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.