Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 164

Internet Providers Will Sell Your Soul, More Password Hacking Concerns And More On This Week's CTRL ALT Delete Segment On CHOM 97.7 FM

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on iHeart Radio, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away about what's going on in the digital world. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry DiMonte morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed: 

Things are getting scary in the US. All we can do is hope that our government is more vigilant with our private information. Last week, congress cleared the way for Internet providers to sell your web browsing history. As I often say: we tell things to Google (and our web browsers) that we often don't tell our spouse. Plus, that raw data creates a hyper-personal history of who we are. Quite terrifying, when you think about it.       
Well, if that didn't scare you enough, my worst fears about passwords and hacking came to fruition last week. Passwords are a joke for most people (sadly). Thankfully, there are great programs like LastPass that create automated passwords and manages the problem with a "master password." My concern has always been, what happens when you centralize all of your passwords and that software gets hacked. Well... 
 App of the week: Google Sheets.

Take a listen right here...

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The Infinite Dial With Tom Webster - This Week's Six Pixels Of Separation Podcast

Episode #560 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Beyond the fact that I enjoy the vast amount of time that I get to personally spend with Tom Webster, he also happens to be one of the smartest (and most sarcastic) brains that I know (and love). He has spent well over two decades telling stories with numbers about consumer behaviour and media as the VP of Strategy at Edison Research (the company that provides all of the exit polling data for the networks during the U.S. elections and primaries). At Edison, he's also one of leads behind their long-standing, The Infinite Dial report, which is the longest-running research series examining consumer usage of digital and traditional media in America. Their 2017 report had some massive shifts, that make for a fascinating chat about the current state of media and future opportunities. With that, Tom is also the co-author of The Mobile Commerce Revolution, with Tim Hayden, and directed the research behind Jay Baer's bestselling business book, Hug Your Haters. If that were not enough, he blogs at Brand Savant and has a long-standing podcast that he co-hosts with Mark W. Schaefer called, The Marketing Companion. Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast #560.

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The Power Of Limitations

Twitter needs to tread very carefully, at this moment in time.

It was innocuous enough. At first, Twitter announced that links and added "stuff" would no longer count to their 140 character limitation. This made sense. Often, people would want to share a link, and it would take up the whole tweet (those not familiar with bitly and other link shortening/management services... plus, let's face it... those added steps were no joy. Now, Twitter has announced that it will stop counting usernames in replies towards their 140 character limit. Seems to make sense, but something is not sitting right as more and more of these announcements unfold.

What Twitter is... what Twitter should not become.

If the ultimate plan is that Twitter's 140 character limitation is for the core words that a user is writing, that seems fair and appropriate. If this is a step in the same direction as their direct messages (which have no character limitations), I would caution the powers that be over at Twitter HQ to not lose their soul. In a day and age when messaging apps are now bigger than social networks and chatbots are starting to take hold, the attraction for Twitter might be to concede, pivot or whatever it is that they're calling these big changes in Silicon Valley these days, and to make it a full-blown messaging app-like product. That would be sad. The world (probably) doesn't need another messaging app. 

There's still something special about those 140 characters.

There is no doubt that Twitter is facing many challenges - from product development to customer retention/acquisition to living up to their currently bloated Wall Street valuation. Wit that, there is still so much charm in trying to be (somewhat) engaging with that limitation of 140 characters. More is not always better. Having infinite possibilities doesn't always bring the right execution. Countless articles, business books and blog posts have been written about the power of limitations and simplicity. Often, the best ideas happen when they are confined by time, space and opportunity. Most entrepreneurs know this... they live it daily. The struggle is real. 

Twitter's back is to the wall.

Sometimes, this is exactly what a brand needs: for it's back to be against the wall. Sometimes having all of the runway in front of you makes things slow down. Twitter needs to push. No doubt about it. It has a lot of work to do (you can read more about that here: Let Twitter Tweet (And Be)). If there is one thing they should not consider, it would be the continued expansion beyond the 140 character limit. This is the soul of Twitter. There is a charm in its limitation. There is a beauty in that simplicity. It means so much more (and that can't be expressed in only 140 characters). 

I hope they don't forget that. Are you with me?

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Are You Not Entertained?!?!?! How To Spend Money On Advertising (Like You Just Don't Care)

What won't an advertiser do to get in front of your face?

How does the title of this The New York Times Article grab you: Chase Had Ads on 400,000 Sites. Then on Just 5,000. Same Results? My second reaction was this: advertising is a game of diminishing returns when it's all driven by impressions. Brands would best be served to know at which point they're overdoing it and simply spending money on advertising because they can. My first reaction was that I almost chocked to death on my morning oatmeal from laughing at the headline. One of my business partners at Mirum is a long-term veteran of the direct marketing wars. He was there, in the trenches, as that form of marketing took hold and captured smarter marketers' attention. At that period in time, most young graduates looking for a career in advertising and marketing would interview at that agency (they were a large multinational agency). Through regular networking we became close friends, until he eventually joined our agency as one of the four business partners. Early on in the Twist Image/Mirum days, we would sweat over testing everything to make it perfect - from the code to the design to the copy. Our more experienced CEO would often tell us stories about how in the direct marketing days of yore, they would test every line of copy multiple times. Eventually, it became obvious that at a certain point, doing this was extracting no tangible benefits. Meaning: you can test and tweak all that you like in advertising, but at some point, "more" won't make the outcome any better.

Brands need to listen to this.

It's one thing to point at programmatic and blame the technology for feeding almost half a million websites the same brand ads. It's another thing to pull your ads from YouTube because Google can't guarantee where that ad might show up... and next to what kind of questionable content. There are arguments for (and against) all of that. Still, it takes a human to agree that a brand should be running ads for the same brand on 400,000 sites. It also takes a human to realize that advertising on 5000 sites sounds just about as crazy as 400,000 sites, when you stop and think about it for just a second.

We have officially gone from the ridiculous to the sublime, when it comes to digital advertising.

From the article: "'It's only been a few days, but we haven't seen any deterioration on our performance metrics,' Ms. Lemkau said in an interview on Tuesday. She added that the company had also pulled ads from YouTube in the past week after reports showed other major advertisers like Verizon unintentionally appearing on videos promoting hate speech and terrorism. JPMorgan aims to restrict its ads on the platform to a 'human-checked' list of 1,000 YouTube channels, which it expects to be able to do by the week of April 10, she said." 

What's going on here?

The advertising industry is a significant one. While the global advertising market will slow down a little this year to 3.7% (according to the MediaPost article, Ad Revenue Growth Predicted To Rise 3.7% In 2017, Digital Will Soar), it will still be a $511 billion year. Half of a trillion dollars is the size of the advertising industry in 2017, and digital will grow by double-digits to become the top media category this year bumping out television advertising for the first time ever. It's also important to consider this: While the ad industry is a $510+ billion a year business, think about the impact that the work has on our global economy and the GDP of countries. Advertising drives sales... let's not forget that.

Still, digital advertising needs to fulfill on its promise. 

Success in digital advertising is viable and possible. Letting technology do the heavy lifting (at this point) doesn't seem to be the answer. Let technology do what it does best (right now). At the same time, if the humans are not looking at where these ads are running, we will have more and more instances like the ones that we are currently experiencing. Plus, if any marketer in your organization thinks that being on 400,000 sites is better than being on 5000 sites, don't just point them to these articles.

Poke them in the eye.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #354

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, HBS; chair of Strata, Startupfest, Pandemonio, and ResolveTO; Author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another: 

Inside Alabama's Auto Jobs Boom: Cheap Wages, Little Training, Crushed Limbs - Bloomberg Business Week . "Here's a bleak look at the manufacturing 'resurgence' - 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. And a heads up: This is not for the timid. If the sentence 'no one knew how to make the robot release her' sounds uncomfortable, you might not want to read the rest. Basically, it boils down to this: Robots are better at jobs than humans (a Chinese factory that replaced 90% of its humans with robots saw a 250% productivity increase). They consume human jobs. And, when humans try to keep up, they work insane hours and put themselves in mortal danger. The rest should be clear, for any policy-maker wanting to confront the facts." (Alistair for Hugh).
The Robots Really Did Take People's Jobs, Study Confirms - BuzzFeed News . "I decided to go all in on robots, automation, and construction this week. Here's something often debated, but (until now) poorly researched. A recently released study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (you can read the whole 90+ page thing, complete with formulae, if you like) concluded that 'every new robot added to an American factory in recent decades reduced employment in the surrounding area by 6.2 workers,' and 'for every one robot per thousands workers in a given area of the country, the employment rate went down by .2 -.3 percentage points, and wages fell by between .25 and .5 percent.' So yes, those robots did take your jobs." (Alistair for Mitch).
Get Lost in Mega-Tunnels Dug by South American Megafauna - Discover . "Giant sloths from the Pleistocene period (~2 million to ~10,000 years ago) dug massive caves in South America. So there's that." (Hugh for Alistair).
The Case for Shyness - The Atlantic . "I often think that much of the web was invented so that shy people wouldn't have to talk (face to face) with strangers." (Hugh for Mitch).
How Aristotle Created the Computer - The Atlantic . "When we think about the history of the computer, we tend to focus on machines, code, software, electricity and... well, math. What if the computer (and computing) was actually created much further back than we thought? Like... much, much further back..." (Mitch for Alistair).
'Your animal life is over. Machine life has begun.' The road to immortality - The Guardian . "If this sounds like science fiction... well, all science fiction eventually becomes non-fiction, right? Mobile phones, virtual reality, big data, and more. Now, Silicon Valley is turning its attention to our very core. Can we use technology to get us beyond this whole 'dying' thing? Is immortality just a few years/decades away? Haunting. Science comes from science fiction?" (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

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Content Is Hard... What's Your Brand To Do?

That's one simple, but very real statement, isn't it?

Maybe there was something in the water at Social Media Marketing World. Maybe it's something that I see - day in and day out - with hundreds (yes, literally, hundreds) of brands each and every month. In fact, after 40-60 presentations a year (for well over the past two years), I don't think anyone has ever pulled me aside and said: "I think our brand has nailed it." The brands that are brave enough to say this are (usually) very small operations where the CEO/Entrepreneur is also the main content creator.

There is a lot of money being spent here... there should be much better results (overall).

Yes, there are always anomalies and exceptions. Yes, there are some brands that can create compelling content that gets lift, awareness and pushes the business forward (sales!). The kind of "content" that I'm thinking about is: timely, consistent, relevant and - ultimately - the stuff that consumers are consciously looking out for. It's a tall order. The "Apple" of great content marketing seems to be Red Bull. Red Bull is the bellwether example that content marketing practitioners point to, as a brand that understands content and delivers on it - constantly and consistently. Others point to Dell, American Express' Open Forum and a few others.

The water is shallow. The opportunity is deep.

It would be easy to get down on how few brands have proven the content marketing model. The difference between the good marketing professionals and the great ones are those who are opportunistic and optimistic in these scenarios. On March 28th, DigiDay published the article, Media slims down: Publishers are building audiences in discrete verticals. The article reflects the challenges of mass media properties in growth and readership. Many of the brands (NBC News, The New York Times, Huffington Post and others) are develping specific niche titles in lieu of chasing scale at all costs. While the verticals still seem pretty wide (areas of interest like: technology, health, food, etc...), it points to an obvious brand opportunity: dig deeper than these established media entities.

Vertical plans. Vertical pains.

While these mass media brands have not crossed the chasm in developing and building recognizable brands yet (even the ones that these media companies have acquired have not scaled), it is still early days. In these early days, there will be lots of growing pains. These media companies (like your brand) have no long-term history of creating new brands and nurturing them into these more verticalized opportunities. Still, their efforts are going to open up opportunities for brands like yours:

Brands will be able to create content, advertise or sponsor within these publisher's niches. 
Brands will now have the opportunity to build their own niche publication and draft along with what these brands are doing to leverage and grow their own properties. 
If a brand falls within one of these traditional publisher's niches, there is an opportunity for the brand to go deeper. An example of this would be technology. A brand could go specific into chatbots for Facebook (if that's your jam). 
Brands can breathe a little bit. Brands can make plans for their content to be more hyper-deep in the vertical, but appreciate that if media properties like the New York Times are struggling to bring a product like this to market, there are significant challenges that brands will face.

No free lunch.

Like anything else in marketing, content is hard (not cheap, easy and free). There is a reason events like Content Marketing World have year-on-year record growth, with more and more brands trying to figure out how to best pull it all together. My presentation at last week's Social Media Marketing World was titled, How to Avoid Virtual Crickets and Digital Tumbleweeds With Your Content (It's Not About the Headline), and it was based on an article I published titled, 7 Steps To Define Your Content Center Of Excellence. If you feel like going vertical and deep, that might be the place for your brand to start. With that, always remember...

We are not all media companies... no matter what some brands are saying in the media.

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"Digital Marketing" Is Not The Same As Marketing

Obviously, I believe in the power and opportunity of digital marketing.

In full disclosure: digital marketing has (for almost twenty years) provided me with an amazing career, lifestyle and opportunity to connect with and learn from great people and, in kind, it has allowed me to work with some of the most interesting brands in the world. If the term no longer held true, I would opt to ditch it. For now, it seems like those wanting to put an end to the term "digital marketing" are those who are struggling most with it. Digital marketing is still valid and needed enough that it deserves its own designation, beyond marketing and beyond the notion that, "everything is digital."

Most of marketing is not digital.

Last week, Advertising Age published the article, Advice From CMOs: Stop Saying 'Digital' and Practice Straight Talk. It was shared around Facebook (h/t Jon Finkelstein) and the reactions came in fast and furious: "Digital marketing" is just a buzzword, that we can't say "digital" because we don't say "print marketing," that the term is odious, and on and on. Marketing is an institution. Marketing is core to brand's success. Marketing and innovation are the soul of an organization (thank you, Philip Kotler). Over time, marketing has evolved and matured. Digital marketing - while not new - is still in its infancy. From the article:

"'Stop using the word digital,' said Zaid Al-Qassab, chief brand & marketing officer of telecommunications group BT. 'The word is causing enormous problems in clients and agencies and the work we're getting.' Mr. Al-Qassab said that in the old days when he did print and billboard ads, he wasn't called a 'paper marketer' as he is called a 'digital marketer' today. The word digital moves the focus to clicks and likes, rather than customers, and is used heavily in briefs sent to agencies, he said, leading to 300 social media ideas from the agency, and clients asking for something that will 'go viral.' 'Write a brief that's about your customer and business results you hope to achieve,' he admonished. 'Let's talk about target audience and how to sell to them.'"

Don't confuse digital marketing for new advertising strategies. They are not the same thing.

Here's my promise to every Chief Marketing Officer in the world: We can stop using the term "digital marketing" when all/most brands actually deliver a decent web and mobile experience to their consumers. Personally, I've been tracking this (and you have too). Lots of big brands get up on big industry conference stages with big slides, talking about how great they are with omnichannel or how integrated they are (the consumer is always in the middle of the slide!), and how they can all simply drop the word "digital" from their marketing. Still, it's sad how bad most brand experiences are online. So... I'll drop "digital" once theses brands really do digital.

Not sour. Just sour grapes.

As a consumer, I've recently looked at everything from buying a car to buying cloud based marketing automation solutions on my mobile device, and the experience left everything to be desired. Your life is no different. Try to get information on B2B or a B2C brand... look at small, medium and large organizations. Websites are clunky, mobile experiences are lacking... almost none of this matches the "brand experience" that these CMOs promote onstage, or that we see in their traditional advertising. And therein lies the reality: yes, an ad should work just as well on YouTube as it does on NBC. Fine, want to ditch the term "digital" over that? Go for it. But the shift that we're currently going through is not from print to digital for advertising. It's more like the world before the printing press to the world after it. It's not just about the ads (and the ideas) that make "digital marketing" different. It's in the new reality that brands are building, websites, applications, platforms and experiences on new digital platforms that are - in essence - their business and brand experience all at once. It's not just a digital version of a brochure or an ad at stake these days.

Proud to be in digital marketing. 

It's more than pride. It's about the true function of seeing a brand experience come to life in digital channels. It's not about clicks, likes or going viral, but about creating better customer experiences. Just this week, it was also announced that our agency, Mirum, was named a "Visionary" in Gartner's . When you look at how Gartner defines the categories in this Magic Quadrant - along with the proven depth and breadth of services it is looking for - it's easy to understand why a "death to digital marketing" mantra makes no sense (yet). Creative services is one (small) function of the work that great digital marketing produces. Services like search, analytics, performance, new technology, digital commerce, customer experience, mobile and beyond all look and feel nothing like the marketing agencies of yesterday.

Don't confuse great digital marketing with another kind of advertising. 

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YouTube's Ad Challenge, Twitter's New Business Model And More On This Week's CTRL ALT Delete Segment On CHOM 97.7 FM

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on iHeart Radio, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away about what's going on in the digital world. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry DiMonte morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed: 

YouTube has a major advertising problem. The issue exploded last week after the London-based Times newspaper reported that some ads were running with YouTube videos that promoted terrorism or anti-Semitism. The U.K. government and The Guardian newspaper took down ads from the video site and then many of the world's largest advertising and marketing companies started pulling their clients' ads from Google's display ad network and YouTube. On Wednesday, it spread across to North America and brands that are among the heaviest ad spenders pulled back, potentially costing Google and YouTube hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business. Is this a problem YouTube can even fix? 
Is Twitter tinkering with a new business model? LinkedIn has premium services for those who pay. Medium just launched a $5 per month subscription services as well. Looks like Twitter is toying with the idea of a premium version. This makes sense, but is it a long-term solution to their current growth challenges? 
60 Minutes took a look at the fake news problem. It's not what you think.
App of the week: Streetography.

Take a listen right here...

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The Value Of Personal Branding With Mark W. Schaefer - This Week's Six Pixels Of Separation Podcast

Episode #559 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Some might say that Mark Schaefer was late to the game when it comes to social media and personal brand building. Still, in short order, he has built a substantive and valuable personal platform and engaged community. Mark is still an avid blogger (like me). He is a podcaster (check out The Marketing Companion). He is a professor of marketing at Rutgers. He is an active consultant. Mark is a passionate communicator about how marketing has changed, and where he thinks it's all going. He's written many successful business books (Return On Influence, The Tao Of Twitter, Born To Blog, Social Media Explained and The Content Code) and brings a wealth of real life experience to the discussion. His latest book, Known, digs deep into his blueprint for how individuals (and businesses) can use content to become more known to a broader audience and grow their customer base. Some might think that a new business book on the topic of personal branding in 2017 is a little after-the-fact (I did). Mark thinks he's tapped into something new and unique (he changed my mind). Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast #559.

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Will You, Brands Or Big Media Be The Star Of Snapchat TV?

In the past few months, we've seen major heavyweights come into Snapchat with some big announcements.

Both Vice and MGM have inked deals with Snapchat to develop original programming, specific to the Snapchat environment. Many think this is just the beginning for broadcasting brands, and how they approach the concept of mobile TV. Apparently, just watching your regular TV shows, Netflix or whatever on your iPhone is not enough. Now, totally original content from massive Hollywood studios are being rethunk for the industry executives who see Snapchat as the future.

What are we expected to watch on Snapchat?

According to the article, Snapchat inks deal with MGM to develop original programming as it ramps up mobile TV offering, from The Drum: "The standalone programming will tell 'a complete narrative' in four to five minutes and shows will be shot with Snapchat's predominantly young audience in mind." These "shows" will appear in Snapchat's Discovery section for publishers and these MGM and Vice deals are just the beginning. Like you, I would be curious as to what these major entertainment and media companies feel can be done uniquely in this platform? Why can't new and complete narratives produced in four to five minute segments not be perfect for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or the brand's own web and mobile platforms? Will this mean that legacy media brands will make their way on to Snapchat? Does it means that they may reboot some classic brands for this format? Will it be all new content? According to The Drum article: 

"...the deal will include concepts that are both new IP, as well as existing IP that are 'reimagined for a whole new audience,' and that shows are being developed for a wide range of formats, including documentaries, reality TV, scripted and unscripted, comedies and dramas."

Anything tangible to talk about here? Any real examples?

When MGM was pressed to explain what, exactly, this could look like on Snapchat, their President of Unscripted Television (this is his title... and I'm guessing that they just did not like the term "reality tv" in their title) said: "The team at Snap is thinking about mobile TV differently than anyone else in this space. They are innovators, and it presents us with a unique opportunity to flex our development and production muscle in a whole new way... We are excited to create content for their vast and hard to reach audience that consumes entertainment in a very specific fashion." 

That tough to reach audience.

This will be the biggest challenge. It seems obvious enough how these deals come together. It's a simple recipe that we've seen countless times over the past few decades.

Take one part traditional media empire with ample catalogue. 
Take one part new, hip, shiny, bright object that is struggling to find a solid long-term revenue and growth strategy. 
Dash in an advertising revenue share model. 
Bake with Madison Ave. 
Let it sit for a couple of months.

Now let's see who comes to the table for seconds.

At first blush, this recipe might sound obvious, but let's dig a little deeper: Traditional media feel like they have lost this younger generation. As these non-regular television habits get formed, young people may never develop the same TV habits that generations before them had. "Get 'em while they're young," is how most brands think about longevity, whether they're selling mobile phones or chequing accounts. Habitually, we have a different young television consumer. Netflix sits side-by-side with standard programming, PVR functionality for time-shifting (which is starting to dwindle as streaming takes hold) and ad-skipping is pervasive (and base functionalities for all TV viewing today), while YouTube is right there too. Plus, plunking down in front of the 48 inch flat screen is no longer something valued over simply watching clips on a smartphone. In short, it's not just what's on the screen... the screen is pervasive and as prevalent in their lives as the pockets on their jeans. TV is no longer a destination. TV is no longer a destination with a set day and time. TV is another form of video content in a myriad of video content choices that are accessible in this one screen, mobile-first world.

This is about much more than reaching the Snapchat audience.

Perhaps, this is much more about branding than anything else? If these traditional major entertainment and media studios no longer have an audience that cares about how their content is consumed, but just wants access to anything, the play for these studios changes in a most disruptive way. Again, this truly diminishes the standard narrartives that we have read about digital transformation in the media business (how do they digitize and embrace this technology faster without a startup killing them?). Now, it's about brand. These studios have access to brands that have had major value in the past (and present). How do they ensure the brand value moving forward? The future of their brands must be anywhere where anyone might want to engage with it. Not easy.

Imagine that: the 800 pound gorillas looking for their next banana on whatever platform has the attention... even if it's not the one they intended it for.

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