marketing gimmick or cool brand experience?

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Brian Steketee

Technology has rapidly changed the way we view the world around us, how we engage with family and friends and how brands engage with their target audiences. Agent X has a passion for what’s new and cutting edge, so we wanted to share some thoughts on emerging technologies that are actually here today.

Let’s start with the basics. It’s not that traditional media is dying — it’s evolving. And as technology becomes more available for all humans, we’re seeing the definition of traditional change.

Recent scientific advances in technology have expanded possibilities for digital integration beyond even what our parents’ generations hoped for. Still no flying cars or jetpacks, though — we’re waiting on that.

Remember that concert you saw? With that favorite band of yours? Great show, wasn’t it? Try to remember what it felt like to be by the stage for the show. Now, stop. Enhance.

Imagine if you could use an iPad or similar tablet and be able to experience the concert from a 360 perspective, interactively The Black Eyed Peas offered an app that did just that.

One other cool technology to keep your eyes on is Augmented Reality (AR).

AR, in short, happens when a programmer/developer writes coding that recognizes a picture, marker or pattern on a surface, and then causes the app (on computer or smartphone) to run a series of functions that render these digital images, superimposed over the screen.

Below is a video showing a very cool example of what augmented reality can offer the consumer and brands. Adidas used AR to allow people that purchased their shoes to not only wear them, but to engage with them, play with them and have some honest digital fun!

If you’re not impressed, don’t say we didn’t warn you: scientists are currently working on contact lenses that would provide augmented reality. How cool is that!?

So by now, you’re starting to see how rapidly technology will continue to change the world around us. It’s overwhelming at times, but what it offers goes beyond just applications for marketers. It offers a benefit to the human experience. It’s another way of looking at this wonderful world around us. (But we still encourage you to get out and smell the roses!)

For more info, you can visit Agent X’s website here.

Passion for Advertising is Becoming Passion for Social Media

Posted on June 18, 2010 by Andrew Rushmore

I want to begin by greeting our readers, as this will be the first post I have had the honor of contributing to our company’s blog since I came to Steketee Greiner and Company (SGC) almost six months ago. It’s been an amazing journey and I’ve been thrilled to be a member of such a dedicated team of professionals.

In my professional development, before being an employee with SGC, I joined a local organization called Ad 2 West Michigan; in a year I was elected to the role of Chair of Public Service, where I have worked with my friend and professional club associate Ray Cashbaugh (Chair of Creative), as well as the handful of dedicated, to build our charity campaign for the Wealthy Theatre (located in East Grand Rapids).

Ad 2, a division of the AAF (National), is a club for young professionals in Advertising, Marketing, and Public Relations between the ages of 18 and 32. In light of my involvement, I had planned to join the AAF and Ad 2 for their National Conference in Orlando, Florida, as a representative of Ad 2 West Michigan even before my employment with Steketee Greiner; imagine my pride to represent not only Ad 2 West Michigan, but also a rapidly growing company driven by an innovative spirit. The passion I have for my relationship to SGC allowed me to network with professionals in the Advertising industry with a vigor that perhaps Seth Godin would be proud of. Continue reading →

AdAge Viral video chart – New Media, New Measures

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Brian Steketee

The beauty of where this all goes – AdAge Viral video chart

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=143824

As I spent some time today on AdAge getting my daily dose of what’s happening and who’s who, I came across a great article that was talking about the most successful viral campaigns of the week. What was intriguing and also wonderful at the same time is that AdAge was referencing “Visible Measures” viral ability chart as a reference guide to who was winning the race. So there we have it – a publication that was once dedicated to a traditional advertising model paying homage once again to the power of digital and and non-traditional. Google’s Chrome video took the lead with an impressive 1.86MM views on a new spot they published online. Toyota was close behind with 1.85MM views regarding a campaign they put together for the Sienna.

What I love most about this example is the market’s willingness to understand and give credibility to the power of digital and social media. However I must say there is a great opportunity to provide more insight into this report than just how many views have been achieved. There is so much more data available to help you understand the true impact and connection that these impressions have had with the eyeballs that have viewed them. If harnessed correctly, marketers have the ability to make those moments so much more impactful to both the brand and the consumer experiencing them.

Brian

Using social and going global – The questions you need to ask yourself…

Posted on February 16, 2010 by Brian Steketee

The Industry captains of social media are up against a new challenge these days in trying to make their wonderful platforms useful for corporate America. After sitting through a couple meetings with Facebook over the past few weeks it was clear this is not something that is going to be easily fixed. The discussion started out something like this – Continue reading →

Word of Mouth

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Brian Steketee

We all know the importance of viral communications in today’s world. We’re learning even more about it during the WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) Summit this week in Las Vegas.

The WOMMA Summit is featuring brand speakers that discuss their real world WOM marketing programs from some of the top companies in the world. They are presenting case studies and educating the audience on the importance of word of mouth and how it relates to their company.

We have been working on some great projects involving word of mouth tactics, one of which is a corporate blogger event. What a great way to spur the spread of conversation about your brand. Get people that are passionate about something and give them your brand experience to inspire them to write about it and share it with all their followers -word of mouth!

We’ve met some great people and have seen some amazing presentations here at WOMMA. Tune in with us… Just go to womma.org and sign up for the live feed to see what the speakers have to say…and spread the word!

Should I create a facebook page?

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Brian Steketee

It seems pretty clear the executive mandate of 2009 is “we must get into social marketing”. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Fortune 500 brand or a HVAC distribution company, the people have seen the future and everyone is trying to figure out how to get on. So when is social right? Let’s first take a minute and look at the definitions of social marketing as spelled out on Wikipedia :

Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing along with other concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioral goals for a …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_marketing

Use of marketing techniques to improve social well-being by changing attitudes and behavior in regard to a specific product or concept.
www.rho.org/html/glossary.html

Marketing and advertising that reaches potential consumers via social networking website, such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. They appear at the edges of users’ profiles and can be targeted based on keywords in their profiles to match their stated interests or recent activities.
www.mediasmart.org.uk/parents-media-glossary.php

A marketing message designed to promote a social concern or political idea as well as a product.
www.glencoe.com/sec/busadmin/marketing/dp/ad_serv/gloss.shtml

What’s important to note is that Social Marketing does not necessarily have to include Facebook, or Twitter by that matter. It’s about how we connect amongst our peers, family, and brands. Sometimes that great tool of Facebook can be a launchpad. But consider this… Would you become a fan of your local pool supply store? Yes that is correct. I recently passed a billboard in front of our local pool store advertising the great opportunity to “fan” the pool store and stay tuned for deals. This I believe is a mistake and an in-appropriate use of a social platform. Sorry Mr. Pool store man if your out there reading this – It was a novel effort.

Social networks really haven’t changed over the years. The advent of the digital version of social networks has though. It has created a great platform to get engaged and have a voice out there. If used properly – it can make a difference. We’ve seen this both in the B-B and B-C space. However a lot of those examples didn’t and do not include “Facebook”… Start thinking outside of the norm. Forums, influential blogs, and other relevant trade and audience specific sites can be fertile ground for getting your message out. Especially if you need to communicate to specific target audiences. Use them properly and don’t “get in” just for the sake of “getting in”…

There’s a lot of value to be had by getting online and going social. However this always needs to be taken in the context of the rest of your marketing mix. Keep it cohesive and remember… You have limited control of your message once it’s out there….

Think, do your homework, and make sure to clearly understand what you want to get out of “getting into social” before you get started.

Brian

Success!

Posted on August 25, 2009 by admin

It took 10 days, 14 hours and 22 minutes, but someone finally called out our claim that marketing is dead. We’ve been waiting to see how long it would take for people to raise a hand and engage us in a conversation about the claim. The over/under was set at 30 days. It took less than two weeks. I won $5.

The marketing landscape is changing. It’s about open conversation and innovative ways to create new communications opportunities. We’re working hand in hand with our clients to help define where marketing goes from here. So, as the edit to our title post now says, marketing actually isn’t really dead. It’s just reinventing itself for the new age of Communications 3.0.

- David -

How to measure a blogger event using a variation of CPM and quality index

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Brian Steketee

CPM has been used as an industry standard for quite some time to enable brands to understand their cost per thousand impressions on a given site. The range of expense for CPM varies greatly depending obviously on the quantity as well as on how you measure quality of your impression. Recently we finished an engagement with a client of ours looking to understand the return on investment for hosting a blogger event tied to one of their sponsorship platforms. It was a great exercise and it taught the group at large a lot about the various attributes that can go into a measurement approach. So here’s a quick snapshot of the approach as well as what phase II is shaping up to be:

Background: Weekend event, 20 bloggers, free reign to speak their minds

Tools Used to measure: Radian6, Techrigy, Alexa rankings, Compete scores, Google Alerts (RSS feeds), Tweet Search, and a couple of our own “secret sauce” tools

Approach: Develop a dashboard and knowledge management platform for each stakeholder which would compile key metrics and data points into a usable format to provide relevant intelligence on the success/failure of the project

Key Metrics:

Bloggers: sentiment, social channel followers (Twitter, FB, Blog), monthly impressions, actual posts, tone of posts

Brand: Share of discussion (# of mentions +/- and neutral) for week of and following, competitive discussions, social channel performance (FB, Twitter, YouTube) by fan base and commentary

Executive summary: Total impressions by channel, total mentions, tone of mention, total share of conversation bench-marked against previous weeks performance as well as competition, and most importantly, the ability for the bloggers to actually fuel and continue on discussions with their base.

Phase II – Phase II really started with the last point I mention in the executive summary. The ability to understand and measure the influence blogger’s ability to open and maintain dialogues with their fan base. This is an area that moves past the traditional CPM and really gets at the heart of a quality and return of a discussion (challenge of measuring the value of a two way discussion).

Here’s my latest approach in translating quality into impressions. I’ve structured it this way to try to reverse engineer an approach that allows my client to still communicate using the CPM terminology and provides more clarity in defining a baseline for future events. This is an on-going process… I’m open for dialogue here.

(Sum of Quality Score Multiples/Number of Comments) = Average Multiplier; Average Multiplier X Total Number of Web Impressions = Total Quality Impressions (still can be used in the traditional CPM model then)

Comment Quality score is measured as an index. Range of 0-5.

0 score gets a .75 multiple = negative comment (1 negative comment would equal an impression of .75)

1 score gets a 1 multiple = comment is minimal but positive response

2 score gets a 1.05 multiple = comment is information neutral to positive with industry mention however no brand mention

3 score gets a 1.1 multiple = comment includes a question related to industry

4 score gets a 1.2 multiple = comment includes reader expressing a positive attitude towards industry without brand specific mention

5 score gets a 1.25 multiple = comment includes a positive response directly related to the brand of their products or the reader expresses information in trying their product or the reader “reblogs” the post

In summary, positive conversations surrounding a brand would increase the total number of “impressions” considered for the CPM calculation and ultimately provide a better understanding of value.

In the case of the event we were managing, we found that we were able to attribute additional impressions and bring down the CPM slightly (still high – ranging from $300-$700). Considering the niche reach of the outlets, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Brian Steketee

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marketing gimmick or cool brand experience?

Success!