Manhattan Marketing Maven

Tumblr's Timid Ad Play

Now that they’ve drawn a crowd and sold themselves to Yahoo, Tumblr is trying to figure out how to make a buck. They’ve marshaled traffic, usage and psycho-demographic stats and are trying to simultaneously associate themselves with Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, to gain consideration and access to social ad budgets, while differentiating themselves from the competition to attract specific brands and buys. 

To do this, Tumblr raises a couple of new ideas about the use and value of social networks for brands. 

Play the Platform. Tumblr argues that they are a two-fer – an independent web platform featuring an easy to use CMS, which can fit seamlessly into a brands’ overall digital ecosystem, and a large and growing global social network. Creating a branded Tumblr, marketers can expand reach, add link juice and add to a robust content strategy by creating a digital brand asset. 

A blank canvas, a Tumblr blog can be anything, though the more successful ones are highly visual, featuring striking images, videos and gifs. There are no comment options, beyond reblogging, so sentiment tends to be more positive than on other social platforms. 

A branded Tumblr page is part of the Tumblr network and its emerging topical community subsets. This potentially yields some endorsement by association and the prospect of added viral distribution not to mention a future ad targeting option. 

Free Virility. In contrast to Facebook, who has choked off access to followers, Tumblr argues that reblogging is an engine of goodness for brands. Each individual blogger creates a Tumblr post, which is often curated and reblogged by others who reach large audiences where reblogging takes place again. They have created a waterfall chart to help marketers wrap their heads around this fundamental social media concept. The only missing part is hard data to prove it. 

One uniquely interesting aspect of Tumblr reblogging is a latency period. More than half of reblogs take place more than 15 days after an original post. This suggests either that usage is less frequent or intense or that users take their time and give more consideration to the memes they share. 

But in spite of these interesting sales pitches, buying Tumblr is a challenge.  Blog content is highly visual and idiosyncratic. Users only see content from those they follow. To develop significant followings to get substantial reach and or frequency against desirable segments, brands will have to accumulate followers. Brands need to know why people use Tumblr and how either the people and their intentions, moods and behaviors differ from the other social networks. 

You can follow anyone without his or her blessing so the WOM value and personal endorsement aspect is likely to be weaker than on Facebook. Each user follows a different set of bloggers and nobody has crunched the numbers to determine what the patterns and affinities might be so aggregating audiences at scale is not really possible. 

Content categories aren’t marketing channels. So far, targeting options are limited to gender and geography; hardly sophisticated tools. For Tumblr attracts 12.8 million moms (referred to as Mumblrs) but there is no clear or easy path to reach them!   

Tumblr has a sizeable audience but they haven’t yet packaged it to sell to advertisers. Maybe this reflects tension between the original intention of founder David Carp and the aggressive plans of acquirer Marissa Mayer. But unless they get much more serious about slicing and dicing the audience and giving marketers a reason to buy, they will not be competitive.  

Tumblr's Timid Ad Play

Now that they’ve drawn a crowd and sold themselves to Yahoo, Tumblr is trying to figure out how to make a buck. They’ve marshaled traffic, usage and psycho-demographic stats and are trying to simultaneously associate themselves with Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, to gain consideration and access to social ad budgets, while differentiating themselves from the competition to attract specific brands and buys. 

To do this, Tumblr raises a couple of new ideas about the use and value of social networks for brands. 

Play the Platform. Tumblr argues that they are a two-fer – an independent web platform featuring an easy to use CMS, which can fit seamlessly into a brands’ overall digital ecosystem, and a large and growing global social network. Creating a branded Tumblr, marketers can expand reach, add link juice and add to a robust content strategy by creating a digital brand asset. 

A blank canvas, a Tumblr blog can be anything, though the more successful ones are highly visual, featuring striking images, videos and gifs. There are no comment options, beyond reblogging, so sentiment tends to be more positive than on other social platforms. 

A branded Tumblr page is part of the Tumblr network and its emerging topical community subsets. This potentially yields some endorsement by association and the prospect of added viral distribution not to mention a future ad targeting option. 

Free Virility. In contrast to Facebook, who has choked off access to followers, Tumblr argues that reblogging is an engine of goodness for brands. Each individual blogger creates a Tumblr post, which is often curated and reblogged by others who reach large audiences where reblogging takes place again. They have created a waterfall chart to help marketers wrap their heads around this fundamental social media concept. The only missing part is hard data to prove it. 

One uniquely interesting aspect of Tumblr reblogging is a latency period. More than half of reblogs take place more than 15 days after an original post. This suggests either that usage is less frequent or intense or that users take their time and give more consideration to the memes they share. 

But in spite of these interesting sales pitches, buying Tumblr is a challenge.  Blog content is highly visual and idiosyncratic. Users only see content from those they follow. To develop significant followings to get substantial reach and or frequency against desirable segments, brands will have to accumulate followers. Brands need to know why people use Tumblr and how either the people and their intentions, moods and behaviors differ from the other social networks. 

You can follow anyone without his or her blessing so the WOM value and personal endorsement aspect is likely to be weaker than on Facebook. Each user follows a different set of bloggers and nobody has crunched the numbers to determine what the patterns and affinities might be so aggregating audiences at scale is not really possible. 

Content categories aren’t marketing channels. So far, targeting options are limited to gender and geography; hardly sophisticated tools. For Tumblr attracts 12.8 million moms (referred to as Mumblrs) but there is no clear or easy path to reach them!   

Tumblr has a sizeable audience but they haven’t yet packaged it to sell to advertisers. Maybe this reflects tension between the original intention of founder David Carp and the aggressive plans of acquirer Marissa Mayer. But unless they get much more serious about slicing and dicing the audience and giving marketers a reason to buy, they will not be competitive.  

Frankly Facing Facebook

Face it! Facebook has led marketers down the primrose path.

They taught us about and addicted us to free earned media. They encouraged us to spend money to attract and engage millions of followers. They ran us through the “like” gates. And now they have tightly restricted access to the audiences we created and extorted us by creating a pay-for-play platform. 

By steadily manipulating the Edgerank algorithm, Facebook has systematically reduced access to the fan bases we built. The latest estimates are that less than 2% of a brand’s fans actually see brand posts. And many marketers assume that brand reach will soon be zero. Today we have to pay to reach the audiences we attracted to the Facebook platform. Ironically, Facebook has evolved into an old media model where editorial (posts) is clearly different and separated from reach (advertising).

Savvy marketers are now asking tougher questions about metrics and ROI. If we have to pay for what we used to get for free, what is the business impact of Facebook advertising and how does it move product or build brand loyalty? Engagement, which has been the ill-defined, but widely accepted payoff for several years, is falling out of favor as a useful metric. But there are few hard numbers to justify sustaining investments. The answers are elusive and Facebook’s doubtful and self-serving “research” does little to convince skeptical CFOs.

Surprisingly, brand marketers’ response has been muted. Few are willing to buck the 800-pound gorilla in our midst. Many are reluctant to tell their bosses that this once high-flying platform, filled with the promise of free viral reach and added engagement value, has radically changed. New and bigger budgets are required to make it useful.

One school of thought is betting on creativity. They argue that if a brand can come up with really cool content -- the stuff that everyone wants to see or know about --that even with 2% reach, fans will spread the word among themselves. These marketers are doubling down on video, gifs and games. They are working overtime to devise memes with wings. 

A second school is playing ball with Facebook. These brands are investing ad dollars for both desktop and mobile units. They are using the 200+ targeting channels, comparing brand databases with Facebook’s, running contests and promotions and experimenting with different units and page placements, in an attempt to regain access to fans and expand their reach or frequency among Facebook’s billion users. There are many cases of successful lead generation and awareness campaigns, though the ROI varies widely. 

A third segment is abandoning Facebook in favor of other emerging social networks. Competing against Facebook’s muscular marketplace positioning, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and others have increased sales efforts, created new packages, expressed a willingness to customize units and experiment cooperatively with brands to redirect dollars that might otherwise have gone to Zuckerberg & Company.    

Now that the stakes have changed and the ante is higher, brands are asking tougher measurement questions, demanding a greater connection between social media activity and business results and further degrading “engagement” as an indicator of communication value.

Women Dominate Smartphone Use

The Chinese say women hold up half the sky. According to new research on smartphone use from Nielsen, ExactTarget, Pew and Simmons Connect, compiled into infographics by financesonline.com, women have a dominant hold on smartphone usage.

Everyone knows that men and women think act and feel differently, but women have embraced smartphones as an all-encompassing Swiss Army Knife for life. Men use their phones selectively, like a tool, to accomplish specific tasks. 

Women are more likely than men to use their smartphones for messaging, talk, web surfing, social networking, games, app downloads and picture taking or sharing. Men and women use email about the same. Men dominate in watching videos, listening to music, reading newspapers and using the GPS app or device. Looking at mobile social media use, men focus on business and dating while women go for relationship building, sharing, entertainment and self-help. 

Not surprising gender differences affect consumer behavior. Men are 1.5 times more likely to scan coupons or QR codes. Men are less likely to ignore social media ads and prefer commercial messages with cars, sports, action and sexual themes. In contrast women ignore more social and mobile ads, even though they follow 4 times more brands than men. Women prefer ads with sentimental, family, real-life and pet themes. 

The clear implications for marketers are … 

Gender Matters. Consider whom you are addressing, both what they doing as they move through their day and how they generally think about mobility and social media. The old clichés and assumptions are no longer valid. Abandon them. Design offers and calls-to-action accordingly.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All. If they think, act and use language differently, it only makes sense to create different content aimed at men and women. 

Target Behavior. Now that you know what they use phones for and the themes that resonate with men and women, time and target messages to intersect natural mobile or social behavior. Efficiently give me the information they’re after and make female-oriented content entertaining and shareable.

Honor Half the Sky. Women have been early adopters and are aggressive users of mobile and social technologies. Don’t under-estimate them. Don’t forget their role as household CFO and principal buyer of almost every category of goods and services.

Women frequently influence men. And interactions between the genders are often relevant in building brand awareness, consideration and preference.

Instagram Insurgent

Instagram, the photo and video-sharing app owned by Facebook, is the fastest growing social network with 35 million monthly smartphone users spending 257 minutes per month. Forty percent of their traffic is in the United States where 58 percent use the app every day. Seven in ten are women (18-44) with household incomes of $75,000 or more who are actively looking to be surprised, diverted and delighted. Instagram, according to research by L2 Think Tank, registers 15 times the engagement and double the engaged user base of its parent, Facebook. 

“Instagram resembles a modern day bazaar – one that I visit on my phone when I have a free moment.” Jenna Wortham wrote in The New York Times. “A huge part of the appeal is that the goods I’m perusing are sandwiched in my Instagram feed between my friends; selfies and pictures of snow covered spots where they’ve stopped during the day. Stumbling across an unexpected and gorgeous find … on a special app like Instagram brings with it the excitement of discovery not unlike the titillating thrill you get when coming across a rare find at a flea market.” 

Casual shoppers and a broad variety of brands have embraced this 100% mobile marketplace. A survey by Teen Vogue found that Instagram is the number one platform that inspires product purchases. Instagram, according to a recent Shopify study, generates the second highest order values among social networks and ranks fourth in sales conversion in spite of the fact that the platform has just created its first ad units and direct links to branded websites or eCommerce platforms are prohibited. 

So what do Calvin Klein, Ben & Jerry’s L’Oreal, Honda, Uhaul, Macy’s, Gap, Chanel, Michael Kors, Nordstrom, Target, Gucci, Victoria’s Secret, Harrods and Laboutin plus 93 percent of prestige brands know that you don’t? 

These 4 key tactics … 

Intercept Behavior. Women have led the smartphone revolution. They clutch their phones as virtual controllers for busy lives. Instagram meets them in the course of their normal daily behavior and offers diversion, surprise and entertainment in context. The app has become a guilty pleasure intertwined with friends, family and workflow.  Since 30 percent of women access social networks by smartphone each day, Instagram is perceived as an authentic collection of ideas and images in real time curated by trusted sources. There might not be a better synthesis of targeting, content and channels. 

Sell by Showing. Photos and fifteen second videos are the coin of the realm. Instagram might be the absolute proof that a picture is worth a thousand words. Also given its global reach, pictures often communicate fundamentals without a need for translation. 

Both individuals and brands post. The average prestige brand posts 6 images a week and 72 percent post 15-second videos, usually one every two weeks. The photos get 1.5X the engagement. Producing high quality short video is a gating factor which should disappear over time. 

Facilitate Sharing. Comments, re-posts and sharing to other social networks, especially Facebook (9 out of 10 shares) and Twitter are common. Instagram, like Twitter, is becoming a real-time companion to off-line events. During New York Fashion Week 100,000 fashion-related images were posted to Instagram by 33,000 unique users while the top fashion brands averaged about 7 posts per day. 

#InstagramDirect connects individuals to each other to share posts. Consumers can opt-in to follow brands or celebrities and set push alerts about new content from favorite brands and friends. There seems to be a broad understanding that friends share interests, tastes, perspectives and Instagram imagery. 

Use Your Ecosystem. The smart guys import Instagram images and user-generated content into branded websites and Facebook pages. Instagram integration adds an element of real-time spontaneity that feels natural and comfortable to shoppers.  

Some brands have used widgets to drive conversions from user-generated photos. Brands like American Eagle Outfitters, Lancôme, Coach and West Elm solicit images of their products and then post them as a supplement to staged catalog shots. In one study images used this way increased conversion from 5-7 percent and boosted average order value by 2 percent. 

If you’ve got something to tell or sell women, don’t ignore Instagram.

Avoiding the Content Creation Trap

Content is the new black. Content is the new media. Content is everything. Content is king. Content is over-hyped. 

Many of my clients feel compelled to create or curate content as an adjunct to the goods or services they produce. The theory is that content is stickier. Content drives repetitive site visits and purchases. Content provides context. And content differentiates brands one from another. 

Distributed content gets more traffic than branded websites. By spreading content around the web or on social media, brands lure consumers with linked pathways back to your site. Jay Baer calls this the dandelion strategy. Seeds are spread far and wide and the website is the stalk bringing everything together. Pharmaceutical companies have embraced this strategy big time. Each one has a mountain of disease, condition awareness and product-related content in virtually every imaginable format. But nobody is sure if it pays off or pays out. 

The reality is that too much content is the same. Much of it is not new. And very little is own-able by brands. A look at SiteCatalyst or Google Analytics shows that compared to home pages, product descriptions and deal sections, very few consumers actually use the content that’s being created, syndicated or compiled on brand sites. 

And can you blame them? Does anyone really need another wellness tip, recipe, checklist, how-to video, home exercise regimen, infographic, or product diagram? How many links to the same memes, pictures, videos and articles does anyone really want? And does anyone really want this stuff from his or her peanut butter, prescription drug, toilet tissue, fast food joint or bank? 

The relentless creation and collection of gratuitous advice leaves most of us cold. Joe Queenan, writing in The Wall Street Journal, captured this sentiment when he wrote, “A major part of the Internet’s appeal is the immediate availability of useful advice on virtually any topic. If people have the right information in their hands, the Web’s evangelists proclaimed, they will make the right decisions. Things haven’t worked out the way they hoped. People still smoke. People still text while driving. People still vote Republican.” 

Creating or collecting content is comforting for brand managers even if their customers are ambivalent or disinterested. Content keeps the grubby business of selling at arm’s length and positions a brand, at least in the minds of marketers, as concerned, caring and credible. 

But gaining consumer credit requires realistic calculation to understand where a brand can participate in the conversation and what value a brand can realistically provide and own. Generally two criteria apply. 

Standing. Brands are sorted into discrete folders in our brains. How you are sorted determines how, when, and where you can enter into the conversation. An athletic wear brand can speak credibly about exercise and wellness or sports. A food brand can talk about nutrition. A fashion brand can assess red carpet creations. But brands need to stick closely to how consumers perceive them. 

Brands have less standing than friends, co-workers or family members. The level of credibility, awareness, interest and trust in a brand, determines the aperture you have for reaching target customers. Familiar brands have more standing than invisibles or newbies. 

Standing also defines the angle of attack. A complete stranger approaching customers with random content prompts immediate confusion or rejection. Getting good juicy gossip from a trusted friend is the opposite end of the spectrum. Plotting your standing will separate intrusive from credible and invited content. 

Posture. The approach to customers is a function of the state of the relationship. In some cases a message delivered by a credible third party has more impact than a direct approach. Posture affects the psychology of your positioning and shapes the tone, manner, language, imagery and attitude of the content you curate or create. 

Content can facilitate interactions and relationships. Context can attract new prospects or activate loyal customers. Content plays a role at the top of the funnel. But it’s not an automatic connection or a silver bullet. 

In many cases, creating or aggregating content doubles a brand’s traffic-driving burden and budget. Branded content must provide immediate value in utility, information or entertainment. The ultimate measurement is usage leading to a measurable preference or a countable action. 

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Engagement Planning Evolves

The confluence of digital, mobile and social media with big data offers the possibility of addressing, targeting and engaging audiences and segments differently than ever before. Rather than try to psyche out prospects and target them by media use, careful analysis of consumer cohorts can suggest more organic, natural and genuine ways to reach and persuade prospects. 

The difference is that rather than guess what a target audience is thinking and doing, we can now track them and either document or reasonably infer attitudes, mechanics and behavior. This requires thinking about what people do, think or relate to and what devices they use throughout a day or a week or a month. By building sophisticated profiles and personas of discrete audiences, we can create more resonant messages and deliver them at times and on devices or social platforms that are integral to customers’ normal behavior. Advertising no longer has to be a disruptive intrusion. Ads can become a useful value-add that inspires purchase and brand loyalty. 

Consider the proverbial Soccer Mom. On a generic level, she’s 25-44, CFO of the household with a static and often stretched income. Chief decision-maker and principal shopper for a broad array of products and services, her smartphone is her life controller and her tablet is the source of “me time” entertainment, education and diversion. She probably works and is also the scheduler, driver and concierge for her kids. Her partner, her employer, her kids, her friends, neighbors, girlfriends and family plus every marketer wants her time, attention and budget.    

But there are many flavors of Soccer Mom. Geography, ethnicity, health and education are variables that affect her outlook, coping or management style and preferences. To persuade her, layer in her taste in music, movies, books, games, food, décor, fashion and hobbies. First time moms have more energy, anxiety and information-seeking needs than moms of multiple kids. Lean-in moms think and act differently than traditional moms or moms who are also care givers for elderly parents. Triathlete or yoga moms have different agendas and priorities, as do moms of kids with ADHD. 

Aggregating a wide range of data about moms, enables marketers to slice and dice the generic audience into discrete segments which can be addressed on their own terms in ways that authentically fit into their lifestyles and expectations. This engagement planning methodology blends traditional attitudinal market research with behavioral data to produce a richer, more insightful and practical picture of customers and prospects. 

Understanding how real people think and act in real time drives a different way to attack creative development and media planning. A data-rich multi-dimensional, channel neutral perspective is the next big thing for savvy marketers and advertisers.    

4 Marketing Predictions for 2014

It’s the end of the year and every pundit, yours truly included, has an open opportunity to predict the future. So here’s my best guess at four critical factors that will be driving innovations, insights and interactions for brands, advertisers and marketers in 2014. 

Mobile Matters Most.  A majority of searches, email opens and Internet access either is, or will soon, be via mobile devices. On-the-go is the new normal. Brands need to create assets that are easily rendered, clear and easy to use on smartphones, phablets and tablets. Consumers have zero tolerance for broken images or links or microscopic unreadable copy. UX design of brand assets for mobile devices is mandatory. So is design that synchs with all the mobile operating systems. 

Different devices are used for different tasks. Tablets are dominant for shopping and entertainment, often used at home on the couch while channel surfing or multi-tasking. It will become increasingly important to develop variations of campaigns aimed at different devices and different mindsets, since each segment uses devices with different intentions, at different times and with different agility. Hand-eye coordination is a big differentiator. Teenagers and old ladies won’t share the same expectations or the same content. 

Follow-Me Media. We now have the technology to track behavior across channels. We know when you open and click on an email and this data triggers the banners you see as you surf the web or scroll through your Facebook timeline. This works in reverse and in several other novel variations, which will get increasingly granular, personal and sophisticated. 

Some consumers find this intrusive and creepy. But as a marketing tool this version of pixel tracking allows us to efficiently follow up on the slightest expression of interest. It also allows products you looked at or clicked on to follow you around until you take a desired action. For the most part the high conversion rates that result from this re-targeting outweigh the small numbers of opt-outs. 

Social Goes DM. Social networks are artificially limiting viral reach in favor of pay-for-play. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and everybody else are splitting platform functionality between editorial posts and paid advertising. Increasingly, the networks are manipulating the algorithms to favor paid advertising and monetize their huge audiences. They are becoming hardcore direct marketers.

Social networks are developing and evolving ad units and targeting channels designed expressly to collect opt-ins, generate leads and eventually sell products and services directly. They are positioning themselves against online publishers and are becoming savvy database marketers and eager collaborators with high spending brands. They have a direct financial interest, large segment-able audiences and considerable technical resources to easily trump sites selling both classic banners and rich media units.

Expect lots of content, cadence and contextual experimentation and significant shifts in spending from online display ads to social network ads. This will dramatically alter editorial social strategies for building audiences, generating likes and using content to engage followers and fans. Brands will have to finesse network greed to reach and interact with audiences they’ve already paid to aggregate. Native reach or virility for posts and tweets will fall significantly. 

Engagement Gets Real.  Bombarded by commercial messages, busy multi-tasking, anxious about money and either empowered or distracted by technology, consumers are skeptical, demanding and not easily manipulated. Changing behavior is almost impossible. So brands and marketers are working harder to develop segments, understand natural behaviors and find credible ways to intersect and intercept customers and prospects doing what they normally do.

This requires a keen understanding of how brands are perceived and what standing brands have to enter the conversation. What we’ve learned about gaming, channel selection, devices and preferences is being fit into patterns of creature behavior and attitudes. Moms, caregivers, gamers or college students have distinct routines, behavior patterns and common perspectives, which can be identified and mapped to communications goals and activities. 

This emerging science of engagement strategy is being married to traditional insights about brand awareness, positioning and preference. The creative executions or campaigns that result will be measured and monitored with an eye toward validating the assumptions or models and/or optimizing consumer interaction and response. Grasping the motivations, the mental and the mechanical aspects of consumer behavior will separate the successful brands from the also-rans. 

Unpacking Engagement

Engagement has become a term that means everything and nothing. Too often it’s used offensively, defensively or indiscriminately to thrust or parry arguments about strategy, technology, media or creative. 

Engagement is the desired human interaction that results from marketing activity. It’s a feeling, a thought or possibly an action that a person takes in anticipation of or in response to messaging or functionality. 

Engagement planning starts with the desired response in mind and then maps customer attitudes and behaviors to find relevant and appropriate inflection points to begin the conversation. Engagement planning doesn’t start with tactics or channels. It starts with an understanding of what real people are likely to feel, think or do in response to an artificial stimulus. In order to enter the conversation and frame up an initial message, marketers need to consider these five factors. 

Creature Cycles. We are creatures of habit. We do things in predictable ways. Standard behavior patterns include where we go, how we get there, what we expect, what we do and in what sequence we approach tasks. Most of us prioritize tasks and people in repeatable ways. 

Understanding internal drivers and external influences affecting target audiences allow us to find openings for marketing. The goal is to find ways to intersect the lives and life patterns of customers and prospects that synch up with what they do, want, need or expect. The first step in planning engagement is to figure out how to be relevant and useful. 

Standing. Openness to people and ideas is a function of familiarity and standing. If I know and respect you I’m much more open to you than if you are a complete stranger. Brands are sorted into discrete folders in our brains. You have to know how you are sorted and what standing you have to enter into the conversation. An athletic wear brand can probably speak credibly about exercise and wellness, less so about politics or cultural issues. 

Brands have less standing than friends, co-workers or family members. The level of credibility, awareness, interest and trust in a brand, basically how brands are sorted, determines the aperture you have for reaching target customers. 

Engagement planning has to begin with an assessment of your standing which might lead to the decision to borrow standing from those with better connections or connotations. (This is the origin of influencer and member-get-member marketing.) High awareness brands have more standing than invisibles or newbies. 

Standing defines the angle of attack. A complete stranger approaching customers using personal information or outsized claims prompts immediate revulsion and rejection. Getting good juicy gossip from a trusted friend is the opposite end of the spectrum. Plotting your standing will separate intrusive from invited messages. 

Posture. There are many ways to approach customers. Usually the approach is a function of the state of the relationship. In some cases a message delivered by a credible third party has more impact than a direct approach. In the case of brand loyalists, whispering insider or advanced information in their ears builds demand, satisfaction and loyalty faster. And for those actively shopping, eye-to-eye, direct offers can drive faster conversion. Posture affects the psychology of your positioning and shapes the tone, manner, language and attitude of creative. 

Timing.  Timing is everything. Texting a busy Mom at 7 am while she’s trying to get her kids up, dressed, fed and out the door is a non-starter. Brands need to understand the mindset and the mechanics of customers’ lives. As mobile becomes the ubiquitous on-the-go channel of choice, timing, utility and relevance become critical success factors. Marketers must get much more intimate with the routes and routines of target audiences. 

UXD. Any desired action must be fast, easy to do, intuitive and simple to understand. Account for distractions, fat fingers and multi-tasking. Messages must drive to simple desired actions. Labels on buttons and CTAs must be clear and telegraphic. Buttons have to be big and colored. Copy has to be scan-able and snack-able. Increase the font size. Don’t skimp on white space. Pressure test every sequence. Invest heavily in connecting all the data pipes on the back end. If you get everything else right but blow the user experience design, you lose the ballgame. 

Engagement is about genuine human connection. Channels, media, content and technology are facilitators. The ultimate measurement is a thought, a feeling or an action. 

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I Miss Jerry

I miss Jerry Lewis. Labor Day isn’t the same without him not only because he’s an incredible comic but also because he was the original social media marketer.  His 44 year run left us with four enduring lessons.

Create Own-able, Original Content. The schmaltz, the cheesiness, the kids in wheel chairs, the has-been performers singing long-forgotten big-band songs, the B rolls of guys in white coats holding test tubes, the drum rolls and the tote boards that conjure up the ghost of Ed McMahon, the lame local anchors and the tear-wrenching appeals all signal led Labor Day and MDA. Jerry consistently used original content to claim significant year-round mind space and to drive a singular and differentiated brand message.  There are thousands of charities and thousands of celebrity do-gooders, but there was only one Jerry and his kids.

Make it Personal. We all genuinely knew Jerry. He’d been a part of our lives since the 1950s. There was a great national catharsis each year as the telethon kicks off that focuses on Jerry. It was partly a morbid health-watch to see which diseases and which side effects of treatments Jerry himself will display each year.

But even before he created a Facebook page or a Twitter account Jerry was engaging us by leveraging his comedy antics and by singing those signature songs – “Smile”, “What the World Needs Now” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Jerry understood, maybe better than anyone that people buy people. He used emotion, humor, shtick, flattery and frank talk to connect with different audience segments.

Persistent Positioning. Jerry and MDA staked out the same position and for 44 years they delivered on it and raised more than $1.4 billion to fight muscular diseases. MDA owned Labor Day. There was nothing better and nothing more reliable and more comforting than watching Jerry, on The Love Network.  The predictable and familiar parade of firefighters, convenience store owners, letter carriers, realtors, oil companies, Harley Davidson executives and other random sponsors presenting those over-sized checks at random moments during the Labor Day weekend were signature moments.  Jerry knew that you position yourself, plant your flag and stick to it. Fads come and go but audiences crave the familiar.

Network Your Networks. Jerry and MDA put together an incredibly potent series of partnerships and alliances that consistently deliver results. The lesson is -- connect the dots. Use your networks to extend your reach, frequency and engagement with your customer base. Don’t be bashful about mashing things together or cross-pollinating ideas among your allies.

Happy Labor Day.