Internal Challenges of SEO

This Forbes article written by Bryan Phelps, Founder and CEO of an agency named Big Leap - which helps companies evolve through digital marketing - provides good detail into the challenges SEO professionals face within a company given how the industry has evolved in recent years.

It's interesting to note that being an SEO professional went from being more of an individual effort focused on low quality tactics, into a total team effort in conjunction with other departments.  Low quality tactics designed to have websites listed first have been rendered obsolete given how Google is constantly tweaking and improving its algorithms, as shown in the examples we saw in The Search.

While this may seem like an inconvenience given the article and it's reflections on the challenges an SEO will face, I believe these shifts will make an SEO professional at a company a more highly regarded and valued position at a company.  Given the amount of collaboration required from other departments, they will see that it is not as simple of a task as it may seem from the outside (I was guilty of this myself).  Not only that, but there will also be enhanced synergy between these departments due to the teamwork involved, and the company's digital marketing as a whole will likely be more successful, given the interaction and knowledge of what each branch is attempting to accomplish on their own platforms.



https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/05/31/how-to-make-seo-progress-despite-internal-challenges/#50885b276005

Ukraine tweeting a 'Simpsons' GIF at Russia is peak 2017 politics

This article discusses Ukraine's Twitter post in response to a recent joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of France, Emmanuel Macron. When Putin mentioned that "queen consort of France from 1051 to 1060, was Russian". In response to the statement, Ukraine posted on Twitter a series of photos with corrected facts and a gif from Simpsons.

I found this article very interesting as widely used social media are impacting foreign affairs among countries. Most countries, politicians, and public figures (aside from celebrities) have official social media accounts. The usage of Twitter and other social media accounts allow people to feel politics as more approachable for people by providing prompt responses, along with usage of GIFs and other light-hearted responses. If used and communicated representatively, I believe politicians and countries using social media accounts can increase patriotic spirits among people.

http://mashable.com/2017/05/30/ukraine-russia-twitter-simpsons-gif/?utm_cid=hp-hh-sec#lM3EIp8Lt5qX

Lights, Camera....Action: What Marketers Should Really Care About!

Wall Street Journal: Some Marketers Want More Ad Testing, Less Debating About Metrics

As we discussed in the very first class, online marketing is diverse arena that is rapidly expanding. With so many formats and advertisements out there, it is critical for marketers to approach their targeted consumers in new and innovative ways in order to maximize their return on marketing spend. However, in order to evaluate the impact of a campaign, marketers debate, and seemingly struggle to agree upon the appropriate metric or measurement to use or calculate the impact. We have learned about some of the traditional metrics and this article goes on to discuss some of the other commonly used metrics in digital, but what is the right metric? Which of these should marketers focus on? What is the "magic bullet" of advertisement metrics, tantamount in the determination of an advertisements impact?

Like most, if not all of you, I use the internet and as a result am subjected to digital advertisements. Now I don’t know about you, but I have gotten into the practice of tuning out advertisements as noise on a webpage or immediately looking for the “Skip Advertisement” button to appear when I am shown a video on my way to another web page. I have increasingly felt that advertisements are forcing themselves upon me – and in response I tune them out even more and often get irritated to the point of eroding any likelihood that I had to every purchase a product or use a service. Perhaps I am a poor example, but I get the sense that I am representative of the new norm – I don’t care about viewability, I am not likely to click on an intrusive advertisement that pops up, I just want to read my ESPN article in peace and go back to doing my work – who has time to sit and watch a video! I, like many of you, place an enormous premium on time (these days more than ever) and prefer advertisements that are designed to drive a specific action. Stop showing me commercials – that is why I stream my shows as well as use DVR, Netflix, and Amazon Prime – I DON’T WANT TO WATCH COMMERCIALS.

From my personal perspective, I agree whole heartedly with Alok Gupta, Airbnb’s data science manager, that advertising should be purely outcome based and marketers should shift their mentality to focus on tracking how well digital advertisements drive results they care about – are the potential consumers acting.  In my experience, the best advertisements illicit some type of action from me and are different, direct, and concise. Accordingly, their mindset is that marketers should be more daring and willing to experiment in order to get their target audience to take action!

In short, marketers’ focus should be around thinking outside the box in order to get their audiences to stop watching and start acting!

Mobile-Only Internet Users Surpass Desktop-Only Users in Italy

According to a comScore's data, the number of smartphone-only and tablet-only users (9.3 million) surpassed the number of desktop-only users (9.1 million) for the first time in Italy in March 2017.  Several categories such as news, retail, sports and categories that require low user interaction have showed increased mobile-only consumption in the last seven months.  However, desktop users in categories that require data input such as retail or finance make up approximately 35% of total users which is relatively high according to the article.  eMarketer predicts retail ecommerce via mobile phone will increase over time.      

It is important for all companies around the world (not just Italy) to ensure they evolve with the consumer and have mobile-friendly websites.  Over time, consumers will become more comfortable inputting detailed data on the small screens of smartphones (vs. desktops), and making purchases or financial decisions via the phone will become a normal way of transacting.  Technology has transformed the way of doing business for not only large institutions, but also the individual consumer.  A cohesive digital marketing strategy is imperative to provide consumers with a seamless experience and increase the probability of companies making sales.

https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Only-Internet-Users-Surpass-Desktop-Only-Users-Italy/1015941?ecid=NL1001

Google Developing a Tool to Match Brick and Mortar Purchases to Digital Marketing Campaigns

At Google’s May 23, 2017, annual advertiser conference, the company revealed a new tool currently in development which will track how much money customers spend at a given brick and mortar store after clicking on that company’s digital ad.

This tool will be revolutionary, since, currently, if a customer clicks on an online advertisement and does not make an online purchase, there is no way to track if that digital ad led to a subsequent brick and mortar transaction. This tool changes that.

More specifically, Google will be able to match the collective number of ad clicks (for a given ad) by customers logged into a Google account with the collective purchases on credit and debit cards made at that company’s physical store. (Google won’t be able to see the specific items purchased or how much one individual spent. Well, not yet at least). Therefore, Google will be able to provide companies with data connecting their digital ads to in-store purchasing behavior.

Google currently has access to approximately 70% of US credit and debit card data sales (through partnerships they have with other companies). The tool won’t be entirely precise, since it cannot account for cash transactions, credit and debit card transactions made on the 30% of cards whose data Google cannot access, and users not logged into a Google account.

This tool is critically important since the data it provides could lead companies to increase their digital marketing spends, and to do so with Google (further differentiating itself from Facebook and other social media companies with rapidly growing digital advertising revenues).

And, if this tool is successful, I think it could be modified in the future to track mobile advertising with brick and mortar stores, too, which could lead to increased spends in mobile as well.

Digital marketers need to beware, however, since giving Google too much power to link customers’ online and in-person behavior can walk a scarily close line to privacy invasion. And having so much personal data aggregated in one place puts a solid target on Google’s back for hacking. How much do digital marketers want to be a part of that?

https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/google-offline-ad-tracking/

The Art of PPC: Why users click them

In the last class session, we learned about SEO and how it is used to improve page ranking in organic search result. As Prof. Kagan mentioned, another search engine marketing strategy is Pay-Per-Click (PPC). This blog post provides insights into PPC and possible explanations on why users click them.

What is PPC? According to www.wordstream.com/ppc, PPC is a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it is a way of buying visits to your site. The most popular form of PPC is Google AdWords due to Google’s popularity. The million-dollar question is, “Do people clicks on sponsored results?”. As a user who rarely clicks on sponsored results, the answer is surprising. See the infographic below provided by www.wordstream.com.

I was intrigued by the result and attempted to understand the reasons behind it. Below are few reasons why I think PPC is getting the clicks:

• The real estate of the Search Engine Result Page is skewed towards PPC

As we can see from the search result page, almost 85% of the Search Engine Result Page (SERP) is filled with sponsored results.

• Google’s purely commercial model makes it easy for users to click on PPC

Why click on texts when the items you’re looking for show up with images and prices?

• Bottom of the page Ads

Moving on to the next ? Perhaps these sponsored results are what you’re looking for.

In summary, it is by designed to have users click on sponsored results. After all, Google’s AdWords provides the bulk of Google’s advertising revenue. 

Sources:

• http://www.wordstream.com/articles/google-ads
•  https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/how-google-is-killing-organic-search.html

E-Sport : The New Arena For Marketers

Sports In The Digital World

Internet has taken gaming to a whole new level. E-Sports is a form of competition which is supported and facilitated by electronic and digital system. Virtual "athletes" from all over the globe compete in a multiplayer video game competition. Global E-Sports audience have grown rapidly, with 115M audiences and 256M fanbase. E-Sports market in 2015 was valued at $750M, with an expected future growth generating nearly $2 billion by 2018.

In a single Major League Game competition the accumulative prize pools is over $10M. Alibaba has injected high amount of investments in over 1,200 Chinese E-Sports events in the past year. Big names like Coca-Cola, Intel, Nissan, Doritos has also followed this movement by sponsoring teams, displaying ads, and funding competitions. E-Sports, with its explosion in growth, is definitely a place for marketers to keep an eye on.

Dota 2 competitions where skilled gamers compete.
http://uhclthesignal.com/wordpress/2015/02/16/e-sports-on-college-campuses-becoming-a-reality/

From Horsemeat to Home...the Reinvention of Tesco

Having a wealth of positive stories about your product not only elevates your brand, but also provides a moat or buffer against the risk of negative headlines. This effect is evident in the airline sector, where negative customer press is more common for some airlines vs others (think UAL vs Jet Blue). Some firms attempt to “rebrand” or trigger positive social media/earned advertising by changing the focus and dialogue with customers after a negative episode. A great example is Tesco. Between the recent ‘horsemeat scandal’ (not cool), to large corporate fines, to growth of competitors Aldi and Lidl, the firm needed something more engaging that jut the usual BOGO advertising. To this end, Tesco sought to engage consumers using “Tesco Food Love Stories”. As described by the article “They show how Tesco products can solve any family problem, which brings Tesco right into the heart of the home. They break the fourth wall, which many marketing campaigns fail to do.” The idea, with this honest and direct dialogue, is to increase trust and thus restore loyalty to the brand. It’s a first step and unclear if successful, but shows the strides and flexibility required of incumbent players in a world with increased digital marketing.

http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-features/what-can-you-learn-from-tesco-s-new-marketing-approach/4348

Is Digital an Effective Mass Marketing Medium?

https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/04/10/digital-mass-market-medium/

Synopsis: This article focuses on the impact of digital media dynamics for brand marketing. Specifically, this article focuses on the interplay between digital media’s proven, short term effectiveness with targeted brand marketing to targeted audiences relative to the potential long-term effectiveness if utilized effectively in brand marketing to mass markets/audiences. This is based on an article with the same post-title written by Charlotte Rogers.

The question then seems to be; how do we effectively undertake brand marketing to reach people at scale with digital media while still keeping (not losing) the advantages of targeted advertising? Since I have only taken one, 3-hour digital marketing class at a world-class, Ivy-league business school, my initial reaction to that self-posed question is “......ummm I dunno?!”

So, I start reading this article with a bit more fascination. After all, if I am ever going to get rich with my own brand-focused business, I better pay attention and know how to build a market and if digital is the new color television, I better know how to use it effectively while still attracting television addicts like my parent and me!

My thoughts on the article, you ask (here goes my extremely deep and impactful summary):

1 – The article is too damn long for a fellow like me with zero attention span! (I will never get those 15 minutes of my life back – thanks, Charlotte Rogers).

2 – Understanding the difference between brand experience and brand marketing is probably a first step to any successful brand marketer trying to maximize the utility of digital media. (Sounds so deep and smart, I actually patted myself on the knob of my head for that one).

3 – Adopting a segmentation strategy that your entire business can use that is not too broad (a one-size-fits-all) or micro-targeted (too narrowly focused). In English – where is the sweet spot in the segmentation strategy that can be used to find the niche market and is usable across the entire business/organization (good luck finding that one. To solve for this, I say hire a Columbia EMBA, put them in a top-floor corner office with an amazing view and watch them hire 5 HBS alums to get you the answer).

4 - The IPA Director of Marketing Strategy “done lost her darn mind!” Why do I say that? I am paraphrasing a bit here, but, for starters, she believes that the insights (read “data”) from personalized/individual (read “targeted”) marketing can be expanded, since it provides more nuanced insights that can be creatively expanded to improve the advertising quality both online and offline. Okay….thanks, I think. While I get the niceties of targeted advertising, I also get the creep-factor even more so and it turns me OFF! Besides, drawing creative conclusions based on some data point about my supposed individual-level habits over a short period of time cannot possibly create a full picture of the person in the highly complex and socially uniform (read “copycat”) world we live in today. The fact that I go through a phase of loving the idea of fancy food at fancy restaurants, for example, does not mean that I will want to be targeted along those lines in three months when I go broke (thank you, expensive restaurants in NYC – I clearly refuse to take responsibility for my spending) or decide that I am over it!

Secondly, well, her title is just too fancy. Although, in fairness, I think every business should have a marketing strategy boss, otherwise you become like GoDaddy.com (I still don’t get how any of their ad’s correlated or made sense).

Where was I? yes, personalization can drive conversion for only so long before….well, before we all get bored or creeped out and want more and then it loses its allure, so it needs to be balanced with the en-mass marketing too.

5 – The “always-on” approach, as demonstrated by The Economist (haven’t read one since 2011) with its successful ‘Raising Eyebrows and Subscriptions’ approach of “targeting” a wide audience of already similarly-inclined, potential customers in a measurable manner, with defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is a proven approach.

6 – Facebook lied! And maybe Google too!! How did I miss this one (I was watching TV and I guess my news anchor forgot to tell me). In reality, the issue of accurately capturing the effectiveness of ad spending is an evolving art, sorry, science that will continue to be refined as we, the people, continue to evolve in our adoption of technology that in itself, is also evolving at an even faster pace.

Impressions, pay-per-click (PPC), click-through rates, conversion rates and other such measurement tools are effective in themselves, but to really maximize the social and digital media platform, the inclusion of an “attentive reach” factor that accounts for how much of an audience is captivated by the marketing and for how long and with what effect (sales result) should be considered. Here, the idea of ‘WAVE’ is introduced – measuring Watch time, Audibility, Viewability and Engagement.

7 – Defining success is personal, at least to the business (the company shelling out the dough on marketing). Here, the idea is that each organization spending on marketing should define the effectiveness of their marketing plan/campaign and ad-spend in a manner that uniquely captures their pre-stated objective(s)/marketing plan /strategy. This allows the measurement of results to be more significant in determining the success or failure of the approach. It also ensures that the business is able to better understand how/when to stay the course and believe in a marketing plan through the long-run, or abandon a marketing plan as the results are tracked and translated in terms of sales or revenue versus the cost and impact on the business.

I’m tired! My ramblings here might be longer than the actual article, so enough of this. Bye for now!

Dove's Might Have a Home Run with "Meet Cathleen"

Dove has another potential success story this week with the release of a new 30 second commercial and online video called "Meet Cathleen".   This latest campaign is part of a collaboration with Shonda Rhimes who produced the commercial and video.  This is a continuation of Dove's successful Campaign for Real Beauty that began in 2004 and has continued with related campaigns over the past 13 years. All of the campaign's iterations have continued with the core focus on promoting natural beauty and celebrating diversity in woman and girls.

The "Meet Cathleen" commercial, which debuted during Shonda's season finales of both Grey's Anatomy and Scandal, and the online video focus on Cathleen Meredith, who started the group "Fat Girls Dance" which promotes weekly dance videos via different social media outlets.  The partnership with Shonda seems like a natural fit for Dove and their Real Beauty campaign.  She has made an extremely successful career showcasing women in her television shows from different backgrounds and ethnicities.  Dove has had previous successes with their online videos and content for its Campaign for Real Beauty, its most viewed video being that of the "Real Beauty Sketches" from 2013 which was downloaded 15 million times in its first week.

While all the data for the newest campaign has not been made public yet, "Meet Catherine" has pulled in 1.5 million YouTube views since it was posted 2 days ago.  I think that this will be a very fruitful collaboration that will help the  Dove Real Beauty campaign.   Their most recent venture prior to this was an attempt to offer Dove's body wash bottles in different shapes to symbolize women's body types has had mixed reactions.  Related articles on the new "Meet Cathleen" campaign and the Dove Body Wash bottles are below.


http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/shonda-rhimes-dove-work-feel-commercial/309084/

http://creativity-online.com/work/dove-meet-cathleen/51831

http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/dove-is-touting-its-new-partnership-with-shonda-rhimes-during-abcs-tgit-tonight/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/21/dove-real-beauty-campaign-turns-10_n_4575940.html

http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/dove-s-recent-real-beauty-failure-win/309069/

https://www.fastcompany.com/40419119/dove-matches-its-new-body-wash-bottles-to-your-body-type

Using digital and data to get closer to users

Two articles in the latest issue of Fast Company caught my attention. One was about how Ulta Beauty has now surpassed Sephora to become the nation’s largest beauty merchant, while the other was on how Hulu is looking at reprogramming the way we watch TV. 

Though they are two different companies in vastly different industries, both articles were riffing on the same theme: how companies are using digital and data to get closer to the user.

Previously, Ulta has been known for its discounts and coupons. They have since edged away from that, and instead, incentivize customers to join their loyalty program, allowing them to tailor benefits to the shopper. Ulta believes that thoughtful freebies do more to deepen the customer’s emotional connection with them than a generic discount eDM. 

Ulta also goes on shop-alongs with customers, asking them about what they like and how they use the products as they move through the store. Coupling this intel with data from their robust loyalty program, Ulta is able to complete a picture of the customer. This understanding informs Ulta about how to market more than 20,000 of their products for maximum impact. 

The strategy appears to be working. The program’s 21.7 million active members now generate more than 90% of Ulta’s overall sales.

At Hulu, they have been obsessing over the new user-interface for Hulu’s network bundle, deconstructing everything from a screen’s “information density” (how many titles you see at one time) and background color gradation to how much time it takes new users to complete the onboarding process (three minutes).

The belief is that if the content itself isn’t the differentiator, then they have to look to other things to compete. Hulu’s future, and that of its traditional entertainment partners, rests on reimagining the user experience and creating a bold new template for how we consume TV.

To understand what their users want, and to help educate these algorithms, Hulu has deconstructed its programming to remarkably granular levels. Users can express a preference for everything from “fantasy anime” to “romantic K-dramas.” Users get customizable profiles, and Hulu surfaces content for them in real time. Some of its selections are users’ own picks; the rest comes care of Hulu’s predictive algorithms.

The result is an elegant, recommendation-filled interface that’s filled with poster art, one that’s worlds away from the experience of pulling up a clunky grid of channels and deciphering hard-to-read text. In trying to understand the user better so as to improve the experience of TV-watching, Hulu hopes to elevate and distinguish their unique offering, thereby changing the way we experience TV.

How #RompHim leveraged digital marketing to bring its idea to life

While checking my twitter feed early this week, I stumbled upon a hashtag (#RompHim) trending in New York. Curious to know more, I started searching the topic and followed it rigorously across social media and news websites for a week. Here’s what I found: RompHim is a romper designed for men! The brand claims to ‘revolutionize the men’s fashion industry’ by extending the onesie style (traditionally perceived to be limited to babies and women) to men, and is currently dividing Americans in a debate.

RompHim launched its product on Instagram and promoted it at events like Coachella and the Kentucky Derby. Days after its launch, the brand went live on Kickstarter with a crowd funding campaign where it beat the initial goal of raising $10,000 in mere 4 hours! By Saturday morning it had raised more than $332,000, thanks to more than 2800 backers (the numbers continues to climb, by the minute)! Despite its popularity on Kickstarter, the brand is attracting mixed reactions on the internet – twitter for one is a RompHim meme paradise. However, in spite of receiving mixed feedback and initial negative media, today RompHim is taking the internet by storm!

The idea of RompHim helped me put our learnings from the introductory class in perspective. It shows how digital is continuously changing the way we market our product - RompHim was ideated by four MBA students (yes, you read that right!) over drinks. However, they believed in their idea and were smart enough to use digital to test their product and raise funds. It is interesting to see that RompHim’s success is completely attributed to online marketing. Additionally, it shows how brands can leverage digital to identify their niche target audience and build campaigns to influence them. RompHim faced backlash on the internet in the initial few days of its campaign launch. However, the brand proactively monitored online sentiment to address concerns and eventually survived its harsh critiques by engaging with them online. Their first signature style of RompHim is already sold out on their website, reflecting the audience's interest in the product.

Finally, as a strategic communications professional, I am curious to see how and what brands communicate. In this case, RompHim claims to ‘Revolutionize the male fashion industry’ by breaking away from stereotypes and it is trying hard to do so through its strategic messaging and creative positioning. This is similar to what iconic brands like Dove (#mybeautymysay) and P&G (always#likeagirl) did through their powerful campaigns. As a society we are constantly conditioned to view things one way or another – we view women as fragile and men as strong; thin as beautiful and fat as ugly; pink as feminine and blue as masculine - we stereotype people, frame language and symbolize things. It's interesting to see how brands like Dove, P&G and now RompHim are challenging stereotypes through online media.

It is true that RompHim is burning the internet with its bold move to re-frame masculinity as we know it. Sure, men in rompers could appear funny – but is masculinity that narrow?


Primary links:
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/106904571/the-romphimtm-your-new-favorite-summer-outfit/posts/1887307
Thrillist: https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/romphim-by-aced-design-gets-dragged-on-twitter
Additional readings:
TIME: http://time.com/4780434/aced-design-kickstarter-male-romper-romphim/
Mashable: http://mashable.com/2017/05/16/romphim-mens-romper-memes/
Dove campaign: http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/dove-wants-women-define-beauty-themselves-new-campaign-172309/
Always campaign: https://always.com/en-us/about-us/our-epic-battle-like-a-girl

Content Curation Always Matters For Business Growth

This article shed light on how the internet giants Tecent and Alibaba attract both marketers and consumers. Two big phenomena currently exist in China – domestic consumption increase and high demand for digital video.  

If we still recall the success of streaming video service provider Netflix and Hulu, then it’s not hard to understand why Alibaba and Tecent are competing against each other through their online video platforms by providing distinguished content. Such unique video content generates heavy traffic daily, which has seen increasing subscriptions and provides a profitable platform for marketer to place ads.

On a deeper level, this strategy is aligned with content curation which makes marketing success impossible without it. The key element of content curation is not producing infinite information; instead, valuable and relevant ones. Think about how we are inundated with unlimited information each day and how we are trying to avoid most of it. Only those content with a purpose will stand out and retain consumers because they find values in it. In other words, when marketers curating content, they first need to understand what the audience really need, identify their problems and challenges through research and then strategically produce content that are relevant and valuable to them. By doing this, there is a higher chance to raise brand awareness and convert leads into consumers.  

http://adage.com/article/digital/takeaways-tencent-alibaba-tapping-consumers-advertisers/309101/

Royal Jordanian Proves Trolling Fills Airplanes
http://www.euronews.com/2017/05/08/royal-jordanian-proves-trolling-fills-planes

Many Middle Eastern airlines, most notably Royal Jordanian have recently used trolling on social media as a very effective means of marketing. World events have given them an unusually large amount of material to work with:

- The United incident. United was very vocal in trying to limit Middle Eastern airlines entry into US markets, calling them non real airlines, here was Emirates' response:

https://twitter.com/emirates/status/851845063999188994

-Trump’s election

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/royal-jordanian-airlines-is-trolling-donald-trump/520755/

-The laptop ban

https://twitter.com/RoyalJordanian/status/844874897620905988/photo/1

-The French election

https://twitter.com/RoyalJordanian/status/860973009288523776/photo/1

These edgy social media campaigns have gone viral and been highly effective. But are they playing with fire? For instance, just this week we learned of the real reason behind the seemingly arbitrary ban on electronic devices. Turns out there was a very good reason to ban them from specific areas:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4519314/ISIS-working-explosives-hidden-laptops.html

By mocking publicly and taking stances on highly contentious issues, these social media campaigns risk backfiring in a big way. Does that risk outweigh the reward? For the time being, the answer appears to be yes.

Will trained IBM Watson change the advertising industry?

Will soon computers take on the roles of human? In the last 90 years, Hollywood industry has certainly leverage on the topic of Artificial Intelligence to produce many top box office movies such as Star Wars, Avatar, Terminator, Matrix, A.I., Blade Runner and many more. But it is in this century that society is collecting the benefits of artificial intelligence.

Machine learning has been changing many industries that we thought that couldn’t survive without humans being in the driver seat. The financial industry is in a transformational cycle where algorithmic trading is replacing traders from its old fashion trading floors. New investments funds are arising with event driven strategies. The transportation industry is being disrupted with driverless cars from Tesla and shared economy service providers like Uber.

Now is the advertising industry also susceptible to such disruption? Creating an advertising requires understanding of people. Based on traditional wisdom, humans can only be understood by other humans that experiment similar feeling. Is that right? Interestingly, Mirai, Toyota’s car of the future, advertising campaign was written by IBM’s super computer Watson. This computer scan the internet to find words that appeal to potential buyers of the car which are new technology adopters including psychologists and scientists.

The article below talks in more detail about the creation of Mirai’s campaign.

http://www.adweek.com/digital/saatchi-la-trained-ibm-watson-to-write-thousands-of-ads-for-toyota/

Chase Had Ads on 400,000 Sites. Then on Just 5,000. Same Results.

As digital display ad spending has continued to grow over the past several years, advertisers have looked for ways to exercise greater control over when and where ads are displayed across the web. The key concern of advertisers is that their ad will be displayed next to undesirable site content such as “…fake news sites or offensive YouTube videos” and possibly negatively impacting their brand.

One major institution, JPMorgan Chase, is going to extreme measures to combat this site display concern. To exercise greater control over where ads are displayed, JPMorgan has enlisted a whitelisting technique, limiting its ads to about 5,000 preapproved sites. Prior to this JPMorgan had advertisements being displayed on about 400,000 sites, a typical amount for large companies that use automated tools to touch as many consumers as possible online. This whitelisting effort by JPMorgan was initiated “…this month after The New York Times showed it an ad for Chase’s private client services on a site called Hillary 4 Prison. It was under a headline claiming that the actor Elijah Wood had revealed ‘the horrifying truth about the Satanic liberal perverts who run Hollywood.’”

This shift by JPMorgan represents a larger, underlying skepticism in the industry on how effective and cost efficient automated display ad technology is. Automated technology has provided advertisers with the ability to buy “…ads on individual sites in favor of cheaply targeting groups of people across the web based on their browsing habits, a process known as programmatic advertising.” The risk vs reward of this approach is not always clear, and JPMorgan began considering the impact of creating their whitelist and reduced the number of sites they display ads on.  

As some background on what JPMorgan did to reduce the number of sites, “…Of the 400,000 web addresses JPMorgan’s ads showed up on in a recent 30-day period, said Ms. Lemkau, only 12,000, or 3 percent, led to activity beyond an impression. An intern then manually clicked on each of those addresses to ensure that the websites were ones the company wanted to advertise on. About 7,000 of them were not, winnowing the group to 5,000.”

Although this tactic has only been in use for several weeks, JPMorgan has seen no deterioration in their performance metrics. For firms like JPMorgan Chase, who are able expend the capital, this is a simple solution to help prevent/reduce display ad PR issues. This may not be a viable solution for all advertisers, as the benefit of the programmatic advertising is the cost effectiveness of targeting specific customers. Additionally, if a trend begins to take hold in the industry, with others following the JPMorgan approach, you could see a change in the way ad tech companies handle sales. In the current environment, these ad tech companies “…profit from funneling trillions of ad impressions from brands to consumers.” By actively reducing the number of sites allowed to display ads (i.e. from 400,000 to 5,000), ad tech companies may need to change their approach and how they market their services.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/business/chase-ads-youtube-fake-news-offensive-videos.html?_r=1

How Major Retailers Are Using Big Data

How 4 Major Retailers are Using Big Data, explores emerging trends in customer data analysis. Major retailers used to collect data through loyalty programs, now they're using big data to go beyond understanding purchasing habits and predicting when a customer is ready for another purchase. Major retailers are using predictive analytics to determine demand before it even happens.

The article uses four companies as case studies - Costco, Target, Walgreens and Red Roof Inn. As we discussed in class, Target surprised a teen's family by sending her baby-related coupons after it determined she was pregnant based on her search and purchasing habits. Pantene/Walgreens partnered with The Weather Channel to pinpoint high humidity days and target women that need anti-frizz products on the go. Similarly, Red Roof Inn analyzes weather patterns to predict flight delays or cancellations and target guests who might need a hotel room near an airport. Costco was able to pinpoint the source of a salmonella outbreak in 2010, and recently a listeria outbreak in one California company's stone fruits.

After reading about each retailer's strategy, I understand this is not a black and white issue. While Costco helped the CDC to prevent a major outbreak, Target accidentally compromised a teen's privacy. Red Roof Inn and Pantene boosted sales and beat their competitors to consumers in particular weather-related events, which neither positively or negatively impacted society. On the one hand, this data analysis can be used for the greater good, and in other instances it's an aggressive, borderline creepy marketing method that most consumers can live without. Overall, there needs to be stricter guidelines for how our data is used against us to avoid retailers overstepping boundaries.

Global Conglomerate Looks to Slash Media Spend

This article touches on P&G’s five year plan to slash upwards of $1.5 billion from its marketing budget - of which at least $1 billion will come from media. The global conglomerate is looking to achieve these savings by lowering rates and getting right of supply chain waste, e.g., eliminating expenses resulting from poor standards adoption and redundancies of having too many cooks in the kitchen.

https://adexchanger.com/advertiser/pg-wants-cut-1-billion-media-spend-supply-chain-inefficiencies/

Engagement via Social Media

All of us are aware of the power of social media platforms for advertising. This article discusses brand and celebrity marketing specifically and the strong engagement numbers on Instagram versus Facebook (Instagram 700m users vs. Facebook 1.9b). From the article, it seems marketers have not focused on customer conversions via Instagram. It states that marketers should shift their Instagram strategy towards this. However, the article does note that Facebook's scale and reach make it the #1 spot for advertising.



http://www.adweek.com/digital/instagram-is-already-getting-much-better-engagement-for-brands-and-celebrities-than-facebook/

Markets at New Highs

Have you seen such a long bull run earlier? Markets are creating new highs every day despite uncertainty. Oracle of Omaha, 'Warren Buffett' says that we still have long way to go as long the interest rates are low. The firms will continue to borrow money at low cost in the hope of making profits.
The technology boom is creating companies with valuations that one has never heard of. It is time to be cautious and at the same time make money if you can.

Content Delivery and Alignment with Consumers

http://searchengineland.com/search-intent-signals-aligning-organic-paid-search-strategy-249601

The article above demonstrates the importance of aligning organic paid search strategy with customer behavior - for example, the article cites statistics that state search queries with purchasing intent are 6x more likely to display four ads. Therefore, it is important in SEO marketing / brand pursuit to be fully aligned with consumer intent in order to maximize marketing efficiency. That means that when a customer searches online for a given product or service, the brand is much more likely to succeed if they understand why the customer is searching.

Customer "journey's" have in fact evolved significantly over the past 5 years given the progression of technology, the power of internet search, and the increased adoption of mobile. Marketers now have the challenge of making a very clear path from the initial customer search to final purchase - against the backdrop of ever increasing competition and investment in sales and marketing.

Understanding intent means knowing what customer's really desire when entering a search query. What information are they looking for? How will they then use the information once they find it? Content creation is now more than ever before based on data. Creation of content and intertwining that with SEO can produce powerful affinity results when used effectively. Articles, videos, funny youtube clips can help you capitalize on trendy topics and win over customers.

Personal Branding @ The Player's Tribune

A can't recall exactly when it was when I first stumbled upon an article on The Player's Tribune; It may have been Kevin Durant's decision to leave OKC to sign with the Warriors. Regardless, I have always admired the unique idea of giving the athlete's the pen to tell their story so that it is not misinterpreted or misrepresented by a reporter. Although this may not qualify as traditional marketing, I feel that this is a tremendous way for athlete's to endear themselves to fan's, which makes them even more MARKETABLE to the corporations looking to sign up a spokesperson who may have influence over the general public.

The Player's Tribune was actually launched by Yankee legend Derek Jeter back in October of 2014, well before the KD article I mentioned. Since launch, there have been hundreds of articles penned by athletes, many of which provide a level of access that into the mind's of the players that has never before been mass marketed. The success of the site has driven its own digital marketing example with brands such as Porsche signing up for online ads.

I think this was a great idea and win-win for everyone involved, including the athletes that choose to leverage the platform, Jeter, and of course us sports nerds who enjoy the insight.

http://www.adweek.com/digital/derek-jeter-launches-players-tribune-digital-platform-athletes-163021/

Your Aggregated Consumer Data May Not Be Secure

An article on AdAge (http://adage.com/article/privacy-and-regulation/aggregating-data-guard-privacy-vc-s/309068/) brings attention to the challenge of the privacy of individuals, when aggregation data is shared on browsing history or online preferences.

Thusfar, companies that have provided data in aggregate to third-parties have argued that stripping out personal data such as names and addresses would make it impossible for someone's individual data or private browsing history to be individually pinpointed. However, this article makes the point that since short journeys in browsing are made repeatedly by the same user, it actually is possible to figure out someone's specific browsing history from large amounts of data.

While the technical aspect is confusing to me, it does worry me that individual browsing history can be detected, as I think this could lead to wrongdoing in the digital marketing space, and even worse if the data fell into the wrong hands. Reading this article made me think of the importance of cybersecurity in the marketing space, and the need for some regulations on how internet data is used. 

Weibo now has more users than Twitter

Whilst Twitter is reporting less than stellar growth, China's version of Twitter, Weibo, is seeing the opposite.

Twitter currently has 328 million active monthly users whereas Weibo has 340 million, a 30% increase from last year, and is a popular platform for most mainland Chinese media outlets. Weibo has also seen a year on year increase of 67% in net revenue and, unlike Twitter, Weibo monitizes through e-commerce rather than advertising.

Considering that most western social media platforms are blocked in China (LinkedIn is the main exception), western companies wanting to reach out to a Chinese audience might want to tap into Weibo for brand exposure.

Weibo has been innovative in that they have created a live video streaming app, and partnered with e-commerce giant Alibaba, allowing merchants to turn their Weibo pages into a CRM platform where they can manage their marketing campaigns and accept online payments, increasing social shopping convenience for its users.


http://on.mash.to/2q16M9F

Nike Manila - Attract Runner and Non-runners

Nike developed a new running track that allows user to compete against their digital Avatar.  The Avatar will continuously beat the individual's best lap time, which leads to challenging the runner to do better each time.  The Nike Unlimited Stadium is located in Manila, Philippines.  It is shaped as the latest sole print of Nike’s Lunar Epic footwear.   

There have been a lot of advertisements about the Nike Manila.  After doing a little digging, this stadium started in 2016.  It is only operated for 17 days and specific evening hours from 4-10PM.  It's that time again in 2017.  

This is encouraging the Filipino community to reach their unlimited potential along with supporting the innovations and the Nike+ community.  Along with the theme of reaching ones “unlimited” potential and the “Unlimited” stadium Nike in parallel launches the “unlimited” Colorway collection offering sportswear across running, training, and basketball.  Nike Manila also have events where athletes, and non-athletes, can signup to register and work with expert Nike Trainers. 

The impacts it will have on a typical customer would be capturing them into the Nike world.  It could enhance their use of electronic Nike apps, which would further expose them to digital ads produced by Nike, and therefore encouraging them to continue to buy with Nike.

Not only does Nike continue to attract runners, but non-runners will surely want to test the track too.  

Twitter Now Lets Users See Who Is Advertising to Them and Why

Yesterday, Twitter released an updated privacy policy and new website settings that enable users to see who is advertising to them and why.

This new feature allows users to review what Twitter, and, in turn, advertisers, thinks their interests are. Users will be able to see how many advertisers are targeting them, and how many “audiences” (targeted groups) they are a part of – and both numbers can be well into the thousands.

The new update contains a feature to empower Twitter users to de-select what interests they don’t want to receive advertisements for, and, in the vein of transparency, users can request to be sent a list of the advertisers they are being targeted by.

Twitter, which has experienced slowed financial and user growth, should financially benefit from more targeted adverting, since more tailored advertising should lead to increased revenue for the Company. Additionally, the more personalized the user experience, the more likely that the curated tweets for any given user will be more engaging, making the Twitter experience more holistic and worthwhile for users.

So why would Twitter make this announcement and give users the option to opt-out of any tailored interest-centric advertising? Privacy.

Privacy is the counterbalance to personalization and a highly targeted online experience. The last paragraph of Twitter’s announcement yesterday read: “Privacy is built into our DNA as a company and it’s something we take an active role in promoting and advocating for across the world… Our commitment to protecting and defending your privacy will continue as we build our industry leadership on this issue.” Yes, it seems somewhat paradoxical to end a release that talks about sharing highly targeted, interest-based information with thousands of advertisers this way. But privacy remains a critical issue among users, and especially in today’s political climate, users want to have a sense of security regarding online privacy. This balance between personalization (which, to be successful, requires user data to be shared) and privacy is a critical issue that online companies and digital advertisers must continue to navigate and refine in today’s world.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/05/18/twitter-privacy-update-called-creepy/#1f009bfd464f

Lack of Consensus on KPIs for Digital Campaigns in Europe

Based on survey results, there are some differences in opinion between brand marketing executives and agency professionals on which KPIs are most important in France, Germany and the UK.  For example, in the UK, marketing ROI and website visits were agency respondents’ most commonly used success metrics and brand executives value conversion rates and shares or “likes.”

It was interesting to observe that 1) brand executives and agency professionals still do not agree on key success metrics after years of experience and 2) different countries value different KPIs.  To help improve the brand-agency relationship, agency professionals must be open-minded when talking about KPIs with their clients and be ready to discuss the pros and cons of different metrics.  Every client has different marketing campaign goals and all should work together to define success.  Also, depending on which country the client is based in, agency professionals should acclimate to its client's way of doing business.

Article: https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Europes-Agencies-Brands-Differ-on-Digital-Campaign-KPIs/1015877?ecid=NL1001

Local Digital Marketing

The article describes “local digital marketing” and how local businesses can utilize different platforms (Facebook, mobile apps such as Snapchat , Instagram, and yelp) to compete with large chains and websites like Amazon and CVS. The article states four main areas for the local businesses to be successful in local digital marketing: using location-based advertising, leveraging delivery startups, create welcoming in-store experiences, and expanding to e-commerce channels. There are many concerns that big players such as Amazon are dominating the market and discouraging new businesses to grow. I have seen local coffee shops and stores asking to follow its Instagram and Facebook pages in newer shops yet not all the stores have set up advertising platforms. As a customer, I would like to see more local stores setting up these platforms and updating their websites.
Local businesses can use local digital marketing to provide services that Amazon cannot. Local businesses can easily see what local customers’ demands are and react to it faster than big corporate chains. I especially liked the article’s point of utilizing delivery startups for local businesses to provide “Amazon” like delivery services. I don’t think local businesses (excluding food services business) do not partner up with new startups enough to expand their business. As a consumer, if I am able to get same type of delivery services from a local business vs. big chain, I would be indifferent to use both services.

https://thenextweb.com/marketing-seo/2017/05/16/local-digital-marketing-important-ever/#.tnw_ClqM7kEO

Digital Video Ad Experience

We discussed briefly online versus TV advertising and these two articles somewhat dive deeper into the topic. I found these interesting because they provide two slightly different points of view on the topic and underscore the changing dynamic of commercial advertising. The first article discusses an improving view of advertising during online streaming video. The second article pits NBCUniversal against Google in terms of brand safety. NBC is claiming that their ads are superior to that of online because of the safety and quality they maintain when compared to those experienced online.


NBCUniversal’s chairman of advertising sales, Linda Yaccarino maintains that, “Television is the most effective advertising means there is,” ...“You know it and our friends in Silicon Valley know it.”


The study conducted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) may suggest that consumers are not that off-put by brand safety and online advertising. In the survey conducted by the IAB an interesting change from 2015 to 2017 respondents shows that 34% of consumers surveyed felt that Ads experienced during shows that are streamed are better than those experienced during regular TV. This number is up 11% from 2015, indicating a growing appeal of online advertising compared to regular TV. I think one part of this increase might be due to the improving ability to target specific viewers with specific advertisements, something that TV can only do to a limited extant with their broadcast advertising. NBC may be correct that TV is still king, but this 2 year trend in online advertising will be interesting to watch in the near future.


https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Consumers-Weigh-Digital-Video-Ad-Experience-Against-TV/1015870


https://adexchanger.com/digital-tv/nbc-touts-brand-safety-scale-2017-upfronts/