Hello, marketers, I'm Social Media. Look at your traditional marketing; now back to me; now back at your traditional marketing; now back to me.
It’s sometimes a matter of faith to see a certain future looking at the same facts in which others see nothing — or worse, the opposite. But this is what entrepreneurs do, and the wildly successful ones see potential in something that doesn’t even have a name for the rest of us yet.
via www.wired.com
Read the last sentence of this great post by John C. Abell. It captures the essence of how we should be thinking about location-based marketing.
You may have caught the news this morning, but in case you haven't, here it is, and I'm very excited to give it to you.
Deep Focus has joined forces with Engine as Engine USA's first agency in the US. We're going to be building something amazing together, keeping digital at the head -- and heart -- of a marketing organization that was actually built in this decade to reach consumers in the way they are actually behaving.
I'm honored to be working with (no fewer than) three legends of the advertising business: Peter Scott (Engine UK), Martin Puris (Engine USA), and John Bernbach (Engine USA) to keep Deep Focus forging the future of innovation and engagement marketing. These guys have seen enough to know just how broken the business has become. We all arrived at the same solution independently, and now we're doing something about it. Heck, Engine UK has been doing it for several years now, and it's been nothing short of amazing.
I'll remain as CEO of Deep Focus -- our work is just getting started, after all. This is an opportunity to get better. Stronger. Faster. And with relationships that will mean wonderful things for our clients, and access to resources that will mean wonderful things for the team at Deep Focus.
It's a step towards building the agencies of the future today. It may sound cliche, but it's true. The stars are aligned. The path is being paved -- we know because we are paving it. The funny thing is that where we're going, we don't need roads (h/t Doc Brown). This is the continuation of something amazing.
Deep Focus will continue to be a force. Now we've just got some force behind us. (ed. note: the force has always been strong with us.)
Steven Johnson has written an amazing book called Where Good Ideas Come From. Read it. In it, he talks about how innovation springs from the "adjacent possible", and how the boundaries of possibility grow as we explore them. This is Deep Focus' "adjacent possible", and a door that we're opening that we believe will take us to great new heights -- and other doors.
Stay tuned for more great Deep Focus news in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, we'll be busy kicking ass. This isn't an exit, it's a grand freaking entrance, and we can't wait to show you what we've got up our sleeves.
Personally, I wanted to just extend a special thanks to all the people that make Deep Focus tick, because you ARE Deep Focus, and you're the best in this (or any other) business. I've never worked with a team that cared more, that was more dedicated, or had such strong conviction. That's our special sauce, and the game that we will keep bringing each and every day.
Whew. Big day. Big future.
In the meantime, read our Engagement Agency Manifesto, and see where this is all headed...
The Engagement Agency Manifesto from Deep Focus on Vimeo.
**This is cross-posted over at http://www.deepfocus.net/deep-thoughts/the-engagement-agency-manifesto**
For decades, brands have approached marketing with a goal of migrating consumers through what we know as the decision funnel: awareness, interest, desire, and action.
Historically, most advertising spending has been used to affect the awareness stage, with the rationale being that unless consumers are aware of our products, how will they make it part of their consideration set? Nothing drove purchase like awareness, as a constant barrage of TV, outdoor, and print advertising helped people decide. And you know what? We got really good at it.
But something funny happened on the way to the decision.
As consumers have become more connected to information and each other, the majority now find that ‘consumer-driven marketing’ – word-of-mouth, online research, consumer reviews, blog posts, peer recommendations via social networks, twitter, and other forms of social media is more important than ever before. A 2009 report from McKinsey confirmed that “WE” have become the primary and most effective means of helping each other make a purchase decision when we reach a crucial “active evaluation” phase. And that’s no surprise as we’ve got more connections to people we know, and even people we don’t than ever before. We look up more information, ask more questions, and consult more reviews than ever before.
Of course, Awareness is still very important – it’s half the battle – it helps us, as consumers know what our potential choices are. But it’s further away from the purchase, or even the decision to purchase.
These are fascinating times. The depth of engagement between brands and consumers, and just as importantly, between consumers and each other is now as integral to a purchase decision as large-scale awareness.
So I ask the question: How can we expect the same agencies to be able to do both breadth of reach and depth of engagement? Is it even possible for agencies to do both profitably within their existing service models?
It’s not bloody likely.
When it comes to awareness, getting the right message targeted to the largest number of the right people at the right time, and the right number of times, is both art and science. For decades, agencies have attempted to perfect achieving this delicate balance as efficiently and as successfully as possible. And as they got very good at doing so, we moved from a dependency on integrated communications firms to having numerous specialized firms becoming integral to the process (such as promotions, public relations, direct marketing) to compensate for areas serviced by a different organizational structure -- and different talent.
The delivery of impressions at a huge scale and with great efficiency has become one of the biggest contributors to the growth of agency profit margins and agency holding company share prices. Demand-side platforms, ad networks, automation are all leading to “perfect” awareness driving, aided by human negotiation, and augmented by math, systems, and processes. We are commoditizing awareness, and that's good for business.
But as media undergoes some of its most rapid changes in recent history, the most-assuredly non-commoditizable media, social media, is becoming the most engaging and intensely consumed (and created) type of media.
Because of all of our connections, attention is becoming what is most scarce. More impressions are being created every second. But much like real estate, they’re not building any more attention.
When marketers choose to truly engage audiences (and that means something different for every brand), it requires more custom thinking, more custom execution, more attention paid at every turn, more real-time interaction with consumers, and a more integrated delivery of creative, media, and communications services. How can we expect the same agencies who have perfected the art of delivering efficiently massive reach to also deliver, create, and earn deeply enriching engagement?
The answer is that we can’t. These are completely different and sometimes incompatible skillsets. And as that service chasm gets wider between awareness and meaningful engagement, it only underscores the need for a new breed of agency - engagement agencies.
The engagement agency’s job is to interact with consumers in ways that add value to their everyday experiences, and make them want to engage each other because of what just happened in ways that make those experiences even better. The engagement agency strategically delivers a mix of services that reaches consumers at every point at which they engage each other: the intersection of creative and technology, media planning and buying that creates as many impressions as it buys, and communications that foster and build relationships. An engagement agency should be able to engage a consumer at every media touchpoint. And though most of those touchpoints are now digital, the engagement agency needs to move consumers emotionally as well as physically.
The engagement agency also provides its clients with a methodology for measuring the effectiveness of everything it does. This is key to evolving budgets from ‘experimental’ to ‘mature’ (or: ‘tiny’ to ‘commensurate with impact’). Until we understand what we are measuring within social media, or what engagements are “worth”, and how to evaluate them in the context of our business objectives, these kinds of efforts will never shed the ‘experimental’ stigma.
Because in order for an engagement agency to truly be successful, it needs to deliver results at scale.
As an engagement agency, it services its clients built upon a solid business model, and does not deliver engagement, or even just digital solutions as a ‘loss leader’. Sooner or later, when you service a client like a loss leader, they feel like one. The engagement agency is structured and staffed in a way that keeps profit margins intact, resulting in a better product and a healthier relationship.
The engagement agency specializes in being nimble, adaptive, innovative, and in-tune with consumer behavior. It needs to:
We’ve been trying to build an agency based upon the engagement model for quite some time. It hasn’t been until the advent and explosion of connective technology and the social web that it is finally looking like it will be a reality. In the many conversations we have with brands every day, we realize that engaging with the consumer is something that has gone underrepresented and underappreciated within their organizations for far too long, and only recently are they waking up to the fact that they need expert agency partners to truly make it happen and compensate for a now admitted weakness in their strategy -- and agency roster.
Because of its proximity to the consumer, the engagement agency is a partner whose work begins at a highly strategic level, and then executes or manages the execution of individual tactical solutions. It delivers platforms and commitments – not just campaigns – and its results are proven to deliver a stronger rate of return -- just over a longer period of time, building value, and assets, in the process.
The engagement agency should be responsible for not just digital engagement, but every aspect of brand-inspired interaction between consumers. As media continues to fragment and as technology facilitates even more interpersonal connectivity, this becomes even more important. If it does its job right, the engagement agency will eventually become the agency-of-record of the future.
Digital, social media, and public-relations agencies can make this transition if they make a commitment to integrating and diversifying their services and talent in the right ways. But the ones that are best suited to become an Engagement Agency are the ones that make it their ONLY business.
After all, a brand’s lead agency should really be the one that best understands not just the most effective ways of engaging consumers, but the ways that consumers engage with each other – and one that is committed to finally placing the consumer at the center of every marketing strategy.
I was thinking about this today...
We have referred to television as lean-back media.
We have referred to the PC as lean-forward media.
We have referred to smartphones as media wherever you are.
Tablet computing (iPad, etc.) is lean back with your media wherever you are (think about it -- even every iPad spot/billboard has someone's feet up on something). The best experiences will lead to content being created with it too.
Here's an up-to-the-minute of what I'm either speaking at or attending during Advertising Week 2010 in NYC from 9/27 - 10/1.
Want to meet? Just send me an @reply on Twitter (@ischafer).
A couple of months back, during Internet Week NYC, I sat on a panel called (and discussing) The Future of Location Based Marketing.
I was proud to share the stage with:
Moderator:
Erick Schonfeld, Co-Editor, Techcrunch (@erickschonfeld)
Panelists:
+ Ian Schafer, CEO, DeepFocus (@ischafer)
+ Mike Schneider, VP, Director Digital Incubator, Allen & Gerritsen (@schneidermike)
+ Joshua Karp, Digital Media Manager, PepsiCo (@jkarpf)
+ Mark Ghuneim, CEO, WiredSet / Trendrr (@markghuneim)
+ Ian Spalter, Executive Creative Director, Mobile & Emerging Platforms, R/GA (@ianspalter)
Yup. That's an Ian sandwich.
Check out the full video (broken down conveniently into chapters), and check in (har) to the future of location based marketing.
Thanks to Phil DiGiulio (@holaphil) from Pegshot for the video!
ED NOTE: Be sure to get your tickets to the Location Based Marketing Summit in NYC on September 29-30, where I'll be delivering the opening Keynote.
The ever-brilliant Caroline McCarthy posted a story today on companies rolling-out badge programs to reward things that do not involve location.
The problem with the rush to "reward" consumers with badges and stickers is that they eventually diminish in value as they become a) less scarce, and b) not attached to anything of value.
There's a classic movie term called the "MacGuffin" (popularized by Alfred Hitchcock), which, as wikipedia explains:
A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction". The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are (at least initially) willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is. In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot. Common examples are money, victory, glory, survival, a source of power, or a potential threat, or it may simply be something entirely unexplained.
But here's my favorite part of the Wikipedia explanation:
MacGuffins are sometimes referred to as plot coupons (especially if multiple ones are required) as the protagonist only needs to "collect enough plot coupons and trade them in for a dénouement".
And that's exactly the problem. We're not giving people a reason to redeem these plot coupons. There's no dénouement. No series of events that follow the climax of the story we're taking the participant through -- or are asking them to tell.
If we don't tie check-ins to real-world rewards, then we will miss out on a great opportunity to affect consumer behavior by avoiding "check-in fatigue" that will inevitably be brought about by a lack of value attributed to the action. Stickers and badges (even while scarce) will eventually become devalued as they become less scarce and hold less perceived value, and will not be a strong enough incentive to keep people engaged.
We must always be looking for ways to reward activity with things that have material value to our consumers. These are the beginnings of true digital loyalty programs that reward people not just for frequency, but advocacy. We must not delude ourselves into thinking that rewarding consumers' loyalty with a 'virtual' item will be good enough in the long haul. Imagine if all you got from your airline-of-choice was not redeemable miles, but variations on the "Wings Badge". Which one would get you to fly that airline more often? Exactly. Whether it's more product or even virtual currency that can be used to buy more product (see Facebook Credits), the delivery of material value will be necessary to keep consumers engaged.
As marketers, if we want to play in the world of loyalty programs, we need to learn how to deliver not just one, but multiple climaxes that reward multiple interactions and keep our best customers not only coming back, but telling others how great we are. I hear that works.