Zappos Shows How Employees

Every year Zappos.com, one of the fastest-growing e-commerce sites, publishes a "culture book." Three hundred pages in length, the book includes written -- and often gushy -- testimonials from employees about what it means to work at Zappos.com.

"Our Zappos culture is truly the best work experience I have ever encountered," writes Chris V. "As a new employee of the company, I was blown away by how amazing the company really was. When I started I felt so unreal," notes David J. And on and on and on -- you get the idea.

Not by accident
If you talk to Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh or his marketing chief Brian Kalma,* you'll find a plan and a strategy, not to mention powerful, validating numbers to boot behind all this group love. Indeed, the vast majority of trial and repeat at Zappos.com is driven by word of mouth, and employees -- their motivation, their attentiveness to customers, their handling of feedback -- are foundational to that approach.

Mr. Kalma, director of creative services and brand marketing, employs the term "people planning," arguing that each employee needs to be a great point of contact with customers. "We invest the time and money into hiring and nurturing the right people, as many other companies do in their media planning," he said.

It's worth asking, Are employees a de facto ad channel? It might be a crude way to frame the question, but if in fact there's a tangible, measurable relationship between employee behavior and buzz, we can't ignore that free, high-impact employee-generated media -- EGM, if you will -- affects the broader media mix.

Hidden power
"I do think that a well-trained, highly motivated workforce that understands the brand, their role in making it successful and who feels empowered to do just that, is any company's most powerful and most underutilized asset," says Rick Murray, CEO of Edelman Digital and board member of the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA).

Leslie Forde of Communispace, a firm that builds and manages online communities for brands, emphatically agrees, noting that employees are the "overlooked resource." She asks, "How many times have we extended forgiveness or patience to a brand that 'messes up' in a customer service interaction, because the individual employee that we've dealt with is impressive and professional?"

If Murray and Forde -- and countless others -- are right, shouldn't all of us in marketing be dialing this up in importance? Of course, getting this right is easier said than done. You can't just increase employee loyalty and advocacy overnight the way you can with media spend, and not everyone will want to go the full distance of Zappos.com.

To be sure, this is a long-term proposition. "ROI metrics for employee loyalty and education are more complex and require a long-term view," warns Forde. Moreover, employee training isn't necessarily within the scope of the CMO, and the HR department isn't necessarily incentivized to think about employees as brand-building billboards.
Then we have the risk factors. One downside of the employee-as-relationship-builder model, notes professor Tim Heath of Miami University in Ohio, "is employees leaving the company and taking 'their' customers with them, a threat that can be mitigated to some degree with non-compete clauses in contracts."

Worth a try
It's a reasonable concern, but hardly a good excuse to sit idle. Indeed, there's a growing list of excellent reasons why we can start connecting dots to at least establish a beachhead to a new model:

• Measurements: Let there be no doubt, but today we can quantify the conversation in such a way that we can pinpoint specific "talk drivers" around all aspects of employee behavior. Thanks to consumer-generated media analysis, we can now determine with high statistical significance why employee behavior at, say, Burger King or Taco Bell creates positive or negative conversation. We can even assign "reach" value to the conversation. We can determine just about every nuance related to customer service, which in the vast majority of cases implicated (or rewards) employee training or behavior. Smart listening always sets the foundation for better business processes.
• Social-Media Experiments: Social-media tools provide brands with a broader spectrum of "test and measure" tools to pinpoint opportunities to better understand the impact of employee loyalty and advocacy. These tools also provide powerful windows into the character and personality of the employees. Just think about Frank Eliason and Richard Binhammer, the guys who Twitter for Comcast and Dell, respectively. (Disclosure: Comcast is a client.) There's a spirit and enthusiasm in their posts and commentary that reflects both their character and their employee advocacy. Corporate blogs are bringing the same opportunity and value to the table.
• Online Video: The rock we've yet to truly uncover around online video is how it can enable brands to bring the character and authenticity of employees to the forefront. The "sight, sound and motion" benefits of employees talking across the video airwaves may well open up a powerful range of opportunities for companies to reap the full benefits of employee advocacy. Just think about Microsoft's four-year-old experiment with Channel9, the video-based employee blog. High authenticity, high impact.
• The "New" Customer Service: As Zappos.com would readily tell us, the customer-service channel is perhaps the most critical brand-building arena, and employees are clearly central to this area. Brands should be conducting large and small experiments in this area to understand how a little extra "touch" can impact the game. Social-media tools can clearly help get brands started, but the learning might also start with the good old-fashioned phone scripts.
• Rewards and Incentives: If the conversation is so measurable, and the outcomes of employee advocacy are more tangible, perhaps now is the time to create more data-grounded incentive and reward models. If, for example, only buzz directly calls out an exceptional contribution by an employee, perhaps this should be rewarded. Online consumers constantly call out Southwest or Nordstrom employees for going the extra distance. If it's measurable, it's rewardable, right?

I'm not suggesting that every company adopt the Zappos.com culture book. But if conversation is the new gold standard, and employees are consistently at the heart of the conversation, we have a big compelling reason -- and tons of upside -- in rethinking the importance of employee advocacy.

Source - AdAge

Gucci or Gadgets

If you had an extra few bucks in your pocket how would you spend it on yourself? This article argues, where you live will affect how you spend your money. For example, people in Greece, Italy or Egypt are more likely to spend their cash on clothes over technology, while Canada lags the US in electronic purchasing. The finding is this article are depicted in an interesting infographic format.

When you have some extra cash padding your wallet, do you reach for the latest jeans or the sleekest new music player? Much of that decision, it seems, depends on where you live.

If you live in Greece, Italy or Egypt, you'll probably choose textiles over technology. Greeks spend almost 13 times more money on clothing as they do on electronics.

"Italians and other Europeans love fashion; the greatest designs in the world come from those regions," said Todd D. Slater, a retail analyst for Lazard Capital Markets in New York.

If you live in Australia or Taiwan, you might be more tempted by a new laptop computer or flat-screen television. Australians spend only 1.4 times more cash on clothes than they do on consumer electronics.

"Some areas in the Pacific Basin are technologically savvy, and clothing is very casual," Mr. Slater said. "In Australia, what else do you need besides a bathing suit and a pair of Uggs?"

Click HERE for the infographic piece.

Source - The New York Times

Marketers' Wish List For Agencies Of The Future

An online survey asked 200 leading digital CMOs what they expect from ad agencies in the future. It's no surprise that a better understanding of the digital environment is high on the wish list. This post raises the question: Shouldn't agencies be doing these things now? Come find out what you should be demanding from your agency partners.

Greater knowledge of the digital space is at the top of marketers' list of what they want from their advertising and marketing agencies in the next 12 months, according to a Sapient-sponsored national online survey of some 200 CMOs and other senior marketers, writes MarketingCharts.

More than a quarter of marketers surveyed said half to all their marketing is done via digital channels, and nearly 40 percent foresee that in 12 months from half to all their marketing will be done via digital channels:

click on graphs to enlarge

The respondents, all of whom are either directly or indirectly responsible for managing digital marketing budget allocation across multiple channels, were asked about the top qualities they sought in their advertising and marketing agencies in the coming year.

Based on the survey results, Sapient Interactive, Sapient's marketing services group, issued a Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future:

1. Greater knowledge of the digital space

More than one-third of marketers surveyed said they are not confident that their current agency is well-positioned to take their brand through the unchartered waters of online digital marketing and interactive advertising.

click on graphs to enlarge

Nearly half (45 percent) of the respondents have switched agencies (or plan to switch in the next 12 months) for one with greater digital knowledge or have hired an additional digital specialist to handle their interactive campaigns.

Regarding an agency's area of expertise, 79 percent of respondents rated "interactive/digital" functions as "important/very important."

2. More use of "pull interactions"

Nine in 10 respondents (90 percent) agree that to engage consumers with their brand it is increasingly important that their agency uses "pull interactions" such as social media and online communities rather than traditional "push" campaigns.

3. Leverage virtual communities

An overwhelming 94 percent of respondents expressed interest in leveraging virtual communities (public and private) to understand more about their target audience.

4. Agency executives who use the technology they are recommending

92 percent of respondents said it was "somewhat" or "very" important that agency employees use the technologies that they are recommending - such as Facebook, Flickr, wikis, blogs, - in their personal social media mix.

5. Chief Digital Officers make agencies more appealing

43 percent of marketers surveyed said agencies with chief digital officers are more appealing than those without.

6. Web 2.0 and social media savvy

63 percent of marketers surveyed said an agency's Web 2.0 and social media capabilities are "important/very important" when it comes to agency selection.

7. Agencies that understand consumer behavior

76 percent of respondents deemed this as an "important/very important" aspect of their agency's online digital marketing and interactive advertising area of expertise.

8. Demonstrate strategic thinking

77 percent of marketers surveyed ranked strategy/brain trust capabilities at the top of their agency wish list.

9. Branding and creative capabilities

67 percent of respondents ranked branding at the top of their agency wish list while 76 percent ranked creative capabilities as "important/very important."

10. Ability to measure success

65 percent ranked analytics at the top of their agency wish list.

"Marketers want agencies that can deliver on these demands today - not by 2009 and beyond," said Gaston Legorburu, chief creative officer, Sapient. "As the interactive channel becomes increasingly important, only those agencies that can create, manage and measure multi-channel campaigns will stay relevant and thrive in an uncertain economy."

About the survey: The Agency of the Future Survey is a national survey designed to provide insight into what marketers want from their agencies in the next 12 months. Sponsored by Sapient, the survey was conducted via email and polled more than 200 respondents, all of whom are either directly or indirectly responsible for managing digital marketing budget allocation across multiple channels.

Source - Marketing Vox

Mobile Strategy Deck

A fantastic look at the mobile marketing landscape and what the future holds for the extremely fertile communication channel. The front half of the slideshow is heavy with statistics while the second half offers up some consumer insights and strategic recommendations. One piece of advice that really stuck with us: make mistakes now because mobile is here to stay.

Click HERE for the slideshow.

Source - Paul Isakson

Stacking The Deck On Your Competitive Advantage

Everyday our internal logic processes countless of conscious and unconscious decisions. As marketers, the root of our job is to influence the decision making process in order to generate choices that work in our favour. The following examines why the decision making process is more than a cost benefit analysis and offers advice on bolstering your competitive advantage in the mind's eye of the consumer.

People are fickle, but we're generally rational. When someone makes a choice (hiring, firing, choosing a vendor, buying a soda) they're using some sort of internal logic and reasoning to support that choice.

As a marketer, you win when they choose you.

So, why choose you?

The answer to that question is your competitive advantage. What makes it likely that more than a few rational people will consider their options and choose you or your company or your organization?

Truth: It's rarely a computerized cost/benefit analysis. Instead, it's a human choice.

When the factors that matter to me are processed through my worldview and compared against the options I'm aware of, I will choose you when your advantages are greater than the competition, provided I believe that you're worth the cost of switching.

Key points:

Matter to me: Not matter to you or to the next guy, but matter to me. That's all I care about. (Example: it might mean more to me that my friends use your product than it does that you're cheaper).

Worldview: Based on the way I see the world, the assumptions I make, the truth that I believe in. (Example: If I don't trust young people as a matter of course, I'm not likely to choose you if you're young, all other things being close).

Options I'm aware of: If I don't know about you, you don't exist.

Switching cost: The incumbent gets a huge advantage, especially in high cost/high risk/network effect instances.

Some of the ways you might build or maintain a competitive advantage:

• Access to hard-to-replicate Talent
• Hard-earned skills
• Higher productivity due to insight or organization allowing you to be cheaper
• Low cost of living for you and your staff allowing you to be cheaper
• Protected or secret technology or trade secrets
• Existing relationships (switching costs working in your favor)
• Virally organized product and organization
• Large network of users already and a network effect to support you
• Focus on speed
• Monopoly power and the willingness to use it
• Unique story that resonates with the worldview of your target audience
• Shelf space due to incumbency
• Large media budget
• Insight into worldview of prospects--making what they care about
• Emotional intelligence of your salesforce or customer service people
• Access to capital and willingness to lose money to build share
• Connection to community

Not on this list, at least not prominently, are "we are #1!", "we are better!" and "we try harder." Cheerleading skills are not a competitive advantage in most settings. And, with few exceptions, neither is "we are new." Also, "we are better and I can prove it," is rarely a successful argument.

Here's what your board wants to know:

• What's your competitive advantage?
• Is it really, or are you dreaming it up?
• How long will it last?
• Can your competition copy it?
• Does it resonate with the part of the market that is looking to buy?
• Is the advantage big enough to overcome the switching cost?

Source - Seth's Blog

The Toucan Was Right – Scent Marketing

Successful marketing must stimulate at least one of the five senses to effectively engage its audience. The sense of scent is one of the most powerful yet few have attempted to stimulate this sense with marketing communication. Some consider scent marketing to be too manipulative while other think it's genius and have the numbers to prove it. You be the judge - does something smell fishy about scent marketing?

In a German movie theater last month, audience members waiting for the feature wondered why they were seeing people lounging on a beach. After 60 seconds of waves and seagulls, a tag line for Nivea sunscreen appeared, and the scent of Nivea wafted into the theater through the air-conditioning vents.

Later, a survey showed that audience recall of the smelly ad was 500 percent higher than for the scent-free version. Whether moviegoers enjoyed the scent of sunscreen with their popcorn was not recorded. But that's a number that advertisers certainly recall -- and one that proponents of scent marketing love to broadcast.

"Scent will soon be a normal part of advertising and entertainment," says Carmine Santandrea, owner of a scent marketing company in Santa Barbara, Calif. After circulating the smell of milk chocolate in the vicinity of a vending machine, he says, he saw a "sales lift of 300 percent for Hershey Kisses. That's never happened in advertising before. Those results can't be ignored."

Neither can an odor. While you can turn a magazine page or change a television channel, you can't avoid inhaling. "That's the good and bad thing about scent -- you can't get away from it," says Harald Vogt, founder of the Scent Marketing Institute. "In our environment, everything already smells. The question is how you manage the smells."

The idea of scent in advertising is not new. Back in 1965, Santandrea created a scented Coke pavilion at the World's Fair in New York. But science has now given Madison Avenue powerful new tools to fulfill its odorous promise. Today's chemists, for instance, can capture the scent of a strawberry in varying stages of ripeness by taking samples of the air around the berry with a gas chromatograph. The bigger development, according to Avery Gilbert, author of "What the Nose Knows," is that chemists can develop recipes for any smell, down to a single molecule.

"There's a plant in the Sierra Nevada in the summer that gives off a cooked artichoke smell," Gilbert says. "The Indians knew about it; John Muir noticed it. It's called Sierra Mountain Misery. I took a sprig and sent it to a chemist and found that the smell comes from one molecule that makes up less than 1 percent of the entire formula."

Scent marketing has also become more sophisticated because of what we've learned about olfaction. Smell may be the least lauded of the senses, but it's the one most closely connected to our moods and recollections. (The loss of it, called anosmia, can produce tremendous anxiety and depression.) Memories inspired by fragrance are more emotional than those triggered by sights or sounds. In studies, scent-elicited memories cause subjects to mention more emotions, rate them as more intense, and report more of a feeling of being back in the time and place relevant to a smell. Catching a whiff of the perfume your grandmother wore is likely to bring back stronger memories of her -- and the feelings associated with her -- than seeing her photo.

That can happen before you are even conscious of the scent. That's because an incoming odor proceeds directly to your limbic system, which handles memories and emotions; non-olfactory perception must go to the hypothalamus and then on to the cortex for further analysis. "Scent goes right to your emotions," Santandrea says. "And if I can appeal to your primal senses, I've got you. That is what advertisers do. If you find that offensive, you have a problem with all of advertising."

Scent marketing is not limited to products that have an inherent aroma, like Hershey's Kisses; items such as clothing or stereos have their own universe of "scent abstractions" to brand themselves. Smell for yourself: Walk into the Samsung store on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and you may notice a melon aroma. Westin Hotels envelop guests with their White Tea fragrance. (Now you can buy Westin-scented candles to enjoy the hotel smell at home!)

Extensive research preceded the introduction of those scents. Companies start with a "fragrance brief," describing the scent image they want to project. Fragrance vendors then create scents they imagine fulfill the descriptions. Because Samsung and Westin are global brands, and there is no globally agreed upon pleasant smell, they had to be certain that the scents would not be offensive anywhere.

"To use something 'fruity' and 'light' is the best bet for any scent marketing effort that is not connected to a product," Vogt says. "A good example for a product-related scent is Thomas Pink's 'Line Dried Linen' that smells, well, just like it. If you don't have such a product, you look at your target audience, what they prefer and use, and start from there."

Some people find smell advertising offensive, akin to subliminal advertising. But Gilbert has a quick defense. "If a pizzeria is venting out onto the street, and the smell makes you want pizza, is that somehow mind control?" he asks. "Scent is a weird channel that people don't think about on regular basis. Once it becomes more standardized, people will get over it."

Maybe they'll even like it. Stores like Samsung want to forge a fragrance bond that creates positive feelings, customer loyalty and increased spending. Research gives them hope.

One study put a floral scent in an area of a casino over a weekend; gamblers there spent 45 percent more money than on other weekends, while the results for unscented areas of the casino remained unchanged. An Iowa State University study showed that introducing a pleasant scent caused shoppers to have more positive attitudes about a selection of sleepwear, as well as a willingness to pay more. But the scent needs to be congruent with the merchandise; a Lily of the Valley fragrance created the positive reaction, but the smell of Sea Mist, though judged to be enjoyable, didn't have the same results with sleepwear sales.

That incongruity probably led to the 2006 backlash against scented ads in San Francisco. As part of a "Got Milk?" campaign, ads in San Francisco bus shelters were imbued with a chocolate-chip-cookie aroma. The idea was to make people crave milk. They didn't. Complaints poured in, and the aromatic milk ads came down after just one day.

Commuters just didn't understand why they would smell baked goods out there, says Rachel Herz, a visiting professor at Brown University and author of "The Scent of Desire." "They're in a bleak bus stop and they're smelling something that doesn't fit," she says. She warns that people tend to judge unexpected and unfamiliar smells as unpleasant. "Our interpretation typically jumps to the negative," she says, and that's especially true post-9/11, as people are still sensitive to an unusual stimulus of any kind.

Even with all the ongoing olfactory research, much about odor remains mysterious. Chemicals with different structures may smell similar, while those with nearly identical structures can smell completely different. That's a particular challenge to scent manufacturers trying to design the perfect scent. "If you take a novel assortment of odorous molecules, we cannot predict what that will smell like," says Northwestern University neurology professor Jay Gottfried. "If we mix amyl acetate -- a banana smell -- with eugenol -- a clove smell -- there are no rules to say how the mixture will be perceived."

Gender and experience, context and memory determine how an odor molecule is interpreted. When Herz had subjects sniff something identified as Parmesan cheese, they liked the smell. A week later she presented the same odor, telling subjects it was vomit. They found it revolting.

With so much ambiguity and sensitivity surrounding our olfactory systems, scent marketers have considerable responsibilities, Vogt says. They should not put their products in public spaces like bus shelters or spritz consumers without their invitation. And even though reputable scent marketing companies in the U.S. use approved fragrances, Vogt acknowledges safety concerns with foreign products; the Scent Marketing Institute is now establishing industry standards.

Even so, companies know there will be complaints -- Vogt recently received an e-mail with a subject line that read, "You are making us sick." A vocal population considers itself chemically sensitive, and scent marketers have already become a target elsewhere. Halifax, Nova Scotia, has declared itself a completely fragrance-free city. "In some Scandinavian countries, they're legislating against letting vaporous scents into the air," Santandrea says. "We're going to have legislation against us. But if the scent doesn't cling to you, we have a right to do it."

Santandrea insists that scent marketing helps consumers by giving them information. "We're democratizing scent," he says. "Shopping is merely hunting, and in the past when we hunted, we used our noses to inform us of what we were coming to."

At least for now, practical limitations remain. With many different smells mixing in the mall, the results could quickly become unpleasant. After 15 minutes or so, the nose adjusts to a scent and stops perceiving it. And when you go from one scented store into another, the fragrance of the second store may seem distorted to you, or hardly smell at all.

Still, efforts to introduce scent to everything seem irresistible. A few years ago we almost witnessed the release of iSmell, a "personal scent synthesizer" that would have released odors from scented Web sites and e-mails out of your computer. Although the company involved fell victim to the dot-com bust, the technology is available.

Motorola has a "smell-o-phone" in the works (so you can look forward not only to hearing the conversation of the person next to you but to smelling it too. Scent-a-Vision should be available in the next two or three years, according to Santandrea, who has invented an appliance that synchronizes scent tracks with movies. Some techno clubs have hired ODO7, an "aroma jockey," who mixes smells onstage to add a "third dimension of entertainment."

Those kinds of applications, Gilbert says, likely hold the key to scent's future. "There will be a breakthrough in a popular culture application -- clubs, concerts, maybe scented artwork," he says. "Maybe then there will be a quiet revolution and scented ads will be no more ominous than billboards in Times Square."

Source - The Salon

Media Hype Analysis

In the ever-evolving world of media, how can you decipher the technology that's going to last from the technology that's going to fizzle out? Insert the Gartner Hype Cycle. Illustrated in a graph format, Gartner Hype Cycles provide a telling picture of the media landscape and allow marketers to evaluate the potency and shelf life of a wide variety of media technologies, particularly the ones still under the radar.

Gartner Hype Cycles are good for at least three things: identifying technologies that are still under the radar, taking a look back at stuff that was hyped up in the past but didn't go anywhere, and explaining to your parents what it is that you do as an emerging media strategist.

Besides, they illustrate this wonderful quote from David Brooks's "Lord of the Meme" column in NYTimes: "In order to cement your status in the cultural elite, you want to be already sick of everything no one else has even heard of."

These graphs also provide good fodder for thinking about how media consumption would change if any of the pre-hype technologies reached mass adoption.

After catching the 2008 graph on Techcrunch a few days ago, I hit up Google image search for earlier versions. (You can also buy Gartner's original reports, but at close to $2,000 apiece they are beyond this blog's budget). Below is what I've found. You will see that some of the technologies don't make it into the later versions of the graph; I think it's because these are Garther's charts for different tech sectors. Click on images to zoom in.

If you have graphs for the missing years, please comment or drop me a line.







Source - AdLab

Advice For Mobile Marketers Can Learn From Obama

Technology pundits have been heralding the “year of mobile” every year for a decade, but this year might really be it. The latest evidence: the tizzy over Barack Obama’s much-anticipated text message announcing his pick for running mate.

The Obama campaign is expected to send out the news sometime before the candidate’s rally on Saturday to everyone who has given it their cellphone numbers. The plan has political junkies and bystanders alike buzzing about the imminent Obama text message in a way that would make brand marketers swoon.

Mobile marketers are studying the Obama campaign’s initiative, which offers lessons for startups hoping to help big brands reach consumers on their cellphones. Advertisers have been slow to market via mobile phones, but that is changing thanks to a rash of mobile marketing startups and increased use of text messaging and mobile Internet.

Many advertisers are still hesitant to send text message ads, said R.J. Talyor, product marketing manager for the digital marketing firm ExactTarget. “The cellphone is the last area that a person feels is still private,” he said. “The people who have your cellphone number are typically your friends and family, so people are wary to give out numbers to people they know will market to them.”

The lesson to be learned from Obama, according to Mr. Talyor: use text messaging only for ads that are urgent and portable. “The Obama campaign has identified a message that is urgent and needs to reach subscribers wherever they are,” Mr. Talyor said. His firm uses text messages to send fraud alerts from a bank, weekly coupons from a store or happy hour specials from a bar.

Mobile marketers should keep their messages succinct and simple and include a specific call to action, said Jason Spero, vice president of marketing for the mobile ad network AdMob, which develops and delivers mobile ad campaigns for Ford, Adidas and Toshiba.

“That’s what I think Obama is capitalizing on here,” he said. “The brand or political campaign knows that this is a device very likely to be within arm’s reach of the person, regardless of whether they are working, on a date or somewhere else.”

That intimacy can also cause problems — as some commentators have noted, the Obama campaign could frustrate a lot of West Coast supporters if it sends the text message in the morning before they wake up. Timing is something mobile marketers must also be wary of, unlike e-mail or print advertisers.

Mr. Spero sees the risk of reaching people while they are in bed as an upside. “For me that’s a very positive thing, that I’m reaching customers in such an intimate way,” he said.

Another lesson that mobile marketers can learn from the Obama campaign: text messages create buzz that spreads beyond the person who receives the alert, said Dorrian Porter, chief executive of Mozes, which creates mobile ad campaigns for 3,500 musicians.

Only the most loyal fans (and most interested competitors) will offer the Obama campaign or an advertiser their cellphone number, he said, but they might receive that message while sitting in a café with friends and make it a topic of conversation.

“The good news is you affect them directly, you create a personal connection and you have those folks spread the word for you, and I think that’s really powerful for marketers to take away from this,” Mr. Porter said.

The Obama campaign, just like mobile marketing startups, will have to be wary of the potential pitfalls of texting, said Mr. Talyor. For one, consumers have to pay their cellphone providers to receive text messages, so advertisers must be careful not to send too many unwanted texts. Advertisers should get clear permission from users before sending them text messages, he said.

Overall, said Mr. Spero, the Obama campaign has helped mobile ad startups like AdMob by creating buzz around text messaging. “The back and forth between politicians and brands learning to leverage mobile to reach their audience is exciting, whether that audience is a Pepsi drinker or a voter,” he said.

Source - New York Times

How To Avoid Eco-Fatigue

The bombardment of green communication has left many consumers feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Not surprisingly, marketing is responsible for a lot of the green noise. Beyond addressing consumer self-interest, how can brands maintain relevance and credibility with green marketing?

Not Only Marketers: Media Also Needs To Do Its Part To Keep Consumers From Burning Out?

People are getting sick. A wave of green fatigue, eco-exhaustion and environmental anxiety is spreading among consumers. Overwhelmed by choices, disgusted by corporate hype and living with the fear their efforts will never be enough, people are tuning out, say the experts.

One could argue the media industry is just getting sick of its own reporting -- who hasn't done a "green" issue? -- and is looking for the next trend. The Columbia Journalism Review in June reported that the press has moved from "environmental exigency to exhaustion." From The New York Times to Wired magazine, reporters are talking up the weary consumer.

It's not all hype. Greenwashing is happening left and right. Over-the-top claims by companies jumping on the "eco" bandwagon are being met with suspicion and are eroding consumer trust. Then, sadly, when true progress is made by companies pushing the boundaries, such as Patagonia and its Footprint Chronicles, little is mentioned in the mainstream press.

There also is growing uncertainty about the effectiveness of personal actions, despite the truest of intentions. People are so bombarded by "helpful" advice that they're becoming consumed with anxiety over making the right decision. Local or organic? Carpool or green tags? Bath or shower? The choices are endless. And just when you think you're making the right one, such as using Nalgene as refillable water bottles, you find out that's not right either. Now you've got another thing to worry about: BPA.

For the media industry, CJR is recommending that journalists "avoid the flimflammery of 'green consumerism' (itself, an oxymoron) unless there is a truly useful discovery or breakthrough to report. Perhaps that would assuage some of the eco-anxiety out there, and allow readers to think about more meaningful ways to help their planet."

Good advice. Are you listening? What is "breakthrough" is news. Everything else is just interesting. Or even expected of you.

7 Tips to Avoid Eco-Fatigue

1. Be remarkable. You can make the "greenest" product on the planet, but unless it solves a significant consumer problem, works or tastes better than anything in the market and offers a good value in ratio to price, consumers won't buy it.

2. Be green because it's something you value, not as a marketing gimmick. Can coal really market the industry as being green and clean? What is Kermit the Frog doing with the Ford Escape? People smell falsehoods, and you go from bad to worse.

3. Don't be bashful. A lot of truly "green" companies are afraid to speak up because it feels too self-righteous. Consumers actually appreciate your efforts, no matter the size, as long as they're earnest and a step in the right direction. The amplification of your message can increase with your commitments.

4. Make it fun and engaging. Green doesn't have to be staid. The average consumer doesn't even know that the "hip" home cleaning products (is that an oxymoron?) made by Method are even green. And that's entirely the point. This fast-growing brand wants consumers to love its product first -- because they're well-designed, smell beautiful and work well. They're also planet friendly. Method's attitude is: Why wouldn't they be?

5. Partner with an established nonprofit. When Kettle Foods wanted to add a cause element to its new Backyard Barbecue flavor, it immediately thought of wildlife habitat protection because it's something it does in its own backyard. To inspire consumers to apply the same principles at home, Kettle partnered with a respected nonprofit, the National Wildlife Foundation. Then it encouraged people to get involved by creating their own backyard wildlife habitats. Who wouldn't want a bag of free chips as thanks for attracting local birds?

6. Invite consumers to join you. A flushable diaper doesn't sound like a product that would inspire a cult following, but gDiapers realized early on that its core consumers were a vocal bunch. So gDiaper empowered them. By creating gMums and gDads, the company arms independent, trusted "spokespeople" with free product and the tools they need to spread the word. Doesn't get much better than that.

7. Move beyond green. Green is a fad. Sustainability is continual improvement. If you're only looking at energy consumption, you're just scratching the tip of the iceberg. Businesses that endorse a "triple-bottom-line" approach -- Organic Valley Farms, New Belgium and Clif Bar, to name a few -- also address their affect on society in their communities. Environment is the third leg of the stool, but without the other two, you wouldn't have a place to sit.

Source - Ad Age