89% of Consumers Shop Online for Information

Advergirl has cited a few interesting facts on her blog about consumers online shopping behaviors from Comscore. According to Comscore, 89% of consumers shop online for product information before making a purchasing decision at a brick and mortar. This seems a bit high to me but still the fundamental idea behind it is very intersting.

These numbers seem to show a seismic shift in consumers behaviors and it only reinforces the notion that brand equity on the web is as important now than ever.

The new consumer model seems to reflect that purchase decisions start on the web and end as offline purchases in-store. What does this mean? It means it is more important than ever, to integrate online and offline brand strategies. Campaigns that are not integrated run the risk of disconnecting the consumer from the brand's equity and losing the purchase.

How does a brand successfully keep its story consistent through all the various channels today? First, it should decide early on the narrative it wants to tell and make it compelling. A compelling story will inspire buzz and reverberate into further social circles and that means increased penetration. Second it should assign the task of brand police to someone who has been on the team since the beginning. Its important that your policeman knows the narrative and can help to inform the rest of your company. There are many other steps and custom processes to branding yourself but these are a good start.

It may seem daunting but with proper planning and a little legwork and research your brand can translate its message into a great story and not risk losing the battle in the new market.

How much gross is too much gross?

As Adverblog pointed out the other day, this is an interestingly grotesque advergame for an Italian website promoting the show Dexter. (you can find the link here) I navigated to the site and enjoyed trying to play the game but my italian is simply lacking so I ended up without any fingers pretty quickly. The interesting thing here is that Showtime has taken an interesting approach to a rather taboo subject - serial killing.

(Full disclosure: I am hooked on the show and find it to be really unique and funny)

Advergame's to me normally are somewhat boring and full of the usual monotony like the hero figure trouncing a dragon. This advergame however is particularly interesting because it makes light of losing your digits in a somewhat engaging way. As the advertising paradigm continues to shift its this type of attention to engagement that will thrive while the interrupt method will "sleep with the fishes."

I am back again with a Cheers to Hey! Nielsen.

I have been on a long hiatus but I promise this time to try and keep up with regular blog postings. I have added a really cool widget to my blog (full disclosure: I worked on this project) from the Hey! Nielsen site.

The site combines all your favorite entertainment properties and allows you to engage other like-minded people in a forum that will make a difference. So I encourage you to go there, sign-up and participate to have your voice heard. It is really a great step forward for the Nielsen Company and represents cutting-edge techniques to measure data.

Finally, its been a real pleasure to work on the project and it has turned out beautifully. That does not mean there is not much work left to do but its evolving nicely into a great place for opinions. I will be paying close attention to this site and the community as it evolves.

So cheers to Hey! Nielsen its been a pleasure and I look forward to continuing my efforts there.

Tourist Travel Maps + Savannah Tourist Map

Today I entered the world of "domaining" for money. I researched and learned a little before settling on my first domain purchase. After mulling, www.internationalcitymaps.com I decided to go with www.touristtravelmaps.com and www.savannahtouristmap.com. It seems like a good starting point and I will be setting it up most of the night.

I am excited to be another member of this very crowded field but am anticipating doing well. I will update in the blog from time to time.

Twitter Thoughts

I have for awhile now been hearing various comments about the Twitter craze. Friends say its great and others say "I don't see the use." Love it or hate it, Twitter is here to stay. I have been using it for about 4 months now to varying degrees of success.

The other day at work a colleague unfamiliar with Twitter asked me what I thought about the platform. I was unable to think of any immediate reasons that this form of distribution was useful to him.

After this conversation, I started to think about Twitter and wonder "why is it so popular?" Distribution of content is definitely an important factor of the new web. Consumers' thirst to have content at multiple touchpoints is expanding and Twitter is feeding their thirst.

The picture above shows LAFD's highly creative and innovative way of using Twitter to inform LA of useful information. Imagine a scenario where the FD is posting ongoing alerts of forest fires, or safety information. Twitter is able to push this information to SMS, and web areas therefore enlarging their digital footprint.

Delta.com

Delta Airlines fresh out of bankruptcy and looking smart with a new brand makeover disappointed me at a number of touchpoints this week. The first was a cynical interaction I had while taking the train to work.

The signs that line the top of the cars always strike my interest and I often wonder if they are effective. I can see some definite brand equity but not much ROI but that is for another post. This particular car was lined with Delta ads and I love to read headlines so I naturally read them. One said something about a flight you would want to spend extend. I get the irony of the ad but the core irony is that I was stuck on a Delta flight for 3 extra hours recently. I assure you I did no want another minute on this flight or any Delta one!

This ad was funny but to me it just underscored one of the worse aspects of Delta that you sit around and wait. What marketing genius came up with this one? The same guy that decided to market an automobile in a Spanish speaking country that was called Nova(or No Go)? Ha.

That was the first erosion of my faith in a brand that was badly damaged but slowly moving up. Second was when I tried to redeem a voucher given to me for volunteering to get off a flight. I decided to use the website to book a flight to Savannah but only to find that Delta made no mention of redeeming vouchers.

My inital reaction was to call and wait to speak to someone but I figured keep at the website. I continued to navigate through this site and eventually reached my limit. No mention of voucher redemption anywhere!

I called customer service and after 25 minutes of being on hold and being shuttled to different departments I was talking to a live person. She informed that delta.com was not Safari compatible! Can you believe that? No mention on the homepage of site requirements it took almost 30 minutes to find this out.

In today's age of consumer empowerment, why are airlines consistently aloud to treat us as steerage class passengers with no consequence? I have to say some airlines do listen and they are getting it. (read JetBlue) Most though treat us as they want and we take it. I wonder how long this will last before they feel the backlash.

Delta, how long before you start listening?

Effective Viral Videos

Engagement! Its an easy concept. Give the consumer something to engage them. The video above is very effective use of something I wanted to post. Why? Because it engaged me on a personal level. I remember countless days working at an ad agency when you feel like making ads were exactly like this video.

I have not written a blog in days but this particular video engaged me so much on a personal level, I decided to write a new one. I see so many videos nowadays that are slapped up on the web with just as much thought as the advertisements of old.

I am only left to wonder one thing. Will this online video movement become the TV commercial of old? By this I mean, will we become so oversaturated by second rate videos, that we will eventually tune them out. It did not take long for consumers to tune out banner ads so I have to believe if marketers do not wake up and start creating compelling online video campaigns consumers will tune them out.