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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

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!

Yeah, and if that’s what you think, good luck. Here’s the door. Don’t let it hit ya where the dog shoulda bit ya, and all that. Come back when reality sets in. Because, like it or not, even in this Web 2.0/social/mobile era, media is a critical part of your marketing.

“You mean, like television and newspapers and outdoor and stuff?” you scream.

Yes and no. We also mean AdWords, and site sponsorships, and banners, and social media advertising, and magazines, and radio, and online video ads, and a whole lot more. The media landscape is vast–much larger than it has been in the past. And, believe it or not, even the most “antiquated” media have their place. The problem is finding their place. It seems that many clients come to us with one of two misconceptions:

1. I can do everything cheap/free online with social and SEO.
2. I have to go TV for broadest exposure, but I have to do it on the cheap.

Um. No.

Cheap and free are a non-starter for any product. There are marketing tactics that have no media spend, yes: social and SEO. However, management of both of those types of programs either requires an in-house team, or an agency. Both cost money. You’re just not spending it on media.

And, cheap TV is an oxymoron. If you’re talking a national campaign, you’re talking a whole helluva lot of money. Period. No excuses. Sure, you can piece together remnant space through online buys, or hit a locality with a more targeted campaign for semi-reasonable amounts, but the reality is simple: TV isn’t cheap.

So what do you do? As before in this series, it depends entirely on the product or service you’re trying to sell, how you sell it, and how you stack up to the competition (take a look at #1 and #2 to see what we’re talking about.)

An Example: High-End iPod Dock
For this exercise, let’s use the hypothetical $500 high-end iPod dock we’ve been talking about in the previous posts. Let’s also assume that we’re selling it primarily online and direct, through the company’s own ecommerce site.

This means:

1. Since this is a niche product, you should be looking at targeted media, rather than mass media. Yes, we know Bose does commercials. Bose is also a multibillion dollar company with significant distribution. They want people to be aware of them when they go in the store. You want them to come and buy your stuff now.

2. The name of the game here is keeping the cost per sale much less than the profit on the sale. If you’re making $250 on a sale, you’d be thrilled with a $50 cost per sale.

3. You also need to choose media to maximize the total number of sales. If your media is only driving a single sale a month, it doesn’t matter if the cost per sale is $1 or $150.

Media we’d consider:

1. PR/Reviews. Yes, we’ll recommend you take money away from us, because we don’t do PR. But good reviews and press on sites like Gizmodo, Engadget, CNet, Stereophile, and more are going to be the most effective way to get sales. And you can track referrals from their site through to sale and calculate ROI based on your PR spend.
2. Google AdWords. This is the easiest media to measure and optimize, and can be extremely effective. It allows us to target people searching for iPod docks, as well as a broad palette of specific sites where audiophiles congregate. And it provides direct cost per sale metrics when coupled with Google Analytics.
3. Site Sponsorships. There are fan sites devoted to everything from $5000 headphones to iPod docks. We’d sponsor some of the most likely candidates and again measure cost per sale.
4. Direct Email. Yes, we said it. Those same sites sometimes have email and newsletters, which is an effective way to get sales.

Media we’d avoid:

1. Broadcast. This isn’t a broad play, and our iPod dock manufacturer probably doesn’t have 7-8 figures to invest in an ongoing campaign. It’s also difficult to measure.
2. Print. Although there are some targeted opportunities in the magazine space here, they’re shrinking—losing to the likes of Engadget and Gizmodo. They’re pricey, hard to measure, and hit the trailing edge adopters.
3. Billboards. This isn’t a local play, and this iPod dock manufacturer isn’t Apple, able to do a significant buy in most major metros.
4. Social. Unless this is a worldchanging iPod dock, one that runs for a year on a day’s worth of solar charging, or is able to end world hunger, we’d stay away from social. Is Apple on Facebook? No. There you go.

Now, if this was a different product, or if it was sold in stores, or if the ad budget was larger, all of this might change. So how do you go about choosing the right media for any product?

How to Choose the Right Media
First, know your goal. Are you looking to get someone to buy immediately online, or are you looking for broader awareness to influence purchasers in stores? Is this an impulse buy, or a long-term commitment? This will affect the media significantly.

1. Define a Goal. First, know your goal. Are you looking to get someone to buy immediately online, or are you looking for broader awareness to influence purchasers in stores? Is this an impulse buy, or a long-term commitment? This is the most important part of your marketing.
2. Determine Your Breadth. Based on the goal, are you looking at rifle-targeting a niche audience, or do you need the broadest awareness amongst the largest number of people? Highly targeted campaigns are typically online and direct. Broad campaigns are usually broadcast, print, and social.
3. Set a Budget. Based on the goal and breadth, what’s a logical budget? How does that compare with what you can afford? You may have to scale back plans. But remember—the first question an agency will ask is, “What’s your media budget?”
4. Choose and Deploy. Choose your media and deploy the campaign, making sure to maximize measurability of all tactics.
5. Monitor and Optimize. You—or your agency—should be employing 24/7 software optimization, weekly human review, and monthly reporting. And they should be ruthless about eliminating underperforming tactics, venues, and keywords. It may be really cool to see your banner at the top of CNet, or have your iPod dock show up first whenever anyone is searching for “ipod,” but if the cost per sale is too high, they have to be eliminated—and new tactics rolled in.

And—believe me—I wish there was an easier way to do it. It would be great if you could get all the exposure you wanted for free. But we simply aren’t there yet, and it’s likely we’ll never be.

Kidding. Or not.

“Wait a minute,” you’re probably saying. “We come to you for messaging! If you miss the message, it’s your fault! We’ll fire you and move on to another agency. Done.”

Well, yes, that’s true. A lot of our clients come to us for messaging. Some have a platform that’s handed down by the All-Seeing and All-Powerful Product Marketing Gods. In that case, there isn’t much latitude. But let’s take you at your word, and say that you’ve come to us with your really super-cool, best-iPod-dock-in-the-world product (the fictional example we used in #1) and want us to take charge of the messaging. In this case, you’ll hear something like this from us:

“A great message stands out. It actually says something. Great messages use absolute words like, ‘first, only, and best.’ They can ruffle feathers and generate controversy. Can your product support these kinds of messages in its inherent design?”

This sometimes generates a lot of blank looks, but more often than not, it gets us talking about this product and its competition. Sometimes things become very black and white at this point. Let’s say this best-iPod-dock-in-the-world is the only one that has an integrated subwoofer that goes down to 20 Hz. Now, let’s realize that most people don’t have any idea of what 20 Hz is. But if it does have a subwoofer with a ton of bass, it can create a club-like sound in your house. And there’s your message. The only iPod dock that turns your house into a club—don’t be surprised if you knock some pictures off the walls!

Sometimes things remain shades of gray. Yeah, it’s a $500 dock, and it sounds great, and it looks great, but there are a half-dozen other $500 docks that are competing in the same market. Some are a little better at one thing, some are a little better at another. The good news is that this isn’t the end of the world. In this case, you can create unique differentiators.

“Wait a minute!” You cry. “Isn’t that dishonest? You can’t just create stuff out of thin air!”

No, you can’t, and we’re not advocating you do so. However, there’s almost always some kind of unique differentiator available, if you dig deep enough. Oh hey, your iPod dock was created using the same circuits as used in high-end amplifiers? Well, guess what: you have the only iPod Dock with high-end reference amplifier design for superior sound—the same as you’d find in $10K speaker amps!” Or, let’s say a ton of recording studios have picked up on this dock for casual meetings with clients. Congrats. You have the first iPod dock chosen by professional recording engineers! Or, let’s say you’ve done listening tests with professional musicians, and 9 out of 10 of them chose your dock. Now you have the best iPod dock, period, chosen by professional musicians 9 out of 10 times.

You see where we’re going with this. If you can’t claim a first, only, or best, you can usually find a relevant conditional claim that is almost as powerful.

Now, all you have to do is make sure the message is supportable (if you have a powerful claim, have the proof points to back it up—you may be challenged!), make sure it is congruent with your brand personality, and segment the message so it’s appropriate to the media. Yes, lots of work. Yes, we know, marketing should be about trips to Costa Azul and schmoozing at the awards shows. Or not.

In review:

A great message is:

1. Able to claim one or more true, unique differentiators
2. Supportable by multiple proof points
3. Simple, direct, and understandable to the audience
4. In-line with the image, personality, and tone of the brand
5. Appropriate to the media.

An acceptable message is:

1. Able to create one or more unique differentiators based on lifestyle, audience, or preference.
2. Supportable by conditional usage
3. Simple, direct, and understandable to the audience
4. In-line with the image, personality, and tone of the brand
5. Appropriate to the media.

Bottom line: don’t blend in. If your product or service doesn’t have any true, unique differentiators, you need to create some. If you can create controversy, do it. The message is the most important part of any campaign—don’t miss it!

In fact, I think we irritate a lot of clients when they first come to us and say, “Wow, we have this great new product or service and we need to get the word out and I’ve heard there’s all these cool things you can do on Facebook and on Twitter and virally and maybe even some online ads and a microsite and all that stuff!” And all we do is sit back and say, “That’s great. What’s your goal?”

A lot of times, we get a blank look, and a reiteration of the above.

Luckily, a lot more times, we get a hard stop, followed by an “aha!” moment, where our client realizes that we are really looking out for their best interests.

Sure, we can do pretty pictures and snappy copy as well as the next agency out there (or better—hey, I’m biased) but if those pretty pictures and snappy copy don’t get you the sales results a client wants, what good are they? Yeah, they may get you some shiny pieces of chrome and plastic to put on a mantle and wow the punters, but we don’t go in for awards. At all. Every award we’ve won has been for client-entered work, not stuff we’ve submitted. We don’t have time for it, and we don’t think they matter.

“That’s fine,” you might be saying by now, “But what’s so hard about a goal? We want to sell our stuff, that’s the goal, it never changes, there you go!”

Well, you’d be surprised how many marketers forget even that. Sometimes, in the excitement of a new product/service/brand, the bottom line goes out the door. But a good goal is more than a bottom line.

We’d define it as:

Goal = Action + Audience + Metrics + References

Here’s how that could break down, for a hypothetical consumer electronics product (let’s say, it’s a high-end iPod dock that costs $500) that is being sold exclusively through stores, both physical and online.

Action = Get people to buy products at the stores.
Audience = People who are interested in iPod docks, excellent sound, and have incomes that support a $500 accessory buy.
Metrics = Move 1000+ of these products per month on a sustaining basis
References = The product needs to outsell two other competing $500 docks so the stores will continue to carry it, and our previous cost per sale when driving to online stores has been $150.

Note how none of the above can be done with a genericized product. We need to know what it is, what it costs, and what the competition is like.

Also note how all of the above lead to more details which will need to be addressed for a successful marketing program:

For the Action, getting people to buy products at the stores means getting them physically into a store, or it means getting them to an online store where they can purchase it. This means we have to use tactics that are congruent with those sub-goals. Getting people physically into a store may mean mobile tactics, or, for an older audience, it may mean direct mail. Getting them to online stores may mean Adwords, or sponsorship on sites where iPod fanatics hang out.

For the Audience, what else do we know about them? What’s their demographics? Male/Female split? Age? Incomes? Do they really value standout sound or standout design? The more we know, the better.

For the Metrics, where did these numbers come from? Are they based on competitive information, or previous product launches, or are they arbitrary? Do they line up with what we can expect from this kind of product, based on history?

For the References, are the two other docks all that matter, or are there $400 docks we need to know about? Do the stores have a number they need to sell in order to continue carrying the product? Is it possible to get real metrics on the cost per sale from external stores? If so, what kind of analytics do we have to set up?

Now, you’re thinking, “Hell, this is too hard! I got into marketing because I wanted to do cool commercials, and I thought I’d get a chance to travel around with the director when they shot in St. Lucia!”

Well, that’s entirely fine, and good luck with that!

For the rest of us, we’ll continue putting in the long hours to create targeted and effective campaigns that hit the bottom line.

1. We hate monopolies! For a while there, it looked like Facebook was going to be like the eBay juggernaut, with no serious competition from any quarter. Now, there’s a chance Google+ will gain share and force some real competition–which thrills us. Both companies will have to improve their services for their customers. And this includes both the people participating in the social network, and the evil advertisers like us who want to contact people within the network.

2. We like ads! Well, duh. We are evil marketers, after all. And we like Google’s Adwords about ten thousand times better than Facebook ads. If Google intends to integrate Adwords into Google+, there’s going to be a party in the office. Much better targeting, much better metrics, a wider variety of ads–it’s a win for both the advertisers and the people using the Google+ social network.

3. We trust Google (more.) Yeah, Google ain’t perfect, but after years of using their services, we get the feeling that Google really doesn’t care what we do, as long as they can show us some ads. They add free services, they show you some ads. They improve their capabilities, they show you some ads. It’s not a perfect world, but given that Google has to pay their bills, an ad-supported model ain’t bad. It certainly beats the bad old days of paying $600 for Microsoft office. Facebook, on the other hand . . . well, after having multiple big privacy issues, of releasing personal info without warning, of (still) having one of the most insanely-stupid privacy control panels out there–well, we get the feeling that Facebook wants to use our information to control the way we communicate. And that’s a whole big bag of more-evil and more-invasive than simply showing ads.

So how will this end? Hopefully with two giants battling it out on roughly equal ground, offering better services with improved privacy and ease of use, both providing platforms for advertisers to reach people who may be interested in their products.

And yeah, in a perfect world, there wouldn’t even be the need for advertising at all. Keep hoping for that, bub.