September 28, 2009

Share ideas so you can make them real

Filed under: Advertising, Design — Jordan English Gross @ 12:23 am

Scott Belsky says you should share your ideas liberally and I agree.  My best ideas are always int he intersection of conversation.  Scott says the benefits from accountability and feedback outweigh the risk that someone steals your idea.

Many productive creative professionals and entrepreneurs claim that they become more committed to their ideas after telling people about them! The fact is that great ideas are plentiful, and very few people have the discipline and resources to make them happen. When you feel accountable to others, you are more likely to stay focused.

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September 27, 2009

Jordan English Gross and Dorthy.com mentioned on Internetnews.com

Filed under: Social Media, search — Tags: , — Jordan English Gross @ 3:43 pm

Yahoo is not sitting still under new CEO Carol Bartz.

The company announced major enhancements to its display advertising services today designed to make the ads more relevant to Web surfers and how searches are conducted.

The new features for advertisers include “search retargeting,” which is designed to tie relevant display ads to search activities. For example, a user searching for “sneakers” might see an ad for Footlocker. This is similar to what ads tied to keywords do, but Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) also said its new “enhanced retargeting” can bring relevant ads to users as they move between different Yahoo sites, not just for search.

“Search retargeting is only available from Yahoo,” David Zinman, vice president and general manager of display advertising at Yahoo, told InternetNews.com. “The theme here is that marketers are looking for ways in this economic climate to make their marketing dollars go further. Our announcements today are all related to that, to take the capabilities Yahoo has in search and display and deliver better performance.”

At least one analyst thinks it’s a great idea in theory, but Yahoo will need to be careful about how it’s implemented.

“Obviously relevance is important to advertisers and consumers,” Gartner analyst Andrew Frank told InternetNews.com. “Yahoo is now going to use search behavior to target display ads and that’s consistent with a long-standing theme of search display convergence that many companies are aiming for. This announcement puts meat on the bone.”

But Frank said too much relevance could be a turn off to some users who prefer to believe, whether true or not, their searching and surfing activities on the Web are anonymous. “I can see where some people might think search activities that lead to certain types of display ads appearing crosses a line,” said Frank.

“It’s obviously less objectionable in some categories; say you’re looking for a car or flat screen TV. But let’s say you’re looking for a divorce lawyer or psychiatrist. You don’t necessarily want related ads appearing, particularly if the computer’s being shared,” Frank continued. “Yahoo will have to have controls on how this is implemented and I’m sure they have a privacy plan. They don’t want to freak out their users.”

But Zinman notes the ad retargeting program is designed for major brands and is administered by Yahoo in conjunction with the advertiser. “We manage the campaign on their behalf,” said Zinman, who joined the company in 2007 as part of its $300 million acquisition of Blue Lithium ad network.

While Yahoo has engaged in behavioral targeting of ads for years, Zinman notes there are a number of categories where the technology is not applied because that could be considered an invasion of privacy, such as health-related ads. Yahoo’s privacy policy also gives users the ability to opt-out of behavioral ad campaigns.

Yahoo’s latest ad rollout arrives as the rumor mill awaits an expected management reorganization that could be announced any day.

Display ads are one area where Yahoo has an edge over its bigger Web rival Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), which dominates the market for text ads related to keyword searches. With more than 10 percent of the online display ad market in the U.S., Yahoo has about twice the share of AOL and Microsoft, according to Comscore figures released last August. Google sites have only a 1.5 share according to Comscore.

The richer content in display ads (graphics, images, video) are valued by advertisers as they tend to hold the user’s attention longer than a simple text ad.

Yahoo, which announced the new feature at an ad conference in Florida sponsored by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, was not available for comment by press time. Yahoo did note in a release that advertisers will have control over where and when an ad is shown, including what time of day and day of the week, and even what age and gender they’d like to reach. Different time and demographic segments will be available via an online bidding process.

One early user, Rico de Leon, senior director of Media Services Operations, at University of Phoenix, counted himself impressed.

He said the Search Retargeting display product helped his company achieve an effective cost per lead that was at the same level as search backend goals and 50 percent lower than our regular display retargeting efforts. That ads up to a display campaign performing close to the company’s search campaign.

The next step beyond ads?

Jordan English Gross, whose company Dorthy.com, is developing a new search engine, gives Yahoo credit for extending what it’s search engine can deliver.

“Seeing companies like Yahoo using enhanced search technologies to target users is good for the entire industry, especially considering that almost half of all searches are repeated,” Gross told InternetNews.com.

“The next tick in this evolution will be to stop relying on display ads and moving targeted, rich media placement into the overall online experience.”

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September 19, 2009

5 Steps to Getting Unstuck and Pursuing Your Goals

Filed under: Advertising, Art, Branding, Digital, Social Media — Jordan English Gross @ 2:48 pm

MashableMashable is no stranger to the hundreds of Getting Things Done (GTD) services out there, each one more helpful than the next in keeping your to-do lists handy and tidy. But with each new tool, we’re looking for services that will help us get closer to actually achieving our goals rather than just, well, making lists.

Step One – Think About The Big Picture.

It’s all too easy to get stuck in the list-making stage. Luckily, there are a number of tools on the web that can help you move toward actually achieving your goals. From search and discovery apps that can infuse you with new ideas to sites that help you organize information into action plans, it’s worth looking online at resources that can help get you “unstuck” and back to making progress on your goals.

Instead of getting bogged down in all the little tasks and keywords, try to get a real sense of what exactly it is you want to achieve. Ask yourself what the big picture is, and don’t be afraid to dream big. Instead of “find my old running shoes,” try adding “I want to run a marathon… in Maui” to your to-do list.

Thinking about the big picture will free you to focus on doing exactly the things that need to get done in order to attain you primary objective, rather than getting overwhelmed by the small stuff.

Step 2: Use Search to Focus Your Goals.

Search and discovery is a key step throughout the achievement process because it provides focus to your interests as they evolve. But given the vast amount of available information, it’s also the one that can weigh you down the most when looking at goooog-illions of results. One way to avoid this information overload is by putting search services to work for you, by having them deliver more meaningful, personal results based on what you want.

hunch.com

hunch.com

Try taking your goals to services that provide more than just a list of keyword responses, but can help you generate real ideas surrounding what you’re trying to achieve. Check out new services like BingBing orHunchHunch that are trying to take this approach of giving real answers. Just think – the less time you spend searching through search results, the more time you can spend actually working on your goals.

Step 3: Organize Your Results.

Start keeping a record of what you’ve learned from the search and discovery process, and save yourself time from having to start over in future searches. Services that are oldies but goodies like DiggDigg, DeliciousDelicious, or StumbleUponStumbleUpon can help you stay organized, while newer options like Yahoo! Searchpad can help you start to integrate tagged content from your research around your goals.

yahoo

yahoo

Combine the results from your search and discovery with available suites of GTD tools to start crafting an attainable list of actions. Check out services like RememberTheMilk or Springpadspringpad, and lean toward adopting tools that fit in most with your lifestyle. For example, think about how you tend to work best, whether by calendar, mail, mobile or other alerts, and focus on setting up your goals and tasks in that format.

Step 4: Seek Out Social Support.

While each of us has our own big dream we’d love to achieve, remember that no one is an island. While services like Twitter Searchtweetzi Twitter Search are great because you can see what real people are saying about a topic of interest, you don’t necessarily always know who they are and what type of credibility they bring to the conversation.

Try digging into services like Ning and Meetup that use social networking features to connect like-minded people. These are great tools for getting groups started, and can also help you discover organizations, leagues and communities that can help your dreams jump off the lists and into your life.

meetup

meetup

These groups and your searches from Step 2 can also help uncover individual groups rallying around any ambition you can think of, from those trying to be the best skeeballer in the country to those trying to bring clean water to developing nations. No matter what your interest is, chances are someone has given it some thought and expressed it online. Building communities allows you to become an agent of change and a trusted resource — not just for your own goals, but for others looking to achieve similar things.

Step 5: Pay It Forward

By this point you’ve collected some of the best stuff on the web to help you go beyond just leisurely reading and checklist making, so why not share your findings with others trying to reach similar goals? The core set of content sharing tools like WordPressWordPress, FlickrFlickr, and YouTubeYouTube come to mind, but if you’re pressed for time or attention check out PosterousPosterous, which lets you blog via e-mail. Not only will your blog and media publishing endeavors help you to stay motivated, they will also pay it forward to all the other dreamers coming after you.

Admittedly even boiled down to five steps, this can seem like a lot to do to get real goals completed. But the point is that the web continues to offer the tools and content to help you continuously streamline the process. And as new services emerge to integrate the various tools you use, big goals and dreams will become more and more attainable. So get out there not just to do – but to achieve!

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Generation Benz

Filed under: Advertising, Digital, Marketing, Social Media — Jordan English Gross @ 2:41 pm

Mercedes is already planning to launch a second online community after the success of its Generation-Y targeted, “Generation Benz.” Consisting of some 800 members who received invitations from Mercedes, the aged 19- to 32-year-old crowd is so responsive to questionnaires, polls and live chats that Steve Cannon, vp of Mercedes’ marketing, speculates the site could replace certain types of focus groups. Online communities are a remarkable platform for maintaining relevant marketing strategies and, as Cannon says, “[getting] to know our customers in a deeper and richer way.”

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Starbucks

Filed under: Advertising, Design, Marketing — Jordan English Gross @ 2:39 pm

After announcing this past June that it would close 600 stores, Starbucks has turned a 180 since the time, over two years ago, when its expansion scheduled one new store per day. As Robert Pasikoff points out in his Brandweek article on the subject, Starbucks lost out to its competitors when its brand began to ignore all the things that made its customers loyal. Opting for greater speed and store capacity the chain removed its comfy couches, ceased grinding beans on premises and stopped hand-pulling shots. “It had walked away from a successful brand position and a differentiating recreational experience and toward a door marked ‘Lifestyle Brand.’” In a 2007 memo Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz noted, “Stores no longer have the soul of the past.” The story of Starbucks is a reminder of the value of a brand.

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Modern Blueprint

Filed under: Advertising, Branding, Digital, Entertainment, Marketing — Jordan English Gross @ 2:38 pm

Bob Greenberg, CEO of the ad agency R/GA, envisions a new structure for advertising agencies of the future. As an industry that has been functioning in nearly the same way since the 1960s, it is time for a change. The trend for the past 50 years has been to partition different aspects of the industry. Media production was the first facet to be torn away and outsourced, followed by other peripherals like brand design, PR, promotions, etc. Each separation has complicated the industry: each team has its own structure, account management and production companies.

Advertising on the Internet requires a new organization. Greenberg integrates nine departmental disciplines: planning, analytics, media, interaction design, visual design, copywriting, technology, account management and production, as well as an in-house digital studio for linear content. Media can no longer be produced without collaboration between the creative minds that decide how brands should behave in the digital world and the technologists and interaction designers that make that interfacing possible. The digital landscape has changed advertising from single, multi-thousand dollar TV spots to hours of content distributed across the web. The economics of production must change hand-in-hand with content, without sacrificing quality.

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Admen In Space

Filed under: Advertising, Design, Inspiration — Jordan English Gross @ 2:33 pm

Creative companies need creative workspaces. From such “structured disruptions” as a park in the middle of an office complex to a table in the centre of the workplace that seats 200 people, companies and architects are working together to make the workspace a playing field for innovative ideas. The theory behind these developments is you cannot change conventions by adopting conventional processes. As Clive Wilkinson, an architect well-rehearsed in working with admen observes, “space is profoundly linked to brand and work product.” Gone are the days of workplace “solutions” that impose counterproductive obstacles on employees. A company’s workspace works best when it reflects the aspirations of the company.

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The Community Organizer

Filed under: Advertising, Social Media — Jordan English Gross @ 11:01 am

A new, important position in creating brand-loyal consumers is the chief community officer (CCO). With media consumption changing, the ad-world is shifting from a monologue in front of the consumer to a dialogue and interaction in the digital realm. It is the job of the CCO to engage the new consumer beyond the moment of purchase and find out how the consumer reacts with others in their community. Chuck Brymer, president and CEO of DDB Worldwide describes the four major roles of the CCO as recalibrating the way we think about brand building, understanding and managing a brand’s points of leverage, monitoring and responding to the community and moving from delivering brand messages to engaging brand communities. This position is vital to maintaining a direct connection with the consumers’ social networks which have an enormous influence on purchasing power.

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