Marketing for Success - Mike Vilimek

Savvy Marketing by Obama

There is little doubt that the Obama campaign will be considered as one of the best examples of presidential marketing in US history. The campaign was dominant in online marketing with Obama having around 3 million supporters on Facebook, 4 times as many friends as his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, on MySpace.com, and an email contact list of almost 10 million addresses.

What’s even more impressive is that within 24 hours of last week’s historic vote, Obama’s team launched a new web site, Change.gov to reach out and connect with the public. In addition to a countdown to the January 20 inauguration, the site has a newsroom and even a blog. The site is also very interactive allow visitors to share their vision of Obama’s presidency and even apply for jobs.  

 

Obama is the first president in a long time to have such a tremendous following among the youth of America, and he continues to do the right things in order to maintain that following. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found almost half of Americans ages 18 to 29 turned to the Internet as their major source of election news in 2008.While I have no proof, I would image the majority of them voted for Obama.

The Future of Print Advertising

It’s no secret that the print advertising business has been struggling for quite some time now. More and more advertising bucks are being shifted to digital mediums and the current economic crisis sure isn’t helping. Countless print publishing companies continue to announce layoffs such as Gannett, the US’s largest newspaper company recently announcing plans to lay off 10%, or 3000 of its newspaper staffers. Is this entire industry doomed?

I would say no, I think it will survive, but it will look much different than it has in previous years. High end magazines that cater to niche groups will survive as they have loyal followers who most likely will welcome ads that relate their niche interests.  On the other end of the value spectrum, free/give-away papers will also survive. These are the types of low cost production daily papers that you find at subway or transit stations and read during your daily commute. They are convenient, free and continue to have steady readerships. Ads in these dailys need to appeal to a broad market in order to be effective.

Do your products fit into either of these print mediums? Does your product have a niche group of followers with print publications that reach them? Does your product appeal to the mass market? If not, it probably makes sense to continue to divert ad dollars away from print if you have not already abandoned it completely.

Advertising on Mobile Devices

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs estimates they will sell 10 million iPhones this year. While the iPhone craze is undeniable, it’s also important to note that the iPhone is not the only player in the smart phone market. Remember a little company called Research in Motion (RIM) and their Blackberry? And don’t forget Google’s new foray into the mobile operating system market with their Android platform. While these big titans duke it out, one thing is for sure, the mobile ad market, which is expected to grow to $12 billion by 2013 represents an exciting opportunity for marketers.  

 

With most new smart phones including built-in GPS, it allows advertisers the ability to serve up geographically relevant ads, such as a great new restaurant just around the corner (turn-by-turn directions included of course). Anne Bezancon, President of the mobile ad network 1020 says location-sensitive ads can yield 2 to 5 times the click-through rates of regular ads. Now imagine time/location-sensitive specials such as “Free appetizer for the next hour” at the new restaurant just around the corner. Seems like a great way to fill those empty tables.

The latest trend is ad-supported apps. More than 100 million apps have been downloaded to iPhones from Apple’s App store. While some consumers may argue they don’t want ads on the programs they download, the “free factor” has a way of making people accept them. Of the 3000 applications on the App store, only 20% are free, but those 20% make up 90% of the downloads. Look for developers of these smart phone applications to begin generating revenue through ads, thus creating a great opportunity for savvy marketers.

Yahoo Unveils Apt, a New Display Ad Platform

Yahoo has just launched their new much anticipated advertising platform called Apt. This is Yahoo’s latest attempt to grab a piece of the huge online advertising market that Google has dominated for so long.

While Google’s Adwords platform has focused on advertising based on search terms, Apt will focus more on display ads. Yahoo claims the platform will allow advertisers and publishers to buy and sell display ads while using the same type of easy self-service features that helped make Adwords so successful. Yahoo also hopes that by using data they already collect on user’s preferences, advertisers will be able to better target their campaigns.

Apt will only be open to a select group of newspaper companies initially, with availability to other publishers and advertisers to begin in early 2009.

I’m a huge fan of Adwords' do-it-yourself functionalities and the concept of being able to do something similar for display ads could be very powerful. Yahoo could certainly use the boost.

From TV to Internet and Back Again

It’s no secret that over the past few years a strong trend emerged of advertising dollars being shifted from traditional mainstream media such as TV and newspapers over to online advertising. This makes Google’s recent announcement all the more interesting.

Google and NBC Universal said they’re teaming up to allow Google to sell advertisements on some of NBC’s cable channels such as MSNBC, Oxygen, and the Sci Fi network. Both companies gain from the deal with Google wanting to sell ads someplace other than just beside their search results and NBC gaining access to advertisers who currently advertise online through Google.

Is this a sign of the future? Will marketers be able to setup a Google advertising account and select which portion gets displayed online and which portion goes to TV? Too early to tell, but the problem of quantifying traffic and ROI generated from TV ads will still be difficult compared to that of PPC models.

Information Overload

Recently, the PFF Blog reported that Google CEO Eric Schmidt made the following 2 points during a speech at the Milken Conference:

1.       Users of Google's YouTube are uploading 10 hours of video to the site every minute. That's 14,400 hours worth of new video uploads each day.

2.       By 2019, your average iPod (or other personal digital device) will have enough capacity for 85 years worth of video. Start watching when you're born. Maybe you'll see the final credits in old-age.

With more and more content vying for attention, how will your marketing message break through the clutter? The key will be messages that are short, memorable and contain a visual component. Also try to offer something of value to consumers in addition to your marketing message, such as amazing footage within a video or hilarious content. This could help your message go viral.

Monitor Your Online Reputation

Whether it’s simply setting up Google Alerts notices, or hiring specialists such as BuzzLogic or Radian6, your company needs to be aware of what’s being said about it online.  Social media conversations including blogs, microblogs and viral videos can effect a company’s reputation almost overnight. Can your company afford not to monitor these conversations, or better yet, get involved?

Dell is a perfect example of a company that has taken their online reputation very seriously. In 2006, the company was getting lambasted by tech bloggers and in online forums for their terrible customer service.  Today, they reportedly have a 42 person team monitoring and engaging individuals and communities who have something to say about Dell. If negative comments are posted online about Dell, someone from their team is quick to get involved in the conversation and at the very least, make people feel as if Dell cares and wants to help.

Has any of this work paid off? A study conducted by Visible Technologies revealed that negative sentiment toward the Dell brand has dropped from 48% in 2006 to 23% today. Not all of this can be attributed solely to their involvement in online conversations, but it certainly appears they are on the right track.

Google Launches New Browser – Chrome

Google is taking aim at Microsoft’s dominance in the Internet browser segment with the launch of their new free Internet browser, titled Chrome. Why should this concern you as a marketer? Because a key differentiator between Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer revolves around ad targeting and user privacy. Microsoft’s latest version, Internet Explorer 8, allows surfers to hide their Internet address and viewing history - often called "porn mode." This represents a threat to Google who attempts to pinpoint its search results to a user's interests, resulting in more efficient ad targeting. With Microsoft owning 72% of the browser market, Google sees a threat in losing their ability to collect valuable ad targeting information.

The war for Internet browser dominance has been waging for quite some time. What’s new is that a key battle within this war will focus on efficient ad targeting versus user privacy.

Employee Blogs + Anonymity = Trouble

As a result of an employee’s personal blog, Cisco Systems has become the target of a libel lawsuit. The blog in question, titled Patent Troll Tracker (has since been password protected), was written by Rick Frenkel, director of Cisco’s intellectual property department. The blog focused on patent and patent litigation, but allegedly tarnished the names and trivialized a patent case a group had filed against Cisco.  The biggest problem however was Frenkel didn’t divulge his identity or roll with the company and didn’t make a clear distinction between his own views and those of Cisco’s.

Since the lawsuit, Cisco added the following rule to its Internet posting policies, “If you comment on any aspect of the company's business or any policy issue the company is involved in where you have responsibility for Cisco's engagement, you must clearly identify yourself as a Cisco employee in your postings or blog site(s) and include a disclaimer that the views are your own and not those of Cisco."

Employee blogs are a great way for companies to connect with their customers. While it remains vital for employee’s voices not to be filtered by marketing/pr departments resulting in safe, but boring corporate messaging, there does have to be a balance. Making sure employees don’t hide their identities and their connections to topics discussed should be a “common sense” rule.

Mission Impossible: Humanize Microsoft

Because of its size, dominance, and monopolistic control over the PC operating system market for so many years, Microsoft has been the company everyone loves to hate. Recently, Microsoft has tried to soften their image. In March of 2006, they launch Port 25, a blog aimed at developers of open-source software. Microsoft and the open-source community had been at war for years, and although the initial tone from reader’s comments ranged from negative to outright vulgar, eventually, the comments became more positive and the program was declared a success because it opened up a conversation between these warring sides.

Microsoft’s most recent attempt is on a much broader scale. They recently announced the hiring of comedian Jerry Seinfeld as their spokesperson in order to improve the image of its Vista operating system. While Seinfeld has a good track record as a spokesperson (remember his American Express ads?), Microsoft will be playing catch-up to Apples already widely successful ads where they portray Mac computers has being hip and friendly versus the dorky and cumbersome PC. Will Microsoft be able to duplicate Apple’s success? I doubt it. But it may help improve the public perception of Vista, which could certainly use the help.