[ swarm theory ]

I’m always baffled when I read about these types of studies - the ones suggesting that companies cannot find adequate personnel to execute marketing initiatives. A recent study by Forrester Research indicated that paid search advertising remains on a growth trajectory and will reach more than $26.8 billion by 2009, but the largest companies are having the most trouble managing their campaigns. Is this really possible? Apparently the CMO’s of these companies don’t attend trade shows, hang out on Linkedin or Twitter, and maybe even neglect to answer their phone and email?

I’m pretty sure I could produce/identify a large amount of qualified consultants, agencies, and prospective employees - to meet demands such as this one in the search space. I’m also confident that this list could be produced within a few hours. The image below shows statistics from my Linkedin network. With 115 professionals in my direct network, I have access to over 6 million people who are just 3 degrees away! Additionally, I am a member of 12 professional Linkedin groups - each with large membership, providing additional access to qualified professionals.

Could the issue lie within the corporations themselves? Have they created a closed culture that resists the assistance of qualified 3rd parties?

• 78% believe managing large keyword lists is cumbersome.
• 59% say they currently have insufficient personnel to manage their paid search campaigns
• 69% said existing applications are not robust enough for their needs.

The only reason that would make sense to me would be financial. Beyond that, I’m confident that there is a qualified consultant, freelancer, or agency out there that can get the job done (regardless of industry). Vertical integration may not always be the best thing, and can often result in diminished returns when dealing with highly specialized deliverables.

About the study: In August 2008, JupiterResearch designed and fielded a survey of qualified individuals managing search marketing at companies with a search (PPC) marketing budget of $50,000 per month or more. According to the research, 53% of respondents spend between $50,000 - $250,000 per month; 30% spend between $250,000 - $1 million per month; and 17% spend over $1 million per month on search marketing. Some content from this post from marketingcharts.com

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Scott Templar is a digital media, marketing, and commerce consultant and can be reached at info@scotttemplar.com

Brands pay millions trying to get slogans and brand messages to take off, and more often than not they never stick. These days, a major factor is the strength and influence that social media has on trends - supporting the belief that a brand is not what you (corporation) say it is, it is what they (public) say it is. The reason why one spontaneous message takes off, while a strategic one doesn’t, is often debated. During last nights presidential debate, some key “tipping point” ingredients seemed to emerge.

First, there was a massive television audience, with access to multiple networks and viewing options. Second, access to the internet via high speed connection on your computer or mobile device. Third, a multitude of digital communication tools - phone, SMS, MMS, email, chat, social networks - allowing for fast conversations to friends and groups with similar interests. Now, throw just the right ingredient into the pan - and shazam, you’ve got yourself a trend.

Last night that perfect ingredient was John McCain’s constant use of the words “Friend and Friends” when addressing the crowd and the American people at home. I was on Twitter while watching the debate (along with a million other people), and you could start to feel a crowd swell every time he said it. All of these social media factors came together at just the right time, and today we have a trend. The phrase “Not McCain’s Friend”, is the hot election topic on Twitter today, and the quick-to-move entrepreneurial folks at Cafepress have already started selling t-shirts and other swag.

What a cool time to be alive (even with all the global economic and political trouble that we are currently experiencing). Never before could you actually watch innovation taking place right before your eyes. As my mom would say…”amazing”.

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Scott Templar is a digital media, marketing, and commerce consultant and can be reached at info@scotttemplar.com

Grow your mustache for a good cause…you know you want to!

I found out about Tache Back from my Twitter group.  Here is what they say on their website: Every September, thousands of men neglect their upper-lip and grow a sponsored moustache to raise vital funds for Everyman - the UK’s leading Male Cancer Campaign. Since 2003 our hairy heroes have collected £700,000 for Everyman’s life saving vital research into testicular and prostate cancer. TacheBack 2007 was the most successful year yet, with our Tached crusaders raising £230,000. And this year we need you to help us make it to the big £1,000,000.

They have gone mobile as well!

A new social media site called Polyvore allows users to create product design sets from their favorite brands. The user grabs an image from a site, and then pastes it into their Polyvore interface, allowing them to create designs that are customized to their personal expressions. The usability is very similar to Kaboodle - a popular social shopping site. The sets are fun and interactive to use - but also provide brand managers and product designers with an extremely valuable tool to gain consumer insight on use and design.

Twitter is all the buzz these days and I am doing my best to jump on the bandwagon - but the system keeps letting me down. I’ve read that they just secured some additional VC funds to scale up to meet the demand and popularity - but how many users will they lose in the meantime? Regardless of how big I grow my following, the system still dumps it all and moves me back to day one. I will give it another week then i’m outta there.

Who controls a brands vibe? Is it what the company says it is, or what the public says it is? This is the basis of the website Brandtags.com. The basic idea of this site is that a brand exists entirely in people’s heads. Therefore, whatever it is they say a brand is, is what it is.

The Harley Davidson brand looks closely aligned in corporate and public meaning. Other brands are not so successful.

Let’s make the work week suck 20% less!

A plan we can quickly endorse. No doubt the work of our buddy Dylan - promo/web guru at Yakima. On-line/off-line promotion at its best.

Dylan with the Pope

A study by the Luxury Institute, reveals that 6 in 10 wealthy consumers use social networks on a regular basis. No longer just a MySpace, youth driven on-line media channel; social nets are pulling in the wealthy at a dramatic pace.

I guess this should indicate continued e-commerce growth and provide major opportunity and support for ad agencies to divert customer funds on-line. Hopefully the “social media” will keep things under control - and self-police the marketing (read: Facebook Beacon).

Networks such as LinkedIn have done a great job of keeping pages “clean” and without MySpace style page clutter. But time will tell, as the “participatory web” community members become desensitized to the brand messages. The “Wealthy” in this report has been identified as those with an average income of $287K and average net worth of $2.1 million (Source: Luxury Institute).

Let’s hope we can keep golf (and anything associated with golf) off-line as luxury brand marketers design interactive strategies to reach the social elite.

Original article from MarketingVox.com

Fast Company did an article in Feb titled “Is The Tipping Point Toast?” - putting Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point under fire. Duncan Watts, a network theory scientist working at Yahoo has performed a number of experiments challenging the Tipping Point theory. Overall the article is an interesting read - but full of many “no shit” points.

Seems like the biggest trend is to grab hold of some “silver pill” philosophy with the hopes that it will launch that “shitty product” that nobody seems to want. Come on - what happend to brand “Touch Points”??? There are no short cuts and spreading a message is quite different than motivating a sale.

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

The Information Architects from Japan have put together a very nice visualization map of the 300 most influential websites. To create the mashup, IA took the sites and pinned them down to the Tokyo area train map. I had been playing with version 2.0 for a little while, and they already have the new, updated 3.0 version. The key change on V3 is that they featured the most influential websites - regardless of category.

Check out the clickable on-line version with live links to each site.

Version 2 was a layout of sites based on category.

All the V2 details are on the IA site.

Visualizing complex networks is challenging and the folks at Visualcomplexity.com are striving to be the one source place for anyone looking for information on the subject.