Global Advertising Leaders Get Wake-Up Call

April 9, 2008 By Leave a Comment

The Marketing Consigliere loves events in his “backyard,” and this week’s International Advertising Association’s 41st World Congress in Washington D.C. was a breath of fresh air.

IAA 41st World Congress

After the main keynotes and presentations, he was glad to see that Advertising Age gave it good coverage. The most important walk-away is summarized in the title of Ira Teinowitz’s April 8th article: “Digital Engagement Top of Mind at IAA World Congress,” and its subtitle: “Online is Not Just a Sales Channel, and Technology Will Only Increase Engagement with Consumers.”

PRECISELY!  The Marketing Consigliere will say this until he is blue in the face: Online is a way for Marketers to gather, clean, store, share, and act upon data that DRIVES REVENUE.  You do this by interacting with customers.

MediaCartAmong the more interesting speakers who are luminaries in the industry was Microsoft President of Platforms and Services Kevin Johnson (His Capzle can be found by going to “Mon Apr 7th, 2008 2:47 PM”). Microsoft showcased its MediaCart technology, which serves messages, information, or coupons on related products to customers when they scan items as they shop throughout a store.

This technology is the type of Network-Centric Marketing that will allow advertisers to leverage creative content in an interactive way, specifically when consumers can get value from it and react in positive ways. It is not intrusive and relative easy to use. If it currently is not configured to collect and transfer data into a repository, it probably won’t be long before it can. Bravo! to Microsoft for helping get Marketers closer to the point-of-sale.

Filed Under: Advertising, Agencies, Business Intelligence Tagged With: , , , , ,

Don’t Let Dashboards Drive You Crazy

April 7, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Alfa Dashboard

There are days The Marketing Consigliere  misses his Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce. Mainly when it’s sunny – not raining or snowing!  It was a 1983 beauty – no airbags, no satellite radio, no GPS, no cup holder, no back window brakelight, no heated seats, no OnStar, no theft alarm – a car from a much simpler time (Remember when gas was $1.00 per gallon?).

Unlike the reputation of the brands of most Italian cars, his was both reliable and relatively economical – It was a great little four-banger. On nice days he could put the ragtop down, have a 360° view, and get from point “A” to point “B” with the simple analog dashboard that showed himspeed, engine rpm, oil pressure and water temperature.

Many businesspeople in leadership roles, especially those in SMBs, need to keep it simple when it comes to dashboarding. Yes, with business intelligence and data mining there are many things to report that would otherwise be undiscovered, but keeping it simple facilitates the speed with which today’s executives need to be decisive. TDWI (The Data Warehouse Institute™) is a great source for information on BI, data mining and dashboards.

Of course, determining the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for marketing and sales – such metrics as new customers, time to close, cost of customer acquisition, etc. – is important. Once the KPIs to measure have been defined, the dashboard that displays them to a user needs to have three major functions: 1. Monitoring for quick real-time viewing; 2. Analysis to identify root causes of variance; and 3. Collaboration so various users can discuss the data before taking action.

A good dashboard will also present three layers of information to users: 1. Graphical, abstracted views of situation and trending; 2. Summaries of dimensional data that can be cross tabbed on an ad-hoc basis; and 3. Actionable information with adequate detail.

Lastly, there are three types of essential dashboards for the enterprise: 1. Operational dashboards for mission-critical operational processes with frequently refreshed data; 2. Tactical dashboards to track deparmental performance updated on a weekly or monthly routine; and 3. Strategic dashboards to monitor the effectiveness of the enterprise as a whole.

The Three Threes of Performance Dashboards poster by TDWIWhile companies are learning to use widgets and mashups to serve as a low level of tracking performance, they have a long way to go before matching the robustness of true dashboard offerings from vendors such as Cognos, Oracle, Microstrategy or SAP. These and other companies have chipped in to help TDWI create a poster that spells out what these dashboards do. While it was offered last year, there may be some left that you can have sent to you.

There are many more tools out there for the SMB that are affordable, such as Salesforce.com, with built-in dashboarding capabilities. The Marketing Consigliere encourages you to check them out as solutions that help you align marketing and sales. But remember, a dashboard can tell you what’s going on but you’re the one with your hands on the wheel and your foot on the pedal…

Filed Under: B2B Marketing, Business Intelligence, Data Mining, Leadership, SMB Marketing, Widgets/Mashups/RIA Tagged With: , , ,

Il Sottovoce – The Whisper – V

April 4, 2008 By Leave a Comment

The Marketing Consigliere

Meglio poco che niente.

Half a loaf is better than no bread.

Filed Under: Il Sottovoce - The Whisper, Leadership, Marketing Tagged With:

The Future of InfoTech = The Future of Marketing

April 3, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Bob Gourley, the CTO and Founder of Crucial Point LLC, is a former CTO for the Defense Intelligence Agency.  If anyone knows C4ISR, it is him.  The Marketing Consiglire encourages CEOs and CMOs to read his April 2, 2008 entry in his blog, CTO Vision – “What’s Next in Enterprise IT.”  There are clear implications for Net-Centric Marketing.

Bob Gourley’s Future of InfoTech

Of particular note is a downloadable PowerPoint presentation of his personal predictions of change in IT to help leadership “noodle through the impact of some key technologies on our future.”  So don’t be a wet noodle – check it out and think about it with a C4ISR Marketing perspective.

Filed Under: C4ISR Marketing, Leadership, Marketing, Net-Centric Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Marketing to the Feds at FOSE

April 2, 2008 By 2 Comments

FOSE

The FOSE show this year as a whole was not anything to write home about; many from the circles that The Marketing Consigliere knows avoided it this year. Nevertheless he wanted to see if any net-centric marketing products or services were being “Fed-peddled.” It seemed like every fifth booth either was some sort of document imaging and management platform or a device for shredding hard drives.

But in this decent B2B (or rather B2G) show, there was a glimmer of net-centricity.  There was still a military marketing presence, but the C4ISR The Marketing Consigliere means is the marketing type of course, not the military. Of particular note:

Turning Point Device

Turning Technologies, LLC featured a great enhancement for Microsoft PowerPoint – their TurningPoint audience response system integrates within the PowerPoint application and allows audiences to participate in presentations by submitting real-time responses to questions using a credit-card sized keypad. The keypad transmits the answer to a USB device which plugs into the presenter’s laptop or desktop. The data can be saved and plotted for later or shown to the crowd. Barry Gromada, one of their Account Executives, was gracious enough to give me a quick demonstration. It seems it could be a great tool for gathering data in a network-centric way.

Vovici Logo

Vovici, whose advertisements have prolifereated the major marketing trade publications, was at FOSE touting their “Enterprise Feedback Management” capabilities. Their online survey capabilities have come a long way from when I dealt with them as a company called WebSurveyor. The robustness and ease of use has improved. The Marketing Consigliere loves the application, but hates (after all, he’s a Consigliere) how they mangle up the pronunciation of their name (they say “vo-vee-see,” not the “vo-vee-chee” that Italians and Latin enthusiasts would naturally think – how much did they pay a branding consultancy for that fiasco? – not pronounced “fee-as-so!”). But don’t worry, Vovicisti (vo-vee-chee-stee), The Marketing Consigliere will try to leverage your application in the future and recommend others to do the same…

MURV-100Physical Optics Corporation gave him his “Aha!” moment when he spoke to Jim Apple, the Director of BizDev (Homeland Security). They have a camera and lighting mounted on a briefcase-sized robotic platform that can used to inspect the underside of motor vehicles for explosives. The image quality of the video was quite impressive. (Note: The Marketing Consigliere couldn’t find a graphic on their website and has substituted a similar robot for illustrative purposes)

Why not use this platform at stadium or mall parking lots and conduct “courtesy inspections” of visitors’ automobiles? Working with the customer, a Jiffy Lube or Meineke or even an independent could make a digital video of underneath a customer’s car or truck, make a quick diagnosis to see if there are transmission or oil pan leaks, etc., and then wirelessly schedule an appointment. Or if the customer is not around, leave a little card with a unique URL in the windshield for them to go to later to see the video for themselves. It could be a great publicity stunt and possibly generate business for the company that has the wherewithal to execute.

Is there anyone out there who could monetize on this C4ISR Marketing idea?

Filed Under: B2B Marketing, C4ISR Marketing, Marketing, Net-Centric Marketing Tagged With: , , ,
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