Pressing your buttons

What buttons when pressed, make your part with your hard earned cash??

Amazon “recommends” is now over 15 years old – presenting us with recommendations based on buying patterns of like-minded people. Love it or hate it (does this actually narrow our choice rather than broadening our horizons) using empirical data to try and second guess the most opportune moment to interrupt, recommend or “tip” us to a point of purchase is now common place across multiple media channels.

At this point of purchase we as the consumer consider other aspects that have precluded this journey. We take into account peer recommendations (“Liked”, word of mouth) , customers’ reviews, discounts or authority recommendations from respected experts in our decision to purchase (specifically for items which are at the top of products and services which fulfil the upper tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs)

Marketers understand the importance of these factors, however as demonstrated on nearly all commerce sites they are all employed as tactics, rather than those which are relevant being emphasised and leveraged.

Recommending the same book with the message “6 of your friends purchased this in the past 24 hours” VS “30% discount for the next 5 minutes” will have varying degrees of success depending on the user.

So not only personalising the products that are recommended to us, but tailor how they are pitched to us.

It is also true that once the code to your ‘buttons’ is unlocked, they can be used other across other domains – i.e figure out how to sell you books and these persuasion techniques can be used to sell you clothes, music.

Understanding which of these factors really influences makes for a powerful tool in the war for our attention, however raises an ethical responsibility not to use these persuasion profiles irresponsibly…… “we know you’re depressed, buy chocolate”

source :

http://www.persuasion-profiling.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/EffectiveMeans.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Outdoor - Relevance

Comparisons to the "Minority report" scene of targeted advertising have surfaced again with IBM's claim to be working on combining RFID technology and outdoor advertising.

The well quoted scene involves the star of the movie being prompted by offers and advertising based on his current mood and preferences - true relevance.

Three years ago a friend blogged of a trial in the US with Mini, using keyfobs which were encoded RFID tags this information was used to then display messages on interactive billboards as you drove around the city. This caught my eye as being a neat way of engaging with consumers, albeit in a limited fashion which was specific to the brand.

The rub

marketing

Identifying users is only part of the challenge - understanding their actual needs and desires at that particular point in time is a different matter all together. Quite how IBM proposes to accumulate the required data from each of us in order to fuel the decision engine that will eventually drive this advertising will be interesting.

RFID is being pushed on a number of fronts around contactless payments in credit cards with Barclaycard and Ericsson making statements that they are to incorporate the chips in future phones, so actual devices in the wild should be enough to make this viable in the near term.

marketing

So with these devices creating transaction information and history this is ready source of information that could be leveraged to drive such systems - but it this really viable?

Will we the consumer allow this valuable information to be used in such a public space to drive offers and advertising.

Or will we have to revert to completing profile's which would then be used to filter and drive such content - very tedious.....

So while we have to consider dwell times and exactly how to advertise to many people in close proximity, the challenge of profiling and exactly how and what data can be leveraged remains the key hurdle in all of this - not the ability to electronically detect a tag.

update : Electronic Outdoor Ads use cameras to determine gender and age of passer by.

Maximising product placement

Changes in UK broadcast legislation means product placements are set to make an increasing appearance* and is seen by many as a lifeline to the channels, for ITV alone it is expected to generate between £25 – £100 million in additional revenue.

Online and more specifically YouTube has not been victim(?) to such regulation, serving up content from other regions and continents with heavy product placement bias and funding.

marketing
The “Goggle” Box

The recent announcement of Google TV raises some interesting questions as to how they will approach monetisation. It has long been published the return on Google’s investment in YouTube has yet to be realised, with wild variations in the predicted revenue and running costs of the operation meaning 2010 is either going to finally be the turning point of profit, or yet another sunk cost for the search giant.

You tube today still relies on “served” advertisements as its main vehicle for revenue generation – but could this be smarter?

The opportunity to embed code in to the ad’s for user interaction has been available for some time, as yet this has not been deployed within YouTube. Will they (Google) adopt a similar advertising push model when they move into TV or adopt a smarter use of technology, data and measurement to engage users?

Selling out

Recently Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video had 20 product features, not bad for a sub 4 minute music video. Now admittedly the speed at which these were presented would have made it tough to actually engage real time with each of the references, but one can’t help they could have been smarter in leveraging all of these mentions through some form of click on / click through overlay.

*BBC excluded

Spam overload

An estimated 34.7 Trillion spam emails sent during 2009 according to Cisco's 2009 annual security survey - so approximately 5 for every person on this planet.

Distributed problem

The report goes on to further highlight the rise in the use of 'botnets ' - taking over host computers to launch attacks. This is significant, previously security focus for blocking and prevention would be on specified devices or countries, now the use of host computers (mine and yours essentially!) which are distributed around the world means repelling these attacks is ever more difficult.

Marketeers

With the problem only looking to increase, the compelling arguments for permission based marketing are stronger than ever in trying to cut through this ever increasing 'noise'.

Email is still a powerful tool - if used with a focus on 'relevance' in the context of content, frequency and timing not being nice to haves, but essential.

*Update

Analysis of 1.5% of one ' botnet ' called Storm during one month in 2008

• 35 million emails sent
• 8.2 million were delievered to mail servers - the remainder were dropped as incorrect / non existent addresses
• Of these 10,500 people clicked the link in the email, resulting in 28 purchases.
• Scaling this out to the full exposure of the botnet reach, it was estimated $3.5million in sales.

*source new scientist

AD:Tech - Meerkats and Search

over 570,000 meerkat fans

Recent trip to AD:Tech in the UK and some interesting insights from the search providers and HitWise, the analytics company

search

They all focused on online retailers and the challenges they face in attracting and customers making comparisons to there high street cousins and the economic downturn which affecting them both.

With the three ( soon to be 2 ? ) search engine companies going through constant evolution in order to make their offer and effectiveness of their product both better for users and advertisers through improved search results, is this having a direct impact on the paid search market?
marketing technology
All three search providers are investing time and effort of surfacing relevant information in the main search results. In the context of retail this would be location maps, product images and key information which may be buried in the site such as customer service or booking numbers .

This enriched user experience is not only for the benefit of us, Yahoo quoted as seeing as much as a 50% increase in Click through Rates and an increase of 20% in conversion using these methods.

As if to confirm this recent data from Hitwise did indeed points to a decrease in paid search across all online retailer categories with more time and effort going into SEO.

Free lunch

Consumers are now more than ever attracted to offers such as discount vouchers with the success of traditional retailers such as Pizza Express and Threshers (wine retail outline) in the UK using this method. With it’s high viral pass on rates between friends these two companies regularly make use of this tactic, in fact many price comparison sites have built a business model around this aggregating and subsequently redirecting searches from users to these offer however it was noted that many retailers are now looking to capture these users directly through smarter use of SEO rather than having to pay this referral fee to such sites.

Social network - What part do Twitter and Facebook play?

Face book this month announced they were finally cash flow positive along with recording there 300 millionth member , validating there dominant position in the social media space.

Twitters exponential growth is well documented, as is their current inability also to turn a buck.

What is interesting though about both of these players is where do users go after they have visited these sites?

• 1 in 3 Google users ends up at a transactional based website after leaving the site – implying that there is specific intention in the search and therefore the subsequent purchase action.
• Twitter users however have a very different exit, over 55% of its users end up at entertainment sites.
• Social sites users in generally do not end up at online retailers after they have exited the site, with 7% of their traffic finding its way to these.

So social media websites do not work for retailers?

The trend buckers

marketing technology

ASOS the exclusively online retailer of fashion goods and clothing has a quite astonishing funnel of users from social sites – with 14% of it’s traffic coming from Facebook alone ( Google comes in at 25% - which while significantly more is actually less than the usual traffic volume of between 30 – 40% from the site to online retailers) demonstrating the importance of Face-book to ASOS.

marketing technology

Other brands which have managed to setup successful communities in the social space are comparethemarket.com, with their meerkat now having over ½ million Facebook friends and 28,000 followers on Twitter – applying the rationale these users will subsequently visit entertainment site ‘s could be of intrinsically beneficial to a price comparison website if leverage correctly with context of the user being reasonably inferred

marketing technology

Christmas rush online

What was also interesting was online retailers busiest times in the all important build up to Christmas compared to retail outlets.

Online November and first week of December, with then a sharp decline with the opposite in retail outlets taking place.

Reasons cited were as simple as delivery / lead times affecting the level of trust consumers had in online to deliver in time for the holiday season.

Sharp rises in online activity after the Xmas period though may not translate directly to increased in online sales, rather consumers searching for discounts and the location of retail ‘ discount sales ‘.

Online and Retail

marketing

Retailers who offer both an online and retail combination could though seize on the surges and declines – with click and collect offering the convenience of online and security of being able to obtain the goods by going to the store.

Are you really watching

It is interesting to see again the key advertisers and media agencies from WPP and Publics are challenging not only the monopoly that Nielsen has on providing data and informationon who, what and for how long we are listening and watching content, but also the accuracy and the methods they use.
marketing technology
From an online perspective it is interesting Nielsen's still pursues the ' user active ' model for measurement (measuring activity and clicks within the window).

Many more applications and online tools are either passive (in the case of music streaming sites and TV) or open secondary windows in which the users are engaged with content, tools and application however not in the ' host site ' - however Nielsen's chooses discount the time spent after 30 minutes, which will in these circumstances result in under estimation of consumer exposure.

second life - online time down over 40%?

A recent example of the content owner and Nielsen data being at odds with each other was the recent dramatic reported fall in Second Life online time from high’s of 22 hours down to 9 – a fall that the Linden Labs contradicts pointing to a rise of just over 7% , from 35.5 hours per month to 38.6 hours per month.

So who is right?

Linden being the source would have a deeper insight ( albeit it possibly biased ) than a 3rd party organisation such as Nielsen as to their users activity. This combined with the very fact the advertisers are willing to drive there need directly for more analytical and representational data (above), goes to prove that these advertisers want to know how big a bang they are getting for their buck, but Nielsen must find a middle ground that there clients and trade bodies is happy with.

sources
Technology in Marketing
The Register

Google Visual Rank – picture search to get smarter

google image search for "ape"

Searching for images on the web is still a hit and miss affair.

Efforts from many organisations to make the task of finding images and video on the web easier are really only just getting underway.

Currently all mainstream search providers rely on text descriptions of the image known as ‘ meta data ‘ or ‘ tagging ‘ to return results to our queries. Adding these descriptions to the images in most cases is a human task,time consuming, prone to error / interpretation and can very laborious marketing technology.

Google last year added ‘ face ‘ recognition to its search algorithms – however exactly whose face it was still relied on good old fashioned tagging ( see above ).

Taking this one stage further they recently published documents outlining trials of “ Visual Rank “ which combines image recognition technology with their ranking algorithms, ranking and returning pictures based on similarities found across a set of images.

Initially focusing its efforts on product images the search giant is expanding the trials to take in the travel related queries.

From a marketing perspective it adds a new dimension, now not only do advertisers have to grapple with ensuring keywords and phrases are associated to their products, the product imagery itself must be optimised.


Official Google Research Blog: VisualRank: "The idea was simple: find common visual themes in a set of images, and then find a small set of images that best represented those themes"

No Snipers at Terminal 5

anything but

From a security standpoint a good thing, from a marketing point of view - bad.

Terminal 5 in London has generated press and hype for many reasons over the past year, from a marketing standpoint being lauded as the next generation of user engagement - with over 300 digital screens positioned around the airport.

With all the technology at the hands of the marketer’s, the promise of a more targeted approach to outdoor advertising seemed to be here.

Unfortunately, it is anything but.

I appreciate that while we are still some way off actually identifying ' all ' passengers while in transit on a personal level, I feel a little disappointed that very little effort has been made at the very least addressing ' the group ' or where possible engaging on a one to one level.

During my entire visit not once was I prompted to download content to my mobile phone - despite many media screens running what can only be described as ' looped ' traditional TV spots – amazingly there was not one interactive screen.

T5 makes use of escalators and transit train to take you from the main part of the airport to the aircraft departures, only three static posters for a journey which takes over 15 minutes.

It went from an intense jumble of adverts all competing for attention in the main shopping areas to desert like barrenness in large portions of the airport.

marketing Desert marketing technology advertising interactiveBrand clutter

The one oasis in all of this was from a single brand – HSBC who continues to sponsor the jetties and pontoons which connect you to the aircraft – still all in traditional static format.

All of this considered it just goes to show the technology does not give an advantage if used ineffectively.

2008 - A bad start to the year

This week the press is full of all the new ' stuff ' that is the future of technology from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

I'm more concerned with one thing that is being switched off - Pandora the music streaming service that plays music based on your personal taste will stop streaming to users based in the UK on January 15th.

Pandora delivers relevant content that is based on historical preferences BUT goes that little further by making suggestions and recommendations to help people broaden and experience new genres - it's a shame content owners are not flexible to allow new ideas such as these time to grow and flourish.

The letter from Tim Westergren explains in detail the why's :

As you probably know, in July of 2007 we had to block usage of Pandora outside the U.S. because of the lack of a viable license structure for Internet radio streaming in other countries. It was a terrible day. We did however hold out some hope that a solution might exist for the UK, so we left it unblocked as we worked diligently with the rights organizations to negotiate an economically workable license fee.

After over a year of trying, this has proved impossible. Both the PPL (which represents the record labels) and the MCPS/PRS Alliance (which represents music publishers) have demanded per track performance minima rates which are far too high to allow ad supported radio to operate and so, hugely disappointing and depressing to us as it is, we have to block the last territory outside of the US.

It continues to astound me and the rest of the team here that the industry is not working more constructively to support the growth of services that introduce listeners to new music and that are totally supportive of paying fair royalties to the creators of music. I don't often say such things, but the course being charted by the labels and publishers and their representative organizations is nothing short of disastrous for artists whom they purport to represent - and by that I mean both well known and indie artists.

The only consequence of failing to support companies like Pandora that are attempting to build a sustainable radio business for the future will be the continued explosion of piracy, the continued constriction of opportunities for working musicians, and a worsening drought of new music for fans.

As a former working musician myself, I find it very troubling.

We have been told to sign these totally unworkable license rates or switch off, non-negotiable...so that is what we are doing. Streaming illegally is just not in our DNA, and we have to take the threats of legal action seriously. Lest you think this is solely an international problem, you should know that we are also fighting for our survival here in the US, in the face of a crushing increase in web radio royalty rates, which if left unchanged, would mean the end of Pandora.
We know what an epicenter of musical creativity and fan support the UK has always been, which makes the prospect of not being able to launch there and having to block our first listeners all the more upsetting for us.

We know there is a lot of support from listeners and artists in the UK for Pandora and remain hopeful that at some point we'll get beyond this. We're going to keep fighting for a fair and workable rate structure that will allow us to bring Pandora back to you. We'll be sure to let you know if Pandora becomes available in the UK. There may well come a day when we need to make a direct appeal for your support to move for governmental intervention as we have in the US. In the meantime, we have no choice but to turn off service to the UK.

Pandora will stop streaming to the UK as of January 15th, 2008.

What are you looking at ?

During the click

Before and after the click , cause and effect. Two major areas of investment, research and interest to ad agencies and clients alike.

The click is the result of a conscious ( driven possible by a subconscious ) action, but what leads us to this point ?

Marketing departments portray the journey of the customer mapping and plotting the ‘ causes and effects ‘ media and previous experiences have on us ultimately to a point in time, be it a supermarket checkout or a webpage.

Insight and the future

Understanding this journey is important, it is an insight as to what brings people to these points and can be the difference between success and failure of a product or brand.

Gaining insight is a key area of growth and an area where increased effort and marketing budgets are focused as media becomes more diverse.

Brands and companies spend millions on market research to gain understanding, books are written on the subconscious elements which affect our decisions all the while pushing for a better understanding of an ever increasingly more complex consumer.

Behavioural targeting in the online space is growing , it monitors your browsing habits and makes connects and assumptions based on your previous history and serves advertising based on these assumptions – not perfect but at least this adds an element of relevance.

The question : Using web analytics gives us insight as to our final decisions, but what made us actually click?

Research again helps, however it does not always tell the full picture, we tend to answer in after thought rather than the there and now.

When I am actually on a web page what triggers me to click on a section or message as opposed to another similarly designed placement ? Does position really dictate success ?

Where is your Focus

Eye tracking used to involve headsets to track the users gaze – not the best way to give a ‘ real world experience ‘ with 10lbs of plastic on your head and wires running down your back.

As always though newer technology which uses infra red laser built into the monitor allows a users gaze to be tracked and monitored, the end result ‘ gaze maps ‘ and ‘ hot spots ‘ maps.

By following a users eye focus it is possible to build maps of where their eyes are spending time on the page ( Hot spots ) and the path of the eyes take over the page ( Gaze map )



maeting " heat map " n tend tecy" marketing" gaze map "

Things to consider

When looking at Heat and Gaze maps you must also take into account our peripheral vision, they are therefore not entirely ‘ pin point accurate ' but act as a guide.

Try this

Find a book or article which has over 15 words on the line, place this in front of you on a table or flat surface and focus on a single word while closing one eye.

Place your thumbs either side of the word and then slowly move these outwards, keeping focused on the single word as you go.

Stop when you can see no further words without moving your eye.

As you can see, your peripheral vision is quite large even when considering text as a format is one of the more difficult types of visuals we deal with.

So does eye movement monitoring give us the answer to our actions on a page?

On their own they do tell an intriguing story, but combined with web analytics and survey data they help increase our insight into peoples online ‘ click ‘ behaviour.

Note :

Advertisers may also do well to consider the technology to measure the effectiveness of their placements ' in game advertising ' .

In game advertising

A winning combination or an own goal ?

marketing technology

Numerous reports and acquisitions over the months have highlighted in-game advertising as a significant growth area.

But does this offer advertisers a way to place their message in front of engaged consumers or offer no more than a novel way for games producers to gain additional revenue.

Television

Ofcom’s* recent report highlights viewing figures are down yet again, with the average person spending around 3 ½ hours a week watching television. Compare this with Entertainment Software Association* figures of an average time spent playing games of around the 7 ½ hours per week.

Games - the benefits are obvious ?

You have an audience which is spending considerably more time captive to the game, far more opportunities exist to present your message to the gamer and advertisers are not held back by regulatory bodies in the same way as TV.

Also there is a degree of relevance knowing where the advert is being placed and in the future online gaming ( combined with with user profiles ) could be used to further tailor and deliver relevant marketing messages - it seems the lure of spending marketing dollars seems irresistible.

Irresistible indeed, Yankee group’s recent report estimates that by 2011 in game advertising expenditure will be over $900 million.

So does spending time, engaged and engrossed within a game equate to increased awareness ?

marketing technology

Focus

Recent article in Wired Magazine “ focuses “ on a technology that tracks the players eyes during game play, it concludes that people are concentrating so hard that there awareness for objects and items that are not directly related to the game is very limited.

In short – people are concentrating too much to notice the messages that are secondary to game itself.

All is not lost

Some of the highest brand recall rates are recorded where the brands themselves have an integral part within the game itself ( a good example of this is brands of cars in racing games ).

It is simply not enough to rely on these extended periods of game play and therefore exposure to get your message across, it has to be relevant and engage the player in some manner to be a success.

marketing technology

For an indepth view of game based marketing visit read " taking gaming to the next level " by Nigel Hollis.

* remember - double click in the article to find out more

Time and a place

A number of unfortunate ad placements here, some amusing other demonstrating the destruction of ill placed media can cause.

Ten Laws - on simplicity

Law 1: Reduce

The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.

Law 2: Organize

Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.

Law 3: Time

Savings in time feel like simplicity.

Law 4: Learn

Knowledge makes everything simpler.

Law 5: Differences

Simplicity and complexity need each other.

Law 6: Context

What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.

Law 7: Emotion

More emotions are better than less.

Law 8: Trust

In simplicity we trust.

Law 9: Failure

Some things can never be made simple.

Law 10: The One

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.


Taken from http://www.lawsofsimplicity.com/