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eMarketer Speakers - HP

Great line-up of speakers today.  Ted McConnell of P&G talks later today, which should be excellent.  Also just heard Mary Bermel of Hewlett-Packard's Global Brand Advertising.  Excellent preso.  (Full disclosure: we work with some groups at HP.)  She hit the "consumer's in control" theme dead-on,  and shares some excellent thinking re: search based marketing.  Quote of the day (so far at least): "Search is the users 'declaration of intent.'"  I love this type of thinking because it looks at search through the lens of 'demand-sensing,' which is an opportunity zone marketers have barely begun to explore.

Conference Diarist - eMarketer Orlando

I’m listening right now to uber emarketer Geoff Ramsey right now at eMarketing 2005, a conference in Orlando where I will be later speaking about word-of-mouth measurements and analytics. Geoff's a highly engaging, energetic, and well-informed speaker (a fellow Ad-Tech board member) who’s introducing the key conference themes and marketing trends. As I watch him rattle through a plethora of packed power-point slides, I’m getting goosebumps. Why? Because this is at the heart and soul of everything we have been advocating at Intelliseek, especially in our webinars. So let's recap Ramsey's "5 Mega Media and Marketing Trends" and spice it up with a bit of commentary. 

• Consumer skepticism and resistant to advertising: Yes indeed! And the data substantiating this everywhere. More consumers have downloaded pop-up filters than the total number of consumers have signed up for do-not-call list. Last year’s Forrester/Intelliseek research suggested that consumer simply don’t “trust” advertisers anymore. Geoff Ramsey quotes Yankelovich: “65% of consumers feel constantly bombarded with too much marketing and advertising.”

• Increasingly the Consumer is Control: Amen! The core underlying assumption behind consumer-generated media is that the most effective and trusted advertising today is not created or controlled by advertisers, but by consumers. This is a fundamentally new landscape. Consumer behavior on message boards, blogs, forums, communities, or even around the water-cooler are all evidence of this. More perspective via our white paper on this topic.

• Media fragmentation is out of control. Ramsey quotes P&G’s Jim Stengel: “In 1965, 80% of the 18-49 year-olds in the US could be reached with 3 60-second TV spots. In 2002, it required 117 prime-time commercials to do the same.” Yes, this is the new reality, and the advent of consumer-generated media is intensifying the fragmentation. What’s your plan to manage in this environment?

• “Mass reach” efforts are being complemented by improved targeting – to maximize efficiency and drive relevance: Yes again. Why do we focus on so-called ‘influencers?’ Because they are a higher-return target audience. Win with the consumers with megaphones and you get a higher yield. Lose with them and you may never be able to crawl out of the negative media hole. But the point is this: the web is introducing a fundamentally new way of identifying, measuring, and reaching targeted niches of consumers. Most of the discussion to date has been centered on "buying" those targets, but targeting is also about how to manage the unique, organic, unprompted influence and reach of these segments. 

• Marketers are held to new levels of accountability: No disagreement here, but I’ve long maintained that one of the most critical ‘accountability’ tools available at our disposal (or currently untapped) is measurable consumer expression. If there’s a CGM trail of over 1.5 billion tangible, archived, consumer comments on the internet, why not use what the “boss” says as tool to hold marketers more accountable. I write about this in one of my recent Jupiter columns. 

What I’m sensing in listening to this presentation is that we truly are in a second “wave” of new marketing. I experienced this first hand while helping shape interactive marketing at P&G from 1996-1999, but we’re now in a fundamentally new period. Geoff’s numbers have resonance.

Where the internet is really peaking, says Ramsey, is as a “pre-purchase” information vehicle. This is a critical point, and I could not agree more. If this is even marginally true, then CGM is having a massive impact of consumer awareness, trial and loyalty of products. Why? Because real consumer experiences with brands and services are making themselves readily available in front of other consumers, especially through search engines. 

Intelliseek At Ad-Tech San Francisco

  Pete Blackshaw here. Back from three days at Ad-Tech San Franscisco, where Intelliseek moderated the a WOMMA co-sponsored panel on Word of Mouth Measurements, which included one of Intelliseek's clients, Steve Sommers of Sony Electronics. Great turn-out, although speaking on the third day is not as optimal as the first two. Great back and forth, and we hit the key points regarding the potential of using consumer-generated media and word-of-mouth as a real-time measurements tool to audit buzz and beyond.  I opened with a few slides showing buzz for Ad-Tech.

Today at Digital Marketing Conference in NY

First, I just LOVE this chart.  Did BlogPulse predict the next Pope?  Can't say.

On other fronts, I'm moderating a panel today on blogging at the NY based Digital Marketing conference.  Expect a recap shortly.

The Art and Science of Blog Writing

Next up: Halley Suitt of "Halley's Comment" and Stowe Boyd of Corante.  Halley is offering lots of excellent tips on how to author blog content.  "The writing must have passion, or no one will care," she tells us.  She also frowns upon CEO's writing blogs, as she questions whether they can make a meaningful commitment.  Some good quotables:

• Brevity..."it is indeed the soul of wit."
• Posting is "do or die. You need to be posting as much as possible."
• "People want to see fresh stuff....the more often the better."
• "The blogs you want to read have a voice....you need to sound alive."

Bloggers in the Crowd

Turns out, this blog is now on the official list of conference bloggers.  In case you want to hear (or read) what others have to say.  Here's the list.

DL Byron

Debbie Weil

Jeff Bar

Renee Blodgett

Brian Chin

Seed Wiki

Darren Barefoot

Comparing the Blog Services

Now I'm listening to a panel featuring Molly Holzschlag and DL Byron.  There are some cons of some of the commercial blog services

• Very few customization features - you rely on th ehost company whims
• Danger -- the content may note be yours. read service agreements carefully
• Association with the main brand weakens the blog brand
• Not scalable to a true professional level
• There more...but I couldn't type fast enough to catch it all.

Also just witnessed DL Byron creating a blog in ten minutes -- this to underscore the simplicity of creating a blog.   Folks, it ain't rocket science.

My own assessment: I'm quite experienced in both TypePad and Blogger. I'm more partial to Typepad because everytime I blink they seem to come up with a new feature to make my blogs look more professional.   Also is very inexpensive for the value provided. 

Faces in the Crowd

OK, my mind is starting to wonder.  Let's detour to some "faces in the crowd." To my left is Rick Murray of Edelman communications, home of one of the first corporate blogs authored by a CEO. He's already intimidating me by offering comments on my blog comments.  I took revenge by quickly capturing him with my "surveillance device" of a camera.  All quite innocuous, but this is what we're facing in the blogging world.  Earlier today, the Cincinnati Enquirer quoted me talking about the implications of this new "Surveillance Culture" on government. 

Molly's 3rd Topic: Content Aggregation

Next in line in the Holy Trinity: Content Aggregation. Feeds, says Molly, are the new push, but they are "here to stay."

• Almost all blog software has some means of implementing RSS or ATOM
• All professional, business-based blogs should offer feeds
• Your job is to determine the way you'll publish: excerpt or full article. 

The Role of Passion

Blogging lends itself to passion, explains Scoble.  If you go to the folks offering comments on blogs, they tend to be among the most "passionate followers."  Journalists pay attention to blogs because they know that the most passionate people are the ones who are changing society.  They are folks who like to be close to the inventors.  Apple's ipod "didn't take place in blogs, but it evolved in the same way. Passionate people aggregated around it....the amplication of passion is what sells products," he explained.