Being Peter Kim

What Is Love, GooTube style

Over the past year, Google has handled a majority of web searches - over 4 billion queries and about 60% share, according to Nielsen Online panel data.  For people querying the Google for advice, no question was more popular than "what is love."

If those people had searched directly on YouTube, they'd have found answers in music.

And they're not alone. For example, there are others, foreigners perhaps, that wanna know what love is and they want you to show them.  Others are somewhat timid; they ask what is love and ask that you don't hurt them.

Answers abound, but not without disagreement.  Love is real.  Only a feeling. Alive. Dead. Color blind. Blue. Orange. Pink.  Here. Gone. A killer. Like oxygen. Heavenly. A bitchslap.

My favorites:  Love is all around.  It's a battlefield.  It's all you need.

Happy 2008!  I hope you find all the love you want/need this year, whether eros, philos, agape - or just some geeky link love.

Pricing the emperor's new clothes

In the aftermath of the holiday gifting season, here's some insight into the effect of pricing on brand.  The bottom line isn't good.  Jonathan Salem Baskin illuminates the illogic of sales over at Dim Bulb.

If losing brand equity through consumer training isn't bad enough, The Boston Globe offers evidence that only 5 of 52 items tracked through the holiday season were actually cheapest on Black Friday. But don't tell that to these people.

Be careful that your brand isn't overexposed for the sake of short-term gain...

Being Peter Kim in 2007

Thanks for allowing me to share thoughts with you this past year.

I was quite fortunate to be invited by many clients, organizations, and associations to meet in person and discuss marketing and strategy.  I'm not a great photographer; however, I threw together a small scrapbook of stuff I saw this year that you might like.

Looking back, one of my favorite things about 2007: meeting so many social media people in person, some for the first time, others just in a long time:  David Armano. Jonny Bentwood. Rohit Bhargava. Pete Blackshaw.  Toby Bloomberg. Chris Brogan. Blake Cahill. CC Chapman. David Churbuck. Henry Copeland. Michael Donnelly. John Eckman. Richard Edelman. Maxine Friedman. Josh Hallett. Ann Handley. Joseph Jaffe. Jeff Jarvis. Max Kalehoff. Karl Long. Owen Mack and Jesse Buckley. Amanda Mooney. Rick Murray. Jeremiah Owyang (now a colleague). Jeremy Pepper. Marianne Richmond. Julia Roy. Steve Rubel. Deb Schultz. Dan Schwabel. Aki Spicer. Mike Spataro.  Ilya Vedrashko. Greg Verdino.  (Sincere apologies if I missed you in the shout outs here.) 

Looking forward, 2008 may fly by even faster than this year, hard to believe.  I'm shifting my research coverage at Forrester to focus on mobile marketing, blogging, and building interactive skills/z.  More on that in the weeks to come.

Thanks again for the conversation.  I'm happy to share with you in Flickr, Twitter, Dopplr, and Facebook as well.

Reflections on Toronto

  Toronto 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

I was in Toronto last week.  Some thoughts on the trip:

- I went to Tim Horton's for a coffee.  In my change, I got a US penny.  Oddly enough, this is on the border of getting stiffed like getting Canadian change in the US, now that the currencies are about equal.
- People don't jaywalk.
- Some of the handlers working the YYZ customs queue are complete control-freak idiots.  Not what the world needs at 6 am before a 6:20 am flight.

Travel Diary and Dopplr

Travel happens.  Dopplr is open to the public and I activated an account today.  What's Dopplr?  A social travel site that allows you to share information about being on the road with others in your network.

I set up entries for 2007 as well as trips I've scheduled through July 2008.  In retrospect, I hadn't realized that I'd traveled so much this year: over 40 different cities, but only three I'd never visited (Barcelona, Cleveland, Rio de Janeiro).  7 different countries, 2 new (Brasil, Spain).  New York was the most frequent with 11 trips.  No never-visited cities planned yet for 2008, but looking forward to some I haven't seen in a long time, like Helsinki and Los Angeles, maybe Istanbul too.

Here's my listing on Dopplr; we can share trips, if you're so inclined.

Tweetfluentials

Your Twitter account has metrics.  You knew that.  The number of followers that a person has can be used as a measure of influence.  On the other hand, that metric could be gamed by followlove, i.e. I follow you, you follow me and vice versa.

So here's another approach from Tweeterboard (thanks @jowyang for the heads up):  a reputation score based on "conversations" you have with others.  So now it appears that the community has found attention and influence metrics for Twitter...now all we need is one for authority.

It's the combination of all three factors that make an influencer influential (earlier thoughts on this).

Wunderman on direct marketing. Or was it social media?

Lester Wunderman, speaking at MIT:

"We are living in an age of repersonalization and individualization.  People, products and services are all seeking an individual identity.  Taste, desire, ambition and lifestyle have made shopping once again a form of personal expression.  A computer can know and remember as much marketing detail about 200,000,000 consumers as did the owner of a crossroads general store about his handful of customers.  It can know an select such personal details as who prefers strong coffee, imported beer, new fashions, bright colors.  Who just bought a home, freezer, camera, automobile.  Who had a new baby, is overweight, got married, owns a pet, likes romantic novels, serious reading, listens to Bach or the Beatles.  New marketing forms which will link these facts to advertising and selling must evolve - where advertising and buying become a single action."

I was speaking to David Sable of Wunderman last week and he mentioned this speech vis-a-vis some research I'm currently working on.  The quote is from November 29, 1967.  Many people trace the birth of direct marketing to this speech.  Speaking of forward looking, perhaps being a good left-brain marketer is to be a bit of Nostradamus...?

Forty years later, you can apply the same insight to advertisers and agencies today to explain why social computing matters.

Facebook ad targeting examples

Facebook advertising has changed significantly over the past year.  Seems to me that ads used to look like flyers you'd find stapled to a campus kiosk, with messages like "futon for sale" or "a capella concert this Friday night."  Now, ad serving on Facebook has gotten mainstream, which means...it's terrible. 

Granted, it only breaks one of the three deadly sins of advertising - irrelevance.  Speaking of which, check out three flavors that I captured via screenshot on the site:

1. Behavioral.  Reading my cookies, eh Facebook?  The one on the left shows a display ad for the Bellagio.  True, I was looking for a Las Vegas hotel for CES last week at work.  But right now I'm updating my status, cyberstalking, etc.  You know, the usual.
2. Geotargeting.  The one in the middle shows an ad for a Dutch discount travel site.  Although I was sitting at home outside of Boston, Massachusetts, I was connected to my corporate VPN through Amsterdam (because for some reason my computer can't connect using the Cambridge VPN - go figure).
3. Contextual?  Owen Mack sent me an invite to add a PUMA app.  But look at the text ads - for high blood pressure, insomnia, and asthma.  Hmm...I don't have any of the three nor have I been searching for those terms.  Honestly.  Maybe working at PUMA feels like that?

Maybe remove poke is a pretty good idea...

(BTW the other two deadly sins of advertising?  Interruption and clutter, some would claim social ads hit both marks.)

links for 2007-12-14

• Crises Management Template: Child Relations for Social Networks (Facebook)
  (tags: facebook)
• Diva Marketing Blog - What Does Social Media Mean To You?
  Nalts is at least 20x funnier than me.
  (tags: socialcomputing)

The Evolved CMO

Forrester's CMO Group publishes some of the best CMO-focused research that even most Forrester clients will never see.  Why?  Because access to member-only research is one of the benefits of joining the group.

However, CMO Group analyst Cindy Commander recently completed a report in conjunction with executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles focusing on "The Evolved CMO."  And both firms have decided to distribute it gratis.

The report is based on a survey of 132 marketing leaders from companies >$100M.  Some of the key findings from the report:  CMOs need to spend more time on personal development, averaging less than 10% of their time on the activity.  CMOs aren't seizing the opportunity to lead their organizations to customer-centricity.

Most surprising to me:  CMOs rate engagement-related tactics like customer-driven design, social computing/web 2.0, and user-generated content as least important to success - but most important to learn about (!).

Read the full report here (registration required).

5-year-old bear killer; it's red again; W+K shows off digital acumen?

Hi everyone who came here looking for posts on Twitter.  Those are further down.

I read this story last night - bizarre.

The bear theme carried through to the graphic from today's Ad Age Daily (it was a late night).  I decided to create one of my own, you can too.

Which reminded me that W+K posted about different campaign executions for Starbucks, including a link to "the interactive work" i.e. banners and a microsite.

If that's their best digital shot, seems like a weak cup of joe...maybe Starbucks should ping the agency that did their guerilla work a couple of years ago and get a double-espresso idea instead.  After the highly publicized Running to CP+B deal, I'd think W+K would want to be stronger than this.

links for 2007-12-12

• Inc Magazine - Safeguard Your Brand Reputation Online
  (tags: brandmonitoring)

links for 2007-12-11

• Brandweek: CGM: You Have To Measure It To Manage It
  Brandweek Spotlight piece on brand monitoring.
  (tags: brandmonitoring)

CGM: You Have To Measure It To Manage It

I have an opinion piece up now in Brandweek's Spotlight section about brand monitoring.  Other bloggers who've occupied the space before me include David Armano and Chris Thilk.

Here's a little bit on what I'm talking about:

To succeed in CGM today, you need to listen and measure before getting involved. Sticking your head in the sand isn't an option; neither is operating in 24/7 knee-jerk reaction mode to every piece of CGM related to your brand. Brand monitoring can help marketers measure and make sense of CGM by delivering aggregated cost- and labor-intensive consumer insights.

To read the entire article, visit Brandweek.com.

Do you get it yet? [i.e. Twitter]

A couple of months ago, I published a report called Microblogging For Marketers.  I recently spoke with Jennifer Jones at Marketing Voices/PodTech about the research and our conversation is now available as a podcast.  Moreover, we've made the research available for free to non-Forrester clients (registration required).

In addition to Jennifer, there are other very smart people working at PodTech.  One that comes to mind is actually a former employee, Jeremiah Owyang, who is now a Forrester analyst.  Another is uber-blogger Robert Scoble, who took issue with some of the data in my research.  Let's recap:

• Forrester's survey found that 6% of US online adults use Twitter regularly, i.e. monthly or more often.  (Yes, you may use Twitter 12x a day and have a different definition of "regular."  However, I'm comfortable with this interval because it's the same one we use for other survey activities, e.g. online shopping.  In contrast, the response for daily or more often was 1%.)
• To 6%, I quote Scoble:  "I say bulls**t."
• Lots of comments follow, ranging from the insightful and interesting to the asinine. 
• Cynthia Pflaum, Forrester researcher, posted the best explanatory response.

To reiterate - IMO the number isn't critical to the report's premise.  As you'll hear in the podcast, rather than dismiss this technology based on small adoption alone, brands learn about how microblogging works and determine whether/how this technology or its broader application fits into marketing strategy.

If you're not a Forrester client and would like to read the research, register and read it here.  If you follow me on Twitter, I'll follow you back.  You can also find @forrester there, along with analysts like @jowyang, @charleneli, and @jbernoff.  (and if you don't know what the @username means...read the report!)

Romo and ROMO

You want to succeed in marketing today?  One good word to remember:  romo.

Left-Brain ROMO:  The acronym for Return On Marketing Objectives, as popularized by Marketing Evolution (this the company that identified the momentum effect in social networks).  Integrated marketing may be the top issue on marketers' minds today, but not without the need for accountability for what's being spent.

Right-Brain Romo:  As personified by Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony.  He's quickly becoming known for his on-field creativity, the ability to improvise and produce results.  No time left, need to produce results?  No problem.  With all of today's talk about left-brain marketing, let's not forget what marketing is better at than any other department.

These ideas work together - knowing what works gives you more room to be creative.  Knowing how to improvise gives you a chance to make the big ideas pay off.

BMWs made for "diplomatic" purposes

As seen in the window of BMW Park Lane, London.  Tough cars for tough times.  I guess seeing is believing.

Seeing green in London - how about online?

As someone from the US, it's hard not to notice the overwhelming focus on energy conservation when visiting Europe.  It's not just messages on napkin backs or food containers.  Mainstream media seems to run related stories frequently and strong educational program(mes) exist.  One that struck me in particular was the Energy Gallery that I saw during a revisit to London's Science Museum.  I've never considered myself an "environmentalist" by any means, but I'm thinking it's time to start...

Marketers are doing a lot of good deeds by rallying fellow bloggers - Age Of Conversation and The Ultimate Marketing Bookstore among others.  Hopefully we'll see more green initiatives in 2008.  I stumbled across a report from Umbria that says we're talking more about it - now let's do something...

Rohit opens the Ultimate Marketing Bookstore

New father, book writer and excellent marketing blogger Rohit Bhargava has opened the doors to the Ultimate Marketing Bookstore.

He's compiled a list of books recommended by marketing thinkers, including  Ann Handley (Marketing Profs), Jeremiah Owyang (Forrester),  Henry Copeland (BlogAds), Dave Balter (BzzAgent), and Mack Collier (The Viral Garden), as well as his own and some from me.

Best of all - 100% of affiliate proceeds go to DonorsChoose.org, a not-for-profit education organization.

For more information, see Rohit's announcement, Mack's description, and the Facebook group.

The Blog Council launches

Andy Sernovitz has launched the Blog Council - an organization for "large corporations" that "have significant blogs." If you fit the description, you should check it out.  Charter member brands include:

• AccuQuote
• Cisco
• The Coca-Cola Company
• Dell
• Gemstar-TV Guide
• General Motors
• Kaiser Permanente
• Microsoft
• Nokia
• SAP
• Starwood Hotels and Resorts
• Wells Fargo

Some pretty good company, if you ask me.

Dude

  L'Homme 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

A sight commonly seen in the Paris Metro these days.  Along with H&M lingerie ads and some sort of frozen spinach thing.

links for 2007-12-02

• Fast Company: A Mad Man Gets His Head Together [Publicis Groupe]
  Good story on Publicis + Digitas and digital
  (tags: pressquote advertising agencies)