My Apologies to the Twitterverse

Yesterday I was enlightened by a survey.

Not a survey that I administered. Not a survey in which hundreds or thousands of consumers responded, and which I, the marketing researcher, analyzed to glean data on consumer attitudes and interests and perceptions.

No. I was enlightened yesterday by a survey that I took.

It was a survey from Twitter, asking about respondents' Twitter usage. In addition to basic demographic information, it asked things like, "Through which applications do you use Twitter?" and "What kinds of information do you like to find on Twitter?" and "What kinds of information sources would you like to find more easily on Twitter?"

The part that enlightened me was my response to this question:

"What is your main reason for using Twitter?"

The choices were something like (a) To give information; (b) To receive information; (c) To connect with other people; (d) Other.

My first instinct said "a". I use Twitter to give information - blog posts, local news, funny quips, interesting retweets.

And then my marketing brain kicked in. I remembered all of my marketing training - that marketing is about building relationships with customers so that marketers can learn how to serve them better, not just throwing products and advertisements at consumers. That marketing should be interactive. That marketing communication is about dialogue, not monologue. That marketers need to listen to their audiences, so that they can learn what customers want and need and desire and prefer and like and dislike.

And so, for a moment, I was tempted to choose the "right" answer - (c). But, for the sake of honesty, I had to stick with my original answer, (a).

Now don't get me wrong - using Twitter to provide information is a fine thing. People want to gain information from the individuals they follow - be it local news information, lifestyle updates from celebrities, sports scores and standings, personal comments about life from friends, or any other of the many types of information.

Providing this information to one's followers is a good thing. But one needs to be listening to his followers, customers, fans, audience members, critics, etc., before he can provide them the information that they are interested in hearing.

Celebrities and organizations and marketers who do not interact with their Twitter followers can still be listening through other sources - other online forums, blogs, polls, other social media networks, focus groups, surveys, in-store conversations with customers, etc. I, however, have not made it a priority to do these things - listening to people on Facebook, on my campus, on other authors' blogs, or on Twitter. This act of only pushing, never listening, is what gives marketers a bad name.

And for this, I apologize. To the Twitterverse, and to the universe of customers out there. I'm sorry that I haven't been listening.

And to my readers especially, I want to do a better job of listening to you. I want to hear what you are interested in, what you are passionate about, and what you would like to see my write about. Please feel invited to share your thoughts with me at any time here on my blog, or on Twitter (@HaleyDD).

From now on, I'll be listening.

Virtual Dressing Room, Starring You, Live!

The downside to the convenience of online shopping (or catalog shopping, for that matter) has always been that the shopper cannot really see how the clothes will look until the purchase has been made and the clothes have arrived.

As of four days ago, that has changed.

RichRelevance, a company that develops e-commerce tools, and Zugara, an interactive marketing and advertising agency, have now unveiled Fashionista, a "webcam social shopping tool" that enables shoppers to "try on" the clothes they browse online.

Using augmented reality and motion capture, Fashionista enables shoppers to test how an article of clothing will look by standing in front of their computer's webcam. Shoppers can rate articles of clothing (thumbs up or thumbs down), which enables Fashionista to provide recommendations for other clothes they might like. Shoppers can take a photo of themselves "wearing" their prospective clothing purchase, and send the photo to Facebook to get feedback from friends.

Watch the video below to see Fashionista for yourself:



Fashionista is currently used at www.tobi.com.

Other online retailers have used "virtual dressing rooms" of sorts already. H&M allows shoppers to select one of eight "models" on whom to view the clothing. Other stores enable shoppers to "build" a virtual model that matches their body type, or to upload a photo of themselves for "trying on" clothes.

Fashionista lets shoppers have a more interactive virtual dressing room experience, using their own bodies, in realtime. Shoppers can see how clothing of a certain color will look against their skin, and can envision what the clothes will look like.

Unfortunately, though, it doesn't seem that Fashionista can yet recognize the contours of the shopper's body in order to simulate how an article of clothing will fit him or her. For shopper's with model-like bodies, this might not be important; however, for me personally, seeing how clothes actually "hang" on me is the determining factor in whether or not I complete a purchase.

Hopefully the next generation of virtual dressing rooms will enable the clothing image to stretch, shrink, and gather based on the shopper's body shape.

And after that? 3D virtual dressing rooms?

And after that? Hologrammatic dressing rooms?

Oh, what will the future hold for us online shoppers?

Landing Page or Launch Pad?

At the end of his Mobile Insider blog post today, Steve Smith posed a question that bears repeating:

"Why is a 'landing page' a 'landing page?' Shouldn't it be a launch pad to a [story]? Why would you want to have your audience lean back to watch a clip, when they could lean in to interact with a visual story?"

Well put, Steve. Intuitively, we know that a website landing page is not meant to be the final resting place of the viewer. It is meant to draw the viewer into your website. A landing page is akin to the cover of a book, or the trailer of a movie. It attracts attention, gives a preview of the content, and draws the viewer in. A landing page should do three things:

• intrigue the viewer


• inspire curiosity


• generate involvement

Intrigue the viewer:
A landing page should convey the personality and purpose of the brand in a creative way - without using gratuitous, flashy animation and sound. As the adage says, "form follows function." A landing page can feature a cool Flash animation, but not simply for the sake of having a cool Flash animation. Design for the sake of the viewer, not for the sake of the designer's ego. Be tasteful. If you must use sound, include a sound on/off button; don't build something that takes forever to load; create your design with a purpose that serves the viewer and makes him want to continue.

Inspire curiosity:
A landing page should give the viewer a hint of what on the site is interesting and relevant to him. The viewer wants to know why it is worth his time to continue to browse your site. So convey information about "what's inside". And allow some mystery to remain - make your viewer want to continue through your site to "find out more."

Generate involvement:
Make your landing page interactive (as the rest of your site should be). Help the viewer to customize his experience on your site. Show him where he can explore relevant (not gratuitous, remember) videos, or photo albums, or virtual tours on your site. If you use animation, let the viewer control what he sees; use mouseovers, hotspots - something to let him click and direct and see more. Allow the user to comment on something, or build a sample, or take a poll. Make him feel like he is engaged with the brand, and make him want to continue that active relationship.

Let your landing page be a launch pad to your brand's story.

Normal vs. Boring: Toshiba's New Campaign

Have you heard the latest in reality tv commercials?

Toshiba just launched a campaign that pits six citizens of Normal, Illinois, against six citizens of Boring, Oregon. After being selected from a series of casting calls, the twelve contestants received brand new Toshiba laptops. Now they have one month to break free from "normal" and "boring" and be innovative - in using those laptops to increase community activism in their respective towns. The team that makes the best use of the laptops will win $15,000 worth of Toshiba laptops for the local school district.

A film crew from New York's P-13 Productions is documenting the progress of the contestants. On July 27, videos of the competition will be posted on MySpace, and viewers will vote for the winning team.

This is beautiful picture of interactive marketing meets corporate social marketing.

Residents of two towns with unassuming names get to participate in a one-month reality tv show requiring an innovative use of technology to help their communities. People around the world get to participate online in watching the videos and choosing the winner. The students of a school district get a shot at improved education facilitated by new technology. And Toshiba gets people interested in the brand and aware of Toshiba's commitment to corporate social responsibility.

A wise man I know once told me, "A good deal isn't a good deal unless it's a good deal for both parties." Toshiba has created a good deal.

Online Video Advertising that Works?

Here's a new approach to online video advertising.

VideoClix.tv is a video sharing site that seems to have found a workable solution to the monetization dilemma plaguing YouTube. While YouTube is experimenting with choose-your-own pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll "promoted video" ads, VideoClix steers away from the "tv commercial" approach altogether.

Instead, VideoClix uses its own Smartrack technology to add dynamic (moving) hotspots to the uploaded video. The hotspots function rather like "tags" on Facebook photos; as the viewer rolls the mouse over images in the streaming video, labels appear. The viewer can click on a labeled hotspot to see a relevant advertisement appear in a sidebar to the right of the video screen. If interested, the viewer can then click on the advertisement to open the advertiser's website in a new browser window.

For example, in a video of Maui honeymoon spots by The Knot wedding planning website, hotspots connect to ads for the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, The Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, National Geographic, and The Knot.

Although VideoClix seems to be slow in gaining contributors (due in part, I suspect, to their business model - with their $5,000/year license fee, they are seeking corporate- and network-created content, not customer-created), I think this advertising model is a winner. Viewers are happy, because they see ads only if they are interested in the material, and the ads do not interrupt the video. Advertisers are happy, because their ads are reaching the customers who are actually interested in their products and services. It's a win-win (as any good business deal should be).

I hope that the VideoClix method catches on. Perhaps if waiting for more contributors isn't working, VideoClix should license their technology to YouTube instead.

Ever since I subscribed to a few daily marketing e-journals a couple weeks ago, I have been hearing a lot about search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO). I mentioned this fact to a friend who does SEM at TMP Directional Marketing, and she commented that SEM seems to be remaining "a very strong part of marketing budgets, even during this recession."

Perhaps SEM/SEO is viewed as a "safe" (non-risky) part of interactive marketing - it is formulaic, and helps companies reach customers who are already looking for their products - and so marketing managers rely on it when money is tight. Or perhaps SEM/SEO is so foundational to interactive marketing and e-commerce, that companies must invest in SEM/SEO if they are to have any online presence.

Whatever the reason for the prevalence of SEM/SEO, it seems (at least according to one MediaPost publication) that there is a gap between the demand for good SEM and its supply. A study by [x+1] revealed that while 65% of respondents planned to maintain or increase their SEM budgets this year, only 21% of respondents were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the results of their SEM.

MediaPost's Online Media Daily suggests that the poor satisfaction with the results of SEM/SEO stems from failing to improve the user's experience after they click on a link. As OMD put it:

"Paid search or SEO professionals might say: 'It's not my job, man' to determine what's next once a person clicks on a link or paid search ad and ends up on a client's Web site landing page. That kind of thinking could cost the industry revenue in the long term."

It's never good business to use the excuse, "It's not my job." If a person wants to be successful at what he does, he should look for ways to be remarkable and exceed his customers'/clients'/boss's expectations. If he finds a related task that is typically considered to be outside his arena, he should jump at the chance to provide an extra service that will increase his value in the eyes of those he serves.

Wise SEM/SEO professionals should take the hint from MediaPost and extend their focus to help create more integrated (and more successful) online marketing. Use their data on who clicks which links and why, and help the web design teams to develop more customer-centric landing pages that give viewers what they need. Web design teams, embrace this knowledge of users' search behavior in improving your websites. Let the data inform your design.

Keep integrating, marketers. Get past your job titles. Work together. Improve your services. Achieve good results. Help people. Win more (and happier) customers. Be successful.

A Return to Soap Operas?

We are seeing a welcome shift in the marketing world - a move away from trying to capture customers by shouting at them with ads and commercials, and a move toward gaining fans by creating simply excellent content. Certainly we are still inundated with traditional "interruption marketing" (to borrow the term from Seth Godin) in magazines and newspapers, on tv and billboards and the Internet. But more and more marketers are letting great content speak for itself. They are doing and creating remarkable things that get people talking. (To learn more, read Seth Godin's Purple Cow, if you haven't already.)

I think the rise of smartphone apps and customer-created media (a la YouTube) has aided this trend toward remarkable content. Marketers are communicating via things that can be enjoyed as entertainment even without a brand message.

There is Gillete's uArt iPhone app that lets you add facial hair to a photo of yourself, then shave it into designs of your choice. There is the microsite for Coke Zero, which is really a video game in disguise. And how many company-created YouTube video phenomena do we see now? Like the Frosty Posse from Wendy's.

I see this trend, and I like it. This model inspires us to deeper levels of creativity. It makes me wonder whether we will soon see a huge reinvention of traditional advertising, such that we no longer see magazine ads and billboards and tv commercials as we have them today. Instead, will we see pure content - art, music, videos, games, short stories, poetry, etc. - "sponsored" by companies? For example, instead of tv commercials between our programmed viewing, will we see fun, 60-second short films with a simple, one-line message at the end: "brought to you by [insert brand name here]"?

It would be as if advertising (at least tv and radio) were coming full-circle, returning to the soap opera model. Soap operas got their name because a consumer products company (i.e. Procter & Gamble, who may have been the first?) would sponsor the radio or tv show. They would promote their cleaning products (i.e. Ivory soap); hence the name. If we see more pure content coming from marketers, it will be like a return to our roots.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see where advertising heads in the future. With the rise of the Internet and other "new" media, there has been talk of whether traditional advertising is on its way out. I can still see television, print, and radio ads as having a place alongside (instead of being replaced by) interactive, social media, viral marketing, etc. But these traditional advertising media may look very different in just 5-10 years than they do now.

Trust Comes First

Yesterday I saw I an online ad that read, "Click here to build a custom network for your brand." It had a little graphic and logo and another button that said, "Take 60 Seconds to Build Your Network." I had no interest in hiring a marketing services company, but, being a fellow marketer, I was interested in seeing what these guys were doing with this marketing piece.

I clicked on the ad, which took me to a microsite by a company called Casale Media where I could build a "sample custom network". I was curious; I wondered what Casale Media could do with this "custom network" thing; and I was okay with building a little free sample for fun.

So I picked some random "target demographics" (B2C, Miami area, males, 18-34, interested in fishing) to plug into the form. BUT, in order to submit the demographics and generate my free sample custom network, Casale Media wanted me to submit my Name, Company, Email, and Telephone number. Bad move. I left the site.

See, I knew nothing about Casale Media. Had never heard of them before. Had never seen their work. As a "prospective customer," I wasn't yet interested in Casale Media's services. I was willing take two minutes to check out their product, get a free sample, and learn whether Casale might actually provide a beneficial service to marketers. If they did, and I were a marketing manager at a company, I might have pursued further a relationship with Casale Media.

But, until I could see and learn about what Casale Media actually did, I was in no way interested in giving my contact information to this company about which I knew nothing. They had given me no reason to show them that kind of trust yet. And since I was only curious about the company (and not actively seeking any marketing services), I was happy to leave their site and never give them a second glance, if I could not test their free sample without submitting that information.

They lost me as a prospective customer.

If Casale Media truly wanted to attract new customers (which is ostensibly the purpose of most advertisements), this is model they should have followed:

1. Offer their free, fun little interactive application which generates a sample of Casale Media's "product" (the custom network).


2. DON'T require any personal information to run the app.


3. Let the viewer (who has already taken the first giant step by clicking on the ad) see the results of their very own sample custom network.


4. If the sample custom network shows that Casale Media has a fun and useful product, THEN invite customers to submit their information to learn if Casale Media's services are right for their company, or to visit Casale Media's website to learn more.

Casale Media needs to create some modicum of trust by allowing prospective customers to see a sample of their work. By requiring a yet-unearned level of trust from their prospects, they turn people away and sabotage their marketing efforts.

Trust comes first, Casale Media. Give them something free. Then, if they like it, they will come.

Marketers, just do work.

One month ago, I graduated from college. With a degree in marketing. Wanting to do interactive advertising.

Which means that, over the past few years (and even more over the past few months), I have been digging through job postings, prowling through lists of "The Top ___ Ad Agencies," and trekking through dozens of agency websites. I was quite impressed with the first several ad agency websites I explored - especially those for interactive* agencies. [for those of you not quite sure what "interactive" means, see my definition below]

Beyond the "coolness" factor of the clean or eclectic, minimalist or avant-garde, always esthetically pleasing, full-of-white-space-and-streaming-video, often Flash-driven sites, I especially loved the inspiring "our philosophy" sections that I would discover on these sites. Wow! these agencies "got it" - they understood things that we had been talking about in my marketing classes. They understood that marketing isn't just about shouting messages at consumers and convincing them to buy stuff so that companies can make money. No, it's about building relationships, and creating value, and partnering research with creativity, and having an integrated strategy, and being remarkable, and earning fans, and starting conversations, and developing trust and transparency.

I was so excited to discover that agencies have this fresh and original look at marketing!

Until, a few days ago, after wading through the millionth obligatory "marketing philosophy" page, I reached an exasperated conclusion: ALL of the advertising agencies that are worth their salt "get it" already. ALL of them understand the current approach to marketing, such as I described above. ALL of them have, basically, this same core philosophy. THEY'RE ALL SAYING THE SAME THING. Which means that none of them are really original any more. They don't need to keep saying the same thing that everybody knows already.

So, my fellow marketers and advertising professionals, quit talking and just get back to marketing. Take your lofty philosophies (most of which I agree with, by the way), and use them! Do marketing! And do it with excellence and effectiveness, and be remarkable, and earn fans for your clients, and stop trying to use your philosophy to prove that you're different. Just do great work.

Yesterday I stumbled upon this article on MediaPost.com, describing the website of NC-based agency Boone Oakley. Boone Oakley seems to be saying the same thing I've been thinking (just in slightly different words than I would have chosen). And actually, their "website" isn't a website at all, but rather an interactive (haha) YouTube video. Check it out: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=107402

*definition of interactive advertising (by Haley) - advertising that involves two-way communication between a company and its customers, rather than the traditional one-way communication found in media like tv commercials, radio spots, billboards, magazine ads, etc. To do this, interactive advertising agencies often use tools like public relations events, customizable products, Internet ads, company websites, online contests, customer review sites, microsites, blogs, text-messaging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, iPhone applications, etc. Hence the website of any agency that does any interactive work at all is typically very creative and...well...interactive.