Digital Marketing Commentary (Now With 15% More Snark!)

Apple bought Quattro Wireless today. If you were totally out of the blogosphere, you can catch the recap on All Things D.

Seriously, I really can’t figure out what Quattro’s got that Apple couldn’t just build, or what they have that Apple can use. The AdMob acquisition by Google made sense to me, because Google can now add the AdMob inventory and infrastructure onto the rest of the Google Network. I expect it will eventually function as an extension of the Google Network, only with mobile ads instead of full size display banners. Quattro has an extensive network, but how is Apple going to leverage that? I can understand that perhaps Apple wants some of the mobile site development technology that Quattro sells, but why would Apple want mobile advertising inventory? To compete with Google?

Kara Swisher says:

“Both innovative start-ups are aimed squarely at the fast-growing market to advertise on smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android devices.”

Yes, but how does that tie in with the greater business plans of both companies? How is Apple going to leverage the (rather excellent, actually) advertising, analytics, tracking, hosting, and general campaign management of Quattro’s mobile advertising core competency? I’m stymied, folks. Anyone have any ideas?

In my role as the Director of Digital Strategy, I function as a Media Supervisor for the digital department of a small ad agency. Basically, I’m a senior media buyer, and as such, I handle most of the new publisher relationships. This includes following up on client requests, whether it be for publishers/vendors who have solicited the client, or for specific sites or media that the client wants to run on.

Usually, this is pretty simple. If a client has been solicited, I call the vendor who solicited them, introduce myself, and explain that we’re agency of record, and they’ll be dealing with me and my people. By the time I get to the part about “agency with several other direct response clients”, the vendor is happy to deal with me. I’m probably going to result in more business, through the agency, than they would get dealing direct with client. And if I’m soliciting a specific media channel to run on, I just explain that the client wants to run there, and work with their new business people as per usual. 95% of the time, this runs smoothly, and we establish a working relationship, run the media test, and go on from there.

And then there’s the exceptions, which, shockingly, includes sites that apparently don’t think they need money. Take Yelp.com. Now, I’m a user of this site in my personal life. I post reviews and use it for reference to find restaurants and hipster bars. I even have the app on my Android phone. But Yelp.com is still working out their advertising model. And it doesn’t necessarily include agencies. One client wanted to promote specific locations of their business, and we had a buy all set up to test. And then we got to the terms and conditions – which made little to no sense. To avoid going into legalese, it basically meant signing the IAB AAAA’s…and then signing the Yelp user Ts and Cs that, in some places, directly conflicted with the IAB terms. I have no problem signing those Ts and Cs as a user, but if it’s a client involved, and they’re agreeing to terms like “termination of account without notice” or conflicts in indemnification and liability with the IAB terms, there’s no way my agency can agree to that. And when I asked to get the Yelp lawyers involved, I was told, flatly, no. Their lawyers don’t have the time to work out terms with agencies for local advertising. Now, if I wanted to advertise nationally, on the landing page, that would be one thing, but if I wanted to run with packages meant for local businesses, they just weren’t set up to handle agencies. Maybe I would like to advertise nationally where there were agency agreements set up? No, I would not, because that wouldn’t deliver as effectively as the local plan we had negotiated.

So Yelp loses out on the ad dollars, not just from a few locations from one client, but from many locations nationwide for that same client, as well as any other brick and mortar clients that we might want to promote. Since this includes a major car maintenance chain, it could have added up. Why wouldn’t they work with me, as an agency, to get past the red tape? They just didn’t care about working with an agency like mine. They’re making enough money selling branded home page placements to big agencies, I suppose.

This isn’t the only example of this problem, either. Some of the hotter, bigger sites out there do not want to work through these issues. Why would they? They’re turning down Google buyout offers and watching theoretical dollars grow, and don’t need the few thousand dollars in ad revenue they could be bringing in. But what happens when the bubble pops? Aren’t the thousands of dollars from clients like mine, times dozens of agencies, worth something in the company’s long term value?

And then there’s the big sites out there I can’t even get decent service on to sell me the ad inventory. You would think that some of the bigger networks, the old portal/ISPs who are now drowning (or preparing to), who have declining revenues and layoffs, would work to make sure that we’re buying as much as we can of their inventory. I’m one small agency – how many dozens of agencies, and millions of dollars, are falling through the cracks because we can’t get the decent sales representation we need? We could run so many more media tests and buys, and spending so much more with these huge, long-suffering sites. I’m not even talking about Aol here – our reps there are happy to help us. We could be spending so much more on both Yahoo and on Bing/MSN that it’s ridiculous…if only we had the kind of support we need to max out our search campaigns and our display ads. Instead, we get half-assed sales support, and are left to flounder and throw more money at AOL or Ask – sites that do support and help us with our campaigns. I wonder if Yahoo’s shareholders knew how dreadful the post-layoff sales support is, if they would demand that Yahoo hire some more sales people, get it together, and help my agency spend more wherever they can on the site or in the search.

And then, finally, there’s the publishers who just don’t get that they can’t go around the agency. I had a vendor try to convince the client to go around us last week, so that the client could get the inventory without the agency markup. I’ve had vendors contact clients multiple times when either we don’t move forward with them fast enough (usually due to test budget timing), or when their tests fail and we don’t renew the buy. Thankfully, we have loyal clients who trust us, as their buyers, to make sure that every opportunity possible is explored and tested (I do due diligence on every publisher, vendor and media opportunity that crosses my inbox). But while I’ll still buy media from those kind of sales people, provided it’s good media that’s in the clients best interest, a lot of my colleagues or peers in the industry won’t. Contacting clients behind our backs – or even in front of us – never wins us any points. And I fail to understand why the few extra dollars that publisher might make would be worth losing the entire deal by annoying the agency responsible for the buy.

As a media buyer, it amazes me how often I have trouble getting people to just take my money. Unfortunately, those publishers I have the hardest time with, are often the ones that will deliver the best for the client. In which case, I’m a salesperson trying to sell them on why they should sell to me. It’s tough. Maybe I should just start throwing more cash into networks and hope for the best.

A colleague and I were recently discussing how we watch a lot of online video. Which we do. We’ve been running online video campaigns lately for multiple clients, and have been explaining that, while most people DO watch online video, they may not watch as much as we do, because, as internet professionals, we’re ahead of the curve.

But then, it occurred to me – at the rate of growth, are we ahead of the curve in online video consumption? Because I think that the curve has caught up with us. And like social networking, or listening to music, how long is it before the majority of TV viewers start watching online more than they do the old-fashioned box? There may be only a handful of nerds NOW who have hooked their computers up to TVs to watch Hulu or Veoh online, but it could well be the majority very soon.

Where is the curve in online video right now, and is that why money is being poured in to it?

This is a unique idea – to make an entire website out of a clickable YouTube video. Does it make the company look crazysexycool? Yes. Is it something I would do for my clients? Maybe not. But it’s certainly a first, and firsts, in this day & age, are rare.

I’ve been on the road lately, so I fell behind in my “Mad Men”. But I had to pause the TiVO when I heard Don Draper say, in last week’s episode:

“If you don’t like what is being said, change the conversation.”

That’s the most basic tenet of social media: change the conversation. You’re going to be talked about anyways, but if you’re involved, you can shape and shift the conversation around you. Instead of seeing change as bad, Don Draper goes on to explain, we need to greet it with joy and hope. In 1963, this means a lot of PR and working with journalism; in 2009, it would probably mean setting up an entire campaign on the theme of “Madison Square Garden: Shining Beacon To The World” and rolling out all the digital media buys and social media work to go with it.

Also, since I coined the phrase “response opportunity” as part of my “change the conversation” presentation to a client months ago, does that make me the Don Draper of my own small boutique agency employer? (Only, y’know, with less infidelity & stuff).

Best Buy is buying national advertising for a new “HEY LOOK WE’RE ON TWITTER WE’RE SO COOL” campaign, which now directs users to Best Buy’s “Twelpforce” page. Best Buy clearly decided that they wanted to:

(a) use Twitter for customer service (like @comcastcares)
(b)direct their national advertising call attention to that strategy.

To do this, Best Buy attempted to direct users to twitter.com/twelpforce. Hey, AdAge, make a note here: add this to your total free advertising estimates for Twitter. That’s basically what advertising a non-branded Twitter URL in a national spot is, after all – especially when you haven’t paid “Twitter” to put your logo or info on their landing page so that the majority of people, who don’t know Twitter and won’t type in the /twelpforce part, have no way to find or remember where they’re supposed to go.

Besides, while @twelpforce is the landing page (thankfully, they didn’t promote the @username format), the “Twelpforce” is actually an automated aggregate of posts that have the hashtag #twelpforce. This allows Best Buy to utilize the Twitter infrastructure to generate a running stream of customer service questions and answers. And instead of being reliant on one employee, as Comcast has, Best Buy has multiple employees who are voluntarily getting involved to answer questions – resulting in a round the clock hive mind of answers.

Twelpforce in itself is a great idea, but the national advertising is not. The Twelpforce concept isn’t even listed on the home page of Best Buy, and there’s no way to get from the Twitter page or even bestbuy.com/twelpforce (the aggregate page containing all tweets with #twelpforce hashtags) to the Best Buy offers and sales. If you’re going to blow money on national advertising media buying, at least put in some sort of connection to your actual business model, and encourage conversions to purchase – or in store visits.

Finally, Twelpforce isn’t going to solve the problem Best Buy is providing a solution for, in the minds of its customers and audience. The problem is that Best Buy is seen as being a big box store with crappy customer knowledge and poorly trained staff. They earned that reputation, which isn’t as bad as Circuit City’s was, but is still a negative impression. Twelpforce is a step to presenting not only a solution to Best Buy customers, but it’s inaccessible to the majority of Americans, who don’t use or understand Twitter. If everyone WAS familiar with Twitter, and could use this tool effectively, it would go a long way towards making customers feel more secure in their purchases, and definitely create a relationship that would result in repeat business and higher lifetime value for each customer – provided you can get them to buy at the store in the first place. It may help get people in the doors if they know they will get long-term support through Twelpforce or similar, but it doesn’t replace the basic sales training Best Buy fails to provide their staff in the first place. I never set foot in a Best Buy unless it is an emergency where I don’t have time to buy whatever it is I need online. If I’m going to buy my electronics in a place where I get zero tech support at time of purchase, I may as well do it online where the pricing is better.

Of course, I used to work for the Canadian version of Best Buy, Future Shop – which is now OWNED by Best Buy. Twelve years ago, when I worked there, while in college, the staff were trained more on sales than on tech. I’m a bit biased here, and my information on how well Best Buy staff are trained on tech may be out of date.

I think Twelpforce is a small piece of a bigger solution to Best Buy’s lack-of-support image. But it needs to be called out as part of that solution, and more needs to be added to make it a working solution. Twitter is hard to navigate because it’s a linear stream of text – forums, organized by topic, would be easier. A Facebook page might also be a good fit for the Twelpforce, where the issues raised on Twitter could be presented in an organized, open discussion format. Or a customer support wiki, which is also easily navigated. But I think Best Buy also needs to layer in more expectation for positive in-store experience, in addition to promising post-purchase support through volunteer employees. Come on, Best Buy! Pioneer some social media I can be proud of!