The Marketing Technology Blog

For the past few weeks I’ve been picking up and putting down books - one of them was The Big Switch, by Nicholas Carr. Today, I completed reading the book.

Nicholas Carr did a fantastic job at building parallels between the evolution of the electrical power grid in this country and the birth of cloud computing. On a similar note, Wired has a great article, called Planet Amazon, in its May 2008 publication that tells the story of Amazon’s cloud. Be sure to check it out. Wired referred to Amazon’s offering as Hardware as a Service (HaaS). It’s also known as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

While I applaud Nicholas’ insight into cloud computing and the future of ‘how’ we will develop in the near future, I was startled when he started discuss the inevitable control computers would have over us as we continued to integrate them - even biologically. The book takes exception to the work that marketers are currently accomplishing in leveraging data - and almost takes a frightening look at where this might be in the future.

Every time we read a page of text or click on a link or watch a video, every time we put something in a shopping cart or perform a search, every time we send an email or chat in an instant-messaging window, we are filling in a “form for the record.” … we’re often unaware of the threads we’re spinning and how and by whom they’re being manipulated. And even if we were conscious of being monitored or controlled, we might not care. After all, we also benefit from the personization that the Internet makes possible—it makes us more perfect consumers and workers. We accept greater control in return for greater convenience. The spider’s web is made to measure, and we’re not unhappy inside it.

Manipulation and control are very strong words that I can not agree with. If I can utilize a customers data to try and predict what they may want, I’m not controlling them or manipulating them into making a purchase. Rather, in return for providing the data, I’m simply trying to provide them with what they might be looking for. That’s efficient for all parties involved.

Control would indicate that the interface has somehow overcome my free will, which is a ridiculous statement. We’re all mindless zombies on the Internet that don’t have the ability to defend ourselves against a well-placed text advertisement? Really? That’s why the best ads still only gain single digit click-through rates.

As for the future of man and machine integration, I’m even optimistic about those opportunities. Imagine being able to access a search engine without the need for a keyboard and Internet connection. Diabetics would be able to both monitor their blood sugar levels AND identify the best foods to eat to provide nourishment. On a diet? Perhaps you could monitor your daily caloric intake or count Weight Watcher points as you eat.

The fact is that we have very little control over ourselves, never mind worrying about AI. We have a world with health nuts that starve their bodies, exercise nuts that wear out their joints, addicts that lie, cheat and steal to get their fix… etc. We’re imperfect machines ourselves, always trying to improve but often falling short.

The ability to skip using a keyboard and monitor and ‘plug in’ to the Internet isn’t a scary thought to me at all. I’m able to recognize that control is a term that is used loosely and, with humans, never a reality. We’ve never been able to control ourselves - and man-made machines will never be able to overcome the perfect machine that God himself has assembled.

The Big Switch is a great read and I’d encourage anyone to pick it up. I do think the questions it raises on future artificial intelligence are good ones, but Nicholas takes an alarmest view of the opportunity rather than an optimistic view of what it will do for human interaction, productivity and quality of life.

Having started my own book quite some time ago, I know how difficult it is to keep up a blog and organize all that I’ve learned about blogging and social media into a single, coherent publication.

It appears that Darren Rowse of Problogger has done just that, though. I’ve watched Darren’s blog take off and you can see the persistence and clarity of vision that Darren has had evolve into a fantastic resource for bloggers. Problogger is definitely on my ‘must-read’ list of feeds and it lacks all the fanfare and bragging of Shoemoney and John Chow (much love to those guys, though… I read their blogs, too!).

Here’s an overview of the book from Amazon:

Blogging has become a popular and fascinating pastime for many, but more and more bloggers are finding it can also be an excellent source of direct or indirect income. Although the barriers to starting a blog are low, without expert guidance it is easy to get frustrated when success doesn’t match expectations. Written by the creator of the world’s #1 resource for making money with blogs, ProBlogger takes the reader from absolute beginner to earning money from or as a result of blogging. Through step by step practical lessons the reader will choose a blog topic, analyze the market, set up a blog, promote it and earn revenue.

Congratulations to Darren and Chris on this new chapter in Problogger’s history! It’s on my Wish List!

MarketingSherpa’s 2008 Online Advertising and Benchmark Guide + Benchmarks was born out of a belief that online adverting at present is misunderstood, and as result, underutilized. This isn’t to say that existing advertisers should simply increase spending online. Rather, we think advertisers that can find a balance between economical, efficient targeting and clutter-busting, highly engaging advertising will achieve far better ROI for themselves and a much more positive online experience for consumers. Many moving pieces fit into an online campaign, so this is no easy task.

The first hurdling block, which must be overcome, is that old-school media math is based on the limitations of traditional, linear, analog media, and doesn’t reflect the realities of non-linear, digital media. For this reason, digital media math needs to get more sophisticated, and more accepted among media professionals. One of the more obvious ways of adding sophistication to digital media buys is to take a closer look at frequency. Traditional media doesn’t allow for frequency to be controlled on the individual level, but digital does. To that end, we obtained data from InsightExpress showing how frequency affects ad effectiveness, we looked at aggregate conversion rates by frequency of exposure from Doubleclick, and then explained how to implement a frequency capping policy that makes sense for each advertising strategy.

Another limitation of traditional media planning and math is a lack of consideration for quality on the level of the individual consumer. With traditional buying techniques, a certain amount of “waste” is inherent and difficult to account for. Digital advertisers can and should be factoring in qualitative metrics when planning media. This can take many forms, from advanced behavioral targeting to assigning value by conversion rates. We showcase ways of assigning quality to placements through eyetracking, and effectiveness of media through cross-media effectiveness studies. The point is that calculating effective reach rather than just reach should be the norm on digital platforms.

We don’t think there is a magic bullet for creating the perfect ad, and really encourage people to get creative and try new things. According to our research, it’s the advertisers that try new things and constantly test them that consistently do well. We strongly encourage research and testing and show proof from our survey that qualitative research, which affects the insights going into ad creation, can actually be more effective from an ROI standpoint than improving tracking or A/B testing.

Finally, Analytics needs to get better at incorporating modeled metrics for effectiveness. By designing branding dashboards that incorporate both brand metrics projected from survey sample data with observed, tracked metrics like impressions and clicks, it’s possible for marketers to get a fuller picture of what’s actually happening with an online campaign. There’s too much data and not enough insight out there.

We don’t have all the answers, but we do have a lot of them, and where we don’t, we hope to provide discussion, new ideas, and testing. Pushing online advertising from where it is to where it could be will be a slow process, but it’s one we look forward to participating in.

Next up on the reading list (which is really piling up) is Gravitational Marketing.

The nice folks at Wiley sent me the Marketing Book - they must have recognized that I’m a sucker for Marketing books. For those of you who avoid business books like the plague but like to study human behavior… that’s what I love about Marketing books.

Someone asked me once if I had studied Sociology. I suppose I have in a sense… I believe that’s what Marketing is all about. I don’t profess to understand much about human behavior, but I like to observe it and share what I observe.

Gravitational Marketing, The Science of Attracting Customers, has a slick cover, a slick site, slick blog, and a pretty slick description:

Gravitational Marketing provides entrepreneurs, business owners, sales people and marketing professionals a simple method for attracting customers and closing sales without having to perform manual sales labor like cold calling, prospecting or begging for business.

Written for people who desire sales, profits, customers and money in their pocket but would prefer to do it without manual labor, this book reveals the principles of naturally attracting customers and easily and effortlessly making sales without pushy, in¬your¬face, hardsell tactics. It combines practical advice based on tested and proven methods with chronicles of from¬the¬ trenches, high-wire-without-a-net sales and marketing experiences.

I’m not one for slick, but I wouldn’t judge the book by its cover [intended]. The quotes from other authors sound like the book is funny, hard-hitting, and in your face. That doesn’t sound as slick as the ads… it sounds like a book that I’ll really enjoy.

You can download an excerpt of Gravitational Marketing at the authors’ web site. I’ll share my opinion of the book in a few weeks once I finish it.