Digital Marketing is Dead: Says P&G Branding Boss

Not exactly what was said, but rather that digital has just become part of the accepted mix of techniques and our creativity should focus on brand building rather than technology emphasis.

American City Business Journals/Cincy Biz Blog/Cincinnati 
"  ...  Digital marketing is now so ubiquitous it can simply be called brand building, said Marc Pritchard, global brand-building officer for Procter & Gamble. He said launching some campaigns online first is "freeing up our minds on building creative ideas that come to life through the mediums that we engage with every single day -- search, social, mobile, PR, and yes, even TV. ... " 

Macy's Using Data and Showing Restraint

From the D2 Conference in Cincinnati via AdAdge:   " ... Macy's sees plenty of value in data-driven marketing and believes consumers should hear more from marketers about the benefits. But that doesn't mean the retailer will be secretly tracking shoppers by their mobile phone signals and linking the data with their transactions and home addresses.

Julie Bernard, senior VP-customer strategy, marketing and advertising of Macy's Julie Bernard, senior VP-customer strategy, marketing and advertising of Macy's Speaking at the D2 Digital Dialogue conference in Cincinnati Sept. 11, Julie Bernard, the retailer's senior VP-customer strategy, said marketers should speak up more often and forcefully to defend data use and counter negative media coverage. But she said they also need to show restraint. ... " 

Ahalogy for Content Marketing

Brought to my attention, formerly Pingage, now Ahalogy.  Previously I wrote about Pingage.

" ... We're building Ahalogy (formerly Pingage) to solve one simple problem: making content marketing as easy and effective as possible. That's it.

We started developing the Ahalogy technology as internal tools to improve the marketing of one of our previous startups, but once we showed other companies what we were building, we soon learned just how common—and dire—this need was for other brands. So in October 2012 we founded Ahalogy to fix content marketing for brands across industries and around the world.

Along the way Ahalogy has become a fast-growing startup backed by incredible investors. We call Cincinnati home, with more brand marketers than any other city in the world, and with a second office in New York focusing on agency and media partnerships.... " 

Core Blue

A former colleague of mine, Jeff Fenter,  reports he has set up an effort called Core Blue.  I like the approaches being used here, which mirror some of the work he delivered at Procter & Gamble in digital marketing.  I will write more about it here as it develops: " ... CoreBlue is a new, fast-growing digital strategy and services company.  We recognize that the connected world is moving at an increasingly faster pace, and businesses are trying to keep pace with increasingly fewer resources.  We also believe business success in the future is dependent on the alignment of IT with business and marketing strategies – Digital Marketing.  That’s why we’re focused on helping organizations understand, plan, build, deploy and deliver their Digital Journey.  We begin strategically, plan diligently, and deliver consistently.  The end result for CoreBlue clients is measurable ROI and tangible market share gains. ... " 

Pinterest as Business Platform

Took a close look at Pinterest about a year ago.  Was interested in a largely non-text way of communicating, especially in a strong story format.  I was disappointed in how well it supported sequential strong stories.  Still have continued to have a presence there and think about its implications.  A ReadWriteWeb post about how it is being used by businesses that is instructive.

Data Management Platform Vendors

Examining the breadth of  Data Activation: The Data Management Platform

One vendor, BlueKai,  defines DMP as:

" ... A DMP is a centralized data management platform that allows you to create target audiences based on a combination of in-depth first-party and third-party audience data; accurately target campaigns to these audiences across third-party ad networks and exchanges; and measure with accuracy which campaigns performed the best across segments and channels to refine media buys and ad creative over time.

Slice and dice your own online and offline first-party data to create audience segments for display, search, video, and social campaigns; apply it to ad campaigns targeting audience across the purchase funnel; and get visibility into the ROI each campaign delivered for each segment. ...  Marketers can pull in and analyze all audience data presenting a 360-degree view of how campaigns perform against specific target audiences. ... " 

Dynamic Pricing for College Football Seats

Via MJ Perry:   In another of his investigations into the power of markets based on price.  Notable here are the large number of parameters for the price:   " .... University of Michigan becomes one of the NCAA’s early adopter of dynamic pricing for single-game football tickets, based on team performance, visiting team’s performance, weather forecast, and remaining ticket inventory in specific seating locations. ... " 

Cross Device Marketing

In Mobile Marketer:    Not unexpected.    " ... Cross-device advertising commands growing portion of media spend: report  ... Interest in cross-device campaigns is growing
One-third of digital media budgets will be allocated to cross-device campaigns this year, up from 24 percent last year and 19 percent in 2011, according to a new report from ValueClick Media and Greystripe .... " 

Marketing and Augmented Reality

Have long been interested in the use of Augmented Reality for marketing, both in the store and in mobile.   Still early in its use, but it is evolving quickly now.   Good article on the topic in CMO.

" ... It's Not About The Technology

As with every other digital marketing innovation that has come along, marketers looking at AR can be subject to what Silva called the "bright, shiny object syndrome." Speaker after speaker advised that AR can't be an end in itself--that you have to think about the user benefit first. Uzzan described AR as an "enabler" only after you already have an idea.

Lisa Murphy, marketing manager at platform provider Metaio, put it this way: "The end consumer doesn't care about technology."

Murphy also said that the key to AR taking off as a marketing tool is "making digital a natural experience." During the "AR in Marketing and Advertising" session, the moderator asked what the most important trends in AR for marketing over the next 12 months would be. Murphy replied "usefulness"; Justin Farris, product manager at AR software developer GravityJack, replied, "compelling use cases"; and Scott Wellwood, VP at Total Immersion, said, "no gimmicks." ... ' 

How Big Data is Reshaping Marketing

In the coming weeks I will be passing along some of the excellent work by correspondent Phil Hendrix.   Here is a set of slides on How Big Data is Reshaping Marketing presented at Emory University, July 29, 2013.

Philip E. Hendrix, Ph.D. Director, immr and GigaOm Research analyst
phil.hendrix@immr.org  |  770.612.1488 (O)  | 678.294.8017 (M)  |  www.immr.org | Twitter: www.twitter.com/phil_hendrix

Retail Digital Client Management

A client brought this to my attention.   Multiple screens in one for retail experiences.  Aimed at decreasing advertising costs and better targeting marketing campaigns  The article link below  provides some very interesting details.  Intel's involvement is very interesting ....

INTEL® RETAIL CLIENT MANAGER SOFTWARE
Intel® Retail Client Manager Software (Intel RCM) creates valuable consumer experiences and retail sales opportunities. Intel RCM is an intelligent software solution that enables you to deliver digital content to every screen with greater impact. Retailers are able to remotely manage marketing campaigns in real time while launching customized content on the fly to deliver a richer brand experience ... " 
And more.  

Marketing Engineering Revisited

I am reposting my review of this book below.  First because I had a need to take another look at it.  Second because it now has a second edition, which I have not looked at yet.  Love it as a mix of quant and qualitative methods.  ....  Wish I had the excel sheets that implement the methods described. 

As part of a practice of applied marketing meeting at Wharton I received a copy of the new book: Principles of Marketing Engineering, by Gary L. Lilien et al. Marketing engineering? Could there be such a thing? At least it's not marketing physics. First I admit though I have taken many engineering and physics courses I have never taken a marketing course. I have learned a bit of the quantitative aspects of the field over the years here.

I had a chance to read and overview a good portion of this book, and to my surprise it does a good job of positioning marketing as quantitative engineering in a meager 192 pages. Each topic: response models, market share, customer value, segmentation, perceptual maps, forecasting, conjoint, new product development, marketing mix and promotions are carefully positioned with only a minimum number of equations and some real-world examples.

Surprising, too is that this book is readable, I managed a third of it on a long flight. I don't think it can be complete given its size, but it positions a lot of fairly new techniques well. I would like to go through this book with a knowledgeable P&G person to see if, and how we use each technique, and have altered it to our own requirements. Much recommended for someone who wants a readable introduction to modern quantitative marketing methods. Even the analysis of Web 2.0 topics like blogs are mentioned, and the use of advanced simulation techniques to iteratively test proposed solutions.

The primary author Gary Lilien of Penn State, is one of the well-known deans of marketing science. He has a consultancy (who doesn't) called DecisonPro. They sell a number of marketing analysis frameworks that work in Excel, free for evaluation, have not tried any of them.