Posts Tagged ‘Marketing Technology’
Mashable recently surveyed 2600+ people, asking them how they’re watching TV’s new fall lineup (TV sets or Computers). Although the top answer was still good old fashioned TV sets (at 28%) the combined answers of the other 72% were some form of the internet. It’s no surprise that, for now, Hulu owns a bug chunk of this 72%.
But, just like you can’t cut and paste radio ads into TV commercials, you can’t expect a typical :30 second TV spot to have much effect online. People expect more these days. Choices, interactivity, and amazing creative. In fact, interactivity and behavioral targeting are already becoming the norm, like Hulu’s “Which ad experience would you prefer?” commercial option. New technology like this allows consumers to pick the commercial they prefer to view. They’re willing to watch a commercial they can’t fast-forward through, but it better be worth it. That means relevant, useful or just darn good fun to watch.
Most Hulu viewers say they don’t mind watching good commercials online. A recent study showed they’re even willing to view more than the average four-minutes-per-hour of commercials currently being aired. BUT, they’d better be good. Which is where targeted consumer behavior comes in. The Hulu commercial choice in the photo above allows viewers to choose which type of hair product they want to view, so they can watch an ad that is relevant to their specific needs. Soon most video ads online will be behaviorally geared, derived from online viewing preferences like this. It’s just like what’s happening now with most online banner ads. Video commercials that are always specific to the viewer are the obvious next step in online technology.
While all this can seem a bit creepy, consumers seem to get past their privacy concerns quickly, seeing that the benefits of more targeted and relevant ads are worth allowing some cookies on their site. For advertisers, this means a much higher ability to fine tune target audiences than just gender, age and income brackets. Nielsen has already made great headway into this new genre of ratings with the intent of cutting out wasted airtime to the wrong audience.
The million dollar question remains. Will viewers gain a new level of appreciation for advertising online as the messages become more targeted, relevant and (hopefully) memorable in a good way? So far it seems that answer may be yes. But if and when tasteless, poorly produced ads start popping up one after another to the point that viewers forgot what they tuned in to watch, this new opportunity will die a quick death. It’s up to the ad industry, and our clients, to make sure this doesn’t happen. (Wish us luck)
If you’ve visited our Brandtailers office you probably noticed that we have books everywhere. All on marketing and advertising. We’re fanatical about staying ahead of the curve, so we read a lot.
But, if you only have time to read a few books over the summer, how do you choose from Amazon’s 33,000 titles in marketing, advertising, and social media? Ugh.
We filtered through our library and found what we believe are today’s five best books to read. They offer you a well-rounded understanding of the latest consumer preferences, marketing strategies and technology need-to-knows. Hopefully you’ll have time to devour a few. (Oh, and for those of us who spend more time in their cars or at the gym than sitting with a book, there’s always Audible.com)
1. DON’T MAKE ME THINK – Steve Krug
Although it’s a couple years old, it’s still the best book on what makes a great website. It’s written in plain, and downright funny, language. We often give it to clients as gifts. It’s not for programmers. It’s for the rest of us.
2. TRIBES – Seth Godin
Seth hit another home run with Tribes. He took what is happening in the world of marketing and applied it to basic human behavior. By the time you finish this short book, you’ll feel like you’re viewing the world through a whole new lens.
3. THE NEW RULES OF MARKETING AND PR – David Meerman Scott
David just revised this book with new updates, so make sure you get the latest edition. It has the best examples of how things have changed for marketers, along with the new rules of engagement. It’s simple, useful and inspiring.
4. TRUST AGENTS – Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
For anyone who has spent a year or more in social media, this book may seem a bit simplistic. But the overall message of how trust drives today’s world of marketing is the most important and valuable take away. It makes you want to be a better person (and marketer).
5. WEB ANALYTICS 2.0 – Avinash Kaushik
OK, maybe sections of this book get into a little too much detail, but you can skip those parts. Avinash is so entertaining in the way he explains current web technology, you’ll be chuckling while learning. Don’t be afraid of the title (or his name).
What books would you add to this list?
If you don’t understand what Foursquare is, you’re just like 98% of all Americans. Feel better now? But you probably should know what it is and a bit about how it works, so you can understand its implications for the quickly emerging power of what we call geo-location and geo-targeting services.
Most people know what OnStar is. Or even Lo-Jack. They’re computer and satellite driven resources that know how to find your car in case of trouble. Take that concept and put it on your mobile phone. Then look at your phone as having the capability of being OnStar or Lo-Jack headquarters, where you can see where everyone in your network is. Real time.
But say you have a lot of friends. And you only want to know where those geographically closest to you are. Just use your phone to “check-in”, sharing where you are (i.e. Kung Pao China Buffet). The technology Foursquare offers lets your friends see that you’re there. You can also see which of your friends are there, or at another place close by. Like maybe within four square blocks of where you are. Get it?
Then get the restaurants, movie theaters and retail stores involved and allow them the opportunity to entice you in. They’ll offer free food, special coupons, and even ego-centric virtual power trips like making you the “Mayor of Kung Pao China Buffet” with extra little perks. All because you frequent that establishment more often (or just first). There’s more to it, but this is enough to give you what you should probably understand.
So, who cares you ask? For now, only about 2% of America. But think about the implications of this technology being at everyone’s fingertips. Very Big Brotherish, but also very convenient. Now, think about what will happen when Facebook takes it and runs with it, which they intend to do very, very soon.
Stand by. It’s only just begun.
You’ve seen them. They look like something from The Matrix. You may not know what they’re about, but their popularity (and cost effectiveness) is growing quickly. From a commercial perspective, it’s called “mobile tagging”.
QR is short for Quick Response, because they can be read quickly by a mobile phone through its camera. They are used to take a piece of information from a transitory media and put it in to your cell phone – this can be links, videos, text, photos and more.
QR codes are generally more useful than a standard bar code because they can store much more data. Most smart phones can scan and convert them in milliseconds. (Don’t have a smart phone yet? You will)
Why put a QR code on a T-shirt? So people can scan it and find out everything about you that you want them to know. Age, lifestyle, job, favorite color – you name it.
Why put it on the window of a car for sale? So all the info a manufacturer and/or dealer wants the consumer to know about that car is delivered in the very best way. Video, audio, whatever. It’s the ultimate salesperson perfected via modern technology.
Ever been house shopping? You drive by a house and pick up a flyer, if they’re not already gone. You want more information than what the flyer tells you, and you want it while you’re in front of the house. So you scan the QR on the mailbox. Boom. 360 walk around, info on offers already made on the house, details way too long to fit on a flyer but still wanted by the potential buyer. It’s all right there.
Yes. Very sci-fi. But just like most other technology, it’s coming at you whether you want to embrace it or not. So why not be an early adopter in your industry and benefit from the additional business that will no doubt be waiting for you?
For more information you can check out QR at Wikipedia.
It was 4:20pm. I was sitting at my desk doing the typical “Between-Christmas-and-New-Year’s” work. I’d been digging through some papers looking for a Wired magazine article I’d printed off their website when suddenly it hit me. I saw the perfect example of what 2010 would be like. It was right in front of me, all over my desk…
I saw my Mac desktop computer with Facebook pulled up. I was in the process of sending a client a virtual piece of birthday cake. It was his birthday the next day, of which I’d been reminded by Facebook, Plaxo and Linked-In via email. Facebook was waiting for me to complete the virtual birthday cake purchase transaction, because a piece of virtual birthday cake now costs money. The $1.99 charge was being billed to me through my AT&T iPhone account, and I was waiting for a text message with a PIN that I had to input into the Facebook page in order to send the virtual piece of birthday cake.
My iPhone was situated on my desk in between my Mac desktop computer and my Mac Book Pro laptop computer. As I was keeping an eye out for the text with the PIN to come through on my iPhone, I was listening to a live podcast (from Germany) via my Mac desktop computer. The podcast was giving me instructions for using the new Google Social Media Search technology that I had just joined as a beta tester by signing up via Twitter that morning. As I was listening to the podcast, I was simultaneously downloading a recent Brandtailers video from my Flip camcorder onto my Mac Book Pro laptop, which I was going to quickly edit and upload to You Tube.
All of the above occurred within a five minute period.
For some of you reading this you’re saying, “No way. I’ll never be like that.” For others reading this you’re saying, “Yeah, so what. I call that Tuesday.” Well, guess what? The “I call that Tuesday” readers win. Because it’s where we will all be very soon. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, recently gave his predictions for what the Internet will look like in the next five years. This one particular prediction says it all… “Five years is a factor of ten in Moore’s Law, meaning that computers will be capable of far more by that time than they are today.”
You can embrace this technology or ignore it, but you can’t stop it. 2010 marks the year of No Going Back. I choose to embrace, participate, and use it for doing good. How about you?
