The Changing Face of Digital Media & Marketing : efficiency, media, creative

Moving from Marketing/Advertising Campaigns to Ecosystem Management

Scott Berg — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 18:54:00 GMT

No question the marketing and advertising industry is going through a seismic shift. And although the main-line and industry press continues to focus the headlines on declines in budgets and the shut down of newspapers – frankly, I believe the shift is much more fundamental and reduced budgets and newspaper shutdowns are merely symptoms of this shift.

As marketers many of us have focused our efforts on two fundamental efforts:

Brand and
Demand Generation

We first got them to fall in love with the brand and then cycled them through the purchase funnel to the ultimate sale.

However, as content, access and user involvement have become more and more prevalent, it’s time for us to rethink our strategies. We need to connect, engage and listen to customers at every single point along the “relationship” curve.

Point A: Discover – the brand

Point B: Find – find the brand or product

Point C: Confirmation/Validation – checking with others to gain confidence to purchase

Point D: Transact – buying the product

Point E: Support – providing outstanding support post sale

Point F: Feedback/Share – listening to customers about what they are sharing with others

When you look at the entire purchase or engagement funnel or as I like to say “the ecosystem” – you fundamentally are forced to look at how you deploy your marketing funding based on what your customer is doing, not based on media type. In fact, you might necessarily deploy media dollars as much as create engagement platforms, communities, forums, listening tools, metrics platforms, etc.

So start looking at your customer ecosystem…. See where you’re strong, weak, etc. and begin improving and strengthening the system – based on customer requirements vs. a traditional or pre-defined media mix.

Scott

CMO’s Annoyed by Agencies and Networks

Scott Berg — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:09:00 GMT

Over the past couple of days I’ve received a number of phone calls and emails regarding presentations made by Gary Elliott, VP-Corporate Marketing and Michael Mendenhall, our CMO.

I’d like to add a few thoughts in 2 separate posts… first let’s talk about the article in AdAge regarding the ANA panel that Gary Elliott sat on.

Gary Elliott was quoted in the article in a couple of areas:

“The overall message, I would have to say, with HP, is that I don't think any of these [agency] relationships are satisfactory enough that we would continue them without having some degree of experimentation," said Gary Elliott, VP-corporate marketing at Hewlett-Packard. "We've been experimenting with different agency relationships where we're looking at agency partners and vendors in ways that connect them loosely with each other. We're looking at models where we have everything with one of our key partners." What's lacking in agency relationships now is speed to market, Mr. Elliott said. "I don't think with our current system we're achieving that. ... We're going to pilot a number of different relationships where we go direct with media companies." My thoughts: 1. Business Model – as I’ve blogged about before the media, marketing & advertising business model is changing. It’s not all about advertising and media anymore. It’s about developing projects that have mutual benefit between two companies. I point to the deal HP just did with MySpace as a great example of this. Agencies are still focused on creating ads and placing the media. And for some companies, that’s what they want them to do. But for larger advertisers we must have more. Every single agency presentation I’ve sat through always shows how the “campaigns” they’ve worked on generated revenue. And all of us in marketing say we generate revenue for the bottom line through branding and direct…the problem is there is more to branding and direct than ads and media. A company the size of HP with distinct businesses and different needs for each business requires us to think creatively and continue to explore the best way to structure our agencies to meet the needs of each unique business. 2. Technology -- And what about the way we transact business… we still use an antiquated system to do the upfronts each year…but search terms are being purchased via an auction model every single day through Google and Yahoo! We must learn how to utilize new forms of technology to drive and increase our speed to market. We no longer market 8 hours a day… our customers are doing business/choosing brands/making purchasing decision 24 hours a day. And they’re utilizing all different forms of technology to do it – from mobile, interactive TV, the internet, search, etc. And believe me, I’ve experienced the pain when a media network incorrectly distributes online creative or radio/tv spots in the wrong place or within inappropriate content. These “mistakes” impact our brand in the consumer’s eye which ultimately makes our job of selling product harder.

Relationships – the world is built on relationships. Look no further than linkedin.com, Facebook.com, or MySpace.com to understand how important relationships are to folks. It’s my job to ensure that HP is given an opportunity to look at unique ideas from media partners before any other competitor and/or advertiser in the marketplace gets a chance. And that’s done by having strong, solid relationships with the major media players in the marketplace.

Hey, you might not have liked what the Advertisers said on the panel… but remember this…it’s them and other CMO and marketing professionals inside companies who have to justify budgets and drive revenue to executive management and ultimately the company shareholder. Try sitting in that chair for while and I guarantee you’re view of the world will change. Scott

The Latest on the “Berg Electronic Hacienda”

Scott Berg — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:40:00 GMT

You guys have heard me talk about my experience with Facebook and Linkedin before, but it’s been while so I thought it’s time to give an update.

I refer to them as my Hacienda’s -- my motto – come on in, sit a spell, take a look around, talk about what’s on your mind.

Alrighty, let’s get down to the latest details:

Facebook – I now have 155 friends. What’s happened recently is I’m getting more “personal” friends connecting with me, vs. business partners as I did when I first started. So I’m now connecting with folks from high school, college, social organizations, etc. But still the majority of the friends are business side. My profile hasn’t changed much – still very business focused, but I have been uploading some family photos, etc. And I’m getting more comfortable in talking about personal stuff vs. business speak. As a marketing medium… lots of info on people, but I don’t see it being used for targeting as much as I’d originally thought. And the ads that are being served up to me aren’t at all relevant. The social side of gathering people together I believe still has promise, but I haven’t seen great examples as yet. Also, don’t know about you, but I don’t like the new format – too clunky/disjointed and my time “on line” with the site I’m sure has fallen off because of this.

Linkedin.com – Amazingly I have 611 connections. All of them are business. I recently had a presentation from the linkedin.com sale team and I see this site really starting to mature into a viable advertising/marketing vehicle. First, they can target on any of the info you put into your profile – so the ads I receive are very targeted and relevant to me as a user. Second, I like the questions section on the site – where folks can help others/answer questions, etc. Great for connecting on business development, etc. Third, surveying on the site is coming into maturity… this is where a question is poised by a company or well know business executive (targeted naturally) – a great tool to help with all sorts of things – product design, image management/metrics/idea generation, etc. The area that I believe needs development is more relevant applications that can be added to your page.

Your thoughts as always are what this is all about… so feel free to comment!

Scott

The Subservient Chicken – Still Ticking

Scott Berg — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:02:00 GMT

So I was just stumbled upon my link for Burger King’s Subservient Chicken. You remember this one… the online site where you can ask the chicken to do something and it obeys your command. I believe this is the what parenting is suppose to be like, but I have yet to discover it.

Although this gimmick is probably 3-4 years old (at minimum), BK continues to support the initiative financially – I assume it’s still popular and rings up the clicks daily. And you know it can’t be that expensive… but I continue to be amazed at so called “investments” in major initiatives (e.g. SecondLife, etc.) which seem to fizzle out in a matter of days. Yet, the chicken keeps plugging along.

So if you haven’t visited the chicken – stop by and say Hello!

http://www.subservientchicken.com/

Scott