tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-207821172008-04-11T09:23:36.637-07:00MindCometBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20782117.post-76599882033246569372008-04-11T08:18:00.000-07:002008-04-11T09:23:36.948-07:00The following is a transcript for IMV53: New Media in Travel and Tourism. The original podcast is located <a href="http://internetmarketingvoodoo.com/2008/03/imv53-new-media-in-travel-and-tourism.html"target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br /><h1>Announcer</h1> <br />Welcome to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast, brought to you by MindComet. And now, here’s your host, Paul Lewis.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Welcome to internet marketing voodoo, I’m your host, Paul Lewis. Today’s topic is new media and travel and tourism. Our guest today is Chris Curtin. He’s the vice president of global marketing and new media and technologies for Disney Destinations Marketing.<br /><br />Chris, can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself?<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1><br />Sure. I have been responsible for designing and ultimately executing the manner with which Disney Destination use digital media to market ourselves. And speaking through different partnerships, that could advance our strategy, different initiatives that would be in line with our strategy, and ways in which to engage today’s consumer, on their terms, not necessarily ours.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Wonderful. You know, as a leader in the travel and tourism space, what sort of new media is Disney currently using or exploring to drive consumers to their brand?<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />We think about new media in three specific disciplines or sectors of the economy, if you will. The first of which is online, the second of which is mobile and wireless, the third of which the television platform and specifically, the digital part of the television platform and what we refer to as advanced television.<br /><br />It’s basically in those three areas that we have formed teams to sink through. How do we bring the Disney Destinations brand and message to life through those platforms and to those audiences and what ways can we create or commence a conversation or dialogue with them about what is so distinctive and what is so unique about Disney and its different destinations.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />A lot of times, when we talk about new media, people get really focused in just the online, so I’m glad that you kind of gave us those three buckets and the way that you think about things; I think that’s very helpful to the listeners. <br /><br />What are some of the things that Disney might be doing differently with media than some of the things that other marketers you’re seeing out there are using it for?<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />One of the biggest ways is we don’t necessarily approach the space or the spaces as an advertiser. We believe that our brand is very experiential, and as a result, we think it’s a perfect complement to this space, which is, by definition, experiential and immersive. And in fact, if you use many of the adjectives that would commonly be associated with digital media, be it immersive, be it experiential, be it consumer centric; those are very much adjectives or descriptors that we would like to have people use when describing a Disney vacation.<br /><br />And we may have changed a couple of things, for instance, we don’t refer to our customers as consumers; instead, we refer to them as guests. But roughly speaking, when someone describes that medium, we feel like it’s very compatible with the same description that we would give of our brand.<br /><br />And as a result, we feel like the medium is a perfect fit for the ways in which we want to bring our brand to life.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />I think that’s some really good points as well, I love the idea of changing the way that you project your brand and think about how your brand can be this experiential medium, different than how you might use it in print or television. <br /><br />And I think so many people that we talk to are like, “Okay, so how do I make these new mediums conform to the way I’m used to projecting my brand?” So I think that’s spot on. <br /><br />You talked a little bit about what you are doing that’s different; are there areas of new media that you like to explore, or things that you’d like to be doing that you’re not doing? Or are there potential areas that maybe aren’t a right fit for Disney but you think are very exciting out there right now?<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />That’s a great question. You know, fundamentally, we do not want to be nor do we think this brand is a me-too-ism brand. So one of the careful sets of analysis that we always do is determine what is our role within any specific initiative and what is the Disney difference that could be applied to any specific initiative, be it in the mobile space or the online space where have you.<br /><br />I guess to specifically answer your question, I think UGC and social networking and kind of peer to peer communication is something that is going on in a very robust way at the moment, in and around our different products. I think the big question for Disney is, “What is our role in that conversation?” <br /><br />And I think we’re working through, at the moment, how we add something to the conversation and what consumers and those two are kind of sharing their experiences about Disney could come to expect from a Disney involvement in some way in those conversations.<br /><br />So I think probably that’s a big green field opportunity for us that we’re very much focused on and looking at, but at the moment, we’ve done some smaller yet pretty electrifying initiatives including one that is focused on identifying different moms from around the United States who now sit on an electronic panel that you can access through our website and it’s this mom’s panel that essentially helps to answer and helps to give guidance to different moms who are considering or planning or booking a Disney vacation.<br /><br />And it’s been really, really successful, but I think we’re thinking about, okay, what is the future of that idea, what are the future of other ideas and how do we communicate that under one brand.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Well, I think that’s very exciting, too. It kind of reminds me, Seth Goden talks about this concept of fast feedback loops and how we all have to get moving in digital time to change to a rapidly changing marketplace. And it sounds like that program with feedback from moms and soliciting their opinions in very interactive and timely manner is a powerful step in that direction.<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />Yep.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />I guess one of the things, whenever I get into a round table discussion with a series of marketers is, “How do you measure all this?” How do you determine what the ROI is and how you segment your budget between traditional, between what I would now call traditional new media, and then cutting edge new media? How do you do rough budget segmentation and ROI type measurements for these kinds of things?<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />It’s a great question and certainly something that we’re asked all the time. I think one of the elements of the question is that there’s an ROI analysis of course, cause it is an investment. And you have to be convinced that this investment is better than other investments that you might be able to make from a marketing or advertising perspective. <br /><br />But there’s also, a new, I think emerging set of analyses or analytics, and they kind of are comfortably fall under the description of return on objective. And I think one of the elements of new media is that it confers a certain relevance to your destination or to your products or to your service to the extent that you do it well. <br /><br />What I have found, it’s again worth what you’re paying, so you know, just one man’s opinion, but what I have found is marketers who approach the medium and think about ideas that are specific to the medium, not necessarily to a campaign that has multi media or multi platforms attached to it, but really, ideas that are specific to the medium and have creative that’s as compelling as the distribution plan.<br /><br />Then, I think they do it very, very well. And at its core, Disney is acknowledging that digital media is really kind of the way of the future. And consumers being able to select and navigate and lead the conversation with an advertiser who is trying to tailor their product or service to that consumer’s interest, is, I think undoubtedly, the path that we’re all trying to pursue and ultimately learn our place in.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Great. You know, you touched on earlier the concept of social media and user generated content and how do you enter the conversation and what’s the right way to do that; obviously the concerns of the brands being in control or being subject to the interpretations of the end users; what are your thoughts, not necessarily for Disney, but overall for marketers of major brands. What are the main things they should be thinking about in terms of interacting with user-generated content?<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />I think, not that there need to be ground rules, but I think that there needs to be an understanding of what is the role of the company in that space, any company in that space, and how is that communicated to those who are conversing about that company’s product or services. And are they there to observe and react, or are they there to field questions or field concerns in real time? <br /><br />Are they held to the same levels of standards that they would be if someone picked up a telephone and called customer service? I think those are the kind of the unanswered questions from many corporations and the sooner that both the consumer and the marketplace as well as the corporations do elect to get into this area, develop, “What are the ground rules, i.e., what are the expectations?”<br /><br />I think it will be a lot more clear, but at the moment, I don’t believe those are 100 percent clear.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Yeah, I think as we go on, you’re right. The ground rules, kind of a baseline of the key elements you have to understand and you have to embrace will become clearer. Right now, it’s definitely a lot of experimentation going on out there. So I think that’s a great takeaway as well.<br /><br />One of the things I’m excited about asking you, obviously Disney deals with marketing to lots of different ages and different cultures throughout the world. What are some of the things, in terms of new media, that transcend or are very specific to certain cultures or age groups that you might highlight for us?<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />That’s a great question. You’re absolutely spot on with the fact that we have one universal brand, but it finds itself in many different regions and many different cultures, and frankly, in many different states of technological maturation. <br /><br />For instance, in Asia, as you well know, mobile and wireless is at kind of a 3-G level. In Europe and the advanced television is at a very pronounced and mature level. And here in the United States, the online or the internet is at a very advanced level.<br /><br />You’re absolutely right with your question and we have been very cognizant of it, and I think it goes back to what we were discussing at the beginning, which is to say we’re very focused on thinking through holistically and comprehensively what we’re trying to achieve, why this medium is the ideal medium through which to achieve that goal, and executionally, how do we insure that from the moment the idea is conceived to the moment that it is put into a marketplace, the quality standards of Disney blow through it?<br /><br />And as a result of that, you would probably see, if you had the opportunity to look at it from a bird’s eye perspective, a lot of focus in Asia around what are great mobile and wireless initiatives, a lot of focus in Europe about ways in which to kind of bring our message into life through the television and satellite platforms and a lot of focus in United States on what we’re doing with respect to all the online opportunity.<br /><br />So it’s not to suggest that in each of those other – each of those regions we’re not also doing things in the two categories that I left out, but it is definitely a focus, because we see the consumer trends and we see the consumer adoption rates, and we also see what consumers are comfortable with.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Great, well, I think we’ve gotten a lot of takeaways from today’s interview. I’d love to ask just one last question. As a marketer, especially if you are a marketer who’s company, their idea was launching a website was their big, interactive, sticking their toe in the water so far; what do you think are some of the biggest opportunities, or maybe what is the one biggest opportunity that marketers should be looking at, trying to understand, learning more about investing in, experimenting in right now in the world of interactive and new media?<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />As a marketer, you should never fall into the trap that you’re either doing something that is advancing your brand or you’re doing something that is advancing your business and commercial interests. <br /><br />To me, those two points should not be incompatible; instead, they must be viewed as kind of two sides to the same coin. If you think about a website, as an example, I don't know what it is for other companies or other products and services, but the vast majority of people who consider a Disney vacation; they research that Disney vacation and they try to learn more about which hotel to stay at, what properties to see, how many days to stay, what restaurants to dine in, and all the rest. <br /><br />And every time you do that, there’s a brand impact you’re making on those prospective guests. And I feel very strongly that you are, in many respects, kind of representing what a Disney experience is, even if you are just reflecting ultimately a mechanism through which you ultimately have your Disney experience.<br /><br />And all too often, people sit back and say, “Hey, a 30 second ad is just a taste of Johnson and Johnson or just a taste of what Coca-Cola is.” And because of digital media and how immersive it is, and in some ways how elongated it can be, I think it’s much more impactful, ultimately, on what your brand is and who your brand is and what consumers think of your brand. <br /><br />Then, perhaps, even a 30 second spot was in its heyday. So I think it’s very important from a marketing perspective to really think about what you stand for as a brand, what is your brand promise and making sure you deliver upon that, particularly in digital media.<br /><br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />I love that analogy, I once was talking to the head of marketing for a very large restaurant chain, and he said, “Our brand experience starts the minute someone steps their foot out of the door in our parking lot,” and everything from how that experience would be all the way through when they leave.<br /><br />And I like this idea of a brand experience starts from the time you begin to interact with us through digital media, whether that be on our website or into one of our distributed interactive experiences. I think that’s a great way of looking at things.<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />It’s also ______ a view of our brand, too, because we like to do things that only Disney could do, be it on property or off property with our marketing. Good examples of that is we had two homepage executions this prior year; one of which was on AOL the other of which was on Yahoo. <br /><br />And during the course of those homepage executions, we had our characters literally fly across the screen, in part because that’s unique to Disney, but it’s also distinctive within the industry. And there are not many other companies who can boast digitally animated characters who could fly across AOL or fly across Yahoo and ultimately command your attention and then invite you to learn more about what Disney was doing or trying to communicate that day.<br /><br />And I think it’s much like going to a Broadway or going to the theater; the minute you get into that theater experience, well before the curtains have kind of unveiled, the production has begun. And every part of it should be thought through, and every time you see a Disney message, even if it’s a marketing or advertising message, that’s an extension of what we think is important and who we think we are.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Couldn’t have said it better myself; that is a very astute and relevant point, I think, for all of us marketers.<br /><br />Well, Chris, I know we’re just about out of time today, I want to appreciate you and I know your schedule’s very busy; I appreciate the time you’ve made for us. I did want to wrap up with just a couple truth or marketing questions. Are you ready to play?<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />Sure.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />All right. The first one is, somewhere in the continental U.S., gas will reach $5.00 a gallon and obviously these gas prices will have some effect on the travel industry in 2008. You think we’ll get up to $5.00 a gallon in 2008?<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />Well, I really hope that that’s not true.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />I’m sure.<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />I really, really hope that that’s not true and I hope that we are on path towards finding ways to make gas pricing as reasonable as possible and also take alternatives out there for consumption. But I hope that’s not the case.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Great. Well I hope not either. I have one other one for you. There was an article that came out the other day that said the first hotel in space is slated as potentially as early as 2012. By the year 2025, the first theme park will open in outer space. Truth or marketing?<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />Well, we do have an attraction called Mission: Space.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />That’s true.<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />Which is one of the more popular attractions that we have, and you know, I gotta believe that the sky’s the limit, but I’m unaware of those plans. Although Mr. Branson, it seems like he has a strong commitment to intergalactic space flight and trying to find a commercial opportunity around it. And I think, even Google, I was reading somewhere, is in some way sponsoring or participating in some of those initiatives. So if you put Virgin and Google together and you have others in the mix, who knows what is possible?<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Yeah, with Google and Virgin, maybe the sky is not the limit. <br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />Exactly. Those two companies, and certainly the individuals who lead them are so visionary that you couldn’t put it past them.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Well, Chris, again, we really enjoyed having you on the show today, thanks for all your insights and I hope you enjoyed the experience as well.<br /><br /><h1>Chris Curtin:</h1> <br />Thank you so much.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />As always, I’ve enjoyed having the audience listen in, you can find more information as well as the text information of this, in addition to the audio cast, on internetmarketingvoodoo.com. <br /><br />Thank you so much.<br /><br /><h1>Announcer</h1> <br />For more information on this week’s topic, visit internetmarketingvoodoo.com. This podcast has been brought to you by MindComet, the Relationship Agency.<br /><br />[End of Audio]<br /><br /><b>Marketing Resources</b><br /><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/pdiddy"target="_blank">Get LinkedIn</a> to Paul Lewis.<br /><br /><a href="mailto:arthurw.podcast@mindcomet.com">Contact MindComet</a> to learn more about new media and what it can do to help you reach your business goals.<br /><br /><a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=115619865"target="_blank">Subscribe</a> to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast in iTunes.MindComettag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20782117.post-35124000323438357112008-02-20T11:59:00.000-08:002008-02-21T06:23:27.690-08:00The following is a transcript for IMV52: Facebook in the Corporate World. The original podcast is located <a href="http://internetmarketingvoodoo.com/2008/02/imv52-facebook-in-corporate-world.html"target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br /><h1>Announcer</h1><br />Welcome to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast, brought to you by MindComet. Now, here's your host, Paul Lewis.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Welcome to Internet Marketing Voodoo. I'm your host, Paul Lewis. Today's topic is Facebook in the corporate world. Our special guest today is Lee Aase. He's the Manager for Syndications and Social Media at the Mayo Clinic. Lee, can you start us out by giving us a little information about yourself?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />I'm really glad to join you today. I'm, as you said, Manager for Syndications and Social Media. I previously worked for national media relations at Mayo Clinic, and had social media and research communications as other parts of my portfolio. But as we've seen this area growing, whether it's in podcasting and Facebook and other areas, we just see that it's necessary to devote additional resources to that, so I'm glad to be with you today.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Great. Let's start out by talking a little bit about why should companies be thinking about using or leveraging Facebook?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />Well I think the first thing to remember is that they're in Facebook whether they know it or not, if they have any number of employees. Mayo Clinic has 50,000 employees, and without any real promotion on our part, we have 1,500 employees and students at our graduate medical school and medical education programs that are in Facebook. And so, it isn't a question of whether they're going to be in Facebook, but how they're going to be in Facebook.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />What are some of the benefits of Facebook versus other business communities or applications that a company might have? Why should they be thinking about Facebook in particular?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />Well I think the biggest advantage is the network effect. I mean Facebook has 64 million members today, just the ability that you have to connect really easily with interested stakeholders and potential employees, potential customers. And it's just as easy as them clicking another link to be connected with you, as well. As opposed to setting up your own password-protected Web space, where a user has to remember a unique user ID and password, in this case it's just painless and effortless once they're in Facebook, and 250,000 people are joining a day, it's really easy to create that connection, and it's becoming, from my perspective, a social utility like the telephone, where people will be connecting in this way, and particularly as the younger demographics are aging and moving into the workforce.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />When you talk about connecting in this way, are you thinking of both from a recruiting standpoint, as well as for internal communication and people speeding that communication within the organization by understanding and linking with each other? What are the primary benefits of that connectivity?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />What it enables is... just that it's a platform for people to connect in a way that's useful to them. And so, yes, it's a good way to recruit. There are targeted advertising and things like that that you can do within Facebook - and maybe we'll get to that a little bit later - but also it takes a minute to form a group and to invite your friends to join a group, and to send out invitations to others who are in Facebook to join that group. And so whether they're within the organization or external collaborators, you're able to get connected with them and have a discussion space and a way of connecting.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Facebook obviously is a great utility that's available to these companies without that development cost or investment cost, but what kind of ongoing upkeep and investment should a company think about when they're going to begin to leverage Facebook? Are there some things that they should keep in mind there?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />You do need to have somebody be responsible for it, and it's not a full-time job - but it means part of my job now. But someone needs to be listening and engaging, and it's not just another way of pushing out more information. But if people are interested and want to just go to Facebook and search for Mayo Clinic, the good thing is that our official Mayo Clinic page will show up first in the rankings, and you can see the kinds of things that we've put there.<br /><br />Again, I want to stress we haven't promoted this externally. It's been just completely low-key. We're looking in the next few months to be rolling this out to our employees and to our patients. But whatever you see there is free, and it's just using existing resources that we've had. That would just give you an example of the kind of things you can put into a Facebook page.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Sure. Now, Facebook allows a lot of different forms of content, including video. What sort of material should a company think about including as part of their Facebook information?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />I think absolutely the video sharing is the really big benefit, and that's something that we've included. You can put in an RSS feed from your news releases or other new stories. There's a free application out there that'll let you put up to three RSS feeds on your page. That actually helps keep the site fresh, because it's just automatic material that you are publishing anyway.<br /><br />And then, I guess, the other thing is just with the Facebook page there's the Wall, and the Wall is kind of the common space communication platform. It isn't necessarily you creating the content, but it's your stakeholders creating the content, talking about their experience with your brand. And that's going to carry more credibility than a highly polished testimonial that you hired a freelancer to write.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Right. Right, you want that authenticity and the actual employees getting up there and posting. And speaking about that, should employees be encouraged to join, or potentially even required to join as part of being part of an organization?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />Well I guess I probably wouldn't require it, but I would certainly encourage it. For Mayo Clinic, we are developing guidelines for internal education programs on not just Facebook, but other social media, and what's the right way to engage. We have 50,000 employees, and have been on the Fortune 100 Top Best Places to Work for the last five years. And a lot of that is based on employee satisfaction. Having these 50,000 employees, who are our greatest asset, out there just engaging voluntarily and letting them know that it's okay to do it, but giving them some guidelines to keep them from stepping in a mess, is a great way to create some leverage, and then you add that to half a million patients every year. It does provide a really strong way to build connections with our brand, with people who have had a personal experience of it, with people they know.<br /><br />One of the things we've found on our main Web site is that the patient stories are among the most visited and most interesting elements of the site. It's one thing to hear somebody talk about their story or have that sort of highly-polished story. It's another thing to have somebody you know tell the story, and that's what's so powerful about Facebook and other social networking sites.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Oh, absolutely. I completely agree. I want to also jump back to your point on guidelines. I thought that was very relevant for the audience. I think that this whole new world of social media, and personal blogs and podcasts, and everything that's just happening on the Internet has kind of opened Pandora's box from an HR perspective of, "Hey, what is our stance? Can our employees blog? Can they list things in Facebook? What type of information should be listed? What's appropriate? What's appropriate as far as pictures that are posted?" and a lot of other things, because eventually there does become some reflection.<br /><br />As you mentioned, your strongest asset is your 50,000 employees. Your employees become a reflection of your company, so at what point is there a difference, and where should guidelines be established? So I think that's great that you're doing that, and it seems like that's a specific focus of your function, because it is so new.<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />That's exactly right. We can't hire enough communications professionals to go out and tell our story as we'd like to have it be. But if you can give the good people that you're hiring, who you trust to take care of patients every day, some guidelines and make sure that they know that when they're posting something on a blog, they need to identify themselves as a Mayo Clinic employee if they are commenting in medical matters, so that there's that expectation of transparency, but then also to stress that, "This is my personal opinion."<br /><br />That's more probably on the blog side of things, and yes, within the social networking sites there would be some other things to work through. We are developing a core curriculum, or some training that we'll be able to probably have on our intranet, but then also have some in-person classes, where you have an opportunity for people to interact. But we just really feel like this will be relatively easy to distribute across the organization because you almost can kind of use social media to do that.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Right. You can use social media to teach people about -<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />To train them...<br />[Laughter]<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Yeah. Absolutely. No, that's great. Tell us a little bit about how Facebook can be leveraged from an HR perspective for recruiting. We've talked about what are the new things that HR has to take on as part of this with their employees, but how can they use it to reach out and help recruit new individuals to the organization?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />Well, everything that I've talked about so far is free, but one of the elements that isn't free would be targeted advertising. Part of what's the benefit of Facebook is that people put a lot of information about their schooling, about their college majors, where they went to school, as well as previous employment as part of their Facebook profile. You're able to target advertising to many of those elements, target based on keywords, target based on college majors. It does give an opportunity to reach, not just a nationwide, but a global group, a global potential employee population. And you're only paying for clicks on the people who actually see your ad and go visit your HR site.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />So it's highly targeted, and it benefits from - you mentioned that you were one of the top employers to work for for many years now - and so that positive karma and feedback within the Facebook community also probably assists as people see these targeted opportunities that apply to them, that they realize this is a place they may really want to work.<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />Yeah. Exactly. And the other element is that with the whole fan pages and the way that that I'm a fan of Mayo Clinic - it shows up prominently on my personal profile - there is that sort of background effect, I guess, and that's maybe what you called karma.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Right. [Laughter]<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />If a friend of yours was a fan of Mayo Clinic or a fan of <a href="http://mindcomet.com"target="_blank">MindComet</a>, that's going to make you tend to feel more positively, whether you're a potential patient or customer or employee.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Absolutely. Flip back to the side where we're sharing information, and we've created these groups that are out there. Are there some concerns about employees beginning to discuss or share confidential data? And what steps can they take to make sure that the information is shared just with the right individuals?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />There is a distinction between Facebook pages and Facebook groups. Facebook pages are sort of your brand's public face out to the world. Those are open to anybody. Facebook groups can be either open or closed, or secret. Even with a secret group, I would not be putting bank account information and personal Social Security number, or in our case, patient identification information that's protected by HIPAA.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Right.<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />Yet we also have other electronic means of communications within Mayo Clinic, where you don't put that material, either. A Facebook group can be, if you have it as a secret group, I mean one way that we are using it is for quality focus groups, and to have our patients in one particular specialty interact with some of the quality improvement leaders in that specialty. And they can have this discussion group to offer their honest feedback. They have some in-person meetings as well, but it lets that conversation continue, and yet we don't have to give them VPN access behind our firewall to be in this secure site. That probably goes back to the education on the kinds of things that you can share externally with key stakeholders.<br /><br />I just spoke with somebody in the last day or so who had heard a presentation that I'd made, and she was interested in using it to manage her PR agencies. She's got a global company that has several different PR agencies that are working on her account. Instead of giving them access behind their company firewall, she is going to be forming a secret Facebook group and getting these people together.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />And is there any concern when someone does that, that they're going to share their PR information before it goes out anywhere else, about Facebook and kind of who owns the data and things like that? Any concerns on that level?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />I suppose you could be really paranoid and be concerned about that. I could post, and probably will post on my blog, a link to a Facebook group that I will form in response to this question today, and ask people to try to get into it, and see if you can get into that data; if I don't give you access, you won't be able to get in, so maybe I'm calling this <a href="http://social-media-university-global.org/2008/02/14/smug-100-facebook-hacker-challenge/"target="_blank">the Hacker Challenge</a>.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Yeah.<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />I don't see it being a huge problem. Frankly, with Facebook being the top photo-sharing site in the world, with all the data that's going there, the information that's in your little Facebook group and your little secret Facebook group isn't going to be the kind of material that Facebook's gonna be using in its marketing, and its targeting of ads and things like that.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Well let me ask you one last question, too. Is Facebook equally applicable to business-to-business customers as it is business-to-consumer type organizations?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />I don't know whether it's equally applicable, but my gut reaction is yes, just like the telephone is used in business. It is a means of communication, and it does have somewhat of a younger skewing demographic, although the 35-and-up demographic is the fastest-growing segment within Facebook. That's because 85 percent of college students already are in Facebook, so the growth opportunity is elsewhere. I really see, as I mentioned, the person using it for managing PR agencies, it does create an opportunity to have interaction. And as the uptake continues to grow, I think it'll be just another way that people communicate.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Just to kind of summarize some of the things that we went over, it seemed like, first of all, that Facebook is an excellent tool to leverage to get your information out there, to create better brand exposure for your organization, both in those connections, as well as targeted recruiting and other capabilities. It also seemed equally relevant, though, that specific guidelines are set up for employees in how we're going to use this; where information should be kept secret or where it should be public, and that it probably made sense to potentially dedicate some individuals, or an individual, to spearhead this for an organization because there are a lot of nuances and variations that the individual needs to be aware of to be successful in this.<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />Yeah, I mean I think that's a really fair summary, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you about this. Actually, on my blog, I have set up a Facebook business section, and also kind of just re-branded my blog in the last couple weeks to call it <a href="http://social-media-university-global.org/"target="_blank">Social Media University Global</a>, or SMUG, for short. And the idea that I had with that is that as I go and speak at different conferences, I have people asking specific applications or, "How do I get started with this?" and mainly, I just say it's important for anybody involved in sales and marketing or PR, to actually personally be in Facebook. So that would be the first takeaway that I would have with this.<br /><br />And then secondly, to look through what I've done with the SMUG university little shtick that I have going, is to create a Facebook 101, 102, 103 sequence for how to get started with it, and what are some of these issues of groups versus pages, advertising applications. That's one element that we didn't get to. There just is a lot to learn, but I think your key point about developing the employee education programs to be able to bring your greatest asset for your company into this mix is really right on.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Great. For our listeners, from Internet Marketing Voodoo I will link to your blog, but could you just give us the URL for the listeners who are not going to the Web site?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />Sure. The URL is <a href="http://leeaase.wordpress.com"target="_blank">leeaase.wordpress.com</a>, and that's L-E-E-A-A-S-E. Otherwise, one of the benefits of blogging is if you just Google me, Lee, last name is spelled A-A-S-E, it'll come up first in the search rankings, then you can go there.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Nice. Nice. One of the benefits of all of that. That's great. Well, on a closing point, what do you feel is the biggest change about how leading businesses are expected to represent themselves in social media in the coming couple of years? What's the biggest change that companies need to really think about and embrace?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />I think the biggest thing they need to know is that this isn't just a push medium. It isn't just another way to do what they've always done in bombarding people with marketing messages, whether they want it or not. Part of the power of social media, and the information that Facebook and MySpace and some others gather about consumers, is that they're able to get target-relevant advertising. But beyond that, it's an opportunity to engage. Having some people dedicated toward engaging in that conversation and spreading the positive word-of-mouth, is going to be really powerful and important.<br /><br />And then you asked what's the biggest change. That is in some ways a change, but the change is that it's online and that it's really available to everybody. From the Mayo Clinic perspective, we've never done any national advertising, and so it's all been based on stories in the news media and word-of-mouth, with word-of-mouth of satisfied patients being the most important factor in building our brand. And I think the news for 2008 is that that really is going to apply more and more to everybody.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Great. I think those are great words of advice, and I think this has been helpful to our listeners. Are you ready to play Truth or Marketing?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />Let's give it a try.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />All right. First thing, right now there's a big campaign on about accessing Facebook from your iPhone. And so, by 2009 - so looking out just a little bit - 25 to 30 percent of all visits to Facebook will come from a mobile device.<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />I'd say that's truth.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Truth? Good. I think that there is a real distinct possibility of that. There's definitely some acceleration that's happened with the depth of capabilities of mobile devices, certainly the iPhone, but there's others that are very capable. And I think people are just getting plugged in all the time. I tend to agree with you on that one.<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />And you know, part of the reason I say that is that I have a mobile application on my cell phone. When I get a new message or somebody writes on my wall, I get a text message and that drives me back to Facebook. So I end up using the computer to get back there, but it's the -<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />The mobile that's driving it.<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1> <br />...text message that drives me there. Yeah.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Yeah. All right. Let's go out a little bit further. By 2010, Facebook will overtake MySpace to become the largest social media site on the Internet.<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />That is truth, and I think it'll be before that.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Great. Great. Well, we will see. And the last question that is kind of on a number of peoples' minds this week, and I'll put it to you, Yahoo will become part of Microsoft.<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />Well, if the Department of Justice says yes, I think that will. Yeah. I think that's truth.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Okay. Great. I appreciate your predictions, as do the listeners. I'll just also mention one more time that the URL for your Web site is <a href="http://leeaase.wordpress.com"target="_blank">leeaase.wordpress.com</a>, or just do a search for you on Facebook, right?<br /><br /><h1>Lee Aase:</h1><br />That'll do it.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />All right. Great. Well, for Internet Marketing Voodoo, I'm Paul Lewis. I hope you've enjoyed the podcast. Thank you very much.<br /><br /><h1>Announcer</h1><br />For more information on this week's topic, visit <a href="http://internetmarketingvoodoo.com"target="_blank">InternetMarketingVoodoo.com</a>. This podcast has been brought to you by <a href="http://mindcomet.com"target="_blank">MindComet</a>, the Relationship Agency.<br /><br />[End of Audio]<br /><br /><br /><b>Marketing Resources</b><br /><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/pdiddy" target="_blank">Get LinkedIn</a> to Paul Lewis.<br /><br /><a href="mailto:arthurw@mindcomet.com">Contact MindComet</a> to learn how to leverage new media to meet your corporate communication goals.<br /><br /><a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=115619865" target="_blank">Subscribe</a> to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast in iTunes.MindComettag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20782117.post-75869712003791851392008-02-07T10:16:00.000-08:002008-02-07T10:33:39.648-08:00The following is a transcript for IMV51: UGC Promotions. The original podcast is located <a href="http://internetmarketingvoodoo.com/2008/01/imv51-ugc-promotions.html">here</a>.<br /><br /><h1>Announcer</h1><br />Welcome to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast brought to<br />you by <a href="http://mindcomet.com">MindComet</a>. And now, here's your host, Paul Lewis.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Welcome to Internet Marketing Voodoo. I'm your host, Paul<br />Lewis, and today's topic is user-generated content promotions. <br />Our guest today is Mark Hardison. He's the Vice President of<br />Marketing for El Pollo Loco. Mark, could you tell us a little bit<br />about your background?<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />Yeah, I'm with El Pollo Loco. We are a chain here based in<br />California. The heritage of the brand started here and we're<br />expanding across the nation. And I've been with El Pollo Loco<br />with seven years now. Before that, I was with another quick<br />service restaurant chain here in Southern California called Carl's<br />Jr. <br /><br />But here at El Pollo Loco, I'm in charge of our advertising and<br />promotional programs associated with driving traffic and building<br />sales in our restaurants.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Great, because today we're focusing on the user-generated content<br />aspect of things. What do you see as the value of leveraging this<br />user-generated content? That's kind of a new phenomenon that's<br />been occurring on the Web. What's the value of that to a brand<br />like yours?<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />It is new. It's very new to me, as well. But one of the things that I<br />see in it that I like so much and I think it will prove to be a true<br />value of UGC, user-generated content, is that engagement; really<br />activating the brand with that target consumer and engaging them<br />in something that has somewhat of a meaning for them, even if it's<br />superficial, but it means something to them and it connects them to<br />our brand in a unique way.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Yeah, I think that so much of traditional advertising is starting to<br />be more glossed over. I think you're seeing consumers have just<br />been inundated, especially members of Gen Y; they've just been<br />inundated with so many commercial messages from the time that<br />they were born that they are very adept at tuning that out - of really<br />separating themselves from those messages. And so I think you're<br />spot-on that consumer-generated content allows them an<br />opportunity to really get involved and creates a much stronger<br />brand impression and hopefully a relationship with the consumer.<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />That's what we're trying to see with the programs that we have out<br />in the marketplace right now. It's just really make that connection,<br />even if it's the first connection in some cases that people have of<br />the brand. But do that in a way that is kind of their terms - on the<br />user's term, on our target consumers' terms rather than us telling<br />them about our brand.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Yeah. I think when I start talking to companies about this; the first<br />response that I often get back is what about the risks, though?<br />What are the potential downfalls of letting users or consumers kind<br />of take your brand and interact with your brand in a very public<br />way. What are your thoughts on that?<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />It is a bit of a tightrope because those same things that really create<br />that engagement and involvement and put that control in your<br />target consumers' hands, that's the thing that they value; especially<br />that Gen-Y and those younger consumers. They want that control<br />and it's on their terms just like we were just saying. <br /><br />But now, as a marketer, that's a hard thing to let go of, that control. <br />And I think that's where the biggest risk of these types of<br />promotions come in. And not only from just a simple sort of trying<br />to relate your brand to a target audience, but even from a legal<br />standpoint, too. I think there are significant risks when you engage<br />consumers to create content on your behalf, you've let that control<br />out of your hands. And, certainly for the programs that we've put<br />together, we've worked hand-in-hand with our legal team and<br />that's been quite an involved process.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Sure. I think that there are definitely some safety measures that<br />each company needs to take a close look at. And I think it's also<br />important for there to be that mental shift to recognize that your<br />brand is already starting to become part of the consumer space and<br />there's so many comments on forums and people making videos on<br />YouTube and things that are involving very prestigious brands<br />that, whether you want to go there kicking or screaming or really<br />just become part of the conversation, you will be dragged into the<br />world of user-generated content in this new millennium.<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />That's very true, Paul. And we noticed that as we ventured into<br />this arena, doing searches for El Pollo Loco on YouTube or on<br />Google definitely yielded results.<br /><br />But the distinction that our legal team puts on it is when it's truly<br />from a user with no impetus from the brand, obviously there's no<br />liability. But if we're out there suggesting users provide content<br />on our behalf, or using our brand name, then that turns into<br />something different in the legal arena. And I'm no legal expert but<br />it seems like as we've gotten closer involved with user-generated<br />content programs, it's becoming that and that's an important<br />distinction that we've had to keep in mind as we have seeded<br />different viral programs. And keeping that in mind about where<br />the impetus for that program was generated. If it comes from the<br />brand, it creates some risk for the brand.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Absolutely. I think that's a very succinct way of putting it and a<br />good thing for our audience to keep in mind. What do you think<br />are the key elements that make a viral program successful? Are<br />there certain tactics? Are there best practices to make sure that<br />things really go viral and don't fizzle? And what are some things<br />that you look for there?<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />I think it's important to have some seed content; don't rely<br />completely on users to generate what you set out to do. If you start<br />with seed content that is something that you've molded and not<br />tightly molded because it will immediately stand out as something<br />that wasn't user generated. <br /><br />But give good direction to consumers and to the users on what<br />you're looking for and provide an incentive. These are some basic<br />marketing tactics, traditional marketing tactics taken to this new<br />world of viral marketing, but they work. And when we put a prize<br />out there, it generates interest. And if we put a prize for posting<br />the best video on a Web site, microsite, like<br /><a href="http://wherestheflamegrill.com/">WheresTheFlameGrill.com</a>, which we're doing right now, we see<br />that people respond to that. And they want to win. And so they do<br />a great job creating content for us.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Yeah, I think that's something that a lot of marketers sometimes<br />forget is some of the basics. They say great, we're going to do this<br />viral and they have this viral idea but they don't put some of the<br />basic blocking and tackling that they should know so well from<br />marketing of, "Okay, how are we going to get people involved in<br />the program? Let's give them some content to get started with." <br />They tend to focus on the end result, this is going to go big and<br />viral and forget some of the basic, up front work to really get it off<br />to the right start and build up that critical mass.<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />You're right, Paul. For this video promotion that we're doing, the<br />user-generated video content on <a href="http://wherestheflamegrill.com/">WheresTheFlameGrill.com</a>, we've<br />provided users a bumper, a brief little piece of footage that we ask<br />them to incorporate into the video before they post it on YouTube<br />and then link it back to our site.<br /><br />And it is that sort of basic blocking and tackling kind of tactic, but<br />we've got our logo prominent, we've got the Web site that we<br />want to refer end users back to in every video that's generated and<br />linked to our site and posted on YouTube. So we feel confident<br />that that type of tactic is a real basic need in creating effective<br />user-generated content programs. <br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />When you look at the financial side of things, of where you might<br />invest your budgets in coming years and how you measure the<br />return on those investments, is there anything that's changing now<br />now that there is this UGC space and ongoing relationship<br />communication with email and things like that? Is that having an<br />effect either on the investment side or on the measurement of<br />return on investment for you?<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />Yeah, it's interesting. It's put our traditional marketing in a new<br />light and we think about our broadcast advertising, on television<br />and radio for instance, in a different way. Obviously the<br />quantitative nature of online and viral programs, email and the<br />types of programs that you're talking about, Paul; the data that you<br />get is so enriching and it gives you so much direction on how to<br />mold a program. When you compare it back to what we used to do<br />and what we still do, with traditional broadcast advertising, it pales<br />in comparison. You get very little data back about how this<br />created response with the consumer and you're using really blunt<br />tools to measure any kind of level of engagement that the viewer<br />gets out of a TV commercial, for instance. <br /><br />I think that that's one of the biggest things I've noticed about how<br />we look at our ROI and it's prompted more and more of our budget<br />each year to be allocated to online and email marketing. <br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Great. I mean, I think that there's that opportunity; it's so<br />measurable that it makes it easy and yet we still have to create that<br />balance. I've kind of seen the pendulum swing from very - what<br />I'll call touchy, feely, fuzzy intent to buy sort of high-level<br />traditional marketing mentality - all the way to the opposite<br />extreme which is almost a pay-per-click result for every viewer. <br /><br />And I think that's you're right; you really have to create an ROI<br />model that's a little more complex and looks at all the things of<br />how much brand engagement, and how much messaging, how<br />many people are involved, how creative and thought-provoking are<br />the ideas, and create everything from a very detailed metric that the<br />online space can obviously give you to still some of those old<br />numbers that we used under the traditional model and create the<br />right hybrid going forward.<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />Yeah, certainly. And I do think that's a good word to use, Paul,<br />"hybrid" because you have to think about taking promotions across<br />mediums as well and linking them back to some of what broadcast<br />advertising you're doing; linking the user-generated content back<br />to that, or vice versa, I think is a very effective way to build your<br />marketing strategy and realize that sometimes the total is greater<br />than the individual parts when you put an integrated program<br />together. And that's critical.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Mark, I just think that's so spot-on. I talk to clients all the time<br />about creating synergy and that the real value is not to say well,<br />I've got my viral campaign running over here and I have my<br />traditional work going on over here. But really, to combine those<br />and get the synergy that only happens by focusing all of the<br />elements to work together. So I think you're miles ahead of where<br />a lot of people have been and hopefully this kind of information<br />getting out is going to bring people in that right direction. <br /><br />As we look forward in time, where do you see this whole UGC<br />thing going? Do you see any changes from how it affects<br />everything in the PR department? Or what might be happening in<br />the coming years with UGC that just wasn't possible previous to<br />this? Any predictions or thoughts there?<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />Yeah, I certainly think that integrating public relations and using<br />in-store and in our case, in-restaurant, merchandising to spread the<br />buzz and to link people back to our UGC programs are very<br />effective ways and ways that I think as this medium proves itself<br />with user-generated content, that you'll see more and more<br />integration and more and more proliferation of these kinds of<br />things.<br /><br />And I think the key for us on the client side is to engage your legal<br />teams early so they know what you're up to because that was a<br />significant hurdle for me. And I mentioned it earlier in our talk,<br />Paul. But I really was surprised at how much consideration we had<br />with the legal team and that is really, I think, the way to enable this<br />medium - is to make sure you're working lock-step with the legal<br />teams so that things don't get shut down and big lawsuits don't get<br />created that can really stymie it and truncate its development.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />So I think kind of in summary, the things that I heard you mention<br />is work early and often with your legal team. Plan to have seed<br />content and to make sure that you've created the right incentives to<br />get consumers involved with your promotion. Then, make sure<br />that you're creating a cross-media synergistic approach to success<br />and finally, that you need new models to measure your ROI and<br />determine that you are on track.<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />That's right. And make sure you use those models back on your<br />traditional media, too, because I think a lot of people forget about<br />that and they put this new world of online and user-generated<br />content to a whole different standard, maybe because there's so<br />much data available. You have to remember there's an investment<br />in that lifetime value of engaging a consumer. And that's a critical<br />thing that us marketers – that's the brass ring that we all are<br />striving for.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Mark, I couldn't agree more. In fact, I talk to people all the time<br />and say, "You really need to be thinking about a lot of your online<br />investments as an annuity that's going to pay off over time because<br />that becomes a permanent part of the fabric of the online world. <br />It's interwoven and usually does not go away for a very long<br />period of time, where last year's television advertisements are<br />probably not driving a lot of sales for you this year. Your last<br />year's online promotions and especially UGC promotions are<br />probably going to continue to drive interest and awareness for<br />many months, if not years, to come."<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />Very true. <br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Well listen. I'd like to wrap up. Are you ready to play Truth or<br />Marketing? <br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />I'm ready, Paul.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />All right. Here with go with our first question. First question I<br />want to talk about is this whole writer's strike thing. What do you<br />think? Will this ultimately backfire and we're going to see a lot<br />more success from reality TV and sport event TV as well as user-<br />generated and web content starting to come more to the forefront<br />and less professionally scripted content being in the mix?<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />Well, I think that there is always going to room for creative content<br />and fully-scripted programming. But I think that the model for that<br />is going to change dramatically. And I think of my own personal<br />habits and how much I'm viewing series' on HBO and Showtime<br />and I'm paying for that content and obviously as a marketer, I'm<br />not reaching anybody who is watching that.<br /><br />So I do think that it is going to backfire in a large sense for the<br />writers and it's going to make it more difficult for them to get<br />work in the future.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />All right. The second thing that I noticed is that there's a new<br />social networking service in Europe that's catching on that allows<br />members to pay to promote themselves on the front page or on the<br />listings of who's hot and what's hot for about a dollar for a front-<br />page position. Do you think that's going to catch on on a larger,<br />global scale? Are people willing to pay for their 15 minutes of<br />fame? <br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />I think people are willing to pay for it and I wouldn't be surprised<br />if that catches on. It's a new revenue model for the social<br />networks and I think it will proliferate, yeah.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Cool. All right. Last question. So I'm going to give you an out<br />because this has a variety of sensitive predictions so I'm giving<br />three choices. You can make a prediction as to the outcome of the<br />Super Bowl, the outcome of the '08 presidential election or the<br />biggest celebrity break-up of 2008?<br /><br />(Laughter)<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />All right. Well, I will take the –<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />No pressure.<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />No pressure. I'll take the first and go for the perfect record in New<br />England. I think the Patriots are going to pull it off and it's going<br />to be quite a year for football.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Yeah. I think that you probably went – of the three questions, I<br />think you went with the safe pick.<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />I sure did.<br /><br />(Laughter)<br /><br />You've got my number, Paul.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Shows you're marketing savvy. Well, Mark, listen. It was a real<br />pleasure to have you on the show today. I hope people will check<br />out the viral promotion. If you want to go ahead, can you give us a<br />plug for that URL again?<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />I will, yeah. It's <a href="http://wherestheflamegrill.com/">WheresTheFlameGrill.com</a>. El Pollo Loco<br />restaurants.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Perfect.<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />All right.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />And again, thanks for being on the show. And take care.<br /><br /><h1>Mark Hardison:</h1><br />Thank you. Bye, Paul.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Bye.<br /><br /><h1>Announcer</h1><br />For more information on this week's topic, visit<br /><a href="http://internetmarketingvoodoo.com">InternetMarketingVoodoo.com</a>. This Podcast has been brought to you by <a href="http://mindcomet.com">MindComet</a>, the Relationship Agency. <br /><br />[End of Audio]<br /><br /><b>Marketing Resources</b><br /><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/pdiddy">Get LinkedIn</a> to Paul Lewis.<br /><br /><a href="mailto:arthurw@mindcomet.com">Contact</a> MindComet to see how UGC can be leveraged for your brand.<br /><br /><a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=115619865">Subscribe</a> to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast in iTunes.MindComettag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20782117.post-15360703566584626722007-11-06T11:22:00.000-08:002007-11-06T14:42:13.220-08:00The following is a transcript for IMV50: Interactive Promotions. The original podcast is located <a href="http://internetmarketingvoodoo.com/2007/10/imv50-interactive-promotions.html">here</a>.<br /><br /><h1>Announcer:</h1><br />Welcome to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast brought to you by <a href="http://mindcomet.com">MindComet</a>. Now here’s your host Paul Lewis.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Welcome to Internet Marketing Voodoo. I’m your host Paul Lewis and today’s topic is interactive promotions. Our guest today is Josh Linkner. He’s the CEO of E-Prize. Josh, welcome to the show.<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />Thanks so much. Great to be here.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what E-Prize does?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />Sure. We’re the largest interactive promotion company in the world. So we build, design, manage and run online programs across the world. We run programs such as sweepstakes, games, contests and loyalty programs for 73 of the top 100 brands. So we’re doing work with folks like Coca-Cola, Proctor and Gamble, Citibank and Disney all the way down the long tail of small and medium sized advertisers.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Great. So obviously interactive promotion is an area that’s seen a lot of growth. I know that your company has seen a good deal of growth as well. Tell us a little bit about the benefits that brands see from interactive promotion. Why are so many brands turning to this type of method to promote and build awareness about their products and services?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />There’s a couple of key areas of results that interactive promotions are just terrific at driving. The first one is that it helps introduce advertisers to their previously anonymous customers. Think about buying key word ads and you get a bunch of people to your website and they come and go and you paid for them and they leave and they’re anonymous that doesn’t do you a lot of good as an advertiser. Where marketing is really headed is data driven relationships. So it could be the chance to win or a coupon or loyalty program point but some incentive that sits up in front is the most powerful mechanism to convert an anonymous browser to a registered data driven one to one relationship. <br /><br />The other key thing that we really do is interactive promotions help motivate specific human behavior. So all marketers want their audience to do something. It might be visit a website or take a test drive or tell a friend or buy product A instead of product B. What we tend to do with interactive promotions is wrap the right incentives around a desired action in order to move the needle in favor of the advertiser. We live in a what’s-in-it-for-me society so we have to take advantage of that fact on behalf of our clients.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Yeah. I think that when we talk to clients and other people in this space one of the things that strikes me is it’s important to distinguish a different value in the response that advertising has. So before it was very much just a, “Was it seen, was my television advertisement seen? Is there a brand awareness?” Now what we’re seeing is that across the funnel of responses. There is, “Are they aware of my brand? But then through a prize or promotion did they come to my website? Did they learn more about my product or service? Did they go through specific actions that showed they interacted with my product or service or understood a differentiating point about my service offering and then hopefully continued to incentivize them to download a white paper, a case study or more information, a 3-D fly through of my product?” So it’s very important to actually differentiate those stratas. I think that’s a great analogy.<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />You couldn’t be more dead on. You know, the marketing world of the past which was lowest common denominator, shoot your message out there and hope for the best when there was three network TV stations - that’s really gone. You used the word action a lot just now and I think action is what it’s all about. It’s getting consumers to take a specific action. Furthermore, being able to deliver immediate and measurable results. It’s not okay to just have a cool TV ad that makes people laugh on the Super Bowl and you can measure brand impact eight years later. Right now in the marketing world it’s all about driving immediate and specific measurable results. Interactive promotions are a fantastic way to do it.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />What are some of the things - you mentioned about a Super Bowl commercial and things like that - how are people using interactive promotions to make sure the target really identifies and understands the brand as opposed to just pure brand awareness?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />Well a lot of times inside interactive promotions we create these really rich brand emmersive experiences where you’re really getting a consumer engaged deeply in the brand. We’re what they call lean-forward advertising. You think about old advertising, king of leaning back in your chair or maybe paying attention, maybe not. Who knows about relevancy? In this case you have an active consumer leaning forward, really getting engaged with the brand. <br /><br />An example I could give you would be a program we did recently for Westin Hotels in which consumers were able to go online, register to win a prize and the way that they did so was designing a Westin suite. So there was like a blank suite on their screen and they could drag and drop furniture and wall coverings and electronic and colors and scenery. So they could create their own beautiful Westin suite and then people would vote on which was the best design. So here you’ve got people actively engaged thinking about what it’s going to feel like and look like to be inside a Westin hotel. Again, I can’t imagine a more brand emmersive experience. <br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Right. When you look at the cost per time engaged as a potential metric the fact that they are probably as they’re custom designing it they’re spending several minutes or more as opposed to a 30 second spot. And I liked the whole idea of lean forward as opposed to sit back. They’re actively engaged, consciously thinking about the brand. It’s not a subconscious thing which is a much higher attention rate and a bigger impact and judge hopefully of future behavior.<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />That’s exactly right. Just to give you a quick sense - so obviously a 30 second TV spot it 30 seconds. It’s there and gone. We’re seeing when running a typical promotion average time spent on that promotion is about three minutes and we’re seeing average frequency. In other words people coming back day after day to play, getting more chances to win, be more engaged with the brand is about six times. So you think about a 30 second spot now is a three minute engagement times six. So you were taking 30 seconds and turning it into 18 minutes of lean forward brand engagement.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Wow. That’s a big impact. For someone who hasn’t used interactive promotions as part of their branding and promotion strategy so far, what are some key factors that lead to an interactive promotion being successful and could you also tell us some of the metrics that you use to define whether something’s successful or not?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />Success is really determined based on objectives. We tend to work in about eight different primary categories or marketing objectives such as driving more sales or creating awareness of a new product or product launch. So depending on which objective they’re going after you’re going to measure it differently. Some of them include number of registrations, amount of time spent, clearly impact on sales or decrease on cost per unit to drive a sales environment. So again, the nice thing about all digital marketing but specifically interactive promotion is that it’s a very tangible and measurable type impact. <br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />When a brand is starting out with this do you sit down with them and help them to figure out which of those metrics are most relevant to them and how to measure it and how to make sure that the promotion that they have is really going to drive all of their key business objectives? Is that like a consultative phase in the engagement?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />You know that’s exactly right. Certainly our technology company but our strategists and account executives sit down with each client and really map out what are we trying to accomplish here. Our tag line is, “Interactive promotion results.” So we say, “We mean that. What are the results that we’re trying to accomplish?” We work on a very specific way to measure those key objectives. So you never want to get to the end of a program and say, “Hey, did it work,” and you client says, “Gee, I don’t know.” It’s really got to be much more of a situation where you can see a legitimate score card if you will and say, “Okay, we can track and measure the results of this campaign.” That’s something that most clients don’t come in knowing and something that we advise and coach them on along the way.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Do you find that there are certain types of interactive promotions that are more effective for a certain type of product or a consumer market that if you’ve seen that before you can already recommend to a client, “Well you may want to consider this because we found this very effective with this branch of consumers”?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />For sure. There are certain programs that work specifically with different types of demographics as well as certain type of product. Again, also back to our different key objectives so for example if you’re trying to drive a customer from an offline environment to an online environment, offline could be an event, it could be a print ad, it could be a retail visit we often use a technique called an e-decoder which is a physical game piece with a colorful window on it. So the customer goes online, registers for the promotion - again, so we’re capturing data on that consumer - holds the game piece up to the screen and there’s a scrambled image that appears on the screen. By looking through the game piece, what it reveals is that consumer is an instant winner. So it’s a very powerful tactic, again, to drive offline to online behavior. Again, depending on the industry there’s certain things that are going to work really well with teen girls and certain things that will work very well with 50+ year old men. A lot of it also ties really into the demographic makeup.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Sure. Do you have guidelines that you recommend to clients as to how much they should invest in the promotion itself and how much they should invest in the promotion of the promotion and how much they’ll spend in offline and online media to drive their target consumers to see the promotion?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />That’s a great question. Interactive promotions are really a magnifier of direct response rates. So if an advertiser is already spending X dollars in marketing and they’re getting Y results they’re just going to amp up the results even with the same media spent by attaching an interactive promotion to it. For example if you spend $10 million in advertising you put in E-Prize promotion or really any interactive promotion on top of it all of a sudden you get $15 million of response. The advertising that you spent obviously increased in value. That being said as a benchmark we like to see at least a three to one ratio but a lot of times it’s many, many, many times higher than that. So an example I just gave, $10 million of advertising someone might only spend $100,000.00 or $50,000.00 on a promotion but be able to see a huge improvement in the results of their previous advertising spent. <br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />So really the way to look at it is it’s maximizing the value of your current advertising spend for in some cases pennies on the dollar?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />Yeah, that’s exactly right. More importantly most marketers don’t sit around thinking about bizarre metrics. They might say, “Gee, I’m watching a new product,” or, “I’ve got back to school coming up. How am I going to deal with these current marketing challenges?” So experts like us are the ones that can help map in marketing language what an advertiser might be thinking to something that will drive specific results.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Well as we’re wrapping up here what predictions do you have for the future of online promotions? What do you see coming down the pipe? Obviously you’ve got a little bit of a bird’s eye view compared to the rest of us. What do you see happening? How’s the landscape changing?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />One of the biggest things that we’re seeing is really data driven marketing taking a bigger foothold. We run programs all the time, we call them intelligent promotions. So in the past everybody saw the same marketing messages, old, young, rich, poor, whatever. Everyone saw the same message. Now what happens is when someone registers for a promotion the minute they hit submit the entire experience thereafter is dynamically generated based on consumer information. <br /><br />So in other words a single female in Miami might see a very different creative design than a married guy with two kids from L.A. or a heavy user might be prompted to a larger purchase where a competitive user of a product might be offered a switching type coupon. So the idea, again, is that once we capture consumer data rather than just saying, “Oh hey, it’s nice that we have consumer data,” using the data to provide much more relevancy. Everything that you read in marketing and tons and tons of studies say that relevancy is what really drives results. So again, using data to drive relevancy. <br /><br />The other one clearly is mobile marketing. When we use the word interactive and online maybe five years ago that meant the same thing. Today we’re doing “interactive” campaigns on mobile devices and kiosks. So interactive doesn’t have to mean sitting in front of the computer with a web browser. We think that trend is something that will certainly continue.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />I agree. I think data driven relevancy and mobile marketing are going to be huge components of any advertiser or marketer’s future. So it’s great for them to begin to think about those elements today if they haven’t already. Well we’re at the portion of the show where we move onto Truth of Marketing. Are you ready to play?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />Let’s rock and roll.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />All right. Here’s your first question. Windows Vista will prove to be Microsoft’s turning point where they will own a diminishing share of the operating system market for home computing in the future?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />I think it’s marketing. I think Microsoft’s going to come roaring back. I think you’d really be making a mistake to bet against Microsoft. They are vicious competitors and they always have a way of bouncing back with vigor.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />Yeah, I would say the folk at Redmond are the best in the world at moving from 2nd place or 3rd place to being No. 1. So it’s hard to ever count them out in any race.<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />Exactly.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />All right. What about AOL? Will they find their niche and start growing revenues again or are they on a downward trend?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />I haven’t seen as much innovation as I would like to see. I know they are doing some things but unlike Microsoft who when they find themselves down come back ‘a swinging. I haven’t seen a whole lot of innovation. I’ve seen a lot of reorgs and changes but I haven’t seen anything that’s ground breaking, that’s really positioning them in the forefront. They certainly have been historically a great force in the Internet space and I’m not saying they’re going to go away but I really need to see something more bright and brilliant coming out of our friends at AOL to give them the thumbs up.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />All right, so last prediction. Are you a Sox fan or are you thinking Colorado Rockies?<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />You know, I’m an Internet guy that’s staring at a screen all day long. So I really couldn’t comment on it so much. Although I’m a jazz fan so I’d be happy to tell you anything about jazz music. But I don’t know that I’m the right guy to make that call.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1> <br />All right. Well fair enough. I think you’re allowed one pass because you definitely stuck your foot in the pool on the other two. So Josh, we really enjoyed having you on the show. I think it’s given a lot of our audience some great ideas about what is interactive promotions and why it’s so important for them to consider adding that to their marketing plans. Again, for the audience if you have other questions, you’d like to learn more about this type of interactive promotion you can definitely check out Internet Marketing Voodoo or you can go to <a href="http://eprize.com">EPrize.com</a>. Again, Josh, thanks for being on the show.<br /><br /><h1>Josh Linkner:</h1> <br />Thank you. Take care.<br /><br /><h1>Announcer:</h1><br />For more information on this week’s topic visit InternetMarketingVoodoo.com. This podcast has been brought to you by <a href="http://mindcomet.com">MindComet</a>, The Relationship Agency.<br /><br />[End of Audio]<br /><br /><b>Marketing Resources</b><br /><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/pdiddy">Get LinkedIn</a> to Paul Lewis.<br /><br /><a href="mailto:arthurw@mindcomet.com">Contact</a> MindComet hear about your interactive options.<br /><br /><a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=115619865">Subscribe</a> to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast in iTunes.MindComettag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20782117.post-45598068253337290502007-10-08T11:13:00.000-07:002007-10-08T11:23:58.799-07:00The following is a transcript for IMV49: AutoTrader.com. The original podcast is located <a href="http://internetmarketingvoodoo.com/2007/09/imv49-autotrader.html">here</a>.<br /><br /><h1>Announcer:</h1><br />Welcome to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast, brought to you by MindComet. And now, here’s your host, Paul Lewis.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Welcome to Internet Marketing Voodoo. I’m your host, Paul Lewis, and today’s topic is moving from being a traditional print publication to being an online publisher. Our special guest today is Don Dixon. He’s the Senior Director of Promotion and Sponsorship at Auto Trader. Welcome to the show, Don.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Great. Can you start out by just giving us a little background? I’m sure most of our listeners are familiar with AutoTrader, but give – give a little background on Auto Trader itself and something about yourself.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />I’ll give you my background first. I started out running golf tournaments, cause I played golf in college. Did that for several years and then went on to Dancer Fitzgerald Sample Advertising in the Promotion and Media department. Then, of course, that company was eventually subsumed by Saatchi and Saatchi. <br /><br />From that point, I went on and I was the first director of Sports Marketing at Anheuser-Busch, back in the late 70’s and early 80’s, and then went to New York and just kind of started my own firm with some partnerships with some folks, and we eventually sold to Saatchi and Saatchi, and I became Chairman of Saatchi Marketing Services. I ran what they called, the bridge called Below the Line, if you will, for a number of years, then bought that company back, and in 1996, I sold my company, Lifestyle Marketing Group, to Cox Enterprises, which now owns AutoTrader.com and actually started the company and Auto Trader magazine, and became an internal corporate consultant for them for 10 years. And then in January, I moved over here at AutoTrader.com as my current position. AutoTrader.com is – is kind of a fascinating story. The genesis for the company came out of a company called Manheim Auto Auctions, which Cox Enterprises owned. And that is a company that 80 percent or so, right around – right around that percentage of the wholesale automobile of the United States run through these auctions, which dealers take their cars to the auctions and resell them. Finance companies, rental cars, auto manufacturers, when they have more company – more cars than they can deal with, if you will, they take them to the auctions. <br /><br />So we have about 14 million cars a year that go through the auctions. One day a couple of gentlemen were sitting around and they said, “You know, we’re about to offer our auctions to the dealers online.” They launched that business, it went for a couple of years, and then somebody said, “You know, why don’t we go ahead and – and really list these cars online? Go to the dealers and say, ‘How would you like to list the cars online?’ and then you guys can market them to consumers that way?” <br /><br />The business was started, and when everybody was searching around for a name to call it, the first name they came up with was Auto Connect, and after about, I want to say a year, somebody from the newspaper division came over and said, “Hey, guys. You know, we own Auto Trader magazines, or we’re 50 percent partners with the folks at Landmark. Why don’t we rename it Auto Trader and leverage that brand, because that’s what most of the consumer America who’s looking for a used car knows as the brand?” And henceforth, it was changed to AutoTrader.com, and now in partnership with Auto Trader magazines, which Cox bought the remaining 50 percent of the business about a year and a half ago. <br /><br />So we have a macro Auto Trader brand; AutoTrader.com online and Auto Trader magazines. AutoTrader.com has about 13 and a half million unique visitors a month. Three million cars are listed on the site, both new and used. The company size is well north of a half a billion dollars, from a zero start up eight years ago, and our Auto Trader magazines, we print somewhere in the neighborhood of, I want to say, two and a half million magazines every two weeks, and there’s over 150 different titles. And we also have a collector car business as well, which focuses on aficionados who collect hot rods or high end or collector cars or antiques. So that’s the background on me and Auto Trader and AutoTrader.com.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Well, it’s a very diverse background for yourself, and an interesting background of how Auto Trader got started. I’m sure a lot of listeners weren’t aware of some of those aspects. It struck me that there could be some internal, I’ll use the word rivalries, between a print publication and a growing online market. Did you encounter that or was it a fairly smooth transition as those two very different media formats came together into a single entity?<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />It’s funny, because they’re not a single entity. There are indeed still two lines of business. There is the publication line of business, the Auto Trader magazines, and AutoTrader.com. To the general public, it is in essence one product, because you as a consumer, who’s looking for a car, find your car as we call it, you’ll go to AutoTrader.com and do the search, or you’ll go pick up a magazine and do a search. <br /><br />However, where the revenue meets the road, which is advertising sales, AutoTrader.com and Auto Trader magazines are, for all intents and purposes, in competition. So they actually – we go to the dealers with two completely separate sales forces at this particular juncture. We don’t knock each other, we don’t really sell against each other, but both of those lines of business are seeking the advertising dollar from the dealer, or the OEM, or the dealer organization. So to our dealer facing messaging, we try and keep a separate message, if you will, a separate B to B marketing message. But to the consumer, we’re trying now to integrate it and become more of a single message to the consumer.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Are there some unique challenges that have come out of that, or as you’ve obviously had significant growth, what are some of the unique challenges that you’ve encountered in this period?<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />Well, one of the unique challenges was for the wonderful folks on the AutoTrader.com side to not knock the print product, which normally you would think they would do. They would suddenly say, “Oh, you don’t want to be in that – that magazine anymore.” I mean, you want to put all your dollars online. And we also have another unique challenge in the fact that we own 87 radio stations and we own 22 newspapers and we own 23 television stations. So when AutoTrader.com is in essence out there, quote, “selling against traditional media,” they’re selling against the companies, which in essence generated the money to fund the start up for AutoTrader.com. So we – there’s a little bit of internal, I don’t want to say politics, but chuckles, if you will, because in reality, our newspapers have been competing for years against the newspaper and TV, so we’re kind of used to that. <br /><br />But on the magazine side, it was a little bit startling suddenly to – to have to tell the AutoTrader.com folks, hey, don’t go knock the magazines. They are kissing cousins, if you will. That’s been in essence the biggest challenge. <br /><br />And also, from a brand image standpoint, here you’ve got – if you know Auto Trader magazine and you know the type of newsprint it’s own and it is really almost newsprint, and some people may say quality, and I don’t say that in a pejorative sense, but the type of quality it has, versus this high tech super fast million cars at a fingertip AutoTrader.com product, there’s somewhat of a dichotomy, image-wise, there. We’ve had to try and figure out how do we begin to look at bringing Auto Trader magazine’s image to a little bit more contemporary tone, if you will, because when we now go to the consumers, like yourself, if you had a car to sell, we’re actually offering a dual package. So on a for sale by owner or private seller ad, your advertising will be placed both in Auto Trader magazine and on AutoTrader.com. So a little bit of a tonality – not conflict, but somewhat of a clash there over a period of time, but we’re working through that now.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Sure. And it sounds like that there are some areas where it’s two totally different camps when you’re working with dealers, and then from the end consumer’s standpoint, for individual cars, both buying and selling, it’s a more synchronized approach to how that happens.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />You’re dead on, yep.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />How have you seen sponsorship change with the online presence? How are things changing in that area?<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />The magazines didn’t do sponsorship for all intent purposes. I think there were only two or three markets, because there were a combination of wholly-owned businesses, if you will, and maybe some franchises. The Auto Trader magazine, there were actually some franchises out there. They really didn’t do sponsorship. They just went out and beat the heck out of the retailer and said, “Put the magazines in and make some money by selling the magazine,” and they went out and scourged the marketplace to get people and dealers to advertise. <br /><br />So they didn’t do sponsorship. Really, once the dot com came on board, that’s when sponsorship was launched, and – and really, AutoTrader.com didn’t really step into the sponsorship marketplace, per se, ‘til the end of 2005. Every – all of their sponsorships were really tied back to media buys. There was somewhat, the company is somewhat novitiates in the sponsorship business.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />What types of promotions and/or sponsorships have been successful for you, and what things haven’t worked as well?<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />Well, since we’re very new, we haven’t had a lot of failures.<br /><br />(Laughter)<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />We’ve – everything we do is tremendously successful. Well, or at least relatively successful. And since we’re – I control the measurement, it’s always great.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />It’s always open to the right.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />It’s always open to the right – but here’s the – the real, real, I want to say, focus on that. At the end of the day, the things that work best for us are where there’s an online component. With our Major League Baseball sponsorships, we sponsor six Major League Baseball teams, and this is primarily a local – it is a local sponsorship activity. We sponsored the New York Yankees, the Atlanta Braves, the L.A. Angels, the Texas Rangers, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Chicago Cubs. In all of those, we advertise and do promotions on the team websites through a deal with Major League Baseball advance media. If we couldn’t have that, we wouldn’t be there, because we’re an online product. <br /><br />So we need to be able to take you, promotionally, to Braves.com/win and play our current turn-to promotion, and ideally you’ll be convinced enough by going through this game that, you know what? Next time I’m looking for a car, I’m gonna go to AutoTrader.com. In fact, I might go right now, click here, and go visit our site. So all of the sponsorships that we do, there has to be an online component to it. That’s absolutely critical. So that’s working well for us. <br /><br />In the auto show side, for example, the first year we sponsored four major auto shows. This coming year we’ll do nine or 10. We just did branding at the show. We actually put our site at the show, where you could come in and interact with a kiosk and kind of go through the Auto Trader site and peruse it. Frankly, it was a dismal failure, and the reason was is people who go to an auto show, they want to go see the cars. They don’t want to stand there and spend 15 to 20 minutes on a website, which is what our average visitor, that’s how long they spend on the site. <br /><br />So we had to adjust dramatically, and what we’ve done now with the auto shows is when you go to the auto show, you’ll actually come in and you have an opportunity to play a game, which will take no more than about two or three minutes on a kiosk in our display at the auto shows, and then we give you a game card that says you can continue to play this game when you go home, which, again, will drive them back through to our site. So we’ve had to change strategies there to get them to go to the site, because at the auto shows, having somebody stand there and do a car search, it’s – it’s just arduous and disrupts their whole reason they’re at the auto show.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />You make really good points, in that when you are looking for sponsorship, you want to make sure that there is an online component or a direct driver to an online component. I know when we talk to our clients, that’s a big factor, of saying it’s not enough anymore just to get the brand awareness and exposure. You really want to see a direct correlation. <br /><br />So I love your idea of there’s a takeaway from the show that drives people back online, or that you’re sponsoring things that have a very specific online audience and web presence. So you’re just a click away. It’s a very easy move, as opposed to going from a traditional media sponsorship at a baseball game, where we’re on a sign. How many people are going to go home and remember to key in that website?<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />Yeah. The other thing that we did is when we went to auto shows, and we do the big ones. We do the New York show, the L.A. show, Cleveland, Seattle, Washington D.C., St. Louis, et cetera, et cetera. And in looking at those shows, what we found was that we don’t have cars in our booth, and people are there to see cars. So what could we do at the show to make people stop at AutoTrader.com? The second year in, we – we did a sweepstakes, which was kind of interesting, and then we came up with the online game, but what we did to really make it come to life is we did a bunch of consumer research of people who went to auto shows, and they said, “You know, we like to be entertained.” <br /><br />So we created a television studio that is on the floor of the show, and when you go to the auto shows, you will go up to the AutoTrader.com TV studio, and we stage a live game show every hour and a half, that looks much like Jeopardy. We pull contestants in and we have a contestant registration process and we have an MC who’s fabulous at doing this, and folks actually come forward and they play this live game. Well, there are television cameras there, that in essence put their faces on monitors, so folks think they’re on television, and –<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Right.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />And it has been absolutely incredibly successful, and our research after the New York auto show showed that 63 percent of the people who went to the New York auto show said that our display was better than the OEM’s. So I think we’re doing a pretty good job there.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Wow, that’s great, and that probably explains your expansion to going to more shows this year.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />Exactly. It’s working. As I was reminded by a young lady who works for me, Kimberly Cooper, who’s MENSA. As we were looking through how do we change this in ’08, she put a big sign on the board and she said, “We have 97 percent consumer satisfaction with what we’re currently doing. Let’s not change for change sake.”<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Right.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />I went, “Ah, okay.”<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />There’s a point at which you need –<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />In other words, Don, stop thinking.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />That’s right. What you need to know, when to say stop.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />Exactly. So we’re doing – as my team has said, “Don, we are doing moderate modifications next year. It’s working. Don’t change it.”<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />And when you say that it’s working, how do you measure success? I mean, one way obviously is a consumer satisfaction survey. What are some other measurements of success, that when you’re looking at these different promotions, obviously you looked at some level of online conversion. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />Yeah. We research everything. We research everything to death. We pre-search everything to death, because I know I’m a genius and I know the folks who work for me are even smarter, but at the end of the day, sometimes you end up talking to yourself and you can convince yourself that that purple shirt’s really cool looking. And at the end of the day, nobody else thinks so. So we did a lot of research up front of the design of the game, in the pricing, the format, how it works, what they’d respond to, how long it should be, how long they would stop to make sure that we gave ourselves the best chance to engage with consumers. <br /><br />And then on the post end, we have specific objectives, and one of the key things that we want to communicate to people, on the auto shows and with our baseball sponsorships or anything else, is that we are the best local site. We have done a tremendous amount of advertising. We’ve been the only national advertiser in this category, so I think people recognize the fact that we’re the biggest nationally. <br /><br />But when I’m looking for a used car, what I might want to do is really look for a car that’s relatively close to where I live. I don’t care if you’ve got three million cars, cause 2.2 million of them are probably more than a two hour drive. So we want to say that we’re the biggest local site, and we do that locally by imagery in our sponsorships, by advertising communications. So the – the post-research, we want to find out did the local takeaway message get out. And our research has shown that yes, indeed, it has and it does get out. We are communicating that message. <br /><br />And over 75 percent of the people who go to the show say, yes, AutoTrader.com is the best local site, when our market averages are somewhere in the neighborhood – in the high 40’s. So we’re moving the needle in that regard, and we have yet to do our baseball post-research. In fact, we just had a meeting this morning on that, so come back to me probably in about three weeks and I’ll tell you how well our baseball program is doing.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Fair enough, fair enough. As we close out, can you give marketers any advice on how they can maximize, or what are the key factors they should pay attention to when trying to do sponsorships to drive visitors and results for their web properties?<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />Number one is you’ve got to remember we’re in the entertainment business. You shouldn’t expect a consumer to want to be involved and interested in your brand, especially if you’re doing a promotion. You have to be entertaining. You have to cut through. They have to want to come to there, whether or not your brand ID is on it or not. <br /><br />In fact, how we test promotions is we test promotions with no brand ID on them, and we test them against general entertainment type property. And if consumers come on board and say, “Hey, I want to play that,” or, “I want to participate in that,” or, “I’d like to do that,” that’s the benchmark, then we lay in our advertising on top of it. And what we found if we do that, that we’re easily able to lay in a lot of commercial messaging without, quote/unquote, “Getting people mad,” if you will. Our online game for AutoTrader.com on baseball right now, we know for sure that 96 percent of the people keep playing after they have gone through a one minute really, really, really intense interstitial – it’s kind of a game, but it’s all product knowledge.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Mm hmm.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />But it’s the environment that we frame the message in. So when you’re doing promotions, is make sure that the first thing, it’s a fun thing to do. It’s entertaining, it’s engaging and it’s interesting, and it provides them with some facts and figures that they might now know about. <br /><br />Our advertising, what we do with baseball, is we try and give them some information about the team or history of the team that’s at least interesting, intriguing. We don’t do 100 percent brand sell, because we’re never gonna capture the attention of a consumer that way. The NFL’s got studies, MLB has studies, NASCAR has studies, ABC has studies that show you that if you’re contextual in your messaging within the programming, you get better recall. And I can’t reinforce that enough. <br /><br />And secondarily is obviously 360 it if you can, four wall it across many different fronts. Don’t just do advertising on television, don’t just do radio, don’t just do outdoors, in stadium. And also look for, if you’re in a sports sponsorship, look for the local media that the real fan begins to follow and spends some dollars there. It might be the local sports talk station and sponsor the Braves, you know, report, which is not on the Braves station that carries the games, because you want to remind the consumer, the fan, that you’re a sponsor of that property when it’s out of somewhat context, if you will, than the context of a game. And you’ll get better long term recall and better long term payoff that says, hey, we’re – we are indeed a sponsor and here’s what we’re about, and you get better brand message recall over time. So – so if there’s a – a lesson to kind of teach, if you will, or information to pass on, that’s really it.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Excellent points, Don, and I like your points at the beginning when you talked about make sure that you’re making something that’s entertaining and engaging and has a draw back for consumers to learn more about your brand naturally, contextually, within that. I know that we have created a poker game for some of our clients, and the average time engaged is, like, 30 hours, that the average person is spending inside this game, and we have elements of their branding and key points that we constantly drive home over that. So when you compare that time engaged compared to other types of mediums, it’s just a very powerful use of this Internet technology. Well, are you ready to move on to truth or marketing section of the show?<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />I am indeed, and I’m not hooked up to a lie detector, so you’re in trouble.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />All right. But we could attach electric shock, is – is the next step.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />I do that with my – nope, just kidding.<br /><br />(Laughter)<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />All right. So, my first question is going to be the shortest question truth or marketing that I’ve ever asked. It’s one word. The question is ethanol. Truth or marketing?<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />It is truth.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />All right.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />And the reason I say that is because I’ve been around the auto shows for the past year and a half, and I – and I see all of the manufacturers talking about it. So I guess, you know, they’ve poured the ethanol down me. I’ve been drinking the ethanol.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />You’ve been drinking the ethanol Kool-Aid.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />Exactly.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />No, that’s – that’s great, and you would be the person to know. Next question: the price of gas. It’s $4 a gallon within a year after the 2008 elections.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />What happens when it hits $4 a gallon is the general public begins to write to their Congressman. And there is a real upswelling that says, “This is B.S., and the oil companies are just ripping us off.” And they’re – you need to do something about this, because if it’s $4 a gallon, you’re gonna see triple digit growth in oil company profits, and that’s really what it is, in my view. And I think that’s what’s gonna happen.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />I think that’s a pretty accurate forecast as well. All right, last question. Printed publications become a novelty by the year 2020.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />No, absolutely not. That’s false. There is still something very, very, very – I guess I want to say almost visceral about a printed publication, and a portability related to the publication. And also, an ability to save a publication that you just can’t have with something that’s online. It’s not as satisfying. <br /><br />You have a – something very satisfying about being able to look through a product, pick it up, touch it, carry it with you, take it on vacation, take it to the beach, wherever you want to go. And I just don’t see a lot of people sitting at the beach running through their – their iPods and looking at content. I still think that there’s a certain amount of things that are overrated in relationship to that. So I – no, I don’t think magazines go away at all. I think they continue to become more niche –<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Yes.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />Or niche, depending upon which school you went to, and I – I think that’s where it becomes – I think they become more fragmented, you have smaller audiences, but I also think, then, the advertisers will learn how to use these magazines better and you’ll see more advertorial type content in them than just straight – straight advertising. And there’ll be much, much more blurring between what is advertising and what is actual editorial content in magazines.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />I think that people also like to possess things and information. There’s a difference between reading an article online and owning a magazine. There is an emotional commitment that I think readers are very into. So I think that definitely there will be a significant change in the publication industry, but I believe that magazines are going to be with us long into the future. So I agree with you on that, and Don, thank you so much for joining us on the show today.<br /><br /><h1>Don Dixon:</h1><br />Not a problem. I’ve had a good time. Thanks so much for having me, I appreciate it.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Okay. For you listeners, if you’d like more information on Auto Trader, it’s AutoTrader.com. I think most of you know that, hopefully. And if you want more information on us, obviously we’re at InternetMarketingVoodoo.com. Thanks again for joining us.<br /><br /><h1>Announcer:</h1><br />For more information on this week’s topic, visit Internet Marketing Voodoo.com. This podcast has been brought to you by MindComet, the relationship agency.<br /><br />[End of Audio]<br /><br /><b>Marketing Resources</b><br /><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/pdiddy">Get LinkedIn</a> to Paul Lewis.<br /><br /><a href="mailto:arthurw@mindcomet.com">Contact</a> MindComet to learn how interactive online promotions can meet and exceed your business goals.<br /><br /><a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=115619865">Subscribe</a> to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast in iTunes.<br /><br /><a href="http://internetmarketingvoodoo.com/podcasts/imv49.mp3">Audio Link</a>MindComettag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20782117.post-21515337272758861772007-09-21T06:23:00.000-07:002007-09-21T06:58:47.405-07:00The following is a transcript for IMV48: Protecting Copyrights Online. The original podcast is located <a href="http://internetmarketingvoodoo.com/2007/09/imv48-protecting-copyrights-online.html">here</a>.<br /><br /><h1>Announcer:</h1><br />Welcome to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast, brought to you by MindComet. And now, here’s your host, Paul Lewis.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Welcome to Internet Marketing Voodoo. I’m your host, Paul Lewis, and today’s topic is protecting copyrights online. Our special guest today is Kevin Smith; he’s the Vice President of LTU Technologies. Welcome to the show, Kevin.<br /><br /><h1>Kevin Smith:</h1><br />Thanks. Good to be here.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Could you start by, maybe, giving our listeners a little bit about your background and about what it is that LTU Technologies does exactly?<br /><br /><h1>Kevin Smith:</h1><br />Sure. My background is in management consulting and really, integrating technology into various business environments. I’ve been here, with LTU, for – going on three years now, and LTU really is all about image recognition. <br /><br />We have a core technology that does a really good job of being able to produce identifiers for various types of image content, be it still or video images, based on the actual image content. So that, ultimately, we can search and filter, and tag in some cases, images.<br /><br />And even do some pretty interesting things with associating images with certain types of advertising or being able to identify copyright images; along with a host of various public sector applications in law enforcement and defense and intel, and so forth.<br /><br /><h1>Paul Lewis:</h1><br />Great. That certainly qualifies you as an expert on this subject, and, obviously, copyright abuse is something that’s fairly rampant these days, with the changes in technology, compared to the pre-Internet days. <br /><br />It – as all these content sharing sites and social network sites have cropped up, clearly, copyrights aren’t being respected. What are the affects of this from a content – a copyright holders bottom line? How is this affecting companies today?<br /><