Rock the Taskbar

Locations on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:04:00 +0000

Twitter just launched their Geo-API for the rest of us... What does this mean? It means you need to be careful about where you're tweeting from, or change your settings. Remember FourSquare's problem?

Codes for Life: 4QR

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:29:00 +0000

I'm working on this side project that I'd love to get some feedback on. I caution you, it's slightly nerdy, and will most likely only interest marketing/advertising/research people and geeks.

The site is 4QR.me and it's essentially the marriage of Quick Response codes (those 2D checker-board things you see on the FedEx label) and Short URLs (like TinyURL, Bit.ly, etc) except with a reusable component making the effort more long-term, and with built-in analytics, to make it more attractive to marketers.

I made a nice picture to help explain it.

I'd love to get your feedback about how this early concept works, so if you'd like an invite to this private beta, just go here and get one. If you want a bit more info, check out the blog I set up to explain it. Cheers.

Possible Facebook Page Spammers

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:23:00 +0000

People think that all of these random, albeit funny, Facebook pages are harmless. You can always hide or un-Fan, right? Yes and No.

Here's the trick: You create a page that people rally behind, because it's timely, funny, etc. You get people to share with their friends, and spend most of your effort on your quest to a number (Most fans than Stephen Harper, or more Canadians than Americans, etc). You end up with possibly hundreds of thousands of people who are fans. I watched the "Sidney Crosby's Goal" fan page go up by tens of thousands in under a day after his amazing gold-medal winning goal. But why? It's a rally-point, but not something/someone you want to hear from again and again. Once you have all these fans, you can un-publish the page. It won't be found in search by anyone except admins, and somewhat disappears from the site. So now what.

Well, as the spammer that you are, you have have the ability to inject marketing into the streams of your fans. This is the key to any Fan Page. The ability to inject targeted messaging, images, links, video or any combination thereof into the feeds of fans is a dream for a shifty marketer.

Now the rub is that with every deployment, if it's too spammy, you'll get hidden, you'll get reported, etc. If it's just commercial enough to get the point across, but not piss anyone off, you're golden. You also can't change the name of your page, so it will always say "Can this Pickle get more fans than Nickleback" before all your messages, however you can of course change your profile picture and thumbnail to anything else.

I have a feeling the spammers know this. I have a feeling the average person does not (which is why we see some many of these pages spreading like herpes). You're not likely to ever see a trusted brand pull this kind of move, because it would get eaten up in the media, and would lose a lot more than fans-- however, it's average joe's that have made most of the viral pages, and they may not have the same code of conduct.

Beware.

Organic Growth vs. Social Ads

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:32:00 +0000

One of the side benefits of doing campaigns on Facebook using social ads, is that if the ad copy and image and headline are crafted properly, and the landing page is relevant, and the fans are engaged by what you're doing, you can actually grow a fan base in addition to marketing your campaign.

The graph above is my approximation of two curves relevant to this discussion. The first is ad spending, and this can be across all campaigns, regions and internal stakeholders, as long as the ads are all going to the fan page. The second is showing the growth of the fan base.

Stage 1) You have very few fans. Your social ads are targeting lots of different groups for various campaigns and of all these people, a percentage will stick around and become a fan. Anything you put in your news feed (and thus push out to your fans) is generic, because you don't have very many fans.

Stage 2) You're starting to get a fan base. You are targeting ads more and more, but your existing fans are still seeing everything you push out to them.

Stage 3) Fan base is starting to take off. Now you are starting to target your posts so that you push more relevant offers, events, etc. You still have some generic content for everyone, but that's brand-building stuff, and only engages on the surface. You're still doing highly targeted ads, but your fan base is starting to cover almost all of your market (who are on Facebook anyway...)

Stage 4) This is where you want to be. You have a huge fan base now, and can get a huge lift in sales or community engagement for event (or any other action) just by targeting posts in your feed. Almost everything you're doing now is targeted. (You're using a spreadsheet just to keep track of what your posting, because there are some many stakeholders and groups involved. Ad spending can now start to be scaled back (see graph). You're reaching so many people (who are telling their friends, who tell their friends) that you only need to spend on social ads to get the buzz started, or to launch something out of left field, or to find a new audience (for example when Dove started marketing harder to men: Their existing base was likely a high percentage of women).

We all want to get to my Stage 4. Huge fan base. Lots of eyeballs, lots of engagement, comments, interaction and conversation-- but to get there, organic growth isn't enough.

Consider your next marketing campaign, and examine the marketing mix. How much are you allocating to digital, and of that, how much are you spending on clicks from your exact audience. It really puts it in perspective when you compare what kind of conversion you can get from $5000 in social ads vs. that same $5000 spent on the radio...

Agree? Disagree? Let me know.

Latitude for Business

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Kinnear) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:59:00 +0000

Do you have a blackberry? Are you friends with people who have a blackberry? Would you want your friends to know where you are without having to tell them? Latitude is for you.

Different from many of the 'Check In' based apps out there like Gowalla and FourSquare, Google Latitude is much simpler, and (personally) more useful. Many have said that it's too big-brother to share real-time GPS location with their friends, but I have to say-- when you're trying to pull off the ultimate Romantic Weekend in Niagara Falls, and your friends are on their way down via car from Toronto, knowing where they are to time the surprise in the lobby is unbelievable. Just ask Danielle and Claire.

First, it's Google Maps. Amazing maps, overlay for satellite or traffic, plus streetview where available. This is ridiculous. Street view on a mobile device is the best thing to happen to "I can't find the place" since sliced bread. Since Google Latitude is a service that's fully integrated with Google Maps, there's no switching or closing, just turn it on, and your friends appear on the map. Assuming many of your friends are savvy and awesome like you, when you are in a part of town that you don't normally go to, you can see who's around and maybe who's already at the party, etc. Great for meeting up, timing a rendezvous, or seeing where the action is.

Second, it's got individual privacy settings. Say you want your wife to know exactly where you are, but your out of town friends to just know that you're 'In Town' you can customize who sees what. You can even temporarily set a location if you're supposed to be at the dentist but you're at the ball game instead.

Third, the alibi generator. Quietly and securely, Google is keeping track of all of the GPS data funneled through Latitude in a Location History page. I can view where I've been, what time, what route I took, etc. I see this useful for two things: 1) Accused of a crime I didn't commit. 2) Business owner tracking all of their employees/fleet/deliveries, etc. What a great tool to be able to see utilization of a team of couriers, or track the travel routes of the pizza guys to optimize delivery time. Business can use this for Business reasons. (Just tell your employees you're tracking them, for the love of god.)

What are some other ways that businesses (who spend all this money on Blackberrys just so that their employees can read email and make calls) can use apps like this to save or make money? How about insurance claims? If you're already tracking GPS with a Time/Date stamp, you could have employees take a photo of an accident (or whatever incident would be relevant to your business) and email it. Great. But what about something that benefits the customer? Real time "Where is my Pizza?" maybe? UPS does it (sort of) with package tracking, but the next step in that evolution is a real-time GPS location on that package. Or Pizza.

The downfall for individuals, much like the other services I mentioned-- if your friends don't use it, what's the point. It's a very symmetrical social networking tool. It makes very little sense to share your exact location with strangers, so this type of networking is more akin to the privacy of Facebook or trusted-walled-garden of LinkedIn, vs. the openness and random sharing and asymmetry of Twitter and the like. It does work for business though.

Since those with a blackberry should be using Google Maps instead of Blackberry maps anyway, I recommend you test this out with a trusted friend.

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.

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!