Being Peter Kim

Advertising Works! Here's proof.

More results were released from Project Apollo, showing a lift of 5 - 8% for consumers exposed to advertising.  The potential here is enormous.  Start with timing and creative insight here and use household level targeting from a company like Visible World - and the industry just might be able to get past clutter and irrelevance.  Interruption is a bigger programming issue - but throw branded entertainment in there and you've got yourself a winner.

For anyone who reads the news and thinks, "so what?  we already know that ads work."  Because believe me, I've heard this sentiment many times before.  You show ads, you sell more products.  But that's the shotgun approach.  Technology allows you to answer the more refined question, "how well?"

And that's approaching the issue like a ninja, not like a frontier settler in a coon-skin cap.

[photo:  rahen z]

TNS acquires Cymfony

The news is out - TNS has acquired Cymfony.  The new operating unit will be called TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony.

I'm not surprised - in my opinion, this was inevitable.  In the Forrester Brand Monitoring Wave, published in September 2006, one of the clear conclusions was that Cymfony would be a great fit with a large research firm like TNS. 

Did they sell too early?  From what I can see, mainstream attention is just starting to turn towards brand monitoring services.  In my conversations with vendors, everyone loves the fact that Nielsen brought attention to the space - now TNS ratchets it up a notch - and my Forrester wave helped validate the market as well.  But nobody wants to sell too early - like selling the rights to the Nike logo for $35 - and thus the market has been dating around, but not making long-term commitments.

Now, expect additional activity in the brand monitoring market.  Other conclusions from the Wave:

• Agencies will boost their market research capabilities.  I think this is the next big deal to be announced. MotiveQuest is the most likely candidate here.
• PR services agencies upgrade their offerings.  Not yet, but WagEd launched their own product  called Narrative Network.  Biz360 is a great fit for one of these firms - some of which could benefit from better social media skills.
• Nielsen Buzzmetrics will go public.  Wrong.  No IPO in sight as the measurement juggernaut formerly known as VNU builds an integrated measurement offering.  But now they have a challenger.
• Factiva will boost consumer capabilities.  Nope.  They were consumed by Dow Jones in December.  What this foreshadows, however, is the impending forward integration of data source owners, like Verisign.  Or at least starting to charge a premium for their services.

So who's next?  Well, the only ones I didn't mention yet are Brandimensions and Umbria.  For BrandDimensions, it'll mean selling off half the business, i.e. BrandIntel. I think Umbria will follow in the path of Buzzmetrics and Cymfony, getting paired up with a major research firm.  BTW did you know Umbria's CEO is the former CMO of IRI?

Too bad I didn't include a line in there about me becoming a billionaire!  Congratulations to Jim Nail, former Forrester analyst and Cymfony's CSO/CMO.

links for 2007-02-26

• TNS Eyes the Next Frontier
  AdAge article - TNS buys Cymfony
  (tags: brandmonitoring tns cymfony pressquote)
• Marketers Can't Grade Agencies but Fail Them Anyway
  AdAge article on Forrester agency research
  (tags: pressquote advertising agencies)

links for 2007-02-25

• Janya wins $5 million Air Force contract
  Rohini K. Srihari, Janya's CEO helped start Cymfony
  (tags: brandmonitoring)
• Janya
  (tags: brandmonitoring)

The media consumption diet

Jeremiah Owyang, part of the Media 2.0 Workgroup, posted on his media consumption diet.  Chris Saad and Brian Keith followed his lead.  The commonalities aren't too surprising - lots of internet, little traditional media.

What's notable is the fact that these early adopters are engaged with media channels in inverse relationship to the amount of advertising money being spent therein.  In other words, they're spending the most time where the least amount of advertising dollars are focused.

According to TNS Media Intelligence, through the first nine months of 2006, here's how media spend looks:

• TV: $47 billion
• Magazines: $21 billion
• Newspapers: $20 billion
• Radio: $8 billion
• Internet: $7 billion

But this disconnect doesn't end with early adopters.  Forrester data shows that the media mix of North American households ranks roughly in this order: TV, Internet, radio, newspapers, magazines.

Looks like we're in for more shifting in 2007.  How do you think this year's upfronts will play out?  Some companies are going to be like Kevin Bacon in Footloose - the part where he's playing chicken but can't veer off the road because his shoelaces are stuck.  Consumer behavior has made the shift to internet from TV unavoidable - they've tied companies to the gas pedal with no choice but to keep on going.

So for my "diet"?

• Primarily PC-based internet.  Mostly RSS for news, some web sites are regulars.  Only a few e-mail marketing lists.
• Mobile internet.  Work makes Blackberry a must, so I'm chained to a clunky UI.  Lots of RSS here, too.
• TV.  All the shows I catch on DVR are from Fox and ABC.  Or ESPN.  Hint - avoid commercials, just tune in 12 - 15 minutes after the show starts.  Later towards the end of the season.
• Magazines.  Lots of subscriptions, never read them.  See RSS, above.
• Newspapers.  Ibid.
• Radio.  None.  Want to save the environment?  Don't buy a hybrid.  Sell your car and use public transportation instead.  But doing so comes at the expense of radio time, which can of course be replaced with podcasts.
• Outdoor.  Typically ignored as much as possible.  There's much better stuff being done outside the US.

So - what's in your diet?

JetBlue's apology: the P.S.

JetBlue sent out an apology via email yesterday.  It wasn't just sent to passengers impacted by the weather/operations snafu - it went out to all TrueBlue members.

The apology was already published on the JetBlue website, along with Neeleman's video.  But the email contains a postscript (i.e. P.S.) message that you can't see anywhere else:

P.S. We pledge to keep you informed with more details about the implementation of our improved recovery plans in the coming weeks. There is no need to reply to this email about compensation inquiries. We will be contacting you directly by March 15.

In other words, "don't call us, we'll call you."  Implied:  "trust us."  A tough thing to do, especially if you experienced things first hand last week/end.  Take a bit of sincerity off of the apology, IMO - hopefully they'll deliver within the next three weeks.

Frank151

I got the latest (I think) issue of Frank151 in the post yesterday:  Upcoast, Chapter 26.  Great features on Seattle and Portland.  They've also got a nice blog.

[does this make up for my recent sci-fi geekout?]

Wikipedia: Death Star or Borg Cube?

Last week, slashdot reported that despite amazing growth and traction, wikipedia might be failing.

It's just semantics to the average user.  If you look in mainstream media, Wikipedia is reported as being no worse than its analog predecessor, the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  Steve Rubel posts on how wikipedia dominates brand search results.  The site's traffic has been growing steadily, climbing to 9th most visited US website in January 2007.

So "citizendum" has broken off as a rebel effort, of sorts.  But if the portal wars of the late 90's taught us anything, it's the lessons that consumers only need one.  And with the network effect of social computing, wikipedia becomes even more valuable.

Maybe it's not a new death star after all.  Maybe it's really a borg cube.

[btw until I wrote these two posts, I had no idea I was such a geek at heart.]

My new blog at BarackObama.com

I started a blog on the Barack Obama social networking site.  I'm not big on political blogging, because I'm pretty much in the middle.  Actually, I know I am and blogged about it before.

So the Obama campaign has opened up a platform for political discussion - and I intend to voice my opinion there whether it supports Obama '08 or not.  I don't intend to be intentionally controversial or inflammatory, just intend to speak my mind.

Nielsen: Death Star Approaching?

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...well actually 30 years ago and in Hollywood (same difference?) the Death Star came into our collective consciousness.  The Death Star was the dominant force in the universe, wiping out small planets at will.  However, its size made it difficult to maneuver and left it open to small rebel attacks.  One final point I'll bring to your attention was the political backdrop - lots of posturing, gesturing, and threatening, while the Empire just kept on doing its thing.

Since VNU took Nielsen private last summer and started trimming fat/streamlining operations, the direction looks pretty clear on an emerging integrated marketing measurement superpower.  Don't get me wrong - Nielsen was a TV ratings monopoly to begin with, but has been slow-moving.  Witness the anticipated launch of A2/M2...in 2011.  The media industry has been debating the validity and use of live/commercial ratings, delaying them for now.  While all along the way, Nielsen has been reorganizing and building a potentially unstoppable "superlaser" of measurement.  [sorry, saw that on the starwars.com site and can't get Dr. Evil out of my head]

The one element that would have made this the perfect analogy to torpedos in an exhaust port would be if social media measurement were missing.  But it's not, thanks to Buzzmetrics.  Is the new Nielsen Death Star III in the making?  With the repurchase of NetRatings, the company now owns measurement in television, print, online, outdoor, consumer-generated media, and out-of-home.  We hear experiments in cross-channel, like Project Apollo.  [btw no assumptions from me on who'll be cast as the Emperor, Darth Vader, et al.]

Is there anything that's going to stop this measurement juggernaut?  A truly integrated measurement suite would be invaluable for marketers - but market power in the hands of a few tends to produce sub-optimal results.  Do market mix modelers have the answer?  Or other companies that can aggregate an independent array of data sources?  Or should we hope that Nielsen gets it right, quickly, for the sake of marketing accountability?

links for 2007-02-19

• Hey, you on the couch: Buy me!
  Article about targeted TV ads. Boston Globe - Sunday, February 18th.
  (tags: pressquote TVad advertising)

links for 2007-02-18

• Attentio launches brand dashboard
  (tags: brandmonitoring)
• Radian6
  Social media monitoring - based out of New Brunswick
  (tags: brandmonitoring)

My JetBlue fiasco: epilogue

Late Friday, JetBlue's phone lines were back up and running.  The website still insisted that my flight had departed the day before, so I had to call in for a refund.  The agent was courteous and clearly instructed to not speak very much about what had happened the day before in New York.  I had my flight refunded, but nothing past that despite this quote from CEO David Neelman:

"I think the best thing we can do is say we're sorry and give them their money back, and give them a free ticket and then kind of plead with them to come and fly again"  CNN, 2/16/07

No apology or free ticket for me - the phone agent indicated that my situation had to have been much worse.  The kicker: a colleague got back to SF that night - on American.

Everyone flies for a reason - mine was for a speech worth thousands of dollars in revenue for my company.  Others were traveling for business as well.  Some were going on vacation.  Some were going to see family.  The worst part about the situation wasn't the anger and frustration - it was seeing the people who were just exhausted, given no recourse or support - they were the ones who - left hopeless - just broke down crying.

JetBlue's weather fiasco: my story

I posted last night as I was sitting in Boston's Logan Airport, waiting for a flight to San Jose.  As passengers piled up in the gate area when flight after flight was delayed, JetBlue's JFK woes were broadcast on CNN Airport Network.

At first, everything seemed fine.  The weather was bright and clear outside, no need to worry.  Then my 3:55 pm departure was pushed out 15 minutes.  Which became an hour.  Then a couple of hours.  I went and had dinner.  Then sat in the gate, watching as travelers grew increasingly nervous with each announcement.

Unlike a typical Thursday, the airport was filled with families trying to get a head start on their vacation, as public schools are on holiday next week.  Frustrated parents.  A young engineer who wants to make her 10 am meeting in Mountain View.  An MBA student on the eve of his interview with one of the most prestigious VC's in the world.  A Brit who declares, "This was my first time flying JetBlue - I'm never flying this airline again."

Finally, after more time spent waiting then would have been spent in the air, the flight's cancelled.  The gate agent announces, "Sorry, most flights are full through the end of next week.  You can pick up your luggage downstairs."  A message on jetblue.com states, "most flights after 5 pm have been cancelled in order to set us up for a better operating day tomorrow."  So I went home.

I'd expect that my ticket would be refunded in full.  But according to JetBlue, my flight actually departed yesterday (see pic)!  I called 1-800-JETBLUE a few times to see if I could get this squared away, but a recorded message states, "due to extremely high call volume, we can't take your call...Goodbye."

So what happened?  The weather.  Which exposed caused breakdowns in JetBlue's equipment, policies and procedures, and service channels.  It's difficult enough to build a great brand under clear skies - let's see how B6 handles this figurative storm - because they've failed dismally at handling the literal one.

links for 2007-02-16

• People Who Can Skip Through Ads Are Actually Watching Them - New York Times
  Well - what I do is start watching a show 10 - 20 minutes after it starts...
  (tags: advertising tv)

JetBlue: Stories that won't be shared...or will they?

Tough travel day out of Boston today, in the wake of a snowstorm.  Thankfully my 4 hours delay has me sitting in the terminal, rather than 8 hours on the tarmac.

You think any stories from today or yesterday will make it into Sincerely, JetBlue?  Of course not.  But they're out there anyway...

Resources on reinventing marketing

Happy Valentine's Day!

Prompted by a discussion in the comment thread of a recent post, I figure it's time to revisit the idea of reinventing the marketing organization.  However, before we get into that, let me make a couple of things clear:

• This is my personal blog - all of the content here is my personal opinion.  I pay Typepad's annual fee out of pocket.  I blog "officially" for work somewhere else.
• I don't receive any compensation (commission, credit, or otherwise) for Forrester reports purchased from the forrester.com website.

I've been fortunate to be able to share my research on reinventing marketing to many public and private audiences since the report was published in July 2006.  Here's a compilation of content related to my work that you might find useful (some subscriptions may be required):

• The original Forrester Reinventing The Marketing Organization report (July)
• My post on the Forrester marketing team blog about it (July)
• Ben's take at Church of the Customer (July)
• An archived Forrester client teleconference (August)
• A podcast and discussion from Forrester's Consumer Forum 2006 (October)
• My post on the Forrester Consumer Forum EMEA blog in response to questions after my speech (November)
• Josh Hallett's summary of my speech at Mplanet 2006 (December)

And links to others who are thinking in the same direction:

• The ANA's Bob Liodice
• ANA Marketing Maestros Will Waugh and Michael Palmer
• Ed See at MMA
• McKinsey & Company

I'll be extending the research into discussion of agency relationships and building internal credibility in the upcoming quarters.  Would love to hear thoughts on where this can/should go.  For example, how does this apply to B2B marketing?  My Forrester colleague Laura Ramos will move the ball forward in that area.

[BTW the picture has nothing to do with reinventing marketing - it's a picture of what Cambridge looks like today outside my window.]

Media 2.0 Workgroup

I've added my voice to the Media 2.0 Workgroup.  What is it?

"a group of industry commentators, agitators and innovators who believe that the phenomena of democratic participation will change the face of media creation, distribution and consumption."

Chris Saad from Touchstone explains, "To put it plainly, the visionaries, tool builders, emerging social media participants, 'old media' vanguard, investors and marketers all need to speak to each other to help create this opportunity together." 

I'm excited and honored to join these thinkers - you can make life easy by subscribing to the combined feed.

links for 2007-02-10

• For $2.6 million, Super Bowl ads need to live longer than 30 seconds | Chicago Tribune
  Integrated marketing, anyone?
  (tags: pressquote)

The best business school - a rankings mashup

I've always been part skeptical, part mystified, and part influenced by MBA rankings.  They played a part in my decision-making process, but the difference in standings still seems strange to me, given that major publications are pulling from similar data sources.

The FT recently released updated their figures and after my ranking of Super Bowl ads plus time to kill in Vegas, I got around to mashing up the numbers on business school rankings:

1. Chicago GSB
2. Wharton
3. Tuck
4. Harvard
5. Stanford
6. Columbia
7. Kellogg
8. Michigan
9. Haas - Berkeley
10. Yale
11. MIT Sloan
12. Stern - NYU
13. Darden - Virginia
14. Carnegie Mellon
15. Fuqua - Duke

Raw data published here.  Sources were Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, BusinessWeek, US News, Forbes, and The Economist.

This seems right to me - the top 5 are always in demand, despite oddball low rankings by some publications.  What do you think?

UPDATE (12 Feb 07): A couple of things I should've mentioned.  I earned my MBA from #13 Darden; I went to undergrad at Penn.  I believe that the most important thing about choosing a business school is personal fit and what you want to get out of it.  I have a lot of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who attended these schools and here's my take:

1. Chicago GSB: for the quantitatively-minded.  Things have improved greatly after students routinely panned their alma mater in polls during the late '90s.
2. Wharton:  for future Gordon Gekkos of the world that have great global focus.  The campus has gotten a lot safer and a lot nicer - but it's still West Philly.
3. Tuck: smart people, great place if you love skiing.  Lots of bonding from the ridiculously cold weather.
4. Harvard: best place to build your network of classmates to rule the world.
5. Stanford: only know a few grads; if HBS is a fraternity, Stanford's a [west coast] eating club
6. Columbia: Great place if you want to stay or relo to Manhattan
7. Kellogg: If you want to be known as a marketer
8. Michigan: Only know a couple of grads, undifferentiated to me
9. Haas - Berkeley: [can't remember anyone]
10. Yale: lost touch with people who went here, they decided on Yale because of the non-profit focus
11. MIT Sloan: all-around smart people
12. Stern - NYU: If you want to stay or relo to Manhattan but prefer downtown to uptown
13. Darden - Virginia: Best academic program out there; best buy if you can finagle in-state tuition
14. Carnegie Mellon: [can't remember anyone]
15. Fuqua - Duke: Not much differentiation to me.

One more thing - if you're trying to decide whether an MBA is worth the investment or not, again it's a matter of personal fit.  I blogged about this back in March 2006.

Free brand monitoring webinar

On February 22nd, I'll be participating in a webinar on brand monitoring with Umbria CEO Janet Eden-Harris, called "Look Who's Blogging: Tapping into the Blogosphere for Brand Insight." It's hosted by the AMA; registration is free.  Start time is 10 am Pacific.  Hope you can join us!

UPDATE:  Catch a replay of the session on-demand.

The Best Super Bowl Ad of 2007

A progression from last year's Super Bowl has been the proliferation of voting sites, giving consumers a chance to vote on their favorite ads.  In true consumer-generated fashion, the people have spoken and chosen their 30-second winners:

1. Bud Light :: Rock, Paper, Scissors
2. Bud Light :: English Class
3. Budweiser :: Stray Dog/Fake Dalmatian
4. Blockbuster :: Rabbit & Mouse
5. Doritos :: CGM Car Crash
6. Bud Light :: Horror Flick Hitchhikers
7. Snickers :: Chest Hair/The Kiss
8. Nationwide :: K-Fed Fast Food
9. Bud Light :: Wedding Auctioneer
10. Bud Light :: Crabs

The methodology - I took the top ten winners from sources that tallied consumer views and votes:  AdBowl, AOL, iFilm, Spotbowl, TiVo, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and YouTube.  Each source was weighted equally; a #1 ranking was worth 10 points, #10 ranking was worth 1 point.  (I've published the raw data in a Google Spreadsheet.)

Some takeaways from the top 10:

• All used humor in their creative executions
• Five were from the 1st quarter, two from the 2nd quarter
• Six spots were from Anheuser-Busch; the only two that didn't make it were Apes and Fist Bump
• What didn't chart:  Car ads; sexually-oriented ads (e.g. GoDaddy, Chevy HHR); 3rd quarter ads

Consumers have spoken.  And they've said, "Here's to beer."

Carnival of Marketing: Marketing experiences, not products

The carnival this week spotlights one post that signals a permanent shift in marketing.  Becky Carroll points out the importance of Marketing Experiences, not Products.

Becky's key points echo some of the points I speak about for companies that want to Reinvent The Marketing Organization:

• The customer experience encompasses all aspects of a customer’s interaction with us.
• The entire company plays a role in “marketing.”
• Once we understand our customer’s wants and needs, we can begin to market to them through the customer experience.

Customer-centric marketing is key.  What happens when it's not?

• A car story, regarding Subaru
• Another car story, regarding Saturn

Marketing has evolved from products to services and now to experiences.  I've heard some say that the next step is "transformation."

Super Bust XLI

Outside of Indianapolis and Chicago, most of the U.S. will have forgotten who won Super Bowl XLI by Monday evening.  Nationwide, most of the ads were forgotten by the time viewers fell asleep Sunday night.

Enough about how bad the ads were in general.  [Along with the halftime show.]  Many ads deserve their own special recognition and I'd like to highlight some of them here, by category.

Most violent:
1. King Pharma, BeatYourRisk.com
2. Bud Light, Fist Bump/Slaps
3. CareerBuilder.com, Promotion Island

Most use of sex:
1. GoDaddy
2. Chevy's Consumer Generated Ad
3. Snickers, Chest Hair

Most emotional appeal:
1. Coke, Time Line
2. NFL, Brett Favre
3. Budweiser, Fake Dalmatian

Most use of facts:
1. Toyota, Tundra actual demonstrations (and an interesting contrast to their recent ads)
2. Revlon, Sheryl Crow on tour
3. Salesgenie.com (j/k)

More takeaways and my 2007 Super Bowl ad review:

• Consumer generated ads weren't any better or worse than the "regular" ads.  Ad agencies need not fear consumers taking over the world of 30-second spots - but that's not what social computing is about...
• Integrated marketing didn't show up, again.  The only advertiser guaranteed to drive traffic to their site?  GoDaddy.  Biggest misses?  FedEx uses another grey-on-white 1 second end-cap logo.  Impossible vanity URLs like rocksolidretirement.com and snackstrongproductions.com.  HP lists a vanity toll-free number (800-525-MYHP).  I hope this is part of an A/B test...
• Guerilla search ads?  Non-existent.  Lots of cheap keywords out there like "map robot" for TomTom, "chest hair" for Philips, or "promotion island" for Monster...

And my favorite ads, purely by personal entertainment value:

1. Coke, GTA.  This ad was produced for cinema and launched in August 2006.  Maybe not true machinima, but great that they used the same style.
2. Garmin, Maposaurus. I'm not going out to buy a GPS, but I was laughing.  (Then I said, WTF?)
3. Budweiser, Shawn Carter + Don Shula.  Love the 007 style.

Super Post XLI

I get the feeling that coverage of Super Bowl ads has stepped up a notch this year, don't you?  At the same time, I'm not excited about what we'll see because:

1. it will be available online anyway and
2. only one or two advertisers will really use their spot to drive web traffic (GoDaddy will be one).

Here are some of the useful and/or interesting sources I've seen regarding the game:

During
- Spotbowl:  vote on ads during the game
- Akamai's Advertising Net Usage Index
- AdFreak live blog
- YouTube alternative dot-com ads

Pre-game
- Ad Age roundup and ad matrix
- New York Times on how to get more mileage out of a spot
- Wall Street Journal on ads for the ads
- Consumer ads:  NFL, Doritos, Chevy

And if you care about the game, there's ESPN's Super Bowl Central.

links for 2007-02-02

• Retail 2.0 - BusinessWeek
  Nau, a Portland startup focusing on sustainable apparel. Interesting cross-channel business model - but will they be able to pull it off? Waiting for the launch this spring.
  (tags: pressquote)

Cartoon Network proves marketers still don't get it

Cartoon Network, what were you thinking?

Photos from the day on Flickr.