Nothing Special Just the Usual Big Success

• Have a quality product - Allee Willis and Holly Palmer (project name: Bubbles&Cheesecake) two talented song writers and singers.
• Don't just observe your customers, but live together with them - Allee and Holly are very active online/offline social networkers.
• Involve your customers and give them relevant content - They wrote and played a song in Allee's home. They recorded the 8 stages of the process with a cheap camera from the first rehearsal to the last fine tuning. They put all the 8 videos on YouTube.
• Be compelling - Most of the viewers started to search their song wich stuck in their minds after watching 8 videos.
• Have a simple, content-focused and user-friendly hompage with strong SEO - Allee and Holly have an award-winner site.
• Sell the product at the time and place when and where the need arises - Holly broke up all her contracts with the record companies and she is selling her music only via the net (iTunes). CD Baby online music shop burns CD-R from the lossless files if you can't live without a physical CD.
• Don't focus on budget, focus on efficiency - Their promo budget was extremely low, but the way they are treating their fans and customers is priceless.
• "Editing is Cool" - I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with the core message of their promo song:

Reality is a perception,
you must edit to suit your own needs.

In life you can edit out weaknesses
and turn them into strenghts.

Edit out bad friends, bad jobs, bad habits and lovers
and anything else that is bad.

Edit your life!

Advertising That Does

by Paul Isakson
I've had this image for a while now and have been meaning to write a bit on it. It comes from a presentation given by Tim Smith at the Digitaal Willen We Allemaal 2008 Conference/Event (which loosely translates to "We All Want Digital," if Google's Dutch translation is correct). The only thing I'd change is instead of it being about the future, I'd say it's already what great advertising and marketing is doing today.

Crispin gets this. Whether you like their work or not, they're getting people to talk for nearly every client in their portfolio. Additionally, they're going beyond talk and getting people to upload content and become part of the message itself.

Fallon London gets this too. They not only created talk for Cadbury, but they have inspired people to create new versions of the Gorilla and Trucks spots for them, some of which became ads that aired. They have created quite a stir for Sony as well, where the last few years people have awaited the next new ad for Bravia.

One of the latest examples may be in the works from Droga5, where their Bike Hero video has not only been creating talk, but it has inspired at least one Guitar Hero fan to extend the message further...



When you sort it all out, it comes down to one thing really - foresight. You have to start with the goal of getting people to talk and/or create content in mind.

If your creative brief's "one thing" has to do with getting people to do something rather than take away something you're telling them, you're going to inspire people to talk about your brand at a minimum. And if you've got a solid foundation in place for them to build upon, you're going to inspire fans of the brand to create new content that supports your idea and pushes it even further into culture.

So, is what you're putting out into the marketplace encouraging people to tell others about your brand? Is it going further and inspiring them to create something new to support your brand even more? Or is it just creating noise people would rather tune out?

To be one of the great marketers of the future, we've got to catch up to those who already are, today.


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Only 16% of Students Read Marketing Email

Today’s high-school and college students started using email at an average age of 13, have had an email address for 8 years and have about 2.4 email addresses each, yet 61% say they ‘never’ or ‘hardly ever’ read marketing emails, finds a survey from eROI.

The research, which was designed to uncover how students communicate digitally and relate to email marketing messages, found that the majority of students do not feel companies are effectively speaking to them personally through email, and only 16% of students say they ‘frequently’ read the marketing emails they receive.

In terms of preferred forms of communication, email continues to score well among students. While 37% say that texting is their favorite form of communication, 26% cite email.

However, despite this continuing popularity, the study finds that email, as a viable marketing channel for reaching students, is dying.

Email Marketing Messages Ineffective

In addition to the majority of students not reading marketing emails, 66% of students similarly report rarely or never taking action after reading them.

However, the major reasons students take action upon receiving email:

• They are interested in the product (60%)
• They are attracted to a special offer (47%).
• They like the design of the email (11%).

With this in mind, there still may be some opportunity to reach students with relevant, targeted email messages that resonate with them, according to eROI. “Staying on top of constantly evolving trends is the key to gaining trust and staying relevant to the student market,” the report said. “But another challenge in reaching them is knowing which channel will carry and present your message most effectively.”

Additional findings about students and email are detailed below.

Google is Favorite Email Provider

In terms of the primary email service used by students, Gmail is the clear favorite. Nearly one-third (32%) of college students use Gmail as their primary email address, while 19% use Yahoo, 18% use MSN/Hotmail and about 17% use their school email.

Reasons For Getting Email Address

Approximately one-quarter of students say they first got an email address so they would be able to buy online, while a much larger number of students got an email address for communicating with family (81%) and with friends (52%).

Frequency of Email Checks

More than two-thirds of students say they check email at least once per day, and 55% of those check more than 3 times per day. This indicates that students are aware of the emails that hit their inbox, and are looking for compelling messages that cut through the clutter and speak to them, the report said.

Only about 36% of students use email alerts to keep up to date on what’s happening on their social networks and only about one-quarter of students originally got an email address for social networking purposes.

About 12% of students currently check email on a mobile device, though eROI forecasts that this number will increase. quickly over time.

“Overall, email plays an important role in college students’ life as a personal communication device, but not as a major marketing channel,” the report stated. “Ultimately, marketers need to ensure their products are relevant and take the time to craft emails that truly speak to students.”

About the study: The survey included a sample of 283 high school and college students representing 29 US states.

Original post

Some Useful Presentation about Web2.0, Web3.0 and S2W

Garr Reynolds talks to Google

Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen talks to Google about how to make an effective presentation. Excellent talk.

Mobile Internet in UK Grows 8X Faster than PC Internet

The number of Britons accessing the mobile internet increased by 25% (from 5.8 to 7.3 million) from Q2 to Q3 2008, compared with only a 3% increase for PC-based Internet users (34.3 to 35.3 million Britons), according to (pdf) insight data from Nielsen Online’s Mobile Media View service.



The research also found that - in addition to faster growth for the mobile internet - the mobile internet audience has a higher concentration of younger users than PC-based Internet. Some 25% of mobile Internet consumers are aged 15-24 compared with 16% for PC-based consumers. Similarly, while 23% of the PC-based Internet population is age 55+. only 12% of the mobile Internet audience is.

Most Popular Sites: Mobile vs. PC-Based

• While Google Search is the most popular PC-based internet site, on mobile internet BBC News is the most popular, being visited by 24% of British mobile internet users (1.7 million people).

• Of the most popular mobile sites, BBC Weather (21% mobile, 17% PC-based) Sky Sports (11% mobile, 8% PC-based) and Gmail (9% mobile, 7% PC-based) have greater reach on mobile internet than they do on the PC-based internet
  
• Of the most popular mobile sites, Google Search (23% mobile, 79% PC-based) and eBay (13% mobile, 43% PC-based) have the greatest reach differential between mobile and PC-based internet
  
• The fact that the most weather, sports, news and email sites make up the majority of leading mobile sites shows that mobile internet is mainly about functionality and need at the moment, as opposed to the more entertainment and ecommerce-focused makeup of the leading PC-based sites, Nielsen said.

“The first insights from the launch of Mobile Media View confirm two things - that when it comes to the Internet, the huge growth is now happening through the mobile platform and that the mobile online audience is younger than its PC-based counterpart,” said Kent Ferguson, Nielsen senior analyst. “The fact that almost 7.5million Britons now access the web through their phone shows that mobile internet is fast becoming a viable way for advertisers and publishers to reach important demographic groups.”

Business Model Innovation

Alex Osterwalder does a great job of visually explaining business model innovation. He has several upcoming workshops and speaking engagements, including New York and Toronto, so depending on where you live you might have a chance to attend a workshop in the near future. More detail on upcoming events here.

Business Model Innovation Matters

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: osterwalder alex)

origanal post

Obama and the power of Social Networks

Barack Obama is the first major candidate to decline participation in the public financing system for presidental campaigns. He's found a more effective way to raise money - by leveraging the power of the American people through online Social Networks.



Click on the picture to zoom in.
Illustration by Xplane

TorrentAds: Advertising Purely in P2P

by Paul Glazowski

'Back in 2004 it was rumour 33% of all internet traffic was bittorrent traffic. This still seems to be the case today.'

ErnestoTorrentfreak

As we’ve all learned, BitTorrent traffic has grown so large over the years that it has created enormous worry in the media world about lost revenue. And no doubt those concerns are legitimate.

Yet it can also be said that the P2P space has grown so large that the panoply of sites which make up the space register many, many millions of page views each month. And anyone with a basic understand of Internet economics will tell you plenty of page views equal plenty of cash. Enter, TorrentAds.

Exclusive to the World of P2P

Purportedly operating out of Cornwall, UK, TorrentAds has been founded to do one thing and one thing only: serve advertisements on BitTorrent websites. (Not the ads in the screenshot to the left, though. That’s somebody else’s business.)

For publishers it promises “some of the highest CPMs in the industry.” For advertisers, it offers a serving and reporting technology gleaned from a partnership with Zedo, an ad solutions provider based in the US, India, and Russia.

A ‘World’s-First? Is There Gold in That?

I’m not entirely positive about this, but its claim as the “world’s first torrent tracker…related advertising network seems fairly legit. Alternatively, sites like Mininova and Piratebay appears to rely on engines like BlueLithium and Ventiv Media for marketing duties, and those companies don’t serve the file-sharing directories only.

Now, as a young thing, it’s hard to deduce whether TorrentAds’s business proposition is a smart one. Putting your eggs into one basket can be a good thing, depending on the circumstance, but there’s that niggling risk thing that goes along with it.

Still, if TorrentAd’s stated security and services are the real thing, its entering a marketing with numerically guaranteed rewards. The size of the P2P world explains that premise easily enough.

The Bittorrent Advertising Network

TorrentAds is the worlds first Torrent tracker/search related advertising network. TorrentAds brings together some of the worlds largest websites in the Torrent sector and allows advertisers to target their audience easily and effectively.

Bittorrent is a form of P2P sharing protocol. Traditionally, Bittorrent sites aren't accepted by many ad networks around the world. Here at TorrentAds we believe that even Bittorrent users provide a value to a certain type of advertiser. Bittorrent users are early adopters, highly tech savy, and normally aged between 16 - 28.

Over 500 million monthly pageviews and rising.

Currently, TorrentAds has access to over 500 million monthly pageviews and rising fast. With Bittorrent sites currently making up around 33% of all internet traffic, this number is sure to increase.

Premium Ad Serving Technology

TorrentAds has partnered with one of the leading ad serving technology companies, in which allows us to provide advertisers with quality reporting tools and confident results.

Advertisers who use the Adphilia network are assured of top quality traffic that is normally not possible to reach from other sources. Targeting options within the Adphilia platform are top notch, with the ability to Geo-target, target via browser or operating system, and more.. All of this can be done at an affordable price that is normally hard to come by.

original post

Future tense: The global CMO

by Economist Intelligence Unit


The chief marketing officer (CMO), a title that barely existed 15 years ago, is under growing pressure to keep pace with rapidly changing digital media and globalisation. The rise of the Internet has changed the face of marketing from one to two-way communications with customers. The increasing adoption by business of interactive technologies, for example, wikis, blogs, mashups and other tools, has enabled consumers to interact with firms as never before, creating unprecedented opportunities for marketers at global companies. A new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, Future tense: The global CMO, sponsored by Google, examines these issues and suggests that CMOs at global companies must recast marketing operations to meet these 21st-century objectives. Leading marketing executives must move beyond traditional advertising, marketing and brand awareness to a more transformative role, driving innovation across the entire business.

The CMO’s traditional dilemma of demonstrating effectiveness, return on marketing investment and relevance to the business persists. However, the democratisation of how information is consumed, produced and disseminated is forcing the global CMO to adopt a broader role in engaging all corporate stakeholders, from their traditional audience of customers and prospects to investors, employees, government regulators and others. This often entails remaking operations into integrated marketing and communications organisations that work collaboratively across the enterprise to gather, develop and use customer intelligence while blending talent with a nuanced understanding of their business. Successful CMOs must not only evolve the marketing function into an integrated, strategic component of the business—rather than simply a cost centre—but are also draw on long-practised but previously separate disciplines of PR and corporate communications to build integrated marketing and communications operations that encourage ongoing dialogue with customers and focus on long-term relationships.

Key best practices illuminated by this study include the following:

• Balancing global brand awareness with local market relevance. Centralising global marketing functions such as advertising development and production can create economies of scale and save money, but they must be guided by the needs of the local market and customer insights. At the same time, budgets must be freed up so that regional directors can make appropriate decisions based on market demands.

• Integrating marketing with other forms of corporate communications. Both the interactive nature of Web 2.0 technologies and the transparency of corporate messages among different constituencies—such as customers, investors, media, regulatory bodies and employees (past, present and future)—demand the integration of various forms of marketing and communications. Businesses can no longer segment audiences and messages as if audiences don’t talk to each other.

• Adopting new media. In particular, there should be a specific budget for experimentation with the newest Web 2.0 technologies. To remain competitive, companies must engage customers and fully exploit the interactive nature of digital media to create a stronger affinity with their brands among consumers and other stakeholders. The CMO should have the foresight to anticipate how different constituencies will respond to different events, messages and channels, and should be able to deal with the proliferation of new-media tools and expanded audiences.

• Developing new skills, capabilities—and partnerships. CMOs must not only position their companies, but help define them. To do so, they need to understand the fundamental business model, brand, culture, policies and values of the organisation. Equally important in terms of adapting to the evolution of new media are partnerships with vendors whose expertise can be used to get new initiatives to market faster—and more effectively—than a company would on its own.

• Championing innovation. The need for greater accountability for marketing expenditure is pushing global companies towards digital marketing campaigns with higher returns than traditional media. The interactive nature of the latest digital-media vehicles provides the opportunity to develop deeper insights into customer dynamics and allows the CMO to become the corporate champion of customer insight.

Download the briefing paper
Future tense: The global CMO