SUPER BOWL XLIX: ADS, TRENDS, AND ENGAGEMENT

Published in ClickZ on February 4, 2015.

A look back at this year's bevy of ads from the big game - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Now that the Super Bowl is over, it’s time for us marketers to have some fun analyzing the advertisements. There are lots of articles already talking about people’s reaction to the ads – the fact that many of the ads put a damper on the celebratory mood of Super Bowl parties around the country, and that a few (foot fungus, especially) made people just plain uncomfortable (most of us are eating after all!).

I can say that at my house, we were taking to guessing what we thought they were advertising in some cases. Honestly, I can’t recall a more uninspired Super Bowl commercial lineup (not all, but in aggregate). I had hoped for and expected better. It felt to me that only some of the advertisers had invested in "Super Bowl-worthy" ads, instead running standard ads in the prime spots due to the expense of the placement itself.

All this said, I won’t delve deep into the commentary I already see posted, instead choosing to observe some of the general themes.

In Effort to Be Real, Brands Went Serious.

We all realize that brands are trying to demonstrate authenticity and truly engage with their audiences via storytelling – but I think we may have gone a little far, forgetting the context of the outlet and the mood of the audience. The Super Bowl is an annual national sporting event, a cause for gatherings and parties – a celebration! A show. People are seeking entertainment. For years the Super Bowl ads were equated with creativity, humor, and surprise. Marketers, let’s please remember context!

This year, it felt like the surprise was figuring out the brand and their angle – I’m still scratching my head at the relation between a Nissan Maxima and an absentee father. (By the way, there’s a debate online as to whether this was a positive or negative commercial – to me, if it was meant to be positive, I think they should have rethought the choice of sound track.).

Fewer Hashtags.

Overall, I noticed fewer hashtags for commercial campaigns than the last few years. My speculation as to why resides in that fewer of the campaigns were made especially for the Super Bowl AND had less entertainment factor (versus the Public Service Announcement aka PSA feeling) and therefore less engagement. Generally, I found it an interesting observation and am curious as to how we’ll see this play out – do advertisers feel they don’t need to add them any longer? However, some of my favorite campaigns did have hashtags: #BestBuds, #Sorta, #500X, #TheBigRace.

New Push for Mobile Game Apps – Paired Up With Celebrities.

One of the few topical areas that felt to me like we were moving forward and not backward with our advertising. Mobile is a growing part of all of our lives, and gaming is certainly part of that. Pairing celebrities with enhanced graphics vividly bringing the games to life made sense to me, especially for this fun-seeking audience.

Squarespace and Wix Went Head to Head.

These ads took a few more steps toward our future, as we evolve from advertising just hosting companies to the design-your-own-website platforms - as we as a nation become ever more digitally sophisticated. I thought both were clever and well done, if not earth-shattering.

Television and Movies Made a Big Push.

This was telling to me, it was further proof of our segmented and multi-device viewing trends. It was estimated that 110 million Americans tuned in to watch the Super Bowl, so this was network TV’s opportunity to showcase their latest series to an audience that consumes content in very different ways than in the past; asynchronously, binge-watching, streaming, multi-device, and without commercials. I was surprised to see so many ads for entertainment, and yet it makes perfect sense given the consumption trends for the industry.

Lots of Car Commercials.

There are always automotive commercials in the Super Bowl, but this year it seemed like more than usual. And the mood of the auto ads were all over the place. You already know my favorites if you’re familiar with the hashtags above, Fiat and Mercedes; they were clever and well-produced. The Chevy commercial was also a standout for innovative attention-getting in tricking Super Bowl fans into thinking their TVs cable or satellite just went out – very clever way to promote their Wi-Fi enabled truck! I thought Dodge’s #DodgeWisdom was a great balance of authenticity and fun – it felt real, connected both to the brand and the audience, but wasn’t a downer the way some of the commercials were.

Nissan, I think was a big miss in execution, though I can see their good intentions directionally. The Jeep ad was trying to promote environmental responsibility, but for me just struck the wrong tone for the day (somber again). Apparently, it is sparking this years’ debate about national pride given the historically American song paired with international images – we’ll see how this plays out over the next few days.

I’m hoping that the sheer number of auto commercials is representative of stabilization in the national economy, as people begin to think of replacing those that they’ve made do with during the down turn.

…and the Super Bowl Wouldn’t Be Complete Without Some Snacks!

The Doritos ads were irreverent and fun – perfect for the Super Bowl. Doritos had run a "Crash the Super Bowl" contest to crowdsource the best ads for their placements. I love this concept – this is true fan engagement, especially leveraging social leading up to the big event! The winner won $1 million and a dream job at Universal Pictures. Mars delivered two spots for Snickers and Skittles; Snickers was great, Skittles was on-brand silliness that was just OK for me. Mars created a clever teaser campaigns leading up to the Super Bowl:

Snickers said it would release the ad early if its teaser generated "2.5 million social media engagements," which could include views, likes, comments and shares on Youtube, Facebook or Twitter.

The brand, which debuted the full spot on NBC's "Today" show on Thursday, told Ad Age that that final results are still in being tallied but the teaser had accumulated more than 2.7 million views on YouTube alone.

- Watch Snickers' 'Brady Bunch'-Themed Super Bowl Ad, Ad Age

So despite a lackluster commercial lineup this year, I found the trends fascinating to observe.

Brands are struggling to engage with their audiences authentically and appropriately at the same time, but some are starting to get it right.
Social and mobile continue to push forward in their presence in our lives, and smart brands are finding ways to leverage them in their effort to engage us as consumers.
Our world is becoming more digital – yes, we know this because this is the world we live in as marketing professionals, but hosting and Web design platforms now have a viable market across the majority of middle America firmly rooting themselves into our (national) new normal.
Changing entertainment consumption patterns are impacting how the entertainment industry showcases and promotes new franchises.
And hopefully, we’re starting to get on more stable economic footing across the country.

More Interested in the Game Than the Ads?

See the Super Bowl game stats that tell the story behind the story. As fantasy sports have grown from a niche pastime into a multi-billion dollar industry, sports fans have gotten even more obsessed with statistics.

IBM's Watson Analytics, a new cloud-based platform that finds patterns in data and uses that information to make predictions about the future – giving fans access to similar tools that executives of pro sports teams consult to understand, say, how many yards Marshawn Lynch averages after first contact, or in which situations Tom Brady is most likely to throw to Rob Gronkowski.

- How IBM is bringing front-office data analysis to Super Bowl fans, Business Insider

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Insights for Business Transformation in This 3rd Platform Age

Published in ClickZ on June 11, 2014.

There are many challenges that come when attempting to transform a legacy brand into a modern customer-focused organization. Here are some tips for making the process simpler.

I am lucky to live in Silicon Valley and have the opportunity to be a part of the lively gatherings and discussions that occur as people come together to think through this changing world we are all a part of.

Last week I attended a particularly interesting event that I think you'll enjoy sharing in: The Churchill Club's open forum event "Business Transformation Insights and Strategies: D&B CEO Bob Carrigan with Advisory Geoffrey A. Moore" - two extremely well-known thought leaders who combined made for a fascinating discussion about business transformation. Bob Carrigan assumed the chief executive (CEO) role at Dun & Bradstreet eight months ago; prior to that he was CEO of IDG Communications. Geoffrey A. Moore is a renowned author focusing on market dynamics surrounding disruptive innovation; his books includeCrossing the Chasm and Escape Velocity.

Geoffery A. Moore and Bob Carrigan at The Churchill Club event at the Rosewood Sandhill on June 3, 2014

The conversation was broadly centered on business transformation and some of the key elements Carrigan is focused on in his role as CEO for Dun & Bradstreet as he tackles the challenge of modernizing a legacy brand of a 173-year-old company into a modern customer-focused organization.

Third Platform Age

Moore explains that there are basically two reasons a company undergoes the terrifying process of transformation: 1) to catch the wave of the next big thing and if we don't transform we're going to miss it or 2) to react to an existential threat and a competitor will take our business away from us. He cites 45 iconic tech brands that he has worked with no longer exemplifying the high stakes of business transformation.

As we all know, cloud, mobile, social, and big data are changing everything from the way we shop to the way we interact - analyst firm IDC calls this the "Third Platform Age" (first platform: mainframe, second platform: client/server). For established organizations to survive and thrive as the pace of change quickens exponentially is a huge challenge as everything become more digital and Internet-based - creating the need to foundationally change how their businesses are run, especially as threats like commoditization and pure-play digital upstarts loom.

Organizational Transformation

After spending time with numerous customers, Carrigan started his tenure by investing in innovation - that isdiverting returns - which can be difficult to explain to investors. One of the (I think brilliant) ways that Carrigan worked with his strategy team to look at investment options was to visualize the decision-making process by setting up a table with poker chips and different investment options. The strategy team physically moved the chips as they considered how to spend their investment dollars for the company, all the while keeping customer needs top of mind. Of course as some budgets are diverted to fund new projects; this raises the cultural issues that surround business transformation as it changes standard practices and the stakeholders who grasp onto the "this is how we've always done it" mentality.

In this modern organization transformation, Carrigan took some of the following actions:

Creating a more transparent and flatter organization: reducing his direct reports from 13 to six
Hiring of a chief people officer: someone new to the organization who is an experienced change agent focused on people and talent development, who looked at new compensation models, who was intentionally not "human resources" (this role is one of the six that report to Carrigan)
Allowing for employee advocacy: their social media policy had been more restrictive than open; they now encourage employees to socially engage inside and outside of the organization
Hiring the first chief marketing officer in D&B's 173-year history: recognizing that today the "medium is the message," that look and feel needs to be modern and crisp and clearly convey what the brand stands for (this role is one of the six that report to Carrigan)
"Moving from arthritic to agile" infrastructure: look inside (customer-centric) out, instead of outside (company-centric) in to figure out what should no longer be done so that technology supports the strategy
Thinking globally: breaking the silos of "U.S." vs. "rest-of-the-world" to address the growing global economy and his client's global growth needs, and the data consistency to support them

The Way Forward

Like many organizations in this Third Platform Age, D&B sees its future in the power of data. It is moving forward by holding on to its foundational value for its clients in the "DUNS Number" (the unique identifier in its global commercial database) and coopting data from other sources - like social data and interaction data - combining structured and unstructured data into system that can be leveraged by predictive analytics capabilities. Carrigan sees the company's evolution forward as a goal of "liberating content" (data) - making it more accessible to their customers: in the cloud, through easy API integration, and data feed services. They are hosting hackathons for API development and strategically acquiring companies (and with them "aqui-hired" talent) to support that goal.

As a professional immersed in these strategic changes around cloud, big data and analytics, mobile, and social daily as I approach my work, I found it fascinating to hear how a company with such a long history is transforming itself to compete in this hyper-competitive, digital landscape. I'd like to thank Bob Carrigan and Geoffrey A. Moore for an insightful conversation and The Churchill Club for organizing it. You can watch the full exchange here on YouTube.

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World-Class Customer Service in the Digital Age

Published in ClickZ on May 14, 2014.

The combination of the best possible tools for social marketing and the best possible customer service representatives will result in a unique, engaging experience for your customer.

We all know the power of a great customer experience or a terrible customer experience - 95 percent of people share bad experiences vs. only 83 percent that share good, and 58 percent are more likely to tell people of their customer services experiences than five years ago. (Zendesk)

But there is much behind an excellent customer experience. Leading organizations realize that social business is more than just "doing social media"; they need to provide an excellent employee experience and are harnessing the power of social networking to innovate, deliver valuable experiences, and engage with customers in new ways - sometimes even going above and beyond to deliver a juicy steak right to a customer's plane terminal.

So, they're integrating social communication into the very fabric of their organization, beyond just the realm of customer service and support.

Companies need to rethink operations, policies, and infrastructure to better serve customers, because social business is about much more than any single social network; it's about putting the customer at the beginning, middle, and end of your organization's focus.

I'm sure most of us have seen these statistics before, and we know that digital technologies are playing a large part in how a brand interacts with its customers - and how that brand is perceived by its customers.

That's because customer service has become a key differentiator. In an age where a company and its competitors are all reaching out and interacting with the same customer through multiple channels and touch points, everything hinges on customer experience.

How does the customer interact with your brand?
How does your workforce interact with your customers?
What tools do you have at your disposal to better understand, interact, and serve your customer?

These are important questions, because the answers determine the kind of experience your customer has when engaging your company - and they also determine if the customer will continue to engage, or jump ship to a competitor.

Industries and CXOs agree: Many of today's customer experience challenges can be overcome by digital fluency.

And, within the next few years, we will see nearly 70 percent more CXOs using digital channels to more fully engage with customers for a stronger customer service experience across every point of interaction.

And social business goes much deeper than just an improved customer experience. It allows you to engage people as individuals, not segments - offering personalized value at every touch point.

By delivering a high-value, personalized digital experience to prospects and customers, you can drive higher revenue. Up to one-third of all consumer spending is influenced by social interactions, accounting for $940 billion annually (McKinsey).

Digital customer service experiences must be:

Engaging: putting the customer in charge, letting them drive the experience
Compelling: matching and exceeding expectations
Consistent: regardless of device or channel, and
Relevant: the digital experience must know who the customer is, where they are, and what they're trying to achieve.

Customers satisfied with their digital experience have made 30 percent more referrals. And happy customers call customer service about 62 percent LESS, making very happy employees.

Ultimately, savvy companies understand one truth: that customer service is at the core of customer experience.

By delivering exceptional experiences for your customers, your organization can turn those customers into brand advocates, working for your brand and spreading your messaging across every channel - sharing stories, writing reviews, and recommending products or services to friends.

Did you know that:

A company with 100,000 brand advocates can reach 60 million people. (Zuberance)
A 12 percent increase in brand advocacy generates a two-fold increase in revenue on average. (Fred Reichheld, HBS Press)
Seventy-two percent of adults who had a memorable product or service experience said they took positive action, with 57 percent communicating their positive experience to others, and 41 percent recommending that someone make a purchase. (Harris Interactive)

Social is a natural platform for this - we call it Social Business.

A successful social business will:

Understand the individual customer by getting the data necessary to anticipate user needs, spot trends sooner, and optimize a digital commerce strategy.
Foster meaningful interactions through consistent and seamless multichannel experiences, allowing them to reach wider audiences and gain individuals' trust.
Embrace transparency with open, authentic social interactions and community-based customer service.
Unleash creativity by using rich media management tools to rapidly respond to changes and new opportunities in the marketplace.

But where do you start? You start with people - both your customer and your employee. Engage your customer through an enabled, empowered workforce. Listen to what your customers are saying across every channel through open communication, use analytics, and put the insight gained to good use so you can create a better, personalized customer experience.

Give your workforce - from the call center to the boardroom - powerful analytics so they can provide better service and solutions to your customers.

Give them the social and analytics tools they need to better interact with the customer, on the customer's terms.

And furthermore, a social business leader uses social tools to determine the best behaviors and traits needed for positions involving any kind of customer interaction, optimizing your customer service by using the most qualified and best-suited employees.

So it's the best tools in the hands of the best possible workforce - coming together to craft a unique, engaging experience for your customer.

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