Category archive: Marketing

Friday, May 19, 2006

Notes from the Blogs & Social Media Forum

I just got my notes on Wednesday’s VNU Blogs & Social Media Forum back (thanks, Adriana!). They’re not comprehensive, because there were points when I just wanted to listen and not write. Where no quotation marks are used or I am not obviously relating a point made by a specific person, the words are reflective of my own thoughts, not necessarily the words of the speakers.

(I also only took down notes for a few presentations. Sue me.)

"Notes from the Blogs & Social Media Forum" continued...

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The problem with (most) marketing

Marketers don’t know what they want because their model is that they capture something about the users and then blast something to them when they don’t want it.

Eric Norlin, commenting during Jeff Jarvis‘s Syndicate “unkeynote,” as blogged by David Weinberger

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Lego redefining value in our online world

In Lego Factory, now not broken, Chris Anderson talks about Lego creating value in the digital age. You just need to think sideways sometimes to crack the thorny issue of how a company survives in today’s world.

Lego Factory is the company’s service that allows you to design your own models and have the parts sent to you in a cool Lego kit-style box (and share your designs with others in a Lego marketplace). It’s a great idea, but it’s been hampered in the past by gnarly fulfillment issues that inflated the cost of the kits by including too many pieces you don’t need.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at Communities Dominate Brands

Saturday, May 13, 2006

They're all in the ad business now

When the demand side of a voluntary exchange starts supplying itself, the traditional suppliers are going to get scared. To wit, all of the exploding business models around us (newspapers, music, movies, and TV just for starters).

The same fear is being felt by companies when it comes to their ads. This is, of course, because it’s so cheap and easy for people to bring to life their own creations - people who are connected to the most powerful distribution network in history.

These companies usually aren’t connected to that network, though they think they are. 

"They're all in the ad business now" continued...

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Mobile marketing: The emergency you may be ignoring

A new study by Harris Interactive and Enpocket, about UK young adult behaviour with mobile phones reveals some alarming changes in behaviour that should wake up brand managers. The study was reported in the Digital Bulletin of the Brand Republic.

The study reveals that 60% of UK young adults between ages of 18-34 have consumed content on their mobile phones in the past 3 months - but much more significantly for anyone working in advertising, branding and marketing communications: 57% of British young adults have interacted with a brand using SMS text messaging on their phones....

For this age group - and MUCH MORE SO their younger sisters and brothers - the mobile phone is their absolute number one device. They are addicted to it, the mobile phone is a projection of their own persona and the lifeline to all of their friends (at all times), as we describe in our chapter on Generation-C for Community in our book. So forget the Playstation Portables, the iPods and laptops. TV? Its so last century!  You HAVE to talk to young people on the device that is their preference, the mobile phone.

But what is their favourite application on that phone? It is not voice. Voice is for us old geezers. Young people clearly prefer SMS text messaging. Even when they are kicked off the broadband internet connection at home, logging off their instant messengers, the kids take their mobile phones to bed and spend the next hour or two sending still more messages. Like the famous Belgian study of 2500 teenagers revealed, 20% of kids are awoken REGULARLY from sleep by their friends texting them at night.

So now we find out that in the UK in the under 34 year age group, over half are already familiar with interacting with brands using their favourite tool, the mobile phone and its absolute top favourite service: SMS. I bet the numbers would be dramatically higher if this latest survey was of the age group of 13-18 year olds.

So SOMEONE is already talking with your ideal target customers, using the preferred tool and method. Why are YOU not doing it? How much longer can you wait?

Like Alan and I have written in our book and we’ve blogged about so many times already - more people can be reached by SMS than by e-mail or instant messaging. More have mobile phones than have personal computers or TVs. More people have mobile phones than have credit cards or loyalty cards. It is the seventh mass media, and as much different from the web, as the internet was different from TV, or how much TV was different from magazines. How much longer can you dare to wait before you start to engage with your customers using the most personal of all mass media, the only always-on mass media, the always-carried mass media and the only mass media with a built-in payment mechanism?

Oh yeah, and the mobile phone can of course replicate all the attributes of the previous six mass media, including text, pictures, voice, moving images, and interactivity. Yes, the mobile phone can do everything each of the previous six mass media can do - but the mobile phone adds four critical elements that NONE of the previous six mass media can do today.

Isn’t it about time? When will you write your mobile marketing strategy? When will you start to engage your customers with SMS? Oh, and should you feel you’d like a bit of guidance, Alan and I will love to come and help you along.