If there’s one thing you should know about me is that I never normally do ‘trends’. Every year we get the obligatory ’10 digital media trends for 2010/11/12…” and all the digital experts lay their stakes in the ground to tell the world that this will be the year of mobile, or the tablet, or multi-channel, or ‘big data’ (cue yawning). So it comes as a surprise to my schizoid self that I want to go about predicting which companies are going to make lots of money in the next few years. However, with the advent of Facebook’s IPO I thought I might make some stabs in the dark about the types of media technology companies that are set to make it big and rake in the dollars.
Second screen technologies
Nothing new here, second screen apps have been a trend throughout 2011*. However, the trend of two screen viewing** has yet to be capitalised on from a media perspective. Being able to monetise TV eyeballs digitally is surely the moonshot for many media companies. But how? Is there a way to create synergy between a TV viewing experience and a mobile/laptop or tablet device? Television is a naturally social experience, it makes sense that we should ‘socialise’ advertising to make the experience richer. Getting the viewer’s attention is becoming more important now that TV has become background noise for many. Second Screen*** is a company which has found a way to serve rich media ads concurrent to a TV commercial. Genius you might say. Well there’s probably some way to go before this becomes a more engaging user experience. I do see a time when television will talk to your laptop in real time, enabling the user to respond, this will surely be the next evolution of ‘engagement’ advertising. We will see ‘second screen formats’ in which the television tells us part of the story and the online experience tells us the rest. We may also see live offers transported to our mobiles when watching a certain TV ad. The opportunities are abundant. I may be wrong but I wouldn’t bet against the likes of SecondScreen and other similar technologies doing well and getting bought, not just by the technology giants, but the TV companies who desperately want a share of digital ad revenues.
Social media optimisation tools
We’re just getting to grips with how we can measure social media activity differently and understand its value. But what we really need is a real time bid management tool which can drive engagement. Not old hat technologies which drive up ‘fans’ or ‘likes’ but tools that make people come back and engage with brands on an ongoing basis. There is talk in the social media space about ‘good fans’ and ‘bad fans’. Good fans are those that are likely to engage on an ongoing basis, bad fans are those that ‘like’ brands for the hell of it. Being able to reach true brand evangelists and harness their advocacy online is where we as marketers want to play. The last thing we want to do is replicate display metrics and treat ‘fans’ and ‘likes’ as if they were impressions. This is where companies like Adaptly**** are getting it right. I still feel we have a long way to go in this space, but social media bid management solutions which respect the metrics of the channel should do very well and be of immense value to PR and media companies. I can imagine the most successful of these tools will be able to plug in seamlessly to all social communities and establish tangible value from social media campaigns.
F-commerce applications
Every time I visit Amazon and turn on my recommendations I can’t help but buy a new book, it never fails me. Now whatever people might say about Facebook commerce (or F-commerce) I’m sure we’ll see the advent of an application which makes the recommendation engine and the purchase process as seamless as the one on Amazon. The ‘buy it now because all my friends have one’ button is only a hop and skip away. And before I hear – “Facebook is a place for engagement, it’s not meant for buying stuff” – this is only true because buying stuff on Facebook isn’t fun, and Facebook is supposed to be a ‘fun’ place. Imagine an ad for the National Lottery allowing you to purchase a lucky dip 30 minutes before the quadruple rollover on a Friday night. Imagine a restaurant, which has been recommended by your friends, giving you the opportunity to make a last minute reservation on a Saturday night at the touch of a button. Imagine an ad which lets you make a payment for concert tickets the day they are released, because you are a ‘fan’ (a real fan this time). I could go on and on. F-commerce can work if the purchase is ‘fun’, frictionless and serendipitous, Zynga has proven this. This is where companies like Payvment***** might prosper, but I think they have some way to go before they can provide a truly integrated experience.
So these are 3 categories of media technology companies I think will prosper, as long as they put the customer at the heart of what they do.
The companies I remain sceptical about are the social influence tools (if the only reason to visit them is to see what free stuff you can get they might as well give up now), Privacy control technologies (surely there’s not that much involved in providing opt in/opt out solutions for web users?) and social media monitoring tools (face it guys, all the data’s in Facebook and you can’t access it, so why bother?).
Now if only my crystal ball could give me a hint on the lottery numbers on Friday.
* http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/second_screen_apps_top_trends_of_2011.php
**http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9640887.stm
***http://www.secondscreen.com
One of the the things I hate paying for is insurance. Having never made a claim in my life I’ve never really got the benefit from the large monthly payments I make every month to protect my house, my car, my life, my travel, my bottom (oh no, thats J-Lo!). It’s just one of those things you have to do. As I lament my monthly outgoings my thoughts turn to digital media (naturally). It appears one’s media activity requires insurance payments as much as Ms Lopez.
The first ‘insurance’ to discuss is ad verification. This technology scrapes content on a page display advertising appears with and checks for the context and quality of the ad placement. This means advertisers get visibility on what types of websites and the type of content they are appearing on. The world of exchanges and blind networks require ad verification as a must to provide more transparency on what you’re buying. From experience I’ve found that many networks have some very dubious web properties in their portfolio. DoubleVerify and AdExpose are two of the better ad verification technologies out there, sending you detailed reports on the sites you appear on and the geo-targeting of your ads. Even though you think your UK media buy will mean your ads won’t be shown in Peru, ad verification might tell you otherwise. It’s amazing how much money you can save for clients by gaining this visibility, but you’ve got to do something with the data you get, and this might require going back to publisher networks and having some difficult conversations.
The next insurance to discuss is that which allows you to protect your clients from the law. Serious stuff. As I’ve discussed in a previous post, the EU cookie directive is looming. Advertisers remain unsure whether they will need to provide opt in or opt out icons on their banners. Each EU country may respond to the directive differently. For media planners of pan-European activity this might present a logistical nightmare. Companies like Evidon help to provide an option icon in the corner of every banner you serve, giving the user the right information about what is being tracked by them. So not only will you need ad verification to make sure you don’t appear on illegal downloading websites, but also investment in privacy regulation compliance.
Now I know what you’re thinking, how much is all this going to cost? Well before I get to that, I wanted introduce another type of ‘insurance’, that which can tell you where your ads appear on a page. Over 68% of display ads* appear below the fold, where your customers can’t see them. This betrays the impression metric completely, I’ve always felt a ‘view’ should be seen and fully support the movement to have a ‘viewable impression’ metric. Companies like Adometry tell you exactly where your ad appears and whether it has contributed to the success of your media campaign. As advertisers get smarter, it will only be a matter of time that all ads will be served above the fold. The trend seems to be pointing to less ads on a page overall, as Google is now penalising sites on which there are too many ads above the fold**. So not only am I having to ensure my ads are legally compliant but also that they are visible! We’re always so quick to criticize above the line media for not being measurable, digital media requires equal if not greater scrutiny.
So now that you’re not appearing next to any profane content, complying with the law, and appearing where customers can actually see you you’re covered right? Well not entirely, ad verification can’t tell you what videos you’ve appeared against, and it’s still not known exactly what each EU country will decide upon as best practice after the cookie directive comes into play. Regardless, the cost of all this ‘insurance’ can really add up. You now not only have to pay for ad serving, but all these other incremental cost per impression micro-payments which add a significant %age to your media buy. It’s sad that the leading ad servers themselves (you know who you are) haven’t been able to offer these as value add services. I feel they have missed a trick here and allowed more nimble technology companies to muscle in and take a share of this growth in ad serving revenue. This coupled with the industry trend towards container tagging, means you may end up spending more money on the technology serving your ads than the inventory itself.
*http://www.adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/taking-issue/#more-51275
Related companies
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- As Ad Networks Grow, So Does Demand for Ad Verification (marketingvox.com)
- How will the EU cookie directive impact the digital media industry? (nathanlevi.com)
- IAB Wants Audit of Ad Verification Systems (clickz.com)
- Self-Reg Ad Icon: Millions in Revenue? (clickz.com)
- Google’s Above the Fold Clarification : Size Matter! (famousbloggers.net)
As a former English student I can’t help but think back to the times of Shakespeare (yes, Shakespeare!). Arguably the greatest writer ever born, he was a man who plagiarized more literature than I’ve had hot dinners, but was allowed free reign to craft beautifully written plays from some rather dull Roman and Greek poetry. The plays of the Elizabethan period were creative, expressive and ‘open’ because of plagiarism. Literature became a lot duller because of copyright. Will a similar fate befall the web?
In the old days (I’m talking circa 1995, not Shakespearian times) the internet’s biggest player was AOL, the largest ISP (internet service provider) in the US. AOL provided content to subscribers only, we call this a ‘walled garden’. Once Google came along and decided to ‘organize the world’s information’, the concept of a walled garden on the web became passée, as websites saw the benefit of gaining traffic from Google to drive advertising revenues, the main profit vehicle for web publishers online. Since then the web has been a free and open space, for the most part, for people to share information. This was great for technology start ups like Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and indeed Google. These brands facilitate the sharing of content without actually producing content themselves. They profit from other people’s content by selling digital advertising space. It was the traditional publishers that suffered as a consequence. Newspapers were the first to take a battering as written content is so easily shared and distributed online. We then saw Napster and the like eat the profits of large corporate recording companies and the music industry had to find other ways to make money. We’re now seeing Hollywood get bitten as DVD sales see a sharp decline and broadband speeds improve; you can now watch a film on YouTube for £3. Book publishers have been taking a similar beating from Amazon*. It’s only a matter of time that television and radio production companies and networks suffer at the hand of the open web.
That is, until SOPA came along. SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy. It’s a proposed US legislation which aims to protect copyright material on the web. What this means is that if Google links to a website which allows you to watch an illegally downloaded film, Google can be prosecuted and shut down. It also means that if I post a copyrighted image on this blog, I can be prosecuted and shut down (don’t say anything!). To confuse matters, there’s another legislation, PIPA (the sister legislation of SOPA, (the senate version for those of you who know a lot about US politics) which is less severe in that it doesn’t penalise owners of copyright material which wrongly accuse** websites of hosting copyright material without permission. Both proposed legislations come from the same place, it’s the traditional Hollywood execs who don’t have a clue how the internet actually works, who are fighting for SOPA to be passed. This is why the legislation is so severe, and why the likes of Wikipedia went dark last week.
Traditional media companies have not taken their demise well. Rupert “I knew nothing of the hacking scandal” Murdoch has spoken out against Google, “a company that creates no content of its own, and makes money solely on the backs of other people’s content, raking in billions through advertising and IPOs”***. This is true. Google is making a hell of a lot of money by ranking other people’s content, as does Wikipedia, Nathanlevi.com, Twitter, Facebook and any other web property which allows the sharing of content. I’m loathe to say it, but Murdoch has a point. But can we envisage a web which doesn’t allow the sharing of content freely and openly? I certainly can’t.
The battle between Hollywood and the technology giants has been an issue ever since the early days of the web. Infringing copyright is actually dealt with by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The problem with it is that in the US it doesn’t stop a ‘foreign’ website from hosting copyrighted material. SOPA can’t make foreign sites take down this content, but it can enforce the likes of Google.com not to link to these sites, or face shutting down.
Do I think SOPA will actually happen? Probably not. Do I think there will be more restrictions on the web that will make the ‘open web’ a bit more closed. Absolutely. We might be looking at a two tiered web, one in which a lot of content is behind a walled garden, and a lot of content is still free, hosted in the cloud and out of SOPA and PIPA’s reach. It may even mean the return of AOL (perish the thought), and the decline of sites that can’t or won’t police their content. Great for Murdoch, crapola for us.
The most irksome thing about all of this is that it could so easily be resolved. It’s not inconceivable that traditional content providers and technology companies can share the wealth of the web. It’s just that both are so proud and arrogant they can’t seem to agree on anything. Google has flagrantly ignored piracy issues in the past (ie. when they decided to publish excerpts of in-print books without asking the publishers’ permission in 2005), whilst Murdoch continues to battle the inevitable to spite himself (by fire-walling News International web properties). Nobody wants to share, and what a pity this is.
It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. For now I shall quote Mr Albert Einstein:
“I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.”
*http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/19/apple-isnt-the-only-disruptor-how-amazon-is-killing-publishers/
**http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-01/17/sopa-101
***Planet Google – Randall Stross (p.104)
Related articles
- Wikipedia, other websites go dark in anti-piracy bill protest (cnn.com)
- Wikipedia vs. SOPA (cyberculturalist.com)
- Wikipedia plans to go dark in protest of legislation (ctv.ca)
- Wikipedia Protests SOPA, Goes Dark Wednesday (philadelphia.cbslocal.com)
- Wikipedia blackout a ‘gimmick’, MPAA boss claims (guardian.co.uk)
- Websites to go dark in protest of proposed legislation (usatoday.com)
- Wikipedia’s blackout looms (guardian.co.uk)
- Sites go dark in piracy protest (bbc.co.uk)
- Is Wikipedia Wrong To Go Dark For SOPA Protest? (mediaite.com)
- Wikipedia To Go Dark Wednesday To Protest Online Piracy Bills (outsidethebeltway.com)
What’s the EU cookie directive I hear you ask? And who cares about biscuits (something my mum might ask)? In simple terms this new law which will come into force in May will require all websites to ask their ‘visitors’ if they can store information about them. For those of you whom I might be confusing I’ll play this out in real life. When you’re browsing a website, information will be stored as a text file (a cookie) on your computer so it can remember who you are. This is important for instance if you are filling out a form and make a mistake. The website will remember everything you’ve entered so that when you refresh the browser it doesn’t force you to have to enter all your information again. Cookies make your web experience a lot more practical and seamless. Without them you would find using the internet a pain in the derrière.
So what’s the issue with this I hear you ask? And are the biscuits gluten free I hear my mum echo? (okay okay, I’ll stop with the rabble). Well this isn’t really what people are getting flustered about. Websites also collect data so they can re-target you with advertising. For example, if you happen to be browsing for a flight or a hotel somewhere, the travel website you’re on will store this data and send you advertising when you’re on another website telling you to pay for the bloody trip to Malaga that you’ve been scouting for the last few weeks. This might be annoying to some and very useful to others. And herein lies the conundrum for advertisers. We don’t want to upset those who don’t want to be re-targeted, but we do want to find people who might need reminding that a trip to Malaga is much much cheaper than our competitors (why I’ve chosen Malaga as an example destination I’ll never know, I’ve not been there myself, I hear it’s quite boozy).
Adding to this already complex affair, many media technology companies are collecting data around the web and selling this to advertisers so they can target existing or new consumers (these are often called 3rd party cookies, where a website is allowing another company to collect data on its behalf). What this means in real terms is that when you visit The Sun website for instance, and are reading about Jordan’s new face lift, you might be categorized as somebody who is interested in plastic surgery. This media company will then sell this data so that advertisers can send you advertising telling you that cheek implants would really help sort out your love life (I kid of course). This is called ‘behavioural targeting’ at ‘digital media HQ’. These same media technology companies are not only collecting online data but also offline data from the likes of Experian. They can therefore match your offline purchasing habits to your online behaviour, and hey presto, you’re seeing gambling adverts based on the fact that you spend a hell of a lot of money on lottery scratch cards (I’ve got to stop buying those pesky ‘Rich for Life’ ones which look so shiny).
People have therefore become weary about how much data is being collected and what is being done with it. The fact of the matter is that the web wouldn’t work without cookies. However, there is a feeling that consumers should be given the choice as to whether their data is collected or not. The EU directive will mean you will be seeing prompts on websites or in online adverts asking you if you would like to switch off cookie targeting. You can easily delete cookies from your PC now with a few simple clicks. However, this needs to be done on a regular basis. People invariably forget or choose not to do this. There are also many tools out there which you can download (Ghostery being one) which tell you who is collecting your data.
My feeling is that having prompts on all websites and adverts will interfere with our online experience. It should be made easy for us to opt out of targeted advertising without having to do so each time we visit a website or see an ad for plastic surgery (I dread to think what categories I’ve been labelled with).
Agencies have a duty of care to protect their clients from being caught out by the cookie directive. This means firstly auditing the data they are collecting and who is collecting it. It means making sure all the publishers you are negotiating with on behalf of your client are compliant. It means presenting clients with best and worst case scenarios with regards to their marketing efforts and advising them on a best practice approach which is both compliant and consumer friendly. It means helping your client understand exactly what data is being collected on their behalf and its level of ‘intrusion’.
I really don’t believe like other cynics* that this will mean the end for behavioural targeting online. The government has clearly stated that they want a ‘business friendly’** approach. Ultimately consumers want transparency and if we can provide that whilst providing a richer online experience we should all be happy. I shall remain optimistic (for once!)
*http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/return-of-the-eu-cookie-directive.html
**http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13541250
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- EU cookie laws could cause unwary firms to get their fingers burnt (guardian.co.uk)
- Website cookie laws – what you need to do now (simplybusiness.co.uk)
- The EU cookie directive and chartbeat (chartbeat.com)
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I happened to have a conversation yesterday with one of my colleagues about the death of the high street, a new buzz topic amongst many digital and media folk. My colleague’s view was that whilst the tradition of selling goods by local stores on high streets was dead (“because they don’t offer any value” he argued), there is an opportunity for the high street to become an ‘experience’. Well what type of experience I asked? And then our conversation came to a close as we parted ways, I was off to Sainsburys to buy tea.
Swishing around the supermarket I wondered what could possibly be ‘experiential’ about the high street. Was he talking about augmented reality? Was he talking about outdoor touch screen shopping? A high street where the purchase becomes part of a wider more ‘engaging experience’ (there’s that word again!)? Many stores have already embraced digital, where a touch screen store, an interactive vending machine or a QR code is part of the fun of shopping, the purchase itself becomes secondary.
Creating an experience that is useful, entertaining or valuable really is the golden nugget for marketers today. Can the same logic regarding ‘experience’ be the same for online advertising. Isn’t creating an enriching experience for customers on the high street the same challenge that online advertising has. The problem with most digital advertising mediums is that they struggle to entertain, be useful or engage. Instead they interrupt or don’t talk back.
Let’s look first at the most successful online advertising medium; search marketing is part of an experience, it doesn’t intrude or interfere, it ticks the ‘useful’ box perfectly. When you step outside of search, the opportunities to create a similarly useful or entertaining experience are much more difficult. We’ve been trying to shoehorn display advertising into something that it is not for too long. Of the top 10 best rated TV adverts of last year by the general public, 9 of them made people laugh* (the best being this one by Aldi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCKgCkubGc0). Display ads can’t make you laugh, and however ‘flashy’ the production is, I’ve seldom been entertained by one.
When is online advertising (outside of search) a truly valuable, entertaining and/or useful experience? A really useful display ad would be one that I needed to interact with right there and then, that was truly interactive, one that didn’t just aim to sell me something, one that aimed at entertaining me, giving me information I needed, (or maybe even making me laugh). A very difficult thing to do perhaps, especially with the current formats on offer (no Facebook, there isn’t anything remotely ‘engaging’ about engagement ads). Cynics might argue that display ads will never be an experience other than irritating. I’m starting to ask myself, If advertising isn’t truly engaging, is there a point to even doing it? Are we fooling ourselves by thinking that interrupting people can work online anymore? Shouldn’t online ‘advertising’ be an experience or begone.
And there I was, still in Sainsburys, swishing around with an empty basket.
* http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1110431/Aldi-tea-most-liked-ad-2011/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH
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- Is Amazon Killing The High Street? [Opinion] (makeuseof.com)
Having been working in digital media for a number of years I thought I’d write a piece for budding graduates who really want to get into digital marketing. Having found myself in this industry by chance, it happened to deliver everything I could have wanted from a career: creativity, accountability, geekery and such other made up words. I’ve put together a few top tips for those considering a career in this industry, but aren’t quite sure if it’s for them.
Be versatile
It can be tempting in an industry where there are so many diverse roles to specialise too quickly. I myself ended up specialising in search, but I spent time in display and ad operations before I settled for a life of keywords. This has been key for my growth. When looking at companies to work for, choose one which encourages career development in more than one vertical. The danger of specialising too early is that you will lack appreciation for the whole digital media mix. All advertising channels should be considered in any media plan, the more practical experience you have with each of them the better.
Numbers, numbers, numbers
We’re all aware that digital media places a huge focus on metrics. You really need to have an interest in data and metrics if you’re thinking about a career in this field. You need to be able to spot trends, QA plans, forecast numbers, sense check results. People that do well in this industry can spot an erroneous click through rate a mile off. Spending time with data is really important in the first few years. If you don’t like numbers, it’s probably best you do something else. I find that the best people in this industry really question the data, interrogate it and never make assumptions without robust metrics to back up their findings.
Think longer term
A pet hate of mine is when people new to their craft suddenly decide that after a few months they want to ‘do strategy’. My first question in this situation is ‘what do you mean by strategy?’. I’m generally presented with a array of responses ranging from ‘doing client presentations’ to ‘managing people’. I never get a ‘strategic’ answer. The truth be told, strategy is a very misused term. To be truly strategic, you really need to be learning your craft for a good few years, especially in an industry which is constantly evolving and at such a rapid pace. If you are considering a career in digital media, be prepared for at least 5 years of honing your tactical skills, the strategy will come in its own time.
Use an ad server
I’ve always found that the best people in this industry really understand the tools of the trade. Getting under the skin of how the technology works, how adverts are trafficked and how ad servers collect data is critical to forging a career in digital media. I started my career in ad operations like a lot of people do, trafficking adverts all day long, thinking I was doing the most boring job in the world. This probably proved to be my most useful learning curve because I really get the metrics and how they work together. From my experience of interviewing people in this industry, I’ve found that far too many times, people who have 3 or even four years experience cannot describe what an ad server is or how an impression is counted. Learn how to use an ad server and you will forever be valuable. Don’t at your peril.
Be a pedant
Whether you’re looking at managing millions of keywords, negotiating with hundreds of publishers or trafficking thousands of banner placements, room for error is enormous. That’s why it’s important to have your eye on the ball at all times. Sense checking your work before you send it to a client is highly recommended. When starting a career in digital media you will be measured on how accurate your work is, and how detailed and thorough you are. If you are not anally retentive and don’t have high concentration levels a different career path might be recommended. This is a geek industry, it doesn’t lend itself well to people who don’t like to get their hands dirty.
Work for a digital specialist
The best grounding you can get for a career in digital media is when you have the opportunity to work in a team of digital specialists. Work for a company where digital is a priority not an afterthought. There are numerous specialist digital agencies, digital publishers or networks and digital native companies where digital sits at the heart of everything they do. Traditional companies are unlikely to give you the grounding you will need to be great at what you do, contentious as this may be.
I hope this has been useful to either reinforce your appetite to get into this field or has made you run a mile. Being in digital media can be very rewarding but to coin an old phrase, patience is a virtue, and like in any career, the more time you spend at the bottom, the better you will be at the top.
Related articles
- Getting hung up on attribution in digital media (nathanlevi.com)
Some of you may be wondering why I’ve not been posting on my fabulous blog for quite a while (wishful thinking from me as always). I’ve been out of action with a burst appendix. As much as I’ve tried i’ve not been able to link this in any sort of humorous fashion to a piece about digital media. I’ve therefore refrained from writing until I’ve made a full recovery.
The last few weeks have been painful to say the least and I wouldn’t wish my experience on a dog (except for those vicious types that maul people’s faces unexpectedly). The excruciating abdominal pain was bad, but the sampling of NHS cuisine was quite another. I jest of course, but in truth I’ve never seen a risotto have such a likeness to vomit in all my days. Luckily I didn’t have much of an appetite after the operation. I spent my time eavesdropping on nearby patient’s conversations, which was the next best thing to having a television or a Heat magazine. My lowest ebb came after having a catheter insertion followed by a tube up my nose and down my throat. Awake. No amount of morphine relieved that indignity.
Luckily I live to tell the tale. I have a lovely scar forever smiling back up at me, a new found faith in NHS nurses (boy do they have to deal with some crappy people), they bring a new meaning to the word ‘saints’, and a dollop of hypochondria to add to all my other complex but rather marvellous health concerns.
I’m back everyone.
Watching the Channel 4 documentary last night – Attack of the Trip Advisors – got me thinking about the amount of power the consumer now has. Unfortunately the programme did more to reinforce the behaviour of petty small minded idiots with nothing better to do with their time than moan than anything else. The man who thought it appropriate to whinge about the B&B not replenishing the coffee he’d hidden under the bed needs to be reviewed himself, I’m giving him one star for being an expletive I rarely use (I’m sure you can guess). When the waitress provided him with a gin and tonic instead of a gin and lemonade he felt he’d achieved something by catching her out. If he spent more time enjoying himself and less concentrating on what might go wrong he might find he’d enjoy his holiday a little more and might make a friend or two (I’m not surprised he got bullied as a child, I’d be inclined to do the same after watching his silly rants).
It’s pretty clear that there are a few of us who think it’s ok to abuse our powers as social influencers. Does this mean sites like Trip Advisor are doing a disservice to small businesses? I don’t think so. Everyone should have the right to their opinion. Trip Advisor are merely facilitating these opinions. It’s no different from me posting a negative remark about a brand on Facebook or Twitter.
I do think that we have a responsibility to give businesses a chance to make amends and respond to us before we chastise them publicly. Surely review posting needs to be a two way street, otherwise there seems to be no point to it but pure revenge. The purpose of providing feedback should be to help businesses improve. If a business reaches out and tries to make amends, they should be owed the chance to apologize, to make amends, and potentially the removal of a negative review. In most cases small businesses will welcome in person feedback about their services. I did feel the emotional response from the proprietors of the business at the end of the programme did themselves a disservice. Instead of providing the woman with a nice meal and leaving it at that, they carried on with an overly emotional response about their personal health which was completely inappropriate.
The lesson for businesses here is that it’s worth reaching out to make amends, it’s not worth bending over backwards and humiliating yourself. After all, one bad review isn’t going to kill your business. If you’re providing a good service, one negative review will stick out like a sore thumb and probably be ignored amongst the wealth of compliments. It’s also not worth responding emotionally, especially to the pedantic small minded minority who think it’s fun to hide coffee sachets and ball point bed sheets.
Related articles
- Reaction to controversial TripAdvisor reviews: do it ourselves (hotelier.typepad.com)
- TV review: Top Boy; Attack of the Trip Advisors (guardian.co.uk)
- Hotel Sues TripAdvisor for $10 Million over “Dirtiest Hotel in America” Claim – Case #8915533 (prweb.com)
- Hotelier sues TripAdvisor after accusations she wrote fake positive reviews causes revenue to plummet by 75% (hotelier.typepad.com)
I recently attended an industry round table event where one of the topics being discussed was attribution. This is a current buzz word in the digital media space. It describes the methodology of being able to attribute value to digital advertising at whatever step the customer sees it. For example, if a customer were to ‘view’ a display banner for a car insurance product and then search for the brand on Google and click on the paid search link and then make a purchase, in a last click attribution model the paid search link would take all the credit for the sale. In a first click attribution model the display banner would get all the credit, and in a blended model both the display and search advertising would share the credit. The challenge is much greater when you have 10 or even 20 touch points before the customer makes a purchase. And what happens when that customer makes the purchase in store, how does credit get attributed then?
The reason agencies have become so hung up on attribution is because they want to prove the value of their advertising to clients. For so long digital media has been held up as being completely measurable. As the space has become a lot more competitive, and more expensive, the standard way of looking at last click attribution doesn’t hold up as well any more. I think the industry needs a bit of a wake up here. Attributing value to advertising in this way is misleading. Let’s say I watch a TV ad for a Sony television, search online and see a John Lewis promotion for that TV and make an online purchase. Surely that would be Sony’s marketing budget driving revenue for John Lewis? However, John Lewis’s marketing team would consider that it was their marketing activity driving the revenue for that Sony TV. Let’s complicate matters further. If my friend tells me that the Sony television they just bought from John Lewis is amazing and that I should go and buy one online, no marketing activity should really take any credit for the sale, my friend has done the marketing for John Lewis all by themselves.
The reasons people make purchases are as varied as the British weather. Some people make snap decisions, some are influenced by how much money they have in the bank, and some are guided by the marketing they see or click on. Attribution seeks to fit these decisions into neat boxes. Marketing is not always causal. I like to see digital marketing as a very effective sign post rather than the reason someone has made a purchase. It has a very strong role to play in driving sales, guiding the customer to the right page at the right time. Do I think attribution is a waste of time? Absolutely not. It can be very effective at making budgets more efficient. I also don’t see it as a marketing panacea. Until we can read people’s minds we can never truly attribute value empirically to marketing activity. We should use this data with a little caution, accepting that attribution is a tactic to make budgets go further, not to justify causation.
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- Why Online Marketing is like Herding a Flock of Sheep (firstrate.co.nz)
- How CMOs Can Measure Return on Ad Spend with Better Modeling and Conversion Attribution (greatfinds.icrossing.com)
- Social media attribution: friend or foe? (econsultancy.com)
- Attribution module coming for Google Analytics Premium (ginside.com)
- How Search Conversions Are Driven By Display Impression Frequency (searchengineland.com)
- Attribution: Why search marketers should care about customer loyalty and lifetime value (econsultancy.com)
- Hitting A Wall With Paid Search? Break Through With Search Retargeting (searchmarketingstandard.com)
Many of you will already have heard about Facebook‘s introduction of new verbs which enable you to tell your friends what music you’re listening to, what food you’re eating, and what you’re doing on the toilet. I have in the past criticized the value of the ‘like’ button, for the simple reason that I don’t think it means much or has any value. We now have new verbs like ‘listen’, ‘read’, ‘cook’ and ‘doing a number 2′ (ok I’ll stop).
What will this mean for the Facebook user? For one thing you will be able to share a lot more information about yourself and have it all nicely collected in the ‘big brother style’ timeline. For another, your friends will have a much better idea of what you’re up to and be able to share your recipes, music and favourite articles making discovery online more relevant and fun. It may eventually mean that we need to search less as things that are relevant to us will present themselves in serendipitous fashion (watch out Google, your days might be numbered). Zuckerberg has rightly started out with verbs that naturally lend themselves to social interaction like listening to music and cooking. The real challenge remains with commerce; when Facebook inevitably add the verb ‘bought’ will people really want to share their grocery shop or their Christmas gifts with all of their friends…?
Other businesses might feel threatened by Facebook’s new verbs. I’ve already hinted at what this might mean for Google. I’m sure Apple’s Itunes might wish to ‘dislike’ the open graph (if only they could), Facebook are now able to do what Ping attempted but on a much grander scale. The opportunity for businesses seems limited to those who are willing to offer something for free, which is great for the likes of Spotify and Yahoo, not so great for News International and the aforementioned Itunes. Zuckerberg’s argument that this will help businesses by increasing the potential of discovery is only true for those who are willing to play the game.
For advertisers there appears to be more opportunity for richer targeting. Now you will not only be able to target by a person’s ‘likes’, but also by their day to day habits. I am still a little dubious about this opportunity. Can we segment customers based on their music preferences? Probably not. We can however understand more about customers based on what they read. For example, if I, customer A, have recently read an incredibly insightful blog about Facebook’s new verbs, I might be someone who is an early adopter of new technology, and might respond to ads for the iPhone 5. The problem right now with Facebook advertising is that the ad formats suck, a small tile no matter how targeted is easily ignored. Facebook need to get more creative with the format to drive better interaction, perhaps weaving them into the new generation of apps that we’ll be using.
It’s clear we’re only at the beginning of the opportunities that will be presented to advertisers as more verbs are introduced. If Facebook can unlock the potential power of social commerce in this way they will undoubtedly trump Google in this space. For now I’m discovering my boyfriend listens to a lot Adele in his spare time, I do hope he’s not upset about something.
Related articles
- New Facebook Profile, Apps Want You To Share Everything You Have Ever Done, Ever (huffingtonpost.com)
- Facebook’s New Verbs Have Marketers Talking (clickz.com)
- Verbs in Facebook status updates: The end of apps like Miso and GetGlue? (intomobile.com)
- Facebook ‘verbs’ bring shared music, video, mobile apps (electronista.com)
- A closer look at the Facebook Timeline and the Open Graph (downes.ca)
