Marketing 101: Habitual Buying Behavior

So far we have examined Complex Buying Behavior and Dissonance-Reducing Buying Behavior.  Next, let's quickly look at Habitual Buying Behavior.

Habitual Buying Behavior
Habitual Buying Behavior refers to situations where a consumer has low involvement in a purchase, and is perceiving very few significant differences between brands in a given product category.  So many products fit into this scenario.  Most of them are everyday use products and commodities, such as toilet paper, salt and black pepper.  Let's consider black pepper.

There isn't much to ground black pepper.  Unless you are actively cooking as a hobby (or a profession), you just need some pepper to throw into your mac-and-cheese or season the mashed potatoes on your plate.  There is very little consumer involvement in this product category.  Typically a consumer will go to the store and reach for a brand.  If the consumer grabs the same brand repeatedly, this is almost always habitual buying, not brand loyalty.

In these scenarios the consumer's buyer behavior doesn't go through the normal belief-attitude-behavior sequence.  Instead, consumers passively learn about low involvement products and brands through passive consumption media - television, radio, and Hulu ads.  Because consumers are buying based on brand familiarity, marketers must use ad repetition to build brand familiarity instead of brand conviction.  In order to encourage sales, marketers will need to use tactics such as price and sales promotions to initiate product trial.

Marketers should create messaging that emphasizes only a few key points.  Marketers should also use more visual symbols and imagery within their advertising, because they can easily be remembered by the consumer and associated with the brand.  Ad campaigns should have high repetition rates and the  duration of messages should be short.

Follow @macdailybites

Read More

Marketing 101: An Overview of Consumer Buying Behavior

There are many mysteries in life.  Love, happiness, success, the meaning of life, teenagers, and for marketing professionals, consumers can be the biggest nut we try to crack and understand on a daily basis.  It's our job to understand how to convince our target market to buy what we have to offer.  How do we get them to see the value in our messaging so that we can get value from them in return?  It all revolves around the "mystery" of consumer buying behavior, and the factors that affect it.

What is Consumer Buyer Behavior?  Consumer Buyer Behavior refers to the behavior of the final consumers.  These consumers are the individuals and households who are buying goods and services in the marketplace for their own personal consumption.  It is important to note that I did not mention the word "business".  Consumer Buyer Behavior focuses on B2C transactions, not B2B transactions.

Consumer Buyer Behavior is a "mystery", because consumers vary greatly in their demographics and individual characteristics.  No one buyer is alike another.  However some groups of buyers do act similarly to each other.  In order to study buyer behavior, we have had to create a model to answer the central question of how consumers will respond to different marketing efforts and stimuli.  It's called...the "Model of Consumer Buyer Behavior".  Original, I know.  This stimulus response model is our guide.

The model looks like this:

[1] Consumers "ingest" marketing and other stimuli > [2] the stimuli enters their "buyer black box" > [3] the "black box" creates buyer responses.

It starts with marketing and other stimuli.  When we consider marketing stimuli, we usually focus on the "4 P's": Product, Price, Place and Promotion.  When we are examining other stimuli, we usually look at internal and outside economic, technological, political and cultural factors that influence the buyer.

All of that stimuli enters what we call the "buyer black box"... the brain.  This "black box" contains all of the characteristics of the buyer.  The buyer characteristics influence how he or she perceives the marketing stimuli, and creates a reaction.  The "black box" also contains the consumer's individual decision process, which is used to evaluate whether or not they will purchase a product.

Finally, this black box creates the "buyer response".  This buyer response influences the choice of product, their individual brand choice, the choice of dealer, the timing of the purchase, and the amount of money they will be spent on the goods and services.

Over the next few weeks we will be examining these characteristics as they affect buyer behavior, and discuss the decision process that the consumer follows.

Follow @macdailybites

Read More

Marketing 101: Microenvironment - Publics

This week's Marketing 101 is going to continue on in Marketing Microenvironments.  Today we are focusing on Publics.

In simple terms, a Public is any group of people that may have an real or potential interest in ... or an impact on ... your business's ability to achieve its objectives - whatever they may be.  Why should you care about Publics?  It's simple.  Publics can help, or hinder your ability to get your message out to your customers, and collect value from them.

Financial Publics
Your relationships with Financial Publics are extremely important.  These relationships directly influence your ability to obtain funding for your business.  Financial Publics typically include banks, investment houses and stock holders.  How these groups perceive you will directly affect your ability to get loans, favorable payment terms, and whether or not other Publics choose to do business with you.  For example, if a brokerage perceives that you are having issues internally, or your products have deficiencies, then it may give your stock a low rating.  If that happens, people may sell your stock, your market valuation will decrease, and your customers may start to buy less of your products and services.

Media Publics
Media Publics can be extremely valuable, or they can be a thorn in your side.  Media Publics typically carry news, features and editorial opinions, delivering them to your customers and other Publics.  They include newspapers, blogs, magazines (print and digital), radio (broadcast and internet) and television outlets (broadcast and digital).  You can carry out your "relationship" with Media Publics via VNR's, PR media releases, op ed's, interviews, or open invitations to review your products and services.  Do not be afraid to make friends and connect with people in the media.  You can gently influence what they say about you.  Having a good relationship with people in the media can make a bad situation for your company "tolerable" or a PR disaster in the eyes of your customers.

Government Publics
Take note: Management MUST take governmental developments into account.  You should always keep an eye on the current state of any laws and regulations that effect the production of your products, the day-to-day operation of your business, or the methods you can use to sell your products and services.  Marketers must often consult with government officials, their lawyers, and sometimes lobbyists.  Get to know your local government, and keep tabs on what your government officials are doing.

Citizen-Action Publics
The decisions you make will sometimes be questioned by citizens, consumer organizations, environmental groups, minority groups and others.  Your PR department can help you stay in touch with these groups.  It can keep you abreast of any concerns or problems that arise.  Make it your mission to get to know the citizen groups that may affect your business and your marketing practices.  Make it a point to have a friendly relationship with any of their representatives.

Local Publics
Local Publics typically include neighborhood residents and community organizations.  Businesses will usually appoint a community relations officer to meet with the community, answer questions and contribute to worthwhile causes.

General Publics
A business needs to be concerned with the general public's attitude and perception towards its products and activities in the marketplace.  The perception of the business, it's brands, products and services in the public directly effect consumers buying habits.  Keep an eye on Twitter feeds and FaceBook posts.  You will be able to get a very real sense of the general public's perception of you in the marketplace.

Internal Publics
Internal Publics are groups of people inside your own business.  These groups can consist of employees, managers, volunteers, and the board of directors.  Businesses typically use newsletters, memos, company meetings, intranets and other means to motivate and educate their internal publics.  When your employees feel good working for you, when your board of directors are happy with your success, when your internal communications send the right messages to motivate, encourage, train, and edify your staff, this positive attitude spills over to external publics, and helps to communicate your brand message in the marketplace.

A business can construct strategic marketing plans for some or all of these major Publics alongside it's chosen customer markets.  Suppose a business wants to evoke a specific response from a particular Public, such as donations of time or money (Cause Marketing).  The business would have to design an messaging campaign for this Public that is enticing and persuading enough to coax the desired response.

Is it realistic for all businesses to pay attention to all of these Publics at the same time?  No.  Can you effectively market to all Publics.  Yes and No.  You have to make the judgement where to spend your time and resources.  However, at some point in time you will have to deal with each of these Publics in some capacity.  It is in your best interest to at least get to know them, and when appropriate, take action.

Follow @macdailybites

Read More

Marketing 101: The Microenvironment - Competitors

I want to start this week's post with a bit of caution: even though there may not be a lot to write, this part of the Micro-environment is by no means small or light.  In fact, it is complex, requires a lot of thought and study, and must be properly evaluated.  It's your Competitors.

The marketing concept states that in order for your marketing to be successful, your business must provide greater customer value and satisfaction that your competitors.  In other words, you must do more than simply adapt to the needs of your target customers.  Let me state this again:  You must do more than just give your customers what you think they need, or they say they need.  You must gain a strategic advantage by positioning your products and services against your competitors in the minds of your customers.

This is all about positioning.  You have to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

You can't do this unless you study your competition.  You have to study them, their products, their marketing messages, and figure out how to stand out above them.

This takes time and a lot of studying.

Remember, no single competitive marketing strategy is best for all companies and situations.  You need to take into account your size and position compared to your competitors.  Large firms with dominant positions in an industry can use certain strategies that smaller firms don't have the ability to from a resource standpoint (money and manpower).  But being large is not enough.  There are winning and losing strategies for all sized businesses.  Small businesses must find the strategies that give them larger rates of return. 

When is the last time you took a hard look at your competition?

Follow @macdailybites

Read More

Marketing 101: Microenvironment - Marketing Intermediaries

It's time for Marketing 101.  We're still discussing the Marketing Microenvironment.  This week let's discuss Marketing Intermediaries.

Marketing Intermediaries are businesses that help your company to promote, sell, and distribute your products and services to your customers. They can include resellers, physical distribution firms, marketing service agencies, and financial intermediaries.

Resellers
Resellers, such as Target or Best Buy, are distribution channel businesses that help your company find customers or make sales to them.  There are now numerous large reseller organizations (think big box such as Target and Amazon) that have enough power to dictate terms, or even shut out other manufacturers (or even you) from larger markets and groups of customers.  It is absolutely important to have great relationships with resellers.  It is a give and take situation.  Often times, especially with larger organizations such as Walmart, you must be willing to follow their pricing or selling guidelines in order to gain access to their customers.  It may cost you money to get your product on their shelves, or be featured in their advertisements.  Unless you have a long, successful relationship with these resellers, you will typically have to supply them product and services on their terms.  In these situations, successful sales of your product in their stores will be what builds leverage for you in the relationship.

Physical Distribution Firms
Physical Distribution Firms help your business stock and move goods to their points of origin and to their destinations, ie: from the factory to a warehouse and then to the stores.  It is often much more economical to rely on these companies, because logistics is their specialty.  To build a logistics team and infrastructure is often very expensive to do from scratch, and is only really necessary when you are moving massive amounts of goods in highly specialized and time critical ways.  If you are manufacturing internationally, make sure you develop a good relationship with a firm that knows the in's and out's and politics of getting product in and out of ports and dealing with customs. 

Marketing Services Agencies
Marketing Services Agencies usually consist of marketing research firms, ad agencies, consultants, and media firms.  These companies exist to help you find and target your customers.  These businesses typically help to fill in the holes in your marketing staff.  Research firms provide you with qualitative and quantitative data on markets and customers.  Ad agencies help provide fresh, outside creative ideas for your campaigns and strategic marketing efforts.  Agencies can bring multiple types of marketing experts to your business without you having to staff people for each discipline.  Consultants can service the role of internal marketing staff on a temporary, campaign or project basis.

The key to using Marketing Services Agencies is to partner with them to help you with your weaknesses.  Whomever you use, make sure they are filling a hole that you haven't filled yourself on staff.  Make sure that they are invested in bringing you results.  You must keep constant tabs on them: are they doing the right work?  Are they investing your dollars properly?  Are they performing at a level that meets your expectations?  Are they truly concerned with achieving success for you?  Do you have a good working relationship with your account executives?

Financial Intermediaries
Financial Intermediaries help you use money.  They typically include banks, credit companies, insurance companies, other businesses that help you conduct financial transactions or insure against the risks associated with the buying and selling of goods and services.

Marketing Intermediaries are a crucial part of the marketing microenvironment.  You must have effective partnerships with these key elements of the microenvironment if you are going to successfully give value to your customers and get value from them.  Now is as good a time as any to evaluate the relationships you have with your marketing intermediaries.

Follow @macdailybites

Read More

Marketing 101: Microenvironment - Suppliers

Last week, we examined the Company in the Marketing Microenvironment.  Your relationship with other departments within your business can greatly effect whether or not you are able to successfully get a product to market, communicate the right message, create customer value, and get value from your customer.  Now let's examine Suppliers.

In the Marketing Microenvironment, Suppliers form a critical link in the company's overall customer value delivery system.  Suppliers provide the resources you need to produce the products and services that you are selling.  Supplier's not only supply you with resources, they also can partner with you in the customer value delivery system. 

When it comes to actual physical resource management, Marketing Managers must watch supply availability.  Resource shortages, delays, labor issues, and other unforeseen events can cost sales in the short term, and damage customer satisfaction in the long term.

However the real key to delivering customer value with your suppliers is partnering with them.  Partnering with them allows them to receive value from you other than payment for goods.  For example, have you considered offering to test new products and goods from your supplier?  What are you doing to help your supplier work with you?  What kind of customer service are you providing to them?  Good partnership management results in success for not only you, but for them, and in the end, your customers.

Take the next week and honestly evaluate the state of your supplier relationships.  It might be a good idea to send them an impromptu survey with carefully worded questions that will help you assess how good (or bad) of a job you are doing maintaining your relationships.

Next time we will examine Marketing Intermediaries.

Read More

Strategic Marketing 101: The SWOT Analysis

My next post discussing the basics of marketing is the SWOT analysis.  A SWOT analysis is an essential part of any Marketing Plan.  It's best to include it early on in your situational analysis.  It may seem like a simple summation, but it's a great 30,000 foot view of the state of your business and the outside environment.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Strengths
Strengths are any characteristic of the business that may give it an advantage over it's competition.  Strengths can include internal capabilities, resources, and other positive factors that can help the business serve its customers and achieve it's goals.

Weaknesses
Weaknesses are characteristics that may place the team at a disadvantage relative to it's competition.  Weaknesses include internal limitations and negative factors that may interfere with the performance of the business.

Opportunities
Opportunities are external chances to improve profits in the environment.  They can be favorable factors or trends that the business may be able to exploit.

Threats
Threats are external elements in the environment that might cause problems for the business or project.  They are unfavorable factors that can challenge the performance and profitability of the business.

The goal of a SWOT analysis is to match a company's strengths to attractive profitable opportunities in the market, while eliminating or overcoming any weaknesses and minimizing any threats.  The identification of SWOT's is extremely important, because subsequent steps in the process of the trategic marketing of a selected objective may be derived from the SWOT.  Users of a SWOT analysis need to ask and answer objective questions that will manufacture data for each category (strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats) and maximize the benefits to find a competitive advantage.

If you are a smaller business, and you have never done a SWOT analysis, I would really suggest that you go through this exercise.  Have multiple members of your team contribute to the lists in each part of the table.  Then example the list with your core management team or executive team and talk about each item as objectively as possible.

A SWOT analysis is an essential exercise when constructing a marketing plan for your business.  Doing it will probably open your eyes to factors internal and external that are influencing the long-term performance of your business.

Read More

Data: Knowing How Your Customers Use Media

I can't say this enough, so I will say it again:  It's all about Data.

Another illustration: today the Pew Research Center released the results of a recent survey, stating that less than 10 percent of people are using social media for up-to-date news.  So what does this mean?

I think we can gleam a few points:

1) This shows that your customers are probably using Facebook and Twitter for other types of information.  Social media is a losing proposition and a waste of resources if it isn't used properly.  Know where your customers are looking before releasing any type of news.

2) Press releases and other types of media announcements should not be on social media as a primary method of dissemination.  Social media should be a part of the whole information release strategy.  As with any properly constructed strategic marketing, a variety of communication methods should be used.  Social media may be cheaper to use, but it's going to cost you real dollars through lost sales if you're not getting information out via the proper channels.

3) Social media's value is in it's ability to give marketer's a more direct, personal connection with their customers.  Press releases and product information don't build customer equity.  Personal, meaningful connections with products and brands build customer equity.  Social media gives us one of the best avenues ever to build equity with our customers.

As always, armed with the right data, our jobs as marketers becomes much easier.  Don't waste your company's time or money.  Arm yourself with the right data so you can use the tools available in the most effective manner.

Read More

Reality Check: Marketing Defined

Every so often you have to evaluate how you are doing.  If you are a marketing professional, it's your responsibility.  So when is the last time you stepped back, and took a look at what you were doing?  Sometimes the best way to do that is to start with the basic definition of marketing.

The simplest definition of marketing I can think of is: Managing profitable customer relationships.  The goals are to attract new customers through superior value, and to keep growing customers by delivering customer satisfaction.  If you are doing these things, then you will be able to capture value from customers to create profits and customer equity.

So if we break this down, then we get some basic questions that are extremely useful for evaluating your current strategic marketing plans:

1) Are your customer relationships profitable?
If you're not making money, then it's time to start figuring out why.  Start collecting data and begin looking for trends.  It's going to take time to get things back to profitability, so it's best to get started now.

2) Are you attracting new customers?
As much as we hate to admit it, we're always going to lose a customer.  Even the most loyal customers may eventually buy another brand.  If you're not attracting new customers, eventually your sales will fall flat, and you will not be profitable.  So what are you doing to attract new customers?  What value proposition are you presenting to them?  Are you properly differentiated from your competition in your target market?  If your value proposition isn't clear, if you're not clearly different from your competitors, then confusion may be keeping customers from being convinced you are the solution to their want or need.

3) Are you creating satisfied customers?
Are product's perceived performance exceeding expectations?  Meeting expectations? Are customers buying your goods and services again?  Are you gaining new customers?  Or are you dealing with dissatisfied customers and poor sales?  Remember that customer value and satisfaction are the building blocks for developing and managing your customer relationships.

4) Do you have key measurements of your customer equity?  
Customer equity measurements can be better indicators of your performance than sales and market share numbers.  If sales are high, and market share is high, but your customer equity is low, you're going to be losing sales and profits will be tanking soon.  Get some data so you can make some real decisions.

Sit down by yourself, and with your team, and take a day to honestly answer the above questions.  You may be surprised at some of the responses.  Now may be a great time to make adjustments to your strategic marketing plans.

Read More

Media Consumption In A Digital Age: It's One Big Experiment

In the past, there was a silver screen, a few broadcasters, and a lot of paper.  If you wanted to watch something, you sat in front of someone's television or a theater screen.  If you wanted to listen to music, it was on a stereo - home or portable.  If you wanted to read something, or take something with you, it was most likely printed on paper.  You were in your home, in a movie theater, picked up the mail, or you went to a store to purchase your entertainment.

A few large companies controlled the publishing and availability of the media you chose to consume.  Prices were pretty much the same everywhere you went.  Competition was non-existent.  That's the way it was.  Then this "thing" called the personal computer appeared.  Then the internet appeared.  Everything changed, and it still is.

Last year Time, Inc. hoped to take advantage of it's multiple consumption and distribution publishing model. Time Inc. was attempting to bundle "digital" media with a traditional print subscription under an "All Access" strategy - which would have eliminated print-only subscriptions in the process - and would have allowed Sports Illustrated to raise its price to $48 from $39. Sports Illustrated reversed course in January.  Said Steve Sachs, Executive VP of Consumer Marketing and Sales, "That price, we found, was higher than the market commanded.  Monica Ray, the Executive Vice President of Conde Nast, commented, "The whole industry has the opportunity to redefine what a subscription is."

What kind of subscriptions do consumers want?  Is a "subscription" model appropriate anymore?  How do I find out?  The only way you can find out is by collecting data.  Without data, you're making decisions in the dark, you are walking around blind.  Since the way consumers consume media is changing, we need to be collecting data and study how our customers are using our media products.  If we don't adapt, if we aren't willing to constantly evolve our model of media delivery, we will forever be stuck in our traditions, and more media institutions will perish.

There are no longer a few ways to consume media.  Now there are many publishers, many screens, and the vast majority of them are portable.  Oh ... there still is some paper too.  Because traditional publishing methods have changed drastically from decades of old, traditional media publishers are walking around blindfolded, feeling their way around a media consumption environment that they no longer control.  Today publishing in a digitally dominated ecosystem has become one big experiment, and understanding what will work for you is all about knowing your customer ... and that requires data.

Read More

Using Online Communities to Create Brand Awareness - Part 2

This is Part 2 of my thoughts on Using Online Communities to Build Brand Awareness.  Last time I discussed how online communities help you build credibility and general awareness about your products and brand.  This time I want to discuss how online communities help you create SEO-aware content, and how they can help you build customer satisfaction.

Many marketing directors don't realize that as you are building awareness through your community posts, you are also creating SEO-aware content.  All posts and comments are index-able.  Search engines such as Google are able to look through and "store" your posts from an online community.  Because these posts are on a website other than your own, Google gives this content more weight, since it considers content about you on other websites more relevant.  As a result, your brand name and product information move up in ranking within relevant search results. 

Google also looks for links back to your website.  Make sure to put the address of your website in your signature.  This insures that your website's address is always displayed with every post, and that it is indexed as many times as possible when a search engine crawls the online community's site.

As you post more searchable content, it becomes easier for existing customers to find information that may help them solve problems.  Online communities are a great way to get involved in the first steps of basic customer service issues.  You can use the posts of others as an opportunity to acknowledge issues with your product.  You can also show your willingness via the public domain to serve the customer and create a positive brand experience.  However, remember that people tend to be more vocal on the internet, because it's a more anonymous experience.  You must always write posts that are calm, clear, and emotion free.  Use positive language, but never "beat around the bush" when a clear acknowledgement of a problem is best.

Remember that today being a part of online communities is necessary when marketing digitally, because it gives you a direct opportunity to build credibility, build awareness, create SEO-aware content, and address customer service issues.

Read More

What Are You Doing To Create Awareness Today?

Did you do anything to market yourself today other than think about it?

Marketing doesn't happen by itself.  You have to do it.

People don't find out about you on their own.  They won't bring up Google and search for you unless they have a reason to do so.

So what are you doing today to create awareness?

If you need a jump start, here are some ideas that might be relevant to your customers:

1. Offer A Discount
Sometimes the easiest way to drive traffic to your website, or to retailer locations, is to offer a discount or a coupon.  However, remember that spending money can be an incredibly emotional thing.  The right price, or discount, can drive a person to spend money "easily" without any thought.  5%-10% off might not be the ticket.  Don't be afraid to explore 20%, even 30-40% off.  If you're concerned about your margins, make it a limited or exclusive offer to a select group of customers.  Once they are in the door, they tend to buy more.

2. Hold A Product Demo Event
People love to research products, and price-shop online.  But at the end of the day, a consumer that touches the product, tries it, and likes it, usually ends up buying it.  Consider putting on a demo event in a location that contains your primary customer demographic.

3. Ask For Product Testimonials Via Social Media
Social media makes it very easy to connect with your customers.  It can be a customer service haven and nightmare.  One of my favorite uses of social media is testimonials.  It's as easy as this:  Ask users of your product to submit positive experiences of your product: video is preferred, text and pictures are great as well.  Incentives are a must.  Offer discounts off of new product, or free accessories to those consumers whose testimonial you choose to post.  Post one a week for 13 weeks - the length of a typical television or radio ad buy.

4. Participate In Online Communities
This fourth option can take the most work, but it can reap some of the largest gains for building your brand's credibility.  It's as simple as joining relevant forums and blogs.  Put your name and company in your signature.  Make it clear who you are.  Offer advice and sensible solutions.  However, you cannot blatantly advertise your product in your posts.  It's best to offer sound advice that may or may not include any of your specific products.  Over time you will see a few benefits:
- Community members will see you as an expert
- Community members will begin to explore your website and your product
- All of your posts will be indexed by search engines (like Google) and it will increase the amount of searchable, relevant content about you online.

It's a good idea to put one of your best PR reps or customer service representatives in charge of online community participation.  Your Social Media Director is a great fit as well.  You can take this a step further by becoming an advertiser in that online community.  This allows you to blatantly post about your product and any specials you may be offering.

These four things are simple, yet highly effective ways to increase Brand Awareness for little cost other than labor and time.  If appropriate, and if used in a focused manner, they are a great way to connect with current and future customers, and can provide a great ROI for a little marketing budget expenditure.

Read More

Targeting Ads Via Smart TV's Will Alienate Consumers

Let me say that I love technology.  I love gadgets.  I wish I had the money to buy more gadgets and try them out.  I love iPads, and iPods, and TV's and game consoles.  I have a special affinity for the good old fashioned television.  I'm a picture snob.  The idea of a "smart tv" with services such as Hulu and Netflix built in are interesting to me.  I've also come to accept the fact that "free" TV comes at a cost: the advertisement. 

I love the "ad".  It's a great way to reach a targeted audience.  It's an effective marketing and branding tool when used appropriately.  But allowing manufacturers to create their own ad networks and present ads via "smart tv's" is just a really fast way to alienate both the buyers of TV's and the viewers of media content.

At CES on January 9th, Samsung announced that it would enable the delivery of ads to a TV user's "home screen", even in 3-D on so-equipped models.  In November 2011, LG made a similar announcement.  This isn't a new model.  TIVO has delivered ads in it's DVR software, and many MSO's such as Cox and Time Warner display ads or poll-type questions via set top box software as well.

As it stands now, the current model is mostly passive.  A user may see an ad on a part of a screen they are on.  It is not part of the content they are about to consume, and it is not a road block that they must endure before viewing content, like the Hulu model for free users.  However, this could easily turn into a model where a television user, through the TV's operating system software, is forced to view an ad before tuning a live channel or opening an "app".  This absolutely cannot happen.  If after spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on a television, I must be forced to view an ad to do anything on my set, you will immediately alienate me as a customer, and the ad sponsor may also lose brand credibility with me.  The potential consumer backlash could be considerable.

Television is a passive form of entertainment.  It should never be active.  It should never be difficult for a consumer to get to the content they want to consume.  If there are too many road blocks (ads), then they will give up and not view the content.  This could keep eye balls off of sets, and off of normal broadcast and cable content, reducing ratings and potentially lowering the inherent value of  advertisement delivery via television.

This development does nothing but attempt to give TV's manufacturers a slice of the ad revenue pie, and in the process hurt the advertising industry as a whole.

Read More

Organic Thinking

As we begin the new year, we often reflect on the past.  We think about our good and bad habits.  We think about what we loved, what we regretted, and what we want to change.  We sometimes spend a lot of time thinking, and very little time doing.  Maybe it's time to change the way we think, which in turn, may help us to "do" more effectively.

Have you ever thought about thinking organically?

Organic thinking is less organized and less structured.  Similar to brainstorming, organic thinking allows your thoughts and ideas to appear freely, without immediate evaluation or consideration.  Simply put, when you are organically thinking, you are allowing one thought to lead to another, and another, and another. Why would you want to do this?  Why would you effectively allow your brain to think without "thinking"?

The first reason is it makes it easier for you to be creative.  When you think organically, you don't constrain yourself with constant self-evaluation.  You don't hold back.  You suggest ideas as they come.  As with brainstorming, you must make sure you document everything that pours out of your brain.  Once you do that, then it is the appropriate time to evaluate and critique.

By holding back your critique until after an organic thinking session, you make it safer for you and your team to put any and all ideas out there, no matter how outlandish or "stupid" one might be.  What you will often find is a couple of golden nuggets of suggestions, solutions or paths that no one person on their own may have come up with if they are scared to be judged by someone else.  Often a combination of ideas will lead to a better solution.

The next time you have a problem to solve or a product to pitch, allowing yourself to think organically will give you and your team more freedom to explore any and all possible ideas.  You will also find that as a whole, you will be more creative as well.

Read More

Be Purposeful Or Else You Will Be Ignored

On Tuesday, Facebook announced that it would begin adding "Sponsored Story" ads to users' news feeds in January.  This will not happen in mobile apps yet.  This announcement is another step in Facebook's plan to monetize it's business and make it a viable advertising platform. 

If you're an advertiser, this gives you an easier way to get in front of the eyeballs of millions of Facebook users.  If you're Facebook, you just earned yourself some more ad dollars and paid a few more bills.  If you're a Facebook user, you may have another reason to ignore Facebook today.  And that's the caution to throw into the wind:  "Sponsored Stories", if overused, will quickly be ignored, and will have little to no value for any advertiser.  In fact, if Facebook isn't careful, and if you aren't as a media buyer, "Sponsored Stories" could be a huge flop.

Remember that "reach" basically is the number of individuals you want to expose your message to through any type of media scheduled over a given period of time.  For focused groups of audiences, Social Media and other online advertising provide great reach.  However, frequency is where things can go wrong.  When you're visiting a website, such as a news outlet, you expect to see ads.  You're voluntarily allowing yourself to be exposed to them.  Even if advertisements appear, we tolerate them, because we're simply using the website to consume information in an impersonal matter.

Social Media isn't impersonal, it's personal.  Frequency can quickly die off with Social Media, because when ads invade our personal "space" online, we change our usage patterns; quickly visiting a services like Facebook less, or even stopping altogether.  Once that happens, you've lost that consumer, potentially alienating them from your brand (as an advertiser), and possibly losing another revenue generating user. 

That's the slippery slope.  As an advertiser, you need to make sure not to abuse Social Media advertising.  It's users may be more receptive to your messages, but if you over "communicate" to them, too frequently, and without specific value or purpose in your message, they will quickly ignore you.  Once they ignore you, your Brand Awareness measures and credibility may start to decline as well.

Facebook needs to quickly decide how much advertising they really want to force their users to view.  If they continue to add more "ads" to people's feeds, Facebook may quickly lose users, and one of the "pot of golds" of internet advertising may cease to be.

Read More