The other day my mum, the queen of random, asked me “Do I need a Fitbit? Everyone’s got one…”
I began looking around and noticing that she was right, the tipping point of wearable tech has happened. Thousands upon thousands of people collecting data, daily, on how many steps (or swings of their arm) they are taking. We live in an age where there is a dizzying amount of data available to us – certainly as digital marketers, but now even as individuals.
We collect data because we can, and even because it’s cool.
The question now is – what do we do with this data?
In times gone by, (ala #backintheday) each village contained specific roles for each member of that community to become a master of.
The blacksmith, the farmer, the baker, the fishmonger, the painter – you were assigned one of these roles, typically inherited, performed your duties, then traded the goods in your art for the outputs of other masters.
In today’s world, we are no longer assigned roles but have the freedom to choose…
First we articulate the objective. Then a strategy. Then we look at the work if it meets these…
Woolworths Anzac Day campaign was by far the most public social media fail, but by no means the only #brandzac marketing crime.
Marketers could learn how not to do social media by reading all the fallout.
Perhaps one of the more vocal views held by the industry has been that …
Its been fascinating watching the SBS series Hipsters, which documents the origins of this subculture of beards, tattoos, fixies and Paleo diets, among other peculiarities.
Behind every one of these outward manifestations is the silent cry to be an authentic individual (despite the paradox that Hipsters are pretty much the same the world over, exposing the real need …
The richest prize fight in history, that took promoter Bob Arum five years to pull together, occurred over the weekend.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about this fight from a marketing perspective, was that Bob’s company, Top Rank, pulled out all stops to not allow this event to be streamed in any way, shape or form except through official channels.
No Youtube, Periscope or Meerkat live streaming – even live audio commentary via the web was banned…
… speak like them.
Facebook recently announced the rollout of Reach & Frequency formats for Video advertising.
The strange part about this announcement is that …
“Tell me something that’s true that very few people agree with you on” – Peter Thiel
There is a small group of 12 ‘underground’ Internet Marketers who have mastered the art of global email marketing, affiliate marketing and online product launches.
I call these individuals the Internet Marketing ‘A List’.
Some of the members of this ‘A List’ have been testing & refining online marketing techniques, starting with only email, since the mid 90s.
Today, 20 years later, its not unusual for each of them to make six figures doing an online product launch in just four weeks…
Marketing & advertising has always been high leverage – even before the internet.
Get the message right and it can have a huge positive impact on sales, get the message wrong and, well the exact opposite is true.
The difference today is now that we’re in relationship with your brand via social media …
Melbourne’s cafe scene is suffering from a first world hipster problem – every cafe is beginning to look the same.
So how does a new cafe stand out in such a sea of sameness?
No matter where you turn in digital marketing today, the current flavour of the month is ‘Content Marketing’.
Curiously, Content Marketing is not new at all.
Readers have been offered valuable free content for decades, from sponsored editorials to classic Ogilvy long copy print ads back in the 60’s – certainly, well before digital.
So why is Content Marketing such a buzzword today?
The main reason is that …
“I know of a brewer who sells more of his beer to the people who never see his…
Since getting my first email address 20 years ago, I’ve subscribed to hundreds of email newsletters across all kinds of niche of niche topics.
Of all of these, there has been only one that I read daily and stay subscribed to: Seth Godin.
In considering about why I’ve stuck with him compared to countless others I boil it down to these things …
With the exponential increase of social media platforms – Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Vine, Tumblr, even good ol’ email – the question often arises: which platform should we be on?
The answer lies not in the platform, but your people.
The traditional Industrial Economy sales funnel/buying cycle has a number of tiers with the goal of marketing to progress through each tier of the funnel:
Unaware – People who do not know your product/service exists
Awareness – People who are aware your product/service exists
Interest – People who are interested in your product/service
Consideration – People who are investigating/researching who is the best product/service fit for them
Decision …
“Today a phone is the new applause” – Katy Perry on fans at her concerts
A microphone has limited reach.
Usually confined to a room of people who know you or know of you and have chosen to listen. They want to hear what you are saying – loudly and clearly.
A megaphone can expand far beyond a room.
It can reach everyone, people don’t need to know …
When appraising real estate, valuers must value a property according to its highest and best use – which may be different to the current use of the property.
The highest and best use mantra is why the same property can spike in value overnight whenever there is a change in zoning laws – typically when these changes allow higher density development.
In a similar way, the Connection Economy has changed the underlying laws of business …
Often when a new client engages us for Adwords search advertising, they usually engage an SEO agency at the same time.
Simultaneously working on both paid and unpaid Search makes complete sense from a project management point of view, but from an SEO point of view, which keywords do you optimise your site for?
This apparently simple question was made even more difficult since Google removed organic keyword results from Analytics …
In 1868, when the typewriter was first invented, the keyboard was laid out in alphabetical order – which makes complete sense.
The problem here was that the type bars that strike the paper would often get jammed when particular letters were typed too quickly together in sequence.
The solution, was to separate these letters as far away from each other as possible on the keyboard, slowing down the typing process but reducing annoying jams as much as possible – enter, the QWERTY keyboard.
Of course, today, we don’t use typewriters nor do digital keyboards suffer from the jamming problem…
“The medium is not the message. The message is the message. No matter what media you’re in, content…
Mad Men may be in its final season but perhaps what’s even more remarkable is that The Real Men and Women of Madison Avenue back in the ‘golden days of advertising’ are …
April Fools Day seemed particularly remarkable for marketers this year, not because of the number of pranks that brands pulled on consumers, or even the number of pranks that went viral, but because of the number of pranks that were actually *really* good ideas and perhaps shouldn’t be left as pranks.
* Google Maps turned the world into a giant game of Pac-Man – surely a million dollar plus idea/app if anyone else had come up with this, but just another day for Google.
* Game company Hyperkin, released a joke cover that turns an iPhone into a Gameboy …
In an Industrial Economy, mistakes cost money. In fact, due to the assembly process, mistakes scale.
So in a bid to lower and get things absolutely perfect, we scrutinise our processes to eliminate mistakes. Fair enough.
In the Connection Economy, mistakes still cost money, but now we’re making mistakes in relationship.
If you had no legacy systems or existing supplier arrangements that you needed to honour, how would you disrupt yourself?
If you didn’t have to conform to current branding considerations and limitations, how would you disrupt yourself?
If you could change the products/services that you currently offer …
For millions around the world, he resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday marks the dawn of a new era.
Because of this day, faith is now no longer determined by our ability to obey a rigid set of impersonal commandments and rules.
Instead, a new way to know God has been made available, in the form of a relationship with Jesus.
Curiously enough, this Easter Sunday may be a good time for brands to take a leaf out of Jesus’ book…
“I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.” – Bill Bernbach
Today most people consider the words ‘to understand’ to mean ‘to comprehend’.
In circus jargon, the understander is the person at the bottom who carries the full weight of the performers on top.
If I was to follow you on social media, do you understand me?
By far, the biggest feedback we’ve had from blog subscribers is that they are so time poor, the only chance they get to read these posts is during breaks.
As I thought about this problem, I realised that there were a lot of breaks people take – breaks for lunch, breaks for a smoke, breaks between tasks – but then it hit me…
There lies the single biggest, consistent marketing opportunity in the Number 2 break.
Just think about it …
Its accepted now that businesses need to be ‘part of the conversation’ – to see what their fans are talking about and join in.
If your goal is to merely join the conversation – don’t bother…
Netflix’s arrival in Australia came with much fanfare, but really is just another step in a digital evolutionary progression.
Back in the day – before being able to stream movies live to our mobile was an expectation – the workers of our species had an ancient tradition passed down from generation to generation:
The Water Cooler Conversation.
“Always adapt your technique to the idea, never the idea to the technique” – Bill Bernbach
What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of – Hal David & Burt Bacharat
Even if you’re in the market to dine for $525 per head before drinks, no matter how old you are, nothing compares to …
Its easy to make the assumption that since your brand is on facebook or twitter, you’re automatically in the Connection Economy.
In reality, most brands are still actually Industrial brands struggling in a Connection environment.
Industrial marketing techniques may work in the short term, but fall well short of the highest and best use of the Web.
Here’s a simple 3 question test, to see if your brand is, in reality, a Connection Economy brand …
In an assembly line, waste is expensive.
To increase profits, we need to cut waste thereby improving efficiency.
In a relationship, however, waste is valuable.
One of the reasons why Industrial Age marketing worked on Baby Boomers was that they simply needed stuff.
During the post-war years, materials were scarce, money was tight and nobody had anything.
Stuff was shiny and new and needed.
One of the reasons why Industrial Age marketing is falling apart is (at least in the western world) we are now living in the opposite environment – stuff is cheap, plentiful and wasted.
We no longer need stuff.
We want stuff…
“I get in trouble a lot, which is a choice I made a long time ago” – Tinker…
Management is efficiency in climbing up the ladder of success, Leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall – Stephen Covey
I’m subscribed to a lot of email newsletters and attend a number of conferences every year connected with the online advertising space.
It appears to me that even today, in 2015, 90% of what I hear and see are ways to ‘hack your leads’, ’10x your clicks/views’, ‘formulate your headlines’ and so on. All of these are good but are temporary devices used to game the system.
What this advice continually overlooks is …
A breathtakingly simple and elegantly human solution to bypass gaming the system or worrying about the algorithms …
Recently I was lucky enough to hear Paull Young of Charity Water speak at a Thankyou Group industry night.
Similar to Thankyou, US based Charity Water sells bottled water with 100% of proceeds going towards funding water wells in developing nations… all with zero ad spend.
So what’s their secret?
In winemaking, no two vineyards are the same.
Each plot of land used in a vineyard has its own unique characteristics, its own Terroir.
Terroir is what gives grapes grown on each plot their own unique taste and includes elements like exposure to the sun, vicinity to water source, nutrients in the soil, surrounding trees & vegetation competing for resources, access to shade, contours of the land…
Sometimes the best copy to sell a horse is ‘Horse for sale’ – Jay Abraham
Of all the announcements at yesterday’s Apple keynote, the one that really caught my attention was the one Tim Cook slipped under the radar: the 18 Karat Gold Apple Watch will cost $10k.
Ten. THOUSAND. Dollars.
Not only does this make it the most expensive Apple Watch, this makes it the most expensive Apple product.
Ever.
How could Apple have the nerve to justify this ridiculous $10,000 price tag? …
In the past, the decision to be cheaper meant sacrificing margin for scale: “I won’t make so much on each sale, however, I’ll make more sales” is what we justify to ourselves.
The problem with cheaper, is that this assumes:
In the online world, both of these assumptions are becoming less and less true with every passing day…
This card game goes by many names: Warlords & Scumbags, Emperors & Scum, Rich Man Poor Man, A@#$hole, and perhaps most famously, President.
Although the names change, the game is the same – the more rounds that are played, the more the deck is stacked your way and the more difficult it gets to reverse your position
We’ve all done it before – googled something, liked the first search result, clicked on it… only to land on a page that was completely off.
As a consumer, this process happens so quickly that we don’t even pay attention to what just happened – we just search again.
As an advertiser paying for Adwords ads, mistakes like the above cost dearly.
To understand the problem, lets …
“People don’t believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what…
Arnold Schwarzenegger recently shared that he took elocution lessons for his now famous accent.
The surprising insight, though, was that he didn’t take these lessons for the purpose of losing his accent, but for the purpose of …
Star Wars has become a global, cultural phenomenon for many reasons, but there is one that George Lucas pioneered to intentionally be used on film, that is crossing over into marketing today (and we’re not talking about toy licensing!).
The reason the whole world could so universally connect to the story of a fresh-faced farmboy dreaming of adventure, a princess needing rescue, a rogue smuggler and the fight for freedom against an oppressive empire… comes back to one man named …