Before I proceed, let me preface that this is my personal blog and these are my thoughts, which may or may not be reflected by my employer.

A branding campaign is a proxy for “we do not have or have access to the right measurement tools to substantiate a fully measured campaign.”  Think about it.  Hollywood typically uses “branding” campaigns to launch movies because there is very little technology out there that can report back to say how many people actually saw CommercialX and went to Loews to purchase a ticket this passed Saturday.

There is $250bln spent in measured US advertising each year and we do not have the tools to adequately measure the entire marketing campaign.  Something seems off, right?

If we look to Wall Street for guidance on where importance is placed, goodwill (brand) is recognized on the balance sheet but at the end of the day, earnings is most important.  Google’s goodwill is a lot less than it’s operating income, which is where Wall Street tends to place it’s bets and the stock is performing well.

With technology penetrating the advertising ecosystem – i.e. Ad Servers, Databases, Optimization Engines, Bid Management Platforms, one would think that we’re closer to a measurable ecosystem.  We can only get to the end state if all of our media channels are digital (not necessarily laptop or desktop driven) as we will be able to measure and analyze.

As television (largest medium for ad dollars), print (Kindle, Nook, etc), radio (satellite, HDD), and OOH (digital-OOH) are all becoming digitized, then we can get closer to measuring campaign success.

What many of us deem as extremely important in both optimization and conversion is the actual path to conversion.  Atlas and DART all have special names for this but lets use Engagement Mapping.   If you are exposed to 7 different advertisements across multiple channels and you convert after the 7th, then generally the last exposure gets all of the credit.

Where this model breaks is upon any non-measured exposure component (today:  tv, print, radio, ooh, and sometimes search, yes, search if it’s not part of the database).  This is why we need all channels to have a digital backbone or be measured by one (and one without a biased panel set).  Lets assume this is fixed (big assumption) and we can measure all the way through from first exposure to conversion (and post).

If we are at this end-state, THEN why do we need a branding campaign?   Why should we not include a full call-to-action on each piece of media that drives the user to take some action and to properly associate value with each?

It may take 10 years to get us there, but at least it will be in this new decade.  If this happens, two radical things will occur:

1. John Wannamaker will roll over in his grave as we will have figured out which part of his ad-spend is working for him.
2. Marketers may realize that they are overspending or underspending with their media dollars.

Decades:
1990s – playing around and innovating
2000s – making things work, starting to track and monetize
2010s – realizing the potential and investing in the infrastructure to make this happen

Caveat:
One could argue that you need awareness before you can get to conversion.  Yes, that’s correct, but you can go from instant awareness to conversion much faster now.  We also know that consumers enter a purchase funnel from many different places and that some arrive at the funnel much lower than the awareness stage.  Just go with it.

If you can understand the technology infrastructure needed to make this all happen, then you can understand why I love where advertising & marketing is headed.  Happy holidays – @dherman76

This morning I ran an experiment:  use Wordle to visualize TechCrunch, GigaOm, and Mashable by their RSS/Atom feed.   This is part of a larger experiment that I’m pursuing but that story is for a later date.  What I find particularly interesting is that you can quickly see the distinctions between their reporting; as an example, GigaOm focusing more on tech (VMWare, infrastructure) where Mashable covers lots of consumer web (Dorthy launch, Wordpress).

TechCrunch – Content Cloud (below)

Mashable – Content Cloud (below)

GigaOm – Content Cloud (below)

Some not-so-big (in terms of volume) but still important trends and predictions that appeared:  data, cloud, devices and acquisition.

Blogs/sites that I aggregated include but are not limited to Mashable, Read Write Web, Clickz, AdAge, Alley Insider, Center Networks, GigaOm, WSJ, MediaPost, CNBC, Adotas, and many, many more.

happy new year – @dherman76

• Silicon Valley:  Top 10 of the 2000s (John McCrea)
• 2010 Predictions Roundup (Emarketer)
• 11 Smart Marketers Shared Their Predictions (Marketing Profs)
• 2010 Predictions:  10 Marketing Winners & Losers (Rick Liebling)
• Four Email Marketing Predictions for 2010 (MediaPost)
• Where Digital Marketing is Headed in 2010 PT1 (AdAge)
• Where Digital Marketing is Headed in 2010 PT2 (AdAge)
• Top Predictions for 2010 (Urban Shogun)
• 7 Things We Hope Will Come True in 2010 (GigaOm)
• Technology Predictions for 2010 (Telegraph.co.uk)
• Four Technology Predictions for a Happy 2010 (MediaBizBloggers)
• 2010 Content Technology Trends (CMS Watch)
• 30 Predictions for the Future of Twitter (Mashable)
• Facebook:  5 Predictions for 2010 (Mashable)
• Digital Media Predictions for 2010 (Clickz)
• 2010:  The Year of Data (Adotas)
• 2010:  5 Media Predictions You Can Bank On (Business Insider)
• 5 Key Web Analytics Predictions for 2010 (Ant Hill Online)
• 2010 Social Media Predictions in 140 Characters (Trendspotting)
• Technology Predictions for 2010 (Technobabble)
• 2010 Prediction Roundup:  From Outlandish to Likely (PC World)
• Technology Predictions are Mostly Bunk (WSJ)
• 6 Tech Predictions that Helped Shape 2009 and 6 That Might Shape 2010 (Mashable)
• Three Potential Twitter App Targets for 2010 (Center Networks)
• 10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2010 (Read Write Web)
• 2010 Predictions (Read Write Web)
• Twitter in 2010:  Acquisitions (The Next Web)
• Location, Location, Location:  5 Big Predictions for 2010 (Mashable)
• Tech Mergers and Acquisitions to Grow in 2010 (Network World)
• 2010 Predictions:  Rich Wong’s List (Silicon Angle)
• 2010 Venture Capital:  Hot and Cold Sectors to Watch (Venture Beat)
• Predictions 2010:  Media (CNBC)
• 2010 predictions:  Another Turbulent Year Ahead (LA Times)

I maintained friendship with David beyond the dinner and have gotten coffee over the years to chat about his entrepreneurial engagements, chocolate, roller skating, candidacy to become Apple’s next CEO, and of course, children (he’s also a father of a young child).

David’s big day is tomorrow, when Portfolio Hardcover is releasing his next book entitled Pull:  The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business.  The title is a mouthful and a bit boring but if I know David, the book will certainly impress.

Per his book description:  Pull is the blueprint to the next disruptive wave. Some call it Web 3.0; others call it the semantic web. It’s a fundamental transition from pushing information to pulling, using a new way of thinking and collaborating online. Using the principles of this book, you will slash 5-20 percent off your bottom line, make your customers happier, accelerate your industry, and prepare your company for the twenty-first century. It isn’t going to be easy, and you don’t have any choice. By 2015, your company will be more agile and your processes more flexible than you ever thought possible.

For those who are interested in learning about the semantic web further, you can purchase his book on Amazon.

Other ways to learn about the semantic web:  wikipedia, w3c, semanticweb.org, avc (fred wilson), oreilly

As you can see from this chart, holding company stocks (MDCA, IPG, OMC, HAVSF, PUBGY, WPPGY) all tanked along with everyone else during late 2008 but have started to bounce back in 2009.

In the digital trenches, I witnessed an interesting divide really start to occur:  this “social media“ phenomenon and hyper targeted and optimized display advertising.  If you put a social media “guru” in a room with a data and targeting company, the conversation would probably be as bad as one of my dates when I first moved to Manhattan.

Social Media
I put “social media” in quotes as I fundamentally do not believe that this exists in itself.  I believe that all media can be social and it’s not new.  Anyway – this year saw a continuation of thousands (over 15,700) of social media experts pop up on Twitter and even carve out little businesses for themselves as consultants/agencies to a few brands.  The common question in 2009 that came across my desk was “what should be my social media strategy?”    Twitter’s constant presence in the news in early 2009 and Facebook’s dominance in the social networking/graphing space has contributed to this “social media” trend.

Recently, Pepsi announced it was going to forgo its advertisement in the Super Bowl which we’ve grown accustomed to each year and put those dollars to work in a rather large social media campaign.  I applaud their efforts to generate PR, but is this sustainable for them?  Meaning, they are essentially putting the money to work in a cause marketing campaign… will this have impact?

2009 saw Dell racked up over $6.5 worth of sales directly attributable to Twitter and the almost-too-hyper/passionate Gary Vaynerchuk climb to 848k followers.

Hyper Targeting & Optimized Display
There has been a trend in the display space towards audience driven media.  If you can identify an audience based on different characteristics stored in computer cookies, why not advertise to a handful of extremely targeted users? Data facilitators/providers like BlueKai, Exelate, Domdex, TargusInfo, Media6, Lookery, Rapleaf, Peer39, LucidMedia, Quantcast, and many others became front and center this year.  Demand Side Platforms (DSP), or technologies that allow the dollar holders (typically agencies) get closer to the media (through exchanges and other sources) also became popular and a few closed significant funding rounds.  AdExchanger popped onto the scene and started covering this entire space rather comprehensively.  If you have not read their 2009 year end report, download it now.

2010 should be interesting for this industry as the government is looking into online privacy.   Because much of the targeting is done through accessing anonymous cookies, this whole industry could be hampered or shut-down depending on legislation that is passed around ad targeting.  There are a few startups, particularly the Better Advertising Project focusing on helping congress solve these issues.  Personally, this would be a big bummer as I believe that if we can offer a much more targeted advertisement to users, then their overall experience could be much better.

Recap
Any media planner or buyer on Madison Ave has put a few social elements and optimized display on a media plan in 2009.  I’m sure that this will still occur in 2010 but I’m going to hypothesize that the gap between optimized display and social media may widen and you might start to see shops specialize in one or the other (i.e. CPMAdvisors vs. Crayon).

The one thing that’s consistent is that the audience is in the center of all planning AND buying both in social and optimized display – the more we can learn about our audiences and serve highly relevant messaging to each audience segment will allow us to create better relationships.  Better relationships between users and brands, means a mutually beneficial relationship for the agency and advertiser.

If you are interested in the Optimized Display & Hyper Targeting area, I’ve put together a Twitter list of thought-leaders in this space.  You can subscribe to it here.

I’m a believer that history repeats itself and that we can learn from correlations to similar industries.  I was reading the Technology Review this morning and came across this article on Wall Street’s high frequency traders.

Are the likes of MediaMath, Turn, Invite Media, and Dataxu on the way to becoming high frequency trading platforms?

The abstract of the patent reads:

Among other disclosures, an operating system presents one or more advertisements to a user and disables one or more functions while the advertisements is being presented.  At the end of the advertisement, the operating system again enables the function(s).  The advertisement can be visual or audible.  The presentation of the advertisement(s) can be made part of an approach where the user obtains a good or service, such as the operating system, for free or reduced cost.

A few things to point out:

• To re-state the obvious:  Apple is exploring ways to provide their OS or other services/products for free or a reduced cost
• Apple is looking at both audio and visual (can probably expect video to be in here) types of ads
• The user is forced to watch an ad per the below statement “disables one or more functions while advertisement is being presented”
• The screenshots in the patent filing show an OSX desktop, not an iPhone screen.

Where can Apple roll this out?

• I initially gravitated towards thinking that my next MacBook or iMac will be probably be ad-supported but now I’m thinking that it might be my next iPhone or even the increasingly popular (still not present) Apple tablet.  With increasing pressure from Google moving into the mobile space and recent acquisitions in which both parties (Apple & Google) were at the table (i.e. Admob), advertisements could help drive down the price (or subsidize) the service of a cellphone or Tablet.

Media Distribution

• The opportunity for Apple to become a media distribution hub could be tremendous.  Think about how many Hollywood films or video game trailers they could distribute through their desktop advertising network.

Using advertisements to subsidize a service or make it completely free is not new.  This patent however is potentially important to the industry as Apple looks to future ways to monetize it’s platforms with increasing pressure from competition that has no or very low-cost.

Dell and other PC makers sell advertisements/distribution to companies to place their applications on the desktop of a new computer.  Ever wonder why those icons are there when you open up your brand new machine?  Business development deals place them there and pay-for-distribution.

AllAdvantage was a tool that users downloaded from the Internet during late ‘99 in which compensated users for browsing the web.  They made popular their tagline, “Get Paid to Surf the Web.”

Will Apple make famous, “Get Paid to Use the Computer”?

For those unfamiliar with RIA or “Rich Internet Applications,” they can be defined here:

Rich Internet applications (RIAs) are web applications that have most of the characteristics of desktop applications, typically delivered either by way of a standards based web browser, via a browser plug-in, or independently via sandboxes or virtual machines.^[1] Examples of RIA frameworks include Ajax, Curl, GWT, Adobe Flash/Adobe Flex/AIR, Java/JavaFX,^[2] Mozilla’s XUL and Microsoft Silverlight.^[3]

I think there is an opportunity to take much of what is happening on the web and put it into it’s own desktop application which can have many different uses based on what the user wants.  Companies and projects like Stocktwits, Tweetdeck, Snackr, and others are building ontop of this philosophy and it seems to be working.

Check out Adobe’s gallery of AIR apps.

To be open and candid, I am seriously contemplating an investment in this area.  If you go back to many of the blog posts here, you can probably figure out what the investment will be.  What I’m looking for right now are talented RIA (Flex, AIR, and ActionScript) developers who have some open bandwidth to work on a project (paid of course) as well, as, anyone (investors, entrepreneurs, consultants) who have some war stories building a RIA based consumer and B2B product.

If you know anyone or are interested in conversation, please reach out.