Being Peter Kim

links for 2008-02-23

• Adweek: Walk the Talk
  Deep feature article on WOM
  (tags: pressquote wom)

Wanted: Your tips on Istanbul

I should've posted this a while ago, but I've been crazy busy. 

I'm heading out to Istanbul later today.  Have you even been?  I have once, but it was eight years ago.

Can you recommend the best places to eat, things to see, activities that must be done, etc.?

Your advice is appreciated! 

Connecting the Connected Agency conversation

About two weeks ago, Forrester published the Connected Agency report.  As expected, the reactions have been both positive and negative; if everyone agreed about the shape of agency of the future, then the research wouldn't have been worth writing.

I do, however, see a rough separation in sentiment between digital agencies (positive) and traditional agencies (negative).  Why is that?

Some reactions:

• "There is an healthy pull pulling both corporate communications/marketing and agencies/vendors up to new heights, faster and faster." Ken Kaplan, Intel
• "'Where have you been, my friend?' to the thought that the digital guys are going to be any better: they're also mostly tied up with old ideas about influence and information being a key driver of behaviour." Mark Earls, Independent, formerly Ogilvy
• "When you look at this changes in context of the challenges for the CMOs -- then suddenly the urgency and seriousness of the problem facing Ad and Marketing Agencies becomes quite stark." Chris Tacy, Method
• "We’re not excusing the industry’s slow move to digital or failure to pick up on some of the changes in consumer culture, but it’s not always within our control. Trust. We wish it was." Agency Spy, Mediabistro
• "I do think its hard to consider the future of the agency business without recognising that the media agencies (or at least some of them) are driving real change for their clients." Simon Andrews, Mindshare
• "I'm a bit tired of constantly hearing how bad we are at what we do. the industry is changing, and rapidly. We get it. And some of us are actually trying to drive that change in ways that will help change the ways that agencies come up with solutions for our clients."  Mitch Caplan, Project Davinci (WPP)
• "Am I crazy about how ridiculous articles like this are…especially because they are re-run every. single. week. by the trades. Is this hell? Yes."  daily (ad) biz, Anonymous
• "Own up to the problem that most marketers are completely out of sync with the rest of the world, take some responsibility and then, just maybe, things might start to get a little better." Deb Wiseman, Crayon
• "Boy, did I screw up." David Deal, Avenue A|Razorfish
• "Instead of looking at what brands can tell people, we instead need to be looking at what brands can do for people." Paul Isakson, space150
• "I  believe that within a few years there will be less distinction between digital, advertising and pr agencies - we will in turn become influencer agencies that span multiple media." Jonny Bentwood, Edelman
• "Sometimes it sucks being ahead of the curve."  Tac Anderson, HP
• "Sadly, most agencies still don’t get the new space, or if they do, they lightly gloss it over by saying “Oh yeah, we’ve a blog” and when I look, it’s a bunch of self-serving posts written by a variety of different folks with little strategy and few comments." Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester
• "One major problem with advertising agencies is that they’re exceptional at believing their own bullshit." Jason Falls, Doe Anderson
• "I would argue if you have that experience, skills and aptitudes, then transposing them into the new techniques and channels offered by social media is a lot simpler than trying to come at it from the direction of the advertising agency." Steve Ellis, Metia Software
• "As communities & conversations become more and more important, there is a need to understand how to build analytical models around huge "conversational  databases" that will emerge." Sivaraman Swaminathan, Customer Equity Solutions
• "How much can an agency facilitate conversations and nurture connections? I feel this is primarily a job for the brands themselves." Shiv Singh, Avenue A|Razorfish
• "Despite the wealth of information out there, distilling it into useful, actionable insight isn’t easy, and in fact it’s one area where old-school disciplines can help new media and digital mature as a discipline." Outside Line
• "Agency expertise has always tended to be siloed so things really become interesting when you connect media behavior with front end data for segmentation and predictive modeling with back end website analytics. Suddenly a different picture starts to form." Steven Duke, Wunderman

I'm glad we got people thinking - and this is just the beginning.

Heading down to Charlottesville in April

I'm heading back down to Charlottesville to speak again at the Online Marketing executive education course.  I was down there in October 2007 and judging from the feedback that organizer and search guru Alan Rimm-Kaufman received, it went pretty well.

I earned my MBA from Darden back in 2000 and have used what I learned every day of my career since.  If you have ever wanted a good excuse to visit a beautiful campus and get smart, this is it.

By the way, the famous (infamous?) Foxfields will be held the weekend before the course.  If you make it down, let's hit the Corner and get a gusburger.  Just don't expect me to stay out with you until 3 a.m. (!)

links for 2008-02-13

• Computerworld - Online reputation management is hot -- but is it ethical?
  Article on brand monitoring and some applications for SEO purposes. Lots of links to different companies included.
  (tags: brandmonitoring pressquote)

The Connected Agency

Forrester published a piece yesterday that takes a hard look at the future of advertising agencies.  It's what used to be called, in Forrester parlance, a "Big Idea," i.e. a concept not necessarily in practice today, but best practices looking 5 to 10 years out and beyond.  (The first Big Idea I wrote was called Reinventing the Marketing Organization.)

The executive summary of the research:

Today's agencies fail to help marketers engage with consumers, who, as a result, are becoming less brand-loyal and more trusting of each other. To turn the tide, marketers will move to the Connected Agency — one that shifts: from making messages to nurturing consumer connections; from delivering push to creating pull interactions; and from orchestrating campaigns to facilitating conversations. Over the next five years, traditional agencies will make this shift; they will start by connecting with consumer communities and will eventually become an integral part of them.

Clients can access the report directly.  After you've read the report, we welcome your comments here and/or on the Forrester.com site.

links for 2008-02-09

• Adweek:  Forrester: Agencies Need to Reboot
  Full report available with registration to clients here:  http://www.forrester.com/connectedagency
  (tags: agencies pressquote advertising)

What's wrong with mobile marketing

I spent the day in New York at the OMMA Mobile conference.  As I've blogged before, I've started covering mobile marketing and advertising as part of my day job.  But 2008 isn't going to be the year that mobile makes it big - and the longer recession looms over us, the longer mobile's emergence will be delayed. 

However, I'm just starting my research so I'm building up to identify how to make mobile marketing work now and in the future.  Today, there were some very smart minds sharing their thoughts - I'll share their reasons why mobile isn't prime time yet.   My biggest takeaway: mobile marketing has lots of potential, but is currently trapped in an immature adolescence, at best.  Sure, we've started to notice mobile - deeper voice, more curves, whatever - but this thing ain't ready to drive a car, vote, or drink a beer yet.

If you want to know why, here's what I heard today:

From Evan Neufeld of m:metrics: "what is driving us forward and holding us back"

1. Pricing:  consumers are getting nickled and dimed to death for data.
2. Devices:  need better devices to spur usage.
3. Bandwidth:  consumers want to drink from the hose.
4. Subsidization: Largest audiences for text messaging, a low value ad play.

From Jeremy Wright of Nokia, formerly of Enpocket.  "Why isn't mobile advertising bigger today?"

1. Fragmentation.  Buyers say it's hard to make a deal.
2. Measurable ROI.  Reporting isn't great.
3. Engagement post-click.  Lack of ecosystem partners and campaign integration.

From David Verklin, CEO of Aegis Media Americas.  "The biggest barrier to mobile advertising."

• Speed.  2.5G isn't fast enough.
• But most marketers don't even know what we're talking about, 2.5G, 3G and so on.
• We need to use mass media to drive people to concentrated places, i.e. from TV to web.

Manish Jha, CEO of Vantrix (and formerly of ESPN Mobile).

• His company deals with interoperability issues - they have a database of 13,000 phone types.  Think about it.  You may have enough of a headache building your website for PC and Mac.  Or just on PC, for IE and Firefox.  Or just in IE, 6 vs. 7.  Think that's bad?  Try 13,000 phones.

Verklin actually came out and said it:  2008 isn't the year of mobile.  2009 is.

What that means is you should be preparing yourself now for mobile, just like you did with social media - by experimenting.  Upgrade your mobile plan to include data.  Text in a vote to American Idol (in a few weeks) or submit a code to My Coke Rewards.  Visit ESPN mobile and notice the banner ads.

(Naturally, the flip side of this is how to mobile marketing work, which will be covered in an upcoming piece of research.)

Predicting Super Tuesday winners with brand monitoring

I've seen a lot of brand monitoring solutions that claim to do a lot of things.  Many vendors say they can predict future events based on chatter levels.  Most often, the backup happens in hindsight, which you and I both know is 20/20.

But this brand monitoring vendor Collective Intellect is doing something different - they are publicly releasing projections of US Presidential primary outcomes, based on analysis using their technology.  Why does this matter?  Because the outcome is publicly available so you'll know whether they were right or wrong.

So how did they do on Super Tuesday?

Democrats:

• California.  Prediction:  Obama.  Outcome:  Clinton.  Result:  Incorrect.
• Colorado.  Clinton (close).  Obama.  Incorrect.
• Georgia.  Obama.  Obama.  Correct.
• Massachusetts.  Obama (close).  Clinton.  Incorrect.  [Oddly enough, I haven't seen much Clinton support around Wellesley, the town that shares a name with Hillary's alma mater.]
• Missouri. Obama (close). Obama. Correct.  Very close race.
  

Republicans:

• California.  McCain (landslide).  McCain. Correct.
• Colorado.  Romney (landslide).  Romney. Correct.
• Georgia.  McCain (landslide).  Huckabee. Incorrect.
• Massachusetts.  McCain (landslide).  Romney.  Incorrect.  I guess we still like Mitt here.
• Missouri.  McCain.  McCain.  Correct.

Overall, the predictions went 5/10 (results based on CNN projections).  Could have been better, but marketer decisions typically aren't as black & white as this and more directional.  Credit for putting your neck out there, Collective Intellect.

Contrast this with brand monitoring predictions around the Super Bowl.  All hindsight.  Will anyone else prove their system publicly?  Next American Idol winner?  New hit TV shows?  The next President?  Or does this show that these systems aren't ready for prime time?

Engagement and SB XLII Ads

Think back about the game.  Do you remember any of the ads - without any aided recall?  Did any of them really "engage" you?

For $3 million, I was curious about how engaging the ads would be.  I do marketing/advertising research for a living which means my perspective is biased.

To refresh your memory, going back almost two years:  "Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context."  Thus spoke the ARF.  I'd extend that definition because it could be as simple as "they liked our ad."  I say engagement means that people did something after watching.

Well, these days the easiest next step would be for consumers to find out more online.  So I was looking for ads that sent people to the web to find out more - and not just looking for the ads on myspace.

OK so were any of these ads really "engaging"?

As expected, the only one that did with any effectiveness was GoDaddy.com.  The trick wasn't the suggestive humor - it was their URL displayed on screen for the entire spot.  (I spoke with their PR director last month in Vegas who said this is a recognized value-creating tactic.)

I can vaguely remember some other vanity URLs:

• A talking stain during an interview.
• Sunsilk - something with music, nothing to do with shampoo.
• Doritos using snackstrongproductions.com again (remember I'm biased)
• Sobe had one, but I just remember Thriller.

I also remember some of the other advertisers - Bridgestone, Audi, Coca-Cola, Victoria's Secret, FedEx, Gatorade, and salesgenie.com (their URL was ../tv I think).  But if they had vanity URLs, I can't remember them.  (were there any others?)

Keep in mind that I'm biased, in the industry, and trying to keep the addresses in mind.  Blame the memory, I suppose.

Pew's latest survey shows over 73% of adults have internet access.  Forrester data shows 72%.  Of course we could go to myspace and look at all the ads.  But isn't the point of engagement to say something that a viewer will remember - and then do something about?  Seems like most advertisers did as well here as the Patriots' offensive line.

Mobile insights from Finland

As I've mentioned before, my research coverage has shifted to include mobile marketing.  I spent the past week with Nokia in Espoo and picked up some interesting insights from our interactions.

You may know that Nokia's origins come from the wood pulp, rubber, and cable industries.  You may not know that just a decade ago, mobile was only 5% of the company's business mix.  Today they've become the world's largest volume handset manufacturer, with over 112,000 employees.  Reminds me of IBM's shift to services - fascinating case in refocusing a business.

In 2007, there were over 3 billion people on mobile networks - over half the world's population.  Nokia projects this number will increase to 5 billion in 2015, but with a 100-fold increase in network traffic.  That's a quite different world than today and not that far away.  Mobile marketing may not be prime time today, but it will be.

Last year, Nokia launched a special Arabian-African edition phone.  It was made in special colors with seven preloaded Ramadan-related applications, e.g. Qibla direction indicator and Hijri calendar.  Reminds me of the limited edition SMUs from Nike and adidas - this is a tactic that could be applied to many brands in many markets.

Speaking of devices, Nokia has the ability to put 7 megapixel cameras in their phones, but hasn't.  Why?  Customer experience - a 7MP camera would create greater latency in the imaging chain.  So they've gone with a max 5 MP to optimize the experience.  I think it works pretty well; last year, I borrowed a N73 with 3.2 MP camera that was pretty good, much better than my 1.3 MP Blackberry.  I'm currently borrowing a N95 8GB which has 5 MP and built-in GPS for geotagging - which delivers images like the one at the top of this post.  Not bad.

I heard about a service called Twango for the first time.  It combines a lot of different features from the sites you use today - social networking, picture sharing, file sharing, messaging.  Twango's ability to let you set varying permission levels for group and individual access are far more granular than most sites today.

Thinking through Nokia's focus on consumer internet services - they've got gaming, lifeblogging, social networks, maps, and music - they seem to be the only device manufacturer with such a broad focus.  Microsoft, Apple and Google play here as well, but none have the same global device presence.  Others like Motorola, LG, and Samsung aren't getting into services as far as I can tell.

Do you remember the story of Crown, Cork and Seal?  At one point in its evolution, the company mapped out the market in a 2x2 and saw a big empty space in the upper right.  But the lesson learned was that sometimes a white space doesn't mean market opportunity - it may mean that the canary has stopped singing.

What are your thoughts on manufacturer as service provider?  Is Nokia ahead of the game, just difficult to see from a U.S.-biased lens?  Or is this direction doomed?

4 x 4 things about me

I received this meme via email and thought I'd give it some bloglegs instead - renaming the meme 4x4.  Interesting to see the "n things" make its way around in a different channel.  I was also tagged by Shiv Singh a while back but dropped the ball. (sorry!)

The list I received had nine groups, which seemed odd to me for lists of four - but let's roll with it.  So here's my 4x4:

Four jobs I've had in my life:
1. Ice cream scooper at White Mountain Creamery.  First paid job ever.
2. Tennis instructor for Louisville Metro Parks.
3. Firewood broker.  Arbitrage in the community, buying at $30 from one side of town and selling at $50 on the other.
4. Stockbroker's assistant.  Called inactive clients all summer long.  One lived in Hawaii, who I woke up at 5 am.  More than one was dead, which explained the inactivity.

Four TV shows I DVR:
1. Prison Break
2. American Idol
3. Lost
4. 24 (despite its growing y/y plot ridiculousness)

Four places I've been:
1. New Iberia, Louisiana (on a July 4th weekend - hottest place ever)
2. Mobridge, South Dakota (due diligence on a warehouse)
3. Pyongyang, North Korea (its a long story)
4. Providenciales, Turks and Caicos (nothing better than a free Spring Break trip)

Four favorite foods:
1. Chipotle burritos
2. In-N-Out burgers
3. Chick-fil-A chicken sandwiches
4. Korean fried chicken

I'd like to hear about from these four bloggers: Chris Brogan, Josh Hallett, Brian Haven, and Jeremiah Owyang.  Come to think of it, would love these four as well:  Ann Handley, Toby Bloomberg, Becky Carroll, and Marianne Richmond, too!

(If you prefer to substitute, the other groups were: people who email me regularly, places I'd rather be right now, people I think will respond, things I look forward to next year, and music artists I'm listening to right now.)