Is everybody doing it?  Is it the NEXT big thing?  Or was it the LAST big thing?  I do know this... most companies that I talk to are either trying to do it, or they really want to do it.  But, there are very few that seem to leverage it successfully.

For those who aren't doing it, or who are struggling, it may seem that the reason is due to lack of appropriate data.  Well, sometimes that is the case but in most cases that I've come across, it's really not about lack of data.  It's a political thing.

Lots of people find it threatening: 

• Individuals, within a client company, who have budgets (like advertising, DM, PR, sales, other promotion, etc.) may like the idea of it, in theory.  But, when it comes down to it, they are afraid…afraid that it will mean that they lose some of their budget.

• The client's vendors (ad agency, DM agency, PR agency, media-buying agency, etc.) are also afraid of it, as it may translate into less revenue for them.

• And from the agency side, initially, most media planners/buyers, whom I have ever worked with, find it threatening too.  They feel like I am telling them how to do their job, or casting doubt on their abilities to effectively plan/buy media for our clients.

So, because of the fear, it becomes difficult to get the data.  Groups within a company, who may own the data, may put up roadblocks, which will slow down, or even prevent, data collection.  These roadblocks can get even worse when it comes to collecting data from other vendors, like the ad agency, the media agency, etc.

So, how do we get around it? 

Well, in my experience, one of the key ways to avoid the hassle is to have the project endorsed from the top down.  In other words, if the CFO or CMO wants a marketing mix project to succeed, it's amazing how quickly data can be collected.  And if the CMO goes to the ad agency and the DM agency and requests the data, it’s usually pretty hard for them to say no.  Really, what CFO or CMO wouldn't benefit from a marketing mix analysis?  It would tell them exactly what they were getting from each of those allocated budgets.  Not to mention, it would inform their budget optimization exercises and allow for projections and scenario planning.
 
So, if you are in the advertising group, should you be worried about the results of the marketing mix analysis?  Well, maybe, but not necessarily.  For one of my clients, it turned out to be the best route.  In this case, the marketing group voluntarily started conducting marketing mix modeling on its own.  The results told them incrementally how much business they were getting from each marketing dollar spent.  Within the marketing department, they used it to optimize the overall marketing budget, across various vehicles (TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, online, DM, etc.), and as a result, saw continued growth in business (generated from marketing) annually, for several years.  But, it had an even bigger benefit outside the marketing department - with the CFO.  Because the marketing group was the only group that could mathematically and accurately tell the CFO what he was getting for his money, this was the only group to get budget increases each year.
 
And, what about those media planners/buyers with whom I have worked?  Well, years ago, one of them answered my question for me.  I was working with one of my favorite media execs right before the upfront in NY one year.  I had just finished a new set of marketing mix models for the client, and I had discovered some very actionable insights.    But, I was worried about how to make my recommendations to him.  I didn't want to tell him how to do his job.  After all, I'm not a media planner!  Finally I decided to just go over and chat with him.  So, I sat down in his office and tried to find a very diplomatic way to tell him that NBC was the most efficient/effective network for our client's spots.  And, more specifically, The Today Show and primetime Drama were the programming of choice.  In addition, I had to break it to him that Reality programming (contrary to current prevailing opinions) was the last programming that I would ever recommend buying, given its abysmal performance for the client.  To my surprise, a big smile spread across the media guy's face!  “No problem”, he said, “you’re making my job in NY over the next week, a WHOLE lot easier!  Now, I don't even have to meet with the other networks.  And, I know exactly what programming to negotiate for, on NBC.  This will save me a lot of time running from meeting to meeting.  Boy, wouldn't NBC kill to have this kind of data to use in their pricing negotiations!”
 
So, there you go – another way to think about it – I'm making their jobs easier.  So, I'm not ‘Bad Cop’ after all…. Phew!

Posted by Trina Arnett at 06:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What's with all of these social networking sites?  They're growing at an unprecedented rate.  In fact, if you don't yet have a profile on MySpace or Facebook – or some other social networking site – well, then you are still stuck in Web 1.0.  That is, unless, you blog, use wikis, Flickr, subscribe to RSS feeds, or post your own videos to YouTube.  It’s Web 2.0 pandemonium out there!

Recently, I decided to get in on the action and set up a Facebook profile.  It did not take long to realize that Facebook is not just a community of college students, but a rapidly growing favorite for millions of post-college professionals.  The user numbers are staggering.  According to ComScore, Facebook was the 16th most trafficked web site in September, garnering over 30 million unique visitors.  Back in July 2006, it was the 48th most trafficked site with only 14 million uniques.  Not only is Facebook highly visited, it is highly sticky.  In fact, it's addictive.  So, how do I, as a marketer, leverage it for my clients as a marketing tool?

This is a challenging proposition.  Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites out there are run by their members.  These members control the content and do not want to be marketed to.  Members choose who and what they interact with.  They are highly viral and extremely influential, but they are the ones who decide if your brand and product is worth a darn.  If you try to tell them you're "cool" they will tell you that you are very "uncool."  So, what's a marketer to do?

You can not put any controls on the masses who live in the Web 2.0 world.  What you as a marketer can control is the interactions customers have with your brand.  You can look at your marketing efforts and ask:  Does our advertising resonate with our prospects and customers?  Is our messaging being delivered to the right users, in the right place, at the right time?  Are all user experiences with our brand positive - on our Website, in store and on the phone?  Does our product or service live up to its billing?  Are our customer service folks treating our customers and prospects how they should be treated?  Are we giving existing customers a reason to stay loyal?

If you are doing all of these things well, your customers will want to champion your brand for you.  Users will talk about you in communities, chats, videos, on their profiles (maybe they'll even put up your branded widget!), and in blogs.  They will drive better organic search results for your brand and increase your click and conversion rates.  They will be the reason your banner and video ads generate higher response rates – click and view-based.  Most importantly, they will increase your overall marketing efficiency and improve your bottom line.

You see, it's simple.  Successful social network marketing is not much different than how we marketed in the Web 1.0 world or pre-WWW days.  You still have to focus on the fundamentals and consistently do them well.

Still, there has to be an innovative way to slyly infiltrate the networks and influence their users. If you think you have a solution, please visit my new Facebook page and write on my Wall!

Posted by Doug Ellinger at 06:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I sat in the large meeting room with hundreds of fellow marketers at the Marketing Sherpa’s B2B Demand Generation Summit here in Boston, I was not only energized by the brainpower in the room, but also with the willingness to share experiences of success and failure.  After all, a lot of us are trying to reach the same, sometimes elusive, B2B technology audience.

I found myself nodding in agreement when the moderator listed the top 5 challenges we face:

1. The growing committee of decision makers involved in the research and buying process.  Head nod – I’d written a blog posting on the subject several months ago.
2. The right content at the right time.  Head nod – we’ve discussed many times both internally and with clients the value of testing offers at various points in the process.  For example, is a prospect really ready for an in person assessment when they’re only at the awareness phase in the decision making process – probably not.
   
3. Building and testing landing pages.  Head nod – yes the samples of landing page looked so familiar.   Yet without the commitment to testing up front how will we know we couldn’t be doing a better job?
   
4. Being everywhere. Marketers think they’ve found their target audience but in reality that’s because they’re everywhere.  Head nod – our audience is everywhere.  They’re online, they’re reading magazines, blogs, emails, and mobile devices so our budgets need to work harder and harder to reach them.
   
5. Handing off the right leads.  Head nod - the sales team will appreciate fewer more qualified leads than being bombarded with leads that are no where near ready to speak to a sales rep.

They were preaching to the choir…So why is it that beyond the walls of this summit and within the walls of our client offices does it often feel like these challenges are ignored?

I don’t think they’re ignored.  Rather we as marketers need to keep our first target audience in mind – our clients.  In fact they are facing these same five challenges every day.

As we’re in the throes of 2008 planning we have a great opportunity to address the challenges our clients face as we develop our strategies and recommendations.  We need to keep the following in mind:

• The growing committee involved in the marcom planning. We need to understand who and why each person is involved in the planning process so we can tailor our presentation to each of their needs.
• The planning process is just that a process. We need to do our research to understand what’s changing in our client’s business and the competitive marketplace, etc.  We can’t rest on our laurels.  We need to provide research and examples to help demonstrate why our recommendation makes sense.
• Test from the beginning - not as an afterthought. Tie each recommendation to learning objectives and strategies to accomplish these.
• Be everywhere. We need to better understand all of our client’s communication touch points with their customers, prospects, partners, etc.   What activities do they do on their own without us? We need to see the complete picture so we understand our targets user experience with our brand.
• Hand off/present the best ideas. Many clients find it overwhelming to implement a slew of new thinking.  But a few well thought out ideas make it much easier to champion and implement. Pace other new ideas and POVs and proactively present throughout the year.

Hopefully next year we’ll learn about more successful case studies at the 5th annual B2B Demand Generation summit.  In fact one particular client and I are looking forward to presenting a joint presentation next year. Stay tuned.

Posted by Kara Tierney at 05:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If there’s one type of ad campaign that gets me riled up and shouting epithets at magazines or the TV screen, it’s that of the random analogy. There’s one running now for a financial company whose name (lucky for them) escapes me. It features people doing senseless things -- a man attempting to relax in a beach chair in the midst of raging whitewater, for example -- with a line to the effect of “Not saving for retirement doesn’t make much sense either."

Well, yeah, true. Then again, choosing an unreliable cell phone service doesn’t make much sense either. Neither does buying a sub-par network server for your business. Or paying a lot for your muffler, for that matter. My point? The analogy between sitting in the middle of a raging river and not saving for retirement, as executed, is so loose that you could use it to talk about almost anything. What’s the point?

When you’re trying to market fairly intangible products and services of the sort we specialize in here at PARTNERS+simons -- financial services, healthcare, biotech, pharma, etc. -- as opposed to, say, laundry detergent or blue jeans, it can be challenging to creatively represent value propositions. The random analogy is tempting: it’s easy, and can be visually arresting. (I did, after all, stop and read the ad I described earlier.)

But in this grumpy writer’s opinion, an ad is much more effective -- and makes the company that runs it look a lot smarter -- if the analogy is tight. In the case of the aforementioned financial ad, how about a visual that’s actually about not planning ahead? Or at the very least, a line that draws a direct comparison between the visual and the problem at hand? Something like, “If you’re too relaxed about planning for retirement, you could find yourself in deep water.” It still wouldn’t be a very good ad. But at least it would make sense.

Posted by Jane Roper at 06:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Patrick Clinton, Editor-in-Chief of Pharmaceutical Executive magazine, uses the terms “the Vioxx moment” and “the Avandia moment” in his September 2007 “From the Editor” column. He describes these as “the moment when a safety signal has been detected on a drug, and no one yet knows for certain whether it is real or not – the moment when pharma companies and FDA alike set themselves up for a kick in the teeth.”  In other words, do we tell people that someone died while taking our drug, or should we wait to see if anyone else dies?

Obviously, when a drug makes the body more likely to have a heart attack, disclosure is imperative – up front – so patients and doctors can discuss and weigh the risks of drugs, disease and other life issues they already face.  Some drugs treat serious, life-threatening diseases, but also have potentially serious side effects.  For some patients these drugs should never be used.  For others, those same drugs are a godsend because the patient would otherwise have had no chance at all of survival.

I worked with GSK a number of years ago to market Avandia, a drug that treats certain symptoms of type 2 diabetes. We were very careful to include all of the important risk information in the marketing pieces we created.  Our direct mail packages were large fulfillment mailers designed to provide patients with more information about Avandia, including all of the FDA-approved important safety information – with several points about heart failure as a possible side effect.

At the time, I felt very good about marketing a product like Avandia, because I believed that it was providing a vital benefit to many people with type 2 diabetes who could not control their blood sugar through other options.  Today, after the addition of a black-box warning to the Avandia packaging, I still believe that the drug is right for some patients and not right for others.  As always, that is for the doctors to decide.

As marketers, it is our responsibility to ensure we do everything we can to be truthful. While the goal is to sell more product, it should not be at the cost of public faith in medicine, nor at the cost of lives.  We must ensure that we include ALL of the safety information in a clear format that everyone can understand.

Print and online media generally afford the space for longer disclosures of safety information.  But with TV we may find ourselves foolishly searching for ways to shorten the fair balance while staying within FDA regulations.  In the end, if the safety information is not clear, and someone misses an important, life-changing piece of information, you have failed.

My advice: stick with integrity.  Do it right the first time.  Continue to elevate a positive profile for the pharmaceutical industry.  And help healthcare providers, and their patients, make the right medical decisions based on ALL of the necessary information.

Posted by Ed Feather at 07:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It is well known that if we don't learn from our mistakes, we are bound to repeat them.

And though I try hard to be professional about all of this, I went into a research presentation on the effectiveness of a long running campaign with some trepidation. As the Creative Director, I take it all more personally than I should. Besides, I don't want to attract attention to myself because I dropped the meat in the dirt.

The study was to test our multimedia campaign among a statistically significant sample in the geography in which the advertising runs -- and to evaluate it against competitive advertising. Among all the qualitative research we do, this was done by quants -- this was for real. We would have the measurement data to understand what we could do better and what we had done well -- across a variety of attributes and dimensions.

I was both relieved and proud that our campaign outperformed all the national advertisers competing against our client -- by an order of magnitude. And truthfully, I did learn some lessons about how we can improve upon the recent performance. But what I didn't expect was that I learned a surprising number of those lessons about what to do, and what not to do, based on data of how poorly those competitive campaigns performed.

In this instance, if we don't make the effort to learn from our competitors' mistakes, we run the risk of committing them before we have the opportunity of repeating them.

Posted by Tom Simons at 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to a recent study, 35% of senior executives are playing casual videogames at work. And by senior executives we’re talking top bananas—CEOs, CFOs, presidents and other C-level executives. Not exactly the demographic that first leaps to mind when you think of gamers, is it?

Even after you take into account the study was funded by PopCapGames.com, it’s still a statistic to be taken seriously. And I have to think the real number is actually higher. Much higher—just like their scores.

When you consider the humongous numbers of active gamers reported by Yahoo Games and AOL Games, it should come as no surprise that C-suite execs are among the many who like to kill time by killing a few slime-spewing aliens. It’s like mental sorbet. It cleanses the mind between meetings.

If you think gaming is not to be taken seriously, consider this research by none other than Big Blue.

According to recent IBM study, which looked at technology, business and societal trends and issues, online videogames help people become better corporate leaders by fostering skills related to collaboration, self-organization, risk-taking, openness, influence, and communications... Nearly half of gamers polled believe that game playing has improved their real-world leadership capabilities.

 

In Silicon Valley, golf has been replaced for many with the online game, World of Warcraft.  C-level executives not only spend time with elves and monsters, they spend time with each other, cutting real world deals and alliances.

So, what is a marketer to do with this information? Play. Consider building a game experience that may provide a distraction and a brand experience at the same time. Tie it to a promotion. Try in-banner gaming. Try sponsored game content. Experiment.

If you’re in the financial services business and avoiding risk is part of your brand promise, consider creating or leveraging games of risk. If you’re in the technology sector and your brand is all about strategic technology investments, consider building a branded game of strategy.

The trend in executive gaming is only going to grow. No matter how grown-up executives may appear on the outside. If you want to hear more about how companies are using games in their marketing mix, you may want to attend the upcoming MITX event in Boston on November 2nd entitled Serious Games for Marketing.

 

Posted by Steve Lynch at 06:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)