Every good cult product or brand goes wrong at some point and loses its underground appeal.

Hammer pants were cool for a minute

Start crying now Apple D-bags.

More than ever am I hearing people unravel the self-deprecating Apple product releases.

I get it, Mr. Jobs, every new iPhone release is the most important to date. Every single new feature is the culmination of 400 years of scientific breakthroughs and technology handed down by aliens.

With a straight face there aren’t many people that won’t sing the praises of the Apple products themselves, which is either a testament to the functionality or the amazing snow job in release.

Most people complain that products take way too long to be released, but not with Apple.

“Steve Jobs and Apple (has) been working on creating a tablet device that doesn’t suck.  Steve is a very long range thinker.”

It’s amazing; as if Steve Jobs has become some sort of supernatural being that speaks directly to techno-Gods.

Steve Jobs as Techno-Poseidon

The Apple product release strategy is a ploy to spellbind consumers, and one that has worked magically. However their will come a point when even the stupidest, most uninformed consumer won’t be influenced by this.

Here is my understanding of the current product release timeline:

Apple Product Release Strategy

‘No matter what type of new product Apple unveils at its much-anticipated press event later this week, Xavier Yaffar says he will buy it. Whatever the cost. “I don’t even have to look at it,” the 48-year-old said.’ CNN -‘Cult’ of Apple hangs on Wednesday announcement

No matter how dumb you become, everyone has a tipping point of brain-matter that finally pushes them into the Matrix. ‘Apple is only doing and saying these things to get me to buy more stuff’ and not giving me an overwhelmingly great reason to do so other than to stay a part of the obnoxious cult of sycophants. This isn’t marketing anymore; it’s some sort of cruel game.

Pull it together folks, only buy a new gadget if it fits within your budget and has all of the great features that you want and need.

January 27, 2010 Advertising, Media 10 Comments

What MTV’s Jersey Shore can teach us about Internet Marketing

It’s not all fun and games at the Seaside house. The cast of brazen characters on the Jersey Shore are a wild bunch of misfits that can’t seem to stay out of trouble. Whether it be toxic affairs, overly dramatic rivalries, or local xenophobia; this young crew’s frivolous management of relationships and their own personal well-being opens a window for the outsider to build a guide on how-to not ruin marketing campaigns. If you’re not sure how the two match up, keep reading…

MTV's Jersey Shore Snookie

Snookie- The lovable, sassy, self-proclaimed guidette loves nothing more than tanning herself and making out with boys, but she also has a bit of a Napoleon complex. Being slight of stature but unafraid of a fight, she’s been punched more times than Kool-Aid. For some reason, the poor girl isn’t aware enough to know when trouble is brewing.

Learn from Snookie- It’s important to have a certain amount of real self-realization when considering online marketing channels. In SEM there are plenty of instances where you’ll simply be too outmatched to engage in a battle. The competitive landscape in both PPC and SEO and maybe such an uphill climb for newcomer businesses that lower barriers of entry can be found elsewhere. This wouldn’t mean abandoning either tactic, but simply revising it so that you are leveling the playing field. You may consider going strictly long-tail if your keyword sets are deep enough and using the same optimization practice to wage war against lesser opponents. This would be the equivalent of Snookie picking a fight with midgets and kindergartners rather than strung out hookers and roided out monkeys.

MTV's Jersey Shore Pauly D

Pauly D- The ladies man known most commonly for his signature blowout haircut. Pauly had a pretty successful time meeting girls at the bar for later conquest. His total operation is centered on meeting easy women. The Ed Hardy gear, the gym regiment, the haircut, it’s all focused on one goal.

Learn from Pauly- What Pauly might not realize is that his product is too geo focused to ever have success out of his home market. In order to scale nationally he would need to substantially overhaul his approach. It’s important to realize that different markets will not only react differently to marketing cues and product benefits. This can differ in regions as tight as neighboring cities. Thankfully geo-locatable advertising mediums online give us the ability to isolate and exploit. Marketers fall in love with national level A/B testing, which is imperative, and forget about regional testing. A/B testing can and should be separated at a regional level and independent markets should dictate their own testing schedule. Think about the local influence of broadcast news and how coverage may differ from Los Angeles to Boston.

MTV's Jersey Shore Mike 'The Situation'

Mike ‘The Situation’- Shortly after meeting Mike, you’ll be bound to know why he is the best thing to hit the Jersey Shore since spaghetti Bolognese. His callous desire to be the center of attention at all given times wears on everyone’s nerve. You can only take so much of ‘The Situation’ before you’re thoroughly sick of him.

Learn from The Situation- It’s plain and simple; there IS a sweet spot for ad frequency. Over serving ads, saturating channels, and riding a single set of creative for too long will not only erode short term returns, but erode brand equity you’ve built over time. Moderation is the key to all sorts of nice things: growing old, not getting too drunk, staying out of jail, and keeping your advertising fresher longer if you don’t have the luxury of an in-house creative team.

MTV's Jersey Shores Ronnie

Ronnie- The bear-like young man that tears up dance-floors and opponents faces like a ravenous…bear. Though he exhibits a tender and caring side, Ronnie’s testosterone get’s the best of him at times and he can’t control getting himself in dangerous situations. He naturally spends some time in jail.

Learn from Ronnie- Karma is a b**** sometimes. Maybe you’re not the only party at fault, but if you are getting pulled into affiliate programs that don’t give you any active voice in the management of your brand identity, then you could have your hands full. I’ve personally negotiated CPA based deals with networks only to find out that publishers were allowed to run wild with unapproved creative. Imagine the punch in the face I received when I checked my voicemail and had messages of people calling me a racist. You think that management fee and flat rate agency relationships are a gamble? Relinquishing all of your moderation authority to someone motivated by the almighty dollar could be a bet made with really unfortunate odds. Take that chance and you may get burned.

Think I’m way off? Go ahead and make a marketing parallel with J-Wow, Angelina, Sammie, or Vinny and post it below.

Most people release their predictions posts in December or early January.  This is a bit later than most on purpose; so that the clutter can be a distant memory, the regurgitated nonsense that most people spew is erased from the palate and you can concentrate on some predictions that really count.  We’d be foolishly arrogant to do such a thing without being able to back it up.   Last year I predicted that ‘advertising will be put in the hands of the consumer’. Not only did Europe mandate the pre-behavioral ad preference setting, but Google preemptively launched their personal preference manager that allows users to limit or manage what data is shared for ad targeting purposes (amongst other things).  Secondly, it was foreseen that the ‘room is about to get a whole lot nerdier’; Otherwise stating that technology would play a major part in the further progression of online media buying. It certainly did. Digg launched a form of ad crowd-sourcing, Media Exchanges have risen to higher levels of relevancy, and behavioral targeting has sparked controversy, debate, and excitement.  With prognostication like that, who needs a crystal ball?  Please enjoy, discuss, and debate our ideas for 2010!

1. The Search Bypass will become more of a reality—

As our living breathing world becomes more bionic and digitized, we can expect the laws of connectivity also to change. Search is and has been the top online activity for web surfers; would it be the case if the destinations themselves reached out into the living world and made a direct path to databases and interaction without search reliance? 2010 will bring about more connectivity in a live/dynamic world. The journalists will make their play with their version of the kindle, aggregating content that used to lay flat on a paper page, bringing it to life with interactivity and dynamic viewing experience. The boob-tube folks will be in the same light as Boxee and Apple look to enter the home through internet connected TV. For YouTube to remain relevant, they will also make a play for the home viewer. Small LCD screens can be acquired for about the cost of a box of organic cereal. Moore’s law tells us that cost will continue to trend downward. Expect your toaster in the near future to let your friends know that it is making toast at 9am.

2. Ecommerce will become more specialized—

Niche ecommerce will become a powerhouse in 2010. Everyone loves Zappos and Overstock, but they are now Walmart-esque in online stature. The counter-culturists will agree that the small business is always easier to cherish and become a loyalist of. Expect sites like Etsy, Ugly Sweaters, and other very niche e-commerce to carry limited lines of consumer goods and brand themselves as an authority of a very tight product collection. This won’t be restricted to layered distribution channels. Independent manufacturers will learn that it’s really not all that difficult to go direct to consumers through the web.

3. Google will suffer a dip in search share (as much as 10%)—

…but gain in the display advertising world. In the last half of 2009 Google made major strides in expanding upon their adwords platform to include the likes of behavioral marketing and retargeting. Though still in limited Betas, the behavioral channels will gain a greater foothold in 2010 with the Google exploration. When you can combine some of the best data with one of the most dynamic and relevant advertising opportunities, you are bound to have some success. Transparency may hurt the cause, but I expect big things from Google on the display front. Search will inherently lose the battle for media content (without much of a fight) to lower tier engines and search bypass devices. The effects will be nominal in the grand scheme of all things Google, but more significant than most expect.

4. Marketing gets smarter and dumber at the same time—

Let’s get real for a moment; the best marketing people in this world are those that are seasoned, deeply rooted in many facets of social science and human behavior, and groomed under the careful watch of big brands buying massive amounts of data. The internet is vastly comprised of upstart technologists that are well attuned to finding opportunities and exploiting them. Creative marketing strategy, behavior modification and corralling, and predictive advertising are all a great portion that have once been the major divide. Why else wouldn’t banner advertising have worked as well as TV 5 years ago (hundreds of other variables, but follow me down the rabbit hole anyways)? The difference was and is the creative quality. eMarketers are dumber than offline folk, in the loosest sense of the word. Not dumber by intelligence or education, dumber creatively. Enter the technology: With the advent of behavioral targeting, dynamic ad creation, crowdsourcing, and frightening analytics data, is now evening the playing field. This trend will continue as media exchanges continue to penetrate inventory previously isolated to only one network and networks themselves are chewed up, acquired, and spit out. Blog networks that have been working under the radar to drive affiliate monies or linking resource will be a hot commodity. The quickest way to leap a barrier of entry for publishers expanding will be through acquisition.

Indeed, Mr. Shoemaker, money doesn’t sleep.

Sponsored content in general, and even more specifically sponsored tweeting, have spurred both misaligned and poignant conversation. The naysayers will always say nay and the advocates will have brown noses until they are hardly recognizable, but the majority of those who are considered thought leaders are skating in the middle (Cough… Lisa Barone). It’s as if people are waiting for sponsored tweeting to fail or succeed before they chime in and say ‘I told you so’.

“I thought sponsored tweets was the answer and I also disclosed that I have been doing sponsored tweets for the last year.” - Shoemoney

As a Media Director I am an equally unadulterated backer of sponsored content. I’ve used it, very effectively, to foster high performing and highly targeted online branding campaigns for many clients both big and small. Then just last Monday, alongside another agency, we were thankful enough to receive a preview of the sponsored tweeting platform from SponsoredTweets.com.

Read the rest…

Where does one begin? Internet marketing has got to be one of the hardest sales professions there is. Why? Because it is a completely intangible product and service. The payoff - although predictable – can never be guaranteed… nor should it. There is no new car to drive off in, there is no new paint on the wall to admire, and (usually) there is no money back if you don’t like the purchase. And… the biggest challenge… there are a lot of companies out there taking advantage of the uncertainty of it all and your lack of knowledge.

Many people don’t understand the mechanics of how Internet marketing works. They know they want it, they want the big payoffs with those number one rankings… but they don’t have the first clue about what it takes to get there. And herein lays the opportunity for the unscrupulous companies to take advantage . Ours is a business that requires a very high degree of technical ability to perform, and technical competence to understand. If you’re like me (having started doing this about a year ago), my computer savvy ended at checking my Yahoo mail and creating spreadsheets for work. So how do you, as a potential client, figure out who to choose for your Internet marketing needs? You do what I did… you learn. You do your homework. You educate yourself.

Once you have done your homework, then what? How do you go about finding and choosing a reliable company? Again… do some more homework. The following list is a sampling of questions you can and should ask any agency you are considering.

• How long have you been in business?
• How many employees do you have working for the company?
• Do you have case studies? Client references? Examples of reporting?
• Who (or how many people) will be working on my campaign?
• Have you ever had a client banned from Google (or any search engine)?
• Have you yourself ever been banned from Google?
• Can you put down on paper and explain all of the services that will be involved in my campaign?
• What terms does your company rank for? (If they can’t do it for themselves… what confidence should you have that they can do it for you?)

These are just a few, but really… there is no limit to the questions you can or should ask. The more you ask, the more you’ll know. Of course every company will tell you they’re the best, so client references and examples of client rankings and reporting are definitely a couple biggies not to overlook.

That said, here are some tactics that you should be wary of should you run across them.

• Guarantees. The number one red-flag… especially when it comes to SEO and rankings. Any company that tells you they will guarantee a particular ranking is just flat out lying. If you don’t believe me… just ask Google. (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291&ctx=sibling )
• Did they call you or did you call them? Anyone who calls/faxes/emails you with an offer of rankings for $29.99 a month… uhhh, no. May as well donate that money to charity. At least you get the tax write-off.
• “Proprietary” programs. Anyone that convinces you (and I’m amazed that anyone would fall for it) that their tactics are proprietary and therefore can not be explained – red flag. This goes for website design as well. The whole “we use proprietary software so we can’t give you (or your marketing company) access to optimize it” line… rubbish! Reputable companies like ours all use similar tactics to varying degrees. There are no Holy Grails or industry secrets… however, some companies are clearly better at using the tactics than others.
• Bad-mouthing other companies. This is poor form no matter what your business is. Unfortunately we have experienced this before, first hand, where a competitor slanders our name as a tactic to win a deal. If I am you, the client, and I hear bad mouthing… I’m wondering, “Why aren’t they telling me what they can do instead of telling me what other companies are doing?” Companies should be able to win your business on their merits and not the fear-mongering instilled by unscrupulous individuals.
• “It sounds too good to be true.” Guess what – it is. Nine times out of ten, guarantees of rankings and promises of ridiculous amounts of traffic… all for the low, low price of $49.99 a month… uhh, which charity were you considering for that tax write-off?
• (Lack of) Transparency. There is one company I’m thinking of in particular (although there are many others that attempt this arrangement)… and abiding by my own rules, I won’t mention their name… that does not allow their clients access to their own Adwords account. “Give us $5000 a month and we’ll run your campaign including your spend.” Are you kidding me? You have no idea whether they are spending $1000 of that on your spend and pocketing the rest or where that money is going. Transparency. You should be able to see – at any time – what is going on with your campaign. Whether it is reporting on SEO, looking at analytics or viewing your Adwords campaign – it’s your money. You pay for that privilege.

So, arm yourself. Do your homework. Find a company that you feel good about working with. Trust your gut and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Steer clear of the scam artists and ‘smack’ talkers and listen to the people that are willing to take the time to explain their company, their processes and themselves.

This is an industry where you get what you pay for. The people I know that do the technical work are all extremely intelligent and capable and are paid accordingly. So, when companies are offering ridiculously low pricing, you’re either getting amateurs or they’re just not spending much time on your campaign… or both! One of my favorite quotes that I heard recently holds very true in our industry: If you think it’s expensive to hire professionals, wait until you’ve hired amateurs!

Well Greg Sterling is moderating today and he starts off with a VERY controversial statement. He believes that search is a better medium for branding than it is for direct response (conversion)! Our online media planner, Dan Redman, would love Mr. Sterling! James Lamberti from comScore starts off with, of course, some VERY cool numbers. He notes that most people are still using generic terms for search, as opposed to branded terms. Branded terms are still great and need to be addressed, but if you are missing the generic terms, you are missing out on a large segment. Another point that James makes is that people in the consumer packaged goods industry, and probably others, are looking for information and help. Most CPG marketers use the Internet as a big coupon drop as opposed to a medium where they can provide good information to consumers.

An overlying theme in this session seems to be the idea that search fuels brand awareness, not in a direct response manner, but in a longer term (branding) manner. It has long been known that people use search primarily for research and will typically purchase much further down the funnel. Well, this idea is being proven to be stronger than ever given all of the superb information that is being presented in this session, real hard data!

Connecting your brand to your customer’s passions is the best way to build a relationship with them. Appealing to the passions of your target audience really helps put your brand in the forefront. This really helps in creating the coveted brand advocates. Search is a huge partner throughout the entire relationship with your customer. From a paid search perspective, you need to match your “95 characters” to the consumer’s intent. Bob Tripathi, of Discover Card, notices that brand fixations occurred in the URL and title of their paid ads, not in the description, through eye tracking studies. They still spend a majority of their marketing budget in TV but have been doubling their budget in online and are currently at 16%. They definitely notice the impact TV ads have on both branded and non-branded terms, there are significantly more searches and conversions after running their TV ads.

Cam Balzer, of DoubleClick/Performics, notes that they are on a mission to build value with clients in the keywords that build the brand or purchase long before the actual desired end result. It is very difficult to track and to explain this subject to advertisers. Conversion is typically measured by only the last click, or Direct ROI. Adjusted ROI measures sales credit distributed across all paid search clicks in the stream. Investing in high-performance “assist” keywords will help boost the overall campaign. Eliminating under performing keywords and improving negative terms, are just some of the benefits of detailed clickstream analysis. Of course, you are going to need a very robust analytics to do this clickstream analysis, and from what I have seen, this investment in clickstream analysis is well worth it.
Cam shows us very convincing figures on the benefits of clickstream analysis from a fortune 500 client.

Overall, I do actually believe in the power of search in building the brand, creating awareness, and driving conversion. The only problems I see with the focus on branding over direct conversion comes from the standpoint of the small to medium sized businesses. The business that only has a few thousand dollars per month to spend online cannot afford to dedicate resources to detailed clickstream analysis, they need to drive conversions. Asking a small to medium sized business to spend more on branding is super difficult, even after showing them tremendous gains with conversion focused Internet marketing. On the flip side, the clients that we do work on, who focus on branding, do see great success. And their success is seen across all of the marketing initiatives on an aggregate level. It is these types of large clients that covet even just a minimal overall increase who realize the importance of brand building online.