV, that’s pretty cool.

Google’s YouTube is pouring $100 million into 96 original channels. Hulu has rolled out four shows. ABC News and Katie Couric are joining forces with Yahoo for a weekly show. Oh, and Jeff Goldblum has a project with Amazon Studios.

The thing with something like YouTube is you’re not limited to the number of networks the FCC says can broadcast, so there are endless opportunities. But it of course has to be balanced, you have to have the content to fill them up.

Which sites have the most innovative deals and packages and why?

AOL said they would offer TV-style guarantees where audience delivery is based on demographics, not just clicks or impressions. Hulu has promised some advertisers that they only have to pay if their ads are viewed in full. And I guess Microsoft signed new partners including CBS Interactive and ESPN to accept TV spots within apps on Xbox.

An interesting point is how these things are all starting to blend together. These distinctions we had are falling apart with people wanting their content anywhere, anytime and on any device.

Often I think we underestimate the caliber of the work we do here.  I went to SXSW thoroughly expecting to be blown away, (like I was when I last attended three years ago).  Instead, most the “hot new” items we downloaded to our phones over six months ago (á la Instagram and Path.)  The mix of topics presented was almost distressingly eclectic.  The conference seemed less about the hot new “stuff,” but in keeping with the slightly sobering temperament of our economy, it was more about the quest for what technology can do to make our experiences, dare I say our world, a better place.

The trend for me started when I heard Danah Boyd (http://www.danah.org/) talk about fear and social networks (“Power and Fear in Networked Publics”). Amongst her various pearls was an indictment to us all—how can we build technology to inspire the next generation to bring out the best (e.g. collaboration with teachers) and not the worst (e.g. cyber bullying) in people?  And learn not to freak out when technology shines a light not on a behavior inspired by technology, but behavior that was always there and we now worry about because we can see it in all its pixelated glory.

Back to Basics for Better Business

The trend continued with Brian Solis and an interview on his new book The End of Business as Usual. His command was that businesses need to do a better job of finding their “soul” and then work on staying true to it. They need to do a more reflective job of defining their mission/vision and values and determine how that should be manifest and supported by their systems to create a better customer experience.  New concept? Not really. But the hyper-exposure of our social media era has made it more imperative for companies to get it right.

The classic error companies or brands make, Solis says, is confusing “social activity” with “relationships.”  In order to have superior interaction, companies need to define their mission and ethos first.  Step two is defining how technologies will help enable that vision (and not vice versa.) An example he used included Virgin Airlines with its intense customer experience philosophy that is ingrained not just in all their employees, but used to craft every one of their systems that support operations.

Converging on Excellent Customer Service Experience

This quest for a better customer experience was underscored by “FutureShop: Virtual QR Stores, NFC Receipts & More.”  The panel included brand representatives from Levis’ and Sears as well as mobile enablement platforms ShopSavvy and Checkpoints.  The discussion followed on from our recent Organic conversations around “showrooming” and focused on using mobile to deliver more personalized (and therefore better) experiences while shoppers are in the store.  Up until now, recognition from the store was limited to the moment you handed over a credit or loyalty card as you are getting ready to leave.  What if you could actually influence and improve that trip right as the shopper walks in the door?  Again, the command across the panel was almost old fashioned—create a better shopping experience. Use technology to design an element of surprise to delight customers in-store with a pleasurable combination of uniquely personalized offers and experiences.

Inspiration in Simplicity

One of the most inspirational sessions for me wasn’t really about technology at all.  It was Emily Pillowton talking about Project H in “Design.Build.Transform.”

Emily talked about her commitment to a project that led her to rural Bertie County, North Carolina where she inspired students (many who were initially reading below their grade level and had no idea how to use or read a ruler) to design and construct a full-scale piece of architecture (a farmer’s market) for their hometown.

Her message—in a technology-laden era; how do we simplify technology to take a back seat and focus on engaging students in hand-to-mind creativity? Grand scale gamification has created students who crave physical and immediate feedback and are excited by trial and error (without painful consequences of course!) How do we create educational systems that evolve to embrace all subjects and use hands-on projects to teach every subject?  The question still looms, but Pillowton’s project is a model start.

Mobile Customer Experiences

The one “coolness factor” session I will mention was “Why Your Car Will Be the 5^th Screen in Your Life.” (AKQA, who moderated the session, claims the first screen as the movie screen, therefore making the car #5 after the TV, computer and mobile phone.) Ignoring the transparent plug by the panelist for Audi and their connected vehicle, there was a rich discussion around the task of adapting processing power to the car environment; providing the driver with useful information, but still enabling him or her to keep eyes on the road and hands on the wheel via aspects like simpler interfaces and voice activation.  The challenge is adhering to the “two second rule” for driver distraction in order to meet safety requirements.

Questions addressed in the panel discussion circled around:

• How do you have a system that can address both the needs of the driver and the passenger (s)?
• How can you add value when the drive is connected to personalized and enriched information?
• How can we deliver additional information in a way that doesn’t interfere with driver safety?

Ironically, CES was talking about telematics over three years ago, but much like mobile, the in-car computing promise has been beamed to us quite a few seconds before the reality.  I’m pretty happy with my car answering my phone for me, I can’t wait until it can combine current traffic information with my favorite routes to plot me a new path cutting time off my commute each morning…

Pinterest Explained

The continued furor over Pinterest was certainly underscored by the full ballroom for “Pinterest Explained: Q&A with Co-Founder Ben Silbermann.”  Despite its current legal issues, I was struck with how Pinterest is perfect poster child for Brian Solis’ command for “company soul.”  The concept started not with business analysis, but around a love for expressing and sharing collections.  Ben talked about their focus on the design of the boards with “simple and symmetrical models of engagement.”  His inspiration was a purity of vision and goal to continually create something with beauty and simplicity.

Pinterest’s goal when it was founded in 2008 was not to be a shiny new social platform, (even though that is what it has become) but to be a part of everyday life.  Open new ways for people to connect with each other; use technology to make what people already do better and easier—connect people with their passions and/or connect people with friends and family.  I was struck by Ben’s humility (or maybe it was just terror at being up on stage) as well as his passion and commitment to the vision and the people around him that helped make it a reality. Time will tell whether Pinterest’s meteoric rise is sustainable.

Bringing the Humanity Back to Technology

I closed out my SXSW experience back on theme with CEO of Stratfor (and author of The Next Decade: Empire and Republic in a Changing World), George Friedman in his presentation on “Surviving Technology”.  It’s worth noting that it was evident he has been viscerally scarred by his Wikileaks experience.  However, it actually made his message all the more powerful.  His call-to-arms was around the cycle of dehumanization that has allowed technology to (literally) disembody our thoughts.  With the telephone we removed body language from our human interactions, but at least we still had voice intonation to take cues for meaning and intent.  With email, we lost our “intonation” and have to be more conscious of writing out and being explicit with our intent, lest the message be misinterpreted.  Finally with Twitter, we have the complete removal of any connection of emotion to the communication.

Why does this matter?  Because when we remove context from ideas in an already dehumanized environment, it becomes easy to demonize “others.”  How easy is it to post a scathing comment reply that you would never dare utter in person?

Freidman suggested we think of the Internet as a “global commons.”  A commons that currently, per Friedman, is devoid of civility and true authenticity.  There is no “code to enforce behavior or an expectation of civility.”  He suggested a need for a civility enforced not by the government but by ourselves.  (Because “if Congress gets a hold of it they won’t know what the &^% they are doing.”)  We need to think of technology for selective anonymity as well as accountability.  There needs to be an effort by technologists to solve the problem—before it is solved for us by corporations or government.  One audience member got up to pose a question/comment and generally scared the streaming hashtags out of everyone by comparing today to a McCarthy-istic cautionary tale on losing freedoms.

‘Nuff said.

How would you use technology to make the world better?

Anna Banks, Executive Director, Strategy at Organic

Even as a first-time attendee, it was quickly obvious that what you hear and observe off the stage at SXSW tends to be lot more interesting than what is on it. But then, this is not your average digital conference. Where else would you see 12 year old panelists and people attending sessions with newborns in baby bjorns? It’s clearly a place and an event where it’s more about absorbing the zeitgeist than paying attention to the words.

A few observations – the number of people live blogging from tablets in the front rows equaled and in some sessions outmatched the number of laptops. At least 75% of the posters, flyers and stickers festooning the conference center sported QR codes. And at every street corner and at every party, groups of people clearly together were staring separately down at their iPhones (probably checking Highlight) rather than at each other.  And yet it all seemed perfectly normal.

I get asked quite often, “Is this the year of mobile?” which I think is a pretty silly question in general – every year is more mobile than the one before it but at SXSW 2012 it seemed clear that we’d hit a tipping point where all the gadgetry and apps and location-based info weren’t novelty anymore but status quo. A moment on a roundtable I took part in sums it up nicely. As we panelists were getting mic’d up and prepared to be filmed, the moderator told us to shoot for “good sound bites”.  All eight of us stared back at him blankly until he said “Tweetable – make your comments tweetable guys”. Twitter (which started as a mobile service if you recall) is the perfect example of how deeply embedded mobile is in our daily lives – so embedded that’s it basically supplanted a term that’s defined broadcast media for generations.

That’s not to say there was nothing on offer on the actual conference schedule though. There were several decent sessions about contextual design and HTML5. A few panels on the pros and cons of QR and the future of native applications as well as sessions on the app vs. web conundrum and a handful of app hackathons sponsored by AT&T and Zypr.  But the more interesting insights came from installations and presentations around subjects that up until now have occupied the fringe of mobile.

Mobile Payments for example, have been such a long time coming that they feel like an urban legend but based on what we saw, it looks like they are finally around the corner. The biggest splash was made by Isis, an NFC-powered joint payment and loyalty system from AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. From their corner booth in the main expo hall they showed off a seamless tap and go solution that will be available via numerous headsets from the aforementioned carriers this Fall. On an iPhone? No problem! Isis-enabled sleeves will be available soon after that to NFC-enable your Apple device in snap. On the merchant side, eBay’s Square competitor, PayPal Here, and Paydragon, a QR-enabled ordering and payment app for restaurant orders, debuted on the Austin food truck scene and showed just what an impact mobile payments can have on small businesses in an increasingly entrepreneurial culture.

Fringe or Fiction

But the most exciting idea came from the keynote given by cyborg anthropologist and Geoloqui co-founder, Amber Case. Case channeled fellow-keynoter Ray Kurzweil with her observations on how our inseparable connection with technology, powered largely by mobile, has turned us into virtual cyborgs. Her musings on the mobile device as an external brain, and, using wearable technology to enhance and annotate our reality, shed a new light on the possibilities of AR – an area that most marketers and many technologists still view with doubt.  Her examples of how digital information may actually end up being delivered viscerally – e.g. a vibrations or hot/cold sensations – as overlays to the real world experience were probably the most innovative ideas of the whole event. It’s pretty disruptive to talk about making the interface disappear altogether at an event that’s largely about how to create and leverage interfaces, but it’s also a great reminder of the fact that all media evolves – and faster than we think. From time to time I like to joke about the inevitable Apple iEye retinal implants but I walked away from Case’s presentation thinking that it was not only inevitable but a pretty exciting idea.

It might be fringe now but by SXSW 2015 it might already be the status quo…

Rachel Pasqua, Executive Director, Mobile at Organic

Enabled by the multi-faceted capabilities of the tablet, mobile is poised to revolutionize the classroom in the near term. But with its new skill sets and hyper-personalization, it’s not just the classroom that will change, but teen expectations for marketing and our ability to deliver personalized and relevant experiences.

Tablets are rapidly becoming game-changers for mobile in the classroom. The large touch screen and flat design make it the ideal form factor for students to maintain eye contact with their teachers while still easily leveraging interaction with the device. Cost consciousness and social consciousness are also in alignment with the use of tablets because of the money that can be saved in the long run by reducing printing and textbook costs. Generating fewer printed materials is also beneficial to the environment.

As schools embrace tablets (usually the iPad or the Kindle for now) they open a whole new world for the devices to:

• Replace textbooks (which are often outdated before they are printed) with personalized set of books or excerpts tailored to class schedule

• Allow students to highlight passages and notes (often forbidden on shared or school property books)

• Aid with comprehension and research with built-in dictionaries and instantaneous Internet access

• Bolster reading skills and comprehension with text-to-speech capabilities that can read text aloud

• Study more efficiently for finals with custom test modules recommended based on individual student performance

The promise is of a completely custom experience, tailored to meet the particular student’s needs. And beyond just study aids, these digital devices support the process of learning by enabling direct correspondence with teachers, allowing students to digitally turn in papers and homework assignments, and permitting teachers to monitor and track student progress. Students can also preserve a record of their work in a digital portfolio rather than the box mom kept in the attic.

Pushing this concept even further is the crop of tablet-only courses. For example, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has an iPad-only Algebra course that includes video of the author solving equations, individualized assignments based on student performance and recommendations for practice problems. The approach allows a student to progress at his or her own pace, focus on the more difficult areas and digest concepts more quickly.

This customized experience is the edge of what we can expect more of in the future. Teens will expect marketing experiences to have this same level of flexibility.

While teen expectations may be higher, demands on them will be as well. In the information age, students will need a whole new set to be considered “literate.” Today’s kids and teens are confronted with more information than their parents were at the same age and will need the tools to efficiently process and use this information in order to be successful.

Tablets can be key teaching tools, helping students learn how to successfully cope and even thrive in the information age. According to The Reading Teacher by W. Sutherland-Smith, the survivors of the information era will master:

Screen literacy regarding graphics and symbols. Even younger students will have the ability to quickly determine which graphics are critical to the information or message and which are just decorative. For designers and marketers, this means increased thought will need to go into the use and value of graphics on conveying meaning within content.

Navigation literacy. Being able to navigate the Web to find key information within an environment is second nature already. What will be come critical is the ability to comprehend and weave a story out of information presented in a non-linear or non-sequential manner. Teens who master this skill will be even more critical of content or materials that do a sub-par job of delivering an easily accessible, streamlined message.

How to create content and build knowledge. The ability to create meaningful stories combining a variety of media formats combining text, sound, images and video has both positive and negative implications. It raises the bar on expectations for high quality multimedia content, but it also activates an audience that can do some of the content creation for marketers. In the past we thought of UGC as generally “junk,” or filler content, but increasing sophistication allows users to be viable and valuable sources of rich and desirable content that inspires advocates.

Search literacy. The ability to set clear purpose statements for search and then focus keywords or questions before searching. This includes breaking topics into manageable “chunks” for easier research.

Connections and context literacy. Connecting disparate pieces of information to derive meaning from not just text, but also context of content, is key to quickly filtering information to determine if it is relevant and should be digested more thoroughly or should be passed over.

Skepticism and critical evaluation. As many as 39% of kids today think all information on the Web is true. As information age literacy increases, teens will be better skilled at evaluating the credibility of sources and content. Raising the bar on these critical thinking skills will force marketers to apply more rigor to the crafting of marketing messages.

Personal information literacy. Teens often have wide filters for sharing personal information, but increasingly will set boundaries for themselves shaped around their own views of privacy, safety and decency related to their personal information. Marketers will need to adjust for new expectations to deliver value in exchange for precious personal information.

Ethical behavior in a new world. Teens will become more adept at translating “real world” ethics into understandable guidelines for digital behavior. Marketers will need to understand and adhere to this new set of norms, even though they may not wind up documented anywhere.

Our consumers of the future will have increased expectations for personalization and a critical eye to the form, function and format of the messages we place before them. We need to start honing our skills in creating marketing experiences that have an increased sophistication, that add value through personalization and leverage multiple forms, formats and functions to communicate.

Anna Banks is Executive Director of Strategy at Organic

This article was originally posted on Mediapost here.

By Chantal Tode

January 19, 2012

Without a strong mobile strategy, agencies could begin to lose relevancy

Many agencies failed to integrate mobile in a meaningful way in 2011, missing an important opportunity to organically build mobile practices. As a result, this year many will be scrambling to react to the growing demand for mobile services from brands which have seen a significant increase in mobile traffic.

The growth in mobile penetration and use means agencies and brands can reach more consumers than ever before via mobile and use mobile to marketer an ever-growing array of products and services. As mobile continues to become more pervasive in consumers’ lives, it is imperative that agencies jump in or risk losing relevancy.

“There are both agencies and brands that sit in very different places across the mobile and multi-channel maturity curve,” said David Hewitt, vice president and global mobile practice lead for SapientNitro, Boston.

“Those that don’t have good tooth in the [mobile] space this coming year, will really start to show their wear and declining relevancy to today’s consumer that is eagerly waiting for a fully integrated and next generation mobile experience,” he said.

Keeping pace

Part of the problem is that agencies and brands have not kept pace with consumers, who are embracing mobile devices for a growing array of activities.

Brands and agencies have often been the ones pushing new ways of doing things that have not caught on in the marketplace, but that is not the case with mobile in many instances.

“With mobile and multi-channel, it is more often the brand and their incumbent agencies that need to catch up with the emerging role that mobile is playing — especially with retailers and CPG companies,” Mr. Hewitt said.

“Many agencies struggle when mobile becomes an opportunity to bring connected experiences to bear, and extend beyond the mobile channel and display ad mindset,” he said.

Another issue is that, as agencies look to bring mobile to more consumers and products, they will need to master a wide array of new capabilities and issues including compatibility, mcommerce, messaging, location-based services, tablet optimized experiences, being adept at integrating mobile with CRM programs and creating experiences for in-store, at home and on-the-go consumers.

“Daunting for most traditional agencies, these multi-channel initiatives involve deep commerce, complex system integration, and specialty creative chops that make things like a shared shopping experience across multiple devices come to life for the consumer and marketer,” Mr. Hewitt said.

Despite the hurdles involved in mobile, agencies need to jump in, making sure store operations and information technology departments are involved with strategy development as mobile becomes more integrated with other touch points, per Mr. Hewitt.

It is also important that agencies not focus so hard on serving every device because this can lead to a mobile experience that does not engage anyone effectively.

Mobile commitment

In a sign of its commitment to integrating mobile into everything the agency does, Omnicom digital shop Organic, San Francisco, recently hired former iCrossing executive Rachel Pasqua as the executive director of its mobile marketing practice

While mobile has been a part of Organic’s strategy for 10 years, Ms. Pasqua will focus on producing more mobile-specific campaigns around augmented reality, near-field communications and other mobile technology as well as increasingly making mobile an integral part of holistic campaigns.

This means integrating mobile into search marketing, search engine optimization and how it creates the digital strategy for clients.

Putting a senior strategic mobile lead in place is important for agencies to help insure forward-looking employees are hired and internal staff is educated about mobile.

“The role of the mobile lead is increasingly common and in demand,” Ms. Pasqua said.

“Clients are increasingly interested in how do they plan effectively for mobile as part of an overall digital strategy while last year the focus was more on a mobile strategy alone,” she said.

A fundamental shift

Unlike Organic, many agencies are taking a reactive approach to mobile instead of having a strategy for how to build it organically, per Ms. Pasqua. They also struggle with figuring out what to focus on first in the fragmented mobile space.

“Some agencies are scrambling, trying to figure out how to integrate mobile into what they do,” Ms. Pasqua said.

“They are realizing that this is not a trend but a fundamental shift in how we consume media,” she said. “There is a mobile component to everything your audience does and you need to plan accordingly.”

Many of the initial steps into mobile taken by agencies in 2011 will be built on this year.

Those agencies with a deep understanding of mobile and how it can be used to drive brand awareness and sales will could see significant growth this year while those who do not have the right mobile capabilities will continue to miss out on important business.

“I think many agencies integrated mobile last year,” said Paran Johar, chief marketing officer at mobile ad network Jumptap, Cambridge, MA

“For example, every agency holding company had or created a mobile division,” he said.

“The first goal of these divisions was to teach best practices to the rest of the agency. We’ve also seen the integration through the diversity of our client RFP’s and verticals across the board.”

“We’ll continue to see astronomical growth in 2012, as agencies run multiple mobile campaigns and understand the unique offerings of mobile. Agencies will also continue to use data to drive relevancy and consumer engagement.”

Associate Editor Chantal Tode covers advertising, messaging, legal/privacy and database/CRM. Reach her at chantal@mobilemarketer.com.

 
This article was originally posted on Mobile Marketer here.

Rachel Pasqua is Executive Director, Mobile at Organic

CRM as a term has been hijacked to infer that mass contact via mail was about building relationships, rather than just seeking a sub-1% response rate for upsell and cross-sell. For reasons of scale, the strategic focus often slipped from the top 20% of consumers that drive the majority of value and the next 30% who will grow your business. Implementation of CRM became a mass-marketing machine that often lacked both marketing intelligence and any focus on the specific needs of the consumer. At worse, CRM was an acronym to hide junk mail behaviours and at best, the software that provided data to call centers and sales forces.

Then we adopted the Internet. We are now all active consumers.

We search, self-serve, contact and manage our consumption. The browser is the starting point for many transactions, even our supermarket shopping. And the retail shopping we do on the high street is increasingly influenced by what we find online. The mail pack pumped out in the millions and pushed through your letterbox, has been replaced. We now look to the opinions of friends, recommendations of machines and the influence of subject experts. We engage brands, subscribe to newsletters and customize our social feeds. We do all this to be better informed and make more personalized product choices.

What does this mean for brands?

The starting point is always the product and your strategic must-win battles. The vast majority of the effort for all companies should be on the product: demonstrable value, quality and innovation. Then you can start building relationships. Whom do we focus on to evolve our products and provide the highest levels of service? Whom do we need to work hardest with to build an advantage over the competition? And finally, who would buy if we made it really easy for them to understand and access our products? Now get permission, start building participation and work at retaining the right value consumers.

From a consumer point of view, in the Internet age, CRM starts with engaging with original content that brings alive a product.

Active attention is gained from a continual feed of ideas and an inside-view of product innovation. Content that is simple for search engines to rank and for social communities to share. This forms the heart of getting permission: consumers engage and provide their permission for ongoing contact, either through a purchase or a subscription. And increasingly this content needs to be ‘semantic’. That is, a top-layer consumers see or read and a bottom layer that is read and contextualized by the machines. That means CRM is now founded on producing content and filtering that best influences product research and consideration. Content is king. Curation reigns supreme.

Secondly, personalization has become an increasingly important aspect of CRM.

The ability to personalize the content consumers wants to see. Technology intelligently provides relevant suggestions, based on consumer context and past behaviours. This goes beyond micro-segmentation of newsletters and product recommendations on a webpage. Effective CRM now has to reach into personalization of the product. Assessing the ethnographics of your most-value consumers enables companies to better understand motivations, behaviours and opinions – this also provides a passionate and vocal group from beta testing and pre-launching. Though with advances in technology, personalization can provide high-value consumers the opportunity to directly customize aspects of the product – a functionality that can be rolled across a whole consumer group depending on need for exclusivity and ability to build additional value.

And finally, the rise of Social CRM.

This is not so much a change in CRM as the utilization of social networks to provide a voice for the brand and opportunity for direct contact with consumers. On a simple level, social networks enable brands to build a personality, relevance of their products and expand perception of the brand beyond its core service – for companies this helps the shift from being seen as a functional product or more of a lifestyle service. Listening to consumers to understand their needs and direct consumer service contact provides additional opportunities to address problems and leverage advocacy. However, building relationships directly on social networks involves understanding that brands can no longer dictate the dialogue they can only influence it.

Adrian Jarvis is a Director, Strategy at Organic

Given the proliferation of online video, it’s a safe bet your target consumers are on YouTube, and that your brand is there already in some form. But too many brand channels are half-baked or under-utilize the power of the world’s biggest video site. To take your YouTube presence to the next level consider these 7 best practices:

1.    Create real-time connections through event-driven video
YouTube’s new Live offering supports web broadcasting that can drive user interactions into a real-time environment. Taking advantage of this capability can make you brand channel a time-sensitive destination point during your campaign, not just a repository of content.

2.    Re-market and track users across the network
YouTube enables a wide variety of analytics and measurements, with remarketing capabilities that target users across their ad network to encourage repeat engagement and cultivation of long-term loyalty. Leveraging these programs can help you make sure your channel is a place people come back to again and again, not just come for a quick content “snack.”

3.    “Gadgetize” the user experience
YouTube enables brands to customize much of their channel’s user interface, including the creation of 3rd party navigation “gadgets” that add features and functionality that make your experience stand out from the crowd.

4.    Cross-pollinate content and delivery across your entire ecosystem
YouTube is a superb video delivery platform, but to ensure that your content receives maximum viral lift, use the channel in tandem with your other touch points (Twitter, Foursquare, etc.) to drive traffic and engagement. Conversely, cross-distributing the same video on your YouTube channel to other places where your brand lives (Facebook, brand site, etc.) ensures maximum coverage.

5.    Channel-specific interactive content and functionality
Brand channels should post more than 30-second spots from a broadcast campaign. Web-specific video content with interactive overlays can live alongside repurposed cross-media clips. One interesting use of this overlay best practice is e-commerce link overlays within demonstration videos.

6.    Encourage user-generated contributions
Since YouTube is already heavily populated with user-generated content, incorporating dialogue by favoriting and/or reposting consumers’ uploads leverages the promise of social media and helps the audience see themselves in your brand. By moderating this active engagement you can build deeper connections with your audiences.

7.    Filter and customize for geographic markets
While the need for additional brand channels for each new commercial campaign is debatable, geographic specific channels can be created for a custom experience highlighting local product, language, and culture.

What other YouTube tips and tricks can you share for folks looking to take their brand channel to the next level?

Matthew Loebman is a  Senior Contributor, Strategy at Organic

It strikes as somewhat ironic – or self-centered perhaps – that every time you engage somebody in our industry about “the future” or “keeping up,” their typical response is “the industry is changing too fast to keep up.” I’ve been hearing that for as long as I’ve been in the industry so it does feel a little passé.

Recently though, I’ve been confronted by a few situations which did suggest there was more merit to their response than I’d previously given them credit for.

So, here’s some thoughts and pointers looking ahead.

Stop trying to do everything: Repeat after me, the integrated, full-service, channel-agnostic, through-the-line agency is a pipe dream and no longer credible. In past lives, I’ve had clients ask me how one organization can purport to have the most amazing talent in every single discipline. We can’t. Today’s multiplicity of technologies, emerging platforms and dizzying consumer and business trends makes being an expert in all of them ever more impossible. Stop doing it.

Be a partnership polygamist: To the point above, find partners who are experts, who care deeply and obsess about niche areas of the communication spectrum. Have an alignment around passion, values and success but let them bring their true expert thinking to the mix, you bring yours. Ban the “Jack of all Trades” solution set from your vocabulary. You’re both more credible playing to your collective strengths than trying to do it all alone.

Create ideas…and products: Thirty seconds of film still has its place but the emerging demi-gods are the folks building actual stuff. “Did you see that cool shit” is now more likely to be about something on your phone than the ad that just ran on TV. Ergo, customers and clients increasingly need folks who can do more than just spout an idea but can actually build the tangible (and tactile) part of it too. You got folks who can do that?

Get creative with your revenue streams : We’ve always struggled with fee and retainer agreements and the joy of staff utilization. We’ve moaned and complained about pay-per-performance models being ground in success metrics we can’t always control or affect. Totally fair. New paradigms exist though. Licensing models for software or applications your agency produces and your client uses. Revenue sharing of downloads from the App Store. All feasible if you’re prepared to redefine the way your clients actually pay you.

Be creative consultants beyond communications: Design thinking is a relatively new ethos in business culture. About time some would argue. Essentially many of tomorrow’s business ideas need disruptive thinkers to spawn them. Those used to generating ideas ground in strong conceptual design. Sound familiar. Consider ways you might take the design thinkers in your agency to tackle client problems beyond their advertising, website, packaging and in-store displays. Your ECD might not relish thinking about supply-chain hurdles but, in a design-centric way, she may just bring a fresh perspective to it.

One last thought. An old favourite. Not new at all.

Be agile : We still take too friggin long (massive sweeping statement) to do what our clients pay us for. Too long to ideate. Too long to scope. Too long to budget. Too long to execute.  We have to find ways to strip that stuff away. Product cycles and consumer trends move too quickly for us to play the way we’ve done for the past 5 decades. As creative thinkers we have to be able to get these ideas out faster. Our customers demand it and our clients deserve it.

What do you think? Is any of this really futuristic or just table stakes? What’s your agency doing to stay ahead of the curve and be more lean-forward? I’d love to hear about it.

Hilton Barbour is Executive Strategy Director at Organic

This post was also published on Hilton Barbour’s personal blog found here.