Category Archives: Brand Management

Too Engaged to Pay Attention?

Brand Management, DataBase Marketing, Web Analytics

So we take the report on Natural Born Clickers and the results of our Lab Store AdSense Optimization and what do we have?

I’m thinking about a basic model for understanding the potential effectiveness of online advertising based on Engagement.  Basically:

The more Engaged a person is with the task at hand, the less Attention they have for out-of-context advertising.

The gross amount of Attention available on the web is finite.  That means if you pay Attention to one thing, you have to ignore something else.  This creates Attention winners and Attention losers.  In general, for any space available for advertising, in-context wins and out-of-context loses.  That’s Relevance, right?   Therefore, out-of-context ads should be much less effective than in-context ads.

So, for example, if the task is Research, and a person is using a Search Engine, the PPC ads focused on the Research topic are highly relevant and Attention gets paid to them.  Also, in the same Research mode, if a person is searching or participating in a Chat Board focused on the topic, display ads focused on the Research topic are viewed as highly relevant and Attention gets paid to them.

However, if the task is (for example) interacting with a social media account, then very little Attention is available for advertising – PPC or otherwise – because all other advertising would be out of context with the task, except ads directly related to the task, such as for widgets or tools.  This effect would generally explain the concept of Banner Blindess, since most display advertising is completely out-of-context.  People just learn to ignore it.

Not breakthrough thinking in Consumer Behavior or Psychology but for Online Advertising it might be, considering the number of business models nowadays that plan for “advertising” to be the revenue stream.  In fact, it’s quite possible that the more Engaging they make these social apps, the less effective the Advertising will be.

It’s about the limited amount of Attention any one person can have.

When ads are in context, you get an effect much more like that of Fashion or Hot-Rod Magazines, where the ads are part of the content, they are part of the Engagement and so get Attention.  Out of context, much less Attention, if any.  Not part of the content, screened out.

For the same ad, PPC or Display.  In other words, it’s not the delivery method that matters, it’s the context and available Attention.  PPC ads by their very nature just happen to have the context problem solved.

For example, a TV ad running in the middle of a favorite TV show is much more effective on an individual than the same TV ad that plays in the background while someone is Engaged with a project on the computer.  Same ad, different context.

Now, here’s the thing.  This idea makes a lot of sense.  Can we expect anyone with scale to test it, prove it empirically?  I dunno, because an awful lot of business models will get completely hammered if it is true.

The test would be pretty simple:

1.  Define Engagement – really not too hard for this, it’s how many “actions” take place per unit of time.  Seems to me this would capture the whole Attention thing; if you are busy taking actions, that’s where your Attention is. 

2.  Run both in-context and out-of-context ads during the measurement period.  Display or PPC.

3. a.  Measure clicks and conversion, if that is your game
    b.  Measure Awareness and Intent, if that is your game

4.  Compare results

Does anybody think that out-of-context advertising would win, or at least match in effectiveness?

If there is a difference, what does it mean for biz models relying on out-of-context impressions?  What can they do to correct this problem?

The next post in this series is here.

Interview-Podcast w/ Jim Novo

Analytical Culture, Analytics Education, Brand Management, DataBase Marketing, Lab Store, Marketing / Tech Interface, Marketing Research, Marketing thru Operations, Measuring Engagement, Web Analytics

Friend and fellow blogger Alan Rimm-Kaufman spent some of his valuable time asking my opinion on various online marketing issues in a far-ranging interview and podcast.

We met in person for the first time doing a presentation together at the DMA show in Chicago this fall, and because he used to work at Crutchfield – a truly customer-driven remote retailer – we share some experiences and beliefs.

For those of you who might be wondering where a lot of the Marketing Productivity ideas I post here come from, this interview-podcast is probably a pretty good backgrounder.  We talk about a lot of stuff, including:

Monetizing customer experience

Importance of Control Groups / Source Attribution

Multichannel Marketing Strategy

LifeCycle Contact Strategy versus Calendar-based

Retail Business Models / Lab Store

Search box or not? / Serendipity

How to tell if online customers are really engaged – without web analytics

Here’s another link to the Interview-Podcast.  Enjoy! 

That was lots of fun, thanks Allen!

Geo-Demos that Work

Brand Management, DataBase Marketing

Great Local Marketing Campaign 

After my post on PRIZM Clusters, I got a decent amount of hate mail from people who did not completely read or misunderstood the post.  I don’t think geo-demographics are useless; I think they work quite well for the applications they were designed for and make sense – when there is something specifically geo-centric about the task at hand.  My problem is not with geo-centric models, it’s with Marketers using these models for purposes that don’t make sense.

Here’s a case where using geo-demos makes a ton of sense, and includes a fantastic customer-centric marketing execution for good measure, where the marketing plan is strategically and operationally integrated into the business model.

The company is Duncan Roofs.  Now, if you have ever thought about the way neighborhoods are formed, you understand that many of the homes in a particular area were originally built at the same time.  You also know that the households in a neighborhood generally share the same socio-economic status – disposable income and so forth. 

The first variable – age of house – has a direct correlation to needing a roof.  Since roof shingles generally have a life of 20 years, you get cycles of roof replacement in a neighborhood every 20 years, give or take.  In other words, it’s likely that if a roof needs replacing in the neighborhood, other roofs nearby need replacing.

The second variable – income in neighborhood – goes to acting on the need to replace the roof.  If the homes in the neighborhood are owner-occupied and there is disposable income, a roof in bad shape gets replaced.  There is too much downside with a bad roof to ignore, if you have the money to replace it and you own the house.

So what we have is location predicts not only the need to replace a roof, but also the likelihood to act on that need.  Rock simple, classic geo-demo stuff.  “Place” is a true driver in this model, not just some kind of tag-along data that’s nice to know but not strongly predictive.

Enter Duncan Roofs.  The day before they do a job, they have folks go through the neighborhood hanging an envelope on the door of each house with this package inside – a letter and a fridge magnet impregnated with cinnamon.  Smells real good!  But the copy in the letter is the killer part of the campaign (click to enlarge if you want):

geo-demos

Let’s tear apart why this copy and campaign work so well.

“Tomorrow morning we will be replacing the roof at (address in neighborhood).  Our crew will begin work at 7 AM.  They will be as quiet as possible, however by nature, our work is somewhat noisy.  Please accept this cinnamon Teddy Bear refrigerator magnet as our apology for any inconvenience we might cause you. 

Notice this letter does not open with a sales pitch, or “About Us” or any of that crap.  The open is about me; it provides timely and directly relevant information for me.

After I get past the “surprise and delight” of the cinnamon magnet, I get a piece of information that is directly useful to me.  Instead of “What the hell is that racket” in the morning my reaction will be “Oh, that’s the roofers that gave me the magnet.”   This information is highly targeted and directly relevant to me – and I might even chuckle about it when the noise starts.  It sets up a very positive image of the company in my mind; they are service-oriented and respectful.

We hope you will use Teddy to hold notes on your refrigerator and think of us when you or someone you know needs a new roof.

The first part of this sentence is probably there just in case you were clueless about what the magnet was for and how it could be used.  Appropriate in tone once again, the magnet is not emblazoned with their logo; that would spoil the “for me” part and make it less likely I would actually use it.  The magnet does have their name / phone number on the back, hidden from view during normal use.  More importantly, the second portion of this sentence directs your mind to ask a question: By the way, do I know anybody that needs a roof?  Hmm, just the other day Jerry was saying….

Perhaps you will have the opportunity to observe us at work.  If so, I trust you will be favorably impressed with our efficient and professional work habits. 

In other words, “Hey man, we’re tearing your neighbor’s roof off!!  Come check it out!”  They literally invite you to market their company to yourself by visiting the job site.  Now, you don’t know it yet, but Duncan has a business model that matches the brilliance of their marketing.  They literally put on a huge show like you have never seen before on a roof job – it’s highly orchestrated, almost ballet-like in precision.  Not just a few guys grunting with scrapers and hammers, they show up in 3 or 4 trucks with 20 – 30 guys and literally give you a new roof in one day.  They have to – the marketing is already kicking in, and they have a lot of jobs to do after this one!

Clearly, if you were “in the market” for a roof job, you would be compelled to go check them out, right?  After all, getting a new roof is not small change and can be extremely disruptive, not to mention quite likely to trash your plants and property if not done with some care.  If you are in the market for this kind of work, there is a lot of upside for you to literally “watch the demo”, if you know what I mean…

If you have any questions about our work, our foreman or myself will be happy to answer them.

There are folks swarming all over the place – all dressed in uniforms, all polite down to the last person.  All of them have permission to talk to you and of course refer you to the “foreman” – you were invited to talk with the foreman in the letter, right?  It’s a machine – people standing there watching and blown away by the speed of the job, and several “foreman” basically working the crowd for leads – in a respectful way.  They ask, “Do you have any questions?”  Execution, execution, execution.  Planned straight through; everybody knows what’s going on and what role they play in the marketing machine.

Definitely not a Meatball Sundae.

Give us a call for a free estimate.  You’ll be pleased with the professional service and unbelievably low prices.

More business model.  Of course you don’t have to show up to see the job, you can just call us.  I don’t know much about replacing roofs but I bet the way they do these jobs in a single day has something to do with their pricing.  In other words, they have such a pipeline coming from this marketing campaign that they “make it up on volume”, if you know what I mean.  Labor is obviously the highest cost is a roofing job, so something about the way they do these jobs and the “culture” they have developed (employee retention?) allows them to charge less than many other roofers.  Not to mention the customer benefits of getting this messy, noisy job done in one day…

Place your trust in a third generation business that has been serving this area since 1918 and stands behind our work for the life of the roof.”

This is all the “badge” stuff from your home page – you know, the Trust seals, BBB, guarantee, and so forth.  It’s a persuasive and very clean close with no backpedaling or asterisks.  Interesting that the phone number is not below the sig, I wonder if that is intentional to keep the close a bit softer.  The phone number is quite obvious up at the top of the page, so I don’t think they are losing anything here – but wonder if they A / B’d phone number location?

Given the quality of this idea and marketing execution, that would not surprise me a bit.  I imagine the roofing guys running Yellow Pages ads are absolutely getting skunked by this incredibly targeted and tightly executed campaign.  The campaign hits exactly where the demand is with surprise and delight and throws in a theatre act to boot.  Not to mention doing a job that normally can take a week or two in one day – that’s a hard core benefit to the consumer.

All this “Brand” carries though to their web site, where the Methodicals can find out the details of why they are the best choice.  I would kill the scroll box, of course.  The fact they don’t put a URL in the letter is kind of interesting; another potential test but I think there is probably a good reason – they don’t want to kill any momentum the letter generates by introducing potential distractions or raising new questions.  For potential customers who are web-oriented and would naturally just go looking for a web site, a Google search on “Duncan Roofs” brings the company up as the first 5 entries!  So they’re not really losing out by messing up the close with a URL – they want you to go see the show!

Duncan Roofs has reinvented one of the oldest business models around from top to bottom and execute perfectly.  The campaign is timely, relevant, customer-centric, word-of-mouth, and social all rolled into one.  Yep, those ideas work offline too.

Your thoughts on this campaign?