Internet advertising: are we finally getting it?

The Ads Evolution

We usually complain about having to sit through a 15 seconds commercial before watching a YouTube video. Even worse, not being able to hit the “skip button”. Oh the humanity! But do you remember back in the late 90s those annoying pop ups with neon green and yellow flashing messages? Remember how opening a website was a call not for one of these pop ups but for many?

 Yes, we have come a long way in terms of how we reach consumers. Thankfully some marketers are realizing that online ads should not be about forcing you to see something but rather making you want to see more of something. To me, that is a successful campaign, which makes you want more or makes you participate somehow. My favorite example of this was the BMW Madonna commercial. 

What makes this campaign so successful in my eyes is that it positions the BMW brand while generating a buzz. This ad is not supposed to get people saying “I have to go and buy a BMW now” but rather it talks to users in their mid 20s who dream of owning a luxurious car in the future and position BMW as the brand for the hip and wealthy.  It’s fun, it’s fast, and it’s bold.

Let the Content be a Mirror

What’s really important when developing online ads, or any ads for that matter, is to make sure the campaign taps into the target market emotional self. Let the user see part of their personality in the ad. This is perhaps the reason for the success of the BMW films. Who hasn’t dreamed of being able to drive a car in such way; let alone a BMW.

Another company that understood this before Internet advertising was a big thing is NIKE. They created commercials like “freestyle Basketball” that not only projected what the average player dreamed of doing but also incorporated things like clothing, music, and humour of that the target market could identify as their own. 

 

What’s next for online advertising?

Not every brand is BMW and not every brand could use the same appeal. However, there are few lessons that we as marketers should take away from this.

1-    Embrace creativity. If the content is good people will watch it. Now, good is hard to define because it could be a 9-minute short action film, or it could be 3 minutes of Gagnam Style. Regardless, creative content will be recognized by users and it will spread.

2-    Don’t bombard the user, if the content is good the users will find its way to watch it over and over again. The main reason pop-ups failed is because they invaded the user’s personal, albeit digital, space.

3-    Make the message and the tone match your brand and what you want to achieve in terms of positioning. This is no secret for marketers but somehow when it comes to online marketing, this is somehow lost.

4-    Encourage participation. Users love to express their voice more than ever so why not capitalize on that to create a buzz? The pinnacle of this are user generated content campaigns like the ones Doritos run for the super bowl.

5-    Never, EVER, forget about the metrics. Perhaps the greatest feature of online advertising is the quickness with which marketers can get feedback on the success of the campaigns. So, always keep looking for those metrics and make the necessary adjustments.

Social Media & Marketing: Honesty is still the best policy

A new landscape

We all hear about it to the point that is has become cliché but we are indeed in a different world. We don’t have to look far beyond to the pre-internet times (should we call it the “neo dark ages”?) to see the change. Picture yourself 10 years ago and imagine someone telling you that Windows MSN would be extinct in few years. Yes, I would have laughed at that statement too. But it’s true, new social media platform have developed and new more will appear in the coming years while others that were once popular are lost and forgotten.  

Companies now have to invest human resources, capital, and time in order to sustain their online presence. It’s not just a matter of PR, your online presence will define your brand, your management, your positioning, how customers interact with you and more.  A small mistake can spread on the net and be magnified in a matter of seconds. It happens all the time in sports. Somebody says something wrong and it’s only seconds before the media picks it up.  

Take it seriously

The eyes of the world are no longer focused on the television set but rather on their mobile device screens. That’s the way people find out more about a company these days. It is important for companies to manage their online presence as carefully as they manage their PR and other communication areas. Failure to manage a company’s online presence means failure to engage in the active conversation that goes on every day with consumers via Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and others. 

Keep it honest, keep it polite

Marketing is almost a dirty word at times. People associate it with deceit, trickery and false hopes. While I don’t necessarily agree with this notion, it is easy to see how the field gets such a bad reputation. Companies exploiting their customers’ information without permission, pretending to be regular consumers when providing positive reviews of their own products, or companies trying to use their customers as a mean to an end are nothing but providing the guidelines for future case studies on bad business practices. 

It is harder than ever to hide anything from the public and with the public having a stronger and louder voice than ever the consequences can be devastating. Honesty is still the best policy. If your company wants to use its customers’ information tell them what is it for, how would that benefit them, and more importantly, let them know that it is possible to opt-out. What’s better, to miss having customer information or missing a customer who’s now buying from the competition?

In the end, it is still a game a trust and I believe that as a rule of thumbs customers should be treated with respect and integrity no matter whether they are in front of you, on the phone, or on a computer screen. Honesty and respect are good business.

The Groupon Paradox

Ever so often comes a revolutionary mind that introduces the world some product/service that is so good it makes the rest of us feel silly we didn’t think about it first. It’s usually the perfect combination of simplicity for the consumer and profitability for the company. In theory, Groupon should be in that selected list of services that changed the world; however, its less than impressive financial performance tells otherwise.

The Groupon Benefit

If one analyzes the proposition that Groupon brings to its customers it would be hard to imagine that they are not doing well.  If you area customer you would be getting substantial 50% off or more discounts on a wide range of products and services. Furthermore, you may even get deals on businesses that you were not aware of.  This means that as a consumer not only you can get price discounts but also you can get a wider range of options from which to choose.

If you are a local business, signing up to offer discount vouchers is a good way to let the market know about your company. The benefits, from a long-term point of view, can be significant as a customer lifetime value can be hundreds of time more than what the company loses with a small discount. It seems like a great advertising tool that would generate tangible and measurable results.

The Problem

The benefits are very attractive to both, businesses and customers, but the pictured described above is far from perfect and the company’s financial performance is proof of that.

Companies are starting to see one of the main risks of Groupons. What’s being sold as one of its main benefits is just one side of a coin, and its other side is a terrifying one for any business. Groupon sell the idea that it brings exposure to customers that would have never heard or tried the product/service otherwise. While this sounds appealing, there is also the huge risk of attracting customers who are not bound to purchase again unless they can get a similar discount. Those are the sorts of the customers that you never want to have because they add no value whatsoever.

Tech Crunch editor Rakesh Agrawal has been predicting the demise of Groupon since last year. It may have seemed crazy to make this call at the time where Groupon had a solid buying offer from Google.  You can read his criticism of the Groupon business model at:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/13/why-groupon-is-poised-for-collapse/

The Final Word

In the end, it is important to understand that Groupon is no magic pill that will make you successful. It is a marketing tool what may bring some benefits at the expense of some risks. I believe companies deciding to use this method should have a clear understanding of how their business operate and design follow up plans that allows them to create long term relation with the “Groupon crowd”

The Social Networking World: Digital, Public & Loud!

The Social Media Revolution
Sometimes I wonder if we are aware of the significant social and technological changes that we experience with the raise of the Internet. Historians in the future may look back at this point in time like current historians do about Columbus’ discovery of the American continent.

Life is no the same it used to be 20 years ago. We have grown accustomed living two lives: our real world life and our online life. In the real world we are bounded by things like status, careers, location etc. But not in the virtual world of social media. Thanks to sites like YouTube, online forums, Facebook, and Twitter we are able to be in many places at the same time and experience a whole world of possibilities. Connecting with people from other countries and other continents is no longer an exotic experience reserved for few members of society. We’re living in a time where global interaction is the norm, not the exception. This is the digital area: no boundaries, no limitations.

 The Thin Boundaries 

One of the main characteristics of this digital world is the public access of information. The vast majority of information is available to the public online, for free. Look at www.wikipedia.com it is perhaps the most ambitious and revolutionary project humans ever developed (and it’s not even close from being “finished”!). Wikipedia makes all information available to everybody; all that is needed is a device connected to the Internet. Knowledge is not only public, but also easy to access.

However, the public nature of this new social networking world is not all pretty. We now have to administer both our real life and our social life. The boundaries of privacy are thinner than ever. What’s interesting is that there is a perception of social networks being intrusive at time but it is users who are adding the content and making it public especially with services like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare.

It’s “cool” to post what we are thinking, the jokes we just heard, what we want to eat, where were are going for vacations, our dreams, our goals, and even where we are at any given time. But I believe we are far away from being fully educated about the limitations and the consequences of this boundary free new world. It is so easy to come across as being different from what we are in real life with just a comment made online. Rather than learning the hard way, I think younger generations that are being born into this era should receive proper education about online behaviour. One small click can have severe consequences from years to come. 

Our Voice Matters Too!

Back in the days, families used to sit in front of a television set and watch whatever local channels were showing. This model gave the media more voice than ever. The media was the starter of the conversations in society.

Those were the old days, the digital world of social networks has given voice to everybody with an internet connection. Fame is no longer the result of knowing the right people at a media station. Just look on www.youtube.com the top watched videos and see how many of them were produced by a TV channel.

In today’s society we look at the media content that we want and not the one that is given to us. Even more interesting is the fact that the media is no longer pushing information but also pulling it from consumer. We have a new voice, it matters as much as the "official" voices, and it’s louder than we think. Ask Egypt politicians...

Search Engines: We've Got The Power

 

Search engines such as Google or Yahoo! have changed the way marketing is done. Behind are the days where companies would create a product or service, create an ad, put it on a mass media and hope to have consumer buying from them. In those days, the key was not only on the good or service, but creating a good ad that will serve as incentive for consumption. The idea was simple, tell the consumer what you want to be known and persuade them to buy.

While this was a pragmatic idea, the world no longer functions that way. With the rise of the Internet, and more importantly the rise of search engines, companies no longer have tight control on what they want consumers to know. Everything is online and it’s getting to a point where information leaks before it is officially released. (iPhone 5 anyone?)

Marketers need to worry not only about reaching consumers but also about being reached. In the new model of marketing, consumers may hear about a new product or service through mass media or the internet but rather than going directly into purchase mode, they go online from their computers, phones, or media players and do their own informal secondary research to have a better idea about the offering, and make sure what they saw in the ads is true. As Google has come to call it, this is really is the Zero Moment of Truth. Failure at this stage will make or break your company.

In the old days, consumers would see on TV an ad for a steam iron that could make any wrinkles disappear on any fabric selling for 4 payments of $19.99, or 3 payments if they would call in the next 3 minutes. Too good to be true? Absolutely, but consumers found out the hard way. After getting the product that would leak hot water and didn’t work properly, the only thing they could do was call it a loss and talk about it with the neighbors.  

At this point in time, the picture is much more different. The same ad may be seen but the next step after that is not the impulse call to get the one payment off. Now consumers, especially those that grew up with the Internet being just another aspect of their everyday life, will “Google” the name of the item and find out reviews.  If they see a trend of bad reviews by different people and different online communities chances are they will abandon the purchase process right away. If they purchase and the expectations are not met, then they will become one more voice of those disappointed consumers.

There are two things companies must make sure to do. First, create a good product/service. Mediocrity is no longer easy to disguise in the market. Second, make sure that they answer what consumers may wonder after they see ads.  Consumers are now searching for companies and products, not the other way around.

Demystifying Marketing

We’ve all heard it before: “marketing is evil”, “marketing is deceitful”. History tells us that perhaps there were valid reasons for such claims. But that was the past, now consumers have in their hands the tools to make sure everything they see in an ad is true or false. I will go as far as to say that anybody deceived by marketing today deserves to be so. The amount of information available on many products and services is abundant and all it takes is a 5-minute search on Google. There is no excuse to be an uneducated consumer in 2012. No excuse at all.

Oh, and the steam iron is called: The Tobi. Horrible product.