Targeting Can Be Sexy. Seriously.

Recently I was asked for my favorite or most creative campaign that I’ve led. Leading marketing with start up budget, my most recent successes have been surgical in precision with my target audience and the business objectives. Unless you’re a mother in one of my key target markets with a strong interest in what you feed your family, you may not have seen our campaigns. If you have, it’s likely been in your grocery store or while you shared photos with your friends on Facebook. A bit unsexy, perhaps, but extremely effective.

But targeted marketing can be sexy, too. At Virgin Atlantic, we discovered the campaigns we ran to make air travel glamorous made us seem unapproachable to business travelers. Of the few key factors that drove choice in airline, flyers wanted to know that an airline cared about them. Not surprising when you’re trusting a company to launch you to 30,000 feet, I suppose. The irony was in striving to differentiate ourselves we had drifted a bit from our roots as a customer champion – the difference that mattered to our target.

Since our flying experience delivered plenty of thoughtful touches- I partnered with a great agency to help us change our target’s perception. We focused on bringing the in-air experience to the ground for a very specific group of people: UK corporate travelers based in our two key markets. And understanding their value to our company, we invested to bring innovative, interruptive experiences to their doorsteps- both virtually as they traveled the web, and literally in front and around their workplaces. We invited their corporate travel managers to pub quizzes that snuck in an occasional product feature and assured we delivered on our brand promise to the gatekeepers as well as the travelers.

Here’s a video of the work:

We didn’t bet the bank- we invested significantly less than we would have in traditional media, and maintained our proven workhorse programs. We used the best available technology at the time to micro-target our prospects at their workplace and on the web. And the results in terms of bookings, marketshare, and revenue growth were staggering and paid off well beyond the campaign period. But the best return is something I’m not sure anyone has coined yet…it’s the energy and enthusiasm from employees when your marketing resonates with the brand and their values, and inspires them to continue delivering the brand promise in their own work everyday. It’s better than viral, it’s….?

A moment of unintentional greatness: I give you the first 3-D email (that I know of!)

I joined a vibrant startup in April with an unusual history of creativity: 5 patents, a sleek website, and really innovative technology. Today we unintentionally continued that legacy with our first 3-D email, announcing our presence at the produce industry’s largest trade show. The frame was taken from an animated 3-D film that we’ll be premiering at the PMA trade show on October 15th in Orlando.

HarvestMark's 3-D Email

Care to learn more about HarvestMark? Check out our consumer-focused proposition here. Otherwise, get out your red and blue glasses and enjoy!

What bacon and voodoo can teach us about differentiation

This week I received a note from Youngme Moon, one of my former business school professors, that she’s about to launch a new book entitled “Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd.” The creative trailer for the book cleverly illustrates the challenge of differentiating in a crowded field of “me too!” yet reminded me of a business school case in lacking even the slightest glimpse into the solution. So, while I wait in anticipation of a good read on the April 6th release date, here are two inspiring companies who definitely chose to go left when others turned right:

The Voodoo Donut from Voo Doo Donuts in Portland, Oregon

Two businesses crossed my path this week that are valiantly unafraid to specialize. Incidentally both were started by pairs of friends, but that’s material for another article. The first, Voodoo Doughnuts of Portland, Oregon specializes in off-beat, dare I say eccentric varieties of the beloved pastry that would positively scandalize Dunkin’ Donuts. Case in point: their signature Voodoo variety is a person-shaped doughnut frosted with eyes and a smile and filled with raspberry jelly. Included with each purchase- a pretzel rod “pin” to stab the doughnut, which oozes red jelly filling. The business has been featured in the New York Times, Fast Company, and enjoys a passionate following at its two Portland locations.

JD's Bacon Salt. It comes in three varieties.

The second company, JD foods, specializes in bacon condiments. The past few years have given rise to an unprecedented passion for bacon. First, a sleeper blog of things wrapped in bacon became a runaway success, with the arterial-clogging “Bacon Explosion”. Soon bacon appeared on menus across the country as tempura, icecream, and even vodka. It was suddenly socially acceptable to profess one’s love of the fatty yet delicious meat amidst crowds that eschewed carbs and even meat. In the midst of the rising bacon tide (hmmm, perhaps not the best visual) friends Justin and Dave invented bacon salt and bacon-naise with the catchy tagline “everything should taste like bacon.” With product additions like “Baco-Pop” popcorn and bacon-flavored ranch dressing, even vegetarians are singing J&D’s praises.

Both of these examples support the premise that there’s no such thing as “a little different” for small companies that want to capture consumers attention. Would J&Ds have 4,212 Twitter followers if they were a spice company that happened to also sell bacon salt? Would VooDoo have gained the same volume of press attention if it offered an unusual doughnut once or twice a year? By embracing their specialties these companies have earned a place in the heart of consumers, and differentiated themselves from their much larger competitors. Tell me, which companies do you admire for “going left when others go right?” Hit comment below.

Online Video: The Tipping Point Was Yesterday

This February ComScore released results for online video viewing that indicated 86% of the US online audience viewed videos online in December 2009, up 19% from the prior year. Compare the 178M online viewers to approximately 290M people who watched television in the 2009 season (Nielsen), and the growth is striking. Viewership has grown significantly, as has volume. According to comScore, the online viewer watched an average of 187 videos. So why haven’t brands and broadcasters rushed in?

The industry is hung up in a bit of a chicken and egg dilemma.
Chicken: Broadcast and cable networks have loads of premium content, but don’t want to cannibalize the television audiences that drive their advertising revenue. Bandwith is expensive, and networks have yet to monetize their online content on a scale that could replace television revenue.

Egg: Large advertisers aren’t yet funneling massive ad buys into online video, because they can’t secure the reach that television provides, and the CPM rates are much higher than their television GRPs. To increase reach, historically advertisers have had to purchase space beyond YouTube and Hulu through networks, which haven’t guaranteed the contextual relevance or quality that television provides. Television equals a safe bet.

Analytics and measurement will move the industry beyond this impasse. A 2008 study by Doubleclick/Google clearly illustrated that video advertisements were significantly more effective than other forms of online media in driving brand favorability and purchase intent. An IAB case study found that online video was equally as effective as television in moving brand metrics. As a marketer, why would I have to dig for these results? Why aren’t there more case studies? Several video platforms offer advanced analytical tools to measure the effectiveness of campaigns- Omniture, TubeMogul, Visible Technologies. Someone brilliant will measure and share these results (both online engagement and offline brand metrics) broadly, and marketers will feel more comfortable with increasingly large spends on video. Larger spends will help drive more premium content.

A variety of monetization options can help fund more high-caliber content. Pre-roll, in-stream, and overlay ads are abundant. Subscription models like Netflix, pay-per-view, product placement, and Hulu’s choice-driven sponsorship are still in their nascency. (Thank you, H&R Block, for allowing me to choose pre-roll and skip in-stream ads throughout my favorite show.) Technology will enable more ways to syndicate and monetize, funding better content.

Potential sweet spots? If you’re a brand with a highly specific and elusive target audience, the targeting capabilities of online video should appeal to you. Smart brands of all sizes are using the latest tracking and analytics to uncover which creative is most engaging, and where audiences are falling off, with a depth of insight simply not offered by television. If you produce professional-looking video content for an attractive vertical or audience, (Beet.tv and Plum TV come to mind) now is an attractive time to monetize while larger networks and studios gain internal alignment and technology.