In my professional development, before being an employee with SGC, I joined a local organization called Ad 2 West Michigan; in a year I was elected to the role of Chair of Public Service, where I have worked with my friend and professional club associate Ray Cashbaugh (Chair of Creative), as well as the handful of dedicated, to build our charity campaign for the Wealthy Theatre (located in East Grand Rapids).

Ad 2, a division of the AAF (National), is a club for young professionals in Advertising, Marketing, and Public Relations between the ages of 18 and 32. In light of my involvement, I had planned to join the AAF and Ad 2 for their National Conference in Orlando, Florida, as a representative of Ad 2 West Michigan even before my employment with Steketee Greiner; imagine my pride to represent not only Ad 2 West Michigan, but also a rapidly growing company driven by an innovative spirit. The passion I have for my relationship to SGC allowed me to network with professionals in the Advertising industry with a vigor that perhaps Seth Godin would be proud of.

At the conference, my already deep respect for the AAF’s role in my industry grew as I saw the number of clubs that had come to represent not only their industry, but also their hometowns, in an effort to learn, network and most importantly, have fun! On the young professional side, I was awed that leadership flew in from cities such as Denver; Washington DC; San Francisco; Madison and even as far away as Honolulu, Hawaii to support the conference for Ad 2.

During the week, one speaking engagement stuck out as specifically motivating. Gary Ware, an Ad 2 member and professional from the San Diego area (Ad 2 SD) led a workshop on how to use Social Media effectively for a club and graciously allowed me to attend (I even offered to Live Tweet with the #aafconference Hashtags). As a professional engaged in the emerging industries related to digital communications and Social Media I found that Gary and I had much in common with our views of Social Media. What interested me most from this talk was that Gary had inspired a room of ‘traditional’ Advertising professionals to engage both him and their peers in an attempt to learn and share successes.

Knowing the times I’ve seen advertising and thought “hey, Social Media could really help out here…” it’s fantastic to see traditional professionals looking to merge industries – even if the cutting edge hasn’t been their primary focus so far in their career.

So special thanks to Gary as well as the AAF National Conference, for reminding me that it’s not just about advertising, and it’s not just about Social Media – it’s about getting the consumer engaged with brands we promote to the extent that they are willing to not only purchase a product, but spread positive Word of Mouth (WOM) across their social channels (both offline and online). The added benefit of Social Media to a traditional advertising campaign comes from the ability to measure this WOM and determine ROI faster, and more affordably than traditional surveying alone.

For example: Tampax produced a very unusual (or is it revolutionary?) campaign about an adolescent named man named Zach who struggled with getting a period won best of show at the Addy’s; I can’t help but think that ‘Zach’s’ engagement through Social Media led him to not only win Best of Show but the loyalty of the consumers he engaged with in the digital landscape. You can view the official clip from the AAF [Here].

All in all, I’ve returned more passionate about my industry; it’s a pretty amazing world out there, and I hope to continue to share my passions around Social Media strategy, emerging technologies and Advertising (AAF/Ad 2 specifically!) in the near future.

In the meantime, don’t hold back. Love us or hate us – find us on Twitter: @stekteeegreiner.

And as always, if you’re looking to talk to us about our innovative views in this market, contact us through www.steketeegreiner.com.

Additional Links:

You can follow Gary on Twitter: @GaryWare

His Presentation is loaded  [On SlideShare]

Credits for the Tampax Campaign:

Tampax “Zack Johnson”

Agency: Leo Burnett, Chicago
WW Chief Creative Officer: Mark Tutssel
Chief Creative Officer: John Condon
Executive Creative Director: Becky Swanson
Creative Director: Dave Loew, Jon Wyville
Copywriter: Dave Loew
Art Director: Jon Wyville

Post by: Andrew Rushmore

]]> http://blog.agent-x.com/2010/06/passion-for-advertising-is-becoming-passion-for-social-media/feed/ 0 http://blog.agent-x.com/2010/05/adage-viral-video-chart-new-media-new-measures/ http://blog.agent-x.com/2010/05/adage-viral-video-chart-new-media-new-measures/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 12:37:59 +0000 brian http://blog.agent-x.com/?p=645

The beauty of where this all goes – AdAge Viral video chart

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=143824

As I spent some time today on AdAge getting my daily dose of what’s happening and who’s who, I came across a great article that was talking about the most successful viral campaigns of the week. What was intriguing and also wonderful at the same time is that AdAge was referencing “Visible Measures” viral ability chart as a reference guide to who was winning the race. So there we have it – a publication that was once dedicated to a traditional advertising model paying homage once again to the power of digital and and non-traditional. Google’s Chrome video took the lead with an impressive 1.86MM views on a new spot they published online. Toyota was close behind with 1.85MM views regarding a campaign they put together for the Sienna.

What I love most about this example is the market’s willingness to understand and give credibility to the power of digital and social media. However I must say there is a great opportunity to provide more insight into this report than just how many views have been achieved. There is so much more data available to help you understand the true impact and connection that these impressions have had with the eyeballs that have viewed them. If harnessed correctly, marketers have the ability to make those moments so much more impactful to both the brand and the consumer experiencing them.

Brian

Global Brand – We are trying to understand how we can leverage your platform to create a consistent brand experience for our customers. How can we do this?

FB – Well we have a lot of great ideas cooking around unique brand experiences and here is an agency that we are working with who can help you create one.

Global Brand – Okay.. Agency, we’re not so much interested in creative however we are interested in designing a system that enables us to easily publish content across a myriad of markets in multiple languages. Have you done this before?

Agency – Well, we have a content publishing tool that we designed that enables us to “work around” the FB system design however we have never done this for more than 8 markets or have any language translation capabilities…

Me – FB / Agency, can you elaborate on your long range tech plans for addressing the issues around multiple countries and multiple languages?

Agency – We design future functionality around what our customers ask for (my interpretation – we don’t have any plans to develop a translation engine until we have a customer that wants one)…

FB – Our goal is to create a compelling user experience for the end user and we have developed an advertising model that enables you to “micro-target” consumers. The architecture and design work is being left up to our agencies…

Agency – Yes, this is where we come in…

Global Brand – Agency, do you have experience integrated your platform with our social media platforms (i.e. Orkut, Bebo…) or across YouTube and Twitter…

Agency – Yes we have worked with Twitter and can integrate this into the content publishing tool. No to the rest….

As I’m sure we can all agree, Facebook is an extremely compelling playground for brands. With over 300MM users spanning the globe it’s clear that it is not only the dominant player in the space but that it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

This area is truly still a “white canvas” for Brands willing to take a risk and do something unique. With that being said, there are only a handful of agencies out there that have experience with it. When looking to evaluate an agency to launch your Facebook social strategy, make sure to consider the following questions.

1. How many brands have you launched FB initiatives with?

2. Do you currently have IP in the space? If so, what makes your IP (and solution) unqiue and compelling?

3. What experience do you have working across multiple Geos and multiple languages?

4. Do you have a content generation platform? If YES

5. Does your platform manage multiple permissions from multiple administrators?

6. Can it flag in-appropriate content?

7. What experience does your team have with cross integration of other US based and overseas based platforms?

8. Can you show me a functioning application that is more than a “hot link” to an outside URL?

9. Can you provide reporting and trends analysis beyond fan, friend, and links growth? How should my growth compare to other companies/competitors in my industry? What are the benchmarks?

10. Do you have a direct relationship with the social media platform? How is your development team structured?

11. After you install my solution, how much additional customization and support will be required for me to activate a campaign?

12. What business model are you working off of? If this is a license deal, what value is your technology providing me?

13. Can I get the same functionality through a free platform or another provider?

14. What makes your solution truly unique?

15. Who are your competitors?

Global Brands, like those before you who have charted new territory, have perseverance and patience.  Vet your agency partners carefully as you embark on creating a consistent brand experience across borders and languages.

Brian

We all know the importance of viral communications in today’s world. We’re learning even more about it during the WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) Summit this week in Las Vegas.

The WOMMA Summit is featuring brand speakers that discuss their real world WOM marketing programs from some of the top companies in the world.  They are presenting case studies and educating the audience on the importance of word of mouth and how it relates to their company.

We have been working on some great projects involving word of mouth tactics, one of which is a corporate blogger event.  What a great way to spur the spread of conversation about your brand.  Get people that are passionate about something and give them your brand experience to inspire them to write about it and share it with all their followers -word of mouth!

We’ve met some great people and have seen some amazing presentations here at WOMMA.  Tune in with us… Just go to womma.org and sign up for the live feed to see what the speakers have to say…and spread the word!

I was catching up on Advertising Age today and read a great article written by Phil Johnson in the Small Agency Blog on AdAge around the dilemma of Measurement and Accountability between the Agency/Brand relationship. See below:

What’s the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning

There is a lot to be said about agency/brand partnerships and the value of setting up mutually beneficial objectives and incentive structures. The challenge facing that partnership historically has been around information sharing and a lack of understanding the value proposition. As Phil states “The only way out of this dilemma is for agencies to to take the next step and conclusively prove beyond any doubt that they contribute to a client’s business results.”.

That means more then just providing a measurable ROI but an ROI that both the Agency and the Brand can understand.

Nice article Phil. Amen.

Brian

It seems pretty clear the executive mandate of 2009 is “we must get into social marketing”. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Fortune 500 brand or a HVAC distribution company, the people have seen the future and everyone is trying to figure out how to get on. So when is social right? Let’s first take a minute and look at the definitions of social marketing as spelled out on Wikipedia :

Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing along with other concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioral goals for a …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_marketing

Use of marketing techniques to improve social well-being by changing attitudes and behavior in regard to a specific product or concept.
www.rho.org/html/glossary.html

Marketing and advertising that reaches potential consumers via social networking website, such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. They appear at the edges of users’ profiles and can be targeted based on keywords in their profiles to match their stated interests or recent activities.
www.mediasmart.org.uk/parents-media-glossary.php

A marketing message designed to promote a social concern or political idea as well as a product.
www.glencoe.com/sec/busadmin/marketing/dp/ad_serv/gloss.shtml

What’s important to note is that Social Marketing does not necessarily have to include Facebook, or Twitter by that matter. It’s about how we connect amongst our peers, family, and brands. Sometimes that great tool of Facebook can be a launchpad. But consider this… Would you become a fan of your local pool supply store? Yes that is correct. I recently passed a billboard in front of our local pool store advertising the great opportunity to “fan” the pool store and stay tuned for deals. This I believe is a mistake and an in-appropriate use of a social platform. Sorry Mr. Pool store man if your out there reading this – It was a novel effort.

Social networks really haven’t changed over the years. The advent of the digital version of social networks has though. It has created a great platform to get engaged and have a voice out there. If used properly – it can make a difference. We’ve seen this both in the B-B and B-C space. However a lot of those examples didn’t and do not include “Facebook”… Start thinking outside of the norm. Forums, influential blogs, and other relevant trade and audience specific sites can be fertile ground for getting your message out. Especially if you need to communicate to specific target audiences. Use them properly and don’t “get in” just for the sake of “getting in”…

There’s a lot of value to be had by getting online and going social. However this always needs to be taken in the context of the rest of your marketing mix. Keep it cohesive and remember… You have limited control of your message once it’s out there….

Think, do your homework, and make sure to clearly understand what you want to get out of “getting into social” before you get started.

Brian

The marketing landscape is changing. It’s about open conversation and innovative ways to create new communications opportunities. We’re working hand in hand with our clients to help define where marketing goes from here. So, as the edit to our title post now says, marketing actually isn’t really dead. It’s just reinventing itself for the new age of Communications 3.0.

- David -

Background: Weekend event, 20 bloggers, free reign to speak their minds

Tools Used to measure: Radian6, Techrigy, Alexa rankings, Compete scores, Google Alerts (RSS feeds), Tweet Search, and a couple of our own “secret sauce” tools

Approach: Develop a dashboard and knowledge management platform for each stakeholder which would compile key metrics and data points into a usable format to provide relevant intelligence on the success/failure of the project

Key Metrics:

Bloggers: sentiment, social channel followers (Twitter, FB, Blog), monthly impressions, actual posts, tone of posts

Brand: Share of discussion (# of mentions +/- and neutral) for week of and following, competitive discussions, social channel performance (FB, Twitter, YouTube) by fan base and commentary

Executive summary: Total impressions by channel, total mentions, tone of mention, total share of conversation bench-marked against previous weeks performance as well as competition, and most importantly, the ability for the bloggers to actually fuel and continue on discussions with their base.

Phase II – Phase II really started with the last point I mention in the executive summary. The ability to understand and measure the influence blogger’s ability to open and maintain dialogues with their fan base. This is an area that moves past the traditional CPM and really gets at the heart of a quality and return of a discussion (challenge of measuring the value of a two way discussion).

Here’s my latest approach in translating quality into impressions. I’ve structured it this way to try to reverse engineer an approach that allows my client to still communicate using the CPM terminology and provides more clarity in defining a baseline for future events. This is an on-going process… I’m open for dialogue here.

(Sum of Quality Score Multiples/Number of Comments) = Average Multiplier; Average Multiplier X Total Number of Web Impressions = Total Quality Impressions (still can be used in the traditional CPM model then)

Comment Quality score is measured as an index. Range of 0-5.

0 score gets a .75 multiple = negative comment (1 negative comment would equal an impression of .75)

1 score gets a 1 multiple = comment is minimal but positive response

2 score gets a 1.05 multiple = comment is information neutral to positive with industry mention however no brand mention

3 score gets a 1.1 multiple = comment includes a question related to industry

4 score gets a 1.2 multiple = comment includes reader expressing a positive attitude towards industry without brand specific mention

5 score gets a 1.25 multiple = comment includes a positive response directly related to the brand of their products or the reader expresses information in trying their product or the reader “reblogs” the post

In summary, positive conversations surrounding a brand would increase the total number of “impressions” considered for the CPM calculation and ultimately provide a better understanding of value.

In the case of the event we were managing, we found that we were able to attribute additional impressions and bring down the CPM slightly (still high – ranging from $300-$700). Considering the niche reach of the outlets, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Brian Steketee