One thing I have noticed as I watch in real time is a growing trend of brands using social network URLs instead of their own. Below are examples from Uniball and Toyota. I remember seeing another for an upcoming movie but I forgot the name and campaign.

The first example is Uniball which makes pens and pushes people to their Facebook page for more info. They do not have a copy of the commercial online (that I could find) which is the first problem. The second is that if you visit their corporate site www.uniball.com there is no mention of the ad either or the Facebook page.
The URL that is getting so much airtime is below
Facebook.com/uniball

Going to the Facebook page you can either login to connect with and become a fan of Uniball or click through to enter your information to get a free pen.

What is the metric of success here? Free pen signups? Facebook page fans?

The second is a bigger brand, Toyota, pushing people to their YouTube page Youtube.com/toyota (via @amandapey)

In this case the video page automatically starts playing the commercial. If the metric of success is eyeballs on the video, this page behavior is artificially inflating the “videos watched” number. It is also notable that you cannot embed the videos from here but only share via a YouTube link.

So what is the advertising goal of these campaigns?
What are the metrics of success?
How do you measure accountability and targeting?

I am not suggesting that sending folks to another companies domain is a bad idea in all cases, but I wonder the value of have non integrated campaigns running and potentially confusing customers. It is tough to have a sound message across all platforms, but it should be considered when people search for, interact with, and ultimately buy from your brand in so many different places.

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Social Network URLs – the future of advertising?

At first, much like any other new public forum, Spencer has to spark conversation and ask a few questions. But what follows is usually a dialogue between users of the system, or newcomers. This allows people the opportunity to meet people behind the service, but also get an idea of what really goes on before taking the plunge and becoming a paying customer.

This is a great example of loading up the top of your sales funnel.
Started by this tweet.

By inviting current and prospective customers to talk together you are building a brand ethos.

The beginnings of these chat rooms are always tough, like any new group, but once the conversations get started the rest is easy. You have to seed the discussion with news, updates, offers, invitations, or even soliciting feedback. Soon the conversations will happen between others in the room and you have achieved your goal.

This approach may not work for all businesses and brands, but if you can get a handful of people to click through to a chatroom once a month – you know you have interested people.

Many companies have two way communication via blogs and comments – but there is something powerful about a real time chat where you actually get to interact with the folks behind a business.

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Talk to your customers – and let them talk to each other

It seems to me that more and more companies are working towards what the cable and phone companies are calling the triple play package. This is where you get phone, Internet, and TV service all from one provider all with one bill, hopefully lowering the overall price and making things less complicated.

I have found recently that this convergence is starting to happen (or at least trying to happen) in the world of online advertising. I think the three plays in this case are Search, Display, and Other (which could be video, audio, etc…)

Right now there are specialized firms that concentrate on each of these areas; Search Marketing firms, banner optimization companies and ad exchanges, and video networks or overlay companies. Each is vying for advertising dollars to provide value in the form of results back to the advertising agency or brand they are working for.

In the case of banners, this process happens in the form of end of campaign (some in campaign) data as Clicks, Impressions, and Actions. This may or may not be able to be integrated back into your Business Intelligence system to track against other advertising efforts.

In the case of Search Marketing, this process happens in the form of daily, weekly, or monthly reports that have Clicks, Impressions, Actions, and perhaps a view other metrics. This usually ties into other search campaigns going on, and hopefully ties into your BI system to track against other advertising effort.

In the case of Other, lets use video, the process happens in the form of reporting surfacing activity, interaction, and clicks – similar to banners. The results here are hopefully exportable, but certainly not integrated with your Business Intelligence reconciliation effort.

Companies are now trying to integrate these advertising efforts together by using one delivery system such as ATLAS or DART, or one business intelligence system to suck in all the metrics in the form of .xls, .csv or other format and tie everything together.

For this data reconciliation to happen correctly you need a keystone or unique identifier within all three data sets. In the case of online advertising this comes in the form of a unique ID associated with each campaign down, and hopefully down to the specific row in the table.

The benefit of having a unique key that travels along with each creative, action, or ad copy is that you can then input the data back into one system to track and take action upon.

By connecting your advertising efforts of Search, Display, and Other together you get a Tripe Play data reconciliation happening which provides true ROI on every $1.00 that goes out the door. Without doing this reconciliation you cannot know your true ROI.

Currently this is not possible with less tracked forms of media such as TV, print, Radio, OOH, and a few others – but that is another conversation.

For the past few years there have been specialties in the forms of hybrid agencies with a ton of technology, and the last mile of service to get the job done. Many are working on solutions they want to put in the hands of the agencies and brands themselves. This is a complicated pivot for the world of advertising, and a complex problem to put in the hands of a media planner or media buyer within an agency.

I look at this as the last mile in fiber optics, something Verizon has recently started to try to solve with bringing FiOS to homes.

Fiber optics has been around for awhile and within the grasp of consumers – but telco’s have never been able to solve this last mile problem. As early as a few years ago telco’s were able to bring fiber to the node (FTTN) but not to the premises (FTTP). Only recently have we seen companies willing to absorb major fees and do 6 hour service calls to accomplish this FTTP last mile problem.

This is the problem occuring with high yield banner networks and high efficiency search marketing companies. Each have specialties and staff trained to use their tools. They are reluctant to take on a new medium let alone report on a new type of ad – yet all need to converge.

The self serve tools coming out of these companies are a good first step. Translating these tools into API’s that can be used across companies with varying specialties is the next step. Disintermediating the agencies themselves with this new breed of agency follows that evolution. Finally, putting these tools, concepts, and specialty at the brand and company level makes the new super agencies obsolete.

I do not have a time frame on any of this, and I am not even sure this prediction will come true. My thesis is based on what happened and what is continuing to happen to large agencies and what has happened in the television upfront buying market over the past decade.

Today, it seems these new systems will not reach the traditional agencies for some time. Only recently has search marketing expertise been brought in house, acquired, or built up by the large players. Some brands have taken on the burden of building themselves as well.

Right now the convergence of reporting systems, ad delivery networks, tracking correctly, and making each dollar spent accountable and as hard working as possible are problems worth solving.

I have had great conversations around this topic recently with folks working on solving them, and I invite anyone working within this area to chime in and tell me their thoughts. This blog is sometimes a free flow of ideas for me to understand a market and this post helps me do exactly that.

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Working towards the Triple Play (the last mile problem)

My isssue;

I have been using online bill pay for years to pay my Chase card. This month I used the same online bill pay service, and an error somewhere along the way created a situation where “Chase was told by my bank that my account could not be located”. Payment was not rendered and I suffered a late charge. Since the “error” was not on the Chase side they declined to refund my late charge. I explained that my bank account was still active, I have made multiple payments before, never been late, etc… all to a indifferent supervisor reading from a script… At the end of the call I asked to cancel my card – to which the supervisor had no problem doing. Although I should not complain at the ease at which he canceled, there was not a hint of customer retention other than scripted “thanks for being a customer” lines. Since I feel the need to share my disdain I even went so far as to explain to the supervisor that my impression of Chase was ruined and I could not believe the lack of service. He was again indifferent as his script did not have a flowchart for him to work with.

Why share my story? (or why you may think it is silly to blog about this)

I wanted to share my story here to highlight a growing trend of indifference of customer service agents and the discontent I have heard from others (and as promised want to share here) I have found a larger number of companies and customer service agents unwilling to break from scripts and flow charts of problem solving to really understand the needs of customers. This year especially I have been exposed to a higher number of customer service lines due to a number of factors and consider myself an expert at getting things done. Whether it is a wireless company, local utility, mortgage company, service provider, or your average credit card – I have talked to them all. I wonder if the parent companies are at fault, the training facilities, or just the lack of leadership at the call center. Regardless of who is to blame, this is a growing problem.

Since the problem is growing and we continue to enter a period of economic slowdown – I wonder what trends we will see come out of this. The toleration for poor service continues to decline, while the expectation for immediate service is on the rise. Many people share my feelings (another reason to share all this here) and there is no end in site. As a platform for my thoughts this writing served its purpose. The sad part is that I am not looking to gain anything from this post, as my card is in fact canceled, but hopefully this is a warning to others.

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Chase (or the decline of customer service)

As you may remember I have liked the previous Sony Bravia ads and posted both of them here.

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Domino City – Sony Bravia Ad

AppAppeal looks at and reviews web apps and does comparisons between them. For a quick example see the Bookmarking section. They spell out the details with short and to the point descriptions which can help someone looking for more information. Obviously they have a large library of apps to go, but this is certainly a good start.

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Web 2.0 World Map

Customer Relations
American Airlines

To clarify, my suggestions in this letter were:

1) Improve customer service by offering online surveys as well as email support. I told them to take a page out of the Jet Blue book: be pro-active. use technology to provide more efficient customer service.

2) I asked American Airlines for some form of compensation for the cancellation of my 3 business meetings and I suggested that I will never use the airline again. As a result, they sent me a $50 voucher which is a joke!

I understand that this airline is struggling and will most likely go bankrupt soon. I appreciate their response but it was hardly timely. If they’re going to email me a response, why did I have to mail a letter to Texas? Moreover, a $50 voucher is a joke and it’s hardly enough to get me to book another flight with this sub-par organization. Once again, I think American Airlines should ditch their stupid in flight magazine and focus on a 21st century website. Look at your competition!

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Best & Worst Airlines: Follow-Up

I’ve been travelling a fair amount lately and I’m beginning to get a little too familiar with the different airlines, airports and even gates. I am now starting to base my travel decisions on which airport and airline has the fastest and most comfortable security and boarding process.

Most Comfortable Experience

Delta at La Guardia is my preffered airline for business travel. The airline have adequate security lines, a comfortable modern terminal, and much bigger, newer planes. If only they had live Direct TV and a better online booking experience, I might call them my favorite.

Best All Around Airline

Personally, I think JetBlue has done the best job overall. They have managed to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack while creating a very desirable brand. Some of the highlights include: newer planes, better service, cheaper flights, live TV, more legroom, and best of all, you can book one-way or return from a different airport without a surcharge. The also have the most customer friendly, intuitive website which should be a prerequisite for all airlines these days.

Not too long ago, I was delayed on the runway with JetBlue for 3 hours at JFK (as were all planes). Before I could even think about calling customer service, there was a $100 voucher in my email. Instead of leaving a bad taste in my mouth, JetBlue won me over

The only problem with JetBlue these days is that their JFK terminal is overcapacity. There are seriously long security lines. The good news is that there will be another new terminal expansion before the end of the year.

Lastly, from a marketing perspective I believe that JetBlue has done the best job of creating a fantastic desirable brand remarkably, without wasting a fortune on traditional advertising. JetBlue has mastered the e-marketing – from its well-timed promotional emails and refined mobile site to its easy-to-use online booking function. I would love to read a marketing case study on JetBlue.

The Worst Airline

I try to stay away from American Airlines as much as possible – I’m not really sure how or why they are still in business (must be the name). This airline takes the cake in all categories: they have the worst lines at the airport, the oldest rundown planes, horrendous customer service, a website from 1998 and the worst in-flight routine. There’s nothing like looking out the window and seeing paint peeling off the wing.
I recently showed up to La Guardia airport for a business trip to Atlanta. After a 45 minute security line, I found out my flight was cancelled. The re-routed me through Chicago and I had to cancel all my meetings for the day. When I asked what my other options were, the gate agent told me to call the 1-800 number (which had a 32 minute wait at 7:45 am) thus ensuring that I will NEVER fly American Airlines again unless I absolutely must. A simple email this morning teling me that my flight was cancelled and what my options were would have gone a long way.

In the ultra competitive air travel market, I really don’t understand how American Airlines could be so poor.

Other Airlines

I hear great things about Southwest and Virgin America. I would love to try them some day.

On another note, Thai Airways has the best food I’ve ever had on an airline. Believe it or not, their pad thai, green curry, and red curry rivals that of many well known Thai restaurants in New York!

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The Best & The Worst Airlines 2008

Most legitimate online ad networks offer marketers a quality guarantee when it comes to publisher content and ad placement. However, one apparent problem with Ad Exchanges is that there aren’t as many checks in place to ensure brand-safe venues. In an open market, anything is game and with thousands of options, most agencies and marketers do not have the time to sift through all of the options. Similarly, Marketing.fm raised this question last year when we discovered embarassing brand placements within various User Generated Content publishers. Below is a perfect example of how a blind buy across Yahoo’s Right Media can lead to highly controversial ad placement on

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A Slight Problem With Ad Exchanges… (warning NSFW)

Technorati Tags: wall street journal, wsj, 2007 ads, marketing.fm

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WSJ: Best & Worst Ads of 2007