Digital Influence Mapping Project

Three Steps to Putting Mobile at the Center of Marketing

All week, we are at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Martin Lange will lead the charge for Ogilvy. You can follow our observations via our Tumblr blog and our core Social@Ogilvy blog and Twitter handle.

Last post, I suggested the need and a way for putting social, mobile and value creation at the center of the creative and strategic marketing and communications process ("The SoMoVa System").  Practically speaking, brands can organize their efforts to bolster the mobile portion of that equation in three steps:

 

Unlock the mobile storefront: Consider this the hygiene step. Every brand starting a new initiative or refreshing an existing one must do the base level of mobile accessibility. That means creating a great experience for smartphone users, simple phone users and tablet users.

Part of this is simple design for the screen and likely connectivity throughputs (e.g. 3G and lower) part is designing for the use-cases or likely customer experience.

To this day, I am stunned by how many restaurant sites are not enabled for mobile with four buttons on screen: menu, location, make a reservation and photos. I stand on a corner of St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin trying to find a great place to eat.

For too many brands, their mobile “door” remains locked for all intent and purpose simply because they have no good mobile experience. Time to unlock that storefront and invite people inside.

 

Teach ourselves to ‘think’ mobile-first: One big challenge inside agencies and brands is the sense that mobile ought to be everyone’s expertise from day-one. While it will be someday, we ought to care enough to make our brand marketers more successful immediately. We designed a training program for social media strategists 7 years ago.  It has evolved and grown. We believed we needed to supplement what even digital marketers understood about social behaviors and practices.

By creating the Principles of Mobile Design (“design” here takes the high road meaning the design of the experience not simply an interface), we establish a best practice checklist for expert marketers. Are they considering the top 3 mobile use-cases for their customer? Are they using the location-based data from mobile and/or the camera capabilities and/or the social network connectivity?

We also need to inject mobile expertise – creative, strategic and technological – into our creative ideation process. New team structures and fresh collaboration practices.  Don’t treat mobile as a channel (just as you would not treat social as a channel). Making ideas mobile from the get-go is best.

 

Disrupt before the disruption: Martin Lange cites Uber and MyTaxi as disruptive services. My favorite is Bands in Town which alerts me to when any of my bands are playing in town – no matter what town I am in. How will mobile disrupt the core business of many of the brands out there? To some extent, it is pure hubris to think that an internal effort can anticipate the unimaginable disruptions that may come from a vast entrepreneurial landscape. On the other hand, smart businesses can do two things to stimulate that within their organization:

• Sanction ‘disruption-hunting’ from the top – the C-suite can challenge managers to be their own competitors at times. When I first started Social@Ogilvy 7+ years ago, there were plenty of business leaders invested in television advertising who would have liked us to go away. A little air-cover from the C-suite goes a long way to build internal courage.

• Put a bounty on disruptive ideas – are we all doing enough to stimulate and reward idea-generation from across our employees? Do we have a formal program that solicits ideas and then funds the most promising?

 

Three ways brands can make offer a shot of mobile adrenalin to their organizations:

• Unlock the mobile storefront
• Teach ourselves to ‘think’ mobile-first
• Disrupt before the disruption

How SoMoVa puts Mobile at the Center of Marketing

We are not mobile enough. Brands are under investing in meeting customers at all of the mobile touch points just as they are under investing in social media. But business leaders want to lead and do more in mobile.

THIS WEEK

Media companies, brands, technologists, carriers and Ogilvy will flock to Barcelona to the Mobile World Congress 2013 to not just pace the trade floor for promising mobile solutions beyond the obvious, but they will also attend insightful keynotes like the panel on Vertical Disruption featuring GM, American Heart Association and Qualcomm and the panel on Mobile Innovation 2023 offering a near-future vision.

We will publish throughout the event and distill what we learn into useful takeaways just as we did for CES. Our own Martin Lange will be leading the charge and you can follow his team’s Tumblr here. Start off with their ‘5 Trends to Watch For…’

 

Mobile in the Middle of SoMoVa

Marketers need a “stimulus package” for mobile. They need an artificial way to motivate their marketers to commit to making mobile a core expertise and a primary way they engage customers. Someday, mobile will just be how we engage people from smartphones to the tablet-of-the-future to the ‘internet of things.’

But until that future arrives, and to ensure it does, we need ways to spark the imagination of marketers to put mobile first now - to make it routine and consistent. Clearly, mobile usage broadly defines varies market-by-market and consumer context-by-context. Still, you would be hard pressed to examine a market anywhere in the world and not be able to identify ways in which mobile is changing the customer journey.

Many would say that mobile (and social) don’t fundamentally change how marketing works. Maybe. To help ace marketers focus on mobile and social behaviors, I would suggest a simple rubric with checklists to help us all put these considerations front of mind.

 

Social + Mobile + Value = Successful Marketing

 

Okay, okay, that’s not all that goes into “successful marketing.” These ingredients are now essential, however.

 

Social

 Brands can increase the social qualities of their marketing and communications by designing programs around the “Principles of Social Design.” These are the lessons we have learned that explain why people share all types of word of mouth (i.e. “earned media”). The more they do this and learn their own context-specific principles the more they will meet consumer’s needs.

 

Mobile

Likewise, brands can increase the mobile accessibility and utility by designing programs for the customer across the heterogeneous experiences of mobile. That means understanding the context in which we reach for our tablets at home on the couch or press on our smartphones standing in the aisle.  Google’s Multiscreen Study continues to be a great reference that starts to articulate useful context.

We need the equivalent “principles of mobile design” to serve as a checklist to inform creative and strategic work from all marketers not just the token mobile experts. At the very least, our checklists include “…the inherent advantages found in the mobile world: location sensing, cameras and instant access to social networks.”

 

Value

Every marketer thinks about the additional value they are delivering to customers whether in the form of complimentary recipes posted on Facebook or via a mobile app or something much bigger like a Nike Fuel where a whole new business model is inspired by technology and mobility. What is the core value we are trying to dial up? How is that being enabled or amplified via our mobile and social-first design?

 If brand marketers and their teams had this simple rubric and the questionnaires for each axis in front of them as they designed marketing and communications programs, it might serve as a stimulus package to making SoMoVa central to how we serve our consumers/customers today.

Filtering CES 2013: This Marketer’s Guide to What Matters

This week 156,000 people and 3000 companies will form a virtual mosh pit at CES 2013 in Las Vegas. What was once all about devices – TVs, audio, phones, computers – is broadening every year to include new technologies that don’t look like the traditional devices. Software in all its many forms will play a huge role.

CES is evolving to include all sorts of more embedded & connected technology (e.g. cars, home automation), key “human verticals” like health and fitness, and everywhere access (mobile TV). All of this offers glimpses of potential new human behaviors. But at such a scale, it begs thoughtful review and analysis even to find the most interesting bets. 

A marketers lens

Much of the show will remain focused on introducing devices with incremental feature enhancements. Ultra 3D is a good example, Any tablet that may be revealed is another. I respect that someone may be interested in those devices and each may represent potential big business for someone. I am much more interested in specialty areas.  I am not attending this year, but several people from the Ogilvy and the Social@Ogilvy teams will be. And while I believe that ‘being there’ will be the best experience, I am convinced that many of us can stay connected to select coverage of the show and learn more about what matters to us thanks to those brave souls trekking through the record 1.9 million square feet of exhibit space, endless presentations, interminable social events and more.

Best ways to follow the event

To plan out how you can tap into Ogilvy’s feed from the show and the most relevant coverage, check out our post – Suit Up For CES 2013: Your Coverage Guide.

 

Seven Topics to Watch at this Year's CES 2013 

More Social TV and the Second Screen Experience

77% of the time we are watching TV, we are simultaneously on another device.  22% of that time is “complimentary usage” meaning that whatever you are doing on the PC, tablet or smartphone has something to do with the TV (vs multitasking like checking email).

How will technology continue to shape this complimentary behavior? Twitter made some wise moves by really courting television media companies to integrate Twitter handles and/or hashtags to inspire a two screen experience. Services like GetGlue helped people build community around programs they love (i.e. “check-ins” to Walking Dead).

What will emerge at CES that further enables a SocialTV or complimentary second screen experience? One reason I am keen to see innovations here is because people have already changed their behavior and demonstrated demand. There are plenty of other technology innovations that did not catch on. Will 3D TV, now Ultra 3D, really go mass? Check out the focus on 2nd Screen Experience. 

 

More Connected Automotive

We all spend so much time in our cars. Smart connectivity and/or new behaviors that enhance that experience via utility or entertainment without introducing additional safety concerns are a big deal. We work with Ford. I own 2 Ford vehicles. I love what Sync and My Ford Touch have made possible. Sync plus Siri is pretty great. Finding a restaurant and calling for a reservation via voice commands and with 1 initiated step and 1-2 voice reactions is a bonafide improvement on tasks.

What’s next? I am productivity geek. I think in terms of time chunks. An hour long drive to me could easily be 20 minutes of voice-accessed email, 20 minutes of Mashable headlines and stories and 20 minutes of the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds recording (due next month).

Google’s great Multiscreen World research preso (get it here), points out how we initiate an activity on one device and continue on another.  How will the “buyer journey” change as I seamlessly continue a shopper activity started on a PC and moved to my drive to store/pick up/purchase location? (e.g. “hey Best Buy, I will be there in 20 minutes and can a TV sales specialist just show me three of the 60” 4K TVs that I tagged online?”)

Check out the automotive focus here. 

 

Next Gen Entertainment Content

Content marketing is the new “social media”. It is capturing the interest of marketers and will only be eclipsed when we actually know what to do with “big data” on an everyday basis. In its hugeness, CES 2013 has sections dedicated to content and specifically, they have a track called Entertainment Matters. If you want to get a sampling of what Hollywood-centered content creators are doing and thinking in terms of creating, delivering and monetizing new forms of content, check some of these sessions.

Our own Doug Scott, President of Ogilvy Entertainment,  will be driving a session Brands: This Is How You Work With Content Creators.

 

Attentive Computing

Computers/devices that can understand what I want to do by deciphering where my attention is, where my eyes are looking, where my hand points will change how we interact and rely on technology. (Check out an MIT view of Attentive Visual Interfaces here).

A neat example of this is Tobii Technologies “gaze interaction peripheral” which essentially will add eye gaze to the ways in which we control our devices. Freeing computer control from our hands driving some type of interface could lead to many unanticipated behaviors well beyond controlling Master Chief in Halo.

 

Connected and Enabled Healthcare and Fitness

Nike Fuelband adorns the wrists of at least half of my colleagues, or so it seems. Devices like the Fuelband or the Basis Band which launched at least year’s CES, are the tip of the iceberg in terms of how we will get healthier.  I also believe we have yet to see the fullest integration of game mechanics into everyday behaviors. What about a family healthy eating scorecard displayed on the refrigerator door (remember the screens that were integrated in high-end refrigerators?). Or community billboards of Basis Band data to pit neighbor against neighbor, so-to-speak.

The Digital Health Summit within CES 2013 will feature sessions that cover these devices but also how big data can be used to affect health behaviors, whether sharing can affect outcomes and how pervasive wireless devices can connect those with chronic health issues to health care maintenance that makes sense.

 

Appy Hour

If toaster ovens and VCRs answered what will we do with this great OS called ‘electricity’, then applications answer the question of what do we do with this great platform called pervasive computing.

At CES 2013, the Appy Hour will pit 25 teams against each other to develop a winning app and win the $25k prize. You can watch and hear CEA President Gary Shapiro @garyshapiro discuss the upcoming show with Mashable here. 

 

Eureka Park

It’s just as interesting who is forgoing their big exhibitor floor presence. No Microsoft. No HP. No Dell. No Apple. But clearly there are many more there including this year’s Eureka Park – a space dedicated to small startups. If part of the purpose of attending CES 2013 is to gauge possible trends, you are juts as likely to glimpse the seeds of one in Eureka Park as with the established companies still banging out size variations on tablets.

 

Celebrities

Clearly the most impressive draw (serious draw) is Vinton Cerf.  Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist. While I would love to see Lemmy from Motorhead who is there on behalf of Krussel (cases for electronics), I could pass on Snooki and some of the other celebs there just for booth draw.

(IMAGES respectfully taken from the CES Instagram feed)

Two Different Types of Mobile Businesses

Nothing appears more certain nor more elusive to marketers than how to fully leverage the biggest behavior change since the mass adoption of automobiles. Yes, I am talking mobile access to communications, data and our social graph.  

The explosion of mobile phone, smart phone and, now, tablet use has led to some interesting innovations. MPesa mobile currency, Flipboard content display, Instagram photography communities and personal GPS are just a few examples of how mobile changes how we do things. Just look at Mary Meekers Internet Trends 2012 presentation and many of the "reimagined" business examples include mobile as a key part.

Still, it seems as marketers we are still struggling to “go full mobile.” I would guess that some of that is due to the “Curse of the Channel Mindset” where, too often, we look at mobile as just another marcom channel to deliver messages through. I blame this ‘curse” on the advertising planning community and the powerful economic strength of media buying companies.

Meanwhile entrepreneurs unconstrained by that channel mentality and empowered with the innovators sideways manner of looking at things are making new interesting business or applications of mobile.

Two innovations should make us think differently. 

Mobile Grilled Cheese 

The Melt is a grilled cheese restaurant designed around mobile payment. Founded by Jonathan Kaplan who brought us the Flip Video Camera (now a collectors item), the Melt is getting ready to deliver a restaurant experience where users can order via device and use simple QR codes to jump through the fast lane and pick up their warm, melted goodness of a gourmand grilled cheese.

Instead of just adding mobile payments as a cash register alternate on top of cash, credit, debit, chip-card or whatever, they are designing the transaction experience around the mobile user. How you pick up a food is as much a part of the experience as the food, itself. Now, I don't know if their innovation will add up to a smash success. So far, they only have stores in the SF and Silicon Valley areas. But when you consider that service is the number one reason for return visits to restaurants and that service innovations that cut down on process (make things simpler) tend to be the drivers of loyalty, I give these guys a better than even chance of getting somewhere. (Thanks to Social Commerce Today for the heads up on The melt)

I love grilled cheese. I love great service. If it were in DC, I would buy.  

Mobile Close-Ties Network 

We practice “mobile first” design within our team (actually “SoMo First” – but that’s a different post). That means that we design a user experience first for the mobile display (often the smartphone and tablet, simultaneously). Once that is great, we design the desktop experience.

Path is a recent entrant into the social network space and is only available as a mobile experience. (see a good explanation from Satish Dharmaraj, managing director at Redpoint Ventures LLC (investors))The service is designed to connect each of us with only our closest ties.  Not thousands of friends. It tops out at 150 friends. Think you and your wife (or whomever), your closest friends and some family. 

Whether or not this dedicated channel of intimacy works for you, pay attention that it was designed as mobile –only. The founders felt that the close-ties relationships it is trying to support favors the intimate, always-connected utility of mobile.  More businesses will be doing this going into the future. They will consider how their business can serve new behaviors and needs developing out of our mobile and connected lives.

 Two very different examples how mobile is interpreted as a core part of the experience not an additional channel or touchpoint. Two good examples of disruptive design that could easily lead to big, long lasting innovations. 

Welcome to Social@Ogilvy!

(this post is also found in s similar form on our new Social@Ogilvy site)

The Social Imperative

Brands will spend between 17-18% of their total marcom spend on social media within 4 years. They will spend more on social business solutions. They are seeing value and expecting more every year. 

The key reason? 90% of us look to friends and family for the most trusted recommendations on products, service and issues. 70% of us count on consumer opinions online above traditional media. And it’s only going to grow. Millennials are three times more likely than Boomers to look for a social opinion on choices they make. 

The future is brand advocacy. And it cannot be faked, gamed, or outright ‘bought.’

There are only three ways to connect with and build a strong relationship with customers and stakeholders these days. 

1. Deliver highly relevant content or service. This could be advertising, media relations or what we call ‘owned’ content (including valuable services). Now it’s all highly targeted and tailored. No more 360 degree ‘onslaughts’ of interruptive advertising. Now our messages must be deemed highly relevant to our targets to earn their attention. Lets use the ‘10 degrees’ that matter. Useful content to run a sustainable business from DuPont. Better ways to use member ‘points’ from American Express. 
2. Be discoverable in search. When people search Google, Baidu or Yandex, brands need to be there for all the topics that intersect between a person’s intent and where the brand can add some value. Ford on fuel efficiency. Hellmann’s on Real Food recipes. 
3. Earn our way into their ‘social graph.’  To succeed in social media, we must become genuinely valuable to the people we serve and earn their attention, their advocacy and their business.   Inviting people as VIPs into the launch of the new Ford Explorer in Facebook. Sparking a social conversation about the dreams of the next generation of Chinese from Johnnie Walker. Helping Hong Kong parents celebrate their baby pictures in a much bigger way from Huggies.

How we form opinions about products, services and issues is constantly changing. It’s imperative that we make social a new way we do everything.

What is Social@Ogilvy? 

Social@Ogilvy is the global, cross-discipline team of social experts from across all of Ogilvy’s businesses delivering social solutions to all parts of our clients’ business. This is new. This is bigger than before. We have been designing and executing social media marketing and communications programs for 7+ years as 360 Digital Influence – a specialty practice born out of Ogilvy Public Relations. We quickly grew to deliver social solutions for all sorts of marketing and communications clients. 

Now we have grown into Social@Ogilvy. We are a true global network with a common approach. 

Integrated Social Media Matters More 

The whole PR vs. marketing battle is moot. Social media will inform every discipline and deliver business value for the foreseeable future. Social media as a standalone specialty doesn’t make sense. All the power and potential in social based solutions comes to life when you integrate it into marcom and other functions. 

We design integrated social solutions that combine deep disciplines like crm, public relations and shopper marketing and rooted in what drives behavior.  We plan around owned, earned and paid media working together for a compound effect and at its heart our work is ‘social by design’ – phrase used now by Facebook but that captures what we do quite well. 

A Global Shift

We do believe there’s a new customer and stakeholder journey defined by the increasing impact our networks have on purchase decision and our behaviors. How we buy, vote, and form opinions has changed. We tap into our 130 friends (the Facebook average) to discover, consider, compare, decide and rave about products, services and issues.

This shift is happening in one way or another all over the world. Growth markets like China, Indonesia, Brazil and Turkey will define the next episode of social media use. They are all growing their social network use and outpacing western markets including the US. That’s why we have grown the world’s largest global team delivering solutions relevant in each local market.  

And it’s more than just marketing, we design social business solutions that use the collaboration and advocacy strengths of social media to drive value internally and in customer relationships while at the same time managing risk. 

 

Join Us

We will be participating or hosting 23 events in and outside of Social Media Week this week in NYC, London and Hong Kong not to mention a dozen other markets. Join us as we launch this new ambitious business. It's been a wild ride to get to this point and we would love to see you. You can find out more at our new Social@Ogilvy site.

Three Views on B2B and Social Media in 2011

More and more B2B marketers are blending social strategies with their digital strategies which themselves are just a piece of the overall sales and marketing strategy. This layer-cake approach to "strategy" is typical for the moment and represents an artificial yet necessary attention on digital and social as those disciplines are new-ish still. The cake will settle over time to be one, integrated strategy in the future.

Over the past year, I have noticed a distinct uptick in terms of B2B marketers developing experience and cases around sales enablement, content strategies, peer recommendations each with a heavy social component. 

Adam Holden-Bache over at B2BSocialMedia posted this nugget from eMarketer within a useful post on B2B stats: 

"B2B product marketers were spending an average of 3.4% of their marketing budgets on social media in February 2010, and B2B services marketers were spending 6.5%. Respondents expected those proportions to reach 7.4% and 11%, respectively, over the next year."

So, essentially the spend will double or near-abouts. That doubling is happening despite our deep dissatisfaction in how we measure the value of these efforts. Imagine when we all get better at that....

I recently published a post on the Ogilvy SellorElse blog about the B2B buyer journey. I wanted to share that plus two other strong posts from other marketers on the latest in B2B social media marketing and communications.  

The B2B Buyer Journey Is a Social One

by John Bell

"The buyer journey begins earlier and earlier. Even before a buyer knows they will be a “buyer” they are researching a need via Google, reading what their peers are struggling with, and forming ideas for how to overcome problems or accelerate their business.

We talk in terms of demand generation and lead generation in B2B marketing. Sales is a whole other matter. But the split between sales and marketing and the entire concept of “demand generation” leave out a big piece of what customers need: business problem solving...

...No big mystery that B2B business and tech leaders do what we all do when we have questions. They use search. We have become adept at finding our own answers and ultimately this leads to a much more informed customer base. Not only that but  business leaders wrestling with the overall health of their business are online as much as the tech leaders charged with implementing systems to meet those business objectives. Yet, only 29% of reps are prepared to understand business problems..."

Read the full post: The B2B Buyer Journey Is a Social One

I have been using custom apps at more and more events lately and really like how they not only consolidate the most useful information in one place but serve as a small, specialty community for the attendees. In this post, Eric Schwartzman covers off on this phenomena and I like is brass tacks description of a tactic that works. 

 

HOW TO: Market B2B Events via Mobile

by Eric Schwartzman

"Make no mistake about it!
The killer app for B2B social media at trades events is, believe it or not, the app.
But not just any app.  Mobile apps.   More and more, attendees are using iPhone and Android apps to network digitally at events, and marketing them in the process...
...So powerful is the prospect of mobile social networking at events that a number of conference organizers have already taken a stab at building their own, branded mobile apps. So far, the results have been mixed.  Because just like any other social media channel, those that go the distance prevail...

Read the full post: HOW TO: Market B2B Events via Mobile

 

Interestingly there is not ton of strategic thinking in blogs around B2B and social media. What there is a lot of are "list" posts which scramble together "11 things" or "11 Trends" or "11 cliches" and then there are tactical instructions which are often useful (e.g. B2B and SEO, Content Marketing 101, and so forth). The following post from Niall Cook struck me as simple, strategic and useful. 

 

Three Tenets of B2B Social Media Marketing

by Niall Cook

"...‘Social’ is not the same as ‘personal’ - if the social aspect of social media is about relationships – regardless of whether they are personal (friends) or professional (business contacts) – then the important thing for the marketer to understand is how people can switch between personal and work roles throughout the day. It’s a big factor in what GyroHSR’s chief executive Rick Segal calls the ‘at work’ state of mind. People can be physically at work yet at times mentally at leisure – and vice versa – but regardless of this, when they are using social media they are still social..."

Read the full post: Three Tenets of B2B Social Media Marketing

A Marketer's Look at Social Media in Vietnam circa 2011

I met up with Thu An Nguyen Ha at our Hong Kong Summit.  She leads strategy for clients out of from our Vietnam 360 Digital Influence team. I was struck from her by how fast social media is being adopted in Vietnam. Combine that with the economic enthusiasm in the country and I would guess we will see big leaps forward there. 

I asked her about what is hot and happening there now in relation to brands and social media.

 

Q: What would you say are 1-2 defining characteristics of the social media world in Vietnam today? 

A:  The social media world in Vietnam today is going through an experimental phrase for all those who embrace it: users, developers, and brands.  Adaptation from successful global entities kicks off with some interesting platforms like social network ZingMe (facebook inspired), linkhay microblog equivalent of twitter, two.vn answer to foursquare, and recently in the last 6 months we saw an aggressive development of group buying sites such as nhommua (similar to groupon).  

Vietnamese social media users are loyal to their platforms. This might sound obvious as we’re community creatures but this basically means individual blogs, bloggers and influencers don’t exist or stand out without being attached to a mass and popular community.  And yes it’s true, to be fair, Facebook has replaced the Yahoo!360 phenomenon and 'facebookers,' anyone really, who has more than 2,000 fans can be considered an influencer. 

Social media in the eyes of brands and marketers in Vietnam today is starting to be ‘noticed’ – with the same mentality of discovering what platforms can bring to their integrated digital communication plan. There’s a feeling of almost ‘testing the water’ and trying out different ways to engage in social media effectively.

The majority of social media ‘pro’ brands are the FMCGs or consumer goods companies such as Unilever, Dell (technology & communication industry), Coca-cola, etc. All the development seem to be in-sync together: platforms are setting up while brands are also still figuring out which are the best and where audiences and users are also choosing to base their own social graphs. Although I must admit Facebook in most cases still wins over the mentality of the current ‘best’ preferable platform. If we didn’t suffer the limited access, I have total confidence that Facebook would have grown well beyond the current limited 1.4mill users. 

Q: More and more brands are experimenting with social media for marcom purposes. For a typical B2C marketer what would your top three recommendations be? 

A: I can't stress enough the importance of developing a strategic approach to social media. Some brands consider it’s just production, an add on to their digital communication plan. Most don’t have a clue what the role of their Facebook page should be, while others can't think of anything else but creating a Facebook page.  The normal pattern we see would be brands jumping straight onto the social media wave without understanding the nature of it. So I would say think hard on a strategy and the objectives that would help a brand drive their total brand goals or communication goals. 

Secondly, content. Brands, by large, are still thinking of one-way communication and not really thinking from a consumer perspective. The standard behavior of wanting to push out messages, campaign and programs without having a good story or asking the basic questions like how can I involve my audiences, what value do I bring to them, and how can I be a part of my consumers' conversations.  Conversations in social media require solid, interesting, relevant and almost unique type of communication where content is at the core of everything. Develop a social media conversation/content plan to tie in with your audience's behavior and preferences and then marry these with your branded content. Alternatively, create content uniquely for social media as those are actually quite cost effective.

Be Brave – I would say. Brands should at least start to realize and take up the belief that social media is changing the way they’re operating, do business and communicate with their audiences and customers.  Companies who are already doing digital work, especially great work, need to move fast into the area of social media, get a good advisor/agency and embark on the social media path. 

Typically PR managers – who would normally view digital as a brand manager or marketer job, should have the courage to do ‘social’. The ‘social’ territory might seem vague and mysterious, probably due to the fact that PR managers are not familiar with the possibility of having proper, effective measurement for social media programs. In addition, brand managers can start to venture into the area of applying social media to drive business impact that goes beyond brand awareness. 

 

Q: Which brand(s) is doing something interesting in social media in Vietnam and why? 

A: I would say Coca-cola (Coke). Instead of using the globally aligned Facebook platform, Coke in Vietnam has identified its target audience locally: targeting a younger crowd, focus on a teen to the first-jobbers market that is also the biggest internet users segment in Vietnam. 

Coke connected with the young spirit of online users and most of the population who loved to be entertained, via the most popular SNS platform ZingMe. Using the already massive user database and network, Coke built a site that sits within the community. With the new direction of ZingMe going less gaming and moving into more communication, it would be interesting to see how the Coke community within ZingMe grows. 

A few international brands in Vietnam have started to plug-in their global/regional program of establishing Facebook counts despite the difficulty in access. We see Dell, Adidas, HTC, Ford, Vietnam Airlines etc… operating here. Hence the question very soon would be which brands have the successful Facebook cases and doing great things in this platform.

Q: Any new technology/platform  that excites you?

A: To be fair, ZingMe development kinda excites me a bit as they will be growing more towards the direction of communication rather than just games. ZingMe has a perceived perception as a very young, teen-like platform where nothing serious is going on there, this will soon change. We already see a few big brands taking the interest in building brand presence within the community and I would be keen to see. 

Geo-location based is another one that I keep my eyes on. Since Foursquare we now see services that mimic this global trend being adopted here. Brands have not been ‘brave’ enough to invest in this, but Vietnamese users favor location & activities sharing and the mobile communications, and this will push these platforms forward. I do hope to see great mobile campaigns!

 

Will Data, the Crowd or Personal Guides Deliver the Golden Age of Travel?

Is it just me or is the social Web alive with travel innovation? This coming from a guy who diligently fed data into Dopplr for years without any apparent pay-off. So, I am a bit of a sucker for anything to do with travel. Still, I think there is reason for even more critical folks to be encouraged, excited even, about what is coming in travel innovation. 

A month ago, I met the CEO of Jetsetter when we both spoke at the Digital CMO Summit. That day, he introduced the new Jetsetter iPad app which is a beautiful gem. I love all of the Gilt group deal offerings. They are so not-Groupon. Essentially, the app takes a great idea and makes it look and navigate terrifically. It doesn't change it. That's where the personal guides come in.

Personal Guides

It's probably more accurate to call this new category of service 'personalized guides." Drew Patterson revealed that Jetsetter was starting a service for a fee where travelers could query Jetsetter experts from around the world for personalized itineraries in certain locations. Of course I lost my magic postcard which held my invitation to take advantage of that service. Still, I love the idea. 

Now you can do same through Fortnighter. For somewhere between $100-$250 you can get somewhat personalized recommendations from hotels to restaurants to activities. The service only lets you personalize so much. And it caters to the single or couples traveler. That leaves me and my family a wee bit left out. Still, I like the notion of concierge-like service and I believe in the premise - if I am going to invest a chunk of money and time to go to Istanbul with my family (true - going this July), then I would be willing for some local guidance on what to do there that deviates from the beaten tourist path while letting us find the really good pizza in town.

Still another example is really not an example fo a social enablement. Its more an example of how niche travel may find an audience. Political Tours offers travel itineraries around political history. A tour focused on Turkey Elections 2011 would include really cool events like this one:

"Day 3 Turkish foreign policy – moving eastward? A panel discussion with leading Turkish commentators. Lunch at Imroz in Nevizade with an introduction to the Tarlabasi district: urban projects and gentrification. Guided Walk through Tarlabasi with Constanze Leitsch, a migration expert. Visit to Kürt Kav, a Kurdish foundation, a Greek Church with Father Dositeos. Meetings with local artisans. Dinner with NGO activists"

I love this experiential approach to travel and wish I could "sample" it while there. My family would not appreciate a full immersive, multi-day focus on politics. Nor would they agree to me slithering off to do this on my own. 

The Crowd

While still people-powered, another way to go is Wizard Istanbul (thanks, as always, to Springwise) The service operated by the Culture and Tourism Ministry of Turkey, lets me ask a question via Twitter and Facebook and someone - presumably another traveler, resident or the Wizard, him/herself will answer. I submitted a couple of questions around whirling dervish ceremonies/performances and pizza. We will see what the crowd comes back with.

The service recruits writers willing to answer the questions. This is a terrific service from a forward-thinking ministry. I suppose it's possible that the service will get overrun by spammers or folks with commercial interests (disappointing to realize that most hotel concierges make recommendations for places that kickback a fee). For now, I prefer to keep my naive hat on and will plan on using the service before and while I am there.

Data

Marketers get frothy just thinking about how new access to data can deliver value for customers and brands. I remember a financial services company had an ambition to let member's access aggregate member data on the restaurants they most frequented - "X  members prefer Le Cirque over the Jockey Club." It fell apart when data revealed that most members went to McDonald's.

I tend to like to think of myself as the travel who shuns the usual touristy destinations (yes, same guy who asked about Whirling Dervishes in Istanbul). Aggregate data scares me as it suggests using the great median as a guide. 

 
But there are exceptions. These maps from Eric Fisher (and collected here on the Dohop blog - thanks to Datamining) plot out photographs from Flickr on top of city maps. Blue dots are from locals and the red dots are pix taken by visitors. This one is from Sydney where I just returned from. 

Here's why this particular data is helpful. We take pictures of memorable or remarkable scenes. Sometimes this is highly personal. Other times what I find photo-worthy, you will too. These maps tell me what others have felt worth a photo - something they found remarkable or memorable. As a traveler, I could use that. Imagine taking this data and mapping other data about the images (thumbnails or tags?) or from another source like FourSquare. Could we come up with maps of remarkable moments and vistas that others could tap into easily?

 

I tend to think that the more personal, human-powered services offer the most cool innovations currently. But data is on its way. We just cant forget that cool data can only get you so far. One must have a business model to support the services rendered, as well. 

Digital and Social Innovation in Asia

About 60 of our Digital Influence strategists from across Asia descended upon Hong Kong last week for our Black Belt Summit. We had worksessions on a boat, a great meal on a "Thai" beach, and even bet on the ponies as we say in America. This is our 4th Summit in about as many years and I was struck by the following highlights including the appetite for iPads:

Integrated Social Media on the Rise

Our strong hubs in Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing/Shanghai and Australia are pleasantly infecting all of our business in those markets and the region. That means that we are truly walking the walk of "integrated social media" which blends paid, owned and earned media to deliver a bigger impact. 

Fast Growth

The rate of growth in Vietnam, Malaysia, India, Taiwan, and the Philippines confirms that these markets are firmly in the "experimentation" phase of social media adoption and will start to evolve into operationalizing this year. The rate of adoption in these markets and others worldwide is the x-factor that make it impossible to make accurate predictions about social media spend. In general, we all underestimate how fast social media is getting applied to marketing and communications in these markets. 

• Check out these posts on social media in Vietnam
• And this wiki on Malaysia (and other parts of Asia)

China Social Network Map

Most markets have embraced Facebook pages as a cornerstone of their social strategy. Our teams and clients are actively managing these spaces via conversation calendars. The 700 million-pound-gorilla known as Facebook has proven its relevance in all but the Chinese market. There, market conditions still favor the home-grown social networks. See this China Social Network map from our team. 

iPad for Business

While the US is known for its endless device hunger - we adopt more varieties of devices that some other markets - about 1/6 of the 17 million Ipad 1&2's were sold in Asia. You can actually learn a bit more of how brands are using iPad-based solutions by checking out our iPad for Business presentation which includes work from Cathay Pacific, Burberry and my personal favorite, Jetsetter.

Making Products Speak for Themselves via Mobile & Social

Purpose-driven marketing is gaining in popularity amongst major marketers. Phillip Kotler outlined a clear view of it in Marketing 3.0 and big consumer products companies like P&G and Unilever are making hay with the concept. In short:

"...Part of that is rise of "purpose-driven marketing" which is a thesis about the strength of a company that has a higher mission when combining its community mission with its business mission. Brands see a future where the constant product variation that fueled sales in the FMCG world - new flavors, new packaging, new brand positioning - will not drive sales nor loyalty from customers going into the future." 

As marketers look for more ways to be 'of-use' to consumers at retail, they could help us all make product decisions at that moment we stand in the aisle by letting us review the pedigree of the product via our mobile device. 

Access to the 'Purpose' at the Shelf

The IOU Project is about to launch and aims to outfit clothing with QR Codes that will reveal the story behind each product. Now, they have a very particular platform that is very pro-craftsman. You will be able to trace the provenance of your shirt back to the individual weaver. That's one way to make the idea of product provenance come to life. 

But what if a major consumer products goods company used their QR Code (or even a branded visual target) to give instant access to:

1. the sustainability story behind the product: connects the broad sustainability activities of a global brand with the product that people choose

2. an introduction to some of the people behind the product: builds a personal connection with the big, faceless enterprise (here's how a small example of how we did it with Ford Explorer)

3. suggestions for how the consumer could be a part of a larger solution on a relevant issue: acknowledges that we are all in this together and invites the consumer to take part

Using your smart phone and your code reader, you could quickly point and get a baseball card-summary of the story of your products with links into more - like the video of the creators - and a way to bookmark or save these product summaries in a way that would be useful to you.

And once you have done 1-3, there is no reason you couldn't offer more information about performance and benefits of the product. Sound backward? Shouldn't we lead with that type of information ("more scientifically-proven moisturizing globulets..," "heated steering wheels..," "New 100 mega-pixel camera!")? Maybe, but if you buy into Marketing 3.0, it is these additional attributes that feed our heart and spirit that may drive product selection more and more. 


From a Presentation by Phillip Kotler on Marketing 3.0