Retail Online Media still Under the Radar

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Happy New Year! Very interesting piece by Christopher Vollmer in Strategy & Business, Major Media in the Shopping Aisle. Since my background spans retailing (offline at Walgreen’s) and online media (agency, media and ad server software side) this caught my eye while browsing in Borders last night on Michigan Avenue.



However, S&B did not dig very deep! They totally missed the nascent Retail Online Media programs out there for a few years now and continuing to grow. Such promotion and merchandising act as the front-line tactic for achieving retail sales. I had the opportunity to learn this up close and personal while I was in store operations with Walgreen’s early in my career…it is also probably why I chose to focus on marketing while attending Loyola’s GSB.

On the other hand, it’s understandable and not likely that Walmart.com, Sam’s Club and CVS others are looking for trade coverage while they work out the kinks in these very high-margin (advertising) programs. These programs are akin to store circulars and local co-op ads (think Intel isnide or auto delership ads) but online; they are methodically bringing a brand message to targeted consumers as they are proceeding down the purchase funnel. For CPGs, the main media partner is their retail distributors and the funds are pulled from co-op marketing, MDF (market development funds) or trade allowances.

Retail online media is still under the radar although firms like Triad Digital Media are expanding the possibilities. Triad is a fast growing unit of MARS Advertising and functions like a rep firm, ad ops service provider and production studio rolled into one.

Zell pops Bubbles…

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Since I’m in Chicago, this caught my eye and is fascinating on many levels.

Real-estate magnate Sam Zell shared some shockers and made plenty of good points about the challenges of re-invention of Tribune’s business model in an interview with Conde Nast Editor-in-Chief, Joanne Lipman (11/12/08 at Quadrangle Group’s Foursquare media conference).


While Zell comes off as flippant and even obnoxious at times (although he was more on the defense during this “interview”), Lipman brings the sense of journalist entitlement that has contributed to the mess in her own way with a string of petty jabs. Alot of this seems like common-sense business and despite zero experience in media, Zell makes alot of sense.

Many monopoly or duopoly industries get dysfunctional (kind of like Detroit’s Big 3) that complacency abounds. In ad sales this amounted to an “order taking” culture and not so surpringly minimal incentives. Why not,? There was no downside to pursing that stratgy. Meanwhile, the editorial side was allowed to pursue high-minded goals that are not very measureable and/or have little impact on revenue, e.g. Pulitzer Prizes.

Online it is an audience and advertiser free-for-all; ultimately, this will resolve itslef in a Joseph-Strumpeter-creative-destruction sort of way.

Aaron Lynch Mystery Ends, He Passed Away

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If you found this page from entering his email: aaron@thoughtcontagion.com or aaron@mcs.net heads-up. 3 years and one month later – better late than never. I just learned that Aaron Lynch the author of Thought Contagion had passed away a few years ago.

Aaron was a phycist by training but really ahead of his time with his own ideas about memetics. I was introduced to him by my old boss from Louisville-based Military Channel (the original in ’98). When I saw his site and realized he was in Chicago, I contacted him and we met up with him for dinner on one visit and staid in touch. Aaron’s work hit on alot of what anecdotally worked in various viral marketing projects that I’ve been involved with – his work was very accessible.

Aaron and I last spoke over lunch at Charlie’s Ale House in Lincoln Park, Chicago back in June 2002 after I had returned from RealMedia. It was after 9/11 and he shared some new projects with me including 1) Sexually-Transmitted Beliefs, 2) Consulting work he was doing for the CBOT or Merc Exchange and 3) A hush-hush project that involved the government.

The Coroner’s Report stated that Aaron Lunch died from an accidental overdose of painkillers . He was laid to rest in Homewood Gardens, Illinois.

From the mouth of Babes…Arduino

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Wow, this is a whole new thing! While usually, this blog is reserved for online media and marketing subjects and sometimes interesting economics ideas…teenage daughter formerly known as the post-modern toddler has done it again.

🙂

Here’s what happened: teenage daughter is building a project in class (2-for-1 re-purposed for another class mind you). Involved controlling LEDs in an array for a ornamental appliance…she had some ideas.

We visited Fry’s to see what they had as far as microcontrollers with basic documentation…kind of pricey for science experimentation. Then she mentioned that at her school, kids suggested Arduino to her. Saw it in a book on robot-making. After alot of research on Arduino’s site we picked up the Duemillenove model and a book by one of the main collaborators Massimo Banzi. We’ve both been reading this very good introductory book (published by O’Reilly). It spans, electronics, programming, crowdsourcing and hacking ethos in a very encouraging way.


Great article in Wired, Build It. Share It. Profit. talking about the team, concept of open hardware and fascinating implications for the manufacturing business models. Not clear if it will work(long-term), but definitely some food for thought as to how it is working(short-term). Interesting how many haters miss the point in the comments…

Bravissimo…stay tuned for updates on the forthcoming gadget.

Branding only Works on Cattle (Proto-Review)

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Chicago-based Ad Age writer, author and otherwise brand provacateur, Jonathan Salem Baskin shared a free chapter from his new book, Branding Only Works on Cattle.


In short, after reading Traces in a Cloud Chamber (Chapter 2), I have added BOWOC to my list of books to checkout although I am on a book diet (digital books don’t count).

While I’m not 100% on-board with the notion that branding doesn’t work or only works on farm animals (just got done reading Unconscious Processing of Web Ads by Prof. Chan Yun Yoo), JSB raises some serious issues about the qualitative world of brand effectiveness/efficacy studies. Nicely coinciding with my return to the agency-side of the world, clients have a voracious appetite and need to third-party justify what they anecdotally know works.

Some key thoughts:

  1. Manifesto? BOWOC sounds like a manifesto for the nascent concept of Behavior-Based Media Planning; More on it here from Atlas Institute and Andy Chen with ClickZ. Agencies have enough challenges to be proactive in this area but it is coming. Every direct marketer (and psychoanalyst) knows that past behavior is a better predicter of future behavior than both attitude and intention.
  2. Faux-Precision. Qualitative brand voodoo dressed up as quantitative precision…financial analysts and brand equity studies are called to the carpet – loved it. The implied precision of measuring goodwill reminds me of Damon Wayans playing the self-educated prisoner on the 80s TV – Show- in Living Color!
  3. CLV. Implicit in JSB’s talk of “connections” is Customer Lifetime Value. Such connections or touch points go beyond advertising and marketing to the front-line impact of Cashiers, Clerks, Customer Service and Sales Reps. Having come up in retail ops, this little ditty is rarely acknowledged.

Looking forward to reading more.

The Twilight Zone

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Is it advertising or PR? How do you measure it? I spent this Wednesday contemplating that while attending the event held in SF’s Presidio. Disappointed by the lack of on-stage decorum but oh well.

Still many questions linger about measurement…fewer answers. Of note:

  • ComScore’s Gian Fulgoni – Despite PA-system glitches, Gian brought up their research on cookiesnot being infallible; he also reframed the “hater” questions about ComScore’s panel-based approach as about Basic Sampling Methodologies, i.e. Market Research/Statistics 101; Chicago-based Gian also dispelled a few myths about the growth of the ComScore panel and suggested that next year Mac users will be included.
  • Meet-up’s Scott Heiferman – The Heif managed to insult agencies and advertising clients but let everyone know that Meetup is now accepting sponsorships! huh? Scott wants you to know he favors Obama, all while throwing f-bombs for some reason; glad to hear that Meetup is now at breakeven AND doesn’t need any VC money. BTW, did IScott hails from suburban Chicago.
  • Quantcast’s Adam Gerber– Fascinating product with lots of potential; they don’t exactly spell out what their business model is for some reason.
  • Dave Smith of Medismith – Dave brought a rapidly escalating rhetorical 50,000-foot conversation down to Earth with one line: “…but I have campaigns to run.”
  • FM’s, John Battelle – for a few fleeting minutes, the Conversational Measurement Toolbox was being dangled, it was live…so close yet so far away. When can the clients beta test it?
  • Starcom’s Susan Desmond – fielded an unusual question from host John Battelle (bordering on obsequious) about Mad Men -“Was it really like that in advertising?” Susan was bullish on analytics in the emerging digital media agency; Susan is also based in Chicago.

Hmmmm…

Journalism: Live by the Sword…

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…well, you know the rest.

Great piece by Shelly Palmer in the Jack Meyer’s Report on innuendo and rhetoric against facts in the online media world.

Several great examples of journalism and big media failing terribly to get it right – makes you wonder. Journalism and the Media are notoriously unaccountable for getting it wrong.

With the “cat out of the bag” on user-generated content, Journalism is up in arms.

Traffic and truth online are not necessarily related (really?).

Curiously, the M-word is not mentioned though. Online, the network effect of memes on reality is only becoming more powerful. With the proliferation of broadband Internet and software tools, faux news like the image of Sarah Palin with a machine gun and the viral ad (by Gatorade) of the the ballgirl leaping 1o’ straight up for a catch are only going to accelerate.

More troubling is that more recent example about Governor Palin and CNN support the notion of journalist and media bias – in the Bernard Goldberg sense of the word.