Insights .... Things I See

My Blog has Moved

2008-08-22T23:14:00.001+10:00

Hi there... I have upgraded my blogging system and have moved my blog to a new server.

You can now find it at www.lordisms.com.

See you there.

Another moment in the sun!

2008-08-08T16:52:00.001+10:00

Another one of my little 'vanity posts' (which seem to get both readers to comment) but I am pleased to announce that Hyro are WINNERS of a national Microsoft
Partner of the Year Award for 2008. This award is for ISV Solutions Partner – Software Solutions Innovation and recognises some great work by the team in building the ABC Shop Online using the Microsoft Programmable Rich Media platform, Silverlight™.

It's an OUTSTANDING effort in a very competitive field.

And thanks for the support and help in driving this innovation from our friends at Microsoft – Michael Kordahi, Nick Mayhew and Christian Longstaff for their support and encouragement as we have embraced the Silverlight™ phenomenon.

A trillion things being said…

2008-07-28T22:31:00.001+10:00

As a follow up to yesterday's blog, I was reading the Official Google Blog and was presented with this daunting statistic:

There are 1,000,000,000,000 (1 Trillion) Unique URLs on the internet – and it is growing at "several billion pages a day."

This is a phenomenal statistic – and if ever any marketer or other business person was ever looking for final reinforcement of the fact that this internet thing might be here to stay then this has to be it (trust me, I still get to talk to marketers who STILL perceive digital marketing to be a sideshow in their marketing plans!!). Once you step back from this massive global endeavour we are all a part of, you then get some insight into just what it is going to take to be successful in this digital world in which we live.

A trillion pages represent billions of sites, which in turn represent many, many millions of businesses – all competing for attention, for engagement and for business. Every single one of these wants to be the first result returned on a search, be listed on the first page of paid links and wants to have the hottest viral marketing campaign. Everyone wants to be number one.

In digital business terms, this represents both an opportunity and a threat. For big brands with big markets, the sheer size of the internet raises the bar for your digital strategies. All of the things I have been raving about over the last couple of years in this blog hold true – you need to invest adequately in everything to do with your digital strategy. Fail to invest to the right level on any component and your strategy is likely to be swamped by the competition. Inadequate technology will drive users to faster, better performing sites. Poor user experience and information architecture will frustrate users and send them to easier use competitive sites. Get your online marketing wrong and you just won't be heard… and so on. This is a strong sign that digital business is now the domain of specialist, expert companies.

The opportunities come from the sheer scale of the market – in any market this big there are clearly opportunities for well considered, well targeted offers. For businesses both big and small, there is great commercial potential in extending, marketing or modifying your offers to suit very specific markets which may now be spread anywhere around the world.

I also saw a very interesting and somewhat unique take on this from Julian Bajkowski in the MIS Magazine Online Edition. His take was to confront some of the other implications of such a massive and growing web – like maybe ending up with more destinations on the web than there are addresses to refer to them. Another sign of just how big the internet has become.

Having been in this industry for as long as it has been around in this country, statistics like this give me pause. We have REALLY created something which HAS changed the world … and as far as I am concerned, we have really only just begun.

20% of the world is online … and China > US!

2008-07-27T20:22:00.004+10:00

This week saw an article stating that the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has released statistics showing that the total number of internet users in China is now 253,000,000 and now well and truly surpass the number of internet users in the US (215,000,000 as at the end of November 2007). This follows six months of remarkable growth, from about 210,000,000 at the end of 2007 according to InternetWorldStats.com.

As you pore over the statistics, you start to get a sense of the true scale of the internet. So here are some things which stuck with me…

The number of internet users in China compares to the population of the US (around 305,000,000), and at the current rate of growth (56% per annum) will likely surpass it before Christmas this year.
Each of the number of users in China and the US now represent around 15% of the total world population of Internet Users of 1,412,000,000
More than 20% of the world's population of 6,707,000,000 is now online
Asia has the second lowest population penetration (14%) of the internet (after Africa) but represents the largest share of internet users. The US has internet penetration of 71% and 76% for Australia.
China's internet population is now 16 times that of Australia (15.5 million)
The http://www.news.com.au/
article suggests that by 2012, the China internet population will probably reach 490,000,000 – even if we reach 20 million in Australia, they will outnumber us by 25 to 1. There are more than 530,000,000 internet users across Asia today.

There is much to be drawn from these statistics and I will devote more space to this in the future. My first observation is that while it is obvious that the internet is a truly global phenomenon, it is increasingly an Asia-centric one.

Look Behind the Noise to See What’s Going on ….

2008-07-13T20:06:00.001+10:00

The launch of the Apple iPhone 3G is occupying a lot of media column space over the last week, and it probably should. Others can write about the technology – for me the significant impact we will see is the how it changes consumers' understanding of the capability of the internet and now the mobile internet. While the ability to browse, email, collaborate and connect via our mobile phone has been something us nerds (even us closet nerds) have been doing for a few years, the 3G iPhone puts it in front of and in the hand of the masses.

There is evidence that the iPhone is dramatically affecting the way the users are connecting. This article, for example, quotes Google as saying that the mobile searches from the iPhone run at 50 TIMES those from other mobile handsets – and that is the 'old' iPhone without the benefit of 3G connectivity and the MUCH faster data rates this affords.

I am also pleased to see that Australian businesses have been fast to offer iPhone optimised content. These purpose built mobile sites offer special purpose interfaces (designed to accommodate touch-screen navigation) and other iPhone features such as "shrink and zoom" of interfaces and making use of the inbuilt GPS functionality. Good examples can be found being delivered by News Corporation and Commsec – but there are plenty out there and we have been proudly building some of these.

The Future of Mobiles …

2008-07-08T08:37:00.001+10:00

I promised to both readers that when it was made available, I would share the link to the presentation I made at the 2008 Rainmaker Marketing Symposium in Sydney. This presentation was delivered to around 120 marketers from the A/NZ financial services industry and the feedback was reasonably positive.

These are, of course, my observations and insights from my position in a company delivering major new initiatives in the mobile space and I am sure there are those who both agree and disagree with my thoughts ….. enjoy.

Mish Mash and They’re Making a Splash….

2008-06-29T20:59:00.001+10:00

A new challenge for marketers is the rise of mashups – technology which allows users to aggregate their own collection of content and services from a range of different sources to create a unique, personalised internet environment.

The thinking behind this technology is not new. Over a decade ago, internet pioneer Sun Microsystems were marketing a technology called iPlanet Portal Server, a derivative of the earlier Netscape Compass Server brought to market through the Sun / Netscape Iplanet Alliance. This technology created a framework to aggregate a range of content, applications and services across an enterprise and to then present those services through a flexible, customisable interface. This was achieved by creating some common application frameworks and a mechanisms to connect to many systems located anywhere on the enterprise network. This technology slowly evolved to the internet portals (usually prefaced with the term 'my' – remember www.mynetscape.com?), albeit that the content available through those portals was limited to content authored for inclusion by the portal provider.

Fast forward to today and this technology has expanded from across the enterprise to across the internet. Today, mashup technologies allow us to connect content and services from just about anywhere on the internet. The most well known of these technologies come in the form of 'community sites' like Facebook, Myspace and Bebo. These sites allow users to add applications and content to their own profile and to share these with their peers, or social network. The interoperability extends to anything on the internet which complies with the relevant internet standards for the content types. Technologies such as AJAX, RSS, XML and others provide flexibility and interoperability and the platform for services to be aggregated.

A new generation of mashups is targeting the convenience and customisability drivers for users. Positioned as a personalised home page (not unlike the old portals) services such as www.myyahoo.com, www.igoogle.com and even the Microsoft Live Services are vying for the crown of being the default gateway for your internet activities.

With the high levels of functionality the combinations of these services and the content and services available to be accessed, there are new challenges for marketers. In social networking sites, content and services are distributed by reference. Visitors to my home page who like an object they see there can add it to their site with a click (or two). A user may get exposed to a product or service without ever visiting the web site of the producer or seeing any other content.

Marketers need to think about how they are going to manage the messaging to their target audiences when they don't have control over the frameworks through which their content and services are being delivered. Furthermore, it is likely that the content produced will sit with competing content from rival marketers. Brand A may well be situated right next to competing Brand B as users change and update their mashups.

The trick is going to be to make sure that the content and services developed for distribution through mashups and community sites stands up in its own right; that it communicates the brand, message and proposition independently. There is a lot of merit in including a mashup component in digital marketing. Since the user has control of their mashup framework, the inclusion of an object in a users page is tantamount endorsement and we know that peer reference and endorsement are powerful marketing tools. A well distributed mashup object can be a powerful marketing tool.

It’s Like a Blog, Only Smaller!

2008-06-11T21:51:00.001+10:00

Over the last two or three weeks, I have been investigating the phenomena of micro-blogging – the concept of using digital technologies (web, email, sms, mobile) to post regular, small insights about what you are doing / seeing / thinking / feeling. I have tried a couple of sites; Twitter and Plurk and am finding strengths and weaknesses in both.

I am interested to see where this goes. My first experience is that there are some people who are phenomenally prolific in their digital postings. Some people post tens or hundreds of things per day. The second thing I notice is that much of what is posted by these people is pretty inane. Spur of the moment ramblings which often lack the benefit of supporting information and context. Perhaps this is a sign of the nascent nature of this activity – some of these people clearly feel that if they have nothings to post, then they should post, well, nothing. I also feel that some of this is driven by massive egos in a micro sense – these people WANT celebrity, but only from a circle of friends and perhaps their friends. Maybe posting constantly will help them to achieve this….

On the other hand, there seems to be a pervasive sense of community in all of this. There are lots of people who "touch" each other many times a day, maybe a bit like the chatter that happens amongst families; the regular comments, observations, snappy remarks, and banter which goes on amongst the familiar. I have already seen many instances of members of these communities reaching out for information, opinions and help – and the community responds quickly. This is a good thing, it happens in the background and takes very little time to check, comment, or post. As we all move around quickly (and for some of us, widely), this can be a nice "touchpoint" for our friends and colleagues.

I think that this is another of those emerging trends which we will see find its way into the corporate environment. I can foresee teams, irrespective of their locations, engaging with their peers using this sort of micro-blogging constantly throughout the day. Many teams are doing this already through chat clients, but micro-blogging offers the benefit of creating a permanent record and all the functionality of the web (linking, syndicating, programmability and so on).

The current iterations of the technology are a bit klutzy, but like most things on the web, these move fast and the latest release offer some cool features. You can update via email, chat clients, and SMS and there are emerging services which will syndicate your postings to all your personal and social sites (check out ping.fm as an example). I think this an emerging technology trend worth keeping an eye on.

Presentation today – Mobile Marketing for Financial Services

2008-06-04T18:35:00.001+10:00

I had the pleasure of presenting today to the 14^th Annual Rainmaker Marketing Symposium for Financial Services. My topic was the Evolving trends in Mobile Marketing, a topic I enjoy and was happy to get all fired up about. Feedback from the crowd was great and I have been told that the presentation should be available for public consumption on the RainmakerITV site sometime in the next few days for the entire world to see.

Check it out and I hope you enjoy it.

Where, oh where, had my little blog gone?

2008-05-25T18:57:00.000+10:00

Both readers have been in touch to let me know that they had missed my blogs and had noticed that I hadn’t posted since the start of the year. It was nice to know that someone cares and that both readers found value in the opinions and insights I share with them through this blog.

So, I guess you could say I have been a little busy over the last three or four months. Those of you who follow the company will know that we have had a fairly unusual and demanding few months. A combination of a fairly hefty ‘miss’ on the results for 2007 against the guidance which had been in the market, the immediate departure of our former CEO soon after and the mountain of work restructuring and moving the business forwards since then, has meant little time to devote to my blog. Sorry about that, but my mind has been fully engrossed with our team, customers and shareholders (equally focussed and equally important). Our share price has taken a pounding (what a market to release bad news into?) and we have had to deal with the obvious flow-on effects of disgruntled shareholders and the usual activity which ensues.

We have got a lot done in the first four months. The Chairman and CEO were able to give a good, pragmatic update at the AGM this week and I think our shareholders, while resentful that we have found ourselves in this situation, can see the merit and conviction in our approach and our progress. We are committed to making Hyro into the great company we know it has the potential to be.

So, you will see some more blogs from me over coming weeks and months. I enjoy the fact that many people I meet tell me that they have read my blog in the past (I presented in the Keynote at the Microsoft REMIX conferences this week and three people I met mentioned they had read, and now missed, my blogs). I regret the fact that few of them have the time or inclination to comment, argue or rebuke. Maybe I just need to make this a little more interesting….

Positions Vacant – a Billion Scriptwriters….

2008-01-23T08:50:00.001+11:00

I keep watching with interest, the continuing saga of the scriptwriters in the US. These people have apparently been on strike since 5^th November 2007 and, as usual, it is all about money. The consequences of this are dire – for goodness sakes we missed out on the Golden Globes and there are rumours that the TV networks could run out of Grey's Anatomy ….. could it be that people need to resort to conversation?

Interestingly, I am not sure that the popular User Generated Content sites are suffering the same shortage of content. Youtube now apparently hosts over 65,000,000 videos – and some of these are fantastic content.

At play here are a number of interesting trends. The changing options for consumption of video content ("snacking" on smaller, self contained rich media content pieces) and increased variety of mechanisms to access this content. Increasingly, the mobile handset will be used to access this content, as will connected TVs (such as the one announced by Panasonic which will connect to YouTube) and other IP enabled devices. Rich media entertainment is changing and the options available for consumers to pick and mix the content they want to see are greater than ever before.

There are some players out there who are embracing these changes now – working on strategies which spread the content over a range of channels and integrate these to provide a coordinated, complimentary offering. Some of these are even engaging the consumers in the process, with consumer feedback and contributions shaping the overall content experience. I am not talking about the reality TV genre as we now it now, I am talking about "Wiki-scripts" where the community contributes to the storyline and dialogue, and other initiatives which challenge the traditional model. It is yet to be proven that this model will generate sustainable supplies of good quality, consistent content, but a "drought" of established content may create the catalyst for this to be tested.

This, of course, presents some great opportunities and also challenges for marketers. Lining up your offer with content which is in demand, is a great way to reach targeted customers, who are consuming entertainment and content in a form and at a time they want to consume it. It might even follow that if these consumers have contributed to defining what this content is, it may be even more effective in reaching those target customer segments. There are even opportunities for marketers to create their own content and explore these increasingly popular channels. It may also provide a working case study of the opportunities to use collaboration as a way to develop advertising content and concepts …. another sign of evolution and innovation that digital services enable.

I remember someone once told me that one of the risks of "challenging the status quo" can sometimes be that you end up with an outcome you may not like. In forcing the hands of the networks and the content distributors, the scriptwriters may find out that the new world they create may not be the one they set out to find, and it may motivate others in the market to explore new and innovative ways to satisfy their requirements.

Last Year’s Six Very Big Things…

2008-01-14T14:44:00.001+11:00

Last year I had the audacity to offer up my list of six Very Big Things for the digital world – themes I thought we would see start to bubble up over the coming year. You can read these HERE and I am pretty happy with how I went. Internet use has continued to reach new heights both in terms of the number of people using it and the quality of access they have. The advertising budgets and the use of the internet by the big brands has increased significantly and with it comes the rise of digital services; the serious, commercial, business transforming use of digital channels to reach, engage and do business with customers. User-centricity is on the rise, through the rise of social networking (who got a Facebook / LinkedIn / Myspace / Bebo / [insert new aspiring social networking site here] page last year?) and more use of user generated content, while the use of the internet amongst non-English speakers continues to grow apace. Finally, digital connections continued to become more embedded in the fabric of our lives as out TVs, GPS systems, mobile phones and music devices all became a bit savvier this past year.

A couple of things didn't make it to my list, as they came on a little faster than I expected and I thought they would be themes for this year and maybe next. The rise of user generated video came much fast than I thought and shows us that people have a deep desire to contribute, communicate and create. I really thought this would take a couple of years to get as far as it has in one, but with video capture everywhere (from video cameras with hard disks to cheap webcams and mobile phones) there are masses of content looking to be broadcast and people are doing lots of it.

I was surprised by some of the big deals done last year and the prices paid for businesses like DoubleClick, Realtime 24/7 and Aquantive. These businesses provide the systems and the services to aggregate advertising planning, buying and management for advertisers and their acquirers (Google, Yahoo and Microsoft respectively) have seen the enormous opportunity for vertical integration amongst their online advertising inventory and their technology offerings. This for me is a sign of the increasing momentum of the digital services industry and the great opportunities for those who service it. Exciting times.

There is one thing I have learned in my now 15 years in this game (it is THAT long since I first stumbled across this crazy emerging thing called the Mosiac 0.89b web browser – about 1.6 million 'internet years' as my more youthful colleagues are quick to remind me) is that you cannot ever assume that you can see everything that is coming. This technology is truly transformational and that creates opportunities for innovators, renegades and the creative to do things which shift or nudge the evolutionary path we are on. In my experience, the best thing to do is to act on the things you can see with confidence and react quickly to those things you don't expect. As we have proven in our business, having a sense of the opportunity the future holds is one thing, but being able to turn that perception into a working, dynamic business is another.

It is going to be another great year for digital services and I look forward as we continue to change the world.

Another whimper of things past … and a sniff of things to come!

2007-12-31T16:06:00.001+11:00

I saw this article today and it reminded again of just how much things have evolved in the 15 years since I started my odyssey in the internet industry. The articles tells how the Netscape Web Browser, the universal browsing client which transformed the way we thought about finding, accessing and interacting with information and services, is no longer going to supported from the 1^st of February 2007. Things have moved on – IE (now in version 7), Firefox (thankfully which had its genesis in the same community which spawned Netscape) and the likes of Safari, Opera and others have come to dominate the browser space.

As one icon passes, we can prepare ourselves for the next big evolution in the way we present and interact with information online. This year, keep an eye out for the rise of the "browser free" internet application. These are self contained, internet based, rich media applications designed to reach specific consumers with very targeted, sophisticated and highly graphical, rich media content and services. I know I have mentioned this before, but I see the passing of the technology which made this all possible, which paved the way which brought the potential of the internet onto the computers of the masses, as a fitting signal of the next big thing.

Technologies such as Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight (we at Hyro have just launched the ABC TV Video Player in Silverlight – a real market leading innovation) and the next generations of programming technologies such as AJAX and JAVA will once again transform the way we reach, engage, do business with and service our customers. There is REAL money to be made here for those companies who get it right. The right combination of content, marketing and commercial grade technology will create new, valuable channels to market and it is great to be part of a team who is leading the way in delivering this capability.

Finally… thanks to both readers for their support this year. While I don't get too many comments, I do get some respectable traffic. I remain committed to having my say on the things which delight, inspire, surprise or just get me thinking through 2008. Happy New Year and I wish you all health, happiness and prosperity in 2008.

This isn’t a game …..

2007-12-21T15:49:00.001+11:00

Articles like this highlight for me a recurring theme that I am sure both readers are getting a little weary of. Once again I find myself railing about the fact that major corporations sometimes don't seem to comprehend the commercial significance of initiating any sort of digital activity. In this case, a major US retail group has announced that a systemic security flaw in their online systems has allowed hackers to gain access to customer confidential information and payments data for something like eighteen months. It has been described in some articles as the "biggest hack ever!"

I won't go on for ages, but will quickly comment to state the obvious. Initiating digital channels should be something which is well planned, well architected, well funded and well tested. Any digital channel is a dynamic path to market which exists in an environment which is changing all the time. New technologies emerge, new hacking techniques get created and new risks to the business continue to emerge.

This is not something which you can afford to "set and forget," nor is it something you can afford to leave in the hands of anyone but an expert. The day you turn on your new online store, mobile portal, online campaign or customer self service system, you enter into a new commitment, a commitment which requires constant and dedicated focus. The risks emerge due to the nature of the medium. Any potential hacker, malcontent or miscreant has the advantage of time, anonymity and resources to plan, trial, test and execute their initiatives. I think many corporations fail to fully RESPECT these people; they are very smart, very experienced and very capable and managing the risks a well executed hack may present demands an appropriate plan which duly considers the capabilities of your foes.

As we go into the New Year, most corporations will be looking to kick of their latest digital initiatives and it is a time to think carefully about who you partner with to deliver these. Sure your ad agency might deliver some great campaign ideas and some cool creative, but do they REALLY understand and can they really manage the technical, operational and environmental risks, challenges and opportunities.

2008 is the year for getting even more serious about digital initiatives and it is the year to work with a specialist, dedicated, full-service digital services company.

Online Shopping's got everyone hopping...

2007-12-16T18:23:00.000+11:00

The press has picked up a few stories about the surge in online shopping this year and of course, the most timey statistics are coming from the US. A quick search for online shopping data shows that the level of online shopping occuring in the US market is up almost 20% on the same time a year ago. Good coverage can be found at Internetnews.com and others.

Looking into this statistic a little highlights just how far we have come in a few short years. Do a search on online shopping statistics and you see mention of expectations of daily revenue topping US$800m on a single day before Christmas. This is VERY serious business, particularly when one considers that these growth statistics are being sustained of increasingly higher bases.

You also see mention in some of these articles of some of the consequences of a lack of commercial foresight on the part of some of the participants. There is much talk of sites crashing under the weight of traffic and for me, this is just unacceptable. These companies are IN THE BUSINESS of online shopping and these days of on-demand computing, massive scalability and great advances in software, data management and online marketing, there is just no excuse for your core business platform failing. The only possible reasons could be under investment, holding onto legacy technologies or just bad management.

Thankfully, we are seeing many of our clients getting on the front foot and suggested investment levels for 2008 are refreshing (and exciting for the business). There is growing acceptance of the importance of digital channels as a permanent and significant part of the "go to market" mix now and the strategies, investments and the work at hand ae reflecting this. This is not just an "online advertising" story. The investments are coming in the way our customers, attract, engage and transact with their customers as well has how they maintain relationshps once the initial transaction has occured. The thinking is sophisticated and the business opportunities are exciting.

Every year I look back at this time and think about how far we have come in just a year and this year is no different. Looking forward to next year though, I feel as though we will see even more change and the view back in a years time will contain even more (positive) surprises.

We really ARE changing the world!!

And then a million more....

2007-12-05T02:51:00.000+11:00

This week saw the news that the number of domain names issued under the .au namespace as surpassed the ONE MILLION mark. Quite an achievement as it suggests that there is one domain name for every 21 of Australia's population!!

There is a lot in these two statistics. The sheer number of domains means that marketing and branding in this very crowded environment is just getting more and more difficult. All of the intuitive domain names are long gone (and worth a lot of money - albeit that many seem to be retained by early-age domain prospector who registered them years ago and don't have the money or business to fully leverage. Never mind, one of the big guys will no doubt eventually buy them). In fact, it is getting more and more difficult to register phonetically practical domains with under about ten letters in them. (There are businesses out there who just register tonnes of domain names and hold onto them in the expectation that someone will want them one day and will need to buy it from them!!). So .... just registering the domain name and expecting the money to flow in is well and truly "last century."

Making your domain work for you is increasingly the job for sophisticated professionals. These people bring together the right mix of marketing, creative, content, user experience, technology and ongoing management to turn a domain name into a working, commercial business. Many a dollar has been wasted by companies failing to address all of these elements in appropriate proportions.

The second message for me is that 1,000,000 domains on the little old .au namespace sends a clear message. EVERYBODY is doing this. It might surprise both readers to hear that there are STILL companies in Australia, New Zealand and Asia who do not see digital channels as the core platform for marketing, customer engagement, customer service and commerce. My job is to keep pointing out the obvious ... if you haven't doubled (or more) your allocation of your marketing and customer service budgets to digital services in 2008 then prepare to lose market share.

Your competitors ARE doing this and they ARE throwing serious money at it. They are working with significant professional specialists (and not asking their ad agency or traditional technology provider to try and be something they are not) and they are getting commercial results ...... and once you have worked out that you too need to follow suit .... drop me an email.

Ratings are grating ....

2007-11-25T20:22:00.000+11:00

I was watching the Sunday morning news this morning (following yesterday's election results the post-mortem commentary has been interesting) and the presenters announced that "this was the last show for the year." It appears that despite all of the signs that the media world is changing, we again find ourselves at the abyss of the "non-ratings period" - that time of the year when Christmas specials and d-grade TV content makes it onto our screens.

I am surprised that this tradition has been maintained this year, particularly given the challenge of traditional media to retain consumers in light of better, faster and more compelling digital alternatives. I expect that this year will see more people sampling online content in lieu of yet another purile All-American Christmas Special (it DOESN"T snow here at Christmas ... really!) and next year will see more new strategies from the main industry players to integrate to and leverage the new, digital media mix. It will again be an interesting and exciting time and we look forward to doing our part to help our clients make the most of the opportunities these changes present.

Context is a Very Big Thing!!

2007-11-11T20:57:00.000+11:00

I had a discussion with an industry colleague through the week about what we thought were going to be some interesting trends in online advertising over the next twelve months… it is a VERY big topic and we covered a lot (I might try and get a few more blogs out on it in the next few weeks), but one item which we are talking about more and more with our clients is the importance of context… and trust me, context is a an important trend for 2008 and beyond.

Context is about adding new dimensions to the enormous power of online advertising; using digital channels to connect an offer and the ability to act on the offer. We’ve known for a while that the potential of online advertising is enhanced by using technology to increase the granularity of advertising (making many very specific, very relevant offers suited to small groups of customers). We also know that by using a combination of digital channels we can add timeliness (being able to make an offer when it is important to customers) and location (being able to make an offer based on where a customer is physically located). Each of these individually adds a lot to online advertising, but together they take it to a whole new level.

Over the next year, we will see more and more companies talking about the importance of combining relevance, timeliness and location to service a key element which drives many (if not most) buying decisions – context. Context is about understanding the why, the when and the where of the actions of a consumer so we can provide an offer which best services the needs of the consumer.

Context is important. As we go through another year of astounding growth in online advertising (with the share of total advertising for many advertiser expected to go above 25% of total budgets in 2008) there will be more pressure on marketers to refine their execution of online advertising and to deliver the right outcomes for their business. One of the ways in which this can be executed is by delivering offers to customers which are the RIGHT offers, at the right time and in the right context for the targeted customer.

The enabler of contextual advertising is technology and understanding how to leverage technology for effective digital marketing.

For marketers, 2008 needs to be a year in which you make a “contextual ability audit.” You need to assess whether or not you have the information about your customers, the sophisticated inventory of targeted offers for each of your customer segments and the tools, technologies and processes to deliver these context based offers. You can be rest assured that if you don’t ….. your competitors do.

Face(book)ing Up to A New Reality

2007-10-26T18:23:00.000+10:00

So Microsoft pays a bucket of cash for a thimble full of Facebook. Congratulations to the young man who established himself as yet another digital billionaire... those few years of hard work have really paid off!! (must break the hearts of those families who amass those sorts of fortune over generations... but this is business at internet speed!!)

Behind the headlines are some interesting stories. I have read three articles on this and so I still have to learn a lot more about it, but a couple of interesting tidbits come out. The first big one (and the topic of this blog) is that as part of the consideration, Microsoft secured the rights to sell banner ads (display ads in industry parlance) on facebook pages in all locations outside the US. Now THAT is interesting...

Microsoft has bought a business in which they are buying the advertising rights.... no talk of "platform integration" and "technology" ... this is all about traffic, customer profiles and marketing .. at least from my initial reading.

And all this a few months after they bought a company that sells an online advertising management platform.

Nicely Niche...

2007-10-21T20:40:00.000+10:00

Over the last couple of months I have discovered, and have been using a great new site called MapMyRun.com and I have to say this this is a great example of clever niche site dvelopment. The offering from the MapMy... team (they have several sites in the "family") is to use current generation mapping tools to allow users to (ans the name suggests) Map their run!

Based on the Google Mapping application, the MapMyRun tool allows users to draw a fairly detailed map of their run / walk / jog / wheel / whatever and then collect and create a fair bit of information about it. Obviously, you finally get a chance to find out just how far you have actually gone (and it nearly ALWAYS been less than the usual boasting value we ascribe) but you also get a whole pile ofother information. Google maps contain altitude data, so you get to know how high (or low) you have climbed. Add information such as you weight and the time you took and it will caclulate the kilocalories you have burned. It even allows you to create a log for your shoes and you can build up a record of how far those shoes have travelled.

In addition to providing an ability for me to get a better understanding of my training and allowing me to build a permanent record, the MapMyRun.com application also allows me to share my runs with others and join groups and so on. The MapMy... team have created something which is personal and pertinent and also allowed me to connect to a community. This is a very clever construction of a powerful niche marketing platform and marketers should look for similar well executed niches as channels for their targetted online marketing.

China, Macau and Hong Kong .... welcome!!

2007-10-09T16:08:00.000+10:00

A very brief note - we announced today that we have finalised the deal to acquire the Applications Services business of Getronics NV in Greater China; Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macau.

This business, which has been in the region for more than 15 years and once traded as Wang (a VERY well known technology group), brings with it a very mature foundation for us to grow in the region. We have acquired an outstanding team, all the infrastructure and inputs we need to operate a business and a history of performance. This gives us the opportunity to further develop some strong, long term client relationships. We would never take these relationships for granted, but by focussing on continuing to provide good service, by building on the success of the past and adding new capabilities and services from the broader Hyro group, we can add even more value in the future.

It is very exciting and is a measure of how the changing nature of digital services - the fusion of marketing and technology - is creating opportunities for companies with the skills and experience to leverage them. It is even more exciting to be a part of something with the people, the vision and the resources to act on those opportunities.

The importance of being mobile ....

2007-09-23T16:10:00.000+10:00

This week saw the publication of an article I co-authored with our Director, Wireless & Broadcast Chris Flintoft in the Marketing Magazine 2007 Digital Survival Guide. In it we talked about the main factors brand owners and marketers should consider when assessing the role of mobile channels in their digital marketing mix. It hit the stands on Monday and I expect you'll see exerpts on the website soon. It's not a bad read (even if I do say so myself) and gives some insights into just how far the mobile channel has come in just a few years. I commend it to anyone thinking about the next steps for mobile with their business

Where Angels Fear to Tread....

2007-09-23T16:03:00.000+10:00

I experienced a bit of a "Spears-ism" on Friday night when I attended a charity evening for St Vincents Hospital. The highlight of the evening was to be a performance by Doc Neeson, lead singer of the Angels .... one of the GREAT Aussie bands of the 80s. Four songs (including the famous "Am I ever going to see your face again?") and it was perhaps better that it ended there. It was all a little sad to see one of the great performers reduced to a fatigued and rusty shell of performances past - he even forgot the words to one of the four songs he sang and had to to refer to a cheat sheet in his pocket.... still, it was all about raising money for a very worthy cause and that is all that really matters.

Searching for Sophistication....

2007-09-09T15:07:00.000+10:00

It has taken a little while to get around to this blog (end August / early September are a busy time with half-year reporting and investor presentations), but an article I spotted in one of the business papers frustrated me a little and I thought I need to comment. Both readers of this blog will know that if there is anything which gets up my nose, it is the fact that some of the traditional media and marketing businesses are now taking to selectively reporting the data about the shift in marketing and advertising onto digital channels.

The article concerned reported that online advertising company Atlas (part of the Aquantive group acquired by Microsoft recently for around US$6 billion) had done research which had suggested that "search advertising is about as effective as advertising in a directory(like Yellow Pages)."

This sounded a bit surprising to me, so I thought I would look into this a little more.

I hunted around the internet for either the report (as far as I can tell it will eventually be released here) or more journalist coverage of the report. As I suspected (and as reported in this article from BusinessWeek) there appears to be more to this data than the print newspaper had reported. From what I have been able to deduce, the conclusions of the report are not that search advertising is less effective than previously thought, but rather it is a waste of money to over-simplify your online advertising.

It appears from the Atlas research that successful online advertising is built through a compound effect of multiple types of advertising. Banners help referral marketing which helps display ads which helps search which helps websites which helps ..... you get the picture. Atlas calls this "overlap" and I think that this is another sign of the increased sophistication of successful digital services and digital marketing.

From all of this reading I have reached the conclusion that we really are still in the early stages of a significant structural change in customer attraction, engagement, servicing and transactions and the science of what we do is getting stronger and stronger every day. We see this in the work our teams are doing with our clients as the reach, variety and volume of digital activities continues to grow.

The epicentre for a lot of the client drivers for this still seems to be the US, but there is some strong innovation in Europe and som great entrepreneurialism out of Asia. Traditional businesses in our markets are coming along, but they could always do more... there is a lot of potential in the digital services market - and it is exciting to be in a company which is well placed, rightly resourced and with the right team to leverage this outstanding opportunity.

So.... I'll finish this where I started.... the traditional media continue to face some challenges as the market continues to evolve and change. There are a number of ways that they can respond to this change and adapting their business models and leveraging their strengths is probably the best of these.... feeding their customer base with selective reporting which skews the data supporting the change we are going through is certainly not.

When online user communities aren't all that they seem...

2007-08-26T19:58:00.000+10:00

This week saw the news that an enterprising young man called Virgil Griffiths has written a piece of software called Wikiscanner which tracks the source of edits made to Wikipedia entries. The site has drawn a lot of attention and lists some interesting results.

According to the information provided by the software on the "most active.gov.au sites" the Australian government has been very active, with the Australian Department of defence appearing at the top of the list. The non-government domains list doesn't provide much clarity, since many of the originating domain addresses resolve to the ISP who hosts them and these numbers will, of course, include private citizens who make changes to the entries. Trawl through the lists though and you will see some interesting corporate names pop up...

Others have covered the commentary about the motivations of these organisations for editing Wikipedia entries, so I'll focus on another perspective.

One of the challenges for organisations trying to access their customers through using Web 2.0 technologies and online communities to reach their customers is working out how to deal with the fact that some online communities may not be what they seem.

The WikiScanner experiment highlights the fact that some participants in these communities may not be who they say they are and may not necessarily be participating for the reasons for which the community was originally established. We need to be pragmatic - the very nature of these communities and tools means that we can't stop this sort of activity, so we need to use good practice to make sure that these activities do not compromise the intent of these intiatives.
Setting up an online community or web 2.0 resource is not something that should be done without a plan. The purpose should be clear - to both the organisation that is doing it and for the people who choose to participate.... and avoid subterfuge - a lot of damage can be done to a brand or reputation if you try to engage in web 2.0 activities under the guise of independence or anonymity. Be open, be honest and wherever your community chooses to step outside the intent and purpose, make sure that you deal with this in a manner which is consistent with the stated purpose of the community.

My message in this isa simple one; don't be fooled by the apparent simplicity of Web 2.0 and online communites. We have been working with these concepts and the technologies that support them for a number of years and there are plenty of tips and techniques for getting more out of them ... and for managing the realities of these new, flexible and open environments. Call in the experts (and don't listen to the first baggy-pants wearing ad agency kidwith a shagy haircut and 7 iPods) and make the most of this exciting technology and the great relationshiop and brand building things it allows us to do.