How Digital will change things

Slide 1: How Digital Changes Things An exploration of Web tools for marketers 2008

Slide 2: First of all • Before we talk about digital, lets take a minute to explain why it used to be easier • The physics of geography • We knew where our target market was going to be

Slide 3: It used to be easier • They woke up (perhaps to a clock radio – radio spots, radio buys

Slide 4: It used to be easier • Ate breakfast (in front of TV, or with radio on)

Slide 5: It used to be easier • Got dressed (radio, TV)

Slide 6: It used to be easier • Read magazines

Slide 7: It used to be easier • Or newspapers

Slide 8: It used to be easier • On the way to work, they saw ads

Slide 9: It used to be easier • They tended to be off limits at work

Slide 10: It used to be easier • They saw ads on the way home

Slide 11: It used to be easier • During dinner they listened to the radio

Slide 12: It used to be easier • Or more likely

Slide 13: It used to be easier • The TV

Slide 14: It used to be easier • Because we knew (or could predict) where they were, marketers could get our message in front of people • Geography played a huge role in marketing

Slide 15: It used to be easier • When a job started in an agency, it was usually a job that already had the media selected. It was radio, TV, print or collateral. • Some agencies did ‘general’ advertising (the billboards, the broadcast and the print, while others did direct marketing).

Slide 16: The internet changed everything • This presentation is an attempt to show you how • And perhaps where some things are going

Slide 17: The Internet • Websites -- the first marketing tool that wasn’t interruptive. • People chose to engage. • So clients asked us to do websites.

Slide 18: Web 1.0 • The web started off like all marketing did. It talked to the target market. much like all the other things in the marketing toolbox did. • Websites were bastions of information (about us, company history, team, timelines, advisory board, kid’s names, birthdays). • It was on there because the space is infinite. Give marketers space, they we’ll fill it. With one way information.

Slide 19: Web 1.0 • The extent of the conversation was this.

Slide 20: Web 1.5 • Note: I hate the term Web 2.0. The New York Times said Web 3.0 already. Still, it’s used to show the evolution of the web. • It occurred to brands that if they enabled a community, people would come back.

Slide 21: Web 1.5 • When people bought a book at Amazon, the site would display the books bought by people who bought the same book you had in your cart. Oh, they liked that book too? Maybe it should be added to the cart. • Purely up-sell, but it brought the actions of the community into the experience.

Slide 22: Web 1.5 • E-Bay began experimenting with community. It offered assurances and ratings of sellers. The community voted on people, and the site related the information of the community to users. • The point is, the site let the community have a say. People liked that and came back.

Slide 23: Web 2.0 • Which brings us to Web 2.0. so far we know this: • A community encourages people to return. • Then Google made it profitable to get eyeballs though it’s adwords network.

Slide 24: Web 2.0 • This is Web 2.0 circa 2007 • It’s a group of sites that encourage community.

Slide 26: Web 2.0 – a chart Source: RileyMEDIA

Slide 27: Web 2.0 • Think of Web 2.0 as a community. It isn’t a message to a consumer, it’s a consumer interaction. • YouTube is Web 2.0 because users vote on the uploaded content. A video with the most votes ends up on the front page. The community delivers content, and determines the importance of the content. YouTube has ALMOST no say.

Slide 28: Web 2.0 • The most salient extension of the community-minded websites are the social networks. • They are actually tools to bring people together.

Slide 29: Social Networking • “A social network service focuses on the building and verifying of online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.” • From EMA’s knowledge-based Mowiki, one of our social networks. • People are social. We join groups, associations, clubs, teams. Joining a network isn’t new. What’s new is joining them online.

Slide 30: What is a social network? • Social networks are excellent tools for connecting people. It’s those things that account for its success. • Let’s take a look at some of the social networks.

Slide 31: Social Networks

Slide 32: Facebook is a social network • Facebook is based on the premise of connecting people to the people they already know. • If you know someone, you can find them online. You have to be in their network, or know their primary e-mail address. • Brands can enter the world of Facebook through Pages, a function that is about 6 months old.

Slide 33: Facebook • This is our client’s Russell page. • This is in flash.

Slide 34: Facebook • These are fans.

Slide 35: MySpace is a social network • MySpace is a social network based on the premise of promoting yourself. • MySpace doesn’t ask you to give your real name. But the sheer number of people on the site make it attractive. It gets more than double the traffic to Facebook.

Slide 36: Whole chart

Slide 37: MySpace • This is our client’s page.

Slide 38: MySpace • We didn’t do it

Slide 39: YouTube is a social network • As are most video sharing sites like Veoh, Google Video, Yahoo Video, MetaCafe, etc. • People upload their content. Other people vote on it. In fact, outside of a few marketing initiatives the things on the front page of YouTube are the things the crowd has deemed the best. • The comment section in YouTube is really social and active.

Slide 40: YouTube

Slide 41: YouTube • Not our client.

Slide 42: YouTube • Our client.

Slide 43: Twitter is a social network • Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that lets people update their networks. • In 140 characters or less.

Slide 44: Twitter

Slide 45: Twitter • Jen Evans is a Toronto- based entrepreneur and writer and the president of Sequentia Communications, a customer communications agency ranked as Canada's 24th (2005) and 27th (2004) fastest growing emerging company by PROFIT magazine.

Slide 46: Second Life is a social network • It’s a real online world with a currency, shops, homes, and marketers. • Even though it’s turned into something rather pornographic, it’s important. It’s teaching us how to interact virtually.

Slide 47: Second Life

Slide 48: Second Life

Slide 49: Wikipedia is a social network. • People sign on. People interact. People police the place, checking updates, etc. • In other words people take pride in the place. That’s the essence of an online world. Or network.

Slide 50: Wikipedia

Slide 51: StumbleUpon is a social network. • This is a ‘social bookmarking’ site, of which there are many. • You may have heard of Digg. Delicious. Reddit. • If you haven’t, and you read articles online, then you will know the logos, even if you don’t know why.

Slide 52: I Stumble

Slide 53: I Digg

Slide 54: I delicious (a Yahoo company)

Slide 55: Joost is a social network. • Joost is an online TV station with communities that are built around TV channels. It’s an emerging social network that shows off a lot of content that is professionally produced. You can watch every MacGyver episode there. And chat with other MacGyver fans.

Slide 56: Joost

Slide 57: LinkedIn is a business social network. • LinkedIn is the business social network. • It’s honestly one of the best ways to get jobs. We were pitching Syracuse Research Corporation on winning their recruitment business. We showed them LinkedIn, talked about ways to use it, and won the business.

Slide 58: LinkedIn. • This is a good place to collaborate

Slide 59: Why are they popular? • Why are these popular, and how does one jump in? And what does this have to do with marketing? • Social networks ask people to update their status and then sends that information to friends. • Twitter, Facebook and MySpace are what one’s doing now. LinkedIn is ‘what are you working on now. • Why is status important?

Slide 60: Status • The James Bond movie Octopussy was filmed in Udaipur, India. Consequently, you can see it at anytime, almost anywhere in the city. • This event gave the city status.

Slide 61: Status • Like this Indian city, younger people like to tell other young people about their wins, and memorable moments in life. • They need to be both covert about this, and like Udaipur, sometimes overt about it.

Slide 62: Passive social networks • Young people are emerging brands. They need to get out the message of who they are, without coming on too strong.

Slide 63: Passive social networks • Facebook, MySpace, bebo and Twitter status updates are passive updates that help young people get heard. They are passive updaters because they are not pushed to people. • This lets the young person update status, stay relevant, but not seem pushy.

Slide 64: Passive social networks • Consider a more active update: I could send out an e- mail or a text or even call everyone in my network telling them what I'm doing at this very moment (making a presentation to all of you). • I could repeat that for everything I did. • But that level of activity would alienate my network.

Slide 65: Passive social networks • As we marketers jump into this realm, understanding the reason young people use these tools will be important for understanding how best we should be using them. • Being passive isn't something that comes easy to marketers. We like to get the message out. We like GRPs. We want our message heard.

Slide 66: Passive social networks • AT EMA, a client is letting us use a passive updater. But it’s a fight to remind them of the goal. • Early on, they asked whether the tool was driving traffic.

Slide 67: Passive social networks • If we base success on numbers in a passive network, then we’re toast.

Slide 68: Passive social networks • What we’re really doing is:

Slide 69: Passive social networks • Passive networks can be excellent tools for creating community. And that’s the end goal. • Create a community that people can engage with the brand, each other, and spread the word.

Slide 70: Active networks • YouTube is an active network. And it can be great for a brand.

Slide 71: Active networks

Slide 72: Active networks • The Social Bookmarking sites are active networks. • Marketers can push their content onto these networks and let the community decide if it’s going to be pushed farther.

Slide 73: Some cool new ideas • Dr. Pepper. Started a promotion recently whereby they promised to give everyone person in America a Dr. Pepper if Guns N’ Roses released their new CD before the end of 2008. • But there are a few great things they did.

Slide 74: Dr. Pepper • They started a blog called Chinese Democracy When? So named because the Guns N’ Roses CD is called Chinese Democracy. Here was the first post.

Slide 75: Dr. Pepper

Slide 76: Dr. Pepper • The next post Almost a month later

Slide 77: Dr. Pepper • This is a conversation starter. But one needs people for a conversation. • Enter Digg.

Slide 78: Dr. Pepper • The press release was released on Digg. People dig it. It’s rare that a presser gets Dug.

Slide 79: Dr. Pepper • They didn’t involve Guns N’ Roses.

Slide 80: Dr. Pepper • They had an idea. Started a blog, used Digg to drive traffic to the blog and then use the blog to generate real conversations about random things. They tied themselves to a celebrity without tying themselves to a celebrity. • This is a year-long promotion that just started. Who knows what’s next?

Slide 81: McDonald’s • As part of the 2008 Summer Olympic sponsorship, McDonald’s launched an A.R.G. • An A.R.G. is an Alternate Reality Game.

Slide 82: McDonald’s • An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions. • In other words, McDonald’s set in motion an event that players from around the world will engage in. You could say, a community of players playing an online game that has real world clues.

Slide 83: McDonald’s • This game is vast. There are active updaters: blogs, YouTube videos, and discussion groups. Plus passive updates from Twitter. Real world clues found in various places all over the world. The game is currently in 7 languages and is set to end on the closing ceremonies of the Summer Olympics. • There’s a Wiki so players can keep up. It might have been started by a fan.

Slide 84: McDonald’s

Slide 85: McDonald’s

Slide 86: McDonald’s

Slide 87: McDonald’s • And that was just the English Character

Slide 88: McDonald’s • All the characters have their own blog and twitter feed. • The game is scheduled to end on the final ceremonies of the Olympic games. Or so people think now. Fact is, the game is unfolding as we speak and the puppet masters will let it evolve depending on how things happen.

Slide 89: McDonald’s • So what about the cost and measurement? From the New York Times: • “McDonald’s would not disclose the cost of the campaign, though Ms. Dillon said that “in the context of the total Olympics, it’s just a fraction of what we’re doing.” As for measuring the return on the company’s investment, Ms. Dillon said she saw it as more of a learning experience. “You can’t put an R.O.I. on this,” she said.”

Slide 90: McDonald’s • Ms. Dillon is Mary Dillon, McDonald’s global chief marketing officer. • New ideas are popping up faster than the metrics. We wonder about the ROI of people on Twitter, in Facebook, watching a YouTube video. It’s somewhat comforting to know that the Chief Marketing Officer at one of the biggest brands in the world is also wondering.

Slide 91: McDonald’s • McDonald’s is using just about every kind of new media in their experience. And the community that is popping up around the game will thanks McDonald’s. Will they go eat Big Macs? Who knows? • They will, however, have a positive impression of the brand. And ‘they’ are most-likely young men.

Slide 92: BMW • BMW is launching a new car this year. • So they invented a town. • Then they hired a documentary filmmaker to make a documentary about the town. He has a blog, a YouTube channel, a Flickr account and a Facebook account. These are all free media, the only cost is creating the content. Coming soon, a Twitter feed.

Slide 93: BMW • Here’s the town. (They sold a fake banner ad on their fake town page.)

Slide 94: BMW • Here’s where the banner takes you.

Slide 95: BMW • It plays the worst music you’ve ever heard

Slide 96: BMW • This is to sell a new car. • But the blog about the documentary is the neatest thing. • This campaign launched in March of 2008. The blog began in November 06.

Slide 97: BMW

Slide 98: BMW • The first entry was November 14th. That can’t be faked. • They purposely started a blog months before the campaign launched in order to give the blog legitimacy. This blog is purposely ‘aged’ before the promotion starts, adding legitimacy to the whole thing.

Slide 99: In closing • These are just some of the examples from this month. Every month someone does something that makes your head spin. • And it isn’t a TV spot or a print ad. • Where will it come from next?

Slide 100: In closing • Think about it: • Is an A.R.G direct marketing? Is it General? Who in the agency world even comes up with the idea to create that social community? • Is Search Engine Optimization an interactive task, or, is it the task of the creator of the content? • Since a programmer and a designer isn’t needed to create a blog, is it really an interactive solution?

Slide 101: In closing • Twitter doesn’t need a programmer or a designer. Facebook doesn’t. YouTube doesn’t. • When you’re looking for the next big idea, where will you turn? • Thanks.