Digital Influence Mapping Project

Our Observations at SXSW 2013

The following are the POVs our team created over this year's SXSW2103. I spent a very productive week+ leading up to and into the SXSW Interactive event(s). I summarized that in the Day 2 summary below:

 

Day 1 Reflection at #SXSW 2013 -- #SXSWOgilvy from Social@Ogilvy

 

Day 2 Reflection at #SXSW 2013 -- #SXSWOgilvy from Social@Ogilvy

 

Day 3 Reflection at #SXSW 2013 -- #SXSWOgilvy from Social@Ogilvy

 

Day 4 Reflection at #SXSW 2013 -- #SXSWOgilvy from Social@Ogilvy

 

Final Reflection - 9 Key Takeaways at #SXSW 2013 -- #SXSWOgilvy from Social@Ogilvy

 

You can get our complete Slideshare POVs here. 

Great Measurement Event in Dublin Now

I met Damien Mulley (@damienmulley) a few years back when I first visited Ireland to work with our team here. He is one of the earliest folks to get serious about social and has been sharing that with brands and organization since. He took a bunch of us to a wonderful dinner last night at Chapter One - a worthwhile WOM story, in and of itself. 

He also runs two great events in Ireland and today is one of them - Measurement.ie. I will be keynoting later on and am looking forward to a lot of sessions including the next one from Matt Morrison (@mediaczar) from Starvest. I saw that he actually has an homage slide to Robert Cialdini in his deck. 

Measurement Kevlar: The Master Markleter's Armor for 2013

We'll see how my session is received (just gave it this am to a closed group of brands who were very engaged). I wanted to share what i see as the big measurement jobs to be done for major brands this year. Some of it is advanced thinking yet still, it's time. Here's the section titles:

Cultivated Brand Advocacy - Time to proactively design, execute and measure organized brand advocacy programs

Integrated Social Media Impact - The customer journey is complex. We buy based on lot of influences from word of mouth (often via social media) to advertising to media relations. Its time to measure the impact of social media within intergrated programs to understand its effect/contribution to brand metrics and actual sales. 

Everyday Social Media Measurement - We can measure the performance and efficacy of social-centered programs today. We have a model. You have a model. It's harder work than most established measurement model but time for us to get limber and get busy. 

Anyhow, I will share the story/presentation later on.

Now, back to the conference which you can follow via teh sponsor Hashtag #DoneDealSocial

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)

Becoming Social Leaders at the European Committee of the Regions in Brussels

This past year, I had the good fortune to speak at the EuroPCom Conference on Public Communication held adjacent to the European Parliament in Brussels. This happened concurrent with a EU leaders session and immediately after the Nobel Prize announced that the EU would be presented with the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012. One thrill was not only meeting great leaders like Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission, but inspiring her to take photos of my presentation from my return monitor.

 

My POV - Government communicators can learn a tremendous amount from the brands, agile non-profits and scrappy start-ups all innovating in digital and social media.  Too often, government communicators feel their circumstance is ‘terminally unique,’ that nothing can be learned from the Nestle’s and Ford’s of the world.

Brands are spending billions to figure our how to engage people via social media. Investment firms invest billions in start-ups attempting to build businesses and disrupt the way we get things done via digital. It would be a shame if public communicators and leaders turned a blind eye to all the learnings from these efforts.

The result? Well, hopefully a good session overall. But more importantly, I walked away with a fresh understanding and appreciation for the innovations and efforts of the folks working for the European Commission, the European Council, and the European Parliament.

Learning is a two-way street.  Who will you learn from this year?  

The Public Leader’s Dilemma - How to Become a Social Organization from Social@Ogilvy

Social Media Lessons for the Public Sector at EuroPComm 2012

I will be speaking during the closing session at EuroPComm 2012 this week in Brussels. Hundreds of communication specialists from all levels of EU governments will be there for the third year. This time the agenda focuses on four areas:

• "restoring public confidence
• communicating Europe
• e-communication and social media
• dialogue with youth, senior citizens and ethnic groups"

 

Apples need to learn from oranges

Too often, government communications experts see their job as unique. The legislative, regulatory and political conditions under which they operate drive them to tune out lessons they might learn from the commercial sector. What can the Ministry of Health in France learn from how brands like Nestle or Unilever are using social media? What can it learn from the Diabetes Foundation? How about from SparkPeople?

Brands are spending billions of dollars understanding how to use social media to drive behaviors. Driven by expediency, the world’s nonprofit organizations are experimenting with the effectiveness of digital and social communications to push their missions forward. And startups around the world are gearing up to disrupt how we used to get things done.  In this case, it’s time for us to stop insisting that the public sector is so different that it cannot find valuable lessons in a number of directions. 

If I break down some of the conference goals and topics, I find us all convening around:

• Building trust between government and citizens
• Deepening engagement with citizens
• Driving people to action and advocacy
• Listening to better understand needs
• Understanding efficacy of communication efforts

While there are terrific examples from the government sector around the world, my job will be to draw connections to the work of:

• B2B and B2C brands committed to innovating via digital and social media
• Non-profits like Greenpeace and Amnesty International who are mastering social media for greater efficiency (see this infographic on the top nonprofits in social media from Craig Newmark)
• Start-ups who use technology to solve problems in new ways

 How can public communication specialists find valuable lessons in this world and maintain a steady flow of new ideas worth considering? I will be interested to hear how 700 of the European Union’s top communications experts manage innovation in social media.

1 in 100 Slides from Cannes 2012 Tells a Bigger Story

There’s a ton of slideology at Cannes. We all heard some of the highlights whether there or, as I was, sidelined back at home – JR’s presentation of his tremendous giant faces peeking out from some of the most tense places; and Paul Adams for Facebook.

Jesse Desjardins pulled together his annual 100 best slides from that onslaught. That meta-presentation is at the bottom of the post. 

The one slide that really stuck out to me (beyond the JR piece which must be in the favella’s in Rio) was this one simple blender slide from the Kraft presentation. I didn’t see the rest of the presentation. I almost don’t want to. This slide by itself is likely more aspirational than real but still speaks worlds about a key innovation happening around us.

We need new models of working together to produce the most effective, the most digitally-enabled, the most organically social, the absolute best new creative. It’s not just team structure, its not just a fresh organizational chart, its more. It’s a different business model. It’s social that is horizontal (vs. hierarchical) and networked. It’s incubated and special. It’s tied to a different measure of profitability on the agency side that stretches beyond the timesheet, the mark-up, and the procurement-optimized rate card.

Here Kraft crosses out workshops and think tanks to get to what fascinates all of marketing-dom now – silicon valley models of incubators and start-ups. Marketers are entranced by the apparent agility of small tech start-ups. They do move faster generally unencumbered by the bureaucracy of big, established businesses. But is it realistic that Kraft can establish a start-up set of behaviors?

If they really set up a start-up it is. That means removing the burdens of a traditional brand marketing team whose job revolves around incremental sales targets and where “innovation” is defined by a new package design or 50% less sugar.

We need new ways of working. I am not sure the blender model is the roadmap more than an artifact of one company trying something different. I had the chance to work at a major FMCG last week. We used their process to bring multi-disciplinary groups together to work on marketing and solution problems. It was one of those models that downplay channel choices till much later, focuses on ideas and generally tries to get smart people to set aside their narrower commercial interests to get to the best ideas. 

It worked pretty well. Still, it was designed “pre-social” and put no specific emphasis on driving advocacy. Would that process look different if the most important measure beyond sales was growth of positive customer advocacy?  

 

100 Beautiful Slides From Cannes Lions '12

View more presentations from Jesse Desjardins - @jessedee

Lessons from the Cannes Lions 2012 Winners

I missed my chance to be at Cannes this year. Family matters kept me away and that was the right decision. Advertising awards used to be a bit of a closed loop with the same people congratulating themselves. At least that’s how I remember them. Not so anymore. 

The judging rigor is there (see Thomas Crampton’s video with Barney Loehnis). The digital pros now find themselves as judges. The discipline categories keep expanding. The quality of the entrants are strong.

Check out the winners here. It will be eye-opening. As I reviewed the winners three ideas and three cases stuck out.

 

Should Curators of Sweden have won the Cyber Lions?

The Twitter handle-relay where different Swedes earn the responsibility of publishing out via @Sweden twitter handle is owned by the Visit Sweden and Swedish Institute. (see case video here)  It’s a neat concept for meeting the people of Sweden. Here’s how they put it: 

“Every week, someone in Sweden is @Sweden: sole ruler of the world’s most democratic Twitter account. For seven days, he or she recommends things to do and places to see, sharing diverse opinions, and ideas along the way. After that, someone else does the same—but differently. Follow all nine million of us. Welcome to Sweden.”

They have grown to 66K followers (from 5K) and have a 500%+ rate of “conversation” (replies and retweets). What’s not to like?

They’re tweeting an awful lot and most is the banter between the host and others which has little to do with Sweden. The concept is cool. Righteous even. But I am not certain that the value of the Twitter stream is delivering beyond the “get to know some Swedish citizens.” 

Then, of course, came @sweden/Sonja who kept people guessing with her inflammatory and maybe a bit naïve comments about Jews, gays and so forth. But the real issue isn’t whether this expression of democracy leads to a few extremist/borderline-offensive hosts but whether it raises interest in visiting Sweden. 

Back-seat judging is no fun. Should it have won? It did. I think it is a compelling concept that likely is raising awareness for Sweden and in its own quirky way driving people to now consider a trip. It’s a great case, and I love that a purely earned/owned effort shared the Cyber Lion. It’s a creative idea brought to life in a very different way than the Cannes Lions are used to. Big ideas that don’t end up as luscious images or videos can win at Cannes. That’s great. 

There is another model for using Twitter for tourism and country branding that I find compelling. Wizard of Istanbul aims to answer tweets from visitors with questions immediately and to build a cadre of Istanbul enthusiasts to offer their suggestions for the best place for lunch up the coast or the most authentic whirling dervish ceremony. It’s a bit more spot-on for  the traveler and since it is run by regular folks supported by other Istanbul enthusiasts, it retains a personal nature.

 

Is Honda’s Connecting Lifelines the Wave of Future Winners?

Getting creative with data and technology is the next great wave. The Connecting Lifelines ‘experience’ does just that by mining traffic data from all of the Honda’s on the road in Japan during the earthquake and visualizing the status of roads.  Were they passable? How bad was traffic? Were new roads getting opened up post-crisis?

Beyond the social good role of the effort, it demonstrates how to be smart and creative with the web of connectivity and sensors around us. Digital is no longer a media choice but an infrastructure that is leading to very interesting innovations that can also serve a communications or marketing purpose.

We had a program for Dove that used technology in a great creative way. The Dove Ad Makeover continued the signature self-esteem territory by figuring out how to manipulate the Facebook ad-serving marketplace and let consumers replace shaming diet ads targeted to women with positive messages.

How are we, as agencies, going to stimulate this type of creativity? Have we done enough to change the perception of just what is creative in our own ranks?

 

How do you repeat/rinse/scale the greatest B2B campaign?

American Express’ program Small Business Saturday is more than a simple awareness program driving people to buy from local and small business on November 26th. (see the case video here) It’s a program that has tapped into the unique qualities of social networks to spread a cause while enabling the beneficiaries (small businesses) and the proponents (consumers) to do what they really want to do.

The case is great. Just the quotes from small business owners raving about 20% and greater increases in sales are worth their weight in gold. Will it win next year? Where can the Shop Small program go from here?

Well, American Express has been developing its role as partner to small business for years. They won’t stop here but rather expand what small businesses can do for themselves via resources supplied by Amex (check out their Facebook tab that collects a bunch of social assets for small business people including grants for Twitter advertising.)

They have created an annual ‘tent pole’ with the public and government support earned and now just need to expand with a diligent eye towards what actually delivers more and more value to their small business customers/merchants.  

Programs that build enduring bonds with customers are the true gems of the work we all do. I hope we see more programs like this honored in prestigious award events once reserved for he who hath the biggest….TV commercial.

 

(thanks to Creative Social Blog for pic)

The Importance of Professional Conversations at WOMMA

In this past Sunday Review in the NYTimes, Shelly Turkle from M.I.T. offers a compelling case that our adopted digital behaviors may be satisfying our compulsion for 'always-on' connectivity while at the same time robbing us from the benefits of true conversation. 

This rings true to me. The effort needed to engage in a typical conversation is greater than that needed to constantly be referring back to email and IM. And the payout, the value to us as human beings of that conversation, is also greater, or, at the very least, is a critical value in and of itself. 

The value of professional conversations

Every time I attend a WOMMA event, I learn. More and more it happens in the side conversations in addition to the actual sessions I attend. The upcoming WOMMU event in Chicago from May 7-9 is a terrific chance to go beyond connections and actually have conversations with a diverse group of professionals. Each comes with their own lens and experience applying social media and word of mouth marketing to their businesses. 

I am sending a large group of our staff because I believe in the value of those conversations. Here's what I am looking forward to:

• Conversations with the other WOMMA past presidents which include Ed Keller, Paul Rand, Rod Brooks and others
• Talking to Ed Keller about his new book - due very soon
• Hearing Paul Adams from Facebook share his POV from his book, Grouped: How Small Groups of Friends Are the Key to Influence on the Social Web
• Hearing Susan Emerick, Social Business Enablement, IBM share about enabling employees
• Attending Geno Church's special session on surviving a zombie attack

And, of course, the deepest value will be in the conversations that happen throughout the three days. 

Find out more and join us at the event. 

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.

What to Expect from Le Web 2011

My team at Ogilvy is holding a training summit in Paris concurrent with LeWeb 2011. And while the event has long been on my radar, this will be my first time attending. With about 3000 attendees and a flood of 20 minute sessions over 3 days, I am expecting a barrage of information. Oh, and I don't thrive in crowds. 

The agenda has a great mix of digital delebrities - Brian Chesky, CEO of AirBnB; Jeff Clavier, founder of SofTech VC; Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram and Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify. There are startups there competing for attention, recognition and dollars. The big  guns are there  Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter. And some great brands from Nestle, Orange, Dell and Dominoes. 

In-Betweens that Matter

With such a packed agenda, I suspect it will be the hallway conversations in-between that matter just as much. The 20-minute limit on sessions is a great intention so long as the presenters are led to edit to TED-like quality (succinct and with a POV). My expectations are modest there. 

I am looking forward to meeting people planned and unplanned. I pray that people will help me curate relevant connections as I am know we must all have a keen eye for self-preservation over such a busy conference.  

On Friday, there is a specific section focused on the Social Enterprise. I hope to see you there.