Agency Development

Corrections to my 15 year old marketing notes

Steve Wright — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:00:39 +0000

Looking over some old marketing notes from 1995. Some of the notes are still valid although I did make some corrections:

Correction 1 – Talk in “Page Views” instead of “Hits”
Correction 2 – The AOL CD is not the Internet
Correction 3 – Impressions no longer have a one to one relationship with success.
Correction 4 – The return on TV is no longer 2 to 1. That is unless your job is to sell TV to people that like to buy TV. If that’s the case then keep using this ratio. Note to self to review this one in another 10 years.

Survey Shows Marketers Focusing More on Results

Steve Wright — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:09:59 +0000

Are Marketers beginning to focus more on what matters? Are they starting to look past the shiny object and reaching for something tied closer to the bottom line? As some budgets are getting cut, the marketers do seem to be cutting out the fluff. In a paper published by Goldstein Group Communications that goes over the data collected in a survey of marketers, the single most important method in measuring the impact of a marketing programs in 2010 was cited as Sales Increase followed by Lead Quality and then Lead Volume. Looking back to 2009, Lead Quality has gained nearly twice as much consideration; whereas Lead Volume has lost more than 35% of its luster.

As we enter 2011, it will be interesting to see if savvy agencies help continue this trend by bringing marketers better reporting that shows just where the ROI is and where the ROI is not.

20 TVs x 1 Hour = 20 Hours?

Steve Wright — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 16:52:27 +0000

While at the gym paddling away on an exercise bike watching my RPMs, Watts, Distance, Calorie burn and of course the count down of just how much more time I have to go until I be done with this endless peddling –I look up at the TVs. Not really to watch the TVs or even one TV, but more to count the TVs. 20 TVs could be seen from my location. Some of the channels were sports channels. Some news channels and one was even a channel for the gym. All of these channels play commercials (assuming here as I don’t watching them). And of course all of the companies paying for those commercials will be asking how many people viewed their commercials. From there I was wondering how I would be counted? Now of course no one tries to count down to that level of micro analytics. But if we did. Would I be counted as:
A – A single person watching 20 hours of content? After all I was there being exposed to 1 hour of content from 20 TVs.
B – Would I be counted as 1/20 of a person for all 20 TVs
C – Would I be counted as say 1/2 of a person for the TV channel running directly in front of me and say 1/4th for the ones on the left and right?
D – And for that matter – Should my iPod get a share? After all that’s what was giving me 100% of my conscious audio input. And should the bikes display screen get a share that that really was providing say 95% of my visual conscious input. Note to self — Look into running Ads on exercise bike display screens…

Anyone want to pick what should be counted? Anyone know how it would actually be counted?

Lies, Damn Lies and Analytics

Steve Wright — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 23:31:56 +0000

For many of the same reasons statistics gets a bad rep, Analytics is even worse.

Let’s just look at two points here out of many:
1 – All traffic is not equal. Banner traffic can easily be 10 to 100 times less effective than organic search.
2 – Some sites get most of their traffic from organic search where others get over 100 times or more traffic from banner and paid search than organic.

Now take the first two points and try talking about what a good conversion rate is or what a good bounce rate is in general. The truth is unless you break down web analytics questiosn down and evaluate them on a per traffic source basis, then you are comparing apples to oranges.

Innovation By Visionary Vs Committee

Steve Wright — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:34:35 +0000

Out of the list of the following companies, how would you rank them in innovation?:

Microsoft
IBM
Cisco
Google
HP
Apple
Dell

Now, rank these same companies upon how much money they spend a year on R&D. Here’s a hint for that second list–it should look exactly like the first. In fact, Microsoft spent eight times more in 2009 in research and development than Apple did based upon numbers from the Business Insider. Here are those numbers:

Microsoft – 8.6 Billion
IBM – 5.8 Billion
Cisco – 5.0 Billion
Google – 2.8 Billion
HP – 2.77 Billion
Apple – 1.1 Billion
Dell – 0.62 Billion

I think it would be difficult to argue that Apple and Google are not on top of the mix in innovation; whereas, Microsoft and IBM are on the bottom. Why? Granted, I don’t know the inner workings of either company. What I’m thinking, however, is that much of the Innovation from Apple is coming from Steve Jobs. And Steve Jobs, love him or hate him, knows how to innovate and has little concern about saving egos and feelings. When it comes to companies like Microsoft and IBM, much of the “Innovation” is done by committees comprised of people that have survived politically just long enough to grow into a corporate role. This allows them to sit and lead other committees tasked with being innovative. This is clearly not the formula for success. In fact, one may argue that politically savvy people and innovation are inversely proportional. On the other hand, being an incredibly-gifted innovator and having what it takes to run a company successfully are often inversely proportional. Suffice it to say, many things need to line up just right. As for the others, i.e., IBM and Microsoft, they will continue to ride their inertia for years to come–and they will spend billions on R&D. Unfortunately, this research and development will do more to keep the senior-level innovators happier than producing anything innovative.

No IE9 on XP

Steve Wright — Mon, 31 May 2010 02:17:15 +0000

Many are upset with Microsoft for not supporting IE9 on XP. Two things come to mind when I hear this:

1 – If you ARE stuck on XP AND you can upgrade, then why not upgrade to Firefox or Chrome for goodness sake.

2 – If you ARE stuck on XP. Then be more upset about being stuck on a 10 year old operating system.

Good Banner Bad Site

Steve Wright — Sun, 30 May 2010 02:24:26 +0000

Every once in a while I will notice a piece of banner marketing done very well. This was the case with the banner to the left of a girl with what looks like a thumb drive or some type of storage device at the top of her sock. It caught my attention enough to click on the ad just to see how well the transition from the ad to the site was handled. But when I got to the site, I felt like I went from some cutting edge banner work to a site caught in the 1990′s. I was impressed to see that the theme of the banner was captured on the site. But the rest of the site looks like it came from a $25 do it yourself website kit. This makes me want to write this letter:

Dear SDI, Love your latest banner ad campaign. But just like Bare Bobby in the song, The Mermaid, You’re love that girl with all your heart (the banner)… but you’re not going to like the tail (the site).

Then we Came to the End

Steve Wright — Thu, 27 May 2010 20:26:45 +0000

A friend that I work with recommend this book. Partially because she like I, work for an agency. But mostly because she used to work for that fictional place with those purely fictional people that only bear relation to the characters in this book in a purely coincidently way. So blessed with some purely fictional inside knowledge, I picked up a copy of, Then we Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris. This book gives us all a glimpse of how life at a declining agency can seem. Written primarily from the account management and copy writing point of view it left me wondering, do people really waist time worrying about things a petty as mentioned in this book. Are they really so un-engaged with life, work and reality? So pre-occupied with things that matter little. So focused on not focusing on owning their own success and failures? Regardless of the depressing picture this paints on agency life, it will make you laugh. It will remind you of people you know and work with. It will remind you of things you have felt and thought. It will remind of you of things you have done or have heard of people doing. Now for me, I need to get back to counting my office ceiling tiles while leaning back in my chair one can only get with advanced title or back condition.

People and Process

Steve Wright — Mon, 24 May 2010 22:19:03 +0000

Great People + Great Process = Best Results

Great People + Bad Process = Good Results

Bad People + Great Process = Ok Results

Yahoo, Nokia Deal Feels a Bit Desperate

Steve Wright — Sun, 23 May 2010 16:27:01 +0000

Regarding the CNet article about the Yahoo Nokia deal. I wonder how similar this news would have felt like if back in 1910, (a few years after the Model T was released), the worlds largest manufacture of horse drawn buggies and the worlds largest buggy whip manufacture announced they were teaming up to increase their market share dominance over the automobile.