AdAge ran a mini-poll that asked “Do you think increasing repetition of TV spots is worsening the viewing experience?”  85% of those who answered said “Yes,” with specific responses such as “If a product is forced on me too many times, I purposely do not buy that product or anything else from that company.”

What no one happened to mention is why TV shows viewed online show you the same ad over and over and over.  What is that about??

I am one of the many fans of Lipstick Jungle who watch the show on NBC.com rather than on television.  This is such a common phenomenon that it’s one of the reasons the show’s been saved (so far) from the chopping block: each LJ episode picks up 50% more viewers when delayed viewing (including DVRs and online streaming) is factored in.  50!  That’s huge.

These are viewers, like me, who have to go out of our way to go to the website, find the show, find the specific link… This is hardcore intent we’re talking about here, with viewers at full attention.  So what could possibly be the reason to show the same Dove commercial during each and every  commercial break?  Or the same car commercial?  Even if a brand buys the whole episode online, please show 3 different ads!

I find this quite odd.  As a consumer, it’s so boring that I look away from the screen and hit the “Mute” button after I see the commercial the first time.  As a marketer, all I see is the lost opportunity and (what I think are) wasted dollars. 

eMarketer has reviewed some recent data indicating that Millenials are “born with keyboards in their hands”:  that is, that they view the world in a fundamentally different way that assumes the use of hand-picked technology doo-dads to handle just about everything.

You can see the tremendous shift here, particular toward the use of cell phones (and – my opinion – the increasing pressure on phone and cable companies to deliver well-priced digital/cellular phone services packages):

Resource Interactive points out the particular impact of this shift on how Millenials shop and “pre-shop” with their friends.  Coupled with an addiction to MySpace, Facebook and other platforms that bring people together, technology has made it simple for friends to get advice from each other (a “communal” blessing, if you will) before making a purchase.  “The actual shopping activity in the store… becomes a social activity for them,” says Mila Goodman, the shop’s director of experience strategy.

All of this means that retailers have an opportunity to build brand awareness and loyalty by making it easy and fun to shop “together” using mobile phones and other devices.  Among the many reasons that Beacon didn’t work for Facebook is that it didn’t draw me into my friends’ thought process and experience around purchasing something; the site simply reported that my friend had done so.  No fun.

Outdoor, magazine, online and even TV advertising could feature a barcode or some other tag that a person could photograph and send to friends; that tag arrives with information about the product and maybe a special offer.  It should be easy to download a tiny piece of code and send it along.  And when you get someone all the way into your store?  Wow:  make it count.  Give away ringtones, wallpapers (Chanel wallpaper, girls?), sign-ups for special store events and discounts…   I think all stores/retailers should eventually make it simple to email high-res product photos that come along with just a bit of sales and promotional info.

If you had the opportunity to get target customers talking about you on their cell phones with every individual ad viewing or store visit, what would you do?

Millenials

I spotted two articles today reporting that moms are postponing or canceling plans to buy themselves things so that they can treat their kids this holiday season.  61% of moms plan to shop less for themselves this year vs. 56% of all women and 45% of men (No comment on that last statistic).

What a fabulous opportunity for clever marketers!  Celebrate the mom!  I’m riffing here:

* Clothing stores, department stores, etc. could have momathons.  A mom would have to sign up in advance (with email address), naming all her kids and their ages, maybe one thing they wish the could buy themselves and then choose an hour or whatever during which moms got special discounts, BOGO, GWP, whatever.

* Brands and retailers, let’s say Pampers (P&G) and Gymboree, could hold contests, sweepstakes, giveaways – do something BIG! – to proclaim the wonderfulness of moms.  And an international company like a P&G or Coke or Kraft could create a worldwide event.

* Spas, hair salons, nail parlors – ‘nuf said.

Get moms interacting with you now and long after the holiday is over.  My recommendations for stores that are seeing a lot of returns is relevant here:  if you’re going to give discounts or coupons, for example, give one for the holidays and one that activates, say, in February 09.

Women are responsible for over 80% of household purchases!  Momfluentials are everywhere!  89% of moms use the Internet at least twice a day, and 35% of moms spend 3 or more hours online.  70% use search engines before making an online purchase.  Yoo-hoo, Yahoo!  78% of mom bloggers review products and 96% of online moms value these bloggers’ recommendations (and moms have higher word of mouth credibility than all women).  Moms purchase appliances at twice the rate of the general population.  Dear Electrolux: shift a little of that Kelly Ripa cash into a big mom idea.  Moms love technology just as much as the rest of us?  Verizon Wireless:  can you hear me now? Do a cool mom promo!

Yes, it seems like it could be Mother’s Day in December for great brands out there… McDonald’s has the Happy Meal – why not a Harried Mom meal for the women running around shopping for the holidays while the kids are in school?  And local shops and restaurants could get in on the act, too.

OK, I’ll stop now…

I love you, Mom.

Everyone knows that social networking is today’s IT girl of marketing.  Most people aren’t exactly sure why, but there you are.  What’s given me a chuckle are networks tossed together on a very loose definition of “shared” interests.  Facebook, ironically, may the best example of them all.  While it’s the media darling, to be sure, and has a kagillion members (including yours truly), most of whom have little in common.  So its cosmic customer growth has been great for news outlets, but not so wonderful for marketers who quickly discover the limitations of Facebook applications and the difficulty of uncovering and aggregating “like” people.

Enter Unilever and their ad agency, Bartle Bogle Hegarty who chose Kodiak, Alaska for its harsh physical conditions and promptly set up a storefront where they began giving away free bottles of a new Vaseline lotion, Clinical Therapy.   From there, Vaseline representatives began asking visitors to pass the word and subsequent visitors had to name the townsperson who had referred them.  In other words, they went hunting for a key influencer:  a “tipping point person” whose advice people heeded and who could influence others to try a new product. 

This is the way they found Petal Ruch, who tried the lotion when she read that the company was giving away samples.

Once she did, the company claims that she passed the product along to 1,000 town residents in only two weeks.  The company set up a special website, www.prescribethenation.com, where visitors could see individuals who have tried the lotion and how many people they passed it on to.  Unilever also spent several days filming documentary-like footage for the ad campaign, and site visitors can watch videos of each person talking about why they like the product.

This is an outstanding word-of-mouth effort that I hope wins some awards.  The effort itself could not have been that expensive (no doubt the filming was the most costly element, not the consumer/storefront piece) and, most importantly, Unilever built a “social network” from the inside out: by finding a passionate advocate first, rather than building the network and hoping someone will pop out of it.

Unilever     Bartle Bogle Hegarty     Vaseline Clinical Therapy     Kodiak    

Brandweek recently ran a lengthy article about behavioral targeting.  “BT,” or contextual targeting, keyword targeting or psychographical targeting all roughly refer to the same idea:  that a marketer uses your own actions or profile to serve up advertising that might be of interest to you.  This is pretty standard stuff that has migrated its way from the generic web onto social networks such as MySpace and Facebook.

I did think, however, that the notion of “influencer marketing” was interesting in this context.  As with a coming post on how Vaseline built a social network around one key person who helped spread the word about a new product, influencer marketing would mean crafting a message based on how many people you reach in your life and around which issues or topics you may have the greatest influence.

Say I have 350 “friends” on Facebook, 250 of whom are part of the “New York” network.  I might get served an ad for a local New York service, the value of which could increase for me based on the number of individuals to whom I send the offer.  Or maybe I have 100+ female friends, all over the age of 50: an audience that consumerreports.org is interested in targeting for paid site subscriptions.  The site might not only promote specifically to me, but could offer me a free 6-month subscription for referring 15 friends (with verified email addresses).  These are examples of how the ”influencer” idea might be used on an “outbound” basis – that’s me communicating outwardly to individuals in my network. 

Targeting could be used to equal effect on an “inbound” basis:  if a Facebook member regularly posts a lot of positive messages about Barack Obama on his profile to which many people regularly comment, the campaign might want to reach out to that person and ask him to host a house party (particularly if the influencer lives in a zip code that is underpenetrated).

We’ll see if marketers start experimenting with overt “influencer” messaging on social network sites.  It holds promise.

social networks     Facebook     MySpace     influencer marketing

Well it had to happen sometime.  With marketers transfixed by the concept of word of mouth, some finance person somewhere was bound to ask, “But what the heck is all that blahblahblah worth??”

BzzAgent – one of the first companies in the WOM with any kind of brand recognition – has put a stake in the ground, declaring that conversation with one of its “agents” should be valued at $.50.  They got there by dividing total sales (that can be tied back to BzzAgent’s efforts) by the number of conversations.

I think that’s a little aggressive – and possibly silly.  Sales are affected by so many variables, and not all BzzAgents (or targeted consumers) are created equal.  In addition, I doubt if anyone has compared the financial impact of a conversation initiated and extended by paid agents vs. one that takes off on its own. 

If asked, I would resist trying to value WOM just yet (and I’ve been asked, and I did indeed resist!).   If anything, I would agree with a fellow member of The CMO Club, Deb Eastman of Satmetrix, the company that created the Net Promoter score. 

Eastman and her company believe the score (which gauges how many consumers would recommend the product toa friend) is a better indicator of the value of “pure word of mouth” in general, and most certainly when compared to paying people to deliver your message.
net promoter scorebzzagentsatmetrixwomma