Literally and figuratively, Nike is taking the concept of getting people involved to a new level with their 'Chosen' effort. Fans not only get to submit videos of extreme sports and their tricks, they have the opportunity to essentially become a Nike-sponsored athlete for a day. Great stuff. Here's the trailer ...
Yes, yes, and yes. Squared.
From Clickz (see original article here)
In Analytics, the Price of Light Is Less Than the Cost of Darkness
Neil Mason | April 26, 2011
A while back I heard that sophisticated marketing companies such as the world’s leading brands spent about 10 percent of their marketing budget on research and measurement. Irrespective whether the number is accurate or not, it’s a good benchmark I think – 10 percent feels about right. These leading companies have been marketing brands for over 100 years and during that time they have come to understand the importance and relevance to their business in understanding the effectiveness of their activities.
I wonder what the equivalent proportion is for leading online businesses? How much do online businesses invest in measuring and tracking the effectiveness of their online activities? I suspect the answer to that is generally “too little, too late.” We all know companies that have a reputation for using analytics as part of their strategic armoury and have invested heavily in analytical technologies and have built up formidable analytic teams. These are the companies that people travel to see and hear from at events like eMetrics and Exchange. However, these companies are the exception rather than the norm.
My consulting activities with clients and prospects often trigger ideas for this column. For instance, I visited a company last week that had recently appointed a user experience manager who is responsible for Web analytics and site optimization. The client had been busy over the past six months implementing a solid and robust Web measurement tracking program. This had involved completely reimplementing their Web analytics tool, hiring a Web analyst, revisiting all the business requirements, and producing new reports and dashboards. He had also hired someone to specifically focus on site optimization and to run their testing and experimentation program. They had been busy laying the foundations, and investments had been made in people, processes, and technology. I could see how quickly they would begin to reap the rewards.
At the other end of scale, I’ve also been working with a client who is developing a brand new site. New sites don’t come cheaply, but senior stakeholders in the business are reluctant to invest in the appropriate measurement and analytics. The new site is close to launch and we’re now trying to shoe horn in analytics requirements into the tail end of the development process. They use a free tool that can cope with most of their needs but not all of them. And despite the significant investment in the new site, getting a modest budget to develop the data collection specification and the reporting configuration has been difficult.
These two experiences highlight the difference between companies that “get it” and those that don’t.
For the companies that struggle to recognize the value of investing in decent measurement and analytics, I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes from A.C. Nielsen. Arthur Nielsen used to say that “The price of light is less than the cost of darkness.” The point is elegantly made – it’s not a question of whether you can afford to invest in measurement, it’s a question of whether you can afford not to. The point of measurement and analytics is to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of decision making and to reduce the risk of failure. It also leads to better accountability, which is possibly why sometimes it’s not welcomed with open arms.
Determining or justifying the return on investment in analytics can be hard. In some cases, like multivariate testing, the return on investment can be very explicit and indeed that’s how the technologies are often sold. However, working out the ROI on an analytics team and general analytics technologies can be harder, particularly in non-transactional environments. But there is always “a cost of darkness,” and the trick is to try and work out what that cost might be. For transactional environments it might be not knowing how to improve the conversion ratio, for media environments it might be around not understanding how to monetize the traffic more effectively, and for service environments it might be about not understanding which content is helping to deflect calls from the contact center.
Although hard to prove, I believe that even small investments in measurement and analytics can return a significant ROI, particularly in the early days of adoption. Perhaps “The price of light is less than the cost of darkness” should be in the footer in every business case for investment funds for measurement and analytics.
Great article from the beginning of the year from Mashable. To read the article with graphics and comments, click here.
4 PREDICTIONS FOR WEB DESIGN IN 2011
January 1, 2011
by Jacob Gube
There’s never been a more exciting time to be a web designer; but being a member of this fast-paced, persistently metamorphic profession, I’ll probably end up saying this at the end of every year until I retire.
1. Mobile Web Goes Mainstream
The mobile web has been the dominant subject in web design for the past 2+ years. A quick peek at Dribbble, a social media site where designers share their projects, will show you that many of us are working on mobile device apps and interfaces.
However, it’s still safe to say that most websites have given little to no attention to their mobile web presence. Most of the innovative mobile device web designs we’re seeing are on big, industry-leading, tech-centric sites such as Amazon.com, Google, and Digg, or niche sites targeted toward web designers (such as A List Apart).
Where we’re not seeing mobile web design implementations are in run-of-the-mill company and corporate sites. Small- and medium-sized businesses, Fortune 500 companies, and government websites are sadly falling behind instead of in line.
But with the web design industry abuzz with new specifications like HTML5 and CSS3, and cutting-edge frontiers like the mobile web, I can’t help but wonder what the future will look like in the new year. Here are four predictions for the future of web design.
However, companies are beginning to see the rewards of meeting the needs of mobile device users. In the years to come, there will be a significant shift in attention toward the mobile web presence in all websites.
There are already several mobile web tools you can use for creating a mobile web version of your site; it’s time companies seriously look into implementing these cost-effective and relatively simple solutions as either a stop-gap solution or a permanent one.
2. Web Design as a Profession Will Become Specialized
Web designers are increasingly contending with many roles and tasks. What used to be just HTML, CSS and designing static brochure sites for the desktop has extended to designing web-enabled solutions for mobile devices, web apps, rich Internet application (RIA) interfaces, content management systems (CMS) and much more.
We’re tasked with making harmonious designs that carry a website’s brand across all platforms and situations — designs that establish the company’s brand whether it’s being viewed in a 28-inch desktop monitor or an Android smartphone.
This leads to two things. Job security is one, but the other is the need to distribute these tasks so that we can specialize and excel in one specific area.
In the future, there will be greater stratification of the role of web designer. Right now, web app designers, mobile app designers and traditional website designers are clustered under the umbrella title of “web designer.”
Just as the profession of being a doctor and the field of medicine are branched out into sub-fields such as oncology, dentistry and neurology, we may see a similar division in the field of web design. I can see specializations such as mobile web designer, content management system designer (with further sub-specializations such as WordPress theme designer or Drupal theme designer), and RIA interface designer becoming a reality and being in demand as we move forward.
3. Simpler Aesthetics for Websites
There’s been a sweeping trend in the way new websites are being visually designed. Web designers are forgoing complex visuals and overdone design techniques, opting instead for clean and simple web designs with a high attention to detail, a greater emphasis on typography — with the help of web fonts and the upcoming open web font format (WOFF) specifications — and stronger interaction design for richer and more captivating user experiences.
Not only that, but simpler aesthetics means lighter web pages, which translates to a better experience on mobile devices where Internet connectivity is lower in speed and less reliable when compared to the traditional broadband connection, and where screen sizes are too small to fit excessive design elements. This web design trend of “less is more” seems like it will extend, if not dominate, the aesthetic tastes of web designers in the near future.
4. Web Design Will Replace Print Design (Even More)
Print designers are typically tasked with brand identity design, such as logo design, letterheads, business cards and other print materials.
However, companies are seeing the great opportunities and effectiveness of business networking online. Businesses are a lot more concerned about their brand’s visibility on the web. Business cards are being replaced by social networking profiles on Twitter and Facebook. Newsletters, brochures and company letterheads sent out by snail mail are being dismissed for HTML e-mails and e-newsletters.
We’ll be witnessing design budgets earmarked toward traditionally print-based branding materials shift toward web design solutions such as Twitter profile page designs, Facebook fan page designs and HTML e-mail and e-newsletter template designs.
Good piece from clickz.com regarding marketing priorities moving into the new year.
7 Big Ideas All Marketers Must Grasp
December 23, 2010
by Aaron Kahlow
www.clickz.com
As marketers, the end of Q2 means time to start thinking about the fall planning and budget season. For the folks at the past 10 cities of the Online Marketing Summit, there are some resounding themes and ideas worth sharing. Here are the top seven killer ideas for fall 2010 based on discussions led by marketing experts from around the nation:
7. Prioritize social: It blew me away when I put the top experts to the test and asked, "What would you take off the plate of most marketers if forced to choose one?" and the answer universally was social media. Social freakin' media! We are being pounded with articles and Webinars saying "Do it, do it, do it!" and these same experts are saying social media shouldn't be a priority.
My take: Agreed, it's quite distracting and until you have the foundation of a solid website, and search, e-mail strategy, and analytics in place, your time is put to highest and best use on those areas vs. say, creating another fan page on Facebook.
6. Is privacy overrated?: Since there's been so much buzz about privacy in the news regarding Facebook and Google, we had to address this as well. With much debate, there seems to be a consensus that as marketers and consumers we have much more to gain by being open and transparent than trying to protect our privacy. Facebook having data on us and serving us more targeted ads or Google using our information for personalized results seems to be a decent trade off.
My take: By being a real person and connecting on a real level with business constituents, you can go so much further in building lasting and new relationships than say, someone seeing a post on your wall that is less than flattering. As once was said: "Get comfortable with yourself, then get comfortable with yourself on Facebook."
5. Mobile neophyte: Apple may have changed the game with the iPad and iPhone, but what is the value of creating another app? As long as you go into mobile under your testing and research budget, then you will be in good shape, as the return is a long shot.
My take: This is a medium we must figure out, but let someone else make the mistakes, then invest when the path is clear.
4. Analytics death: There has been a strong push back on analytics with marketers. It's not to say that analytics isn't important, but if all decisions came back to what the analytics told us, then marketers wouldn't be needed. Creativity, gut instinct, anecdotal data, why customers do what they do, and emotional response cannot be addressed by looking in rear view mirrors of analytics reports.
My take: Like all things in life, it's a balance. Yes, let analytics help steer you in the right direction and keep it all in the bigger perspective of a long-term plan, not just short-term ROI.
3. Real time: Real-time search in Google results is brutally difficult to harness and not even the search engines have it figured out. Trying to catch the wave of getting seen in real time is like trying to catch the biggest wave of the day while surfing...just catch the wave you can and don't worry about the biggest, because the ride is short anyway. Basically, our expert friends at OMS are telling us, keep an eye on it, but there's not a whole lot to be done there, and wait till Google gives some guidelines. Because, by definition an algorithm can't be served up in real time.
My take: Tweet away, but don't think it's going to get you more visibility in the search results. Tweet for the sake of your Twitter followers and buzz.
2. Secret sauce: Taking directly from our workshop instructor, Joe Pulizzi, find your "Secret Sauce." As he defines it, that's the intersection of what your customers are really looking for and your unique value proposition. Focus your content (e.g., blog) strategy around such and then you'll have some compelling and engaging content worth touting.
My take: No need to do any social media efforts unless you have some good content to share. Just don't do it. You'll denigrate your brand and water down what's really important.
And, drum roll please...the number one idea you must grasp for 2010 is...
1. Education: Yes, my own personal favorite, but what it really means is that no one tool, no one consultant, or idea, or new tactic will get you to the next level of execution and ROI. It's a commitment to educating your team, your company, and of most of all yourself that will really make the difference. It motivates us all when we learn something new, it builds consensus when everyone is coming in from the same understanding, and it allows for good decision making. It's simply the difference between doing it and doing it right.
My take: Well, that was my take, so we'll leave it at that.
I look forward to seeing the rest of you on our East Coast (Boston, NYC, Philly, DC, Charlotte, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami) and Texas (Austin, Dallas, Houston) swing of the Online Marketing Summit and promise many more insights to come.
How do you take a story of imagination on steroids and make it more creative? You put it on an iPad and set your mind free. Listening to White Rabbits by Jefferson Airplane will also help.
