Unusually Good Haircuts - Measured Marketing Blog for Creative People

Social Media vs. Social Activism

2010-09-29T14:59:00.001-05:00

A friend forwarded a link to a great article by Malcolm Gladwell from the New Yorker titled “Small Change.”

Among other things, it points out the fundamental difference between networks, like social media, and hierarchies found at the core of successful social activism. I encourage everyone interested in social media to read it because it can help us understand how social media can be most effective as well as what some of its weaknesses are.

As an attempt to briefly summarize the pros and cons of social media I’ve constructed this chart. Maybe we can leverage the power of social networking and get your, low risk, feedback on how to represent this better. Please chime in!

Tangent Alert: What Motivates Us?

2010-06-10T16:40:00.000-05:00

For one thing great creative and illustration motivates us to pay attention to a message. For more on the subject though, take this video for example. It is one in a series by RSA Animate. This "Ted Talks" style speech is animated with hand drawn white board markers. Not only is the subject really cool, but the visuals make it absolutely memorizing.

With all the slick graphics, it's nice to see something that has an obvious human touch. More and more marketing communications are returning to hand illustration to tell a story. It's effective and it stands out.

Have any examples? Let me know.

Small Words Make a Big Difference

2010-04-24T13:21:00.004-05:00

This afternoon, my wife an I were out running errands, and on the way home we decided to drive through Caribou Coffee and treat ourselves. When we pulled up to the window we heard the voice say “Thank you for choosing Caribou. What can I make for you today?” I don’t remember hearing this from a Caribou barista before, but it sure made my wife and I pause. We looked at each other and commented on how nice it was that she chose those particular words. It is a subtle difference from the usual greeting of something like "what can I get for you today?" but it really seems to be designed to specifically evoke a different experience. Let me break it down:

“Thank you for choosing Caribou.”
The first part of that greeting acknowledged that we did indeed make the choice to stop there, out of all the other choices we had. It validated us in a very small yet meaningful way. I think this is important because with Starbucks and all the great independent coffee shops in South Minneapolis, we really have a lot of choices. Plus, if you think about it, coffee is a commodity. Sure there are different varieties and there is free trade, organic and Arabica, but essentially coffee comes from coffee beans which grow in a certain part of the world and are available to numerous buyers and come in subtly different tastes...there is parity in the product offering coffee shop coffee. Furthermore, the price is about the same regardless of the coffee shop you end up at. So on many levels, even coffee shop coffee is a commodity. We made our choice today based on convenience and some affinity for the product, but we often go to small independent coffee shops as well as the chains. We did make a choice and it was nice to have that acknowledged.

“What can I make for you today?”
Much of what makes one coffee different from another are subtle differences in how they are bought, blended, roasted and sold. What gives 5¢ worth of beans a value of $3.00? One justification for the price is the way coffee is blended with other ingredients. I like low-fat mochas. I really like the Mint Condition, which is a signature coffee drink at Caribou. I haven’t experienced anything quite like it at other coffee shops. It’s a mocha made with mint syrup and crumbled Andes mints sprinkled on top. Sometime in the last year they introduced a product enhancement that allows me to choose what kind of chocolate I want in my coffee (white, milk or dark) which allows me to further customize my order. So when the barista asks what she can make for me today I have my own custom answer: Medium (no Tall or Venti) Mint Condition, Skim, No Whip, Dark Chocolate. They really are making a drink I can’t get anywhere else. Even thought it is made with a commodity espresso bean (although I am sure there is marketing copy that talks about how their bean is different…but I don’t care). I’ll pay $3.50 for my special drink. I don’t really need the coffee (nobody does), but I like my drink, made the way I like it. I like how it makes me feel.

The difference between this greeting and "what can I get for you today" is the difference between what Lou Carbone of Experience Engineering calls "make and sell" or the idea that you have a product and you are looking for customers to a "sense and respond" model where the experience is based on understanding customers, acknowledging their uniqueness and and creating a system that is malleable to each person... the actual product, is how you make people feel, not about your product, but about themselves as they interact with your business.

The way Caribou greets me creates a good experience. It is a clue that affirms my choice and says we want to make your drink, just the way you want it. Nice work Caribou!

Movie Industry's Use of Social Media - Follow Up

2010-02-27T11:11:00.001-06:00

This week I followed up on an earlier post about the “Hot Tub Time Machine” movie. A quick recap: I was intrigued by an article on Mashable about how the movie industry is using social media to create excitement around new movies so I went to the promotional website on Eventful and signed up for my free tickets. There was a sense of exclusivity because there were only a limited number of seats available. There was also the option to host a party with 10 of your friends.

To pick up from where I left off on the last blog post, here is how the rest of the process unfolded:

Two days before the event I was sent a reminder email about the time and date I had signed up for (which was a good thing because I could have easily forgotten about it - see the picture below). The email also reminded me follow the comments of Facebook.
I printed out my reminder and brought it to the movie theater.
I was ushered past the ticket window and right to theater 10.
Many of the seats had little movie posters taped to the back of the chairs and I guess those were reserved for the parties, but a few minutes before the movie was to begin a gentleman said that it would be OK for people to sit in those seats because he didn’t think those people were coming. At that point a number of people sitting in the front rows, moved back to the better seats in the back. I was already sitting in a seat with a poster – I’m such a rebel.
There were a few brief few words from the same person who told us we could sit in any seat we wanted, presumably he was from the studio or Eventful, and he included a warning to turn off our cell phones – he said that there would be people in the audience watching with ‘night vision.’ I assume this was a joke.
The movie started with no previews. Nice!
Once the movie was over, we sat in the darkness until someone in the audience said “I guess we can find our way out in the dark” there were a few chuckles and people all got up and we filed out of the theater in the dark.
I overheard one fellow from a group of young guys walking ahead of me “…that was about 10 times better than I thought it would be!” which I was surprised to hear because I felt the movie was clearly aimed at men my age. But maybe the movie was just silly enough to appeal to the younger guys.
I have now had a few other emails from Eventful marketing different events to me.

Now about the movie:

The truth is that the movie had some great moments. It was very much in the recent vein of movies and TV shows aimed at 30-40 something men struggling with middle age and reminiscing about the golden years, in this case 1986. The music was a great, the costume design was embarrassingly accurate, as were the haircuts. There were a lot of jokes about getting old. The body humor was non-stop and there were enough funny points to make up for the C-level script. None of the characters took the movie too seriously, in fact there was a great moment when Craig Robinson’s character, Nick, jumps the improbable conclusion that they had obviously time-warped back to the winter of 1986...he looks straight into the camera and says “It must have been a hot tub time machine…” and paused for the drama and ridiculousness to sink in. If they had let the edit go one more second, I'm almost positive we would have seen Craig Robinson loosing his composure.

The movie featured John Cusack, Rob Corrdry, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke, but also included a kind of weirdly incorporated inter-dimensional character played by Chevy Chase. Crispin Glover's one armed, resort bellhop character made a pretty effective reoccurring joke throughout the movie.

The movie was not great by any stretch but it did have some great moments. The experience of being part of the social media preview process was positive. I think the experience design of the process will help to create some positive buzz about the movie and seems like some pretty effective marketing.

If you have been involved in a similar promotion, let me know what your impressions were.

Why Can't Advertising Be Sexy AND Smart?

2010-02-08T05:03:00.001-06:00

One of my favorite blogs to haunt is Adliterate. I like the writing style and it often makes me pause. One such recent blog posts is "More sex please, were British" which makes an argument for embracing a certain 'sexiness' (naughty, rogue, fanciful and somewhat not-professional) aspect of the 'profession' of advertising. The post employs an old joke to frame the point:

"...someone asks that his mother is not told that he works in advertising since she thinks that he is the piano player in a brothel."

Hilarious...but I suspect that the author presented the polarizing point to be evocative. I think advertising and marketing is a blend of art (sexiness, whatever) and prudent business, maybe even science. There is a way to be both sexy and smart! There has never been a better time than now to measure and quantify our hunches. We can target messages like never before, and test them through measured marketing practices.

If we can show ROI, and a convergence of our marketing efforts to sales, then we can elevate the perception of our work to a profession. Let's face it, most of us gravitated to our work for creative reasons. But what we are finding, especially now, is that there is a demand for greater and greater accountability in the work we do because what we are paid for isn't cheap! It doesn't mean we can't have some fun and try to bring 'sexy' back, we just need to know when to use it and when not to.

What do you think?

Why Do We Buy the Things We Buy?

2010-01-26T06:15:00.005-06:00

I ran across an interesting article this morning on Adliterate called the "The price of everything and value of nothing" and it's really worth the read.

The article talks about how the study of Behavioral Economics is having an influence on marketing by helping to explain some of the behaviors of people when it comes to choosing between brands, in particular the irrational price perceptions of "running a sale" and what it does to our assignment of value. This is very interesting but I'll hold my comments on that until I've read some more.

But in general anything that we as marketers can do to blend our art with some scientific rational or solid study of behavior is something worth investigating.

Then I read the first comment. I'll quote it here:

"I like the fact that it goes against the marketing stuff I was taught at University that seemed to suggest that people go into a supermarket, stare at 3 brands of baked beans and then construct a price vs quality diagram in their head to decide what to buy."

It struck me. I do stare at 3 brands of baked beans and then construct something like a price vs. quality comparison in my head to help me decide...when it comes to baked beans. I don't buy a lot of baked beans and I have little brand preference. Also, there is a paradox of choice because there is usually much more than 3 brands to choose from! It can be paralyzing, so I rely on the on the most comparable, mathematical dimension of marketing...price.

Not so for other products that I normally buy. I will only ever buy one brand of ketchup. I don't care what the price is in respect to the others. I guess I can chock that one up to strong brand affinity – I was raised with the brand and it's almost always the brand served when I'm at a restaurant.

But when it comes to commodities I don't have a strong affinity for, like beans, I do take a more analytical and "rational" approach.

So it seems to me that we may not be looking at a binary decision. Perhaps buying decisions are more complex. They probably involve brand, personality type, experiential design, graphic design, where the person is on the adoption curve, age, sex and a whole host of variables. This may not be comforting to marketing people...but it should be!

If different people approach a brand differently for a whole host of reasons, it means that we need an array of tactics. Then we have to engage people in a dialog about the product, on their terms, not ours. This means designing campaigns with multiple tactics and a strategy designed to engage people so that we as marketers can learn more about the people (the individuals) we market to as they learn more about our brands. If you measure each tactic, you can show ROI and that's one solid way of justifying marketing spend.

Let me know what you think.

Great Design and Stroy Telling - Teaching Science to Kids (and Adults)

2010-01-25T05:17:00.003-06:00

My 11 year old son and I have been obsessed with this video and song by They Might Be Giants lately. It was produced for BoingBoing.

If you teach science or biology to kids, this would be a great tool. They Might Be Giants has a real skill for taking "boring" or "nerdy" subjects and making them really cool. The music simplifies the story and gives the viewer a great survey of the basics of chemistry in a memorable and fun way. Add some great design and to the presentation, courtesy of the people of Feel Good Anyway and you've got a winner.

This isn't new a new approach. Remember School House Rock? I still find myself humming these tunes when I hear key phrases like "Conjunction" or if I am introduced to anyone named Janet. I can't help it these songs and images are seared into my brain and will be with me until the day I die. A story told with pictures and music is mitghty powerful! Of course it helps that I watched a lot of Saturday morning cartoons so I was getting plenty of frequency, but the point is I actually learned something from School House Rock. Imagine for a moment using similar tactics for patient education? Complicated disease states...screening techniques...disease awareness...patient education.

When we are talking to patients, physicians, investors and even our own sales forces we are competing against all the other media choices they have, with all the other important things vying for their attention. Creativity and excellent story telling are key to our success. Like the great job Abby Moore Medical has done with the "Men Who Can't Pee" campaign.

One of my favorites was work Sight Marketing did for AMS as a patient communication for men with ED. Not a fun topic to talk about, but highly emotional. We decided to tell the story through the words of men who have been through it (plus one of their partners). The whole 12 minute video was done as documentary style with broadcast quality story telling, filming, and editing. No narrator, just men talking about how their lives were changed (you can take a look at a few minutes of it if you follow this link, click on the "watch" tab and select the second clip).

Let me know if you've seen anything else out there that you think promotes great story telling in healthcare marketing. I'm always on the look-out.

Movie Industry's Use of Social Media

2010-01-23T10:27:00.007-06:00

I was intrigued by an article on Mashable about how the movie industry is using social media to create viral interest in movies before they are released to the public. Mashable's article follows one case study for the upcoming movie "Hot Tub Time Machine."

A quote from Mashable on the movie itself:

Hot Tub Time Machine is a raucous comedy starring John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke about four friends who live it up one night in a ski resort hot tub and wake up in the year 1986. Think The Hangover meets Back to the Future.

I am going to make the ultimate sacrifice in the name of knowledge...I am throwing myself into the experience as a corespondent. Now, I know how this is going to look but I can assure you what I am embarking on is serious social media marketing research. I promise not to have any fun doing it.

Here is the first report:
I went to the Eventful site and signed up for free tickets to a preview screening in my area. You can too if you hurry up, but seats are going fast (you can also host a preview for yourself and a group of your rowdy friends if you're fast).

Anyhow, the pre-screening is designed to create a group of movie enthusiasts by giving them special treatment. If the movie is a hit with the previewers, they will help create word-of-mouth marketing.

Apparently, also available online are special, racier previews you won't see on TV, to make it even more special.

So far, this is how the experience has gone.

I saw a promotion (story) on a website I trust and frequent.
I followed the link and found a suburb close to my hometown of Minneapolis (I felt lucky to find one because the first 3 area theaters I tried had no more tickets available).
I gave my email address, age and zip code to Eventful - a trade that seemed OK at the time, now of course, Eventful will have me in their marketing database unless I opt-out at a later point (side note: it will be interesting to see what kind of measured marketing practices will come from this - I'll try to keep you posted).
The confirmation of my request included an email (see below) with an additional call to action of taking pictures at the screening and posting it on the "Hot Tub" Facebook page.
Also after I submitted my request i got a confirmation screen with handy links to post updates about my tickets on popular social media networks.

I have to say, so far it's a very well thought-out execution. My movie preview date is February 24th and I'll let you know how it goes, but if you have any questions, leave me a comment.

The Role of PR in Healthcare Marketing

2010-01-22T08:05:00.003-06:00

One of my associates, Rick Foy, passed along an email that included "10 Trends from the Holmes Report."

The second introductory paragraph struck me:

"But there are reasons to be optimistic about the prospects for public relations over the next 10 years. Increased transparency, demands from consumers and other stakeholders for greater authenticity, an emphasis on dialogue and conversation—all these trends play to the strengths of public relations and present an opportunity for the discipline to take on a wider role in corporations and other institutions, to finally contribute to something like the maximum of its ability."

Several of our clients have asked for help them figure out social media and what healthcare marketing's place is in it. It's tricky, because of all the legal and regulatory restrictions, but as we look more closely at social media we've come to believe that to some extent, this is a huge opportunity for the skills of experienced PR and strategic communications professionals.

Perhaps one of the tricks with PR in healthcare is that it isn't leverage PR's full potential, I think it is too often reserved for crisis communications and to some extent charitable giving, which are certainly necessary uses, but not the only applications of PR and healthcare.

If you are interested in social media, I recommend reading the whole report from the Holmes website.

Nobody Likes Robots - Awwwww - Robot Manatee

2010-01-20T12:57:00.004-06:00

Do you dream about robots and manatees living in harmony? If you do, then you are certain to love the Robotee and Manabot card by the designer who goes by the handle "PandaHamburger," who seems to be into robotic marine life and scuba-diving cats.

Takes all kinds, I guess.

Thanks for passing this along Lucie.

Low-risk Social Media for Healthcare Marketing

2010-01-19T22:05:00.006-06:00

While the FDA has not passed specific regulations on the use of social media in healthcare device marketing, there are, perhaps, some common sense and low-risk applications of social media for healthcare device manufactures. Here are three that come to mind:

Monitor conversations and correct misinformation
Promoting preapproved content
Talk about product development process

Monitoring conversations and correcting misinformation
You could easily argue that healthcare organizations have an obligation to correct misinformation and potential misuse of their devices. One way for healthcare marketers to get their feet wet in social media is to use tools like Twazzup and WeFollow and even Google to search for product names and references to their brand name. If any misleading information is found on blogs, twitter streams, etc. – a savvy marketer could offer a link to content on their own websites already approved by L and R. A simple “Thanks for your interest in XXXX device. For more information please refer to this link (supply link to approved content) or contact (name of PR representative).

Promoting pre-approved content
Another potential use for social media in healthcare would be to promote already existing content on their websites. With a tool like HootSuite, a healthcare marketer can post updates to Twitter, a Facebook corporate page, a LinkedIn page as well as a plethora of other social media sites with a tiny URL pointing to pre-approved content. Many large device manufacturers have tons of content, whitepapers, studies, videos, technical specifications and patient stories in their library of content. As long as these online resources already follow adhere to regulations, chances are these pieces of content can be promoted via social media.

Talk about product development process
When a new healthcare device is being introduced to the market it’s a little different than introducing a new consumer product. There is a lengthy and highly regulated process including clinical testing and a number of different milestones. This is a great opportunity for healthcare organizations to talk about upcoming milestones and then to promote the completion of others. Usually if device manufactures talk about these milestones, they do so through press releases. Think of social media as another handful of channels for getting that word out.

As one of my colleagues, Rick Foy says, social media can be viewed as the purest form of public relations. I think social media will promote the profession of PR and strategic communications in general. It will become a more important skill that healthcare device manufacturers will need to develop in order to be involved in online conversations.

These are just a few ideas I will be exploring with healthcare device attorney Mark Duval (drug, healthcare device and food lawyer) on January 28th at Life Science Alley. Please join us if you can.

Telling Stories in Healthcare Marketing

2010-01-04T05:33:00.004-06:00

I just read a great post from "Note to CMO" about the art of telling a story. It was a good reminder to: 1) not rely too much on your PowerPoint presentation and 2) that to tell a compelling story, it's good to share not only the successes but also the challenges.

Presentations need to be engaging and dare I say entertaining... Not that every presentation needs to have a lot of multimedia or spectacular graphics (one of my best presentations was done with a flip chart), but we as marketers need to remember that when we have the chance to talk to someone we need to try to tell an engaging story. We need to be able to make our audience think, laugh...feel something other than mind-numbing boredom that accompanies so many PowerPoint presentations.

Think of every book, movie, play or bedtime story you've ever read, seen or heard. There is always an introduction of the situation and a character, a failure or challenge to overcome and then, often, resolution. The most interesting stories tell us things (even things we already know) in unexpected ways, keeping us guessing, challenging our ideas and engaging us. Twists and turns, ups and downs in a story keep us focused and delights us.

This is true even in healthcare marketing. I hear our client's stories every day. We talk about physician needs, patient outcomes, the cost of healthcare and competitive landscapes and then we craft a story–but let's not forget to talk about the challenges and setbacks and how they were solved and overcome. Overcoming adversity is what makes a hero interesting. Steven Denny describes this in his post when he writes:

"...we learn from Robert Cialdini that credibility – a critical component of his authority principle – is built by building trustworthiness, and nothing does that more convincingly than pointing out what went wrong, continues to go wrong, and will likely go wrong in the future. Arguing against your own self-interest is actually a good thing, because your audience will be doing it anyway. Get there first and defuse their internal argument."

and when he quotes Robert Mckee:

“Everybody loves it when the underdog gets off his back and back on his feet and wins. But to do that you have to admit that something happened you couldn’t predict or that you made a mistake. And then you had to fix it."

I have not heard one client describe a device product launch or healthcare service developed without competitive pressure, setbacks or problems. In every case there is a story about how they overcame the problem. We need surgeons to openly talk about why they were skeptical about implanting a device, and what changed their minds.

When we interview doctors the best lines from them are things like:

"I was always skeptical about using this device. In fact I built my career on developing the competitive procedure, but then..."

Or for a patient to say something along the lines of:

"I went to two doctors who told me my legs needed amputation–I said 'partner, I came into this world and went to Vietnam and back with both of my legs, and that's how I'm gonna leave this world...' I finally found a doctor who did a procedure that saved my legs and my life."

Embrace the whole of your healthcare story and be bold and engaging in how you tell your stories.

Happy New Years Eve

2009-12-31T06:50:00.003-06:00

I found this posted on Advertblog. It's a wonderful stop-action animation by a communications company in Japan called Elephant Carnival. Click through and take a look.

I think it goes to show how a nicely produced piece of creative can be a great marketing piece. It doesn't have to be expensive – you could do this with a free tool called Frame by Frame like my kids have done several times for holidays and special occasions for family members.

Also, have a safe and happy New Year's Eve.

Nobody Likes Robots - Dance Robot Dance!

2009-12-30T08:36:00.003-06:00

I want one!

You can find out more about this robot at Aldebaran Robotics.

And from C-net, here is a video about the San Jose Museum of Art's Robot Exhibition:

I found both of these on techrepublic.com.

Recession hits iPhone cases

2009-12-29T13:55:00.004-06:00

In keeping with the times, here is cheeky little bit of fun for iPhone lovers and artists. Make your next iPhone case out of left-over cardboard. If you figure each of these is worth a buck, you can make dozens for the price of a real fancy, store-bought case.

Here is one of my favorites because of the Monster Robot theme:

P.S. Thanks Stew!

Predictions For 2010

2009-12-28T08:33:00.004-06:00

Check out this set of interesting and fun predictions around technology, the internet and social media from Crack Unit. You should go there and take a look at all the predictions, but here is one of my favorites:

On a lighter, note the US may fall (whatever). Read more about predictions from a Russian academic, Igor Panarin, and his assertion that the US will meet it's end in 2010. Part of his theory, as reported by the Wall Street times, is that the US will break into six pieces with Alaska falling back under control of Russia (sorry Sarah) and Texas will come under the influence of Mexico (sorry "W").

Here is a map of how the US might split up and which countries would supposedly take control:

Healthcare Marketing Blogs

2009-12-14T05:53:00.001-06:00

Here is an interesting short interview of two nurses who run some of the most influential nurse blogs on the Internet. They are the founders of Emergiblog & Codeblog.

The interesting part of the video for me starts at about 3:30 into the spot. They are asked what should marketers know about reaching out to medical bloggers? I'll paraphrase the answers here:

Be honest and open about who you are and what you want from them
Engage in the conversation (dialouges are better than monologues)

In the video they were talking about Pharma marketers specifically, but I think this pertains to all healthcare marketing that seeks to reach out to healthcare professionals in the social media space.

They are also asked about patients using the internet for information. They say they find this to be both good and bad but overall this leads to the opportunity to teach their patients and creates a healthy conversation.

Funny UPS Commercials Spoofs from SNL

2009-12-12T09:57:00.000-06:00

If you missed SNL last week, like I did, you may have missed these great spoofs of the UPS commercials.

Facebook Webinar from Ogilvy

2009-12-11T12:04:00.001-06:00

A few weeks ago, I came across a nice webinar from Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide on the topic of Facebook. It was part of their 360° Digital Influence program.

The webinar did a good job of reinforcing a basic structure behind good measured marketing practices, specifically regarding social media (although I would offer a few tweaks).

Here is one of the key slides:
It sort of reflects the way I've been thinking about the marketing funnel.

First, find the conversations that are already happening and become involved. Second, look for a way to interact with people. Ogilvy uses words like "coupons" and "contests" to interact. This is pretty B to C focused, but it is really about opting people into a direct communications loop or nurturing campaign.
Their number three is called "Add Scale" and this is where my thinking begins to differ slightly from theirs. I think adding scale is part of what they call "Engage." I think the third level is developing relationships with the people you are beginning to interact with.
Finally, I think measurement should be part of all three previous pieces. Granted, measurement is much more exact the closer you get to the narrower part of the marketing funnel. The narrow part of the funnel is where you know a lot more about the people you are marketing to and they know a lot more about your brand.

Facebook can be a great tool to engage people. They also shared a case study from KFC in Australia. Through a camaign combined with a TV ad purchase, they collected a huge number of fans on their KFC Australia Facebook page. It's a brilliant example of marketing to people who want to get promotional messages from a brand they already like or a specific topic they have interest in (in this case fried chicken).

I really like the idea of creating channels to talk directly to people who want your messages rather than broadcasting the message to everyone, thus creating more noise in the marketplace. We already have plenty of that. Here is another screen capture from the Ogilvy presentation:

Fun Desinger Watches

2009-12-04T05:49:00.001-06:00

I stumbled across these great watches form Mr. Jones Watches. They are good looking and they display a great sense of humor. I think this is my favorite:My favorite part of the design is the message on the minute and hour hands. Perfect reminder to make every day count.

Also, I have some friends for whom the "Cyclopes" watch would be perfect (you know who you are). The description:

Cyclops can be read with a relaxed kind of accuracy that offers a counterpoint to our hectic modern lives.

I think you can read the watch above as approximately ten minutes or so to 2:00. Close enough, right?

Consumers Will Pay For Online News...But Not Much

2009-12-03T09:45:00.000-06:00

According to a report from the Boston Consulting Group (published on MediaPost), consumers are willing to pay for news online, but they are not willing to pay much for it. The range seems to be as low as $3 in the US, to a high of $7 in Italy. There were nine countries included in the research. Here are some interesting bullet points:

The survey found that consumers were more likely to pay for certain types of content, specifically news that is:

1. Unique, such as local news

67% overall are interested
72% of U.S. respondents

2. Specialized coverage

63% overall are interested
73% of U.S. respondents

3. Timely, such as a continual news alert service

54% overall are interested
61% of U.S. respondents

4. Conveniently accessible on a device of choice

Assuming reality has any resemblance to this research findings, this certainly reinforces the idea that focus of the content online news providers serve is the most important part of their business plan. For more on how I feel about this topic, read my post from October 8th "I Love This Guy, I Hate This Guy."

Shifting From Campaigns to Conversations

2009-12-03T05:42:00.000-06:00

I found a lengthy and heady blog post from BBH Labs about the shift from Campaigns to Conversations. We talk a lot about this topic in our business. There were a number of points that particularly resonated.

First I really liked the point-counter-point graphic (originally from EyeCube) below:

Campaigns versus conversations Infographic by Kenneth J Weiss

I also think this graphic does a really great job of re-framing the way we traditionally think about campaigns. It covers everything from micro-segmentation (although I think the ideal is segmentation is when you segment right down to the individual) to thinking of marketing along a continuous time frame rather than a short marketing "season."

BBH Labs says:

"The danger, however, is that we believe we can simply shine a spotlight on the conversation, abandon the campaign and leave consumers to it."

...and they enumerate a number of reasons why this is dangerous in social media. These are very good points, but when I read the graphic, I was pretty sure they were talking about direct marketing tactics like email. Nevertheless, one thing is certain, marketing today must engage people in a diverse number of tactics from email to social media to good old fashioned campaigns.

Another excellent point they bring up is a quote from Benjamin Plamer of the Barbarian Group:

“I can’t help but feel that while we’re in a phase where our industry is looking at social media as a new marketing platform, what we should be thinking is that it’s just the newest place our audience goes to to talk about us when we do something worth talking about”

Perfect! Social media is another channel for practicing Strategic Communications (some people call it PR). Granted each and every social network has it's own nuances and social norms, but as we move into the realm of social media let's not forget the decades of fine thinking done by our Strategic Communications brothers and sisters.

BBH wraps up the blog post by talking about how campaigns still have a lot of value as long as we execute them properly. Done right, campaigns can start conversations, expand conversations, and refresh and amplify conversations in new mediums.

I encourage you to go to BBH and read the whole post.

Nobody Likes Robots - $500 YouTube Video Turns Into $30M Movie Deal

2009-12-02T09:54:00.003-06:00

If this guy in Uruguay can make this video for $500 then imagine what he can do for $30,000,000.

That's probably what the movie moguls in Hollywood were thinking when they saw his 5 minute clip of giant robots attacking Montevideo. Check out what the buzz is all about:

How could he have done such an incredible piece for only $500? As it turns out he also owns a post production house in Montevideo. Read more about it on the News:lite blog.

IKEA Uses Facebook to Engage Customers

2009-12-02T05:49:00.000-06:00

Check out this promotion by IKEA. It uses basic Facebook functionality to promote products in a way traditional marketing simply can't. Initially, people were encouraged to tag items in the photos. If they were the first to tag an item, they could win that item. More impressive from a marketing standpoint was that those who tagged the photo, had the image on their facebook page. Their friends would then see the item too. All this social media activity exposed the IKEA brand to networks of people who are more likely to share an affinity for affordable Scandinavian design furniture.

My only question is what kind of ROI did they see from the effort? Was there a measured marketing tactic in place to record how this activity converted to sales? A special link or a coupon, or perhaps an opportunity to "friend" IKEA and opt people into future direct marketing would have been nice ways to connect the dots from awareness to sales. I'm sure the cost of execution was very low. No ad space to buy... but even low costs tactics may be too much if there is no way to measure the return.

I found this video on Crackunit.com.

Why Does Ashton Kutcher Have More Twitter Followers Than Anyone On The Planet?

2009-12-01T05:55:00.000-06:00

Ashton Kutcher doesn't have more Twitter Followers than anyone on the planet by accident. It's part of a media plan leveraging Social Media. Read all about it on Fast Company. Thanks Jessica for forwarding this article!

One of the interesting concepts Ashton is working on is the idea of using his own celebrity as a platform for getting messages out and using it to monetize Twitter for Pepsi -and- change the world by generating traffic and donations to Malaria No More.

A great quote from Garrit Schmidt, who leads the experience design and client-strategy practice for digital marketing firm Razorfish (who's FEED 2009 Report was just released):

"People are discovering that experience matters more than traditional advertising now," he notes. "Using celebrity as a personal sphere of influence is an interesting [distribution] model." Of course it's risky, Schmidt adds, because the more commercialized personalities become, the less influence they have. Kutcher acknowledges this: "I am consciously risking my career on the edge of what's too much information. Eventually, we'll open up this platform to others, just like Facebook and developers. For this to work, it has to be open."

Also, speaking of Ashton, Social Media and Fast Company, take a look at this cool table:

Thanks for this link Rick!

NBA Using Measured Marketing Strategy

2009-11-29T05:42:00.002-06:00

Take a look at this article by 1 to 1 Media about the NBA and it's use of marketing portals. The really cool thing is that the NBA has realized how marketing, especially digital measured marketing, can engage their customers in a dialog rather than a one-way monolog. The interactions can be measured and by doing so, they have a head start on their business development efforts. They can see what people look at and download, creating context for a sales call and it also helps them focus their business development efforts on customers who show the greatest interest.

Beyond that, they are gathering what I call Marketing Intelligence on what people respond to and what they don't. Ideally, they can offer more video content to a person who responds well to video and more technical reports to people who respond best to that. That would be true one to one marketing.

Fictitious Wes Anderson Film Festival Ad

2009-11-28T09:15:00.002-06:00

Well actually the ad is real (watch it below), the Wes Anderson Film Festival is made up, but this is a great little promo. I love the editing and direction and the effects that make it look like washed-out and poorly maintained film. This is actually a student project!

...and the music...awesome. Devo's "Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy."

Wes Anderson Trailer from Alex Cornell on Vimeo.

You can find out more about the designer and musician who made this, Alex Cornell, on his site.

Bottom Line: Digital Brand Experiences Create Customers

2009-11-27T05:57:00.002-06:00

If you haven't already you should download FEED 2009 from Razorfish. This year FEED focuses on the question "How do consumers engage with brands in an increasingly digital world?"

There is no escaping the fact that consumers do interact with brands online. FEED reports that 97% of the people in their survey reported having searched for a brand online. 70% said they read a corporate blog and 67% said they watched a commercial on YouTube.

Clearly the ability to interact with a brand online means an opportunity experiential marketing. The report suggests a strong correlation between online social media engagement and sales. Here is a direct quote from the report:

According to our study, the overwhelming majority of consumers who actively engage with a brand (e.g., follow a brand on Twitter or enter a contest) can evolve from passive reactors to advocates almost instantaneously. On average, 97% report increased brand awareness; 98% show increased consideration; 97% will likely purchase a product from the brand; and 96% may recommend the brand to their friends. Engagement equals affinity. Moreover, brands that use digital to drive awareness also drive sales: 64% of consumers report making a first purchase from a brand because of a digital experience.

When I read this I immediately thought, of course...anyone who follows a brand already has some preference or affinity for it. In fact, I think affinity is just as likely to drive engagement because if I follow a brand on Twitter, I probably already have some awareness/affinity in the brand. See question 30 (page 57 of the survey); it shows that the two biggest reasons people "friend" a brand is because they are a current customer, or because of exclusive deals or offers which means they have awareness of the brand and probably an affinity for it as well.

My point is that while social media is an important and powerful experiential marketing tool, it exists as part of a system of influences. I do believe that if you get people to engage online, you can increase awareness and stay "top of mind" because this is where people are increasingly spending their time -and- you if they opt-in to messages from you via Twitter or anything else, you have a more direct and measurable channel.

Which leads us to another point...

Americans spend, on average, about the same amount of time online as they do watching TV (as I type this, I am both online and watching TV - and I probably spend more time online than watching TV by a factor of at least 2). FEED calls this the rise of Digital Primacy. In the case of healthcare marketing, more than half of people in a recent study are using the internet to research their own health and instead of the previous most trusted source, their doctor!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T08:55:00.004-06:00

Just a little something to think about as we are all being thankful Americans this season (thanks to my lefty-tree-hugging-political wife who's always making her moderate centrist husband's brain hurt).

From political cartoonist Jeff Parker.

Looking for Gifts for Nerdy Design Friends...Look No Further

2009-11-26T06:41:00.001-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Black Friday is breathing down our necks but if you aren't into the whole going-to-the-mall-and-navigating-a-sea-of-sweaty-human-flotsam-and-jetsam thing, then take a look at some of the cool accessories and cloths for the design/font nerd in your life at House Industries website.

What could be better than a snuggling up to a font print pillow?

How about font blocks for the font freaks of every age (admit it, these would look great on your desk)?

Or for the Velocipede designer this awesome (but pricey) merino wool zipper jersey:
However, still a favorite and still on my Christmas list is this from Veer:

It's not wool, but it is very affordable...hint...hint...

Nobody Likes Robots - Smallest & Cutest R2-D2 EVAAR!

2009-11-25T05:26:00.002-06:00

Please, please, please... Mr. Rob Meyers... please mass produce this so I can buy one. I found this video on the igeektrooper blog.

If you had one of these, some catnip and a laser pointer, you could totally blow your cat's little mind.

Great Healthcare Device Interface Design

2009-11-24T06:02:00.001-06:00

The breakthroughs in cellphone interfaces is now breaking through to the healthcare device world. Let's face it, excellence in interface design increases use. The iPhone is such a hit, not because it has more features and abilities than all the other smart phones, it's because its interface design is such a pleasure to use.

That's why I was so pleased to see a cool insulin pump from a British company called cellnovo. The cellphone-like device is just the interface, the actual pump talks to the cellphone-like device via a wireless connection. Follow the link and make sure you click on the "Products" link to see a series of movies showing the device interface in action.

Now, if they could only develop an App for iPhone and Google Phone, then there would be no need to carry around another device!

Qualifying Leads and Measuring the Wrong Stuff

2009-11-24T05:42:00.000-06:00

Here is a great post about how organizations handle the qualification of leads and about how the wrong measurements can lead to the wrong type of behavior. The article is from Active Garage and it's called "The Worst Demo I never got."

The whole point of measured marketing is to try to avoid this very problem. Sales people don't want to make cold calls and people don't like to get them. Marketing's job is to identify the people with the highest interest and preference for a product before a sales person ever calls.

Sales should be measured on closing deals and generating revenue, not how many calls they make. The more high quality leads they get from marketing, the more efficiency you get out of your sales process.

Ideally, marketing should help an organization answer two key questions:

What do you know about the people you are marketing to?

What do they know about you?

If you can answer these two questions, you can stop bothering people who have no interest in your product and you can focus your sales efforts on people who actually have the need, budget and authority to make a purchase.

Healthcare Marketing in Social Media

2009-11-23T05:02:00.001-06:00

Check out this nice summary from Azul 7 on the recent FDA hearing with the lengthy title "The Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools."

It sounds like most of this discussion is around implementation of Social Media rules for the pharmaceutical industry, promising some regulation or guidelines some time in 2010. Hopefully the rules will also encapsulate medical device healthcare marketing.

You can download some of the materials from a couple of the presenters from Azul, but one of the points that jumped out at me from the PPT from Jeffery Francer from PHARMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) was on slide number nine where he has two great bullet points:

• Evolving technologies should provide
opportunities, not barriers
•  FDA should facilitate use of the same
media formats also used by FDA and the
White House to communicate important
health information…

Measured Marketing - Razorfish FEED 2009

2009-11-22T09:17:00.000-06:00

This year's FEED report from Razorfish is a great read, probably worth more than one post. This year's main topic is "How do consumers engage with brands in an increasingly digital world?"

On page 35 (it sounds worse than it it... they have done a great job of making it digestable) it begins to talk about what the use of digital media means for measuring brand engagement, particularly through social media.

Here is a quote that just begins to scratch the surface of the opportunities in measured marketing in the digital arena:

Because of the interactive nature of the medium, one brand experience can lead a consumer from “awareness” through “purchase” and “recommendation” almost instantly. According to our study, 64% of consumers have made a first purchase from a brand because of a digital experience such as a web site, microsite, mobile coupon, or email. No other medium has so impacted—or altered—the traditional marketing funnel this way.

I think it's important to remember that the key to brand engagement is the actual interaction. Those interactions are opportunities to measure and learn about the people we market to. Marketers should use this opportunity to opt-in people who have a strong interest in a brand. It helps us learn more about them and in exchange they learn more about the brand...something special...something focused on their interests and needs.

Great iPhone Story Book Idea

2009-11-21T08:34:00.000-06:00

Just ran across this in my RSS reader. A post from BBH Labs. It's an interactive story book that incorporates an iPhone for interactivity. This video is for concept at this point, but I think if they can work out the technical issues, they have a winner on their hands. Check out the video here:

MIMA Presentation - The Constant Challenge to Acquire and Convert

2009-11-20T06:05:00.002-06:00

In case you missed it, here is a link to the video of the presentation of the Tom Masterman and I on Wednesday morning, November 11th:

http://www.mima.org/resources/articles.asp?articleID=94

It's formatted for the iPhone so you can download it onto your phone and watch it over and over again...hours of fun!

UPDATE 11/23/09:

Also, here is the link to the one page cheat sheet for the presentation: http://ow.ly/Bd8D

How the Web is Changing Healthcare Marketing

2009-11-19T05:59:00.003-06:00

As we get close to the end of 2009, I think it's important to recognize a particular healthcare marketing milestone. In August of this year Online Media Daily reported the results of a poll that revealed nearly half of consumers go to search engines to research their own medical conditions. This confirms other numbers I've heard recently.

So what does this mean for healthcare marketers? The article makes the point about the need for marketers to add Search to their toolbox, but that's a given. What may be more important is we as healthcare marketing professionals have a challenge ahead of us. We need to move forward cautiously. If we are talking about driving awareness from the patient side, we must also pay close attention to how our intentional or accidental patient marketing effects our marketing to physicians. I think there is a delicate balance that should be maintained between driving inquiries from the client side and making sure physicians have the clinical details and patient outcome information they rely on to make decisions. If we don't we risk alienating them from the brands we manage.

There is also likely to be new regulations that we will need to understand and navigate. Rules for healthecare marketing in Search and social media are being written right now and they will need to address some really big questions like: How can anyone regulate healthcare conversations online? Given that conversations are happening and will happen, what can be a healthcare marketing groups role in that conversation? What are the successful models out there now? ...and... how will all of this change the way we talk about devices and treatments?

This should be a fun and interesting new year and I'm excited about exploring this frontier.

Nobody Likes Robots - Except The Japanese and Me

2009-11-18T05:52:00.000-06:00

Is Japan more accepting of robots? That's what this report from the BBC suggests.

"[BBC Click's] Spencer Kelly looks at a major area of Japanese technology - robotics, and discovers how religion and popular culture have contributed to a very different view of robots than in the West."

Experiential Marketing - Focus On The Benefit, Then Market It

2009-11-17T06:01:00.000-06:00

I found a great post on Eskimon's blog called "planning for the future (5): less talk, more action" which is part of a series on media planning. The article makes the point that brands ought to focus their efforts on addressing athe real benefits of the brand and spend most of their efforts there (90%) and then spend the remaining talking about it (advertising).

It reminded me of the Penske brand. Roger Penske, former race car driver known for his planning and execution, has placed a lot of emphasis on the experience of renting a truck unlike U-Haul who for decades was the number one truck rental company in the US. Hopefully things have changed but I can tell you last time I rented a truck from U-Haul I really felt the the brand has eroded. The trucks were dirty and old and there is little in the way of customer service. Penske trucks, on the other hand, are fastidiously clean, pretty new, you get a "pre-flight" every time you rent from them, and the help you find the right truck for your needs (most people have no idea what size truck they need they just know they need to move a 2 bedroom apartment's worth of stuff). Apple is another obvious example of focusing on the users experience and making the most of their advertising from it.

Another interesting case study is "FreeCreditReport.com." The commercials are fantastic. Take a look:

It is a wonderful and memorable ad campaign, but news coverage going back to 2006 (maybe earlier) have uncovered the fact that they aren't free at all, even though there are free alternatives, specifically AnnualCreditReport.com. It's a shame that all this great advertising is tainted because the "benefit" and promise of the brand are false in the first place. More about this story on BoingBoing.

What do you think?

Tickle Me Hand From Above - Awareness Campaign?

2009-11-16T05:44:00.002-06:00

I wish I knew more about this one, but it's worth looking at just from a creative perspective. This was found on Adverblog.

Hand from Above from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo.

It seems to be a public art project from Chris O'Shea a London artist.

...but one of the comments on the Adverblog suggest it is part of a campaign for Optimus, a cell phone provider. Take a look at the TV creative here:

Is this simply a creative coincidence? There is usually an intentional blur between the content and marketing (see a recent post on Miracle Whip and the Colbert Report). It would be a brilliant experiential marketing tactic if it were. My question would be, if it is a marketing tactic, how do they tie the positive interaction back to the revenue for Optimus? I would be looking for some way to measure that marketing and look for some ROI.

***CORRECTION 11/17/09***

Just in case you don't read comments. I had one from Chris O'Shea which said:

I just wanted to clarify that the Hand from Above is nothing to do with an Optimus campaign. Its clear from my site that the artwork was commissioned by the BBC Big Screen & FACT.

Thanks!

Redesigning NY Public Library Logo

2009-11-14T11:07:00.004-06:00

Great little illustration of the design process. You have to check out the progression that lead the in-house design team for the New York City Library to go from this:

to this:

See the whole progression on Design Milk's blog.

Targeted Advertising: Miracle Whip

2009-11-12T22:28:00.008-06:00

Talk about targeted messaging. OK, I was just sitting here watching the Colbert Report with my wife and we saw a Miracle Whip ad.

Apparently on October 15th Stephen Colbert had a bit where he "fought back" against Miracle Whip's new ad campaign. Take a look:

Then Miracle Whip sent him a letter that said:

"On Thursday, November 12, we will dominate the airspace on your show. With every commercial break, your viewers will be exposed to hardcore Miracle Whip attitude and revelry. You will see our legion of (as you call them) "mayo nay-sayers" snarfing sandwiches topped with our one-of-a-kind flavor in a very cool and totally hip way. They will be in your face and massively dope. It goes without saying, they WILL NOT TONE IT DOWN."

Then, of course they did by buying every ad on the show for the rest of the program. They then showed what appeared to be a targeted voice over for a current TV spot. I can't find it online right now, but I'll check in the morning and see if I can find a link then. Once I find one, I'll update this post.

I am a little suspicious about if this is an authentic interaction or scripted (after all a fake news program with fake commercial throw-down...I'm thinking "scripted"), but who cares? It's a great example of targeting a marketing/advertising tactic to a specific audience, regardless. The set-up is brilliant and to the people who are devoted viewers of the Colbert Report, their awareness and interest of the product must be elevated. My sincere hope is that they have some sort of measurement in place to identify how much the TV show influenced traffic to Kraft's web properties and sales.

I also noticed that the Miracle Whip commercials available online are hosted on Facebook. It was one of the first links on Google. I hope they will also put the Colbert version there too. Who knows they may even be able to "opt-in" some Facebook fans and leverage a social media channel.

---UPDATE 11/13/09---

OK, here is the only place I could find the new Miracle Whip response to Stephen Colbert's mocking – I'm sure it will be available other places soon. But the "Eat Me Daily" blog definately got the scoop as far as I'm concerned. Scroll to the bottom to watch the inline video, and then read the whole post (it's very good).

Nobody Likes Robots: Jumping Robot from Japan

2009-11-11T05:44:00.003-06:00

Stardate -313139.07102993404

ROPID (Rapid + Robot) the jumping robot was built by the research scientists at Kyoto university in Japan, apparently studying cuteness. It would be great to have one of these around just for giggles.

You can read more about the little tyke on BBC's News website. And on the Design Boom blog.

MIMA - Driving Traffic

2009-11-09T05:50:00.002-06:00

If you are looking for something to do Wednesday morning, please consider coming to see Tom Masterman and I talk about THE CONSTANT CHALLENGE TO ACQUIRE AND CONVERT at MIMA (Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association).

Tom and I worked together for many years at Internet Broadcasting developing TV Promotions and developing concepts for marketing and advertising.

Tom is now applying his marketing skills as a Director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota.

We'll be taking about driving traffic and converting that traffic into sales and we'll be using real life examples. We'll go from awareness campaigns all the way to measured marketing.

Hope you can make it. Find out more at MIMA's website.

Nobody Likes Robots - Because They Will Kill

2009-11-04T06:47:00.006-06:00

Maybe this is why people don't like robots... Robots will kill, according to RWK productions. Check out the graffiti walls here.

Also worth looking at are the volumes of "paper cuts."

Now That's a Lot of Paint!

2009-11-03T09:29:00.003-06:00

Forwarded by Stew: A very creative music video by the Mountain Goats. Great type design and very clever editing.

How Do You Know When You Are a Healthcare Marketing Nerd?

2009-11-03T04:58:00.005-06:00

...when you are up late into the evening and up early in the morning to check the response on a brand new campaign!

It's pretty interesting to see how and when physicians respond to emails. Some groups of doctors respond to messages late into the evening and very early in the morning. This is a generalization, but often healthcare or hospital administrators respond during the work hours.

The great thing is that the more you market to healthcare professionals, the more you learn about them.

But the best thing is not just the response rate, what I find the most interesting is reviewing what content the physicians looked at. The particular brand of measured marketing we do allows us to see exactly what the doctor is looking at, what they download and how much time they spend on the site. From this our reporting tool builds a dossier of their interests – so looking at the reports actually tells you a little story about each visitor. Sometimes the story is short: they came to the landing page and viewed a video of their peers and then left. But often, the story is longer: they went to the landing page and then to the training page and looked at the profiles of each trainer, downloaded technical specs of the device, and read more about longitudinal clinical results.

The second kind of story is the one I really enjoy. In this case the story tells me that they have a high degree of interest. They want to know who's providing training, they want to know why other surgeons are using the device, and they want to know how it works. With all the other content on the site (patient stories, history of the device, etc.) they choose to look at certain things and not others. We are very careful when we put together the content – each click represents a decision that gives us insight into the physicians interests.

The dossier is extremely helpful to sales. First of all it identifies the most interested doctors, allowing marketing and sales to focus attention and resources. Secondly, but probably most importantly, is that it creates a context for a call. It's the virtual beginning of a relationship based on a higher healthcare marketing IQ.

It's a lot of fun watching these stories unfold with measured marketing over the last 18 hours have been a fun ride. Now back to refreshing the reporting tool and discovering more stories.

Men Who Can't Pee - A Social Media Saga, Part 2

2009-10-28T05:46:00.005-05:00

If there is any doubt that social media works, please take a look at a post from a week ago called "Men Who Can't Pee - A Social Media Saga." In the post I talk about a bold and creative viral marketing piece developed by Abby Moore Medical for the Spanner prostatic stent, a device for men who have trouble peeing.

I had seen the hilarious YouTube video a few months ago and then last week read a Star Tribune article that indicated that while Abby Moore had generated a lot of traffic, they couldn't differentiate it from traffic generated by an article in Urology Times.

Well, I was surprised and delighted to get a comment from Darren Cook, Abby Moore's director of marketing. He reached out to me, I reached out to him and this Monday we spoke on the phone.

It turns out that the Star Tribune didn't tell the whole story. While this was the first venture of this type for the small medical device company, it was indeed, measured. I had a list of questions for Mr. Cook and I had a great talk about them. I'll probably need to post a few articles about this to cover them all, but chief among them was the question about measurement.

Abby Moore, was able to tell where their traffic came from because of referral metrics, but more importantly, their targeted audience was sent emails with personalized URLs or PURLs pointing at the video. That meant they knew quite a lot about the traffic generated via their direct marketing tactic. For example, Cook said so far they have had two individuals who viewed the video in excess of 100 times. Remarkable. That, of course, means that those contacts most likely forwarded the email to their friends, who forwarded it again but regardless, they did know what individual "channel" generated the traffic.

Interestingly, many of the new customers who Mr. Cook talked to had seen both the video and the piece in Urology Times, a compounding of marketing tactics that lead to greater awareness and eventually to preference. Nice work Abby Moore!

More to come...

Unusually Good Drop Caps

2009-10-27T06:18:00.000-05:00

nusually good is really the best way to describe the service provided by type designer and illustrator Jessica Hische and her blog "Daily Drop Cap". Each work day, she designs a new character which you can include on your own blog. She gives you the HTML to use for each character, which you can simply paste into your code. The only stipulation is that you follow the terms of the Creative Commons (something I'm happy to see more and more of on the Web).

I don't know how far Jessica takes the tracking of these works, but she might get some interesting analytic information because the images are all stored on her server. It would be interesting to use a similar model for marketing, but then again, it's pretty cool even if she isn't.

Here is another favorite:

High-five New York Bike Man!

2009-10-27T05:30:00.002-05:00

Found this on Handsome Cycles web site. Think you'll get a kick out of it. Pretty funny to watch this guy on a bike giving high-fives to unsuspecting people just trying to get a taxi:

The gamut of human personality types is on display as some people laugh and have a good time...and some get kind of pissed.

Real-Time Search Article, NY Times

2009-10-26T05:32:00.000-05:00

There is an interesting article in Sunday's NY Times titled "How High Will Real-Time Search Fly?" The article talks about Google and Bing's quest to search real-time conversations on Twitter and other Social Media sites and eventually how to monetize it.

A big challenge, I would think. User generated content is constantly being updated, but they are such small updates. I wonder how search engines will make sense of context when many of the micro blogging posts are only 14o characters. Usually with web pages, there are several hundred words, let alone characters, to index.

A quote from the article says "We have no idea how much we can make off search" - Danny Sullivan a search industry analyst, and author of Search Engine Land. In a post there, he talks about how the Google Social might work. It looks like it will have the ability to search your personal social networks, so when you search for something it may return both regular search results as well as mentions in your own networks! This is an interesting situation. Do we have control over this or are Twitter and others going to let them in? I'm curious to find out the details.

I wonder what kind of trade-offs will arise from Google's quest to make its services more comprehensive. The more comprehensive the search engine is for it's users, the more the search engine knows about us. The benefit is clear to both the user and the search engine: higher relevance of search results and better accessibility of content on the web, plus the ability to more accurately target ads to users. ...But what will we give up?

It's OK, Draw All Over The Walls

2009-10-25T11:55:00.001-05:00

Do you ever have the childlike fantasy of drawing all over your walls? I do. IdeaPaint makes it possible. When I worked at Internet Broadcasting a few of us started using nearby windows as whiteboards. There is something very satisfying and a little naughty about using alternative surfaces to work out your ideas. It's liberating and creative and it really doesn't hurt anyone. But it makes me wonder "why is it so joyful?" Lots of kids have left their mark on the bedroom or kitchen wall and then been immediately told they shouldn't have by a grown-up. So I think there is a deep satisfaction with doing something we were programmed not to do. Maybe it brings out a little rebel in us.

One of my clients uses something similar in their conference rooms. There is usually at least one wall wallpapered with a special dry-erase material that stretches from floor to ceiling. I love it. So often in marketing we think in systems and use models and as we work through the ideas. We need space, big spaces, to work out our ideas.

There is also something wonderful about standing and using a marker. Your marks are bold and done with purpose. Your whole body is into it...you crouch, stretch, move your whole upper body.

This post is kind of a ramble and I'm not quite sure how to finish it (perhaps I should have whiteboarded it before I started) so I'll just leave you with these:

By the way, the song in the chalkboard video is the Arctic Monkey's "I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor" featuring the lyrics "Well I bet that you look good on the dancefloor / Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984..."

Special Interest Books

2009-10-24T10:19:00.006-05:00

The great thing about books is that there seems to be at least one for just about every subject. This was passed along by Andy. Here is one for Stephen Colbert:

Then there are these two that should be a "must haves" for every high-end hotel housekeeping manager:

You can find these and more weird books at AbeBooks.com's Weird Book Room.

Google Street View Captures Paris

2009-10-23T08:31:00.006-05:00

Friday's Tangent Alert:

We've all used Google Street View and probably seen some interesting things, but the artist Michael Wolf apparently spent weeks combing through street views of Paris and put together an interesting collection of pictures. This is a favorite:

I found this site via a twitter update from @grahamcreative and his link to the Creative Review blog.

Robot Wednesday: Stardate 63270.6

2009-10-21T12:11:00.003-05:00

Today I found an weird article on how people interpret robot faces...want to see what I mean? Watch the iCat robot video below:

Personally, I think one of the big obstacles for iCat is the voice. We read so much into intonation an iCat has none.

An analysis of the facial expressions can be found in a study reporting how young and older adults read the facial expressions of robots. I wonder who funded this. Who cares? Maybe you will someday when a robot is taking care of you in your old age. Read more here in the "Is My Robot Happy to See Me?" article on US News and World Report's Science section.

Men Who Can't Pee - A Social Media Saga

2009-10-21T09:18:00.001-05:00

Unless you are in the healthcare industry, you may not have seen this…but then again, maybe you have.

It ‘s a clever and inexpensive piece produced by Abby Moor Medical. A recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune sheds a little light on the revolutionary tactic for healthcare device marketing. This type of thing is becoming a more common practice in other industries, but for such a heavily regulated industry, the move is very bold.

It’s great to see the introduction of humor into healthcare marketing and it’s great to see some direct-to-customer marketing as well. I first saw the video a few months ago and was surprised and pleased, however I was a little shocked when I read the Star Tribune article. A quote from the article:

As of last week, the Spanner clip had attracted more than 150,000 views and almost 900 viewer comments on YouTube. Website traffic following the launch soared from a sleepy 80 hits a day to more than 2,300, although it's since slowed down.

The clip was launched around the same time that a positive article on the Spanner appeared in Urology Times, so it's difficult to determine what exactly was driving the traffic, Cook said. It's also unclear whether the clip resulted in a boost in sales of the Spanner.

Wow! They can’t tell where the traffic comes from? That’s too bad. It seems that could have been easily fixed the traffic uncertainty by making separate landing pages for the Urology Times article and the YouTube video. Measuring the effect on sales might be a little tougher, but there are certainly techniques for that as well that might involve an opt-in site followed by a direct campaign. To use a football analogy, it’s kind of like having a great drive down the field and then settling for field goal.

Abby Moore has certainly gained some notoriety and some media attention from their work and there was traffic from the blend of marketing and PR work, it’s just hard to tell what worked and what didn’t, or if they both worked and it will make the decision to make another YouTube video a little harder.

Fun Doing the Right Thing

2009-10-21T05:23:00.000-05:00

Volkswagon has a site called FunTheory.com with the premise that if you make things fun, you can change people's behavior. Great point. Here are two examples that encourage people to recycle and use the trash can.

The great thing is that by doing clever work and associating the creative with the Volkswagon brand, VW is contributing to their brand equity on a different level than just talking about their cars. They are reaching out to the peoples deeper values about life. Be creative, do the right thing, have fun, save the earth. Brilliant.

I found this thanks to a link from Eskimon via a comment from Lara. Thanks!

Bikes, Flatbread & Minnesota Business

2009-10-20T11:04:00.002-05:00

Bikes and Flatbread
The simpler the better. That holds true for many things in life, but I found an interesting intersection of this in two things I love. Food and Bikes. A friend turned me on the the website and blog for The Epicurean Cyclist. There I saw what promised to be a recipe for flat bread. As I read it it seemed to be more about technique (and an interesting one at that, including a frisbee and guitar case) but I missed the recipe. So I read it again and sure enough, there it was. I missed it because it's such a simple recipe. I googled "flatbread recipes" and found many variations, but it confirmed the Epicurean Cyclist post. I'll let you know how it went once I try it out.Bikes and Minnesota Business
This month's issue of Minnesota Business highlights a local bike apparel company, Twin Six. It's an interesting story of how the company came to be. Here is the spoiler: It was driven almost completely by good design and the willingness to take a risk. Take a look, pretty cool stuff.

Also, I should mention there is a nice article in the October issue of Minnesota Business (right after the Twin Six article) featuring Peter Hager and I on the business focus of Sight Marketing. The story is only available in the print version right now (pick up a copy), but I'll post the link once it becomes available. Screenshot of the eventual link is below.

Visual Thesaurus

2009-10-17T10:29:00.005-05:00

I just renewed my subscription to Visual Thesaurus by Thinkmap. If you haven't tried it and if you consider yourself a word person, you may want to check it out. I've used it in the past for brainstorming, naming exercises and script writing. It's a pretty cool tool. Below is a screen capture of my search for the word "conversation." You can click on any node and you get a whole new graph with that word in the center.

My uses of it just scratches the surface. It's a great way to visualize words and their relationships. Some people are doing visual representations of words from favorite poems. Make your own word "mindmap"and share it. You can even save a list of your words. I've spent a lot of time simply playing with tool.

It isn't perfect though. I have experienced problems with it freezing Firefox when I use some of the functions and I have had problems printing to PDF. It would be nice if they worked out some of those bugs, but given the price, I suppose it isn't too bad. I bought a subscription for myself and three other people at work for a year for about $50.

Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists

2009-10-16T11:37:00.000-05:00

My friend Andy sent along this post called "Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists" from the blogger Derek Powazek. I think it's right on the money. I especially love the last section titled "Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again." It kind of sums it all up. If there is a secret to SEO, that's it.

Always make something worth talking about, promote it using channels that you are invested in. Don't play people or Google. Keep doing it.

Derek talks about this in his post, but make sure you have done your basic SEO blocking and tackling. Keep making good content and the rest will follow.

Thanks Andy.

A Few Things for Friday

2009-10-15T17:04:00.008-05:00

Dog
It has been a long, busy and difficult week. In addition to all the work, my dog has been very, very sick and this morning I was at the vet and we put him down. He was a good friend and companion and I'll miss him. With all this behind me, It's time to blog again.

Scribbles
Being a mad scribbler myself, I really appreciate this post from David Armano of Logic + Emotion.

The article is about the how visual representations and thinking help us communicate in various ways, but I would also add that the act of drawing things on whiteboards or paper is a more active thinking... at least for me. When my whole body is involved, it's different than banging something out on the computer. There is an emphasis of a handmade mark that's instantaneous. Doing the same thing on a computer can be slow. I've got notebooks full of notes, most of them are peppered with drawings and mindmaps. When I look at them years later, sometimes I can decipher what the notes were about but I can always recall how I felt about it, just by how the marks are made and the doodles that accompany the notes. It's like note meta-data. A nice looking visual model is great once the concept is roughed out on paper, but I always like the paper version better.

Something about nothing
While I haven't been blogging much this week, I have been reading. One of my favorite posts this week was over at Eskimon. He posted a wonderful Ted video that you should really watch. Grab a coffee, and 15 minutes and watch this very thoughtful and entertaining presentation about perception and value.

I Love This Guy & I Hate This Guy

2009-10-08T05:40:00.001-05:00

A few days ago, JR tipped me off to this story from NPR. Go here and listen to Jeff Jarvis in "Rewriting Media's Business Model (Again)."

I'm kind of torn. You only need to read a couple of my posts about media (Check out "Lable" navigation for "Media") to know what I think about the state of Newspapers and Network TV. I love the media and yet I think there is so much wrong with it. "Monetizing" content, Hyper local... Ugh.

I like what Jarvis has to say about deconstructing journalism, but I think his experiments on hyper local journalism may be barking up the wrong tree. Don't get me wrong, I think local is important. As my friend Tom has always said, even national news is local somewhere but my trouble with hyper local is that I think it only addresses one facet of people's lives. I think people care about the things happening in their neighborhood, but that's not all they care about, they also have deep interests in other subjects untethered to their geographical location.

I think people gather news in many different ways, from many different sources. How much time do you spend on facebook, IM, Email and Twitter compared to the amount of time you spend reading the newspaper or watching the news? Do you ever watch the news on TV and Google at the same time? Maybe you can't relate to either of these scenarios, but I think a lot of people can.

It might be too late to chang the journalism model to blur the lines between capital "J" journalism and citizen journalism. That's the way it already is! People use their friends, blogs, Wikipedia, Digg and innumerable other sources to inform themselves and make decisions. Newspapers will always have a hard time competing with the people who are passionate about special interests and are willing to cover them on their own blogs for free.

I think journalists should focus on covering things that are difficult for everyday people to cover. I would love to see more "60 Minutes" format shows, more "Frontlines" more embedded reporters investigating things that have a broad enough appeal (but limited access) to generate the advertising revenue required to fund the venture. For goodness sakes, go deep! Don't cover everything, find a beat and own it.

It will probably mean smaller operations and large regional papers, like Minneapolis' local Star Tribune, once a great paper, may disappear. If they survive, they will be transformed and and may be more focused on the things they cover. If they feel they have to be local, maybe it should be about aggregating content that's already out there.

I have strong opinions about this topic after working for a decade with TV stations and being part of a news network, but am also very interested in the topic and really want to hear and understand all sides of the story. Please let me know what you are thinking about this topic, or...set me straight.

Nobody Likes Robots - Volume 1, Issue 2

2009-10-07T06:09:00.002-05:00

I've come to suspect that nobody really likes robots. However while I was at my lowest, a glimmer of hope. Kind words from a few robot supporters plus my poll reveled that only 13% of the...hem...8 people who participated, said they did not like robots. 50% said they did like robots (even though they are a little scared by them) and another 38% flat out liked robots!

Some of you may be saying "John, 13 plus 50, plus 38 equals 101%, what the hey? A pie chart represents no more or less than 100%." It's true, I've checked the math twice (once with a calculator). What could account for this mathematical improbability? Some might say this is the result of rounding the percentages to the nearest whole number, but I have an alternate theory. Robots. I don't know how they do it, but I wouldn't put it past them.

I'll leave the poll going to see what other strange mathematical anomalies occur.

Anyhow, thanks to Simon, and his link via TIGS (Talent Initiates, Genius Steals) blog, I found that you can go to the Voice Box website and submit a message for the English Parliament. Selected messages will be printed by a robot and will be presented to Parliament for their consideration! Watch the video here:

The Voicebot pt 1 from sidekick studios on Vimeo.

If you are English, I think you should do this, and if you aren't English, give it a shot and see if robot lets you.

As always, if you have something to say about robots, please let me know.

Content is Not King

2009-10-07T05:53:00.003-05:00

Jessica at Sight sent me an fantastic quote this morning. She got it from the Techipedia blog by Tamar Weinberg (@tamar on Twitter). It is a wonderful quote from Cory Doctorow who, among other things, is a founder of Boing Boing.

You may have to click the image below to read it, but here it is in type as well:

"Content isn't king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you'd choose your friends - if you chose the movies, we'd call you a sociopath. Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about. "
- Cory Coctorow | Boing Boing

Keep this in mind when you engage in social media. I've made the mistake of thinking "content is king." It's an easy trap, especially for those of us who've come up through broadcast or big media. No doubt, content is very important, but Cory is absolutely right when it comes to social media and increasingly old media. It's about finding where the conversations are happening and becoming meaningfully involved in them. Understanding the social norms or rules of the group and abiding by them.

VW Sweden - Does Experiential Experiment

2009-10-06T08:53:00.003-05:00

Check out this great VW promotion in a Swedish subway.

I think the wonderful thing about it is how people interact with it. The experience of creating music is fun and it makes art out of an every day activity. You can see how some people really get involved. However I wonder how they tie it to the VW brand. That's something that doesn't come through in the video. If anyone knows, please share.

Article from Peppers & Rogers

2009-10-06T05:40:00.004-05:00

An interesting little article from 1 to 1 Marketing, a division of Peppers & Rogers. The article discusses – what were once considered separate disciplines of Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization – are best employed together.

The article points out how the two can work together and support inquiries at both the wide end narrow end of the marketing funnel. I think it's good to think about search results happening as part of a system: content from other sites, blogs, social media mentions, etc. It remindes me of my friend Ken, a technology director at a local Minneapolis marketing firm, who I think is really good at looking at the big picture. He's talked about similar strategies of using paid content partners to drive traffic and using that traffic and content linking to improve organic search results. Eventually, his thought is, you can taper off the paid content as organic search results increase.

I'm not an SEO specialist, but at a high level, it seems like a good idea to make sure your site has the basic SEO blocking and tackling covered and make sure your SEM strategy is integrated and supported by content and a commitment to look at your online marketing systemically.

Getting back to the Peppers and Rogers article, you have to register to read the whole ting, but if you don't feel like it, here are some other key points from citing Forrester:

Most marketers are facing slashed budgets and may be tempted to abandon paid search altogether, but a report from Nate Elliott of Forrester Research says now is the time to develop a mature paid search effort. His report, How to Set Goals for Paid Search Success, offers these three important steps:

Benchmark current campaigns. Track site traffic, sales volume, conversion rates, and lifetime value of each customer by keyword. Use these metrics to track improvement over time.

Identify areas of possible improvement.

Understand paid search's limitations. Two thirds of marketers want search to increase brand awareness, but branding through search is difficult to measure. Most companies don't have the resources to measure the ROI of branding search campaigns.

There is more about B2B marketing and an example of a healthcare supply company using SEO and SEM, that may be worth giving up your name and email for.

Why Do We Blog?

2009-10-05T06:08:00.006-05:00

How do we choose topics?

My wife (Jae Ran Kim) and I talk a lot about blogs, she is sort of an expert on the topic… her blog, which she’s been writing for several years, is called Harlow’s Monkey. JR is a social worker and PhD student whose interests and expertise lies in the policy and issues around transracial and transnational adoption. She herself is a transracial and transnational adoptee. It’s pretty niche, but in her circle, the blog is very well regarded and has lead to numerous collaborations, book chapters and speaking engagements and her blog is a resource cited on various sources from other academics to the New York Times.

For me Unusually Good Haircuts is a little different from a corporate blog. I contribute to some focused forums as well such as Sight Marketing’s blog and the Minnesota Business Experts' Fourm, but this is a place that I can journal about things that interest me. Sometimes I wonder if it seems a little narcissistic to blab about mundane topics that are just for my own interests. Who on earth cares? It turns out some people do read it, but even more importantly, at the end of the day, it’s a way build relationships.

How do blogs change?

Harlow’s Monkey has changed over time. It started out as a personal blog, but because of the readership, JR felt that she needed to make it a little less personal and more formal. With all the people looking at her blog and with many scholars reading and referring to it, sharing what she was doing on vacation or a talking about a new kimchee recipe no longer seemed appropriate.

I don’t know how this blog will change over time. I guess its like life; you don’t really know where it will take you. Maybe I’ll grow tired of blogging and quit. Maybe this will be around for a long time. I guess we’ll just see how it goes.

What do we learn from blogs?

I use this blog as a place to share and learn, and as a sandbox to explore social media. And while I don’t consider myself an expert, I feel I learned a lot by having the blog. I don’t put too much emphasis on traffic numbers (they are small compared to Harlow’s Monkey), but here is what I’ve learned so far:

Put yourself out there – be invested in the topics that interest you and be open to learning from others.
Become part of the dialogue – read and thoughtfully comment on others who blog about things you are interested in.
Do it because you like it – if you force yourself to do it, you won’t keep it up.
Success is about building relationships – more rewarding than pageviews is getting to know people and letting them get to know you (see this great blog at Eskimon).

It may surprise you that, for a guy so into measured marketing, none of the real lessons are about measurement. The way I look at it, measurement is just feedback for making a decision. If your speedometer says your going 75 miles an hour, is that good or bad? It’s bad if you are driving in my neighborhood, but good if you’re on the interstate. What is really important is the larger context.

JR says:

Some days it feels like nobody is out there, and others it’s like you’re in a spotlight… you can’t take it personally either way.
Many of her subjects are controversial and so having a tough skin is important.
She thinks the beautiful thing about blogging is that for every subject you can think of there is an audience – she never thought she would be able to have relationships with people in other countries that share her experiences, but she does.

What are your feelings about blogging? Is it narcissistic, as many people claim, or is it just another way to connect with people in a virtual world? Tell me what you think.

As if Recumbant Bicycles Are'nt Silly Enough

2009-10-02T05:56:00.001-05:00

As if recumbent bicycles aren't silly looking enough, here is a new recumbent motorcycle. Don't people know bikes and motorcycles are meant to be ridden like a horse, the way God intended?

Maybe I'm crazy? Tell me what you think:

Are Recumbents Silly?(online surveys)Update:

One-Page Marketing Plans

2009-10-01T06:37:00.002-05:00

I ran across a blog post by Nolan Bushnell on "The Power of a One-Page Marketing Plan" on Inc.com. Nolan Bushnell ought to know. He was the entrepreneur who started Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, back in the day.

Anyway, this is a great read. It reminds me of some of the best creative briefs I've seen – the ones that are just a few sentences in length.

In the article he describes kind of a brochure/marketing plan. The point is, if the idea isn't simple enough to fit on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper, it's probably too complicated. Also, if you can't tell you story quickly and get the core message and value across, you probably need to work on your position statement.

I also like how he talks about a good marketing plan can really help direct and give focus to a business. I've seen marketing affect organizational structures! It's very rewarding to work through a positioning exercise with a leadership group and witness how solidifying their story actually gives them an organizational map. It makes sense: It's good to make sure your company is in line with what you say you are.

Portfolio Maps

2009-10-01T05:42:00.000-05:00

Here is a great example of lateral thinking. I'm not quite sure how they do this, but if you've used Google maps before, you can use these portfolio pages:

http://www.blaubo.com/

http://www.microtyp.org/

http://stas.kulesh.co.nz/

What a great way to show off visual work.

You Suck at Photoshop

2009-09-30T05:54:00.001-05:00

Time to brush up on your Photoshop skills? This is sad, pathetic, disturbing...and if you watch it, you may just learn a thing or two, Buster!

P.S. this is probably not a good one to share with your kids, your parents, or your bosses. I recommend headphones if you are watching at work.

Nobody Likes Robots

2009-09-30T05:40:00.003-05:00

Usually on Wednesdays, I post a "Robot Wednesday" post. The other day I was looking at pageviews for my blog and noticed that my least visited pages were the ones about robots. I have come to the conclusion that, in general, nobody really likes robots.

I, however, still love robots. Rather than discontinue posting stories about robots on Wednesday's I will continue to selfishly post stories about robots for my own sick pleasure...and call it what it is. It will still be on Wednesdays and still be completely self-serving, but from here on out, Robot Wednesdays are over and will now be replaced by the newly re-branded and completely honest name: Nobody Likes Robots.

To kick it off, a few roboty things I'm sure everyone will not like, except for me:

Good night moon...Good night robot.

...and, damn, this robot is way smarter than I am.

If you want to bash on robots, leave a comment or take this handy-dandy poll:

Healthcare Marketing

2009-09-29T06:22:00.002-05:00

Here are two great blog entries passed along by Blaine at Sight Marketing.

Boomers and Healthcare
The first is about Boomers, Social Media and Healthcare from the blog Healthy Conversations. In addition to providing a number of thoughtful insights and stats from Forrester Research. It gives you a pretty good lay of the land when it comes to consumption of social media for a segment of people who would probably be interested in healthcare messages.

My favorite quote from this article comes at the very end:

"it takes time to ramp up with social media. It takes time to engage people, to draw them into conversations, to build credibility and relationships. But the wonderful thing about social media is that you can take baby steps. Steps that are extremely efficient and that allow you to learn and quickly adjust as you go. "

It's a good reminder that social media is not a "drive-by" media. It takes time and commitment, but is also something everyone, with patience and some strategic thinking, can leverage.

YouTube and Healthcare
The second article is also healthcare focused. It speaks primarily to Pharma, but could serve as great illustration for healthcare device marketers, since Pharma marketing tends to be a few years ahead of device marketing, but is governed by similar regulations. The article is from Ogilvy and it's titled "10 Rules of Using YouTube for Pharma & Healthcare Marketing."

The blog has links to great examples of YouTube pages for different Pharma companies.

Explore crackunit

2009-09-29T06:19:00.001-05:00

Just thought you might like to spend some time at crackunit.com. Here is a great Nike ad posted on the blog.

Onwards from AKQA on Vimeo.

For the full effect, I recommend expanding it to full screen. It starts off a little slow but is worth the wait.

Also, take a look at this "In B Flat" also found on an earlier post from crackunit.com. This is pretty fun to play with...great concept.

Spend some time at crackunit.com. You'll find tons of cool stuff.

If You Can't Laugh at Yourself...

2009-09-28T06:48:00.003-05:00

A great collection of Twitter parodies on Mashable. Check out "10 Hillarious Twitter Parodies."

Here is one of my favorites:

...and this one from the Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Twitter Frenzy

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Healthcare Protests

Tangent Alert: The Only Michael Jackson Tribute I Can Stand

2009-09-25T06:01:00.001-05:00

Yep, I never thought I would say it, but this one is for Michael. Believe me, I wouldn't do it if it weren't amazing. The "A Capella" medley is very good, but when you consider this is one guy, singing all the parts and the complexity of the arrangement...wow!

Forrester Study: Intergrated Customer-Centric Marketing

2009-09-24T09:30:00.003-05:00

I just read a recent (August 2009) study from Forrester that I'm sure will provide a lot of blog material for me over the next few weeks. The complete title of the report is "Integrated, Customer-Centric Marketing - Exploring Marketing's Delusion."

The article speaks to the fact that Integrated Marketing is easier said than done and it presents four key findings:

Marketers overestimate the extent of their customer-centricity
Marketers overestimate their measurement capabilities
Marketers overestimate the scope of their customer segmentation
Leaders and Laggards differ vastly in their approach to customer communication.

Among many things, the report cites "Technology and organizational structure are the two most common barriers to how firms mature in relation to segmentation, integration, and measurement [of marketing efforts]."

For sure, technology is something a lot of marketers are starting to employ, however what is lacking is a integrated technology approach. Take a look an one of my recent posts about a great database marketing effort that fell just short of it's real potential.

Organizational structure is also something we at Sight think a lot about. We have seen how silos in our client organizations hobble potential effectiveness of marketing efforts. I wrote a little about this in "Marketing and Sales Labels Suck."

What is your take on these findings?

Visualizing Data: Measured Marketing

2009-09-24T06:15:00.003-05:00

Recently I've been interested in visualizing data. I was going through some older posts from the blog "Following Data" and found this cool visualization of the stimulus money being distributed in California. Statman Design developed this for the state:

Also, I've recently been testing HootSuite, a tool from the folks at Invoke and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed so far with how accessible they have made my twitter feed (the data and trackability). I'm a measured marketing nerd, and with this tool, and Google Analytics, I am having a good time connecting the dots between Twitter/HootSuite to the my blog. I recommend giving it a shot.

Robot Wednesday: Military Robot Dog

2009-09-23T05:57:00.000-05:00

This is an incredible video from DARPA and Boston Dynamic's Big Dog payload carrying robot. See how it does on ice, piles of cinder blocks and trudging up and down hills. It's much more nimble than Star Wars ADATs.

Found this on Gizmodo.

The New Folding Bike

2009-09-22T06:25:00.001-05:00

You may have seen folding bikes that look like this Bridgestone, like the one my friend Dr. Lee ownes:

But get ready for the only 700c single speed folding bike, the "Boston" folding bike by Montague:

And for more folding bikes, check this out: A whole site dedicated to folding bike enthusiasts. Make sure you scroll on down and take a look at the "Crossbreed" the prototype for the folding bicycle wheel.

Un-Freeking-Believable DB Advertising

2009-09-22T06:05:00.000-05:00

I found this link on Adverblog (if you get a chance, check out the blog, it's great):

It made me wonder...do you think they tie this marketing effort into a measurable conversion? If a car owner goes into the shop for an oil change after seeing one of these signs, it would be possible to measure the marketing effort.

Compare licence numbers displayed by the sign with those who go to the shop and have Castrol Oil in the London area. Some people would change their own oil and some would get the right grade of oil and purchase it from a different oil company but surely some would respond by buying Castrol.

What are your thoughts?

Awesomeness the New Innovation

2009-09-21T05:33:00.008-05:00

A few days ago, I got a great email from Jessica at Sight Marketing in regards to an article I sent her about Social Media and SEO. I'm going to quote Jessica here (she gave me permission):

"I would assert that marketing success will begin to hinge on the 4 A’s:

Authenticity
Awesomeness
Analytics
Applicability (relevance)"

Do read the Harvard Business "Awesomeness Manifesto" article. It's a lot of fun and I think the author, Umair Haque makes a great point. I am surprised by some of the comments.

What do you think about awesomeness vs. innovation?

Old is New Again

2009-09-20T23:28:00.004-05:00

If the big "D" was smart, they would find these people...and hire them.

Enjoy this very nice mash-up of the musical numbers from our childhood. I fond this on crackunit.com's blog under the heading "Super Lovely Bootlegs." follow the link for more.

DHL Print Creative

2009-09-20T07:53:00.000-05:00

Check out this print creative for DHL. I swiped this off a really cool site called Comunicadores. Apparently the creative was developed by Shanghai J & J Advertising Co. (but then again, I am following the Google Translated version of the story - and it's a little hard to follow).

Clever use of PVC.

Amazing Bike Dispensing Vending Machine

2009-09-19T08:26:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine was just talking about potentially sourcing a vending machine for his latest bike shop venture. His machine would house tools, inner tubes, patch kits, etc. I'm sure this is not what he had in mind, but still pretty darn cool.

Tangent Alert: Download Your Own iPhone Dock

2009-09-18T06:31:00.002-05:00

That's right! Download your very own, very cool, very free iPhone dock. Just follow this link to Design/Milk and let your scissors do the walking.

Or go straight to the source.

Here is the simple step-by-step video:

It does look like you will have to use some pretty heavy paper to make it work.

Five Star Fixie

2009-09-18T06:05:00.000-05:00

Wooden handle bars, wooden rims, belt driven and a design...so sexy. Check out BikeRumor.com and take a look at all the detailed pictures of Fixie Inc.'s new Five Star. Purrrrrrr...

Chip Kidd - The Learners

2009-09-17T09:01:00.004-05:00

One of my facebook friends went to see Chip Kidd speak last night and it reminded me of one of my favorite designs of his. I picked it up in the book store and fell in love with it right away. I don't even know if they have a paper back version, but I'm not sure how they would pull off the awesome design in paper back anyway.

The book is called "The Learners" and it's been out for a while. It has an interesting story that weaves it's way through a small east coast ad agency in, what I would guess to be the early 60's and some electroshock experiments going on at a nearby college. It has love, a peak into old school design and illustration, and it has interesting twists and turns. Kidd actually wrote the book, proving not only his mastery of book design but that he's also a pretty good writer as well.

Measured Marketing - Doing More With Less

2009-09-17T06:11:00.001-05:00

A great article from Fast Company talks about how a down economy is an opportunity for good design. In the article Dan Harden talks about how when the economy is cooking along companies are in a hurry to go to market because they are neck and neck with their competitors. Sometimes means that his industrial design firm has short time-lines and design can take a back seat.

Mr. Harden says when the economy is down, you have a new set of design limitations. I agree, but I also think a slow economy incubates innovative approaches. In business school we talked about the "burning platform." The concept is: organizations resist change until there is a very compelling reason. That reason is often a threat (you make the jump when the platform you are standing on is burning - you have no choice). The slow economy may push some companies to try something different, but with that "something different" there is risk. They will probably need to be cautious and will need accountability for the risks they take. With money scarce, they want to know what kind of results they are getting from their marketing efforts.

Enter Measured Marketing. Measured Marketing simply means attaching metrics to your marketing efforts and measuring the effectiveness of those tactics. The key metric is usually a conversion of a marketing effort into a customer.

There is great opportunity for companies who know they have to market, but also seek measurement and a way to identify marketing ROI.

Robot Wednesday: Robot Stop Action

2009-09-16T06:09:00.001-05:00

Oh, the saddest little robot you will ever see is featured in "Little Big Love." This stop-action film was made by designer/producer Tomas Mankovsky for under $500 and was completed in a time-frame of 6 weeks. Although if you look at all the work that went into it, that figure certainly does not include his time. For instance check out the storyboards and the scene list taped onto the shower wall. This guy is not playing!

Little Big Love from Tomas Mankovsky on Vimeo.

Implementing Social Media - Cultural Change

2009-09-15T06:12:00.002-05:00

A recent post from Logic + Emotion talks about how important corporate culture is to social media.

Dave Armano positions it as moving from "Hording to Collaborating." It is a pretty thought provoking post. There are several dimensions to this issue; the agency-client dimension, and the internal organizational dimension (certain jobs are done by certain groups), just to name two. His post is a call to break down those barriers.

Implementing a measured marketing strategy, a SEO strategy or a social media strategy all work best when the agency and client work together to identify the need and when both are willing to work together closely. It probably also requires a strong internal commitment from the client which may mean breaking down some silos within the organization, sharing this marketing role with all parts of the organization.

What challenges do you encounter implementing marketing strategies within your organization?

Digital Agencies - Orthadox Agencies

2009-09-14T16:30:00.002-05:00

Regarding digital agencies vs. marketing agencies in the recent economy, adliterate has a great post with a provocative thesis.

It made me wonder if this means both orthodox agencies and digital agencies will both move closer to the center?

If adliterate is right, perhaps agencies will start to reflect the needs driven by Marketing Directors and we will see "digital" become more mainstream.

What are your thoughts?

Measured Marketing - Visualizing Data

2009-09-14T06:13:00.002-05:00

I ran across this from a story on FastCompany.com Take a look at how Uncontrol is visualizing the immense amount of data created by Digg.com, a social media tool with a sh-load of data.

I love data but visualization (or wrapping your head around it) is a tricky part of business. It seems to show so much and at the same time hide it too. It might be part of the reason why a lot of marketers don't measure. Looking at tables and percentages isn't fun. It doesn't seem creative.

If you've read or looked at any of the work of Edward Tufte, you know that visualization of data can be misleading. Presenting data is fraught with pitfalls and potential misrepresentation. Tufte points out that characteristics of data visualization is often used to support an agenda. In fact it has a long, long history. Perhaps adding another dimension to the visualization could help.

One of the problems is that on a screen or in print, you can usually only see two dimensions at a time, and often the graph, table or diagram is static. This is great because you can move around the data in 3D space and change the features of the graph, filtering or isolating 3 different metrics.

It also makes it a pleasure to interact with the data. How about that?

Give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Anagrama: Mexican Identity Agency

2009-09-12T10:19:00.008-05:00

I'm re-bloging a cool post from the folks over at Design Milk. They posted this great find from a design agency in Mexico called Anagrama. This post featurs work they did for a Taco place. Check out the awesomely simple business card design.

You should also check out the portfolio at Anagrama. It's full of great stuff like this identity for something called Velvet. I love the mysterious copy on the portfolio page that says "If it Bleeds, We Can Kill it."

Become a Measured Marketing Test Subject

2009-09-11T16:39:00.002-05:00

Are you interested in seeing measured marketing in action? If so, I invite you to be a test contact in a direct marketing campaign Sight Marketing is targeting at marketing professionals in the health care industry.

Even if you aren’t in health care and are just interested in seeing what this kind of campaign looks like, we welcome your interest and will be happy to set you up as a seed contact in our database. You’d receive periodic emails and perhaps some direct mail pieces.

I’d be happy to show you the analytics and the dossier of information we build for contacts visiting the microsite. We’ll also share how this type of marketing helps nurture contacts and build relationships between brands and the people they serve.

If you’re interested, just email me your name, title, and company name, and I’ll set you up in the database.

Thanks,
John Barton
VP, Creative Services
Sight Marketing
johnb@sightmarketing.com

Tangent Alert: Stop, Go, Stop & Go Again

2009-09-11T06:25:00.002-05:00

I'll be at a video shoot all day today for a client, so to put me in the mood, I thought I would start the day off right with a "Tangent Alert" featuring some of my favorite stop-motion videos. I guarantee you will find them amazing.

The first one shows you what can happen if you get some stop motion software, like Frame by Frame, a whiteboard and those markers that make you feel a little funny if you work with them all day:

And now, I give you Tony vs. Paul:

Got any good stop-motion to share? Let me know. I would love to find stop-motion robots for my robot collection!

Twitter Got Me Again!

2009-09-10T17:05:00.005-05:00

I followed a link of a friend who was following Surly Brewing Company, a Minneapolis metro beer that happens to be one of my favorites. I asked myself "do I really want to know what the people at Surly are tweeting about?" The answer: Hell yeah!

I already have an affinity for the brand and I want to know if they come out with a new brew so I can go get some. Or if they are sponsoring a beer tasting event, I want to know.

Yep, I just opted-in to be marketed to...and it's OK by me.

Give The People What They Want

2009-09-10T16:10:00.007-05:00

I had breakfast with my friend Parker today. Parker is a particularly smart internet and advertising strategist, who’s built a career out of inventing new and very profitable ways of helping advertisers get their messages in front of tens of millions of targeted viewers a month with relevant content.

Our conversation covered a lot of ground but one of the topics we came back to again and again was the question “What do people really want?” We were talking about advertisers, marketers and people in general.

People want things to be simple, cheap and useful. OK, people want more than that, but at the core, don’t we all want at least these things?

Simple
When I say simple, I don’t mean that it can’t take advantage of cutting edge technology and high-tech hardware. I mean that when you want to make a cell phone call, you should be able to just dial talk and hang up. I remember when cell phones were new and you had to dial extra numbers if you were roaming. We don’t have to do this anymore; the phone does it for us and reminds us we are roaming with a little icon on the screen (that may become irrelevant too).

Cheap
Parker is an expert in economies of scale. I think most of us know what this means in theory, but the practice making money with economies of scale means taking a small premium for adding value to a process or a service (ad placement) and then doing it millions of times a month on hundreds of fronts. The “value premium” is usually earned by making things more efficient, targeted and proving better results. Sometimes both the cost of the premium and the cost to distribute can be covered by other means that mask the true cost and give the appearance of “free.” People love “free” because it is the pinnacle of “cheap.” Consumers want things to be free or as cheap as possible, like the many Google applications. They will even forgo some features as long as it has the necessary features – like netbooks.

One more thing about “cheap” it’s relative to the value you get from it. Cheap is different for different people and different marketing efforts, but it must be less expensive and more profitable than earlier efforts to qualify as cheap.

Useful
A thing is useful when we find pleasure and satisfaction in it or it makes our lives better and easier. Why is my iPhone so much better than the Blackberry I used to have and why do some people prefer the Palm or Google phone. I think it depends on what you want the thing to do.

I find new uses for my phone all the time. Adding apps is simple and even the apps I pay for are cheap, but most of all they help me relax, find a good restaurant, allow me to easily work when I’m not at my desk, know where I'm going, etc. A colleague of mine switched to an iPhone and then back to a Palm after he had a hard time searching his emails. He was used to this function on his old phone and missed it. This is no longer an issue with the iPhone thanks to it's slick new search function, but to him, at that time the Palm was just more useful.

I teach a class at the Collage of Visual Arts on usability design. These themes are persistent throughout UI design. In fact a great book, I’ve used for years to teach the class is called “Don’t Make Me Think.” If something is too complex to use, if it takes too much of an investment in time to figure out and if it doesn’t deliver content and leaves you thinking “what am I doing wasting my time here?” you have failed as an web designer.

As marketing professionals we should strive to incorporate all three of these attributes into our work. A campaign should give people a simple way to respond to a call to action. It shouldn’t have too many steps and should require only the most minimum investment of their time to get something useful. Marketers, need the most straight forward way of engaging potential customers, the investment needs to improve return on marketing investment and it should either start a relationship or nurture an existing one.

Robot Wednesday: iCub - Robot Child

2009-09-09T19:57:00.005-05:00

"Deep inside a lab in Northern Italy a rather special machine is coming to life..." starts the video from Euronews. You know anything starting deep inside a lab in the Italian Alps is going to be awesome. Watch for yourself.