Adapt or Die: Lessons learned at EMI

EMI died today.  The Company that started in 1895 and brought recorded music to the masses couldn't adapt to the digital era.  When then CEO Ken Barry hired me to shepherd the label into the 21st century, I told him I'm not a music guy.  Ken said, "We have 11,000 music guys, what we don't have is a future."
Under his leadership, we fought the good fight and tried every new business model we could think of: digital downloads, streaming, subscription, digital juke boxes, digital sheet music, digital background music, pre-loaded hardware, custom manufactured CDs, live concert recordings, webcasts, ringtones, OTA, etc.  Some new ideas slowed the bleeding, but in the end the red ink flowed because physical dollars were replaced with digital dimes.

While Sony and Universal will make money on the vast publishing and recorded music catalogs, the lack of one more outlet for new artists reduces the number of artists who will be able to make a living from their art.  In the end, music couldn't compete with technology for disposable income.  Video games, tablets, and cell phones are the must have form of entertainment.  Interestingly, people consume more hours of music today than any other time in history.  They just don't pay for it.

 I love 20th century music:  The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Pink Floyd, and Queen.... but I always thought there would be a new future for artists beyond TV contests and children.  Long live rock and roll.

Rants from the corner office: How to implement a zero-waste ad strategy

Rants from the corner office: How to implement a zero-waste ad strategy: The contracting global economy is wreaking havoc with business-as-usual ideas about advertising. Brands are slashing 2012 budgets, and as f...

How to implement a zero-waste ad strategy

The contracting global economy is wreaking havoc with business-as-usual ideas about advertising. Brands are slashing 2012 budgets, and as far as I'm concerned, this is a good thing. With another recession brewing, the ad business needs a good, strong cup of coffee. We now have the wake-up call we've needed: The industry must let go of the cost-per-impression model. The money that's left in those slashed ad budgets needs to get spent on advertising with real and accountable results. When markets go south, CFOs are in charge, and they want to see efficient ROI -- in other words, more results with less spend.

Efficiency, however, is not what brands and companies are getting in a cost-per-impression environment. Impressions are not accountability, nor do they provide measurements of gains in sales, market share, or profits.

Marketers have the ability to reach audiences the size of the Super Bowl everyday online, yet impressions, which are nothing more than the measure of the opportunity to click on an ad, still prevail. Banner blindness is an accepted truth in online advertising: Even on the off-chance that a banner ad is noticed, it's probably because it's distracting and annoying enough to momentarily divert attention. People go online for a reason, and ads that intrude on their primary pursuit --reading an article, playing a game, or checking their social news feed -- are hardly going to compel them to stop what they're doing and happily pay attention.

The answer for marketers is investment in "zero-waste advertising" -- that is, solutions that deliver a consumer's active attention and eliminate paying for wasted, ethereal impressions.

With zero-waste advertising, advertisers only pay when someone has willingly initiated a brand experience -- also known across the industry as cost-per-engagement. To implement zero-waste advertising, measure and exchange value on a 1-1 ratio to assure that the brand, the consumer, and the publisher are all accounted for in the advertising experience. Demand a measured return based on real engagement with real people. Engage the exact audience you want to reach, based on the criteria your brand needs to succeed.

Marketers should take a cue from leading brands that are finding new ways to power cost-effective digital campaigns in social environments -- especially those that are contributing to the expected 14 percent rise in digital spending for 2012 (despite a decrease of 3-6 percent in overall ad spend).

For example, the measurable success that Bing, Best Buy, and Intuit have achieved with zero-waste, value exchange-based advertising across social media has allowed them to pioneer new ways to interact with consumers, and in turn, expand their marketing budgets. Social media's greatest appeal is its ability to convert customers into advocates and generate millions of dollars in earned media. This is a zero-waste approach -- with a multiplier that even television can't deliver.

The feature film industry has also embraced these ideas for non-traditional yet highly efficient marketing -- a smart move, since the industry needs to pay for skyrocketing production budgets.

According to a recent KN Dimestore study that included one of the major studios, 32 percent of people who completed a value-exchange engagement with social media gaming giant Zynga went on to buy movie tickets -- and in most cases, more than one. That translates to a 64 percent conversion from engagement with the movie trailer to ticket purchase. Zero-waste, case in point.

While Wall Street's roller coaster ride is shaking C-level thinking, brand evangelists need to seize the moment, rise out of the digital budget ghetto, and prove that the era of zero-waste marketing has arrived. In advertising, playing it safe during a weak economy can be the most dangerous thing to do.

’Tis the Season to be Social

Six tips to drive Black Friday traffic

Back when print had more impact, big-box retailers like Walmart and Target maximized foot traffic on Black Friday by flooding Thanksgiving Day newspapers with door-buster deals. But with the rapid decline in newspaper circulation, and the proliferation of Americans using Facebook and Twitter, retailers need to add social media marketing to their retail strategy. Now that the holidays are right around the corner, here are six social media tips to guarantee that, like the song says, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year” – at least from a revenue-generating point of view.

1. Build your Facebook fan base now

According to Pew Research, more than half of all U.S. adults use social media. In 2011, Facebook jumped to the No. 1 spot online of time spent online, with over 1 trillion page views a month. As in real estate, the three keys for success in retail are location, location, location – so go where your customers are.

There are many successful techniques for building “likes” on your Facebook page, ranging from viral postings to paid engagement ads, but no matter which strategy you employ, it takes time to build an engaged and active community. Start now so that you’ll have a sizeable audience come the holidays. To give it a holiday spin, allow me to sing this piece of advice, with apologies to Nat King Cole: “So I'm offering this simple phrase, to reach kids from one to 92, although it’s been said many times, many ways, have Facebook users connect to you.”

2. Tweet your door-buster deals

To reference “The Christmas Song” again: Everyone knows a turkey and some mistletoe help to make the season bright – but really, it’s deep discounts that drive shoppers to camp outside your doors overnight. In holiday seasons past, you’ve no doubt worked hard with suppliers to offer the best door-buster promotions ever, only to have your plans leaked early because of newspaper printing deadlines (Target and Kohl’s have even gone to court over these leaks). Why not use Twitter to get out the word yourself, and encourage your best customers to spread the message? As with Facebook, build your Twitter following now, so that you have an audience before Jack Frost comes nipping at your toes.

3. There’s nothing more social than gifting 

Whether it’s two turtle doves or five golden rings, the social act of gift-giving is at the heart of the holidays, so you should translate this idea into the online world. Make wish lists social so that they can be posted and shared within social environments. Macy’s did a very simple but effective campaign last year by asking consumers, “What is at the top of your wish list this holiday season?” and provided the opportunity to use Facebook Connect to share wish lists. The result: 65% of consumers who engaged with the campaign made a list and then shared it with their friends.

4. Don’t miss out on the early season social media advertising upfronts 

In the movie in “Jingle All the Way,” Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad had to overpay and fight for the last toy on the shelf. The same thing will happen to retailers who fail to plan ahead: with all the growth in social media, you can expect scarcity when it comes to highly engaging advertising inventory. Interactive social media ads – such as engagements on social games such as Zynga’s Farmville or Cityville – aren’t as plentiful as display and banner ads. Major retailers such as Best Buy and toymakers like VTech have already secured their placements with social media upfronts for the holidays. To make cash registers jingle, plan ahead.

5. Check out (and reward) those that check in

Even when the weather outside is frightful, your best customers continue to check-in and be delightful – when it’s stormy outside, everyone’s inside and browsing online. You should value and reward your loyal social media followers. Special discounts, free wrapping and pre-sale hours are all easy and effective ways to reward customers who’ve been using Foursquare and Gowalla all year long to publically display their affection for your business.

6. Capture hearts through cause marketing

An activity not just limited to the holiday season, more than 30 million Americans per month use social media to donate time and money to charities. In fact, the number one non-gaming app on Facebook is Causes, and it offers many ways for brands to engage with their audience while empowering 11,000 non-profits to make the world a better place. If your cause marketing programs are sitting by the wayside while you focus on product advertising, build a social media presence for your charity campaigns and let everyone get into the holiday spirit.

Rants from the corner office: SocialVibe's Voluntary Ads Aim To Make The Interne...

Rants from the corner office: SocialVibe's Voluntary Ads Aim To Make The Interne...: Guest posting by Fast Company's Greg Ferenstein: SocialVibe has ambitious plans to make much of the Internet completely free, from FarmV...

SocialVibe's Voluntary Ads Aim To Make The Internet Free

Guest posting by Fast Company's Greg Ferenstein:

SocialVibe has ambitious plans to make much of the Internet completely free, from FarmVille credits and Internet Wi-Fi, to unlimited Pandora streaming. Their method is to offer users an otherwise paid service in exchange for lengthy, interactive advertisements. Consumers appreciate the brand for saving them cash, the brands finally get enough attention to display informative and creative ads, and service providers rake in more users for premium services.

Thanks to extraordinarily high engagement rates, with the average users spending 63 seconds on an ad and 10-40% sharing it with their social network friends, SocialVibe has lassoed high-profile clients, from global brands and A-list celebrities, to presidential campaigns. "I love SocialVibe," says Pepsi's head of Digital Marketing, Shiv Sighn.

Ads and Results

"On the Internet, people have been really effective at completely ignoring banners," says SocialVibe CEO and former President of EMI Jay Samit (who, incidentally, personally negotiated iTunes' original music deal with Steve Jobs). Even gatekeeping strategies, like Hulu's video ads, are easily maneuvered by savvy multi-taskers. "Here's the flaw with Hulu," he argues, "There's no proof you were there moment-by-moment."

He continues, "you push the button, you go make yourself a mocha frappuccino, and then you come back, and then you get to watch your show."

SocialVibe's trick is to appear at the moment when users would otherwise be asked to shell out cash: A Zynga character needs energy, Pandora's free listening quota has been reached, or a user needs to connect at an airport.

SocialVibe ads exploit the pleasant surprise of a third option to wedge in a longer, more interactive ad. As an example, for Disney's Cars, users were offered virtual currency inside Zynga's popular CityVille game, for completing an ad that asked them to select a favorite character, displayed a tailored video, and then asked them to share their experience with friends over Twitter and Facebook.

Results from KN Dimestore's third-party return-on-investment evaluation of the Carsengagement are impressive: 7% more users who had played the engagement said that they had seen the movie in a follow-up survey two weeks later (32% of exposed users vs. 25% unexposed). SocialVibe's engagement was even influential enough to push 3% more users into theaters who had previously said that they had no intention of seeing the movie. Given that few people see a family film alone, and that many of the users shared their enthusiasm with Facebook friends, the actually return on investment is likely higher than 7%, which is why advertisers are willing to spend enough money per ad to make premium services free.

The impression-hungry 2012 political campaigns have already gotten wind of SocialVibe's success and have begun experimenting in key battleground states. On average, users spend over a minute with each political ad, a whopping 85% complete the entire engagement, and 65% click through to the candidate's website or issue page.

A Model for the Post-Scarcity Economy

"Many websites, many of the small content sites are absolutely dying because their business plan was based on a [cost per impression] rate that was unsustainable in a world of unlimited capacity," says Samit.

Advertising in the previous century, he contends, was based on a world of few television channels and limited magazine pages; the flood of Internet content washed away the scarcity model propping up high advertising rates, threatening the financial viability of many media industries, from news outlets to television (like Hulu). SocialVibe's innovation is to leverage an abundance of information to create hyper-targeted ads, encourage sharing with social good and personalized content, and give freedom to consumers.

For starters, SocialVibe ads only appear when users are naturally interrupted by the service itself. "We're not interrupting your day," says Samit. "You're at a point where you can either take out your credit card or you can stop listening to music; we give you a third option."

As a result, SocialVibe makes brands look like heroes, swooping down in the nick of time to save users from spending their hard-earned money. "They think beyond the world of disruptive advertising," says Singh, whereby the consumer can "appreciate the role that we're playing." In other words, Pepsi gets kudos for giving users free services.

The alternative has been, thus far, to come up with flashy, attention-seeking ads that come between the user and their information. "Let's pretend for a second that [flashy ads] did get them to click so you could get paid, does that really ingratiate you to the brand, by annoying your customer?" Samit asks, in an exasperated rant.

While users may be reluctant to spam their network with advertisements, SocialVibe's engagements typically include two elements that are more socially acceptable to share over Facebook and Twitter: individual expression and social good.

Many ads provide elementary ways to remix videos, interact with characters, or promote a cause. For the Kea Soul (pictured below), users splice their own music video together from a simple video editing engagement, and are encouraged to share their critter-filled creation with friends (play with the ad here).

Like expression, sharing philanthropic causes with friends is more socially acceptable; SocialVibe ads often gives users the option of giving to charity, as opposed to, say, buying more virtual seeds for FarmVille.

Indeed, originally, SocialVibe was exclusively a charitable marketing brand, but found that a for-profit model could dramatically increase their user base, and, ultimately, the slice of users giving to charity (like other brands we've profiled). The charitable bent has been a nice boost for Pepsi, whose Refresh campaign has bet big on social good advertising (try Pepsi's engagement here, or check out the fully gallery of social good ads here).

More than just cheap services

Samit, who has been at the helm of many digital watersheds, from negotiating with Steve Jobs over iTunes, to having the original leader in college social networks, animalhouse.com, is optimistic that user attention will be a valuable enough currency to pay for more than just entertainment. "Your mortgage is digital, your health insurance is digital, your credit card bill is digital," he predicts, and "all of these things can be whittled down with a virtual currency and a value exchange."

Rants from the corner office: The Quest for the Living Room: Are Marketers Tilti...

Rants from the corner office: The Quest for the Living Room: Are Marketers Tilti...: When Steve Jobs passed away this month, he left one major technological goal unfilled: the quest to own the living room, and more notably, t...

The Quest for the Living Room: Are Marketers Tilting At Windmills?

When Steve Jobs passed away this month, he left one major technological goal unfilled: the quest to own the living room, and more notably, the $100 billion of advertising residing there. In reality, the range of devices he introduced to the world, coupled with the community created by social media, have forever changed the media landscape. Yet today most media dollars are still flowing to this mythic place, the living room.

Historically, more media has been consumed sitting in front of the television than any other device. Controlling this screen has been the goal of major technology, consumer electronic and telecommunications companies. When Apple announced iTV in 2006, the company joined a host of major corporations determined to conquer the 21st century living room. It took aim at Sony, Samsung, Time Warner and Comcast, and has recently warily eyeballed new entrants Hulu and Netflix. But while Apple and others continue in their attempt to stake out their turf in front of the sofa, each will soon realize that they are in fact, tilting at windmills—mostly thanks to Mr. Jobs.

With the release of the revamped Apple TV last year, Jobs again took the forefront of this illusive quest, as determined as Don Quixote, to reach the unreachable. Microsoft, longing to once again dominate a market --the way it did during the era of the personal computer-- is surely the Sancho Panza of this journey, a sidekick during Apple's domineering journey.

Years before Jobs entered the consumer electronics space, Microsoft sought to have its operating system dominate the television set of the "future." Microsoft first entered the living room with Ultimate TV way back in 2000 – a year before Apple's first iPod was announced. Ultimate TV offered consumers a DVR and supporting online services, including 14 days of programming and the ability to record 35 hours of programming. Microsoft's reach was then thwarted when Echostar acquired DIRECTV, and Ultimate TV lost its distribution. As a result of the Echostar development, cable and satellite providers wrote big checks to Hollywood and pushed back hard for control, but Microsoft remained undaunted.

As yet another way to plant a flag in the living room, Microsoft then entered the gaming system market with Xbox. Its strategy was simple: the best gaming system, Xbox, would be hooked up to the best television, Ultimate TV, within the home. This approach proved to be very effective and with the introduction of Xbox Live in 2002, and consumers could now download games, pay for subscriptions and purchase music and movies. With 23 million users, clearly owning the living room was within reach for Microsoft.

But something unexpected happened while the tech titans valiantly fought for control of the couch.

Like the ferocious giants of La Mancha, today's "living room" became nothing more than an illusion. "Everything is artifice or illusion," Quixote exclaimed, and no exception is made for the the 21st century living room. Families are no longer gathered around one, singular TV, sharing in a passive experience. Video is now consumed all the time—and everywhere. iPads in bed, iPhones on the go and DVRs delivering programming to sets throughout the household are more the norm than Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie gathered together on the couch. With 64% of Generation Y consuming content on multiple screens at the same time, where one consumes media has been replaced with how one consumes media.

Proof of this changing landscape can be found in who is cord-cutting, who is time-shifting, and who is demanding unbundled programming. Social media has also further impacted the shifting dynamics of content consumption, allowing friends to share the viewing experience with each other and their broader communities. Television programming is the number one topic on Twitter, and dozens of start-ups in the social space are linking second screen experiences. People no longer need to sit on the same couch to enjoy a show together. Moreover, the social aspects pioneered by music services such will soon expand to video and further enable advertisers to engage directly with viewers sharing video content. The majority of marketers, though, continue to cling to the living room to reach consumers despite innovation across every possible screen in the home.

So while broadcasters and cable networks cite increased demand at this year's Upfronts as proof that nothing has changed in the living room, I believe Steve Jobs recognized Quixote's wisdom that "facts are the enemy of truth." Jobs forged forward, pushed the front lines and created experiences for both consumers and advertisers that have forever changed the landscape of the battlefield. "Every man is the son of his own works" wrote Cervantes; as fitting a description of Steve Jobs quest as that of any knight.

What’s Your Zero-Waste Ad Strategy in a Down Market?

The contracting global economy is wreaking havoc with business-as-usual ideas about advertising. Brands are slashing 2012 budgets and as far as I’m concerned, this is a good thing: with another recession brewing, the ad business needs a good, strong cup of coffee. We now have the wake-up call we’ve needed: the industry must let go of the cost-per-impression model. The money that’s left in those slashed ad budgets needs to get spent on advertising with real and accountable results. When markets go south, the CFO is the mouth that is heard.  And CFOs want to see efficient ROI—in other words, more results with less spend.

Efficiency, however, is not what brands and companies are getting in a cost-per-impression environment. Impressions are not accountability, nor do provide measurements of gains in sales, market share or profits.

Marketers have the ability to reach audiences the size of the Super Bowl everyday online – yet impressions, which are nothing more than the measure of the opportunity to click on an ad, still prevail. Banner blindness is an accepted truth in online advertising: even on the off-chance that a banner ad is noticed, it’s probably because it’s distracting and annoying enough to momentarily divert attention. People go online for a reason, and ads that intrude on their primary pursuit –reading an article, playing a game or checking their social news feed – are hardly going to compel them to stop what they’re doing and enjoyably pay attention.

The answer for marketers is investment in “zero-waste advertising” – that is, solutions that deliver a consumer's active attention and eliminate paying for wasted, ethereal impressions.

With zero-waste advertising, advertisers only pay when someone has willingly initiated a brand experience—also known across the industry as cost-per-engagement. To implement zero-waste advertising, measure and exchange value on a 1:1 ratio to assure that the brand, the consumer and the publisher are all accounted for in the advertising experience. Demand a measured return based on real engagement with real people. Engage the exact audience you want to reach, based on the criteria your brand needs to succeed.

Marketers should take a cue from leading brands that are finding new ways to power cost-effective digital campaigns in social environments—especially those who are contributing to the expected 14% rise in digital spending for 2012 (despite a decrease of 3-6% in overall ad spend).

For example, the measurable success that Bing, Best Buy and Intuit have achieved with zero-waste, value exchange-based advertising across social media has allowed them to pioneer new ways to interact with consumers, and in turn, expand their marketing budgets. Social media’s greatest appeal is its ability to convert customers into advocates and generate millions of dollars in earned media. This is a zero-waste approach – with a multiplier that even television can’t deliver.

The feature film industry has also embraced these ideas for non-traditional yet highly efficient marketing – a smart move, since the industry needs to pay for skyrocketing production budgets.

According to a recent KN Dimestore study that included one of the major studios, 32% of people who completed a value-exchange engagement with social media gaming giant Zynga went on to buy movie tickets – and in most cases, more than one. That translates to a 64% conversion from engagemement with the movie trailer to ticket purchase. Zero-waste, case in point.

While Wall Street’s roller coaster ride is shaking C-level thinking, brand evangelists need to seize the moment, rise out of the digital budget ghetto and prove that the era of zero-waste marketing has arrived. In advertising, playing it safe during a weak economy can be the most dangerous thing to do.

Three Ways Social Media Will Make or Break 2012 Election Campaigns

Twitter and Facebook as tools that topple governments? We'd have laughed off that idea a few years ago -- but the "Arab Spring" protests prove that social media ignites (and spreads) passion and outrage better than any other communication vehicle. Social media will have a similar game-changing effect on the 2012 elections -- in fact, any candidate or issue campaign that expects to succeed needs to make social engagement a critical part of their strategy, or they're doomed to fail.

Television doesn't have impact it once commanded. The next occupant of the White House isn't going to get elected solely because of a brilliant social-media strategy -- but without such a strategy, candidates will not be able to enter a dialog with the majority of swing voters.

Social media made some inroads in the 2008 election, with the Obama campaign using Facebook to build volunteer donor networks and activate the base. In three short years, however, social media has evolved so dramatically, and become so pervasive in daily life for most likely voters, that the fledgling tactics deployed in 2008 look positively ancient. Here's why social media now has the power to make or break campaigns:

Audience: It's not just your kids and it's not just young Obama voters who user Facebook and Twitter. Social-media use by people over 50 is on the rise, and for elections, voters on both sides of the fence rely on social media to connect them to campaigns. According to a January 2011 report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Republicans and Democrats used social media to share political information at roughly equal rates during the 2010 midterm election. Facebook has 150 million U.S. users old enough to vote, and the average user has 130 friends. Any way you slice it, the social-media audience is massive, growing, and shares the information that most affects their lives with their family and friends online.

Influence: With the median age of a TV evening news viewer approaching 63 years old, it's possible that voters age 18 to 35 won't even hear a candidate's message -- unless it's coming to them through social media. The majority of all internet ad impressions take place on Facebook & Facebook apps. Social-media users rely heavily on their connections for advice on what to eat, wear, watch, and who and what to vote for. Facebook friends' suggestions matter far more than a TV commercial or newspaper editorial. Getting one's message into those billions of news feeds on Facebook is the key to entering the conversation.

Money: Realizing the size and power of social-media audiences, top brand advertisers (both commercial and political) are funneling serious money into online and mobile advertising. Investments in digital advertising for the 2012 cycle have already begun, with the Democratic National Committee/Obama for America allocating significant funds to digital advertising in the first quarter of 2011. And thanks to the recent Supreme Court decision on Citizens United vs. FEC to end a ban on political spending by corporations, the flow of money into campaign advertising -- and therefore, into social media -- will become a torrent. Thanks to the earned media that is created through viral sharing of political messages, studies of studies have proven social-media engagement advertising as the most cost-effective way to reach a targeted audience at scale.

Social media, and the content that its users share, has become a highly effective way for brands to hammer home messages and build stronger relationships with customers. Global brands such as Microsoft, Procter and Gamble, Coca-Cola and Disney are spending more and more ad dollars on social-media campaigns that engage people -- creating a conversation instead of just spraying more banner ads across web pages. And when people interact with these engagements, they're far more likely to share the experience with others in their social networks.

The impact of online engagement and sharing for political campaigns is unprecedented. People who use social networks like to take part in the same activities as their online connections. If they see that their friends are posting photos or checking in at political rallies or sharing candidates' videos, they don't want to be the last to know. It's called "FOMO" or Fear of Missing Out, which social media brilliantly takes advantage of.

Political messages within social media promise to engage users even more deeply than brand messages. Our recent SocialVibe study found that 94% of social-media users of voting age engaged by a political message watched the entire message, and 39% of these people went on to share it with an average of 130 friends online -- a rate of sharing that's about double what we typically see for non-political campaigns. This shows you how "share-ripple" goes far beyond the initial audience targeted by the campaign. And 1/3 of friends opened the message -- creating millions in free earned media for the candidate or cause.

Local candidates can now use social-media engagement advertising to raise money from like-minded citizens far from their districts. There are many ways to generate excitement for candidates and issues online, ranging from simple emails that include links to Facebook pages and YouTube videos to engagement advertising that trades brand messages for desired content. However, these 2012 campaigns play out online, the key element for success will be sharable content: surveys, videos, "I donated" badges, and check-in rewards, to name a few.

An active and well-informed populace is the key to a strong democracy. Thanks to the power of social media, the 2012 election may be the most participatory election in our nation's history.

Rants from the corner office: The Window

Rants from the corner office: The Window: A CEO of a very large and successful tech company realized that it had been years since he toured the halls of the giant corporation he had ...

Rants from the corner office: Competition and the Bear

Rants from the corner office: Competition and the Bear: Last week I went to a Social Media Conference up in Lake Tahoe. Too beautiful of a place to sit locked inside all day talking about social...

Competition and the Bear

Last week I went to a Social Media Conference up in Lake Tahoe.  Too beautiful of a place to sit locked inside all day talking about social media and the emerging advertising technology.  So after lunch I grabbed my backpack and decided to go hiking on a nearby mountain trail.  A mile or so into the woods, I came upon a competitor of mine that had the same idea (once again).

We made some small talk as we ventured deeper into the forest.  He bragged about his revenue growth, I bragged about our profitability.  Then suddenly a large bear wandered onto the trail about 100 yards ahead.  My competitor -- who never had first mover advantage in business -- started to panic.  I calmly sat down, took off my backpack, removed my hiking boots, and began lacing my running shoes.

"You can't out run a bear," he yelled anxiously.

 "I don't have to," I replied, "I only have to out run you."

5 Tips For Shifting Your Brand's Strategy From Television To Digital

 While more than $135 billion was spent in the last year on brand advertising in the U.S., marketers only allocated 3% of the budget to digital campaigns, which includes programs that leverage a promising mobile market. However, the latest industry stats reveal that advertisers will be dedicating $50 billion over the next five years to reach consumers through social channels, signifying a tremendous opportunity to interact with a target audience in new ways.

To effectively reach consumers in the new social environment, brand managers need to learn how to translate their budgets into the digital realm, which also means understanding the advantages that digital can provide over television advertising.

Here are five "Vs" to help guide the way as you shift your vision from television to digital.

1.      Opt-in video. Great brands are great storytellers. However, too many brands create compelling video without a captive audience to watch it. In other words, they have no idea how to tell who's actually paying attention. While commercials interrupt consumers' enjoyment of a TV program, social media allows video to enter the conversation between friends in a non-intrusive way with an opt-in choice.

Brands such as Microsoft, American Express and Unilever are among the many advertisers who are mastering how to pick the right moments online to tell their story, and in turn, are able to gauge the attention levels of their target audience. By empowering consumers to choose when and with whom they would like to engage, brands are more likely to reach people who will embrace their message. Recent studies show consumers average over 60 seconds of engagement with brands when they willingly opt-in to a video ad experience.

2.      Value exchange. Consumers value their personal time and are loyal to those companies that make their lives more productive. Brands gaining some of the biggest successes in social media are engaging with millions of consumers through value exchange. By offering consumers something relevant to their online experience in return for their time and attention, value-exchange advertising is crucial to gaining a consumer's active attention in a mutually beneficial way.

Broadcast television and radio pioneered the original media value-exchange model as networks provided consumers with free content in exchange for listening to a word from the sponsor. The digital media uprising has allowed the model to pivot, making value exchange, and its corresponding ROI, now possible on a 1-to-1 level. And now, with virtual currency (perhaps worth its own "V"!), moms seeking Facebook Credits to build their Zynga farms, office workers trying to read an article buried behind a paywall, or travelers trying to access WiFi at an airport can all be helped with value-exchange advertising - allowing brands to provide instant gratification.

3.      Virality. In the "old days" (as in, less than 10 years ago), a television commercial earned additional buzz at the water cooler. Today, these same conversations take place on Twitter and Facebook, creating the water cooler gossip of thousands. This distinction is important because 24% of all viewers now have a second screen open while they watch TV, whether it's a tablet, a PC or a smart phone. Clever brands like Kia and Best Buy are synchronizing their TV spend with social media ad engagements to speed the virality of their message. This synchronicity should be given special heed: consumers who share a brand's message as part of an engagement campaign typically share it with an average of 130 friends online. Earned media by way of the online water cooler is a vast multiplier of digital dollars spent, and greatly increases a brand's effective reach and conversion down the sales funnel.

4.      Validity. Millions have been spent over the last half-century on research to justify the value of TV advertising. What social media may lack in 50 years of studies, it is making up in concrete and measureable results. According to a recent OTX Research study, about two-thirds of people use information they find through social media to influence their buying decisions, and over 60% trust information they find through social media more than traditional advertisements-pointing to the effectiveness of social media campaigns to change consumer behavior. Moreover, as social media migrates to the mobile environment, marketers will be able to track consumers' purchases at physical store locations, and social ROI will have irrefutable validity - making the current industry standard of 0.1% for display ad CTRs shameful and baseless.

5.      Vision. What's really holding back billions of brand dollars from digital advertising? Vision. Most CMOs who are giving speeches about the power of social aren't backing up those words with budgets and smart execution plans. For brand dollars to migrate from digital to TV, brand managers are going to have to lead the way and prove the strength of this next generation of marketing. Those with the Vision today will quickly become the CMOs of tomorrow.

Advertising in a Down Market

With Wall Street downgrading media company stocks in anticipation of advertising budgets being slashed in 2012, I say, “Bring it on.” Madison Avenue is in for more than a haircut. CMOs should prepare themselves for a scalping unless they look beyond cost-per-impression and focus on the key measurement in a bear market: accountability.

When markets grow, boards listen to the CMO. When markets go south, the CFO has the big mouth. The jobless turn-around by corporate America over the past three years has been achieved by massive increases in worker productivity, and corporate balance sheets are solid because companies learned how to be more efficient. We’ve learned how to function smarter and leaner in business, but where is the efficiency in our expensive reliance on meaningless impressions for the bulk of advertising dollars spent?

This year has seen substantial increases in network television upfronts even though the most sought-after consumer demographics are watching fewer television commercials. Performance-based advertising (search, value-exchange engagements, CPA, DR) still only account for less than 4% of the $130 billion spent in 2010 on brand advertising in the United States. GRPs and impressions do not equate to accountability – they are proxies for comparison between television channels, not a measurement of gains in sales, brand lift, market share or profits.

Marketers have the ability to reach audiences the size of the Super Bowl everyday online, yet impressions, or the measure of the opportunity to click on an ad, still prevail. Banner blindness is an accepted truth in online advertising. Even on the off chance that you do happen to notice a banner ad, it’s probably because it’s distracting and annoying enough to momentarily divert your attention. We go online for a reason, and ads that intrude on our primary pursuit, whether you’re reading an article, playing a game, or checking your social news feed, are hardly going to compel us to stop what we’re doing and pay attention.

Companies burn money on banners due to their addiction to an outdated advertising model that simply cannot deliver accountability or efficiency. In 2008, a lack of viable or better options may have been an excuse for wasting dollars on banner ads, but it’s time to wise up and invest in zero-waste advertising.

Businesses need to spend ad dollars on solutions that can deliver a consumer's active attention and eliminate paying for wasted impressions. How do you buy zero-waste advertising? You only pay when a real person has willingly initiated a brand experience. You measure and exchange value on a 1:1 ratio, assuring that the brand, the consumer, and the publisher are accounted for in the advertising experience. You demand a measured return based on real engagement with real people. You engage the exact audience you want to reach based on the criteria your brand needs to succeed.

While overall spending is expected to decrease by 3 to 6% in 2012, digital spending is expected to rise by 14%. Take a cue from leading brands that are finding new ways to power cost-effective digital campaigns in social environments. The measurable success that brands such as Bing, Best Buy, and Intuit have experienced with value-exchange advertising across social media has allowed them to expand their marketing budgets and pioneer new ways to interact with consumers. Social media’s greatest appeal is its ability to turn customers into evangelists and generate millions of dollars in earned media.

Wall Street’s roller coaster ride is shaking up boardrooms and C-level thinking. Corporate social media evangelists need to seize the moment, rise out of the digital-budget ghetto and prove that the era of zero waste marketing has arrived. In advertising, maintaining the status quo and playing it safe can be the most dangerous thing to do.

Social Media Overload

So, as I waited for my Jasmine Dragon Phoenix Pearl Iced Tea at a neighborhood coffee shop I discovered on Yelp (with a 5 star rating), I checked in on Foursquare only to discover that the local Mayor was a Facebook friend who had just posted on my wall a Youtube Video of he and the girl he met on eHarmony (or was it Ban.jo?) at the party last night that I forgot to RSVP to on Evite.  While this elevated my FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) anxiety, I forgot to Pinng because I was too busy writing a recommendation for a former co-worker on Linkedin, who according to Plaxo worked with me, though I don’t believe we ever met, when I was interrupted by a question on Quora about my social media infographic collection on Tumblr (which used to be on Flickr, before I moved it to Picasa, but I digress).  No sooner had I checked-in, than my tweetdeck showed a tweet that I could have saved $3 on my drink with a Groupon had I bothered to check my email.  I didn’t get to opening my email yet, which is why I was going to the coffee shop in the first place because my inbox was exploding with hundreds of people adding me to their circles on Google+. (It’s a hellish time-consuming task organizing all these souls into circles which is why I guess, Satan is so good at it.)

Then, I suddenly heard a stranger across the room call out my name, “Jay” with an air of excitement and immediacy. I wasn’t sure I recognized him. He looked like a guy following me on Namesake, or was it Scoville.  Maybe he was that jet-setter guy with the tri-band 4G Droid I met at a TED conference who invited me to join A Small World to save money on yacht rentals –as if.  No, it was the Barista (his apron and the fact he was behind the counter gave me clues to his identity) who had – in just under twenty minutes – skillfully managed to pour Jasmine Dragon Phoenix Pearl Tea into a plastic cup of ice.

Now I am old enough to remember when being a good friend was spending time together or at least a phone call now and then.  But who has time?  With thousands of “friends” expecting me to send them crops for their farms, poison darts for the Empires, and Space Robots for their Yovilles (don’t ask, I have no idea),who has time to Skype or Facetime any more, let alone meet.  Social Media is killing my social life.  After all, with a Klout score of 56 to maintain and thousands of Twitter followers hanging on my every word, who has time to actually live life?  Gowalla is supposed to make it easier to keep track of the fun everyone else is having, but not my pals on Yammer and my Ning community of advertising executives.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the interconnectedness we all share thanks to social media.  I enjoy crowdsourcing my news and getting music suggestions from friends on Pandora, Turntable.fm and Spotify.  It’s the constant fragmentation and mass migration of photos, friends, and faux-friends that I detest.  According to my faux-friend Zuckerberg (I put him in his own circle: People I wish would adopt me), the average Facebook user has 130 “friends,” is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events, and creates 90 new pieces of content each month. Combine that with the 3339 texts per month the average Millennials get and is it any wonder our kids are stressed. OMG!  And if 130 dear friends are not enough, the whole premise behind MyYearbook and Tagged is to communicate with people you don’t even know.

But again, I digress. I am here sitting alone, trying to enjoy the coffee house ambience, leisurely sip my fragrant iced tea, and catch up on email.  According to Gartner, most Americans check their email six times a day (I’m so above average on this count that I should get one of those honor student bumper stickers) and spend 49 minutes per day managing their inbox. In between all the notices of everyone who is joining, following, commenting, adding, and daily dealing, there are the reminders of birthdays of people I met once and Meetups with strangers that share interests I used to have the time to enjoy.  I now only have time to enjoy these activities virtually.   With a few taps on my iPad I can Flick Golf, shoot some hoops with a friend on NBA Jam, or tout my verbal prowess with the Scramblesque Words with Friends. With 83 App installs per year, the average iphone user should never feel bored or alone.  So why do we?

We are tribal by nature and hunger for social connections that help us establish our place in the universe. At its best, social media allows the individual to cast a wider net in finding those with whom we share the same interests, values and disposition.  The Arab Spring, Causes and SocialVibe are examples of the good that can come from strangers sharing a common purpose.  At its worst, social media technologies are a collage of bits and pieces of fleeting social interactions inventoried and assembled, whose parts never quite make us whole.  Samuel Johnston aptly noted, “True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice.”  That’s my goal for today, I think to myself as I sip my now tepid iced tea, I will clear my in box, unfriend, unlink, and uncircle.  I will regain control of my social life.

My solitary bliss is interrupted by my phone’s ringtone of the Beatles’ Your Mother Should Know. “Hi Mom, I’m fine” I answer, thankful that I have maintained at least one real world friend.

A Boy & his Shovel

During recess, a young boy sat with his pail and shovel sculpting something out of dog feces.  The bell rang and boy continued to build and play ignoring his teacher's request to come back inside.  When the teacher saw him covered in excrement, she asked what he was doing.  "I'm making a teacher," replied the boy.  Insulted, the teacher stormed off and went to the principal.   When the principal return, he too asked the boy what he was doing.  "Making a principal," said the boy.  Infuriated by the lad's insolence, the principal called the boy's father.

The father, an executive at a well known social media company, calmly assessed the situation.  "I know what you are making," said the father, "You're making a social media CEO."  The boy carefully looked at his sculpture and the pile of waste before him and exclaimed, "No, I don't have enough shit."

The Window

A CEO of a very large and successful tech company realized that it had been years since he toured the halls of the giant corporation he had built.  Walking the floors of  the high-rise HQ unannounced, he stumbled upon a young executive staring out the window.  Ten minutes went by and the young man just stared out the window.  Another ten minutes, then an hour and the young man still just lazily stared out the window.  The CEO, blood pressure rising by the minute, glared at the young man for two hours until he couldn't take it any longer.  The boss angrily raced up to the board room ready to fire management and demanded all his senior executives explain what kind of company they were running where an employee can idly sit for hours doing nothing.  "Who is that young executive?  Who does he work for?  What does he do?", shouted the CEO.

Nervously, an EVP, with an Ivy League MBA, explained that the young man in question was the one who had thought up their hit product of the year and their bestseller from the year before.  This appeared to appease the CEO and everyone kept their jobs.

The next morning, when the young executive returned to his office, he had a bigger window.

Rants from the corner office: The Replacement CEO

Rants from the corner office: The Replacement CEO: "Coming in as the replacement CEO of a tech start-up, the departing CEO handed me three envelopes numbered 1, 2, and 3. 'When you have a pro..."

The Replacement CEO

Coming in as the replacement CEO of a tech start-up, the departing CEO handed me three envelopes numbered 1, 2, and 3.  "When you have a problem you just can't solve," he said graciously on his way out the door, "open the next envelope."  The business grew according to plan for months, until suddenly we missed our numbers and the VCs grew anxious.  Frustrated, and unable to ramp up the hockey stick, I remembered the envelopes.  I opened the first and it read "blame your predecessor."  I went into the board meeting lamenting what I had inherited.  I shifted the blame and was able to reset the forecast.  Things went fine for months, until once again market conditions hampered our ability to meet expectations. Desperate (as a liquor store owner in Provo), I again rummaged through my desk drawer and opened envelope number 2. "Reorganize," was all it said.  Armed with org charts, pie charts, venn diagrams, and a six sigma statistical analysis, I outlined a multi-phase reorganization to the board. We reorganized and recapitalized over the coming months until once again, the business plateaued.  Undaunted, I opened envelope number 3. "Prepare three envelopes" was all it said.