The Web Smart Blog
The Web Smart Blog exists to extend the information provided in our monthly Web Smart Newsletters. Web information changes so quickly that a monthly publication can't cover enough ground. Also, additional information to past topics can't wait for future publication so we add related newsletter information here.
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Forrester Takes Aim at the Dis-Connected Agency
February 20, 2008 at 9:30 am by Eric
Last week Forrester Research released "The Connected Agency" report by Mary Beth Kemp and Peter Kim. In it they discuss how advertising agencies need to evolve from pushing messages to facilitating connections, from push to pull interactions, and from campaigns to conversations.When I read this kind of report I always keep in mind the kind of agency (and the kind of client) that these changes effect the most. In this regard, I found the report a bit overstated in how they characterize the traditional marketing agency. The report tended to overstate the importance social media trends and used easy targets like consumers' dislike for interruptive advertising to make its case. To be fair, report co-author Mary Beth Kemp did admit that they were directing their declarations and predictions to the top "A" list consumer brand agencies. The drama of the report plays best against these front lines, consumer-oriented brand agencies. But, the typical B2B client or mid-sized advertising agency isn't impacted nearly as much as the large consumer brand agency. Most mid-sized B2B companies barely register in social media "conversations." A few weeks ago, I sat through a demo of Radian6, a very impressive social media monitoring system. My main question for the rep giving me the demo was how the average mid-sized B2B client would benefit from the tool. We ran a few sample reports to see how much attention some our clients were getting. They got very few hits in blog posts, comments, and other social media conversations. The disruption and changes effecting national and global brands with regard to consumer conversation, engagement, and social media activity is very dramatic. The Forrester report does a fantastic job of quantifying these changes and forecasting their impact on the future model for the connected advertising agency. However, the practical realities of low attention volume for the typical mid-sized B2B in the social media universe decreases the urgency for social media engagement. But wait, that does not mean mid-sized agencies and clients can afford to fall asleep here! There is still crucial impact for all companies, even when they rarely get pinged in the blogosphere. Harry Beckwith points out in my favorite marketing book, Selling the Invisible, "More people every day have experienced extraordinary service. Many have seen Disney World; they know how clean, friendly, and creative service can be. They have seen world-class service, and now every service has to accept it." Even small local services who aren't Disney World still get evaluated on a scale that has Disney World on the "best" end of the scale. If I'm a small coffee shop, I still have to compete against Starbucks whether I like it or not. So while the typical mid-sized technology company, whose brand is hardly known outside their specialized industry, and who rarely get blogged about, are still going to be evaluated against a social media backdrop. Mid-sized B2B branding efforts will be seen and judged by the same people who, as general consumers, are being changed by the forces of social media. As social media, conversational engagement, peer-review, open commenting, sharing, collaboration, and all other other dynamics of social media change how consumers relate to brands, all companies will be judged, in some measure, by their responsiveness to these changes. One practical area of change for the typical mid-sized agency with their typical mid-sized B2B client is in their marketing vocabulary. Social media is having the effect of forcing consumer brands to get more real. Hyperbolic advertising slogans, and outrageous and unsubstantiated claims are failing on deaf ears. Marketing language has to change its tone or else risk seeming out of touch and embarrassing themselves. "Marketing speak" has to give way to human conversation. What brands claim about themselves using fairy tale language must come down to earth with real, open and honest talk. As brands are forced to be more real, because they are facing the rapidly changing marketing landscape, the change in tone, and language in marketing as a whole must change. And as consumers adapt to these changes, come to expect them, and even demand them, these same adjustments will be expected of all the marketing they receive. Even small companies will be judged on the basis larger brands are feeling now. After all, we're all consumers, and the service we receive at Starbucks carries over to Open Eye Cafe (Mark's favorite coffee shop). And the same branding language we begin to expect from Dove and Doritos we'll expect from Dover Rugs, and Dominion Technologies. So while the criticism leveled at the traditional advertising agency in the Forrester report may need some context and though it is not as dramatic a report when applied to most mid-sized agencies, it none-the-less underscores some important changes in the dynamics of all marketing that all agencies should stand up and take notice of. Update: Peter Kim just posted an update of all the reactions to the Forrester report--he highlights many of the comments from post. |
Tags: socialmedia blogging web20 agencies copywriting advertising advertising20
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Information R/evolution - Video by Michael Wesch
December 3, 2007 at 3:43 pm by Eric| Michael Wesch, who produced the viral Web 2.0 video "The Machine is Us/ing Us" has posted a part two called Information R/evolution. He really has a knack for concretely demonstrating the dramatic way technology is changing how we interact with information. He contrasts the old ways of categorization with the new ways of search, blogging, tagging, RSS and global collaboration. By the way, the social annotation tool he's using in the video is Diigo--one of my favorite tools for tagging and bookmarking. |
Tags: collaboration video tagging socialmedia web20
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Catching up: Internet TV, Advertising 2.0, and Link Building
October 1, 2007 at 3:32 pm by Eric| Got back into the office today after a trip to St. Louis where I spoke at one of our client's conferences about local search. Had to blast through over 350 posts to catch up and found a bunch of items worth sharing. Rather than blogging them up separately I'm just going to list them off in one post, here goes... Internet TV Joost finally comes out of beta and offers access to the general public. They're boasting 15,000 TV shows and 250+ channels out of the gate. In other Joost news Steve O'Hear at the Last100 blog posts on Joost's CEO's statement that they will have a set top box available within 18 months. Advertising 2.0 Abbey Klaassen writes about the future of home pages in a Web 2.0 world for Advertising Age. In "Do Home Pages Have a Place in Web 2.0's Future?" I've written a lot about how being too focused on a site's homepage, while important, misses the point that many visits to a website start from a sub page and never even see the home page. But Abbey goes on to point out that with the growth of conversational media a brand may be engaged in places that don't even hit the website at all. Garrick Schmitt, VP-user experience at Avenue A/Razorfish is quoted saying "Marketers need to stop thinking so much about their site and more about what's happening outside their site, such as widgets, viral and search." In a similar vain Spike Jones from Brains on Fire critiques Citi's resistance of engaging in social media. Spike comments, "This is the continuing illusion of control that a lot of CMOs are still clinging to. They can’t come to terms that they are NOT in control. At all. The brand doesn’t belong to Citi. And I have no doubt that it's terrifying for a huge financial company to open the kimono and actually admit that you have some faults..." Finally, in a relevant post concerning link building Debra Mastaler lists a bunch of resources to begin in a link building effort. |
Tags: internettv video television advertising20 web20 localsearch
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Internet TV on Windows Media Center
September 27, 2007 at 8:45 pm by Chris| Today, the Windows Vista Team released two blog posts discussing Internet TV on Windows Media Center: New Extenders and Internet TV Unveiled for Windows Media Center "Today at Digital Life in NYC the eHome Division and partners together announced new Extenders for Windows Media Center. In combination with the new Extenders, we're also releasing a beta of a new feature for Windows Media Center called Internet TV." For its lineup, read the above article. Streaming Internet Content with Internet TV Beta to Windows Media Center "On September 28th, users of Windows Media Center for Windows Vista (in the U.S. at this time) will see a new option under "TV + Movies" - the beta version of Internet TV." For a review, read the above article. |
Tags: windows video microsoft web20 internettv television
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NPR's OnPoint on Internet TV
September 23, 2007 at 8:00 am by Chris| OnPoint, an NPR show, which discussed internet TV (you can listen here). Host Tom Ashbrook interviewed Joseph Menn, a reporter from the LA Times, who discussed some new programming that will be featured only on the web. Another guest was Mark Kvamme, venture capitalist at Sequoia Ventures (they funded YouTube), who, among other things, discussed Funny or Die, a user-generated content site that mixes celebrity comedian videos with your videos and lets the user decide who's funny. The thrust of the conversation was how advertisers are adapting to web entertainment, and how the web allows them to know more about who they're selling to. |
Tags: NPR video web20 internettv television
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Google Presentations/Yahoo buys Zimbra
September 18, 2007 at 10:12 am by Eric| Yesterday a few big things happened in the world of web based applications. First, Google released its awaited Presentation application to add a PowerPoint alternative to their suite of online office tools. Also, in our newsletter Workin' Web 2.0 we mentioned Zimbra as one of the companies offering web applications. Well Yahoo! just bought them--it looks like they'll be getting into the online office application game as well. Lee LeFever at Common Craft has been cranking out the paper based educational videos and has a new one about Google Docs (below). As always we does a great job communicating the basic concepts of online web apps, especially Google Docs. |
Tags: web20 googledocs webapplication ajax
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More Website Applications: Ajax13
September 11, 2007 at 10:20 am by Eric Following up on this month's Web Smart newsletter Workin Web 2.0 another comapny called Ajax13 is now offering website versions of standard office applications. I haven't kicked the tires very hard, but I did play around with their Sketch app. It's a super-lightweight vector drawing program (like Adobe Illustrator).Ajax13 also boasts a web based operating system that acts like a virtual desktop. It's like having a desktop inside your browser from which you can access all your Ajax13 apps and documents. For a deeper review see the post at Read/Write Web - ajaxWindows Web OS Officially Launches. |
Tags: web20 webapplication ajax
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Social Bookmarking video by The Common Craft Show
August 7, 2007 at 10:57 am by Eric| Lee LeFever at the Common Craft Show did it again with an excellent short video that explains the use and benefits of social bookmarking. Lee has created a paper and whiteboard approach to explaining these tools and concepts and it's very effective. For more information about social bookmarking and del.icio.us see our Web Smart newsletters Wikis and Swickis and Blogs, Part 2, and Social Media - Madness? |
Tags: socialbookmarking video commoncraftshow socialmedia delicious web20 collaboration
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Web 2.0 Conceptual Video... The Machine is Us/ing Us
March 23, 2007 at 11:03 am by Eric|
Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us is a fantastic piece that illustrates the web 2.0 movement toward information collaboration, organization and magnification. For a longer explanation of web 2.0 and all the attention being given to collaborative tagging and community sites like del.icio.us, Flickr, and MySpace read my Web Smart newsletter Wikis, Swikis and Blogs, Oh My! (part one | part two) |
Tags: conversationalmedia video socialmarketing advertising20 socialmedia web20
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Advertising 2.0 Whitepaper
March 23, 2007 at 10:00 am by Eric| Paul Beelen, creative director at El Cielo Agulla & Baccetti in Santiago, Chile wrote a great whitepaper on Advertising 2.0. It's available on his blog at http://www.paulbeelen.com/english/blog. |
Tags: advertising20 web20 internetmarketing disruption
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