A Wider Net

Over the last decade, the digital channel has given marketers great reach and flexibility in delivering messages to targeted audiences. But that same ability has increased the complexity of synchronizing relevant and consistent data across the dimensions of brand, channel, campaign, and communication types.

Recent software advances have enabled new levels of cross channel integration that allow real-time targeted messaging via multiple offline channels (call centers, POS, etc) and online channels (banner ads, websites, email, kiosk, etc). Targeted messaging can now be based on multi-dimensional segmentation models that embed behavioral, demographic, geographic and psychographic attributes for micro-targeting messaging strategies. The richness of the data collected is constantly refined with the frequency of the audience’s interaction with the brand.

What does that mean to the brand company? The ability to reach “right place, right time, right people” with the “right message” across a broad spectrum of channels is now a reality.

The greatest value that digital marketing provides to national consumer companies is to help build customer ritual. In the case of most national brands, your goal is to bring customers in the stores for product. The best way to build ritual is to make a positive customer experience—and using digital media as a key component of your media mix is not only cost effective, but it is the best way to create a customer experience short of a visit to a store. Of course, digital marketing encompasses more than the website, including POS, digital signage, email, and more. And digital media is most effective when part of a complete media campaign. Nevertheless, there are specific benefits. While television, radio, and print advertising all have important roles, when a consumer visits a website, they have taken a small but proactive step toward the brand. That minor commitment says they are at least willing to consider being aligned with the brand.

Once at the site, they are not passive viewers, but can interact. They control the amount of time they stay on the site at no cost to themselves. If the experience is positive, entertaining, and has a strong mechanism to make an on-line purchase or visit a store, the return on investment is not only achieved for that visit—but fuels the ongoing ritual. Other specific benefits include:

• Digital media is a remarkably cost-effective way to reach a large, targeted audience.
• Digital media is persistent: It’s an “always on,” omnipresent element that enables secondary and tertiary marketing impressions that create lasting brand awareness.
• Metrics driven: You have the ability to quickly measure, adapt, and correct your path.
• Broadband is highly available. Today, more than 70- percent access exists in US homes—so the on-line experience is getting better.
• It’s a two-way channel. Your customers can reach you, and you can reach them.
• You are able to reach multiple audience and constituents beyond consumers, including franchisees and potential employees.
• Digital marketing allows the brand to speak multiple languages and assimilate to various cultures, cost effectively getting the message to the audiences at the right time and the right place
• Consumers associate themselves with like-minded consumers, and digital media is an easy and growing way for people to link themselves directly with the brand.

The bath tub is slowly filling in the other room. I am in the closet hanging up clothes that have been piled up for the week. My 2 year-old is ‘exercising’ or as I call it, literally running circles throughout the upstairs of our house. She had been previously playing with my cell phone; pretending to talk to her uncle. Then I hear ‘oh no’….I walk into the bathroom to find my wife pointing to my cell phone floating in the tub…with the flash light stuck on, I fish it out…this does not look good.

Long story short, I need a new cell phone and am wondering whether it is time to start thinking about a windows device. I know it will drive me crazy to see an hourglass and have to wait for my phone to start up but the value of using excel and word for reading docs on the road might just be too good to pass up. Am I ready to trust Microsoft with my cell phone?

More later…

Recently we were discussing technology innovations for printed communications. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an authority in the world of things you can print on (except, apparently, bottle openers). In fact, I think that I may have remarked at one point long ago that “print innovation” was an oxymoron (which is a wholesale mistake and I apologize). That embarrassing little admission is important for you to understand where my next bit of idiocy came from. I was shown a picture of a product called Z-Card. It’s essentially a two-sided colored sheet of paper folded between two thin credit-card-sized cardboard ends. When folded, it fits anywhere a credit card fits. When unfolded, it’s a… well, it’s a piece of paper. My initial reaction was (to the tone of a dull drooling Homer Simpson) “ooOOooh… Folded Paper!”. The counter-reaction was an appropriate email slap.

When I finally got one of these in my hands, however, I became one of the converted.

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I was driving home late last night after a late evening webcast. One of our clients needed to reach a distant international audience and answer their questions live. I was pretty tired after a fairly long day and I was flipping radio channels, too lazy to dig my iPod out of my Nintendo Event SWAG shoulder bag on the passenger seat. I passed by a station playing soft classical music, and realized that my kids were sound asleep with this very station playing quietly next to them. They had been raised with those insidious crib-mounted cassette tape-eating machines constantly set for “stun”. The net result: they routinely fall asleep to Mozart and the inhumanly deep voices of your average classical radio jock. So I flipped back and listened a while, imagining that I was there with them, listening along with them, dropping off to sleep. I don’t recommend doing this while driving (woops - two posts in one week about things not to do when you’re driving - not good).

Where am I going with this (besides off the road?) (more…)

Mirage Motion Media produces a unique wall-mounted lightbox that creates the illusion of 3D moving images as you walk by. What makes this remarkable is the fact that this sign has no moving parts, and no electronics other than a couple of light bulbs. The illusion is created by producing a special ultra-high-resolution print piece that is viewed through a series of incredibly narrow slits. Depending on where you stand, you see through the slits to view a different part of the printed graphic. As you walk by, you see a continuous series of images through the slits, creating the illusion of moving video. While loosely related to the Zoetrope, the stereo effect and larger images make this a powerful advertising medium. (I guess another BIG advantage over the Zoetrope is the fact that this is only 4″ thick, and a Zoetrope capable of images this large would be the size of one of those inflatable swimming pools at Walmart.) The illusion is startling and often results in people walking back and forth to make the image animate forwards and backwards. It’s clearly most effective next to moving sidewalks and areas where traffic flow is continuous. New graphics can be printed and inserted by simply lowering the hinged (and locked) front glass.

 ADDENDUM - They appear to be out of business.

I was going to save this one for later when we get closer to Innovation Day, but since The Cool Hunter picked them up, I figure now is the time to mention Lightspace. Based in Boston, MA, Lightspace has built the most sophisticated dance floor I’ve ever seen. And yes, it’s much, much more than a dance floor. It containst intelligence that allows you create interactive experiences including multi-player games on the floors (and walls), vivid visualizations that respond to motion and touch, and multi-media presentations that use the floor (again - or walls) as the control input. We took a trip over to Lightspace to see it, half expecting to find a one-trick-pony dance floor that would change it’s color patterns whenever someone stepped on it. I went with two of our most experienced (and skeptical) people, and we were unanimously blown away. I’ll give you a few details on what it can do, but you really have to see it for yourself if the opportunity presents. Their new website is well worth a look in the meantime.

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