In the recent turmoil of the financial markets and talk of deficits and debt, many investors and advertisers, brands and agencies alike, are looking at new markets.

The BRIC economy’s always feature when people talk of new markets and expansion. The BRIC market, Brazil, Russia, India and China are definitely exciting and expanding markets. The need and adoption of digital service has been growing steadily over the last few years.

Also, no one can doubt that to ignore these markets would be commercial suicide as in time; these regions will be the new powerhouses of the future. Though all the above is true, lets take a step back and examine the situation and more importantly let us not ignore something that is right under our nose.

For all their massive populations and middle classes, fact is China and India are still maturing. Their growth is being tempered by global markets and the power of the US dollar. The companies setting up there are from the west and the brands that are being consumed are in the main, luxury US and European brands.

When everything is weighed up, the creative services market is centred in the US From Hollywood to Universal Music, the creativity of the US market is hard to beat. The growth of Social and Digital platforms are no different. Whether you are a ‘Google’ or a ‘start-up’, the talent comes from tech and media hubs in California & New York.

This is why Digital Clarity is currently seeking offices, talking to partners and slowly raising its profile in both the East and West coasts of the US.
Digital Clarity’s DNA runs deep in the interactive arena and after reading numerous reports about the growth in the digital economy in the US, it made sense to ramp-up activity in New York first and support the work that has being going on in the background with Fiona Bloom.

This exciting development will be kicked off by a forthcoming visit to NYC and then followed to pursue interest that has also been expressed by a number of parties in LA and San Francisco.

Recently a report by Forrester Research highlighted that U.S. interactive marketing spending will reach $76.6 billion by 2016. According to the report, search and display will continue to be the biggest pieces of the interactive spending pie, comprising 44% and 36%, respectively, in 2016, though search will have lost share from 55% in 2011. Mobile paid advertising and search will experience astronomic growth and are surpassing email and social this year.

Digital Clarity is firmly in this space and whilst keeping one eye on the BRIC market, the prospect for growth by a ready-made company to work in a ready-made market, the US looks promising.

The Issue

Given that we are in the middle of 2011 and technology and media is merging and growing at such a rapid rate, I’m amused and a little bewildered when I hear comments such as,  “We don’t need social media right now, our model works just fine”, or “Twitter is such a waste of time, how can I sell on it?”. The classic is “My kids use Facebook, it’s not a business tool”.

Though there may be a resentment or misunderstanding of these Social Media platforms, what is clear however is that these tools are here and if used correctly, become a potent arsenal to augment to the current marketing strategy.

In my humble opinion, there are many reasons why companies shy away from developing a social media strategy let alone executing one. Here are 10 possible quick reasons:

• May not understand it
• Don’t have the time to understand it
• Have used it once and ‘it didn’t work’
• Cannot measure whether it is effective
• Feel it’s not relevant to them
• Potential negative feedback from Customers
• Easy target for competition
• Think that Facebook is for teenagers
• Twitter is for celebrities
• No one had joined their LinkedIn page

All of these perceived issues can be addressed by an agency that knows how to plan, develop, execute and measure the effectiveness of social media for business.

How are Companies Using Social Media?

In last years Burson-Marsteller Fortune Global 100 social media study it is clear that the top companies are using social media extensively – so why aren’t medium sized companies? These companies are using social media to inform, listen and engage with new and existing customers. From the study we can also see that:

• 79% of the top 100 companies in the Fortune Global 500 Index use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & corporate blog
• Twitter is most popular in this group, 65%
• Stakeholders want to hear what they are saying and start following
• Nokia, AT&T & Samsung each have between 4-20 Twitter accounts alone
• This is matched by no. of corporate blogs
• Most companies in this group (top 100) average 27 tweets a week

How companies can benefit from an Agency’s Experience?

As the social media landscape matures and the market becomes more complex, there is no doubt that a cohesive strategy deployed and managed by an agency is a practical and intelligent way forward.

An agency can pragmatically asses a company’s needs without the usual politics that can plague internal planning meetings by organisations, and present a clear and workable process. Though all agency proposals are bespoke, here are some general ways in which agencies can help and add value.

Expertise
An agency will be able to demonstrate current and historical social media campaigns they have worked on as well as sharing case studies and testimonials of previous work. In certain cases an agency will have created a white paper or commissioned research into a specific sector of social media to demonstrate their level of understanding.

Accountability
Any good agency will be accountable for what they do and keep you aware of progress, potential pitfalls and more importantly, uplifts in your campaign.

Focus
Dedicated to your needs. A good agency will be working toward achieving your goals that will have been clarified prior to the campaign. The agency will have also managed your expectations so you know what to realistically expect.

Analysis
OK, so were tracking but how do you make sense of the data? Your agency should be able to create the information you need in the format you need it and in a time cycle you want it. There’s nothing worse if you’re a marketer and in amongst everything else you have to pull off a ton of data and make sense of it. Get an agency!

Technology
Your agency should be au fait with the latest tracking and analytics technology. From Google Analytics to high end, in-depth tools, the information gleaned from this analysis can sometimes be worth a campaign on its own – knowledge is power.

Team
When you buy into an agency, you buy into a collective power house of individuals and experience that world cost a small fortune to have at your beck and call internally. The team also includes you.

What to look for when choosing a Social Media Agency

There are many agency’s out there who puport to be experts in social media. Looking to partner or work with an agency is no different from buying or investing in anything else.

Due diligence is key. Look for:

• Experience – How long have they been established
• Client List – Who do they work with
• Case Studies – Previous work
• Testimonials – What do people say about them
• References – Talk to past and current clients
• Studies or White Papers – Have they commissioned any research?
• Who are principles of the company – Are they respected individuals?

Conclusion

Social media should be seen as another marketing platform and in turn have the ability to enhance and compliment both a company’s customer service offering and ability to hear what customers (old and new) are saying.

However, it is clear that the growth of social networks; the complexity of analytics’s tools along with the need to crunch and clearly understand all the information coming back is becoming a headache for many companies. The best way to do this is for the company to get on with the job or running the company and the Agency help the company do that job better.

It seems that Google is releasing new AdWords tools every week at the moment. First we saw a huge overhaul of the reporting functions within the User Interface and now optimisation seems to be the hot topic.

There have been a few blogs and articles doing the rounds questioning whether these developments mean that the days of 3^rd party optimisation tools are numbered. If your main interest is Google, then maybe.  If you run campaigns across multiple search engines then it’s important to understand what Google are offering before making any major changes to your approach.

So what are the recent AdWords enhancements?

New Keyword Tool – Until recently, users could switch between the old and new versions of the keyword tools – not any more. The benefits according to Google are that the new version of the tool incorporates the Search Based Keyword Tool. Where previously the keyword tool made suggestions based on your URL, and the Search-based tool would recommend keywords and searches related to your landing pages, the new keyword tool incorporates both these elements as well as enabling you to source keywords by category.

Bid Simulator – Those of you managing AdWords accounts on a daily basis will be fully aware of the Bid Simulator. This tool allows you to estimate the effect of an increase in CPC. Previously the data only supplied estimated clicks, cost and impressions, but Google have recently added Estimated Top Impressions. This refers to the estimated number of impressions for ads displayed above the Google main listings, not the right-hand side.   What it should allow you to do is to identify whether an increase or decrease in CPC will affect your traffic volumes and help you to reach your specified goals.

Campaign Experiments – This tool allows advertisers to test a change in strategy by modifying settings on part of the traffic and comparing the results. For example if I want to test and increase in CPC from £0.50 to £1, normally this would mean running the change for a comparable period of time and try to decipher if the CPC change was responsible for any change in performance. The challenge here a whole range of factors come into play, ranging from seasonality, weather, current affairs as well as other changes to the account or website may also have led to a change in performance. This leaves you unsure as to whether the change really had the desired effect. With Campaign experiments Google delivers half of the impressions with the current strategy and the other half to the new strategy allowing you to analyse the performance in a much more controlled environment.

Product extensions –This is a new feature of Google AdWords which allows advertisers to link to their Google Merchant Centre in order to highlight your products with images and prices within your AdWords ads. This would then allow the ads to link through to specific products that are displayed when a user searches on a relevant keyword.  The benefits of this are the ability to include multiple pricing and product landing pages within one ad text.

But why are Google rolling out these tools? Surely they don’t have to keep offering us more and more, we have very little choice, but to use Google to advertise – Yahoo! and Bing are nowhere near the level of Google yet.

Google have always emphasised continual development of their AdWords platform -  it does generate the majority of their revenue, after all. If they start to take their foot of the gas there are many other platforms out there just waiting to seize the opportunity. By offering advertisers ways to improve their campaigns, coupled with the release of Google Instant, the bet is that advertisers are likely to spend more if they can see their strategy is working more effectively.

Where does this leave 3^rd party tools? For a start Google is unable to tell you how well your Yahoo! clicks are converting and how much it has cost you.  Equally, Bing  will probably never allow Google access their search data for inclusion into their reports. Most 3^rd party tools allow you to manage campaigns across all three engines with only one login. You can run reports, make manual or automated bid changes and set CPA optimisation to mention a few of the available functions. More importantly you can analyse keywords from each platform alongside each other in order to make intelligent decisions to improve the performance of your account.

Google’s new tools offer a competent level of functionality and as such are a good free option for advertisers. However if you are looking to manage multiple campaigns across multiple platforms and get the most for your money, the the cost of investing in 3rd party technology remains the right route.

This article first appeared in The Wall Blog on 10^th November 2010  http://bit.ly/czXPAT

Twitter search tags: #adweek2010 & #dirtylittleword

The analogy is “another day, another dollar”. Well, following on from the previous day’s activities at Advertising Week, the creativity notch had been cranked up to deal with how one of the oldest advertising mediums deals with the newest. So, say hello to the biggest must attend event of the week.

Radio has been the deepest and most impactful medium for a long time. The need for it to engage with its advertisers, listeners and new technology is paramount. Welcome to “The dirty little word ‘R’” – in this case, Radio.

The event was put together by the effervescent Alexandra Cameron. Alex is chair of the New York Market Radio (NYMRAD) and states, “An integrated lifestyle program designed by a radio station or group with the brand objectives as guidance can turn a message into an experience and bring a brand to life both on and off air for the target consumer, on their terms, where they live. Radio today is far more sophisticated than given credit”.

The event started with a panel discussion with major ad agencies, brand consultants and brand owners talking about the changing face of radio and how radio has to move with the times to achieve a level of critical mass that is already being reached by certain new media that exists today.

The speakers were ambassadors for their brands and discussed the likes of Unilver, Wrigley’s, Target and LVMH group’s – Moet Hennessey.
These sessions were followed by thoughtful and insightful interviews with film maker, Spike Lee and recording artist, Mary J Blige.

The keynote speech was giver by Sir Richard Branson, who motivated the audience with his unique understated charm and wit. I was lucky enough to meet Sir Richard backstage and share some commentary about the UK and Advertising before taking to the stage.

Branson evangelised how all business was about people – “find great people and empower them, they are your biggest brand”. Branson also talked about how radio was a key driver in building the 360 businesses under the Virgin Group of companies and discussed the risks he’d taken with the business to make it what it is today.

Playing some great advertising clips, he discussed Virgin Unite, a charity that enables business to invest in ethical projects around the world with the theme that business should be a force for good. He ended his talk and the evening with a quote that summed up the evening.  ”The brave may not live forever but the cautious don’t live at all”.

With over 60,000 Advertising Execs expected over the 5 days of the event the city was buzzing to the sounds of creativity, arrogance and style.

Here are some of the Major Highlights today.

Bloomberg Round Table

Chaired by Burt Helm, editor of Bloomberg Business Week – the panel looked at disruptive technologies and why they exist.

An excellent and heated debate eschewed when Russell Simmons, Chairman & CEO of Rush Communications and founder of the Deff Jam brand argued that the disruption in his financial planning business was due to large banks not understanding or listening to the wider community and addressing their needs with products and services that adapt to their circumstances.

Josh Sapan, President & CEO of Rainbow Media, makers of popular television content argued that the demise in the traditional music industry reflected in the that Global recorded music sales fell 7 percent to $17 billion. Sapan argued that this was the tip of the iceberg and that traditional television and film platforms as we know them today could suffer due the likes of Hulu etc – not because they were free but that good content requires investment.

Designing an Agency for the Digital Age

An excellent presentation given by 2 stalwarts of the advertising industry, Nick Law (Chief Creative Officer) and Barry Wacksman (EVP, Chief Growth Officer) both of the agency R/GA. This proved such a popular session that the presntation theatre at the NY Times building was bursting at the seams.

The pair gave a presentation that was first delivered at the Cannes Lions. Here are the chaps giving their thoughts from that event.

With the continuing growth in video and the convergence of other media platforms such as TV and Internet the likelihood of this happening is far more realistic especially as telecom exchange hubs unbundle local loops for faster broadband.

Another surprising element in the report is that Cisco believe that end of 2010 video will exceed P2P as the top traffic contributor which is a major shift in traffic allocation.
An important question for companies is how they start the engagement process with video now so they can take advatge of not just this growth not just as internet traffic but also the growth in new hardware platform such as Streak & iPad that their customers will be accessing information.

196,000,000
The number of times Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance video has been played, making it YouTube’s top video of all time. ‘Charlie bit my finger’, a video of two young brothers, comes a close second with over 185 million views.
45,000,000
The number of ‘hits’ YouTube’s front page receives every day.
1,000,000
In September 2005, Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho’s ‘Touch of Gold’ Nike advert became the first YouTube video to receive a million views.
2007
In December 2007 the Queen launched The Royal Channel, which features her annual Christmas Day message and shows recent and historical footage of the Royal family. In early 2009 Barack Obama and the Pope launched their own channels.
1,700
The number of years that it would take to watch every video on YouTube.
100
The number of years of video that is scanned by YouTube’s Content ID technology every day. Content ID is YouTube’s copyright fingerprinting system which allows rights holders to block or make money from unauthorised use of their material. It is free of charge and being used by 1,000 content partners globally.
70
The percentage of YouTube traffic that comes from outside the US.
24
The number of hours of video that are uploaded to YouTube every minute of the day. This is up 20 per cent from May 2009, when it was getting 20 hours of video uploaded per minute.
23
The number of countries for which YouTube has a localised service. YouTube has been translated into 24 languages.
15
The average number of minutes a YouTube users spends on the site every day.

As the cultural shift toward sharing gathers pace, Brands have to put their social strategy at the centre of their marketing plan.

When Search Advertising (PPC) launched back at the start of the new millennia, marketers were jumping up and down as they had found (in part) the answer to an age old conundrum.

It was not that Search Adverting (PPC) was a killer customer acquisition tool but more that they could ‘measure’ the traffic they were receiving and more importantly tracking how their current and prospective customers arrived at their site and bought products.

As Social Media takes off in an almost déjà vu like scenario to Search Advertising, the question being asked again is “I Know Half My Social Media Works, I Just Don’t Know Which Half”

Amy Martin of Digital Royalty (@DigitalRoyalty) shares some measurement techniques in an interesting and engaging presentation.