Still don’t believe in the economic crisis so much. But yes this is a total commercial clean up. Is that bad? I guess not.

Further more I see indeed less spending at the moment. A lot of houses for sale etc. But is this temporary or a real trend? If it is one thing we learned from the whole crisis then it is that we are really bad in predictions. So if they now predict downturn..Maybe it is just a matter of a longer time to conversion after all.

In digital marketing I hear a lot about less investments. There seems to be a big opportunity for affiliate marketing because of the performance based model. Display ads and branding seem to have a hard time, but companies are used to these “reach”model for ages and they learned to never skip too much marketing budget in bad times. So they will think twice and spend a little less I guess.

For cleaning up however it is now time for analytics. While we are all waiting for new investments it is a good time to look at how effective our webpresence is in engaging, converting etc. In my opinion there is a lot to gain here.  Most companies where to busy spending in the past, now it is time to look at costs and ROI.

This is totally in line with the overall commercial clean up.

More and more research shows that display ads and in more general online branding is good for conversion.

If you only measure clicks, or even worse last-click, you miss the point of branding completely. People buy more easily when they know your brand or after seeing your display ads.

Check this article about engagement mapping from Microsoft advertising.

eMarketer recently published an article:  eMarketer seven strategies. In this article (starting from page 15) eMarketer shows even the impact of display advertising on Offline sales.

So people learn about your brand online and finally buy offline.

ps. I have business connections with eMarketer

It is again time for a restyle.

Banners and advertising are getting visually very attractive. However most websites stay behind.

If your customer clicks on your well animated banner and comes on your website, be careful the two match. Due two the use of flash in advertising your landing page or company website  is becoming a sort of disappointment.

Most websites are still built around text. This is changing fast. The web is getting more visual. We are able to send out and consume more pictures, video’s etc.

For Brands this is a very welcome change. With the combination of image and text your message can get out stronger. The only thing is don’t stay behind. Avoid the risk of looking poor.

If your banners look better than your website you know it is time for a change. You could either change your banners or change your website.

I would chose the latter.

Just before the weekend some more thoughts.

Referring to my last post about female digital behaviour. It is often said that in marketing targeting women is often overlooked but very important. Women buy more than man, have a big influence in the decision making process. I think their influence is even growing since women have more often their own job. Which results in more confidence, girlpower. “All the honeys making money“

You even see more and more families in which the women making more money than the man (in the Netherlands at least). I call them Girl leading couples myself.

Research has shown that if you want to target women you need to think further than a pink product or website. We also know that social networks without a specific cause are more used by women than by man. Man prefer social networks like linkedin.com. Can we conclude that women enjoy more the communications itself? I think so.

Women like to share. With the growing amount of social networks, connecting alone is not enough anymore. What has your network to offer. Is it more local, more subject orientated… but maybe we should think more in concepts here.

I still miss the voice of advertising agencies in the interactive field. Advertising agencies have a huge experience in concepting. Large agencies like Saatchi and TBWA have some basic emotion as a core value like love, disruption etc.

Maybe it is time to start social networks based on a concept or emotion in which a certain emotion is the connecting factor. Let’s call them EmoNetworks.

Think about their use in branding. Disruption network, love network, anger network, nostalgy network.. This year the domainname www.bored.com was sold for millions.

Never underestimate emotions. Communism was based on emotions.

Female Gaming on the Rise. Online gaming appeals to your girls and older women.

check the full report on eMarketer.com

For Digital Branding, your visual presentation is extremely important and with the growing influence of interactivity and video the use of Flash is almost inevitable. However the problem with Flash is that it has a problem with search engines.

But there is some improvement now. Adobe is working with Google and Yahoo! to enable one of the largest fundamental improvements in web search results by making the Flash file format (SWF) a first-class citizen in searchable web content.

This will increase the accuracy of web search results by enabling top search engines to understand what’s inside of RIAs and other rich web content created with Adobe Flash technology and add that relevance back to the HTML page.

Read the full article

Seems like the luxury Brand debate is coming to an end. Luxury Brands often do have a problem with the transparency and accessibility of the web. Because they do have a reputation to protect. And they need to stay exclusive.

However this does not mean luxury Brands can ignore the the fast evolving changes in digital branding. Research shows that the luxury consumer is ready for 2.0 and they do have very high expectations.

Not meeting this expectations will definitely harm your brand. For a luxury brand, just ‘keeping up’ is not enough. You have to be outstanding.

Beth Uyenco, Research Director for Microsoft Advertising comes with the following Luxury Brand Engagement Model:

• ‘Awareness’ To stay in line with the offline communications, and to deepen the brand experience with interaction, your web presence needs to be of top quality.
• ‘Admiration’ Luxury Brands need to exceed expectations and do also have to communicate on an emotional level.
• ‘Exploration’ Similar to the in-store communications. Luxury customers will want a personalizes way of exploring the Brand and its products.
• ‘Consideration’ After the exploration phase, it is important to create engagement. In this stage it is very important to know who your future customer is, to deliver an exceptional service and to invite the customer to join the Brand.
• ‘Purchase’ Integration of offline and online will give the possibility to enrich the purchase experience. It is about helping to buy more efficient and/or making the purchase a remarkable moment.
• ‘Ownership’ There are many digital ways to keep and strengthen the relations with your exclusive customers.

(Thanks to Microsoft Advertising and frankwatching.com )

Following my post on Saatchi2.0 I would like to talk more about the subject of agency2.0.

What does a future advertising agency look like? What is its role, its structure? What can we learn from pure digital agencies and other online businesses in general? What can a traditional agency do to stay alive and revive?

In the Businessweek interview I mentioned earlier, I read that Saatchi & Saatchi has tried to buy a digital agency Blast Radius. It didn’t work out since Blast Radius merged with Wunderman, a large direct marketer. What is the real reason behind this? Was it a cultural difference or a pure strategical decision?

After some short research (I will come back to this subject). I found some well known insights digital agencies come up with:

• stop annoying customers, start engaging
• stop delivering ads for clients, start delivering strategies on advertising
• get insights through data, customerinfo and testing

I my opinion the field of advertising is only getting more interesting since agencies must and can focus on their core business “ideas”. And they get more means to generate and spread these ideas.

Looking at how this could look like in practice. I did check the Nitro website. What do they do for a living? As they say, they deliver:

• Innovation
• Communications
• Digital

some links on the subject:

The agency of the future
The agency of the future 2
The agency of the future 3
The agency of the future 4

Technorati Profile

How does a traditional agency adapt to 2.0

On ideasonideas.com Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts answers some questions following an interview in BusinessWeek last December. On youtube I find an interview with him from a few weeks ago.

It is interesting to see how a agency like Saatchi is struggling to keep up in the digital age. With Kevin Roberts it is all about Lovemarks. So now with all the new possibilities it is just about digital Lovemarks, isn’t it?

What I miss in the interviews is some good examples of digital Lovemarks. On ideasonideas.com Roberts comes with a few examples as the bestinjest campaign. But what I miss is the real emotional connection where the lovemarks stand for.

In my opinion it is even easier now a days to really move people because of the smooth distribution. I always put it like this: One thing never changes.. Human

• with all the social networks > we can still feel lonely
• grandma still loves us > only now digital

(Digital Photo Frame)

ps. There is a Saatchi office in Geneve

Brands are increasingly recognizing that customer experience is everything. With the transparency of the web, news travels fast. Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000. Micropersuasion.com is even talking about a digital job function: Chief Customer Experience Officer
They also did set up an easy example with a google ’search within results’. Just enter any company and check the results.