I have a sweet Labrador retriever, who sometimes loses his mind, and annoyingly follows me so closely underfoot, I swear it’s like white on rice.

It usually happens when I’ve skipped a few days running him. Or thrown the ball or done any of the activities that make a Labrador happy.

And, at times, my children are the same way. Ever notice how children seem to be on their worst behavior when you’re sick or stressed? A recent psychological study said that the way to have well-behaved children, is to spend time doing things you enjoy together. Ensure that you have a satisfying relationship, one which the child values, and he will want to please you.

Raising happy children and happy pets is an evolution. It involves trust building, reward, consistency and time. It doesn’t happen in one conversation.

Let’s call this “successful relating.”

Even the internet is evolving toward successful relating, giving the market what it demands, a individualized, productive, fast, satisfying experience. Chris Anderson, of Wired Magazine, says the World Wide Web, or using your browser to find content, is in decline because simpler, sleeker devices – think apps – are more about getting than searching.

Why should brand building be any different? Forget brand building, think business building.

Business building no longer solely happens in broadcast, in a one-way monologue, or a single conversation. It happens when your customer values the relationship, refers friends and family, spreads the good word, which can now happen via a plethora of new platforms. These relationships involve trust building, reward, consistency and time.

Facebook, Yelp, and other crowd-sourcing, social-media outlets are super examples of how successful relating is important to business building. Will you see an overnight behavior change? Probably not. Will you develop happy customers, assuming you’ve put in the time and energy to provide them a reward? Good chance.

The tricky part is that many opportunities to successfully relate to customers don’t produce immediate results. And that, my friends, is a tough sell to CMOs and business owners. Companies are accustomed to approving media expenses in an economy of scale. One to one tactics, innovation without ROI measures don’t read well on spreadsheets.

But here’s my point: Can you afford to skip the opportunity to successfully relate, just because you can’t measure the immediate effect? If that were the case, then my children should be seen, not heard, and spend their weekends happily cleaning their rooms. Funny that doesn’t seem to be working at my house.

Only a select few people in the world get irony. The rest think they do. And that’s ironic. Possibly.
It is in this context that I mull the irony of stakeholders’ reaction to the media industry’s evolution.
For example:
Media departments now think in terms of purchasing “audiences” rather than outlets. Yet broadcast negotiations still invariably involve discussions of share, as if buyers concentrate on volume.
Or,
Marketers need ad campaigns to provide ROI with smaller budgets. I get that. There is no money tree. Credit to companies is tight. Companies stockpile cash to hedge an uncertain economy. This stockpiling hinders their ability to expand, to experiment in marketing, to hire more staff. Putting more people to work and generating more sales through marketing stabilizes the economy. A stabilized economy frees more credit. Ironic, hunh?
ROI demand has fueled the growth of targeted tactics. A few examples:
- Facial recognition billboards are in beta. Yep, Minority Report has arrived. As you walk past an electronic billboard, the board will recognize you, not just in terms of age or gender, but as an individual. Hello, Ms. Snowman, check out the latest sale on gilt.com
- Google has teamed with DirecTV and EchoStar to profile viewers
- Behavioral targeting and retargeting grows more sophisticated thanks to cookies, flash cookies and beacons.
- Google AdWords and affiliated tactics serve ads against relevant searches.
The small to mid-size marketers we represent want ROI and effective 1:1 tactics. Yet few do the research needed to really know their constituents. If you spend any money in advertising, you should first spend the time and investment in audience data analysis. Otherwise you’re holding a fishing pole in the desert. Which, come to think of it, may be a better example of imprudence than irony.

There is a phenomenon psychologists call “hindsight bias.” It’s the irrational belief that a past outcome was predictable. For example, you watch Daniel Nava hit a pitch at Fenway and you get that momentary “feeling” that it’s going out of the park. What you’re actually doing is confusing your visual processing with higher-order judgments. Your sense that “you saw it coming” is hindsight bias.
As a hindsight-bias victim, I’ve started thinking about other biases, especially those confusing processing for higher thinking.
For instance, I wonder if we in the media industry and our clients, the marketers, have value bias.
If there’s one thing digital advertising provides , is the knowledge of which ads or key words create conversions . And if you sell products online, tagging a “thank you for your purchase” confirmation for conversions – allows great ROI analytics. Search terms or ad inventory that is more costly upfront may actually be the best value, lending to more conversions or higher profit conversions.
However, other media is not so neat. Other media is where we’re stuck in Wanamaker’s paradox: half of advertising works, we just don’t know what half. For those areas we, the agencies, have created value in how low we can price media.
Here’s a dirty little secret: Buyers who are pressured to outbid their predecessors in CPPs (cost per rating point) or CPM (cost per thousand), can either inflate anticipated GRPs, package a bunch of garbage to make the buy look good, or perform any number of other circus acts. They can deliver lower cost per points, but it may be at the expense of brand context, eroding long-term value.
Recently I had lunch with a TV LSM who spoke about CPPs. He said many agencies were taught to use an industry guide to CPP, SQAD, utilizing the lowest CPP and assume there is an additional 10-20% margin. But, he said, determining CPP, from the station’s perspective, is not that clandestine. It’s simply a supply-and-demand calculation based on spending and available GRPs in any given daypart.
Here’s where I wonder if both buy and sell side have their own value biases. The sell side determines value on supply and demand. Marketers are placing value on upfront cost. We agencies fall trap to both value determinations, rather than another, based on engagement, context and environment.
Meanwhile, Google is testing a new value proposition in TV, as it has in digital. We predict Google will soon put Nielsen out of business by applying machine-learn modeling technology to television viewing. This modeling will synthesize viewing habits at the settop box level, allowing marketers to deliver individualized messages . Settop Box A watches a lot of Animal Planet and National Geography, they’d likely appreciate a PetCo commercial. This could create a new value paradigm, away from CPPs or CPMs.
Here’s my point: Agencies, media sellers, marketers all have a value bias. Ensuring your marketing efforts are optimized requires a conversation, strategy and tactics beyond price.

I have a theory it started with caller ID.
Whether that or GPS, somewhere along the way, we lost our right to privacy. We may have traded it for convenience. Or perhaps we sold it for relevance.
Here’s what I mean…
Besides some suppression of information regarding our finances and health, there really isn’t much private to us anymore. In my youth, I spent long hours outside, my parents having no idea of my whereabouts until the street lights came on and I went home. My children, on the other hand, are accustomed to continual monitoring. Their movements from school to play dates to enrichment activities are choreographed. They have cell phones, equipped with GPS, Google street view maps, social media savvy, where, apparently, little disclosure is taboo. Twitter and Facebook are integrating GPS-location information so friends and followers can track every movement. Our children’s generation is comfortable with informational exhibitionism.
And, I must admit, I’m willing to trade some privacy for a free Google service.
However, we are nearing a watershed moment, as the government tries to decide how to regulate privacy. Particularly focused is the internet’s behavioral targeting. Here’s how behavioral targeting works: Publishers and third-party servers place cookies onto a user’s computer as the user visits websites. Those cookies track the user’s movement, yielding rich information about his preferences. The data mining allows marketers to optimize internet campaigns, delivering offers and messages to audiences most willing to listen and most likely to take desirable action. (read “purchase.”)
Congress and the Federal Trade Commission want to strictly regulate behavioral targeting. The European Union proposes making all cookies opt-in by 2011. Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, says government proposals would define nearly all data exchanged through interactive channels “behavioral.” And the government wants that data private.
This would kill interactive advertising.
I like the fact that I receive ads for products I’m interested in. I can’t wait for broadcast mediums to use the same technology. I want Amazon and Pandora to synthesize my interests and make recommendations. I like the crowd-sourcing advice I get from mommy blogs and social media sites. I make movie selections from reader reviews.
How privacy is defined today is fluid. Isn’t it ironic the government, still lacking transparency, is regulating it?
By the way – this blog is about privacy. Please feel free to post the link.

I predict that a new generation of media strategists will have psychology degrees.

Technological advancement, while enabling us to live & work in isolated offices, in remote areas, has encouraged us to do the opposite. To connect with other humans. To talk and to listen. Even if that communication is done virtually through social mediums, like Facebook.

There exist listening tools to cull social-media posts, providing key insight into chatter about your brand. There are smart GPS systems that ask us whether we desire traffic avoidance, whether we enjoy a Starbucks, and then listening tools to tell Starbucks how our GPS says we feel about them.

So listening is going to be as important as talking.

But equally important is the need for an emotional connection that social media has so-well leveraged. This isn’t a traditional consideration of media strategists.

The future of media will be as much about context, environment as metrics. Once all the analytical tools of the internet merge with “traditional media” – things like conversion rate, cost per conversion, etc. – those metrics will be automated. Our job as media planners and buyers will be to look past GRPs, reach & frequency. We will concentrate on how & where to place ads so that they connect with audiences. We will look at building placements, adjacent to content so as to appear an extension of content. We will provide community managers for our marketer-clients’ fan groups. We will research what experiences are important to your audience and build opportunities there.

Call it the “reincarnation of the sandbox.” The lessons learned there – that he who listens, connects, empathizes, is creative and entertaining – wins the popularity contest. Or sells cars, furniture, jewelry; attracts service customers or generates awareness.

Mediastruction is sometimes accused of acting like a creative agency. That’s because we work hard to understand our client’s customers, to think like them, to form connection channels between marketer and client. Not one-way, talking channels, but listening and emotional connections.

A few weeks ago, beer and chips in hand, I was resolutely couch-potato, anticipating the televised Alabama vs. Florida match up. These were two undefeated teams; first and second place in the country, both with Heisman contenders, and one would play for the national championship game.

Then something unexpected happened, in terms of my football-watching expectations.

Alabama spanked the Gators 32-13, yawn. And the REAL game of the night was the #21 Nebraska vs. #3 Texas game. Texas ALMOST lost, only winning in the last second by a field goal.

Obvious to any viewer, Nebraska played with heart.

But this story isn’t about playing with heart.

This story is about the important things that happen to people and businesses OUTSIDE of our primary focus and expectations.

As marketing professionals, we spend a propensity of time on messaging, media buys, research, and sales data.

But maybe the more important stuff is happening on phone systems, customer lounge areas and parking lots.

These areas, outside our immediate attention, just could be an opportunity for competitive differentiation. An opportunity to delight customers and win long-term.

Is Your Agency a Love Match?

Refining an elevator pitch for Mediastruction is increasingly difficult.

In fact, from an agency perspective, describing what media is, is increasingly difficult. At its most basic level, media’s job is to connect the message to the consumer. But if the consumer is fluid, if her message platforms quickly evolve, allowing her to time-shift, place-shift … well just what defines media isn’t so clear.

Media shops historically validated their value proposition via negotiating skills. And we still do that. But even if our marketers pay the lowest unit price, even if we’re better negotiators than they are themselves, if the message is sent to the wrong audience or fast forwarded, what’s it truly worth?

So where does your agency fit in qualities important to advancing your business?

Below we’ve developed a matrix of media-agency attributes to help marketers determine where their agency lies and whether there exists a “love match.”

- Analysis
- Creativity
- Elbow Grease
- Experience/ Relationships

If you are a direct-response marketer, if you have already-established media goals, and need an aggressive negotiator to buy media across multiple markets, then you want an agency somewhere between “elbow grease” and “experience/relationships.” Or “analysis” and “elbow grease.”
If your brand is maturing and you want to discover a new way to market it, or you’re a new brand who needs to map business goals against media goals, then search for an agency whose strengths fall between “creativity” and “experience/relationships.” Or “analysis” and “creativity.”

The point is, we’ve seen nascent marketers without a brand roadmap, who only vaguely know their audience, value proposition, or even the tone & style of their messaging. But these marketers select a larger media-buying factory whose strengths rely, not on determining that roadmap, but in pushing out hotly negotiated media buys. The result? Undisputable low prices; negligible creativity. This asynchronous relationship is understandable because, as I’ve said, even media professionals are having a hard time describing their service.

You don’t visit a personal-injury attorney for mergers and acquisitions. Is your agency a good fit?

There is a new audience ratings measurement for radio, PPM, whose acronym is for Portable People Meters. It’s a device, about the size of a pager, which volunteers wear, passively picking up radio signals.

Change is hard. And for radio stations, fearful of inventory commoditization, PPM has been really hard.

For one thing, PPM has demonstrated that Time Spent Listening has dropped, which means Average Quarter Hour ratings have dropped, which means Cost Per Points have risen.

Secondly, PPM has changed the radio-buying model in a small, but profound way: We now “post” radio.

“Posting” is an ROI exercise, which allows us to compute: Did the radio station deliver the ratings we negotiated? If not, then stations must provide compensatory spots for ratings under delivery.

OK, so posting is a pain in the, um, neck for agencies and stations. But is it responsible for commoditization? That horse has left the barn.

If stations want to build value for inventory outside of AQH, then stop selling daypart spots like they’re all created equal, as PPM is educating us they are not. We know, for example, some stations have a listenership lift between 7-8 AM. But stations generally charge the same for spots within the 6-10AM daypart.

We believe a spot at the beginning or end of a pod is more valuable. This would be backed up by program directors, which use that inventory for self-promotion. But stations don’t allow agencies to fix-purchase that area, even at a premium.

Automate, via an electronic clearinghouse, political inventory, rather than wasting human resources.

Stations should get over their fear of change – like posting ratings, that’s not the enemy. Rather, develop new ways to create value for their inventory – and charge for it.

Spend your digital resources developing deep-dive audience qualitative, segmenting, behavioral targeting and optimization. Because you can’t compete in CPM with the more established digital sites and portals. And it will be really hard to monetize the creative service capabilities you’re building.

Posting and PPM isn’t the problem. Lack of adaptability; however, may be.

I’m not even sure “awesomeness” is a word; nevertheless, I was thoroughly inspired by a Harvard Business Review article, “The Awesomeness Manifesto,” by Umair Haque.

Haque says innovation is outdated for three reasons:

- It relies on obsolescence
- Its modern manifestation is to develop new ways to distribute, rather than creating better stuff
- Innovation often “isn’t’

He proposes four pillars of “Awesomeness”

- Ethical production
- Insanely great stuff
- Love
- Thick value

Meanwhile, back at the consumer ranch, American Express is telling us that consumer shopping habits, buying less stuff, is here to stay. We’ve been saying it… Brands must develop quality consumer experiences, from marketing to customer shopping experience to product experience.

Seth Godin puts it another way: Move the marketing focus from the seller to the buyer. You don’t buy from someone who says you ought to, even though there’s a cooler, more remarkable, better product.

For example…

I recently purchased a dishwasher. The newspaper insert from the “Big Box” store caught my eye with the look and price of the appliance.

When I got to the store, I had trouble finding an associate to help, which wasted a good 15 minutes. Then the associate convinced me the dishwasher in the flyer was junk – not difficult when the handle popped off in demonstration. When I finally conceded to a substitute, double-price model, he left me standing 30 minutes – no exaggeration, I clocked it - to complete a contract. For a dishwasher, folks. Oh, and the “free” installation was going to cost me $150.

I don’t want an innovative dishwasher, with multitude features, built for obsolescence. I want a simple, sturdy model that washes dishes thoroughly and consistently.

I want an insanely good dishwasher, presented by a product-loving associate, providing me thick value in terms of its delivery and installation. Like, make evening and weekend deliveries available so I don’t need to take a vacation day for a dishwasher installation.

Advertising – either in terms of quality or amount – cannot trump poor customer experience. Do not be surprised to see media agencies morphing into “marketing” outsourcing, morphing into “idea” shops, morphing into “business-goal” leaders.

If you’re reading this, then, statistically speaking, you’ve likely had some encounter with social media. If you’re an advertiser, you may be trying to determine how to use it and measure its efficacy.

Perhaps you’ve seen the numbers:

- If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth largest in population, behind China, India and the US.
- Gen Y & Z consider email passé. Boston College discontinued email to incoming freshmen in 2009.
- There is talk that social media, including Facebook, will be the Google killer. Soon we will not search for products and services, rather they will find us on social networking sites.

But I posit there’s a reason beyond numbers marketers should build a meaningful social media presence. There is even something else beyond the opportunity social media creates to listen.

I believe social media is your opportunity to communicate with customers in their emotional living rooms, in a “mind-place” where they feel relaxed and themselves. This two-way, relaxed communication opportunity rarely exists in media, where disruptive technology has evolved from consumers’ desire to shut out monologues.

This new “mind-place” leads me to my point about the career mom, preacher’s wife and drag queen.

Facebook allows me to connect with friends across the Globe. Two of my connections are old high school friends, with whom I share fond memories of our days at an experimental magnet school in Louisiana. We’ve gone our separate ways in life. One of us is a stay-at-home mother and wife of a Lutheran minister, I’m a mother of three, running a media agency and the third is a gay interior decorator, who raises big money for AIDS research in drag at elaborate Mardi Gras balls. We three are at very different places in our lives, but we still mutually enjoy cooking, laughter, eating and LSU football games. As well as a mutual respect and love for one another. When was the last time, in your grownup life, friendships like that were possible? When your connection with people didn’t stem from your role as a parent, colleague or neighbor?

Social media is not just changing how we communicate with each other, but who we keep in our social loop. And the empowerment we feel in such communication.