Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 252

Should Advertising Cost Less?

Not the best question that a marketing professional should be asking, but bear with me on this.

The price of advertising (or anything, for that matter) is typically predicated on value. That "value" is subjective (at best). Perceived value, if you will. When it comes to advertising, we are typically looking at metrics like how large the audience will be (that will see the ad), when they will see it (time of day), how they will see it (staring at a TV, listening as they drive...) and how much of the audience's attention it will receive (three ads in a row or right before a big ball game). At a more fundamental level, advertising has always been based on the scarcity model. There used to be three major television networks, and if you weren't on at 8 pm, that slot was gone. Poof! Gone forever. There were only a handful of shows and everyone was watching them. Now, think about digital advertising. Sure, you can only get the homepage of some big website on any given day, but how many other websites like it are there out there? How many other (perhaps more targeted) options could you compile?

Is advertising suddenly out of the scarcity model and into a world of abundance?

Have you ever had a sales representative from Google spend any time with you? They have a lot of information to support this notion as well. Google will often tell big advertisers that they are under-indexing in terms of their spend. Meaning, for all of the people that are searching for whatever it is that you sell, Google has the data to show you how much of that audience you're not reaching. And, these are the people that are proactively looking for you (forget the other opportunities to get a digital ad in front of your potential audience). Abundance. Opportunities everywhere. Still, the price of advertising continues to climb. Now, with all of these specialty television channels, the price goes up because of how highly targeted the advertising is, but the options are boundless. Tons of space to still play with. In fact, may great brands have been built without any television advertising at all.

Let's take this scary advertising question from another direction.

Let's say you're awesome at this digital advertising stuff. Seth Godin and Avinash Kaushik bow down before your digital-first and performance-based advertising mentality. You're nailing it. Shouldn't the cost of advertising go down? As you get better at it, as your testing and learning, you are able to lower your cost per acquisition and get laser-focused on what works and how to optimize it. Does that sound crazy? In the past few days, there were two news items that may, in fact, support this theory (remember, this is just a theory and not true practice for many brands). Advertising Age published the article, P&G Squeezes Marketing Harder As Currency Woes Mount. From the article: "We continue to drive marketing effectiveness and productivity through an optimized media mix with more digital, mobile, search and social presence, improved message clarity and greater non-advertising marketing efficiency. We expect marketing spending to come in below prior-year levels due to productivity movements in marketing and advertising costs." From a similar songbook, AdAge then runs another article, Dr Pepper Snapple Group Trims Marketing Budget, that states: "the company is shifting more money into cheaper digital buys. 'We're enhancing marketing ROI analytics and capabilities to ensure our marketing investments are giving us maximum return and value,' the spokesman said." 

So, is digital better... or just cheaper... or easier to monetize... or more measureable... or...

Of course, there's no one size fits all to digital (in fact, that's what makes it so powerful). Brands could be laser-focused on performance based advertising but have significant branding challenges in the digital sphere... and vice-versa. Still, there is something happening here, that most advertising agencies (and brands that are primarily focused on general advertising) don't want to talk about: digital is still a very different beast, and we're all still trying to quantify it like we did with our traditional television and radio advertising spend. This is the tactical error. This is where the confusion lies. This is where talks of cutting advertising makes everyone very anxious. When we say that advertising dollars are being cut, we start thinking that the marketing work is going away, but that should not be the case, because we may - in fact - just need a new perspective.

A new perspective in advertising.

What if marketers looked at it this way: as a brand finds it place in this new world, the cost of advertising should decline. It should become more efficient. It should become more measurable. It should become leaner, smarter and cleaner. In fact, perhaps we should look at a world where a brand that is doing everything it can to be a better marketer is best defined by how little it is spending on it's advertising. Radical? Maybe not in a world where marketing can play a much bigger and direct role with consumers. We are no longer in world where a consumer's only interaction with a brand happens via an ad or a purchase. Let's not forget that advertising is a sub-set of marketing... and marketing may be able to take a much bigger slice of the advertising dollars and push it to work in much more efficient ways.

It's something to think about.

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Be Nice When You Say Bad Things Online

Is anyone still willing to argue that consumer reviews are not one of the most powerful forces online?

You could argue that having over 24,000 reviews for Fifty Shades of Grey on Amazon (this is factual) is just a whole lot of clutter that no consumer is going to sift through. I would argue that the number of reviews, the five-star rating system and semantic feedback add a powerful validity to a product's (or services) success. Consumers reviewing stuff is the great equalizer that brands still need to face. It's not a thing of the past and it's not something to take lightly. When someone tweets out to their network about the need for a product or service, whatever comes back is a consumer review (albeit it a smaller and more real time way). It's not just the more in-depth stuff that you see happening on Amazon. We can debate the semantics over a better definition of the word "brand," but it will be a futile debate it if you're not including this (somewhat) new and powerful platform that consumers now have to share their version of the truth.

How do we stop any/all of the bad reviews?

In short: you don't, you can't and you should never expect to. What we're now seeing is a healthier view of brand perception (warts and all... and whether the brands want to see and hear it or not). Think of anything that you may want to buy in this moment, now head over to YouTube and do a search for it. How many video reviews and demos are there? How many thumbs up and thumbs down from viewers, how many people have watched these video, and how brutal are the comments? That's just YouTube. When consumer reviews first took hold (and, I would say, that Amazon was truly the first to capitalize and commercialize their success), brands were being pushed back on their heels. They weren't sure how to respond, improve and resolve these many situations. Times have changed. Companies like Bazaarvoice (and other competitors) have really matured the space over the past ten years. The consumer expectation is that they can see candid and real consumer feedback on anything and everything. And, if they can't, they can just ask their connections via the myriad of social media spaces that they play in. Even Seth Godin understands the power and value of consumer reviews and empowerment, as witnessed by his latest startup, HugDug. Negative reviews aren't necessarily a bad thing.

When good things happen to bad things.

Going back to 2008, I would often quote a line I had heard from Bazaarvoice about their data on consumer reviews. It was this: a negative review converts more effectively to a sale than a positive review. It sounds counterintuitive, but it makes sense. We're forgetting sentiment. We're forgetting that your negative experience or comment may, in fact, be the thing that I am looking for. As an example: you give a boutique hotel a poor review because it is dimly lit in the hallways and the furniture is modern and not comfortable looking. I happen to love those features of a boutique hotel, so your negative review actually reinforces my purchasing decision. Now, this type of thinking has evolved. Last week, Business News Daily published an article titled, Negative, But Polite, Online Reviews Aren't So Bad for Business. From the article: "Not all negative reviews have the same damaging effect, new research suggests. Online negative reviews that are offset by a politeness factor can actually help sell products and services and boost brand perception, according to a study in the Journal of Consumer Research. In a series of five experiments, the study's authors examined how including a marker of politeness in a negative product review affected the image of both the reviewer and the product. For example, phrases like 'I'll be honest' and 'I don't want to be mean, but...' are ways to soften the arrival of bad news and warn a reader or listener that negative information is coming."

Not to be mean, but...

Fascinating, right? Our humanity is now evolving as technology matures. Human beings are getting better at reading, understanding and making more informed decisions through these consumer reviews. It also teaches marketers a very powerful lesson (that they often do not want to hear): not everyone is going to love your brand. Some people will, downright, hate your brand. But, if they use kind words (even when they're saying something negative), that can have a profound and powerful positive effect on sales... and consumer relationships. We like to think of consumers as being either with us or against us. In fact, there are many shades of grey in the consumer relationship (see what I did there?)... and it's something that brands need to better understand, work with and use to improve their ability to develop and nurture better direct relationships.

In the end? Be nice to consumers, because they may say something bad about you in public (but in a nice way)... and that (could be) a good thing.

Tags:

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seth godin

social media

youtube

The Maturity Gap

Does your age make you any smarter?

I know some pretty stupid people who are cranking past 60, and I know some pretty impressive minds of people who are not even 25 yet. Still, I think maturity and experience does count for something. Many years ago, I sat in a corporate meeting with a brand manager who was in their mid-twenties. They were young, they were on the corporate track, they had a few small wins under their belt, and they were puffing out their chest in their new role. I watched this individual be condescending to an agency partner. That happens. You see it all of the time (sadly). The problem - from my perspective - it that the individual they were putting down (in front of everyone) is someone who is both highly-regarded in the industry, and has the resume and awards to back it up (a legend, if you will). This brand manager was new, and didn't even know the people in the room (because they were too busy posturing). I'd prefer to blame the individual (and their insecurity) over their age, but it's something that creeps back into my personal zeitgeist more often than I would like.

Experience takes times. Knowledge takes time. Wisdom takes longer.

We live in a 140 character world. We live in a world where the atomization of content is a reality. We click on links and float from content to content without a second thought as to the value that it might be able to impart on us, if we just took a moment to stop and smell the proverbial roses. Because this works at scale, it enables everyone to have a platform. Everyone to have thousand upon thousands of followers (whether there is merit to it or not). Attention gets more attention in this world. Book publishers are scrambling for the next big thing and that next big thing may be on Twitter pr Pinterest or Secret or.... And, even if they're wrong, someone with a big following should still be able to pimp their own book to make it worth the investment from these book publishers. This doesn't make the authors experienced.

A tale of two business books.

I am going to disappoint you right now, because I am not going to name names (sorry). I recently read two very different books from two very different authors in the non-fiction space. While these two authors come from very different backgrounds and attract two very disparate types of audiences (with little crossover), I kept getting a nagging, annoyed feeling while reading these books (which, for the record, have received tons of positive accolades in the media, etc...). I got worried that I was quickly floundering into the "get off of my lawn" twilight of my professional life. The point when you look at the world from a very skewed and jaded perspective of ones own dogma. I dug a little deeper into the bios of both authors and guess what? They were both in the 25 year old age range (or younger). Don't get me wrong, I take no issue with that age. I remember being that age - full of energy and an "I can do anything" gusto (I would like to think that I still have it). Still, they were using a lot of phrases like, "in my experience..." or "if I have learned anything in life" or "I have made enough mistakes to know..." and what followed didn't seem to match those words. The ideology, the thinking the advice was... flat... hollow... lacking depth... and more.

On maturity and wisdom.

It's awesome that people like this have a platform, an audience and a book. It's a wonderful and connected world that allows for this to happen. I just wish that we could (in some way) better be able to sort the wheat from the chaff in scenarios like this. Like I said, there are some super smart young people that are changing the world. They have something to say. We should listen. They are building the next great companies. They will solve the next series of global challenges. Still, all of that intellect, ideas and pontification will only get better with maturity and experience. All of that will culminate in true wisdom if nurtured in the best way possible. The challenge is that a lot of the current flow from these people is distributed in this strange absolute way. It's sad (or maybe it's just sad to me). Life is long. Being able to teach through experience takes time. Being able to reflect on ones experience to augment those initial thoughts takes time. We live in a real time marketing world, where if it didn't happen right now, it may as well have never happened. That's cool, but let's not confuse something that just happened with experience. And, while we're at it, I'm starting to get a little leery of life advice and advocacy from so-called experts who have yet to put the time, effort and more into their respective trades and lives to be truly deserving of public accolades.

OK, so now, do I just scream "get off my lawn!"?

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Winning Digital Metrics That Matter

Episode #406 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

I think of one word when it comes to describing Stephen Rappaport: enigma. I have no idea why anyone who is a professional digital marketer is not following and ensuring that all of his work (especially) his books are on the desk of everyone in our profession. While he is currently running his own consulting practice, he is the former Knowledge Solutions Director at the Advertising Research Foundation and, over the years, he has spent a crazy amount of time helping the digital marketing industry get that much better at understanding how to measure, connect and engage. He was the co-author of The Online Advertising Playbook back in 2007, then in 2011, he published Listen First! Turning Social Conversations Into Business Advantage. Most recently, he published, Digital Metrics Field Guide - The Definitive Reference For Brands Using The Web, Social Media, Mobile Media or Email. And yes, it is stellar. 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 Twist Image Podcast #406.

Tags:

advertising podcast

advertising research foundation

arf

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listen first

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podcasting

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stephen rappaport

the online advertising playbook

twitter

video podcast

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #200

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 (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), 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:

Karateka - Jordan Mechner . "So we've been sharing links for nearly four years, and this is our 200th installment. I figured I'd choose things that make us feel old. First up, Karateka. When I was a young boy playing on an Apple IIe, there were a few games that pushed the 64K envelope of what was possible: Black Magic, Rescue Raiders, Lode Runner, and Archon 2. But nothing came close to Karateka. The first game by Jordan Mechner -- who went on to make the Prince of Persia franchise -- it had the music, animation, simplicity and humor that showed what was possible. A recent Facebook thread suggested this site (hat tip to Steve Hayter), which explains some of its history, with a link to a video about the game. Mechner's first computer had 16K. To put that into context, that's less memory than the logo on most modern websites. Dig around for a while and feel old." (Alistair for Hugh).

Biomarkers and ageing: The clock-watcher - Nature . "What if your body kept time? And what if we could measure it accurately? Crime scene investigations are the obvious application, but what about the lifespan of transplanted organs? Or if cancer cells are different, can we detect them? For years, Steve Horvath had tried to find the body's clock, but when he found it, it seemed too good to be true. He was widely rejected by scientific journals. But he persevered, and it looks like he was right. You can even do it with pee. This story is as much about tenacity as it is about science. And, it reminds me that we're only a generation or two away from some kind of immortality -- whether that's artificial intelligence, downloaded brains, or life extension. Either way, we're probably too soon to benefit from it, which should make us feel even older than Karateka does." (Alistair for Mitch).

A 13-year-old eagle huntress in Mongolia - BBC . "Breathtaking photos." (Hugh for Alistair).

6 Independent Bookstores That Are Thriving -- and How They Do It - New York Magazine . "A good-news story about book stores." (Hugh for Mitch).

Scientists Find an 'Earth Twin,' or Perhaps a Cousin - The New York Times . "Astronomy is just awesome, isn't it? Here's the deal: Kepler 186f is the first validated, Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of another star. It falls into an area known as the ' Goldilocks zone ' (not too hot and not too cold... but just right). You read that right. A planet that is about as close to Earth as possible. It's only 500 lights years away (not too close). It's also not perfect. According to this article: 'It is closer to its star -- a red dwarf that is smaller, cooler and fainter than our sun -- than the Earth is to its; its year, the time to complete one orbit, is 130 days, not 365. It is also at the outer edge of the habitable zone, receiving less warmth, so perhaps more of its surface would freeze.' Still, the thinking is that you could walk around, breathe and have gravity working for you over there. How cool is that?" (Mitch for Alistair).

30 Knockoff Products That Are Almost Better Than The Real Thing - Buzzfeed . "I honestly don't know whether I should be laughing at crying at this. It's funny, because it's hard to believe how stupid certain unscrupulous business people are to make a quick buck... and how little thought they put into their plans. It's sad, because it's hard to be a brand on the receiving end of these knock-offs. You come up with an idea, you do your best to protect it, you gain market share, you get attention, you get people to care, and then the maniacal hawks (dogs) swoop in and do ridiculous things like this. Feels like something more than a simple 'lost in translation' kind of thing." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

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alistair croll

apple iie

archon 2

bbc

bitcurrent

black magic

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buzzfeed

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facebook

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hugh mcguire

human 20

iambik

independent bookstores

jordan mechnar

karateka

kepler 186f

lean analytics

librivox

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link sharing

lode runner

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nature

new york magazine

pressbooks

prince of persia

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social media

solve for interesting

steve hayter

steve horvath

the new york times

year one labs

Collaboration, Sharing And The New Entrepreneur

When you think about entrepreneurship, who do you admire?

Names likes Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos come to mind. They are awesome. Their work is inspiring, creative and important. What do you think about Twitter? As powerful? As impressive? As life-changing? It's a tough call. Regardless of your stance, Ev Williams and Jack Dorsey get a lot of the accolades and attention. A while back, I had the chance to share the stage and spend some time talking to Biz Stone (who is one of the co-founders as well). What's immediately noticeable is his passion for creativity, asking questions and his humor. All of that comes through brilliantly in his first book, Things a Little Bird Told Me - Confessions of the Creative Mind (we also share the same book publisher). Stone went on to found two other startups that have been garnering a significant amount of attention: Medium and Jelly. In this short, under twenty minute, conversation with Charlie Rose, Stone covers a myriad of interesting concepts and stories that every marketer should pay attention to.

Tweet, tweet, tweet... this is Biz Stone...

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richard branson

steve jobs

things a little bird told me

twitter

The End Of Liking A Brand In A Move Towards Anti-Social Media

Be careful which brands you like, friend and follow going forward.

That was the headline yesterday in The New York Times article, When 'Liking' a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue. What may seem like legal side-stepping to avoid things like class action lawsuits or individuals suing a brand, feels like a massive movement by brands to force consumers with any sort of issue to seek arbitration over the courts. There are pros and cons to this approach, but it is becoming a major issue for major corporations. With that, this New York Times article points this issue into an arena that may shock the marketing industry. From the article:

"General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, 'join' it in online communities like Facebook, enter a company-sponsored sweepstakes or contest or interact with it in a variety of other ways. Instead, anyone who has received anything that could be construed as a benefit and who then has a dispute with the company over its products will have to use informal negotiation via email or go through arbitration to seek relief, according to the new terms posted on its site."

What does that mean to social media? A lot.

Marketers have taken issue with these sorts of things long before this breaking news. Companies like Facebook, Twitter and others are constantly being criticized because of their terms of service and usage regulations and agreements. They are long, legal, cumbersome and very infrequently read or understood by consumers. Now, imagine this layer of confusion being added to mix. So, as this theory goes, if someone likes your page on Facebook, they are suddenly waiving their right to sue the company should something negative come about. While this may work for other industries, this seems even more restrictive when we're talking about food companies. Picture a scenario where you like this brand on Facebook and then months later are poisoned due to quality controls at the factory. Suddenly, you can't sue or take part in a class action suit because you clicked a like button for a completely different reason. If you didn't click that like button... does that make it fair ball to sue?

We have to get less legal about things.

No one will argue that we live in very litigious times. People suing fast food restaurants because they spilled boiling coffee on themselves by accident (how is that the brand's fault? They should not make the coffee so hot or they should put a warning on the coffee cups that the contents may be hot... for real). It takes all kinds. Still, in a world where consumers have demanded transparency, and brands have responded by attempting to be more open and real (in particular, on social media channels), it's astonishing that these types of antics will be - in some form or another - considered good customer advocacy.

Connecting the points.

What makes digital marketing truly fascinating (for me, anyways) is how it elevates brands above and beyond a world of advertising (shouting messages) into a bigger palette of marketing expression. With it will come challenges (as we have seen on numerous occasions). It forces everybody in an organization (from the CEO and CMO down to the people on the frontlines) to think differently about how they act, react, communicate and engage with an audience. On the the other side, if every attempt to do so is met with a need for the legal department to absolve the brand of any mistakes, we may be headed in the wrong direction. The article goes on to state: "Arbitration experts said courts would probably require General Mills to prove that a customer was aware of its new policy before issuing decisions denying legal action against the company." Translation: we are pitting brands against consumers and vice-versa... all over again. Over a decade ago, we begun to usher in this new type of connection and communication. It made me proud to be in the marketing profession. I understand the brand's perspective and their need to protect themselves from frivolous and unfounded claims. I also understand the consumer's perspective and their need to take action against anyone who knowingly does them harm. We have a legal system for a reason. That being said, forcing consumers to waive their legal rights because they "like" a brand on Facebook feels like a terribly anti-social statement to be making.

We have to ask ourselves if these types of legal arrangements are really empowering and entrusting our consumers or does it spell the end for social media? 

Tags:

advertising

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bisquick

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cheerios

chex

cmo

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contest

customer advocacy

digital marketing

facebook

fast food

general mills

legal department

marketer

marketing

marketing industry

marketing profession

online brand

online community

social media

social media channel

sweepstakes

terms of service

the new york times

transparency

twitter

Shutting Down Blog Comments

I think that I provoked the blog comment Gods today.

Sorry about this, but the ability to comment on blog posts here at Six Pixels of Separation has been disabled. It's not you. It's not me. It's the spammers. I was recording a podcast today with Gini Dietrich of Spin Sucks (it will be published in the coming weeks) and we were talking about the many bloggers and news sites that have shut down their blog comments (Copyblogger being the one that has most recently decided to do so: Why We're Removing Comments on Copyblogger). I was marveling at how awesome and consistent Gini is at both engaging and connecting with the myriad of comments and feedback she gets all over the Web (and, you can read her side on the blog comments debacle right here: Why We Won't Shut Off Blog Comments)... and then this happened.

It's been going on for a few years.

As you may (or may not) know, I have been blogging for over a decade. Every day (or almost). That's close to 4000 pieces of long form content. The blogging platform used here is not WordPress (we're on MovableType because WordPress didn't even exist back then). We have a strong IT team here at Twist Image, but never had the need/desire to switch over to WordPress. With that, we have been using the blog comment capabilities of MovableType since the beginning. Don't get me wrong, it still catches way more pieces of spammy blog comments than the ones that go live and, every day or so, I would hop on to the backend and simply delete the ones that made it through. Lately, things are getting out of control and, in full disclosure, I started falling behind in cleaning them out. So, now it's a bit of a massive mess. That's not the real issue. Once Gini and I finished recording today, there was this massive and sudden influx of spam blog comments that made it through the filter. We had to shut it down. Like I said, I think I was tempting the blog comment deities after my chat with Gini.

I'm sorry... and what this means.

First off, I apologize. I love your comments, feedback and even those that disagree with me. I may not always respond or be quick to respond, but I care about your thoughts... I really, really do. I read every comment, tweet, status update and more surrounding these posts. So, I hate the fact that you can't comment here (for the next little bit). I also believe that one of the core components that still makes blogging one of the most fascinating publishing platforms in the world is the ability for anyone to add to the discourse. Our team is going to check out Livefyre and Disqus to see which solution might best remedy our current situation (and, if you have any thoughts, please do shoot me an email). I'm hopeful that it will happen soon/fast, but I can't be sure.

Until then...

Please don't stop commenting. I typically post to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn when I publish a blog post, and I would love to hear from you there (or even on your own blog, if something inspires you to write). Blog comments will come back at some point soon on Six Pixels of Separation, and it pains me to let the spammers win, but it is what it is at this point in time.

Once again, thank you for following, reading, engaging, commenting and sharing. Please don't let the lack of blog comments below stop that. 

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spin sucks

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wordpress

Google's Third Wave Of Innovation

Is it normal that a search engine is buying up all of the robotics and drone companies?

If you're in the marketing profession, you have to be scratching your head at the moves that Google has made over the past little while. It's hard to reconcile how a company that was founded on a search engine (and then optimizing an advertising platform so efficiently that it drove them to a $350 billion market cap) could be spending its war chest on technology so nascent and future-focused. If Google's main form of revenue is advertising and licensing software, where will the ads be going on all of these robots and drones?

Google's first wave of innovation.

Google has gone through two dramatic waves of innovation (with many nuances and smaller ones in between). It's important to understand that in phase one, Google mastered search. The ability to organize the diverse and divergent pieces of data, content and information that were being created in a non-formulaic way across the Internet. It was everything from programs to articles, and (through the years) it's hard to imagine how we would find anything (let alone remember stuff) in a world where we can "Google it." The problem with search, of course, is that there was no significant revenue in helping to organize all of the world's information. While Google didn't invent keyword-based advertising, they have certainly mastered it. Ushering in the era of performance-based advertising, they nurtured search engine marketing into becoming one of the most effective forms of direct-response advertising. People searching for content would be exposed to contextually-based text ads that did not interrupt the search experience. On top of that, the ads would be sold to brands and media agencies in an auction-based mode where the cost would be charged only if the consumer clicked on the ad (showed interest). Over the years, Google has expanded the offering to individual's website wishing to run these types of ads in lieu of traditional banner advertising. From there, the company has made several strategic acquisitions to build their GDN (Google Display Network). The acquisition of YouTube in 2006 is also significant in this first wave of Google's innovation. Years later, they are beginning to understand the types of commercials that works in the online video world as TrueView continues to learn which ads the consumers are watching (and which ones they are skipping). Within a few years, TrueView will become as efficient at performance based commercial advertising as keywords have become. To put the first wave of Google's Web dominance into perspective, comScore Media Metrix's rank of the top 50 U.S. desktop Web properties for February 2014 tells the tale: In a world of over 222 million unique visitors, Google's website account for over 187 million of them.

Google's second wave of innovation.

Back in 2006, Google acquired a lesser-known mobile operating system called Android. It was, at the time, an acquisition that perplexed the media pundits. It was a bold play and one that has - without question - enabled Google to become a dominant player in the mobile space. Now, Google doesn't just build applications that run on a mobile-enabled platform (which they do), but they own the actual platform on which our mobile connectivity is playing out. As consumers move from desktops PCs and laptops to smartphone and tablets, Google has continued to innovate and own the mobile landscape, and this includes being hyper-competitive in relation to Apple and the staggering success of the iPhone and iPad. Still, Android (and the supporting Google applications and mobile websites) are the 800-hundred pound gorilla in mobile. Adding some data to this, comScore's February 2014 U.S. smartphone subscriber market share demonstrates just how much of the mobile Web Google owns: While Apple ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer (41.3%), Android led as the number one smartphone platform with over 52% of the market shares. What makes this more staggering, is that Google sites hit close to 90% of the entire smartphone browsing and app audience. In short, they own mobile as well. 

Welcome to Google's third wave of innovation.

How does a company like Google grow? The opportunity to scale becomes increasingly difficult (will another 30 million people using a particular app truly help them?). The answer lies in in connecting the last mile of humanity that is currently not on the Internet. It's nothing new. We have been talking about the digital divide for decades (the chasm that exists between the haves and the have nots). In fact, Google's Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, discusses this very topic in depth in his business book, The New Digital Age - Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business (co-authored with another Googler, Jared Cohen). There are close to five billion people not connected to the Internet. There are countless appliances that aren't "smart" or online (just yet). That is the kind of scale that Google must now focus on. For that, Google is pushing the envelope of innovation towards drones, robotics and artificial intelligence. Massive and risky bets that will enable a new type of connected consumer. Drones will enable Google to deliver connectivity to that massive last mile. Robotics is primarily based on the idea that we can get machines to work, think and do things somewhat autonomous to human intervention. This requires a new kind of computing coding and architecture - one that is based on machine-learning capabilities (yes, programming a computer to teach something to another computer and having each successive version be able to get better and teach more). While everyone is focused on Google's most recent acquisition of Titan Aerospace for their drones, or that they have bought eight (maybe more) robotics companies in the past short while (including the very popular Boston Dynamics), not enough people have spent enough time thinking about why they acquired DeepMind in late January.

Getting computers to think better.

It has been reported that Google spent close to $500 million for DeepMind (which doesn't seem like much, if you consider that it also paid over $3 billion for Nest not that along ago). DeepMind was in stealth mode when purchased, but we have been told that the London based technology was developing artificial intelligence to help computers learn and operate like humans. Couple that with connecting more devices, purchasing drones and robots and you can let your mind wander. From a marketer's perspective, this may still sound quizzical and off-brand, but to anyone willing to expand their horizons, it is clear that Google is a company not willing to rely simply on media as a business model, but rather much more interested in technology and connecting the word. This is important for brands to understand as well. Perhaps the real future of marketing is not in just getting more efficient with advertising dollars, but in following Google's footsteps to help connect your our brands to more people through technology on a more global scale.

The above posting is my monthly column on marketing innovation for Strategy Magazine . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

Strategy Magazine - Google's third wave of innovation .

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CTRL ALT Delete - Weekly Technology And Digital Media Review - CHOM FM #27

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting 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 to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. 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 and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Facebook is now throttling a lot of the content that brands and people see.

Personal pages on Facebook are not the same of brand pages.

Brands have done fan acquisition strategies and now they have to pay for posts.

The consumer doesn't decide what it is seeing, Facebook decides.

Facebook is quickly becoming a paid media channel (yes, the free lunch is over).

We need to build channels that we (brands and individuals) can own.

Remember: not everyone who follows you ever saw all of your content (there was always throttling).

The advertising model changes as Facebook and Twitter try to monetize. We're moving from a scarcity model to a model of abundance.

The value of advertising changes.

Online advertising has surpassed television advertising this year.

At the Master's you can't use your phone, but you can do the Howard Stern "baba-booey!"

Can we put an end to the #selfie already?

Follow-up to the iMedia Summit from last week.

App of the week: Shots.

Listen here...

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