Simple Web Bits from the Campaign – Interactivity

It’s easy to get very lost in the communications implications of this year’s presidential campaign, so to combat that I thought I’d highlight one simple detail difference between the two campaigns worth thinking about.

Looking at the home pages of the two candidates we find a major difference in strategy and one that may be fueling the fundraising success of the Obama campaign.

On the Obama site, before a visitor can do anything, they must provide an e-mail.

Conversely, on the McCain site, while the top-most navigation button is a call to “Join the Team”, the first thing that happens is a television advertisement auto-launches to tell you what you should hear.

At first blush, it might seem that the Obama site simply more demanding. That acknowledged, it is indisputable that from moment-one Obama’s site is interactively “pulling” from the visitor. Conversely, the McCain site is “pushing” information at the viewer. You can be a lurker on the McCain site in a way you can’t be on the Obama site – the stunning amount of e-mail you get from the Obama campaign after you sign-up notwithstanding.

While I’m not suggesting that colleges and university’s ask for e-mail addresses as the price of entry into their website, I think it bears considering how quickly and in how many ways their websites convert lurkers into participants.

Brand Manager’s Summit 2008 Wrap-Up

The Brand Manager’s Summit 2008 was an intense three days of informative discussion and networking. We hope those who attended had a rewarding experience, and we thank them for their participation and involvement!

Due to overwhelmingly positive responses in the exit survey, we’re delighted to announce that we will be hosting a Brand Manager’s Summit again next year!

One reason is that all 24 participants said they would recommend future Summits to their colleagues. A large majority also said that the overall experience and the quality of the sessions were well above expectations, and most felt they had received an excellent value. One of the most valuable elements to attendees was hearing from knowledgeable and thought-provoking speakers from outside of academia.

Participants felt the overall Summit experience and the quality of session content was above expectations. Attendees were able to meet a mix of colleagues that was just about right for good networking, although some suggested a few more attendees would be beneficial. More than two-thirds of participants said they would attend the Summit next year, and most suggested holding the conference in Denver again, although many suggested a different hotel (we agree!).

We also learned a few important things we need to address in future Summits, including:

• More down time to decompress and enjoy Denver and the surroundings
• More unstructured networking opportunities
• Sessions on brand strategy

We’ll be exploring different brand-marketing themes for next year’s conference. We’d like to hear your preferences. Please post comments to this blog telling us what the focus should be.

And let’s keep this conversation going among the network of professionals we’ve established.  Everyone can post comments, questions, reactions, tips, and tricks of the trade on the Brand Manager’s Notebook. Also, join us at our new social network sites on Facebook and Twitter.

Department of Strategery

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.
Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

So warns a phenom of strategy, Sun Tzu, in his blockbuster, The Art of War. (I’m thinking this überstrategist was ahead of his time…by 23 centuries or so!)

More recently, Will Ferrell, in a memorable series of SNL sketches in 2000, satirically emphasized the central role “strategery” plays in political campaigns, not to mention oratorical skill.

So everybody gets it: Strategery is really important. But insightful discussions during EMG’s 2008 Brand Manager’s Summit uncovered another truism: While everyone talks about strategy, virtually no one can actually define it. To wit: Every one of the 24 Summit attendees was an accomplished professional, yet most found it very tough to articulate their brand strategy.

Our discussions identified three essentials for a coherent brand strategy:

Who are you? (Brand Platform)
Where are you going? (Strategic Objectives)
How will you get there? (Integrated Marketing Plan)

The first piece – a Brand Platform (also called a Positioning Platform or Messaging Platform) – is a must-have, the foundation that supports your entire brand effort. If you haven’t written the framework that defines what your institution stands for, how you’d like it to be perceived by critical audiences, and what’s so darn special about your organization, you’ve got, well…in a word…nothing.

An enduring Brand Platform contains three basic components:

• Positioning statement
• Brand promise
• Brand drivers

These elements should:

• Be created, embraced, and sustained by a consensus of internal stakeholders
• Mesh core organizational values with a compelling future vision
• Be both timeless and aspirational
• Define a leadership market position that has inherent value for audiences
• Outline a promise that your institution is uniquely equipped to deliver
• Present a concise messaging framework that is memorable and flexible

Bad news: If you don’t have such a consensus-based Brand Platform, you won’t be able to advance to Go, collect $200, or launch a branding campaign. Good news: If you do have one, you’re ready to play on. Let’s talk more next week.

Dirty Little Secrets

One of the colleges I’ve been working with just installed a new president – a smart, high-energy visionary, by all accounts.   I had a chance to say hello during a recent visit, introducing myself as his “brand marketing consultant.”

Without a beat, he set out the ground rules: “I don’t know a thing about branding or marketing, and they’re just not a high priority for me.  My focus is on increasing enrollment, student quality, financing, and economic impact.”

Hmmmm.  How would you interpret that?  “I’m busy, don’t bother me;” or “I don’t get marketing and don’t care to, either;” or, “Don’t you dare ask me for money.”

Truth is, he couldn’t have teed it up any better for a brand manager like me – I’ll knock softballs like that out of the park every time.  “I’d like to understand your priorities in detail so I can outline a marketing plan that will help you achieve those critical goals,” I told him.  And he says, “OK, I’d like to see that.”

It’s easy to get so caught up in day-to-day tactical and technical issues that we forget why we do what we do.  But, trust me, presidents never forget.

So here’s a dirty little secret:  Branding has no intrinsic value for CEOs – or anyone else for that matter (besides us marketers).  It has meaning only to the extent that it helps achieve critical objectives.  Most executives see marketing as a distraction and as a cost factor, not an investment. Until we demonstrate differently.

To make the case, though, we have to convey a clear brand strategy like an elevator speech – clearly, convincingly, in 30 seconds or less.  Here’s a quiz: Can you answer each of these questions in a short, clear phrase?

Who are you?      (No, not you, you…I mean your institution!)
Where are you going?
How will you get there?

If you can do so confidently, I’m impressed and likely so is your CEO.  If you can’t, tune in to next week’s post.

Attention to Detail

I was going to write the last part of my three-part  series on looking out to the edges of the Web universe.  But I ran across something today that really impressed me and felt compelled to comment.  I’ll get to part three next post.  In the meantime, what is it that I ran into?  This item regarding a strategy of the Obama Campaign to fight negative advertising:

“…our Google search advertising program, where we buy ads around key search words so we get the truth at the top of the page when someone researches a smear.”

Talk about attention to detail!  Someone is really at the helm when they’re thinking about how to turn the very technology the opposition is using against them into a way to get their own message out.

This isn’t meant to be a commentary about politics, however. Rather it’s an observation about how we, as communicators, need to significantly expand our thinking, creativity, and strategy when it comes to disseminating our messages.  The Web is a powerful tool with many ways to both overtly and more subtly influence the conversation.  Most of us are only just mastering the basics.  The opportunity is there to learn from those who are quickly becoming the masters of this medium.  The alternative is… well, pretty soon I don’t think we’ll have one!

Complexity

At last week’s Brand Manager’s Summit, one of our speakers, Risa Teksten from Google set my mind a-thinkin.  She showed the Facebook page of a typical teenager to demonstrate how incredibly complex it was.  And while the example below is only about half as complex as the one she showed, you get the picture.

Seemingly, this dovetailed nicely into my later talk on marketing to Generation X, Generation Y (Millennials), and the coming Generation Z.  After all, the multi-tasking abilities of the two youngest generations are becoming legend.

Now, here’s the difficult part.

As I was thinking through the communications strategy on a website we’re building, it occurred to me that arguably the two most successful organizations in existence who market to young people are also the least complicated.

Case in point, Google.  Something like 95% of Google’s home page is white space.  The difference between this and the Facebook page of the average teen is similar to that between a doctors office and the teen’s room at home.

Second case in point, Apple.  Not only is Apple’s home page about as uncluttered as it could be, their television ads feature just two guys (occasionally a third) on a white seamless background talking.  Its simplicity itself.

So…what can we take away from this?

Being a fellow who prefers to make conclusions on data, I have to acknowledge that I’m going on a hunch here.  My guess is that teens prefer to create their own complexity out of non-complex parts.  In effect, they’re allowed to clutter up their room, but you’re not.

Are Latino’s Missing Out on Web 2.0?

At our Brand Manager’s Summit this week, more than one of our esteemed colleagues wondered aloud whether shifts in demographics that are bringing more Latinos to their customary service areas would undercut the cresting wave of Web 2.0.

This question has been echoed by communicators and admissions leaders I’ve talked to all across the U.S. and, of course, the answer is as elusive as the question.

But… we do know a few things.

According to a March 2007 study from the Pew Internet and the American Life Project:

• 78% of Latinos who are English-dominant and 76% of bilingual Latinos use the internet, compared with 32% of Spanish-dominant Hispanic adults.
• 76% of U.S.-born Latinos go online, compared with 43% of those born outside the U.S. Some of this is related to language, but analysis shows that being born outside of the 50 states is an independent factor that is associated with a decreased likelihood of going online.
• 70% of Latinos who completed high school go online.

We also think we know another very important bit.

According to data reported by Latin-Know: The Latino Marketing Report, in February of 2008, “U.S. Hispanics have also surpassed the general market in terms of time spent online per day. Hispanics spent an average of 88.1 minutes online per day, while the online general market spent 81.7 minutes per day during Dec. 06.”

Now, this information has been reported in several marketing blogs and I have no reason to discount it… except that I haven’t seen the underlying data. The cited source is usually Terra Networks, a multinational internet company with headquarters in Spain. And, they cite proprietary data from comScore Media Metrix.

Nevertheless, taken together, it seems these stats should be encouraging to Admissions teams who are being told that they must avoid both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 because important Latinos audiences will never go to the website.

No End In(Sight)

There is no longer an end product for news. Now, even before a story is published by an “established” news source; bloggers, citizen journalists, and everyday people who have a particular interest in or connection to the story are online detailing their opinions to the world. And the potential impact of a story is difficult to predict given that the conversation can continue online well after the traditional news media have abandoned the story.

Fact is, for many of us blogs have become a standard source for news and information over the last several years. And the blogosphere continues to grow exponentially. Just look at the April 2007 State of the Live Web report, published by Technorati which is now tracking more than 70 million blogs. The report notes that 120,000 new blogs are being created daily, equating to roughly 1.4 blogs created every second of every day. Recently updated results for blog readership from the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicates that “33% of internet users (the equivalent of 24% of all adults) say they read blogs.”

The sheer force of this trend is increasingly spilling over into the mainstream media with blogs becoming a staple resource for traditional journalists. MarketingCharts.com reported that 71% of journalists visit blogs regularly to find story ideas, angles, and insights into the tone of an issue. You can read the full article here.

And blogs are influencing more than just journalists. More and more, internet users are not accessing your content by typing your URL into the address bar. Instead, as reported by Advertising Age, 2007 saw a mere 43% of users entering a website via the homepage.

This has significant implications for communications professionals as we develop our Web strategy. In his recent posting “Your Corporate Homepage is Really Google.com,” Jeremiah Owyang discusses the importance of managing how your organization is presented in search engine results pages, noting that one influential blog “can cause havoc or be a positive endorsement” on your brand.

Ultimately, as the majority of internet users will find your website by clicking directly into second- and third-level pages through embedded links in blog postings, search engine results pages, and social bookmarks; it’s critical that we view each of the hundreds of Web pages contained on our website as potential entry points.

As you build out your Web strategy keep two things in mind: (1) The power of third party sites and search engines in shaping attitudes about your brand and (2) once inside your site, make it easy for users to navigate to areas of interest even if they enter through a “side door.”

Best New Tactics of the Web: Brand Manager’s Summit follow up: Web 2.0 online examples and resources

Following are links to some great examples of interactive tools referenced in my presentation this morning as well as sites that may spark your imagination.

Blog Spots
http://www.blogged.com/
http://technorati.com/
http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/
http://copyblogger.com/

Clarkson University
Exploring My Options
http://www.clarkson.edu/programs_of_study/exploring/quiz.html
Road Trip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JqOGxtXW24

CalPoly e-Recruitment
http://www.ess.calpoly.edu/_admiss/vippagemov.html
http://www.ess.calpoly.edu/_admiss/viewbook/v.html

Directory of Everything 2.0
http://www.go2web20.net/

Franklin & Marshall University Portal
http://www.benjohn.org/chooser.cfm

Higher Ed Blog Spots
http://brandmanagersnotebook.wordpress.com
http://www.blogged.com/directory/education/higher-education

Mobile Marketing Chip Wars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNp7qBLX7rw&feature=related

University of Michigan Flint Superbowl Contest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swlYm7bYyEk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apUTq0HW8sA

Valencia Community College
http://www.educationisin.com/

Vlogs
Kansas State University
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDAovt2lY4c
http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=108

Mommycast
http://www.mommycast.com/
Web 2.0 Resources
http://web20workgroup.com/
http://web2.socialcomputingmagazine.com/
http://www.rateitall.com/t-23461-web-20-blogs.aspx

William Woods University
http://gotduck.com/

If the News is that Important, It Will Find Me

A March article in the New York Times by Brian Stelter included a quite prescient vision of the future of content distribution. Stelter notes that young people are:

“…not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well – sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter – reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com – with a social one.”

In the article, Jane Buckingham, founder of the market research firm the Intelligence Group, recalls conducting a focus group of college students where a participant declared, “If the news is that important, it will find me.” Let’s stop here for a moment and let that statement settle in.

So we’ve got content being pushed out by bloggers, social networks, traditional news media, corporations, governments, etc. And our process of gathering up our daily dose of news involves a meandering excursion around the Web – hopping from blog to blog and linking from one news site to the next trying to assemble a thorough and cohesive picture of all the topics we’re interested in…Pretty time-consuming and far from personalized.

Enter Instablogs. With more than 20 million readers every month, the site is a one-stop-shop for breaking news stories, opinions, videos, photos, and general buzz from across the globe. Content is contributed by staff editors, traditional media outlets, citizen journalists, and everyday members; blending local and global perspectives on everything from politics to technology to the latest Hollywood gossip. The overall experience has a richness and depth that is absent from many traditional news sites.

Another compelling element of Instablogs is that the community determines which stories appear on the homepage and other sections via a voting system, ensuring that the content is compelling to its members.

The kicker? A “tracker” feature that gives members the ability to receive stories from their favorite bloggers and news updates about the topics, cities, people, etc. that interest them. This functionality allows the news that’s important to you to, well…find you.