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Best practices, training and innovations in Digital Strategy.

Cross Platform Marketing in Children’s Media

April 17, 2013 – 3:07 pm
Danny Klein
 

A Blueliner client in the business of children’s media recently engaged in a series of meetings with Dreamworks Animation regarding one of his feature film screenplays. Dreamworks’ interest was simple and straightforward: is this story marketable, and does it have “cross platform” appeal? From the beginning of the presentation process, story meetings actually included the Dreamworks marketing staff. In fact, story editors there concurrently serve as marketing executives. Simply put, story development is intertwined with product development on all levels – it’s as if the company serves as an animation production house as well as an interactive marketing agency.

The staff’s key question, not surprisingly, was whether or not the story and characters could be marketed across the board: video games, digital games, mobile games, music recordings, television, books, toys, etc.  The story would also have to play for boys and girls. Research included the movie’s title — whether it was simple enough for kids to say, and could exploit search engine optimization. Ultimatlely, what Dreamworks has found in recent years is that funny furry animals have proven to spawn more merchandise than other products (think “Shrek”). And thus, they were on the hunt for a “funny furry animal” project that would translate into the aforementioned platforms for cross platform marketing.

Today’s children’s media executives know that cross platform marketing, or transmarketing, is nothing new. We all remember the days of our “Star Wars” or “Strawberry Shortcake” lunch boxes, Darth Vader masks, and Luke Skywalker figures. (Dare I forget my Star Wars pillow and blanket). Only nowadays, there are more platforms than ever, and they are always changing, always growing. So how do these companies keep up?

Ken Faier, president of Nerd Corps, executive producer of “SlugTerra”, and presenter at the “Creating Brands in the New Digital Age” panel, concurred that when his company evaluates any new property (storyline, or show), they always evaluate what media will be used to advertise to that demographic, and of course the potential for retail products associated with the brand. Lori Camm, a Senior Content Producer and programmer for BBC Children, asks, “Is the core of transmedia just marketing? Or is it getting to a good story?” She suspects it’s a bit of both. “If you’ve got a good story and good characters, the kids will go to where they are.” Ville Lepisto, animation producer with Rovio, the company that produced the surprise hit “Angry Birds”, sees the cross-platform strategy as basically telling the same story over and over again, with different media.

“Angry Birds” used Tumblr as their key media content hub, and had a live Google hangout leading up to the release. Keeping their focus on the fans and delivering different content at the same time on different media platforms, where their fans would be, launched the property successfully with games, toys and other associated merchandise. Note that more platforms means that products associated with a brand can be launched at the same time.  This differs from past marketing strategies, in which products were launched in cautious phases.
Another effect of today’s digital media is that children are receiving so many messages online, via social media, all the time. When movies and television were the key marketing platforms, products generally hit movies first and then became television series (so as to hedge the television investment). Or, if a television show proved to be successful, it then became a movie (ie. Hannah Montana, The Simpsons, etc). But then kids had time to process what it is they were watching. With omnipresent social media, products must be launched at once in order to leave an imprint. Especially when the consumers are children and parents. Today there are Facebook groups and blogs that generate more viewership than expensive, high-risk television programs.

The lesson, which extends well beyond children’s media clients – to create properties that can be launched on a variety of platforms, and preferably at the same time (or close to it). The days of 6-12 month brand “roll outs” are  long gone!

 

 

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Poll: Celebrity endorsement in advertising… It does not always work!

November 26, 2012 – 1:34 pm
Cristiana
 

Luxury brands are spending every year millions of dollars hoping to be able to engage as many fans as possible in as many ways as possible via as many channels as possible.

For instance, the famous Louis Vuitton brand had a $10 million advertising agreement with Angelina Jolie. With such a powerful celebrity endorsement, everyone would expect to automatically be an amazing success. But it depends on the way this tactic is approached.

The first question that everyone should ask himself is if the celebrity endorser is credible for a given product or category. Angelina Jolie is quite credible for Louis Vuitton – she is an icon of fashion and glamour and it’s not too hard to imagine her wearing Vuitton products by choice. James Gandolfini would be credible for cigars – it doesn’t require a whole lot of imagination to see the Tony Soprano actor smoking a Montecristo. Now if we change the roles, there will not be any relevance into this approach. So…is the celebrity endorsement cost-effective? Campaign budgets vary, and the situation is the same for celebrity price tags. But as a general matter, the kind of celebrities that could make a difference are not cheap at all.

To find out an answer to the question stated above, Adweek/Harris Interactive recently conducted a poll about celebrity endorsements in advertising, and the results are as follows:

  • 77% of respondents claimed that “when a sports star, movie star or other celebrity endorses a product” they are no more or less likely to buy it.
  • 14% stated they are less likely to buy.
  • Only 4% stated they are more likely to buy. What’s more, these results were remarkably consistent across age groups and gender.

Of course, this poll, as any other opinion survey takes into consideration three big assumptions:

a) that respondents are aware enough of their, often subconscious, mental processes to assess their reaction
b) that they will openly admit  their views; and
c) that their stated views are predictive of their actual behavior

In other words is the celebrity endorser credible for a product category? The answer is simple: not always. For instance, if we take into consideration categories such as perfume, liquor or fashion, celebrity endorsements can bring a lot in terms of credibility while if we refer to financial services, a Hollywood star will never have a positive impact simply because he is not a finance specialist and second because he does not represent the portrait of a potential customer who may need such services.

So, what marketers should do first is to analyze the advertising tactic from different perspectives and be very cautious regarding who is going to endorse the respective product or service because the category and the celebrity are chosen wrongly, then even if the company spends $10 million it may not bring any brand capital.

The following infographics speak for themselves:

 

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The customer you are looking for, you already have

September 20, 2012 – 9:22 am
Damjan Dano
 

The latest research done by Adobe Inc. and their Digital Index section of the website shows that the Pareto principle should not be forgotten and still plays a valuable role in the business planning process.  The research outlines that 41% of online revenue comes from returning (customers who have already purchased something twice on your website) and repeat purchases (post-second purchase visitors that buy more stuff), who represent only 8% of total visitors to your online store.

The research states that in the US, only 1% of shoppers actually make a purchase, but more then 75% of retail marketing budgets are spent on search and display advertising to attract these type of visitors, not to bring or to increase the brand loyalty with the repeat purchasers.

The lesson from the report is to invest in brand loyalty, to make sure your current customers are satisfied and are coming back or referring you to their social circles, before you go and spend money chasing new customers that most likely will not convert. Tools like e-mail marketing, social media strategies and loyalty promotions and even simple thank you notes are the channels that should be used to target your valuable customers.

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Is advertising on social media worth it?

September 14, 2012 – 5:15 pm
Damjan Dano
 

One can argue that those who doubt online ads are those who have never tried them… Can we say the same for the social media ads? Recently Hubspot published some stats that share a pretty good light on social media and the ROI from it…

The statistics show that 42% from the audience that was surveyed by the company are claiming that Facebook is critical for the success of their company. Back in 2009, the number for the same thing was 24%. This increase is most likely due to change in consumer behavior and user’s tendency to use social media more.

62% of marketers have said that social media is becoming more important part to their marketing campaigns over the past 6 months. If you are wondering what happened over the past 6 months: Facebook made changes to their platform, introduced timeline and changed their algorithms to support sponsored stories, promoted status updated, to show more page activities from friends and etc… things that actually helped business pages to show more in news feeds.

Wondering what is the industry that gives best ROI in social media? Answer is obvious: retail.

So what would you really get if you jump into the social media world? This graphic outlines the benefits:

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Marketing for children or children for marketing?

September 14, 2012 – 4:12 pm
Cristiana
 

Marketing and advertising for children has already been more challenging and complex. It is always related to emotional impact both for children and parents and more (very much more) psychology. The reason is simple: children are seeing things that they wish (toys, chocolate bars/cakes, clothing, etc). The next step is relatively easy: they start putting pressure on their parents to purchase the respective “new asset” that is going to be forgotten one week later when something new, more trendy comes up on the market. Moreover, children (even if they are less than 5), they are aware that for instance, they cannot socialize properly with other children if they have an old-dated toy or if they do not go to a specific movie (usually this kind of movie is watched in groups with parents). So, again everything is very strong related to “outside”; if parents believe their children are very young so there is no need for huge expenses, they should think twice. The problem is related to the fact that your child can be rejected from a group, because other children would not accept to socialize with someone who does not have the latest “gadgets” in terms of toys.

Marketers know very well all these aspects. That is why they are closely working with psychologists to figure out the best way to market different products for the young audience. In her book “Advertising to children: Is it ethical?”, Rebecca A. Clay is citing psychologist Allen D. Kanner, PhD who has been asking his younger clients what they wanted to do when they grew up. The answer used to be “nurse,” “astronaut” or some other occupation with intrinsic appeal.
But today the answer has changed into ” I want to make money.” For Kanner, one explanation for that shift can be found in advertising.

“Advertising is a massive, multi-million dollar project that’s having an enormous impact on child development,” says Kanner, who is also an associate faculty member at a clinical psychology training program called the Wright Institute. “The sheer volume of advertising is growing rapidly and invading new areas of childhood, like our schools.”

According to Kanner, the result is not only an epidemic of materialistic values among children, but also something he calls “narcissistic wounding” of children.

Besides this, I would use my expertise in Media to add that Marketing is a strong component of manipulation as well. Marketers are using Psychologists to understand children’s social behavior and their parents’ reaction in different circumstances. This has A LOT to do with the product placement and finally with the overall profit of a company.

According to  Betsy Wagner’s book called, `Our class is brought to you today by…advertisers target a captive market: school kids’, US News & World Report, Vol. 118, No. 16 (1995), p. 63; France, op.cit.; Rhoda H. Karpatkin and Anita Holmes, `Making schools ad-free zones’, Educational Leadership, Vol. 53, No. 1 (1995):  “In the US there are over 57 million school age children and teenagers who spend about $100 billion each year of their own and their family’s money on sweets, food, drinks, video and electronic products, toys, games, movies, sports, clothes and shoes.” These statistics show the best the great potential for this market.

A perfect case-study for marketing for children (and the same time, a very  recent one), is Ron Albanese, formerly known as Polka Dot, who had a very nice social/cultural marketing approach for children combined with a lot of rock & roll.

Remember that a couple of lines above I was mentioning about the fabulous cooperation between marketers and psychologists? Well… the lyrics of many songs that Polka Dot is playing are related to “The Robot from Honolulu”, “A Lotta Energy” and “I don’t wanna go to school”. The titles of these songs express exactly the behavior of almost any typical child. Consequently, the songs are enjoyed a lot, because their songs reflect EXACTLY the thoughts of children.

It was a live performance that took place in Hoboken, NJ. The concept was easy: call to action (parents, grandparents and children) united for a light summer evening. Apparently, this should have been all. But it wasn’t. And here is why: in the pause between ‘The robot from Honolulu”  and “Dress to impress” (interpreted by Ron’s daughter) the artist introduced some special thanks to the City’s Hall that… is organizing on the 30th September 2012 the Arts and Music Festival in Hoboken. This time, the event is more destined to parents but to children as well, because Ron will also perform then. In other words, while addressing special thanks (a message that was obviously for parents and grandparents) making a strong mental note about an upcoming event where Polka Dot will be and about a city event that will occur soon. Going deeper, always during events for children marketers introduce messages for parents as well (because it is obvious that children under 5 for example cannot join events by themselves). I went there just to have fun and I enjoyed this performance a lot even if it was not targeted to me. I felt child again and I experienced the children’s joy. They made my day!

However, my journalistic education does not leave me to remain on this perspective, but encourages me to go further and analyze the purpose of the event. Overall, it was a very enjoyable evening, it was a good branding/marketing tool for upcoming events organized by the City Hall and last but not least, an intelligent self-promotion. If I had to describe the event in 1 word it would be impossible because it was a bit of all these. It was not disturbing. I realized the other 2 purposes but I chose to focus on the first one: having fun.

This case study represents a very interesting way to understand that marketing has extended not only to product placement (in this situation even if the “product placement” was not tangible it was efficient through an event) but also to music and consequently to lyrics. There is a bit of manipulation everywhere.

I am not saying this is necessarily bad because at the end of the day it is your own decision if you accept to be manipulated or not. But what I do say is that marketing has extended in places where has never been before: elevator, subway tunnels and even on the sky. Marketing is everywhere and subliminal messages have strongly touched over the years.

The question for marketers still remains: shall we create events for children where parents will come anyway? Or would it be better to create events for parents with sections especially for children because adults will take them anyway?

To digest all this, you definitely need “a lotta energy”!

 

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Digital Nation and Multi-Tasking – Impact on Marketing’s Language

September 10, 2012 – 7:56 am
Cristiana
 

Social Media has changed the way people think, the way people react, the way people communicate and the way companies brand themselves. For many, it is an integral part of their overall business, PR, and CRM strategies as well.

Moreover, Social Media has changed the structure of the brain itself by becoming an addiction. Addiction forces new generations to function in a self inflicted multitasking learning environment. For instance, studies have found that students studying at Ivy League Universities have problems with their capacity to stay focused on a single task. This leads to misunderstandings, disorganized memory and lack of capacity to think clearly. This has made reputable professors ask themselves if they are just unable to prepare capable-thinking students, as the quality of the learning process has been decreasing.

According to a recent study in Korea, children are spending 50 hours/week playing computer games. This sort of behavior is considered a psychiatric disorder. The Korean Government decided to support the creation of schools to treat computer addiction, where children having such issues can stay for 2 weeks and partake in a free training. This issue is part of a broader problem – multitasking syndrome – which is generating constant interruptions. Consequently, the ability of students to focus single tasks are hampered.

Brilliant students from top universities that are concentrating on multiple fronts the same time “by profession”, have been asked if they were able to perform well while multitasking, and their answers were positive. The actual experiment on them showed otherwise: the capacity of the brain while switching from task to task modified their capacity to stay focused.

Technology has changed the way new generations are thinking, communicating and behaving. In another experiment, listening to one stimulus while watching another unrelated, led to reduced brain activity when compared with listening or looking alone.

Of course the first question that comes to one’s mind is “What does this have to do with marketing?” It’s up to marketers to position a brand in an efficient manner, especially for this target.  This may mean that marketers should start working closely with psychologists /sociologists to understand people’s behavior according to demographics and psycho-graphics.

How will digital marketing adapt to this? This market has different potential and has to be approached differently – not in the same manner this audience was targeted 10 years ago.

Not only is Technology changing and improving itself, but it also changes people and the structure of the society from a relational perspective. Marketing has to change the platforms of their message and adapt to consumers by the way it structures its visual stimulants and language. This is most easily likened to the “elevator pitch”.  Attention has to be caught in the first moments otherwise you risk the distraction from another element. The challenge is an alternative form of getting the customer to understand your brand or product in under 3 minutes, or some may argue less (when distraction typically occurs).

In other words, the new generations, coming from Ivy League Universities or not, change the perspective of the education process itself, change the way technology repositions its newest devices and most importantly, change marketing’s way to address messages (language and platforms).

Do you know what is the common asset of all these? The brain itself….

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Apple worth more then Google, Amazon, Ebay and Facebook combined!?

August 28, 2012 – 11:58 am
Damjan Dano
 

Up until recently, the most valuable company in the history of modern business was Microsoft, with market valuation at $620.58 billion back in the 1999 – when they were doing things the right way… but since the evolution of the iPhone, the iPad and now possibly the Apple TV, the “most valuable company in history” throne has been taken by Apple, valued at approximately $623 billion.

Valued at this amount, Apple is worth more than Google, Amazon, Ebay and Facebook combined! Below are their market evaluations taken from Yahoo! Finance and visualized by the statistics portal Statista:

Apple worth more then Google, Amazon, Ebay and Facebook combined!?

Even if the numbers are not the exact match to the real world situation and might not be properly adjusted for inflation, they are pretty close to the real value of the companies…

Why is Apple so different and what is the company doing right?

Here are few things out of many that I think Apple is doing JUST right:

1) They do a great market research and know what customers really want – and they know how to present it!
- When Bill Gates introduced the tablet PC, the world didn’t really care, but when Jobs re-introduced the improved “tablet PC” iPad the world went crazy…

2) Understanding marketing and NOT cutting-out of marketing budgets when market goes in downturn
-  Apple understands the marketing industry very good, from guerrilla marketing to social media, they are staying on top of things. They are even controlling brand exposure and marketing efforts internationally – every campaign that goes must follow strict brand standards (like for example> No Flash banners) and must be approved by the corresponding marketing department.

3) Investing into R&D
- Apple set the standards for many things, they created modern products that people adore… in order to do this, a lot of hrs need to go into research and product development and Apple makes sure of that.

4)  Pushing the limits and don’t applying the “regular rules”
- Like Steve Jobs, many people in Apple are visionaries that don’t believe in the regular set of rules and are prepared to shift the market and consumer’s perceptions.

5) Believing in quality over quantity
- Apple believes in quality over quantity, even though they do have huge factories in China and all around the world, they would rather make people wait for their desired Apple product then to go with higher supply.

Ofc, no need to say that many other things make Apple such a great company – from trade operations to  what not… but I outlined my personal favs above. :)

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Facebook is rolling out new features and marketers are rolling their eyes

August 22, 2012 – 5:52 pm
Damjan Dano
 

Today the largest social network made few updates to their Open Graph platform… it allowed users to tag their friends in 3rd party apps like social games (ex: FarmVille) and geo-location apps (ex: FourSquare)… it also announced that sponsored links will be shown in user’s searches on Facebook.com.

Now your friends can tag you on 3rd party apps and you will receieve the notifications about the tag – via a Mention or Action method.

The difference between these two is outlined below:

This feature will not be added by default, users will give permissions for tagging to the apps, the same way they do now when they want to interact with some app. (tip: If you currently have some active apps on your profile, in order to use this you’ll need to renew the permissions, you can do that with  going to Account settings > Apps).

The second update marks a direct poke from Facebook to Google (maybe because of this Google is running around crazy), and will allow businesses to bid for user’s query in the search box and results page like shown in the image below:

While the tagging feature update is clearly a long awaited and requested from the 3rd party app providers and many users, the second feature update is clearly a shot to make the shareholders happy and to bump the price of current low-performing stock on the market.

Most likely the first feature will be accepted very well by the users, and the second one will likely be highly ignored with very low click-throughs as most of the current sidebar ads on Facebook. I have trouble figuring out why Facebook – platform that has tons of data and behavior patterns for all of us, still can’t figure out how to make money and how to properly integrate semantic marketing and targeting, but are copying some old-school concepts.

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Google buys print ad to advertise online ad!?

August 21, 2012 – 10:25 am
Damjan Dano
 

Google’s marketing team made another move that spiked a lot of controversy and conversations about online vs. offline advertising all over the net. Last week, Google bought an print ad space in the Canada’s Globe and Mail and National Post in order to advertise their online search ads:

With this ad purchase, Google is trying to show that print ads don’t really work and that their online AdWords platform is much more efficient…. but did Google really made the right move with buying this ad space and putting that ad copy there?

Many journalists, bloggers and media folks are making fun of the search giant’s move, claiming that with this Google actually demonstrated the value of print ads. Or maybe Google’s marketing department just wanted to poke at its direct competition and just spike a controversy. As Engadget states, the “universe has yet to implode.”

What do you make of Google’s ad?

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Women Entrepreneurs #1: Louise Hay – The Entrepreneur of the Mind, Body, & Spirit

August 18, 2012 – 5:13 pm
Cristiana
 

 

Louise Hay

Louise Hay, recently dubbed by the Australian media as the “closest thing to a living saint”  is known world-wide for her role in the self-help movement -  the relationship between the mind, body, and spirit. Her first book on this topic was published in 1976. 12 years later, that book was translated in over 25 languages and available throughout the world.

Her incursion into this approach started in New York City, 1970. She had joined meetings at the Church of Religious Science and began training in their ministerial program. Her popularity as a Church speaker increased and this position allowed her to counsel clients and become a full-time employee. This is just the beginning of her amazing story…

Louise used her experiences consulting to create a guide related to the mental causes of physical ailments. This guide represented the basic knowledge level for her successful book “Heal Your Body”. This book in combination with her speaking engagements and workshops on healing ourselves made Louise a world-wide success. Where do her experiences come from you ask? After she had been diagnosed with cancer, she chose to avoid surgeries or drugs. Instead, she created herself  a program based on psychotherapy, nutritional cleaning, visualization and affirmations. 6 months after she started this program, she was completely healed of cancer.

In 1980, she decided to put everything on paper. In what would become her new book, Louise explained how our emotional problems and physical maladies are caused by our beliefs. In the mid ‘80s, Louise started a support group with 6 men diagnosed with AIDS. In less than 3 years, the group’s members increased to 800. It was off these experiences that she penned, “The AIDS Book: Creating a Positive Approach”.

Louise successfully combined spirituality and her interest for health and the cause-effect relationship with our wellness into a business. What began as a small venture in her apartment transformed itself in a multi-million dollar company that has already sold millions of books world-wide. Not only is she a manager/entrepreneur, but she is also an amazing leader. She started the Hay Foundation that supports other organizations dedicated to helping individuals with shelter, hospice, food, counseling those affected by HIV/AIDS, poor women, and more.

Her amazing career has not stopped either. At 81, Louise released her first-ever autobiographical film based on her life and work: “You Can Heal Your Life: The Movie”. Despite her age, she is still lecturing around the world, primarily in Great Britain, Australia and Canada.

We end with the most powerful thoughts of Louise Hay:

1. “I love myself, therefore, I behave in a loving way to all people for I know that that which I give out returns to me multiplied.”
2.
“I only attract loving people in my world for they are a mirror of what I am.”
3.
“I am open and receptive to all the good and abundance in the Universe.”
4. “Today is a delightful day. Money comes to me in expected and unexpected ways.”
5. “I lovingly do everything I can to assist my body in maintaining perfect health.”

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