Your brand is defined by what you are not

January 21, 2010

Brand managers always seem to be working on defining what they want their brand to be. Unfortunately this process often misses out a critical definition: what you are not.

I believe the biggest mistake a brand can make is to try to be everything to everyone. This usually results in being nothing to no one.

According to The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al and Laura Ries, the power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope.

Or in other words, you should aim to do less, better.

While travelling through Peru recently, I came across this bar in Cusco called Norton Rats Tavern that clearly understands how to define its brand by what it is not.

Norton Rats Tavern

Just two words on their sign, “No Disco” screams brand louder than anything else they could say.

In those two words they differentiated themselves from all the other combined bar/restaurant/nightclub/hotels in Cusco. They have specialised, which makes their brand so much stronger.

So if you are ever in Cusco, Peru make sure to check out Norton Rats. They have great pub food and a broad range of beers.

Just don’t expect a dance.

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Posted by Chris Maloney

How to move brand metrics with strategic online partnerships. A best practice case study

January 8, 2010

Before deciding to travel the world for a while, one of the last things I worked on for the Commonwealth Bank, and one that I am most proud of, was develoing a strategic integrated online partnership with Domain.com.au in order to deliver Radar lifestyle search, a world first in property search.

iab Australia have now published this as a best practice case study, with Neilson research results showing significant uplift in:
• Brand Awareness
• Brand Sentiment
• Brand Consideration
• Intention to Uptake Brand
• Brand Recommendation

Check out the full case study on the iab website

Leave a Comment » | Advertising, Digital Marketing, Market Research, Marketing Strategy, Return on Marketing Investment, branding | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Chris Maloney

The end of the line. My feature article for Direct Marketing International

December 21, 2009

The only global business title for direct and interactive marketers

The only global business title for direct and interactive marketers

At the recent DMA09 conference I had the great pleasure to have a few beers with the editors of DMI magazine (Direct Marketing International).

After discussing the various merits of American Football versus Australian Rules Football (i.e. only girls need pads) the conversation turned to work and they asked if I could write a feature article on my direct marketing philosophy that “the line doesnt exist”.

So I did, and to their word, they published it.

Check it out and let me know what you think: The end of the line. What happens when above-the-line media become direct?

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Posted by Chris Maloney

The DNA of DMA09 – The top 5 insights from the world’s biggest direct marketing event

December 9, 2009

You just know that anything pitched as the global event for integrated marketing is going to be as huge as American meal portion sizes. And DMA 09 in sunny San Diego sure didn’t disappoint, with 6 days of world class keynotes, thought leadership sessions and best practice case studies, alongside the world’s biggest marketing exhibition.

To put the scale of this event in perspective, it took half an hour just to walk from one end of the exhibition hall to the other.

Being held in the United States, DMA 09 didn’t hold back on the sensationalism. From speakers wearing lab coats and calling themselves “Conversion Scientists”, to putting 3 email marketers in a cage for the Ultimate Email Championship, to Dominos delivering 12,000 free oven baked sandwiches.

But the prize for the biggest idea would have to go to Ford, who gave a lucky attendee a two week test drive in a new Fiesta. What’s cool about that? The test drive happens 8 months before the car is released to the general public.

Attendees were down this year due to the financial bomb that hit many marketing and education budgets, but 8,000 marketers from over 100 countries still managed to turn up to find out what the future of direct marketing might look like. And with Martha Stewart as the keynote, I’m sure everyone was also hoping they may take home some great quiche recipes.

Unfortunately no recipies were divulged, but there were 5 key insights I was able to glean from “the land up over”.

1. Multichannel is the buzzword

As important a subject as it is, it was refreshing to attend a conference where the key topic wasn’t social media. What DMA09 was more concerned about was the concept of “multichannel”, or how we can get all the marketing silos (including social media) to start working together for a more powerful outcome. According to the keynote, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is all about omnipresence. “We want their eyeballs and we don’t care what channel they are in”.

In the new multichannel world, data and analytics are the currency, and that is “the DNA of the DMA” according to DMA CEO John Greco. Rather than being a new idea, it turns out the old direct marketing mantra is stronger than ever: to reach the right customer, at the right time, in the right channel, with the right offer.

Building on the idea of multichannel, was the inclusion of direct TV and Radio sessions on the conference schedule. Addressable TV advertising is the most cutting edge, with the ability to deliver interactive ads direct to a targeted customer, who can respond without leaving the couch.

This has been tested in local markets in the US, and a joint venture between the big 4 cable networks are working towards rolling the technology out nationally. In Australia we have seen interactive TV for some time with Foxtel’s red button, but we are yet to see addressable advertising. My guess is it can’t be too far away.

2. Video delivers results

Video is easily the most engaging mediums that marketers have at their disposal. However, until now it has been the realm of brand advertisers, rather than direct marketers. But this is changing with according to one speaker, more retail marketers prioritising video over social media in their 2009 digital marketing strategies.

More than just building video into websites, direct marketers such as Turner Sports are now building live streaming videos into emails and achieving a 13% higher click through rates. At present this capability can only be supported by AOL, but when others such as Microsoft enable video within their email platforms, the possibilities for direct marketers are limitless.

Another video technology that direct marketers can start to get excited about is the emergence of variable video. As an example of this technology, the worlds largest adventure travel company called Backroads have developed a family trip advisor that based on the answers to four simple questions pieces together a seamless customised video of recommended holidays.

Customers that use the variable video trip advisor have double the response rate over those who don’t. That is innovation direct marketers can take to the bank.

3. Social media is not an island.

Social media of course received its fair share of coverage, but it was more about how it integrates into everything else in the marketing plan, rather than operating as an island.

Scott Monty, Global Digital and Communications Manager for Ford Motor Company claimed that “90% of social media is just showing up. The other half is hard.” The other half that he mentions is all about “getting paid, owned and earned media all working together”.

How companies are trying to achieve that varies. At Ford, they are aiming for 1% of all employees to be active brand advocates in social media. At Hyundai, they are plugging social media into their Customer Relationship Management system.

4. Personalised URLs (PURLS) and landing pages

If there was anything from DMA09 that I will implement as soon as I get back to Australia it will be Personalised URLs and landing pages. For those who haven’t heard of PURLS try this scenario.

Imagine receiving a personalised direct mail piece featuring a call to action to visit buyourwidget.com.au/yourname. When you type in your personalised URL you get a totally personalised webpage featuring your name, mentions of your previous purchase behaviour, customised offers, and more.

Deadly effective? You bet.

And the best part is that it is entirely scaleable so that you can deliver true one-to-one marketing across channels for hundreds of thousands of customers.

5. Mobile’s time has come

Outside of SMS, and despite all the hype around the iPhone, to date mobile marketing has suffered from scale issues. However, this is not the case anymore, with brands such as ESPN’s mobile traffic for the first time in 2009 exceeding its website traffic.

And guess what the latest polls show people want for Christmas this year? A smart phone.

The most ubiquitous digital device in the world is in too many pockets not to be huge. However the technical issues for marketers are impressive, with a multitude of handsets and an increasing number of applications stores.

The challenges are big, but it appears that so are the opportunities.

Rethink your DNA

In summary, DMA09 really lived up to its name as the global event for integrated marketing.

The power of direct marketing going forward has even converted some of the most traditional brand advertisers. Shelly Lazarus Chairman Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide and DMA Hall of Fame Inductee said it best when she stated that:

all advertisers are now direct marketers, because we have to be.

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Posted by Chris Maloney

Interview with Justin Hind, Chief Operating Officer, Downstream

September 14, 2009

In 2008, Downstream was named AdNews Specialist Agency of the Year and B&T Emerging Agency of the Year.

I recently sat down with Downstream’s outspoken Chief Operating Officer Justin Hind, to learn about what is going on in Search and more.

Justin Hind

Tell us about your current role and responsibilities

Downstream Marketing Logo

My role is really simple, I work with Steve Knowles our founder and CEO to help grow the company. I work with clients to help them navigate how Search, a performance medium fits with their overall marketing strategy in how they can create more value out of a well structured and defined strategy.

We don’t actually think of ourselves as a Search agency, even though that is what we do. We see ourselves as a Digital Performance Agency and we work with clients in a broader context to understand their brand, consumers, economics, site performance etc.

Coming from a creative agency background, the other part of my role is to expand our thinking beyond transactional Search to how we integrate it into an “integrated” marketing strategy both internally at Downstream with our Account Management Teams and with clients.

Oh and of course there is the operational side of my role. That is quite varied from overview of client engagement models, financial performance, team leadership, training and recruitment.

Why is Search so important in today’s marketing strategies?

Search is important on a number of fronts:

1. Search is important because it is the fastest growing consumer driven media on the planet.

2. Search is the undisputable most effective medium in terms of scale, cost & ROI.

3. Increasingly Search is the easiest point of connection a consumer has to a brand. A Consumer see’s some form of advertising, PR, media, story etc and the next & most immediate reaction is to Search for the company or the category.

4. Search for me is like Direct Marketing on drugs. The data, insights and performance metrics we get every 12 hours allow us to optimize a campaign effectively and ensure a client is actually getting the return’s they require.

5. I have a very strongly held belief that as all media (TV, Display, Print etc) will move to some form of auction mechanic based on rational insights & data. The same processes we use to manage a Search program and how a client understands return from Search will transfer to all other media.

Combine this with the fact that the majority of media is increasingly becoming digitized (think TIVO, IP TV etc) and you can see where the disciplines of Search transfer at a rapid rate. Commissions, group deals, meeting contract spend levels will become illogical and redundant and for most smart clients, this will be their preferred mode of marketing investment.

Google has long been dominant in Australian Search. Recently, Bing has made a splash and Microsoft and Yahoo have announced they will be joining forces. Where do you see the Search industry heading?

Google vs Bing

Hard question – I need my crystal ball. Overall I think we need a very health & competitive Search industry. We need great choice for consumers, we need greater innovation and more importantly we need increased competitiveness for advertisers. So I think the fact that Yahoo & Microsoft have joined forces to exploit their inherent advantages as a great thing.

We understand it’s Bing’s goal is to just get a minor increase in overall market share, which as far as we’ve seen through our data here at Downstream they are well on their way to doing so. Google still command 90% plus of impression share and hence this roughly approximates to a similar share of Search advertising dollars.

In the future it would be great to see another real Search engine grow and provide a greater level of consumer choice and competition. This probably won’t occur until clients can understand the REAL value Search provides over digital display, until clients get transparent reports on REAL value creation across all mediums and they react accordingly with rational budgets and investments in Search.

This isn’t going to occur until we get to double digit percentage budget allocations. We need average Search investments to go from 5-7% to 15%-20%. When that happens we will see the tech companies, media companies and the investor community respond accordingly.

I also think we are going to see a greater level of interplay between Search and Performance Display. The two will become more closely aligned philosophically, planned together and hopefully executed and reported to clients in a transparent manner.

At the moment in the majority of cases media agencies are using Performance Display to spray cookies, claim conversions on BS post view metrics and support larger CPM based deals where they earn a myriad of commissions, prompt payment discounts, group rebates etc.

It is immoral in my view and has to end.

In 2008, Downstream took out AdNews Specialist Agency of the Year and B&T Emerging Agency of the Year. What does the future look like for Downstream?

Downstream B&T award

Downstream is a high growth company with lofty goals and aspirations. It was great we won two different agency of the year awards in 2008, but it meant nothing more to us than that we were a serious contender, with the right model, the right proposition with the right vision.

In line with our vision of being Australia’s leading digital performance agency, we’ve been busy working on launching a performance display offering that uses the same advanced mathematics & modeling from Efficient Frontier, that runs Search investments today applied to the Performance Display Market.

We’ve been working closely with Efficient Frontier in Sunnyvale, California to build out the Performance Display technology and understand the customization requirements for the Australian media markets and ad exchanges.

We are also working on launching a Performance Creative offering that uses dynamic conversion based data to build and deploy conversion based websites, landing pages and digital display ad inventory.

Very exciting times here – we are focused on shaking the shit out of the status quo and driving real change. The current landscape is just not good enough.

You hold a Bachelors degree in Economics from University of Queensland. What does economics have to do with advertising?

For me it has everything to do with Advertising. Clients only invest ad dollars for a commercial outcome, believing it is anything else is being clearly misguided. Understand investment, impact and return either short term or long term is the goal of advertising.

Clients do it to sell product, short and sweet. You do that through engaging an audience meaningfully, changing your brand metrics and dimensions that give a brand an advantage, through higher levels of reach, recall and consideration.

For me Economics is the science and rational thinking behind it all. It is understanding cause and effect, the wider competitive market, the health of the economy and the disciplines that bring you to an insight and the right answer.

In your previous role as Head of Direct and Digital with BMF, you helped the agency win Australian Direct Agency of the Year two years running. How do you apply your expertise in direct marketing into search marketing?

BMF is a great agency with brilliant people and an unrelenting vision. I count myself as being very lucky to be there during those periods and took a lot out of my experience there. They are head and shoulders above all other agencies I think – sorry, but having the owners run the business each and every day brings a clarity and sense of urgency I’ve never experienced before.

For me, Search is just the most dynamic form of direct marketing that is deployed faster and optimized quicker than any other form of marketing. Simply take all the best disciplines of Direct and apply it to Search and you’ll be an awesome Search Marketer.

For me it is about understanding consumer behaviour, a brand, consumers propensity to respond and using that data to drive insights and campaign improvements.

In Direct the rough rule of success is 70% data, 20% offer and 10% creativity. It is pretty much the same in Search, it just moves 100 times faster and you can uses advanced mathematical models and optimization to improve a clients performance. Simple!

What do you see as the biggest issues facing the marketing industry moving forward?

Skills and professionalism. I find it rare now to find people who are well rounded across all facets of digital, direct, data & CRM. It really is disappointing. The wider industry needs to invest more in people, developing their skills and leadership traits.

I see a whole bunch of people who just don’t get the basics today, about understanding business and their true role in helping clients solve challenging marketing problems.

For Search specifically it is really hard. Most people coming through see it as just words on a page, they don’t see it as a sexy digital discipline that they can craft a meaningful career out of.

At Downstream we find we engage at the highest level’s with clients, get engaged in site development strategies, have deep data insights and a very high level of trust with clients. As an agency you can’t ask for more than that.

What is the motivation behind your personal blog, Economics of Advertising?

Economics of Advertising

My Blog is really just a collection of my thoughts on the industry & possible models for the future. I also believe that Economics & Advertising are highly connected, advertising is a commercial endeavor, nothing more, nothing less.

Agencies take on a huge responsibility when they work for a client. Agencies are playing with their clients brand, revenue, staff’s livelihoods, future product development. And that requires a responsible commercial view of how they invest their clients money to create the maximum value for all parties.

I love it when creativity, numbers & economics collide, so that’s really where the inspiration came from. Some of the stuff I post on upsets people because it is about driving change and making new models. My blog is where I can have a voice on the future and I love that sometimes people get moved by new thoughts and challenging the normality of the industry.

I think the industry as we know & define it today is in major trouble and we need to evolve at a rate faster than anyone is comfortable. It is the only way we can all progress and increase or relevance to clients and ultimate how they engage with their customers.

You are a somewhat profilic Tweeter @Juzout. What do you think Twitter will mean for search looking forward?

twitter_logo

I think Twitter is one of the most valuable digital innovations in recent years. It allows brands to monitor conversations both good and bad in real time, it charts influence and association between users and their networks and the fact that it has links and index able data means it is a key driver of consumer action.

I’ve posted on what I think the future of it is, I’d love to see Twitter & Google collide. Check my blog out for more, be really interested in thoughts, debate and comment on this.

You are married to another respected digital marketer, in Dominique Hind, Managing Partner Digital at Leo Burnett. What do you talk about over the dinner table?

Sometimes we talk work, but try not to. Because we are both so passionate it is really hard not to. I find if I share a challenge I’ve got with Dom, she can add a huge amount of perspective and fresh thinking to my ideas. Dom has an awesome way of breaking down a problem and adding extra layers, hopefully I do the same for her.

Outside of work though we have a really full life with our other passions like running and training, we’ve also got a really great group of friends that share our passions so a lot of what we talk about outside work is more about what we are trying to achieve, what event we are going to do together. Stuff like that…

Together you are training for the New York Marathon in November. How is your training going and has your preparation for this translated into your business life?

New York is one of my ultimate goals. I’ve run loads of half marathons and only one full marathon, it was Sydney last year and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I promised myself I’d do NYC and the retire from full marathons, unfortunately I didn’t get in this year AGAIN via the lottery.

Dom & I are looking at a back door entry mechanism at the moment so fingers crossed. We have been training like we are going anyway, so positive thinking will bring a positive result I hope.

Running has taught me a lot about business, setting a goal and being prepared, being focused and unrelenting. You have to be motivated, understand your goals, put the hard yards in and know that there is no easy way to success. Running is very important to me for more than just running now.

Finally, what is your favourite ad of all time?

Wow – there are so many and creativity keeps pushing the boundaries. I don’t know if it is an all time favorite but I really loved the Chase for Bourne. It was a campaign used to engage an audience for the last Bourne Supremacy and it incorporated Google Maps, Video, Search, Social media and an Online Community. It was a great take new standards in integration.

Another favorite campaign was for Batman -The Dark Night.

dark_knight_wb_sm

The campaign was “I believe in Harvey Dent”. It was so ahead of its time using so many different grass root channels from graffitied outdoor, social media, databases etc and culminating in an awesome online experience. I won’t talk about it anymore here – Google it, discover it for yourself.

It was BIG, created a ground swell amongst fans, online communities, had advocacy, great use of data and a serious payoff for consumers that participated.

Leave a Comment » | CMO Interviews, Digital Marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Return on Marketing Investment, Search, Twitter | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Chris Maloney

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