iPhone-Initial Thoughts

I just received an iPhone 3GS yesterday. I know that I am late to the game, but with Apple products (disclosure-been using their products for 15+ years), I usually wait until the 3rd version before I jump in.

One of my close friends had the 1st iPhone and he was not a huge fan, so that colored my adoption a bit.

That said, after starting to work with the phone, it has been smooth sailing. The SIM card was in the phone and all I had to do was charge it and then go to an ATT site to activate. At the same time my old Blackjack2 was decommissioned. I had a bad feeling that this process would not work as advertised, but so far, so good. I did make sure that I had the latest version of iTunes installed on my MacBook, that may have helped, but even the syncing of my contacts from the Mac Address Book worked smoothly.

I still need to work on my typing. One of the reasons that I clung to my Blackjack was the fact that it had a physical keyboard.

That said the raison d’ etre of the iPhone is access to another view of the world. I may sound a bit over the top with that comment, but people that work with an iPhone, I feel, see things in a  bit different way. The App Store is a genius way to have access to more interesting ways to interact with others.

In my limited usage, I have downloaded and used Tweetdeck and I have found it to be maybe even a better experience than that of using it on my MacBook.

I will continue to post my thoughts as I move along the iPhone 3GS continuum.

Book Review- Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

I picked up Trust Agents at the local library and found it to be an engaging read. I was able to get through in a few reading sessions.

On thing that sort of bothered me was just the tone that was brought out by using the “we” pronoun through out. It made it feel as if I was being talked down to a bit. This is pretty minor criticism, though, as I am sure that many will get a lot out of the book.

I felt that big businesses were probably a main target demo for the book and may explain some of the tone that I perceived.

Basically, if I were to distill it down, many of the concepts would come down to the Golden Rule that most of us heard about early in life.

Chapter 6 “Human Artist” was probably my favorite chapter. “Etiquette and human understanding are the cornerstones of any meaningful life.” As I have mentioned to my wife many times over the past year or so, it is much easier to be nice and considerate to others as opposed to acting like a jerk. It is consistently amazing how people seemingly go out of their way to take the low road. As was mentioned at least once in the book, this maybe an instrument of big company survival, but nonetheless, often I have to think, “WTF?”

I agree that now is the age of the consumer. We are in a Post Consumer Era. I concur that the days of selling to your customers are numbered (if not over) in some industries.  Communication and participation with your audience, meaning true 2 way communication and relationship building is key. Trust Agents makes this point very clearly. They say “Make your Own Game” many times in the book, and they mean it in a general way. Great advice for anyone, online or off.

IRI to Jump Into CPG Online Marketing and Tracking a la Consumer Direct

This is interesting. IRI is partnering with ComScore and others to develop an online targeting channel with offline sales data.

“The CPGConnects partnership, which also includes WPP brand-metrics tracker Dynamic Logic, online-audience tracker ComScore and digital-optimization firm X+1, aims to go beyond the online-offline data mash-ups to date by tracking campaign effectiveness and targeting segments across multiple ad networks and channels, including search, email, online coupons and brands’ own websites.”

The partnership will allow marketers to build audience segments based on offline purchase data.

The key differentiator that I can see is that CPG Connects works with all online media channels, unlike the ACNielsen/Yahoo! partnership that brings Consumer Direct.

It is still amazing to me that CPG marketers are still in the mid single digits of their media spend. It has been well documented that consumers media consumption online is at a much higher percentage. This is definitely a move in the right direction.

Retail Partners Playing Hardball with Brands

Ad Age says that brands are under pressure from retailers.

There are a number of factors- commodity price decreases, increases in strength of private label and the economy. Commodity prices have declined, thus boosting the manufacturers margins, but since a downward adjustment has not been given to retailers, they are feeling left out. I feel that private label is act based on price sensitivity as well as some of the shelf space marketing done by the retailers.

From experience, I know that retailers are always looking for growth opportunities and increasingly this has led to assortment. From my understanding of the concept, assortment relates to the actual availability of brands and products in a store by store basis. Retailers use data to make their decisions, like ACNielsen, PRISM clusters, etc. to help them in the decision making process.

I assume that looking at certain brands as Walmart has done recently, has led to a lot of the herd thinning as it comes to brands.

Sounds like it is time for the Brands to kick up the innovation to give a major reason for consumers to spend. Also it seems that some price cutting for retail partners may also be in order.

Book Review– Twitterville by Shel Israel

I picked up Twitterville at the library last week. I found it to be a quick read. The way that it was written makes it perfect for those who have not tried Twitter as well as to those that have been on for a while.

Like The Whuffie Factor, I enjoyed the case studies about how companies have used Twitter the most. As Israel states in his book, he used the crowd sourcing method to come up with anecdotes and stories to complete his book. That is really quite smart to use the wisdom of the crowd, to make both an interesting book, but to also ensure that it is one that people would like to read.

Israel makes a case for twitter being a watershed communication platform, comparing it to the telephone. In my opinion, we a re bit early in the curve to making a comparison such as that, but I do agree that Twitter is changing communication in a huge way.

Shel makes his own case that Facebook got overrun with nonsense and now he is spending more time on Twitter. I agree here as well. Facebook seems more evolutionary for most users. In my experience, many people are posting pics of their kids and putting up status updates as to their travel. It is social networking for sure, but in m experience it is almost always about fun and rarely has a serious slant.

Twitter has much more value as it works much more as a conversation. Depending on your mood, conversations can be as entertaining or as businesslike as you like.

Twitter helped me make a decision about a bike purchase earlier this year for example. Just last night, I was helping a Tweeter make a decision on some Mac audio software. The way that you communicate with followers or use twittersearch to find folks discussing a topic of interest is much more valuable to me.

As I stated above, I would recommend Twitterville to all people interested in Twitter from the newbies to folks that have been on awhile. hearing some of the background stories on the Twitterati was worth the admission price alone.

Has Scale Lost its’ Power?

This AdAge article asks whether scale has lost its’ power for advertisers.

The thrust of the article basically makes the case that due to social media and other ways of communicating (PR, digital) with constituents, smaller brands, can now level the field with larger spending brands.

This makes a lot of sense to me thematically. I would also support this with some of the case studies out there– Comcast and Dell, especially that were getting burned by customers for their poor service and were able to turn around brand perceptions by using the same tools to move the needle in the positive direction. Granted, this is a bit different than a small brand taking down a larger spending brand.

Henkel has been able to compte by using aforementioned tools. They are the owner of the Dial brand among others.

“Mr. Casper (Henkel CMO) has lived both sides of the scale question. Henkel is a major player globally, but its U.S. business is smaller than the global P&G brand he helped launch earlier in his career as an executive there: Pantene.

He said he once doubted challenger brands could compete effectively but has changed his mind, in part because of personal experience. He has seen launches of Purex Natural Elements and Dial Yogurt body wash gain significant share despite significantly underspending competitors, he said, using launches heavy with PR, digital and social-media components.”

All the more reason for brands to move beyond simply monitoring hashtags on Twitter, but acutally becoming part of the conversation.

Comscore 3Q Retail Call

I just completed listening to Gian Fulgoni @gfulgoni , Comscore Chairman, give their findings on Retail for 3Q 2009. Here are some notes and related thoughts.

Ecommerce sales are down Travel -6% and non Travel -1%

Seeing positive bottoming signs in the economy, but no positive growth

4Q08 was the first negative quarter ever for ecommerce

Not clear that stimulus programs continue to work after they are over, example Cash For Clunkers (Govt. spent $24K for each additional 125,000 total vehicle sales.)

Retail sales are stabilizing, not indicating growth

As mid to upper income are saving to regain wealth, they are cutting spending.

Ecommerce has more buyers, but they are spending less.

The number one concern is unemployment/jobs, number 2 is rising prices.

80% of the panel respondents don’t think that the economic situation will get better in 6 months.

Unemployment might be 20% (quoted rate is 10.2%) when you take into account the people that are working part time and would like to be full time and the others that have given up looking for work.

Pure play ecommerce companies are getting 6 in 10 dollars–the highest rate ever.

Buyers are shopping on multiple sites, leading to comparison shopping and price sensitivity.

Pay Pal is doing well, getting 10% of B2C transactions.

Could mobile be to ecommerce what broadband was to PCs?

Holiday Preview

Seeing more interest in going beyond the last click, looking at allocation of conversion.

Reasons for decreased spending this season, 50% “I have less money.” 20% “I am unemployed.”

Holiday Tactics for success:

Free Shipping

Layaway programs

Price Discounts

Social Media

Inventory management

Reduced Holiday staffing

Internet- increasing as a marketing channel.

Takeaways

Clear sign that we have hit bottom

Modest growth

Hopefully no more stock market meltdown.

Consumers are cautious

If you have not taken the time to listen to these quarterly calls, I found it extremely well worth my time, and an hour really well spent.

College Students spending more on tech and wired

The recent Alloy Study mentions that:

“projected annual technology spending among college students (ages 18-30) has reached an all time high at $6.5 billion, ranking 3rd in overall discretionary spending for college students, just below food and auto.”

They also found that:

“Comparing platforms, the study found:

• Students are spending twice as much time on their computers as compared to television viewing
• 33% of 18-24 year old students have increased their consumption of webisodes or user-generated videos since last year, and 30% of 18-30 year olds report frequent video viewing on social networking sites
• 61% of students are watching movies on computers vs. 76% on their television”

So while many older folks are spending more of their time online, and the overall trend is upwards, college age people are already spending most of their time online and on computer related tasks as opposed to hanging out and watching TV.

Now is the perfect time with flexible pricing available for marketers to try some new things to engage and build their audience. These trends will not revert.

I guess times have changed. We used to stay up lated to watch CHiPs rerums. Now I guess you could watch them online.

Digital Drives Customers

Should be no shock to find out that digital experiences drive customers to act. This report from Razorfish states that:

“…experiences are becoming the new advertising or marketing. And these experiences are having an inordinate amount of impact on how consumers perceive a brand and ultimately purchase products. Moreover, we also found that consumers are actively engaged with brands across the entire digital spectrum. Consumers may be in control but so are brands which are so deeply embedded in the culture that consumers can’t imagine not making them a part of their world — on Facebook, Twitter or even their own blogs.”

I like the RIP graphic for the 30 second spot. As much as I would like to agree that the .30 is dead, I think that it is a long way before it is actually dead. While numbers trend down as far as TV ratings, the element of scarcity that is evident in broadcast, is something that is pretty rare in interactive. Grey beards from the traditional side, especially if they have been reluctant to add more interactive to the mix are using this fact as well as the fact that the industry metrics (CTRs) are approaching statistical zero as a reason to not do as much interactive.

Here are the key findings:

• The digital language of love – deals, deals, deals. Consumers are largely engaging with brands to receive exclusive promotions or discounts. Of those who follow a brand on Twitter, 44% say that access to good deals is the main reason.
• Digital can make or break a brand. 65% of consumers say a digital experience, either positive or negative, changed their opinion of a brand. And in that group, almost all (97%) indicated their experience influenced whether or not they eventually purchased that brand.
• Actions speak louder than advertising. People who actively engage with a brand digitally–from participating in a contest to downloading a mobile application–are substantially more inclined to purchase and recommend that brand to others.

Personally, I like these research findings as they support my feelings, I hope more reports such as these can open the naysayers eyes to allocating more media dollars to communicate where the audience is spending more time.

Ecommerce down for 2 Quarters over Prior Year

MediaPost says here that Ecommerce is down:.

“During the third quarter of the year, ecommerce spending was down 2% year-over-year to $29.6 billion, according to new comScore research. As a result, for the first time ever, ecommerce spending declined over two consecutive quarters from the year prior.

“The third quarter showed negative marginal growth for the second consecutive quarter — the first time on record we’ve witnessed sustained dips in U.S. e-commerce spending, small though the declines may be,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.”

I wonder if this decline is inline with the decline in overall consumer spending. Is ecommerce down a similar percentage to consumer spending overall? That would seem a good question to ponder.

No surprise here in this statement:

“Free shipping has become an increasingly essential promotion in the e-commerce marketer’s toolkit,” said Fulgoni. “With more than 40% of all e-commerce transactions now including free shipping, it’s clear that consumers respond favorably to this incentive, and in many cases have come to expect it from retailers. The retailers who do not offer free shipping deals this holiday season may find themselves at a significant disadvantage versus those who do.”

This leaves the door open for the big online retailers for which postage and packing is not part of their revenue model. Instead they make their margins on volume.