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?

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"The web organized for you"

Sandlines is slightly green (like Kosmix’s brand colours) to learn that said new search ‘explore’ engine has secured a further $20m funding, led by Time Warner. Not bad in the current funding environment.

Kosmix, for those who’ve not come across it before, is a new launch, currently in “beta-ish”, that seeks to provide inspiration, for want of a better term, for people entering search terms who aren’t looking for a specific answer, but want something less precise.

So the results pages throw up a range of sourced answers, coming from places like Yahoo Buzz, Yahoo Answers, news sources, Google search results, ebay, Amazon, Hulu… a pretty broad spectrum.

Click to go to search results on Kosmix

I checked out a Google phone ‘explore’ to see what I might find – the results are quite interesting. In many ways reminiscent of Google’s own ‘Universal Search’ project, I’m not (yet) convinced that this adds anything beyond the current web capabilities. But people are fickle folk and I don’t believe Google’s near-monopoly on search is invincible or permanent.

Of course, at the moment a lot of the results are very US centric. Hulu’s inclusion (inevitable given the funding) is of course a US only answer at the moment, and the early news feeds are very US-centric. I’ll be trying to get a view from some of my trans-atlantic pals about what their thoughts on it are.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested in the future of search and the potential for where Web 3.0 might go, you should have a play. The only thing I ask is – please let us know what you think back here on Sandlines!

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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.

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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).

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JY in happier days (this January!)

Jerry Yang is taking time out from his Microsoft flip-flopping and Google adventures to visit London. He’s been speaking today at the IAB Engage conference here. Unsurprisingly he takes the view that the current recession is going to make ‘digital’ stronger.

Sandlines agrees whole-heartedly – and I’ve been saying this for some time now.

However, I can’t help but thing it will finish Yahoo! – or at least Yang’s stewardship of the once-mighty purple monster – once and for all.

What price the offer Microsoft made earlier this year? It was $35 a share. That looked rich in the spring, but now Yahoo is trading at a few cents over $10.

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Alistair Darling?

As 2007 drew to a close, the UK e-commerce community celebrated a 54% year-on-year growth for the all-important fourth quarter, capping another year’s heady growth.

My how the world has changed since then. Still in the grip of the credit-fuelled boom, we’d come to expect these kinds of figures.

So what now? A forecast from IMRG, which just hit my inbox, suggests that this year growth will slow to 15%. Hold on a second… double digit growth? In the midst of an economic crisis Captain Darling memorably described as “the worst they’ve been in 60 years“?

I’d call that not such a bad outcome.

I’ll be even more interested to watch what happens following the central bank’s decision to slash interest rates to 2/3rds of where they were last week.

What is clear though is that online continues to show growth – both in sales and in marketing expenditure – even during the most severe downtown the economy has demonstrated in my lifetime.

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Don't Panic Mr Mainwaring

Back when I was 8 years old, I got into a lot of trouble at school by quoting Dad’s Army, calling out: “Don’t Panic Mr Mainwaring” during a fire drill. Judging by this morning’s front page on Brand Republic, I might expect a more lenient response today: it seems to be a message that many want to hear.

Dear old BR’s done a voxpop in London – and it’s really interesting hearing people talk about who they trust and why: there’s quite a range.

• “Big companies like HSBC, Marks and Spencer, John Lewis…”
• “I trust Abbey National and NatWest because they haven’t asked the government for money yet”
• “Don’t trust the big companies: integrity lies with the small family businesses.”

I’m interested in how people’s perceptions have been filtered: of course NatWest is part of RBS, who have gone hand in cap to the government, but this gentleman had no idea of that, so his trust remained firm. Another man fervently declares his faith in HBOS, despite all that went on last month with them… hope over expectation?

These are going to be really interesting questions to watch unfold over the coming weeks and months, as the recession unfolds. But I’m once again greatly encouraged by the broadly positive expectation from the (wo)man in the street.

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The Times are telling us that markets are responding positively to yesterday’s government and central bank announcements. House prices are falling slower than (month on month) than any other time this year (!). Even the Daily Mail is getting in on the act, with a real tabloid lead of “Phew! Shares bounce back…” before dissolving into another attack on the government. Even so!

My favourite though is from The Sun – classic red-top reporting:

The Sun: Simply FAB Darling

It’s good to see the press recapturing a bit of a sense of fun. Maybe, just maybe, things are on the up and up.

I’ve spent the week at a couple of event – Silverpop’s customer conference and the launch of a new product, Vtrenz – talking to people in the digital business. I’ve been struck how the mood has been distinctly lacking in despondency about business and it’s prospects.

Some business types have been decidedly upbeat: a holiday company who are racing to keep up with demand; a high end bank who are seeing people having to put in desperately long hours to keep pace with the (profitable) trading they’re engaged in.

It’s true that growth is forecast to be somewhat slower than the heady days of the mid 2000s, but digital marketing spend is hot on the heels of Press and TV spending. And, according to Rebecca Jennings of Forrester when I spoke to her yesterday, there is every sign that it will continue to grow.

My instinct was to ask whether that was just Search marketing, but no, it turns out that her surveys said that spend would increase for Search, Display advertising, Email… even Web 2.0/Social Networking, which I might have thought susceptible to budget cuts as its ROI is still being proven. Only mobile appears to be showing a modest retraction.

To my delight she was championing the idea of measurement past the transactional level, on to the longer term customer value metrics I’ve long espoused.

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Is it a dog? Is it a shame? No, it's G1

Of course, as AdViking points out, the whole point of brand building was supposed to be about closing sales as well. And therefore I find it hard to disagree MS and their attempts to map the various touch points between the brand and the consumer in an attempt to allocate values to the various touchpoints.

But – and it’s a decent sized but – let’s not forget that marketing is an unholy balance between art and science… the numbers alone don’t tell the full story.

So, if you consider that T-Mobile’s current advertising campaign:

• their radio spots are (to these ears at least) a major disincentive to buy from them (hate them!)
• poster treatments work substantially better

Now I happen to be interested in getting the new G1 Android phone, which is only available from T-Mobile. (OK – I know it’s ugly, but this is an illustration, work with me here). The negative impact of the radio advertising is cancelled out by other things. But is there any way Microsoft’s Engagement Mapping can measure that successfully? Or, by buying a G1, do I tell the marketers that their awful radio ads had the desired affect?

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Wow. This is breaking news. I refer you to my ‘manifesto’ post a while back.

But in all seriousness, it’s great to hear a top flight agency – Brooklyn Brothers in this case – talking about unlocking the value of online relationships – a strapline I’ve been using for the last year or so in presentations for my company, Silverpop.

It’s the heart of why, in Sandlines’ view, Digital Marketing is in grave danger of ‘coming of age’ during the current recession. And looking at Brooklyn Brothers’ mission statement, I can’t help but think that they ‘get it’.

Digital marketing will thrive because:

• it can be hugely (cost) effective
• it’s fast
• it can be optimised quickly to what works best
• it allows you to really develop relationships, rather than a series of episodic broadcasts.

But to really get your money’s worth from the medium, you’ll need to break the ‘acquisition’ habit. Digital marketing works best when it’s a programme, not an event.

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