Not a new video, but an interesting one to check again.
I love the design on it and I think that the message is pretty clear (and something we keep talking about on the TW) – DO YOU HAVE, AS A BRAND, HAVE ANYTHING INTERESTING TO SAY? That’s the main question you should make before spending your consumers’ time and attention.
The Economist conference just finished Monday in New York and some marketers still don’t believe what happened in 2009…
Post-digital culture drastically changed consumer behavior and the media landscape. The way marketers reach their audience must also change. Quickly.
So when the L.A. Times announced that ABC, the Disney-owned network, decided to skip the first commercial break while premiering their most anticipated TV series “Flash Forward” and Courteney Cox’s “Cougar Town”, some think the network was experimenting with a new tactic to keep viewers tuned in, while others speculate that the network couldn’t find enough media buyers…
I know. You must be thinking “OMG, another Twitter post…”. Yes, Twitter has been on the spotlight for some time now and everybody seems to be using it. But what this post is actually about the uses of Twitter.
If you consider the basic use of Twitter, it is far simpler than a Social Network. That’s because you cannot consider Twitter a social network per se, although it contains a strong networking (essential actually!) and it is based on exchanging information amongst peers. Nor can you consider it a Social Bookmarking tool, although the use it has been having from most users is to share links to interesting stuff they come across the web. It’s not a messaging system either as it goes beyond it. So what exactly is it? It really doesn’t matter what it is – it’s a lot more interesting to check what it can do.
Twitter has something that is completely different from any other service of the same genre – it can work as an add-on to other tools online. That’s right – we can consider Twitter as an upgrade to the user’s needs and purposes online. Better yet, Twitter can work towards a company’s objectives and even a fellow website purposes. Consider the following examples:
- Digg – Digg is a Social Bookmarking website. What Twitter does is, instead of having all sorts of digital scrap on the top popularity links due to having the same “credible” individuals posting and using convenient titles such as “TOP 10 MICROSOFT vs. APPLE and IPHONE PICTURES” (all the basic keywords to attain first place on Digg’s homepage), Twitter allows the users to select the people most in tune with their preferences and just check the postings and links placed by them. Yes, I said it’s not a Social Bookmarking service, but the fact is that more users are using Twitter to share their common interests and “work” related information. Which leads me to my next point;
- Linked In – A professional social network, Linked In is probably one of the best sources of information for head hunters to find their targets. It’s like an online résumé. But what Linked In lacks (or simply users don’t use it to that purpose) is information regarding the involvement of the target with the type of job he has. Is he a simple Joe who just does his 8 hours of work and doesn’t do much more or is he this information powerhouse that would be valuable for the company? Simple – if this person has a Twitter account, you can check just the type of information he shares and is interested in simply by following him and checking who he is following. Sure, you can always say that the Linked In target is not exactly Twitter’s target, but consider that most Twitter users are professional above 35 years-old.
- MySpace and Facebook – Here’s the bigger issue. How to mashup Twitter and these two while the first two have a service that sort of works the same way Twitter does. Well, consider this – how much stuff do you have on your wall to check? With Twitter, you can focus the attention towards where on the Profile you want people to look at without all the crowded information about the Quizzes you did.
- Youtube – Having recently added a Twitter sharing button, Youtube has definitely discovered the potential in Twitter for it’s business. Twitter users are used to follow up links and, like I mentioned before, are more prone to go to a link to Youtube placed by a trusted followed source that on any other place.
I could go on but I believe you got the big picture. The truth about Twitter is that it isn’t a threat to other Social Media websites – it can actually work towards a common goal. It all comes down to how the relationship between the companies influences the integration of their tools and, of course, on the user’s interest.
Twitter is growing so we are sure to see more users joining Twitter. So, instead of fighting it, why not just ride the waves like Youtube did and find out how we can use it to the consumers advantage. Companies have already started scrapping Twitter and finding the first uses from this tool:
- Extending the reach for those individuals or companies that already have a blogging strategy in place, and want to deepen or further ties. Good examples: Carnival Cruise Lines. The ScienceNewsBlog’s weather tracking updates. Andy Carvin’s PBS blog on education and technology.
- Retailers announcing sales and deals. Good example: Deals on Dells. Blue-light specials at Amazon.
- Increasing the ability for frequent updates to blogs or web sites or news. Examples: The NY Times, CNN, BBC, Adrants, and those of us here at MarketingProfs.
- Building consensus or a community of supporters. Good examples: Presidential candidates John Edwards or Barack Obama.
- Building buzz. Example: Scott Monty and CC Chapman introduce a new blog.
- Updating breaking news at conferences or events. Example: Jeremiah at the Web 2.0 Expo. Forrester seems poised to use it to update happenings at its upcoming Consumer Forum.
- Updating your network to shape your own personal branding: Example: Oh boy… there are zillions. Pick a face on Twitter. You’ll see what I mean.
Get more information on how the Twitter community works and thinks for your marketing efforts. As I’ve repeat several times before respect your audience – don’t jump in and apply pure hard-selling tactics because that’s not what consumers what. It’s not enough to repeat that again.
Procter & Gamble Co. paired 40 digital media and agency executives with 100 of its North American marketing directors in a contest to sell Tide T-shirts for charity last night as its much-awaited “Digital Hack Night” became a four-hour reality show aired largely in social media.
Among the lessons learned: Fewer than 150 media and marketing people leaning heavily on their social-media friends and followers, resorting to big-name incentives and spending a total of about $4,000 on digital media can sell more than 2,000 T-shirts at $20 a pop for charity and hit the top 10 trending topics on Twitter in the process.
We’re working on organizing workshops to sensibilize our clients and prospects to the benefits and trends in social media. Drop us a line if you would want to tell you more about it!
Part 1 › The Struggle
Part 2 › The Benefits
Defining marketing KPIs is not always as simple as it sounds. Strong marketing KPIs should be 5 to 10 maximum (that is what the Key stands for), and should link to ROI (that is what the Performance Indicator stands for). Defining few but clearly ROI driven KPIs implies having a clear strategic vision of how marketing contributes to sales and bottom line. As an example, Awareness (% of target that know the brand) is clearly measurable but has no direct link to sales or costs, and therefore to ROI. Relationship (% of target that has a relationship with the brand) is also measurable and has a direct impact on sales and costs. For a specific brand, consumers that are in the Relationship mode cost less to talk to (25 to 30% less) and buy more products (25% to 35%). Therefore, Relationship is a KPI that links to ROI. Setting the appropriate set of KPIs and building the most efficient tracking tools to measure them across all actions is the key to measurable and manageable marketing, and therefore to strategically manage your budgets and efforts. This has become achievable in the past few years for all marketing and communications fields, but has become an urgent imperative during this crisis.
For further information about KPIs elaboration and the Engagement Index, please refer to the Engagement Index & ISARA presentation.
Pierre Santamaria - OTO Research General Manager
After starting at the BNP as a financial controller from 1991 to 1993, Pierre Santamaria (ESCP / Dauphine) joined Altist, a management consulting firm, where he designed and managed the new technology activities until 1998. From 1999 to 2006, he founded(is this right?) the Columbus Consulting Firm, where he ran many projects for major clients such as Nouvelles Frontières, BRED, Société Générale, France Telecom and EDF. In 2007, he was appointed by Rafi Haladjian General Manager of Ozone, the Wi-Fi metropolitan operator to manage the company’s merger with Neuf Telecom. In 2007 he became General Manager of OTO Research, the new generation research Institute of FullSIX Group, where he is in charge with the development of tools, services and ad hoc solutions, aimed at approaching the market from an innovative point of view.
The point is not to spend endless time discussing about what channel or action is structurally more efficient. Truth is that efficiency is the result of a mix of communication planning, creative and targeting per cluster. The first thing to do is figure out what actions are effectively measurable against what KPIs. The basic rule that should be applied is that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. And investments that you cannot manage are no longer viable in tough times. The thinking behind this is that if you can manage your marketing, you can fine-tune the creative, the channels and the targeting to increase ROI. When effectively done, the performance increase can be up by 40% in a short time frame. Marketing has entered an age where measurability and agility enable constant improvement of knowledge and performance. This crisis makes it imperative to implement this new opportunity.
Filipa Caldeira, CEO FullSIX Spain
Filipa holds a degree in business and administration from Universidade Católica Portuguesa. While finishing her studies, she launched her career with an internship in the marketing department of Microsoft Portugal. In 1994, Filipa joined Procter & Gamble Portugal as Assistant Brand Manager for Tide, then Fairy. In 1997, she moved to P&G Europe in Brussels as European Brand Manager of Ariel. Filipa next launched a master franchise of fast-food company Taco Maker in Portugal and opened five stores, that she sold in early 2001.
In September 2000, Filipa founded an interactive marketing company Be Interactive, which was bought (51%) in 2001 by FullSIX. Since 2001, Filipa has been leading FullSIX Portugal to gain and consolidate its leadership position, launching in the meantime two other business units: DMC (online media agency) and Six&Co (interactive agency). FullSIX Portugal has reached around 11 millions of revenues in 2008, with more than 100 employees. In 2005, Filipa also took the responsibility of FullSIX Iberia, launching FullSIX Spain, who has currently a team of 40 employees.
The crisis we’re facing is radically different from the previous ones for Marketing and Communication Directors, not only because of its origins and the impact it has on consumer behaviours, but also, and more importantly, because this is the first recession following the advent of the digital revolution.
In terms of marketing and communications, the digital revolution is not only linked to the advent of the Web and other digital levers, but to a drastic change in consumers’ behaviours and on how brands act.
Consumers today have more choice, are exposed to more media channels, access to more sources of information, more transparency, easier ways of managing their choices and, as a result, their purchase decisions, causing strong behavioural fragmentation.
On the flip side, advertisers have a new ability to measure performance, build agile and flexible devices that evolve based on results measured in short cycles. This new piloting ability came about at the same time as digital media and is currently being applied to almost all communication channels.
These new consumer behaviours and advertising channels open an unexpected scenario for recession marketing strategies.
In the past, the advertising budget would have been one of the first to be cut, as soon as the Marketing Director couldn’t justify its impact on sales to the CFO. Today, Marketing and Communication Directors that apply integrated and innovative plans are in a stronger position and find it easier to justify their budgets’ importance, especially in time of recession. Crisis periods are like up-hill cycling races: they take commitment and hard work, but getting to the top forges the winner. The ability to manage investments on the basis of measured performances is the best way to win in an unsteady market, in the presence of demanding, untrustworthy consumers with fragmented behaviours.
In other words, the digital revolution created the solutions for survival and growth in times of crisis. 2008 sees the web as the first and most efficient solution to inform, reassure, attract, convince and retain consumers. As soon as they turn towards the web for product comparisons and analysis and to review what other consumers think, Internet-exploitation will become the unavoidable factor of recession marketing strategies.
This crisis offers advertisers the opportunity to extend their digital approach to all their communication activities, whatever the channel or the contact point. Setting clear KPIs and measurement results in short cycles is neither a utopia, nor a short-term approach; it’s an unavoidable solution to face today’s recession.
Everybody will face hard times, but those who face the crisis with tested tools to manage ROI will have more options than just cutting off their marketing budgets or waiting for better times. In this crisis, Digital makes the difference.
Anne Browaeys – FullSIX France General Manager
Having first experienced marketing in the telecom field and the automotive industry (in Equant and Ford), Anne joined FullSIX in 1998 to implement web and mobile interactive strategies for BTC clients. She swiftly extended her scope of activity, by undertaking FullSIX’s expansion of start-up companies (for example, eBay), and by developing FullSIX’s CRM offer for big clients, such as L'Oreal and Whirlpool. At the age of 32, Anne Browaeys became General Manager of FullSIX France, in charge of the Agency’s overall strategy, of Hyper-Marketing and viral marketing related themes, as well as of the international evolution of the Agency.
Main photo: © varf
There are countless alerts about the economic hardships nowadays. The current financial crisis affects everything and recession is here. Consumption and growth are stagnant, advertisers are pessimistic, the media are scaremongering, and agencies are puzzled.
However, from a more objective perspective, it is clear that this crisis is different from previous ones, as it is the first one that Marketing and Communication Managers will have to face following the digital revolution.
The evolution of new media in recent years has changed the marketing and communication world considerably, not only because the Internet has become an essential strategy tool, but because digital has changed consumer behaviours and has demonstrated that it is now possible to run more intelligent, creative and measurable marketing campaigns.
Performance measurement and dynamic campaign management (based on results per cluster or per individual), is the new benchmark of quality marketing. Performance-based advertising and KPI-based compensation have become addictive for advertisers that have tried them, making it difficult for them to understand why these methods aren’t possible across all their marketing initiatives.
This new era of measurability and performance positions marketing as a credible and reliable investment once again; a rationale that Marketing Directors will strongly need to highlight when their CFOs discuss cut-backs. Rather than stopping marketing investments completely, the focus should be on those initiatives that are proven to have a positive effect on business results.
This approach works not only online, but across all marketing vehicles.
We live in an era of customization and of real-time production – from large-scale retailers to factories. This approach has proven successful, and the means are there, so why is the marketing industry unable to react in the same way?
We are able to accurately correlate the relation between investments per channel and client acquisition, between a website’s audience and in-store sales. The current crisis gives us the opportunity to move the industry forward. The British would say that “need is the mother of invention” and while the need is there, there’s actually very little to invent. It is sufficient to simply apply the existing tools and methodologies at our disposal and launch a predictive and manageable performance-driven marketing approach.
Digital marketing has changed the scope of measurement and reactivity opportunities and the current economic environment will ensure that those who know how to apply them both on and offline, in an integrated manner, will be capable of driving and optimizing their investments and results successfully.
Another interesting saying is “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. In marketing today, within the context of the crisis, this means that if it cannot be measured, it simply shouldn’t be considered.
On Monday, we will publish the first article from our new series “Crisis management handbook for the Marketing Director”: a compilation of posts written by employees of the FullSIX Group around the world, giving strategic, creative and tactical advice (along with examples and case studies) for dealing with the upcoming hardships, backed up with proven methodologies and concrete “tried and tested” approaches.
Recession periods move boundaries and create new leaders. We strongly believe that, whatever the magnitude of the crisis, this will be an opportunity for numerous advertisers to accelerate their adoption of alternative marketing and communication strategies. The market is going to witness the first crisis of the Digital Age but those who adopt the new rules and opportunities will have the chance to emerge as winners.
To increase your chances to be one of them, subscribe to TheTrendwatch.com newsletter to get our new articles sent directly to your email inbox, or add our RSS feed to your favorite reader (Firefox, Google, Netvibes, NetNewsWire…).
Marco TINELLI - CEO, FullSIX International. Marco has been at the forefront of marketing communication and technology evolution for 15 years. In 1997, Marco founded Grey Interactive which became the innovative, integrated marketing services agency FullSIX in 2001. Under his leadership the FullSIX network has expanded considerably, with over 500 employees in seven countries. The different networks created since 1997 are FullSIX, OTO Research, Seven, Sixandco, 6:AM, Backelite and SiXtizen. The group’s clients include Whirlpool, L’Oreal, Procter and Gamble, Adidas, Renault, La Banque Postale, Coca-Cola, SNCF, SFR, Nokia, ClubMed, Canal + and Danone. Marco still manages the marketing strategy of some major clients. Outside work Marco enjoys spending time in Tuscany with his family.
The doll in the picture is The Recession Monster, created by the FullSIX NYC team for their clients and partners. This furry cutie, way less scary than the real-life recession, was brought to life by Diane Koss.
Ok, so creating effective integrated campaigns isn’t a new resolution for 2009, it’s something that we want to achieve every year. But, every year we all feel that it doesn’t quite happen in the way it should. We still see media plans that have been put together without talking to the creative team or TV advertising that is completely unrelated to the digital campaign. Or, even worse, we see TV ads that are the digital campaign.
After 12 years of working with digital media I am pretty frustrated by this and I usually tackle it by having a good old whinge. This year I have decided be a bit more constructive. So, if you can’t put your complete campaign with one agency, here are some of my thoughts on how we can create innovative and effective campaigns that work all the way from awareness to purchase and loyalty.
I’m sure a lot of you are thinking that these are the most basic things in the world and you’re right. So no more excuses, let’s make it happen in 2009.
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