Livescribe Pulse work

New work from Traction for Livescribe...

Undie Dance?

People sometimes ask, why did you guys make Undie dance?



The honest answer: I have no idea.

Geo-targeting for online direct response...

I was just looking at Placecast to understand their geo-targeting capabilities online. I saw these guys at AD:TECH a few months back. The language on their home page is kind of murky, but taking a peek at the sample ads they show illustrate what they do very well. Hit you with a banner online localized for where you're located in the real world.



Now add this tidbit my pal Dave Smith included in his Mediasmith Anvil newsletter last month:

Online ads drive online sales. But did you know that they can be even more powerful in driving off-line sales? According to Magid Abraham, president and CEO of comScore, “Even in terms of raw increases … online ads had a bigger impact on off-line than on online sales in a majority of our studies.”

In the collective results of 18 studies comparing the sales revenue from customers exposed to online display ads, search ads, or both, with control groups that did not see the ads, comScore found a very interesting statistic. The off-line revenue of those who saw both search and display ads, in the same time period, increased almost 300% over that of the control groups.

Put those two tidbits together, throw in the open iPhone API (yes, this is my Melanie Griffith in Working Girl imitation) and you've got a big step in the direction of the "guy walks past a Starbucks and gets a coupon emailed to his cell phone" fantasy ad-men have been talking about for the past 8 years.

It's easy to see how this could be a really powerful tool for driving traffic from online to retail...

Distributed Consumption in BtoB

The Distributed Consumption article I posted a few weeks back was published in BtoB Magazine this week. Somehow, the word "yum" got deleted from the title. Take a peek.

New work for CamelBak

More hydration. Less ick .New BPA-free bottles.

Distributed Consumption. Yummy.

“Shouldn’t I be doing something in Facebook?”

Or LinkedIn? Or MySpace?

These are a questions Traction is hearing from virtually every client we serve. The answer is maybe. If your target spends time in that particular social network and if you can add value in a strategically relevant way, by all means, go for it.

Facebook has over 60,000,000 members. Fifty-four percent of those members log in every day. They spend an average of 22 minutes a day there. That’s a significant chunk of time.

By creating a presence in Facebook, your brand is simply going where your target is. If you knew your target took the 38 Geary bus home from their office job in downtown San Francisco, you’d probably want to put ads there. Your customers are more tech-savvy and have more options than ever before. They are inevitably interacting with technology in new and different ways.

The big lesson for interactive marketers: Your customers are “consuming” content and services on their own terms. If you don’t help them do that, you risk having your content, your brand, your box of soap, simply not be consumed.

So, is Facebook the missing link in your perfect marketing strategy? Of course not. But what Facebook represents just might be.

Your target is spending all this time in Facebook (or MySpace or Bebo) because they want to be there—not there because they want to be on your website.

I saw someone from Google give a presentation last month. He presented four best practices in the digital marketing arena. At the top of the lineup was a recommendation for companies to “detach and distribute” their content to customers. What’s does this mean?

We, as marketers, are challenged with a seemingly endless stream of new ways to connect with audiences. “Rich” media. RSS feeds. Social networks. Second life. ARGs (alternate reality games). Widgets. iPhones. Interactive TV. The blurring of the lines between the browser and the desktop. Even “experiential marketing.” These are all part of reality today. And they all are about “detaching” and “distributing” content and services. A client at SAP told me about a developer who was running SAP ERP with his Wii console. If that's not an example of users consuming content on their own terms, tell me what is.

Unfortunately, understanding this only leads us to Challenge #2: nobody wants to be “friends” with an ad.

Fortunately, there’s a secret to success: Adding relevant value. If you can make my social networking or mobile or desktop computing experience better, then you’ve added value to my life and I’m willing to engage with your brand. If the value you’ve given me supports your brand strategy, congratulations, you’ve made a personal connection with me in a deeply relevant way.

Adobe documentary on... Traction

Yes, I said that. Adobe has created a mini-documentary on Traction as a case study (yes, that charming fella in the video is yours truly).

Web 2.0 Expo - Design Learnings from Social Application

I'm sitting in a session at the Web 2.0 Expo with Jia Shen from RockYou (they make a bunch of the top apps on Facebook and other social nets) called Design Learnings from Social Applications. I look at the best practices put in place by companies like Slide and RockYou when I make recommendations for social apps for our clients marketing programs, so I'm really excited to hear what he's got to say...

RockYou approach to app design:

1. apply advertising principles to user facing web design
- the main goal is impressions, conversions for every single touchpoint. you grow by maxing # of touchpoints and maxing conversions at each point.
- don't abuse the channel. consider implications for long-term use
2. build fast and launch ASAP.
- design really simple apps
- focus is on virality and growth
- 'channels' are more important than 'features'. 'Channels' are the viral mechanisms that get people to add apps.
3. Iterate rapidly.
- viral channels should drive product development, not features
- tune the viral loop, release updates often
- use A/B testing. Simple, effective.
4. Let data guide product decisions
- numbers don't lie. don't be emotional

More on channels
- focus on 1-to-1 channels. You can tailor messages and they're far more likely to convert.
- Map out alternate flows (install to invite to interact v. install to interact to invite)
- balance relevance v. throughput. What's the objective?

Academy of Art

I was just asked to be a judge at the Academy of Art University Annual Spring Show here in San Francisco. I've done some other judging in the past few months (for the AD:TECH Awards and the WebAwards), but I'm actually really looking forward to this one! (And not just because I'm looking to hire about 6 people.)

New Creative Reel

Traction has a new reel. Turn up your speakers and check it out.