Category Archives: Digital Marketing

Don’t Typecast Search as “Direct”

First published September 29, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

We should have taken it as a sign of things to come.

The panel I was moderating at OMMA Global, with the highly provocative title “The Evolving Role of the Search Marketer,” was in a tiny room that seemed to be an afterthought of whoever planned the meeting space layout in the Marriott Marquis in New York. You actually had to walk through another, much larger room and go through a door tucked in the back corner. If one of the show organizers hadn’t been personally guiding me, I might never have found it.

The second sign was equally hard to miss. Outside the “secret” door to my session was a small standard that indicated that this was the “Direct” marketing track.

Okay, relegated to the back closet and in a track that restricted search to being a “direct” channel — so far things didn’t bode well for the insightful voyage of discovery I was envisioning.

Nevertheless, we forged ahead with a very enthusiastic audience (who were no doubt glad to just have found the session) and a very seasoned panel of search veterans (Rob Griffin, Havas; Dana Todd, Performics; Michael Verghios, Mindshare; Scott Brinker, ion Interactive). And we weren’t five minutes into the session before we started talking about search being pigeonholed as a direct channel.

In the beginning, we search marketers had no qualms about the “direct” label. As advertisers began demanding more accountability for each and every ad dollar, we were perfectly positioned to benefit from the budget migrations. Dollars poured into search, propelling Google to glowing financials quarter after quarter. We proudly evangelized the measurability of search, eagerly thrusting forth dashboards with a laser focus on ROI.

And it worked. We rode the wave through most of the last decade. Even when the economy ground to a screeching halt in 2008, search bounced through with nary a scratch, due largely to its credentials as the most effective digital direct channel. While marketing budgets as a whole were slashed, search budgets either stayed the same or grew marginally, thanks to the continuing inflow at the expense of other channels.

But somewhere in the midst of that giddy party, someone should have whispered in our ear, “Be careful what you wish for!” It’s like the actor who gets typecast in a role — just as Michael Richards seems doomed to be stuck in Cosmo Kramer’s persona, we may never shake the “direct” tag. We’re stuck at the direct marketing table –quite literally, in the case of the latest OMMA conference.

But, as we discussed in our session, that shuts the door to the huge potential of search to connect and inform all manners of marketing. Increasingly, consumer intent is playing out across a digital landscape and search is the “glue” that connects many of the dots. If search gets a seat at the strategic table, we can provide vital input into consumer behavioral trends, budget allocations and attribution models, targeting strategies and much more. Search remains the clearest crystallization of buyer intent available at any time in marketing history, anywhere. That’s what made it such a phenomenal direct channel, but its potential reaches beyond that. Its power remains only partly tapped as long as it’s considered solely a direct tactic.

Here’s one example. Prior to the recession, Google and other engines were struggling to break out of the direct box by commissioning research showing the branding power of search. My company did some of this work for them. We created search scenarios and then used standard branding recall metrics to measure brand lift. Sure enough, we found significant lift with effective placement on a results page. But the problem was that we were using the wrong yardstick. We were trying to measure search using metrics pioneered in other, less efficient media.

The true power of search, when it comes to branding, is positioning a brand in a critical place during the key consideration process. As buyers, we use search to help us compile a mental list of options to consider. If brands are present and prominent, they’re not only included, their credibility as an option is enhanced. But if they’re not, even if the buyer is aware of them, they run a real risk of being dropped from the consideration set.

We shouldn’t have been measuring search as a branding channel on the same footing as TV or magazines. It’s not. It’s actually even more exciting than that. Search is positioned at the critical branch in the decision path, where it can either significantly amplify the effects of those branding channels, or wipe out all their efforts in one fell swoop. That’s how potentially powerful search is.

But we may never get the chance to tell that message, which must be heard at the planning table where the overall strategies are drafted. You won’t hear us, because we’ll be over here at the direct table, somewhere in the back corners of the Marriott Marquis.

The Psychology of Couponing: Where Agillitee Went Wrong

First published September 22, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Is a Groupon model the next big thing for B2B? Apparently not. Or, at least, not now, based on an early trial by a Chicago-based consulting firm, Ajillitee. The company used Groupon to offer $25,000 worth of consulting services at half price.

It was the biggest deal Groupon had ever offered. Hey, keeping $12,500 in your pocket is nothing to sneeze at. And, since buying consulting services is not exactly the same as snagging a half-off lunch coupon, the offer stayed open for three weeks, giving all potential takers plenty of time to act.

But, at the end of the three weeks, the offer disappeared. The result? Nary a sale — not even one. Ajillitee extended the offer on its own website, with the same result.

“We were really trying to test the market,” said Ajillitee CMO Diann Bilderback. “What we learned was that we were early to the game. Groupon’s platform is the platform for this (online coupons), but it’s very consumer-oriented. The rules didn’t align with our kind of sale. Groupon works on snap decisions, but business decisions typically take longer.”

Well, that’s true. But there’s another element at play here. It’s the psychology of the deal itself. Do you really want to buy thousands of dollars of consulting services with a coupon? Even one saving you 50%? Thought not. Pizza? Sure! A pedicure? Maybe.  Half-price yoga? Sign me up. But critical information systems for your company? No thank you!

Coupons work well in certain markets, and not so well in others. For example, would you use a coupon for a doctor or a lawyer?  Probably not, but why? Why a pizza, and not a heart surgeon?

The answer can be summed up in one word: risk. Coupons work extremely well in some well-understood circumstances — to save money on something you were going to buy anyway, or when you want to treat yourself. In a previous series of columns, I talked about how all buying decisions are predicated on a balance of risk and reward.  Reward is the gas pedal, and risk is the brake pedal. If risk is very low, coupons can serve to push you past the tipping point and get you to act immediately rather than “someday.”  They accelerate latent consumer demand.

Coupons can also sway a purchaser from one brand to another, but this typically only happens when risk is minimal. Coupons work in the world of the “pretty good problem,” where all the options are within a range acceptable to the buyer. Think of laundry detergent, cheese slices or hand soap.

Finally, coupons can reduce the barriers keeping you from an indulgent impulse purchase. Coupons play on short-term gratification, introducing the promise of reward, compounded by the dopamine rush that comes from snagging a great deal. It amps up the “reward” portion of buying motivation so that the “risk” limiter doesn’t stand a chance. Groupon, in particular, pulls out all the psychological stops by throwing in equally addictive elements of geographically targeted rewards, limited availability and elemental crowd psychology. If this is the mental landscape you’re playing in, online couponing can definitely stack the odds in your favor.

But alas, B2B purchasing, especially big-ticket items like consulting, meets none of the above criteria. B2B is all about risk avoidance, and there is little reward driving these types of purchases. This came through loud and clear when I was researching my book, “The BuyerSphere Project.” Not only will a coupon offer fail to eliminate risk in these circumstances, it will actually increase risk by raising questions about the credibility of the consulting firm offering the coupon. If the consulting is any good, why are you offering it at half price? Are you that desperate for business?

Apparently, companies like Ajillitee haven’t given up on the concept.  A new rash of B2B oriented online couponing companies like BizyDeal and RapidBuyr are jostling each other in a rush to jump on the Groupon bandwagon.  If the types of deals offered are targeted to low-risk scenarios (copy paper and toner cartridges), they’ll probably work. But don’t expect to get a rush on coupons for consulting services, enterprise-level solutions or other big-ticket, complex purchases. When the buyer (or buyers) is looking at all risk and no personal reward, using couponing is like bringing a knife (or, more appropriately, a spatula) to a gunfight. It’s absolutely the wrong tool for the job.

Is it Time to Relabel ” Marketing?

First published September 15, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Last week, I asked the question, “Is the word ‘search’ the right label for what we do on Google, Bing, Yahoo and other engines?” When Internet search debuted in the early 90s, it was probably pretty accurate. But today, the concept may have passed the label by.

And, if that is true, then the same is probably true for “search marketing.” The main gist of my argument last week was that the word “search” implies the expenditure of a significant effort with no guarantee of a successful outcome. But today, more than ever, we look to these engines to connect us with information and functionality. We want to “do” things when we click through to the other side of the search results.

I also said that it was difficult to find any one label that covers all our intentions when we turn to a “search” engine. In the beginning, when the Web was one large bucket of ill-formed data, “search” worked as a universal label. But that’s not true today. Now, the Web is becoming increasingly structured, and a search engine that excels at bringing order to unstructured data often falls disappointingly short when it comes to actually getting stuff done. In trying to be the universal Swiss Army Knife of the Web for many common tasks, Google (or Bing) doesn’t do any of them particularly well, we’re starting to find.  For many tasks, a dedicated and specialized app often does a far better job of meeting our expectations.

Again, this starts to define the conundrum currently facing search marketers. When the label we used was “search,” our job was simply to make sure our sites were “found.” Within the parameters defined by “searching” (to explore in order to discover), our job was straightforward: reduce the exploration effort required on the part of the searcher by moving our sites into a more “discoverable” position.

But what if we substitute some of the other labels I suggested last week for the word “search”? Suddenly, our job becomes much more complex.

Let’s start with “connection.” In this case, buyer s already have an idea that the right online destination exists, so they also have a preconceived notion of what they would find there. In game theory, this is called “expected utility.” In this case, our job is not simply to make the site easy to find, but also to make sure it’s a relevant match for our prospect’s expectations. If it isn’t, we may capture the click but miss the conversion. And that puts a whole new spin on search marketing. To understand how to create a “connection,” we have to understand what happens on both sides of the click: pre-connection and post-connection.

This requires us to delve into our prospect’s “frame of mind.” Again, the words used here provide a clue for what’s required as a marketer. A “frame” colors our entire view of things. There’s even a term for it in psychology: the “framing effect.” It’s categorized as a cognitive bias, which means that our frames determine our reality. To be successful “connection” marketers, we have to be familiar with our prospect’s “frame” of reference. When we are, we can provide a relevant and persuasive post-click path.

But “connection” wasn’t the only alternative label I proposed. What about “action” or “fulfillment?” Again, both ask us to substantially stretch our horizons as a marketer.

“Action” is an even more determinant label than connection. If we’re looking to take “action,” each step interposed between the end goal and the prospect is another level of frustration. Here, our job as “action” marketers is to remove as many of the steps as possible between intent and action. Actions are usually well defined and specific. We should be equally as specific in the alternatives we provide our prospects. Our calls to action should be a clear invitation to “do” things.

“Fulfillment” is a little tougher nut to crack. To be “fulfilled” can take several forms. Is there an emotional component? How would the prospect define “fulfillment”? Is the post-click result a step towards fulfillment, or does it take a prospect all the way there? A successful “fulfillment” marketer should be part psychologist and part clairvoyant.

Given the challenge we have in even attaching a label to what it is we do, it’s no wonder that recent analyst reports are all reporting a common theme: the best search marketers are expanding into other services. We’re expanding beyond “search” into “social,” “mobile,” “local,” “display” and other channels. It’s not so much that “search” is passé, rather it’s that “search” isn’t really the right label anymore. I’m not sure that “social” or “local” are any better. Personally, I think the perfect word, whatever it turns out to be, should clearly identify “why” people are online rather than “what” they’re doing online.

What’s in a Word?

First published September 8, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I served for six years as a director of the Search Engine Marketers Professional Organization. Every six months or so, we’d get together to talk about the future of the organization. As you can imagine, the future of an organization catering to industry professionals is inextricably linked to the future of the industry itself. So, our conversations weren’t so much about the future of SEMPO as they were about the future of search — and by extension, the future of search marketing.

Every time we embarked on this task of joint navel and crystal-ball gazing, we ran smack dab into the same dilemma: How do you define search? What is search? Should it even be called search any more? Esther Dyson, among others, thinks the term “search” may have outlived its usefulness. Perhaps “connection,” “fulfillment” or “action” has a better connotation. At least these words imply there’s something of substance on the other end of the search. They hint at successful outcomes. When Microsoft debuted Bing, the company sought to differentiate the product by calling it the “Decision” engine – “Bing is a search engine that finds and organizes the answers you need so you can make faster, more informed decisions.”

For me, words are important, so in trying to define the future of our industry, the words we choose to represent the concept tell us something about our feelings towards it.

Let’s start with “search,” the generic label we currently use: to “search” is to attempt to discover something. We search for a needle in a haystack. We search for a missing child or a runaway fugitive. We search for the truth. All seem to indicate an expenditure of significant effort but no guarantee of success. Given the state of the Internet when search engines debuted, it was an apt moniker. But today, that’s no longer the case. Today, I suspect, we launch almost every search with a clear expectation that somewhere out there, the information we seek exists. All we need is the right connection to it.

Given that, perhaps a “connection” engine is a better choice. To “connect” is to link known entities. Unlike with “search,” when we use the term “connect” we know our objective exists and we’re just trying to find the shortest path between points A and B.  The word better captures the navigational usage of search, which accounts for a huge percentage of total queries. I’ve used the term myself in the past when I’ve said that search is the “connection” between intent and content.

But even “connection” implies a certain statelessness. While it better captures our intent than does the verb search, I don’t know if it adequately represents the dynamic and participatory nature of our online activities. Whereas the verbs we used to use to define what we did online implied passive observance — “look,” “browse” and “surf” (I never did get that one, but at one time using it made you sound uber-cool) —  we now “book,” “post,” “comment,” “”tweet,” “buy” and participate in dozens of much more active ways, using more active verbs. Where once we went online to seek and consume information, we now want to “do” things.  We expect to do things. And so we use Google or Bing to find the right tool to allow us to do those things. That’s the rationale behind suggestions like “fulfillment” (to carry out, to satisfy or to develop to full potential) and “action” (something done or performed). Certainly, for some search tasks, calling Google or Bing an “action” engine would be a more appropriate description.

For some tasks — but not all. And that’s the problem we kept running into when we tried to define what search is. It’s tough to keep in any one box. It tends to be squishy and amorphous. And it has the habit of expanding into the ever-developing niches and crevasses of the online landscape.

So, was Bing right to call itself a “decision” engine? Is that the missing label that encapsulates all we look for in an engine? Do we need something to help us make better decisions (to compare and choose between alternatives)? It’s at least as good as “search”, and probably better, because it takes it one step further. It makes the assumption that the information about the best alternatives will be served to us by the engine.

While you might think this is just a frivolous exercise in semantics, I disagree. I think this question speaks to something fundamental in the evolution of search. We use words to label concepts — and when the labels no longer fit, it’s because the concept itself has changed. If we have trouble applying a word to something, it’s probably because we think of it in a different way than we used to. I believe this is true of search. And if we think of “search” differently, it means we must also think of “search marketing” differently.

Until next week…

Google and the Great Wall

First published August 25, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

“Have you heard of Google?”

This question was asked by a group of traveling Google product engineers who had just entered the rural Indian village of Ragihalli, thirty miles outside of Bangalore. It was a Google version of a “walkabout,” a 2007 foray out into the world to see firsthand how Google was wrapping its ever-extending tentacles around the globe.

This tour is also how Steven Levy starts his book “In the Plex,” a somewhat privileged view inside the world’s most successful start-up and an examination of “how Google thinks, works and shapes our lives.” Along with India, the gaggle of Googlers touched down in Tokyo, Beijing and Tel Aviv over 16 days in the summer of 2007.

I’ll do a quick review of Levy’s book in the next column, but today I wanted to share how my own path crossed that of the very same group of Googlers (I believe) on the Great Wall of China, about an hour north of Beijing in Badaling. I had just spoken at a search conference in Xiamen, China and added a few days of sightseeing in Beijing with Chris Sherman, the conference organizer.

We started scaling the wall — and for the better part of an hour, climbed too many stone steps to count, snaking up from rampart to rampart. Ahead of us was a group of fellow tourists that were obviously from the U.S. We were a little too far from them to pick up any snippets of their conversation, but in between numerous stops to catch our breath and ease our middle-aged joints (at which point we were usually passed by a sprightly Chinese octogenarian) Chris and I chatted about our mutual profession. At one point, Chris quipped, “There has to be a search analogy in here somewhere. Something about how tough it is to get to the top of Google.” He didn’t realize how prophetic his words would be.

We finally got to the top of the public section of the Wall, which ended at a guard outpost. We arrived there about the same time as the other group from the U.S. With no one else around, we offered to take each other’s group pictures. After we exchanged favors, one of the group asked us where we were from. Chris happens to hail from Boulder. Our anonymous photographer had attended university in Colorado.

“So, what do you guys do?” our new friend asked. My regular readers will remember I shudder with dread every time I hear that question. I was about to offer some vague and generic answer about being a marketing consultant when Chris piped up, “We’re search marketers.”

“Oh Puhleeze, Chris,” I thought to myself.  We’re zillions of miles from home, on the last outpost of the Great Wall of China, with the only other Westerners within sight being the handful of tourists we were sharing our particular viewpoint with. Could there be a less relevant way to start a conversation? What would be the odds that they would know what the hell a “search marketer” was?

Quite good, as it turned out. Our new friend got a wry smile on his face and replied, “Bet you can’t guess where we’re from!”

Yes, it was the same group of Google engineers on their world tour.

On the same trip, I also met U.S. journalist, author and expat James Fallows and had the opportunity to chat with him. He was offering a Western perspective (regularly published in The Atlantic) about the complex and often confounding emergence of China as a world power. Twelve of these reports were collected into a book called, “Postcards from Tomorrow Square.”

It’s next on my reading list.

In Defense of Google

First published August 18, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Michael Martinez and Jim Rudnick, you are both oh-so-wrong! Michael responded to Derek Gordon’s column on Tuesday about the Google “Dog pile” with this rejoinder: “No market-dominant company ever gets to the top through ‘quality of the service it provides’ — they get there through marketing, and Google has done PLENTY of that.”

Then, Jim Rudnick “piled on” with this addition:  “As Michael stated, Google has more ‘marketers’ IMHO, than engineers’!” (which he later qualified with a “well, not really.”)

This wasn’t even my column they were responding to, but I just couldn’t let those two obviously ill-informed comments go unanswered.

Mr. Martinez and Mr. Rudnick, it’s reality-check time. Anyone who has ever spent any time at Google, knows anyone at Google, has read anything on the history of Google, or has spent any time trying to understand the culture at Google, knows that engineers rule supreme there — and marketing is considered at least two rungs below, a necessary evil, which is somewhat ironic for a company whose revenues rely solely on… that’s right, marketing!

You can possibly hate Google for a number of things, but subjugating the quality of their results for a quick marketing win has never been, or never will be, one of them. I’ve been following this company pretty much since day one, and they are obsessive about the quality of their user’s experience. I may debate their approach to design or the aesthetic appeal of their interfaces. I may question their need to dominate everything. I may take exception to the intellectual arrogance that seems to occasionally seep out of Mountain View — but I have never, ever, questioned their priorities. Their domination in search comes squarely on the shoulders of their high regard for their user, and not one of their serious competitors would ever dispute that.

This Google “marketing” that Michael speaks of is a meager trickle compared to the millions that Microsoft pumped into the launch of Bing, or, lest we forget, the failed advertising campaigns of Ask.com, Yahoo or even Infoseek when it was bought by Disney and became Go.com. Tell me, when is the last time you launched a search on Go.com?

Marketing alone will never establish a dominant search player. Number one is established solely on the strength of its user’s experiences. You might want to do a comparison of market shares and marketing expenditures to get that point driven home more forcefully, Michael.

In fact, I would shudder to think that any dominant player in any industry got to where they are based on marketing alone, and not by adequately meeting or exceeding their customer’s expectations. I live by another adage, “Nothing ever killed a bad product faster than good advertising.” I talked about Jim Lecinski’s concept of the ZMOT a few columns back. Marketing provides just one input into the chain reaction that Lecinski chronicles. Let’s walk through this again. Because this is more than just a rebuttal, it’s an illustration for anyone who shares the same delusional view that marketing is all it takes to win a market.

Marketing provides a stimulus that can spark a buyer’s interest. After this stimulus, the buyer then researches to make sure the hyperbole of the marketing message bears at leas some passing resemblance to reality. This is Lecinski’s ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth). Then, there’s the FMOT (First Moment of Truth).  This is when a buyer actually picks a product off the proverbial “shelf.”  Finally, there’s the SMOT (Second Moment of Truth), which is the buyer’s actual experience with the product.

If marketing and the buyer’s reality are aligned, these elements create a virtuous cycle, where the promise of the ad matches the experience delivered. The result is ongoing brand loyalty.

But if all the company cares about is marketing, it all starts to fall apart in the ZMOT and the SMOT. The cycle is destroyed and you have a pissed-off customer telling anyone who will listen that they’ve been duped. That’s why Jim Lecinski (speaking on behalf of Google) rightly stresses the importance of the ZMOT for marketers. It’s where the rubber starts to hit the road.

I don’t care if Messrs. Rudnick and Martinez have a sore spot for Google. I do care when they imply those 13 years plus of producing high-quality search results and deeply caring about the user are irrelevant, and that Google bought its way to the top of the search engine heap through marketing. That’s dangerous thinking, for any industry. We have enough crap to fix in corporate America without letting offhand comments like these go unanswered. It’s this kind of thinking that got us into the mess we currently find ourselves.

Let’s appreciate quality when we see it, and not assume the whole world is a sucker for a quick pitch!

The ZMOT Continued: More from Jim Lecinski

First published July 28, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Last week, I started my conversation with Jim Lecinski, author of the new ebook from Google: “ZMOT, Winning the Zero Moment of Truth.”  Yesterday, Fellow Search Insider Aaron Goldman gave us his take on ZMOT. Today, I’ll wrap up by exploring with Jim the challenge that the ZMOT presents to organizations and some of the tips for success he covers in the book.

First of all, if we’re talking about what happens between stimulus and transaction, search has to play a big part in the activities of the consumer. Lecinski agreed, but was quick to point out that the online ZMOT extends well beyond search.

Jim Lecinski: Yes, Google or a search engine is a good place to look. But sometimes it’s a video, because I want to see [something] in use…Then [there’s] your social network. I might say, “Saw an ad for Bobby Flay’s new restaurant in Las Vegas. Anybody tried it?” That’s in between seeing the stimulus, but before… making a reservation or walking in the door.

We see consumers using… a broad set of things. In fact, 10.7 sources on average are what people are using to make these decisions between stimulus and shelf.

A few columns back, I shared the pinball model of marketing, where marketers have to be aware of the multiple touchpoints a buyer can pass through, potentially heading off in a new and unexpected direction at each point. This muddies the marketing waters to a significant degree, but it really lies at the heart of the ZMOT concept:

Lecinski: It is not intended to say, “Here’s how you can take control,” but you need to know what those touch points are. We quote the great marketer Woody Allen: “‘Eighty percent of success in life is just showing up.”

So if you’re in the makeup business, people are still seeing your ads in Cosmo and Modern Bride and Elle magazine, and they know where to buy your makeup. But if Makeupalley is now that place between stimulus and shelf where people are researching, learning, reading, reviewing, making decisions about your $5 makeup, you need to show up there.

Herein lies an inherent challenge for the organization looking to win the ZMOT: whose job is that? Our corporate org chart reflects marketplace realities that are at least a generation out of date. The ZMOT is virgin territory, which typically means it lies outside of one person’s job description. Even more challenging, it typically cuts across several departments.

Lecinski: We offer seven recommendations in the book, and the first one is “Who’s in charge?” If you and I were to go ask our marketer clients, “Okay, stimulus — the ad campaigns. Who’s in charge of that? Give me a name,” they could do that, right? “Here’s our VP of National Advertising.”

Shelf — if I say, “Who’s in charge of winning at the shelf?” “Oh. Well, that’s our VP of Sales” or “Shopper Marketing.” And if I say, “Product delivery,” – “well that’s our VP of Product Development” or “R&D” or whatever. So there’s someone in charge of those classic three moments. Obviously the brand manager’s job is to coordinate those. But when I say, “Who’s in charge of winning the ZMOT?” Well, usually I get blank stares back.

If you’re intent on winning the ZMOT, the first thing you have to do is make it somebody’s job. But you can’t stop there. Here are Jim’s other suggestions:

The second thing is, you need to identify what are those zero moments of truth in your category… Start to catalogue what those are and then you can start to say, “Alright. This is a place where we need to start to show up.”

The next is to ask, “Do we show up and answer the questions that people are asking?”

Then we talk about being fast and being alert, because up to now, stimulus has been characterized as an ad you control. But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s a study that’s released by an interest group. Sometimes it’s a product recall that you don’t control. Sometimes it’s a competitor’s move. Sometimes it’s Colbert on his show poking a little fun at Miracle Whip from Kraft. That wasn’t in your annual plan, but now there’s a ZMOT because, guess what happens — everybody types in “Colbert Miracle Whip video.” Are you there, and what do people see? Because that’s how they’re going to start making up their mind before they get to Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up their Miracle Whip.

Winning the ZMOT is not a cakewalk. But it lies at the crux of the new marketing reality. We’ve begun to incorporate the ZMOT into the analysis we do for clients. If you don’t, you’re leaving a huge gap between the stimulus and shelf — and literally anything could happen in that gap.

Marketing in the ZMOT: An Interview with Jim Lecinski

First published July 21, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

A few columns back, I mentioned the new book from Google, “ZMOT, Winning the Zero Moment of Truth.” But, in true Google fashion, it isn’t really a book, at least, not in the traditional sense. It’s all digital, it’s free, and there’s even a multimedia app (a Vook) for the iPad.

Regardless of the “book” ‘s format, I recently caught up with its author, Jim Lecinski, and we had a chance to chat about the ZMOT concept. Jim started by explaining what the ZMOT is: “The traditional model of marketing is stimulus – you put out a great ad campaign to make people aware of your product, then you win the FMOT (a label coined by Procter and Gamble) — the moment of truth, the purchase point, the shelf. Then the target takes home the product and hopefully it will live up to its promises. It makes whites whiter, brights brighter, the package actually gets there by 10:30 the next morning.

What we came out with here in the book is this notion that there’s actually a fourth node in the model  of equal importance.  We gave the umbrella name to that new fourth moment that happens in between stimulus and shelf: if it’s prior to FMOT, one minus F is zero, ‘Zero Moment of Truth.'”

Google didn’t invent the ZMOT, just as Procter & Gamble didn’t invent the FMOT. These are just labels applied to consumer behaviours. But Google, and online in general, have had a profound effect on a consumer’s ability to interact in the Zero Moment of Truth.

Lecinski: “There were always elements of a zero moment of truth. It could happen via word of mouth. And in certain categories, of course  — washing machines, automotive, certain consumer electronics — the zero moment of truth was won or lost in print publications like Consumer Reports or Zagat restaurant guide or Mobil Travel Guide.

But those things had obvious limitations. One: there was friction — you had to actually get in the car and go to the library. The second is timeliness  — the last time they reviewed wash machines might have been nine months ago. And then the third is accuracy: ‘Well, the model that they reviewed nine months ago isn’t exactly the one I saw on the commercial last night that’s on sale this holiday weekend at Sears.'”

The friction, the timeliness and the simple lack of information all lead to an imbalance in the market place that was identified by economist George Akerlof in 1970 as information asymmetry. In most cases, the seller knew more about the product than the buyer. But the Web has driven out this imbalance in many product categories.

Lecinski: “The means are available to everybody to remove that sort of information asymmetry and move us into a post-Akerlof world of information symmetry. I was on the ad agency side for a long time, and we made the TV commercial assuming information asymmetry. We would say, ‘Ask your dealer to explain more about X, Y, and Z.’

Well, now that kind of a call to action in a TV commercial sounds almost silly, because you go into the dealer and there’s people with all the printouts and their smartphones and everything… So in many ways we are in a post-Akerlof world. Even his classic example of lemons for cars, well, I can be standing on the lot and pull up the CARFAX history report off my iPhone right there in the car lot.”

Lecinski also believes that our current cash flow issues drive more intense consumer research.  “Forty seven percent of U.S. households say that they cannot come up with $2,000 in a 30-day period without having to sell some possessions,” he says. “This is how paycheck to paycheck life is.”

When money is tight, we’re more careful with how we part with it. That means we spend more time in the ZMOT.

Next week, I’ll continue my conversation with Jim, touching on what the online ZMOT landscape looks like, the challenge ZMOT presents marketers and the seven suggestions Jim offers about how to win the Zero Moment of Truth.

The “Mikey” Mobile Adoption Test

First published July 14, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

The time to get serious about mobile is here. I say that not based on any analyst’s report, industry intelligence or pronouncement from any of the companies who have billions riding on it, but rather due to the “Mikey” test.

What, you ask, is the “Mikey” test? I thought you’d never ask.

My friend Mikey (and, yes, he lets me call him that and yet we’re still friends) is a building contractor. Recently, he oversaw the renovations on our home. We were a little concerned by the fact that in the middle of renovations, during a critical period when kitchen cabinets would be installed, old walls would be ripped down, new ones put up and our bathroom floor would be retiled, we would be 3,000 miles away on the most remote land mass in the world, Hawaii.

“It’s all good!” said Mikey (he says that a lot, which is another reason why we’re friends), “I’ll keep you up to date with this!” From his pocket, Mikey pulled out a brand-new iPhone. “I’ll just take pictures and send them to you!”

I was shocked. Mikey and I have a lot of things in common: love of family, appreciation for a good hand-crafted beer, dedication to a job well done, becoming reluctantly middle-aged — but technology is not on the list. His wife, Rosie, does his emailing for him. He was the last guy I expected to get an iPhone, let alone use it to send pictures via email. But sure enough, each day we’d get an update from Mikey, complete with fresh pictures of the progress.

But my biggest shock was still to come. When we returned, Mikey asked us to go to the Lennox website and print off the installation instructions for our gas fireplace insert. As I dropped by after work to drop off the print-outs, Mikey cornered me and said, “Tell me, if I had an iPad, could I look up this type of stuff online?” I would have been less surprised if the neighbor’s cat made me a martini. Mikey is a smart guy, but an early tech adopter he’s not.

For those of us in the biz, the benefits of mobile are obvious. We’ve been crowing about mobile being a game-changer for almost a decade now, but those messages never seemed to move beyond our little circle. But some time in the last year, something fundamental switched. During that time, the Mikeys of the world have suddenly become aware of how mobile might be applicable to them.

Just this past week I did a workshop for a company that makes sandpaper. Mikey is a customer of theirs. Keeping in mind the Mikey test, I decided to check and see what percentage of search queries for their key terms came from mobile devices. Obviously Mikey isn’t the only one who got himself an iPhone. Over 20% of searches for sandpaper and other terms came from mobile devices. And that percentage has more than doubled in the past year. These are numbers you have to pay attention to.

Why is the Mikey test important? There are a number of reasons why this marks a sea change in digital marketing. First of all, Mikey is only interested in mobile because it lets him do things that are important in his job. This isn’t about checking restaurant reviews, looking up show times or updating your Facebook status; this is about getting the job done. That sets a pretty stringent bar for user experience, one that most industrial marketers haven’t even considered. They’re still struggling to make their website a place that doesn’t cause mass user suicide.

Secondly, If Mikey is looking at mobile, we’ve already moved into the steepest part of the adoption curve. That means things are going to move very quickly. Moving quickly is not something that industrial marketers are very comfortable with. If we’re already at 20%, with a doubling in the past year, expect next year to be at 40 or 50%. That is a pace of change that is going to leave a lot of marketers behind.

It’s time to think seriously about mobile — but don’t do it because I told you to.

Do it because Mikey likes it.

We’re Looking in the Wrong Place for our Attribution Models

First published June 16, 2011 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

The online landscape is getting more complex. Speaking from a marketer’s perspective, there are more points of influence that can alter a buyer’s path. At the last Search Insider Summit, John Yi from Facebook introduced us to something he called Pinball Marketing. It’s an apt analogy for the new online reality.

Hoping for a Strike

In the past, marketing was like bowling. You would build a campaign with sufficient critical mass and aim it toward your target, hoping at the end of the campaign (or lane) your aim was good enough, and the ball/campaign had enough kinetic energy (measured in REACH X FREQUENCY X AD ENGAGEMENT) to knock down all the potential customers.  If you think about marketing in this perspective, it explains the massive amount of pain traditional marketers are feeling as they pull their bowling-shoe-clad feet from the old world and gingerly dip their toes in the new. The bowler was in control (theoretically) and the success or failure of the campaign lay in her hands alone. The paradigm was simple, clean and linear, just the way we marketers like it.

The new game of marketing is much more like pinball. The intersections between a buyer’s decision path and a product’s marketing presence are many, and each can send the buyer off in a different direction. Some of those intersection points are within the marketer’s control — and some aren’t. Marketers now have to try to understand engagement and buyer impact at each of these intersections and, in the process, try to piece together a map of the buyer’s journey, assigning value in the appropriate places.

Repealing Newton’s Law

But even though the frenetic path of a pinball gets us a little closer to today’s marketing reality, it still doesn’t get us all the way, because there’s one fundamental difference: pinballs don’t have brains. Nor do they have emotions, feelings, or needs. Pinballs are just little metal spheres that obey the laws of physics.

And therein lies the difference.  How much more challenging would pinball be if, rather than relying on Newtonian physics to set the path of a ball coming off a flipper, it could decide whether it wanted to go right, left or simply stop dead in its tracks, refusing to go one inch further until you showed it a little more respect.  As physicist Murray Gell-Mann once quipped, “Imagine how hard physics would be if particles could think.”

As we try to understand what influences our buyers, we tend to apply something like the laws of physics to unraveling attribution. We apply formulas to various touchpoints, mathematically weighting their respective values. We can weight it to the first click, the last click, or divvy up the value based on some arbitrary calculation. But, in the end, as we try to figure out the new rules of marketing, we tend to forget that these balls have brains.

Go to the Source

If we want to understand what makes buyers buy, we should ask them. We should base attribution models on decision paths, not arbitrary formulas. We should walk through the buying landscape with our prospects, seeing how they respond at each intersection point. And when we build our attribution models, we should base them on psychology, not physics.

Is this approach harder than the holy grail of a universal attribution formula (or even multiple variations of said formula)? Absolutely. It’s fuzzy and sometimes messy. It tends to squirm around a lot. And unlike Newtonian physics, it depends on context. What I’m proposing is riddled with “ifs” and “maybes.” In short, it’s human in its ambiguity, and that’s really the whole point. I would much rather have ambiguity that’s somewhat right than clarity that’s completely wrong.