Digital Mayhem | Halifax | Nova Scotia

I’m guilty, but $88 bucks for a coffee!

I love technology and especially mobile gadges. My iPhone has re-defined the meaning of “Man’s best friend”. In the 80’s I had a bag phone (e.g. for those who are in their teens please see the picture below), I owned one of the first PalmPilots with a whopping 32 mb memory chip and I was using wireless Internet when you had to insert a PCIMCA card into the side of your 40lb laptop that had a monchromatic screen. But, For the first time in probably 20 years of gadges, I found a mobile device I really wish hadn’t been invented - the mobile Interac machine.

First off I want to get the details out of the way,  I’m guilty! I went for a coffee at a little Internet cafe in downtown Halifax’s Quinpool Road shopping area and pull into a parking lot with a huge sign stating, in no brief manner, that if I didn’t visit Zephyr Rug and Home or Scouts Canada I would be ticketed, towed and or immobilized!!! I had no idea what immobilized meant, I was thinking stun gun which sounded interesting. After obviously breaking “the Law” by spending money at the wrong retailer on Quinpool Road, I return to my vehicle to find a boot locked on it’s front wheel and a note on the window telling me I owed NoGo NoTow a total of $77.98+ HST.  The note conveniently displayed a phone number to call in order to resolve the issue. As I read the note I couldn’t help but think what a cash cow of a business. Holding cars hostage for ransom. This probably wouldn’t have been possible without mobile technology like those damn mobile Interacs!

If I hadn’t of had a dumb mobile phone in my pocket to call NoGo NoTow I would have had to bum a quarter off someone on the street to use a pay phone. The note on my truck’s window clearly stated the I wasn’t to bother Zephyr or Scouts Canada. When I did get in touch with the NoGo NoTow service they were on-site in minutes using a stupid mobile GPS. When their man hopped out of his vehicle he had his  FREAK’n mobile Interac machine in hand and was eager to take Visa, Mastercard or debit. God I wish the pizza delivery man hadn’t of invent that stupid device.

Having never witnessed this type of car highjacking in Halifax I suggested  to the  NoGo NoTow guy that for all I knew he could be a criminal who would steal my credit card information and destroy my credit rating with his little debit or credit revolver. He sort of shrugged and suggested he could be, but whether true or not, I wasn’t getting out of that parking lot without paying the $88.00. All of a sudden I felt this wave of anger come over me, not at this poor guy who obviously has to hate his job as collector for the evil lot owner, but at Zephyr Rug and Home, Scouts Canada and the Quinpool Road Business Association. I mean please, $88 bucks for a parking violation, who the “H_LL” came up with that number and where does that money go? It started to feel abit like an episode of Rocket Robin Hood. I was looking for the evil Sheriff of Nottingham lurking in the corners, laughing and shaking is bag of gold.

When Rocket Robin didn’t arrive to save me (i.e. probably because I’m not exactly Maid Marion),  I started to think what a terrible brand experience for Quinpool Road customers. I have no idea who owns the parking lot, but whomever it might be they have obviously not thought thru the impact of using this service on the retailer or for that matter the whole business district. From my perspective they have just given me a HUGE reason not to visit Quinpool Road and shop.

As I said earlier, I’m guilty of parking in a parking spot that is only available to Zephyr Rug and Home and Scouts Canada cutomers. I guess my question is how did they know I’m not a customer? No one asked me before they draped my car in orange tape and slapped a sticker on my window. What if I had of gone into Zephyr the day before and spent $3000 on a dining room set? I would have gone home and pack it up for immediate return after this experience. The damaging effect on the Zephyr brand plus my perpetual conversation about how I was robbed by the evil lot owner would surely be much more devastating to their brand than having a car in their parking lot for an hour. The approach the lot owner has taken to control the evil parking bandits that rob from the Zephyr and give to the poor coffee shop seems to be devoid of any consideration for long term impact on customer relations and perceptions.

I admit, I had no intent of buying anything in Zephyr or visiting Scouts Canada, but they didn’t know that. I guess if  Zephyr Rug and Home and Scouts Canada don’t really care about new customers having the Sheriff police their parking lot is an extremely effective way of driving them off. That said, the last time I checked there isn’t a line-up of kids knocking down the doors to join the Boy Scouts and after  20 years in the retail/marketing business I can say with some authority that I have never meet a retailer who doesn’t like new customers. But much like they don’t know whether or not I’m customer, I don’t know whether or not they care about new customers. Thanks to NoGo NoTow I now have a perception that they care more about a free parking space.

There has to be a better way to improve the parking situation on Quinpool Road. The Quinpool Road Business Association has to solve the parking issues for their customers. Certainly throwing customers in jail is not the answer! The music industry used the same desperate approach on its customers when the Internet introduced downloadable songs. They sued their them, thru them in jail and closed down their businesses. Communities of music lovers revolted and boycotted big brands such as Sony. Sony had to pause for a moment and reflect on the impact all the negative publicity was having on their brand. They had forgotten the golden rule of business, the consumer is always right even when they’re wrong.

I would love to hear your comments on this style of parking enforcement so that I can forward them on to the Quinpool Road Business Association.

Tags: advertising, Bag Phone, brand, mobile Technology

Why online marketing will flourish in difficult economic times

You don’t have to look far these days to find bad news on the global economy. The American credit crunch has pushed the panic button on an economic time bomb that has ticking for the past 5-10 years. Inflated energy costs, low price mortgages, record high personal debt and an overheated stock market have helped to fuel one of the biggest economic slowdowns in 75 years. Businesses are tightening their belts for an extremely challenging 2009 and as a result marketing departments will have to do more with less. When dollars get tight every expenditure has to be justified. The importance of measurement grows along with the need for accountability. Businesses scrutinize every marketing tactic and begin look for new, more innovative ways to generate results. For online marketing this shift will present a huge opportunity for growth as dollars get move out of underperforming media into online budgets.

Carol Krol, a senior analyst for e-Marketer says, “The shift in consumer usage toward digital media will continue to erode TV’s share” (in 2009). According to eMarketer; television, radio, newsprint and magazine advertising spends are all going to decline in 2009 while online marketing is set to increase. The shift in dollars is fueled by an anticipated 44% growth in online video and 15% growth in online search. Search engine marketing is a great example of the value online can offer in terms of measurable results. People who search for a product are in the early stages of their buying decision and are often researching their purchase.

The Internet has become the research tool of choice for today’s consumer, they spend hours reviewing websites for product, price and brand information. They use search to find what they want online. When they have less money to spend they look harder and research more. What once was an impulse buy, now becomes online homework. If you’re not showing up on their search radar, chances are you’re not going to make it on their list.

If you’re a business, search helps your customer find you while online communities help you find your customer. The importance of reaching out to your customer and making them feel good about your brand intensifies in difficult economic times. Emphasis on maintaining and building existing relationships kicks into overdrive. Customer retention strategies move to top of mind during economic contraction. Online communities are a great way to build customer relationships that help support retention strategies. You can educate customers, listen to their needs, respond to requests and measure their reactions on a global basis.

The beauty of the Internet is its innate ability to track everything a user does when online. Where they click, what they watch, how many times they watch it. Information that network television pay millions of dollars for is now easily accessible online. Starbucks Coffee recently launched a great example of how this can work. Hit hard by the economic After being hammered by the downturn in the US economy that saw them close over 600 stores, Starbucks has responded by building an online bridge to their customer that allows them to connect and listen to their needs. They realize the importance of listening, measuring and tracking their customers. Rather than spending millions of dollars on focus groups testing ideas to help them react to the changing business they choose to go directly to their customers and as them their opinion online. Starbucks realizes the benefit that online communities can offer and has begun to leverage them to help redefine their business model.

The momentum of online, its ease of measurement, global reach and affordable value will help to propel its growth through these tough economic times. The web is still a shiny new toy in the marketers pocket. Most are still trying to figure out how to use it effectively. None are debating the value of its interactivity and power of engagement.

Online video - What’s viral?

If you haven’t heard about You Tube yet chances are you been living on the moon eating cheese for the past 5 years. This incredible little jewel in Google’s crown may not drag in the revenue that Adwords does for the big G, but it’s certainly shaking up the traditional advertising world. Like all great social media sites these days, You Tube has a huge following of young eyeballs. They hunt through the video search engine looking for a nugget of cool content. My 12-year-old daughter lives on the site glued to the screen searching for her T-Pain virals or Orlando Bloom cameos (yeah, she’s 12 and it scares me to death!). In some cases You Tube is her school textbook. If she’s at all like the rest of the world’s youth it’s no surprise why 70% of the 40 top ad agencies in the US said they plan to spend more in 2009 on online video.

It’s a pretty bold move for these agencies given the economic climate in the US and the fact there isn’t a benchmark for measuring the success of an online video campaign. Most of the agencies polled admitted they haven’t defined success outside the number of video views. Much like You Tube, they’re no quite sure how to translate their social success into a return on investment. What they do know is that their audiences are no longer watching a lot of network television so spending money on GPA isn’t going to work.

Everyone wants to create “viral videos”. The Dove Evolution and Sunsilk Wigout viral success stories have created a highly contagious virus of viral videos rapidly spreading across online channels. Everyone wants to go viral, but no one seems to know how to define when a video becomes “viral”. Sure you could judge it on the number of views it gets on You Tube, but is that really a measure of viral or just a popularity contest?

At the end of the day I think all marketers would be happy with a million plus views on You Tube, whether they are the result of pass-around or direct traffic. The nature of the web would suggest that if a video reached a million plus views there would have to have been viral activity. The question then becomes was it the viral activity or was it a news article, a movie star, a talk show or an online community of enthusiasts that lead to its success? Or was it a combination of both?

According to Rob Master, Director of New Media for Unilever, Dove’s Evolution video was a combination of all these elements. On launch day Unilever had a list of planned media including a spot on Ellen, the National News and press releases in all major online news sites including CNN, New York Times an many others. They called everyone who they believed would have an interest in the video. Eventually Unilever began to receive a wave of enquiries from all kinds of different media sources wanting to discuss the video. They had a viral success in media interest before they had even posted the video for public review. Because of all this critical mass the video literally went viral out of the gates and within 3 days had over a million views.

I’m sure there are many reasons why Dove’s Evolution video hit viral status so quickly, but probably the most important element was its content. Unilever touched an emotional chord with a broad audience. They were able to influence human behaviour through this connection. It probably didn’t hurt that this connection was with the gender known to be the more social (no, I’m not sexist!).

Someone once said to me that a good viral video has to be sexy, gory or comical in order to work. There is some truth to this because all three things appeal to basic human behavioural instincts. They intuitively create reactions. Stick a sexy model on a billboard or hire Jerry Seinfeld to do a commercial and you definitely increase your chances of it being a success (Microsoft might not agree with me). For marketers shock, sex and comedy have long been attention grabbers used to turn a head, but quite often their use has had no relationship to the brand. They have been the easy way out when you can’t find that specific connection as Dove has with Evolution, that resonates exclusively with your target audience and mirrors the emotions you want associated with your brand.

Viral video is gaining acceptance and momentum because when it’s right it connects on the appropriate emotional plain. Its ability to tell stories makes it easy to deliver a message that can create a teardrop or a spontaneous laugh. People are overwhelmed by messages and have developed a filter for most things that are irrelevant to their needs and desires. Creating content that is based on insight and connects with the target audience is now a requirement in order to achieve success.

For those who need to connect with youth, breaking through can be a challenge. The young audience has incredibly refined filtering mechanisms for clutter. They can do 4-5 things simultaneously and only key in to the items they have programmed as important. My 15 year old can’t do his homework without music, MSN and the odd round of “World of Warcraft” to take the edge of the studying. Capturing his attention requires insight into his behaviour. When you do connect the engagement inevitably leads to some form of conversation on MSN or Facebook.

Viral videos are a form of word-of-mouth(WOM) marketing pimped online. Now thanks to Facebook, MySpace and thousands of online forums, its being pushed to the forefront by brands. WOM has many instruments for measuring success, but probably one of the most important is conversation or buzz. Online video is a WOM tactic; hence, it should be measured in a similar fashion. The number of people who are engaged in a WOM tactic are not its only measure of success. If it were many off-line WOM campaigns would never have made it to the boardroom table. WOM is about the buzz, the conversation and measuring its impact on the audience. The same should be the case for online videos. Measuring connection isn’t about the number of people who view a video; it’s about the numbers that talk about what they have viewed.

A video view is the new website visit while a conversation is the new usability study. It’s great to have a million hits on a website. Big numbers always look good on paper, but if no one can find what they’re looking for on the site hits won’t translate into ROI. In the case of viral videos the same stands true. Millions of views are nice, but really mean nothing if the viewer isn’t engaged enough to talk about it or send it to a friend.

Tags: advertising, marketing, measurement, online, video, viral

US Online Advertising has Record Year

I’m a big fan of eMarketer and have followed Geoff Ramsey’s company for the past 5 years since meeting him at a Interactive to the Max conference in 2003. At that conference Geoff noted a projection by Jupiter Research stating that online advertising would hit 14.8 billion dollars by 2008 in the US. At the time revenues were only 7 billion. As Geoff presented this forecast a theatre of some 200 digital marketing enthusiasts chuckled and began to chatter about the possibility. Doubling revenues in 4 years seemed a bit crazy by any standard. It’s 2008 and looking back we can now say that Jupiter was way off!In the past 4 years online advertising spends have tripled!

According to a recent eMarketer report, spends will reach over 25 billion in 2008 for the US market. To put this into context, the US market spends about 149 billion dollars a year on advertising according to TNS Media Intelligence. If you include all aspects of online advertising(Display, Search, broadcast video) as capture in the eMarketer figure, online ad spends will represent almost 16% of the total this year. Assuming network television spending stays flat as predicted, it is likely that online advertising will exceed television in 2008. If Geoff had of told us that story 5 years ago he probably would have had everyone laughing in the aisles.

Despite a struggling US economy, online advertising is well positioned to continue to grow over the next 5 years. According to Forrester Research, it will triple again by 2012 hitting 61 billion in the US. This growth will be driven by the boom in online video advertising as more people use tools like YouTube and Google Video to connect with their audiences.

In order to realize this growth and benefit from it, advertising agencies will have to change how they deliver. The Internet is a consumer-centric medium and although many may debate it, the user is in control. In order to connect online advertisers have to engage the viewer and deliver a relevant message at the appropriate moment. They will have to listen, learn and communicate with the consumer. In order to achieve this level of engagement advertising agencies will have to change how they go to market. Forrester suggests that the future agency model will be a “Connected Agency” where the delivery of the message will move from “Push” to “Pull”. Advertisers will no longer broadcast they will “intercasting”, engaging consumers in direct conversations through communities and listening closely to their opinions and perceptions.

A tight "Knit" Community

Social networking is not just for kids! Knitters of the world are all over it thanks to Casey and Jessie from Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2004, Jessie who is an avid knitter started writing a blog sharing her thoughts on knitting and looking for input from others who share the same passion. By 2007 she had over 440,000 followers. Recently, with the help of a number of community members, Jessie and Casey fundraised enough cash to built a social networking site called Ravelry. Launched in November 2007 and still in beta release, ravelry.com has over 100,000 members and is growing by more than a 1000 per day! It has a waiting list of 6,800 people who are chomping at the bit to get in the door.

I don’t have the skill required to join this group nor the interest beyond its marketing implications. A friend of mine, who really enjoys knitting, brought it to my attention. She was compelled to tell me about it even though she probably knew I had no interest in knitting. As she described the site you could hear this real sense of genuine excitement in her voice. It was almost like she had met this new friend who shared the same interests. In reality she had met over 100,000 new friends.

When you arrive on the site its façade is very simple, but much like an iceberg, the bulk of its mass is underwater. The first step to seeing this involves putting your name on a waiting list. When I looked at the site there were 6845 people at the pearly gates waiting to be accepted into knitter heaven. People are waiting 6-7 days for there invitations to be processed. Meanwhile, as they chat amongst their social circles, the anticipation of becoming a member is creating all kinds of word-of-mouth awareness for the site. Yeah, I know, hard to imagine people getting that excited about knitting, but believe me there are millions who love it and this site is their Facebook. Go to blogsearch.google.com and search “ravelry”, bloggers are buzzing about the site’s stickiness.

When you get inside the walls you can understand why there is a line-up at the door. Thousands of free design patterns, groups of people blogging, sharing common interests, and forums with 1000’s of postings on 100’s of different topics. The site is already a thriving online community with a massive resource base and it’s only 6 months old. It is a great example of how online communities can be used to facilitate sharing in a very productive fashion. From a marketers perspective this is a farm of information that is primed for harvesting.

100,000 plus enthusiasts in a community that is designed to facilitate two-way communication. If you’re a multi-million dollar yarn company focused on building brand and innovating this has to be on your marketing radar. It’s a huge opportunity to build relationships with the people who have the ability to influence your brand. At a bare minimum you should be listening. The smart brand would be investing.

Why? With all the ambient noise in traditional advertising channels it ‘s hard to reach the true influencers who become champions for a brand. Online communities like ravelry.com are at the forefront of a wave of change. Consumers are tuning out all the noise marketers are making and looking for ways to eliminate irrelevant messages. They expect marketers to know what they want to hear when they want to hear it. Brands that use mass mediums to spray their message all over the place are finding it much more difficult to reach the their core customers. Online communities are helping them connect with their customers and build real one-to-one relationships. The Internet has turned up the volume on the voice of the consumer. Brands have to start listening else they will quickly become extinct. In an early blog post I noted a great example of how one of the world’s most coveted brands, Starbucks is leading the way in this arena. (i.e. www.mystarbucksidea.com)

Communities like ravelry.com have purpose that extends beyond socialization. They are aggregates that collect influencers who, thanks to a certain level of social anonymity, are often ready to engage in a conversation with brands that they perceive as relevant to their interests.