Monthly Archives: November 2012

November 15, 2012 · 9:24 am

The Money Pit

Way back in 1986, Tom Hanks made a film called The Money Pit.

Cover of "The Money Pit"

Having moved into our second suburban house a year or two before – this one an old farm-house – I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as the movie told the story of how a little crack in a wall is the first sign of a much bigger problem to come.

I thought of that as I read the latest version of the Nielsen Cross Platform Report. You can read it for yourself here and see if what I’m about to discuss reminds you of the same thing.  Nielsen found that TV viewing hasn’t dropped much from last year at this time.  In fact:

In Q2 2012, Americans spent more than 34 hours per week in front of a TV set. We watched traditional TV, DVDs and played games. Most of the content from these activities was delivered to us on the TV set in a traditional manner, over broadcast, cable, satellite or telco connection, and a growing amount was delivered by Internet connection. Americans also added another 5 hours in front of the computer screen using the Internet or watching video content.

No cracks there.  Except as I read through the report, a couple of things stood out.  First, Nielsen estimates tablets are in 20% of homes and rising.  Close to 40% of Americans who have them now use their tablets or smartphones while watching TV at least once a day.  They’re still watching even if their attention is now shared.  Crack?

Here is something else.  The amount of time spent watching traditional TV is substantially lower among people under the age of 35.  Those under the age of 25 watch roughly 22 hours a week while those over 50 watch twice as many hours.  The missing hours are spent watching on game consoles and mobile devices.  Given the desirability of the younger demos to marketers, this might be another crack in the house of traditional media.

Finally, the number of cord-cutters (homes with broadcast TV only and broadband internet), while still tiny (5.1 million homes) was growing while cable and broadband subs were shrinking (80 million to just under 78 million).  That kind of reminds me how we used to view cable TV‘s small audience gains in the early 1990’s while we, the big broadcast TV networks, had huge viewership.  That was a crack in the wall then, just as this might be now.

We’re still in that farm-house home, many repairs and a lot of money later.  The big media businesses aren’t going anywhere, but they might need to be thinking about the repairs to come.  The next few years will be interesting as they patch all the cracks.

How have your viewing habits changed?  What does that imply for your marketing or for your business?

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November 14, 2012 · 9:58 am

(Not Provided)

We’re going to get a little esoteric today, and while the specific subject matter discussion may be unfamiliar the overall topic is one that concerns almost every business.

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

You might have heard something a year ago about the folks at Google restricting the availability of some information in analytics reporting. This information has to do with the specific search terms people use when coming to your web site if they are users who are signed into a Google account when they perform the search. What that means is if I’m logged into Gmail and jump into another tab to search for something, the sites I visit as a result of that search don’t see the term I used to get there. Instead, (not provided) shows up in the analytics report, and it’s not just in Google Analytics. Any analytics system sees that same (not provided) in lieu of the search term.

When Google made this change, they estimated that it would affect a small (under 20%) portion of the visits to most sites.  However, a year later a study by Optify shows that 64% of companies analyzed in the study see between 30% and 50% of their traffic from Google as “(not provided),” and 81% see more than 30%.  As someone who is constantly working with clients using this data, it’s gone from a nuisance to a real problem. Discoverability – getting found –  is a constant battle, and every piece of information that helps us to understand how our content/products are found is important.  That’s why this affects every business that’s on the web.

Of course, if you’re willing to use Google’s paid search program – AdWords – you can get the data.  Why that mitigates the privacy concerns Google claimed were causing them to hide the information in the first place is beyond me.  I’m sure if most users understood what information Google is capturing on their web habits (unless you’ve turned off their ability to do so) they’d be far less concerned about Google telling site owners how we came to be there and a lot more concerned about how Google is using the dozens of cookies they drop on our machines.

I like Google and use a lot of their services both free and paid.  I use an Android-powered phone.  I’m concerned, however, that just as they’ve done with Wave, Buzz, Google Video and others they’ve made a strategic error here.  As in those cases, I’m hoping they re-think it.  In the interim, they’re damaging the ability the rest of us have to make a better, more usable web.

Thoughts?

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November 13, 2012 · 10:46 am

Service Vs. Social

When you’re connecting with your friends and relatives on Facebook or other social media, do you think of it as marketing?  I don’t.  I’m not certain what I call it but if marketing is the communication of a product’s value I’m definitely not trying to convey my value as a person to others.  Not consciously anyway.

Why I’m asking the question is our old friend “social media marketing.”  There was another study released a week or so ago, this one by the good folks at NM Incite (which is a joint venture between Nielsen and McKinsey so they ought to know!).  It covered customer service via social media and found (as summarized in this article) that:

The majority of Twitter and Facebook users — 83% and 71%, respectively — expect a response from a brand within the same day of posting. Some 71% of consumers who experience a quick and effective response are more likely to recommend that brand to others, compared with 19% who do not receive any response… The biggest issue: 36% report having problems solved quickly and effectively, while only 14% report that the company responds quickly but does not resolve the issue, and 10% report never receiving a response at all.

That data is presented in the context of a positive experience leading to positive posts which can be shared across other social spheres.   In other words, marketing.  What I find interesting is that this information  along with some additional thinking on social, is more about serving the brand’s own needs than those of the audience.  As I postulated at the top, while I’m very happy to help out my connections in any way I can I’m not monitoring social media with a marketing mindset.  Unless and until brands can approach social as we non-digital, non-corporate entities do (read that as humans), brands will always be seen much as we do a social connection we made at a party many years ago and with whom we have little or no bond.  Those connections are kind of creepy and I, for one, always wonder why I even have them.  A lot of folks “unfriend”, hide or block those people and you might not even know it if you are the one blocked.  Ouch, especially if you’re a brand.

If we’re going to use social media to connect with consumers, I can’t think of a better reason to do so than customer service.  Yes, that can be a gateway to shared, positive experiences, just as it can precipitate a storm of bad comments if done badly.  It’s not something I’d approach with a marketing mindset if you’re trying to humanize the brand.  Unless, of course, all of your real friends use their accounts mostly to sell you insurance, real-estate, or used cars.  Then you just might need a few new friends!

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