LIFT10 – Brands and Online Communities from netinfluenceChannel on Vimeo.

The video was made by netinfluence at Lift 10 where Maria was giving a workshop about the challenges brands face to edge their way into the sacred space of conversation. Download her presentation on Slideshare and retrieve the pictures of her workshop on our Facebook.

The rise of the importance of the  Facebook fan page has become an integral part of companies social media campaigns or presence. Its not hard to understand why. Facebook is the web’s most popular destination after Google ( it is number 1 in Indonesia, Philippines , Malaysia and Singapore )   where the average user spends in the order of 33 minutes per day and its registered user numbers are upwards of 350 million. As the use or entry to a brand’s website are in decline due to a shift in how consumers use the web this days it makes common sense to to add Facebook into the online marketing mix. With number of brand, star, cause or business fans ranging close to 5.3 billion , that means News Feeds to user’s pages are carrying  a range of  brand content and updates.

View  a full review of Facebook’s internal statistics

Last November  “The Big Money” part of Slate Magazine,  ranked  50 brands that they see as making the best use of Facebook. The ranking is based on factors like number of fans, page growth, frequency of updates, creativity and fan engagement, not just numbers of fans. According to “The Big Money” Coca-Cola is ranked as the brand that makes best use of the social network thanks to its “organic fan-centric page without a corporate feel” and some extremely good apps the currently coin the phrase “Share Happiness” in a campaign to boost the diffusion , awareness and contact with the brand in social media.

On Facebook currently  there appears to be no common thread to a brand campaigns or successes in appealing to users. Brands such as Starbuck’s , Papa John’s Pizzas, TGI Fridays all have gained large numbers through a tactical “promotional friending” or free food and drinks in exchange for friendship amongst other tactics. Others with very popular ratings either use the channel for fast paced entertainment updates, customer interactions and feedback, user polls, and contests. “Flavour tournaments” have driven large fans bases for food brands and beverage brands  where consumers have been asked to create or give opinions on developing new flavours. The winners in this type of engagement are Pop Tarts, Mountain Dew, and Vitaminwater.

Here are the Top 10 as presented by The Big Money with the current fan numbers as of today:

As the digital shift continues to move marketing communications to more direct and dialogue driven channels companies should adopt a simple methodology in identifying what will work for them and their consumers.  The dialogue idea is as unifying concept that aligns relationship or socially driven programs with other communications as a part of an integrated marketing approach. As more participatory channels for consumers are developed the need to establish consistent, non-campaign driven dialogue points becomes critical in the marketing mix.  These are not just limited to the direct channels, as we know them; (CRM, DM, email, websites), but really extend across any personal contact that can be associated to the “ brand experience”; customer and consumer services, in store demonstrations, events etc.

A real world experience with a brand is only mirrored in the participatory platforms online and this mirroring reflects the sentiments it arouses in real world conversations.

What ever the relationship or dialogue you want to create with consumers you must have a compelling offer or value exchange. Just as in the real world relationships, digital relationships require dialogue to sustain them.  A good dialogue idea serves as the over arching concept for that exchange.  In helping create a consumer relationship the dialogue idea should answer two simple questions. Why would a consumer want interact with you? And what value are you adding to their life, their interests, or their passions?

The reasons for the consumer / brand relationship need to be unpinned by consumer rational  and emotional needs.  Dialogue can be driven by what really matters or makes a difference to a consumer’s life or facilitate their passions. Whatever the offer,  it has to be tangible, real and add value.

Consumers are pre-disposed to dialoguing about a number of things.

They might want ;
To be a part of the future development of their brands they are passionate about.
To share their experiences.
To give and receive advice and learn from others.
To be the first to know or receive exclusive offers or privileges
To seek more information beyond the brand  (how to use it etc.)
To meet and belong to a community of people with similar interests

Relationships are long term. The success points you should consider in developing a dialogue driven program start with being able to sustain a dialogue across a community or programs for  along time rather than running a campaign and possibly include time driven campaign communications. You should also define the motivational points for a consumer to start a dialogue with your brand and your ideas should differentiate from other brand or companies in a unque way , there’s no point in replicating someone else’s idea or offer.  And,  lastly you should aim at supporting the dialogue across a number of consumer contact points.

The behavioral advertising tracking platform Phorm hits the news again last week as the UK ISP Talk Talk followed a move by BT (British Telecom) when they canceled their trial with the company.

It comes as no surprise to me. Phorm has developed technology which collects information on web use in order to serve Internet users with highly targeted adverts and serves ads to people based on their web-browsing behavior. Relying on deep packet inspection, in which every data packet is opened and examined, Phorm builds a profile of consumer’s web-surfing habits. The service surreptitiously tracks and interpolates their behavior without disclosing itself or without asking permission.

BT (British Telecom) had conducted two trials of the Phorm technology, without obtaining the consent of the broadband customers involved, leading to allegations of illegal activity from its customers, peers and privacy campaigners. This led to a lawsuit initiated by the European Commission against the UK government for failing to comply with European data protection laws.  Apparently BT completed a further trial in December 2008 and following further and obvious consumer backlash, it deleted its forums discussing the technology.

Phorm is not a consumer-based service, or entertainment or publishing network that provides an obvious value to the consumer by servicing a need.  Its an online advertising network that centers around gathering intelligence and contextual serving of advertising, Phorm’s mistake is that it doesn’t use the good manners approach of asking the consumers permission (the 1st step in any relationship based marketing is to ask permission) so it is in breach of any trust a consumer might have in the platform.  Here in lies its problem, collecting intelligence on a consumer’s browsing habits or behaviors, without them knowing is an invasion of privacy.  Google, also cited over privacy concerns in recent years, currently collects and stores information from each search query, holding information about the search query itself, the unique IP address and details about how a user makes their searches.  Google is different to Phorm in that it doesn’t intercept and spy on content a person is browsing, but its not benign either. It stores the search behavior and attaches it to an identifiable IP address.

The controversy surrounding Phorm’s technology is probably going to continue but I don’t think that this will stop the adoption of behavior based advertising; Quite the contrary.  What is apparent in Phorms case there is a clear breach of trust with the consumer and technology is viewed as “snooping” or spying technology. The only question that remains, is Phorm considered as a spyware? Uncannily spyware is  where the company has it roots and effected larger commercialization of the technology under going a name change to Phorm. They are not the only company doing this type of tracking. Consider Google’s Adsense, it calls its behavior based tracking  “interest based targeting” or DoubleClick’s DART cookies.  DART cookies are used to serve ads specific to a consumer and their interests (”interest based targeting”).  The ads served to a consumer are targeted based on their previous browsing history. In closed and permission based systems companies are able to apply simple or even complex business intelligence to apply predictive models on consumer behaviors.  This is not new nor is it “snooping”, its consensual. In CRM systems these behaviors are tracked as type of consumption, frequency of consumption, volume of consumption, and the demographics of the persons consuming, whether it’s a product or a service.  Highly targeted advertising will fast become the norm and its already is in deployment in many forms. It will become more intelligent as the web approaches the emergence of the semantic web. The mantra of right message, right time, right place will not only be online but across all digital channels. Consider these notes made in the past two weeks by  UK based Sky TV.  They are continuing to promote high-definition (HD) television—partly because even non-HD television viewing appears to rise in HD households—and because they will develop “addressable ads” for launch within two years.

The reason is purely driven by data points it knows and controls. The consumer accounts, their location, viewing times and programs are all at their finger tips.  Sky can profile the viewing interests and habits of its subscriber households, and will be able to sell ads matching those interests and charge advertisers a premium for more personalized and targeted advertising.
Marketers need to tread very carefully when it comes to personalized or more specifically behavior based advertising—and for good reason. People currently perceive it as an invasion of their privacy in online media. As the world become more connected these concerns may change, but there will be many more privacy battles and barriers to overcome similar to Phorm’s case in the near future.  In the HD TV world it will most likely not be viewed as such. TV is still a passive medium and advertising is still interruption based. In mobile it will be a serious issue, the phone is very personal , users need to control what, who has access to engage with them. In Online people don’t feel comfortable about being tracked its too much like “big brother” behavior, but are okay in disclosing small pieces of information about themselves if there a value proposition attached.
Studies  are showing that a majority of consumer are willing to provide information in exchange for personalized ads. The key will be only if marketers give them something in return. Better offers, value added services that entice a consumer to part with a little bit of information to participate in direct, relationship driven, and possibly socially driven marketing. What’s clear today is that there is a  huge distrusts , consumer and government backlash against companies that use spyware technologies to track behaviors.

Marketers beware! Ask Permission first!

The net US revenues at the four major search portals, which account for by far the majority of online ad revenues, all showed quarter-over-quarter growth in Q4 2008 and fell in Q1 2009. But that represents only one quarter of falling growth—and it follows the traditionally oversized Q4.

There’s no index on other smaller publishers , but what is resounding clear is while ad spends in traditional channels are severely down there is groundswell on

eMarketer postulates that ” based on the total year-over-year revenues from the four portals, the picture is less bleak. Growth was positive for all four quarters in 2008 (AOL being the exception to the rule). The single negative-growth quarter, thus far, was Q1 2009.

For context, here is the picture in dollars.

“The imbalance between Google and its competition in both Q4 2008 and Q1 2009 highlights a fundamental weakness in the overall US online ad market,” added Mr. Hallerman. “Consider that US display ad spending, such as for banners, will drop by nearly 5% this year—and then consider how that trend will likely be reflected not only for Web portals but many other publishers as well.”

Obviously, Q2 2009 is critical. If revenue growth at the four major search portals continues to fall, online advertising will “officially” enter recession.”

Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet

You must read this very provocative article on why advertising is failing on the internet by  Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Eric’s assertion is that the internet is shattering the old advertising models .

Its no longer appropriate or relevant to interrupt , but to seek out genuine , and transparent consumer engagement. On ther flip side to the advertisers are still spending online . Why the the predictions on media spendings for this year are dire , and heavily impacted by the global economic downturn , there are two potential stars in this year that are continuing to grow . Rich media , interactive media and mobile. But what is apparent on the consumers side is that whole advertising model is being flipped upside down as audiences  are less receptive or critical of advertising practices.