Dear Brands,

The more options that we can find to reach a consumer, we, as advertisers will most likely try if it’s in the right context. Most large brands have leveraged billboards, print, TV Commercials, Social Media, Display, Email or Paid Search at this point, in some way or form. So how can a strong brand ensure effective communication in all of these areas, and streamline messaging effectively and quickly to consumers to the point of purchase? Ideally, without creating any distractions for the consumers.

Try creating a “Brand Board” online for all of your advertisers and partners to access. Brands that can keep the conversation going internally will come out on top. Advertisers need to know what brands are doing across all mediums so that display ads have the same tone as commercials, and commercials have a way to tie consumers back online. Consumers, male and female, young and old, are spending more and more time online. That said, brands need to find a way to connect the dots offline and finish their experience or picture perfect message online.

We know a lot about today’s consumer: their gender, how often they buy, their income, age and where they go before and after they visit your site. We also know that consumers are moving extremely quick today, muti-tasking like we’ve never seen before. Having the right message at the right time is crucial for advertisers – more than ever. Creating a relevant connection from offline to online and even online to online has never been more important. This brings us to our example below.

We clicked on an online ad for Mobil 1 performance oil offering proven performance for up to 15,000 miles. The display ad we found was targeted, simple and clean.  The landing page was VERY text heavy with no connection of the “Next Service Date” graphic from the messaging we saw in the banner ad.   True, the banner takes me to a page where we can read about oil, but it still seems disjointed. The page does not contain the same theme or language as the display ad. Have we lost the ability to quickly reach the 18-34 year old male who may be looking for coupons to quickly print out to run to the nearest store after seeing a very similar ad on television?

Could the “Brand Board” have connected the display team with the landing page team and created a better experience for the consumer? We ask brands to think about this. Big brands that realize they have a responsibility to create a seamless interaction throughout their online and offline campaigns will have a leg up on the competition.

Brands know that their marketing dollars are going to go a lot further with a campaign that takes consumers to an end to end experience.

Let’s Discuss: The power of combining your brand’s visible assets with promotions to make celebrities out of your audience.

EMG 30-Second Rundown
NASA is currently running an online promotion called “Face in Space” to draw attention and interest to the final two Endeavour shuttle flights, STS-133 and STS-134. The promotion leverages a microsite that allows people to upload a photo of their face to be taken aboard one of the remaining flights and launched into orbit (a nice alternative route into orbit over others that are morbid, costly, or statistically challenging). The campaign has been quite a success so far with over 62,508 total participants from 6 continents (including yours truly representing EMG in space), and a significant amount of global media coverage.

NASA is motivating participation (and driving awareness of its programs in the process) by making available to its audience a chance to be visibly associated with its brand in a significant and meaningful way. Call it “celebrifying” its audience.

Other recent examples of brands employing this tactic:

• To celebrate selling 500,000 Fiat 500 vehicles, Italy’s Fiat Group launched an online promotion that invited the public to submit photos to be incorporated into the paint job of a special edition Fiat 500 showcar (to be known as the Fiat 500 Thousandth). The promotion has received worldwide coverage and all 1,500 spots that were available on the car will be filled.

• In anticipation of the Paranormal Activity DVD release, distributor Paramount invited all the fans that made the movie such a success to submit their name for inclusion in the DVD film credits. Just over 149,000 fans participated, and as of writing this, 823,000 DVDs have been sold.

The EMG Takeaway
There are two dynamics at play here that make this tactic of celebrifying your audience so powerful, Celebrity to the World (incentive) and Celebrity to Us (bonding).

Celebrity to the World is the incentive a brand offers when it creates the opportunity to associate your face or name to the public using a visible brand asset. The prospect of being able to tell my friends my photo is going to be launched into space makes me feel like a celebrity, and motivates me to participate.

Celebrity to Us describes the connection that is formed between a brand and an individual when the brand incorporates them into one of its visible brand assets. Knowing I’ve been included in the launch of a space shuttle makes me feel like a celebrity to NASA, and deepens my bond with the brand.

The real takeaway is that when pairing an incentive to an online promotion, it can be just as effective (if not significantly more so) to appeal to the ego of participants instead of their checkbooks. If NASA created an online essay contest and offered $1,000 to the winner, I’m quite positive they wouldn’t have received the same level of participation or media coverage.

Final Words: When designing a promotion, consider what visible assets your brand can leverage to make celebrities out of your audience to incentivize participation and deepen a connection with your brand.

3 Questions to Continue the Discussion

1. What brands have made you feel like a celebrity?
2. If you’re a brand manager, what visible assets have you used to celebrify your audience?
3. Is your face going to be on board on of the final two Endeavour shuttle flights?

Photo credit: Matthew Simantov / Flickr

Let’s Discuss: A very insightful panel hosted last night by networking organization Digital LA entitled “Digital Music Panel: Artists Go Social.” The panel was comprised of artists, artist management, music labels, marketing technology providers, and even the CMO of The Grammys.

EMG 30-Second Rundown
The general topic of the panel discussion was how artists are using social media and digital technology to market themselves and their music. A wide range of questions directed at the panel covered areas such as the varied approaches to social media taken by emerging artists vs. established artists, the shifting role of the record label in promoting artists, what it is fans expect from the artists they engage with, and emerging technologies impacting how fans connect with artists.

The EMG Takeaway
Here are four themes that emerged from the panel that I found relevant and interesting. With a shift in context, these themes can easily be applied to brands in general, not just music artists.

• New Revenue Models Continue to Emerge – The music industry is no stranger to experimenting with revenue models for monetization of artists, driven for years by an erosion of album sales, shrinking profit margins, and rampant piracy. One of the interesting models shared at the panel was that of a revenue share between mobile application developer (in this case, BlueHaze) and artist. Rather than having an artist (or label) front money for the development of a mobile application, BlueHaze has arranged deals where revenue derived from the application is split between BlueHaze and the artist. In this model, both parties have monetary incentive to see the application succeed, the artist doesn’t take on any financial risk, and the application developer has the potential to see greater upside than they would from a standard development deal.

• Artists Take Control – One of the key themes of the panel was that artists are more empowered than ever to take promotion of their music into their own hands via social media and digital endeavors. This isn’t a ground-breaking theme, but I felt compelled to include it so I could drop this gem of a quote from one of the panel-members, an LA-based artist with national exposure: “I’m a rapper, I shouldn’t know about web optimization – but I do.” In other words, this empowerment means a modern music artist, especially an emerging one, needs skill sets that go beyond just the musical variety.

• Don’t Ignore the Etc. – In the context of social networks, there’s a phrase we use at EMG called “Don’t ignore the etc.” in response to people referring to “Facebook, Twitter, etc.” One of the artists on the panel was adamant about this in response to an audience member’s remark about the decline of MySpace’s user base. To this artist, MySpace still represented a very viable source of communication and interaction with fans, and was ignored at the artist’s peril. Not ignoring the etc. means recognizing the communities and networks that matter to your fans.

• Convert Your Audience – It’s not enough to just accumulate an audience through social media. Ideally, artists will implement mechanisms for converting their audiences in a way that directly impacts the artist’s success. This doesn’t mean just Tweeting out a link to Ticketmaster either. The most creative conversion mechanisms reward audiences for taking action, and two of the companies present on the panel, CultureJam and Eventful, offer technology that allow artists to do just that. CultureJam offers a product that allows bands to deliver, among other things, free MP3 downloads to fans in exchange for sending out promotional Tweets on the band’s behalf. In this conversion, the fans get music, the band gets exposure. Eventful gives artists a platform for directing their fans to “demand” local concerts. In this conversion, the fans get a better chance of seeing their favorite artists, the band gains both leverage with local promoters, as well as valuable insight for planning tours.

Final Words: While the economics of the music industry can be at times daunting to artists, the availability of tools, channels, and technologies for growing an audience and making it count is very exciting, and ripe with opportunity. It should also be noted that no amount of tools, channels, and technology can make bad music good (mediocre music maybe), and these tools, channels, and technology require incredible dedication, strategy, and hustle to be effective.

3 Questions to Continue the Discussion

1. If you’re an artist, what web technology could you not live without?
2. If you’re a fan, what is most memorable experience you’ve had with a band through social media?
3. If you’re a marketer of artists, but social technology provides the best blend of promotional effectiveness with positive experience for the fans?

Photo credit: marfis75 / Flickr

Let’s Discuss: An article by Advertising Age, Male Call: Marketers Jump On Men’s Grooming Trend

EMG 30-Second Rundown: The men’s personal-care category is steadily growing (up 1% while the rest of the category is down over 5%) and marketers are taking every opportunity to capture share with one of the biggest array of product launches for men in nearly a decade. Brands which have prevoiusly skewed towards women are even vying for a piece of the pie as seen with Unilever launching its new Dove Men’s + Care line.

Key Quote: Marketing actually has a long history of gender-bending brands that have added, changed or developed gender identities long after they were well-established.

The EMG Takeaway: There are major opportunities for brands to develop products that market to genders in which their brand typically does not appeal.  Personal-care has been a category that has seen more of this than most others over the past decade and now with successes and lessons learned from failures, is poised to jump in with both feet.  With all of the brands now clamoring for attention in the personal-care category with new products and marketing messaging that suggests men need to “smell like a man” and “embrace being a man”, success for these brands could mean big changes for other CPG categories and industries.  With the influx of all this targeted messaging to men around these products working together to create the perception in men that all products they use should be this way and convey this message, its only a matter of time before we start to see laundry detergent, suntan lotion, air fresheners or other products start to have men’s lines.

Final Words: Men like to be reminded that they are men and use products that make them feel more manly, especially when gender lines are blurring more and more each passing year. Marketers and brands have proven to be able to cash in on this time and again when they come

Three Questions from EMG to Continue the Discussion:

1. What brands could benefit the most from launching a male or female line of their products?

2. What is the most effective marketing message the men’s personal-care products are using?

A. Using this product will make women want you (example: Axe Body Spray)

B.  Using this product will make you feel like a man (example: Dove Mens + Care)

C. Your girlfriend wants you to use this product (example: Old Spice Body Wash)

3. Do you think more brands will start marketing to men or will it just be a short fad within only the personal-care line.

Let’s Discuss: An article from the New York Times, The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s

EMG 30-Second Rundown: The pace at which technology is accelerating is exaggerating the differences in culture, expectations, and mindsets among different generations of today’s children, teenagers, and young adults. It’s essentially creating mini-generation gaps. Kids only years apart might have vastly different communication preferences, and even mental capabilities such as multi-tasking.

Key Quote: “People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology…College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.”

The EMG Takeaway: Perhaps the notion of the “18-25 year old” marketing segment loses a bit of relevancy as the difference of only a couple years displays itself in exaggerated ways. The article is also resounding endorsement of the discovery process, truly understanding who you are trying to reach, their expectations and needs, and why that knowledge might alter your tactical approach. It’s a phenomenal reminder too for us to step outside of our own expectations for how we want products marketed to us. While one generation might find receiving a text message upon entry to a grocery store utterly intrusive, another generation (or sub-generation) might expect the interaction and find the experience odd or disappointing without it.

Final Words: An article interesting for the insight it provides, and the reminder that it serves.

Three Questions from EMG to Continue the Discussion:

1. How do you stay actively in touch with the expectations of those outside your own generation?

2. Have you observed instances of this mini-generational gap in your own life?

3. Kids have always had the attitude that their parents are hopelessly out of touch; is this any different, or is the contrast of the divide starker than ever?

Photo credit: gnta / Flickr

I really enjoy attending User Experience events. This is one place where I can tell people that I am an Information Architect, without them looking at me and say: So I guess you design houses then?

Trust me, I get that quite a lot at other social gatherings, like birthday parties, weddings and high school reunions…

So, I was at this Los Angeles Designers Meet up recently and a young lady in her mid 20s asked me a question that I have not thought of in recent years.

Her: What would be THE one principle that you have stood by throughout the years in your line of work?”

(I deep thought about my past 10 years in the User Experience field and replied)

Me: Well, it has to be KISS Usability or Keep It Simple Stupid Usability.

(I went on and elaborate)

Me: In fact, it’s easy to make things difficult but it’s difficult to make things easy.

But the key when it comes to usability is to focus on just one thing.

I then shared an article that I’ve recently read, with her. It’s called “Choice Kills Usability” by John Rhodes and here are some key points from that article:

“One of the easiest ways to improve usability is by focusing on just one thing. When you present something to the user, be sure that it’s just one thing. All too often we try too hard to offer people several options.

The reason many people love Google.com is that it offers just one thing: Search. A single-minded focus has enormous implications. Users can clearly understand what Google is about and what it does. Even new users to Google are instantly put at ease because of the outlandish simplicity.

There are branding implications as well. When people think about search they think about Google and when they think about Google they think about search. This brand strength translates to billions of dollars of market capitalization…”

“…billion dollar companies down to gritty little sales pages can benefit from ultra focus. When you eliminate clutter and choices, usability invariably goes up. When there is a single purpose of a web page, product or service everyone wins.

Next time you’re thinking about giving your customers 100 choices, think about the effort that it takes to investigate each decision. Think about the cognitive effort required to sift through option after option. Look, if you “know” there is one best choice; eliminate the junk and focus, focus, focus.

Choice kills usability. Not always — But when you are in doubt about adding features, choices, and options, take the safe path.

Provide a clear vision. Be practical. Focus for usability. “

So, next time, when your customer wants the “About Us” link to be repeated on the header, footer and again on the infamous quick-links section, just because they said it is not prominent enough. Think again, try to recommend a solution that focus and make that “one link” more obvious and prominent.

The footer definitely has much greater use than just repeating what’s in the header and so is the quick-links section. I guess that may be a topic for my next chat up and a blog to follow.

I’d like to report on a weekend after-dinner conversation that reminded me how critical the structure of language actually is. Too often I write off those late school nights I spent with Foucault and Saussure as irrelevant to my day-to-day work as a marketing content developer - but no more!

This renewed passion for structuralism even promises to put myself in a more natural dialogue with my fellow computer scientists. Needless to say, I’m a sucker for intersections and interrelations, and I hope the paraphrased pseudo-transcript below serves to open up a new nexus or two for its readers! Note: names have been changed to protect those involved in the inevitable event that I’m misquoting them!

Christy: Did you hear that scientists proved the human brain is programmed to process language according to structural patterns (“cat” is either the sound made when someone says the word or when someone signs the word) and semantics (“cat” is a furry creature that says meow)?

Mike: They also located the specific areas of the brain where those functions occur, too. So fascinating! Before, it was believed that the capability to recognize structural patterns was developed over time but not innate to the human brain.

Mandy: So, you’re saying that structural patterns are necessary to a human’s experience of verbalized or sign language?

Christy & Mike: Yes!

Mandy: Wow. I wonder if I could use this to support an idea I had about punctuation and standardized usage rules affecting an individual’s experience of language – reading or hearing it.

Christy: I’ve always thought that punctuation and usage rules DETERMINE how one reads language – aloud or in one’s head from a page – so, I think that could work. What do you mean about “experience” though?

Mandy: Well, even though someone may not realize a comma is in the wrong place or that the word “your” is used incorrectly for the conjunction of “you” and “are” (which should be “you’re), I suspect – or would like to believe – that their brain recognizes the error to some degree and experiences the error on a level somewhere between subconscious and conscious. Like with html code, if the bracket is missing before “b>”, the output will not be the intended bolded text.

And, if this is true, then I also suspect that a company or product that defines itself with language rife with errors contributes to individuals’ experiences of that company or product – experiences that ultimately shape conscious belief or actions – being impacted by those errors or conflicted in some way at the very least.

Mike: I think it’s bigger than that, actually. I think usage and punctuation errors impact the explicit meaning, even if it’s not as blatant as the Oracle at Delphi’s story when the Oracle told its questioner, “You will go you will return not in the battle you will perish.” If you put the comma before “not,” the individual will live. If you put the comma after “not,” the individual will die in battle.

Mandy: Hmm. So even if the stakes aren’t as high as death, meaning is sacrificed when punctuation and standardized usage rules are ignored. Guess we’ve just provided job security for proofreaders everywhere.

Jake: Well, let’s just keep this between us until I sell all my Derrida books on eBay. Cool?

So I’m just finishing up one of the most fascinating books that was given to me by one of my colleagues, Amanda Vande Brake. The book is The Culture Code. Without going into hundreds of lil nuances and details, the basic summary is that the book takes a psychoanalysis rollercoaster and multi-layered adventure into how a consumer’s individual unique culture, personal experiences and life patterns define the way they respond to brands as well as to marketing in general.

I think the most fascinating portion of the book was in fact not the outcomes, but simply the process and journey that author, renowned cultural anthropologist Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, takes his test subjects through as he delves into how their own behaviors, thoughts and relationships with various test products (i.e. cars, ceral, wine, etc). Him and I share a common belief. Ignore what people “tell” you in a workshop, survey or focus group because more often then not they lie, are easily influenced or just don’t really remember or have an opinion on the information you are trying to get out of them. Instead, Dr. Rapaille says to focus instead on the common structure of stories that your test subjects reveal.

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