marginally subversive

It's all about the experience...

I stumbled upon this interesting slide show on content marketing - at least that's how it was labeled on SlideShow.Com.  However, I think that it does cover more than just content marketing as a discipline.  It covers a far bigger, far richer view of the consumers' experience-sphere - and how brands can make/unmake their positions within this circle.

It's all about enhancing consumers' experiences of brands - that's the raison d'etre of media, channel, and messaging experts.  It's not about buying a TV ad or a print ad or a banner ad in some number 1 portal somewhere.  It's not about buying search keywords and optimizing them to the hilt.

It's about enhancing consumers' experiences of brands.

And I honestly think that content marketing - what used to be called (or is it still called?) "branded content and sponsorships" (though I think it's far more than that) - is one pillar that is currently underutilized in the media planning industry.

A lot of clients that I have spoken to about this have just one reply: "We are not a publishing company".  To which I say, "... but the mere fact that you are creating ads, buying media to send those messages into the market, and getting PR people and CRM writers to create campaigns - contents, essentially - don't these make you a publishing company?"

 

Content Marketing = Brand New Marketing?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: media interactive)

Innovation

A thesis: Technologies designed to meet said and unsaid needs of consumers is what's going to drive innovations. 

Innovation is a careful balance between what consumers think they want now and in the near future - and what they have not yet thought about.

The real challenge is not really "meeting consumers' needs" - as made evident by surveys or any other "emotional, ethnographic research".  But creating technologies that enhance the experiences and lives of consumers.

Google did just that.  So did Apple's iTunes + iPod combo.  So did Amazon.Com.  They looked at how they could create better experiences for their consumers (and well, increase their bottom-line).  And they did succeed.

Simple.  Classic.  Elegant UIs.  That actually work.  And eventually get trusted.

Technology is important - but it is an enabler.  An important enabler.  But it's not the end-all/be-all.

Brands as Destinations

I was just thinking about 'destinations as Brands'.  The Hiltons and Conrad Hotels (which by the way are still tops on my list), Sheratons, and JW Marriotts.  Then started thinking about "countries as brands" - Singapore, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the Philippines, Malaysia.  And then the brands that take you there - Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Northwest, Emirates... - all of which are not entirely 'destinations' but surely are 'brands'.

Then my brain flipped:  How about thinking of it inversely - "brands as destinations"?  Does it hold?

Come to think of it:  some companies have called the 'retail space communications' as "the last mile that will make or break the deal between the brand and the consumer".  Some have thought of the "consumers' journey" or "path to a purchase".

From these, it seems then possible that "brands are destinations" in and of themselves, regardless of what categories they belong in.

But what would a brand as a destination be?

Hmmm.

For Coke: That sizzle, that 'bite' at the back of the throat that refreshes and gives me a break - however simple and short from the hassle of daily work.
For Kiehl's and Gillette 5Blade (whatever it is called) Shaver:  That smooth shave in the morning - with the minty, tingly feeling after.
For Mac:  That "can't wait any longer gotta be on my Mac" feeling every single night - in spite of being tired.
For my Sony PSP:  That "can't wait to advance to the next level and earn my black belt - even if it's only virtually" experience.
For the good old, H&L Milk in my fridge: That "please, I want to sleep now" feeling.

It seems possible.  And it could well be true.

Brands in themselves are destinations for consumers.  Brands are not just the tangible aspect of a 'product' - but also the emotional responses that a certain experience evokes out of and with the consumer.

Hmm.

Of Post-Buys, Rigor in Planning, Coke Zeroes and Vodka Martinis (that were probably shaken... or stirred)

I was just speaking with someone who's been part of my 'batch' of media planners and strategists in the Philippines.  She was lamenting that "the young ones are too impatient to climb up the ladder - looking at promotions as rewards; if only they knew what a promotion entails and how much it takes away versus how much it gives".  To that, I said "Well, I am sure our bosses also felt the same of us when we came out of uni and were driven to prove our worth - and well, pay off those student loans".

She also lamented that media planners don't do proper post-buys anymore.  And she went on reminiscing:  "You know, those times of actually staying up late at night to 'marry' data from one data-source that tracks the exact time of airing of a 15s ad to another data-source that contains the exact ratings at that point in time?"

For those who don't understand the preceding:  In the mid-1990s in the Philippines, we had two monitoring systems - the Philippine Monitoring System - or PMS (and yes, even if I never had the 'luxury' of experiencing one, I am sure it was not purely coincidental that it had the same monicker) - which monitored the exact airing of a TV commercial.  Then there was the Nielsen Telescope, which monitored exact ratings to the minute. 
A fresh-grad and new planner would be tasked to do this - marry the two data-sets.  The process sounds simple - you run PMS, you print it out, then you reinput the data into the other software, then press "run".  But recall that this was the mid-1990s in the Philippines: colored monitors were a luxury - I had a green one in Basic Advertising.  Processing power was very limited - so one 4-week campaign will be run overnight on PMS so as early as 8am, you can start entering the data into the other system, which would take another 2-3 hours of runs.  Oh, and the dot-matrix printers - which always found a way to screw up.
For me, it was a test of patience - it was baptism by fire (apart from having been assigned to the McDonald's account during my first year of professional existence as a media planner!).

And to that question which she posed, I said, "Yes.  The new ones have got it all easy."

And to which she responded, "But do you also notice that the rigor has been gone?"

She went one:  "Back then, we had to conduct not just analyses of the programs - but we made projections on how programs and breaks are going to be like.  We had to create reach-curves across different scenarios and mixes of buys - and predict how certain mixes can result to some probable reach.  It wasn't just the last 13 weeks or last 20 weeks.  It was the last 26 weeks - and past-year's similar period!  And we would determine if they were statistically different - or not.  And if they were, why!  These days, we just see media plans with ratings in them."

I just laughed:  I knew where she was coming from.

"And don't get me started on post-buys!  These days, they celebrate when they get 33% or 50% more GRPs than they planned to achieve.  They celebrate if they achieved 10% reach points more than what they planned to achieve - highlighting it to clients as if they were great things to be proud of.  Hello!  Wastage!

"If you delivered 50% more GRPs than what you planned, then that means you wasted money - since you didn't need that extra 50%.  You could've used that elsewhere... perhaps in another medium, another week, another... I don't know... events?"

"These days, post-buys are simply a reportage of what happened.  There's nothing in there that makes it relevant to the business and the future campaigns.  It just - a piece of paper!  A report!  What a pity!"

I tried to calm her down:  "But you see, things are changing, too.  Post-buy tempates of TV are probably not applicable to post-buys on digital."

She stared at me: "Oh no, no, no, no, no.  These digital post-buys that are seemingly so enamored with the idea of clickstream here and clickstream there... hello!  So what does that mean to me?  That they clicked on this ad and landed on this site... Then what?  They said the web is the most measurable of the different media - and it could be true.  But informative?

"All I have seen so far are fancy charts with lines and curves and percentages and ratios...  I don't see the "so-what?"  and I don't see the "what's next?" I'd like to know more:  so if this is what's happening, so if these keywords aren't performing, so if these banners are not delivering as much as the others, so if these are the likely exit-pages, so if these are the likely entry-sourves... so what?  And what's next?

And with that, we chugged down our drinks - me with my no-sugar Coke Zero and her with her Vodka Martini - shaken or stirred, she doesn't really care.  ("I am not James Bond.  More like Miranda Priestley and Wilhelmina Slater combined.")

Google + Digg = ???

I had a bit of a discussion with our digital lead in the office about Google and Digg.  As of early last week,  talks are probably making some headway.  TechCrunch had even had a stronger 'pronouncement' that the talks are in the final stages with Google paying 200Mln USD (only?) for the deal.  Of course, Digg had to respond to such talks.  Its CEO, Jay Adelson, denied that these talks are in place.

As of the latest news, there seems to have been a breakdown in the negotiations.  Google, apparently, walked away from the deal, according to TechCrunch.

What's driven Google to this?  Well, we can only speculate.  But this perhaps could give us a glimpse:  It seems that Google is experimenting with integrating user-votes into their algorithms to further refine the search results that the search engine churns for its users.

This entry from TechCrunch demonstrates how some early tests that Google has been conducted in the area of "social/user-votes-integration" into search results.

All these are of interest to me as a campaign planner - and for marketeers.

First, the idea of integrating a social-dimension to search results is probably a good idea from the end-user perspective.  Right now, Google's PageRank and other technologies (Microsoft's Browserank, which debuted on SEOBook.Com) are dependent on "referral links". 

(Microsoft's BrowseRank looks at user's behavior and the time spent per 'referring link' to ascertain the importance of the 'target link'; OK - that's putting it simplistically...)

Adding on a social component to search results is essentially "sourcing the wisdom of the crowds" - crowds, who I should add would be or are going to be very likely to be interested in the same things that any individual user is looking for.

The technologies of referring links (and other metrics gathered through sophisticated algorithms based on web-crawlers and others) will have an added, truly-interactive dimension - which means that with this, users get to have a say on what's relevant and what's not.

Will it lead to better results?  I am no algorithm expert - but I would think so.  If I were searching for "Ducati motorcycles" (which I have been doing for the past 2 weeks), I would want to have more relevant information on Ducati - way beyond what the corporate website of Ducati says (which always comes up tops on the list).  And right now, I will have to follow every single link that the Google search results page spews out.

With this added dimension of "vote-ups/downs" from other end-users who may have searched the same keywords as I have done, it might just make my life a little easier.  The ones that were voted up by people who did the same search earlier than I did would most likely be relevant to me, too.  It may not be perfect - but at least it is a starting point.

The end-user, I think, will benefit from this greatly.  She may lose out on a few interesting websites - but even then, she can vote-up/down on her own volition results which she may have found to be relevant to her search.

On the other hand, there are questions on "search results manipulation".  If we had incidents of "click-fraud" in the CPC model - then we'll have to live with (or at least get Google to put a lid on) fraudsters who will be exploiting the possibility of artificially bumping up/down ratings.

On a cost-basis (which in these troubled times are beginning - or are becoming a more frequent point of discussion in marketing meetings - traditional or digital), costs per click or costs per acquisition are probably going to increase.

The results no longer are just dependent on Google's algorithms - with the social dimension of the search results, the crowd contributes.  Essentially, people who have done similar searches as I am now doing, for exaple, will have already paved the way for me to the most relevant results - which could potentially be relevant to me, too!

Now, isn't that more valuable than pure, algorithm-derived search results?  If I were google, I would do the same thing.  I would put a premium to this - whilst controlling the possibility of fraudulent vote-ups/downs.

Bottom-line:  Google is living up to its vision - "to oganize the world's information".  And if and when this incorporation of the social dimension comes through, it would have been a step closer to realizing that vision.

For now, Google + Digg is probably not going to pull through.  But it seems, Google has got its head around the issue.  And it seems that they are on the right track.

Psychoanalysis, Metaphors, and Marketing: Going beyond the surface

I have always been interested in attitudes that people have about certain phenomena that they encounter everyday - and how these attitudes are formed, how these attitudes influence and shape their own behaviors - and those of others.

This is something that I picked up from the Harvard Business School's blogs - the use of psychoanalysis (and/or similar techniques) to get to the bottom of one's relationships with and perceptions of brands in general.  Unlike in ethnology where a researcher may be relegated as an observer and the 'subjects' and their interactions and their expressions observed from a distance, this technique developed by Jerry Zaltman, uses interviews that are founded on the psychoanalytic disciplines of psychology/psychiatry.  (Think Rorschach inkblots or word-associations or draw-a-tree/person test.)

 

Interesting approach.

Here's a link to the video.

Paid Search Ads Not the Holy Grail

This is a very interesting video from Yahoo! Tech Ticker, an interview with Jonathan Yarmis of AMR Research conducted by Sarah Lacy.  Yarmis believes that there are four pillars to disruptive technologies that will define the future - not in silos but in terms of how each pillar interact:

1. Social Networking Phenomenon, powered by the technology
2. Cloud computing
3. Mobile access to data
4. Monetization beyond the traditional search ads

Yarmis also suggests that "paid search ads in a social networking phenomenon" (and I will add, in other technologies - for example in mobile access to data on a phone or a wireless device) are not the only way to monetize all these.

(Think of it this way:  If you are talking/networking with your friends on your PC or on your mobile device, would you really click on a text ad that's irrelevant to what you and your friends are talking about?)

The internet, Yarmis says, will remain to be free - and I do agree.  Capex from tech companies that are funding these "free" internet services won't be able to maintain these levels of interest.  Monetization will be critical.  However, most companies are still very much stuck to the old "advertising mindset" of capitalizing on "inventory" rather than creating new ways of monetizing these.

Making Sense of Location-/People-Tracking Data

This is a piece of interesting news that I picked from the NYTimes:  a company in the US, called Sense Networks (in NY), has launch an analytics program that will help analyze data on people's movements, routines, and trips - and potentially encounters with other people (or crowds), ads, and the retail shop.  This comes after NATURE published a study on how people of an unnamed city roam around their city/locale using cell-phone signals.

From a research perspective, this is a lot of data - a treasure trove of data.

From a marketeer's POV, this is a something like a dream come true: knowing where your consumers are, what kinds of media/communications they encounter with on the street, how they behave alone versus in groups versus in crowds of people, and how they behave inside the store en route to buying your product.  A savvy marketeer can immediately see the value (I hope) of such information - and how it can be deployed to improve one's investments across different kinds of media and non-media channels.

I can imagine, for example, a marketeer or a media planning company in NY tagging all their outdoor sites, bus-/train-ads with GPS data - alongside shopping centers that carry their brands or their competitors. 

I can also imagine marketeers and data-miners having a grand time consolidating information in-store with those gathered from these troves of consumer- and ad-/media-locator data - and creating predictive models and algorithms that would make brand campaigns more effective. 

I can also imagine how these sort of data will move adspends away from TV and potentially other in-home media, including the internet because "the last golden mile" in retail marketing is still the most important part of the buying process...!

But I am also pretty sure that this will attract a lot of controversy: privacy and individual anonymity.

It's going to be - hmm - intrusive.  It could very well be the start of conspiracy theorists' and privacy advocates' nightmare:  Big Brother On The Loose.  I can't imagine what would stop governments using this kind of technology (if they don't already have it - now that sounds a little like a conspiracy theory...) to track down individuals of interest to the state/nation in order to "protect" and ensure the safety of the public.

So - given these imagined possibilities, what should we think of these developments?

Well, I think we need to carefully think through this one very carefully.  Whilst it is great technology - and it could benefit marketeers (and, marketeers would argue, it could also benefit consumers), I think that it furthers the questions on privacy, ethics in marketing research, and corporate social responsibility:

• While individual-level data is good for business (think CRM, think CLV analysis, think RFM, think HB Regression and Clustering), how "individual" should individual-level data be?  How much is enough?  And how much is too much?

• How do we ensure that the guidelines set by and through marketing research societies all over the world about consumer privacy and about ensuring respondent-anonymity are followed to the letter?  The commercial reasons sometimes may well override these guidelines - and who doesn't want to earn some money?

• What kinds of information are off-limits and what are not?  People going to and from a grocery store after having gone through the train, for example, would be pretty good data for media planners and outdoor specialists.  Marrying those tidbits of information with purchase data would provide very good information of how people buy things.  But where would data-gathering stop?

I think that there must be an answer somewhere - or at least, a set of guidelines - of how these kinds of information are used.  They are great sources of information - and with proper manipulation would be great sources of insight and knowledge that could prove to be valuable to businesses.

However, there are also repercussions that come with the availability of these kinds of data.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Data, Analytics, Research, Marketing Research, Media Planning

LinkedIn and other social networks...: Beyond Advertising

The news on LinkedIn.Com being valued at about 1Bln USD after having been infused with 53Mln USD of investments has made a lot of people asking:  "So how will LinkedIn.Com's business model be?"

A lot are speculating that their current revenue streams won't be enough.

Right now, LinkedIn.Com is all about delivering ads - with premium CPMs/CPCs considering the quality of the audiences that LinkedIn reaches - and premium subscriptions.  A lot of industry watchers are asking "will this be enough?", adding that "Nobody would pay for a subscription if social networks such as Facebook, Ning, MySpace, and Friendster would do" and "Nobody clicks on text ads anyway... so if they are to rely on advertising, it wouldn't be sustainable".

I beg to differ, though.

I think that so long as LinkedIn.Com sticks to its principles - to what got them here (i.e., their audiences and the trust that they have built amongst their members - paying or non-paying) - they should be OK on the batteground for subscriptions.  For one, I can stand and raise my hand that my LinkedIn subscription has paid for itself many times over.  And I am sure those folks who are also subscribers to LinkedIn are getting the same value out of it - more than the "free" spaces that they get on Facebook et al.

On the advertising front, I think LinkedIn has got something valuable - their audiences.  My impression is that the people who are in LinkedIn are the ones who are deciding the fates of major companies in major industries.  OK - perhaps, not the C-level people - but people who have the C-level executives' ears.

I also would like to argue that advertising is NOT the only way that LinkedIn can capitalize on their services.  Advertising - i.e., "forcing people to look at messages and forcing people to respond to them" (which is essentially what advertising traditionally is all about) - is not the only way for LinkedIn - or any social media - to realize their potentials.

I believe that the phenomenon of social media - the social web - needs to be approached differently from merely forcing people to consume ads.  It needs to be more intimate, more relevant, more personal - and more social.

I know that's a paradox - to be "personal" and yet "social".

How then?

That is the big question that I think LinkedIn - and anybody in the social media world - should try to answer:  How do we monetize the social networks that audiences voluntarily create without alienating and annoying the very audiences that created these social networks in the first place?

For now, I don't have an answer - and I also have the impression that anybody has the answer.

So... I guess the race is on...  Again.

LinkedIn versus Facebook: Shall they ever meet - and compete?

Will we ever see LinkedIn and Facebook meeting - and competing?

There is a view that most would have a Facebook account for 'fun' and LinkedIn for a more serious, professional image.  That's what I do, too.  I think - though - that there is more to LinkedIn that just that.

I have used LinkedIn to be heard - one of the major sources of traffic to my blog Marginally Subversive is my LinkedIn profile.  I have had projects - and job inquiries - on LinkedIn, and I have also established 'connections' (for lack of a better term) with other professionals in my field and with people who I would not have had a chance to connect with in the real, flesh-and-blood world.  I have, for example, academicians in my extended network - people who have accepted my request to connect for the purpose of perhaps, helping me out in the future when I hit a snag in my academic quests or projects.

LinkedIn's two-pronged strategy of generating revenues through subscriptions and through ads is interesting.  But I think there is more to that:  sure, LinkedIn's probably limited in terms of its inventory and its ability to deploy ads (i.e., it doesn't have Google's Ad-serving strength), but the quality of the people who are in LinkedIn is significantly higher than any other social network that I know of.

That's the beauty of social networks - the value of social networks do not rely on mere "quantity" and "breadth" or number of users.  The value of social networks is also based on the quality of its users.

Look at Facebook:  Its exclusivity to university students was what made it interesting and unique.  Now that anybody can have a Facebook account, its sexiness has gone - and it has gone the way of "portals" and "search ads".

LinkedIn's business model is by no means perfect.  But it is teeming with opportunities.  However, it should be careful with how it evolves.  Its users are what make LinkedIn precious - and I hope (as a user) they don't evolve into another "too-ad-driven" site.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: LinkedIn, Social Networking, Social Web, Digital Web, Digital Advertising, Digital Models, Business Models, Strategic Planning

"S-Curves"

I cannot remember where I read this statement:  "When looking out for trends, watch out for the big and the small S-curves".  However, I have been studying S-curves for quite sometime now.  I have used it in projecting how technologies could emerge. 

When 3G mobile handsets were emerging in Singapore - and there were some data on the first six months of 3G handsets' penetration from the IDA - I tried my hand on modeling how the eventual penetration of 3G handsets were going to be.  I was asked by a journalist from one of the leading newspapers when I thought it would hit critical mass - and I said "in the next 3-6 months". 

She guffawed and didn't believe me. 

(I checked back a few months after that conversation in 2005 [or was that 2006] - I was right.  It's just that, ownership of a 3G-enabled handset didn't necessarily mean usage of 3G technologies.  That's for another day.)

When I was also trying to look at the penetration of new technologies - such as social-networking sites in some of the countries in the Southeast - I managed to fit them in an S-curve.

During a conversation with a potential employer, I blurted out that "I loved S-curves!"  Well, that's probably an exaggeration - but I find it to be very useful.

S-curves, I think, are very helpful.  It describes social and tech phenomena quite nicely - for example, how rumors, epidemics, new technology, and new ideas spread have been modeled using S-curves.  The proverbial "last straw that broke the camel's back", "tipping point", and "critical mass"  can also be thought of as the inflection point of the S-curve.

There are a number of S-curves that I know of.  Most are quite complicated.  The logistic/sigmoid function is one of them - very powerful, very interesting, and very useful specially if one is working with individual level data.

One of the S-curves that I found really interesting is Frank Bass' Diffusion Curves.  It uses 3 parameters:

• The maximum capacity, which in the case of "penetration" figures, would be 100.
• The Coefficient of Innovation
• The Coefficient of Imitation

I typically explain the Coefficient of Innovation as the innate power of a new technology (or product/service) to generate a following amongst the target population.  It's the innate or initial momentum that the technology (for example, Google's search engines back in the early 2000s) to be used by others.

The Coefficient of Imitation is the impact of others using the same technology.  It could be in the form of "perceived peer pressure" - a person's circle of friends upgrading to a 3G-enabled handset and therefore influencing that person to upgrade as well.  It could be in the form of word-of-mouth or endorsements.

The diffusion curves of Bass, I think, explains a lot - and does so elegantly and simply.  (Of course, there's more to the model than just mere projections and S-curves.)

Anyway, I have set up a spreadsheet called SCurves.Xls that would help in estimating S-curves given at least three data points (in percentage) using the diffusion curves of Frank Bass. 

Download SCurves

These data points may or may not be continuous or complete.  For example, you may have data for Year-1, Year-5, and Year-10 - this simple spreadsheet should still work.  Of course, the more data you have, the better.

(And if you have sufficient data, then reserve about 20% of these data as "counterchecks" or "validation data".)

You should have Excel's SOLVER Add-In enabled, though, for it to work.  (If you want the unlocked file, let me know by leaving a comment and I'll send it through to you by email.  You'd be surprised how simple it is.)

I cannot guarantee that the spreadsheet would work in all versions of Excel.  I have only one version at home (Office 2000 for XP).  I also cannot guarantee that there are no viruses.  I have pretty much a good antivirus in my system - but I could be wrong - so if you don't trust me enough, don't download it.

Below is a screenshot of the outputs:  It shows the Innovation and the Imitation Coefficients, the projected % at time, t, (which could be years, months, days, hours...), and a ghastly chart.  The chart is 'unlocked' and therefore, you can change and beautify it.

You enter your data in the yellow region.  In the file, there are 7 hypothetical data points entered.  These were not "continuous data" points.  But they seem to be working.

Try it out and let me know if it works.  If it doesn't, let me know, too.

marginally subversive thought of the day

People don't care about the technologies that they are using - they care about the brands that these technologies are powering. 

The brand promises - and engenders hope; the technology delivers.  If the technology does not deliver, the brand gets spanked.  If the brand does not deliver, the technology - no matter how good it is or how superior it is against its competition - won't survive.

Think MSN's Live Search - or better yet, Yahoo Search versus Google Search.  We can safely assume that all three are 'good' search engines - with the backing of great software engineers, academicians, algorithm designers, and specialists.  But why does Google dominate?  How did "Google it" become an intelligible sentence?  How did "Google" become a verb?

Or Creative Technology's ZEN products versus Apple's iPod.
Or Dell versus Sony Vaio versus HP versus Gateway versus Asus?

The brand creates the promise - that the technology behidn the brand does and will deliver.  The brand opens the door for technology to do its work.  If the technology behind the brand sucks, the brand suffers.

But it is the brand that starts it all.  And to paraphrase my former professor in Cognitive Psych would have said: No brand, never mind.

Media Planning and Social Responsibility

This is something that I have been thinking about since I left the agency world and started working as a one-man sales support team for Southeast Asia.

(I had a great deal of time on my hands... Well, something that somebody - and I cannot remember who - said is the birthplace of either inspiration or evil thoughts. Fortunately for me, it is more of the former than the latter.)

The thought was simple: We spend so much money (OK, invest, as strat planners are won't to say) in media plans to advertise products. We come up with a lot of concepts to sell - we dreamed up GRPs, reach, frequency, recency, engagement, attention-planning, disruption, affinity targeting, and other theoretical frameworks to get it right - and well, to get clients to spend.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is evolving.

And I am not talking about things like digital media being more massive - and people are paying less attention and what-not... Those are given: people are just regressing to what is natural. (OK, that's for another post... later...)

The rest of the world is suffering: perhaps not in our immediate world, but in the bigger world. The gap between the top 10% households and the bottom 20% households in most countries is widening. The gap between the richest nations and the poorest nations is also widening.

And here we are, investing (or spending) money for client brands that perhaps consumers already know about - and may already care about.

Here's my point - after much digression: As media planners (and at heart, I am still one media planner - no matter what and how others think of media planners, I am still proud to have been and BE one), we actually have a lot of responsibilities.

And it's about time that we rise up to the occasion and take the risk.

I know this is about work. And work and Facebook don't seem to mix.

But most of my media planning and client-friends are in Facebook, I can't help but use this medium. My main point is simple:

If we can treat client investments in media planning/advertising to be more efficient, that in and of itself saves them enough - if not a lot of - money to use for the betterment of the world.

Think of the possibilities: Coke, for example (and I am thinking off the top of my head here - and I love Coke One!) - spends millions of dollars each year advertising their brand and their promotions.

If the media planners of Coke were able to make their investments in advertising more efficient - delivering the same amount sales at the a lower cost by maximizing opportunities and minimizing risks - wouldn't that be great? Let's say Coke in one country spends about 10Mln USD - and we are able to drive efficiencies (real efficiencies!) by 1% in addition to their demanded efficiencies, that's 10'000USD worth of savings. 10'000USD that they can either spend again - or 10'000USD that they can inject into their corporate social responsibility projects. Say to help the people in Burma or in China or in Darfur.

To get there, I think, there is a need for us to change mindsets. We have to think big. We have to be big. We have to be big in front of clients. We have to drive them to change their mindsets.

And if you're a client reading this - just think: Accountable media solutions + real savings that you can donate to an institution that would make the world a better place + "pogi-/gwapo-/brownie" points for you and your company.

Just think for a while.

(No, I have not become an Opus Dei - but I am certainly starting to believe that our work - whatever it is - is our way of doing God's Work - however you believe Her/Him to be.)

There's a lot to be done - but I think we can do something whilst doing our work.

Efficient media plans? Sure. Discounts? Sure. Additional value? Sure. But now, let's look for a purpose for all those. Perhaps, aiming to create efficient media plans, or tonnes of discounts or free spots - for the sake of changing the world is a lot better and bigger than simply getting that yearend "positive points" in the client evaluation sheet.

Risk in Media Planning

If you sit through a media planning meeting between a planner and a client, you'd probably hear terms such as GRPs, reach and frequency, CPRPs, effective frequency, and recency. If you sit in more sophisticated meetings, you'd probably hear of words such as "optimized media plan".

However, it is very rare for media planners to talk about risk management.

Which is quite surprising.

GRPs - ratings, TARPs, rating points - all cost money. And in these times of "very fickle-minded audiences", variability in ratings are more pronounced than ever before.

In spite of these phenomena, media planners are still preparing plans based on pre-set and predefined GRP goals and CPRP ceilings. They sometimes use sophisticated, individual-/respondent-level data to come up with "optimized" media plans.

However, such optimization techniques do not take into consideration "risks" - that is, the possibility of the media plan not delivering its goals.

I believe that the time has come for media planners to take into account the variability - and the risks - that come with their media plans.

I know that it is a tall order - but as audiences are being exposed to more and more options within a medium and within a timeblock, it is time for media planners to take into account risks and variability. It is only when we start thinking of risks and variability - and measure them and take them into account in a media plan - can we truly talk about ROI.

I have prepared a simple program that you could probably use as a starting point for thinking through a "risk management" approach in media plans. Of course, I will not claim to be an expert myself in risk-management; nor will I declare that the attached file is something that solves the problems of risk-management in media planning.

However, the attached could be a starting point - however simple it may be.

Here is a description of the file.

The challenge is simple: There are 10 programs that a media planner must consider buying. Each has a corresponding CPRP (cost per rating point). Here's the clincher, however: the average ratings of each of the programs are somewhere around 12.5. There is little difference across the 10 programs in terms of ratings - the media planner can only decide based on costs.

My proposition is simple: There is an opportunity to go beyond costs. In fact, there is a need to go beyond costs.

It is when things seem to be similar that we need to apply concepts of risk management into the media planning process.

To demonstrate, look at the attached file (after you've downloaded it and opened it in Excel 2000 or later). Enter any inputs that you'd like to test out in the blue cells. And then run SOLVER. It has been preset in the file.

The goal of SOLVER is to minimize what I call the "Risk Factor" whilst meeting the constraints that are defined by the media planner (e.g., the plan should be within budget; there is a minimum amount of GRPs that need to be achieved; there are minimum/maximum shares per program).

The Risk Factor is a simple measure - it is based on the concepts of variance, a common measure of risk and variability in the world of Finance.

This - I hope - will inspire others to take into account risk measures in the same way that they look at optimized GRPs, reach, and frequency. The time for risk management concepts to be incorporated in media planning, I strongly believe, has come.

And media planners should rise up to the occasion - specially now that clients are faced with challenges that they have never encountered before.

No more ads...

Well, the truth is there are still ads.  But I have been not noticing any ads.  If you asked me now what web ads have I seen in the last couple of days - or even the past week (apart from those which I had to "see" as part of my job), I wouldn't be able to name one.

Which leads me to the question: Are digital ads really declining in effectiveness?

If that is so, then why is everybody so hung up on ads (at least seemingly)?  Microsoft and Yahoo and Time and AOL and Google.

Everybody seems to be thinking that the reason why these companies have made the moves they made in the last couple of months is "advertising".

I would beg to differ.

Advertising could be a part of it.  But it's beyond that.  The fact that Yahoo seems to be so intent at avoiding the bid and Microsoft is so intent in pushing the deal - and everybody else from Google to Time to AOL - are all trying to get into the ruckus themselves suggest that there is something else beyond advertising.

Advertising is on a decline.  People don't want ads to be shoved down their throats anymore.  A new way to - all together now - "communicate" is necessary.  (And no, social networking ads?  C'mon.)

The days of "inventory-based advertising" - regardless of whether it is in display or search - are on entering the "wane" period.  Whatever you call the next phase - engagement planning, IMC, IPC, CCP, Comm Planning, Media Neutral Planning, Atomized Planning - it will not be solely 'inventory-based' anymore.

"All or Nothing" or "At Least Something, Not Nothing"

An interesting thought woke me up this morning:  Which is a better situation - having half-baked data and having "something" than nothing, or having nothing at all?

At first glance, some would prefer the "half-baked data" - it is better than nothing.  Besides "something is always better than nothing".  Right?

My first reaction is - no.

"Something is always better than nothing" is too overvalued.  That "something" needs to be qualified first and foremost - specially, and most specially, if we need to make decisions based on that something.  There is nothing far worse than making a wrong decision because "our data is showing this trend" - when the quality of the data is not correct.

It is perhaps the perfectionist and the disciplined in me to say "It's all or nothing, dude".  But I know that it's economically not viable in all situations.  However, saying that at least "we have something - better than nothing" - and taking satisfaction in that specially when it comes to crucial, critical factors that may drive a business - is also not acceptable.

"Perfect enough."

Those are words that I learned from Carly Fiorina's book.  And I think that's applicable in this situation.  Never cut corners - always conduct due diligence - always seek for perfection - and if there is the need to drop the human need for perfection because of reality, then drop it.

But because you've aimed for perfection, if you stopped 20% or 30% or 40% short of 100% perfection - you still have the confidence to say "Yes, we've got something... It is not perfect, but we've been duly diligent and rigorous".

Indeed, a careful balance - one that marketeers, decision-makers, and business executives ought to think about in these data-rich, information-flooded, yet "analysis-paralyzing" situations.

Photo Source: www.rwongphoto.com 

It's that time again...

To dust off that presentation that says "When in a recession, do not stop advertising".

When I was working in an ad-agency a few eons ago, somebody would always come up with reasons on why stopping advertising during a recession - or "challenging times" - would be detrimental to the brand.  The slew of charts that showed brands that did not stop advertising during a recession tended to be recalled more, bougt more, and bucked the trend would be flying (digitally) aboutin the office.  I was tasked - once - to "localize" the presentation and present it to a host of clients.

(I think I vaguely recall making the analogy that "the Chinese character for danger is the same as opportunity" - I am not sure now if that indeed is the case.  In spite of years of attempts, I cannot - for the life of me - read Chinese characters.)

I was amongst those usual suspects.

But I guess, this time around, I would do something else:  I wouls say, "if there is no reason for you to advertise and continue advertising, then don't - and don't let anybody tell you otherwise".

Why?

Simple:  There is no single rule that holds across all kinds of brands and categories.  Just because Brand A suvived the downtrend "because they advertised" doesn't mean another brand will fare similarly - even if they had the same message, even if they had the same media plan, even if they had the same marketing considerations.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that it is the culture of tenacity that pervades throughout the organization - marketing, sales, operations, supply chain, procurement, talent management, etc. - that determines whether a brand or a company survives the economic slowdown. 

Not advertising - its presence or its absence.

My suggestion to those who are being lured and tempted to advertise because "the great big, brands - according to my agency - survived the last recession by advertising":  Take a look at you own history. 

How did your brand - and your company - survive the last slowdown?  Look at all the shallow - and the deep - metrics.  Don't stop at awareness or image - look at sales. 

Determine what the other departments did - what did the Sales team do?  How did the Sales Director feel and reacted to the gloom and doom?  What did the sales managers - the frontliners - notice amongst customers and how did they respond?  What were the results of their response?

If you can, quantify the impact of each of the actions done by each of the business stakeholders.  Sure, it will be hard work - but that's marketing - it is hard work making decisions.

Create scenarios.  In the same way that financial strategists have buy/sell limits, set your own by creating scenarios.  There is such a thing as "short-term advertising effects" which could guide you.  If you keep on advertising, and well, recall stays the same, but sales are not picking up - then decide:  is this a scenario that demands pulling out of advertising?  Or should you pump in more?

I believe that saying - and believing - that "advertising during a recession is the best way to keep your business growing" is irresponsible.

Businesses are systems - and marketing, and definitely advertising, are one part of that system.  And it is the entire system that will determine the probability of a company weathering a downturn.

Not advertising.

Live Search is getting better...

OK, I am no search-guru.  The farthest I have gone to implementing a search strategy is watching my colleague who is a search guru do a demo on how to do a search strategy.  But I am an avid user of search.  My search default right now is Google - primarily because I search a lot of research materials and their scientific/academic journals search seems to be good.

For other non-serious stuff though, I tend to not really stick to any one.  I want my search to be everywhere I am at - which is mostly these days within the MSN Windows Live network.  (Since I am a Live Mail fanatic and Windows Live Mail desktop app heavy user [it's always on and it aggregates all my email accounts - both for work- and non-work-related email]...)

I stumbled upon this site on the developments in Windows Live Search.  Pretty impressive.  I particularly liked the idea of the photo-search/image-search.  My biggest problem with Google Image Search is that I have to click through to so many pages to look at all the images - and not only that, I have to get to the source file/site in order to see whether that image is indeed what I was looking for or not.  Waste of time.

The one on video search is good, I thought.  Google has integrated video results into their search - and have a dedicated search sites for Video.  But I think this one from Live Search is good:  You get to see lots of videos in one go - and preview them without actually leaving the search results site.

Hey, not bad.

Do people need this?  I surely do since I tend to multitask and want things done in a jiff.

I wonder though when are they going to roll this one out.

And when will they make other people know more about these pretty powerful stuff?

C'mon, guys.  Just because you got something good you can't relax and say "they'll come".  Do some marketing - for once, be a marketing company.  You've made the first step towards making great strides in improving the search experience - and you may have stumbled upon something that could be useful to people.  Get them on the bandwagon if they are not yet.

It's time that we tell people how good and consumer-centric Microsoft is.

Media and Ad Agencies, Technology Companies, Marketeers, and Audiences

In another life, I delivered a vision for a business division that I was working on and the bigger company that owned that division.  My vision was predicated on something: 

What we were offering now (it was 2005 then) will become commoditized.  It will remain
to be  significant part of our business - for business won't change overnight.  But it will be one that will see lower profits because it will demand a lot of human resources.

What we need is to look into the future.  And the future is in the realm of providing accountable advice - frameworks and solutions whose results can be measured against an  agreed-upon set of standards prior to us coming into the picture.

Such businesses will not merely be won by the discounts and savings - though these will remain to be a part of the criteria, perhaps - as old habits are hard to change.  But we can go beyond that.

One pillar is the integration of due diligence and rigor into our business - acting as objective consultants bordering on being academic and theoreticians, yet delivering real, measurable results.

The second pillar is the integration of technology into every aspect of our operations:  to streamline repetitive mundane tasks and reduce overhead costs, to reduce "communication costs" by capitalizing on new technologies, to automate processes and "thinking processes" into databases of expert systems and algorithms.

More importantly, the integration of technology in the analysis of audiences and markets, and in the delivery of message to audiences and markets - both in the back-end and in the store-front.

Essentially, Marketing departments have to embrace technologies - and we - as their partners, their vendors, their suppliers, their contracts, and whatever way they want to see us - need to embrace it too.  And we need to embrace it much earlier than they do.

Decision-making processes need to be aided by technology.  Predictive techniques need to be grounded on technology and theory.  Real-time data and accountability are needed - and these too will be driven by technology.  Simulations - pricing and demand and communications and worst-case scenario planning and most-likely scenario planning - all these will be driven by technology.

Should this be driven by "digital planners"?  No.  They should be driven by "traditional planners with a keen sense of business".  Should it be driven by one business unit?  For now - yes.  But it will need to cascade - the sooner the better - to the rest of the organization.

This is the only way we can avoid being a commodity - and being relegated into the background as mere vendors, as mere contractors, as mere suppliers.  This is the only way we can escape the never-ending discussion on "discounts-value-adds-freebies".

I guess I didn't do enough to make these thoughts clear (and I doubt if the above is any clearer!)

But think about it:  If technology is so pervasive in the lives of our audiences, then why shouldn't agencies and marketing companies embrace technology as part of their systems, processes, and well, communications with consumers and with other stakeholders?

Persistence

Seth Godin's entry today is very timely - at least for me.  Mr. Godin never fails to amaze me in ensnaring things that are floating in my mind.  (No, I will not even equate myself with Mr. Godin - there's just a sense of "vibrational compatibility" - a resonance, I guess.)

In his latest entry

Remarkable visions and genuine insight are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths... whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it's over.

If it were any other way, it would be easy. And if it were any other way, everyone would do it and your work would ultimately be devalued. The yin and yang are clear: without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it's unlikely it would be worth the journey. Persist.

I like the last word he wrote.  Persist.

Against mediocrity.  Against "it's good enough".  Against "no one will know and notice".  Against "where's the shortcut".  Against the dark forces that cut squares.

My personal guiding principle - borrowed from my former university - is Arete.  Excellence. Virtue.

And that is what's driving me.

Mass x Acceleration x Distance = Potentials