What if objects could become "worth" more if they were imbued with imaginary stories?

Is it really called progress if we're just doing the same thing over and over again?

Both questions are incredibly useful to advertising, both are useful to society at large, and both were asked at the recent PSFK New York Conference.

The first question was posed by Rob Walker, author of the NYT column "Consumed" and co-creator of Significant Objects. The second by Colin Beavan, the No Impact Man.

What if objects could become "worth" more if they were imbued with imaginary stories?

Rob and his partner began a project called "Significant Objects" in which he would buy "useless" objects from thrift shops, yard sales, etc.; recruit professional writers to invent stories about the objects; and then sell them on eBay (the funds are donated to charity). The project has taken off - items are sold for significantly more than they were purchased for, and Rob's reflections on why were fascinating.

What I gathered from Rob's discussion was that not only are stories important, but it's the people behind those stories that are of worth. Rob asked the question, "What do you grab from your home if you have 30 seconds to do so?" The answers are rarely "My latest gadget"; rather, they are things like "My photo album" or "The card my wife gave me." We reach for things that carry emotional significance - we reach for things that have been imbued with story...stories made up of people.

This has relevance for advertising as well as society at large.

Continue reading "PSFK New York Recap - Storytelling & Progress"

As 2009 comes to an end, we decided to use our last Middle School Marketing of the year to review our predictions for the past year and discuss our new ones for 2010. Here goes...!

Predictions for 2010

1. The Internet Will Be Less Free: Users will be more comfortable paying for services they love rather than being pestered with annoying ads, or seeing their favorite services go bankrupt. Pandora has begun charging if you reach a certain number of listening hours, and Hulu will almost be a paid service in 2010. Additionally, there are examples in the news industry such as the NYT Reader built on Adobe Air and Rupert Murdoch announcing he would charge for online content by July 2010.
2. Mobile: This is a no-brainer. Yes, Android consumption will increase greatly; yes a new iPhone will appear; and yes, my Mom now has a Droid. The average Joe and Jane will pick up smartphones on their favorite network, thus forcing marketers to more thoughtfully engage in an application-based digital economy (and please, God, let that not mean more ads). We hope that networks will stop holding things back, but that seems overly optimistic (unless Nexus One sells unlocked at a reasonable price; that could change things). 

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing: 10 Predictions for 2010"

We're hosting another Google Analytics 101 training on December 10th, 2009. This time, there's one small change to the program that we're really excited about! 

We're reserving five spaces for those of you who have been hit by the economic hurricane that is otherwise known as "2009." We're hoping this will be a great way for you those of you who are job hunting to broaden your skill set, and perhaps fall in love with a new industry. We promise we won't try and sell you anything, cause you to fall asleep, or otherwise annoy you. So, if you are unemployed, or know anyone who is, sign up and get to know the powers of Google Analytics.

For more information and to register, visit our Google Analytics Training page.

If you're unemployed and want to take us up on our offer, please email training[at]viget.com. It's first come first serve, so email right away if you're interested!

Join us on December 10th!

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?"

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!

Another month, another successful MSM meeting...Josh kicked off yesterday's meeting with a comment about Google's recent announcement about launching interest-based advertising on partner sites and YouTube. This means that ads being served will be based on a user's browsing history. Josh asked the group: Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing Recap: Interest-Based Advertising"

Oh boy, it's everyone's favorite topic right now.

The economic slowdown.

But despite all the very real concerns, products still need to be moved, sales need to be made, and companies still need to advertise. As we are all too well aware, the marketing budget ususally the first to get slashed when times are tight. So how do you accomplish more, with less?

The veritable brain trust that is the Middle School Marketing crew tackled just such a topic this week in our monthly meeting.

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing Recap: Marketing in a Recession"

It's the consumers' media world - we're just marketing in it.

AdWeek's 30th anniversary edition appropriately captured the theme of this month's Middle School Marketing event here at Viget. More than ever, consumers media consumption habits are radically changing, and marketers are struggling to keep up. Matt Smith of SmithGifford kicked things off this morning with a similar message - media fragmentation is the marketer's biggest problem, and it takes more than a savvy media planner to overcome the dilution of consumer's attention. 

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing: One Big Idea, Many Fragmented Markets"

Lane Becker of Get Satisfaction delivered one of the best talks at this year’s Web 2.0 Expo in New York. (You can check out my full recap of the conference here.) 

His talk, Customer Service is the New Marketing, has important insights for how any company - startup or major corporation - promotes their product and builds loyalty from their customers. Becker made the case that the best way to market your company is through the customer experience itself. Drawing from the hospitality industry, Becker suggested that the role of a hotel concierge is the new model for meeting customer’s needs. As Brian Solis aplty wrote:

Marketing-savvy corporate executives are working with PR, Advertising, and Marcom teams to explore options and strategies on how to participate in relevant online conversations. This represents a shift in outbound marketing as it creates a direct channel between companies and customers, and ultimately people. It starts to look a lot less like marketing and a lot more like customer service.

Continue reading "Web 2.0 Expo: Customer Service is the New Marketing"

Our September Middle School Marketing group continued the tradition of discussing ways to bridge the gap between old and new school marketing. There were several new faces, but as always the conversation sparked some interesting debate. We initially set out to discuss three questions:

1. What are some examples of social media client case studies? How have mature companies used social media not just to experiment but to really have an impact (beyond just early-adopter “luck”)? How did they do it? (I guess that’s three righ there...oops)


2. What tools and metrics are companies using to measure and demonstrate success?


3. Is email marketing dying, morphing, or re-surging? How does it fit overall?

As usual, time was against us, and we only got to points one and two (mostly two)--leaving us plenty to talk about in October!

Here’s a quick recap:

The question "How do you measure social media?" is getting louder. It seems like everyone is asking, "How do you quantify?" "How do you measure?" or "What defines success?"

Nicholas kicked it off with a live demo of Radian6 capabilities.  Our review of this monitoring tool raised an interesting discussion about "measuring" vs. "monitoring." You "measure" goals, you "monitor" conversations. "Measuring" defines a goal and measures success in fulfilling that goal, while "monitoring" simply reports on what’s happening and does not fulfill a goal in and of itself (KD Paine has a good post on this and also check out Ryan’s post on how Mini Cooper linked buzz to sales). That being said, the two need to work in tandem. With all these monitoring tools it might be easier to keep track of your brand, but many companies struggle with analyzing data, measuring it against a goal, and, more importantly, acting.

Everyone agreed Radian6 seemed like a pretty solid tool, but there was also some talk of other options, including one of my favorite’s Yahoo! Pipes (which is free). Rather than go in-depth on each of these tools, check a few for yourself:

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing - Social Monitoring"

Ryan and I recently returned from ad:tech Chicago, and I thought I’d add my two cents to Ryan’s summation. As a warning, this post has two parts which, although related, could be completely separate posts. Accordingly, I’ll save you the pain of attempting to create a lame analogy in an effort to connect the two topics and just split it up.

Part 1) Clay Shirky Was Awesome.

Part 2) Case Studies.

Continue reading "“If It’s Being Discussed, It’s Marketing” & Case Studies from ad:tech"

Digital marketing is at an unprecedented stage today. Never before has such a rich and immersive set of tools spanned across media to allow companies and consumers to interact. And where marketing was once segregated to individual media - print, television, radio - digital marketing has smashed these silos to allow a new kind of persuasive digital storytelling to emerge. 

This transition is not without it’s struggles, and for two days in Chicago last week, digital marketers from across the country gathered for the latest AdTech conference to discuss what’s working and what still needs to improve.

Continue reading "Blending Creativity and Technology in Digital Marketing at AdTech"

Another great thing about working at Viget is that we each get a conference budget of $100k every year. Kidding, it’s not $100k--but old man humor lives on.

Anyhow, Ryan and I will be using said conference budget to attend this year’s ad:tech in Chicago. And when it comes to digital marketing, it’s the only place to be, when you think about it. The conference begins next Tuesday, August 5 and lasts all the way until August 6 at ye olde Navy Pier.  The list of speakers looks great, and I’m really looking forward to cramming as much into my head as possible.

ad:tech seems to be past the "What is social media?" stage and instead—judging from the talk titles—it looks like the discussion will require at least a "New Media 101" prerequisite. I’m sure we will learn a lot!

If you’re going, let us know--or email Josh when you’re there, or feel free to follow all the conference goodness on Ryan’s Twitter stream, which will be on overdrive during the event. We’re looking forward to letting you know how it goes!

If it’s an 8am meeting with eager conversations about Twitter and measuring ROI, it must mean the Middle School Marketing crew was back in action yesterday morning at the Lab.

We gathered again this month to continue our conversation about bridging traditional best practices in online marketing with the latest trends in social media marketing.  As so many marketing conversations do lately, ours quickly focused in on Twitter (proud new owners of the local startup Summize). When it comes to the bottom line, one person asked if it is worth investing the time and energy into Twitter. (And for that matter, what about the rest of the social media utility world?) While the group had various perspectives on how they used Twitter, without a doubt it’s biggest value was in providing a radically improved tool to help companies do a better job of listening. Nicholas was even kind enough to put together a spreadhseet of helpful services.

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing Talks Twitter, Strategy and Twin Tech"