Girls Are Smarter Blog

ADOTAS – According to a Financial Times report, Facebook will begin serving ads through its mobile apps and the mobile version of the Facebook site. Reportedly, the ads will be called “featured stories,” which is consistent with Facebook-speak, and they’ll be rolled out in a few weeks, which translates to, if this development is anything like the launch of Facebook’s Timeline, sometime between a  few weeks and several months. The ads will appear in each user’s Facebook news stream on a mobile device, and it won’t be possible to block them. Twitter does this already with “promoted tweets,” but Twitter gives users the option of deleting promoted tweets (which isn’t an option for tweets by anyone a user follows), which to some degree lessens any annoyance of happening upon an unsolicited post in one’s stream. Whether Facebook will offer the same option remains to be seen.

Facebook’s IPO filing last week claimed no “meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products.” Mobile ads would conveniently address that issue, at least for the time being.

ADOTAS – How many screens do you own? One, two, three, four or more? Most American adults now own a TV, computer and smartphone, and a growing number also have a tablet or e-reader. Yes, we love our devices. And guess what we love even more? To have them all on at the same time!

Increasingly, consumers (especially those with smartphones and tablets) are using more than one screen at a time. Some of the latest figures from Nielsen show that 40 percent of smartphone and tablet users are using their mobile devices while watching TV. Two years ago, Nielsen also discovered that 57 percent of consumers were watching TV and surfing the Internet simultaneously.

Is it too much of a good thing? Who knows. One thing’s for sure — all these screens are making marketers’ jobs more challenging than ever before and imposing new demands on the agencies that support them. 2012 will be a year to step up our game. Looking ahead, here are some things you need to consider about today’s consumer, and tips for marketers and agencies that want to engage with them.

Consumers: Distracted But In Control

Consumers are exposed to a tsunami of marketing and advertising, with some estimates as high as 5,000 ad messages per day, according to the New York Times. Regardless of demographics and purchasing behavior, chances are that they have more media choices in front of them today than they’ve ever had. While it’s harder for advertisers to connect with the distracted consumer, these same consumers are lining up to find, friend, like and follow the brands they really love, using social networks to voice their praise and complaints in greater numbers every day. Americans spend 23 percent of internet time on social networks (according to Nielsen research), and almost 42 percent have mentioned a brand in their status updates (according to eMarketer). Unfortunately, many brands are doing an exceptionally poor job of responding. Take a quick survey online and you’ll read accounts of Twitter questions unanswered, ratings and reviews ignored, and Facebook comments unheeded. Many companies don’t do anything with the staggering amount of input provided to them by enthusiastic fans, friends and followers.

Bottom Line: Consumers want to engage with brands on both pain points and positive points. Brands need to do a better job responding.

Marketers: Fickle Nomads

The pace of product and platform development means marketers have been faced with one new possible tactic after another. Add intense competition and mix in a challenging economic climate, and you have a recipe for a chaotic soup in which marketers are quick to adopt the latest channel and just as quick to move on when the next “new thing” is unveiled. Like migrating nomads, marketers follow the herd, thinking, “Everybody is spending their money in TV (or online, or in radio, etc.), therefore I need to spend my money there too.” Which is why you occasionally hear a CEO saying, “I need one of those tweeter things.”

Ready to hop on the latest opportunity based on what their competitors are doing, marketers in some cases proceed without a strategy. This is a recipe for failure, as consumers are moving faster than marketers. Marketers need to take a more consumer-centric approach — actually going where consumers are today. If you look at the numbers for TV and radio consumption, there is a huge disparity between ad spending and usage. The average American watches 141 hours of TV per month, up 1.5 percent from the previous year (Nielsen). Yet television advertising surpassed$18 billion in the first quarter of 2011, growing almost 9 percent versus the same period in 2010 (Nielsen). Marketers need to balance media planning and promotion budgets into areas where they are seeing an increasing usage.

Bottom Line: Marketers need to take a deep breath, realign, and find out what consumers are doing and what they really want from them.

Agencies: Stuck in a Silo

Agencies find themselves perched between the rapid pace of consumer adoption of new technologies and marketers’ desire to engage with an increasingly distracted consumer. Despite good intentions, many agencies have been slow to change and develop new services that their clients need. Let’s face it — it’s a lot easier to stick with tried and true tactics with high profit margins than it is to ramp up the expertise needed to provide newer and more sophisticated tactics. Traditional agencies especially are perpetuating an investment in TV advertising because it’s easy to buy TV profitably, with production and media for a single campaign easily reaching $2 million, and fewer demands on the organization.

In contrast, designing and implementing a successful search marketing program means more moving parts, between keyphrase research, bid management and creative, and it means more work for the agency. But if consumers’ attention is being split between their phones, iPads and TVs, how effective can these expensive spots be? Five years ago, digital marketing was so new that almost all agencies were siloed into a single expertise or specialty (SEM, SEO, email, etc.). Today a successful agency must offer an entire spectrum of services in order to be successful for its clients. Agencies need to stop thinking about margin contribution and start thinking about how to do a better job for their customers.

Bottom Line: Agencies need to update their expertise, offer wider a variety of services, and integrate these solutions to meet their clients’ needs.

If the past 10 years have taught us anything, it is the fact that the media landscape will continue to evolve rapidly. The good news is the fundamentals will not change; consumers will need communications to inform and persuade their purchase decision-making. But as the distracted consumer flits back and forth between watching TV, texting their friends, looking up information on actors, or just aimlessly surfing while the TV’s on in the background, getting through to them on any device will become harder and harder. As a wise marketer once said, “We’ve got to stop interrupting what people are interested in and start being what people are interested in.”

Happy 2012!

ADOTAS - During the Super Bowl yesterday, mobile ad network InMobi conducted a survey of 1,100 U.S. mobile users asking about their interactions with the TV ads that aired during the game and with their own devices, and the answers suggested substantial numbers of people were using their mobiles as part of the Super Bowl experience. According to the survey, 45 percent of respondents said they spent at least a half hour on their smartphones or tablets, and 39 percent said they used their mobiles to respond in some way to an ad they’d seen on TV over the course of the game.

Being an ad network reaching 485 million unique users around the world, InMobi was in a good position to conduct a survey through mobile devices about mobile usage as the events the survey asked about unfolded. “The fact that people are answering a survey on their mobile devices proves that they’re on their devices, right?” InMobi vice president and managing director Anne Frisbie said with a laugh in a phone conversation this afternoon. And in terms of advertisers reaching audiences, mobile’s potential goes beyond its personal nature and its convenience, she said — there’s a psychological angle, too. When you flip open a laptop at home over the weekend, Frisbie explained, “you emotionally switch to a work-driven mentality,” but when you have your mobile in hand, “you can stay in your entertainment mindset and [the mobile content] adds to it.” She pointed out the technology still warrants a closer look from brands — while there have been studies about the amount of time it takes for a website to load online, Frisbie wonders, “How long does it take your mobile site to load? There are no stats around this.”

In the survey, InMobi asked about the ways in which people were interacting with ads via mobile — they could’ve discussed the commercials, looked up more information on a product on their devices or re-watched an ad. The survey started during the second quarter of the game, and as it turned out, that was in the middle of the period when mobile advertisers had the most potential reach –the number of users who said they were engaged with their devices during the first half was nearly double the number for the second half. “And that’s when they’re more sober!,” Frisbie said, laughing. And 30 percent of those surveyed said they were using their mobiles more during the commercials than during play.

Answers to questions about specific commercials showed the Coca Cola ad was “best received,” said Frisbie. Meanwhile, there’s also some commentary on the survey on the InMobi blog.

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its Q4 2011 U.S. retail e-commerce sales estimates, which showed that online retail spending reached $49.7 billion for the quarter, up 14 percent versus year ago. This growth rate represented the ninth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth rates. For the entire 2011 year, U.S. retail e-commerce spending reached a record $161.5 billion, marking a 13-percent increase from 2010.

ADOTAS – In today’s world of the social web, brands often seek to engage customers in conversations through social media outlets, be it Facebook, Twitter or message boards on their own sites. The desired outcome is to build deeper relationships while leveraging the customers’ social networks to generate greater brand awareness and/or spread brand messaging.

Sounds great, so let’s get talking!

But how do you strike up a “conversation” with your customers? What do your customers want to talk about? How do you create environments where customers feel comfortable engaging? And how do you keep the brand conversation going long-term? It’s a bit like walking into a room packed full of strangers.

One great place to start is with content – because content fuels social interaction on the web. In fact, a joint AOL/Nielsen study found that nearly one quarter of all social media messages and one half of industry-specific social messages contain links to content. Even more interesting for brands: Between 60 percent and 75 percent of this shared content is informational – news, announcements, product information, how-tos and Q&As. And when engaged consumers click on those content links, they quite often end up on your brand’s webpage.

So content is an excellent way to get the conversation started. Next, brands need to draw customers into the site to keep the interaction and engagement going. You can’t overvalue the importance of being the main source of complete information about your brand, products and services. But the way in which this information is provided will either generate stickiness or a high bounce rate. Varied presentation formats and a host of tools – from widgets to apps – can be used to create the stickiness desired by turning otherwise dry, factual content into a lean-forward, memorable experience.

My favorite example of a site that does this with incredible success is Clorox.com. Can bleach and stain removal be engaging? At Clorox.com it is. The site is an action-oriented experience, starting with a simple but welcoming question, “What Can I Help You With?” Don’t know? The site assists you by offering three choices: “laundry,” “cleaning” or “healthier home and family.” If you didn’t already know bleach could be used for all three purposes, you certainly know now. Scrolling down, the home page ties together content and social by leveraging a variety of widgets that invite customers to share, post, download, join, and more. The stain removal page is not a laundry list (excuse the expression) of directions, but rather a fresh, visual presentation of factual information a mom in need is sure to find valuable… again and again.

At Remark Media, we’ve helped Discovery’s TV show Curiosity keep the conversation going off-air by leveraging a Q&A format, as opposed to a traditional article format, to deliver answers to consumers’ life curiosities at curiosity.com. Users ask their questions directly or are drawn in by a “wonderwall” of questions being asked by others. Social media tools allow consumers and experts to engage with each other, and action-oriented widgets such as quizzes allow for interaction.

Brands like Clorox and Discovery know something that so many other brands hopping on the social media bandwagon have missed. You can have fantastic Facebook pages and terrific Tweets – and see no gains in brand awareness and sales. Sure, one branded entertainment video out of thousands will go viral, win accolades and bring brand buzz. But the other 99 percent of brands need to do the basics: focus on informational content and the experience around that content — because even in the social world, content still rules.

ADOTAS – For more than half a decade, Berlin-based tech firm Sponsormob has remained relevant in an industry characterized by incessantly shifting trends. Founded in 2006 by CEO Peter Glaeser and COO Jet Patel (pictured), Sponsormob created the first CPA network for mobile, and now the company has rebranded itself, with a new slogan (“Mobile conversions. Data driven. Worldwide.”) and, more importantly, a new real-time-bidding (RTB) platform for mobile, which launched earlier in January. By offering RTB, Sponsormob aims to simplify processes for advertisers, with instantaneous and relevant ad placement that allows for a larger scale of ad purchasing across an array of publishers and, as a result, leads to more conversions. And because Sponsormob operates with ad networks, exchanges, yield optimizers, publishers and social media, it presents advertisers the opportunity to work with just one partner to handle all those needs.

In a recent Skpe chat, Jet Patel said that the new technology came about, on the publisher’s side, after “six months of development work. We’ve invested a lot of time.” As companies in the space catch up to Sponsormob’s earlier leads and focus on new ways to utilize the opportunities presented by mobile devices, Patel said, “We want to differentiate ourselves.” The capacity for RTB gives Sponsormob that edge — other companies, he said, “can’t really optimize on the go.” Sponsormob’s algorithm, he said, “yields greater results” through data optimization, and he pointed out that when working with a new client, his company conducts extensive testing, looking at the mobile carrier, the handset and tens of thousands of clicks in order to deliver the right ad to the right user at the right time.

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about how mobile devices — as wide-ranging and nuanced as the term “mobile” may be — present challenges and opportunities for advertisers, because of their portable nature and the highly personal relationship can users have to them. But Patel underlined the need for transparency. The user’s choosing to opt in to ads can lead to eye-popping click-through rates, and Patel acknowledged, “I think that’s the most important thing, that people opt in.” He pointed out the importance that “everything has legal liens — users are aware of what they’re downloading.”

When it’s transparent, though, methods of advertising via mobile can be both effective and creative. Patel cited Sponsormob’s Click-to-Call service. He said the insurance industry is one channel where it’s worked very well. The way it works is, a user clicks on an ad and is led directly to a call center. That process, he said, is “considered an elite. We’ve transferred it to mobile.”

Patel said he sees companies working with mobile technology approaching a point when they can target ads with the level of sophistication that the web has. “Come 2012, it’s catching up with a lot of things,” he said. “There are unique ways you can access users and engage with them.” He pointed to “apps focused on geolocation targeting” as key in the process, especially as inventory in mobile apps expands. Meanwhile, for Sponsormob specifically, he said that while up to now, “we’ve been focusing on direct advertisers, we’re looking at a solution where we can go to publishers” with more opportunities for branding and revenue. The company’s been focused on Germany and the U.S., he said, and it’ll give some more attention to the U.K. and France in the future. “The biggest difference [is] — well, the time difference!,” Patel said. “Things need to get done very quickly.”

ADOTAS – In the latest episode of The Future of Engagement, marketing consultant and Influence People chief Murray Newlands’ video interview series, we meet Kimling Lam, marketing and communications director of SaaS company Meltwater Group. Lam talks about how brands can work with social media to find their audience, interact with them — that means sharing engaging, fun content unrelated to your brand in addition to messages about your brand — and monitor these conversations over time. She discusses the idea of social CRM, the applications for good customer service that social networks present, examples of how to stay abreast of social trends, and some of the myths of social media. “That you should be on every channel… is absolutely a myth,” she asserts. Instead, she says, brands should use the channels that work best for their message and their audience.

DM CONFIDENTIAL - According to 11mark, three-quarters of Americans with mobile phones have used their phones in the bathroom, with more men than women reporting that they don’t go to the bathroom without their mobile phone.

Seventy-five percent of Americans with mobile phones have used their phones in the bathroom, according to 11mark. The gender split is nearly identical, with 74 percent of men and 76 percent of women saying they’ve used their mobile phones in the bathroom.

Meanwhile, 30 percent of men vs. 20 percent of women said they don’t go to the bathroom without their mobile phone, according to the report.

11mark goes even deeper into the details to find that:

• 20 percent of men and 13 percent of women participated in work-related calls in the bathroom
• 26 percent of men and 15 percent of women sent/read work-related email in the bathroom
• 41 percent of men and 36 percent of women browsed the web in the bathroom
• 13 percent of men and 7 percent of women made a purchase while in the bathroom

Android users are the most likely to use their mobile phone in the bathroom, with 87 percent of Android users saying so, followed by 84 percent of BlackBerry users and 77 percent of iPhone users.

BlackBerry users are the most likely to answer a call while in the bathroom (75 percent) and initiate a call while in the bathroom (48 percent). Meanwhile, iPhone users are the most likely to use social networking sites while in the bathroom (53 percent) and use an app while in the bathroom (67 percent).

According to 11mark, 91 percent of Gen Y mobile phone owners use their phones in the bathroom, while 80 percent of Gen X mobile phone owners, 65 percent of boomers and 47 percent of the silent generation do the same.

The report also highlighted that 16 percent of Gen Y mobile phone owners made a purchase while in the bathroom, while 10 percent of Gen X, 6 percent of boomers and 2 percent of the silent generation have done the same.

“Based on the trend, bathroom buying is poised for growth,” according to 11mark.

Getting down into the health aspects of this trend, 11mark found that 92 percent of respondents said they always wash their hands after using the restroom, while 14 percent said they always wash their phone after using the bathroom.

A separate report from Google and Ipsos MediaCT Germany found that more consumers use mobile phones than laptop/desktop computers in all five studied regions of the world (U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Japan).

ADOTAS -Facebook launched Timeline at f8 last September. Like Keystone Kops on a chase, marketers instantly clamored to conjure up and share ideas on how they could take advantage of it. Then Facebook played the wily criminal foiling the chase. They made it clear that Timeline wasn’t for companies and their products. Rather, it was designed for those living individuals among their users. There would be no brand pages allowed, not for now anyway. A few weeks ago, they showed they were sticking to their guns by surprisingly going after a public service organization: Israel’s anti-drug authority had created a clever “split Timeline” to show how the same person could live quite disparate lives if he went down the path of drug abuse. Facebook labeled it a “fake profile” and asked that it be taken down.

Things have begun to get more interesting. Facebook recently announced and is now rolling out “Sponsored Story” ads, opening up one door into Timeline for branded content. On the heels of that came a fascinating blog post by business analyst Jeff DeChambeau arguing that Timeline is, in fact, explicitly designed for the benefit of advertisers. DeChambeau says that while its overlay is a calendar format, the content users populate within it is actually laid out much more sporadically than original Facebook pages. This affects deeper engagement when someone visits a Timeline page, forcing them to spend more time and energy to discern what they’re seeing. That engaged state of mind then makes them more receptive to new ideas. Cue the ads. (DeChambeau references Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, which breaks down human thinking into categories based on high and low cognitive effort.)
The idea that the Zuckerberg bunch is now deeply immersed in the field of behavior-based advertising is a theory backed by strong supporting actions. With Timeline, there is simply too much potential for what marketers can do with the format, starting with that big, beautiful banner at the top, to not eventually give them access to it or some variation of it. And as of this week, there have been reports that brand pages are on the way and may be launched on the last day of February, according to some rumors.

At our shop, we started tinkering with the beta after f8, first using it to curate an exhibit of our own work. From there, we moved on to creating real applications with an eye to what sort of programs might benefit the kind of companies we represent. Ultimately, we developed six key applications for how brands can leverage it.

1) Timeline is a wonderfully visual storytelling device that can help personalize brands. Its format enables communication from a personal, almost individual perspective. This enables marketers to develop compelling stories that can connect with consumers on an emotional level.

2) Its format is ideal for drawing people into story- and setting-based marketing for entertainment products. It’s now a common tactic to expand on a film or video game universe with prequels, side stories and other bonus content to generate interest prior to its premiere and to expand its audience after launch. Timeline represents one of the best marketing tools yet to develop and showcase this type of campaign.

3) It’s a great place to execute on buzz-building programs. An example would be a campaign building up to a big reveal or rollout that’s driven by consumers who participate and share. Traditionally, these campaigns use Facebook as a primary point of genesis, but then require the development of an open graph-connected microsite or Facebook canvas-based application. Now Timeline gives marketers a great tool for facilitating them right where the very off-limits “Wall” used to be.

4) It can be harnessed by long-standing brands and products. Brands with some level of built-in affinity or history can curate compelling exhibits showcasing their legacy, even their transformation through rebranding. The message that a brand has been around for a long time is powerful in adding legitimacy and relevance to it.

5) It’s a great tool to establish a pedigree for new products or startup enterprises. A new product can use it to feature its history, from concept to R&D to launch. For a startup company or new brand, it’s a great way present how it was founded or developed and the successful milestones it met along the way.

6) It gives marketers a place to curate exhibits and give consumers “behind-the-scenes” access to popular marketing campaigns. Highly creative campaigns have always managed to take on a life of their own, going viral or developing memes to become part of pop culture. Now there’s Timeline to exhibit work in a way that can be compelling to marketing savvy consumers. It could even be used to heighten buzz around a high profile campaign. With the Super Bowl around the corner, think of how a brand with some legacy there could showcase their old ads and build interest in their next one.

Let’s be clear. We’re not saying that brands should have access to a fan’s Timeline. We simply think its features and functions are a huge step in the right direction for brand pages. Rather than being suffocated behind a text well, its format helps integrate messaging into a single compelling story and lets fans interact with it. Facebook may feel there needs to be a “warming up” period before turning a new feature into another marketing channel for them. It has taken this approach before. But it’s just a matter of time. For brand stakeholders, it’s worth coming up with a general strategy, even drawing up a few rollout-ready ideas for when Timeline fully comes online.

ADOTAS – Fashion Week is about to descend upon New York City in a burst of swirling colors, bold new styles and weighty prognostications about what’s “in” and what’s “out.” These eight days in February are crucial. Retail buyers will make decisions that determine what men and women wear – and not just in the precincts of high society, but on Main Street, U.S.A.

Admit it — wouldn’t it be great to have an inkling ahead of time what the hot styles will be?

You could, of course, phone your favorite designer and ask him or her to give you a sneak peak. But if you are not on friendly terms with any designers, you could find your answer online. It’s possible – if you know where to look.

The explosion of social media in recent years, coupled with the rise of advanced analytics technology, has made it possible to forecast any number of trends. This isn’t just for fun – companies are starting to use the burgeoning field of social media analytics to make important business decisions.

Let’s say the head buyer at a major retailer wants a better idea of where fashions are heading. First, he could use sophisticated software to sift through massive amounts of online data to look at the universe of people who discuss fashion online. Starting with literally thousands of people, the powerful algorithms would narrow the list down to a small number of influential bloggers who are extremely passionate and knowledgeable about fashion.

The software would specifically home in on social media mavens who sit at the center of huge social networks and have many followers. Why is this important? A recent IBM inquiry into footwear styles illustrates this point nicely. Using analytics, we looked at the universe of people who discuss shoes online, ultimately identifying a dozen “fashoenistas:” folks who blog and Tweet, do podcasts, etc., about shoes.

We discovered that these bloggers aren’t traditional experts – they don’t work in the footwear industry. But they are incredibly knowledgeable about shoes — that’s why they’re so popular. They might spend countless hours shoe shopping and invest considerable amounts of money in footwear. They read everything they can find on the topic. They often have friends in the industry. They think about shoes far more than most people.

An analysis of what these fashoenistas wrote online from 2008 to 2011 showed that their discussions of increasing heel height peaked towards the end of 2009, and declined after that.  For example, between 2008 and 2009 they wrote consistently about heels from five to eight inches, but by mid 2011 they were writing about the return of the kitten heel and the perfect flat.

The fashoenistas were on to something. While heels on women’s shoes are still high in 2012 — as a visit to any shoe store will confirm – the trend appears to be changing, with lower heels becoming increasingly popular. The advanced insight provided by the fashoenistas is the kind of specific, actionable data that could be used by shoe manufacturers and retailers looking for insight into the kind of shoes to, respectively, manufacture and sell in the coming season.

Similarly, retail buyers could use social media analytics to forecast the most popular color for women’s fashions in a year’s time. Or skirt length. Or trends in makeup.

Nothing is going to replace Fashion Week – it’s a unique extravaganza, an amazing mix of fashion and commerce. But social media analytics can be indispensable in helping retailers understand trends that are yet to be born. It can help them see Fashion Week with new eyes. In a business where even a single misstep can spell disaster, that’s a pretty big deal.