Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google, said that 78% of smartphone owners use their phones while they shop. "This is the future and everyone will adapt," Schmidt said. Mobile growth is occurring at a quicker rate than anyone expected, Schmidt noted. "We look at the charts internally and it's happening faster than all of our predictions," Schmidt said.
Strata, a Chicago-based customized media management agency, polled 100 agency clients this month and found that TV is still the dominant medium — 44% of respondents said they are most focused on television above other media. That’s a 24% jump over the previous quarter. Digital was second with 21.1% while radio netted 15.6%, a 75% jump from the third quarter. The figure for digital was actually down from 26% in 3Q, as agencies expressed disappointment with digital advertising’s efficacy.
The number of people online naturally keeps growing. As of June 2010 there were 1.97 billion Internet users worldwide, with 825.1 million of them in Asia, 475.1 million in Europe and 266.2 million in North America.So, what gives?Social media is still being proven out and soft metrics aren't helping the case. In fact, the best socmed case last year was Old Spice. And that really wasn't a testament to the power of social, rather TV. Social media was tagged on well after TV had made the campaign famous. And a coupon did the rest. With a click through rate of .5% or less, banner ads suck.And although search represents half the online marketing spend and is necessary, lets face it, search is boring.But I think the most important point is being overlooked. The mindset and behavior of people online is much different from other media. With traditional broadcast, we're used to the advertising paying for the content, so it's acceptable and in some cases, like the Super Bowl, we look forward to the ads. Online is free. Advertising was never an integral component. And display advertising is super annoying, if noticed at all. Also, we tend to skim much more online, rather than engaging. The boredom threshold is much lower. So, it's very hard work to make brand advertising interesting enough to be effective. Especially when applying the typical constraints, sensitivities and political correctness that most marketers demand.Social media continues to grow at a fast pace. An estimated 25 billion Twitter messages were sent through the service last year, and the company added over 100 million users. Facebook also saw record numbers, reaching 600 million users. It’s amazing to think that Facebook started 2010 with 350 million users.
There are a lot of factoids thrown around that are left unquestioned. Many memes, assumptions and "facts", about the digital and social media space are made up by those most likely to benefit - and propelled by those who haven't a clue - but unblinkingly parrot stuff to make themselves appear as though they do.
Nobel Prize winner, Richard Feynman, cautions against such pseudo science.
Parents. There are two ways of looking at this: Grocery time becomes family time. Or, more annoying times ahead in the aisle.
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” – Ecclesiastes
For all the histrionics about a new marketing paradigm, few things are actually all that new.
We've all heard the parroted memes, "The consumer is in charge," "The consumer expects more," "It's all about the conversation," etc., etc., ad nauseum. This thinking is based on the assumption of a wholesale consumer migration from traditional to digital media which will inevitably cause fundamentally different behavior patterns.
However, this is not the case.
TV viewership is at its highest point ever with 99% of all video being viewed on TV, not the internet (Nielsen Three Screen Report, Q1 2010). 96% of all retail activity is done in a store (U.S. Department of Commerce, Q2 2010). Meanwhile, 99.9% of people do not click on online display ads. In fact, Since the 1990s, click-through rates for banner ads have dropped 97.5% (DoubleClick, Benchmark Report, 2009).
What's more and despite social media, the consumer neither has the time, or desire to "be in charge" or, "own the brand." They've got a life, after all.
In a post, titled,"Digital Primetime Arrives Just in Time to Crush the Net," Steve Rubel talks about the idea of "Digital Relativity:
Regardless of which side of the debate you buy into, one that sees superficiality rising versus another that envisions a new Renaissance, one thing remains clear. Space on the Internet is infinite. Time and attention, meanwhile, remain finite. Therefore, “Digital Relativity” will become a major challenge.
Taken in context, when you do the math it’s easy to see that it’s going to be harder than ever to reach people. On the one hand, social networking sites like Facebook consolidate audiences. (The average user spends five hours/month on the site.) On the other hand, social media is forcing us to make hard choices every day – Bieber vs brands, Forbes vs families, business vs. babies.
But then, it doesn't take a blog post to state the obvious. Time is scarce and everything else is abundant. People have little time to "interact" with brands. What they expect from a brand name is a unique product at a fair price, backed by solid customer service - in order to have a good user experience.
They also want a deal. When ranking the most important reasons why (people) follow brands on Facebook, respondents cited promotional benefits first.
How is any of this different than it's ever been?
In 1954, Peter Drucker’s “The practice of management” placed marketing at the center of the organization and proposed what became known as a marketing philosophy of business − “Marketing is not only much broader than selling, it is not a specialized activity at all. It is the whole business seen from the customer’s point of view.” Again, Peter Druker, in his 1973 book “Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices” wrote that “…because it is the purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two-basic functions: marketing and innovation…"
This, of course, is exactly what Apple, Google and all successful companies are doing.
In terms of creative, Howard Gossage was producing interactive campaigns in the '50's and 60's. Mary Wells was producing immersive experiences over 40 years ago.
"Pure Michigan" is a successful and much talked about current campaign which Forbes named as one of the 10 best tourism campaigns. It has won lots of awards and is being called "ground breaking."
Here's a campaign for Prince Edward Island that was also highly successful, awarded and also called ground breaking. It ran in 1993.
The scripts may be a little different, but the thinking, sentiment and construction are the same. Nothing new.
As innovative and exciting as modern times have become, it doesn't replace common sense or well established marketing fundamentals. Digital tools do not replace the whole toolkit. Neither does technology change essential human behavior and the art of persuasion.
Stats thanks to adcontrarian.blogspot.com
This particular future looks interesting. Though, somewhat off putting. I, for one don't want digital displays in the bathroom.
A very cool communal project where participants are asked to create one frame of the film for the song "There ain't no grave."
As they describe it:
The Johnny Cash Project is a global collective art project, and we would love for you to participate. Through this website, we invite you to share your vision of Johnny Cash, as he lives on in your mind’s eye. Working with a single image as a template, and using a custom drawing tool, you’ll create a unique and personal portrait of Johnny. Your work will then be combined with art from participants around the world, and integrated into a collective whole: a music video for "Ain’t No Grave", rising from a sea of one-of-a-kind portraits.
Strung together and played in sequence over the song, the portraits will create a moving, ever evolving homage to this beloved musical icon. What’s more, as new people discover and contribute to the project, this living portrait will continue to transform and grow, so it’s virtually never the same video twice.
