Blog360 - The Blend360 Agency Blog - Advertising, Branding, Web Design, SEO and Web Analytics

Privacy Concerns are Standing in the Way of a Personalized World

Jon Cogan

 I recall sitting at a breakfast group meeting at the Marshes in Ottawa ten years ago almost to the day. I can not for the life of me remember who was speaking, but the topic of the discussion has stayed with me all these years.

That morning all in attendance gasped and ooh'd and aww'd about the promise of data mining. We were told that in a year or two we would experience some wonderful things as consumers. You would stay at a Hilton, and during your stay, you would order and orange juice to our room in the morning. At your next stay at any Hilton, a call would come from the front desk in the morning to ask you if I would like your orange juice like your last stay. You would be able to walk into a bookstore like Chapters and as you paid at the cash, and they recalled your customer information, the cashier would list off some new releases of your favourite authors or music artists. This is simply not happening in the real world. It is barely happening in the virtual world. And there really is no excuse for that.

If I go to any shopping site and buy a product, when I return to that site I should see some offerings from the category I shopped from on my last visit, shouldn't I? What is standing in the way of this happening? I have a theory, and I would love to hear yours as well.

I believe we are all way too concerned about privacy. - Look, I think there is reason to be concerned about how your private data is being collected and used by any website you visit, but the concerns of the day are misdirected. The internet was never promised to be a private experience. Ever. When did the onus of privacy fall upon the website owners themselves? How did that happen? The internet was supposed to be just like anything else in life that you do in front of others - public! If I take an action in the real world, others will probably see it. When did it become so very shameful for a company to try to personalize my experience with them based on these actions? Why is that taboo? What is everyone worried about? That someone might try to sell them something? We're all adults here. We can make grown up decisions. The internet would become a lot more personalized a lot quicker if we took responsibility for our own actions online.

Do the shop owners on Yonge street give us a private room to make our own purchase decisions and then escort us discreetly out the back door after we're done? No! At the same time, they don't shout out to the world that Jeff just bought very large lingerie for his very large wife! And neither does the internet shopping experience! You may be given the option to have your purchase appear in a Facebook news feed every now and then, but that's your choice.

Granted, Facebook's recent unleashing of Open Graph and Likes caused some confusion on how to properly set privacy settings around it. They took care of that quite efficiently by the way. But still I hear complaints all the time about privacy this and privacy that. Take responsibility for it yourself or suffer the consequences. If you post a picture on Facebook, if you Tweet something, if you like a product or brand, others will see you.

Disclaimer - If you are one of those who worry that your actions on a website will allow the government to start reading your private emails, this article is not for you. And I urge you to grab some Alcan Alluminum Foil and start making your hat. Just don't buy it online, someone might see you!).

The point is, there is so much potential for the internet to make our lives better. To make our shopping experiences more enjoyable. To be served the content we want to see. The personalized experience is right at our fingertips and has been for years. We see glimpses of it every now and then, but really it should be much more prominent in our every day lives.

I believe the reason I don't get my orange juice sent to my room anytime I stay at a Hilton Hotel is because when figuring out the dollars and cents of creating that personalized experience through basic data mining, the concern that the gesture could backfire into a privacy complaint is enough to put any project of this nature on hold or kill it altogether. I believe the businesses that ignore the privacy hype and take this next important step, both in the virtual world and the real world will benefit from offering the personalized experience before their competitors do.

Share |

Checklist for a Great Ad

Peter Mosley

I saw that at this year's Marketing Awards they will be picking out the Best of the Decade ad campaign. You can go here to pick your favorite.

It got me thinking ... what is a great ad? Here is a short primer ...

Have a look at your ads. Take a gander and ask yourself the following questions.

1.Is there one big idea?
2.Does the ad discriminate you from your competitors?
3.Does the ad involve the target customer?
4.Does the ad establish a relationship with the customer?
5.Is it credible - is it genuine?
6.Is it simple and clear?
7.Does it integrate the Brand name with the central idea?
8.Does it take full advantage of the medium?
9.Is the idea campaignable?
10.Does it build the personality of your Brand?
11.Does your ad offer a major benefit - is it specific or vague?
12.Is the benefit easy to grasp, can the audience get it at a glance?
13.Does the attention getting element in the ad draw the audience to the benefit - or is it a gimmick for its own sake?
14.Can readers identify with the copy and the visuals?
15.Is the ad logically organized?
16.Does the copy really create a desire to own or use the product/service?
17.Is the copy believable?

Share |

Steve Jobs Makes Us Re-think Web Design

Jon Cogan

Apple recently announced that they have absolutely no plans to enable Flash content on iPhones, iPods or iPads and this has made everyone in our business re-think the utilization of Flash in web content. But the more conventional wisdom would be to think multi-platform. Think inclusive rather than exclusive.

What this announcement really brings home is the difference between the wired and mobile web. The world is changing and mobile devices are leading the way. If popular devices such as Apple's repertoire do not support one of the most popular animation applications on the internet, an adaptation or a correction if you will, has to take place somewhere down the line.

One thing seems certain. The adaptation will not come from Apple. They have listed reason after reason why their devices will not support Flash.. And all these reasons are quite valid. Apple believes in the open web, and Flash is closed and proprietary (even though many of their products, including the operating system on the iPhone, iPod and iPad are proprietary). This closed third-party architecture can be quite ubiquitous for developers when trying to integrate with these platforms. From a more basic perspective, Flash doesn't support touch navigation, which is a biggie, and can be a big drain on battery life. Another biggie.

So I get it. I understand Apple's position. It makes sense.

That doesn't change the fact that this stance they are taking is completely incompatible with today's web. So many sites offer Flash today as a central part of their content. The smart sites detect if a the Flash player is available, and if it is not, it serves up a boring placeholder image, and that cool user experience is lost. It's not Apple's fault. It certainly isn't Adobe's fault. And it also really isn't the designer's fault either. It is the fault of the web as we know it today. The web is primarily designed for the wired, not the mobile device.

Yes, there are plenty of mobile versions of sites being produced. Basically, these are stripped down versions of websites, lightweight interpretations that play nicely in the mobile world. But the iPhone offers an interface canvas that can easily allow for all the bells and whistles. The iPad in particular certainly should be able to keep up with the media rich content of today's web, no? Considering that you can play HD quality video on the thing!

What we have here is a complete change from what we expected a few years ago. Back then we were starting to see platforms coming together, making web design simple in that it was truly becoming a build once, run anywhere medium. But that has changed because the media has changed. Mobile users demand that content be delivered compatible with the devices they own, and at the same time, they will be unimpressed with the overly stripped-down. We are reaching a time where content from the world wide web will need to dynamically and drastically adjust for the platform, and web designers will be challenged to make that happen. Even more challenged will be the agencies as they try to convince their clients that they don't just need to add the mobile version for their website, but the iPad, or touch navigation version as well.

Share |

Web 3.0 Please God ... make this stop.

Peter Mosley 

<rant>
This article appearing in Now Toronto which speaks about the arrival of Web 3.0 is rife with sensationalism, trite snippets and sound bites. Sadly, it has no relevant connection to the Net.

I will not denigrate NOW Toronto  regardless of their political views nor their chock-full-of-escort-ads section and ad revenue - what I will put down is this search for something to say about the future of the Net. Oh and for all you folks who read NOW Mag denigrate means to put down (Borrowed from Bob Newhart!)

Ok, I am old. 59 years old, in fact.

The Net has been around as long as I have. It was created in 1951. So was I.  And since 1951 it has done just fine regardless of the Web 2.0, Social Media and now Web 3.0 labels folks want to create. If you were not there since the beginning, trust me, everyone and their brother, sister, cousin, wierd old Uncle and son-in-law has tried to port over Shovelware online. It is a virtual mall, it is a magazine, it is DM, it is a record label, it is cheap TV etc etc etc etc (Notice 4, count em, 4 etc!) It is none of these. It is the Net. If ya want to see someone NOT getting the Net, watch someone spouting these tired, hackneyed terms.

In this article, for the record, lets just point out that there is no such thing as Web 2.0. The underlying intent of Mr O'Reilly's coined phrase was that the web had changed. The best explanation I have heard was that when the web came along we put our word docs there. We hyperlinked to them. Then we got fancy after a while and put up all sorts of jumping bunnies and throbbing gristle in these docs. But we were simply serving up documents.
When the Web changed it changed fundamentally. We were able to have all your your data talk to all my data. Think Excel vs Word. Google is the best example of this. Hold on, I must stop and sigh. I do love Google.
Anyway, je digress ...  this new Web NOW talks about - in the guise of Apple and the iPad is so not new. AOL did all this in the 80s. A closed-circuit-go-to-my-server-dial-up-thing and we will pretend it is the Net (Don't ya just love a tmesis?) On AOL you are not really online. Just like a Bulletin Board System was not online.

Apple is an amazing company - the digital centre of your life. Hell, I know it's mine. My iPhone, my iPod, my MacBook Pro, my desktop iTunes, Logic  etc etc - Oh, I want an iPad, and will get one. Not right this second, mind you, but I will get one. I look at it as the ultimate interface and control device. Imagine controlling Logic with that device. [le sigh ... ]

As for the Net - it is still wonderfully simple and elegant and slightly broken. The Cluetrain written in the late 90s really spelled out all of this - please have a peek  http://cluetrain.com/. Sadly, most new-comers have neither read, nor heard about this. When folks mention the net as a conversation The Cluetrain coined that BTW, they say this with absolutely no concept of what an online conversation really is. It is not the real world modality of you in a mall chatting with your friend. It is much more. It is a way for you to be at one end and me at the other. And the plain truth is that the more shit we have in the middle the more the conversation is devalued. Apple is not building a conversation tool. They are building a digital interface. Avec neat apps.

The idea that Apple is, or will, take over the Web or make something that emulates an 80s AOL is laughable.

If it wasn't for Apple there would not have been the proliferation and wonder we saw online. Most folks built all the early sites on Macs. I was part of MAGIC - the Macintosh Awareness Group in Canada which turned into one of the very first ISPs. Apple was and is the easiest way to get online. Full stop.

Apple is doing what Apple does best. Increase shareholder value. And if they could do that supporting gambling and porn they would. But they don't. They have amazing products - I use em daily - and their closed-circuit culture is just that.

iTunes arguably the best music delivery system. Their stores, real and online, the new bookstore and all of the wonderful stuff they put out, well ...  le sigh encore.

Stop with the BS!

</rant>

Share |

Understanding the Facebook Like Button

Jon Cogan

 I have received a lot of questions from people asking me what this new Facebook "Like" button is all about. In the simplest of terms, "Like" has replaced the word "Fan." But there is more too it than just that.

Content on any site can now be fitted with this "Like" button. Upon clicking "Like" a message appears in the end users Facebook newsfeed that the user liked the content. A counter appears with the "Like" button showing how many people "Like" that piece of content, or website in general.

The Like button enables users to make connections to your pages and share content back to their friends on Facebook with one click. Since the content is hosted by Facebook, the button can display personalized content whether or not the user has logged into your site. For logged-in Facebook users, the button is personalized to highlight friends who have also liked the page.

This is great news for businesses as it now has become as easy as a single click to have a company's web content shared across the viral Facebook network. Even better, a page gets created on Facebook for every "Like" button implemented. This offers content providers the ability to view the information of anyone who has chosen to "Like" a piece of content. From there, the sky is the limit as to what the content provider can do next. Companies that are offering up the content in the form of say, a product page on their website, can directly market that particular product to any of those "fans" (now called "likers" I guess).

The fact that most user privacy settings are set to share rather openlywith their friends, even a Liker's friends become open to the publisher. This last part has raised the biggest privacy concerns.

Let's say you decide that you don't want to share your information with the sites you interact with on the web, but you do have a very open policy with your friends. You better make sure this open policy does not extend to sharing settings for applications and sites you interact with. If you visit privacy settings in your account profile, you can change this to be more closed off. Understand that if you close off sharing with sites entirely, you will be missing out on a lot of what the Facebook powered web will have to offer, which is a more personalized web experience.

Pandora is a great example. After the like feature was added, people were waking up to their favorite songs and bands being played. Why? Because Pandora found it in each user's profile. A bit creepy? Yes. Pretty col too though, huh?

Share |

What Promoted Tweets Mean to Brands

Jon Cogan, Blend360 Communications

Earlier this week, Twitter announced the launch of their ad model, Promoted Tweets. Essentially, this will work similarly to Google paid search except that instead of an ad being displayed, it is your Twitter update. Twitter will also be basing placement, longevity and price based on Tweet performance, measured by number of re tweets, favoriting or replies.

But what will this mean for brands. Well as soon as you look at the business application to this, you see a very different advertising tactic at play here. It once again comes down to the fact that social media and the networks that make them up are best used by marketers as a branding tactic, not direct response. Whereas paid search is all about driving traffic for the purpose of converting visitors into customers, this will not hold water in the social spectrum. It's all about knowing the audience and the theater they are in. Google's ads are targeted to searchers with an intent to purchase. Twitter's searchers are trying to get involved in or expand on a conversation. This is paying for engagement, not paying for a directed customer response. Very different, especially when trying to explain the ROI potential of Promoted Tweets.

Twitter has kicked off this program by offering exclusively to their established partners , including Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks and Virgin America. These brands have the budgets that can afford them brand impressions through a service such as this. Smaller advertisers will have a much lower cost threshold, and it will be interesting to see how CFOs respond to their marketing teams paying to advance an online conversation! There is a bit of a failsafe at work here though as Twitter will significantly lower the Promoted Tweets placement value should it not be much of a conversation starter. So in this way, advertisers will at least be able to take comfort in the fact that if their click fees are high, its likely because they have established a high level of engagement. This can serve as a very useful model for what I like to call social crisis management. A Promoted Tweet responding to a negative scenario will be placed prominently, making it easier for the brand to get its message across.

Once Twitter's ad model is opened up to all advertisers, brands are going to have to make sure their Promoted Tweets are engaging, and that they fully invest themselves into the conversations they start (or attempt to finish).

You can read my general overview of Promoted Tweets Here.

Share |

Even more reason to to make ads Entertaining

Dave Orzakovski, Blend360 Communications

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=141860

Why can't advertisers see that the ads they are posting are so bad that "Nearly 16% of viewers click away from a pre-roll video ad rather than watch it to get to video content".

This is why we need to really push for more entertaining ads...even more so when online.

Share |

Moms on Facebook Offer Great Social Marketing Lessons

Jon Cogan, Blend360 Communications
Re-published from www.joncogan.com

 It is a well known fact by now that women are more likely to shop online than men. Since the majority of women choose motherhood, and since the age demographic of the typical online female shopper is smack dab in the middle of childrearing years, moms in general have become a marketers sweet spot, especially in the online world.

Where are moms spending a great deal of their time online? Facebook, of course.

A recent e-Marketer survey showed that Facebook is a great way to engage mothers and drive online sales, but it needs to be done on their terms. For instance, moms are not all too keen on advertising on social networks. Successfully engaging mothers is much more likely to happen when they voluntarily fan your Facbeook page. This, like many of the other findings, support what most social media marketing experts agree with concerning the best practices of any social media strategy.

As my readers already know, I am an avid supporter of Facebook ads because of the fact that the pay-per-click model, coupled with their extremely high conversion rates from click traffic offer advertisers with free, hyper targeted brand impressions. But the graph above does indicate some real data to support what we already know - that Facebook users are there to socialize, not click on ads.

Moms are more likely to engage with a brand through a Faceboook fan page. Even though the study showed only 10.4% of moms are on Facebook to checkout companies or products, around 75% were a fan of at least one company or brand.  As much as 16% of moms are fans of 10 or more product pages.

So moms do enjoy the interaction with their favorite brands and products. For an engagement strategy, a well constructed Facebook page with custom content is a must when trying to reach this valuable target market. That means just about any brand who has products to sell online (yes, even men's products because who do you think is buying them)?

These findings should also make marketers think very carefully about their fan acquistion and Twitter follower acquisition strategies. Giving away product to Facebook users is a great way to get a lot of fans in a short period of time, but if you do not plan on bringing in any engagement value to your Facebook page, you should probably keep your giveaways! It is clear that moms, like mostly anyone else, want to interact with companies on their own terms, so giving them something of quality to interact with is the only way to ensure that the cheap quick-fix fan acquisition strategy gives way to a high quality engagement experience between company and Facebook fan.

via www.joncogan.com

Share |

Nexopia Faces Privacy Challenge

Steve Sussman, Blend360 Communications

 First they took down Facebook, now the Ottawa privacy police have widened their scope and beefed up enforcement as they target Nexopia. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), a consumer advocacy group based in Ottawa, has asked the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to investigate alleged violations of Canadian privacy law by popular teen social networking site, Nexopia.

PIAC’s complaint identified six Nexopia privacy practices it says violate the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. In particular, PIAC alleges that Nexopia fails to obtain proper consent to release its users’ profiles and personal information to the public via the Internet. Sounds almost as bad as the supposed secure information in Canada’s government census. After all, who would you trust with your information? Seems like the Mounties are not standing on guard for thee. 


"Social networking is massively popular with children and teens," said John Lawford, counsel for PIAC. "Kids can use social networking positively to socialize with their friends and express themselves in different ways in different communities. But young users often post personal details about themselves online without realizing that these details are available beyond Nexopia to the public Internet."

Lawford notes that Nexopia also provides an advanced search function to search for members.

"Nexopia’s member search engine can be used by everyone with an Internet connection and is a worrisome tool: it permits a very fine-grained search of Nexopia members. This tool does not respect youth privacy."

Nexopia is being used by approximately 70% of teenagers and young adults in western Canada and has more than 1.4 million registered users, with more joining every day.

"Nexopia’s default settings are set to share information with the whole world. We believe that many Nexopia users, especially young people, don’t appreciate the extent to which their personal information is being shared beyond their circle of friends," said Janet Lo, co-counsel for PIAC on the complaint.

As more and more people world-wide agree to share on the internet, it is obvious that they are not in charge of what information is being shared. Without moving the laws forward with the tech times, there’s a real threat that you and your information may become public domain.

Share |

Ads, Ads, Everywhere. When - or Better Yet - Where Will it Stop?

Steve Sussman, Blend360 Communications

 It would seem like there is no stone left unturned when it comes to advertising.Supermarket eggs have been stamped with the name of a new CBS show. Subway turnstiles bear messages from Geico auto insurance. Chinese food cartons promote Continental Airways. US Airways is selling ads on motion sickness bags. And the trays used in airport security lines have been hawking Rolodexes.

"We never know where the consumer is going to be at any point in time, so we have to find a way to be everywhere," said Linda Kaplan Thaler, chief executive at the Kaplan Thaler Group, a New York ad agency. "Ubiquity is the new exclusivity."

Age is now no barrier. Some school buses now play radio ads meant for children. Last summer, Walt Disney advertised its "Little Einsteins" DVDs for preschoolers on the paper liners of examination tables in 2,000 pediatricians' offices, according to Supply Marketing, a company that gives doctors free supplies to use branded products.

Some people have had enough.After some "got milk?" billboards started emitting the odor of chocolate chip cookies at San Francisco bus stops, many people complained, and the city told the California Milk Processing Board to turn off the smell.

Now the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey canceled a plan to post ads for Geico, featuring its Gecko mascot, at tollbooths and elsewhere around the George Washington Bridge, a deal that was valued at $3.2 million. Politicians and preservationists had raised aesthetic concerns (others complained the city was selling the ad space too cheaply).

Yankelovich, a market research firm, estimates that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day compared with up to 5,000 today. About half the 4,110 people surveyed last spring by Yankelovich said they thought marketing and advertising today was out of control.

"What all marketers are dealing with is an absolute sensory overload," said Gretchen Hofmann, executive vice president of marketing and sales at Universal Orlando Resort. The landscape is "overly saturated" as companies press harder to make their products stand out, she said.

More is on the horizon. Old-fashioned billboards are being converted to digital screens, which are considered the next big thing. They allow advertisers to change messages frequently from remote computers, timing their pitches to sales events or the hour of the day. In Canada Tim Hortons has been experimenting with drive through screens that offer the weather and when the temperature drops the signage automatically begins to pitch hot chocolate.

In some office buildings, for instance, video screens in elevators provide news and information as well as ads. This year video screens will be installed in about 5,000 New York City taxicabs, where passengers will see both advertisements and NBC programs, according to Clear Channel Outdoor, which is installing the screens.

But advertisers are still trying to determine what exactly the right way is, and that has led to some intriguing experiments.

At the Amway Arena in Orlando, Fla., for instance, an interactive floor display for McDonald's last year showed the head of a teenage boy with small Big Mac burgers flying past; when people stepped on the ad, the burgers bounced away from their feet.

An interactive ad for Adidas appears in the Herald Square subway station in New York City. Passers-by last week said they liked the sign, which looked like a static picture of a sneaker until someone walked past it, triggering a motion sensor that sent a spray of miniature sneakers flying.

Obviously, the future is here and the only thing we can expect is to expect the unexpected....hey there's an ad on the bottom of you shoe....

Share |