Thursday, July 31, 2008

Tips on Extending iPhone 3G Battery Life

I bought the 3G iPhone, just like a bunch of people I know. I love it, but I do wish the battery life was longer. It goes down pretty fast, even though I've already done most of the tips that Apple has. I know many of you are looking for this info, so here it... straight from Apple itself!

Minimize use of location services: Applications that actively use location services such as Maps may reduce battery life. To disable location services, go to Settings > General > Location Services or use location services only when needed.

Fetch new data less frequently: Applications such as Mail can be set to fetch data wirelessly at specific intervals. The more frequently email or other data is fetched, the quicker your battery may drain. To fetch new data manually, from the Home screen choose Settings > Fetch New Data and tap Manually. To increase the fetch interval, go to Settings > Fetch New Data and tap Hourly. Note that this is a global setting and applies to all applications that do not support push services.

Turn off push mail: If you have a push mail account such as Yahoo!, MobileMe or Microsoft Exchange, turn off push mail when you don’t need it. Go to Settings > Fetch New Data and set Push to Off. Messages sent to your push email accounts will now be received on your phone based on the global Fetch setting rather than as they arrive.

Auto-check fewer email accounts: You can save power by checking fewer email accounts. This can be accomplished by turning off an email account or by deleting it. To turn off an account, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, choose an email account, and set Account to Off. To remove an account, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, choose an email account, and tap Delete Account.

Minimize use of third-party applications: Excessive use of applications such as games that prevent the screen from dimming or shutting off or applications that use location services can reduce battery life.

Turn off Wi-Fi: If you rarely use Wi-Fi, you can turn it off to save power. Go to Settings > Wi-Fi and set Wi-Fi to Off. Note that if you frequently use your iPhone to browse the web, battery life may be improved by using Wi-Fi instead of cellular data networks.

Turn off Bluetooth: If you rarely use a Bluetooth headset or car kit, you can turn off Bluetooth to save power. Go to Settings > General > Bluetooth and set Bluetooth to Off.

Use Airplane Mode in low- or no-coverage areas: Because your iPhone always tries to maintain a connection with the cellular network, it may use more power in low- or no-coverage areas. Turning on Airplane Mode can increase battery life in these situations; however, you will be unable to make or receive calls. To turn on Airplane Mode, go to Settings and set Airplane Mode to On.

Adjust brightness: Dimming the screen is another way to extend battery life. Go to Settings > Brightness and drag the slider to the left to lower the default screen brightness. In addition, turning on Auto-Brightness allows the screen to adjust its brightness based on current lighting conditions. Go to Settings > Brightness and set Auto-Brightness to On.

Turn off EQ: Applying an equalizer setting to song playback on your iPhone can decrease battery life. To turn EQ off, go to Settings > iPod > EQ and tap Off. Note that if you’ve added EQ to songs directly in iTunes, you’ll need to set EQ on iPhone to Flat in order to have the same effect as Off because iPhone keeps your iTunes settings intact. Go to Settings > iPod > EQ and tap Flat.

Turn off 3G: Using 3G cellular networks loads data faster, but may also decrease battery life, especially in areas with limited 3G coverage. To disable 3G, from the Home screen choose Settings > General > Network and set Enable 3G to Off. You will still be able to make and receive calls and access cellular data networks via EDGE or GPRS where available.

The funniest one is to "turn off the 3G". Why would I do that? I just bought it because of the 3G!!!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

How To Choose An Ad Network

Not too sure if I've ever mentioned them before, but I probably should have :-) ...

Sportgenic is a client of ours at Catalyst:SF and they recently released a white paper on how to choose an ad network. Sportgenic is focused on the active athlete; aggregating content together which caters to the sports enthusiast in all of us and they fit in the vertical ad network category, which is a cluttered category when you look at it from a 30,000 foot perspective. That being said if you have the correct information and you know the correct way to survey the landscape, you can narrow the playing field down and focus your dollars against the kinds of sites that meet your immediate audience needs. Effectively you can focus your attention on a small portion of the audience.

The whitepaper can be found here and I think it's worth the read! If you have any questions about it, you can ping me or reach out directly to the folks at Sportgenic!

About Sportgenic

Sportgenic(TM) represents the buying power of millions of sport enthusiasts looking for people, products and information online. The company represents a network of highly engaging medium and long tail websites, including specialty sites, training resources, social networks, and uber-fan sites. Sportgenic connects marketers with engaged and passionate consumers via proprietary technology, ad targeting and deep domain expertise.

Sportgenic has consistently been listed amongst the top 10 sports networks on comScore in sports since November 2007. (comScore MediaMetrix Sports category media sets with duplication.) The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. For more information call415-983-2301 or visit www.sportgenic.com.

Sportgenic is a registered trademark of Sportgenic, Inc.
Lyman Public Relations
Carm Lyman, 707-256-3834
carm@Lymanpr.com

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

A Little More Sunshine

Here's some more sunshine!





What Happened To Email Marketing?

Does anyone still do email marketing?

The answer is a resounding Yes, however we all take it for granted that maybe, just maybe, everyone already knows how to do it. It can't be that hard, right?

It is.

The fact is there are lots of in's and out's to doing it and if you want to know how, you need to read about it. I started to do so, and I came across this post from another blogger over at Entrepreneur's Journey. He is writing to bloggers about email marketing and I have to be honest - it's a great piece of writing! I don't say that often and I haven't been linking to many blogs as of late, but this is worth the read. Check it out here!

Monday, July 28, 2008

When Will Behavioral Targeting Be Taken Seriously?

I moderated a panel discussion at OMMA Behavioral in SF last week and one of the questions that came up during the discussion was simply paraphrased as, "when will BT be taken seriously". The fact is that the actual audience of people utilizing behavioral targeting platforms to the fullest extent of their usage is small, much smaller than the amount of hype and discussion would lead you to believe.

One of the problems that faces the BT companies, whether they are the 1.0 version that focuses on click stream data or the 2.0 that aggregates ISP level data and works with search data, shopping data, social graph data or other applicable data points, is that there are too many ways to go with the data. In direct response marketing there's a mantra that if "you give the consumers too many choices they will choose not to choose one". This is the same problem that faces the agencies and the marketers. Too many choices and they throw up their hands and go back to more pressing problems. The effective result is that the audience for behavioral targeting remains small while the promise still looms in front of us.

One of the panelists made a great statement - its about purchasability (however you spell it). Just because I know that data points that will help describe my audience doesn't mean that I know how to act on it! My observation is that BT will be taken seriously when the companies selling it are capable of walking in with case studies and actual examples of how that data was used to build a buy and how that buy worked to extend reach, drive an increase in results or achieved the desired goals of the client. If someone can show me that information, then i will buy it and so will every other marketer.

Our industry likes to keep secrets only we keep the wrong ones. If these platforms work, and I know deep down that they do, then show me. Share the data with us. We can never keep a secret about a new start-up, but we can keep a secret about how effective the tools are that said start-up has created.

I also know that the clients are the ones that are keeping these secrets. If it were up to the start-ups, they would be on the mountain top telling us all about the effectiveness of their platforms, but the clients are doing a disservice because they are stunting the growth of the industry by keeping this information close to the vest. Please open up and share a little. Your value proposition lies in the actual product much less so than how you market the product. Put your money where your mouth is and demonstrate the right tools for the industry... please.

So my answer is this - it will grow when we mature and share the information on effectiveness as well as when we come up with ideas and actions that media planners can take to implement for their campaigns. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Someone really smart told me all about it. They worked in Cable.

Friday, July 25, 2008

I (still) Love Mix Tapes

I have written about Muxtape in the past, but some people are finding even more sites that offer mix tapes for you to see and listen to! Check out this article from Read, Write, Web!

WARC Report on The Future Of Online Media

This is some information pulled from WARC.com that you might find very interesting. I rarely republish something from somewhere else word-for-word, but there was too much detailed information in here to summarize. Check it out!

The digital media market in 2008 - Stephen Whiteside

Digital advertising revenues are forecast to reach $153.4 billion in 2011 from the $12.7 billion level registered in 2007, according to figures from PricewaterhouseCoopers, published by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) in its study World Digital Media Trends 2008.
While TV is expected to retain the largest market share in 2011 - taking 37% of adspend, valued at $196.9 billion - online is predicted to enjoy growth rates three times higher than any other medium. Its value is set to increase from $9 billion in 2002 to $73.1 billion in 2011, and from a share of less than 3% to 14% worldwide. By contrast, during this period print and radio are expected to register a drop in share, but an uplift in revenue.


Media usage trends
According to figures from the Aegis Group agency Carat, digital platforms will account for 66% of media usage by 2010, a total that rises to 80% by 2020. The internet, in particular, is expected to grow increasingly prominent over this period. The main sources of online growth - forecast to be in double-digits each year to 2011 - are likely to be:
subscriptions

digital mobile

TV and music downloads

video on-demand

online ads

online/mobile video games

e-publishing.


This improvement will be predicated on the expansion in the use and penetration of the internet (and especially broadband), as well as that of mobile devices. The mobile customer base reached 2.6 billion in 2006 (up from 945 million in 2001), and is forecast to top 3 billion by 2011; the number of broadband users worldwide is also expected to reach 540 million in that year, up from 51 million in 2002.

Today Is My Birthday!

Happy Birthday Me!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

I'm... Batman. And I'm a Great Marketer.

That line is always one of my favorite lines. It is also now synonymous with a big budget Hollywood franchise and one that does some amazing marketing online!

I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty on how the viral program worked, but you can find that information all online on sites like Wired Blogs. I want to point out something more basic than that. I want to point out that good marketing sells a good product but good marketing cannot sell a bad product.

You've heard the old saying, "that's just putting lipstick on a pig". Well, that's what we see with too many Hollywood campaigns (remember Snakes On A Plane?). You can dress it up but if it's still a bad movie, then no-one will go see it (at least aftre the first weekend)! My point is that I've always stressed that the Promise of the Brand needs to match the Experience of the Brand and with the Batman campaign online, that is 100% effectively done. The online marketing teased the brand, and it fed the fever that the fans had for the product and the product delivered. It's the same with Apple and many other brands.

Brands forget that they need to be sure the product is as strong as they promise. Don't put out a less than favorable product. Go back to the drawing board of you have to. It will be worth it in the end.

And if you're Warner Bros., get to work on Batman 3. Please!!!

Don't Let The Sun, Go Down On Me

I've been writing and reading about advertising all day, so I thought my blog needed a little sunshine. I thought you should have some too... so here you go!

Enjoy!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

I Googled Myself

How often do you Google yourself? It's a very egotistical thing to do, I admit it. I Googled my name today and had 5,360 references to me. I felt cool. Of course, there are no other me's in the world, so that helps. If my name were John Doe, it would be different (there are 5,700,000 listings for him).

Leveraging Ad Exchanges For Your Own Impressions

This is an interesting article about how publishers are using ad exchanges to supplement the traffic they have on their own sites. The issue is a simple one; if you have more demand than traffic, you buy low on the ad exchange and sell high any impressions against users who may have been on your site but went somewhere else. It's a model that I think can work assuming one thing; the publisher is transparent about the supplementation of the impressions. If they are pretending these are their own impressions, than they can get in trouble. This is something that many sites used to do and I hope don't happen anymore.

Keep an eye on the model; it could work very well over the coming weeks.

If you are a planner you should make sure you are asking the questions of whether these impressions are on the site itself or supplemented via an ad exchange.

Going Beyond Paid Media (with a little help from Yogi Berra)

Much of Traditional Media is based on estimated audience data, but as we move more towards a digital-centric planning environment, our focus will shift towards accountability and the dominant forms of media will cease their dependence on estimates and shift towards actual audience. The real question is when, how long will this take and what are the implications for planners and buyers?

The accountability of digital media is a blessing as well as a curse. Since day one, our industry has touted the wealth of data regarding actual interaction and response with our advertising messages. So much has been made of this that it took a significant amount of time for our industry to become a viable format for brand advertisers, but finally they’ve come around to understand it. I recently attended and was involved in Jumpstart’s Think Digital conference in Napa and I listened to a gentleman state how when he interacts with auto dealers and dealer associations throughout the country he was able to convince them that this medium should be evaluated like every other form of media; based on awareness as well as results. His statement was that when an advertiser asked to see the creative that was running, they were implying that the message itself had value, which lends itself to an awareness metric rather than a direct response metric because they understood that the message, even when not replied to, had merit.

As you know, digital media is based on actual data of an audience interacting with the media vehicles they choose. Nielsen’s business in the traditional world, which has been highly profitable for so long, is based on a sample size audience providing estimates for Television. Nielsen has also built a business, along with Comscore and some other folks, on measuring the actual audience rather than estimates for digital media, specifically online and Internet sites. As the Television business begins to shift more towards digital media and a digital-centric model (via Digital Cable, VOD, Online VOD and other IP-based formats), that estimate of audience will no longer be appropriate and the actual data will become more the basis for planning and valuation of all Video, Television and Internet TV media vehicles.

Digital Outdoor is quickly replacing Traditional Outdoor and along with the ability to replace creative faster and more cost effectively, many of these formats are becoming more accountable as well, installing GPS tracking systems that can read the GPS tags of automobiles and/or cellphones that walk by or are in proximity of these boards, thereby more closely measuring actual audience interaction rather than estimating audience. This is the shift we are witnessing in this form of media, towards accountability.

The implications of this are rather easy to see. First of all, the business gets easier as buying can become more automated, thereby continuing to commoditize it. The planning and the strategy behind the business will become more important, but only because a larger portion of the dollars will shift towards a less standardized model. If you pay attention to what is happening now, approximately 40% of all spend Online goes against Search. I foresee that the Search portion will be automated, and approximately 50% of the remaining 60% of budgets, allocated towards Display, will also be automated. This reflects the portion of your budget that will go towards banners and standard IAB rotations through Run of Network and Run of Site opportunities. That means up to 70% of your basic ad buying will become a commodity. That’s a pretty high percentage!

That leaves 30% of your paid media budget going towards highly strategic placements, which is great for people like me who build business based on strategy, but what’s even better is that beyond the 100% of your paid media budget, there resides an additional 10-20% of “budgets” that will go towards non-paid media, whether it be buzz generation, brand management or some other element of Digital Media (it makes me think of that old Yogi Berra quote… “90% of Baseball is mental and the other half is physical”). Today those elements may include the development of a website, or a mobile site, or a game or your social networking presence, but all in all these represent a portion of your effort that go above and beyond your established paid media. These are effective, they are increasing in importance and they are typically overlooked by your basic media agency. Clients typically have to seek other partners to execute on these pieces because they don’t feel their core agencies have the expertise to be effective here. That can be scary when you realize that up to 70% of the base budget that your media agency handles can be automated and managed for much less of a budget.

The reason I bring all of this up now is this model of going beyond your paid media budget, while starting to be understood in the Online Media world, will almost certainly get applied to the digital extensions for Traditional Media. This model will certainly take hold in Mobile, and in Internet TV and in other formats such as Digital Outdoor, and beyond. I cannot profess to say how, and my best guess as to when would be sometime in the next 10 years. It takes time to rebuild an industry of this size and scope, so some people might say it will take longer, but I think 10 years is about right. By the year 2017 we’ll be writing about performance based pricing and buzz generation in Outdoor and Mobile and a hundred new agencies will have popped up to service these categories.

The estimates for ad spending continue to rise, but I wonder when and how they will be able to incorporate these “beyond paid media” budgets into the mix? Will they ever understand that beyond paid media lies non-paid media, but it is all media nonetheless?

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

How Do You Read Buzz?

Reading, measuring and reacting to online buzz for brands is an extremely invaluable tool. The fact that so many people are talking about your brand and discussing your brand without your knowledge can scare some people but only because they aren't a part of the conversation. If you're involved in the conversation you welcome any feedback, even negative feedback, because at least you then have the chance to respond.

It's not possible to be involved in them all, but there are a number of tools and services that allow you to track them. I can't make any judgement in this post as to who you should use because each of them has some strengths and weaknesses, but overall it depends on the amount and type of information you are looking for as well as the time you are willing to invest in reading and reacting to this information.

If you want to peek at some of the companies, check out this list here. All of them are really strong:

Beyond Analysis
http://www.beyondanalysis.net

co.mments
http://co.mments.com/

Cymfony
http://www.cymfony.com

Compete
http://www.compete.com

Envisional
http://www.envisional.com

IceRocket
http://trend.icerocket.com/

Nielson Buzz Metrics
http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com

Opinmind
http://opinmind.com/

Radian6
http://www.radian6.com

Reputica
http://www.reputica.com/

Reputrace
http://www.reputrace.com/

SEER by VML
http://www.vml.com

Sentiment Metrics
http://www.sentimentmetrics.com/

If you've used any of them and you have some feedback, post a comment and let me know. I would love to hear what you think of them.

Happy hunting.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Discount for MCONN in October

Are you interested in attending MCONN in October? If so, you can get $200 off the price of admission if you visit this page and use the discount field "FRIEND200".

MCONN is a new event that will be bringing together lots of great minds to talk about online marketing and how it integrates into the rest of the world of marketing. Its a topic that is near and dear to my heart and one that I know you enjoy as well because if you are reading my blog, that's all talk about!

I am emcee for the event and hope to see you there!

Friday, July 18, 2008

The Round-Up Volume 1, Issue 8: Wedding Bells, Summer Sunshine and The Round Up!

Hello again and welcome to this week’s edition of The Round Up!

It’s been a few weeks since our last edition because our editor, yours truly, took off for a couple weeks to get married and go on honeymoon, but now we’re back and ready to go! It’s amazing how a few days on the beach will re-energize your spirit and re-charge your batteries!! Of course, you don’t subscribe to the Digital Influentials to hear about me. You subscribe to hear about the new and exciting companies we’ve uncovered in the last few weeks of our digital marketing excursions.

Shall we…?

Gaming is always a hot topic. It’s funny because gaming is consistently brought up as an emerging media platform of interest for marketers and advertisers, but it’s rarely one that gets tested. The perception seems to be that getting into gaming is tedious, takes a long time and a lot of new creative. Sooo, you can only imagine how hard it must be to get into mobile gaming! Well, GREYSTRIPE (https://www.greystripe.com/) has taken care of that! These guys have some great tools and platforms for allowing advertisers, especially brand advertisers, to get into mobile gaming. I have to honest in saying that I haven’t used them myself, but I was referred to their company and they appear very strong and to have built a sustainable business.
Gaming is a huge part of popular culture, but there are many other components that make up the popular culture landscape. That’s where FANPOP (http://www.fanpop.com/) comes in. I can’t say exactly how you would categorize their business, but it’s sort of a social community merged with a search engine. As is my typical path, the first search query I ran was “Pearl Jam” and up came a bunch of surveys, links and fun information about the world’s greatest band (don’t fight it). FanPop is billed as a network of fan clubs, but when you lift up the hood, there’s a little more in the engine than you would’ve originally thought. It might have a hemi!!

Finding a way to harness the power of popular culture to drive business growth is the goal of every marketer. If you tap into the zeitgeist, you can build a successful business. That’s how I came across MARKETBRIGHT (http://www.marketbright.com/). I’m always looking for new and interesting ways to leverage technology to get more ROI from an online marketing plan and MarketBright has a suite of tools and services to do just that. The tools are self-service and they appear, at first glance, to be very well thought-through. I’m looking forward to learning more about them and seeing how to use them!

Speaking of self-service tools that make life easier, the amazing Peter Figueredo brought one of these to my attention this week and it’s called YODLEE (http://corporate.yodlee.com/). Yodlee is that one step beyond your personal online banking. It aggregates together all your accounts, makes it easy to create new ones and manage money between the accounts and build a stronger personal financial management system. In the economy we see today, every consumer should be finding more and better ways to manage their money for the long term and Yodlee may just be that tool.

As we get into financial management we can’t overlook Real Estate, right? That’s where I found ROOST (http://www.roost.com/). I‘ve mentioned some real estate sites before, but this one has a great interface and it’s updated very regularly, so the information is relevant as you look for a place to live or just determine the value of your own home. Of course, if you live in an area where home prices are dropping the information you find may not be enjoyable. Don’t blame Roost. It’s not their fault.

And last but not least we discovered a new way to share information with others in a secure, private manner. It’s called DROPIO (http://drop.io/). We can’t figure out yet what the business model is, but you can share any type of file with another person through a series of “drops” that you create. They’re not searchable and they cannot be uncovered in any other way. It’s rare that we see a basic service online with no hooks or gimmicks, so we figured you had know about it now!

That’s it for this week’s edition. As always, if you have something you see and think we should know about it, please drop me a note at info@catalystsf.com and let me know, or email on the Facebook page!

Talk to you in 2!

Cory Treffiletti & The Digital Influentials
http://www.digitalinfluentials.com
Find us on Facebook at The Digital Influentials

Thursday, July 17, 2008

David Ogilvy, The Information Superhighway, and Strategy.

Back in 1994 and 1995 I was getting started in advertising and somewhere along that line I bought a book. The book was called “Navigating the Information Superhighway”, or some iteration of such title, and it told me all about this burgeoning new media platform called “the Internet” which I had begun to get involved with a little more than 3 years earlier. My first experiences came when I started playing with Mosaic 1.0 and teaching myself Unix in the computer clusters at Syracuse University. Incidentally, or as fate may have it, one of my very first experiences with the Internet browser had me getting a peek at the Pearl Jam album cover for Vitalogy before it came out (just another reason I am so tied to this medium). The book had a glossary of terms and it listed the various search engines and portal sites which had begun to take a foothold online. The book detailed such sites as Yahoo, Excite, Infoseek and Alta Vista. It went into detail, and allowed me to write a POV on the difference between a “search engine” and a “browser”, which at the time was very little because Netscape was both at the time. It talked all about how to get on the internet, through such services as AOL and Compuserve and Prodigy and it spoke about such wonderful places at the “Cool Site of the Day” and IMDB (which is still one of the coolest sites on the Internet).

I wish I knew what that book would do to our lovely little business of advertising.

I’ve had the benefit over the last few weeks of talking to people in traditional ad agencies as well as those who sell for traditional media formats and all of them are still asking the question, “What can I do to stay relevant and useful in the new marketplace”? My answer is eerily similar; start integrating based on strategy rather than focusing on your tool as an executional solution. If you are an agency, get above the differences between online and offline. If you are a radio sales-person, start learning about how digital radio can support traditional formats. If you are a creative shop, you better learn about new programming languages.

That same year I purchased the “Information Superhighway” book I also bought another book; Ogilvy on Advertising. That book was written by David Ogilvy and in it he lays out his fundamentals for how to create effective advertising. His ideas are still applicable now, regardless of media format. He still talks about strategy rather than execution. His ideas can be applied to online just as well as to offline.

Those fundamentals are still applicable, but it is as of the consumer decided to read it too.
The consumer became more intelligent and they began to participate in the exchange of information rather than just be the target. They became assertive and they are selecting the ways in which they allow media into their day.

When I speak to these folks about how to stay relevant I typically tell them something that most other people don’t. I tell them that what they know is still relevant and they are not in need to be starting over from scratch. The fundamentals that David Ogilvy laid out are still there, you just need to be smarter in how you apply them.

The Information Superhighway, as it was originally being called, only served to emphasize that which we already know; that the human being is intelligent, social and selfish. By selfish I mean they are interested only in what interests them as an individual. The technology did not exist before the early 90’s to give them exactly what they want, but now that it’s here they are almost feverish in their adoption and they will do almost anything to quench their thirst for knowledge!

No; the rules have not changed, they’ve just cleaned up and tightened up a bit. For those of you who want to stay relevant, be open to new ideas. Embrace that technology is automating much of the legwork you are used to doing and enjoy the fact that you should be able to focus on what you really enjoy; strategy! Think strategically of how to integrate your radio buys or television buys with digital. If there are media buying services that make it easier for you to sell your product, speak with them. If there are marketplaces emerging for you to sell your services, then use them. If you need to syndicate your content across multiple platforms to reach your audience, then do so.

My best advice to those people still trying to find out the direction to go is to look at the obvious. If you are in the ad business you are in it because you wanted to be creative in some way. Very few of us are here because we love spreadsheets or because we love powerpoint. We are here because we love ideas! Soooo… put those ideas to good use. Accept change, and remember that change is good, and get going!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The 5th P is Passion

I spoke to a friend of mine the other day who handles recruiting for a big internet company and she mentioned that she is seeing lots of recruits leave their existing jobs because their current environment no longer embraces their Passion. People move from job to job sometimes for money and sometimes for other reasons but I find that almost every person will leave where they are when they lose the Passion for it. Think of the last time you spoke to someone who had just left an old job and was heading to a new place… they never start out with the details of their package, they almost always speak first about the excitement they felt or the people they were going to be working with. That thirst for knowledge is what drives our business and it’s what drives us as individuals. That thirst taps into our Passion.

I recently came to the realization that I like the agency world, or whatever you call what we do these days. I realized that I’ve been in the agency world for a number of years now and I’ve been somewhat successful at it because it’s what I am passionate about. Being in an agency, for all its warts, is great because you get paid to think up great ideas on a regular basis. You get to meet with all sorts of smart people with cool new ideas and you get to digest these ideas, merge them with other ideas and develop strategies to drive results. I consider the agency world to be the nexus of innovation when it’s applied correctly and who doesn’t want to be in that center! When those ideas inspire you they tap into your Passions.

The one message that I wanted to get across in today’s column is not about some great new idea or some interesting new trend. It’s not about marketing or advertising, per se at all. It’s not about any of the typical ideas that we write about, it’s about inspiration and Passion. When you get into work and you meet with your clients or your vendors or your co-workers, be sure that what you’re asking them to do is in line with their Passion. When you are evaluating what you should be doing, evaluate whether this is your Passion or not. Over a number of years I’ve seen people come and go from jobs and careers and 100% of the time when someone makes a dramatic shift in their careers it’s because they finally realized they had a different Passion that didn’t match what they were doing day in and day out. If you think about it, while you’re reading this article you are very lucky because you chose to be reading this article and I assume you’re in this field of expertise because it tapped into one of your Passions. You could just have easily been a mortician or any other job that didn’t necessarily speak to your Passions. When you decide what to do each day, be sure you are feeding your Passions because if you are you can never go wrong, no matter what anyone else tells you.

And when it comes time think up a new idea or brainstorm some new methodology where there is a chance to innovate, be sure you think from a perspective which gets you excited and taps into your Passions because the output from that situation will be far better than anything else you could have done.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Stats On The Average American

Here are some fun stats on the average, typical, everyday, mundane American.

There are 303 million people in the United States. Only 10% of US households have more than 5 people, versus 21% in 1970. This means that more people are venturing away from home and the “traditional family unit” is changing now that the Baby Boomers have kids that have “left the roost”. For media, that means the Television and other media habits change to reflect more of their personal interests rather than those of the family unit as a whole.

Approximately 40% of Americans are “on the move” during the 2 hour “rush hour”, which is comprised of people driving to work, taking the bus, taxis, motorcycles, carpools and children riding buses to school. 107 million people drive to work alone. That means there is a lot of time for accessing time shifted and location shifted media via iPods, iPhones, PSP’s and laptops.

The median household income in 2005 was $48,201, but appears to be growing slightly. The problem is most people in America don’t feel it. The rich are getting richer faster than the poor are getting poorer, which skews the data to show an overall increase. As a result, luxury goods and higher ticket items can be impacted as there are a fewer people making a larger position of the wealth, and therefore a smaller target audience to speak to.

People in Advertising Sales appear to be among the happiest one-third of employed Americans; with the unhappiest people by job being Gas Station Attendants (they only make approximately $17,750 per year).

In the US, 1% of the total population makes more than $350,501 per year while 0.01% earns more than $9.6 million per year. What is disturbing about these facts is that the 0.01% with the most income account for approximately 5.1% of all US income.

The average American sees 5-8 movies per year. The average US household has more TV’s than people (2.73 TV’s versus 2.6 people per household). This means that try as we might; TV is still king and “sight, sound and motion” still sells!

71% of US households have an Internet connection, translating to about 31 million homes without access to the Internet. 42% of Americans say they go online and work from home. That means the lines between work and home are continuing to blur, as recently examined when results were published about consumer’s work habits and the penetration of BlackBerry’s and similar devices.

The American goes online 2.1 times at work and 1.2 times at home each day. They visit an average of 6 domains per day and spend an average of 3 hours and 43 minutes online between work and home. That means that although the Internet is large, our personal realms are small.

Americans spend an average of $390 billion/year in restaurants versus $364 billion in the grocery store. That means… that we like to eat out a lot.

Friday, July 11, 2008

When Will P2P Pick Up?

The P2P market is fast trying to push forward with ad-supported models and they are being very aggressive in trying new ideas. Patience is no longer a virtue in the music business as more people are recognizing that digital has effectively increased the opportunity for interaction directly between the artists and the consumers. This is especially important as it’s not all about music in this environment and is now about video as well. This market will mature quickly simply because there is a lot of volume here and it provides an untapped resource with detailed behavioral information. The dirty word of “P2P” will likely go away and advertisers will begin to be more enticed by this environment.

When are they going to figure this all out?

Thursday, July 10, 2008

The Shift Towards On-Demand

If you think about it, consumer culture has been steadily shifting towards an on-demand world for the last thirty years. The VCR, which launched some 25 years ago, was the first step in on-demand content delivery. The web was the first digital step in delivering content to the consumer when they wanted it and was followed by TiVo and the advent of the personal video recorder. Now with the development of a portable digital storage device which is highly popular in the culture and linked to numerous methods of playback, on-demand content is about to take another dramatic step forward. It is the opportunity for on-demand content to be mobile and flexible. This is something the VCR was not-so-good-at.

Being able to download content from the web is big, and the interface for general consumer acceptance of this model is very big, but making that content portable and removing it from the confines of the computer is where the strength of the strategy truly lies. These devices are all equipped to playback on other output devices. There are simple adapters you can buy which allow you to play the video on your iPod over a TV and computer screens are getting larger and higher in quality, making your TV almost obsolete in the first place.

So if it really is this important, why aren't you advertising in downloadable media yet?

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Differences Between Ad Exchanges, Networks and Such

Recently the question was raised of how to differentiate between Ad Networks, Vertical Ad Networks, Ad Exchanges, Buying Services and Rep Firms so we wanted to take a moment to lay the groundwork and explain the differences and how you would utilize them correctly.

The differences between these five categories are based on three primary areas; Technology, Media Exclusivity and Media Buying Methodology. The Technology component refers to whether there is a unifying technology back-end that allows for optimization and measurement across all the sites in the “network” or if they are considered separate and the optimization needs to be executed on a site-by-site basis. The Media Exclusivity component refers to the sites or content being sold and whether you can buy that same inventory elsewhere. The Media Buying Methodology component applies to whether the partner allows for you to buy across a transparent list of sites and whether they own the inventory or they go out and aggregate the inventory on your behalf.

Ad Networks are a collection of small to medium sized sites coupled with remnant inventory from larger publishers that they were not able to sell on their own. These Networks typically have a unifying back-end technology that allows for optimization across their entire network. They typically do not have Media Exclusivity and in many cases any number of networks are capable of selling you the same inventory. This is especially true when they are selling you remnant inventory from the major portals. Ad Networks typically are not transparent on the sites you run and the primary way you buy media from them is either based on demographics or contextual categories. They usually also offer regional targeting.

Vertical Ad Networks are similar to general Ad Networks except in three ways. First off, they focus their attention on a specific category such as auto, entertainment, women or travel. Secondly, they typically are exclusive in their representation meaning that you cannot purchase that inventory from somewhere else. They focus on the small to medium sized sites in a specific category; those sites with too little traffic independently to make it on a larger buy or to hire a sales staff. Lastly, they are typically willing to be transparent and share with you the sites you are buying.

An Ad Exchange is slightly different than both an Ad Network and a Vertical Ad Network. Ad Exchanges are similar in that they are also a collection of small and medium sizes sites as well as remnant inventory from major publishers. The Technology component here is intricately tied to the Media Buying Methodology. These sites offer a marketplace or an auction that allows advertisers to control their buys more deeply and bid on inventory rather than place a standard buy. Think of it as going to the supermarket and paying whatever costs the store has laid out for you vs. going to a farmer’s market and negotiating in real-time for what you want. You can identify the produce you want and make bids right there and you would be willing to pay a premium for a perfectly ripe tomato vs. one that was too early or too late. The Technology ensures that Publishers and Advertisers are achieving their optimal ROI. Ad Exchanges are typically not media exclusive.

A Buying Service may appear on the outside to be a network, but they do not actually own the rights to sell or represent specific media. A Buying Service makes it easier for you, the advertiser, by becoming an effective one stop shop for your media needs. From a Technology standpoint, they do not offer much except for possible buying tools that create a more efficient process. They are not media exclusive and their buying methodology is the same as yours; CPM, CPC and CPA.

A Rep Firm can also appear to be like a network, but they do not have any technology that ties together their sites, they are typically not exclusive and they are indeed transparent in their product offerings. What a Rep Firm effectively does is leverage existing relationships with advertisers and marketers to provide a service for Publishers. They can be a one-stop shop for advertisers looking to reach different audience and they make it easier to hear about different sites in one meeting, but that is their primary role. They are a valued service as not every site can hire the necessary staff to grow and in the early stages of a company’s growth they become a cost-effective way to drive revenue without creating more overhead.

That should help explain the differences, so please let us know!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Geeking Out On Social Networks

Ever hear of a model called “Metcalfe’s Law”? Metcalfe’s Law is a mathematical formula applied to a network to try and predict valuation within a communications network. It was developed by a gentleman named Robert Metcalfe who also developed Ethernet. The law states that in a communications network, the value of the network is proportional to the square of the number of its users. In mathematical terms it is stated as n(n-1) with “n” representing the total number of members in the network.

I learned about this from my friend who works on Wall Street trading technology and I found it immediately interesting because it can be applied to the growth of the online social network. If you apply this to MySpace and Facebook, the social networks of the day, you can almost come up with an idea of how they were valuated so high and why companies like Facebook and now YouTube continue to be valued through the roof. That being said, the article I was given actually spent its entire time debunking Metcalfe’s Law and I found myself doing the same. What I couldn’t understand was how the model took into account the value of the communications going on between members. It assumes that everyone’s messaging was valued the same which I don’t agree with.

My rationale for turning this into a math lecture is that it provides an insight into how marketers may utilize social networks. What is important for marketers to learn is how their target audience is using this space. To date we focus on who they are and their demographics and then try to expose them to advertising or we create profiles pages for brands and products in the hope they will link to them and integrate them into their lifestyle. This works for some products and services, but not for everyone.

What we need to do is empower these people to spread a message on our behalf and then compensate them for the number of relevant communications stemming from their efforts.

I know these companies are headed in this direction, but I am not sure how to get there. Hopefully someone smarter than me can figure it out!

Monday, July 7, 2008

Apple's Media Buying Team Is Good

Whoever buys the online media for Apple are definitely doing two things right.

First off, they are obviously sitting in the same room together and working on ideas in tandem. If you missed the Vista buy on CNET a number of months back, check the homepage of CNN today and watch the "PC Newswire" ad from Apple. It is pure brilliance.

The second thing they are doing well is utilizing the placements in the proper manner. I'm sure trafficking these buys can be cumbersome, but the creative actually matches the content in most examples and I find this to be an art unto itself. Media is sometimes a forgotten art because people don't remember that it's about more than just click through rates and conversion rates. The proper placement can bring exponentially positive performance to an ad. The proper marriage of placement and message can actually affect consumer behavior and move the needle on consumerism. It's not always about click through!

Anyways, check out the newest round of Apple ads and prepare for the eventual response that Crispin Porter are most likely working on even as we speak.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Happy 4th of July Everyone!

If you are reading this post, please stop immediately and go outside and enjoy yourself!

Whoo hoo!!




Thursday, July 3, 2008

Some Of The Basics In Mobile Marketing

For those of you who might be looking for some quick down and dirty basics on mobile marketing and what the terminology and standards are like, check out the link below to a mobile marketing blog I discovered and a particular post that I found to be very insightful. I think it can help!


Mobivity blog


Have a great read and tell them who sent you if you find the site intersting! That way I get more traffic!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Today's Featured Blog: TopRankBlog

There are lots and lots of marketing blogs out there so I thought that I might take some time to highlight a few of the ones that I like this week.


The first one I felt like writing about is TopRankBlog. The blog is very straight forward and it's well written. There are a few bloggers that write in this location, but one of the folks who writes the most is Lee Odden. He recaps conferences and various discussions in a quick and timely manner and his information is solid. There are a few other writers on the site, but I like his posts the most (not to knock the rest, these are just the ones that stand out).


Oh - and they love to take pictures. Pictures always add to a blog, unlike mine which is a statement of how lazy I get and that i never take pictures. maybe i should start and more people will read my blog :-)


Anyways, check them out when you have time.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Looking For A Job?

If you're looking to find a job in our fun-lovin' internet advertising industry, it shouldn't really be too difficult. Agencies are understaffed and overworked and sales people with some level of experience are in high, high demand. If you've got more than a year of experience and you can back it up with some practical knowledge, there are lots of options for you.


Of course, not everyone has networked their way around the industry so sometimes you have to start with the appropriate listing sites. The other way to do it is to find a recruiter you like, that you can trust, and that you don't mind talking to on a regular basis (it's sort of like finding a real estate agent - you'll be talking to this person quite a bit until you find what you want, so you need to make sure that you like them). I am not going to focus on the recruiters here, but I am going to help you find the places to go for the right kinds of listings.


If you want to find the appropriate listings, check any of these sites:

There are certainly other places to go, but these are as good as any to start!

Good luck getting the gig you want!