Mobile / Web Content and Advertising. The next big wave?

There's GoogTube, iTunes, Yahoo, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, NTT Docomo, Vodafone, and literally thousands of "digital" outlets for mobile and web based content with hundreds more added weekly. In addition to the outlets, there are thousands of content sources from amateur providers, dynamic advertisers, and interactive games to syndicated content from the major networks and studios and more!

So what does this really mean to advertisers, content developers, studios, and distributors not to mention technology vendors who deliver, track, monetize and manage all of this? Big money! Yes, big bucks both in revenue to the content owners and providers as well as the cost in actually delivering this new trend in content and advertising. Let's face it, having the technology infrastructure as well as rights to the content is not cheap. Nor is it effective to attempt such a play without a solid strategy that takes all of this into play. Fortunately, the cost to repurpose or develop interactive marketing and advertising content is reasonably affordable.

The cost to repurpose existing content for web and mobile is also reasonably affordable compared to the cost of movie making or MFT (Made For Television) productions. So why then are so many advertisers, network studios, web portals and mobile providers jumping on this new band wagon? Well, according to recent industry analysis, the mobile television market could be a global market worth as much as $27 billion by 2010. That's not too shabby. The really interesting point here is that with advertisers, studios, and service providers clamoring to reach consumers, a new vehicle is at hand the can totally proliferate a consumer’s world. Think about it, the ability to target and reach a consumer on TV, Radio, Web, and Mobile Phone has very strong appeal and demonstrable ROI. Add to this the ability to leverage technology to deliver targeted and integrated marketing and advertising messages to all of these outlets offers marketers, advertisers, studios, brand owners and others the ability to deliver their message or content in a completely immersed environment driving greater effectiveness in their efforts, marketing and advertising. Not to mention open up new revenue streams via this medium.

Let's take the fact that 500 million new wireless connections have been made globally in the past year. That's 500 MILLION new customers that can be reached in a multitude of ways with a multitude of content and advertising offerings. The key as in all things, is building an effective and comprehensive strategy that takes into consideration the following: Branding, Messaging, Content, Pricing, Demographics, Focus, Monetization vs. Brand Support, and most importantly the technology infrastructure or services needed to ensure your digital content and advertising strategy is effective. It takes a full team effort to put an effective offering or campaign in place to truly deliver compelling content, advertising and marketing not to mention ROI and revenue.

So what does this really mean for those of us in marketing, advertising, brand ownership and content development? Complication for sure. Frustration maybe, technology head aches, yup, but certainly a dynamic, sustainable and exciting new "market place" in which to deliver our message, content and advertising. The ability to leverage technology to reach consumers in a way we have never been able to do before. That my friends, is exciting! The fact that both global and local advertisers/brand owners, marketers, content authors, studios, and more now have a medium in which the playing field has been leveled thus allowing all players an affordable chance to reach a global market place or simply more effectively reach their consumers. Pretty cool huh?

Remember, the digital consumer has more choices today than any other consumer in the history of man kind. This means more opportunities for advertisers, marketers, studios, etc. to deliver their message, reinforce their brand, more options to repurpose and monetize content and more money for all involved. Except perhaps the consumer. But who cares about them. They get more choices!

- DF

To learn more about the digital marketplace or how to synergistically blend interactive technology with creative branding, advertising, marketing and creative content development, visit www.dfmginteractive.com

KPI's and Interactive Kiosks and Digital Merchandising

Kiosk and Digital Merchandising are powerful marketing vehicles that brand owners in the Retail, CPG, Pharma, Services and Hospitality verticals are leveraging more in more. Just look at airports, mega-chain stores like Target, hotels and more. Sure they are great marketing tools that drive brand awareness, convenience, loyalty, and all sorts of other valuable marketing solutions. But what good is it if you are not in control and cant measure the ROI and effectiveness of your marketing effort?

Well, there is a way young grass hopper. In a previous blog I talked about leveraging KPI's. Here, I am specifically talking about how to truly leverage interactive marketing and digital merchandising devices to feed your KPI data stream. We know that Kiosks and Digital Merchandising or "Digital Signage" is a growing and highly effective marketing tool, but what good is the tool if you have no way to manage the brand, the content, the device and more importantly track and report on the activity of the device. Its no good! Its static and static wont cut it in a dynamic interactive world. More importantly, you wont be fully leveraging your marketing, branding and advertising initiatives if you don't track and leverage the associated KPI's.

There are many companies out there that offer interactive Kiosk and Digital Merchandising solutions. They range from Sony to IBM to many other smaller point solutions. What you want to look for is a technology solution that can not only manage the content distribution to disparate devices and locations, but an enterprise robust solution that fully allows you to manage the device, manage the peripherals and device status as well as track, report and measure the interactivity and usage of the device. You will also want a software solution that integrates and plays well with other marketing centric software i.e. PLM, ECM, POS, etc.

Software solutions like Netkey and others offer this very type of solution. By leveraging a system that allows you to remotely access and control the device and the content, as well as manage and report on the devices usage, content access, page access, information downloaded/requested, loyalty usage, etc. you can now leverage dynamic real time KPI data on global initiatives around digital merchandising and interactive Kiosks. Plus, leveraging a system like this allows you to make content changes instantly based on user feedback, brand, demographics, and campaign changes or other realtime factors.

So the moral of this blog is, when planning a brand initiative that leverages interactive kiosks and digital merchandising, look for an enterprise software solution that can manage the whole solution and initiative. This will drive greater ROI, efficiency, and management of your initiative. KPI's are only good if you are capturing accurate and definitive data. One last piece of advice, when looking for a software solution, look for ones that are technology agnostic. Meaning, look for ones that can work with IBM Kiosks as easily as NCR, or PC stations, etc. You double your effectiveness, flexibility and scalability right out of the gate.

-DF

Does Sex Sell? Maybe not.

In a recent study, a team of researchers at the University of Florida gauged the emotional responses of more than 100 college-aged women to photos of attractive women. The study asked each participant after looking at each photo, to point to manikins that represented their emotional reactions. For instance, one set of manikins represented arousal reactions ranging from disinterested to, interested to excited.

Interestingly, the more seductive the model, the more it left women bored and uninterested according to lead author Robyn Goodman. Based on the research, the findings seem to clearly contradict the assumption that sensual images, which saturate the ad space in glossy female targeted magazines and print advertising, are most effective.

More interesting, in the initial survey, participants were asked to rate photos of models according to six beauty categories, including "sex kitten" and "classic feminine". The beauty types were apparently determined by fashion editors at NYC magazines (who better right).

But rather than distinguishing between the six beauty types, as the researchers intended, the participants divided all the photos into just two categories. Wholesome and "sexy-sensual". This study was recently presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication convention in August.

According to Goodman, this research is evident that many advertisers may have been misled into using more sexual and sensual models to attract women to their products. The high level conclusion of the study is that women desire to be more like the wholesome beauty models, and in turn will purchase the products they endorse more readily than they would a product endorsed by a more overtly sexual model.

I believe this study to be very interesting and may show or expose a shift in demographic marketing that is currently being over looked. I think much more research needs to be done to determine a true trend, as well as interjecting more variables like age, life style, married, single, regions, etc. to garner truly actionable changes in marketing and advertising. I also think its important to understand the fundamentals around the advertising such as intent i.e. was the ad intended to push brand recognition or promote a product or service. All of which could effect the efficiency of the advertising.

One thing does seem clear, this study seems to show a potential fallacy in the old advertising adage that "sex sells". Maybe not. At least for women.

-DF

Jingle All The Way

With the 4th quarter around the corner, advertisers need creative and catchy ways in which to attract global consumers. A way in which to break through the noise of other ads. One of the best ways I have found to do this is through jingles and audio logo's. Simply harken back to the Intel audio logo, you remember it right? Dum, Dum, Dum, Dum? No? How about finishing this one.... you deserve a .... ... today? If you said Break, you are correct! But who was the client? McDonald's !!!Or how about the Nokia Ring Tone. You remember the one! The one that haunted our late 1990's. De da du da, de da du da, de da du da DAaaah?

Jingles don't have to be crappy and devoid of creativity, they just have to have the all magical ingredient...Catchiness! To many times today we have a great product or service with a crappy audio production. Its funny how little some ad agencies put into Audio. Hell, many brands are made by their audio logo's or jingles. Just as a strong slogan is important to a brand, product or service, so to can an audio logo or Jingle be.

believe me, I know that of which I speak! Aside from being a global marketing executive, I am an EMMY nominated and multi-award winning composer and sound designer who has created many of these catchy melodious advertising and marketing gems. So next time your ready to unleash a new campaign, product, service, brand, etc. Think of one of the most effective means of advertising. AUDIO! Also remember, science and pyschology have conclusively and repeatedly proven people remember something, someone, or somewhere more effectively when the image is accompanied by audio. Even more so when coupled with a catchy audio logo or melody.

Just do us all a favor and use a competent and creative audio services firm. You can hide bad print, bad TV, and bad packaging, but never bad audio. Just listen to your local TV and radio advertising. Finally, don't forget that after making the wise choice to use audio, don't forget about the mass proliferation of your audio. With the many interactive technologies and mediums available to us, such as the use of "adver-gaming", Ring Tones, the internet, and other interactive outlets, the effectiveness and ROI in both cost, response and market penetration has the chance to be far greater than print , radio or TV alone. Thus giving you a true ROI on your efforts. What more could we ask for.

To learn more about how creative and competent audio can be leveraged for your brand, client or promotion, please visit www.dfmginteractive.com.

Capturing and leveraging KPI’s with technology

Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPI’s or Key Success Indicators (KSI), help organizations define and measure progress toward organizational, brand and production goals.

In today’s dynamic business environment where brand control, consistency and production workflow process are key’s to brand management and ROI, organizations need a way to measure progress in relation to their brand initiatives. Key Performance Indicators are those measurements.

By implementing and utilizing an enterprise software solution like an Enterprise Digital Asset Management system with workflow or Enterprise Content Management, or better yet a Dynamic Content Lifecycle Management™ (DCLM) solution, organizations are able to deploy an enterprise software solution that synergistically lives within an ecosystem of brand centric solutions (ECM, PLM, etc.), processes and workflows while being able to manage and capture a variety of data points including KPI’s.

Using a solution like this, you decide what KPI’s are important for your business and the system is configured to automatically track these metrics. This information is then available to you in real-time giving you up-to-the-minute consistent measurements across a brand, a project and throughout the organization.

Why are KPI’s critical to today’s brand leaders? Because Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are quantifiable measurements, agreed to beforehand by the brand owner that reflect the critical success factors of a brand, process and organization. Of course, they may differ depending on the brand or organization’s business needs but the ability to create, manage and track critical brand/business process has become mission critical for today’s business’s to leverage and manage critical data and process.

Having access to real-time KPI information enables continual process improvement leading to measurable cost savings in productivity, efficiencies and accuracy in the brand’s lifecycle which results in demonstrable ROI. In today’s complex business environment, an organization has many things that are measurable throughout a brand or packaging lifecycle. That in and of itself does not make them key to the organization's success.

In selecting and leveraging Key Performance Indicators particularly around brand and packaging initiatives, it is critical to limit them to those factors that are essential to the organization, process or brand reaching its goals. In order to capture and track those factors, it is critical to have a system in place that acts as a synergistic tool that is flexible enough to automatically deliver accurate KPI’s.

More importantly, when looking at a complex brand or process landscape and determining what solution can act as an enabling tool and not a disrupter, a solution like the above mentioned can usually co-exist with your existing architecture and simultaneously provide KPI‘s across the entire brand and packaging spectrum thus driving efficiencies, cost savings and demonstrable ROI across all associated business units

To learn more about leveraging KPI's contact dfMG interactive @ www.dfmginteractive.com

WELCOME

Welcome to our new Blogspace! This Blog will containg news, editorials, tips, advice, conversation, musings, links and more all around the world and craft of advertising, interactive, interactive entertainment/advergaming, brand management, branding, content creation, content mangement, interactive and all things advertising.

Stay tuned!