speaking in clicks

[October 24, 2011] 

As digital engagement vehicles go, Web banners have to work hardest to earn consumers’ attention. If we find that regrettable, we have only ourselves to blame. Low response rates for banners are the direct result of the thoughtless way this resource was squandered in the early years of digital marketing. 

In retrospect, it’s astonishing how quickly the medium was dragged down to levels of shlock normally associated with those “mouth-watering” come-ons that dominate the wee hours of the broadcast TV schedule.

Gaudy, jiggly and stuffed full of archaic promotional ploys even the direct mail niche had largely abandoned, banners proliferated like Star Trek tribbles, popping up everywhere and spawning the exaggerated, security-mad environment that makes users reluctant to click through to this day.

Of course, on another level, that mistrust is certainly justified—as the reward for click-through continues to be, in many cases, a value-nebulous landing page with a plea to “sign up for more information”—a promise more often made than kept. Even the introduction of rich media banners of the kind exemplified by Pointroll.com has done nothing to halt this downward slide to mediocrity. 

So it is, as with every other advertising media, a refusal to maintain reasonable standards for quality and transparency have led to the situation we now face. Having taught consumers that banner ads are, with few exceptions, worthless sink holes of empty promotional nonsense, we can hardly be surprised if click-through or interaction rates are disappointingly low. 

When failure is expected…
It has, in some circles, become axiomatic. Whether your talent currently resides at an Effie-laden, established agency or a struggling start-up with a heart of strategic insight, you’re liable to hear the phrase “Nobody clicks on banners,” an average of 20 times a week. Like any of the other unexamined assertions about consumer behavior that circulate like dust mites in the wind, this one is based on a self-fulfilled prophesy. 

Now, to be clear, I’m not disputing the statistics, assuming they’ve been gathered correctly. I’m simply questioning their mechanical interpretation. If banners, as a category, aren’t generating results, I doubt it’s because there’s anything inherently off-putting about them. On the contrary, as a concentrated blast of messaging, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be among the most effective tools we have to motivate behavior.

…the prophesy is easy to fulfill.
On this issue, as on so many others, marketing theorists and advertising gurus who should know better are suffering from a confusion of cause and effect. Again, if consumers are refusing to interact with banners—or muting TV spots, or closing their eyes to billboards, or strolling past POP displays—it’s because we’ve taught people to expect our work to, excuse me, suck.

Have you taken a look at the average Web banner? Have you stopped to read one? 

OMG. The unrivaled drivel that resides in a standard 728 x 90, whether it expands to 728 x 250 or not, is so dreary I’m sure it will soon be listed as a primary cause of narcolepsy by the Merck Manual. On the messaging front alone, what we choose to say to consumers in these randomly-sized boxes rarely rises above the level of this:

Welcome to the Department of Demotivator-Vehicles.
Sure, you can doll-up this structure with a wacky pun, a hip cultural reference, or an “interesting fact,” but that’s still only the proverbial lipstick. At base, this pig is still an empty shell adding nothing of value. Imagine the difference if your banner delivered even a tad of value before click-through. As it stands, the absence of value in the opening sequence of many a banner is deathly demotivating. 

Equally demotivating is the way such banners are overloaded with layered messages. In a space that would challenge the limited dimensions of a cracker, we are way too eager to pile on the toppings and go for the extra cheese. And by messages, I’m not talking about words, exclusively, but everything we use to engage and enrapture consumers. 

“Isn’t there a better way?” Maybe. In my next post I’ll report on my upcoming expedition into the wilds of Bannerania. Will I find my worse fears confirmed, or will a glint of rainbow appear here and there between the giant ferns of the genus optimus praxis austerus that dominate the landscape?

[October 16, 2011]

What do people want?

A basic understanding of the social forces contributing to the answer is essential for every human interaction. Fortunately, we learn much of what we need to know through experience and the acculturation process that defines large swaths of our childhood.

Now, as the local news reminds us every day, that process is never 100% foolproof. Whether due to trauma, accidents of inheritance, or grossly inappropriate parenting, some people fail to grasp the bottom line need of every human being: to be respected, valued, loved and left unharmed.

Of course, the quest to understand human nature requires us to explore a dizzying array of additional factors, including age, location, ethnicity, income, etc. But if we limit the discussion to “what people want from digital marketing,” the list of factors to consider is more manageable. For my part, I value any brand that:

• Saves me time / money
• Improves my status / self-esteem
• Simplifies my life
• Solves a technical problem
• Solves a social / spiritual problem
• Teaches me a skill / imparts practical information
• Engages my imagination

Now, I’m willing to bet I’m within one or two bullet points of a universal list, especially if the bullets are interpreted in the broadest sense. It’s a margin of error that’s good enough for my purposes—as I search for a tool to measure marketing success. My premise is that successful marketers know how to deliver what people want. To do anything less is to show consumers the kind of disrespect that currently fans the flames of a global populist movement.

“I don’t think you do…”
By now, a majority of brands already aspire to add value online. It’s the actual delivery process that hangs them up. The most they can manage is a flimsy need-premise, a qualified benefit list (check the fine print) or a vague promise of future rewards.

In the pharmaceutical realm, the latter is a common ploy, a way for marketers to gather user data now and reward registration weeks or months later with press releases and white papers a consumer is unlikely either to value or fully understand.

When it comes to technical problems, as long as your patience “wears thick,” you can often find a Web site housing some of the information you crave—often where you’d least expect it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve found troubleshooting advice for a Microsoft product everywhere except on microsoft.com.

Microsoft’s online help menus remind me of small town highway signs: The only way they’re useful is if you already know the route. Help menus that don’t deliver meaningful help? Case in point. Like many other companies, Microsoft fails to realize that delivering meaningful customer service is a vital component of any marketing plan.

Web site, schmeb site—create a value channel.
While there are many other examples of value-nebulous marketing, they all point to the same conclusion. If your ROI on digital marketing is consistently disappointing, the problem most likely lies in your unwillingness or inability to deliver what people value. The solution? Reimagine your Web presence as a dynamic delivery system with a sustainable source of intellectual property.

In that scenario, a Web site, banner or Facebook app isn’t a thing in its own right, it’s a pipeline to deliver value. Not self-promotion, but value. Not cloned data anyone can access, but value. Not static “advice and tips,” but an ongoing editorial calendar of the latest advice delivered by acknowledged experts.

So instead of mass-producing another round of media buys, sweepstakes, discounts and cross-promotions, put your budget money toward developing a core of branded content that enlightens, educates, stimulates and helps people connect to ideas that can change their lives. Instead of racking up agency fees in a perfectionist panic of messaging revisions, rise above the details and focus on substance.

You have no idea how much more efficient it is to build a campaign around real value than it is to puff air into the legally qualified claims that usually pass for consumer benefits. A Web banner, I promise you, is much easier to make when it actually has something to say.

That’s because, instead of huffing and puffing to create demand, you’re openly supplying what people want. If this sounds simplistic, I invite you to try it. The challenge of reimagining your online communications as a value channel is worthy of your top minds—provided you haven’t already fired them for “reinventing the wheel.”

[October 4, 2011] 

On an intuitive level, offline PR events and digital sharing/commentary make perfect partners. It’s a global kind of thinking that can yield solid brand-building results because it revolves around concrete experience. Done right, you can achieve a natural confluence between what’s real and what’s digital and add a degree of credibility to your oft-repeated claims of “value.”

In terms of the digital/social side of this relationship, integrated campaigns give the social component of your efforts the focus they would otherwise lack. Visit the majority of branded Facebook pages and witness the wall of sameness that greets you.

Without checking the logo, you’d never know whether the happy couple posing with a car wants to share a car experience, a travel experience—or model the clothes they bought for the trip. Asking consumers to ogle such a faceless array of jpeg+text pairs on Facebook gives them no reason not to buy Brand X.

As I see it, this lack of differentiation is a major obstacle to marketing effectively in social space—where the boundaries between the real and the promotional ooze and run together like colors on a tie-dyed T-shirt. And recent developments are blurring the line further. Now that mechanical “Like-ing” has become the point of entry for many online promotions, the value of consumer advocacy has been dangerously diluted.

Jody12 Likes the chance to win 1 million dollars.
In a practice analogous to the selling of indulgences in medieval Europe, businesses that demand this upfront payment in “Likes” are polluting their own promotional ecosystem. Do John and Jill like your brand or merely Like it to enter your sweepstakes? If your only business goal is a higher head count, you’re wasting the opportunity to gather real time impressions of your impact on consumer culture.

Complicating matters, the hive mentality engendered by social networking—the “John-likes-Jill’s-repost-of-Jerry’s-comment-on-Judy’s-vacation-pix :-)” phenomenon—has a splintering effect on online communication. So if your goal in social space is to make a specific point about your product and make it stick, you’re wasting your time. 

The most you can hope to achieve is an increase in good will toward your brand. In that sense, as I see it, social space is far more suited to reaffirming the brand loyalty you’ve earned than it is to acquiring new customers.

To do is to value.
That is, at least. if you do the bulk of your communication with words, jpegs and the occasional moving picture. Give visitors something to do in your social space and it’s much easier to shape the discussion.

Now, if you hold to the utopian belief in “post-interruptive consumer engagement,” I suppose any talk of discussion-shaping will rub you the wrong way. Me, I believe consumers are realists. They know that anytime a brand walks into a Facebook page the subtext is sales. Video? Sales. Game? Sales. Cause? Sales. It’s the only reason a business spends money on anything.

So unless you’re a time-traveller from the ’80s when “live stamps” and cheesy handwritten fonts were considered sure-fire conversion tools, you must realize that consumers already know what your branded Facebook page is for. Once they’re there, you need to structure the experience for them—or they’ll wonder why they bothered. After all—as cellphone companies rejoice every day—aimless blathering is already America’s favorite past time.

Of course, structure comes in all forms: A loose set of premises may be all you need. While some brands consistently launch total immersion experiences in Facebook, the success of such flash-rich environments is still dependent on whether the interactions they make deliver what your audience values.

Give them something concrete to tweet.
Which brings me to Wendy’s, whose current Facebook activity page links directly to the offline 26-city tour that currently promotes their eats. Unassuming in the extreme, it does one thing well, i.e., give fast-food fans who attend tour events the ability to post their pix, vids, tweets and so on into the night. 

It makes, in other words, a tangible connection, not to attributes associated with the brand, but with the brand as they experience it offline. As such, it successfully integrates the offline promotion with the features of digital space many people crave almost as much as red meat.

OK, so it’s not the alpha and omega of social marketing but, as I see it, by limiting the scope of the conversation to a real-time event, it gives the incessant flow of digital chatter a shape, a function and, as a by-product, a welcome dash of meaning. It also helps Wendy’s share of the social sharing market from dissolving into a blob-o-sphere of aimless, undifferentiated communication.