tony@thepopulation

Debrief of 1st Twitter Segmentation Study

2009-06-23T01:39:00.000-07:00

I have just completed an exhaustive segmentation study on the emerging user groups in the 'twittersphere'.

On a flight from Melbourne to Sydney I clustered the attitudes and deep seeded motivations behind the use of twitter into common segments. And this is what I came up with...

1. The Replacements

Those twitterers who have replaced a more traditional form of communication called talking with 140 characters or less of every thought, comment or announcement that enters their mind. These twitterers tend to skew towards the @reply functionality.

2. The Giver's

Those that are so fast to tweet a link to the latest piece of industry information published, that they can practically claim it as their own. Lots of tinyurl's are seen in their tweets. Those that just miss being first to announce often use the RT function.

3. The Takers

Those that selfishly take more than they give from Twitter. These people (me included in this group!) like to follow the random thoughts of random people and send minimal & uninteresting tweets (usually after a few drinks!)

4. The Profilers

Twitter has become both a replacement and a nightmare for publicists amongst those that have a public profile. And we all now feel closer to the ones we look up to and know more about what's going on in their heads. And if their tweets are missed online, you can usually catch them in the glossies or sunday gossip sections.

5. The robots

The segment we all hate, but in the end they dont care because they are machines! I also put the fakes in this segment as they tend to be disliked aswell

6. The WTF's

This segment skews to those who have no followers and only 1 update. They are not sure what the hell twitter is and why people think it's great. And they are proud to publicly announce it.

If anyone has any other segments that you think I have missed or got wrong then I am happy to revise and publish.

Size does matter!

2009-05-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

I recently made one of the biggest career moves of my life. I spent my entire marketing career working in big organizations. And when I mean big, I mean really big! The likes of Goodman Fielder, Diageo, PepsiCo and ninemsn (50% owned by Microsoft). Some would say I’m an ‘establishment’ guy. If anyone asked me 5 years ago where I would see myself in the future, the answer ‘running a start up agency’ would have been inconceivable.

But something happened. The thought came to me about the same speed as the idea of having kids. One-minute kids were an annoyance on airplanes and the next I was tapping my wife on the shoulder in the middle of the night.

Big organizations have their benefits. Like security, support, structure and to some, a position of power. Big budget’s, big teams and big pay packets are all attractive. You also have the ability to learn a lot from those around you, about systems and processes, about dealing with people and standing out from the crowd. But, for me, it’s these exact things that suddenly became the reasons why I needed a change.

In large business’s, no matter how good your processes are, you end up spending a lot of time talking internally. Now don’t get me wrong internal communication is important to keep the business ticking but when you’re a marketer, and you spend more time talking to one another rather than to the people who will hopefully buy your product, there is an issue.

So, from someone who has just moved from businesses with 100,000 plus employees to a start up, what are the main differences?

Firstly ideas can be acted upon immediately without going through multiple layers of stakeholder ‘watering down’.
You have the ability to be agile and change course without feeling like you are steering a superliner.
There is also an innate feeling of team like nowhere else. Everyone shares the vision and is motivated by the possibility of building something out of nothing.
Support is not a role but is expected from everyone. Standing in the queue at the post office is everyone’s job.
Success is everyone’s and is celebrated no matter how big and small.
There is no-where to turn when the pressure is on. You can’t blame the sales-force if you’re not hitting your numbers. The buck stops with each and everyone in the business.

Now I am not suggesting which environment is better, or that every large organization doesn’t deliver on the above thoughts but there is no question that size does matter when it comes to selecting the right environment for you.

Marketers will emerge tougher!

2009-04-16T00:30:00.000-07:00

If you’re a marketer, you’re probably finding things pretty tough at the moment. Actually I would argue that its probably the toughest time ever for a marketer. Don’t get me wrong, there have always been challenges that marketers need to deal with but has there ever been a time when so many different forces have hit at once.

The discipline of marketing has changed more in the last 5 years than all the years preceding it. It was relatively easy to just roll out a consistent strategy that kept the consumer, trade and internal stakeholders happy. As long as you showed 10% growth, you didn’t need to change too much. Then came concepts like ‘ideas’, ‘integration’, ‘consumer experience’, ‘ROI’, ‘CRM’ & ‘fragmentation’. All of a sudden the communications planning process became complex for both marketers and the agencies that were meant to deliver it.

Marketers now have to reach out to a greater number of rostered agencies who are more qualified to provide specialists services rather than relying on broad service traditional agencies. What has come with this is the complexity of managing multiple agency relationships. Marketers have had to develop a set of counseling skills that keep everyone working nicely together.

Technology is now so fundamental in consumer’s daily lives, that marketers can’t simply rely on their historical media schedule. This requires a much deeper understanding of various technologies and the needs they are delivering to. It is no longer enough to just be across the output of the schedule but you need to understand the inputs.

Consumers are looking more and more to peer opinion and recommendation to inform their purchase decisions rather than simply rely on the word of marketers. Instead of preaching, marketers have had to play more of an influencing role as any overpromise is see through.

Internal stakeholders are now much more involved in the questions of effectiveness, measurement, ROI and efficiency. Being able to judge the relative ROI of a $1m TVC versus a $200K search strategy is essential in the internal sign off process. Marketers are not only judged by their creativity but also their understanding of the data.

And while all this is happening, the economy has crumbled and people stopped spending money. How can a marketer think clearly about a response strategy when they are fundamentally worried about the security of their role?

There is no doubt it’s a tough time for marketers at the moment but looking at the positive, this training ground will produce the most competent and resilient marketers in history. And that should result in some of the best marketing work ever. As an industry, we should all look forward to the spoils!

Social Media Monitoring: Human Intervention

2009-03-03T01:27:00.000-08:00

Firstly I need to apologize for the prolonged silence. My wife and I had our second child 5 weeks ago and we've been in newborn lock down!

Here is my latest column in this week's B&T.

Any business should always strive to know exactly how their consumer’s feel about them at any given time. Whether this is in response to a piece of activity, in response to someone else’s opinion or just part of ongoing reputation management. As a marketer I was continually seeking new ways to get a read on ‘real’ brand perception not just perception generated from moderated methodology.

Social media monitoring tools give businesses a new way of understanding what people are saying about their brand and how influential these people are. There are a lot of good tools hitting the market that are either fee or subscription based. Tools like Nielsen Buzz metrics, Steamwall, Buzzlogic, Buzznumbers, Sentiment Metrics, Dialogix, Blogpulse, Google alerts & Twitter Search just to name a few. At The Population, we have decided to go with a combination of Radian 6 and other free monitoring and analytics tools that allow us to build a more rounded picture.

Whilst all the tools have their own distinct features and selling points, there is one consistency no matter which one you use. Social media monitoring tools are only as good as the individual running them. Relying on an automated tool is like a focus group without a moderator and without a moderator, a focus group is worthless. .

The monitoring tools are key word based. The keyword strategy is incredibly important. It will determine the quality and relevance of information retrieved. Your output is only as good as the information you put in. And when the brand has broad meaning like Apple, Pizza Hut or Target, you can imagine the difficulty in getting relevant analysis.

But the real task lies in making sense of the information retrieved. A human brain is needed to mine and analyze the data to determine sentiment (no matter what they tell you this cannot be automated), topic aggregation, information flow, source of opinion, trends, competitive association & geography. Most importantly though tying all the information together for brand insight can only be done by someone who really understands the information and can build association with other data sources like Google analytics, existing online metrics, Google blog search etc.

When social media monitoring is done well, the insight that a brand can gather is enormously valuable. However, if you are looking for an automated set and forget report, you might end up drowning in whole lot of irrelevant data.

B&T Column: Traditional Media is Dead!

2009-01-21T16:53:00.000-08:00

[Here is my column in this week's B&T magazine. There is no doubt social media get's above it's fair share of coverage relative to it's current standing in the market. However in order for social media to become an adopted and effective approach, we need to ensure it is positioned the right way by the right people]

Social media will replace all other forms of media within the next 5 years by making them appear irrelevant to today’s changing media consumer.

I have one word in response to this statement: BULLSHIT!

It’s amusing to see commentary like this being bandied around amongst some of the media community who are clearly ill informed and have little to no understanding of the broader media landscape. It’s not doing social media any favors making these statements and it makes the industry look amateurish. Don’t get me wrong, social media will be essential in building ongoing brand and consumer relationships in the future, but it’s never going to make all other forms of media extinct.

Marketers face multiple brand challenges at any one time that each require bespoke communications solutions. The fact is social media amplifies these solutions and creates a platform that delivers more effective and powerful communications.

There are two things that are certain. The overall media landscape will change and marketers will continue to try and keep abreast of the changing environment. Established media channels will continue to play an important and varied role for brand communications. TV provides mass reach and an emotional brand story; magazines are nice for environmental targeting; outdoor is good for visual repetition; radio works for more promotional and tactical requirements; display will continue to be an efficient acquisition medium and search will provide a powerful and cost effective way of being found.

However, the main issue with media planning now is that when the spot schedule finishes, the radio promotion has aired, the outdoor has run its course, the micro site has been built and you’ve maxed out your online display impressions, the consumer doesn’t simply switch off. The consumer is not dictated to by the media plan. This is where the importance of social media comes in.

Social media maintains the consumer and brand relationship in between traditional campaigns, tying together the brands assets, providing a forum for consumer dialogue that will only make the next campaign work harder from launch.

We are at an exciting time for social media in Australia. More marketers want to understand the consumer behavior that is enabled as a result of social media. It is extremely important, though, to position it the right way so it is not pigeon holed as the shiny new toy with no substance.

Traditional media will never be more alive with a strong foundation of social media.

Here's a story....

2009-01-14T23:55:00.000-08:00

A great little story about the history of marketing and the future of communications.....

A short history of marketing from Michael Reissinger on Vimeo.

Happy new year ......Paris!

2009-01-06T20:32:00.000-08:00

Was anyone else completely over the minute by minute updates of Paris Hilton's comings and going's over the new year period?

'Paris went to a BBQ'....'Paris arrived at the party at 11.15pm'....'Paris ate a lettuce leaf last night'.....'Paris went to the toilet'.

Her visit to Australia must have been extraordinary for her. She got paid somewhere in the vicinity of $100K to $600K depending on which trusted source you get your news from. She flew around in private planes, getting $5,000 worth of shopping vouchers everywhere she went, going to parties, all away from the Hollywood press. It feels like the winner out of this trip was.... well yes Paris.

So who brought her out here and footed the bill? And what did they get out of all of this?

After a small amount of research, it was Bongo Virus, the new social networking / entertainment / mobile site launched late last year. I wonder whether they'd be happy with what they got for their investment.

From what I can gather, she posed with their mascot at a press conference & she went to their new years eve party for a couple of hours at The Trademark in Kings Cross, after arriving almost 2 hours late (and spent a fair bit of that time in the toilet).

The major issue I see with this type of celebrity marketing is that when the star is so much bigger than the brand, the brand doesn't see the light of day. I might be wrong but I never heard Paris mention Bongo Virus once and the media went out of their way not to mention the endorsement in their coverage.

I did a lot of celebrity marketing when I was at Pepsi and it was interesting to track the effectiveness of the celebrity's impact on brand KPI's. The most effective celebrities were the ones that had relatively equal stature to the brand when they were signed or had a rapid rise to fame during the endorsement period. The 2 that worked best for us were Jennifer Hawkins (just after she won miss universe) and Guy Sebastion (we launched him the morning after he won Australian Idol). The 2 failures were Delta Goodrem and Beyonce Knowles.

Whilst Bongo Virus could probably produce a stack of paper with column inches and mentions, you kind've feel like Paris was the winner in all of this and we are all the losers as a result...

Pepsi's Social Media Department in Action

2008-12-08T20:29:00.000-08:00

This was forwarded onto me from an old colleague at Pepsi (thanks Dans!)

Pepsi's German marketing team took a very wrong turn here to support Pepsi Max.

However, Pepsi showed how to respond when a marketing team clearly gets it wrong. Their actions helped diffused a potential public relations nightmare.

The social media department just repaid their value to the business. It also shows how important it is for a brand to listen and be human!

The Population & Naked - Flying the Australian Flag!

2008-12-08T01:55:00.000-08:00

Whilst I'm not one to shout about awards, I will on this occasion given our Idea / WOM propagation product 'Ripple' just picked up a gong in the WOM marketing awards in the UK for best targeting of influencers. The project was for Fox 8's show Gossip Girl.

The reason I want to talk about it is that we were the only award winner from outside of the UK.

It proves Ripple is world class and that Australian companies are up there strategically and executionally with the worlds best!

A Big Mouth!

2008-11-18T16:54:00.000-08:00

Here's my column in this weeks B&T magazine. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments.

No one likes a big mouth. You know that really annoying friend you’ve got who always talks over you and never shuts up, going off on tangents that don’t interest you. It’s like they live in their own bubble and are not in tune with how their action affect the people around them. In their own world, they’re the life of the party, the centre of attention, the one without personality floors or a need to ‘adapt’

A relationship with a person like this is destined to fail. It takes too much energy and hard work to foster friends like these and what usually starts with patience, ends in avoidance.

The same can be said for big mouth brands. We all know the feeling when a repetitive, loud mouth brand keeps yelling at you. Going on about stuff that really doesn’t interest you. It shows they haven’t taken the time to listen and get to know you.

It’s even worse when you have an established relationship with a brand and they go and do something that ruins what you had together. I was a Sultana Bran fan, eating it religiously every morning until they came out with the ‘Sultana’s on the Grapevine’ ad a couple of years ago that made me want to drown myself in my cereal bowl. I can’t bring myself to forgive them. Just when you feel you’re really getting to know one another, they do something that makes you feel embarrassed to know them.

Brands should take a lead from our own personal relationships. The traits that human’s posses in developing long lasting relationships provide a good foundation for marketers to think about. Human relationships get better over time because you get to know one another intimately. A strong brand relationship should do the same. But it requires brands to get off their pedestal, listen & get to know you. When a brand stays true to itself whilst adapting to it’s consumers, it creates a more personal connection that makes every consumer feel special. And isn’t that exactly what every marketer tries to achieve?

I get the feeling that we’re going to refer to the brand guidelines or ‘brand bible’ less and less in the future as brands become more accessible and adaptable to their surroundings

It’s not surprising that we’re seeing the humanization of brands because people love brands that show more of a human side.