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                 Thanks to Han Lee for permission to use this Photo.

I have found in my many years in the advertising business that a way to keep perspective is to know and respect the customer.  For example, if you are developing advertising for a restaurant, go to the restaurant and experience it as a regular customer.  Observe the service, the menu, the décor, and the atmosphere.  Observe the customers around you.  Are they families or single persons?  Do they appear to be locals who live in the area, or are they visiting from far away?  How are they dressed?  What items are they ordering?  Observe the staff.  Do they seem happy or harried?  How much time do they spend conversing at each table?  These kinds of first-hand observations can add knowledge that research figures cannot provide. This is especially true in Internet marketing. 

Your web development team has just finished creating a whole new web design for the company.  However, many times the company finds out that regular users can find a web site confusing.  Because it is so easy for someone to abandon a site in the middle of a shopping experience, it is essential to ensure an easy navigation system for the most basic of users.  Many companies will bring in focus groups consisting of people in their target market to click through the proposed site design and make any suggestions before the site goes on line.

If you are working for a company that manufactures parts sold to other businesses, visit those businesses, if possible.  Talk with the people who actually use the parts to assemble the final product.  Find out what they think of your product versus that of the competition.  What do they think of the advertising for the parts?  Is it truthful?  Is it meaningful to them? 

As I discuss throughout Ashworth’s Internet Marketing Program, the best business owners and managers stay in touch with their customers.  There is no substitute for meeting the customers and the people responsible for selling your product.

Cheryl Syrett
Internet Marketing Instructor
Ashworth College School of Business 

                 Thanks to Gene Hunt for permission to use this Photo.

I finally took the time to read a book that I’ve been interested in checking out for awhile.  It’s called The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris and its’ innovative perspectives on how almost anyone can create an entrepreneurial lifestyle for themselves is definitely worth reading.  Instead of summarizing the contents of the book here, I’ve included this podcast interview with Ferris conducted by Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey.

I think all of our students will be motivated by Mr. Ferris’s very pragmatic ideas on how you can break free from “the system” and pursue your own business endeavors with confidence.  Please share your thoughts with your student community on the Ashworth Student Forum.  I’ll talk to you again soon.  Thanks…

Ryan Rode
Ashworth Interactive Services Manager

               Thanks to Kit Kowan for permission to use this Photo.

Seth Godin’s ability to reinvent conventional perspectives in an original framework has earned him celebrity status in the marketing world.  Praised for his seemingly prophetic insights into developing digital trends, Seth is the kind of entrepreneur who doesn’t find it necessary to break the rules in order to generate consumer attention; he simply  interprets the rules in ways that the “experts” had said were too undefined, open, and ironically enough: consumer-centric.  The communications channels that Seth proposes to reach customers (get their attention) should be understood by any entrepreneur trying to make it in online marketplace, which is already yesterday’s— a reality that has informed Godin’s strategic principles throughout his career.  The following video is a nice introduction to the sometimes bizarre, but always inspiring perspectives of a truly creative business mind.  Click on the image above to watch this video.  We encourage you to share your thoughts with the community afterwards.  Take care.    

Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University

                      Image courtesy of jeff magnum-orange twin.

From Brian Grinonneau:

Dare to be different. A look at why advertising professionals should consider standing out from the competition, not copying them. To make your advertising work, follow the principle if your competition is doing it, don’t.  To succeed in today’s crowded marketplace where most of the products and advertising look exactly the same, a small business owner must stand out, shouting above the din with a message so clear and compelling that prospects stop and take notice. It’s a matter of business survival. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs quickly retreat to the supposed security of sameness, soon to be lost in a sea of anonymity and a tidal wave of frustration.

In effect, albeit at a subconscious level, they are saying , “I don’t want to be different”. In back room offices and store fronts everywhere, salespeople are telling business owners they should do this or that kind of ad because it worked so great for their competitor. The owners nod and sign on. It’s already proven to be a winner, right? WRONG! Change the name, background color and a font style and you’ve got sameness. Put those ads in the yellow pages, a coupon magazine or a TV commercial cluster and you’ve got advertising death. Want proof? Get the latest statistics on small business failures.

About the author: Brian Grinonneau is the general manager of McMann and Tate advertising, an agency that works with small business owners helping them stand out from the crowd.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Copyright © 1996 - 2008 Experience, Inc. - All Rights Reserved

To read more of Brian Grinonneau’s  great article, login to the Ashworth University Career Center through the student portal and click here. 

Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University

                         Image courtesy of  Panda Bear.

Brand Experience Lab is an advertising agency with a reputation for developing some of the world’s most innovative marketing campaigns.  Their signature concept blends the principles of customer participation and brand messaging; the result has been coined “interaction marketing.”  Notice the subtle distinction made between interactive and interaction.  The emphasis is placed on the actual experience of using the product rather than a simulated trial.  Brand Experience Lab’s so-called “audience games” illustrate their vision quite well and these cinema based experiences are one of 2008’s buzz trends.  Their two most hyped campaigns of 2007 were done for MSNBC and Volvo.  With positive audience reactions now tested and measured; an increasing number of corporations are buying into the promises of interaction marketing.  In these campaigns, instead of idly watching Ads on the screen during the obligatory preview stage, moviegoers were given the opportunity to play video games oriented around the respective MSNBC and Volvo products.  For example, Volvo’s “human joystick” experience required audience members to collectively wave their hands in different directions in connection with the Ad; think of something akin to a Wii interaction as a reference point.  Was Volvo’s message communicated?  These results, although not exactly scientific (tests of this nature never are) tell a positive story:

• 68% want more games in cinemas
• 74% prefer a game to an ad
• 21% better image of Volvo
• 37% more likely to purchase a Volvo

Now that we’ve provided some context to this experience, click on the image above to see interaction marketing brought to life.  If you’ve had a chance to participate in one of these audience games at a theatre in your area, let us know your thoughts in the comments section.  I’m very interested to hear if these action games are as dynamic as they’re being reported to be. 

Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University School Of Business

                Thanks to Steffen for permission to use this Photo.

Sure, it’s nice to conduct focus groups, run market tests, and trace storyboards in the office think-tank—but when you can plug directly into the nerve center of a consumer’s brain, are all of those parlor tricks really necessary?  The age of neuro-advertising has been upon us.  With companies like NeuroFocus leading the way, advertisers are investing millions of dollars to get inside your mind and reprogram your “needs”.  If the yellow area of your brain lights up, you get this message.  If the blue area lights up, you get that message.  Let’s say you are quite the sophisticated consumer and both areas light up.  The neuroscientist/advertiser will consult the color wheel and create a customized mixed message for you.  A bright green light will appear.  It will be measured and translated into a metrics report.  And so on.  The Nielsen company, who recently invested quite a lot in NeuroFocus, decided that the SuperBowl would be a fun place to put their newest toys to the test; the goal was to determine which Ads cause the most brain activity in viewers.  The results can be found here.  Before you read them, try to guess which Ads were most effective.  I’m very interested to hear your perspective on this story.  I think it’s time to start wearing aluminum foil helmets on your head.  Protect yourself.  You may have noticed.  There’s no turning back now!

Ryan Rode
Ashworth University    

                                  Image courtesty of Profy. 

Whether you are an entrepreneur with small business aspirations or a sales professional chasing a management promotion, it’s imperative for you to understand how “web 2.0″ technologies are radically transforming the business landscape.  In contrast to many of the highly specialized web tools of the past, which required the average user to possess advanced IT skills/knowledge, the user-friendly tools gaining mainstream appeal today are empowering both the individual and the organization.  The following podcast directly addresses the sales organization and its’ management of what’s described as a “sales 2.0 funnel.”  You may not be familiar with the interviewee, Stu Schmidt, but you may have heard of WebEx, an innovative communications company that provides various remote meeting/video conferencing applications to businesses.  I think you’ll find this interview quite insightful.  After listening to this podcast, share what you identify as some implications of the funnel for tomorrow’s sales forces.   

Ryan Rode
Ashworth University

 
                 Thanks to Thomas for permission to use this Photo.

I have been surfing a few traffic exchanges for some time now, even though it’s been a while since I have been active, I have thought about an interesting feature that I would like to see.

A Traffic Exchange is a great way to drive free traffic to your websites. A standard traffic exchange is a way to show people your advertisements. The more advertisements you see, the more people will see your advertisements. Usually, you get points for viewing other advertisements, and you use the points to get other people to view your advertisements. You can show people a splash page, banners or text links. Usually, this is all there is to it. The traffic exchanges I recommend using are also the ones I am using:

• StartXchange
• I Love Hits
• TS 25
• Traffic -Splash
• Traffic Swarm

I am always (well, it’s been a while) testing new traffic exchanges, the list of traffic exchanges I recommend might be different in a few months from now, but at the moment I am suring the five above. Now, to the feature I would like to see.

I have been told that you should never use a general splash page at traffic exchanges, this is because a lot of people are using them. And the more people who are using the same splash pages, the more people will have seen yours, and the less likely it will be that they click on yours. To me, that sounds reasonable. (more…)

             Thanks to Nick Dynice for permission to use this Photo.

Fast Company has run an article in which Duncan Watts, a network-theory scientist, puts to test the idea that trends are sparked by a handful of highly connected individuals, or the influentials, as they have become known after the bestsellers The Tipping Point and The Influentials.

“Watts believes[…] a trend’s success depends not on the person who starts it, but on how susceptible the society is overall to the trend–not how persuasive the early adopter is, but whether everyone else is easily persuaded.”

And in fact, when Watts tweaked his model to increase everyone’s odds of being infected, the number of trends skyrocketed.

“If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one–and if it isn’t, then almost no one can,” Watts concludes.

To succeed with a new product, it’s less a matter of finding the perfect hipster to infect and more a matter of gauging the public’s mood. Sure, there’ll always be a first mover in a trend. But since she generally stumbles into that role by chance, she is, in Watts’s terminology, an ‘accidental Influential.’” (more…)

In the new media era, there’s one commodity that’s impossible to overvalue: attention.  The contemporary consumer is plugged in and accessible to advertisers around the clock, which may seem like a dream scenario for these advertisers, but when you consider that consumer attention spans continue to decrease in connection with the increase in messaging signals they’re receiving from every angle, one can see that this theoretically “ideal” setting is in many ways a nightmare.  Consequently, the marketplace has never placed more emphasis on guerilla marketing strategies than right now.  There’s only one time to get a consumer’s attention anymore and that time is always right now; the message must capture the consumers’ attention long enough to be heard, and if it’s an interesting message, they will make an effort turn to off the other advertising noise in their head to listen to you.  And yes, it requires a conscious effort. 

Burton is a snowboard manufacturers whose’ corporate ethos compliments the free-spirited, rebellious, and somewhat anti-authority lifestyles of their core audience.  Burton recently launched an aggressive guerilla marketing campaign called “Sabotage Stupidity”, in which they challenge snowboarders to literally poach inside some of the U.S.’s remaining resorts that do not permit snowboarding.  I don’t use the term aggressive lightly in the previous sentence.  Will Burton bail these kids out of jail if necessary?  I have a feeling they would and then turn it into a reality show.  The contest requires snowboarders to film their marginally illegal experiences and submit their videos for the shot at a $5,000 cash prize.  This is a great example of guerilla marketing in our new media age and I encourage you to check out the “Sabotage Stupidity” contest by clicking on the image above.  I look forward to hearing your comments.   

Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University School Of Business