Digital Solid: Marketing Technology ROI

Growth of out of home ads reflects our fragmented media consumption

Physicists tell us the universe is ever-expanding, a concept that can make the mind reel. Advertisers trying to reach their target audience know this feeling well, as media alternatives continually fragment and multiply. One solution: Forget about media as we would ordinarily think about them and look to the places your market congregates as the medium itself.

I’m only a recent convert to the power of out of home advertising, but that only seems to make me more of a zealot. Here are three examples worth filing away in your new media mental database:

• Billboards that greet you by name — Tested last year and rolled out in the April of 2007, the Mini Cooper Motorby program is ingenious. Have owners register online, and receive a free key fob. When that key fob gets within 500 feet of a billboard, it triggers a personalized message. The billboard is 5 feet tall and 33 feet wide. My only questions: What are the results? And how are they translated to a true ROI?
• Virtual billboards, Second Life-style — If an ad is on the side of a building, but that building is on Second Life, is that an interactive ad or out of home? A little of both, because it is far more interactive (try clicking through the side of a real building without getting injured or arrested), but has the same ambient quality of the real world. The biggest down-side: Ads are everywhere in Second Life.
• Literally touch your consumers as they drink their coffee — Coffee cup sleeves have come of age. According to BriteVision, an industry leader in their production and distribution (they have their own ad network of coffee shops), the average consumer spends 49 minutes with their “Ad-Sleeve,” what an average recall of the ad at two-thirds (65%). The biggest up-side: Since many cafes offer WiFi, providing a URL can help measure effectiveness and reach an upscale segment of consumers. You can also include a phone number or short code for a mobile marketing play.

The reach and creative potential with out of home are a couple of reasons it is growing when other media types are stagnant or shrinking. According to the OAAA, revenue for out-of-home advertising so far this year has increased by 7.9% (within a rounding error of the growth seen last year, and the year before). This projection for 2007 is based on spending in the first six months of the year. The graphic below shows prior growth.

All of this is great news for brands that want to make a difference. There are many ways to truly involve consumers — some quite high tech, some that are extremely “out there,” and some that are frankly both. It all makes for an interesting ride with plenty to see and do.

Add comment August 30th, 2007

A magical feat worthy of Hogwarts: Harry Potter book materializes via text message incantation

I read somewhere that Italy has more pet dogs than it does children. That is a bad thing in a country — a sign of negative population growth. However, I tell you very selfishly that this ratio — more dogs than kids — is an excellent thing in a high rise. Take mine for example. The elevators and lobby are teeming with canines, usually on the business end of leashes held by a slack-skinned residents such as myself.

So how do you account for the fact that the mail room of our building today was full of USPS notices of the arrival of the same parcel: The last in the Harry Potter book series? Obviously I’m not the only “kid at heart.”

But this kid has a decidedly geeky side. I pre-ordered mine three months ago using nothing but the keypad of my cell phone. As I stated then, in my account of ordering the book, the service that made this miracle of commerce possible is a harbinger of things to come.

Here were the steps I used to order my copy of this juvenile horse-choker:

I registered (just once) at the ShopText site. I provided the usual: My name and shipping address, and my credit card information. I also gave them my email address and cell phone number. That’s when the real wizardry began.

I received a receipt via email and SMS (i.e., cell phone text message). It included my short password, something needed to avoid ordering fraud

Then, all I had to do was send a text to ShopText’s “short code,” which is a 5- or 6-digit cell phone number that communicates with an SMS server. I placed the keyword in the message body, “Potter,” as instructed in the print ad that offered this ordering option.

I received a confirmation on pricing, which also requested the security password. Once received, the system sent my cell phone — and my email Inbox — a receipt for the purchase. Poof! Within three minutes I had scratched my itch and bought this last of the Harry Potter series.

And that’s the point.

If SMS ordering catches on at all, it will be because of the ease with which spontaneous purchases can be made before having time to think something like, “Heck, I can always go to the bookstore.”

This is a system that deserves to succeed, and it probably will, considering what big, pampered kids I and my fellow boomers have become.

2 comments July 21st, 2007

Explosion causes a potty-mouthed Twitter skeptic to see the light

I had vowed to readers I would never again write about Twitter. It is, after all, a frivolous little diversion. True, in the same breath, I had also acknowledged (in one of my last posts on the topic) that this trivial toy has the potential to save lives. It can spread news when all other sources are slow to arrive or completely cut off. In a time of rising terrorist threat levels around the world, that makes Twitter sound far less trivial.

Proof of my theory arrived today. Here’s the story that has brought me out of my Twitter silence. Warning: The blog entry I cite, on the other side of this link, includes a profanity in one of the images.

A friend had been trying to coax Howard Lindzon into the Twitter habit. He refused, and finally conceded only on this condition: His “Tweets” would only come from him via his cell phone, and only when he was — ahem — using the facilities. Since he considered Twitter a waste, he was only going to Twitter about waste. But that all changed when there was a terrifying steam pipe explosion. Caught with no other way to get or receive news about it, you can guess where he turned:

Lindzon uses the one tool he bashes and pokes fun at to inform and hopefully inform himself of a crisis situation. Instantly! Wirelessly! … My buddy Loic Le Meur’s twitts a few days ago about how he catches up with news on Twitter more that by reading his RSS.

Now excentric [sic] Lindzon accepts my invitation to join and unwilingly [sic] offers this awesome example of the right person at the right time in the right place using the right service and instantly informing his peers he networked with registering to Twitter. Is this the real web 2.0? Ought to be, as Lindzon did not blog or email about the blast. He freakin twittered it!

When the telephone was invented, it wasn’t thought of as a tool for doing business. It was imagined by most as a way, before consumer radio appliances entered the picture, of carrying music and news across great distances. That all changed of course. Relatively speaking, it didn’t take long for this “toy” to earn its keep in society (just a few decades).

Could Twitter, the first truly widespread mobile time-waster, be on its way to its own social legitimacy?

Add comment July 20th, 2007

Serving SUPERVALU customers one niche at a time

I really like the direction that Kevin Hillstrom’s One Positive Day blogging concept is taking. While I used the occasion this month to share a favorite work tool, Kevin was inviting many of his social networking and database colleagues to speculate on how to improve the online presence of SUPERVALU, a grocery and pharmaceutical retail and supply chain company.

I’ve had the luxury of a week since that July 1 post to think about my response. I started with the question of corporate mission. There are many ways to drive consumers to your site, such as an online version of the old “Green Stamps” promotion, but as Kevin states at the end of his post, you ultimately have to show something beyond raw page views. You have to add to the stores’ bottom lines, either by saving money by automating something that is now labor-intensive, or generating greater sales totals, or both.

In the comments, Ron Shevlin and another contributor mentioned how helpful it would be to create an aisle-by-aisle shopping list of items. I can understand the logistical challenge of this, since every store floor plan seems to be at least a little different, something exacerbated by the thousands of new products introduced (and pulled!) every year. This last point was made another contributor to the dialog — 10-year food business veteran Harry Joiner.

A Store-generated Shopping List

I had even wondered if something could be done with a mobile-enabled service. For instance, from your cell phone, you call or text a list to a SUPERVALU short code. Then, either through voice recognition (in the case of a voice call) or standard database look-up, you get back a list in your email box, ordered in the walking pattern of the store and complete with related specials and exclusive couponing.

Perhaps something could even be done with a WiFi-enabled version of this voice-activated shopping list device. This device would take your family’s accumulated voice lists of groceries, digitize the list into text using its native voice-recognition system, and — after it is sent via a wireless internet connection to SUPERVALU computers — the device receives and prints the final list with coupons.

This certainly would align itself with SUPERVALU’s Mission  Statement: ”To serve our customers better than anyone else … provide our customers with value through our products and services, committing ourselves to providing the quality, variety and convenience they expect.” The mission statement goes on to talk about building strong communities surrounding its stores, which is the other theme of how to help this web site become a greater contributor to the store’s success.

Harry Joiner mentioned creating Ning-like online communities surrounding each of the most significant lifestyle and demographic categories. He gave some examples of how other product marketers have succeeded with this tactic.

A few community examples for SUPERVALU that spring to mind are the following: Young, growing families, single adults looking for tips on cooking for one (and perhaps even place-based events specifically for singles), and of course cooking enthusiasts.

Some value-creating tactics could be things like product-related cooking demonstrations or give-aways, or tie-ins with non-profits that the SUPERVALU business supports through its foundation. Only online community members would be privy to them, of course. One thing is clear. These communities would need to find a great deal of value on the sites.

Many companies have tried to build a critical mass among their “wired niches.” Most have failed.

And speaking of long tale strategies, here’s one that my friend Steve Ward had cooked up well over 10 years ago, and I think still has promise: An online database of all nutritional information for every product on the shelves (or as many as possible)!

Those who are striving to reduce their sodium or fat consumption, or improve their nutrient intake, could create shopping lists that tell them the exact nutritional values of what they eat.

Would this, or any of the above ideas, fundamentally change the way SUPERVALU returns shareholder value? No. Would it help the company fulfill its mission? Absolutely. But like so many online endeavors, this would be accomplished slowly and at a significant investment, one niche at a time.

2 comments July 8th, 2007

Steve Rubel finds a novel way to report on iPhone launch

If you’re covering the launch of a mobile device, and it’s as revolutionary as the Apple iPhone, how do you post in a way that’s novel and immediate? If you’re Steve Rubel of Edelman, and write the influential blog Micro Persuasion, you blog from a mobile device. All while standing in line for the gizmo it is destined to be replaced by.

Here is Rubel’s Twitter feed over that period. For those not familiar, the top posts are the most recent. You can review even by clicking the “More” link I’ve provided.

I’m sorry there aren’t live links (I grabbed these as graphics off the posts Sunday night), but if you’d like to find the originals they should be available for a while at Steve Rubel’s Twitter Home Page.

Happy Independence Day!

Add comment July 3rd, 2007

Out-of-home and into phone: Spectacolor HD boards add a mobile component

It was announced on Wednesday that a new type of digital billboard, Spectacolor HD, will be capable of presenting dazzling video and graphics. But eye candy is as cheap and ephemeral as the name implies. Where is the power to really engage a consumer? I got my answer in the fleeting, fifth paragraph of this BrandWeek article:

The Spectacolor HD board also promises to take the transformation of the outdoor medium one step further to engage the consumer through interactive features. Using mobile phones, passersby will be able to listen to audio for the board, play games on the screen, send text messages or download audio and video files.

Those who visit DigitalSolid regularly know that I get particularly excited by the prospect of ads with a mobile phone component. In prior posts I’ve discussed the direct marketing implications of standard digital ads, as well as the print-to-mobile promise of ShopText.

So you know my priorities.

I believe the news about Spectacolor HD that will have the biggest impact on us marketing technology types is the ability to push content to consumers for them to keep and share. As with the other examples I’ve discussed, this will truly use all of the marketing power of a digital ad.

How would it harness this marketing power? Well, what if, from this billboard, you could download a podcast to your cell phone — for instance, a song with a branding element or offer presented at the end, or a walking tour narrative? Or even a “treasure hunt” set of instructions? (Think Geocaching — a fast growing hobby for the GPS enabled.)

This would give your brand a tremendous amount of bang for the buck. It could be listened to multiple times and shared with others who haven’t seen the digital billboard. This is huge if the campaign is properly crafted.

But the billboard being discussed in the BrandWeek article is an exotic, rarefied animal. It will go up in New York City’s Times Square, at 47th Street and Broadway.

Most digital billboards will be on the sides of teeming freeways, where viewing time is brief, and the opportunity to download something, based on the range that Bluetooth grants you, is minimal indeed. Too bad there isn’t a way to pass information to a more far-flung group — a group of people who must stand still long enough to receive it.

Yours Free To Download (Just Wash Your Hands First, Please)

Should the meme of downloading from digital ads become more commonplace, I know of just such an audience. They are standing as I type this, gazing at digital ads all over America. I’m referring to the men in public restrooms equipped with digital, ad-serving monitors.

These units have always struck me as too clever by half. For one thing, they are positioned on the wall above a urinal mere inches from the viewer’s nose (I hope!). That makes ignoring the ads it flashes all but impossible, but it makes focusing on said ads just as difficult. And these ads have never promised me anything of value.

What if these same monitors were equipped to send the people in the restroom (hopefully after they’ve washed up!) the same goodies that were heretofore only available to New York tourists? 

Once you’ve stopped chuckling, think about the valuable mobile marketing you could accomplish by designing and executing a campaign that people receive by using any cellphone equipped with both Bluetooth and an MP3 player. It’s not so farfetched a future to imagine.

Ironically, these audio media may be delivered by a digital display ad. In an odd way this makes perfect sense.

And hopefully, by the time all the other moving parts are in place to make this advertising feasible, there will be more types of public spaces available where digital ads are displayed.

In the future, I would hope these campaigns wouldn’t be relegated to the type of room polite people excuse themselves to visit.

1 comment June 22nd, 2007

RiffTrax delivers DIY laughs and a promising business model

As promised in a prior post, I did indeed throw a RiffTrax party. It was Sunday. My wife and I hosted three people, and we screened the latest James Bond movie, Casino Royale. The party was a success, and the highlight was undeniably the movie heckling supplied by our virtual guests of honor, Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy.

For those who aren’t familiar with RiffTrax, Nelson and Murphy are two of the comics who record funny commentary distributed by this new online business. For $2.99, I was able to download a podcast that ran the length of the movie. I synchronized the podcast (played through our stereo system) to the action from the rented DVD. Hilarity ensued.

It should go without saying that Daniel Craig, the dead-serious star of Casino Royale, was never the source of so much mirth.

This type of movie “riffing” had been a staple of the cult television show of the 1990’s, Mystery Science Theater 3000, where Nelson and Murphy had contributed as both writers and performers. They have lost none of their edge. (This distinctively Midwestern style proves that jokes don’t have to be demeaning or obscene to be lacerating — and often hilarious).

Whether you’ll find their brand of satire funny I cannot predict. They can get a little esoteric at times — sometimes veering dangerously close to Dennis Miller territory. But what I wanted to be able to tell you with confidence was whether this way of selling laughter, one podcast at a time, is a viable business model.

I think it is, for these reasons:

It’s Easy To Get the Hang Of

Although it’s a little more Do-It-Yourself (DIY) than some people will likely tolerate, the majority will get past the challenge of synchronizing the sound and DVD tracks. I certainly did. To help, a ReadMe file shows time codes that can be visually monitored. Or, like me, you can wait for key lines of movie dialog to be mentioned on the podcast by a robotic voice (called DisembAudio, of course). If the movie and podcast line readings overlap, you know that the comedy will be properly timed to the action.

A Great Excuse for a Party

RiffTrax is a surprisingly fun way to enliven a standard “movie night” with friends and family — and a way to justify another viewing of a DVD you already own.

It Has Mild Cult Appeal

The humor is often extremely bright, and that makes you feel like you are part of an insider’s group when you watch it. It’s the same appeal that helped make Monty Python and Saturday Night Live a success when those shows first burst onto the scene, as well as the more contemporary Daily Show and Colbert Report.

It’s Habit Forming

Mid-way through the film we mentioned to our guests that RiffTrax had just released a take on the first season DVD of Grey’s Anatomy. The reaction: “When can we see it!?”

The answer is soon. I’m pleased to see the technology of podcasts getting mainstream enough to actually justify repeat purchase. And since I was a huge Mystery Science Theater fan, I’m pleased that Mike Nelson and his team will be part of this new media revolution.

Important disclaimer: Although a wonderfully helpful RiffTrax publicist offered to comp me for the movie, I decided to use my own money, both to deny any accusations of patronage and to get a feel for the complete purchase-and-play experience. I have been compensated in no way for this assessment.

Good news for two lucky readers: Use my contact form to email me. The first two to say “Free RiffTrax” in the message will receive a one-time credit for a RiffTrax movie. I think you’ll enjoy the experience.

1 comment June 20th, 2007

Of operant conditioning, text messaging and college admissions letters

In a few days I’ll be giving a speech to a group of university and college recruiters. The talk is about new technologies and how they might shape academic marketing and recruitment in the future. I’m fairly sure how I’ll lead off. Not surprisingly, I’ll touch on reaching students through their cell phones. But it got me thinking: What practical advice can I provide recruiters about using mobile marketing?

That was yesterday. It was the same day I received a cheering email from my friend Mike. His daughter has been going to a West Coast college that is extraordinary in the way it teaches. But after a year of this non-traditional teaching approach, she has decided it’s not for her. Instead, she applied to a university in Massachusetts. She was on pins and needles, as were her parents. Until yesterday, when the acceptance letter arrived.

Now, my friend’s daughter didn’t have a second choice. She was willing to take a year off and try again at the same university if she didn’t get accepted. She’s unusual in that regard. Most students apply to several, to see which of them accepts them. To my knowledge, each acceptance (or rejection) arrives by the U.S. Postal Service. I wonder why. And I wonder if a more immediate notification might give the college that uses it an edge over the others competing to be the one they choose to attend.

I’m thinking it might. I’ve been reading lately about why email is so addictive. According to this excellent post, the culprit is operant conditioning.

This phenomenon is the mechanism by which behavior is influenced through outcome. It’s the explanation for “once burned, twice shy,” as the saying goes. And on the other end of the spectrum, it’s why we respond to a teacher’s compliments with harder studying, and to a casino’s winning hand with another gamble.

These last two examples are appropriate because in both, the reward does not come every time. Both teachers and casinos know the same key to success. It’s a secret confirmed by scientists through careful testing.

Namely: That the best way to reinforce behavior is to reward that behavior, but not every time. Instead, you reinforce randomly.

This is why email gets us hooked. We don’t receive emails that reward us every time we check the Inbox. But it’s enough to cause us to check again and again – more frequently than we probably should.

Going to your physicial mailbox was at one time the best example of this virtuous cycle of looking, discovering, and looking again. But the pace of our world has accelerated, especially for those in the school-aged generation, and a U.S. Postal mailbox has lost much of its power. Now we’re a society hooked on email, and computer-based instant messaging, and mobile text messaging – listed in order of addiction intensity. Text messages are immediate, intimate, and the most effective mechanism for keeping a person yearning for the next positive reinforcement.

I suspect some schools already offer applicants the chance to opt into receiving initial news of their acceptance (or rejection) by email. (Official word would still arrive in print, however.)

But I wonder: Why not cut to the chase and use the medium that truly gets students where they live? Why not use their cell phone?

Would receiving word of your acceptance be more of a thrill if it arrived by SMS (i.e., text) message? And if so, would this allow for a more social celebration with peers? And would this high-fiving lead to more students choosing the “text messaging” school over the others?

I know, there are many factors in a choice of college: financial aid, reputation, convenience, friends. But could this message, received  through a student’s most powerful “operant conditioner,” tip the balance when all else is equal?

Please let me know. My talk is on May 23. I’d love to step in front of the group armed with your perspectives.

2 comments May 20th, 2007

What I learned from my Twitter experiment

Two weeks ago, at the end of my latest post exclusively about Twitter, I announced that I would let you know the outcome of a little two-week test. In it, I temporarily opened my “Tweets” to the world, so to speak. My posts became part of the Public Timeline of Twitter posts. In that time I’ve continued to enjoy what I like about Twitter: Being able to keep in touch with friends who are on it. But I have to say the foray into the public conversation didn’t amount to much more than that.

I didn’t know what to expect, but here were a couple things that I considered possibilities:

1. Some people might pick up on references to my more provocative blog entries (such as this one, about mobile communication and the Virginia Tech shootings) and respond directly through Twitter
2. Others would actually click through to those entries, using URLs that I inserted in the Tweets, and possibly even comment on the blog entry

Someday this might happen for someone. Neither did for me. I suspect that my Tweets were too diffused among the millions of others. Without a way for users to filter by preferences or topics, my Twitter posts became a few needles in an ever-growing haystack. Without context, these “microblog posts” zoomed past and faded without incident.

Well, almost. The day after I began the experience, I received the following:

• My one and only visit to this blog that I can directly trace as a click-through from the Twitter public timeline (sheesh!)
• A single message from an “admirer” of my golden (albeit truncated) prose: A spammer trying to get me to visit his site where he was selling something (Does my prose look like I need Viagra?)

It’s not that I was expecting the sort of bank run that Digg.com got when its users started posting an illegal DVD unlock code. But I was hoping for something of interest.

Especially, I was wondering if I could expand my online social network, as I have recently with activities in LinkedIn. I’ll be writing more about LinkedIn in a future post. As for Twitter, starting today I’ll be henceforth mum on the topic.

If you want to reach out to me in a public network, you’ll just have to join my growing — and quite interesting — LinkedIn connections list. Here is my Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jefflarche

Postscript: I just went on the Public Timeline and was astonished to see a friend’s Tweet: Way to go, Jazyfko! I hope your cold is getting better.

---

Update on May 26, 2007: One of the more promising applications of Twitter so far is the recently launched Truemors, the latest start-up by Guy Kowasaki.

 

3 comments May 12th, 2007

Mix bad movies and funny commentaries to create the first truly profitable podcasts

It’s been almost a year since I marveled over the ingenuity of director Kevin Smith. As part of the theatrical release of his movie Clerks II, Smith released a free director’s commentary on iTunes, in Podcast form.* Back then I called it a smart way to get his core audience back in the theaters. I considered it one of the most innovative ways yet to monetize the podcast. Television comedian Mike Nelson has taken a more direct approach. He has created what I can only describe as the first ever movie/podcast mash-up. And it promises to make him and his partners rich.

The mash-up, which was first coined to describe what DJs create when they mix extremely divergent musical tracks, has moved to the “Web 2.0 blending” of different programs, such as Google Maps and Craigslist in this real estate mash-up. Now, with RiffTrax, Mike Nelson and his fellow satirists are creating podcasts that you can buy and blend in your living room, with the DVD they are lambasting.

Think of a RiffTrax podcast as a commentary track, as you’d find on a DVD, featuring the director and a few actors, and maybe the script writer. Now imagine the film they’re talking over (as in a voice-over) is worthy of ridicule, and all parties are very witty and have been injected with sodium pentathol to loosen their tongues.

Okay, that’s not very helpful analogy. Actually, what could help me explain this idea is if you, like me, were a fan of the long-running, now-defunct Mystery Science Theater 3000 television show. That’s because most of the RiffTrax cast members are from that show.

A low-budget, low-margin production, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (lovingly known as MST3K to fans) never made Nelson or his cohorts much money. RiffTrax is also low-budget, but selling for $.99 to $3.99 each, these podcasts will become very profitable very quickly. I also admire the fact that the venture side-steps any copyright problems, because of its do-it-yourself nature. You must download them to your MP3-player, and play them on a stereo, simultaneous to viewing the movie. You make the mash-up, not them. Brilliant.

I was incorrect a year ago when I predicted that Kevin Smith would sell a lot more popcorn by driving his audiences back to the theaters, earbuds firmly in place, to listen to his commentary as they watch the film for a second time. So you’d think I would be a little less free with my wild predictions. But hey, I know MST3K fans. Heck, I am one.

Fans like me will try this, and some will get hooked. Just as happened with the series, RiffTrax will inspire parties, formed around televisions in dorm rooms and family rooms across America. Word will spread, and this Long Tail sensation will become a mainstay for those with a wide streak of geek and a taste for droll humor — mostly G-rated at that.

RiffTrax will deliver the Holy Grail: A truly profitable podcast. It will also spur spin-offs, to appeal to other niches, such as satires to popular television series, now on DVD. But that’s well down the road. As for the short term, I can only say with certainty that my first RiffTrax party will take place within weeks.

---

* A half-century before the inventiveness of Kevin Smith, William Castle found similar ways to add new dimensions to the film-going experience, in the cheapie thrillers he cranked out. For instance, for The Tingler, Castle placed electric buzzers under theater seats, and zapped people’s butts during scenes where the audience was supposed to jump in horror. I’m sure it produced screams, but directors of the time, like Alfred Hitchcock, were using less convoluted techniques.

2 comments May 9th, 2007