Some interesting teaser campaign activity going on in London this morning – there’s a website (www.nudeinascarf.com) and a twitter account (@nudeinascarf) trying to build some excitement for something to be revealed (sic) at 3.08 pm today.
Now I don’t want to spoil all the fun, but there are pretty clear clues in the timing (and a simple DNS look up will reveal who is responsible for this).
But in an economic environment when there’s so much talk about the parlous state of car sales I’ll be very interested to hear how well this does in terms of shifting metal.
Is there a link to today’s budget announcements involved as well? £2000 to buy a new car anyone?
| 3.2 |
A year after ESPN cancelled the use of Ad Networks (did anyone else follow suit?) there are rumours of UK publishers doing the same? Is this a myth or a mistake?
I understand why premium publishers are committed to maximising the value of their audience – and often the impact of using ad networks can diminish that value, especially if they are selling ‘inventory’ – or ad impression opportunities – on an undifferentiated basis – or selling ‘pork bellies’, as IAB (US) chair Wenda Harris put it last year .
But of course not all third party sales opportunities are about ’stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap’. There are some credible partners in the marketplace who seek to add value to their networked sales approach. This is not selling pork bellies, but making ready meals, to stretch a poor analogy too far.
All of this reminded me of something I read in the Times this morning about the changes being made over at Unilever by the new chief executive, Paul Polman.
It seems that when, last year, Unilever raised prices on it’s ‘power brands’ at well above the rate of inflation (9%), one of the consequences was a drop in market share. It seems consumers, rather than pay the premium for the power brand, swapped to ‘own brand’ alternatives – note my earlier post about the sacrificial consumer.
Sandlines is of the opinion that we’ll see similar things happening in the online market: if some publishers decide to pull from the networks, they will lose some of their revenue, but it is highly unlikely that enough will do this to reduce the ability of those networks to meet their commitments to provide advertising opportunities to their advertisers and agencies.
In other words, they’ll lose revenue and gain little if anything.
As I hinted at the start, it might be worthwhile for a power brand like ESPN to decline to play the network gain, but it is unlikely to have much impact on the way the online advertising marketplace shapes up during the ‘interesting times’ we find ourselves in.
And, interesting timing, all this coincides with a period when many ‘power brands’ in the online display advertising market here are in the process of building their own ad networks…
What’s wrong with this picture?
| 3.2 |
(from The Economist)
I saw some figures from Comscore today that put the global online audience at a little over one billion people – and showing China taking over from the US at the number 1 spot.
Seems a long time since we were arguing about whether online would ever make it to the position of being a significant part of the media mix for advertisers.
Sandlines is firmly of the view that 2009 will be a (comparatively) good year for digital marketers – in as much as everyone is hurting, we will hurt least, according to the latest Bellwether reports.
For me, the key to this is that marketers need to think in terms of the people they are marketing to: ie people not simply figures on a spreadsheet.
In other words:
- audience not ‘impressions’;
- individualised/targeted messaging (the right message to the right person at the right time);
- conversations that listen, not just ’spray and pray’ broadcast.
The technical capabilities to do this are increasingly there, in our hands. Let’s use them! There’s a billion reasons out there to get it right.
| 3.2 |
Welcome back to Sandlines for 2009.
As you may have noticed, since the last few days of 2008, I took a brief Christmas break from blogging, while reflecting on the year gone by, and the challenges of the year ahead.
At the same time, I’ve been considering options about what I’ll be doing for a living in 2009 and beyond. I’ll spill the beans next week, but the decision is made and I’m starting my new role on Monday.
Don’t expect any major changes in content here: Sandlines is still fully focused on the changes that technology is bringing to the marketing discipline – and how the current recession plays to that. And more than ever before, Sandlines believes that relevance is the key to unlocking return on investment.
To what extent will marketing expenditure online be positioned as a ‘cost of sale’ rather than a separate budgeting line?
| 3.2 |
Danger indefinitely...
I spent an interesting couple of hours with a friend of mine this morning who has been a casualty of the melt down in the financial services market. We were chewing over some of the interesting questions about what happens with his industry after the current crisis.
From one perspective, ‘wealth management’ has been based on balancing risk with desire for above-average returns on investment. The industry has been trying to tell us that they’d ‘eliminated’ risk. Right.
So once things do get back to growth once more, will the people who have wealth to invest trust the people who had been looking after it up to now? Will what appeared safe still have that caché? Or will they completely reassess their view of risk?
Our consensus was that there is risk in anything we do, and it’s far better to understand that from the outset. As my friend pointed out, there is now definitely perceived risk in putting money into the bank – or into property. Even government bonds don’t look entirely risk free (Iceland, anyone?)
So is there a technology play that can do better?
Or are we back into trusting investment advisers’ views, based on their past track reconds? And if so, how do we address the problem that it’s almost unknown for any fund manager to remain at the top for any meaningful time horizons?
There are clearly some very bright people in that industry, but there are also a lot of people who, in my friend’s metaphor, command Premiership salaries while being Conference players.
It almost makes me glad that I don’t have the problem of having ‘wealth’ that needs management!
| 3.2 |
So today is the day – have you got your mouse and your online credit card handy? Apparently every other Brit has.
James Roper – the big cheese over at IMRG - has been garnering masses of (print, broadcast and online) column inches about how, despite the downturn, online retail continues to grow at a pace that will leave other channels (i.e. bricks and mortar) green with envy.
Last week, Monday broke the record for online sales in the UK in a single day. But today will (we’re told) be even bigger.
It seems that online retail is expected to grow 20% this year, compared to 40% or so in previous years. Not bad given the flat to downright messy expectations in the High Street.
Happy shopping – I look forward to the figures!
| 3.2 |
So it seems that there are plenty of people out there who care about customer service. Please, someone tell the companies who are cutting back on this function as times get tough.
Thanks to e-Consultancy
I read an excellent report over on e-consultancy this week about Customer Engagement.
It seems that an ‘engaged customer’ is more likely to:
- recommend a company’s products or services
- convert more readily
- purchase readily
- stay loyal
Those would seem to be ‘good’ things to aim for, wouldn’t you think? Well, the panel agreed. Only 1% of the companies questioned felt that Customer Engagement was ‘not important’, while 87% described it as ‘important’ on ‘essential’.
At the same time, only 55% of companies surveyed said that they had a defined ‘customer engagement strategy’. More worringly, about half said ‘No’ when asked whether the worsening economic situation has encourage them to place more emphasis on customer engagement.
As Jim Sterne (Chairman of the Web Analytics Association) pithily puts it: “We know the house is burning, we just can’t be bothered to call the fire brigade.”
| 3.2 |
Bye Bye Voda?
Maybe I’m just becoming (an even grumpier) grumpy old man, but one of the things I’ve noticed as we’ve talked ourselves into recession is a steep decline in customer service.
Why is this? Some thoughts:
- as companies are becoming stressed about their future, they are giving less thought to ensuring their customers feel valued
- as staff feel their jobs are less secure, their discontent shows in the way they handle all types of customer interaction
- as I spend my money as a customer, I feel companies (and their staff) should be more grateful that I’m still spending
I don’t have any hard data to back this up, but I can relate something anecdotally.
Vodafone, my mobile service provider, have been a company I’ve unhesitatingly recommended to friends and family. I know of a few people who’ve switched to them on the basis of my enthusiastic endorsement of their customer service.
As well as my mobile phone account (with very healthy ARPU) I also bought a mobile broadband connection – which I’ve subsequently passed on to a colleague who is using it (and paying for it) in my place. We couldn’t do this formally as he is an ex-pat american, and has no credit history here. So far so good.
Except that last week Vodafone suspended my mobile phone. Why? Because the payment for the mobile broadband was overdue… by TWO DAYS. No warning, just frustration as a result of a very modest oversight.
I suspect their reaction would have been more in proportion had this happened a few months ago. But, with my contract just two months from renewal date, I feel the other networks beckoning.
I’ve seen this type of corporate response in various ways over the past few weeks (though not as dramatic) from larger companies.
Interestingly, the smaller businesses I deal with (personally and professionally) seem to be a very different story – and I believe this is an opportunity smaller businesses can seize – to show customers what great service really is, and win market share on the back of it.
Here’s hoping.
| 3.2 |
… or at least that was the overriding message, it seemed to me, at the excellent Entrepreneurs in London event where I spent the day yesterday.
Huge thanks to Fresh Business Thinking who kindly invited me to join them – and several hundred others – at the Methodist Central Hall opposite Westminster Abbey.
I struck by how so many entrepreneurs were prepared to stump up not just £400 but a full day of their most precious resource (time) to attend this event. I don’t know whether that signifies that all those ex-bankers are now in start-up mode or just that the entrepreneurial culture is as alive and kicking in this recession as ever it was.
Ben Way and equally entrepreneurial sister Hermione
And one of the key messages is that the businesses that start now – and are well enough thought out and run to survive the current economic conditions – will be brilliantly placed for the post-recession world. Which WILL come, just no-one knows when.
So, apparently, entrepreneurs will save the world. And some of them will produce ideas that help save the planet too – like Ben Way with his Go Green Plumbing company (and 26 others).
| 3.2 |
I opened my copy of the Economist today and read yet another plea for Jerry Yang to step down as CEO of Yahoo!
I’ve rehearsed the arguments on this question before, but I’m more interested today in the subtext to this story: the extent to which Yahoo!’s reliance on display advertising is going to hurt them during the current economic difficulties.
It’s chastening to think how much of digital’s growth in revenue is purely from search – and yet that’s just the beginning of what the medium can deliver.
Search marketing words (both SEM and SEO) because it is by some distance the most effective way to introduce someone to what you are offering/saying… providing that they are already in the market for it. It’s all about steering someone toward your version of what they already know they want. Powerful, cost-effective and an essential weaon in the marketing arsenal. And almost totally transactional.
But what about the other side of the line?
For most businesses, it’s not just the first sale that matters – it’s the ongoing relationship that the first sale might lead to. This is very strongly the case with subscription-type businesses (e.g. utilities, mobile phones, satellite tv, magazines etc). It is also central to FMCG (or CPG as they call it in the US) marketing.
But it’s also the basis of what your local retail outlet hopes for. Or what your window cleaner relies on. In fact most businesses in the real world tend to prize the ongoing relationship past the first sale very highly.
So why has the digital economy been so hung up on the idea of paying Google (or their affiliate marketing partner) every time they want to conclude another transaction?
Of course, this is still very different from the display advertising model that Yahoo! and the like espouse. But it is, for me, crucial to digital marketing’s success in this recession – and to the rosier times that will sooner or later follow it.
If you haven’t already, start planning for it now! Google is NOT the only show in town.
| 2.5 |
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