Via Dave Knox from a Hard Knox Life January 21, 2009
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Original Post HERE
German ad agency Scholz & Friends releases great video on how the world of Brand Management has changed from the 1940’s through today.
Japanese Scientist creates intelligent "Fembot" ( make sure you keep your hands to yourself though …she doesn't appreciate being pawed at) December 12, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentEmbedded video from CNN Video
Space Beer Lands In Japan-Have A Great Weekend! December 5, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentVerizon to Add Wireless Elements to Disney Parks December 5, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentVerizon will demonstrate aspects of its wireless service in Walt Disney Parks as part of a multi-year deal to create interactive experiences for visitors and direct them to various attractions.
The first blush of the Verizon touch will be Disney’s Kim Possible World Showcase in Epcot at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL. The interactive experience will guide visitors through the park with clues from a Verizon “Kimmunicator” on a virtual quest to save the world from a gang of comic villains. It’s slated to debut during the first quarter of next year.
Read The Rest—>Verizon to Add Wireless Elements to Disney Parks
Talks Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce November 21, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentMajority of Mobile Users Would View Ads to Get Bill Discount November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentNearly two-thirds (61%) of mobile users say they would be willing to view advertising on their mobile phone in return for a discount on their monthly bill, according to a survey commissioned by Transverse and conducted by iGR.
A 50% bill reduction is the most popular discount amount mobile customers desire. Specifically, 19% of mobile users who say they would view ads for a discount would settle for a bill reduction of up to 25%, while 36% would like a 50% discount and 7% would view ads for a 75% break. Another 14% say they will only view ads if their cell phone bill is completely free
Read The Rest—>Majority of Mobile Users Would View Ads to Get Bill Discount
Online Publishing Insider – Is User Path Analysis The Right Path? November 11, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentHow many times have you heard the term “User Path Analysis” being mentioned as something you should conduct for your site? If you have anything to do with managing a Web site or Web analytics, chances are, you have considered it… or maybe gone down that path!
Pathing is, as expected, the path a visitor takes through a site. It is literally a flowchart of how a visitor makes his way from the landing page to the exit page and the content consumption between these two.
It does, thus, seem intuitive to want to analyze this user path — to determine the most common path users take before a desired outcome (a purchase, a request for information, etc.). This information can then be used to modify site navigation or copy to push visitors down that trusted, successful path. This approach, however, is not as efficient as it sounds.
For one, consider the number of paths a visitor could take. An example:
Read The Rest—>Online Publishing Insider-Is User Path Analysis The Right Path?
Leftover Ad Space? Exchanges Handle the Remnants ( Via New York Times) July 29, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentJoe Zawadzki’s traders spend their days in front of two computer screens, feeding their systems with data and trying to perfect their trading algorithms.
But they are not analyzing stocks. They are analyzing advertising.
What they are measuring is activity on advertising exchanges, where companies bid to place their online ads on space provided by publishers. As advertising exchanges gain popularity — Yahoo, Google and Microsoft have all moved into this arena recently — Madison Avenue is borrowing tactics from Wall Street.
It is reminding some observers of what happened when technology came to the stock exchange, including the arrival of trading advisers like Mr. Zawadzki’s firm, MediaMath, that are running numbers and promising to offer sophisticated financial instruments.
For now, Mr. Zawadzki is using the exchanges to buy and sell ads instantaneously as opportunities arise — a spot market, in Wall Street lingo — but he is working on more complex trading strategies.
“Right now it’s more the in-the-moment, taking advantage of the spot market with aggressive bid management,” said Mr. Zawadzki, whose firm is based in New York. “But we’re certainly thinking about where that goes later in terms of secondary markets, derivatives, options, hedges, all the rest.”
Big publishers try to sell Web site advertising space through their sales forces at high prices. Most cannot sell all their inventory, so they send the leftover, or “remnant,” space to an ad network or to an ad exchange. These deliver an ad, but at lower prices than the publishers’ sales forces fetch — usually around $1 per thousand impressions, versus the $20 and up that top sites’ sales forces ask for.
Ad networks and ad exchanges are both in the business of selling remnant inventory, but they do it in slightly different ways. The networks, which function as middlemen, sell chunks of inventory through their sales forces, which can simplify the buying process for advertisers.
Exchanges, on the other hand, let advertisers buy ads directly, and place them one by one. Because there are usually lower fees, buying off exchanges tends to be cheaper — though more labor-intensive — than buying through networks.
In 2007, exchanges sold about 15 percent of the remnant inventory, and about 5 percent of online display advertising overall, according to ThinkPanmure, a research and financial services company. Most of the other 85 percent was sold through networks.
The major appeal of exchanges is that with some analysis, advertisers can buy ads one by one, and track the performance of each ad. This contrasts with ad networks, which roll up broad audiences for advertisers (often using the exchanges) through their own sales forces.
Ad exchanges have gotten a few big boosts lately. In 2007, three major portals announced they were buying exchanges. Yahoo bought the Right Media exchange for $650 million; Google announced it was buying DoubleClick in April, which had announced weeks earlier it was setting up what is now called the DoubleClick Advertising Exchange, for $3.1 billion; and Microsoft acquired the exchange AdECN.
Last month, the advertising holding company Publicis Groupe said it would start working with DoubleClick and Right Media’s exchange to buy advertisements. The advertising companies Havas Digital and WPP have announced similar deals with Right Media in recent months.
But it is not so much the exchanges themselves that is interesting the advertising world — it is what can be done with them.
“The exchanges are just a platform to buy and sell media, but you have to layer the measurement and data on top, which could come from different areas: some agencies will build it, some agencies will partner,” said Darren Herman, head of digital media at the Media Kitchen agency.
“We use the analogy of, anybody can trade on the financial markets, anyone can get an eTrade account, but it’s how you’re smart about how you use your eTrade account that determines how well you’re going to do trading,” Mr. Herman said.
With some Wall Street-like analysis, advertisers can find individual Web surfers, figure out how much to pay to show them an ad, and analyze how those ads have performed. Firms like Mr. Zawadzki’s are analyzing which of those users might be attractive, then tracking whether people click on the ads they see. If an advertiser wanted to reach a very specific group — say, people in Atlanta who have already visited its home page — it might bid more to get that audience.
The growth of exchanges has a clear benefit to advertisers, allowing them to test multiple ads quickly with specific groups, potentially minimizing expensive campaign testing and focus-group work.
READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE BY CLICKING HERE
IBM Writes Employee Guidelines for Virtual Conduct. Hmm wonder if "Please don't use funny yet possibly inappropriate subject lines" would be included July 27, 2007
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IBM Writes Employee Guidelines for Virtual Conduct
Company picnic or group interview?
IBM, which began using virtual sites to conduct meetings for remote employees, recently decided to establish virtual guidelines for the over 5,000 staff members inhabiting Second Life and other online worlds.
The Globe and Mail dubs IBM the first corporation to build offical regulations for online denizens. Executives say a code of conduct helps officiate corporate life in the virtual space, thereby encouraging paid staff to further explore the virtual worlds IBM calls the “3d internet.”
“For those employees who may be hesitant, guidelines can provide the encouragement and Intel philosophy they need to actually dive in and start anticipating,” said Gina Bovara, an Intel marketing specialist. Intel has also begun using virtual worlds for remote conferencing.
Intel is preparing a “tip sheet” for virtual employees, alongside a voluntary course for those that use blogs and social media sites.
IBM’s guidelines range from the mundane, such as prohibiting intellectual property discussions with unauthorized citizens, forbidding discrimination or harassment, and being an overall “good 3D Netizen.” More unique rules require that users be “especially sensitive to the appropriateness of your avatar or persona’s appearance when you are meeting with IBM clients or conducting IBM business.”
The company also hopes to make a profit on advising corporate clients seeking to follow suit. Frequent avatar transitions are considered a violation of trust.
At some point, IBM expects to make a profit advising other corporations that may be seeking to follow them into the virtual world. It currently remains unclear whether employees who violate virtual guidelines will meet actual discipline.
Disconnected: Sprint Boots Customers for Complaining July 10, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentDisconnected: Sprint Boots Customers for Complaining
Frequent Whiners Told to Take Their Cell Phone Account Down the Street
By LEE FERRAN
July 10, 2007
You went everywhere together — to the movies, fancy dinners or just to a night on the couch for a movie. And like all relationships, there were the hard times to get through. But then one day, all of the sudden, a letter comes:
“While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability … the decision has been made to terminate your wireless service agreement…”
It’s over. You’ve been dumped by your wireless provider.
That’s the message Sprint Nextel Corp. sent in a letter to more than 1,000 customers in a bid to weed out habitual complainers who clog up customer service lines.
Consumer advocacy groups are calling it a case of David versus Goliath, while others say it’s a smart move to wipe out customers who cost the carrier more than they’re worth.
300 Problem Calls Per Month
Sprint Nextel — the nation’s third-largest cell phone provider — has decided to literally hang up on the 1,000 customers it deemed habitual complainers by canceling their accounts.
“Really, it was just because we knew that, after reviewing Sprint customer accounts, there were a small number that had been calling us over a period of six to 12 months, sometimes 300 times a month,” Sprint spokeswoman Roni Singleton told ABCNEWS.com.
“In this case we’re terminating the relationship with customers that had problems that we continually tried to resolve,” Singleton said.
The letter sent out to those customers also states that each customer’s early termination fee was waived. Any balance on the account was set to zero, and each customer was given a month to find a new carrier before service will be shut off.
Can I Just Say Something?
Michael Teruel was one of the Sprint customers who received one of the “Dear John” letters.
“Customer service is there in the first place to help customers with issues,” Teruel said. “If we can’t call customer service, what do we do?”
Another recipient, a woman who goes by the pseudonym “MissDiva” in a Sprint users’ forum, claims in the forum that her service was canceled because Sprint repeatedly failed to fix a billing error that reoccurred every month for six months and that any excessive calling was due to an extraordinary amount of transfers or necessary call-backs.
“I sometimes have had to speak to five people over one error,” she wrote in the forum, “but I didn’t think that being hung up on/calling back or being transferred six times within one call equals ‘me calling too many times.’ Unreal!”
Honey, You’re Smothering Me
According to Singleton, the decision was made with Sprint’s other 53 million customers in mind — the ones who make less than one call a month to customer service versus the 40 to 50 made by the customers who were dumped.
“We would rather be in a position to assist our customers than operate in a condition that is unsatisfactory for both the customers and the company,” Singleton told ABCNEWS.com. “And at times we are going to take actions to tighten our operations.”
While many may question the logic behind dumping customers when competitors are more than eager to snatch them up, some analysts say that excessive time spent dealing with demanding customers actually costs companies more than simply getting rid of the whiners.
Chris Murray, senior counsel for the Consumers Union, said: “I think what Sprint is saying that there are certain customers who are just too expensive for us to serve and we don’t want them.”
“I hope this isn’t the death knell for Sprint,” Murray added. “I’m afraid it might be.”
And if any of those dumped by Sprint had any questions, the company advised them, naturally, to place a call to customer service.
