As this is a media blog, I have written a lot about different media types – search, affiliate, display, etc… all trying to win the attention of customers and entice them towards their website.

But is the message that leads the user to a website the same message they receive when they land? A good customer experience should take the visitor from their off-site touch-point straight to a page that will meet their expectations. Unfortunately we often see clients who come to us with campaigns where there is little relationship between the two, leaving the visitor to work harder to find what they are looking for.  That’s if they don’t just leave the site out of frustration.

Why does this happen? From what I have seen, it comes down to a division between the “website team” and “marketing team” in many organisations, especially those where the website is not seen as core to the business. Ultimately, both teams may want to drive success on the website, whether it is sales, enquiry or interaction with some fancy new widget, but these teams have their own performance goals to work towards. Marketing want to see that their campaigns generate site visits and have onsite acquisitions attributed to their own campaign. Meanwhile the website teams are moving around content and considering the online experience in order to maximise conversions, not just those from a particular media campaign but from the many, often simultaneous, traffic sources for the site.  Both causes are noble, but shouldn’t everyone be pulling in the same direction?

So, what options are there to align the online and marketing experiences? Essentially, the landing page (and subsequent navigation through the site) needs to meet visitor expectation. It is no use landing on a site homepage with zero identifiable relevance to the media campaign when they could have landed deeper in the site or be a creative landing page that matches the campaign message.

I’ve blogged previously about the benefits of diversity and full service offering in a digital agency – being part of a full service agency we know that the first step to bridge the media/online divide is ultimately to get the teams talking!

So here are my three golden rules:

1) Talking – share plans, strategy and results between the online team and the marketing team. Replace the silos with an end-to-end view of the customer experience.

2) Testing – perform landing page AB or multi-variant testing to gather insight into what onsite content works best for different campaign plans. When everyone if fighting for a piece of webpage real estate ensure you base decisions on data instead of who has the loudest voice.

3) Targeting – it isn’t possible to cater to everyone all the time, so target landing page content to the specific visitor. One option is to create a campaign specific landing page or microsite. Another is to serve targeted content. There are many tools that will segment site visitors and allow you to serve relevant content to them. For example, display relevant content to someone arriving by paid search, as opposed to a particular email campaign or those have arrived on the site organically. Just as I have blogged about customer targeting from a media point of view it can also be powerful to target a visitor onsite.

The government’s advocacy of self regulation in Chapter 7, Digital Security and Safety of the Digital Britain report, out yesterday, is the only practical option available in applying content safeguards. The Internet Watch Foundation, which plays a pivotal role in implementing these standards (and has done a great job in the UK) will see its remit expanded across Europe as the government works with EU bodies to create a pan-European body based on the IWF. This is a very welcome announcement, and the first step in international collaboration to keep children safe in an online environment that knows no borders.

The issue of funding for the IWF is interesting. The report calls for the IWF to ensure that an adequate funding model is developed to allow it to continue its role within online protection. If funding dries up, a huge part of the work it does will be under threat. The government has said it will consider intervention to find funding from industry, if necessary.

Also in the report, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety is tasked with developing a strategy to include: “better regulation in the form, wherever possible, of voluntary codes of practice that industry can sign up to; and better information and education where the role of Government, law enforcement, schools and children’s services will be key.”

It’s not yet clear how this will work in practice. The report states that four working groups will be set up to apply standards in four areas: “industry standards, video games, public awareness and better education”.  Video games will adopt the new Pan European Game Information system (PEGI), which meets all the criteria set out by Tanya Byron in the ‘Safer Children in a Digital World’ report.  But the sale of video games, sold on an individual basis to children or adults, is easier to control, in the same way that film classification works. What is much harder is to control the content in an online environment (such as a virtual world, or an MMOG – massively multiplayer online game) where users upload their own content. Classification will need to adapt continually to changing online behaviour.

The report does reference areas that are within control. Better access to advice for parents, for example, on online safety and content filters is a good place to start. But children have a way of getting round these filters – changing language, code words and so on. And it does require parents to be involved, and more savvy than their children, as pan-European research from the recent EU Kids Online Final Report highlighted.

There is a responsibility on the part of the providers of social networks to filter inappropriate content, but who takes responsibility for user-created networks? If the basis of PEGI is to be applied to online games and virtual worlds, who will check that content adheres to content classification codes? Moderation can address this, of course, with a combination of human and automated systems. But again, how will this classification evolve and keep up with online trends? And who will create the moderation standards to ensure that consistency is applied across all online content?

The report acknowledges that these are difficult areas, and it will take a huge collaboration between the various online bodies, government and industry to come up with solutions.  In many ways, the report on Digital Security and Safety raises at least as many questions as it answers, but it’s a significant step in the right direction.

Developing markets are becoming somewhat of an interest to me now. I plan to continue my work in East Africa, maybe sooner than later as its now boom boom boom! In all honesty though, its not such a nice market to work in because politicans in Africa are a different breed all togther and essentially any big business guy in East Africa is in some way or another very connected to the politicians = which in many cases equals criminal activity in some manner. Now I wouldn’t expect most to understand this, but go down there, network your ass off and then get back to me. Please don’t comment til you know the market.

But moving on from East Africa, I recently spent a short time in Ukraine which was also super interesting. A country that is incredibly cheap, if not cheaper than Africa & has a huge pool of resources. The number one problem here is most speak Russian only – but if you can work around that, there is a very good market here, people are willing to work hard & many have a decent education. They at the very least have access to fast internet which in development terms is education for most – like me

The quality of work or should I say sites is pretty low but its getting better. I personally met with several freelancers and entrepreneurs and also intend to tap into this market in some manner or another so if your interested in Eastern markets then get in touch with me as I am currently working on ideas also.

The great thing about Ukraine is it meets many of the requirements that East Africa did not 1) fast internet capability (mind you the cables are laid in East Africa this month) 2) accessibility (while many are poor there is a much greater accessibility 3) wealth – there are many who are desperate but its by no means, Africa… Education is not free but some can afford it & mobility was definitely there, with lots of iPhone users, Nokia smart series etc…

Stay tuned for more on Ukraine, as at this stage, I am just tapping in…

The guys at Ogilvy London have just released this new making-of video, showing the behind the scenes trickery involved in their latest viral campaign for BP Ultimate.

Having worked on helping seed the campaign over the last few weeks it was a real eye-opener to get an insight in to how exactly they did manage to shoot a group of people carrying a car across a city (Cape Town to be specific).  I particularly love the interviews with the kids involved in the shoot who are not the most articulate interviewees!

If you haven’t seen the viral campaign already, you can check out the film here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILPBWQzC5x0

and the teaser clip here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3xZNrIJWe0

I feel like a Russian doll. I get smaller and smaller as the
testosterone in the boardroom gets bigger and bigger. I tell myself I
am a confident woman yet the environment I am in makes me feel I must
change my persona and adapt to my ‘male’ surroundings. I must cut
across people when they speak. I must hammer my point home with
authority. I must emit an odour of superiority. I must show the world I
am King.

So many women behave like men in the Boardroom. They feel they must
emulate men to be successful. Many of the senior women I work with are
not women I would aspire to be like. More like men in drag. This lack
of appeal is one of the reasons why only 6% of women make up company
board members.  Cranfield’s survey finds  Alliance Trust, AMEC and Marks and
Spencer as the companies with the most women on their boards. 

I want to propose a new style of Boardroom where women can openly
use the traits they have: femininity, intimacy and authenticity. To
create an agenda that is open, transparent and supportive. The
Boardroom should not be a place for corporate politics but a place for
productive intimate business.

Gestalt talks
about how boards of directors tend to operate in ways that seek to
minimise ineffectiveness. Trevor J Bentley, in relation to Gestalt, says

“Relationships on boards are often tenuous, superficial
and dishonest. They are quite often transitory subsytems of people who
support each other out of personal interest. The best that most boards
achieve often through share option schemes, is to align the self
interest of individual directors with the interest of shareholders.
This approach tends to create a short term price focus that is nearly
always to the detriment of the long-term sustainable growth and
well-being of the business.”

This pretty much sums up why we are in a financial crisis. A group
of money hungry men had short term personal goals of becoming richer
without thinking about the long term consequences of their actions.

I want a far more ‘intimate’ and ‘authentic’ environment: Bentley
states that there are 2 parts to working in an intimate system.

The first is knowing what I am prepared to offer others is what they want.

The second is knowing that what I want is what others are prepared to offer me.

My experience is that most people in meetings are never clear or
open about what they want. It takes a series of long pointless and
frankly ineffective meetings before you start to find out the other
party actually wants. You have to “play the game” (countless times I
have been asked to “play the game”-each time I am told this, I feel
myself revert back to my Russian doll).

Once you are finally clear about what the other parties want, the
quality of contact increases and people relate to each other with a
degree of authenticity. Its a bit like when you have the frank
conversation with your new boyfriend about what you want from the
relationship. Once the hazy fog of second guessing has been lifted and
everything is so much simpler and more enjoyable.

Today in the boardroom, I watch women emulate men, leaving the men
to dictate the rules of the boardroom. Women must be prepared to use
their feminine skills in a productive way and men must be prepared to
build cultures that thrive on diversity and tolerance not conformity.

A feminised boardroom is not one where you would pink up the
environment and dumb down the agenda. A feminised boardroom is a
supportive place where both women and men feel safe in revealing what
their intentions are upfront and then get on with the job at hand. How
refreshing.

Today’s the big day for Digital Britain. The consultations have produced a very long wish list. I expect Ben Bradshaw will read out his in Parliament this afternoon. In a ‘simultaneous broadcast’ (how quaint) Lord Carter will be presenting the outcomes of his investigations into the state of Britain as a digital nation at the RSA. So listen in to Parliament this afternoon.

Early reports indicate that a lot of people will be disappointed. In order of moan, the music industry will be upset that the government is unlikely to ‘criminalise’ filesharers. Fans of local news will have to put up with the fact that people don’t buy local papers any more. Court reporting from the Norwich assizes will be given over to Google. The Technology industry will think the government isn’t going far enough, especially in relation to developing a ‘next generation’ infrastructure.

The BBC will think it’s got off lightly, frankly. Ofcom will become busier. My mum won’t really care. Broadband is important to her, but not actually as important as water, or electricity, or chocolate, for that matter.

My wish list? 3 million more homes online. Phone boxes should become internet points (as opposed to condom dispensers). And creating a digital economy that supports British content production in a more intelligent way than previously, which actually comes from software rather than hardware, and from people rather than pipes.

I’d like to see a British Google, Digg or Microsoft. But somehow I don’t see that coming about as a result of policy thrash.

And the outcome? There’ll be ideas for government policy that will either legislate for uncompetitiveness (Korea and Japan already have far more advanced internet infrastructures) and force media companies into accepting changing state for the future. There’ll be liberal protectionism for the past (especially in salvaging lTN with BBC monies). It’ll certainly be a long list of wishes. But as ancient Jinn will tell you, three’s probably enough.

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Am loving this idea from Comet . .
. they’re offering free charging points for electric cars at their
stores.  Or at least they’re planning to – starting with a pilot scheme
at their Purley Way store (Croyden)

Check out the Register’s coverage here: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/06/11/comet_e_power/

I
love the idea from a business model perspective – essentially turning
Comet into a 21st Century retail-driven petrol station.  A great innovation for a
chain that’s having real trouble coping with the likes of Amazon.

 Though am not sure they’ve fully thought the concept through, as given
the amount of space in the present range of electric cars, the only
thing someone’s going to be able take home in the back of their car is
a toaster!

I’ve had my email since 1996 and I’m subjected to a torrent of spam. Friends have said to me that I should just get a new email address and be done with it but to my mind that indicates defeat. Of course, the work email has spam software but it only acts as a series of breakwaters over which the relentless surge of mindless drivel will eventually find a way. Frequently, at the end of a day I’ll have a look at my spam folder to find over 3,000 junk messages from that day alone. Importantly, whilst I could be driven to the point of insanity by having to delete swarms of spam emails I am also interested in some of the messages that come my way, for example when friends complete a form at a website that generates an email campaign that is sent to me.

As a business, we look after over 1.5 million customers for leading brands. All the brands are now using ‘Forward to a friend’ strategies to organically grow their database (a friend recommended is the most likely type to convert to being a real customer), combine this with the number of ongoing campaigns and the recognition that you really don’t want to turn possible customers into enemies through spamming them and you have a tinderbox to handle.

Brand Republic recently commissioned Eversheds (the law firm) to review a recent landmark ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/910951/new-rules-viral-marketing/). The ASA objected to a forward to a friend campaign for a film called Shifty, the email address of someone was provided to the campaign site by a friend without the consent of the recipient. The campaign site sent an email to the friend saying that they were at risk of criminal prosecution for drug use following a tip off. They were directed to follow a link which open a website saying that they had been ‘stitched up’ .

Marketers are responsible for any unsolicited marketing messages they send which do not comply with the data protection rules. Guidance from the Information Commissioner stresses that the customer who passes a friend’s details to the advertiser must confirm that they have the friends consent to do so. Marketers should also check that the friend is not already on a marketing suppression list and should tell the friend how they got their details. If the friend objects they should be able to have their email address suppressed for future campaigns.

It’s also important to note that if the campaign is marketing led (i.e. it has a creative or hidden element to generate interest) it is important that it is clear what it’s purpose is and that it is truthful in it’s delivery.

When compared to other forms of database growth, the viral engine of forward to a friend campaigns show excellent low cost returns. However, they need to be handled carefully and correctly to ensure that they don’t result in potential customers disliking the brand before they’ve even tried it.

As excited as I am about PR being included this year at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, there is a certain irony in being invited for the first time during a recession. 2009 is predicted to be much more subdued on the party front. Pity…PR people may be newbies at Cannes, but they are the gurus of stylish events.

But the more serious quirk of fate is that 2009 is the year social media took centre stage in marketingland. So our debut at Cannes coincides with all the other disciplines discovering the power of the influencer and admitting that a positive brand touchpoint in earned media is worth exponentially more than a paid impression.

I looked up the criteria for the PR Lions. They are all about  “…the creative use of reputation management by the building and preservation of trust and understanding between individuals, businesses or organisations and their publics.”

It is a bit of a mouthful, but Internet empowered trust between people, even across time and distance, is the fuel that makes the web 2.0 technologies work. So whether it is social networks like Facebook, or some of the more fascinating communication tools like Twitter, the intersection between technology and marketing is right where PR has always been. We have decades of practice helping brands earn their way into the public conversation.

I am too superstitious to predict what will win a PR Lion at Cannes, as we have several noble horses in that race. The rest of the field is easier to call. Burger King Sacrifice is a safe bet imho and Advertiser of the Year, Volkswagen, always does well in the Cyber Lions. When it is all done and dusted though, I foresee 2009 as the year that not just the Cannes folks, but all of adland finally “got” modern PR.

Please follow me — as well as the agency account — as we micro-document our Cannes coming out party and our Tweet-up seminar with Biz Stone. If you can’t make it to Cannes this year, tweet your question for Biz now to the @hillandknowlton account with hashtag #HKcannes
 

If you work in digital media you’d have to have been living under a rock for the past few weeks to not have heard about Microsoft’s re-branded search offering, Bing.  So called because Microsoft believes it represents “the sound of found” (yes, quite), it seems everyone loves to talk about a potential Google killer and so it’s no surprise to see that the PR machine has gone into over-drive once again with numerous features appearing in both the mainstream and specialist press.

Worst coverage of all came in the form of NMA’s story last week, quoting research carried out by supposed news portal One News Page that stated that 55% of consumers plan to replace Google with Bing as their main search tool and (be warned, this one takes the biscuit) 90% would use the term “to bing it” as a term for searching the web.  Shame on NMA on two counts.  Firstly for printing such clearly ludicrous statistics without any kind of critique – seriously, 90% of people will say they are going to “bing it”?  Even though that is 35% more than the number of people that plan to use it?  Even worse is the fact that they have taken statistics from a site that is little more than a holding page – they claim to be a news aggregator but the fact they don’t show up in comScore suggests they don’t see significant enough traffic volumes to carry out the kind of survey needed to make these statements.

Before I start with the vitriol then there are a few things to note.  Bing isn’t all bad – it’s certainly a step in the right direction and they represent more of a threat to Google than anyone else at present.  However if they are to challenge their dominance in any way they have to address the following obstacles:

1. It’s ugly. Don’t get me wrong, Google is hardly an oil painting but that logo is horrendous. The images on the homepage are a good idea – the kind of thing that will have casual users setting it as their homepage just to see something new each day – but the execution is all wrong due to the central placement of the homepage. When a user actually searches for something the tabs and navigation all suddenly become left-aligned – it’s a minor thing but it’s jarring. The dead space around the images just seems like a wasted opportunity too. Why not expand the images so they fill the whole page, giving a much richer, colourful experience? Instead they have a homepage that feels dated already.

2. The timing of the launch was fumbled. I’ve already mentioned that there’s been loads of press coverage but, for reasons best known to Microsoft, the full product won’t be rolled out across Europe for six months yet, giving us a skinny version instead whilst the local teams catch-up. The result is that everyone goes to visit the site before the full functionality of the US version is here and write it off as nothing but a name change. The advertising dollars will now have to work twice as hard when Bing comes out of Beta in the UK and the competition will have had six months to catch up – if someone in Redmond is reading, feel free to give us a call if you need help with this!

3. Google are rapidly surpassing Microsoft even in their intended areas of strength. With Google Options and Squared announced literally weeks before Bing any thought leadership Microsoft would have had has already been diminished.

4. Bing isn’t social. With access to Passport login data Microsoft have a clear advantage over Google in the social space – they know much better who you are and who your friends are. Why not use that information? Show me the restaurants my friends are more likely to click on. Let me ‘Bing’ sites I like so my friends can see them.

5. They just don’t get the audience. Microsoft claim to be targeting power searchers with Bing and it is understandable why – it’s an audience containing 30% of searchers that are responsible for more than 50% of searches – but they just don’t understand the audience. The images on the homepage are great for a casual audience but power users are likely to use a browser based search box. Microsoft’s answer to this is to develop additional functionality in IE8 but who exactly are they kidding? We all know that they need to be targeting Firefox to win this audience.

So what do people think – does anyone have any thoughts on why Bing represents a serious challenger to Google’s dominance?