Understand the mindset, not just the media moment

According to ExactTarget's 2008 Channel Preference Survey,  younger consumers favor IM and text messaging for personal communication, but they prefer email for marketing communication. And 56% of those 18-24 had made a purchase because of a marketing message received vial email, down a little from 35-44 year olds, 66% of whom had purchased vial email.

The distinction is a clear indicator of the need to go beyond media usage alone as a targeting criteria, and to define the mindset associated with the use of a particular media form in order to understand the potential role of marketing for a particular user of a particular medium.

THINK's model of media usage clearly defines texting and IM usage among 18-24 year olds as an "interaction" mindset, and commercial email as a "transactional" mindset. Based on this model, brands would be wise to take very different approaches to each medium. This latest research bears out the distinction.

If any good can come from great evil...

Through history, moments of great adversity have often increased the speed of adoption of transformative technologies. Wars have given us widespread availability of radar, sonar and reliable wireless communications, Katrina drove expansion of the use of social networking and other self-publishing tools, and so on.

Will one outcome of the horrors at Virginia Tech be a sea-change in the adoption of text messaging networks? VT will join other schools such as Penn State in offering students the ability to register for text messaging, via offerings from vendors such as Rave Wireless.

But that's really the tip of the iceberg. What we should be looking at is the widespread adoption of text messaging for up-to-the minute alerting of critical news based on affiliation or place-based context... if:

• Carriers re-think their pricing models, and abandon the usurious surcharges for text messaging (by the message or flat-rate) that maintain it as a niche product for youth. In countries where SMS is dirt-cheap, volume is high.
• Carriers (or messaging networks) work with public safety officials to create more global opt-ins for messaging about public safety issues such as, heavens forbid, the incident at VT, an upcoming tsunami, a major hazardous material spill, etc. We still sit through those tests of the emergency broadcast system on terrestrial radio, after all.

Omnilert and M/A-Com have offerings that have enjoyed limited uptake. Time to get rolling on more widespread adoption.

MySpace not a popular shopping site: shocker!

The other day iProspect and Jupiter released the results of a new Social Networking User Behavior study. It seems that interviews with users of social media have found that users search social media sites to connect with friends, search reviews on Amazon when they want to buy stuff, and search YouTube when they are looking for entertainment. Oh, and social content on Amazon (reviews) are a lot more likely to influence purchase behavior than social content on MySpace or Facebook.

At the risk of sounding just a bit snarky, duh! Now that I have that out of my system -- this is why social networking and media consumption and sharing sites present marketers with opportunities to do things other than present product reviews and click to buy messaging -- for instance, branding. But even when you want to do that, just remember where your brand fits in the user's view of the media environment they have chosen to inhabit at that time. Market to the mindset, not just the medium.

Did we really need another survey to tell us this?

Advertising's chaos senario 2.0

Bob Garfield has a long thought-inspiring article at Ad Age on the chaotic conditions facing advertisers. In short its all about niche verses mass and the old global agencies and traditional media outlets are not structured to make the transition.  Bob comes up with five truths about the current situation.

1. People don't like ads
2. But they crave information
3. The consumer is in control. No, really.
4. Diversion of ad budgets
5. Pay-per-view

"In imagining Chaos 2.0, you must follow the no-money. And when you do, you'll have taken the Chaos Scenario one step further: to a digital landscape in which marketing achieves hitherto unimaginable effectiveness, but in which display advertising's main role will be to quickly, straightforwardly, informatively draw you into a broader brand experience."

Monetizing Social Networks

Robert Young has an interesting post on GigaOm about monetizing social networks. His main prediction is that "social networks will prove themselves to be the most effective brand communication platforms on the Internet."  Robert continues on making four observations about better positioning social networks to make money.

1. Social network sites are bad platforms for call to action ads.
2. Social networks are people powered so advertising needs to be done with people not at people.
3. Social networks are too cluttered with ads. To increase CMPs you need to create scarcity.
4. Scalability is key; therefore, automation is critical.

As new and old media companies rush to fill the demand for social experiences online, monetization will decide which projects are successful.  I look forward to Turner's Super Deluxe as an example of applying the learnings of '06.

Is the Home Page Dead?

"What is the relevancy of a homepage when no one is going through the front door?" asked Burnham Marketing CEO, Jason Burnham, who was moderating a table discussion at the December iMedia Agency Summit on the future of homepages.

With RSS use on the rise, people are customizing content through aggregator sites like Digg.com, personalizing My Yahoo!, or simply searching for content with Google. However, its use hasn't come close to replacing the reach that a large portal homepage can generate.

According to Bluestreak's report, "Emerging Digital Channels: Consumer Adoption, Attitudes & Behavior," which surveyed consumer behavior and attitudes toward emerging technologies - 28% of respondents use RSS.

Creates new solutions for advertisers - Publishers are beginning to sell ads against entry pages, rather than homepages. For example, iVillage provides advertisers with a way to target visitors when they first hit a website, whether it's an article page, product review, image spread, or download page. It is a great publisher strategy for sites like About.com that emphasize their strength in SEO.

Homepages are still not going away - Though many users sidestep homepages, they remain a brand's storefront in the digital realm. It may provide the first and most important impression. Customization through RSS still has a long way to go before generating the kind of reach a homepage can drive for an advertiser.

Customization will continue to grow as RSS adoption takes off. As with all things digital, publishers and advertisers have to adapt. Publishers can bring in more loyal users. Advertisers can reach a highly targeted audience and cut through the run-of-site clutter without spending homepage premiums.

Branded Entertainment: $7.5B by 2010

Will Waugh at the ANA reveals some data about branded entertainment from a recent ANA publication, "Best Practices in Branded Entertainment: Case Studies and Accountability," by Richard C. Sutton with Barbara Zack. The big data points are, according to PQ Media, branded entertainment will a 7.5 billion dollar industry by 2010.

Will also points to an excerpt from the book listing the ten best practices of branded entertainment:

1. Is it brand relevant and brand positive?
2. Does it build brand awareness?
3. Does it break through advertising clutter?
4. How long is the integration on-screen? Is it long enough for viewers to notice?
5. Is it organic?
6. Can the integration build buzz?
7. Is there a demonstration of your product or service in the program? Or, can the program highlight key brand attributes?
8. Will the program generate positive publicity and media coverage?
9. How does the program relate to the rest of your brand marketing? If it’s an event, does it have a beginning, middle, and end?
10. The prize is ROI. What’s the return on investment? What results do you plan to measure – and how will you do it?

As viewers turn from TVs to the internet for more of their entertainment, brand sponsored content is going to be more and more important for reaching your target audience. 

Disruptive Technology: The Venice Project

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are surely the poster boys for disruptive technology.  The co-founders of KaZaA were basically on the run for most of the late 90's.  Then came Skype, which turned the telco world on its ear and was sold to eBay for "billions."

Not content to take a breather, the pair now plans to tackle television. In an interview with Om Malik, Janus Friis described The Venice Project: "What we have done is created a streaming P2P platform for television. This is a platform, which is good for content owners, for advertisers and of course the viewers. Since there are no borders on the Internet, this is a global platform."

In a bid to not be global criminals on the run, Janus says they will be respecting all copyrights. 

Bruno Giussani summarizes the offering:

• "streaming peer-to-peer television (near-TV quality)
• free to the user (just download the client software)
• ad-supported (with ad targeting)
• deals with content providers (revenue-share)
• time-shifted
• searchable
• with "social TV" features (tagging, recommendations, etc)"

In addition to the disruptive effect on the broadcast model, The Venice Project has major implications for marketers. Targeted ads with solid measurement could be the solution to the burning question of how to advertise on social networks.  Which could mean the timing of The Venice Project could not be better. 

Consider Bambi Fransisco's analysis of the percentage of advertising currently going to social networks: "Social networks are estimated to attract $280 million in ad dollars this year, according to eMarketer. Online video-sharing sites are estimated to attract about $385 million. EMarketer estimates that $15.9 billion will be spent in online advertisements in the U.S. this year. That means social networks and video-sharing sites only attract about 1.8% to 2.5% of total online ad spending."

Grasshopper, there is no kimono

It's become clear that a fundamental shift in thinking that needs to take place if marketers are to make the transition to a media 2.0 world. We've all heard (and probably said ourselves) expressions about "opening the kimono" and how the internet was the medium that required doing so -- well, true, but not far enough, because the entire concept retains media 1.0 artifacts of thought that can critically damage your brand -- as evidenced by the Walmart/Edelman "flog" fiasco.

In a 1.0 world, there is a "kimono" -- a veil of separation between your brand and your marketplace -- that marketers choose to open and close to varying degrees at various times and in various media. Marketers in effect wholly own their brands and play the role of geisha, cleverly and seductively showing a little ankle in order to entice markets into a branded relationship.

In a 2.0 world, it's clear that brands are co-owned with your markets. This isn't a new lesson -- the New Coke debacle/triumph (depending on where you are re that conspiracy theory) illustrated this concept years ago. New media vehicles just exacerbate the issue. When you have truly wrapped your head around co-ownership, you will find that you have very different notions about how to use these vehicles. 2.0 blogging for Walmart? Well, on the one hand, your brand co-owners will expect a highly authentic blog from Walmart leadership, addressing the real issues and opportunities facing the brand in the marketplace. Marketing campaigns that incorporate blogging are fine -- but are either openly "made up" -- think about an interactive ad campaign in which an obviously manufactured teen cartoon character blogs about back to school -- or "authentic" - in which, say, four real moms (and a single-parent dad) blog about getting their kids back to school and the real challenges they face. OK, these ideas are off the top of my head, but serve the purpose to illustrate the  principle at work here: wake up and smell the sake, folks -- there is no kimono.

NBC Universal's Five New Media Principles

NBC Universal's digital czar, Beth Comstock commented on how NBC is going to deal with the new media environment at Mipcom, a programing trade show.

She said NBC Universal needed to "create the best, most innovative content, get used to sharing control, tap the power of the community, develop a keen understanding of constantly changing consumer behavior and, finally get used to the idea that the media marketplace from now on is going to be full of contradictions and tensions."

The Adage article goes on to highlight the difficultie s facing media executives in keeping up with consumer behavior.  At THINK we realize the media environment is changing rapidly and we believe the only way to keep up with the behavior is to be a part of the "consumer-led republic."

Telling stories on blogs, making videos for YouTube and building characters and buildings in Second Life are just a few of the things we have been up to lately.  The best way to know the consumer is to be the consumer.