When the iPhone launched in 2007, we opined here that “it’s the end of the PC era.”

Well, not to pat ourselves on the back too much, but hey, we were right. The iPhone (and its Android cousins) have changed the way people use the internet, and created a whole new range of mobile applications that are, indeed, eating the traditional desktop and laptop alive.

And you don’t have to take it from us. Look at the way websites have to accommodate mobile use these days. Read the pundits saying the same thing.

Now, there’s a new disruption coming, one that may be even bigger than the iPhone. No, scratch “may.” It will.

Watch the Google video here.

Then take a trip over to g.co/projectglass. It looks like augmented reality is about to take off. The glasses don’t look (too) dorky, and the functionality they show is pretty solid. Of course, they haven’t shown some of the more interesting things that are inevitably coming, like object recognition, and they don’t really get into the tech details like if you have to pair them with an Android device, and battery life.

But they already have one new customer waiting to buy right here. This is the start of another revolution.

Are you thinking about what you should do with this? Start. Now.

Where do you go when you’ve already redefined an industry? That was the question for Emotiva. When they came to Centric, they were already a juggernaut, completely changing the way people buy audiophile-quality home theater and stereo audio components. With amazing prices and an efficient direct-sale model, Emotiva was exploding.

So what’s the problem? Brand image. Although Emotiva was changing the face of high-end audio, they wanted to move past “just price” and express what they really were—a passionate group of people who really care about sound, and who would go to any lengths to redefine the experience. They needed to tell the story about how there’s a new audio company out there, with an entirely new attitude, eclipsing the names of 40 and 50 years ago.

Where do you start? Centric started with a competitive analysis, and quickly identified a position and personality that all the competitors had missed: High-end audio for the rest of us. Combined with a friendly, approachable staff who really want to answer questions, we had everything we needed to create a message platform and brand look to support it.

Now, the first parts of the Emotiva project have launched—an all-new website and repositioning ad. We’re continuing to work with Emotiva on their other brands, helping them redefine other markets in the same way they’ve already changed home theater and high-end.

Welcome to the first major audio company of the 21st Century: Emotiva.

In 2012, calling Centric an “advertising agency” is kinda like Ford calling itself a “horseless carriage manufacturer.” That is, it may be technically accurate, but it has a ton of old baggage associated with it.

And that’s the problem. How do you describe a company that’s doing website development, online advertising, video scripting and production, social and mobile campaigns—as well as traditional brand and message development, print creative, outdoor, and direct work? Because this is the new reality. Clients have a lot of different marketing challenges, across an incredibly broad range of venues. We have a lot of tools to address these challenges, and many of them don’t fit in to the old “advertising” model. Nor do they neatly slot into the increasingly dated “web development” or newfangled “social media agency” spots.

So what do you call yourself? Let’s start by going through a short list of time-proven candidates.

Ad agency. Yep, we do ads. But we’re so far from the Mad Men era of smoke-filled rooms and scotch-drinking creative directors it’s not even funny. Advertising can still mean broadcast TV ads, but it can also mean AdWords or a Facebook campaign or YouTube placements or a dozen other things. And “ad agency” has a bunch of negative connotations built in: Expensive retainers and charges for every second of time. Egotistical and hard to work with. Focused on TV, even when people spend more time online. So, are we an ad agency? Yes. But not in the historical definition.

Interactive agency. Yeah, we do websites and online marketing. But we also do print, direct, and a whole lot more traditional stuff, if that’s what works to solve our clients’ marketing problems. And “interactive” is feeling really, really old. This isn’t the Web 1.0 days anymore, and websites, while important, are also under pressure to meet the needs of expanding mobile browsing. So, are we an interactive agency? Yes, but also more.

Marketing agency. Ah. Now this feels closer to the mark. Marketing can happen anywhere, on many different media, across online, offline, social and mobile. Cool. The problem is that “marketing” has that old corporate-department feel to it. You know, they have this marketing department, and it does cool things with the agencies, but marketing itself is, well, just part of the same corporate morass. So, are we a marketing agency? Certainly. But does that really express the fun and creative things we do that get real bottom-line results for our clients? No.

Of course, there are a ton more. Digital agency. Barf. Worse than “interactive” by far. We’re all digital agencies now. Nobody uses rubylith and chromalins. Everything is born on a screen, whether it’s a simple billboard or a virtual world. Full-service agency. Yeah. Fill’er up! And also kinda grandiose, unless you’re talking about one of the global behemoths with hundreds or thousands of bodies to throw at every kind of problem. 360 degree marketing. Again, grandiose, with the added benefit that lots of people have no idea what you’re talking about. Branding agency. Yeah, get ready to be hit with that glowing hunk of metal. Ouch. And it has that bad smell associated with “pop and drop” consultants who don’t necessarily deliver any usable marketing tools from the messages they propose.

So what are we? Well, if you came here for single, brilliant, two-word description of a broad-based, hands-on marketing agency, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. We’ll be the first to admit that we don’t have all the answers.

Sometimes simple is best. Maybe we’re just “marketing problem-solvers, online and off.” Maybe we’re just “focused, simply smart marketing.”  Or maybe we’re something to you that we haven’t even thought of. We’d love to hear what you think. If you’re a client or a colleague, let us know what you think.

What do you think we are, and why?

It’s funny. The other day, I was sitting with the creative team, talking about the future. Specifically, what’s next for marketing. I was saying something about how my Interzone story, “Monetized,” posited a near-future augmented reality propagation economy, enabled by the widespread use of data-glasses.

Now, you probably just rolled your eyes and thought, “WTF is this guy talking about?” Well, let me see if I can explain.

First, dataglasses. These are sunglass-type devices that overlay information on real objects in real time. Instead of using your cellphone display, you’d just see the info you need displayed seamlessly in your field of view. This is commonly known as “augmented reality”–adding objects or data to a display of the real world.

What’s important about dataglasses is that Google has just announced that they intend to ship a commercial product by the end of the year.

Stop. Read that again. Google. Dataglasses. End of year.

Now start putting together the pieces already in place: Google Search, Google Maps, Google AdWords, Google Plus, Google Earth, Google Latitude.

Add a Siri-like voice interface. Is it starting to get clear?

Finally, consider the glasses’ camera, and factor in rapid object-recognition by powerful smartphone processors. And suddenly, you have a whole new world to play with.

“Who is that?” calls up info on any face in their database. “How do I get to Fisherman’s Wharf?” displays the info overlaid on the street. “Any good restaurants around?” etc.

And more. Why couldn’t advertisers say, “Hey, I see you’re walking past a Starbucks. How about a coffee for a buck?” Or, “Voodoo Donut welcomes you back, Tom. Why don’t you come in for a free one?”

And more. Why won’t the phone and glasses listen in real time for key phrases, and provide offers like, “I hear you’re talking about Day Spas. If you recommend Mary’s Day Spa to your friend, you can instantly earn $20.”

And that was the core of my story. A propagational economy, where software like MakeMoMoola “helped” people recommend products and services to their friends.

Scary? Of course it is.

But the opportunities are also enormous. Imagine your Google Glasses and Google Phone communicating with your Google self-driving car and saying, “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t let you drive home tonight,” after extrapolating your location and bar bill.

No, wait. That’s even scarier.

Maybe we should concentrate on the great boon this could be for local businesses. Or focus on the corporate applications, like deploying them to field service technicians to assist in complex repairs. Or look at the amazing opportunities to simply help people get on with their lives.

But, bottom line, it’s coming. Augmented reality glasses. Real-time ad overlays. IRL affiliate programs powering a propagational economy. What you do with them depends entirely on your marketing—and your mores.

I’ve been wondering about the future of marketing lately–what’s coming next, and what advertisers really have to pay attention to in the near term. Not crazy stuff like brain implants (imagine the malware) or shared consensual realities (though those are coming), but things we can use, like, right now.

One of the things I’ve been dismissing lately are virtual worlds like Second Life. There’s simply not a large enough audience to attract a typical mass marketer, nor is the audience segregated into a convenient industry vertical (like, say, audio enthusiasts, global travelers, or high-net-worth individuals.)

The problem with Second Life is simply that it’s too damn hard to get started–mainly due to the software download and installation process. Second Life doesn’t run in your web browser. It’s not instantly accessible, like, say, Amazon. Although many developers have tried to develop a browser-based version, none have gained much currency.

But–what if Second Life ran on the iPad? Here’s a forward-looking, high-income, self-selected audience that’s totally cool with downloading and installing apps, and waiting for them to launch. The iPad itself could simplify the clunky Second Life interface–touch to look around, swipe to zoom, tilt for motion. And the newer versions of the iPad most certainly have enough power to run Second Life.

I suspect that if Second Life was available for the iPad, we’d be seeing giant new interest from marketers. What other game can they place their own content and ads in, without bowing to iAds or another publisher’s platform? What other game guarantees the high-end audience they’d be getting? And what other game allows you to target the platform specifically with dead-simple Google Adwords? None.

So, Second Life on the iPad is key to marketing nirvana? Well, not so fast. I see two huge problems with this.

First, Apple’s policy on adult content. In Second Life, sure, you can stick to “PG-13″ areas, but there’s nothing to keep you from surfing across into adult areas, or to prevent other avatars from ruining your day. Apple’s legal team would probably have a heart attack just thinking about it. The solution is to create a walled garden within Second Life, but how secure would it be? And, in a world where people can create anything, how are there any real guarantees?

Second, resource use. Second Life is a notorious system pig, requiring serious processing power and graphics. It’s quite possible that it would shrink the iPad battery life from 10 hours to a small percentage of that. If that’s the case, we have a real no-go situation.

Still, it’s nice to dream, isn’t it?

Let’s look at just one new ecosystem: The New Retail.

This is arguably the most broad-ranging and significant new ecosystem. And yeah, we know you know about Amazon, and selling online, and all of that. But we’re astounded by the number of clients who come to us and say, “We’re launching a new product, and we are signing up retailers, and we may sell a few things on the website, but it’s really a dealer model.”

Oh really? So this is why online commerce absolutely decimated brick and mortar this last holiday season?

The reality is that buyers are now slipping their old habits. Going down to the local mall, scoping out what’s available, and making a retail purchase seems slow and wasteful in the age of “click to buy now.” Hearing about something on the radio and seeing if it’s in stock at the local dealer is getting bypassed by a quick online search. Let’s face it:

The old model: See something on TV/radio/newspaper –> Call a dealer to check stock –> Drive down to buy it.

The new model: See something on a blog –> Click to the site –> Buy it.

There are entire industries where specialist retailers are falling by the wayside, as e-commerce provides more stock, more selection, and more information than they ever could. There are entire new industry leaders being created who eschew retail sales entirely, for a total direct-sale model. And there will be more, as industry learns about the extreme price advantage conferred by cutting out the dealer margin. In some vertical industries, direct is already the de facto standard.

The lesson here? It’s easy to look around and think, “Nothing has really changed.” In fact, it has. And if you’re architecting your company to perform well in the old ecosystem, don’t be surprised if a new competitor comes up and threatens your dominance using the new ecosystem.

So what can you do:

Start with a brand that means something. The New Retail begins with a strong, differentiated brand. Online, there’s a lot more noise than in the traditional space. Take chances. Create controversy. Say what you really need to say.

Get good at all parts of the new ecosystem. Then, you absolutely need online PR and advertising, engaging the communities who are interested in your product. It continues with a slick online sales system that converts the prospects that come to your site. And it finishes with a more hands-on approach to customer service.

Measure and optimize. There’s no excuse to not know where your sales are coming from—you’ll be able to track the blogs, media sites, forums, and blogs that drive sales. You’ll know the messages that work. Heed these results, tweak the campaign, and make the results better.

Don’t be afraid to change. In The New Retail, you’ll know a lot more about what your customers actually want. They’re vocal. They talk to each other on forums. They chat with friends on Facebook. And they have no problem telling you what they think. Missed the mark? Change it. Because if you won’t, someone else will.

Scary? Not really. In fact, making it in The New Retail is a lot less chancy than getting your products in the right dealers and paying their margin to get them to pay attention to it.

And . . . don’t forget the future. As mobile commerce comes to the fore, be prepared for even more change.

We’re in a funny place right now.

Traditional advertising—television, print, and outdoor—seem to be holding on for most leading brands, and for specific industry verticals. Sure, newspapers are gutted, and radio is sliding, and many magazines are bleeding subscribers, but it’s not like companies aren’t doing Super Bowl ads anymore.

Websites, banners, and search marketing are so mainstream—and, in most cases, standardized—that they’re only remarkable by their absence. The online revolution, in that sense, is complete.

Social is even beginning to be relatively stable—Facebook is getting ready for their IPO, and Twitter continues to provide a megaphone for celebs, both the “traditional” Hollywood ones and the newer digerati. Both have plenty of ways for brands to engage through advertising, contests, and other venues. Sure, there are tons of startups, including some really interesting ones like Pintrest, but it’s not like brands are panicking about how to incorporate a whole new paradigm into their marketing.

Mobile is moving a lot faster, and more brands still need to catch up, but we know the general template here: target phones with specific mobile sites, and make sure your main site is tablet-friendly. QR codes, apps, location-based services are viable and known options.

Augmented reality remains niche, but it’s arguably moving towards much more general acceptance with applications like Google Goggles. It still takes a fairly hefty investment, and tolerance for “marketing on the edge” to engage with augmented reality, but it’s a real option for brands, especially toy and entertainment brands. As it becomes more mainstream, expect many more opportunities at all levels, from functional “this is how to change your printer cartridge” applications to broad-ranging, geolocated treasure hunts across real space.

Virtual worlds are quiet for now, mainly due to the small audience and large investment needed to really engage. This will change as virtuality moves into the browser and more people engage with it, but for the moment, it’s a small niche.

So why is this a strange space? Because, on the surface, marketing opportunities appear to be relatively stable. This is a fairly significant change from the panic of the first Web 1.0 days, or the upheaval centered around the first social marketing.

But under the surface, entirely new ecosystems are emerging—and, in many cases, brands aren’t taking complete advantage of them. We’ll look at some of these new ecosystems in upcoming posts.

So, if you’re not into the whole “2012 is the end of the world” schtick, you may be wondering, “Just what the hell do I do to enhance my marketing in this day and age? Holy moly, we’re living in the future. 2012 is, like, the future, isn’t it?”

In some ways, it is. You didn’t see people walking around talking to handheld assistants in 2010 (well, not expecting them to respond coherently, anyway.) You didn’t see people taking iPads to bed in 2009 to watch the latest TV shows they streamed on Netflix (of course, iPads didn’t exist then.) You didn’t expect to be able to access the world’s largest advertising network with nothing more than a login and a credit card a few years before that. And you didn’t have people asking seriously about how easy it is to ditch their cable/satellite TV connection and stream online.

So yeah, we’re living in the future. No jetpacks and flying cars, maybe, but Elon Musk is saying he’ll put millions of people on Mars in 10-20 years. Hey, think of the franchising opportunities for Burger King! Of course, you may have to get used to $1000 Whoppers.

Anyway, back to reality. In the real world, here’s what you should be looking at in 2012:

Mobile-izing your website. Yeah. It’s time. You really need to consider how your website works on phones and mobile devices, now that they’re approaching double-digit traffic. What’s more, that traffic is more likely to be your target demographic, whether or not you’re selling B2B or B2C–business managers, owners, power users, people with disposable income. Your Flash site ain’t gonna show up on an iPad, so the power user’s son won’t be looking for your toys. Your site itself won’t display well on an iPhone, period–which could be the kiss of death when people are browsing in airports on the way to meetings, or in their few precious minutes at the Starbucks before work. Your site absolutely must have a phone-sized, mobile-friendly template for display on phones, and any Flash elements have to be reworked to HTML5. Welcome to the future

Taking a long hard look at Adwords. Yep, we covered this a couple of months ago, but it bears repeating. Google is the largest ad network in the world, with incredibly flexible tools for precisely targeting your audience and geography. If you’re not taking advantage of this, you’re probably losing out on potential business.

Putting down the broad social crack pipe. There are tons of companies on Facebook and Twitter that simply shouldn’t be there. B2B? Get out. Niche B2C? Take a long, hard look and compare the amount of money you’re spending managing your presences, doing contests, etc. to your more traditional marketing. If the numbers don’t add up, get out. Now, to be sure, there are plenty of companies who can benefit from social (especially entertainment) but the reality is that spending often doesn’t line up with results. This is a huge opportunity, because you can use the funds and personnel freed up from social for more effective marketing. Skeptical? Consider that Apple doesn’t engage with Facebook or Twitter at all.

At the same time, looking really hard at the niche social sites. For every Facebook, there’s a hundred thousand giant user communities, each focused on a specific niche. Jeeps. Headphones. Auto restoration. Offroading. Iron Man competitions. Cyclocross. Android rooting. You name it, it’s out there. If you’re determined to be in social, find out where the people talking about your stuff actually hang out—then wade in and introduce yourself. Sponsor a show or a contest. You’ll be surprised how niche social can be amazingly effective. Or maybe not, because they’re already predisposed to buying your stuff.

Putting print money into e-pubs or apps. Let’s face it. Print is smelling really bad. The days of feeling the expensive paper of a brochure to judge the worth of a product is over. People see something, they buy it online. The days of keeping racks of catalogs on your bookcases is also over. People look it up, and buy it online. If you’re in a niche that’s still using print, it’s time to move into the future–either through the development of an exceptional online catalog with great searching capabilities, e-pubs that people can keep on their desktop for quick reference, or even apps that help your customers choose and use your products. Add up your print costs–and you’ll be surprised what that’ll buy you on the electronic side.

Happy 2012! Hope you enjoy living in the future!

Remember the days when everyone wanted to build a billion-dollar website development agency, e-commerce site, or online service? We’re twelve years past the end of that debacle now. Or perhaps you remember the days when everyone wanted to build a social “web 2.0″ site with hundreds of millions of users, or a new widget platform, or a social contesting scheme, or social shopping to transform the retail experience. That debacle is just ending, so the pain may be more fresh in your mind.

“Debacle, what do you mean debacle?” you cry. “There were successful billion-dollar companies made from those debacles!”

Sure there were. And the successes did change the landscape of, like, well, *everything.* No denying that. And the landscape continues to change, as we begin to speak to mobile assistants that are as far removed from the beige box computer of yore as that computer was from, say, a washing machine.

But there were also an amazing amount of failures. And, worse, in our mind, is the mindset it generated. Tens of millions–or maybe hundreds of millions–of bright, college-educated people saw the few successes and thought, “Hell, that’s all I need to do–get a computer, some programmers, and some VC, and I’ll be one of them billionaires too!”

And when they set out to do it, they cast their net broad and wide. No, we don’t just want the geek audience–let’s go for everyone! Make it so grandma can use it too! No, we don’t just want to sell to videophiles, we want to hit everyone who wants to buy something. Bigger is better! Mass market is where it’s at. Go broad, go huge, be the next gorilla!

That’s when they found how hard it was to be all things to all people. And they forgot one of the key rules of business success: it’s better to be damn good in one thing, than kinda OK in a lot of different crap.

They forgot that most of the gorillas started in a niche. Amazon was all about books, before it decided it wanted to take over all e-commerce. It was really focused on enabling e-commerce before it decided to take a stab at all media. Apple (in its rebirth) was all music players, before redefining the mobile space. Facebook was only open to Harvard students, then only people with .edu cred, before opening to everyone to try to redefine the way we communicate. Hell, Google was a niche search engine, used mainly by scientists and engineers, before it ventured out to take over the advertising space and mobile and SaaS and, well, pretty much everything else.

Successful businesses start in a niche–a niche they’re good at, and a niche where they have a real, defined advantage. They don’t immediately go out, media blazing, to hit the broadest audience possible. That’s a very, very costly proposition, and one that’s incredibly hard to define the messages for.

So, when you’re working on your next grand idea, ask yourself: What can I do better than anyone else, for what specific audience? There’s your niche. Put a stake in the ground with a site, develop compelling messages, and start getting the word out with proven tools like Adwords. Let the business grow and mature.

And then, if it suits you, maybe it’s time to go big. Or not. But that’s another story.

Hey all, just a quick note about Google Adwords. You know, the largest ad network in the world?

Wait a sec there. Hit the rewind button (remember those?), go back, and read that again. Google. The largest ad network in the world. Not ClearChannel. Not any single TV network. Not anyone you’d think to put together with that statement at all. It’s amazing how things have changed.

But let’s get to the meat of the matter. If you’ve looked at Adwords in the past and dismissed it as being “just a way to place text search ads,” you’re in for a huge surprise.

Consider these capabilities:

Rich media ads on specific websites and mobile apps in specific locations. Now, this isn’t a new capability, but it’s one that many Google Adwords users leave unexplored. Yes, you’ve all seen Adwords text search ads, and you’ve read ad nauseum about their efficacy. And you’ve seen tons of these same search ads reflected on virtually every site on the internet, from YouTube to Bob’s Audiophile Stuff Blog. This means you can deliver rich media banners to highly targeted audiences–including thousands of subsegments on YouTube, leading blogs like BoingBoing, and highly targeted industry vertical sites like AVSForum. You can also deliver text and banner ads into specific mobile apps on both iPhone and Android. This type of targeting, combined with intelligent, ongoing optimization, delivers the kind of results we could only dream about a year ago.

Targeting to a specific mobile device or OS. Let’s say you’ve just introduced your new, shiny iPad app, and need to get the word out. Sure, you could use standard Adwords placements on search, and hope that your audience is (a) using an iPad, and (b) willing to go to the App Store via the web. Or you could choose to deliver your ads ONLY to iPads. Best on iPad 2? No problem, you can segment down to that level. Same with Android. If your app doesn’t run on earlier versions of the OS, target only those that it works with. The result is a seamless connection to the exact audience you want, with a one-touch link to the App Store or Android market. And this doesn’t stop at apps–hardware devices that work with mobile phones and tablets are also the perfect candidate for this approach.

Targeting via metro area. Adwords has long since had some demographic control, but now you can actually see which metro areas are performing well—and those that are underperforming. It’s easy to reduce your exposure in metros that don’t work for you, and increase exposure in those that don’t. Coupled with ad scheduling, this is a powerful new tool to increase the effectiveness of an Adwords campaign.

If it’s time to look at Adwords again, we can help you decide which options are best for you, deploy an inexpensive test campaign, and report on the results. Don’t hesitate to talk to us about it!