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Susan Gunelius

Susan Gunelius

Breaking Down the Data Behind Big Data for Brand Marketing

big data spreadsheetBig data has been a hot topic for a couple of years, and brands are finally finding ways to tap into big data and leverage it to drive revenue. We’re still a long way from getting everything out of big data that it has to offer, but with companies creating positions like Data Architect and Chief Data Officer, the importance of collecting and using big data should continue to grow well into the future.

As Gian Fulgoni of comScore reports, big data is one of the “top ten burning issues in digital,” and when you take a closer look at the data behind big data, you can see why this statement is so accurate. Gian shared the following statistics on the comScore blog that put things into perspective (you can follow the preceding link to read all of the details from Gian):

  • The smartphones we use today would have been the most powerful computers in the world in 1985.
  • 120 million people in the United States own smartphones, which is up by 30 million in the past year alone.
  • For just $600 you can buy a disk that can store all of the music in the world.
  • 30+ billion pieces of data are added to Facebook every month.
  • 72 hours of video are added to YouTube every minute.
  • ComScore was capturing 1.4 trillion digital interactions per month at the end of 2012.
  • 92% of the world’s data was created in only the past two years.

While I always caution against falling victim to data paralysis, which happens when you have access to so much data that you can’t make a decision or move forward. Too much data without a clear reason for collecting it, analyzing it, and using it, amounts to noise and clutter. Always use data with purpose and avoid the ease of massaging data to fit agendas.

The power of big data comes from the trends and truths it uncovers. Picking and choosing the data you focus on, present to executives, and use to make decisions might work in the short-term, but the truths of data will make themselves known in the long-term. Instead, review the data, question the data, and learn when to believe in it. Only then can it help you make the right marketing decisions.

The best marketing team has both analytical minds and creative minds working together to interpret and use big data. It’s that human element that turns big data into big business opportunities and results.

What do you think?

Image: Lustfish

Research Finds Social Media Marketing Campaigns Are Too Short-Sighted

facebook iphoneAccording to the “Seriously Social” research report from Warc, social media marketing campaigns are too short, too siloed, and too hard to track. This determination came from a study of 800 marketing campaigns that included a social media tactic, which won significant industry awards. Brands like American Express, Walmart, Virgin Mobile, and AT&T were represented in the study.

The “Seriously Social” report found that social media marketing is being included in more campaigns, but those campaigns typically had lower budgets than campaigns without social elements. Furthermore, the social media part of those campaigns was often focused on short-term goals where results could not be accurately quantified. It’s this inability to calculate true return on investment that the report writers believe will ultimately separate great marketers from their peers.

The report identified several challenges that brand marketers need to address if they want to succeed with social media marketing campaigns in the future. Some of those challenges won’t be new to you. For example, Warc identifies the need to adopt a social media mindset as a significant challenge, but there is no doubt that success in social media marketing requires knowing what the target audience wants and giving it to them. The more realistic challenge is getting executive buy-in, so you can deliver the content that your audience wants, not the content that the powers-that-be think the audience wants. A second challenge identified in the report is the clear social articulation of your brand idea. In other words, let the audience engage with the brand experience on the social web and make it their own. Again, this isn’t a new concept.

More interesting to brand marketers are the second challenges identified in the report. The writers indicate that marketers need to “scale up ambition,” meaning they need to review the problem areas of social media campaigns, which Warc identified as being too focused on the short-term and limiting budgets. Finally, the Warc report warns brand marketers to avoid looking for a specific creative formula for social media campaigns, and instead, focus on learning what your target audience wants and delivering it in the way they’ll respond to. It’s not revolutionary advice, but it’s good advice.

You can subscribe and download the full report from the Warc website and get all of the details.

Image: Miki Yoshihito

The Battle for Mobile Advertising Standards

iphone mobile adsThere is no doubt that mobile advertising is a critical component of a brand’s integrated marketing plan, but developing mobile ads isn’t easy. With the proliferation of devices and multiple operating systems, mobile ads that look great to one consumer might look terrible to the next. As a result, mobile ad unit inventory is a jumbled mix that keeps growing, mobile ad CPM rates are very low, and mobile marketers aren’t happy.

Making matters worse is the inability to collect effective metrics for tracking the effectiveness of mobile ads. If an ad looks different from one device to another, performance data isn’t reliable because results will be skewed.

These are problems that the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) are trying to change with new mobile ad standards. Together, the groups released the “Mobile Phone Creative Guidelines” for public comment today, which would supplement the Universal Mobile Ad Package and make it easier and more effective to buy and sell mobile ads.

The new Mobile Phone Creative Guidelines address multiple devices, mobile web and in-app ads, and specifications for both basic and rich media mobile ad units. The Mobile Phone Creative Guidelines include information related to:

  • The creative unit name
  • The maximum allowable expanded dimensions
  • The maximum allowable initial file load size
  • The maximum allowable animation length
  • The maximum allowable video length
  • The maximum percentage of CPU use
  • The minimum required controls
  • The labeling requirements, font sizes, etc.
  • The required submission lead time
  • The best practices for implementation
  • The supported creative types

You can download the complete Mobile Phone Creative Guidelines in Excel format. If you’d like to submit feedback on the guidelines, you can email your comments to mobile@iab.net. This is your chance to weigh in on mobile ad standards that could affect your brand for years to come, so be sure to speak up if you have input. Both mobile advertisers and publishers who display ads should review the guidelines and provide comments, so the final guidelines are the best that they can be.

Image: Matthew Pearce

5 Examples of How Twitter Affects Brand Building

twitter marketingThe effect that Twitter can have on a brand in terms of building brand awareness, brand recognition, brand loyalty, and brand advocacy through word-of-mouth marketing cannot be disputed. There are countless examples of brands generating massive tangible and intangible success through increased sales and brand value thanks to time and efforts invested into Twitter marketing, listening, content, and conversations.

Brands that do all four of the key activities that make Twitter an essential marketing tool — marketing (i.e., promotions), listening (i.e., researching), content (i.e., publishing), and conversations (i.e., relationship-building) are reaping the rewards. Wishpond shared the quantifiable results of five specific promotions launched by five brands on Twitter, and the results are inspiring. You can check out the complete infographic below, but first, here are some highlights:

  • LG launched a treasure hunt promotion through a Promoted Trend on Twitter and got 20 million impressions overall and 5,000 tweets per hour from it.
  • Virgin America used both Promoted Trends and Promoted Tweets to announce a cause marketing promotion which offered low fares and gave back to Stand Up To Cancer. The promotion gave Virgin America one of its top five sales days in its history, a 25% increase in sign-ups, and $50,000 in charitable donations.
  • Cadbury used a Promoted Trend to increase positive mentions for a specific product which generated a 25% engagement rate and a 1,800% increase in positive mentions of the brand.
  • Cirque du Soleil used Twitter’s Promoted Accounts in an attempt to increase followers to its Twitter account and ended up getting 360 new followers per day directly from the Promoted Accounts as well as 340 new organic followers per day.
  • Porsche used a Promoted Trend and Promoted Tweets campaign to launch a new product in the United States. Porsche experienced an 87% increase in engagement rate, a 594% increase in follows, and a 300% increase in positive brand sentiment.

Click the image to view the full-size infographic at the source.

twitter marketing infographic

(Source: Wishpond)

Twitter marketing efforts that focus on increasing positive brand sentiment, engagement, awareness, and recognition can deliver quantifiable results as the five brands in the infographic above have proven. Next time an executive argues against giving your marketing team the budget dollars needed to develop Twitter campaigns to positively promote your brand, show them this infographic. It’s just one more piece of evidence that could help you get the money you need to drive brand equity and sales through Twitter.

Image: Bernard Goldbach

Brands, Facebook, and Clicks – Marketing Trends Revealed

the curve reportIn its bi-annual The Curve Report, NBCUniversal Integrated Media reveals marketing trends and insights for consumers, popular culture, social media, and more. All of these trends and insights matter to brand marketers, particularly since the 150-page report focuses primarily on the digital world.

The report data was gathered using an online survey to 2,000 nationally representative consumers and 500 digital trendsetters as well as qualitative focus groups, in-depth interviews with experts, ongoing proprietary research, and the monitoring of influential blogs, websites and industry events.

The Curve Report identified the following shifts and trends that marketers should understand:

  • Indie Women: The growing demographic of single mothers
  • Personal Grid: A new version of local that is personal, flexible, and transportable
  • Pop-upreneurs: Entreprenuers who leverage digital platforms to bypass the middleman and redefine startup culture.
  • Popular ‘Click’: The diverse “hyper-connected in crowd” that is growing to include influencers, bloggers, celebrities, stylists, and others who “impart their opinions” to engaged audiences
  • Group Think: The growing trend to harness collective intelligence thinking that casts a wide net to find the best talent and ideas rather than crowdsourcing for the purpose of reaching a larger audience.

AdWeek shared some more data from The Curve Report specifically related to brands and Facebook. According to the report, the average consumer has 29 brand friends on Facebook while digital trendsetters have 76 brand friends. As you’d expect, digital trendsetters are much more likely to interact with brands on social networks than average consumers. Just 10% of digital trendsetters claim that they never or hardly ever interact with brands on social networks compared to 28% of average consumers.

While one out of two average consumers believe that brands do a good job of getting their attention through social media, that number is significantly lower than the 4 out of 5 digital trendsetters who believe brands do a good job of getting their attention through social media. On the flip side, when asked why brands’ social media marketing efforts were ineffective, the responses were varied with a couple of problems standing out:

  • I just follow a brand so I can get a deal that was offered = 24%
  • Brands try to get as many followers as possible but don’t do anything to build a real community = 21%
  • Brands’ efforts on social sites don’t seem authentic = 18%
  • Brands are constantly trying to interact with me on social sites and it’s become a turn off = 17%
  • A lot of brands on social sites aren’t the type of brands I want to talk about with my friends = 9%
  • Brands don’t update their pages or interact with their communities enough = 8%

There is no doubt that consumers are willing to follow brands on social networks, but it’s up to the brand to build a relationship beyond the initial “follow” and engage audiences with quality content and brand experiences rather than turning them off by inundating them with “interruptive” updates and interactions. What do you think?

You can follow the link to The Curve Report at the top of this article to get more details and request a copy of the full report.

Image: NBCUniversal Integrated Media

Taxonomy of Ad Agency Names – Which Brands Get It Right?

If ad agencies provide creative and tactical branding services, then it stands to reason that they should be well-branded themselves. That’s not always the case. Often ad agency names are the product of mergers and acquisitions or agencies are named after the founder, which gives the agency brand a boring, stale, and often out-dated image.

Of course, the largest and most successful agencies that grew over time have had opportunities to create their brand images to become the well-known brands that they are today — or have they? It creates an interesting question. Is it time for some ad agencies to rebrand?

The creative team of Rob Donaldson and Joe Dennett put together an infographic that helps put things into perspective. Take a look at the Taxonomy of Advertising Agency Names below, which breaks agency naming conventions down into seven primary categories (in order of popularity):

  1. Founders: Crispin Porter and Bogusky, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, Carmichael Lynch, and so on
  2. Living things: David & Goliath, Dinosaur, Razorfish, and so on
  3. Inanimate objects: Crayon, Viral Factory, and so on
  4. Places: Gotham Inc., Agency Republic, Hometown, and so on
  5. Physical or metaphysical attributes: Atomic, Dare, Anomaly, and so on
  6. Abstract concepts: Now, Proximity, Karmarama, and so on
  7. Alphanumeric: 4Creative, 101, BBDO, and so on

Many of the ad agency names on the infographic could appear in multiple categories. For example, BBDO is in the Alphanumeric category and the Founders category. While all agencies don’t appear on the infographic, the taxonomy could likely cover just about every ad agency name that you can think of.

Click the image to view the full-size infographic at the source.

Taxonomy of Ad Agency Names Infographic

Which ad agency names do you think are also powerful brand names? Which could use a rebranding? It’s interesting to turn the conversation about the importance of branding back to the agencies that create brands and brand messages for their clients every day. The lesson to learn is this — don’t get stuck in a rut with a brand name that evolved over time and is more cumbersome than valuable.

Image: Rob & Joe