I recently wrote about branded utility, and while many of the examples were full-on applications or products, I thought a more "simple" example of branded utility in advertisements would be a good follow-up. The photographs found in the article "192 Creative, Smart & Clever Advertisements" are indeed creative as well as inspirational, thought provoking, and useful. Many of the examples take a traditional issue and shed light from a new angle -- the kind of angle that makes you say, "Huh...I never thought of that..." That's what it's all about -- Advertising should surprise and delight.

Thanks @AvinashKaushik for the link - it's old but it's good! For some of you, this will be a flashback, for others it will (hopefully) provide first time inspirations. Here are a few of my favorites:

Continue reading "Clever Photographic Advertisements"

The new Google AdWords interface has been around for a few of months now. While at first I was hesitant to make the switch over, I eventually made the jump and now I’m starting too really like it, as do others. There are a few aspects I miss about the old interface (the Statistics drop down menu, faster loading times), but the new interface definitely has its pros. In my opinion, one of the best new additions to the interface is the integrated Search Query Report.

Continue reading "What can the New AdWords Interface Search Query Report do for You?"

Most Fridays here at Viget, someone has an opportunity to present on just about anything (including hockey fighting), but mostly it’s on industry trends. I presented this last Friday and thought I'd pass it along for anyone who is interested (there are a few slides missing that were specific to Viget; but you'll get the picture).

The concept of “Branded Utility” isn’t new (we wrote about it here and here), but it's still in its infancy and by no means has it been widely accepted, or widely disseminated -- we're hoping to help change both of those things! Enjoy the slideshare!

Continue reading "Branded Utility - The (Already Happening) Future of Marketing"

This week’s MSM kicked off with a great question from Matt Smith of SmithGifford: is Twitter the ultimate form of emotional branding?

Some went on to argue that from a rational standpoint, Twitter might not make much sense since it doesn’t directly generate ROI, however emotionally it was huge. With Twitter, consumers feel more connected to a brand. Plus, aside from a resource cost, there is no other cost, so why not be on Twitter?

On the other hand, some argued that there IS a tangible ROI. Take Dell for example, who claims that Twitter has helped to bring in $3MM in sales thus far.

As always, however, with good comes bad. In the case of Twitter it’s risk. One negative @reply about your brand and you could be destroyed. Well, maybe not destroyed, but it could certainly sting a little.

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing Recap: Is Twitter the Ultimate Emotional Branding Tool?"

A recent Harvard Business School study, titled “Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets,” made many techies and the media question if all the fanfare surrounding Twitter is unsubstantiated hype.  The study found that 10% of Twitter users created 90% of tweets and that the median number of lifetime tweets for a user is—brace yourself—one.

Some (like the BBC’s article, “Twitter Hype Punctured by Study”) have suggested that this study means Twitter lacks retention value and that it’s not actually catching on with the masses. I’d argue the exact opposite.  Rather, it shows that Twitter is moving into an untapped niche as an information aggregator, which has big implications for companies’ social media marketing strategies.

Continue reading "Supposedly Dismal Twitter Statistics Actually Indicate Strength"

Last Friday, some fellow “Vigeteers” and I made our way down the street to the State Theater for this year’s edition of BlogPotomac, a one-day social media marketing event. Below are a couple of key takeaways from the day’s discussions.

Continue reading "BlogPotomac: Key Takeaways"

Last Wednesday, Microsoft launched its new search engine, Bing.com, with an aggressive advertising campaign rumored to cost between $80 and $100 million.  In just five days, the “decision engine,” as Microsoft calls it, surpassed Yahoo! as the number two search engine in the U.S.  As of today, according to VNU Net, Bing! owns 16 percent market share, much of which has come at Google’s expense. 

Personally, I believe growth in market share has more to do with the hype from launch and its creative ad campaign rather than the search engine experience itself.

Continue reading "Bing! Generates Buzz but Doesn’t Deliver"

Is email the “digital glue” that holds our online lives together?  Will email remain the dominant form of communication, or will it be replaced by new means of online communication such as Facebook, Twitter, Wikis, etc.?  How do so-called “Millennials” view email?

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing Recap: The State of Email Marketing"

Given the success of our one-on-one training sessions, we decided to host a group Google Analytics Training program at our Falls Church, VA headquarters.

This program is intended for users (marketers, business owners, or web professionals) who are familar with Google Analytics, but need assistance deciphering all it's features and data.  If you're looking to explore visitor behavior, make informed online marketing decisions, and generate custom reports this training program is for you!

Our goal is to not only help attendees explore and understand their data, but also ensure they're utilizing Google Analytics to its full potential.

We're capping the training to 40 people, so register today to guarantee your spot!

 

As I dig deeper and deeper into the Google Analytics realm I’m learning a whole lot more about traffic patterns, goal funnels, and conversion tracking, than I ever thought possible. I’m also starting to find, and take advantage of, some great tools that Analytics has to offer (that is, tools that aren’t easily accessible in the standard Google Analytics tutorial).

One of these is the utm_nooverride string.

When tracking conversions, Google Analytics will report the most recent non-direct source as the source of the conversion. For example, say you search for “skydiving in Virginia.”  You click on an ad for “1800Skyride.com” and browse the web site.

Continue reading "Nifty Little Analytics Tool"

This amazing post on why Google loves Denmark inspired me. What do people search for? What are we thinking? What does Google think? I started this thinking I would find some funny stuff, but I was not at all prepared for some of these results. Some of them are offensive, so be warned. Some are absolutely hilarious. All of them say something about human behavior online...

First, some general questions:

Why...

Continue reading "Search Behavior Proves Humans Are Just Weird"

Surpisingly, the post I wrote "Google Analytics just got WAY Better - API, Segments & Reports" still gets a lot of traffic. Weird, eh? Don't get me wrong; it's a mind blowing post ... but I didn't think it would have the longevity it has had. You know where the traffic is coming from? People searching and hoping for info on the Google Analytics API.

Well, good news! The private beta is no longer private.

Continue reading "Google Analytics API Now Open For Business"

Yup, it's true. Google will now be inserting (or, at least, testing)Tweets into AdSense advertisements. The first company to participate in the alpha testing was Intuit's TurboTax. My initial reaction to the news ranged from "No way will this work" to, "Maybe...?" to, "This disgusts me" to, "I respect the effort"... and I still haven't seen it in action. Marketing Voices Podcast has an interview with Intuit’s director of online advertising and internet media, Seth Greenberg (which you can listen to below),  and, despite my initial reservations, I found myself impressed with Intuit's approach,and Seth's attitude towards what he calls the "test."

"We're not changing the way we talk ... we're not optimizing for broadcasting, we're optimizing for individual relationship ... we're not trying to buy followers, we're just trying put out the same message that you probably wouldn't see in other channels."

Continue reading "Google Integrates Twitter into AdSense with Turbo Tax"

When creating keyword campaigns in Google AdWords I’ve always believed that using all three match types – exact, phrase, and match – for a single keyword would negatively affect your campaign. I thought that with this setup your own keywords would be competing against each other. I realized, however, that my beliefs had no solid foundation.

Continue reading "Finding the Perfect Match Type"

Last week we wrapped on another successful Google Analytics training session. I was sure not to repeat the mistakes of trainings past and snapped a quick picture of our very own Josh Chambers in full effect.

Be on the look out for details on our next Google Analytics training session!