Narrow solutions lead to false impressions

December 30, 2011

Subtitle: If all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail

I recently read an article in digiDay, written by the CEO of a modestly large online personalization firm. The title drew me in… “Outsourcing Data Management is a Mistake“.  As I read, I was consistently impressed with the idea that narrow solutions, while interesting, lead to profound mistakes.

An open reply to the article -

If the proposal is that better management of online data needs to drive towards online personalization, I believe the premise and conclusions of the article are too narrow. While interesting, they are incomplete. Consider this, even if the premise is executed perfectly, advertisers will still have not solved 60% to 80% of the problem. A growing portion of media is being consumed online and a growing number of transactions are occuring online, but it’s still a minority.

The root of my point is that the writers premise solves only a small portion of all consumers interactions with a brand… not all portions of some consumers. In a world where more than 60% of consumers act in a multichannel manner and bring 4 to 5 times more value (Forrester research), solving the larger problem of multichannel insight has become the new table stakes. Using the writers premise, relying solely upon online actions to drive personalization, success would rely upon shere luck that a media impression would actually be triggered by the appropriate marketing reason.

 Until we have a data management solution that leverages the knowledge, segmentation and targeting of a brand as the primary data select and targeting methodology, we’re going to be chasing after the big money with small solutions. Consumer behavior is more complex than the distillation of online data. Consumer expectations are greater. The problems marketers are trying to solve are larger.

 What you propose isn’t wrong, I feel it’s just incomplete.

Love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a Comment » | Customer Experience, Differentiated Value of a Customer, Marketing Data, Multi-channel marketing, Strategy, Website personalization / targeting | Permalink
Posted by Mark Ogne

Believing “data” is more than behavior

August 11, 2011

I read MediaPost on a regular basis and find great value in their content. Maybe it’s a matter of timing, having just read several similar articles on DigiDay, but I have to express my deep concern over the lack of substance the digital marketing community expresses regarding marketable data. Behavioral data is interesting and for in-market, bottom of funnel, DR marketing efforts it may even be critical; however, it is by no means the “Pandora’s Box” of insight.

The article that triggered my entry today is “eXelate’s CEO Coins Term For DMP”. A main point in the article is to call out the clever twist on the acronym that the CEO of eXelate is espousing… it’s a Data Marketing Platform, not a Data Management Platform. Missing the point, is the concept of what “Data” is, not the nuance over managing data for marketing or marketing itself. The article starts off by declaring data as being behavior. Tacoda conducted research a few years ago to test out the concept of online behavior versus the purchase of a flat screen TV… using the implication of this article one would expect that the behavior of looking at flat panels would be the strongest intent indicator, right? Wrong, it was #22 on the list. #1 was viewership of military content. You’re probably asking yourself the question, “why military?” I don’t know. People are complex beings. What I’m asking myself at this point, and trying to communicate today, is “why behavioral data?”

Behavior, context, 3rd party data, and the myriad of proprietary segmentation models are all great… though each is incomplete. Not until we start to look towards the insight that brands possess regarding their target audience will the industry start to attract the brand dollars we’ve all been anticipating. The concept of marketing data and our identification as to what it is needs to expand, to include what marketers know it to be.

My $.02

Leave a Comment » | Marketing Data, Multi-channel marketing, Strategy | Permalink
Posted by Mark Ogne

500 years of marketing…

April 12, 2011

Over the last 500 years there were very few inflection points to the advertising and marketing ecosystem. In the last 5 years we’ve seen hundreds more infection points…

In the beginning… 1440 to 1940…

  • Guttenberg invented mass printing in 1440.Yet, it wasn’t until 1704 that the first newspaper advertisement, an announcement seeking a buyer for an Oyster Bay, Long Island, estate, is published in the Boston News-Letter.
  • Fearing there may be a pattern occurring, the first convention of advertising agents is held in New York in 1873.
  • Still not knowing which portion of his advertising is wasted, department store founder John Wanamaker is the first retailer to hire a full-time advertising copywriter, John E. Powers, in 1880.
  • Not until 40 years later did KDKA air the first commercial radio broadcast in1920.
  • 21 years after that, with 7,500 TV sets in New York City, NBC’s WNBT aired the world’s first legal television commercial July 1, 1941, costing the Bulova Watch Company a whopping $9.00.

Fast forward 37 years…

  • The first recognizable email marketing message was sent on 3 May, 1978 to 400 people on behalf of DEC – a now-defunct computer-maker – This is also noted as the first SPAM message.
  • In 1990, the very first tool used for searching on the Internet was launched, Archie.
  • Then, in1993, the Internet becomes a reality as 5 million users worldwide get online.
  • In 1994 HotWired coined the term “banner ad” and sold the first clickable advertisement to AT&T

During the last 15 years we’ve seen a flood of new media and advertising options: comparison shopping, SMS, mobile advertising, social media, games. As well as the digitization of our analog world: mobile phone, Kindle, addressable TV, HD radio, digital variable print.

Five years ago, who would have thought that MySpace would now be a worn out social network? Who’s next?

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Posted by Mark Ogne

Consumer trust and social media marketing

July 19, 2010

I came across a new chart today, Consumer trust and purchase behaviorand found the relationship between source of input for decision-making and the resulting usefulness and trust they found in the content – people tend to trust content at approximately half the rate that they find it useful.

Point #1 – Consumers trust AND value the usefulness of information gleaned through conversation with friends, families and co-workers (peers) at an exceedingly high level around the globe. I suppose the only interesting point here is that the observation is global in its’ nature.

Point #2 - Those same consumers trust comments and blogs less. Core social content is seen as less valid in decision-making. In fact, comments are trusted and found useful at about half the rate as personal relationships, and blogs at half of that.

Point #3 – Not just that, but they tend to trust the content half as much as they find it useful. THis is probably the more interesting stat… seen from a different dimension, people consciously use the latter two sources of content at twice the rate that they find it trustworthy. This doesn’t seem sustainable. It seems to beg for a new solution… consumers around the globe appear open for new social solutions to amass decision-making content.

Love to hear your thoughts!

2 Comments | Social Media Marketing, Strategy, Thoughts | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Ogne

Adjacent silos, or 360 degree view of a customer?

June 30, 2010

Marketing silos harm customer experience and marketing optimizationSilos… good for grain, bad for customer experience, bad for marketing optimization.

Technology spurs innovation and options but over the last decade and a half has also created silos – technologically, organizationally and experientially. In a non-trivial manner, the creation of new technologies has actually flipped core marketing principles on their head – While we should start with an audience and then wrap an offering with its’ promotion, pricing and delivery, today, we start with a media channel and determine how to acquire, retain and cross/up sell within it.

I’m not trying to cure world peace here, just trying to point out some easy ways to start leveraging what you know in one case to use in another.

Stephen Powers of Forrester had an interesting example in a recent blog entry, “planes, pains and multichannel engagement“… During a recent flight he struggled to meet the expectations of a flight attendant who asked him what he wanted for lunch. Struggling to look at the in flight magazine to see what was available, it dawned on him that the airline could have included the selection on the boarding ticket. For that matter, they could have also included the in flight movie and the current weather at each passengers’ final destination. Wouldn’t that be helpful?

Myself, I have struggled for years with my bank. Note, the only bank I’ve had for more than twenty years. Every time I use one of their ATM’s, the first thing the system does is ask me what language I want to use. Seriously? I’ve answered that question hundreds, maybe thousands of times.

This subject reminds me of the movie, “50 first dates”… an Adam Sandler movie where his love interest, Drew Barrymore, has a memory disorder and wakes up each morning without recognition of anything that’s happened since a car accident years earlier. Adam Sandler is then found spending a lifetime of effort convincing her that they love each other, starting each morning and working diligently throughout each day.

When we think about marketing in terms of silos we create this daily “win-back” mentality, similar to Adam Sandler. I guess I’m arguing that an investment in resources and focus to start collapsing some of our silos might actually make our life easier, our relationships more fulfilling and our ability to optimize the relationship capable under and new, mutually beneficial reality.

These are the type of simple cross silo thinking is where marketers can start to distill the situation and prioritize bit sized chunks of opportunity rather than trying to swallow the entire Atlantic Ocean… or in the case of 50 First Dates, the South Pacific. Design a relevant customer experience.

Love to hear your thoughts!

Mark

2 Comments | Differentiated Value of a Customer, Multi-channel marketing, Strategy | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Ogne

Innovation – I heard an interesting quote today…

June 29, 2010

Henry Ford – “If I asked people what they needed they would have told me faster horses”

OK, call me slow. Everyone else has probably taken note of this quote before. Today, it hit me while I was pondering the gravity of change in and to the marketing and advertising community.

Are we solving the right problems? I question whether we are. In the advertising community I hear a lot about innovation around the dis-intermediation of the big players, like DSP capabilities. Why don’t we hear more about the efficacy and efficiency / relevance of advertising?

When you put the objective in the center of your strategy you begin to ask the right questions. Is your target customer in the center of your strategy?

Look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Mark

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Posted by Mark Ogne

Reaching consumers has become more difficult…

June 1, 2010

The challenge has increased exponentially.  There are more channels, more screens and more data than ever and the rate of change is increasing. Adoption driven by accessibility and affordability, technology enables consumers to access a vast wealth of information, on their terms. Starting in the last few decades, the trajectory of change has ramped up fast and is not projected to slow down.

Selecting one of the top spend channels, TV, we can see dramatic intra-channel shifts: From a peak year in mass TV advertising, 1965, until 2002, the number of 60 second spots necessary to reach 80% of one’s target audience has increased from three to 117[i]. Translating this to trust and recent research surrounding brand message acceptance, 60% of respondents said they need to hear information about a company three to five times before they believe it[ii]. Correlating these two points, an advertiser would need to provide at least 351 60 second TV spots to provide sufficient TV exposure to satisfy 80% of one’s target audience need for message acceptance. This, all while nearly 40 million US households have DVR capabilities and 59% of them “currently use a DVR to skip through the commercials”.[iii]

Fast-forward to the current decade. Today’s teen has become a moving target. Nearly all are double or triple tasking while watching TV.   U.S. teenagers trust information from each other 5X more than adults and 10X more than ads[iv]. If you think about what this world looks like 5 to 10 years from now, this scenario will be even more complex as this demographic will be your future target.  It will pay to get on top of this challenge sooner than later.

Complicating this, pushing more “noise” at consumers who have become increasingly insensitive to the charms of marketers has proven to risk exacerbating the issue and drives negative long term brand impressions.

The above is an excerpt from an upcoming whitepaper I wrote. I’ll update this post when the final production is available.

Mark

[i] Tim Stengel, former CMO at P&G

[ii] Edelman Trust Barometer, 2009

[iii] eMarketer – Mintel, “Attitudes toward Traditional Media Advertising and Promotional marketing – US”, 2009

[iv] eMarketer – Deloitte, “State of the Media Democracy Fourth Edition: Select US Highlights”, 2009

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Posted by Mark Ogne

Media spend is not following media consumption

November 7, 2009

Today, digital media accounts for nearly 35% of the average US consumers’ media consumption yet less than 15% of ad spend is directed toward these new channels.

I think the issue is non-trivial. Not only are the digital channels more addressable, more trackable and accountable by their nature, they also represent the direction consumers are taking. Also of interest, looking at the largest spend and media consuming traditional channel, TV, younger audiences are consuming an appreciable and increasing portion of their media through the Internet… while double and triple tasking with games, IM, text, etc. Oh, and don’t forget that nearly 20% of households have DVRs and habitually timeshift their favorite shows.

The world is changing, consumers are multichannel… are you?

Love to hear your thoughts.

Mark

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Posted by Mark Ogne

The fit of independent variables to the personalization scenario

October 1, 2009

Regression analysis can determine the “fit” of independent variables to a dependent variable.

Not all independent variables are a good fit.

Relying upon a small set of independent variables may produce an incorrect fit -> destroy your chances of doing anything that’s successful in your personalization program.

Thought for the day:-)

Mark

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Posted by Mark Ogne

Website personalization vs customization

September 26, 2009

Customization is derived through explicit, stated preferences, while personalization is driven by both the explicit and implied – behaviorally driven information. How did the user get to the site (referral information like URL or search keywords), prior purchases, and onsite activity are key to driving relevance on a website.

Consider this, your brands’ website probably constitutes less than 0.5% of a visitors life experience, if you’re wildly successful… there’s a world of insight necessary and available to the purview of  your personalization scenario. A world that requires integration with a more comprehensive data set: your marketing database, third party data and analytic models to decipher it.

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Posted by Mark Ogne

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