We all know reputations take a long time to build and can be destroyed in a very short space of time by a lack of judgement or misguided actions and I'm not talking about the young executive who throws her name away at the office party after having one two many tequilas.
Today some clever digital natives from a company called Quirk showed us how they track and measure the reputation health of companies on the www. They spoke about about how a company or brand's online reputation can spread faster through www than traditional media channels and unlike a newspaper or a radio report which is transient or thrown away, thanks to Google it will live forever. You can't delete stuff disgruntled customers may have blogged or posted comments about, although I'm sure there are many companies out there that wouldn't mind if some hack created a virus to erase the damming evidence against them? Despite SA's online penetration lag, local companies should be tracking www and formulating strategies to deal with negative online noise. I enjoyed having some robust discussion with the passionate Quirk team around the influence of a blogger out there versus a journalist in traditional media. This was an interesting debate. If a blogger has an avid following who hang on every word blogged and said blogger trashes your brand, could they do more damage than a respected columnist or editor of a major newspaper or magazine who does the same? Interesting thought. In terms of our business, I reckon traditional press will do more damage to us right now than online, mostly because the Internet has not nearly reached the scale yet of our national press in terms of eyeballs. The press in SA also enjoys very high levels of credibility among South African communities. However, what I will concede is that popular bloggers can be exceptionally powerful in their persuasion of their dedicated audiences, who in turn tend to be key influencers in society and this is a critical consideration. If a person trusts and believes everything you say, they will act on it. We have tracked some fascinating blogs rating us a great bank to do business with versus other banks. but we have also been at the butt end of some unforgiving remarks that have needed addressing. The noise out there is growing as more and more flock to the web and given brand reputation is a business imperative, we frankly don't have a choice, but to get in there and be a part of it.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
wealthy are still reading
I read in Advertising Age the results of a recent media survey in the US. These results didn’t surprise me. The survey showed the wealthier in the population still read print publications just as much now as they did five years ago, that electronic and digital media has not displaced this consumer habit. This is not to say this audience aren’t adopters of digital, it’s that they haven’t adopted it at the expense of their print consumption. The media that has lost their attention is in fact television.
“Respondents making more than $100,000 annually said their average hours online had grown to 22.1 each week from 10.7, while the time they said they spent watching TV sunk to 18.6 hours from 23.7 in the 2003 survey. And they said their time spent listening to the radio had declined slightly. But they said they're regularly reading an average of 15.3 print publications, a notch above 15.1 five years earlier. Readers making more than $250,000 said they read just as many publications, 23.8 now, as they did in 2003.”
Research at our bank among our most affluent customers shows a similar pattern. Print, in fact Weekly Newspapers being very dominant, followed by Radio, Television and then the Internet.
There is an obvious correlation between age and wealth and the wealthier segment of the market tend to be older. It makes sense, the older you get the less likely you are to change habits and we know that readers bond heavily with print. I know people who have been reading the same array of print media since their youth, so usurping this media habit is nigh impossible.
Recently the Unilever Institute released a study called PrimeTime which looked at consumers 40+, the first study of its kind in SA. While I had to question some of the insights on Internet use, the study certainly offered interesting observations about how wealthier and older consumers interact with media. In the US survey, only 40% of affluent consumers said they use their cellphones or mobile devices to access the internet. But that proportion rises with affluence, so that fully 57% of the segment earning more than $250,000 reported using mobile devices to get online.
I think this is great news for print. There’s no reason why its relevance needs to be usurped by rush of digital growth.
“Respondents making more than $100,000 annually said their average hours online had grown to 22.1 each week from 10.7, while the time they said they spent watching TV sunk to 18.6 hours from 23.7 in the 2003 survey. And they said their time spent listening to the radio had declined slightly. But they said they're regularly reading an average of 15.3 print publications, a notch above 15.1 five years earlier. Readers making more than $250,000 said they read just as many publications, 23.8 now, as they did in 2003.”
Research at our bank among our most affluent customers shows a similar pattern. Print, in fact Weekly Newspapers being very dominant, followed by Radio, Television and then the Internet.
There is an obvious correlation between age and wealth and the wealthier segment of the market tend to be older. It makes sense, the older you get the less likely you are to change habits and we know that readers bond heavily with print. I know people who have been reading the same array of print media since their youth, so usurping this media habit is nigh impossible.
Recently the Unilever Institute released a study called PrimeTime which looked at consumers 40+, the first study of its kind in SA. While I had to question some of the insights on Internet use, the study certainly offered interesting observations about how wealthier and older consumers interact with media. In the US survey, only 40% of affluent consumers said they use their cellphones or mobile devices to access the internet. But that proportion rises with affluence, so that fully 57% of the segment earning more than $250,000 reported using mobile devices to get online.
I think this is great news for print. There’s no reason why its relevance needs to be usurped by rush of digital growth.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
value of values
Today I was reminded of the value of values. I spent time with our Chief Executive Officer discussing the challenges of allowing our staff to blog, communicate and express themselves on www and mobile and wherever else with complete freedom. He reminded me that the company's key values would provide the framework to support this freedom. Our bank encourages all it's staff to uphold values which include honesty, accountability, respect, trust, compassion, self control and helpfulness. When you have a strong value system you can allow freedom of expression to the extreme and not feel threatened by open debate, in fact it's really encouraged. I later went to an intimate gathering of key industry players hosted by Prime Media where Kgalema Motlanthe was the guest. He shared his vision for SA as deputy president of the ANC. He spoke about the importance of values, of enabling education, making health care a right for all and importantly ensuring every South African has the right to feel safe in their homes. Crime is a priority to tackle. I went to talk to him afterwards and found him to be very approachable, warm and friendly. He seemed to be genuine in his empathy for my concerns about our country. Perhaps he was humouring me, "brand of white" but I would like to believe he is genuine in his support of values. To me this is a sure sign of great leadership.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
who gives you permission to read those books?
"who gives you permission to read those books?" Sorry, its not about porn! Rather, this was the question Christopher Locke (Publisher of Entropy Gradient Reversals and contributor to The Cluetrain Manifesto) was asked by a stranger in a coffee shop in Tokyo some years back. Locke had started a new job and was falling short on his computer science knowledge, so he bought a stack of books and lugged them to the coffee shop. Locke admitted; "I thought about this deeply, and I'm thinking about it still."
I really relate to this, because I've also bought, borrowed and found stacks of books about www and its implications for marketers and media. Some days I too am flying by the seat of my pants and the more I can teach myself the less risk I reckon I have of going into a tail spin and crashing. This week was no exception. The www is challenging us to engage with our customers online, but within the confines of the National Credit Act, it's challenging stuff. Banks can't just let their staff or anyone loose on their customers through any old Facebook sites, blogs or Twitter, unless they’re properly equipped (FICA accredited) and can provide help and guidance responsibly. As much as we all believe in the freedom of expression www embodies, whether we like it or not, a bank is not a fast food outlet. We're dealing with people's hard earned cash and their difficulties in managing it. As a more seasoned banker counselled me recently, "This is not a media business Gisele. No-one likes banks!"
I'm hoping to reconcile the need for responsibility and measured interaction with the ClueTrain hit-one-outta-the-park Twelve Step programe for Internet Business Success, which says 1) have a sense of humour (some days I wonder...), 2) relax, 3) find your voice and use it? (More difficult), 4) tell the truth (we are actually very good at this), 5) don’t panic (good advice that, will remember next time), 6) enjoy yourself (doesn't everyone try), 7) be brave, 8) be curious, 9) play more (who would want to argue with that?), 10) dream always (of course), 11) listen up and 12) rap on (right on…there's no shortage of verbage).
Ok, so millions of South African's are drowning in debt - scary fact is our nation spends 70% of their income servicing debt. Our challenge is to harness our collective creative energies and engage in customer conversations online responsibly, which could result in positive closure, empowerment and ultimately financial redemption. If I sound like a zealot then fogive me. However, I'm pretty optimistic we'll get this right in the long run. However, there's no question we're going to get into a couple of tail spins trying.
I really relate to this, because I've also bought, borrowed and found stacks of books about www and its implications for marketers and media. Some days I too am flying by the seat of my pants and the more I can teach myself the less risk I reckon I have of going into a tail spin and crashing. This week was no exception. The www is challenging us to engage with our customers online, but within the confines of the National Credit Act, it's challenging stuff. Banks can't just let their staff or anyone loose on their customers through any old Facebook sites, blogs or Twitter, unless they’re properly equipped (FICA accredited) and can provide help and guidance responsibly. As much as we all believe in the freedom of expression www embodies, whether we like it or not, a bank is not a fast food outlet. We're dealing with people's hard earned cash and their difficulties in managing it. As a more seasoned banker counselled me recently, "This is not a media business Gisele. No-one likes banks!"
I'm hoping to reconcile the need for responsibility and measured interaction with the ClueTrain hit-one-outta-the-park Twelve Step programe for Internet Business Success, which says 1) have a sense of humour (some days I wonder...), 2) relax, 3) find your voice and use it? (More difficult), 4) tell the truth (we are actually very good at this), 5) don’t panic (good advice that, will remember next time), 6) enjoy yourself (doesn't everyone try), 7) be brave, 8) be curious, 9) play more (who would want to argue with that?), 10) dream always (of course), 11) listen up and 12) rap on (right on…there's no shortage of verbage).
Ok, so millions of South African's are drowning in debt - scary fact is our nation spends 70% of their income servicing debt. Our challenge is to harness our collective creative energies and engage in customer conversations online responsibly, which could result in positive closure, empowerment and ultimately financial redemption. If I sound like a zealot then fogive me. However, I'm pretty optimistic we'll get this right in the long run. However, there's no question we're going to get into a couple of tail spins trying.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
everyone's talking about it, but few are doing it properly
It was a week filled with mobile mania. There's a discernible pick up in the amount of discussion and deliberation around using mobile media as a new channel to market. After all there are more people in SA with mobile phones in their hands than there are PC’s, television sets and taxi’s combined. Admittedly I'm a bit of a mobile believer myself. Well its hard to ignore the sheer scale of the channel to market. We've just had great results from a recent MixIt campaign for our cellphone banking division and we've started testing Eyeballs Media a new mobile advertising channel. The app allows companies to advertise directly to customers through their mobile handsets. It's a very visual application and strictly opt-in for the customer, providing them the freedom of choice to consume advertising or not. It does have one particular drawback for me, and that is you have to have a symbian operating system on your phone to be able to download the app. If you're like me and have a Blackberry, then you're excluded. I'm assured by the Eyeballs team that discussions are underway with Blackberry to get around this. Despite this, I believe its worth giving it a crack as we will be able to directly measure its success or dare I say failure to deliver.
I also sat through a mobile marketing conference where the virtues of mobile were expounded. We were bombarded by lots of facts and figures. My experience at Cannes has spoilt me. The depth of knowledge and innovative delivery of mobile at the Cannes Advertising festival was of a far more superior quality than SA practitioners were able to deliver. However, there's no doubt the likes of of Joanne Scholtz from Group M, Gustav Praekel, Praekelt Consulting and Ian James from Ericcson had a lot of local insight to share. I have to say though my great disappointment was the presentation by Vodacom’s mobile head Rick Joubert. He hardsold his medium without shame, nor any creative use of mobile itself. Death by PowerPoint is hardly becoming from the country’s leading innovator in the mobile space.
At the end of day, I was assured my belief in the fourth screen is well founded and I also learned a cute new line from Paul Berney managing director of EMEA for the Mobile Marketing Association who said: “Mobile is like teenage sex, everyone is talking about it, but few are doing it properly.”
I also sat through a mobile marketing conference where the virtues of mobile were expounded. We were bombarded by lots of facts and figures. My experience at Cannes has spoilt me. The depth of knowledge and innovative delivery of mobile at the Cannes Advertising festival was of a far more superior quality than SA practitioners were able to deliver. However, there's no doubt the likes of of Joanne Scholtz from Group M, Gustav Praekel, Praekelt Consulting and Ian James from Ericcson had a lot of local insight to share. I have to say though my great disappointment was the presentation by Vodacom’s mobile head Rick Joubert. He hardsold his medium without shame, nor any creative use of mobile itself. Death by PowerPoint is hardly becoming from the country’s leading innovator in the mobile space.
At the end of day, I was assured my belief in the fourth screen is well founded and I also learned a cute new line from Paul Berney managing director of EMEA for the Mobile Marketing Association who said: “Mobile is like teenage sex, everyone is talking about it, but few are doing it properly.”
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The Dark Knight vs Halo 3?
I guess I’ve have been a really bad blogger for a while. I remember being told that if you want to be a good blogger you have to be consistent above all else. Well I did pretty well to start, but you know even bloggers have to have breaks. It’s not that I have faulted in my quest to improve my digital knowledge, in fact if anything I have learnt more than ever before. We’ve been experimenting with a lot of new digital interactive campaigns at the Bank. Soon we’ll go live with our very own avatars in a rich media campaign for Cellphone Banking for Business. Our Webworx team has established three different Facebook sites now, two branded YouTube sites and a marketing intranet. So it has been a really busy time with lot’s more stuff to come.
Today I learnt something really interesting about trends in digital interactive media. Games are one of the fastest growing media channels in this sphere. We don’t have much local information to go by, but if we look to North America where there is massive growth, the insights are indeed fascinating. Contrary to what everyone believes statistics in Northern America show that typical game players are not 22 male year old students, but are increasingly female stay at home moms. Wow, that floored me. There's also a huge boom in mobile games which appeal to a broad range of audiences. Companies are using mobile games to market their brands to customers. Taco Bell has enjoyed great success with this, giving their customers games which involve defending their food. Games are the new entertainment powerhouse. Case in point, is comparing the launch of Halo 3 with the launch of The Dark Night. This blockbuster delivered $ 158.4 million last weekend, an an industry record, but pales against the launch of Halo 3 which grossed US$300 million in its first week. (Wikipedia). More than one million people played Halo 3 on Xbox Live in the first twenty hours. As of January 3, 2008, Halo 3 has sold 8.1 million copies and was the best-selling video game of 2007 in the U.S. Games are becoming movies, like the Prince of Persia and now fans can download high definition dvd's onto their Xbox consol.
This is the digital world and it continues to amaze!
Today I learnt something really interesting about trends in digital interactive media. Games are one of the fastest growing media channels in this sphere. We don’t have much local information to go by, but if we look to North America where there is massive growth, the insights are indeed fascinating. Contrary to what everyone believes statistics in Northern America show that typical game players are not 22 male year old students, but are increasingly female stay at home moms. Wow, that floored me. There's also a huge boom in mobile games which appeal to a broad range of audiences. Companies are using mobile games to market their brands to customers. Taco Bell has enjoyed great success with this, giving their customers games which involve defending their food. Games are the new entertainment powerhouse. Case in point, is comparing the launch of Halo 3 with the launch of The Dark Night. This blockbuster delivered $ 158.4 million last weekend, an an industry record, but pales against the launch of Halo 3 which grossed US$300 million in its first week. (Wikipedia). More than one million people played Halo 3 on Xbox Live in the first twenty hours. As of January 3, 2008, Halo 3 has sold 8.1 million copies and was the best-selling video game of 2007 in the U.S. Games are becoming movies, like the Prince of Persia and now fans can download high definition dvd's onto their Xbox consol.
This is the digital world and it continues to amaze!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Lessons from Cannes... and SA too!
Back from Cannes and running hard. So what’s new? I found a little time this weekend to reflect on what I had learnt and also to catch up on some really interesting digital stuff happening in SA
Go to class in Cannes - Well this is easier said than done, considering the temperature was consistently warm the whole week, the skies were blue and the sea calm as a fishpond, only it was azure blue in colour and well you could understand that a lot of people couldn’t resist being on the beach, rather than being learning mode. I was disappointed to see that not enough local marketers and media specialists go to Cannes.. They should, because it is the one event where the entire global community of advertising agencies gather, talk about and show off their work. There’s a lot of useless pontification, but there’s some invaluable new insights and inspiration to gain by sitting in the classroom at Cannes. Marketers entrust their precious brands to their advertising and communications agencies so why do so few think it’s important to find out what’s pushing the world’s communication buttons?
Old Screens Merge with the New - I noted in my previous blog my disappointment at some of the half empty digital sessions and the overflowing television/film sessions. Well in the end it seems, digital got its just reward. In a controversial decision for the first time in the 54 year history of Cannes, the film category awards were split between two campaigns, but with a common link – Digital. The Grand Prix Television/Film was shared by Cadbury’s Gorilla Ad, was also an extremely successful viral campaign online and XBox’s Halo 3 Viral campaign.
The Gorilla ad features a gorilla playing the drums to the soundtrack of Phil Collins 1981 hit “In the air tonight,” It got everyone talking, some liked it, others hated it, some wondered whether in fact it was a real gorilla or a man in a gorilla suit – and there were even those who suggested it was Phil Collins himself. Comments posted on the website purported that the word Cadbury had been mentioned more times since the campaign went viral than in its 150 year history. This ad was voted the most popular in the UK in 2007 and the most successful viral video. It was also the most debated ad of the year. Cadbury’s reported a 5% increase in sales over the period (in a mature/static market, this is seen as good lift).
Cannes organizers also introduced a new award, the Titanium Award to reward innovation in advertising and marketing concepts. This went to a Japanese agency for a digital campaign Uniqlock for clothing brand Uniqlo. Rather bizarre stuff, but worth taking a look.
We are all human after all - Importantly, technological advancements don’t replace human feeling. Digital won’t replace our fundamental human fears, hopes and desires. If anything it heightens them – look at how social media like My Space, FaceBook thrive. What technology is doing is forcing marketers to pay particular attention to their customers needs more than ever before. As Plato said There’s no learning without emotion”. Digital takes no prisoners and if you are not relevant, salient, and consistent and you don’t establish a human connection of trust with your audience, they will click to somewhere else instantaneously and DELETE you from their lives. People like stories that they can relate to, that touch them in a unique and meaningful way. What really counts is that you are enriching the consumer’s communication experience. And that’s what the world’s top marketers are really good at doing. Cadbury’s Gorilla stood the test of ‘social proof” It touched consumers. The same can be said for the inspiring work for Burger King, the groundbreaking HBO TV Voyeur, for which its agency BBDO New York was awarded the Ad Agency of the Year Award for this work at Cannes. Incidentally, it had been hotly tipped to win the film Grand Prix too. And then there are amongst many others the likes of Nike, Budweiser and of course lest we forget Coca Cola’s Happiness Factory – to name a few. They all seek to engage, enrich and entertain and give back to their audiences.
Marketers who focus on really understanding who their audience is, what their needs are, how best to serve these needs and where to communicate to them will thrive in the digital age. And let’s be honest, this sure isn’t anything new!
Back in South Africa, the mobile revolution is becoming ever pervasive given there are more cellphones in the world than all televisions and PCs combined. Vodacom, the
cellular giant with some 56% of the local market launched a mobi-soap with another market leader, Nokia. SolikeLife's available free to all Vodacom subscribers from Vodafone Live. Mobile consumers who do not subscribe to Vodacom can also access the content free of charge. However, they must pay a service charge to their own provider. Heads up on the innovation Vodacom, but boy am I amazed the journalists out there didn’t pick up on the ultimate cost of downloading the soaps – with our cellphone operators, nothing is for nothing. Someone will pay after all and I have no doubt it will be the end user. Which reminds me, I had better tell my son I won’t be picking up the tab for any additional airtime that is sucked up by this stuff? As it is SA consumers are getting ripped blind by cellphone operators when compared to rates charged around the world!
The other real piece of digital innovation I read about today was the launch of a site called www.memorialwall.co.za. This is a really neat idea developed at the innovation hub in Pretoria, an incubator center for technical innovation. This site which links online and mobile applications allows the mourner to post a digital tribute to a loved one. Now your dearly departed can live on forever in cyberspace. With the escalating death rate in SA and the inevitability of it for all of us, this has to be a winner!
Go to class in Cannes - Well this is easier said than done, considering the temperature was consistently warm the whole week, the skies were blue and the sea calm as a fishpond, only it was azure blue in colour and well you could understand that a lot of people couldn’t resist being on the beach, rather than being learning mode. I was disappointed to see that not enough local marketers and media specialists go to Cannes.. They should, because it is the one event where the entire global community of advertising agencies gather, talk about and show off their work. There’s a lot of useless pontification, but there’s some invaluable new insights and inspiration to gain by sitting in the classroom at Cannes. Marketers entrust their precious brands to their advertising and communications agencies so why do so few think it’s important to find out what’s pushing the world’s communication buttons?
Old Screens Merge with the New - I noted in my previous blog my disappointment at some of the half empty digital sessions and the overflowing television/film sessions. Well in the end it seems, digital got its just reward. In a controversial decision for the first time in the 54 year history of Cannes, the film category awards were split between two campaigns, but with a common link – Digital. The Grand Prix Television/Film was shared by Cadbury’s Gorilla Ad, was also an extremely successful viral campaign online and XBox’s Halo 3 Viral campaign.
The Gorilla ad features a gorilla playing the drums to the soundtrack of Phil Collins 1981 hit “In the air tonight,” It got everyone talking, some liked it, others hated it, some wondered whether in fact it was a real gorilla or a man in a gorilla suit – and there were even those who suggested it was Phil Collins himself. Comments posted on the website purported that the word Cadbury had been mentioned more times since the campaign went viral than in its 150 year history. This ad was voted the most popular in the UK in 2007 and the most successful viral video. It was also the most debated ad of the year. Cadbury’s reported a 5% increase in sales over the period (in a mature/static market, this is seen as good lift).
Cannes organizers also introduced a new award, the Titanium Award to reward innovation in advertising and marketing concepts. This went to a Japanese agency for a digital campaign Uniqlock for clothing brand Uniqlo. Rather bizarre stuff, but worth taking a look.
We are all human after all - Importantly, technological advancements don’t replace human feeling. Digital won’t replace our fundamental human fears, hopes and desires. If anything it heightens them – look at how social media like My Space, FaceBook thrive. What technology is doing is forcing marketers to pay particular attention to their customers needs more than ever before. As Plato said There’s no learning without emotion”. Digital takes no prisoners and if you are not relevant, salient, and consistent and you don’t establish a human connection of trust with your audience, they will click to somewhere else instantaneously and DELETE you from their lives. People like stories that they can relate to, that touch them in a unique and meaningful way. What really counts is that you are enriching the consumer’s communication experience. And that’s what the world’s top marketers are really good at doing. Cadbury’s Gorilla stood the test of ‘social proof” It touched consumers. The same can be said for the inspiring work for Burger King, the groundbreaking HBO TV Voyeur, for which its agency BBDO New York was awarded the Ad Agency of the Year Award for this work at Cannes. Incidentally, it had been hotly tipped to win the film Grand Prix too. And then there are amongst many others the likes of Nike, Budweiser and of course lest we forget Coca Cola’s Happiness Factory – to name a few. They all seek to engage, enrich and entertain and give back to their audiences.
Marketers who focus on really understanding who their audience is, what their needs are, how best to serve these needs and where to communicate to them will thrive in the digital age. And let’s be honest, this sure isn’t anything new!
Back in South Africa, the mobile revolution is becoming ever pervasive given there are more cellphones in the world than all televisions and PCs combined. Vodacom, the
cellular giant with some 56% of the local market launched a mobi-soap with another market leader, Nokia. SolikeLife's available free to all Vodacom subscribers from Vodafone Live. Mobile consumers who do not subscribe to Vodacom can also access the content free of charge. However, they must pay a service charge to their own provider. Heads up on the innovation Vodacom, but boy am I amazed the journalists out there didn’t pick up on the ultimate cost of downloading the soaps – with our cellphone operators, nothing is for nothing. Someone will pay after all and I have no doubt it will be the end user. Which reminds me, I had better tell my son I won’t be picking up the tab for any additional airtime that is sucked up by this stuff? As it is SA consumers are getting ripped blind by cellphone operators when compared to rates charged around the world!
The other real piece of digital innovation I read about today was the launch of a site called www.memorialwall.co.za. This is a really neat idea developed at the innovation hub in Pretoria, an incubator center for technical innovation. This site which links online and mobile applications allows the mourner to post a digital tribute to a loved one. Now your dearly departed can live on forever in cyberspace. With the escalating death rate in SA and the inevitability of it for all of us, this has to be a winner!
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