The Future of Ad Agencies and Social Media

To keep up with ever-changing advertising and marketing options, ad agencies are rapidly adopting new strategies and outlooks on how consumers interact with brands. While many ad agencies have been slow to adopt social media, others have been keeping up with the trends quite well.

But keeping up with change is never good enough in this industry; the most successful, game-changing campaigns are generally a bit ahead of the curve. It’s not enough to hitch your star to an existing facet of viral content; you have to create the content yourself. And you can’t wait for mass markets to catch up to new technologies before you begin thinking about how to incorporate new tech into campaigns and creative; you need to test how that tech will work now. Mobile and social ads are no longer new; what’s more interesting now is figuring out how brands can integrate creatively and effectively with location apps and casual games.

We talked with five people who are familiar with the connected worlds of digital media and ad agencies, and here’s what they had to say about the future of social media and advertising.
Software Is the New Medium

Tom Bedecarré is CEO of AKQA, an agency well-regarded for its digital and interactive work, a field in which AKQA specializes; you can see some recent examples of that work on the agency’s Facebook page.

He told us in an e-mail recently, “One of the newest forms of media is not media at all, but software and platforms. Increasingly, AKQA is developing applications and marketing platforms that provide greater utility, entertainment and information to our clients’ customers without relying on traditional media channels. One example of this is the Fiat eco:Drive application we created that allows Fiat drivers to monitor their driving skills and fuel efficiency and helps drivers to lower CO² emissions.”

More and more, agencies will be called on to be (or at least have the capacity to behave as) short-order web and mobile dev shops. You’ll need to make sure your creatives have access to skilled hackers and experienced web designers; you might even consider including a few highly technical, very creative engineers in your creative team, not just as part-time or freelance collaborators.
Groups and Friends: The Power of the Hive Mind

If you want to get inside your clients’ customers’ heads, just take a look at what their friends and peers are doing, saying and buying.

We asked David Armano, Senior Vice President at Edelman Digital, if he thought group or friend buying behavior could be used as a recommendation system for goods and services. His answer was resoundingly affirmative.

“If the numbers behind Groupon’s recent success with The Gap is any indicator, the answer is yes.” For reference, the partnership between the group-buying site and the national retailer completely smashed sales records for both entities with a simple digital coupon.

But group buying is most powerful when combined with sharing across social networks.

“The key,” continued Armano, “is that the group buying activity needs to be be present in your friends’ streams. Combine ‘likes’ with mass purchase behavior, and you’ve got the perfect storm of a signal that says, ‘Your friend got in on the deal, maybe you should too.’”
Transparency Is Still a Long Way Off

Part of the art of selling is the illusion that the company is doing what’s best for the consumer and not for their own bottom line.

We asked Jeremy Toeman, founding partner of San Francisco-based agency Stage Two if he thought online marketing has (or should have) more or less transparency in this regard than traditional marketing.

“This might sound odd,” he began, “but I actually think online marketing has less transparency than traditional does.

“In traditional marketing, your advertising was effectively blatant, from TV/radio/newspaper ad buys to junk mail to billboards on the side of the road. Online companies use tactics like SEO, spam/spam-blogs, pop-ups, text-link-ads, fake viral videos, etc.”

Steve Hall, creator and editor of industry blog Adrants, wrote in 2008 that most of the “viral” videos then (particularly the “guys backflip into jeans” clip that ended up being part of a Levi’s campaign) were, in fact, advertisements. And earlier this year, another tattoo-related fake viral video was discovered to be a marketing gimmick from Ray Ban. Fake virility isn’t limited to YouTube (YouTube); often, we find commercial entities trying to “push” supposedly non-commercial content on platforms such as Digg (Digg), Facebook (Facebook) and Twitter (Twitter).

Of course, consumers don’t figure it out… until they do. And they’re getting more savvy about fake transparency all the time.

Toeman believes brands and agencies should strive for more genuine methods of bringing an advertising message to consumers. “Personally,” he said, “I’d nix all the ‘hide the fact that this is an ad’ tactics completely and eliminate the methods of gaming systems.”

If you need more convincing that labeling ads as ads might be a good thing, consider Old Spice’s recent campaign. Pure creativity and Internet (Internet)-culture awareness drove a YouTube campaign that was very clearly advertising; still, the company’s sales doubled as a result of the YouTube clips.
Location Campaigns Are the New Targeting Mechanism

In the past couple weeks, Foursquare took over Times Square and Facebook launched Places. Clearly, location-based services and related ad campaigns are going to become huge very shortly.

“We’re right at the beginning of an exciting time for the development of location-based services and marketing that integrates geo-location into advertising and applications,” said Bedecarré. “Recent announcements by Facebook and Google (Google) reflect the importance of location services.”

Hall says location-based marketing “will change everything.” He explained:

“With the ability to target people only when they are within purchasing distance, brands will be able to come that much closer to targeting nirvana. Offers can be made only to those meeting certain location (and even demographic) requirements, reducing waste and actually saving a brand a lot of money by minimizing its old school spray-and-pray mass marketing techniques. In a nutshell, mobile will, once and for all, make it possible for a marketer to target without waste.”

Getting your clients thinking now about how to integrate location and checkins into a campaign is key. While we can’t yet construct fully formed campaigns around Facebook Places, there are a slew of other services you can use as case studies for an at-scale campaign.

Starbucks, which does an excellent job in the social media advertising and marketing category, has seen good results from a recent Foursquare (foursquare) campaign, as have many other brands. And they were right to jump on the bandwagon early. Between the intelligence you can gather about your clients’ customers and your ability to find more highly qualified targets than ever before, location is indeed the holy grail for advertisers.
Display Ads Are Evolving

Jesse Thomas runs one of the most forward-thinking creative agencies around, but he’s not ready to pick out a headstone for display ads just yet. However, he did tell us that “the usual suspects” of banner ads and skyscrapers are definitely undergoing a change.

“Facebook’s ads have singlehandedly made ads social,” he wrote to us in an e-mail. “The idea of ‘liking’ an ad is genius… The idea of advertising a Page in Facebook via the Facebook ad engine and being able to access special advertising powers is nothing short of revolutionary. In a world of [expletive] Google text ads, Facebook’s social ads are a breath of fresh air. But we have a long way to go!”

And not all of Google’s ad-buy offerings are as excremental as Thomas thinks the text ads can be. “Google offered the ability to integrate the Facebook checkout (one-click purchase) option to their ads, and that was awesome at the time. You will see more of this in the future: Making ads better by integrating features from other parts of the platform that are no longer cool anymore.”

In other words, display can still be part of your ad buys and collateral, but you have to think creatively, target carefully, measure thoroughly and react accordingly. Use all the tools at your disposal to do so.

Jolie O'Dell for Mashable.

Free steak, if you're smart

Thanks to Media Post Publications bringing this piece of work to our attention...

In this down economy, upscale restaurants suffer greatly now that expense accounts are closely watched.
How can one enjoy a nice, juicy steak without looking irresponsible?
Enter ExpenseASteak.com, a site promoting Maloney & Porcelli, an upscale NYC steakhouse
Here's how it works.
Enter the cost of your meal into the generator, wait patiently for numbers to crunch, then download a PDF of various receipts totaling your meal amount. Genius.

Walrus created the site.

10 Corporate Twitter Accounts Worth Following

Thanks PCMAG for this on business tweating

These companies have found interesting, inventive ways to engage customers on Twitter.

02.28.09

Total posts: 2

by Sean Ludwig

Buzz up!on Yahoo!

Twitter isn't just about finding out about plane crashes and what your best friend ate for lunch. Its uses are evolving, and big corporations are joining the fun. Some corporate accounts serve as a boring PR tool that spews press releases and follows everyone who tweets about their company. But others have found interesting, inventive ways to engage customers on Twitter.

Some corporations, namely @Palm_Inc and @WholeFoods, have used the service to release news and answer questions. Others, such as @DellOutlet and @MotoDeals, have become a hot place to go to find great deals on merchandise. And not to be outdone, companies like @ComcastCares, and @HRBlock, have used Twitter as a new extension to customer service, allowing near real-time responses to difficult questions.

We've compiled a list of 10 corporate Twitter accounts that can either help you in a jam or allow you to give instant product and service feedback to someone who will actually get the message.

1. @Palm_Inc – Palm has taken the inventive step of using Twitter to break news. It also uses the account to respond to customer queries.

2. @JetBlue – JetBlue gives travel tips and answers customer questions all day long.

3. @WholeFoods – Whole Foods gives trivia tips about its company, answers questions, and makes suggestions on where to donate to charity.

4. @HTC – HTC answers customer questions and lets them know about the latest product news, often before it lets the media know.

5. @DellOutlet – Dell's Outlet Twitter feed has more than 100,000 followers, and rightly so. It lets users know about incredible, and often very brief, deals.

6. @HRBlock – Just in time for tax season, H&R Block has a Twitter account that answers your tax prep questions and gives helpful hints.

7. @SouthwestAir – Southwest Airlines answers customer questions and gives a glimpse into the lives of Southwest employees.

8. @MotoDeals – Motorola's deal Twitter account gives followers links to great offers and tips on using the company's products.

9. @ComcastCares – The official Comcast Twitter account is a useful extension of its customer service outlet. One of our very own staffers tried the service out and was able to lower his cable bill through it.

10. @Starbucks – Starbucks uses its account to receive customer feedback, give information about new products, and quickly answer questions.

Cymbolism - Mass Interactive

Cymbolism is a new website that attempts to quantify the association between colors and words, making it simple for designers to choose the best colors for the desired emotional effect. Taking web 2.0 folksonomy to the next stage, users are invited to organize the definition of color itself with word associations and tags.

And here is the site: http://www.cymbolism.com/

Thanks to Fallon Planning for this post:
http://fallontrendpoint.blogspot.com/

AdAge's Digital A list for 2008

Digital A-List 2008: No.1, Unilever

Digital Marketer of the Year Scores by Making Web Tactics Part of Its Mainstream Marketing Plans

Here's the funny thing about Unilever being Digital Marketer of the Year: It doesn't really do digital campaigns.

Digital A-List 2008: No. 2, AKQA

Ad Age's Digital Agency of the Year Is Actually in the Business of Product Innovation

Fourteen years after it started as a boutique in London, AKQA has become a global powerhouse. In 2007, the San Francisco-based agency reached nearly 700 employees; revenue was up about 40% to $99 million; and new-client wins included Kraft Foods, Unilever, Cadbury Schweppes and Motorola, adding to a roster that already included Nike, Visa, McDonald's Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Coca-Cola Co.

Digital A-List 2008: No. 3, Google

Search Giant Strikes Deal With Publicis, and Doesn't Lose Share Upgrading Rivals

Convincing ad agencies that it was friend, not foe, was imperative for Google if it wanted to start snagging the big-brand budgets major agencies control, and the barely 10-year-old company was effective enough in that campaign that it struck a deal with Publicis Groupe to share ideas, co-develop products and exchange employees.

Digital A-List 2008: No. 4, NYTimes.com

Ending an Unpopular Experiment to Capture Circ Revenue Has Paid Off

When The New York Times' website demolished the pay walls that had separated its columns and other premium content from the freeloading hoi polloi, it sealed a spot on the Digital A-List.

Digital A-List 2008: No. 5, Apple's iPhone

Changed Consumers' Perception of the Mobile Phone

No doubt Apple's sleek touch-screen iPhone is changing the look and feel of mobile phones. But more important, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has given mobile marketing a major boost with his iPhone.

Digital A-List 2008: No. 6, Digitas

Agency's Acquisition by Publicis Has Helped Shop Think Big Picture

Digitas continues to move beyond its roots as a direct-marketing agency to becoming a strong full-service digital partner that engages marketers building brands and businesses.

Digital A-List 2008: No. 7, J&J's BabyCenter

E-commerce Site Is Dominating Digital Mommyhood

Johnson & Johnson's BabyCenter is aiming for global domination and to follow moms beyond the confines of its website.

Digital A-List 2008: No. 8, Baidu

The 'Google of China' Is Moving Past Text-Based Search to Video, IM

Baidu.com is known as the "Google of China," the world's second-largest online market. Baidu has a dominant 62% share of China's search-engine market, according to China IntelliConsulting Corp. Google is the No. 2 player, with a 22.7% share, followed by Yahoo at 10.8%.

Digital A-List 2008: No. 9, ESPN

Its First-Round Knockdown at the Hands of Mobile Led to a Surprising Comeback

Keeping ahead of the game has been ESPN's signature play through the evolution of media, from its traditional TV base to print to its newer digital efforts.

Digital A-List 2008: No. 10, 'Cloverfield'

A Chancy Experiment Created an Immersive Online Marketing Experience

The J.J. Abrams-produced horror movie "Cloverfield" played hard to get through the late summer and fall of 2007. A mysterious online movement was a key ingredient in the run-up to the movie.

Digital A-List 2008: Next in Line

From Rising Star Tribal DDb to ... 'Whopper Freakout'?

In the end, we chose 10. But there was plenty of debate over who should make this year's A-List. Maybe it's no surprise that a burgeoning global power like Tribal DDB would come close, but a purveyor of flame-broiled burgers? These players' remarkable forays in the digital realm show new media's not just for tech companies.

Digital A-List 2008 Executive of the Year: Brian McAndrews

As Microsoft's Ad-Solutions VP, He Is Helping Map the Giant's Online Future

While many industry watchers have proclaimed the wisdom of Microsoft's Brian McAndrews, it's less his willingness to tackle the unproven path ahead and more the foresight in his past at aQuantive -- and that whopping exit strategy -- that makes him Ad Age's Digital Executive of the Year.

McDonald's is Launching Their Own Virtual World

This Is Smart Business.
by: Scott Goodson thanks to FutureLab

What can we learn from McDonald's creating their own virtual world? That they are moving into their own customized world says one thing to me, that it will become more valuable for brands to create and curate their own virtual worlds rather than joining existing public virtual worlds.

The reason being that the brand not only benefits from being in an innovative virtual world, but it owns the media and, over time this media, will become more and more valuable. Very smart marketing on the part of the firm and equally smart business.
From Virtual Worlds: McDonald's is apparently in the process of soft-launching a virtual world to take over HappyMeal.com. It's not clear how old the world is, but the contest is still open for kids to pick the virtual world's name--and, according to the intro video, new games, lands, events, etc., to build the world from the ground up based on videos.. So I'm guessing the transition is pretty new, possibly even just from last week. There is already an eye toward real-world integration: entering a code from actual Happy Meal boxes and bags as well as McDonald's milk cartons and Apple Dipper bags will let users unlock exclusive items in the Flash-based virtual world. Treehouse There are also already a fair number of environments available for play in addition to a customizable treehouse where you can store some of your virtual goods. Other items will customize users' avatars, add interactive pets, or feature interactive characters from movies, comic books, and TV shows. Aside from the cost of a Happy Meal, the website says everything is free for its users. Users can also earn points towards purchases simply by completing activities in the virtual world, but it seems like there will still be exclusive items available only for McDonald's customers. There also appears to be a metagame, where characters earn points and have "smarts," "strength," and "spark," stats. Points are earned through all the in-world activities, and the goal is to "keep your avatar happy" by keeping all three stats at their maximum level while playing. I'm not sure what that does, though. In addition to the casual games, there are also larger quests for users to complete as interactive stories throughout the world. Piratebay The registration process doesn't take much information from users, keeping it fairly private. Users can also simply login quickly as guests without providing any information. Of course, then they can't build their characters and houses over time. On the safety side, users can chat and add to a buddy list, but it looks like chat is done entirely through pre-set phrases. However, while there's a "Parent's Retreat" on the main site, I can't find any information specifically about the virtual world to confirm its safety precautions.

Original Post: http://scottgoodson.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/08/mcdonalds-is-launching-their-own-virtual-world-this-is-smart-business.html

New York Times links up with LinkedIn

Thanks Wendy for sharing this post from the guardian. A big move into site convergence based on open-id concepts. Great stuff and a pointer for how publishers should be embracing the social web. I'm sure keeping it as a 'must-activate' function has allayed any data security fears.

• Jemima Kiss
• guardian.co.uk,

The New York Times will be able to serve targeted web stories to business and technology users following a deal with social networking site LinkedIn.

Aiming to strengthen its audience among the business community, NYTimes.com will show five relevant headlines in a right-hand box, with stories selected based on the industry, location, role, company and gender of the user's LinkedIn profile.

A LinkedIn button next to stories will invite users to share and discuss news with contacts on their LinkedIn network.

Users need to activate their LinkedIn account within NYTimes.com to launch the service.

NYTimes.com's objective is to increase the volume of traffic from business executives and the entrepreneurial community, which is a valuable audience for advertisers.

"This relationship expands NYTimes.com's targeting capability and creates a powerful incentive for advertisers to leverage LinkedIn's and NYTimes.com's combined reach of the business community," said Denise Warren, the senior vice-president and chief advertising officer for the New York Times Media Group.

"Advertisers are constantly looking for context, content and quality brands and this approach delivers just that."

LinkedIn claims that 25 million professional people have registered with the site since it launched in May 2003, while measurement firm Nielsen Online estimated that NYTimes.com scored 17.7 million unique users during June.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

How to create a culture of high performance

Thanks to Rob for finding this article from Accenture. Some thoughts include:

1. Maintaining the right balance between market-making and disciplined execution

2. Obsessively identifying and multiplying talent

3. Using a selective scorecard to measure business performance

4. Recognising technology as a strategic asset

5. Emphasizing continuous renewal

For the full article visit:

http://www.accenture.com/NR/rdonlyres/3F0FC8D5-0029-4AA9-A0B3-5F5508F97ECE/0/OutlookPDF_Jan07_Leadership_02.pdf

5 ways to ruin your industry reputation

Sean Cheyney from iMedia Connection discusses the top 5 ways to flush your industry reputation down the toilet:

1. Bash your competition regularly
2. Consistently over-promise and under-deliver
3. Be sneaky
4. Be a stalker
5. Too much information

Visit http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19697.asp for the full article.

Business trends to look out for in 2008

Thanks to FutureLab for this post:

Endless Innovation Business Trends: June 2008
by: Dominic Basulto

Largely as an outgrowth of client work over the past quarter, I've put together a brief overview of four business trends that are worth keeping an eye on over the remainder of 2008:

(1) Social Data
(2) Micro-Payments for Online Social Experiences
(3) Content Mashups
(4) "Live" experiences (that really aren't "live")

For the full article and corresponding powerpoint slides, visit: http://blog.futurelab.net/2008/06/endless_innovation_business_tr.html
OR// http://www.slideshare.net/basulto/endless-innovation-online-trends?src=embed

Some new and interesting business

Thanks to FutureLab for this post, highlighting some new business models / start ups. The NileGuide example could certainly be an interesting addition to any TrueLocal portfolio???

Walmart's Latest Innovation - It's Free Classified
by: Idris Mootee

Two interesting businesses launched this week and both worth special mention. First one is Wal-Mart has decided to compete with Craiglist and Kijiji (an eBay company); they quietly launched a free online classified service, and sell practically anything to anyone. It is still at pilot stage and currently carries 30 mil items. I searched for Tiffany and I got this Tiffany bracelet for $135. There's no fees involved for buyer and seller. I don't think eBay likes this idea.

The service is totally free through Walmart.Oodle.com. It is a way to attract their 130 mil customers who shop online every week. The service was provided by Oodle.com which was launched 3 years ago in San Francisco by former eBay Inc. and Excite executives. There is no business model but it doesn't cost much to run it either. The success rate is 50/50.

Former CEO of Technorati David Sifry’s latest new venture is Offbeat Guides, a service for printing customized travel books. When you go to the site, it asks you 5 basic questions: your name, your destination, your trip's dates, where you live, and where you're staying . With that, it goes out to the web and finds related content and assemble it. You can tweak the content: if you don't know where you're staying you can be sure the hotels section is included; if you already have a place, you can remove it and save some paper.

It is probably the first personalized publishing platform. You can add sections on food, events, transportation, etc. Books will always be customized for your travel dates and will be printed with the weather forecasts, exchange rates, and other relevant and timely information like local events happening when you're there. Your custom book will be sent in 4 days and costs $24.95 (including PDF download). I think this model will ultimately evolve to ad sponsored where the book is free. To make this really work, they need to bring in the local to create unique content. Quality control of the content is crucial. Extreme personalization is next as I can see people looking for the Antique Shopping in Paris, Electronics Shopping in Akihabara or Cosmetic Surgery Guide in Seoul. I like the business concept as many have explored this over the years.

There was this Nile Guide launched a few months ago. Nile Guide is a travel planning and what it does is they aggregate travel data from over 10 sources, including Citysearch, OpenTable, and Expedia, and add its own reports and reviews from local experts for 80 international destinations. Then all information is made searchable from within a tool that takes into consideration both objective and subjective factors related to your preconceived preferences. The four main search types on Nile Guide: food, lodging, nightlife, and “see & do”.

When you search from within anyone of them, you can filter the results in real-time using a variety of criteria. For example, you can choose to view only restaurants in a given city/region that are lively, quiet, off beat, romantic, family, or business entertainment etc. And when you're done planning your trip, simply download a PDF of your itinerary for FREE (with lots of ads).

A few more interesting start-ups here for you to check out:

Ffwd: This is a video content site with "social awareness and predictive recommendations".

Lil'grams: Not just another online baby photo site. The most precious moments of your baby's life are countless and now you can keep, track, and share anything about your baby.

SocialMedia Networks: An attempt to build an advertising network for social platforms and apps.

Xumii: A utility that gives you access to your social network contacts on your mobile phone. Pretty cool idea.

Original Post: http://mootee.typepad.com/innovation_playground/2008/06/walmarts-latest-innovation---free-classified.html

http://blog.futurelab.net/2008/06/walmarts_latest_innovation_its.html