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Street View in Whistler, BC

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:57:00 +0000

Google's Street View team strapped some equipment to a snowmobile (or SkiDoo if you're Canadian) and took a tour around Whistler, BC in all their beautiful pre-Olympic glory. Here's the Link. Google Street View at Whistler.

How to launch an apple

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:52:00 +0000

Ontario's newest, most famous apple is the Red Prince. A variety of apples brought over from Europe and now grown locally in Ontario, the Red Prince is in the midst of a very public PR campaign, beginning on Friday with the distribution of 10,000 apples to the public, in the PATH in Toronto.

THE RED PRINCE CIVILITY EVENT - PHOTO OP AND FREE PUBLIC EVENT
What: The Red Prince Civility Event
When: Friday, February 5th from 11am until 2pm
Where: Toronto's underground PATH system at the Exchange Tower (130 King Street West, on the Concourse level in the main hallway) and First Canadian Place (100 King Street West, on the Concourse level near the waterfall)
Why: To celebrate the Red Prince apple and to reintroduce manners and etiquette to society
Who: Everyone

I was lucky enough to get the Etiquette Pack from Faye Clack, the agency handling the account. What a delight! I had already become a Fan of their Facebook Page, and followed the new Red Prince Twitter feed, and thought that the Etiquette Pack would be a PDF or some documentation about the history of the apple. Nope. I was sent 5 polished Red Prince Apples, one of which (above) you'll see came (like royalty) on a little red pillow. Now that's classy!

Of course I did get the background, and the details of the launch, but more importantly, I got the product to taste. Claire was reading the info pack with me, and said something like "what does it taste like?"-- so we tried them for dessert after tonight's Rigatoni and Meatballs. They're great. Crunchy, juicy, sweet but not too sweet, tart but not like a granny smith tart, firm but not hurt your gums firm, with a thin enough skin that you don't need to peel it. (Side note: I had a Granny Smith the other day and after the first piece, had to peel it, because it was like eating leather. Blechh.)

It's a great apple, but what better way to tell people about it then to give away 10,000 of them and get people talking about it themselves. For more info about the apples, the launch, or the company, check out their website: Red Prince Apples

Finding Social Media Talent for your organization

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:42:00 +0000

Hugh Macleod said it pretty well with his cartoon (above). There are a lot of experts out there, so how do you find the right person for your brand? Do you even need someone internal to represent, or can your digital agency do the heavy lifting (or all the lifting for that matter).

David Armano , SVP at Edelman Digital, just wrote a great piece for the Harvard Business Review about ways to find talent for your company's social needs. Tapping internal resources to re-train, recruit friends and contacts, and promote the brand are central to his thoughts and I tend to agree. However, this is easier said than done.

In large orgs, even knowing who your employees are can be a challenge, let alone having them naturally promote your agenda in a specific social network. The example I'll use: maybe a certain Vice President is a superb networker, and his or her contacts on LinkedIn are vast. He's connected to all kinds of talent. He is. Does that mean that HR or others with a vested recruiting interest can tap that network? Nope. That's his. Now does it benefit everyone (including this VP) to share certain specific things with his vast network, like new high-level job postings, etc. Absolutely. The VP gets the cache of being an influencer and connector within their network, and it works for everyone.

Part of the challenge is that HR or Talent recruiting or Employee Relations may not have the expertise or technology savvy (or even the tools available) to be able to identify this leader, and reach out to them. Really, the education has to start with those in need.

This applies to marketers as well. A brand marketer, though knowledgeable, may not be the best person to translate brand decisions or expectations into the language of the social web. Sometimes you need expertise to manage the channel and educate the stakeholders, so that the stakeholders can concentrate "on driving the car" not on "how a car works".

Linked In. Changes and Tips.

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:00:00 +0000

LinkedIn just started pushing out to users their changes to the Contacts browser on LinkedIn.com. It's a lot better than before. Not that that was hard, because before (and possibly for some right now, until all the updates are pushed out) it was just an alpha listing with Name, Title, Company, that you could export.

They've moved to keep users doing their updating and notes ON the site now, with the ability to browse contacts, see essentially all of the address-book type of contact info so that you can now more easily use LinkedIn as a rolodex.

For anyone who syncs LinkedIn with Outlook, this is helpful, but already basically in place. The web version does show the users photo (Thanks Bianca for being my guinea pig page example), so that's an improvement over Outlook, and the previous contact listing.

What should you be doing on LinkedIn?

--Have an updated profile picture that's your face, not your whole upper body-- these are small images and we can't zoom in. (Dog pictures are cute but if you meet someone at a conference, they're trying to make sure it's you, and not someone else.)

--Is your contact info up to date? If contacts are going to use this to get in touch (the whole point of LinkedIn) it better be the right number, email, etc. Even better-- tell people how to get in touch with you. Hate calls? Tell them to email you. Too much email? Have them call you at the office.

--Are you using a work email? Dangerous, because when you're walked out of the c-suite, they typically take over your email. It's a pain to try to change credentials after the fact. Get Gmail as a backup at least. You can add multiple email addresses to LinkedIn for just such an occasion.

--Import contacts from Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, etc. See who you already know and connect with them.

--Look at the connections of people you work with to find others you know or that you work with that are already on LinkedIn.

--If you secretly want to be head hunted make sure you can be found! Include accurate, and keyword-rich summaries and descriptions of previous jobs. Make sure your headline says what you do, or what you're all about.

--Are you job hunting? Check the Jobs section daily for new posts, or get feeds or alerts to let you know. Follow company news for companies you're interested in.

--When you look at a profile on LinkedIn, that user (depending on your privacy settings) can see that you checked them out, and can see either your full name, etc or just title/industry. Use this to your advantage and get on people's radar. Scope out hiring managers, executives, friends of friends, etc in the area you're interested in and it may be that moment of luck that is the "right time at the right place" that get's you noticed.

--Not job hunting? Love your job? Help your company! Write recommendations for colleagues, suggest candidates from your network to your talent/recruiting team so they can check them out. Put your company website or other links in your profile to help spread the word.

--Keeping abreast of the situation in your industry? You should find or create a group. Like minds appreciate a place to ask questions, share events, etc.

--Questions and Answers. If you want to ask a question of your network, but don't want to bother anyone, post it, and see what answers you get. Equally-- if you want to share your expertise, find leads, or just add to the conversation, try answering a few questions in your interest area or area of expertise.

Got more tips? Share in the Comments.

Facebook streamlines gifts

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:10:00 +0000

Facebook has recently re-vamped their virtual gift platform, adding more choice, quality and interactivity in the lead-up to a full financial platform launch.

Facebook Credits have been around for a few years, but recently, Facebook announced changes to the credits platform and introduced more connectivity with Facebook Connect, used on over 80,000 popular sites and growing. This new credits platform is essentially a direct competitor to Paypal. By assuring your real identity, and with verification like mobile devices, PINs, emails, etc, Facebook Connect will soon become 'the way to pay' online.

The virtual gifts on Facebook.com are just the appetizer to Facebook's $500mil+ revenue model, based mostly on socially-targeted ads. However as Facebook Connect becomes a flow-through conduit for currency internationally, they will rapidly become an everyday user's go-to payment platform. Why would someone like my mom create a new account with PayPal, go through the security and verification process, etc to make a payment on various sites around the web, when she can use credentials that she knows and trusts, via Facebook Connect.

As the Facebook Credits system permeates the web, and Facebook Connect becomes even more ubiquitous, I think we'll see many of the same things we saw PayPal struggle with 10 years ago breeze by for Facebook. Even though Facebook appears to lack consumer-facing experience with e-commerce, the reality is that their platform for taking our money to create social-ads (for both large and small businesses) is quite robust.

I will also speculate that one of Facebook's upcoming acquisitions in 2010 or early 2011 will be Financial or Analytical. A payments gateway, a startup with some new, great ecommerce wares... Something like that.

Human powered Sand Printer

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:30:00 +0000

Back in the day, I elaborated and enhanced an idea for printing on beach sand by designing and having built a giant tow-able device. The concept business I called Cleaner Parks, as the message was always going to be a sponsored "Don't Litter" impression.

Today I came across a human powered sand printer using a similar technique (how many ways are there to print sand anyway?) but this one is a slower but more engaging method.

This weird printer of a wheel made by Zanadesign, a Spanish design consultancy specialised in conceptual design –and of non organic materials so it doesn’t have impact to the beach and heavy enough to be used by a child but not pushed by the wind- is actually being used to spread the message of the commemoration of the first constitution of Spain in 1812 proof of peace, freedom and democracy.

Why Twitter will never be Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:57:00 +0000

Twitter's growth has stalled. Many believed it to be the scrappy up-and-comer that was going to put all other 'complicated' social sites to shame, but in fact it serves a very specific purpose for a very specific audience.

I don't think it's because twitter is about to imminently fail or anything like that, but I think that the world-wide market for a service like twitter is simply not as large as something like Facebook.

Twitter has a purpose, and my take on it is that Twitter will remain as a site showing the pulse of the real-time web, and will continue to generate trends like popular links, #hashtags, etc, but all for niche usage. Even though Google has incorporated real-time search into many of their results, the relevancy of a comment from a stranger, versus Google's time-test algorithm as far as finding what's right for me at that moment just doesn't seem to be up to par.

Here's my prediction: They have lots of VC money, so they're not going anywhere. They will continue to evolve, and (for brands anyway) will end up being just another customer service channel. "You want to complain to us? Well, we're listening on Twitter." Do I see e-commerce happening through twitter? Nope. What about enhanced services like video or even photo sharing? Only through third-parties like TwitPic, or YouTube... not on the site itself. Will brands pay for 'Premium' accounts? There had better be some enhanced value as part of that...

The place that Twitter can continue to dominate is making trends and real-time search relevant. That's what something like (even Facebook) has yet to master, because people do not spend all day on Facebook updating their status-- yet from the beginning, that was the (mobile) point of Twitter; answering those questions like "What are you doing?"

Would I recommend future clients use Twitter as part of a corporate social media strategy? Yes. Why? Because that's where people are, and that's what people are talking about. If this was 2006, I would be recommending a MySpace Page, because that's what everyone was doing. That's the point: It's emerging technology marketing, and the trick is to be nimble enough to market to people where there are, and in the channel they love.

My Last Hope for Rogers (updated)

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:27:00 +0000

[FINAL UPDATE: Rogers has swapped the defective device with a refurbished device of the same model. I've got everything back on the new Blackberry and all is well. Thank you to @RogersMJ @RogersRob @RogersKeith for getting my problem to the right people in the office of the president who were able to provide me with the right service. ]

My calls kept going to people with no power to affect change, so rather than keep explaining to people who could do nothing, I thought I would post my problem and see if the people who can affect change read it and want to make something happen.

I've been a Rogers Wireless customer for a while. According to them, Fall 2007, but that was really just when I got the latest number. Before that I had other numbers, work provided Blackberrys, as well as other services like Cable at various locations.

The story begins with the RIM Blackberry Curve 8310. It's a nice device when it works, but mine started to give me problems over a year ago. I attempted to use the proper process, and called tech support and did arrive at a solution. Wipe the device. Reload the OS. Hope for the Best.

My Device is now no longer in warranty. According to RIM and Rogers, the device should only keep working until 1 year after it's turned on for the first time, after that, you as a customer, are on your own. I disagree. My device says Rogers on it. It also says Blackberry. Since RIM will not do exchanges, because of their agreement with the providers, it's up to Rogers to say "Yes, this is a known situation that RIM should handle Mr. Customer. Here's a working device, and we'll handle the issues on the back end with RIM, as we likely do this all the time for other customers who are submitting their malfunctioning phones, and who are within their warranty period.

I'm not looking for a handout. I'm looking for RIM and/or Rogers to take responsibility for this systemic and documented problem and simply replace the device. They can both SAVE a customer and oil the squeaky wheel.

Nola, Don, Sarah, and others (though I'm pretty sure they use assigned fake names) were all (mostly) understanding to my dilemma, and empathetic to my situation, but they simply could not raise their hand to their boss or their bosses boss and say "Hey, we need to just give this guy another device, same as the old, but that works. That will shut him up." Nobody can do that.

A few friends/colleagues have mentioned that if you escalate enough at Rogers, you'll eventually get to a magical 'really good' level of customer relations rumoured to be The Office of the President. I think it's likely equivalent to emailing sjobs@apple.com and getting your problem solved, whether it's Nadir or not. (Which we all know it's not.)

Now just the fact that I'm writing this on a blog, it's been indexed by Google already, I know the name of the CEO of the company, I'm referencing customer services terms and technical terms, and that I'm (for the most part) being pretty polite--- should sound the alarm bells. How is Rogers going to react to this post? Will I get another generic tweet back from @rogersrob saying " Try Live Support". The Twitter team can direct and offer suggestions, but cannot affect change. They're not looking up accounts (most likely) because it wouldn't make sense to give these people access to things based on what people tweet about. That could be dangerous, so all they can really do is make sure that the right people find out about significant problems, customer service issues, and potential PR or legal questions...

I understand that a company is in business. They are trying to make money. If they give stuff away, then they can't make money-- however they didn't lose money on a device for me to become a customer, I'm not on a contract. They get my money on time every month (because VISA deems it so...) and because of this, and my unwielding resolve, I've decided to provide an ultimatum (because they're always awesome): Either something significant will happen on Rogers or RIM's part for this BROKEN PHONE-- REPLACE IT issue, or I will start shopping for a new service provider, port my number to Bell Canada or Telus, and likely get a new phone anyway. RIM will not be the loser in this situation, because I will undoubtedly get another Blackberry-- however Rogers needs to evaluate the LTV of me as a customer and see if they still want me? (See, more jargon, I'm worth paying attention to!)

/Your Move.

UPDATE: I will post the resolution to this issue here.

UPDATE 2: To clarify, Rogers still sells the exact same model of Blackberry.

UPDATE 3: Got a phone call from The Office of the President today after work. (I've put my SIM in a loaner phone so I don't lose my mind). So far it was more of the same. No offer to represent me to RIM to swap my defective device with a working (even refurbished) unit. Lots of offers to have me sign up for a contract and get a really good deal on a brand new Blackberry. He was really dwelling on the fact that my device is out of Warranty. We all know that at this point. I get it, it's not going to be an easy switch. Right now it's a case of Rogers wanting to keep me as a customer, but not wanting to do anything above and beyond to achieve that. He's going to call back with a follow up, so we'll see what the verdict is from the Office of the President. Stay tuned.

UPDATE 4: (Friday 5:30pm) Emile just called back from the Office of the President with a resolution. Rogers has stepped up. They are going to swap the phone with a refurbished model of the same (The Blackberry Curve 8310). I look forward to continuing to be a Rogers customer.

Does your brand need its own Community site?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:49:00 +0000

These days? It depends. Whether that's a forum or discussion board, or even with bells and whistles like image uploading, etc--- why not use an existing social network?

People loathe having multiple credentials, so if they can manage their own pictures on Flickr, and at the same time be a part of the 'Iams Dog Lovers' group to share stories and photos (I made that up), then why wouldn't they? For the brand, it's less budget, less development, simpler management, easier promotion, greater traction, bigger audience, etc. It just makes sense.

Facebook Fan pages are the obvious answer to brands looking to aggregate their fans in one place. Content management, comment moderation, no development, no cost (clarify: no maintenance cost). Plus, everyone is already there.

What about if your brand is something very niche-- should you use Ning, or another platform to make an entire social network just for your niche group? Afterall, naked cyclists (example) don't use Facebook, right? At the end of the day, pretty much anything you can think of, has an audience, and is represented on a major network. Whether they've been branded and aggregated--that's your job, but the audience is there.

What if you're Monsanto and you do great business with farmers (who are essentially end-users/consumers) and ag retailers all over the world, but a few pesky operations issues have generated some negative PR. You may want your own community to talk about very specific industry things, possibly content that you don't want indexed by search, but that isn't necessarily secret, and of course, the ability to heavily moderate and track conversations. You may not want to discuss a new Soy variety on Facebook. A company like Monsanto may want their own community.

So where do we draw the line? It think it's audience. If you speak directly to consumers, you may as well be where the consumers are. Nike, Dell, Air Miles, Shoppers Drug Mart, Canadian Tire. If on the other hand, your company offers a service or product to businesses, then even though those same people are on Facebook, they, for work, may be the audience for a private community, or at the very least, a stand alone forum or discussion board. Monsanto, IBM, SAP. I draw the line at B2C vs. B2B.

There is however a middle ground that I would like to call the expertise sector. Think of a key audience group like Microsoft .NET Developers. They could (and probably do) have a Facebook page where they can get news, links to resources, etc. But an expertise group like developers need a forum for discussion that would really bog down a Facebook Fan Page. They need sub-topics, and moderators with expertise, and the ability to share more than just links, but maybe code or files--- this is all beyond what Facebook can really do. So they're not B2B, but they are an audience that needs their own community.

When you're evaluating whether or not your brand or company needs to come up with a social network of some kind for your key audience, ask yourself this: Can we use an existing platform? If yes, then the likely answer is that your audience WANTS you to use an existing platform.

Body Scanners = Bad

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:12:00 +0000

I object to the knee-jerk million dollar reaction to the underwear bomber. I also object to the thought that since the TSA can't save them, and they are "deleted immediately", that the x-ray-like images of naked people will not show up on the internet immediately. A simple 'invert image' function on photoshop will make the weird scanner image look almost pornographic, so Houston-- we have a problem.

Ok, first-- it's good technology. Seeing people without their clothes is much better than shy security not doing the full crotch pat-down and letting through the bad people; However, this is pretty invasive for most people, and still requires lots of personnel, training, and (as mentioned) expensive equipment. If I manufactured these scanners, I would have set up the underwear bomber charade myself just to sell more units.

The scanner should be able to create an image that is just black and white blobs, with big red squares on anything deemed 'not good'. The scanner has to interpret the data anyway, so make it show muppets for gods sake. Have it show anything-- except naked people.

Google knows All. Pt. 2

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:57:00 +0000

I was about to enjoy a funny video on YouTube when I noticed something odd in the status bar: Google was loading the video from a very geo-targeted location.

It knew that our ISP was Bell Canada, and that we were in Toronto (YYZ). I'm guessing (because I'm not a network expert) that the c.youtube.com means "Load this video from a Canadian host", so that it's quicker and cheaper for them, and ultimately better for my viewing experience. But this new addition of ISP and City seems like they are really optimizing my download based on location.

Just thought I'd share that.

Creators vs. Distributors vs. Consumers

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:17:00 +0000

Content on the web can be anything from the most useful, business-related document or analysis or data-set, to the most ridiculous wastes of time like kittens on a pizza. At the end of the day however, there are only 3 groups that interact with this content. (Feel free to argue with me about this...)

As the title of the post would suggest, there are those that make content, those that distribute/disseminate/share/rate/up-vote/retweet/re-post/link-back etc, (which I'll call the distributors) and those that simply consume (watch, read, listen). These groups are not mutually exclusive, but they can be very different.

Since we all have mobile phones in our pockets these days, technically we could all be called creators. It doesn't take much to be in the right place at the right time, snap a photo with a smart phone, and tweet,post, or share it. These are content creators in the literal sense, and most of the time they don't see themselves as such. They think "Hey, this is a punny sign, I'm going to share it with my friends". There usually isn't a conscious effort about creating content, and a lot of times people don't realize that their tweets are indexed by Google or that (if their Facebook profile isn't completely locked down with privacy settings) their photos and status updates are also considered web content for others to read and view and share. We are all essentially creators of content, whether formally-- I am a blogger, or informally--- I snapped this picture.
Consumers are Distributors (those that read/view/listen/watch) that don't distribute. There is always someone at the end of the chain of content who says "I've seen this before" or "this is funny, but not funny enough for me to add my personal credibility to and share with my network(s)".

Where do you fit? Are you primarily a creator, a consumer, or a distributor of content? Most of us span all of these categories, which is why I decided against trying to make any pretty Venn diagrams or anything. This is not scientific.

Comments?

Rogers On Demand Online: Beta is interesting.

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:05:00 +0000

I'm going to let Rogers off bigtime here, because they put BETA on their site, and as we all know, Beta means that it's allowed to not work, have bugs, have limitations, or be limited in scope or content, until such a point that they deem it a real thing. Google does this all the time.

Rogers recently launched Rogers On Demand Online (which is a pain to type, so I'm just going to refer to it as rodo from here on out). Rodo is like Hulu in the US, except not quite as good. Not as many content providers, not as much content, limitations galore (like Quebec, like Cable Subscribers having more access than Wireless subscribers...) and that sort of thing. I also read that Rogers Internet customers have to contend with bandwidth issues as well. Not sure what the issue is there-- if they go over no matter what they're watching they have to pay, just like Bell-- so I'm not sure what the issue is.

Anyway, I actually think it's kind of nice that Rogers has entered the arena, and done so with a platform that has lots of room to grow. They've got many of the relationships already that will be necessary if they wish to add a content provider every week for the next year. They've also got a solid base of customers nationwide (excluding Quebec apparently) on which to build a solid base of viewers.

So wait-- what's their business model? Those annoying pre-roll 30 second spots that run before the video? We're going back to interruption marketing? What about movies? Are they going to interrupt every 5 minutes like TBS Superstation does with their movies, to the point of annoying? (I don't know, because I haven't watched a movie yet.)

Another limitation that I have to mention is that the so called good content from those channels you have to pay extra for with your cable subscription, are not available on RODO unless you are a cable subscriber. WTF? If I could watch that on my TV, wouldn't I--- watch it on my TV?

I will tell you this: We're Bell customers for Phone/Internet and Rogers for Wireless/Cable. If someone wants to start a company with me and lay fibre to the curb to bring GOOD internet to their neighbourhood, instead of the service/quality/cost of the oligopoly--- let me know. I'm in.

Note: The top image is a great example of "Beta". Somehow a billion dollar technology company can't tell the difference between Witches of Eastwick and Vegas Vacation. LOL.
/Rant

Why you should give cash instead of Gift Cards

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:46:00 +0000

Many people find it difficult to shop for friends or family around the holidays, or they simply like to spoil and supplement a wonderful gift with some extra 'Gift Card' money. Let me explain why this is a bad idea.

First, from a social perspective, when you give someone a Gift Card to a specific retailer, you are essentially telling that person where to spend their money. You could give them cash, and trust them to spend it on something nice, but instead you just dictated where they should spend it. This problem often arises at baby/wedding showers, as well as weddings themselves. What do you buy for $50 at Pottery Barn? The answer is nothing.

The second reason to avoid the gift card is that they are expertly designed to make money. That's right, no matter what, they are making money from you. Gift cards generate money for the retailer in a few very simple ways. Breakage, Margin, and Float.

Breakage happens when you spend $50 on a Gift Card, and the recipient only manages to spend $49 (or less) of that $50. Worse yet, they lose or misplace the card and end up getting nothing. In Canada, the cards can't really expire, but if you don't spend it all, that's free money, pure profit, going into the retailers bottom line. (There are all kinds of tax and accounting rules that they have to follow to recognize revenue from Gift Cards, but the bottom line is-- they get the money.)

Margin is basically the profit that the retailer makes when you spend the card in their store. If you had cash, you could spend it here and there and all the change would be yours, but with a Gift Card, if a stores average margin is 10%, then they are going to make $5 from your $50 Gift Card No Matter What! You are guaranteeing that the money will go to them. (See my first point about cash.)

...and last but not least, Float. Float is what they call it in the loyalty industry when they get to have your money for a while before they give it back to you in some form or another. You pay $50 now and give a piece of plastic to your family member. The retailer gets to go use that money in the market to make more money before having to eventually give you the original $50 back, minus any breakage, and not including the margin they'll make off whatever you buy.

So, how bad is it? Well, without quoting any sources (because I'm lazy) you can bet that breakage on Gift Cards is somewhere between 5-15%. Depending on the retailer, margin could be anywhere from 1% to 50% (example: electronics suck, but accessories rock), and float is a nice few percentage points on the full amount for anywhere from 3 months to 18 months.

In conclusion, think about what you're doing this holiday season, and instead of buying a $50 Gift Card to Future Shop or Home Depot or IKEA, why not put a crisp, bacon-coloured, $50 Bill in that card. Nobody loses Cash. It's universally accepted, and it can always be put in the bank for later.

PS: Under no circumstances should you ever buy someone a Gift Card for loyalty currency like Air Miles, Aeroplan Miles, PC Points, HBC Rewards, etc. In doing so, you are essentially compounding all of the pitfalls of a Gift Card.

I'm taking Bing's Million dollar offer and de-listing from google

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:58:00 +0000

Microsoft's Search Division, Bing, has offered me $1.9 Million dollars to de-list my blog from all Google results, except the front page of course, and list exclusively with them.

The offer, tendered last week during the gold-rush of content-for-search acquisition, is part of Microsoft's "If we can't beat'em, buy'em" strategy which has begun to catch on for content publishers and news outlets around the world.

Though I'm disappointed that I will no longer get 89% of my site visitor traffic anymore, I'm happy with the offer by Microsoft to be the exclusive provider of search for my site. And the money. I plan on retiring, and not really creating any more content, since I'm now free to do other things, un-burdened by the need to make money. It's Win-Win. My content won't be on Google (Good for MSFT), and I won't have to work (Good for me).

I'm jealous of Rupert Murdoch's deal, as he has a lot more content that he won't have to make, since nobody will be finding it very soon. He can probably retire even sooner.

/Humour

Paint marketing must be hard.

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:35:00 +0000

A few years ago, Benjamin Moore launched the Aura paint line, and featured 6 or 7 different variations of flowers made out of paint as part of their brand identity. It was pretty neat.

Recently, a company called Boysen, launched a similar campaign internationally, using an identical concept. The campaign is featured on Ads of the World

Really makes me wonder if Paint marketing is that hard? The Boysen ads are up for (or have already won) some Cannes Lions 2009 awards for TBWA in the Philippines, but now I'm wondering if those guys should really get the kudos and awards, or should get slapped with a big fat trademark violation and Dwight Shrute-level shunning by the international agency creative world. Probably neither.

/Rant

Some say it's just a fad. I disagree.

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:35:00 +0000

The one thing that stands out the most to me in this video, is the stat that says that Gen Y will outnumber baby boomers by 2010. We're so set in thinking that Boomers are the generation to market to, but really, they're the generation funding the wants and desires of their children and grand-children-- Gen Y.

Poor Generation X. Pepsi has forgotten about you, and you're clothes are boring now. Marketers don't see you as a big segment, and you can't even claim you're the underdog of cool--because that's probably someone else at this point. Oh well. Watch this video, and drool about the possibilities...

Targeted Ads vs. Big Brother

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:55:00 +0000

This post is for Claire, because she was too tired to keep ~~arguing~~ discussing this with me last night. I started out by describing how wonderful the latest targeting improvements on Facebook ads are, and how they're going to make marketers even smarter, and save lots of money from wasted mass-ad spends for multiple stakeholders.

Well that did it! How could I think this was good? "People have no idea how much information Facebook has on us" she said. Well-- you're the ones who put it on their website. Granted, but let's look at it from a utopian marketing world. Imagine if every ad you ever saw was perfect. Perfect. It was from a company that you recognized, for a product you wanted, at a time when you were thinking about a purchase, with an offer that was just enough to make you convert. That would be amazing. But marketers are not there yet.

I actually had to trash my industry to make my point, but most marketing is just not there-- and thus people don't like it when they see it, and so the vicious cycle of distrust of advertisers continues.

What I was pointing out during my discussion with Claire was that Facebook, for all its stupid farming games and poking, has created a system where they can more expertly target you. Not perfect yet, but pretty good. Rather than showing you (her) an ad for mail-order University (she's highly educated), or sexy singles in her area (she's happily married) the ads would become more and more relevant, and would eventually get us to Minority Report style personal targeting, with relevant offers.

When I asked her if she were to see an ad on TV that spoke to her by name, presented an offer about craft room supplies (which is a hot topic for her right now) with a value proposition that would actually make her purchase--- she conceded that she would actually want to see it. Bam! Marketing that works.

We forget sometimes that targeting, with the right demographic, geographic, and psychographic information with a frequency that doesn't annoy (spam) with an offer that makes sense (spam) will actually convert. Why do people still spend money on mass? Radio spots, billboards, etc? Awareness. You get hit with so many messages and terrible UNtargeted offers every day that for each of our smart marketing initiatives, we need to support and spread them with awareness generating spots. (Which I actually think is a total waste).

Why don't marketers just focus on conversion tactics? If I'm presented with a compelling offer at the right time enough I will have the awareness necessary to make a buying decision. Anyway, back to Facebook...

So I explained that Facebook launched 'Ads to Friends of Connections' yesterday, and was met with even more backlash. "Why, just because a friend is a fan of something, do they think I'll be a Fan of something?!" Uhhh, you just answered your own question. You are not friends with people who ride snowmobiles and fix their own cars---- thus those brands shouldn't market to you. However, your friends are educated, nerdy, with good jobs, thinking about or already started families, etc... You may be interested in what they're a fan of. May.

...And here's how I explained it. It's not about you (her), it's about the total budget the marketer has to spend. If they can take their whole budget, and make the targeting really, really good-- they can give a better offer to the right people, make more money, and avoid spamming people who aren't interested. Everybody wins. Targeting saves money, and saves tired eyeballs. Yay! Targeting.

So, in summary, is Facebook big brother for collecting all this information about you, or are they actually helping you, by making it better for advertisers to not bug you with the wrong offer at the wrong time of your life? And, as Claire points out, we both use AdBlockPlus for Firefox, and don't see most online advertising anyway.

Comment with your thoughts on Ad Targeting vs. Big Brother Tactics

Google Voice is a funny translator

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:12:00 +0000

I got a transcribed voice mail from my Google Voice account. It's a Chicago number, so rarely are the calls actually for me anyway, and not wrong numbers or telemarketers. Here's the transcription:

Yes, my name is John here. I'm not sure if I have the correct number and I'm looking for the and national association of of 3026. I want to give the brochure for the for the school. Concerning the of listed lessons. Ohh, being of an appraiser. If you can give me a call. At (773) 675-6381 if you could put meal or dried the vytek to papa phone number. I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

I totally could "put meal or dried the vytek to papa phone number"--- if I knew what the heck that meant? There's obviously still a ways to go yet on this transcription services, but one thing still blows me away: Somebody called a number and left a voice message--- and Google sent me an email. Wicked.

Solving the Gun problem

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:22:00 +0000

There has been a lot of chatter on the radio lately about the private members bill to eliminate the Canadian Gun Registry on which our government has spent over $2bn over the past 5+ years. It got me thinking about guns, shooting as a sport, gangs, gang violence, illegal sales of weapons, and other related things. Here's what I think, and I welcome your comments:

People like to shoot guns for sport. This is commonly the argument to keep guns legal in Canada, followed by "You can't regulate insanity-- people will either use a legally obtained gun or buy and illegal gun and go on their rampage--why punish the legal owners?" Well how about this: Make possessing a gun a crime so bad that that 14 year old gangster wanna be will actually consider not doing it.

Imagine if having a gun on you (assuming you are not a FAC licensed person) brought an immediate and unappealable 5 years in prison, whether you've shot it or not. Add 1 month for every bullet found on the person. So someone has a handgun with a 13 round magazine-- they get 6 years 1 month. They're carrying a shotgun with two extra rounds, its 5 years 2 months. They're holding a box of ammo for their buddy (20 in a box?) that's 20 months. TWENTY MONTHS for holding bullets. I would not hold your bullets for you.

If right now, you can be a minor and rob a liquor store and get probation, what is keeping that gun off the street, or motivating that senior gangster not to sell it to that junior gangster, or motivating that caring but troubled older brother from inviting his younger brother along to learn the ways of the gang world. (Note: these examples are heavily influenced by movies and tv).

If all of the sudden the only guns on the street are being held by people who are absolutely going to use them (not just those that need to look touch, threaten, rob, intimidate, etc) then crime will spike a little then drop off dramatically. Why would I want to even come close to a gun if basically touching it could send me away for a long time. What if it sent me far away too. Instead of going to my local prison, (as a youth), I was sent to a neon-rider-esque farm in the middle of nowhere.

OK-- now the non-gun-criminal ideas. Why are companies allowed to bring these guns into the country (if they aren't manufactured here?) because they "are sold legally to those involved in sport, and who have the proper license". I call bullshit. Let the cops develop vendor relationships for their weapons and get everything else out of stores. (I'm talking handguns and assault rifles BTW. I think if someone wants a rifle, they are probably fine)

Eliminate the supply (import restrictions), destroy the demand (ridiculously high jail time for gun crimes), and then put the money that we're saving into community programs and policing.

I realize I made that sound all too easy but seriously, how hard does it have to be? Because the gun lobby is powerful, this will never happen, however if a few people are millionaires, but we're spending billions on a problem, does that really make sense? Plus all the killing and what not.

/rant

Google Dashboard reminds us of what they know

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:35:00 +0000

Ever wonder just what a mega-giant and super data-gathering skynet-like company such as Google really knows about you? Well now they'll tell you. Check out you're own Google Dashboard to see just what data is associated with your account. http://google.com/dashboard

It's handy to have everything so interconnected, but it's also a little scary to think that if something goes wrong, whether that's a computer error or a human error, there's a lot exposed. I like that I could see where my credentials had been used to authorize me on another site, and revoke access if necessary.

Official Google Blog: Transparency, choice and control — now complete with a Dashboard!

$100 in Groceries to the Winner!

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I need to learn from some 'Average' Canadians.

This is a completely un-scientific survey I'm doing with some friends, colleagues and family (and blog readers). Since every effort deserves a reward, I'm going to do a draw for a $100 Sobeys Gift Card (which you can use at Sobeys, Price Chopper, or Foodland) for all those that do the survey. (Clearly I have a limited budget).

Continue Reading...

If it were my budget I'd be pissed

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:34:00 +0000

Just noticed this Facebook Engagement Ad (of the 'Become a Fan' variety) that seems to be a waste of ad dollars. Why you may ask? I became a fan earlier in the day today. Facebook's ad management system knows this, because it even displays that I'm a fan IN the ad unit itself. So why then is it even displayed to me?

I recently had an in-depth conversation with a sales manager for Facebook Advertising in California to understand how these engagement ads are purchased. Different from social ads that are self-service, and can be purchased 'by the click' by bidding a CPC rate that fits your budget, these engagement ads are actually CPM-based, or 'Cost per Thousand impressions' and thus are for bigger budgets and national awareness types of campaigns.

So, who cares, right? Well-- If I were the brand manager (or media buyer, or community manager, etc) for Molson Canadian 67, the new low-calorie beer from MolsonCoors, I'd sure care that my CPM-goodness was being wasted on converted eyeballs. I'm a fan. It's not like I'm just not interested and they need to keep showing it to me until I convert--- I clicked and became a fan already. What's the point? I'd be pissed.
/rant

Google indexes non-private Facebook content

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:28:00 +0000

What does that mean for your brand? It means that there is a high likelihood that in addition to everywhere else on the web where you had to protect your brand from negative comments, you now have to be even more aware of what's happening in the worlds largest social network.

This actually isn't that new. Google has been able to index a lot of stuff for a while, but it's now been made clear that over 53 million pages on Facebook have been indexed for search, and that means a pretty vast array of content. Since a page, a note, a discussion within a page or group, a group wall, a photo caption or video caption or title are all index-able, there's a lot more real estate to deal with.

One of the simplest solutions to protect the brand is reporting unauthorized use of trademarks, using Facebooks intellectual property form, however this can lead to a nasty group simply changing their profile image and adding fuel to the fire. I'm actually planning a different approach (pending legal approval). I'm going to reach out to the group owners. At the end of the day, if there is a product or service issue, any brand out there wants to know about it as soon as possible, and ultimately (if it's fixable) fix it. If there's an employee issue that's brewing, we have policies for that, but people should know that what they're saying could harm their career, not just with their current boss or company, but what about when they get googled in 5 years for their dream job and someone reads all the trash they wrote about their summer job 5 years ago?--not a heart-warming impression they'll make. --but most people either don't think that far ahead when they're trashing a brand online, or they don't care, or they simply didn't know that Google was listening. (...and Google is always listening...)

I think Facebook groups are great for friends and certain somewhat temporary situations, but I much prefer Pages and recommend them for brands or even organizations and associations, because they allow a measure of administration to the discussion. I would love to see Facebook put an expiry date on a group: Example-- If nobody adds to the discussion or updates the group for 3 months, the group disappears. This would ensure that people are only associated with things that they are engaged with, and could also allow fads and trends to die quietly. Example-- "The Get Claire on Facebook" group from 2007 doesn't really need to exist after Claire finally joins, however it takes all the members AND the group owner to Leave the Group before the group goes away. Did you know: A group owner can't just delete a group. If there are people in the group and the group owner leaves, the group still exists.

Anyway, the point of this post was to discuss the fact that Google knows all and is now, more than ever, reading everything that isn't behind the privacy wall on Facebook. Be warned! Brand owners: Try googling your brand like this and see what comes up [ brandname site:facebook ]

I bet you won't like all of it...

Can Twitter Lists improve your credibility?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:29:00 +0000

Short Answer-- Yes. Lists are one of those things that people are going to use to get an unbiased opinion of a user/brand/account. If someone adds me to a list (which is somewhat manual) they're assigning me some amount of credibility to exist, and they are also categorizing my relationship.

For example, I may have a list for friends, one for family, and then a few work related like Brands, Loyalty, Cooking. If someone looks at Sobeys twitter page and sees that it's listed on a bunch of random peoples lists, and the things that people have named their lists are keywords like Canada, Cooking, Shopping, Brand, or whatever--- that's essentially a public opinion poll and keyword research about the account in question. Credibility.

If I look at an account that I think is spammy, and they appear on NO lists, not friends, not family, nothing work related-- I have to think that maybe they're either really new, know nobody, or are spam. I'm going to think twice.

The next step I see in this evolution is a feature addition for twitter that will actually ALLOW keyword searches. Say I want to find tweeple that fit on lists with keywords like Canada, Shopping-- it shows me a bunch of people who appear on lists with those keywords, not just people who have said they are shopping related (spammers), all of the sudden I have a more authentic experience, and probably some more reliable descriptions of what an account actually is about.

The difference between these lists, and twitter two months ago is that before is was "Here's what I think I am" and now it's "Here's what other people think I am". Just like any marketer knows, your brand is mostly what people think of it, and a little bit about what you tell people it is.

The problem arises when people start to put you on lists that you don't want to be on. Not sure that Twitter has thought of that yet...

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