Selasa, 08 Februari 2011

Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Bing’s Guerilla Defeating Google’s Gorilla?” plus 5 more

Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Bing’s Guerilla Defeating Google’s Gorilla?” plus 5 more

Link to Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Bing’s Guerilla Defeating Google’s Gorilla?

Posted: 08 Feb 2011 06:36 AM PST

I guess when you’re in a war, resorting to guerilla tactics is something that, while ugly, gets the job done.

Take, for example, the kerfuffle over whether Bing copied Google’s search results–or not. If the Microsoft search engine has in fact been copying Google, then it should just keep on keepin’ on! According to Hitwise, Bing saw a 21% increase in searches at its own web site and another 6% growth spurt across all Bing-powered search sites.

Even better news for Bing? Its users are having an easier time finding what they are looking for, with almost 82% of searchers finding what they were looking for–or at least visiting a relevant web site. By comparison, Google’s “success rate” was just over 65%.

Why is that an important metric? Think about why you switched to Google in the first place. If you are like most searchers, Google became your default search engine because “it just worked.” You found what you needed and were able to get in and get out. Many argue that Google has gotten away from that simplicity and the numbers suggest that Bing is finding a way to win over searchers with its interface.

Of course, there’s a flip side to this story. If Bing is indeed copying Google, it may want to stop. After all, why copy the results of a search engine that lost market share AND does a poorer job of matching searchers with relevant results. ;-)

PageRank penalty coming our way in, 3….2….1….


Since Everyone Else is Yammering On About Groupon ……..

Posted: 08 Feb 2011 05:57 AM PST

I'm going to keep this post simple.

We are looking at the whole Groupon / Tibet / Insensitivity / Non-Apology / You Just Don't Get Us, back and forth that is taking up some online space after their Super Bowl ads from Sunday’s big game.

From a pure reputation management perspective chime in with a comment whether you think the whole Groupon 'thing' is

1. Harmful to Groupon's reputation
2. A reputation 'non-issue'
3. Much ado about nothing
4. One for the advertising and reputation Hall of Fame of Blunders
5. Something else not mentioned

Use our space to voice your opinion because there are many of them and they have been all over the map. My take is that while I was offended by the Tibet ad (and honestly it takes a bit of doing to offend me) I don’t know if this will ultimately hurt Groupon because people have short memories and they want to get deals. Couple that with the fact that it’s mostly the marketing industry that is in a tizzy about this (which, granted, is full of influencers) and this will blow over and just be a minor case study on how to handle (or not handle) these things.

If you are interested Groupon CEO, Andrew Mason has posted a response on the Groupon blog. Notice I didn’t say apology. Let’s just call it a re-positioning of sorts.

Thanks for helping us put this to rest for the rest of the world so we can all move on.

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CMO’s View Traffic and Conversions Among Top Measures of Social Media Success

Posted: 08 Feb 2011 05:24 AM PST

Some may already be saying "Well, what else would you use as a measure of social media success?" but it appears that the C-suite marketers are getting on board as well.

The early stages of determining social media success have been dominated by questionable metrics such as number of followers and other variables that are considered soft measurements. Some information provided in January from Bazaarvoice and The CMO Club via eMarketer tells the story of C-level marketers applying the same hard measurements to social media as they have been moving to in all other areas of marketing, mainly conversions and revenue generation.

The jump made from 2010 to 2011 as to the importance of conversions is dramatic. It is bigger than revenue generation likely because it is still quite difficult to tie revenue directly to social media since there are many influences in the eventual purchase of an item beyond just social media.

Other data from the study shows that despite the seeming 'unsexiness' of blogging and community building (as compared to social media plays like Facebook and Twitter) they are the techniques that generate the most ROI in the eyes of these high level marketers.

As the C suite starts to get on board with more definitive or finite measures of social media success how will that change the use of the mediums? Are the days of simply acquiring followers / fans / likes as a measure of success gone for good? According to these findings, not completely and they will likely never just become completely irrelevant.

What will happen, however, is that over time the C suite will continue to identify those success metrics that will make their jobs easier and hopefully change a disturbing metric that they live with every day: the average life span of a CMO is somewhere between 22 and 24 months.

Ouch. Now that's finite.

Hulu’s CEO Speaks Out on the Future of TV Advertising

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 02:14 PM PST

Last week, Hulu’s CEO Jason Kilar wrote a blog post about the future of TV and web advertising that folks say was tantamount to him writing his resignation. The crux of the post is that TV execs are stuck doing business the old fashioned way and as such, are squashing the progress of web TV which is much more appropriate for today’s mobile society.

He makes three big points which demonstrate why web TV is more powerful than traditional TV:

  • Traditional TV has too many ads
  • Consumers want TV to be more convenient for them.
  • Consumers are demonstrating that they are the greatest marketing force a good television show or movie could ever have, given the powerful social media tools at consumers' disposal.

He’s right. Across the board, he’s right. The amount of commercial time per episode has doubled since the golden age of television. The fact that DVR usage has grown 90% in the past few years, tells you that people want to watch TV on their own schedule. And look at the rise in On Demand programming and streaming video. Face it, the 8:00 to 11:00 TV schedule is becoming a thing of the past.

His third point is my favorite. Never underestimate the power of TV fans. They’ve saved shows, had actors ousted and they’ve put their purchase power to work on behalf of brands that support the cause. Again, he’s right. The problem is, network execs don’t want to hear it, or so says Kilar.

Our journey at Hulu involves significant risk. That is the nature of innovation, particularly the business of re-inventing television. A number of you that are reading this might be thinking that we'd have to be crazy to think that our small team can actually re-invent television and compete effectively against a landscape of distribution giants like cable companies, satellite companies, and huge online companies. We are crazy. All entrepreneurs need to be.

Well said, I say. Kilar’s post goes on to explain in great detail how he sees the change in the TV landscape and how going online can be profitable for everyone. If you’re at all interested in web TV advertising, you should take a few minutes to read the full post. He describes a system that combines ad-support free video with exclusive offerings via a subscription supported model. What he’s not saying, is that TV advertising is a thing of the past. TV isn’t going away but by offering consumers an alternative you open up new opportunities for advertisers that are better targeted and more cost-effective and that sounds like a win-win for everyone.


The Black Eyed Peas Worked for Free: Should You?

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 12:26 PM PST

In 2010, The Black Eyed Peas made an estimated 81.6 million dollars from touring, but they didn’t make a dime for their performance at yesterday’s Super Bowl. Why not? Unlike The Blues Brothers, they didn’t lose their fee on a big bar bill, they simply agreed to play for free in the first place.

As preposterous as that may sound, a new article at Forbes.com points out that the Super Bowl halftime acts traditionally work for free in return for the exposure. (Insert Janet Jackson joke here.) Last year, the Super Bowl brought in 106.5 million viewers and this year is on track to break records. So what is 106.5 million eyeballs worth? For advertisers such as Pepsi, Doritos and Carmax, it was around 3 million for every 30 seconds. Imagine if the Peas had bought an ad equal to their time on stage.

Now you could argue, and some will, that the less than stellar half-time performance didn’t help sell any records but I assure you, it did. I pushed the button on iTunes. They were selling the whole half-time show for $10.00 and I can’t have too many versions of “Pump it” on my ipod.

The artists who work sans performance fee, do receive a check to cover their travel expenses and the cost of putting on the show. And just think about the added cost to the stadium’s electric bill!

The marketing mavens Forbes contacted for their article felt that the exposure at the Super Bowl made it supremely worth working for free. But does that ever work out for the average Joe?

Peruse the writer job ads on Craigslist and you’ll find a large portion of them pay in “exposure.” Unfortunately, my landlord won’t accept me driving around with his name on my car in return for the rent. But certainly, there are occasions where it makes sense to give your time or your product without any monetary return.

The question is, what’s your Super Bowl? Is there any occasion where the exposure for your company would be worth giving up a fee? Or is it more often a case of you get what you pay for?


Examining Google’s Claim of Instant’s Success

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 08:26 AM PST

Last week, Google was talking about the great success that Google Instant has become. It's the same feature that drew the ire of many in the tech industry when it was first introduced (me included) but it has apparently fought through that resistance.

As stated in Fast Company magazine last week

Since then, have Google users shunned Instant as a disruptive technology, or welcomed it as the new template for the way we search the web?

The answer to that question, six months later, is emphatically in Google’s favor. According to Ben Gomes, the lead engineer on Google Instant, the engine’s newest feature has had a remarkably small attrition rate: Roughly 98% of users are using Instant, leaving around just 2% of users who have opted out.

My take on this 'result' may be more about who is actually paying attention enough to act than just how revolutionary the technology is. Google talks about the seconds of search time saved by searchers when using Instant. What is even more interesting is the claim by Google that it is easy to opt-out. When described by Gomes you realize just how engineer-centric Google is thus placing them far removed from most regular search users.

“We’ve seen good results with Instant, even after launch,” Gomes tells Fast Company. “We found [we have] have a very low opt-out rate.”

Though users have the option to return to traditional type-and-click searching–”We kept an opt-out, and in fact made it really prominent,” says Gomes

Real prominent. That's rich. Here is how prominent the opt-out option is on my look at the Google home page. Nothing here but us crickets.

In fact, you don’t get the option until the results start to roll in. Then if you click on it that little arrow that is SOOO prominent in the upper right next to the search box then you have the chance to turn it off if you are thinking that way.If it were prominent it would read “Click here to Turn of Google Instant” but maybe I’m being too hard on the Goog.

You can turn it off if yes, you did click on the arrow. Otherwise it just looks like a note. Click the link and you land here to finish the deal.

Now, If I open up a search in Google from another browser (for instance, moving from Chrome to Firefox) and sign in to the same account, however, I have to repeat the process again to turn Instant off. Also, I feel like I have turned Instant off in the past but I am not convinced that it stays off but maybe that's just me

So a quick note to Google:

A) Your directions to opt-out of Instant are not prominent and
B) Not staying opted-out using the same account but in a different browser is really annoying

So like most claims about something that was met with such animosity out of the gate that now claims near universal success, it is important to dig into the matter a little.

I think that Google's claims of 'success' of Instant are just more evidence of their inability to know what the vast majority of their users actually do with the service (like never making changes to settings etc because they are just trying to search). I would love to see the make up of the 2% that opted-out of the service thus far. I bet they are the same folks who poo-poohed the idea back in September of 2010 when it was rolled out.

So what is your take on Google Instant? Is it the success that Google is proclaiming or is it just another case of Google making it hard for people to know if they are actually using a service or not and thus not knowing any better about getting out of it even if they wanted to?
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