2010 Trends in Digital Marketing (Presentation to Miami Ad School)

Several months ago, I was asked to be a guest teacher at Miami Ad School for their “Industry Heros” course. This is a program in which, each week, students receive a lecture and 2 classes from a different professional in the industry. I am thrilled to be a part of this for a few reasons: first of all, it’s a great program and it’s an honor to participate; secondly, the students are incredibly creative and inspiring; and finally, it’s a chance to escape the freezing weather in New York for sunny Miami.

On Monday, I gave a lecture about some trends in digital marketing and advertising that I see being important in 2010. Last night I uploaded the deck to Slideshare, and this morning I was thrilled to find that it was picked as one of the featured presentations for Slideshare today (yay!). So please take a look - I’d love to get feedback.

2010 Trends in Digital Advertising (for Miami Ad School)
View more presentations from Marci Ikeler.

Is Advertising Failing on the Internet?

There’s been a lot of chatter around this TechCrunch article by Eric Clemens, with some folks up in arms about it’s content. When I actually got around to reading the original piece, I was surprised to find that I agreed with quite a bit of it:

Traditional advertising simply cannot be carried over to the internet, replacing full-page ads on the back of The New York Times or 30-second spots on the Super Bowl broadcast with pop-ups, banners, click-throughs on side bars.

and
Pushing a message at a potential customer when it has not been requested and when the consumer is in the midst of something else on the net, will fail as a major revenue source for most internet sites.

What I do not agree with is the narrow definition of advertising that Clemens proposes. Although what he states as his definition is somewhat broader, it is clear from most of the article that he mainly has traditional push advertising in mind.

We live in a world that is anchored, for better or for worse, in commercialism. Our lives are full of brands, and our identities are built around the brands we choose to consume. I use a Mac, not a PC. I will never shop at a Walmart, but Target is okay. I don’t eat at McDonald’s but I’ll happily have a sandwich from Pret a Manger.

These affiliations do not exist in a vacuum; I’ve built them over the course of a lifetime of interactions with these brands - and an important voice in these interactions is advertising. It certainly is not the only voice, but it’s definitely there. And going forward, we (as advertisers) need to find new ways to give our voice.

I agree with Clemens that banner advertising, commercials, and other undesired “push” advertising are failing. That’s why we’re seeing the old-world media models of TV and print bite the dust. But there are other ways to engage with brands and to get a brand’s message out there to people who actually want to hear it.

I’m in good company: here’s some likeminded thoughts from Noah and Rick of The Barbarian Group.

Successes in Game Advertising

Successes in Game Advertising

An interesting topic that’s been floating around the net lately: the success of branded/ sponsored content in video games. This is a great example of how digital encompasses so much more than the web. Branding and product placement has a really natural role in games that base their world on (usually augmented) reality; much more natural, in fact, than in forced commercial breaks between television programming or intrusive banner ads online.

SXSW Days 3, 4, 5, etc.- I’m a Procrastinator

Okay, so my daily SXSW wrap-up idea didn’t end up happening. I guess, given my history of procrastination, that’s not too surprising. So that I don’t get so overwhelmed with the idea of these posts hanging over my head that I stop blogging altogether, I’m doing a quick, one-post wrap-up.

Before going into the details of what I saw, did, etc., some stray observations:


Marci’s Final SXSW Wrapup:

Sunday 3/15/09

  • Journey to the Center of Design - Jared Spool rocked my world on this one (slides). Highlights:
    • “User-centered design never worked.” Whoa.
    • How Design Teams Work:
      • Process = how you get something done
      • Methodology = common rules for processes
      • Dogma = unquestioned beliefs/ practices
      • Techniques = building blocks of processes
      • Tricks = what you do when the right technique is too hard
    • Unsuccessful companies increase their methodology while successful companies use lots of tricks and techniques
    • We need to ditch UCD dogma in favor of informed design:
      • Vision - can everyone on the team describe the experience of using your design 5 years from now?
      • Feedback - in the last 6 weeks, have you spent more than 2 hours watching someone use your design or a competitors design?
      • Culture - in the last 6 weeks, have you rewarded a team member for creating a major design failure?
  • After listing to Mr. Spool (and watching him dance) I punked out and napped like a maniac. In the evening, I hooked up with some NYC peeps for BBQ at Stubb’s and some aimless party-hopping.

Monday 3/16/09

  • What Can We Learn From Games - Increased complexity in games creates opportunities for user-based designs (implicitly, through the choices they make). This has been common in games for some time, but is now happening in other media, e.g. the way in which ARGs related to Lost.
  • Advertising is Entertaining - Who’s Selling Out? - This conversation was kind of silly, as it was moderated by content providers and I more frequently find myself on the advertising side. It seemed to populated mainly by advertising douches (“why won’t The Onion feature my movie in a sketch?”).
  • The Decider Party - Best party of SXSW, mainly because I got to pat Eugene Mirman on the back (even though I arrived to late to see him perform).

Tuesday 3/17/09

  • The Future of Visual Storytelling is Interactive - Or Is It? - Cool discussion on interactive storytelling that primarily focused on interactive video and ARGs. I do think that as computers continue to take over mainstream media channels (most notably TV), these sorts of distinctions will be less relevant.
    • “Filmmakers think that digital is trying to displace their medium and we’re not.” - Victoria Ha. I completely disagree with this - I think digital WILL displace traditional film/ TV as they are now.
    • Types of interactivity discussed include:
      • Choose-your-own-adventure-style storytelling that adapts through audience participation (e.g. lonely girl15)
      • Environments in which users can create their own story through their interaction with a open-ended environment (e.g. sandbox games)
      • ARGs (alternate reality games) incorporate live elements and live events that users can selectively participate in.
    • An amusing afternote to the panel was a very irate audience member who didn’t like how their definition of “interactive” varied from the one she used in her thesis, or something.
  • Tuesday Keynote Interview - Chris Anderson interviewed by Guy Kawasaki - Inspiring (and ambitious) discussion about the meaning of “free” and how it’s affecting businesses and user expectations online.
    • The way to be free: Step 1. Create Celebrity, Step 2. Monetize Celebrity
      • Which is harder: achieving or monetizing popularity?
      • Our job is to build an audience the right way: by providing value.
    • What is “free”? It’s a very loaded word. Atoms get more expensive as they increase, bits get cheaper.
    • Models for free:
      1. Media model: advertising subsidizes costs.
      2. Freemium - give away 95% to sell 5%. E.g. MMORGs. Only 5% conversion is necessary for profit. People misunderstand how hard it is to get 5% of any population to pay. Switching from Free to Freemium breaks a social contract.
    • Is there any scenario in which this generation will pay for digital content? NO, but people will pay for convenience.
    • FREE/ CHEAP has no negative connotation on the web.

Link: Transmedia Planning

Transmedia Planning

Cool article about how communications planning now can (and should, in my opinion) transcend media to the extent that different portions of a narrative can be distributed across channels. This has been said before, but it needs to be reiterated as mainstream content/ advertising still hasn’t got the message.


Via Talent Imitates, Genius Steals.

Brands Will Learn By Doing. Get Over It.

Brands will actively engage on the social web by doing—and learn in the process. They can’t sit on the sidelines anymore. The social web only kicks in AFTER something is put into the space.

— David Armano, “Brands Will Learn By Doing. Get Over It”


Via Logic+Emotion.

SXSW Day 2 - Beef and Booze

As I should have foreseen, I am already behind on my SXSW roundups. Here’s a quick look at the awesome on Saturday 3/14/09:


  • Curating the Crowd-Sourced World - Okay, I have to admit: I ended up at this panel accidentally thanks to conference room confusion. But I was psyched to hear Gina Trapani.

  • Opening Remarks by Zappos.com’s Tony Hsieh - So many people have written volumes on Tony Hsieh’s speeches that I don’t want to go into too much detail. But some of my favorite points were:

    • A company’s culture becomes its brand.

    • Chase the vision, not the money: whatever you’re thinking, think bigger.

    • Happiness is the ultimate life goal for EVERYBODY - so take time studying your own happiness.



  • From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small - So far, my favorite panel of SXSW. This is a topic that has been near and dear to my heart recently, as I figure out what my own business path will be. Whitney Hess is my better-known, better-spoken döppleganger.

  • Comedy on Television and the Web - Fun and funny panel with some celebrities (web and IRL). Interesting how people still differentiate between media channels - to me, both the web and TV are distribution channels, nothing more.

  • Fogo de Chao - Awesome Brazillian churrascaria with @Bescka and @Chateau.

  • SXSW Interactive Opening Party Hosted by frog design- Quick stop by the big frog opening party, which was pretty much how all big parties are: crowds, plastic cups, loud music, strangers.

  • OK! Happy Cog’aoke - Fun, backyard-keg-party feel sponsored by the cool kids at Happy Cog.

SXSW Day 1 - Panels and Party RVs

I am endeavoring to take notes on the conferences, panels, and parties I find interesting at SXSW, so that I might say that I got more out of the event than a series of hangovers (which I’m already dreading).

I arrived late Thursday night, so a lazy Friday morning putting the final touches on my new web site seemed in order. By the time I got to the convention center at 1pm, the line for badges was about an hour long. Fun!

Much later, badge in hand, I attended my first session: Oooh, That’s Clever! (Unnatural Experiments in Web Design). It was presented by Paul Annett, of Clearleft Ltd., and discussed the “clever little tricks” and easter eggs that can make design fun and bring consumer opinions up from satisfaction to delight. Lots of great examples, and the main idea, although simple, is something that people tend to forget in the realm of daily client projects.

The next session was a topic near and dear to my heart: Try Making Yourself More Interesting. All the panelists were fantastic, but Kristina Halvorson, of Brain Trust, completely blew me away with her insights on interactive brand engagement and the concept of building brand love as an indirect way to foster eventual consumer transactions.

Sessions complete, I parked myself next to a power outlet to put out some work fires and mess around with Twitter (I’ve had several people ask me my Twitter username before asking my real name, a fact which makes me feel old). While browsing through the #sxsw feed, I saw this:

@GirlGamer tweet about Rock Band RV.

Um, okay. People who know me will instantly understand why this made me excited, for those of you who don’t, suffice it to say that I am very into video games, Rock Band/ Guitar Hero, feminism, and party buses.

At 7:45, the party bus was no where to be found. I circled the (enourmous) conference center a few times, all the while weirdly nervous that I would see a party bus leaving without me. Finally, I found a parked RV on the side of road. Feeling a bit shady, I rapped on the window. Luckily, I had the right vehicle, and not some travelling porn video studio or child molestation outfit.

The party commenced, and although my bragging about my Rock Band skills overrepresented their actuality a bit, good times were had. Nachos, Jack Daniels, and Bon Jovi is an equation that can’t go wrong.

Why TV lost the media war with computers

I love, love, love this article about why TV is loosing the war against computers as the preferred medium for advertising and entertainment. It’s what I think about whenever I am forced to watch live network TV (which I limit to new episodes of Lost). While I know some very lovely folks in traditional advertising and marketing, the industry as a whole has been broken for a very long time.

Paul Graham breaks down the reason for this outcome into four main factors:

  1. Open platforms that support innovation through the creation of an open market;
  2. The exponentially increasing capabilities of internet bandwidth over the past 15 years or so;
  3. Piracy (the ease-of-use of iTunes, the Kindle, and Hulu are reactions to this trend that have only recently become succesful);
  4. Social networking (which is most popular and useful to teenagers, who have grown/ are growing into the new media professionals of the future).

I’d also add a fifth point, which Graham touches on in his article:

  1. The increasing globalization of pop culture makes local programming (previously a strenght of TV) almost entirely irrelevant.

Overall this is great food for thought, not just as a (recent) history lesson, but as an indicator what types of strategies succeed online. Increasing relevant social connections, improving ease-of-use, contextualizing related materials, planning for future technological capabilities - these are some of the tactics you hear about in reference to successful startups all the time. It’s time that traditional media embraces its failure as a learning opportunity, instead of ceaselessly fighting it.

Via Boing Boing.

The thing I hate the most about advertising…

The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.

Banksy


Via Home of the Vain (Nikola Tamindzic).