Remarkable

I read a great Seth Godin piece once that spoke about the need for products and services to stand out, to literally be remarkable.  That is, provoke people to say something about it.

As we look at all the marketing knobs from our top level goals down the creative and copy used in campaigns, it sure helps when what you are talking about is remarkable.

From a startup perspective, this is so critical.  Sure, you can always slap some lipstick on the pig.  What is much harder yet has much more impact is to look seriously at your product or service, the business needs, the user needs, and technology or real-world opportunities and limitations and truly improve it.

And, differentiate it in a meaningful way.

When your product is truly remarkable, it will speak for itself.

An Amazing Concept

When I grew up, we received 4 TV channels.  I remember my brother and I, in the winter, watching TV together, lying down in front the TV with our feet on the baseboard heater, probably much too close to the TV, which has undoubtedly caused permanent damage in later years.

free comic book...you know you want it...

As Seth Godin has said about the TV Industrial Complex, communication and marketing to consumers has changed.  When I grew up, when there was a commercial on TV for Captain Crunch, it was obvious that we needed to go to the store immediately and buy some Captain Crunch.  The TV said so.

In the current age of information overload, spam mail, spam email, and getting Groupon'ed to death with emails and mobile notifications, people don't have the time and patience for outbound marketing anymore.  We fast forward through most TV commercials.  We read out news in 141 character bites. It's a huge challenge for many brands, but I would contend that this puts the largest stress on the most important element for brands to keep their customers engaged: a great product or service.

I know.  I'm amazing.  Hold the applause, please.  Hey, having other reasons for customers to come back for great content is awesome, but if you don't deliver on the goods they care about the most, ain't no one gonna care anyway.

Privacy

Waves of articles about the embedding of the Carrier IQ quality of service agent in phones in the past few weeks have captured the attention of media and mobile phone users.  It's raises the topic of privacy and the importance of clear disclosure to end users.  Because the bottom line is this: if the phones visually notify the end users of what data they were capturing, what they are going to use the data for, and how the end user can opt-out of such measurement, this is a non-issue.  These 3 privacy commandments are critical not just for market research but for any mobile and internet startup, as well.

Now, in the case of CIQ, this all may have been done, in all cases.  From the press articles, it seems that there may have been some breakdowns between all the parties responsible for delivering the end solution.  Given that the situation has attracted the attention of Senator Franken, and the Senator still does not seem to have received all responses or seem to be happy with those he received, there will likely be more disclosures to the public to understand more.

The commandments sound simple enough, but its amazing how the smallest and the largest companies don't do justice to them.  I have met with startups who gloss over this when we discuss privacy, and when companies are small, they want to focus on building the framework of their business, expecting to plumb the details when money is flowing in.  Fair enough, but the early investment likely does not cost much, if anything, and the importance of embedding the edicts of user privacy are important to seed early and often.  Large companies often do everything legally required, but often embed disclosures and  how to opt-out in the middle of much larger, user agreements that no one ever reads.

The reality is that most users are willing to make the trade-off.  Given clear and definable value, they will let you use their information for benefit and profit.  Actually, being very up-front and transparent about privacy and data usage helps users gain more confidence in companies.  Thinking about opt-outs, data storage and removal, and breaches up front and early is infinitely cheaper early on.

Tell the user up-front and right away what data you want to use and why, make it clear and easy to opt-out, and if you give a service of value, they will give you invaluable access and demographic information.  Win-win.

The UX Teeter Totter

I think it's very impressive the mobile work that companies like LinkedIn and Facebook are producing today.  Click on their app or their mobile website and the experience is almost identical, as much as the two mobile channels will allow.  Especially in the case of Facebook, which I do wonder how it remembers who I am, in mobile Safari, without cookies enabled...hmm...

I believe companies shade too far away from utility towards fancier user interfaces, on mobile.   Bob Robinson, Executive Creative Director at Rockfish, always talks about the balance of user experience and brand experience in digital design.  On the web and on tablet, a company who demands more brand experience can reach more and push the envelope, but on mobile, the platform itself demands more utility, by its nature.  People browse longer on tablets and frequently want quick information and action on smartphones.  User experiences need to be optimized for both, which might limit, in the case of mobile web, how much responsive design is used, if a more brand oriented experience is chosen for the tablet or web.

The recent LinkedIn mobile app re-design, while visually interesting, strays too far from utility in its approach and at times is confusing on what a user should do where.  I find LinkedIn an awesome tool for business, and before I meet someone for the first time, I constantly find myself looking them up on my mobile, reminding myself of their experience and taking a quick mantal snapshot of what they look like.  Something about the redesign though makes me think that the mapping of mental model to conceptual model is not right yet.  It does not intuitively click for me, even after some months of use.

I have more issues with Facebook's redesign, though.  I was using Facebook more and more on mobile, as are many people according to Eric Tseng, but in hindsight, since the redesign, I find myself coming back to my laptop more and more to interact with Facebook.  While there still seem to be some defects in the iPhone app that cause more user action than is required, especially with notifications and updates, I feel like any action that I plan takes several more steps than what might be optimally required.  It would be interesting to do an industrial engineering time study on Facebook mobile use.  Maybe this is why I find myself hovering back to my laptop when I want to engage with Facebook?

The different models of how users expect to interact with the different channels challenges the design to balance reuse and optimal experience.  It's expensive and difficult to do an optimized design for each platform and channel.  A good approach starts with the right content architecture that allows for the same source data, without sacrificing performance on the apps, by splitting the presentation from the data.  In this way, each platform can be optimized to host that data with the best experience.

In the coming weeks, we'll dive into some approaches on how this might be done.

Steep Cliffs

We are all arm-chair quarterbacks when it comes to predicting the past in the digital world.  Of course AOL would tumble because of their reliance on dial-up.  MySpace?!  Seriously?!?  Everyone could see their demise.  After it happened.

I suppose if I had really good advice for predicting such future, I would be retired on a beach somewhere and not writing this blog.  Well, maybe I would still be writing this blog, but I would be more relaxed.  The reality is there is no crystal ball, but the cliffs are steep when leaders fall.  We have a hard time imagining Google or Apple or Facebook not being leaders in their space, but it's almost inevitable that their time will pass, as well.  The great companies are always reinventing themselves, because any combination of market forces, competition, technology, etc. change the environment that made them successful.  IBM did it.  Apple did it.  Nokia was renowned for attempting to reinvent itself every year, but somewhere along the way, they have stumbled and chosen the wrong path.

I once forced myself to read the book The Invisible Computer, by Donald Norman, and at the time, I worked in the computer industry.  The concepts described in this book are much of what makes Apple a leader today: embedding computers in everything, making them smart and seamless, invisible.  The book was published in 1999.  I remember thinking that the concepts that Mr. Norman discussed were interesting, but he ignored the realities of the business aspects of the market and the economies of scale that existed and the advantages they provided to the PC world.  I've learned since that those advantages go away quickly when consumers and businesses vote through their purchases.  It's happening to Nokia, and now Apple is recognized to have the advantages of economies of scale.  It's a prize you receive, if you run a tight, smart ship, when you make good products.

Great strategic leadership can help to identify the cliffs before you drive the bus off them.  Always be aware and never be content.

3 Fatal Misuses of Market Research

I'm not blogging to knock audience measurement or market research.  It put bread on my table for 3 years, while I worked at The Nielsen Company.  My advice, if the numbers don't help your story, turn the graph 90 degrees and check again.  You won't be the first marketing person to do so.

Do blogger moms think I'm sexy?

Having seen the sausage being made, I can say there is more science to it then some would care to recognize, but, still, I see people quote stats all the time and make three fatal errors of market data usage:

1. Asking and understanding the methodology: What were the questions asked, or sometimes, more importantly, what was asked?  Who did they ask?  How many people did they ask?  Was the sample representative?  One classic case you see in reporting on mobile phone sales is comparing sell-through numbers with sell-to numbers.  What's in consumers hands vs. on shelves.  Big difference.
2. Market research is only directional for the innovator: If research data could predict the future, a lot of Nielsen, Gartner, Forrester, IDC, etc. analysts that I know would be retired on a beach somewhere.  They're not.  Data can definitely give you both a status of where the world stands today, and trends, so they offer great directional insight.  When it comes to innovation, however, that's probably the limit.  I've had people ask me if I had research which would validate the innovations they had planned.  That's equivalent to expecting people to say they wanted the Facebook before it was available.
3. Cite your source: If you are going to use some data, cite the source and date of the data.  Otherwise, I can assume you made it up, or its 3 years old, which is okay if your nostalgic, but not so cool, if you are trying to make informed decisions.

Have a good weekend.  I don't have the data to prove that it's going to be good.  I just have a feeling.

Bad Design! Bad, Bad Design!

I stumbled across this website today, which points out the poorer choices in mobile web design that many have made across the Internets.  It's educational, entertaining, and just fun.  It's like the People of Walmart for nerds and designers.  Just not quite as funny.  Or shocking.

Having said that, I agree with some of the sentiment that is noted in tweets that they present, there is no mobile web, just the web.  With good, modern responsive design, companies and agencies can develop one website for most modern devices.

The Boston Globe did this and claimed a lot of notoriety for their work.  I like the way that the user experience scales down appropriately as you resize the browser window to smartphone and feature phone sizes.

It's interesting, as the questions for brands has shifted from "should I do a mobile web site" or "should I do mobile web or mobile apps" to "should I redesign my .com site to be responsive to serve all devices"?

"Me" Time

At ad:tech this week, Christine Cook (@cooktine), SVP of Advertising at The Daily, spoke on one of my Tablets in Marketing sessions, and talked about how their subscribers make significant amounts of "personal primetime" for The Daily, usually after dinner.  This, along with the fact that their content expires, increasing its contextual value, fascinated me.  For me, since kids, I've often lamented the loss of "me time" or "nothing time".  I never realized how much of it that I had, until I didn't have it.

The Daily

I hardly remember it now.  Some days, I did absolutely nothing.  Nothing.  Quite proud of it, actually.  I don't know how it even works anymore.  The "me time", though, is slowing reappearing.

The kids are 8 and 5 now, and its seems like Sunday mornings are coming back.  Tati and I will stare at each other, while drinking coffee and reading the Sunday Times, which is a great tune by Loudon Wainwright III, and just be amazed.  The occasional fight breaks out, so it's important to read the thicker sections first, because they are more powerful when you roll them up.

So, for you parents who also struggle to remember what "me time" is, grab your iPad and subscribe to The Daily.  It will magically reappear.  And, for you DINCs thinking about having children.  It's great.  Just go on a movie binge the weekend before labor, and take a strong mental snapshot of your "nothing time". It's about to go away.

The Mile High Club

Blogging from 35K feet is something that you have likely only read in letters to the editor in adult magazines, but I am doing it right now.  And, I like it.  Apart from the gent to my right that is snoring incredibly, leaning on me, and just generally encroaching in my space entirely too much, I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be.

I am on the way home from ad:tech New York City, where we had two really good sessions on tablets in marketing, and in the second, we focused on innovation.  I've had a Facebook chat with an high school friend, tried, but was unsuccessful in downloading an episode of Breaking Bad, watched Return to the Planet of the Apes with no sound, fended off the large gentleman to my right, listened to several podcasts, and now I'm blogging.  These are either signs of innovation, or some form of ADD that I suffer from.

Next thing you know, they'll serve free peanuts on flights and treat you nicely.  Now, that would be innovative.

Calamari Pancakes and Digital Messes

It's Sunday, so I normally take a break from my mobile and digital world to wax poetically about food and dining.  I don't want to disappoint, and as I am heading to New York City this week on business, I am reminded of one of my favorite appetizers: the Sautéed Calamari and Artichoke Tart over Fresh Radicchio Salad at ViceVersa on 325 W 51st Street.

It's a fav and when on business, I like to wander over to ViceVersa, or its sister restaurant EtceteraEtcetera, sit at the bar to order an appetizer and a drink, and chat it up with the bartender.  The calamari tart is like a crisp, loose pancake that combined with the bite of the radicchio is just wonderful combination of flavors and texture.  Having said all of that, however, thinking of going to New York and eating well make me think of a great Slate piece on restaurants' websites that I read this year, discussing the bad side of restaurant website designs and implementations.

It brings up the interesting hypothesis that many nice restaurants with bad site designs are likely due to their own Executive Creative Directors, the chefs, trying to control digital like they do food.  It's an interesting theory that makes a lot of sense.  At work, our ECD talks about the continuum between user experience and brand experience, and it would seem that for many nice restaurants, the designs are likely straddling the fence in uncomfortable ways.   Neither very usable or brand-right designs.

Although the sites are sometimes over-the-top or annoying, I'm just glad the chefs don't straddle the fence when it comes to the food design and preparation.

Come see me and other industry leaders from Sam's Club, BBC America, The Daily, Ogilvy & Mather, Nutro, The Weather Channel, and Starcom Mediavest talk about tablets in marketing at ad:tech New York City next Thursday at 3:00PM Eastern and 4:30PM Eastern.  If you can't make it, tell a friend, and I will think of you while I eat my Calamari and Artichoke Tart!

Mobile, Tell Me Something, Quick!

During the day, I run the mobile practice at a digital agency.  Mobile includes tablet, although I don't consider tablets to be "mobiles", as much as I don't consider tablets to be PCs or TVs, though I can browse the web on them or watch videos.

Where the two can offer similar apps and services, it pays to optimize a mobile experience for quick hitting information and click-to-actions.  As the dialogue from the robbery scene goes, "In and out, no one gets hurt."  I might play games, check information and even browse content on my mobile at work and at home, but its highest value is on-the-go or at my particular destination.  Optimized user experiences allow me to find the nearest deal or location, look up comparison pricing, check ratings and reviews.  The quicker I can get the phone started, initiate the query and get to relavent information, the better.  In the moment.

Tablets offer a more relaxed browsing experience.  Flipping through the web, media, or catalogues while lounging at home (sipping a vodka gimlet, of course).  Time is not necessarily of the essence, and neither is screen real estate.  Richer, more engaging content can soak more time from the viewer, shopper, or fan.  While it could be done, I don't see many people up and down the aisles at big box retailers aiding the shopping experience with tablets, or people in the streets holding their iPads above their head filming protests.  Tablets offer the opportunity for deeper engagement at times when people can spare their attention.

Come see me and other industry leaders from Sam's Club, BBC America, The Daily, Ogilvy & Mather, Nutro, The Weather Channel, and Starcom Mediavest talk about tablets in marketing at ad:tech New York City next Thursday at 3:00PM Eastern and 4:30PM Eastern.  If you can't make it, I'll miss you, but tell a friend who can!

Have Content, Need Connection

At work, we work with retailers on how to apply digital and mobile to their marketing and to their business.  It's a ton of fun, even if that sentence just made you yawn.

In the case of mobile retail, consumers are using their phones more and more while they shop.  To price compare.  To look up more information.  To compare products.  To get coupons.  Actually, retailers have such a large opportunity here, that is largely untapped.  Maybe in a future post here or at The Rockfish Blog, I'll talk about how the current conceptual model being applied to m-commerce is incomplete, since it is based on a shopping basket and not the person pushing the basket.

Having said all of that, there's no good having lots of on-premise electronic content, if the signal in your building stinks and you don't offer free Wi-Fi that's been tuned to give great performance where you are trying to engage consumers via links, QR codes, SMS codes, and NFC taps.  Equally worse, if the content that does load is not optimized for mobile.

Never worth it to do something half-assed.

Friction

If you clicked the link to this post thinking that I was going to be talking motor oil or sexual aids, I'm going to disappoint.

As my colleague, Eric Swayne (@eswayne), likes to say: social media is not doing anything new, it reduces the friction for something that people already do.  It's a great barometer for the usefulness and value for many mobile or digital projects.  Does this reduce the friction?  Substantially?  Was there no friction to begin with?  That's probably a sign that you are not solving a real problem.

I think its a great barometer for a lot of what we do in digital and mobile marketing.  What friction are we reducing?  I was using an online ordering site for a restaurant the other night, and it took me 10 minutes to enter an order, for what takes less than 1 minute to do by phone.  The implementation on the site was pretty, but it was clearly inefficient.  It added friction, and I likely won't go back again.

The friction of finding, flipping through, and locating the number in the yellow pages became a barrier when it was easier to find the phone number of a local business on the computer.  Now, it's even easier to find it on my mobile.  Apple implements Siri on the iPhone 4S, and if it works, it will become even easier to find that same phone number.  Smaller digital friction coefficient.

Just like electricity, people will choose the path of least resistance.  What's your product's digital friction coefficient?

Saturday Morning Cartoons

As I sit here and type, at the crack of dawn this fine Saturday morning, my son's cat, Polly, sleeps, purring, on the hot-plate known as my Apple Time Capsule.  With only a peanut-sized brain, I don't expect her to have any remorse or shame for waking me up, and, if I 'm honest with myself, I've been getting up this side of the crack of dawn since I was very small.  I'm sure Bubs would be the first one to point this fact out, and she probably has a few extra gray hairs, with my names on them, to prove it.

When I was a kid, it was fun getting up Saturday morning.  Heck, I distinctly remember going out and shooting hoops in our driveway when I would wake up.  I can not imagine what our neighbors must have thought, and its shocking that I never heard from them about it.  For most of my childhood, we literally got only a handful of channels on the television.  When not torturing the neighbors with the pounding of the basketball on blacktop, I would pour myself a bowl of cereal, or cook pancakes swimming in butter, plop down in front of our television and watch whatever was shown.  There was not much choice then, especially for niches like cartoons, so you took what you got.

I watch my kids grow up today, and they really are the DVR Generation, in that regard.  My daughter truly does not understand the concept of live programming.  Sorry, Nielsen.  They have an expectation of any content, anywhere, on any device.  As a parent, it's occasionally frustrating, but as a technologist, it's fascinating.  If I think forward and assume the continued reduction of storage costs, the improvement in network throughput, and the improved services and content availability on the Internet, why not?  It's almost like that board game, Clue.  Dad watches Breaking Bad, on the toilet, with his iPhone 10.  Mom watches No Reservations, in the kitchen, on the fridge.  Junior watches Fringe, in his room, while texting and listening to Radiohead and surfing the web simultaneously, on his iPad 9S.

Why not?  As long as he keeps Polly in there with him in the morning, so I can sleep in.