Usability Survival Kit - Be prepared

We all know the scout motto: be prepared. And having grown up in Girl Scouts, I like to think that I stay prepared for whatever life might send my way. For example, when traveling to conduct usability sessions, I always drag a copy of the project folder from the server to the local drive on my laptop. I also bring hard copies of critical documents for the study.

However, during usability sessions last month, life threw me a curveball I wasn’t ready for: The power went out to the entire building. There were no lights. No microphones. No recording. My laptop had limited battery supply, and there was no internet because the routers had no power.

Luckily this happened on the first day of a two day study, and we were able to reschedule the remaining participants for the next day. We had a marathon second day, but we successfully completed our study.

Having gone through this experience, I’ve compiled a “survival kit” for usability sessions that should get you through a power outage.

1. Mobile broadband card – plug it into your computer, and you have internet access
2. Portable power supply – power your computer through the rest of the sessions
3. Digital audio recorder – hit record and capture the conversation from the session

Those three pieces of equipment should get you through usability sessions without power. Now, how you would travel with a portable power supply in addition to everything else you’re already carting around is another story.

What about you? What unexpected events have you encountered while doing research? How did you cope with them or resolve them?

Got Old Biz Cards?

A small problem that all working people have to face at one point or another - what am I supposed to do with all these old biz cards?

When we moved to our new digs, we didn't order new biz cards right away because we still had a TON of the old. After a little bit of using the old ones and having to explain several times that the address on them wasn't correct anymore, we decided it was time for a newly designed biz card. That's when the question arose. My first reaction was to just throw all the old biz cards in the recycling bin, but then after a quick search, I found many other ways to recycle your old biz cards:

• You could use them for making a grocery list, jotting down a note for a loved one or taking down messages when on the phone. Plus, since biz cards are made of thicker stock paper than your normal sheet of paper or post-it note, if you wish to take your notes or list with you, you can put it in your pocket and it won't get crumpled as easily.

• You could use them for entering drawings for door prizes or free catering as long as you make sure you have updated contact info on the card before you enter.

• You could use them as luggage tags because they hold up better than a thinner piece of paper, but again, make sure you update your information by hand on the card before you use it.

• You could use them as labels for organizing & identifying CD cases, files or hanging folders.

• You could use a folded corner of a biz card to make a nice toothpick or fingernail cleaner if you are in a pinch.

• You could fold up a biz card and use it as a wedge for a wobbly table or chair.

• You could use the back (if it's blank) as a gift label.

After reading a few articles on what you could do with old biz cards, I thought that most of the suggestions for uses were kind of boring and expected. I ended up searching for more creative and unexpected uses for old biz cards and found the following:

• You could use old biz cards as noisemakers for the wheels of your child's bike (or even your own for that matter :-) All you have to do is tape or clothespin a card to the supporting bars of the fenders on your bike so that the spokes on the wheel create a motorized sound when they strike the card.

• You could make your own deck of playing cards and make up a game with them. This is a great one to keep kids busy for awhile with some creative fun.

• You could cover a wall with the backside of the cards (if they are a solid color or have a cool pattern) for an interesting wallpaper effect. This one would be good for creative agencies or some kind of place that likes to get creative with their work environment.

• You could use them in being crafty or making art. They make great paint scrapers for scraping paint on a canvas, great for creating collages with to add depth, or blend shreds of them together with other paper to make handmade paper.

• You could make biz card cubes and put them all together to construct a house of cubes, cube furniture, or even make ornaments for your Christmas tree! This biz card project may take a while and you might actually find that you don't have enough old biz cards! I found this idea to be the coolest, by far, so I ended up making a few cubes myself. I also found someone who had actually spent the time to make a house of cubes.... it took 66,000 biz cards to make the house of cubes-- also known as Menger's Sponge. Now that, is dedication!

Pretty neat stuff, huh? Well, I hope that this gives you inspiration to do something with your old cards that have been sitting in your desk collecting dust. If you decide you really aren't the type to do anything with your old cards, please recycle them or send them to this guy named Steve Patterson -- he collects biz cards. If you are the type of person to do something with your old cards, I say "happy biz-carding" to you!

The election is over - a lesson in usability?

It is the morning after the election - a historic moment in American history regardless of party or vote. Now come the pundits, the analysis and hindsight brilliance. But, one thing has been evident all along - the web and social media made a difference in this election. And, one candidate used them much more adeptly than the other, the one that won.

President-elect Barack Obama hired one of the co-founders of Facebook, Chris Hughes, to run his online strategy - not a bad move. I came across a great article comparing the two websites www.barackobama.com and www.johnmccain.com on BNET (here). Marc Mendell points out some striking differences in the article, and it is a great read just for practical design and usabiity best-of-breed parameters and how-tos.

Senator McCain gave a moving and wonderful speech last night conceding the race to Barack Obama. I woke up this morning at 5:30CST to start checking the polls and coverage (I am an election geek with an MA in Government concentrating on political behavior and survey research, so I love this stuff). What did I find at each candidate's website?

McCain's was unchanged and running through autoplay for several of his end-of-campaign ads attacking Obama - wait I have just heard from others that they saw the updated image below, apparently my browser cache was viewing an older version - NOTE - then it would make sense for any site with time sensitive matter to put in measures to keep this from happening through redirects, replacing index pages and so forth. Now, back to what was there today. There were buttons to vote, make phone calls and all sorts of stuff out of date. See it here:
Then I went to Obama's webiste and saw this:
The difference? Besides the usability dynamics pointed out in the BNET article - Obama was up to date with a "Thank You" page, a donate to the DNC as a payback to them for their help and a simple message and the most recent blog posts. The McCain site did not reinforce the great message that Senator McCain had laid out the night before and had many a CTA (call to action) that were irrelevant.

The lesson? Besides that usability matters and most likely played a major role now in the history of America - have a plan B. Both campaigns should of have had "Thank You" and concession pages built weeks ago, beta tested and deployed with hidden vanity links ready to go. Sometimes simply being prepared is the best usability tool out there.

Usability, the internet and design matter. They matter for the highest office in the land and they matter for your customers that want to purchase a t-shirt or a server.

Sentient Services - Welcome to our blog.

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Thanks!

The Sentient Team

Election 08, Propaganda, Marketing and Advertising

Given the imminent election it seems fitting to take a closer look at propaganda tactics (and parallels to marketing), especially those that have emerged in the 21st century. And don’t worry I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty of platform delineations. I think it might be much more fun to look at how the candidates get us to think what we think and ultimately persuade us to vote one way or the other.

The most basic definition of propaganda is the presentation of information in order to influence an audience. The modern day interpretation of the term is definitely more menacing (depending on the culture) and is most commonly associated with political messages (full definition at Wikipedia). Not surprisingly advertising can be thought of as propaganda that promotes a commercial product or shapes the perception of an organization, person, or brand.

A little history…
Propaganda is of course as old as people, but a quick google search on the history of propaganda will tell you that the origin of the word is attributed to Pope Gregory XV when in 1622 he established the Sacred Congregation for Propagating the Faith. As you may have guessed, the primary responsibility of this department was the dissemination of Catholicism.

There are many forms of propaganda, but generally speaking all tactics fall into 7 main categories identified by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in 1938. They are Assertion, Bandwagon, Card Stacking, Glittering Generalities, Lesser of Two Evils, Name Calling, Pinpointing the Enemy, Plain Folks, Simplification, Testimonials, and Transfer (you can probably get the gist of each type, but for full definitions go here).

Propaganda, Marketing and the 21st century…
People with ideas, whether they are religious or political, will always want to persuade others and they use various means to do so. Throughout history campaign posters, entire books (Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto”), movies, and radio and tv advertisements have all been tools in the propagandists’ arsenal. In the 21st century technology has changed the game a bit.

In the 2004 election, Howard Dean was one of the first presidential candidates to utilize the internet to communicate with supporters and raise funds. Via the web, he raised approximately $50 million in campaign contributions, started a blog, and created a group of political activists called “Deaniacs” that organized gatherings called “meet ups”. In 2007 all 19 primary candidates had websites and a blog at the bare minimum and today all three of the candidates (yes, even Bob Barr) have a dedicated website (www.barackobama.com, http://www.johnmccain.com/, http://www.bobbarr.com/) and email campaign and are leveraging increasingly creative strategies typically only executed by marketers like social networks, consumer generated viral videos, widgets, blogs, SEM strategies, and iPhone applications.

Barack Obama has unquestionably seen the most rewards by balancing mass marketing techniques with the latest developments in social media and niche marketing. He employed a Facebook founder (Chris Hughes) and other hired guns from various ad agencies and it’s paying off big time. In September alone Obama raised $150 million and the cash continues to flow. It is estimated that the Obama campaign spends $2.8 million a day on advertising, which is double McCain’s daily budget (McCain’s total budget for September 1st to November 4th is $84 million). On October 29th, 2008 Obama will air a half-hour infomercial on 7 networks that is considered to be one of the largest ad buys in election history. Not since Ross Perot’s run for president in 1992 have we seen such media roadblocks executed by a candidate. So I guess it’s not that surprising that Barack Obama was recently named Marketer of the Year (above Nike, Apple and Coors) by AdAge.

Regardless of which side of the fence you stand on (or maybe you stand ON the fence),
I don’t think anyone can question the remarkable change in propaganda tactics this election. Here are a few content examples – candidate generated and supporter generated.

• Obama-Biden Tax Calculator widget: Based on your annual income and filing status (can also populate # of dependents, age, retirement, etc.) you can see your estimated tax savings under each candidate’s plan. Unless you make more than $200K a year Obama is going to save you money.
• Viral email campaign: Sponsored by MoveOn.org and TrueMajority PAC. Enter your friends name and email address and they will receive an invite to view a CNN type website with news coverage about how they (name inserted) lost the campaign for Obama by not voting. And to make sure you don’t forget to pass it on the creators send you a follow up email encouraging you to continue your “social nudging” efforts to help them achieve their goal of 10 million forwards by election day.
• Will.i.am music video: Entertainer Will.i.am created a music video that features celebrities reading/singing an Obama speech. To date it has been viewed 970,223 times on YouTube.com.
• Paris for Prez video: Created by Adam McKay (FunnyOrDie pioneer), this video is a response to John McCain’s political ad that attacks Obama’s celebrity.
• Countdown for Change iPhone application: A clock (days, hours, minutes, seconds) created by a supporter that counts down the days to Election Day. Even if applications like these don’t directly garner any votes, it is yet another example of how Obama is immersed in the modern consumer experience.

You may be wondering why there are no McCain examples listed. All I can tell you is I sincerely tried to find some examples, beyond the standard myspace page, but was not successful. Perhaps that explains the polls. Time will tell.

What are some of your favorites? Have you found any good examples of McCain leveraging social media, web 2.0, etc.?

Happy Halloween! Want A Chip?

Found an interesting site the other day – Hotel 626.com. There are several cool elements on this site like soliciting email addresses as a “reservation” to access the site, webcam and microphone integration and overall the site is incredibly creepy (just in time for Halloween). There’s really no direct product pushing so from the user’s perspective it’s pure entertainment. It belongs to Frito Lay, but from a messaging perspective that’s put on the back-burners.

What’s really interesting is the way they handle access to the site. As indicated by the name, the site is only accessible from 6 PM to 6 AM (Hotel 626). Here’s why I think this is a cool idea:

It’s Risky, But Not Really.
Would this approach work for 90% of the sites out there? No, absolutely not. But, I think it’ll work quite well for this one. The reasoning is that it’s risky, but not really. Although it’s harder to access the site, they have technology in place (reservations) that’ll send the user an email when the site opens for the evening. On top of that, they’re effectively weeding out the fickle fly by night users and honing in on the active, engaged market. This brings you closer to your loyalists; and it’ll certainly provide a decent amount of those lost in the branding “grey area” as well.

It’s Breaking the Typical Online Experience.
We all know that the tougher you make your online content to access, the more you become susceptible to increased drop-off, decreased conversion and all the wonderful financial repercussions in between. However, this site’s putting that school of thought on its head a bit. In an environment where users are cynical, have the shortest of attention spans and have more competing entertaining online options at their beckon call than ever, this site tells them to “wait, you’re going to view this site on our terms.” It’s all very reminiscent of the trickle-like release of Nintendo’s Wii and the iPhone.

However, this site’s not directly tied to revenue, which begs the question – what will they do next? It sounds like there’s a product launch coming, in which case Frito Lay will be locked and loaded with a pool full of advocates and otherwise engaged users just waiting to mobilize and ultimately, eat some chips.

As always, time and traffic numbers will bring success or failure, but I’m very interested to see how the product launch goes.

The Election

Just watch this.

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Awareness is the Key – Lessons on the economy

While contemplating what to write about, I cannot seem to get my mind off of recent events occurring within the economy. I don’t think there is a way to get around the recent turmoil with headlines across all major news sites such as CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. I guess what has intrigued me the most is just how little I really knew about what truly has been going on with the economy over the past 70 years.

In many ways our economy has been taking a turn for the worse for years. The government has been passing policies and manipulating the market so that it seems that up until recently our economy has been great. However this is not the case and our economy has been on a path (though a slow one) to where we are today.

So what is my point with all this you ask? I feel that it is important that we be aware of the economy, what is going on and the underlying issues that have lead us up to the point where we are now. Therefore, I thought I would offer up a link to several educational videos from Chris Martenson, an ex-professor and VP of a fortune 300 company now turned author.

http://www.chrismartenson.com/three_beliefs

The reason I chose this series of videos, is that they go beyond what the current news is reporting and gives a history of the economy and how policies and/or actions have shaped it over the last 100 years. Martenson does a fantastic job of breaking a complex subject down and explaining in an easy to understand manner. The videos cover how the economy interacts, where the economy has slowly gone wrong and implications for the future that go way beyond just a couple of major bankruptcies that are happening today (although this number continues to rise).

Remember “Awareness is Everything” and being aware of what is going on in our country and our economy is very important. What other content have you found beneficial to furthering awareness of the economy crisis?

Why the web matters and will still change everything.

Yes, the web matters - duh. But, its major impact is yet to come. Currently it has democratized (somewhat) information, changed the way we share, communicate and learn - along with about a million other things. However, the large scale social, psychological and economic ramifications have not happened...yet.

Let's leave out the psychological discussion for now (does having 500 "friends" on Facebook increase closeness, dilute actual bonding with family? what happens to a generation that grows up sharing video, photos, private moments with Dear@www - how does a 1:1 relationship, be it marriage or parenting stack up to or compare? and so many others).

What is really interesting right now is the tapping of the collective wisdom of crowds, social networks, starfish theory, desire for fame, money, social capital - whatever you call it to find serious solutions to major global problems.

The big case in point here is Google with their Project 10^100. According to Google "Project 10¹⁰⁰ is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible." Seems like a perfect use of some of their money, brand equity and the web.

I, for one, am very excited to see what comes out of the project. My guess, some amazing mind blowing ideas, game changers and a few "smack me sideways - why didn't I think of that" ideas.

Google video is below - and go post your ideas!

Clean Advertising, Clean Planet

I was reading last months Creativity magazine when I came across a beautifully simple and earth-conscious project called “The Reverse Graffiti Project”. My interest was instantly sparked because I’m actually a huge fan of well-done graffiti. Wondering what ‘reverse graffiti’ was, I visited the site – www.reversegraffitiproject.com. I found that this is a project powered by Green Works– a spin off from the Clorox Company that’s producing plant & mineral based biodegradable cleaning agents. As soon as I read that, it hit me what they were doing— they were cleaning dirty, smut-caked walls in cities in order to make earth conscious, artistic advertising! BRILLIANT! However, it made me somewhat question the reasoning behind it all— is Clorox really trying to help the planet? Are they just trying to make an extra buck or are they just trying to offset the damage they’ve already done to the planet with their normal line of Clorox products?

After reading a little more about it, watching the videos and rolling the concept of ‘clean art’ around in my head, I decided to focus on the positive instead of questioning the motives of Clorox. I came away from the site with two main ideas to take from this project: #1– Use of advertising that actually HELPS the environment instead of destroying it; #2– Make something “new” out of something already existing– a form of recycling, if you will. The basic ideas of ‘clean art’ have been around for a while and probably exist in many different forms. The most recent example I can think of was an email I got a while back about ‘dirty car art’.

I went on thinking about the 'clean art' concept and wondered how it could be applied to other means of advertising or life in general. Seems like a lot of individuals and companies are starting to become more interested in 'earth friendly' alternatives to just about everything. I'm glad people are starting to finally wake up and realize just how much we impact the health of our planet. So, the questions still stand– how can these ideas be used to make something 'new' out of something pre-existing for use as an advertisement? What are other people already doing that's recycling pre-existing objects and making them into something new?

Online tools for parents

As some of you may know I have been on maternity leave for the last 3 months. My days (and nights too) have been consumed with feedings, changing diapers, trying to keep up with the endless amount of laundry (who knew someone so little could produce so much laundry), and staring in wonderment at this amazing person. Now that I am back to work and my former life at Sentient has resumed I am spending my days talking to clients, writing proposals, reviewing reports, and managing projects again. Two very different roles. And as many working parents before me I am learning to manage and balance work and family. So how do we manage it all? Fortunately for me I work for a company that is my “village” so to speak and has been very supportive, generous and accommodating during this time of adjustment. In addition to working for a great company, I have discovered a plethora of online tools (many of course sponsored by brands) to track, answer, remind, and verify my every parenting move, question, task and concern.

Here are a few of my favorites.

www.Babycenter.com – everything from mommy and baby horoscopes, to baby milestone videos, community blogs, development calendar, recall finder, deal finder, and much, much more.

www.cozi.com – Their tagline is “Family Life. Simplified. This tool is a multimedia organizer for busy parents. The tool keeps track of calendars, shopping lists, family journal postings and pictures and you can coordinate it all from your desktop, notebook, phone, or PDA. You can sync your outlook and cozi calendars, send or leave a message to a family member (dinner at Hula Hut at 7pm!) or send your shopping list to your cell phone. See a tutorial here.

www.bellyhood.com – a widget that lets you customize your own pregnancy countdown so you can watch your baby grow from a tiny dot to a full grown fetus. Check it here.

These online tools and forums were not available to my parents when they were raising me. They had to rely on more archaic means…like calling their parents in a panic in the middle of the night to find out how to treat a fever and of course there was and is always Dr. Spock (he is online now too). So as the diffusion of parenting information evolves, I wonder what tools my child will use when she becomes a parent. What’s next?

Volunteering

Arrived at work this morning, and my boss wasn’t in yet. It took me a minute, and then I remembered, he’s volunteering today with LifeWorks. One of our work benefits is that we get one day a year to volunteer for something that pulls at our heartstrings.

What sort of impact does this have on our business? Having been involved in volunteer organizations, my reaction is: volunteering has a big, positive impact! It builds interpersonal skills, problem solving skills, increases patience and flexibility, among other things. And then there’s just that feel-good high you get from helping another human being.

As it turns out, I’m not the only one that thinks this. According to the 2008 Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT Survey, companies are paying attention to volunteering.

“Not only does skills-based volunteering provide much-needed support to local nonprofits, but it also helps foster meaningful business and leadership skills among employees.”

What are your thoughts? How has volunteering impacted your skill set, career or business?

If you’re looking for a volunteer opportunity to use and build your skill set or portfolio, check out AustinProBono, a site that connects businesses that want to help with nonprofits that need help.

Platform Thoughts

I ran into an interesting article today on CNET, titled “"Should software developers fear Facebook, Apple?" In summary, and I’ve dumbed this down considerably for the sake of brevity, the author feels Apple and Facebook’s quality control maintained over third-party applications developed for their respective platforms is excessive to the point of stifling growth in the software development industry. I agree, productivity will be limited by their actions, however I don’t like the causation implied – i.e. larger software developers using their “weight” and influence to force Apple/Facebook to suppress smaller ones.

I tend to skew closer toward this thought. Apple and Facebook may be slightly stifling innovation, but they may be doing so to stay out of court and on the legal side of copyright laws, etc. In my opinion, they’re ultimately raising the standards for the developer community. As this platform continues to grow, I’m hoping we’ll soon see a chasm between allegedly copyright/trademark infringing developers versus the innovators. With current platforms developing and new ones continually coming to fruition, original and useful applications will be recognized as such and widely adopted, period. We’ve reached the point of application saturation in which truly only the “cream” will rise to the top.

What do you think? Does it make sense for Facebook/Apple to control applications or should they be more of a platform? From a brand perspective, was Scrabulous hurtful or helpful?

CPC - CPM - CP?

More money is being spent online, serving up ads and an ad revenue model continue to be the driving force behind new start-ups, Microsoft purchases (or planned ones) and Google product development such as the new browser Chrome - built to further deliver targetting for those that buy via Google and potentially shut out others like Microsoft from lucrative profiling data The big question becomes how do you measure such terms as "immersion", "product placement", "gaming", "social media" and so forth.

One interesting idea we came up with at Sentient was in regards to measuring brand interaction in virtual worlds for market research (at the bottom of this post). How are you measuring brand interaction on emerging platforms?

Virtual Worlds activity is measured with specific metrics that are different from web metrics

These are the areas it makes most sense to measure:
– Sim Traffic
Sim = server
Sim traffic is the total amount of users that have visited the respective presence in a given time frame

Currently virtual worlds can accommodate 65-100 users per sim
– Concurrency
Average number of users on a sim at the same time

– Sustainability
Average time experience per user (in hours)

– Experiential Value (EV)
((Total Traffic/(Concurrency/10))*Sustainability= VE ratio

Benchmark - WBHV, 12/12/06 launch - ((200/(40/10))*40 = 533.33
– WBHV Rave Party was considered a success by Second Life standards

Printing with Zero Ink

As I was reading a magazine today, I came across an article about a company called Zink. I have never heard of it before, so it caught my attention. I realized the name stands for Zero Ink – And it means exactly that. No Ink. No Ink to print pictures or any other kind of graphics? What happened to make this possible? When was there ever NOT a need for ink cartridges, toners or ink ribbons? Soon everyone will have a different kind of printer – one that could even fit in your pocket. This is BIG news for printers everywhere and a HUGE breakthrough in printing technology.

As my curiosity grew, I started to read more about Zink. I found out that the key to the digital printing process involves a special kind of paper. A magical paper, if you will. This magical paper has an advanced composite material with cyan, yellow, and magenta dye crystals embedded within it. Okay, well that’s cool, but how does it work? Well, I read on and found out that they’ve created a “device” that uses heat to activate the crystals thus revealing your image. What’s great about this “device” is the fact that it can be extremely small because you don’t need the room you’d normally need for ink cartridges or ribbons. This means that it could soon be installed on any or all your hand-held devises. You could get prints no matter where you are.

If you’re a big print buff like me, this new Zink product just totally blew your mind. Just the thought of never having to buy another expensive ink cartridge or toner again just sent a series of chills down my back. Zink will totally change how we print and even where we’re able to print. Need your airline tickets? No problem. Print them from your phone enabled with the Zink device and *bam* you’ve got it right there on the spot. With Zink, you have instant gratification and “Zero Hassles”. I forgot to mention that these Zink devices are not affected by gravity. WHAAAAA? This means that you could mount a Zink device on the wall next to your workspace and print right off the wall. The Zink paper is all you need to buy and can also be finished with an adhesive back. I'm not sure exactly how much the paper will cost, but it’s the only supply you need, and it’s not light sensitive so it doesn’t need special storing conditions. The Zink device also prints in a single pass at a consistent speed and quality regardless of the print width. Wow. That deserves a standing ovation in my opinion.

Probably the most important fact about this product is that it leaves absolutely NO waste stream. If normal printers produce 100% waste (ie: used ink cartridges, used toners, etc), then these Zink printers produce 0%. The photo itself is the only artifact of the printing process. I’m still not sure if the paper itself is actually recyclable– I’d be interested to know if they plan on it being recyclable.

So, I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these printers. They sound like they are so effortless and fun to use. So where do I buy one, you ask? Actually, Zink paper and Zink enabled products are in the final stages of development, so they aren’t available in any stores….. yet. You can, however visit their website – www.zink.com - and click on the “where to buy” to enter your information so that they can notify you about when and where you’d be able to buy and enjoy the “magic of Zink”.

Please, after looking at the product and visiting their website, share with me what you think of this new innovative way to print. Would you use it? Do you think it will revolutionize printing? If the whole world is trying to go “green” how does facilitating personal printing help? In making printing easier, is it encouraging people to print stuff they don’t really need thus creating waste that may or may not be recyclable? Do you think that instead they should be working on a technology that makes paper obsolete?

Austin is where the digitally savvy things are

That’s from a Scarborough Research report, which found that Austin has the highest concentration of consumers that own certain high tech items (such as DVRs, satellite radio, VoIP), engage in certain internet behaviors (including blogging, downloading music, online gaming) and use leading-edge cell phone features (email, text messaging, etc.). Scarborough Research terms these consumers the digitally savvy, and nationally, 6% of the population is classified as digitally savvy. While Austin boasts 12% of its population as being digitally savvy. Yet another reason why Austin is the coolest place to live! (Ok, perhaps I’m slightly biased as I call Austin home…)

As both the report and this recent article in Ad Age point out, the digitally savvy are leading edge digital consumers. Historically, this demographic has provided marketers a glimpse into the future in terms of cell phone and third screen behaviors. These behaviors are what enable the lifestyle of the digitally savvy – they are entrepreneurs and business decision makers that tend to have a longer commute, plus they like to travel. Thus they seem to prefer to “pull” information at their convenience instead of having it “pushed” to them. For example, they are more likely than the general population to download TV and video programs online.

The digitally savvy make an ideal target for a variety of market research engagements since they are more likely to be heavy and diverse online spenders, entrepreneurial, business decision makers and hungry for information (among other things).

1. Ethnography could be used to further define how and from where this demographic pulls their information and to discover how a relationship model of advertising might be incorporated into the digitally savvy’s daily habits.
2. Usability tests, especially on e-commerce sites, could yield tweaks to your site that greatly improve conversion rates. The digitally savvy, through their own tendencies, will have explored many sites and thus have developed a sense of best-of-breed on which they base their expectations of where certain parts of a site to be.
3. Ideation would also be a great way to harness the strengths of the digitally savvy. Their entrepreneurship and hunger for information point to creative thinking processes that are just waiting to be tapped.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts – how else can we tap the digitally savvy? And let us know if you want to take a trip to Austin to visit the digitally savvy in person.

Summer Reading List

Following Paul’s reading lead in his post titled Being A “Small Giant” I decided to see if I could get some feedback on my own summer reading list. Like Paul I am constantly trolling online publications and eNewsletters – AdAge, CNET, Austin Business Journal, the IAB SmartBrief, etc., etc. for the latest happenings and breaking news in the industry. Along the way I have come across several book reviews that I thought were worth adding to my list.

As the dog days of summer approach (or are already here in Austin, Texas - I think they said it was going to get up to the 90’s today!) I plan on watching less TV and reading more books. So far on the list I have:

· Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life) – By Cathie Black

Not sure why this made my list (I guess I should start trying to “get ahead” by taking better notes).

Here is a brief synopsis from the book:

Cathie Black is the wise, funny mentor that every woman dreams of having. She was a pioneer in advertising sales at a time when women didn’t sell; served as president and publisher of the fledgling USA Today; and, in her current position as the president of Hearst Magazines, persuaded Oprah to launch a magazine. In 2006 she was named one of Fortune’s “50 Most Powerful Women in American Business” for the seventh consecutive year. Now, in the exuberant, down-to-earth voice that is her trademark, Cathie explains how she achieved “the 360° life”—a blend of professional accomplishment and personal contentment—and how any woman can seize opportunity in the workplace.

A fairly limited web search unearthed mixed reviews on both her book and her character. I won’t make any predications about her character having never met her, but book reviews generally stated that the book only offered limited advice. Publishers Weekly states “While the author’s life is an interesting one, readers looking for tips will do better with a more pointed book” (see entire Publishers Weekly review and others here).

It is always interesting to learn about others’ path in life and business and gauge your own resolutions if put in similar situations. I think I will keep this book on the list for now.

· The Education of an Accidental CEO: Lessons Learned from the Trailer Park to the Corner Office – By David Norak

Book summary:

David Novak—one of today’s most engaging, unconventional, and successful business leaders—lived in thirty-two trailer parks in twenty-three states by the time he reached the seventh grade. He sold encyclopedias door to door, worked as a hotel night clerk, and took a job as a $7,200-a-year advertising copywriter with the hopes of maybe one day becoming a creative director. Instead, he became head of the world’s largest restaurant company at the ripe old age of forty-seven.

While David never went to business school, he did learn from the greatest of teachers—experience—and plenty of other very smart people as well: Magic Johnson on the secret to teamwork, Warren Buffett on what he looks for in the companies he buys, John Wooden on ego, and Jack Welch on one thing he’d do over. Now he wants to share with you what he discovered about getting ahead and getting noticed; motivating people and turning businesses around; building winning teams and running a global company of nearly one million people; and always staying true to yourself.

I know why this one caught my eye - I can never get enough of the underdog story and am constantly amazed by those that overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Probably has the potential to be a bit hokey, but most reviewers seem to agree that it provides guidance, inspiration and strength to those seeking success in business. Read more reviews here and here.

· What Sticks: Why Most Advertising Fails and How to Guarantee Yours Succeeds – By Rex Briggs and Greg Stuart

Book summary:

What Sticks is the one book that explains exactly how marketing and advertising works today! Based on new insights from analysis of over $1 billion worth of advertising.

Decades ago it was okay to believe, as retail magnate John Wanamaker did, that “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” However, today the stakes are much higher. Marketing thought leaders Rex Briggs and Greg Stuart estimate that $112 billion in advertising spending in the U.S. alone is wasted, cutting deeply into company profits.

What Sticks uncovers bold new insights from the largest-ever global marketing research project among 30 Fortune 200 companies, including: Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, McDonalds, Unilever, Ford and others. This is a comprehensive and solutions-oriented book that outlines how any marketer, at any level, can guarantee their advertising succeeds.

This book appears to veer away from the anecdotal nature of the above selections and focuses on more practical applications. AND it is research driven, which mirrors Sentient’s approach of listening to the customer before embarking on a solution path.

Reviews can be found here.

If you have read any of these books or have others to add to my summer reading list I would love to hear from you.

Being a "Small Giant"

So, there have been some interesting posts here recently covering emerging media research methods panel quality control and the changing world of coffee and the Starbucks brand - great article HERE from FastCompany.com. However, I also promised a bit of soul searching and business talk here from my original post.

I have almost finished my first business book since I founded Sentient Services over four years ago. It is not that I don't read, I devour FastCompany and Inc. each month and spend way too much time learning random things on the web and through Google Gadgets. I am also almost done with a very exciting Hardy Boys (a true classic series that my kids are actually enjoying). The book that has managed to capture my severely limited attention span is "Small Giants - Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big". Written exquisitely by Bo Burlingham with first-hand accounts and an approachable tone, it is safe to say it has changed my "business" life. Here is a nice summary from the jacket:

How maverick companies have passed up the growth treadmill—and focused on greatness instead.

It’s a widely accepted axiom of business that great companies grow their revenues and profits year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, some entrepreneurs have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Goals like being great at what they do . . . creating a great place to work . . . providing great customer service . . . making great contributions to their communities . . . and finding great ways to lead their lives.

Who wouldn't want this? Well apparently a lot of us fall far from this model - me being one - and don't see this as an option. Our business MUST grow or we will die. New projects = new employees = more overhead = need to sell more = more projects and so on. I was convinced for a long time that the more people I hired the less I would work, and I tried to convince my wife of this as well, alas she was smarter than I - as usual. But we sure did grow. We made the top 25 agencies in Austin for the past 2 years, made the Fast 50 for Central Texas and made the Best Places to Work as well.

But, none of this made us "great" it just made us busy, with more overhead and a bit stressed if I do say so myself. Reading the examples in this book is like watching all the mistakes I have made in business in slow motion - painful, true and hopefully a growing experience. The one take away I have so far is that the forces to grow are almost unstoppable without a conscious plan on how your business will maintain focus, passion and excellence in the face of business, economic and personal theories that all point to the need for growth and funding.

Okay, I am off to read more of the book now. Please let me know your thoughts and I will post more soon!

It's About Time

The other day I turned on the TV and was given a glimpse into the trials and tribulations of Alaskan crab fisherman. I was tempted to look forward to a visit from a witty, sarcastic friend whose charm and optimism were balanced only by a slew of empirically disgusting and laborious “jobs”. I also watched a crash-test dummy get the living snot smashed out of himself – all in about two hours’ time. If you were able to identify the above references without clicking on the hyperlinks, then you have something in common with about 97 million American households. You know I’m talking about the Discovery Channel.

It also occurred to me that 95% of the programming either stored in my DVR or scheduled to be recorded was that of Discovery Communications, specifically their marquee network the Discovery Channel. How did this happen? In the name of full disclosure, I AM an old soul. I have preferred the Discovery Channel and History Channel over MTV ever since I realized that Milli Vanilli were faking it. Needless to say, my predisposition for mature television habits certainly left me susceptible for these types of viewing habits, but somehow I still did not sense even the slightest air of transition.

As it turns out, the Discovery Channel recently arose from turbulent times and snuck in amongst a reality landscape peppered with of Flavor Flav suitors conflicting over who knows what, Rock of Love contestants conflicting over voyeurism and silicone and every pointless reality show known to man. So you may ask, how has the Discovery Channel won its way back into my heart and more importantly, my DVR? The answer is simple. Stay true to yourself.

Discovery Channel is dedicated to creating the highest quality television and media to inspire audiences by delivering knowledge about the work in an entertaining way; evolving a timeless brand for a changing world.

- From Discovery Communications

The key factor is that consumer trends and pop culture will change with the tides – today they’re bewildered by a slice of life previously unseen, tomorrow they’ve been there/done that, but the inquisitive nature of people will always remain constant. Now, this is an important observation when your job is to educate the masses and you’ve been trolling for novelty since 1985. The Discovery Channel began with nature specials, then next thing you know fish, birds and mammals seemed to all follow the same plot – birth, growth (with significant adolescent cuteness), digestion of other animals (or gross things), and death. Eventually, Discovery adapted to the reality television craze. After four seasons, the viewer is convinced they know all there is to know about building a [insert novel craft here] and ratings come from character conflict opposed to viewer epiphany. The natural result of learning is to become learned, so where to next? Try the internet. I know; yet another ground breaking observation on my part. :-)

Discovery has done a fantastic job thus far integrating their television programming with online content. I would consider MythBusters to be the epitome of this integration. Fans can propose new myths to be ‘busted’, discuss the validity of processes filmed on the show and access a slew of video content not included in broadcast episodes. Dirty Jobs has a similar online content procurement model as well.

However, Discovery Communications has taken this online success one step further in building HowStuffWorks.com.

Since formally becoming a part of the Discovery family in December, the combined HowStuffWorks.com/Discovery.com supersite has gone from 10 million unique visitors in December to 15 million uniques last month. The plan for 2008 is to sell the two as a way to package contextual online search buys for clients to effectively own a category of information on the site, like hybrid cars or car engines.

-Andrew Hampp, “No Sales Pitch Too Dirty for This Cabler”

Will this digital endeavor work? As always, time will tell. With online video and social networking very nearly reaching point of saturation it’s very difficult to predict. However, with their recent addition of an in-house creative arm they appear to have the right idea. Provide your viewers the right content, show your advertisers a little love and affection then watch the dough roll in……..hopefully.

What do you think? Too little, too late, or are have they figured out what everyone else is trying so desperately to articulate and mobilize?

Spring has Sprung (Creatively Speaking)

What inspires a creativity enthusiast? For me, Sentient’s Art Director, it’s the spring. Could it be all the new blooming buds everywhere? The gorgeous weather? The thought of soon being able to go tubing down the Guadalupe River with beer in hand? Yes, yes and yes, but there’s also an energy and freshness that comes with the changing season. Spring brings in the new and I’m always looking for new places to get inspiration from. A lot of new sites/work being put out there is giving off an amazing amount of energy and a fresh outlook/perspective. Let me give you a few examples of awesome resources for inspiration and good energy for your creative soul.

American Poster Institute
The American Poster Institute is a non-profit corporation dedicated to furthering public awareness and appreciation of the poster art form. I had never heard of it before this year’s SXSW music festival. The API has a traveling poster convention called ‘Flatstock’ where they gather posters from all around the world—different styles and different eras. Someone like me could go CRAZY at a convention like this. You can walk around and look at all the posters and if you find one that you like, you can buy a copy of it. Talk about inspiration EVERYWHERE you look!

Logo Pond
I just recently stumbled across this site, and was really pleased by the work being put up on the site. So many unused, beautiful logos! I thought it was fun to go through all of the logos my fellow designers have done for their clients. It’s also great to hear how they were all received - which ones worked, which was the designer’s favorite and was it actually chosen? Logo Pond is a great place to spark new ideas for an identity system.

Arcade Fire Video
This website was sent to me, and not only am I a big Arcade Fire fan- I am a big fan of this video and this site.. The song was so well done that you can turn off and on different parts of the music and it still sounds beautiful. All the while, the video is playing and still goes along with the different elements of the song. The song and the site are a superb marriage of video and audio. It is really an inspiring piece of work.

Blurb
This is a book making website. This website made me inspired to get my own book started—they appear to be really well done and very personalized in both layout and size. Might be a perfect way to uniquely show off your fabulous work! They have very fair prices and provide FREE software that you need to make your book. You also have the option to sell your book on Blurb’s bookstore and receive 100% of the markup– so be creative AND make some money!

MoMA- Color Chart
Very cool flash website for the MoMA museum- this is for people obsessed with color like myself. You can read an introduction or jump right in to viewing work by time line, by artist, or medium. Okay, and this is the coolest part— when you click through to the work depending on which you choose (artist, medium, or time line), it will use color to categorize each topic. I LOVE IT! Talk about inspiring color use!

I hope you have enjoyed these websites that I have stumbled across – I have definitely been inspired in some way by each one. Now that I have shown some websites that have inspired me, what websites inspire you? What websites have you found this year that you believe to be exceptionally creative or that are doing something cool/new?

Utilizing Social Networks for Market Research: Friend or Foe

As social networks grow it is inevitable that market researchers will try to and tap this market (mainly consisting of teenagers and young adults born between 1980 and 1997). A new company, Peanut Labs, is working to capitalize on this opportunity by creating an online panel from social network members.

So what makes Peanut Labs’ panel different from other online panels? All respondents are recruited directly from multiple social networking sites using non-monetary rewards. According to Peanut Labs website, there are 2.8 million respondents in their panel across 72 social networks and online user reach is up to 12 million.

With huge concerns around professional survey takers and panel overlap in online research (as noted in this Quirks Article), the idea of having non-monetary rewards is a big selling point. Instead of money, respondents are paid in virtual currency according to their social network. For example respondents on Facebook can earn a currency called “munny” for their virtual pets at (fluff)friends. Respondents earn 100 “munny” for their first survey, 200 “munny” for each new survey they complete, and 40 “munny” for being pre-screened out of a survey ($1 USD = 200 “munny”). This method is considerably cheaper than paying respondents actual money and marketers can therefore offer higher incentives to not only respondents that finish survey but also to those who do not qualify. The logic behind this is people will make “munny” regardless of qualifying for the survey, and will consequently be more likely to answer questions honestly.

At first, I sit back and think “Wow, this is pretty amazing.” Most of our concerns as online quantitative researchers could be solved (or at least this is a good start). Then I begin to think about my own personal social networking habits. I am currently a member of Facebook, Myspace, Ringo and LinkedIn. Most of my friends and colleagues are also members of multiple social networking sites. Some are also members of panels such as E-Rewards and Greenfield Online. In addition to being members of multiple sites, we also use multiple email addresses when logging into these sites. This makes it considerably easier for respondents to misrepresent themselves and brings up concerns on the issue of respondent duplication.

Take this scenario for example: A respondent signs up to take surveys through multiple social network sites by using different email addresses on each site, how will a client be able to have confidence in the sample and know that a respondent did not take the same survey three times on three different social networks (especially if the target for a survey is a niche market)?

I believe utilizing social networks and offering non-monetary incentives is a great step toward eliminating some online research woes, but until respondents can be verified and duplication is eliminated across panels, social networks, etc. can anyone really say that one is more reliable than the other? What are your thoughts?

Back away from the Research Methodologies (and leave them to the experts)

Lately, in magazines, blogs, and e-newsletters, I’ve seen several articles in which a few market research methodologies are explored usually through the same three facets: how each methodology works, its advantages, and its disadvantages. This “research methodologies for dummies” influx seems to point out the recent rise in the misuse of methodologies and their results.

The other day I witnessed a study being conducted at a local movie theater in which a slew of research rules were being violated: preset answers were being suggested by the moderator, exact wording was being modified and recorded however the moderator deemed appropriate, and at one point, two respondents’ answers were compiled to fill a single survey (just to name a few).

When methodologies aren’t used correctly, research data deteriorates. Implementing invalid research data more than likely yields poor results. Getting poor results, in this case is a result of methodology malpractice NOT the research field in general. However, since many marketers are unaware of the importance of the methodology chosen and how it will influence the gathered data, they leave behind not only their poorly predicted results and their budget for research, but also a cloud of unmerited doubt around whether research really works or not.

To make matters worse, we also have a surge of people who like to not only criticize the industry but do so poorly with flawed, illogical arguments and often offer no solution in return. Seth Godin attempts to argue that “our personal outlook is a lousy indicator of what works for anyone else” in his post titled “How do I persuade you?”

Here’s the main problem with this question and the rest of his post: the definition of the word “you.” Now, I hate to get all Bill Clinton-y here but I do think this is a very valid point in this context. Godin specifically labels the population to which he is referring as “human beings.” Could he be more right in this context? I don’t think anyone is arguing that the entire human race makes decisions in the same way or even in a similar manner. Decision processes don’t transcend across the entire world’s population, or even the US for that matter.

What I think many would argue is that when you limit that population down to a specific demographic, whether it’s based on geography, age, sex, and/or what brand they purchase, you may be able to narrow this defined population’s decision making process down to a common thread.

Now, John Windsor’s comment in response to Godin’s post somewhat validates my perspective but perhaps needs a bit of sustenance to back it up. Yes, “we need to listen to those we hope to influence, and then adapt our approach accordingly,” but again, to regurgitate Windsor’s original question, “Now what?” There are a couple questions you need to be sure you are answering correctly before you “adapt your approach accordingly.” They are:

1. What is it you want to hear about?
2. What is the most efficient/accurate way to listen to it?

All of the previously listed problems above could be solved by recognizing the inherent relationship between these two questions. Determining which methodology will be the most accurate and efficient all depends on what you are trying to hear. Common desired results include pain points, reactions to a new design, or how satisfied people are with each with its own best-methodology-to-use solution. If you just want a quick rundown of a few methodologies and the types of data they can produce, this is a good start.

So, if you are looking to do research in the near future but are not completely sure which methodology would be the best way to go about gathering your desired results, please ask and find out to so we can fight research methodology abuse and bring it to an end.

The Best Things in Life are Free

Have you thought about how many free (or near free) products and services you use in a day? Here are just a few examples.

• Google – nearly all services used by consumers are free – from email to Picasa to GOOG-411.
• News – you can’t even count the number of websites that give news away for free. Now there is an ongoing rise of *paper*-based newspapers and magazines distributing news for free too.
• Web-based services – there’s everything from financial services to diet plans available.

For an impressive round-up of free (or near free) products and services in many categories check out this trend report from trendwatching.com: FREE LOVE.

Chris Anderson sums up this phenomenon of free in his article “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business” in Wired Magazine and also explains it in an interview with Ad Age. The cost of goods is becoming cheaper, and digital technology is experiencing this on a grand scale. As technology advances and bandwidth, storage, and processing power continue to increase (often for less than last year’s model), the cost of supporting additional users becomes more and more marginal.

Why would you offer something for free? Because money isn’t the only scarcity in an economy. So is attention (as Seth Godin points out). And, in a world where consumers have reached their saturation point, free gets attention. Free allows consumers to skip the cost-benefit analysis in terms of money. You still have to make a worthwhile offer though, because if you waste their attention and time, then consumers will be just as angry as if you had wasted their money.

As marketers, we instinctively understand some of this “value of free” – cross-subsidies, loss leaders or encouraging a first trial or purchase by offering a sample. As we forage into an increasingly digital world and costs move towards zero, we are challenged to explore new business models. My humble opinion is that this seems to work with online business models. Offering a service for free = more users on the site = more advertisers willing to buy in. Or offer a free version of a web-based service and a premium for-pay version that has more features, and the pay supports the free. There are overhead costs for servers, development, etc., but they are spread over thousands or even millions of users. So when you divide it out, the cost to support one more user is negligible.

Offline, this concept of free seems harder to grasp. Tangible freebies are costly to produce and distribute, and lots of marginal costs total to one big cost. The question becomes, how do we not only make up these costs, but *profit* from them? There are some companies that are out there working on this conundrum to offer their products and services for free or near free. For example, here’s how Ryanair offers near free air travel. The pie chart does a great job explaining how Ryanair meets the costs of their flights, but I have some issues with it and especially the explanation below it.

1. Cut costs – this point makes sense to me. Boarding and disembarking from the tarmac and going to less-popular airports are smart moves to keep expenses down.
2. Ramp up the ancillary fees – this irritates me. I do not want to be charged for using my credit card or checking my luggage or wanting a drink. And $3.50 for a bottle of water is an obscenity that’s mostly reserved for sporting events and theme parks. A fair question is do they really think that people aren’t going to realize where the profit is coming from and stop drinking the water? After all, they won’t fly out of the country for more than $100 so why in the world would they pay almost $4 for 12 ounces of water?
3. Offset losses with higher fares – I suppose all airlines do this to some degree, charging a higher price for popular flight days. However, if the consumer is price conscious, and comes to Ryanair looking for a $20 flight, how often are they going to choose to fly on the more expensive days? Just from a mathematical standpoint, if 30% of your airline is ‘expensive’ and the remaining 70% is ‘average’. That high end 30% has to support a portion of average flights twice its size for the airline to profit. Which begs the question of how long do you feel you can pull a fast one on the high end customers?

What are your thoughts? Is $0.00 the future of business? What freebie models do you know that work? Which ones don’t seem to work?

Starbucks Media Jolt

Branding has become a hot topic again in the mainstream media (to some, myself included, it is always a hot topic. I guess it is the nature of the job). This week on the Today Show they featured the decline of the Starbucks brand. Starbucks’ woes in the last year, slowed growth and declining sales, is no secret and it seems every advertising joe has an opinion on what they should do. Most opinions center on returning the focus to the baristas and making the best espresso. The point being that the barista position (for more on baristas visit here) is not interchangeable with the cashier or the greeter or even the store manager, it is a honed skill that takes training and plays a pivotal role in elevating Starbucks above competitors. AND the extended business lines – music, movies, network tv, really doesn’t heighten the taste of my Grande Non-Fat, Double Vanilla Late at the end of the day either.

It would appear Starbucks is listening. In addition to the expected permanent closure of several stores and 600 job cuts, Starbucks temporarily closed all stores Tuesday evening (2/26) for several hours to retrain employees err baristas to “provide a renewed focus on espresso standards” (see full letter to partners, entitled “Starbucks Makes Organizational Changes to Enhance Customer Experience”). There are also plans to stop serving hot breakfast by the end of Fiscal ’08 and offer free or discounted WiFi beginning this spring.

So the obvious question is…was this really an effort to put the focus back on good coffee making OR was it a PR exploit to show off Starbucks renewed focus?

I present exhibit A: National Media Coverage of Starbucks Closing

• FOX News
  
• Today Show
  
• USA Today
  
• MSNBC
  
• ABC
  
• And the list goes on and on and….

Exhibit B:

• Let me also point out that Starbucks isn’t open 24 hours and could have offered this “training session” after hours.
• Not to mention, the length of the session was reported to be 3 hours. Can you really impart knowledge, grow your craft, and produce minions of genius baristas in a one-time 3 hour session?

Will it work? Well I suppose an afternoon training session is a start, but something tells me it is going to take more than a few hours of coffee making How To, to fix Starbucks (call me a pessimist). But maybe it is a start? Maybe, just maybe this media frenzy will make Starbucks accountable to their customers and force them to return to what made them good in the first place – good coffee and atmosphere? They have drawn a very public line in the sand, put a big ol’ stake in the ground, etc., etc. and the stage is set (can I use anymore clichés?) to deliver BIG. Does media frenzy = accountability = return to good coffee and atmosphere? Tell me what you think?

Live from Austin, TX :: CNN Democratic Debate

Consider these three things before we dive right in:

1. I’m new to the political scene. Decided to vote in my college days (actually voted on the uber-conservative Texas A&M campus) since George W. lived in Midland and hello, I had to support my West Texas neighbor since I was raised in the “City of Contrasts” about 25 miles away. Needless to say, after a week at my previous job at GSD&M Idea City, President Clinton stopped by to promote his efforts in Africa and I was awed by his presence.


2. I now regret that vote and have not watched a single recent debate thus far with one exception of flipping channels seeing the heavy makeup on both leading Democratic candidates at my boyfriend’s house (since I don’t like or have cable).


3. According to a Pew Internet & American Life study, 72% of bloggers look online for news or information on politics and by contrast, only 58% of all internet users do so. So now that I am a blogger, this topic seems appropriate. By no means is it a type of endorsement.
   

Considering the above, my routine of listening to NPR daily and the state of our country, I decided it was time to start paying attention. Furthermore, who could resist when we have a Democrat Primary debate here in Austin tomorrow (2/21/08)? Not to mention re-routing what roads I take, I want to be in on the action especially when it’s happening in my city.

One thing I do find peculiar is that several states were rushing to bump their primary elections up and now that the election is so between the candidates, Texas and Ohio hold a larger emphasis.

THE DEBATE (in Austin):
Clinton and Obama will be in Texas tomorrow (2/21) to debate each other live on CNN at 8 p.m. ET and early voting already began on Tuesday. Today, the Texas Democratic Party notified 100 people that they had won the lottery to attend the debate. Around 43,000 people entered the contest. This may not seem too extraordinary but considering only 4,000 Austin Democrats voted in the 2004 primary – it’s big. Since the debate is on campus, 400 UT students will also learn today if their name was picked – oh, and 18,000 applied.

Since tickets seem scarcer than SXSW, tune in or ride your bike down to campus. If you already know who you prefer, take a look at both Obama’s and Clinton’s websites and find local events to participate in. Both of their websites are easy to navigate and let you enter in your zip to find local events in your area. Hint: you don’t have to enter your email address and zip when you visit either candidate’s websites – simply look below the fold.
Here are two events going on in Austin (or you can search your area):

Clinton:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/actioncenter/event/view/?id=9546

“We need all Hillary supporters from all corners to come and help us with visibility for the CNN/Univision Debate on the University of Texas campus. Check in begins at 3pm at the Red River Cafe. Come to collect your sign, learn cheers, and get your debate after party ticket before heading over to the visibility pen.”

Obama:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/debatewatchingparty/4rsrl

Meet at Scholz Garden, which is two blocks south of the campus. Texans for Obama will hold a pre-debate rally and also watch the debate on the projection screen in the outside patio garden at Scholz.

POLITCAL PRANKS & OTHER TOPICS OF INTEREST:
Political pranks are normally unknown to campaign leaders and have been occurring for longer than one would expect. On KUT.org this weekend, they reported that when you type http://www.txdemocrats.com/ (versus .org) you are actually directed to the Republican Party of Texas. It’s true! In South Carolina, Christmas cards were sent out to evangelists allegedly from Mitt Romney highlighting his Mormon faith. A local Austin restaurant that is well-known for it's comical marquee, welcomes the Clinton's to Austin in style:

Want to show your interest in the campaign by sporting some election gear? Whether you are a Clinton or Obama supporter, visit cafepress.com for some digs:

Some might also find it entertaining to check out the “Yes I Can” YouTube video (along with numerous Hollywood celebrities) that mashes up an Obama speech with lyrics of the Black-Eyed Peas. At 12:19pm CDT, the video had 4,579,590 views. According to UT student, Sarah T., the video is spreading like wildfire across campus.

So, from my perspective, take the time to learn more about the issues and where the candidates stand. The promotion of candidates, delivery of campaigns and media is evolving now in front of us and shame on me to just beginning to really take notice. I encourage you to take this “Select a Candidate” online quiz to kick off the learning process:
www.elections.kut.org/2007/11/20/25/

Cheers to learning more, voting and getting involved!

Dogs Rule!

Here’s a campaign that seems to have popped up with a new found sense of urgency - Pedigree’s Dogs Rule campaign. The site, most likely the brainchild of TBWA/Chiat/Day in Los Angeles is extremely well done from both execution and strategic standpoints.

The premise is simple, “We Love Dogs”. What does that mean exactly? Well, in the context of this campaign it means that Pedigree will match monetary donations, as well as Pedigree product donations given by customers to assist animal shelters located near the customer/donator. Ultimately, it means that Pedigree is working to help homeless dogs find homes and ensure they are a little more comfortable during their temporary period of orphanhood.

Normally, at this point in the post, I’d walk through each creative deliverable and critique it’s execution within the context of the campaign. I’d throw around vernacular like viral components, digital revolution and Age of Conversation. In this particular post, I’ll save us the effort in wading through simple concepts with overly sophisticated names. I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with the use of those terms, nor do I have issue with any of the sources linked above, but in this instance, they’re not of primary interest. The individual executions of this campaign are not flawless, but they are very well done. The point is this - where this campaign really sets itself apart; is when we step out of our “jaded creative guy” skin and put on the trusty “business” hat.

So what’s so different about this campaign? Take a look at the facts, and think about it……….

• Dogs eat dog food.
• Pedigree sells dog food.
• Homeless dogs are put to sleep, thus removed from the market, if they are not adopted.
• The Dogs Rule campaign is designed to help homeless dogs find adopted homes.
• If the Dogs Rule campaign is successful in finding homes for homeless dogs, there will be more dogs in the market consuming dog food, thus the revenue potential of this vertical will increase.
  

As a result of the success of this campaign there could be a significant increase in revenue potential for Pedigree, given their current share of voice and share of market. This could potentially be the ultimate win/win scenario. Consumers, who love dogs, adopt a dog or an additional dog – Pedigree has helped them do so and the consumer couldn’t be happier. On the other side of the coin, Pedigree gets access to a larger pool of revenue that their customers, financially, helped them cultivate.

So here’s the point – In today’s marketing environment, full of the increasingly sophisticated, inevitably cynical consumer, your customers will cry bloody murder if they smell even a hint of corporate ambition. I’m not implying Pedigree went into this campaign with that particular objective, but what I’m saying is if you know the customer, and you create advertising/marketing strategy that is spot on to their needs………..it doesn’t matter. As a brand, if you can show you know your customer and you care about what they care about AND provide the actions to support that claim then your leash (so to speak) gets significantly longer. In this case, people who love dogs tend to love ALL dogs, and genuinely appreciate the efforts of shelters, non-profit groups and dog food manufacturers alike who are working to improve the lives of dogs and enlighten owners-to-be. This campaign is a fantastic example of insights informing the creative process and creative being effectively implemented to support those findings.