2009 saw an evolution in media and marketing communications. This has created many challenges and opportunities. Here’s what it meant to our people…

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Posted by: Carmen Campbell
Thanks to: Mitchell Communication Group contributors

Part of the attraction for consumers in the digital world is the notion that with greater interactivity comes more freedom and flexibility to find the information they need. Not what the media or advertisers think they need.

In 2009 we have seen an evolution of this consumer trend. Rather than people using search as their only tool to get information, people started to sit back and wait to be alerted by the things (be it a brand or a person) that are important in their lives.

The attraction? Relevance. Consumers want relevant information and they want it in a relevant delivery format.

Here are a just a few examples, but this is an area we will see evolving to new levels in 2010. Now is the time for your brand to start considering how it can alert consumers.

Mediclim.com is an email alert system that offers subscribers weather-related health alerts, specific to their disease, with additional email newsletters providing information on how to avoid problems and what to do if they do arise.

Kogi bbq alert Twitter followers when they are in their local neighbourhood.

Brazilian Transit Authority uses Twitter to let people know about traffic news in their area and invites people to share their experiences too.

This is an important trend to watch because it changes the relationship people have with brands to an even more intimate one. It also changes the way we, as communication specialists, approach audience targeting. No longer is it always relevant to build a target group by age or demographic. For this purpose, targeting parameters should also be built around psychographic dimensions like attitudes, behaviours and interests to ensure we are creating a target with a certain mindset and relevancy to the brand.

Posted by: Carmen Campbell
Thanks to: Kogi bbq, Brazilian Transit Authority, Mediclim and Trendwatching.com

Technology brands are increasingly shedding their traditionally dry, rational messaging and shifting their approach in connecting with audiences. A far cry from the stereotypical geek image, these brands are placing the notion of entertainment core to their strategy.

Apple started this a long time ago and of course continues today with the evolution of its Mac vs. PC campaign into the online space.
Press play below…

The PC vs. Mac dialogue we are all familiar with continues by interacting with other seemingly static banner ads. It’s new, it’s innovative and just what we’d expect from Apple.

But innovation isn’t always what you’d expect from others in this category. Fun is at the centre of this strategy that was used to launch Microsoft Vista, demonstrating the home is a theme park of entertainment. And it did it by bringing home entertainment to the streets of New Zealand.

And HP put its trust in the hands of students with its HP Invent campaign, briefing students to promote HP’s workstation’s ability. The prize: a job in the creative industry. Tom Wrigglesworth and Matt Robinson got busy filming, achieving popular results with 339,000 views on Vimoe and 63,000 on YouTube.

Proof enough that technology brands are moving into a more entertaining territory? A good progression and in a world where content is forming the basis of our lives, an absolute must for advertisers today.

P.S. Another amusing one here from b2b marketers:

Posted by: Carmen Campbell
Thanks to: Y&R New Zealand, Microsoft, Apple, Contagious, Cool Hunter, HP, Intel, Madnonnie

A hard-hitting message, softly executed. Here Hellmann’s, It’s Time for Real campaign proves you don’t have to be dry and boring to educate your audience on an in-depth, statistically laden topic.

Hellmann’s wanted to let people in Canada know it was supporting the movement towards local produce. The campaign was centered around this three minute execution which launched on a website dedicated to the cause. After two months, 100,000 unique views of the content had been made on the site - exceeding Hellmann’s goal by 400%.

Posted by: Carmen Campbell
Thanks to: Hellmann’s, Contagious

Simon Small, Digital Strategist at Visual Jazz (VJs) in Melbourne, has noticed a distinct lack of planning in the digital space. He thinks it’s contributing to a reduction in ROI and clients are missing out.

He also thinks our approach to ROI needs to be broader than measuring sales – that it should consider things like brand awareness and perception.

Here’s our conversation with him:

Q. Hi Simon, thanks for joining us this month. Let’s get started, how did you make your entrance into digital?

A. I got into digital in 2003. I started a digital & design agency providing technical solutions to marketing problems. I realised pretty quickly that it was marketing that solved clients’ problems, not technology!

This year I started at VJs. I’m tasked with reporting, analysis and planning, as well as introducing social media to the agency and clients. I’m currently working with Holden, Tourism Vic, Defence Recruiting and National Foods.

Simon Small,
Digital Strategist,
Visual Jazz, Melbourne

Q. What are you currently most passionate about in this space?

A. I’m passionate about having clear goals so we can develop smart plans that deliver ROI. It doesn’t need to be based on sales and leads, but other measures like brand awareness and perception. Too often I see good work put down as a failure and bad work hailed as a success for the wrong reasons.

Our industry can have an addiction to clicks and not put enough value on the reach of a banner ad, or social media discussions about a brand.

Q. So what else should brands be measuring?

A. Assuming conversions are the campaign objective, a conversion is when the customer reaches a point on the website showing they’ve moved down the purchase funnel. This is usually simply measured by an online sale or an enquiry.

But visiting ‘contact us’, downloading technical information or even returning to the website two weeks later, are all positive signs that the customer is closer to a sale – all too often these behaviours are not measured as success.

It can also come down to asking the right questions. A campaign’s data might show that TV beat all other media in terms of reach, but if the dollars spent on TV were 10 times that spent on online, you’re not comparing like-for-like. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves to dig below the first level of results.

Q. Where does your passion for ROI come from – isn’t digital the place for ROI?

A. Often the digital world is a new place for many marketers, or they’re trying something new within this space. I believe that too often technology & excitement get in the way of a good idea & outcome.

Q. How so?

A. QR codes, augmented reality & Twitter are all examples that create enormous buzz and marketers/agencies develop ideas that use these technologies. Not because it makes sense but because it’s new and exciting. I feel marketers sometimes don’t know what they’re measuring and planners don’t ask, so ROI doesn’t even come into it.

Q. So what comes first - ROI or effective planning?

A. The first step is setting goals. These form a foundation for carrying out insightful research, to develop a smart plan and creative to connect with your consumer. With clear goals you can then measure the ROI of various elements or the entire activity.

Q. What would you say is effective planning?

A. Good plans have research to back them up, clear articulation of goals, consumer insight, full channel media consideration, good creative idea and performance measures (based on previous campaigns) to track if it’s working or not. Where I see planning fall down often is in the last 20% - the detail. So many plans are theoretical rhetoric that don’t actually say anything.

Q. Any pointers to pass on?

A. Two key points:

1. Consider multiple channels within digital media

There are so many powerful channels, technologies and tactics - search, banners, email marketing, smart websites, games, social, mobile apps, mobile sites and SMS marketing to name a few.

Some of these channels are not yet cluttered and great media deals can be cut because you’re not competing for the space.

2. If you build it they won’t automatically come

The whole funnel matters - a good banner ad that points to a bad website is a wasted banner. A great website or game won’t get traffic unless you point people there. Email marketing is a massively under-utilised channel.

You could build on a standard banner campaign by building a targeted landing page for that banner, encourage email signups, and then send people targeted, relevant emails and send them to targeted landing pages, then deliver targeted banners ads.

More simply, look at how many people are dropping out of the shopping cart or enquiry form, or where they’re bouncing from on your website – a 10% reduction on people leaving could equate to thousands of enquiries and sales.

Q. What does ROI mean to clients today? What does it mean to VJs?

A. ROI is not well understood by many clients and it’s not always relevant. Digital is a great medium because it is instantly measurable so you can fix problems & see opportunities early, resulting in better outcomes. It’s critical to VJs as we are very transparent with our clients and if something’s not working we’ll tell them so we can improve it.

Q. Thanks Simon, valuable discussion. Outside of ROI what do you see happening in 2010 in the digital space?

A. Thanks to Android and the iPhone, mobile’s year is finally upon us. With such a massive uptake in the iPhone it’s becoming more viable for marketers to invest in mobile activity. Moving forward, we’ll also continue to see brands stepping into the social media space, with more examples of it being done well and less of it being done badly.

The Retail/FMCG sector will start to embrace digital media and I think it will shake up the way a few businesses work.

Finally, internet spend will move closer to eclipsing TV spend as it did in the UK this year. It’ll happen for us in late 2010 or early 2011.

In his spare time Simon is an avid blogger on all things digital. from.simontsmall.com

Thanks to: Simon Small, Digital Strategist, Visual Jazz
Posted by: Carmen Campbell

When Nike thinks innovation it thinks progression. So at this year’s Tour de France it created the Chalkbot to raise money and awareness for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Born out of the observation that every year supporters of the Tour de France write chalk messages on the streets surrounding the race, Nike followed suit – it just turned up the volume, a lot …

People were invited to send in messages of support via Twitter, SMS and wearyellow.com – then in turn, the Chalkbot would print these messages on the pavements surrounding the race.

The Chalkbot looks like this and has a computer inside which happily received people’s messages and then printed them out on the streets.

It didn’t stop there – Nike then took photos of the messages and sent them back to the person who requested the message in the first place. They were also posted on wearyellow.com on a Google Map so people could see exactly where the messages came from.

What eventuated was a collaboration between traditional and very non-traditional communication specialists to ensure people saw these tangible voices of support move into social media networks, where word of mouth became a powerful driver.

Well done to all involved. This is a campaign that required insight, patience and the support of everyday people to be a success.

Posted by: Carmen Campbell
Thanks to: Nike Chalkbot, Contagious