Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 344
October 23, 2011
Conversations As Moments Of Conversion
Episode #276 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.
If you're thinking about online communities, conversations and the true power of Social Media, you need to be following Valeria Maltoni. She helped build Fast Company Magazine's online community back in the day and since then, Valeria has become a true advocate for the power of marketers to build online communities and how to leverage and nurture online influencers as brand champions. Her highly popular Blog, Conversation Agent, acts as a hub for many of her peers in the Marketing industry and is a "must-read" Blog (I'm in that lot!). She's been a guest of the show before, and now we're here to discuss the business behind conversations... and if there truly is one. 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 #276.
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chris brogan
christopher s penn
conversation agent
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digital dads
digital marketing
facebook
hugh mcguire
in over your head
itunes
julien smith
librivox
managing the gray
marketing
marketing over coffee
media hacks
new marketing labs
online social network
podcast
podcasting
pressbooks
six pixels of separation
social media 101
social media marketing
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valeria maltoni
October 21, 2011
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #70
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, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so 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:
How Geniuses Think - Psychology Today . "This piece struck two chords with me. As a kid, I loved the Paddington Bear story about a game show: The host asks Paddington, 'If you cut an 8-foot plank in half, and those pieces in half, and those pieces in half, how long would each piece be?' Paddington replies, '8 feet.' The announcer yells, 'wrong!' Paddington pauses, and then declares, 'But I cut mine lengthwise.' I've also long hated tailored Lego . Once, you made a roof from bricks; now, however, there's a brick-shaped piece. This robs a child of all the other things that a roof might be. Recent research shows that the ability to come up with many possible correct answers is a better indicator of genius than raw IQ: instead of telling my daughter, 'that's right!' I should spend more time saying, 'and what else could that be?'" (Alistair for Hugh).
Steve Jobs and the Purpose of the Corporation - Harvard Business Review . "This HBR piece beautifully stitches together two of the month's most important news items -- the death of Steve Jobs and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Ben E. Heineman Jr. argues that the focus on short-term returns at the expense of all else is what got us into the wealth disparity we see today, and that Jobs' ability to ignore short-term gains in order to satisfy customers is far better for shareholders in the long term." (Alistair for Mitch).
Here Are Four Charts That Explain What The Protesters Are Angry About... - Business Insider . "I've been puzzled by the negative media reaction to the Occupy Wall Street protests. No, not puzzled, or surprised, but maybe bemused. If you look at the last couple of years of financial turmoil, it's clear that something is very, very wrong, and that the problems either start on Wall Street and end in Washington or vice versa. We've done essentially nothing to fix the underlying issues - and yet on flies Wall Street and on flies Washington (and Brussels). Well, here are some charts that explain what people are so pissed off about, and illustrate the structural shifts in wealth allocation we've seen in the past decade, especially. And the question for all of us is: are we on course to maintain a healthy, wealthy and stable society?" (Hugh for Alistair).
Organizing Mobile - A List Apart . "Awesome article about design for mobile." (Hugh for Mitch).
The creative class is a lie - Salon . "Is it all a myth? Is it impossible that the Web is not reshaping both business and culture as we know it? Are we deceiving ourselves into thinking that we can be professionals, but instead of suits, ties and cubicles, we have jeans, iPads and square glasses? This article is a wee bit curmudgeonly, but it sure will get you thinking about whether the creative class will truly be the future of our economy (I hope so!) or if we're all destined for the homeless shelter (I hope not!)." Mitch for Alistair.
Stan Lee - The Elements of a Page Turner - YouTube . "Comic books are the best. Yes, I'm a comic book nerd. There, I said it. The hybrid of art and literature is what cinches it for me. Now, you could debate whether a comic book is literature or art, but I could argue the same about that which you call art and literature. Stan Lee is considered one of the Godfathers of the comic book world. He is the former chairman and president of Marvel Comics and co-creator of superheroes like Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Thor. It's not a bad resume. The truth is that comics are nothing without a great story that can capture the imagination of a hyper-active, puberty pumping teen. What does it take to make a page-turner for that type of attention deficit individual? Here, the master explains it in a beautiful and simple way. I wish more marketing and advertising professionals would create brand narratives with this kind of simplicity, care and structure." (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.
Tags:
a list apart
alistair croll
ben e heineman jr
bitcurrent
business insider
comic books
complete web monitoring
fantastic four
gigaom
harvard business review
hbr
hugh mcguire
hulk
human 20
iambik
iron man
lego
librivox
link
link exchange
linkbait
managing bandwidth
marvel comics
media hacks
occupy wall street
paddington bear
pressbooks
psychology today
salon
spiderman
stan lee
steve jobs
story
the book over
the creative class
thor
x men
year one labs
youtube
[image error]
A New Way To Think About Privacy
Is privacy really what we should be seeking out as individuals online or should we go in the opposite direction?
This concept is core to Jeff Jarvis' latest business book, Public Parts. Jeff's first book, What Would Google Do? set the pace for his passion about New Media and how we connect to one another and the brands around us. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeff a few weeks back (more on that here: SPOS #271 - Jeff Jarvis Shows Off His Public Parts), so I was pleasantly surprised to come across this recently published talk he did at Google about privacy and the rules of the new world.
Watch this...
Tags:
business book
google
jeff jarvis
new media
new world
podcast
privacy
public parts
what would google do
youtube
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Winning Workplaces
Isn't is amazing how a work environment affects both productivity and general health?
As someone who loves the work that I do, I often struggle when people moan and complain about their work environment. From the chairs they sit on to the desks they sit at, to the structure of the physical environment to the physical location of the building. It goes on to the types of phones that are used and the pens that are provided to write with. It seems like many people feel trapped by the physical aspects of their workplace when - deep down - it's actually the things that happen between the ears that matters most.
Remove the workplace from the work.
Ever since ultraportable laptops became available on the market (in the early 1990s), I always used my own money (even when I had an employer) to buy one of these laptops. I wanted a machine that was as light and as portable as possible (sidebar: I use the MacBook Air now and it is - without question - the best computer I have ever owned). My reasoning for always buying my own computer - and it always having to be as light and as portable as possible - was two-fold:
Anywhere is a workplace. While the concept of virtual offices and working out of the local Starbucks has now become somewhat commonplace, it wasn't back then. I wanted to create a work environment that relied as little as possible on where I physically was. I extend this thinking to all of my messaging as well. When I send an email, I remove all messaging like, "Sent from my iPhone ," etc... By removing the need to have a permanent or pre-determined space that is assigned to me for work, I tend to focus on the really important stuff: actually getting the work done. Too much focus on the furniture or stuff to hang on a wall or put on a desk is simply a distraction.
My own allowance. I remember seeing Jeffrey Gitomer speak when I was much younger and he went on a rant about how a sales rep couldn't do his job because his boss would not buy him the software or the computer that he wanted. Gitomer's response? "You're a big boy now and you don't need your daddy to give you an allowance! Use your own money!" Meaning: buy it yourself. If you're successful, the small upfront investment will be meaningless. It's true. I didn't need my employers back then to buy the tools that would make me successful. I was more than capable of doing that myself.
Change everything.
I'm sure many people will read this and think: "sure, it's easy for him to say...". We do have very nice offices at Twist Image, and I'm hopeful that we have a work environment that is conducive to creativity and creating great results, but (the truth is) I can do without it. I can't do without my MacBook Air or my iPhone, but I'm fine working from anywhere to everywhere so long as I'm surrounded by the right team and the right clients. I see a lot of beautiful work spaces in magazines like Dwell, and while it might inspire me to do more great work, I've spent the bulk of my professional life trying to be much more minimalistic (and less materialistic) about my needs, and focusing on what truly matters most: creating a great and winning workplace in my mind.
What do the most winning workplaces look like for you?
Tags:
creativity
dwell magazine
iphone
jeffrey gitomer
macbook air
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office space
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starbucks
twist image
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virtual office
winning workplace
work
work environment
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October 20, 2011
The Moment You've All Been Waiting For...
When will Digital Media take over from television as the number one medium of choice by marketers?
According to the MediaPost news item, Digital Approaches Tipping Point, Narrows Ad Agency Gap To Just One, published today, we are on the cusp of this dramatic shift... right here, right now: "For the first time since being tracked, digital media - including online, social and mobile - has approached parity with television as the most important medium among agency executives, according to the latest quarterly survey from Strata, the media data processing provider that services roughly half of all U.S. ad agencies. Asked what their No. 1 medium of choice was during the third quarter of 2011, 34% of agency executives cited digital, only one point lower than the 35% who cited local TV. That's the closest point of parity in the three years since Strata began querying its agency clients on the dominance of various media in their workflow and budgeting, and represents a 43% leap from the second quarter of 2011."
Remember: advertising flows along with consumer behavior.
While none of this news should come as a shock to anyone, it's amazing to think about how nascent, decentralized and fragmented digital media still is. The article goes on to say: "There hasn't been a huge disparity between digital and TV since Strata started the survey in 2008, but the margin has steadily decreased quarter over quarter... 'in 2008, 60% of respondents indicated that TV was a top focus, with digital at 12%." Yes, some of the logic is that digital media is cheaper (including the fact that you can, usually, get much more impressions in many more places online than a traditional advertising spend) and that a lot of this sudden growth could be attributed to a tougher economy. This means that brands are actually reducing or holding steady with their advertising spends, so the digital media pie accounts for more, or dollars are shifted to digital to achieve a more "bang for your buck" strategy.
I've said it before, I'll say it again.
Digital Media is a new media. The opportunity to push beyond advertising has to be panacea. Benchmarking the Internet against TV in terms of advertising should not be the goal. I'd prefer it if we were benchmarking the Internet (and yes, I'm fine including Social Media, mobile and touch in here) against electricity. As a new opportunity and new horizon for marketing opportunities, the ideal position would be that Digital Media becomes pervasive and ubiquitous like electricity.
That's more exciting than being the number one medium of choice by marketers. That's when marketing will get really interesting.
Tags:
ad agency
advertising
agency executive
digital media
electricity
internet
marketer
media
mediapost
mobile
new media
online advertising
social media
strata
television
tipping point
traditional advertising
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October 19, 2011
The Problem With The Status Quo
Stop me if you've heard this one before: "technology is the great disruptor."
In the fight against technology and the status quo, when have we ever seen the status quo win (and no, The Matrix and The Terminator do not count!)? The New York Times published the article, Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal, and what do you think the macro concept points to? Yup, a world where traditional book publishers and literary agents live in both fear and partnership with the very real reality that Amazon will not only make a great book publisher, but it could also spell the end of the need for literary agents and beyond.
From the article...
"Amazon will publish 122 books this fall in an array of genres, in both physical and e-book form. It is a striking acceleration of the retailer's fledging publishing program that will place Amazon squarely in competition with the New York houses that are also its most prominent suppliers... 'Everyone's afraid of Amazon,' said Richard Curtis, a longtime agent who is also an e-book publisher.'If you're a bookstore, Amazon has been in competition with you for some time. If you're a publisher, one day you wake up and Amazon is competing with you too. And if you're an agent, Amazon may be stealing your lunch because it is offering authors the opportunity to publish directly and cut you out."
Why technology and data wins.
Follow this scenario: you're Stephen King and you're working with a traditional book agent and a traditional book publisher. Amazon knows how many books you sell. They know who they sold those books to, they know when those readers bought them. They have trending to know when the best time of the year would be to release your next book and they also know all of your writing peers (and everything about them too). It's not hard for Amazon to extrapolate the true value of a book publishing deal for you. They can even sweeten the pot (or be more tepid) depending on what they want the outcome to be. Digging deeper into this, they can probably tell you - based on the analytics from the Kindle - which types of stories and settings work best for the reader. You probably didn't even think about all of that Kindle data too, did you? They know not only who bought a book, but who read it, how far they got and what the reader felt was worth taking note of. Amazon can email all of the horror and mystery book readers an offer for Stephen King's next novel. With the data from the pre-sale they can figure out how much of an advance/payday the author will receive (and how many books to publish). It's an attractive offering.
Do you think a traditional publisher and literary agent know the business as well as Amazon?
What about first-time writers and those who don't have an established track record like Stephen King? Amazon can do small and easy tests (things like free e-books or release an Amazon Kindle Single) to test the waters. They have a strong database to market to and it goes a lot deeper than this. Did Amazon outsmart the book publishing industry? Hardly. Much like the music, film, TV, news and other industries, traditional companies are not victims of technology. Traditional companies are victims of the status quo.
Are you holding on for dear life?
I think about our Marketing industry on a constant basis. I see people doing things with media that we never thought possible (more on that here: The Shift To TV Everywhere). Do I feel that the standard way that marketing sends messages to an audience in the form of an advertisement is the be all and end all? Hardly. Joseph Jaffe wrote an excellent book titled, Life After The 30-Second Spot, and while some changed the title to The Death of the 30-Second Spot, I think Joe was on to something... and that something is that there has to be something more. When someone buys a book on a Kindle on a Sunday morning and reads a few pages, then reads a little bit more via the iPhone Kindle app while on the subway to work and then finishes off their book experience on an iPad curled up in bed, there are interesting moments in between the weekend, the subway to work and the nighttime chill out that offer the Marketer a unique opportunity. Our natural instinct is to interrupt that experience with an ad. The true opportunity is in killing the status quo and thinking about how technology can help these moments become better marketing moments.
It doesn't matter what industry you serve, the status quo (and trying to maintain it) doesn't seem to be the right business model or marketing platform.
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joseph jaffe
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life after the 30 second spot
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retail
richard curtis
stephen king
technology
the matrix
the new york times
the terminator
web analytics
October 18, 2011
The Shift To TV Everywhere
Television has always been based on two pillars:
Destination. From "Must See TV" to your favorite sitcoms on Thursday night, you could always tell what the conversation around the water-cooler was going to be based on the schedule set forth in TV Guide. We do things (like eat supper and get home from work) at a specific time to not miss our favorite shows and share in both the collective moment (that was shared with everyone else watching) and a moment of privacy (as we watch with our blinds closed from the comforts of our couches). TV was never everywhere. That is changing rapidly.
Passivity. Media can be both passive and active. Clearly, the Internet is an active media. We create, collaborate, share, friend, like, follow and express ourselves. Even with all of the interactivity that has recently been introduced, the majority of our population still enjoys TV as a passive media. Most people come home after a long day of hard work and just want to forget about the day they had, and not think about the day that's coming tomorrow. TV lets them escape and it doesn't require much work. They're not interested in chatting on Facebook about something or tweeting about it... they just want to watch and get lost for a little while. TV was always passive. That is rapidly changing.
We're moving away from DVRs, specialty channels and cable as the great TV disruptors into newer, unchartered areas.
Much like human beings have become increasingly untethered, so too is television. With smartphones and iPads now promoting content where, when and how consumers want it, the trend is not being lost on television. According to the MediaPost news item, ABC Studies iPad: Redefines TV Viewing, "The iPad surely will play a role in accentuating that lesser connection to time and place going forward. ABC would have studied viewer usage of other tablets, but none had critical mass. That might change with the introduction of the new Kindle." The news item goes on to define three emerging TV viewing trends:
Micro-mobility. Consumers would like TV content on-demand, but not just from the comforts of their home... they want it from the beach and commute to work to their backyards and across multiple platforms.
Parallel Play. Your wife is watching American Pickers while you're sitting there next to her watching an episode of Pawn Stars on your iPad. Parallel play is all about people in the same room watching different shows on different platforms.
Marathoning. If it weren't for marathoning, I would have never been able to see Mad Men or Battlestar Galactica. Marathoning is when a viewer watches multiple episodes of the same show, one after the other.
Think about how television makes it money.
The promise to advertisers was all about the captive audience at a set time on a set date. Yes, the branding power has now been extended because people do use a DVR or download their shows from iTunes, but this changes the advertising model. On top of that, the ability to skip and fast-forward commercials has been the bane of television since the first VCRs were introduced. There is no doubt that brands and their media reps are getting smarter and better at capturing attention, but the format of TV advertising must adjust to this... much like it will have to adjust even more as these new trends in usage and consumption continue to evolve.
What about Social Media and those who do turn TV into a more active media?
While Twitter feeds light up with mentions of TV shows, it turns out that Social Media doesn't really affect TV all that much. MediaPost published another news item last week titled, Social Media Has Negligible Effect on TV Ratings, that stated: "An analysis by NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey Company, found a 9% overall lift in social media 'volume' a month before a TV show's start can improve numbers 1% for 18-34 viewers, who are typically the busiest on social media site." It goes on to cite additional data points that lead to a conclusion that while Social Media does spread the word and keep the TV brands in the spotlight, it doesn't have much affect on overall ratings. In fact, this could well be the proof that it's challenging to truly make a passive media all that active and vice-versa. Regardless, TV as we've known it continues to evolve and it's fascinating to watch the media become so ubiquitous across so many different platforms.
The big question is this: will TV be able to maintain its dominance as a media platform or will it truly converge with the Web?
The above posting is my twice-monthly column for The Huffington Post called, Media Hacker . 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:
The Huffington Post - Can TV Be An Active Medium?
Tags:
abc
active media
advertiser
advertising
advertising model
american pickers
battlestar gallactica
branding
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cable tv
content
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facebook
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ipad
itunes
kindle
mad med
marathoning
media
media company
media convergence
media hacker
mediapost
micro mobility
nielsen mckinsey company
nm incite
on demand
parallel play
passive media
pawn stars
pvr
smartphone
social media
specialty channel
tablet
television
the huffington post
tv
tv commercials
tv disruption
tv guide
tv ratings
tv viewing
twitter
vcr
word of mouth
October 16, 2011
The Lean Startup Revolution
Episode #275 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.
When one person, a MacBook computer and an iPad can create a multi-million (or multi-billion!) dollar business, it changes the face of business as we know it. This evolution of business has given rise to a nation of startups. The challenge is that resources are still tight, they are being developed on razor sharp budgets and everyone is trying to figure out how to become the next Mark Zuckerburg or Steve Jobs. The reality is that most people will fail. Thankfully, many entrepreneurs have walked this path before, and they are sharing how to think and build a modern startup. One of the latest innovations is the concept of The Lean Startup that was created by Eric Ries. In the past little while, Eric published his first book on the topic, The Lean Startup. Now, whether you're starting a new business or thinking desperately about innovation within a bigger organization, the concepts that Eric talks about are fascinating. 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 #275.
Tags:
advertising
bite size edits
blog
blogging
blue sky factory
book oven
cast of dads
cc chapman
chris brogan
christopher s penn
digital dads
digital marketing
entrepreneur
eric ries
facebook
hugh mcguire
in over your head
ipad
itunes
julien smith
librivox
macbook
managing the gray
mark zuckerburg
marketing
marketing over coffee
media hacks
new marketing labs
online social network
podcast
podcasting
pressbooks
six pixels of separation
social media 101
social media marketing
startup
startup lessons learned
steve jobs
strategy
the lean startup
trust agents
twist image
October 15, 2011
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #69
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, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so 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:
Chaos Computer Club analyzes government malware - Chaos Computer Club . "As we use computers to communicate more and more, wiretapping doesn't work -- there's no 'middle' to tap into, and the end nodes of a phone call are easily encrypted. So, the German government introduced 'Quellen-TKÜ' (source wiretapping), a complicated way of saying 'software we put on your machine to spy on you.' They argued that this was just for intercepting voice calls, as other activity on a computer is protected by the German constitution. But what a European hacker group found when they reverse-engineered the tool was something that went far beyond wiretapping, allowing authorities to take complete control of a subject's computer." (Alistair for Hugh).
How Hard Is It To Get a Cartoon Into The New Yorker? - Slate . "The iconic magazine is famous for its whimsical comics, which look pretty easy on the surface. Here, James Sturm tries to get a piece accepted, revealing the strange travails of authors seeking attention. Bonus: whimsical comics." (Alistair for Mitch).
Noam Chomsky & Michel Foucault Debate Human Nature & Power (1971) - Open Culture . "Noam Chomsky (American linguist and leftist intellectual) and Michel Foucault (French postmodernist philosopher) debate power, society, culture, from 1971." (Hugh for Alistair).
The End of the Future - National Review Online . "Peter Thiel (founding CEO of PayPal) on our stagnating innovation, and how it explains to a large degree the great economic muddle we find ourselves in. Step one is to admit we have a problem." (Hugh for Mitch).
That Data Is So You - AdWeek . "When we think about data, we often just think about the bits and bytes that fly across the Internet that speak to who is doing what, where they're going and what's happening, but what about all of our personal data? There is a movement to make the data about you - as a person - your own. If you think about this concept at a macro level, it makes a ton of sense: everything you do should be owned by you... shouldn't it? The promise of advertising and marketing success is always about the gold in the data. So, here we go again, should Facebook own this data (because they offer a service for free) or should it be owned by the consumer? Whose gold is it anyway?" (Mitch for Alistair).
Secrets of Success - Radiolab . "This is a great audio Podcast where Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, etc...) explains why school for gifted and talented students may be bunk. Is there a correlation between superstar athletes and billionaire business people? What about those who change the world at a more social level? While the content in this Podcast is amazing, it's also another highlight about how valuable the content we get online is when compared to the more traditional broadcasting channels. I'd also be remised to not mention that I found out about this Podcast via Bob Lefsetz ." (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.
Tags:
advertising
adweek
alistair croll
bitcurrent
blink
bob lefsetz
chaos computer club
complete web monitoring
data
facebook
gigaom
hugh mcguire
human 20
iambik
innovation
james strum
librivox
link
link exchange
linkbait
malcolm gladwell
managing bandwidth
marketing
media hacks
michel foucault
national review online
noam chomsky
open culture
outliers
paypal
personal data
peter thiel
podcast
pressbooks
radiolab
slate
story
the book over
the new yorker
the tipping point
wiretapping
year one labs
The Harsh Realities Of The Real-Time Web For Marketers
In four words: we are not prepared.
The past few months have probably been all about planning for the next year (and, for some, even beyond this coming year). We look at product launches, holiday seasons, brand requirements, sales goals and beyond to figure out the marketing mix, align the agencies and get our collective ducks in a row. Once the budgets get confirmed, it's all systems go... or is it?
Let the data decide.
For the past few decades, marketers have been leveraging the power of data to remove more and more of the guess work that comes from our marketing initiatives. Direct Marketing (and its subsequent growth) played an integral part in helping marketers to understand the power of data, analytics, outcomes and predictive modeling. Loyalty programs helped marketers truly understand who their customers are (and what they are doing). Web analytics pushed this even further, helping marketers to deep dive into the customer sales funnel and by providing amazing insights that could be turned into actionable outcomes (as my friend, Avinash Kaushik, says). Now, comes the real-time Web.
Suddenly...
We are able to see a lot more information (from usage to customer service issues to innovation opportunities to advertising performance) and it's happening live and in the moment. It's now. It's not data today from usage over the past week. It's right at this very moment.
How are we dealing with it?
Not very well. Even the most sophisticated marketers don't have the right tools and dashboards to do more than know and see that something is happening. The truth is that most marketers, are still planning on a quarterly basis and - if they're really good - only looking at performance on a weekly (sometimes monthly) basis. Marketing optimization is still not a huge priority for most brands and their infrastructure is not set-up to react and engage with this real-time Web. The raw truth is that marketers can finally react on a moment's notice to an opportunity or to something that isn't performing at the anticipated pace. Sadly, brands are too busy looking at Excel charts and reports that lie in an inbox or are stacked up on the CMO's desk. The world of the real-time Web and the CMO's desk full of reports have collided and they are diametrically opposed in terms of efficacy. The real-time Web is leaving lots of marketing opportunities in the dust for the majority of brands.
Moving this forward.
Agencies need to foster, nurture and create better dashboards and reporting for this real-time world. Along with that, they need to restructure how they perform and output their work to better serve the client's needs and to act as a true agent of marketing on their behalf. Brands need to completely overhaul how they set-up and measure performance. This includes a quicker pace and desire to get things right on an iterative process in lieu of the post-performance analysis and trying to get it right the next time around. At a more macro level, the only way to really improve is for both agencies and brands to become better and closer partners in the work. A true marketing partnership over a provider or supplier mindset is what will, ultimately, really move the needle. Yes, the creatives and the strategists now need to make the data and math folks their best friends. At the Google Zeitgeist conference that I attended last month, Google Chairman, Dr. Eric Schmidt said, "In God we trust... everyone else must bring data." Word to the wise Marketer.
What's do you think it's going to take?
Tags:
advertising agency
advertising performance
analytics
avinash kaushik
brand
chief marketing officer
cmo
customer centric
customer service
data
direct marketing
eric schmidt
excel
google
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Six Pixels of Separation
- Mitch Joel's profile
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