Adventures In Digital Marketing

Big day in the Apple TV world yesterday.  No, not the DRM free update.  Not the Jobs/Gates conference at D5 either.  Certainly not the YouTube announcement or the 160gb BTO option (seemingly US only?).

No, it was a big day because…

…Apple killed my AppleTV!

Just as I was settling down to an evening of quality streamed video entertainment
I turn on the unit and get stuck in an infinite rebooting loop.  No menu, or perhaps a menu for a split second, followed by the Apple logo over and over and over again.

No luck turning it off and on five times.  No luck resetting the factory state when the menu’s stayed on long enough for me to do it.

Turns out that when Apple released the iTunes update yesterday, they forgot to do some QA on the server side of things and killed all of the Apple TV units globally in one foul swoop.

They seem to have sorted it out now according to this post, but for a very long hour late last night I was in a very bad mood - so much so I packed the device into my bag today and was all ready to go over to Regent street and demand a replacement.

First strike AppleTV!  You best be on your guard if I’m not to start looking at the PS3 with eager eyes (even if it is £500!)

Howard
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• D5 | AllThingsD
  Keep an eye on the video and voice feeds coming out of the D5 conference in California for the Steve Jobs and BIll Gate interview
  (tags: web2.0 apple microsoft steve bill jobs gates)
• Heroes TV Show on NBC: Downloads
  Not only is Heroes a fantastic show that everyone seems to be talking about, even Wired magazine, but they’re using widgets for marketing purposes - both desktop and web based. GOod work NBC!
  (tags: tv widget marketing heroes)
• Home internet ownership rises to 61% - Brand Republic News - Brand Republic
  Home Internet? I got to get me one of those. Does it come on CD, DVD, or a series of RAR compressed floppies?
• BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Shifting times in the TV industry
  The BBC comments on PVRs and Timeshifting, but skips over Buyshifting as a phenomenon, and makes no mention at all of Web or IP TV (but let’s not hold that against them, we know the BBC rocks!
  (tags: television bbc timeshifting buyshifting iptv webtv)
• Last.fm – the Blog
  Last.FM bought by CBS for £140m Scrobble that!

I love wikipedia - who doesn’t? Ok, so it might not be 100% trustworthy, and you probably shouldn’t take it as 100% gods truth, but it’s an excellent resource in all ways.

In my time, I’ve created two pages on wikipedia.  One, the first one, was the entry for Geoff Capes (don’t ask me why, but just know I was once party to a disturbance in Disney Land, California, where the name Geoff Capes was shouted across a restaurant many many times) and is still going strong.

The second was one I did much more recently, when I noticed that there wasn’t a post on wikipedia for Digital Marketing - so I thought I would make one.

Well, I am proud to say that as with it’s older brother, Geoff, the DM article on wikipedia is still going strong, and has been greatly expanded out from the initial stub I created into a much more fully fledged offering.

The reason I noticed it is because I started to get a lot of traffic in Google Analytics for AdventuresDM.com from wikipedia via that very page.

Anyway - as it’s open to editing, please feel free to have a go at the page (or that for Mr Capes!) if you see fit in the wiki style.

Howard
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OK, so the Apple iPhone looks pretty cool, but trust me, it’ll have nothing on this beast from Microsoft, if it ever get’s released at a reasonable price that is!

I can see Apple moving towards something like this you know.  Imagine a 32" iMac with built in multi touch to control the FrontRow photos and movies.  It’s got to be a no brainer for them, and they’re in the lead as far as I can tell with having a computer that looks pretty much like an HDTV.

Now, where do we stick the banner ads on it?

Howard
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Just a quicky…  lovely promotional site from Orange. Apparently by the people over at Poke.  Nice work.

Howard
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Is it just me, or are Google becoming a real pain in the bum?

They’re everywhere.

Buying up everything and causing others to buy up everything just to fend them off.

Threatening to monitor us day and night.

Installing Spyware onto new Dells.

Selling ads into RSS feeds from the newly acquired Feedburner.

They’re becoming a little too cocky if you ask me.  No one likes a showoff!

Howard
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The Geek Squad Has Arrived proclaim the posters in the window of Car Phone Warehouse stores nationwide.  After being a hit in the states it would appear that the home based PC support service is now here in the UK.  I’ve been discussing a digital plumbing service for some time as a business idea i’d like to have setup if I had a spare few thousand quid lying around (which I don’t!) and it appears with this I obviously wasn’t the only one.

In a deal with the "a store in every town" Carphone Warehouse, you can now pay to have your PC serviced in the comfort of your own home. All very well and good.

But, for me, this might not be such a good thing as it would appear, especially at the prices they’re offering.

For £24 a geek squad technician will login remotely to your machine and perform a PC MOT on it.  This sounds alright, until you find out this includes cleaning up old file, checking your AV is up to date and giving you a health check.  This is quite obviously the PC equivalent of Kwik Fit giving you a free brake fluid check before trying to sell you a new exhaust and a set of tires.  Except, it’s not free of course!

Got any other problem?  It’ll cost you £99 if they go to your house, or £49.99 if they do it remotely.  Now, i’m not being funny, but that’s expensive!

Compare this to how I truly believe most people currently get their PC stuff done.  They do it in one of two ways. 1. they do it themselves if they are like you, me, or anyone else who had a Spectrum as a child.  or, 2. they get us to do it for them and pay us in beer and curry.

I can’t personally see all those people switching to a service that costs £50 a pop for a single issue.

My other problem with Geek Squad is more of a marketing related one.  They’ve actually been quite lazy in the way it’s branded and just directly imported the image from the USA in to the UK and, to be quite honest, it really doesn’t work.  I know what they’re trying to do - they’re trying to get a sense of 1950’s "Full Service" garage culture into the thing.  When in the USA you’d drive in for petrol and get an oil change and a car wah thrown in.  I know of this, and in the USA I am sure it works like a charm.  But over here it doesn’t resonate.  We didn’t have that culture - it doesn’t translate. 

To me, the geek squad employees look more like a weird vision of the Men In Black crossed with the blokes out of the Matrix, and are suitably worrying as a result.  They look like the Krays.  Not the kind of people I’d want in my house. 

I think the concept is a great one - I wish I had money to invest to set up a business, but it’s not been done well from a brand image point of view, and it’s so damn expensive.

Correct me if I am wrong in 6/12 months please - but right now I’d really suggest someone look at the business model and the corporate identity and address some major issues quickly.

Oh, and two more small things.  If they’re that cute and female when they turn up, it could be worth the money and, secondly, watch out when they’re installing that wifi router in the bathroom

Howard
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Lots of stuff going on recently about a battle between digital and integrated or even ATL agencies.

Over at Brand Republic Robin Grant commented on an article over at the Sunday Times in which John O’Keeffe of BBH says that nothing is more important the the idea.

Robin went on to comment that in his opinion (as well as that of an anonymous friend) "is he [John O'Keeffe one presumes] on crack?" This was, I believe in response to this part of O’Keeffe’s comment:

It’s not difficult to find people who can press the right buttons

Which I guess is true enough if you’re talking about the shortage of staff, but I don’t think he is.  I think he’s saying that the idea isn’t king, and that digital is a difficult field to work in because of technical difficulties.  Taking further from the quote, that it IS true that people who work in digital "have some kind of technological advantage".

This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Digital is a piece of cake to do.  It’s not hard.  it’s not harder than making a TV ad, or producing a load of posters.  You just get the right people with the right skills and away you go.  It’s not as black art in any way.

But without a good, solid, intelligent idea behind it, off of which all the formats fall from, then you could be the best digital coder/designer in the world - but your work/campaign will still suck.

The idea IS king. 

Anyone who says anything else is hiding from the truth and trying to shield themselves behind a techy cloud to appear more mysterious.

Forget about it being digital.  Forget how things work.  You don’t know how a printing press works or a TV camera, but you don’t regard those as a dark art.

Idea, Idea, Idea, IDEA!

That’s where the real digital challenge lies in regard to getting one over on ATL or anyone else - come up with the best ideas and you WILL rule the roost.

Howard
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Early this week Microsoft announced it will buy online marketing company aQuantive
– the holding parent of interactive agency Avenue A/Razorfish, display
and paid search ad mangement platform Atlas and inventory management
system DrivePM.  The $6 billion deal cash deal represents an 85%
premium to aQuantive’s closing price.

This allows Microsoft to compete with Google + DoubleClick in offering ad serving and access relationships with advertisers and publishers. The price Microsoft has paid reflects their confidence that Online Advertising has reached a tipping point and can now expect huge growth as advertisers shift an increasing portion of their brand advertising budgets online. WPP is working toward a similar goal with its recent announcement to acquire 24/7 Real Media.

Jonathan

As we move into a future where TV is  being delivered over the web, be it  streamed or P2P like Joost, the previously  unmeasurable parts of the industry like TV/Above The Line will have access to the  targetting and measurability that we?ve
enjoyed in the online world for the  past years.  This is going to change what we think of as data and  analytics.  It’s a very exciting time to be in the land of the 30 second  TV ad in my opinion.

Don’t think of your data that yuou get from the internet as web statistics that help you with  your web site.  Think of them as customer insight, teaching you what your  customers are
interested in and use that to affect not only your marketing but  all of your business decisions.   

New technologies are  going to bring the off and on worlds closer and closer.  Google’s  attempts alone at integrating print and tv into their adsense platform is  enough to send earthquakes through the rest of the industry, and Microsoft recent purchase of aQuantive for $6.5 billion is only going to heat this up more and more.  The same  level of analysis and insight that goes into their PPC ads can and will be applied to  effectively any other channel.  It removes barriers that were once there and  makes for truly integrated approach.

Channels will irrelevant moving  forwards and the power of the big idea will never be more important.   Web analytics are all well and good.  Thinking in terms of on and  offline is too.  But without a solid idea sitting behind your work you  can forget all about the analysis because it plain won’t work.

Howard
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