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April 30, 2006 | |
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Google Now Used for 49% of All Searches Yahoo! grew by 47%, up from 0.9 billion to 1.3 billion, but MSN grew much more slowly at only 9% (and lost market share), going from 592 million to just 644 million. In March 2006, market shares were Google 49%, Yahoo! 22%, and MSN 11%. US Internet users grow to 147 million Over 100 Million Skype Users eMail Newsletter Open Rate Stands at 24% The figures are based on data from 25,788,813 messages sent by companies across 12 different industries. They are for mailings to at least 10 recipients. While list quality is the main driver of successfully delivery of messages, the perceived relevancy and quality of relationship that the recipient has with the sender are seen as key drivers of the percentage of received messages which are opened. The main drivers of click-throughs is the quality of the call to action and/or the perceived value of linked-to information.
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What Happened.. Ownership of the Colour Purple As part of it's global branding, Cadbury uses a dark shade of purple on the packaging of some of its chocolate products. In Australia, Cadbury spends more than $40 million on marketing and holds a 55% share of the chocolate confectionary market by value. "Cadbury does not own the colour purple and does not have an exclusive reputation in purple in connection with chocolate,'' Federal Court judge Peter Heerey said. "Darrell Lea is entitled to use purple, or any other colour, as long as it does not convey to the reasonable consumer the idea that it, or its products, have some connection with Cadbury.'' Interestingly, Cadbury does have registered trade mark protection for the colour "Cadbury Purple" when associated with chocolate confectionary in Australia. The claim by Cadbury was laid under the Trades Practices Act, under which it is illegal to create the misunderstanding that a product is part of a brand owned by another company (thereby benefiting from that company's advertising and other marketing investments). Justice Heerey said it was essential that Cadbury be able to prove that the colour purple, in isolation, distinguished it from its competitors. However, he concluded that this only occurred when the colour was used on packaging that also featured the name Cadbury. An End to Happy Meals? This self-regulation could make it less likely that stronger legislation will be introduced by State and Federal governments to combat so-called "pester-power marketing". Over the last year Australian public opinion has been growing that some such legislation is needed to help reduce child obesity. The pester power technique works by getting small children to nag their parents until they give in and buy them whatever the children have seen advertised. The example used by most commentators is McDonalds' "Happy Meals". These offer small toys and children's collectable items in association with a meal package. McDonalds, the world's leading fast food company, is taking action of its own to to act responsibly and to minimise its exposure to such criticism. Over the last year the company's Australian operation has reduced its advertising budget for children's TV by 60%. Meanwhile, in the USA McDonalds has teamed with a fitness company to market exercise DVDs from April 25 to May 22 during the introduction of a range of Happy Meals for adults called "Go Active!". Advertising on Google Home Page? Only people using Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) could see the ad. This almost certainly has more to do with Google's own ambitions than a move to put sponsored links on its home page. The company is offering a growing number of "personal productivity" solutions through its website (Calendar, Gmail, Google Desktop, etc), and in consequence is challenging conventional software licensing models which companies such as Microsoft have traditionally relied on. Quite how it monetises these investments (through advertising or other commercial arrangements) remains to be seen.
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Circle of Trust These days, particularly for those involved with social networking sites, we may have a hundred or so friends who we are at various stages of trusting, our IM buddies, people we exchange emails with, text groups we participate in and friends we text, some podcasts we subscribe to, a few blogs we read and sometimes comment on, and a handful of product review and news sites that we pay attention to. Oh! and we sometimes read the newspaper, listen to the radio and watch something other than "reality" TV. You can't eyeball everyone (unless they're into video podcasting or video messaging), but you can PIX over your mobile or email photos. Ultimately you might even talk to someone over the phone and maybe meet them. But that's just "maybe", and only when they live even in the same state as you.
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Second Life Trade of all types happens in Second Life using "Linden Dollars", and there are real-world marketing campaigns deployed into Second Life as well as Linden to real world US$ currency exchanges (really!), creating a monetisable virtual economy. Some real world companies are not only advertising here, but are also using Second Life as a product design and testing environment: given the communal nature of the place it is viable to explore market reaction to concepts and designs without a brand manager leaving their office. Worth a look, just to consider the possibilities for online marketing and collaborative design.
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Our New Word MoLo MoLo services would largely be advertising based, and could include: finding the nearest supplier (mobile Yellow Pages), proximity alerts to encourage impulse buying, downloading product reviews while shopping, hunting for nearby bargains, and micro payments when mobile phones are used as electronic wallets, or where payments are charged to your phone bill. Jokes The early bird may catch the worm, but it is the second mouse that gets the cheese. The two rules for succeeding in business are: Two good friends were talking. One said, "You Know? I've been in therapy now for six years and the other day my therapist said something that really brought tears to my eyes." His friend was touched and asked, "Oh yeah? What was that?" The first friend answered, "No hablo Ingles." Guy walks into a bar with a pig with a wooden leg. Bartender says, "Hey, how did the pig get the wooden leg? Guy says, "As I was climbing in the Himalayas, I fell into a crevasse, and that pig pulled me to safety." |
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Blogs and Word of Mouth Marketing need Communities, Not Cliques Have you ever been on the receiving end of a word of mouth marketing campaign? Would you know if you had? For a while now, a few companies very have been using online (and sometimes very "real-world" techniques) to seed discussion and enthusiasm for their products and services. Most of us will have come across some of the websites, flash, sound files, and the like which have been produced for online viral marketing campaigns. These campaigns work because, consciously or not, people help spread the word for marketers when they email them to their friends. Some of the really good campaigns are even used by people as a sort of "social currency". Equally well known are the real-world campaigns where companies recruit individuals to start up conversations in social or shopping situations. These are mainly straight-forward and above-board product demonstration or trial campaigns. Less frequently, campaigns also occur where the company's agents are pretending to be ordinary members of the public. To give this a new twist, some marketing services agencies have started hiring panels of people who are selected according to how "influential" they are. The companies choose people who have a large circle of friends, and who are able to act as influencers to a fairly wide community of people. In these cases, the people are usually hired to just talk (or email people) about their (positive) experience with samples of a new product or service. This is not so different from Tupperware parties, in-home make-up workshops, or insurance sales networks where friends and acquaintances are used for commercial purposes. As with multi-level marketing, communities are vital to word of mouth campaigns. This is particularly true for campaigns involving blogs. Blogs have come to be thought of as a very cool marketing tool. The growth of blogs has been explosive - depending on who you believe, there are 20, 40, or over 50 million blogs world-wide; the estimates vary wildly. Not just their number, but the fact that blogs are generally regarded as carrying the "authentic" voices and opinions of their authors gives them added appeal. But who reads blogs? The theory of it is that true blogs (where the blogger posts at least every day or two) are closely followed by people interested in the evolving conversation, dialogue, or commentary that the blogger has with their audience. When you start reading a blog regularly you are joining a group, particularly where comments and conversation threads are supported on the blog. But are these communities or cliques? While a very few bloggers have managed to acquire extensive audiences and are a focal point for large communities, nearly all blogs have very small following. These are either groups of friends or family who are interested in each other, or a group of people with a strong enough interest in the theme of a blog that they are prepared to be regular visitors. Where conversation threads are supported, it is usual for most of the conversation to be dominated by a handful of regulars. What typically happens is that people form circles of virtual friends who use the blogging medium to share their thoughts, concerns, and advice. Where this is moderated in some way, these forums are essentially “invitation only” communities. Even if it is followed by a groups of a couple of hundred people, on its own a single blog is not a very poweful marketing medium. As with all forms of word of mouth and viral marketing, to really spread the word blogs need to have overlapping communities. There are also mega-communities, based around "social networking" sites such as MySpace, Craigslist, and Friends Reunited which feed people into smaller communities of interest. MySpace is the biggest of the social networking sites with about 70m users. Obviously such networking sites (and blogs in general) are most influential among people who “hang out” online for many hours, often in a combination of exploring what is on the web and interacting with perhaps several online communities, as well as their instant messaging buddies. All said and done, in case any of us think that blogs and social networking sites are not important, take note of the following: ITV, the large UK commercial TV network, bought friendsreunited.com late last year, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation recently acquired MySpace for US$580m. For marketers who want to incorporate the blogsphere into their marketing plans, incorporating viral marketing techniques will be a vital component of any high-impact campaign.
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They Wouldn't Do That... Would They? Conference Companies Have you ever had a call from a conference organiser who is very keen that you make lots of new connections and don't miss-out on being seen as a leader in a conference in your market sector? They want sponsorship backing of course. Let's look at just three challenges with sponsoring seminars or small conferences: First, while it is not true of every conference company, there are quite a lot whose are happy if they can deliver an audience of about 40 people (pretty much no matter how the people have got there). A room this full feels OK to attendees, but it may not deliver much value to sponsors who are after new leads. It is not unknown for the speakers to make up a large percentage of the attendees of small conferences, and for many other attendees to be associated with the sponsors, or their invited guests. In other words, if you are not careful there could be very few new prospects. You need to discuss this with the organiser and be clear on your priorities: would you sponsor a conference because you want to reinforce your branding, or do you want it to generate leads? If you are unclear about the size of the audience the organiser is really expecting, then why not phone up the venue they are planning to use and ask them what the maximum capacity is of the room they've booked? Second, do you know how your sponsorship money will be spent? Advance payments give the organiser working capital to fund promotional efforts for the conference (and to keep paying their payroll bills). If they don't get enough sponsors early on, then the conference may not be well promoted. The money is also used to under-write the venue and other logistical costs they will incur. Particularly if you are taking a major sponsorship of the event, make sure the organiser knows you expect your sponsorship investment to go towards attracting a high quality, sizeable audience. Ask what extra they will do if they get additional sponsors, or if you choose to take a more "senior" sponsorship package. Thirdly, if you are new to the world of conference sponsorships, you may not recognise when a conference organiser is pitching an idea rather than a planned event. It is quite common - particularly in specialist areas - for organisers to brainstorm ideas with their own contacts and then decide to test the market. Particularly when they are pitching what is really a concept, always ask yourself "would it matter if we did not participate in this conference?". There are usually so many opportunities that you could invest in that it is essential that you prioritise. The first step is to figure out if your company really would loose market share if it did not sponsor the event (and if you care whether the conference happens at all, should there not be enough sponsors). And finally - remember that the organisers are sale people. They will often approach a number of people in your organisation and almost force it to be considered amongst your team. Your company's sales team are often a particular target for conference organisers, because most sales people love to go (a) meet people at events, and (b) like the credibility and conversation-opener that sponsorship gives them when meeting new people at the event. It is best to have some clear process in place for suggesting sponsorship ideas, and clear rules laid down by senior management about who has the authority to enter an agreement with a conference organiser. Conferences can be very helpful, both for market development and for generating business opportunities. It is vital to remember, however, that there is a whole industry called "conference management" and not everyone in it shares the same goals as you. Minds Eye main page - read previous newsletters
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