Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Brand advocacy is a term that is thrown around a lot within the social media spectrum. Conversations usually center on finding brand advocates who will serve as a social media lightning rod and generate an avalanche of user-generated content from a community based on their actions. Marketers are just as likely to find these mythical advocates as they are to track down Big Foot riding a unicorn.

Igniting a social media avalanche does benefit greatly by finding exceptional advocates; however, marketers can't simply rely on finding the right catalysts to spark success. Here are five myths brands need to free themselves from before they can deploy a successful brand advocacy program:
   
1.  They aren't out there looking for you.

Guess what? People have been sharing tips and advice on products brands they use and love long before advertisers realized the power of word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing. Consumers will continue to do so regardless of a brand's interaction, to help their friends, being acknowledged for their expertise, and sharing something they have found. It's the brands that need these people to help them authenticate and speak to potential customers they can't reach with ad dollars. However, marketers cannot expect these advocates to fall into their lap. If marketers don't have a CRM program, a strategy to reach out to bloggers and loyalists in niche forums, or any other venue for consumers to raise their voice, then you don't have a brand advocacy strategy.
   
2.  Some of your best advocates might not be your current customers.

What many brands fail to realize is that sometimes advocacy has nothing to do with a particular product and everything to do with a lifestyle. People who love Jeep, for example, may be fans of the brand in spirit as they associate with the car maker's branded outdoor adventure lifestyle long before, and even long after, they are owners of the vehicle. Some of your brand's biggest loyalists might not be talking about the company at all but talking about other products or activities that fit in with this lifestyle, including GPS devices, off-road trails and quality tires. While a truly great advocate will be able to speak about a product passionately and authentically, marketers shouldn't limit their search to current customers.
   
3.  It's not the size of your pool of fans, it's how you use them.

Coca-cola has 4 million fans. FAGE Greek Yogurt has 36K fans. Does that mean that Coca-cola is over 100 times more successful than FAGE in terms of brand advocacy? Well, that depends. What is the value of an advocate for Coca-cola versus FAGE or any other brand for that matter? I find myself asking, what does Coca-cola even need a Facebook fan page for? Coca-cola does not lack in awareness, but the purchase decision is largely made in the last steps at the grocery store as the result of a sale or coupon or is tied to beverage brand loyalty. But for FAGE, a small-time yogurt brand without much awareness, each one of their 36K fans could represent an opportunity for a new customer, coupon-pusher or a new voice piece to spread awareness to their circle of friends.
   
4.  A Facebook fan does not directly equate to a brand advocate.

For many people, becoming a "fan" of a brand on Facebook is as meaningful as acquiring a new bumper sticker or a patch on a heavily collaged backpack. It's a symbol of a lifestyle, it's a funny statement to their friends and is as temporarily interesting as the flow of the newsfeed that day. Ninety percent of the time a user spends on Facebook is in the newsfeed, so after they hit that "fan" button they likely will never return to your fan page. So while your fan page might say 10,000 "fans," that doesn't mean you have 10,000 "advocates." What it does mean, however, is that you have as many as 10,000 opportunities - but realistically probably much fewer - to create advocacy.
   
5.  Recognition, while always important, is not one-size-fits-all
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Some advocates are altruistic, so in love with your brand and what it means to them that they aren't particularly looking for a reward. Others need to be motivated by the allure of something a little extra to come out of their shell. In either case, recognition can't hurt as it lets people know their participation is appreciated as they further the brand's awareness goals. However, approaches to recognition are not one-size-fits-all, as they have to be evaluated closely by audience and by industry. In other words, what does your audience want? The prize of "front page of YouTube" exposure that might appeal to the 18-year-old girl posting a video of herself singing about a new energy drink is likely going to terrify the middle-aged man or woman opening up about their use of incontinence products. Both should be rewarded, but not in the same way.

With the right mixture of targeting, motivation and recognition marketers can create the wave of user-generated content and goodwill that they crave from their social media strategies. There are many ways to do this but developing a stable of knowledgeable evangelists is a boon to marketers. Rather than simply locating brand advocates, marketers must also inspire evangelists within their community by delivering fun, engaging social media experiences to create a thriving online community. Once a community is effectively promoting members from within to carry the brand torch, marketers can claim victory in the social media space.

Marta Strickland

Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in DM News.

image credit: newbirth

How Businesses and Marketers Can Use Mobile For Better Results

Advertising is not what it was ten years ago. The past decade has seen the advent of social computing and mobile technology, two forces that changed the game forever. What will the future hold? From point-of-sale to out-of-home, here are the top five ways we see the device formerly known as a phone changing the game this year and beyond.

1. Mobile will completely revolutionize the way local advertisers can connect with potential customers.
While online display advertising has been incredibly effective for many companies, it hasn't offered all that much value to small, independently owned businesses. For one, the web is good at scale, not so good at precision. It's difficult for mom-and-pops to reach the relatively small audiences that might reasonably be expected to patronize their stores.

A number of new location-based services are beginning to provide attractive alternatives for such small-scale advertisers. Foursquare, for one, allows small business to target offers based on a user's actual proximity to their location. These offers can deliver heightened relevance by appealing to a player's status, nearby friends, or demonstrated preferences. A similar service, Gowalla, has experimented with branded badges and actual prizes that users can win if they check in at a location. Google is also catering more to local businesses by making their Place pages more mobile-friendly. Advertisers can now create Place pages that are accessible through Google Maps, attach mobile coupons, and even include QR code stickers in their window that lead you to these pages.

These examples are really only scratching the surface of what's possible for local businesses through mobile. Expect to see more mom-and-pops jump on these platforms in 2010.

2. Growth in adoption of mobile shopping applications will continue to alter in-store consumer behavior, increasing the significance of mobile in point of sale decisions making.
There are a number of mobile applications and tools emerging that consumers can use to make their shopping trips more efficient, productive, and fun. First, there are mobile price comparison apps such as Shop Savvy, Red Laser, Amazon Mobile. These allow shoppers to compare prices at a given location against nearby competitors and online properties -- an incredibly powerful proposition. There are also crowdsourcing tools like Fashism and BazaarVoice's MobileVoice that help shoppers get outside opinions and feedback before purchasing. These types of apps are prime territory for marketers looking to inject a brand into a target audience's psyche at a critical juncture in their decision making process.
Then there are, of course, mobile coupons, which are finally getting some traction. Zavers, Yowza, mobiQpons and Cellfire are actively signing up small businesses, and it's only a matter of time before big box stores get on board. Add increased consumer adoption, POS redemption infrastructure and a social dynamic and the appeal to marketers will be greater than ever.

All of the above will provide inroads for more effective CRM, specifically, loyalty programs. Consumers checking their phone just before they buy something will create opportunity to deliver more effective personalized messaging derived from prior purchase decisions.

3. Brands and agencies will continue to build branded apps, but will also have more attractive display media options, thanks to Google.
In 2009, we saw a number of brands scramble to check mobile off their lists by creating apps. But now that the marketplace is crowded, many will take a step back and look at media-buying options instead. Google recognizes this; it's why they recently acquired AdMob, i.e., to get a corner on all that in-app content. Google will also build up their network of native app content by making development and deployment of ad-supported apps on their Android platform much easier than it currently is on the iPhone. This is all with the aim of more effectively extending it's AdSense platform to mobile.

Yes, you may say that consumers are obviously keen on micropayments for mobile content. They did, after all, spend $6.2 billion on apps this year, according to Gartner. But consumers are even more fond of free, and in 2010 one way Google will challenge the iPhone is by creating a competitive alternative business model for developers. And where good apps are, consumers go and dollars follow.

Most major carriers and handset manufacturers have multiple Android devices slated for 2010 launch dates, so expect Android's user-base to catch up to the iPhone's by the end of 2010. The web-based Android app store is a hurdle to the experience and doesn't come close to the experience of the iTunes' desktop app. If Google can fix this, then developers may start putting Android first on their product roadmaps.

4. Advertising's outdoor real estate is fast becoming another connected channel capable of delivering high-fidelity digital experiences as unique, varied and measurable as more well-established mediums.
Outdoor advertising has traditionally been very difficult to measure. People move past signs through various modes of conveyance at varying rates of speed making it difficult to know who actually notices a given media unit. Add line of sight and dwell time, and the problem is further compounded.

Digital out-of-home (DOOH) signage is changing all this, and mobile is becoming the key to true measurement and engagement. Using their handsets, once-passive viewers can actually interact with an ad now. For example, Toyota released an iPhone app that let users to draw on the Thompson-Reuters screen in Times Square. Nike's "Chalkbot" allowed cycling fans to have a robot stencil messages of support for Tour de France riders on the pavement via SMS or Twitter. Vans' "Be Here" allowed its users to submit video, photo, or text messages from any of the brand's online properties to be displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square.
In all of the previous examples, mobile served as the glue or connective tissue between outdoor and the web. Indeed, the real potential of DOOH is to blend the digital with the physical world in public spaces. It will also eventually allow advertisers to customize once-mass ads to specific individuals based on data that their phone can reveal about them.

5. Consumers have new power to express their opinions through social technologies from anywhere, anytime. Smart marketers will do all they can to encourage and act on this real-time feedback.
While the crowds may not always be wise, they sure are vocal, and mobile devices are their microphones. In unprecedented numbers, consumers are using mobile-enabled publishing platforms, mainly Twitter, to instantly share their thoughts about products, services and brands.

The best companies have started closing this loop by listening to and acting on consumer's feedback. Some are even creating dedicated apps and services to collect it. Taxihack is a service for commenting live on NYC taxi drivers. SeeClickFix and CitySourced both give users mobile applications for reporting things like potholes and graffiti while out on the town. AT&T recently used a similar tactic with an iPhone app, Mark the Spot, which crowdsources areas of weak reception.

Much of the power seen in these mobile applications is through context attached to consumer feedback. Universal Theatres relies on a SMS response system to test out trailers and gauge audience response during screenings. This in the moment feedback makes for a much more accurate representation of viewers true opinions.

Whether brands carve out a dedicated mobile channel or simply rely on Twitter customer service, we'll see more embracing the feedback loop. The challenge going forward will be an internal one, setting up efficient systems to make sure consumer feedback can be acted on and implemented once it's heard.

How will you use mobile this year?



Allison Mooney and Caleb Kramer from MobileBehavior
Dan Neumann, @dneumann

A version of this post originally appeared on Advertising Age's Digital Next Blog.

Could it be that it's good to NOT always get what you want - that the Internet's delivery of on demand content might actually be a less pleasing experience?

On a recent trip I was listening to Soul Town (Channel 53 on Satellite Radio). For every couple of songs I really liked and was familiar with, there were a couple that I liked less or was unfamiliar with. Additionally, there were songs I was so familiar with that I was just plain sick of them; after all, how many times can you hear Aretha Franklin sing "Respect"?

The problem was, I couldn't skip the songs I didn't like just as I'm accustomed to doing on Pandora and Slacker. Nevertheless, the thought occurred to me that having to sit through songs I wasn't thrilled about hearing, for whatever reason, was making me appreciate the songs I did want to hear even more. It was as if "traditional radio format", where you listen to what they play and not what you want at that moment, made for a better music experience.

I then started to think about another phenomenon that I've noticed in myself. I can listen to virtually any song by any artist at any time - R. Kelly, Frank Sinatra, etc. -- and I do. If for instance I want to listen to "Pretty Wings" and "Number One" in a playlist of my favorite songs, I can...and can listen to them incessantly, immediately. I suppose that in the 60s, I could have purchased "Rubber Soul" and worn the grooves out, but the fact that I can access all of this music virtually and instantly...and play it to my heart's content has resulted in my getting sick of music more quickly. I'm suffering from music burnout.

Whether listening my classic favorites ("When Doves Cry") or new songs ("Bad Romance"), on demand enables me to function like a Top 40 radio station, but without the filler and commercials to give me room to breathe, to listen to things I don't really want to hear.

Is delayed media gratification ultimately a better experience -- where the mind has time to gestate its appreciation of songs, where we don't tire of music so quickly?

Jonathan Cohen

A couple weekends ago, while my newborn daughter was sleeping, I had ample time to sit in front of the TV. I cycled through the channels on Time Warner Cable  -- all 2,000 of them -- and thought to myself how absolutely ridiculous it was that despite the vast offering, my family watched about 20 of them, max. I know that many of the channels repeat or are HD versions of standard broadcast and cable channels, but it is still mindblowing and mindboggling. Wasn't it just a decade ago that Bruce Springsteen sang "57 channels and nothing on"?  In the words of a famous TV theme song, those were the days.

Evolving TV
Consumers should have the right to NOT receive 2,000 channels, when they only watch less than 5% of them and increasingly watch programs on demand, some free and some paid. We should be able to cherry pick which channels we want to watch. Isn't that the spirit of the Internet? Isn't that the promise of content on demand? Isn't that what digital is all about?

Consumers Might Choose The Web Over Cable
It's quite possible that consumers will increasingly choose an option that will give them the content they want at a more reasonable price. Many consumers are forgoing cable altogether and just watching content that streams or has been downloaded for the web, much to the dismay of cable companies hoping to bundle "triple plays." In the past few days, I've noticed numerous Facebook friends (shout out to Matt Rosenberg) talk about how great the Roku box is.

Give Consumers What They Want
If wireless providers can figure out a way to increase the bandwidth capacity of their networks (far beyond 3G), they might be great new entrants into the space. Their limited capacity might force them to offer a menu of content options as opposed to loading the network with content few people are watching.

There needs to be a compromise solution between the content providers, the delivery systems and consumers. Like my friend Andy Pimentel, I agree that TV isn't going away anytime soon, but it will definitely evolve, hopefully to something that makes sense for all parties...and is not built on outmoded, legacy monetization models.

How else can cable companies compete with the options of watching programs online?

Jonathan Cohen

I hate holiday shopping just as much as the next shopper, but it's inevitable. This year, I'm doing all of my holiday shopping online. There once was a time when making a purchase online felt scary and insecure, but with the increased sophistication of e-commerce and social media, shopping online has become the ideal way to shop.

With the rise of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and the popularity of product reviews on blogs, there has been an immense increase in knowledge sharing and an expanding set of online tools and services to make it easier to interpret this data. What this means for you, as a consumer, is that you can use the tools created for shopping to find the best products for the best price.

Here is a guide of online tools and tips for you to get the most out of your online holiday shopping:

1. Decide what you want to purchase, if you're not sure get gift ideas

2. Utilize user reviews to figure out if what you're buying is a quality product

3. Search for the product to find the best deal

4. Check for a coupon code for the online store that I found the best deal to make it even better

5. Purchase with a cash back card - Cash back debit/credit cards give cash back at the end of the billing period for an added after shopping bonus

Google recently released Goggles which is arguably the broadest reaching AR program available to date. If you are not familiar, it allows you to do two things:

1. Snap a photo of anything and automatically search for results based on images and text within the photo
2. See location and direction specific google maps results by pointing your camera in any direction

The potential of this tool is that of most augmented reality: quick, easy and highly relevant information. This is also another avenue (along with voice recognition software) for mobile devices without a keypad to access search functionality. To see Google's description of benefits check out the video here.

From my tests the text processing works well so things like book covers, business card, and anything with a URL on it return useful results. Goggles was able to identify flat logos but had much more trouble with 3D object logos, for example it immediately identified a Dodge logo on a sticker, but was not able to identify the Dodge logo on the grill of a Nitro.

While many augmented reality apps have been released recently, Goggles is the strongest indication that augmented reality is coming to the masses quickly. If using the camera on you mobile device to gather information and navigate on foot becomes a commonly adopted behavior this has significant implications to marketers.

How Google Goggles Could Impact Marketing
Many things can be done (or not done) with regard to products and storefronts to provide more value to customers and make shopping easier. An analogy is the way natural search, paid search, and search engine optimization work in concert. Users will see naturally occurring results regardless of where they are.

At some point in the future those results could have paid listing next to them or could be enhanced in some way. For example if a person is walking down the street looking for a place to get a coffee they see a Starbucks .25 miles away and next to that appears an ad for Mom and Pop Coffee Shop .5 miles away. So the person is made aware of a local option just a little further away.

Finally products and store fronts will be able to be optimized to better market themselves. For example logos could be optimized to be easily photographable (make them 2D not 3D). Search results could be specific to a model number to provide end users the most important information. For example if I were in market for a new car and saw one that I liked on the street photographing the trim level/logo could return results of fast it accelerates, the mpg and the cost if search results were properly optimized.

My guess is that Layers on Google maps will offer a lot of opportunities for augmented reality marketing through Goggles. Definitely a product to watch over the next year.

Russ Hopkinson
@rhops

Many news sources are reporting that Apple has purchased music streaming service Lala. I'm a big music fan and subscribe to Rhapsody, but had never used Lala. I definitely remembered that in the past, some of its services raised the ire of the record labels, and visiting the site's current incarnation, I'm somewhat surprised that it still hasn't run afoul.

Everyone is speculating on exactly why Apple is making the purchase, and as is typical, Apple is smartly mum. What's perhaps more interesting is what precisely is being purchased, as the New York Times reports that the record labels have the equivalent of an out clause, which means that the licenses aren't transferable to an acquirer. So what's the deal, literally and figuratively?

Here's what I think is happening:

Apple has basically cornered the market on MP3 digital downloads, podcasts, etc., but as it surveys consumer behavior and the competitive marketplace, it is recognizing that the upside potential of digital downloads will begin to level. Finally, at long last, and despite Steve Jobs' arguments to the contrary, consumers are starting to show a penchant for access over ownership...at least with regards to music and video media. Music-wise, this is manifest in the continued growth -- at least in usage -- of companies like Pandora, Slacker, et al. With the competitive specter (and great pumpkin) of Spotify on the horizon, Apple sees this acquisition as a way to purchase intellectual expertise (people) and property (IP) as well as some infrastructure (IT) to jump into this marketplace.

One could conceivably ask why Apple would want to fortify a business that in and of itself is not particularly profitable. I think the answer is as simple as the business rationale for the continued investment in iTunes; it helps sell hardware: iPods, iPhones, Macs and hopefully Apple TVs and iTablets, and that is a very good business for Apple, which rakes in a lion's share of profits from higher end consumer electronics and computers.

What does this mean?

I think it's a great time to be a gadget-crazy, music loving consumer. The world's entire music collection -- from the hits to the obscurities -- will finally be at our fingertips, literally. It might also be a good time to be a record label after 10 very difficult years.

What's your take?

Jonathan Cohen

How do you engage an audience that is barraged with marketing messages and are not interested in hearing about your brand?

The answer used to be disruptive experiences which often led to more annoying and shocking ads in more places (see above).

Thankfully marketers are moving away from disruption and toward adding value as the means to engage a potential customer. Now the question becomes:  What can you do to add value and how do you successfully integrate this with your brand or product?

One answer is to add elements of play to your marketing, or more appropriately, adding elements of marketing to a fun customer experience.

At a recent conference I attended I had the pleasure of hearing Ken Eklund speak on "The Seriousness of Play".  The talk underscored what I experience firsthand in playing games with my kids: play is a great enabler of creative thought, social interaction, memory and learning.  "Gaming is common ground, it allows marketers to engage with customers and change their relationship with them.  Think about the Olympics impact on foreign relations." says Mr. Eklund.

To give you a sense of what I am talking about below are a few examples of using games to engage an audience: 

image credit:
I love the thought of saving money of landing a huge bargain. And I was about to brave the crowds on Black Friday to grab some of those advertised deals for myself and those on my holiday gift list. But I was stuck at my in-laws without a car.

Then I remembered Cyber Monday, an online trend that started five years ago when retailers began wooing shoppers with special online deals the Monday after Thanksgiving. Shopping online is easier anyway.

I started getting emails on Saturday and saving them in my "coupons" folder especially for Monday night. I would camp out on my sofa with my laptop and snacks for some prime time deal surfing.

With my mental list, I began opening windows to dozens of online stores. About half had the expected sales -- free shipping, percentages off, Christmas items on sale. The rest, it was business as usual, with maybe a small promotion like free shipping when you spend $75 or more.

I looked. And looked. None of the gifts I set out to buy for others were to be found for a bargain. Where are all these sales the media was touting?

Wait. I found one. Yes, ONE. I was bad. I bought only one item. And it was for me. Well, I can pawn it off as a gift for the house. (It was an organic cotton blanket that I'd been eying since the cold weather blew away my warmth.) But, I'm sure I'm the only one who'll use it hog it.

According to the National Retail Federation, Cyber Monday sales were "softer-than-expected" during lunch, but quickly beat projections after the evening tally. Seems there's been a shift from consumers shopping during their lunch hour at the office to browsing at home at night.

Shop.org reported that "nearly nine in ten (87.1%) retailers offered a special promotion for Cyber Monday," up from last year. I must have been shopping on the wrong sites.

Looks like Verizon went all out to push the new Motorola Droid. As this article points out, the company must have spent a pretty penny on Facebook ads to attract a huge amount of fans. The reward? Fans got a deal on Verizon's FiOS broadband/TV/phone package and exclusive Green Day concert footage.

So I put the question to Organics. Another colleague said she couldn't find anything she wanted or needed for that can't miss price either. She bought, but not because of the price.

Another colleague made his Black Friday trip a success by NOT buying an item his wife was eying in the store. He used his ebay app on his  iPhone to find it for $100 cheaper! Now that's what I call cyber success.

How have your Holiday shopping habits changed with technology? How are you finding your bargains this season?

Sarah Jo Sautter

Luxury goods is a heated topic on the web lately. First Burberry's new "Art of the Trench" campaign became a heated discussion on threeminds and last week the New York Times published two articles pointing to the allure of luxury online.

One discusses how luxury goods retailers are reducing inventories and discounts and are still selling through a variety of high priced items. An example is given: you want that $5,000 Brioni jacket...well, there's just one left, so you better hurry up and get it! (It doesn't say how many were originally ordered, so that fact might not be as impressive if Saks only had two...) The article reports that retailers are wising up to the ways of the affluent; they became their own sort of bargain hunters, waiting for things to go on sale. Well, after 100 years of being in business, Saks realized that if you purchase less inventory and sell through what was purchases, you don't have the nightmare of having to continually reduce prices and then create a whole other retail outlet to get rid of what you over-purchased.

Luxury Shouldn't Be Abundant
In other words, in luxury, it's better to limit supply. Who'd a thunk besides those with elementary understandings of business, microeconomics and readers of Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster?  I have to laugh at it all.

The Web is Your Friend
The second article discusses how technology, including the Internet and material technology (carbon fiber, etc.), have opened new doors for the creation, marketing and selling of luxury goods. That sports brand Oakley (I remember them from their more BMX roots) now offers a pair of $4,000 sunglasses. Gucci has half a million Facebook fans. The very fast paced dissemination of information - between fashion show and store arrival - is making the clothes' arrival seem a non-event. Consumers have already seen these fashions online via media and blogs, so there's not much surprise. Apple realizes this, and even though it's not a luxury brand in the same way Hermes is (well...maybe it is), it guards its latest offering until the last minute, unveils them in a fashion show of sorts introduced by a guy who wears mock turtlenecks, faded jeans and New Balance sneakers, and gets them into stores, usually within a month.

Promotion vs. Aspiration
I have been of two minds with regards to luxury and social media. On the one hand, any promotion is good promotion, and the fact that so many people can participate in being next to the dream is appealing. It's all about aspiration, even though many of those 500K fans probably aren't buying many Gucci products.

On the other hand, there is still something to the exclusivity of knowing, and this still exists in youth culture: witness the limited edition sneaker business, a mass business that masquerades as being really exclusive. The dynamic is pretty simple: Jake knows which blog to look at to find out where and when Reebok is releasing those 100 limited edition Michael Chang Reebok tennis shoes made out of tennis ball material. Not everyone knows where to look for this information, and that gives Jake (and Reebok) quite a bit of cache. When everyone knows what a brand is up to, the knowledge becomes mass, and I have to think that "mass knowledge" diminishes the luster of luxury brands to some degree. I think this is pretty interesting, because the psychology is not strictly for the ultra affluent; people of all demographics are caught in its allure.

With all this, I'm not sure what the solution is. I think it's pretty cool that millions of people can know what a luxury brand is up to, even if it's still out of reach. That's part of the allure of luxury brands. I obviously feel that luxury brands need to figure out a way to shorten development and distribution cycles, so that what is on the runway can hit retail much more quickly. I also feel that there is an incredible opportunity to use digital to test the waters. What are consumers most responding to?  What's not working?

If you can figure that out, you might be able to assess demand and NOT meet it.  After, luxury at its most basic level must keep people waiting and wanting.

Which luxury brands do you follow or buy online?

Jonathan Cohen