In the last 10 days or so, I’ve come to learn a few things about data.
1) Data tells stories
It tells you what people are interested in, what people are talking about, and that can sometimes be a polar opposite from what your brand would like them to talk about. Dorothy, who works at a similarly data-driven company, Brandtology, tells the tale of brand mentions and searches telling the financial sector that they should sit up and pay attention. Everything is data, data, data. If you’re not plugged in, you’re losing out.
2) Data is imperfect
Dorothy and I have said this before on The GennY Podcast. As much as existing web analytics does not report statistics in the depth that people are (unreasonably) demanding, it’s still miles galaxies ahead of “faith based initiatives” as Avinash puts it:
How do you measure the effectiveness of your magazine ad? Now compare that to the data you have from doubleclick. How about measuring the ability of your TV ad to reach the right audience? Compare that with measuring reach through Paid Search (or Affiliate Marketing or …..). Do you think you get better data from Neilsen’s TV panel of between 15k – 30k US residents to represent the diversity of TV content consumption of 200 million tv watching Americans?
There is simply no comparison. So why waste our life trying to get perfect data from our web sites and online marketing campaigns? Why does unsound, incomplete, and faith based data from TV, Magazines, Radio get a pass? Why be so harsh to your web channel? Just because you can collect data here means you won’t do anything because it is imperfect?
Lesson? Give me half-sound data over guesswork any day.
Does data have a place right now?
Frankly, I’m of the personal opinion that a data-driven, results/strategy-focused mentality has yet to be the norm in organisations. It’s not always going to be this way. Sooner rather than later, people are going to tire of experimenting with the “shiny new object” and wonder just how much traction their Facebook, blog, email, search, Twitter efforts are getting for them, which they need to invest more money in and which need to go.
And the only thing that will deliver those results, is data.
It’s all over Twitter but I picked this up via Dan York’s blog: a YouTube video by a band, Sons of Maxwell, singing the song “United Breaks Guitars” which in two days has just under 15,000 views, just over 4,000 ratings (with an average of 5 stars), over 1,000 comments and plenty, plenty, of bad press.
Seriously, wouldn’t it just have been easier (and cheaper) to pay for and replace the guitar? Hell, buy the whole band new guitars and maybe it might have been a positive music video?
Again let’s put that in perspective. 15,000 views at about 4 minutes each (the duration of the music video) = how much time spent on negative brand association? Buying up the equivalent amount of 30 second spots won’t save you. And nothing United Airlines does will prevent this video from being viewed again and again for many years to come either.
I bet many companies fear this happening to them.
Stop.
Mistakes are going to happen. It’s about solving them the first time and solving them right. Not about ignoring them and letting them blow up in your face.
Late upload (all my fault) but here is the 6th episode of The GennY Podcast once again with Dorothy and myself talking about things that that happened at Ad:Tech 2009, and our observations.
The show notes:
00:00 – Starting off “live” from Ad:Tech
00:24 – A slight comparison of Ad:Tech 2008 and Ad:Tech 2009 and trends we’ve noticed
00:51 – First trend: The audience still seems to be semi to largely clueless!
01:51 – Is there a trend of inertia of companies not wanting to get their feet wet?
02:52 – Second trend: The idea of strategy vs tools. Shouldn’t this be common sense?
03:20 – There really needs to be a bigger strategy than “collecting followers”
03:32 – Should marketing move up from the tactical level to the strategic level?
04:52 – There should be a budget shift from expensive TVCs that no one is watching, especially when numerous presentations show data that TV isn’t as powerful as it used to be
05:45 – If your digital initiatives aren’t working for you, prove that your traditional media initiatives are
06:36 – Maybe the truth hurts? The blind faith of buying an ad makes you feel better?
07:22 – So how do you deal with intangibles? Maybe you can’t have it both ways?
07:49 – Maybe online interactions have a different angle. Maybe it’s not about sales. Maybe it can be used for feedback?
08:12 – Are advertisers just conning themselves? What does 4.5 million eyeballs even mean?
09:00 – Dorothy sighs in utter exasperation. You’re doing this to her advertisers! You!
09:08 – Maybe we’re just in a stage where we don’t know what the different numbers mean
10:50 – How is employing one person to take care of your social media presence a more expensive investment than producing and buying a TV ad?
11:08 – In the future, advertising should be come “invisible” and woven in
11:52 – There seems to be a universal Generation Y culture
13:27 – Maybe they just want to reach more people, but as Seth Godin says, the world has shifted from the “how many” to the “who”
14:32 – Hopefully we’ll have the rest of the crew back soon and we’re trying to make this regular!
So Dorothy and I were speaking at Ad:Tech Asia yesterday at a youth panel, and there was much discussion at the panel, on Twitter and online about what was said. We decided a quick episode of GennY would be a great way to talk about our thoughts after the panel. You can check out this blog post with lots of details with what was said at the panel.
The show notes
00:00 – Daryl and Dorothy start us off, this is focused on the fallout after the Ad:Tech youth panel, 2009
00:27 – First point: Why this obssession with the distinction between “new” and “traditional” media?
01:55 – Daryl mentions that the tools are all the same and references Brian’s (@litford)’s comments in GennY #4 about the same tools having different usages, with different results. (GennY Podcast episode 004 – 22:34)
02:15 – Dorothy mentions that consistency across the different platforms is the key
02:55 – Is it about distinguishing the differences between them, or about how they can work together?
03:11 – Who do “influencers” really have to be?
05:34 – Down with “faceless” corporations on social media channels!! It’s impersonal and we can’t relate
06:55 – How about spokespeople from companies being the “faces” online?
07:44 – There are “stages” and “levels” in social media and the difficulty ramps up at each stage
08:17 – Perhaps co-ownership is the way to go. As long as there is someone available to listen
09:35 – Final point: Are youth really that different?
10:00 – Do older generations remember banner ads or TV ads?
10:18 – Marketers don’t like to hear that Gen Y doesn’t want to hear from “faceless” corporations, but isn’t it the same as receiving a telemarketer phone call or junk mail asking to sign up for a new credit card?
10:53 – Do the older generations go on websites and think “Wow this banner ad rocks I want to click on it”? Because if they don’t, why do they think we will?
11:10 – At the end of the day, would you be interested/excited about the ad if you were a consumer?
11:40 – Why would you do selective focus groups who may not even be your target group, when you could do it online with your fans and get fast feedback?
00:00 – Yin starts us off – introductions all round
00:36 – The tumbleweed crosses the alamo
01:17 – What do we expect of brands if they are involved in social media?
01:28 – Brian’s expectations are low, he just wants someone to talk to him
03:06 – If brands decide to be online, then they owe it to the customer to interact with them
04:10 – The minimum expectation is at least and acknowledgement or a reply, even if the concern or question isn’t immediately answered.
05:23 – Maybe sometimes brands shouldn’t be on social media?
06:12 – Yin suggests there’s a difference between big brands and smaller brands in terms of the scale of reaching out and interacting with customers
07:01 – Yinqi says with the resources that big brands have, she feels they should experiment more
07:29 – Brian mentions the flip side, which is that big brands have more to lose in terms of reputation online, despite the relative ease to get involved
09:17 – Brian clanks his beer bottle against the table leg for effect, before saying that brands don’t own brands, customers own brands
10:53 – Daryl brings up the local example of Starhub on Twitter and whether it opens up the opportunity to solve minor issues
11:54 – Brian brings up the reverse of that to announce anticipation of minor issues in advance so that at least consumers know
13:08 – Kris says one to one relationships aren’t always possible, especially with many consumers
16:13 – The issue really is about being painfully aware that your actions online (if you choose to be online) is broadcast to everyone
16:54 – The customer is now empowered to keep brands in check
20:59 – Yin wonders why brands still repeat mistakes, despite many opportunities for them to learn
22:04 – The tools are of equal access to everyone, it’s how your choose to wield the tools
22:24 – Brian says “nerfed”
22:56 – Daryl has the expectation (realistic or not) that brands should know the general “rules” of the platform they choose to engage consumers in
23:58 – What about companes’ expectations of consumers?
26:41 – Maybe companies need to make it clear what to expect from their online engagements
27:00 – Brian tells his Zappos story as an example of positive engagement
29:20 – Yin calls for feedback and questions and more interaction!
If you’d like us to talk about anything and hear Gen Y’s perspective, leave a comment and we’ll definitely record it if it’s within our collective sphere of knowledge.
I was listening to Jaffe Juice #127 a couple of days ago, and it was an episode featuring Mitch Joel from Six Pixels of Separation, two of my favourite podcasters for the “price” of one!
Amidst the many things they talked about, what really caught my attention was how they’re both doing new things. Mitch with his book and Joseph with Jaffe Juice TV. And it really got me thinking about one point:
1) If you don’t experiment you’ll never know, and if you never know, you shouldn’t be in a position to talk about it
Joseph mentions that a prerequisite to work at Crayon (his agency) is that you have to blog. And awhile back , Pat Law asked “if you ran an agency, I would…” and my response was hire people who blog. I just think you really need to know about the medium before being able to advise anyone on what they’re doing.
And sometimes the point of experimenting is just to give it a go and figure out whether it’s an avenue you want to go ahead with or not. With The GennY Podcast, we don’t even have metrics or anything, but I think just us getting together and bouncing around ideas really at least gives us an understanding of what podcasting is, and if it would make sense to bring it to work, school, whatever.
Right now, giving that organisations and companies are so far behind the social media curve, it’s the best time to start “dabbling” in it, maybe just a few hours a week, because that’s the only way you’ll know what works and what doesn’t. Just because something has been working for the last five years, doesn’t mean it’ll continue to work as well as it has been for the next five.
I guess the same lesson goes to all the people jumping on the Twitter bandwagon and just using it as a broadcast medium. Because they never tried and experimented with it in the beginning, they’re late, catching up, and as a result, using it wrongly and plain wasting resources.
Yin and Dorothy take a break from this episode, but here to join us in their place is Brian! The regular cast of Yinqi and Krisandro are around as well.
The show notes
Total running time: 19:43
00:00 – Yin starts us off – introductions all round
00:14 – Brian aka @litford finally joins the team!
01:02 – Is Gen Y voyeuristic?
02:36 – When is it too much information that is being posted up on Facebook or anywhere on the Web?
03:59 – Kris suggests that “too much” lies in the “eye of the beholder”, aka the person viewing the content
04:47 – Daryl introduces the “Grandma test”
05:25 – Is it reaching the stage where everything you do is broadcast online?
06:04 – Kris hammers home the point that it’s really about the person who is reading it and their levels of acceptance. Of course he uses a porn star as an example.
07:26 – Brian is in favour of “what I do is my business”
08:30 – If employers feel strongly about employees’ conduct online, it should be made crystal clear upfront
09:57 – Daryl says 7 “likes” in 20 seconds and sounds a little bimbotic
10:27 – But maybe people do it for attention!
11:52 – Kris makes it a hattrick by bringing it back to filtering by the reader
13:00 – The availbility of platforms just allows us to tap into the desire to broadcast our lives that has been there all along
13:23 – Brian takes the opportunity to tell us he has about 800 friends on Facebook
13:38 – Brian then tells us about this comic he read while he was “working” earlier in the afternoon
13:52 – The “comic” blows all our minds. We’re now accepting submissions for a graphical depiction.
15:14 – Daryl blames prior drinks for incoherence
15:57 – Brian decides to add in some academic value by telling us the theory of the media spike
17:27 – Brian tries to direct the group back to voyeurism
18:22 – Yinqi tries to find the point of the night
19:03 – Not to be outdone during his first recording session, Brian provides the key takeaway
If you’d like us to talk about anything and hear Gen Y’s perspective, leave a comment and we’ll definitely record it if it’s within our collective sphere of knowledge.
