March 12th 2008

At the first seminar in our 2008 programme, we focused on the subject of Sustainability, which is on everyone’s agenda.  We discussed what we can do now to make an impact and a difference.  And what should we be thinking about now in order to future-proof our businesses (and our planet!).

We had three speakers to offer their views and perspective on the subject:

Tom Hings, Director of Brand Marketing, Royal Mail

Anthony Kleanthous, Senior Policy Adviser, WWF-UK and researcher and writer on Sustainability

Amanda Phillips, CEO, Proximity London and Chair of the IPA DM Futures Group and their Sustainability Working Party

And here are the summaries of their talks (in Adobe PDF format):

Tom Hings
Anthony Kleanthous
Amanda Phillips

We’d be interested to hear your views.

And we welcome you to attend our next seminar on the subject of Innovation which is being held in June. To pre-register your interest, please email me at holme.l@proximitylondon.com  We'd love it if you could make it.

Laura Holme, Marketing Director, Proximity London

This piece is written from the position. Sort of a preliminary note, a moment before the uncontrolled eruption of the "Me 2.0" phenomenon among the elite of corporate executives.

I believe that CEOs and MCOs have to understand the benefits of marketing in the new digital world, I believe that they must be knowledgeable in this rapidly changing medium, and shouldn't leave the expertise to be the exclusive domain of "that guy from the Internet". They have to understand that when used correctly it is of a great worth for them. Web 2.0 is definitely not only a fashionable thing. It bites!

True, one can achieve some marketing achievements in this complex amorphous web, but can as well seriously downfall. We're not talking a passive kind of medium here, in which at the max your ad doesn't have an edge and no one seems to remember it. We're talking a serious lair of chatterboxes and message transferors that once you entered their mouth they react, and yes, certainly not on your behalf or on the behalf of the organization you represent. User Generated Content is not a theoretical matter at all. Especially when the dinner is you.

All this virtual space only looks like a playground of kids writing funny messages in forums and collecting friends in social networks. The most important thing you should know about this world, often portrayed as "The Long Tail of the Internet", is that those small fries in there, that produce UGC, when they all swim in the same direction they are a school of piranhas. You'd better not end up in their mouth.

Another thing that you have to know is that when you're there, you play the game. This chronic phenomenon of a "started" blog with one poor post is like an empty shelf with only one product in your store. You'd better close down.

Think of all the companies that have constructed an expensive website, full of pages with zero visits, with the CEOs "blog" next door (not to mention the Chairman's message to the people) with talkbacks on its bottom. Usually, there is a lonely post with some yuck! yuck! responses down there. Sometimes next to it , you'll find the blog by that diligent fellow from accounting division with embarrassing photos of company employees in a party they would like to forget. The (more interesting) rest of the blogs/posts/talkbacks by company employees and respecters would not be found in any proximity to the company's promotional info, nor their videos. You'd better not ask…

Homework for executives that still think that marketing in web 2.0 is a kids' stuff:

1.       Prepare a list of 10 people that can best promote your product or services in their blog. _____________________________________________________________________

2.       Prepare a list of the 10 reasons why they wouldn't successfully write such a blog. _____________________________________________________________________

3.       Compose the first paragraph in your personal blog to promote your services/product. _____________________________________________________________________

4.       Prepare a list of the 10 people who will read the second paragraph in the blog you're about to launch. ______________________________________________________________

5.       Prepare a list of 10 dates in which you'll sit down to spend 4 hours to compose yet another post in your blog. ____________________________________________________________

6.       Prepare a list of additional 10 dates in which you'll sit down to answer talkbacks in your blog. _____________________________________________________________________

7.       Prepare a list of the 10 best examples of online marketing you chanced upon in the last year. _____________________________________________________________________

8.       Upload your top 10 list to your blog and put a link in del.icio.us.

9.       Get the point?

Alon Gal, Tel Aviv

Wow what a ride 2007 was for the advertising and marketing industry. I personally saw 2007 as a transition year for most of the traditional agencies in the world. It would seem everyone is finally realizing it’s not about creating and pushing interruption messages, but creating experiences that encourage people to come forward, participate and hopefully if it’s good enough, share.

As an early prediction I see 2008 becoming the year that sees the beginning of true ‘interactive story telling’’. To do this brands must put digital thinking at heart of a communication plan and be the glue to move advertising and direct programs from an interruption message structure to a compelling content solution to engage their chosen target.

The successful brands of 2008 will be the ones people actively seek out because they can hold an engaging conversation. To do this brand and communication programs will need to move and be structured much closer to the world of the content industry. The successful marketing mangers and leaders of 2008 will be the groups that know how to work with their agencies to deliver and program audience involvement rather than just focus on message, reach and targeting. Constructing successful brand and messaging now requires the ability to create layers and a back story. Once we have this foundation creative teams can craft and deliver personalities and start the Interactive story. Once we have a story we can then deliver the chapters and the messages across multiply digital devices and access channels to create a customer experience.

This is complex business and it also opens up the constant challenges of the integration model. Maybe it’s the year we turn our marketing structure on its head. Possibly the future marketing departments should more look like and behave as teams similarly structured to managing a nightly live to air television show? Maybe we feed in the daily audience ratings and adjust accordingly. Dial up the good tales and characters and write out the messages and characters that are seen as boring and unresponsive to the audience.

At Aim Proximity in New Zealand we believe digital innovation offers brands their biggest opportunity to be interesting, relevant, personalized and fun. It allows brands to create an immersive experience to pull a consumer in, lean forward, engage and participate. This digital engagement then measures the extent to which a consumer has a meaningful brand experience when exposed to a combination of commercial advertising ,and content programs developed across multiply media and digital platforms. Big ideas of course are essential to connect and then begin a dialogue with people. To get to big ideas using digital we focus on maximizing three key areas of interactive storytelling.

1. Mechanics, in digital planning terms this describes creating the idea and nourishing this with particular components and/or story of the digital experience. 

2. Dynamics, in technology and build terms this describes the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on consumer inputs and each other’s outputs over time. 

3. Aesthetics, in digital creative terms this describes the desirable emotional responses evoked in the consumer, when they interact with the program experience across multiple devices and channels.

When advertisers are able to create campaigns and content that offer value, a sense of involvement, that enables the expression of individuality, there is a strong chance the audience will respond.

Check out this Air New Zealand campaign that demostrates this approach

Adam Good
Executive Director of Digital Innovation
Clemenger Group

Aim Proximity New Zealand is part of the Clemenger Communications group of companies
No 2 DM Creative Agency In the World - Won Report 2007
The Won Report is an annual analysis of the world’s best direct marketing as measured by the quantity and quality of awards won in a year

In the beginning of 1990’s, there has been a wide interest in the project, ‘Orlando.’ This was a project planned with the expectation that TV will be the main media focused in digital multi-media generation under the grand idea of creating a new life style. But the Orlando project notion at TV will be the center has evaporated without a clear outcome.

After nearly 20 years, we now finally have a new test in front of us. This is IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) based on PC and Internet. In Korea, service has officially been provided with the passing of law on establishment of IPTV at the Korean National Assembly in December, 2007. IPTV will service broadcast TV as well as pay-per-view contents of TVC, shopping, education, game, and various other fields of information, including the formerly not-available-on-TV contents such as movie-clip education, stock exchange, bank service, etc. financial trade service all via super speed internet.

Targeting this golden market, Korea’s major telecommunication companies each released their own service, HanaTV (Hanaro Telecom), MegaTV (KT), My LGTV (LGTelecom), etc. and stepped forward in securing subscribers. Especially in the case of SKTelecom which bought Hanaro Telecom, opened the gate by releasing with Samsung Electronics, a open digital TV portal, ‘356°C', which can be used with no limit to the super speed internet brand of use. Of course, other enterprises have their upcoming countermeasure in store.

This is not only in telecommunication enterprises. Standard landline portal companies and CATV companies are also eyeing the market. Daum, one of Korea’s major portals, is midst preparing an independent IPTV service joining with MS and Celrun. Also PandoraTV, GomTV, and other PC-based movie-clip portals are upgrading standard service and/or aiming for expanding fields via strategic joint work.

Then how will IPTV influence the digital marketing industry?

First, the biggest is the possibility of Two-Way Communication advertisement. This means viewers’ reaction data on advertisement is collectable by real time. Channel change itself is also worked inside the network system so it can provide monitoring data on specifics like who is watching which advertisement. This brings a big change from the current data-collecting model with additions of exact research on campaign effectiveness and other specialized studies. As opposed to the current advertisement fee system based on an estimated number of viewers, the exact number of viewed people can be calculated for a respectable payment of advertisement. In other words, TV commercial has become very close to click-based system of internet advertisement. As such, the effectiveness of an advertisement campaign can be maximized via analysis of audiences viewing habits and reactions.

Secondly, segmented approach by location and target is possible. With basic viewer vital statistics gained from management of IPTV over several years, a deductive lifestyle data will be available. Through this, advertising clients can purchase divided advertisement time with each need instead of buying a program’s total advertising time for a single brand. We will be able to advertise to each different viewing household, each with different concept and with no limitations to location or distance.

Thirdly, search advertising will be as active as on the internet. Classified ads or ads via brand searches based on location will be more active. This is because activities like ordering while watching TV and finding out about the brand simultaneously will be done much easily, in no time. Following this, smaller companies and the self-employed will create various format of self-PR.

It's been 5 months since the launch of Second Life in Japan, and on the surface not much has changed.  The streets of Tokyo are still filled with people experiencing the joys and stresses of everyday Real Life (RL), not deserted due to mass migration into SL.  Companies are still timid towards SL, but all the pre-launch hype wasn't for naught.  Rumblings have it that behind the scenes, Japanese media giants are planning something big for virtual Japan.  And while Japanese are gradually populating SL, big changes are happening outside of it as Second Life and its virtual competitors have inspired the home-grown development of a number of Japanese worlds.

As mentioned in a previous entry, Japanese virtual world "Splume" is live, with graphics quite impressive and in-line with Japanese aesthetics.  City scenes look like actual cities, and the views are quite inspiring.  Still, on a recent visit to this community I couldn't find another avatar to interact with (I probably caught it at the wrong time).

Microsoft held a Splume-based event coinciding with real-life conference REMIX07 TOKYO (Sept 2007), a next-generation web exhibit where exhibit speakers and companies were accessible to Splume members.

In December 2007, Fuji-TV recreated the Tokyo neighborhood Odaiba within Splume for an event called "HOT FANTASY ODAIBA 2007-2008", an exhibition of Fuji-TV shows, shopping, and entertainment, where visitors could experience a portion of show content, with exhibits linked to their programs. 

Taking the virtual experience to the next level, a group of investors that includes mammoth Transcosmos Group and Fuji-TV is planning to launch virtual Tokyo in the soon-to-be-released (April 2008) Japanese virtual community "Meet-me".  The hook - it mirrors conditions in real Tokyo.  Real rain becomes virtual rain, real dusk becomes sundown in Meet-me.  The city grid is even laid out according to GPS map data.

Perhaps the emergence of these Japanese-centric virtual spaces will soon spark a real increase in numbers of Japanese moving into the virtual world, and eventually bring the advertisers with them.


John Stampfel - NYX Proximity, Tokyo

There are appears to be a genuine apathy when it comes to online media schedules permeated both by agencies and client marketing teams alike. Recent observations suggest to me that there is almost a disregard to this budget allocation, which is often the first thing cut when numbers don’t total in an integrated campaign. This isn’t unique to my new home in Singapore. Back in Australia, across many agencies the same media plans are presented, they are approved and post-campaign analysis tended to be a single benchmark, of achieving ‘above industry average’ click throughs.

So what?

My point is that we should be implementing and discussing measures that are effective for our clients and ultimately drive a successful campaign that as an agency, we can be proud. An issue I have is that some media player’s pre-purchase inventory obtained at a reduced rate, which is then retrofit to a client brief.

As interactive marketing professionals, every piece of work approved by our client’s needs to deliver optimum results.

Ensuring that suitable tracking is available for accurate measurement is crucial. How else will you trace consumer patterns and substantiate a need to modify content or creative. The use of tracking code authenticates return on investment, once we get the consumer click through. It gives us the foundation to optimize and drive the next digital campaign.

For quick and simple market intelligence, view Alexa www.alexa.com . This presents simple information on the most popular country sites by consumers. While this isn’t to challenge media expertise, it does present good observations of user activity.

Potentially a case for investment in niche inventory, outside of the ‘standard’ verticals…

Simon Lazenby - Proximity Singapore