I love product packaging; I’m actually obsessed with it.

In late February of this year I noticed a change in my favorite orange juice, it looked different, and not in a good way. So I did what any curious package design junkie would do, I Googled it. Low and behold the New York Times and about billion other people noticed this too.

The New York Times article titled “Tropicana Discovers Some Buyers Are Passionate About Packaging” sparked a conversion that spread like fire in the Advertising world as well as in the Foodie world. Package design junkies and consumers alike were taking their complaints to the web and posting their displeasure on blogs and other social media outlets like twitter and Facebook. They felt that the packaging was “ stupid”, “ugly”, “resembles a generic brand” and countless other unfavorable comments.

Normally, like any other large corporation (Tropicana is owned by PepsiCo) they would ignore such complaints, as they do not add up to even the smallest percentage of their consumers, but this time it was different. Neil Campbell, the President of Tropicana North America, said the following in an interview about the new packaging:

“We underestimated the deep emotional bond” they (consumers) had with the original packaging. “Those consumers are very important to us, so we responded.”

“The straw and orange have been there for a long time, but people have not necessarily had a huge connection to them.”

“What we didn’t get was the passion this very loyal small group of consumers have. That wasn’t something that came out in the research.”

After reading this article and peering through some of the numerous blogs I tried to think about what this means to Morpheus Media and its clients. Several important points came to mind.

- Social media will tell you things that standard focus groups and research will not, plus the feedback is boundless and instantaneous

- Consumer feedback or lack there of will help gauge where your brand is on the social scale

- Social media gives brands the opportunities to respond to consumer complaints and strengthen brand loyalty

Tropicana took the comments seriously and started to pull the new design and roll out the old one. Starting March 1^st the old packaging was back in stores along with new campaign ads.

From 2004 to 2006, Social Platforms were not as popular as they are today. Facebook was only open to college students with valid .edu email addresses. MySpace was in its prime being used by 15-30 year olds on a regular basis. Twitter was in its infancy and only being used by a select few who were in the Internet (pre 2.0) industry.

From 2007 to 2008, Social Platforms we know and love seemed to improve and expand. Facebook opened to the public and increased engagement levels by offering Applications. MySpace came into its own by specializing in Music. And Social Networks expanded to other countries.

Today, Social Media is whatever the user wants it to be. Accessible by Mobile, Application, or Website, Social Platforms can be updated and used on a frequent basis. Because the speed of Social Media consumptions has rapidly increased, platforms are visible in multiple locations. As the future of Social Media and the value of Social Platforms continues to unfold, we will see many advancements in targeted platforms. Trending in Social Media has defined our culture. What was once a platform that kept us engaged for hours now keeps us notified and up to speed in just a few seconds. To become more beneficial for advertising campaigns, the goal should be to keep users engaged for longer periods of time.

As a Social Media marketer, I believe that expansion of these practices will start to encroach on traditional marketing campaigns, infiltrating subway billboards, and become more prominent on Search Engine result pages.

A common trend at this year’s CES was Internet-ready televisions and new vehicles for users to digest Web content. We’ve heard of products and applications such as Apple TV, Roku, Netflix through Xbox 360 amongst many others. This has been the existing way to absorb web content directly through your large format television. Taking this a step further, Yahoo and Intel Corp. are planning on developing television ”widgets” in order to access such Web content more easily through your existing remote, bypassing previously mentioned hardware and using the television exclusively.

“You are going to see very broad adoption of this open technology by the best brands in the TV industry — not just for specialty products but deeply penetrated in their product lines”…..Patrick Barry, VP of Connected TV @ Yahoo

We currently can access services such as YouTube and Google’s Picasa on our televisions as well as generic services like the weather. With the adoption of “Ready- Web” televisions, users will more frequently access Web content alongside their regular, habitual television programming. This opens the opportunity for advertisers to capture audiences outside the 30-second spot and could add a layer of targeting methodology that was not previously possible.

Here are my full notes from the conference…

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SMX Search Analytics Keynote Address - Vanessa Fox

Search marketing not only brings in targeted customers, it provides an abundance of metrics - about your customers, your potential customers, your entire market. So much data is available that it’s easy to get overwhelmed. In her keynote, Vanessa Fox covers the importance of focusing on the actionable data. You don’t need every metric; you just need the right metrics for your business.

Find Vanessa Fox on the web at Nine By Blue and on Twitter.

* Old data acquisition models
o Pain to impliment
o The type of data we get online would be impossible to get offline
* How is the mountains of data we can collect actionable for the client? So what?
o How to sort through all the data?
* At the end of the day, the important factor for analytics is conversion. -How do you define a conversion?
* Analyzing Data
o Rankings reports are dead
o Key is to figure out what to be measuring
o If not actionable, it can only be of limited help
o Realize what assumptions go into computing data - can be “deadly important”.
* Critical to a lot time to collect, analyze, and act on data.
* Stages of data
o Market Research - Keyword Research - Searcher Behavior
o Industry Research - Competitive Landscape - Revenue Potential
o Conversion - Search Results Conversion - Page Conversion
* Social Media Media Metrics Greasmonkey Plugin

Analyzing & Converting Organic Search Traffic
Your management has invested in SEO, or they need to be convinced that SEO is worth investing in. Regardless, people finding your site from the natural listings in search engines are visiting your site. Search analytics can tell you who found you through organic search results and what they are doing when they get to your site.

Alan K’necht, President/Founder, K’nechtology Inc. - Analytics Segmentation - What’s a click worth?
* Corporate
o Analytics
* Brand
o Searching on product name, sku numbers.
o Traffic from other marketing efforts/brand awareness or returning visitors
o Good candidate for AB Segmentation
o Look at what pages visitors are landing on
* General Terms
o Traffic generally a result of users need for something
o Concentration of analytics effort
o 2, 3 word combinations
o KPI should be focused on non-monetary
o “email this” links good for people who browse at work, and then buy at home

Joshua Dreller, Director, Media Technology & Analytics, Fuor Digital - Analyzing and Converting Organic Search Traffic using Conversion Attribution
* Tracking Everything
o Natural, paid, display, email, affiliate, sponsorships, video links
o Takes times, resources
Cookie session deletion
* Weighting systems development
o Splitting out event paths
o Aggregate weighting system

Chris Silver Smith, Director of Optimization Strategies, KeyRelevance - How to use analytics for SEO effectively.
* Larger sites/higher traffic easier to track real changes, filtering out random fluxuation
* Importance of keyword rankings
o Important to measure, but overall the metric to pay attention to is if referral visits are ranking.
o General keyword ranking isn’t that important - longtail is more effective and valuable.
o Suggests Caphyon’s Advanced Web Ranking
o Google does not suggest using programs like AWR, but Google does provide a small amount of ranking information in Webmaster Tools
* Mature SEO programs should shift to Conversion Monitoring
o Traffic without conversion is of limited value
o Traffic should be qualified, but don’t discount unqualified too much
* Combating the law of diminishing returns
* Metrics for additional SEO
o Clickstream analysis

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Up Close with Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a powerful search analytics package, and even better, itʼs free. Come learn how to get the most from this tool.

Craig Hordlow, Chief Strategist, Red Bricks Media
* GA- The perfect match
o Gap of advanced features available for free is closing with the paid companites
* Setting up profiles
o Set up profiles to eliminate drill downs
o Should set up a different profile for every channel
* Google Analytics Profiles
* Click drop after #1 ranking - hyperbolic drop profile from #1 listing
* Black Hat Google Analytics
o Buy a flash ad on the homepage of a site, and embed google analytics in the flash ad. In effect, you have your own peek into the traffic and visitors of a website.
o Only way to technically prevent/detect it is packet sniffing

Michael Jensen, Co-Founder, SoloSEO.com - Event Tracking and Email Campaigns
* Event Tracking useful for Ajax, Flash, Videos, Downloads, Outbound Links, IntraPage Links
* Event Tracking Model - Category, Action, Label, Value
* Email campaigns
o With google analytics, you can creat a link with a variable string in the link, for event tracking. - Able to even track individual links within a newsletter
* Use url shortening service to make the actual urls shorter

Chris Silver Smith, Director of Optimization Strategies, KeyRelevance - Using google analytics for optimizing locally oriented sites.
* Content targeting local users

Frederick Vallaeys, AdWords Evangelist, Google
* Lots of data is available - trick is how to narrow it down and use it
* Organic Search to find new keywords
o Useful for discovering how people are finding iste
o Useful tool - search query report
o Search based keyword tool - looks at organic listing, and lets you know where keywords are missing
* Regional targeting
o Insight into how to split campaigns based on geo conversion rates
* Website optimizer - AB Testing and multivariate testing

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Top Ten Customized Search Analytics Reports
A marketer can choke on all the data generated by web visits. Even the lowest-end analytics software and services offer hundreds of canned reports, but only a few of these are relevant for search marketers. No matter what vendor you use, these reports should be customized to increase their value to your business. This session looks at the reports most useful to search marketers and how they can be tuned to your personal needs.

Craig Hordlow, Chief Strategist, Red Bricks Media
* Top Ten Reports
o Keyword Level ROI
o Money Left on the Table
* True Click through rate
* Understanding visitors motives is key to optimizing reporting structure and format to provide them with the most relevant information.

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Successful Testing For Improved Search Marketing ROI
Improving conversions is often a trial-and-error proposition. Continuous testing and tuning is crucial for improving results and ROI in search marketing campaigns. Youʼll leave this session knowing what elements of a search marketing campaign you should test, the best practices for testing and to document and communicate the results to others in the organization.

Chris Goward, Co-Founder and CEO, WiderFunnel Marketing - Optimizing conversion rate
* Important to be able to ask the right questions.
* Six Foot legibility test - if you can’t see the call to action from six feet away, it’s too small.

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Traffic Segmentation & Why It Matters

Each of your visitors is unique, and your site should accommodate their needs. Search analytics allows you to segment your traffic by location, demographic characteristics, psychographics and other dimensions. This session looks at audience segmentation and how to do it right.

Scott Brinker, President & Chief Technology Officer, ion interactive - Why traffic segmentation matters.
* Segmentation granularity as strategy- as a business becomes more segmented, key is to define which segments are the most valuable.
* Optimizing keywords requires build-out of multiple landing pages, not just one. Amount of landing pages comes from ROI analysis.
o With multiple landing pages and behavioral choices up front, visitors segment themselves before having a chance to bounce. Active Segmentation
* Landing pages - site-wide navigation is generally not advisable.

Carrie Hill, SEO Team Leader, Blizzard Internet Marketing
* Showing demographics by URL or keyword Phrase - http://kl.am/msndemographictool
* When asking form questions, people will tend to fill out a form if “optional” is not used.
* Email marketing - next frontier for optimized online marketing
* PPC - Easy way to geographically target

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Search Analytics & Competitive Intelligence
Your competitors are smart and aggressive. Knowing their search marketing strategy allows you to validate your own, and to outflank them with innovative tactics. Search analytics is the answer. This session shows you how to implement and profit from a comprehensive competitive intelligence campaign.

Helen Overland, Director of SEM, non linear creations
* Using analytics to view traffic and clicks based on network name and location
* Ability to track individual competitors and their PPC campaigns based on advanced filtering in Google Analytics to narrow down to specific company/network.

Dharmesh Shah, Chief Software Architect and Founder, HubSpot - Competitive Intelligence in Social Media
* Social media matters - lots of traffic, activity. Companies should care because the demographs are changing and diversifying.
* Social media integration with search marketing - Facebook seach box is within the top 10 search engines in the world for raw search volume!
* Twitter Grader
o Measures social media authority and reach

Ian Strain-Seymour, Director of Product Strategy & Development, ApogeeSearch
* Outcome you’re trying to get to will tell you a lot about what type of competitive research to focus on
* Competiors to consider for research
o Direct Competitors
* Industry stragglers?
o Semantic Competitors
o Parallel business models

At the risk of sounding like a Give-Us-You-Money-And-We’ll-Spend-It Media Strategist, the most impactful solution to this question is….keep spending.  During recession periods, marketing budgets are typically first on the chopping block (especially within big companies), however, remaining visible during a downturned economy can be incredibly important in keeping a company profitable during these times (as well as paying dividends once the economy begins to improve).

Historical data shows us that there is a significant messaging void during slumps in the economy (due to the aforementioned budget cuts) and that the impact of brand messaging and Direct Marketing efforts can be more impactful because, well….there’s just not as many people on the playground.  Marketing within this recessionary void can increase brand share of voice and promote “company health” to consumers, avoiding the feeling of “abandonment” that consumers can feel if a brand’s messaging goes silent all of a sudden for extended periods of time (see Guns’N’Roses, Chinese Democracy).

During the Great Depression, brands such as GM, Proctor & Gamble, and Camel cigarettes became brand leaders and survived the economic downturn by increasing marketing efforts while their competitors panicked.  Moving forward, I still see budget cuts….but (for the brands willing to make the investment in the future) a big opportunity for brand awareness and, ultimately, conversion.

What makes this trip personally interesting for me is that I had the opportunity to watch the creation of the strategy for this social media extravaganza transpire at the desk next to mine.  Morpheus Media’s own SEO & Emerging Technology guru Jeffrey Donenfeld pioneered the program from the comfort of our offices here in Midtown Manhattan.  Multiple scenarios had to be planned for, accounting for all possible technology failures and the redundancy needed to remain successful while traveling through some of the most isolated regions of the world.  Team Deserttaxi was literally able to successfully blog from Outer Mongolia thanks to Jeffrey’s hard work.

I really wanted to tip my hat to Jeffrey on a job well done, as he is responsible for helping the team tell a great story under uniquely challenging circumstances.

While the event was informative, I would be remiss if I did not compliment the group on their new digs.  For those of you who have not yet been to the new location it really is a great space.  There was a progressive vibe present during the networking and there was bloggers lounge built for pros.

Although I was unable to stay for the entire event, I enjoyed the sold out show.  I look forward to attending the next few events at this location and just wanted to thank Tamar for her insights.

What interests me most is what this will eventually lead to.  Analysts are predicting that in a few years, there will be just as much talk about the “world wide grid” as there is today about the world wide web.  What is this, you ask?  Aggregating small amounts of power, bandwidth and storage space from each of our personal computers, placing them all in one grid structure (much like a bit torrent does for pulling large files) and creating one all-powerful supercomputer, this grid would allow applications to run robust tasks at an amazing and possibly alarming rate.

Think in terms of a beehive.  If the hive has 20 extremely effective worker bees, it cannot compete with another containing 2000 less-than-perfect worker bees, all executing simultaneously to build a large structure.  The scary part here is that this becomes a hacker’s dream.  Hackers can now run decoding applications on a very large scale.  Encryption systems have historically stayed ahead of the processing power of the top computers out there, keeping security air-tight (in most cases).  The potential to infiltrate a large-scale grid of computers is making hackers everywhere salivate at the thought.

And next, what happens as computers begin to execute small tasks on their own?  These computers can connect to the grid and employ the masses to complete other small tasks.  Eventually, the computer could use information from other computers in the grid to execute a large-scale operation (which began as a simple task created by a user).  And then?  Chaos.  The machines will utilize their strength in numbers to take over our everyday lives.  Seem surreal?  Like a movie?  Better look closer, as it’s really happening.

Produced by Adcision the Luxury Letter is “A journal for the online marketing professional” that focuses on the luxury vertical.  So as a great unknown digital frontier exists just a few short calendar days away in 2009, what effect will a bearish market play on media plans and sales.

Well, do what the Luxury Letter did and ask Rebecca Matt.  Rebecca is a Senior Strategist here at Morpheus Media.  She is known for keeping one finger on the pulse of the industry while always keeping another finger on her mouse in order to make informed decisions on behalf of her clients.

While no one can guarantee what 2009 will hold, Rebecca has demonstrated a history of making well-informed decisions based on multiple factors in order to help her clients accounts perform well beyond expectations.

Rebecca keep up the great work, and remember don’t give away too much…