Give us a mobile rail network

I'm really fed up with struggling to get a mobile signal on trains in the UK.

This week the transport secretary Phillip Hammond described our rail system as a "rich man's toy", given the "eyewateringly expensive" ticket prices. I certainly don't disagree with the man. But what makes this doubly galling is that it's expensive AND impractical. I really want to support the notion of train travel. I want to be able to travel in a more sustainable mode of transport, taking congestion off the road. I would be prepared to pay a premium to do this IF communications were reliable. Unfortunately, at the moment travelling by car is both cheaper and more practical. Hands-free is better than being completely out of contact for two hours.

If you agree, please show support by signing this on-line petition to the train and mobile network operators. The motion is as follows:

"We find the total lack of reliable mobile phone signal along major train routes unacceptable. It means that not only is train travel more expensive than road, it is more impractical, especially for business travellers.

We would like the train operators and mobile network providers to seriously consider working together to come up with a signal boosting solution for trains. "

Sign the petition here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/mobile-rail/

Thanks for your support.

DMA approved cookies opt in

Here is our approach to cookie compliance for general information sites which has been approved  by the UK Direct Marketing Association lawyers. It covers sites which use cookies for Google analytics and web browser optimisation. So, whilst not covering the bigger stuff like online banner advert tracking, login preferences etc. this approach will cover a large number of general brochureware sites out there. 

The approved approach is as follows:

Include a designed button at the top of the page which says “Our use of cookies”. This links through to the privacy page with the following copy:

“This Web site uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. ('Google'). Google Analytics uses 'cookies', which are text files placed on your computer, to help us analyse how visitors use our Web site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the Web site (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States.

Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the Web site, compiling reports on Web site activity for Web site operators and providing other services relating to Web site activity and Internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.

This web site also uses cookies to establish the settings in your browser. This information is used purely to deliver a version of the site that best suits your browser.

You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this Website. By using this Web site, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.”

 

So here it is - the dodgy house mix I got the gold disk for in the 80's. Rococo were actually us three guys doing the remix, fronted by Evelyn and Elaine who danced well and did the publicity. I also wrote the B side, hence getting the disk. The single charted at #54 in the UK in December 1989, and #13 in Australia in February 1990 where it went gold. Funny to see this posted on Youtube and in discogs. A final example for me of how the web's dustbin will accept anything.....

I'd forgotten the video which is actually a nice bit of kitch early cut and paste editing. Check out the 80's ravers!

So now you know!

 

Do not track: the online privacy debate

25th May 2011 is a red-letter day for anyone based in Europe working in marketing. It's the day when the new EU cookies law comes into effect. The Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive will introduce a general rule of opt-in for the use of cookies on websites - currently visitors have to opt-out.

THE LEGAL DIRECTIVE

How to implement the opt-in will be left to individual country members to define. This could be as soft as including it in your site privacy policy to explicitly having an alert on entry to your site specifying what cookies you use and data you collect with an "accept" button. It's a safe bet that Germany will opt for the most explicit option, given their historic concerns over data and privacy. The nature of the notice will also depend on the type of data collected.

Whilst in the UK, it is accepted that it will be difficult to implement and enforce anything overnight, as the details are still not defined, James Milligan, legal and public affairs advisor at the, Direct Marketing Association suggests the following actions now:

"Conduct an audit of all cookies to identify the different types and to remove any obsolete ones. Then you can start thinking about whether you are going to use terms and conditions of purchase or a privacy policy to obtain consent and whether it’s permissible. For example, you may need express consent for the use of cookies if you’re collecting sensitive personal data."

He explains that different types of cookies will have different categorisations, needing different types of consent:

"The new legislation classifies different types of cookies. Some, such as those used for online banking and purchasing, are classified as 'necessary for the provision of service'. This means that organisations may continue to use them, but they have to explain to consumers why they’re using them. There are a number of ways of obtaining consent for these sorts of cookies. You could add them to the terms and conditions, if you’re offering an online banking service.

Third-party cookies are another matter. These are useful to the organisation using them but are particularly intrusive form the consumer’s point of view. Typically, organisations use them to track the user’s movements on its websites and external ones and deliver advertisements based on this journey, also known as online behavioural advertising (OBA). The new law will require organisations to get consent for such cookies and make people fully aware of how the cookie will work, in plain, simple terms that they can understand."

THE TECHNICAL RESPONSE

The browser manufacturers have responded to the privacy issue in their new releases this year, the most prominent of which have been Microsoft's IE9 and Firefox 4.

Both have included a "do not track" feature. This is a global option which transmits special information with every page request, telling the site that the user does not want to be tracked. However, this relies on a standard being developed and adhered to in which site developers include code to recognise and respect the request. Whilst The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C,) have accepted and published Microsoft's member submission for standardized privacy features, this approach will rely on self-regulation and a slow roll out of the standard.

IE9 also includes a filter list - "tracking preference list".  This enables users to grow a list of sites they don't want to be tracked by, as well as building a "white list" of sites they are OK with.

THE REALITY

So how will we react to all these new-found privacy rights?

Well, both of the do not track functions provided by the manufacturers are very buried in the browser options. I remember Jacob Nielsen advising that the only bits of a browser you could safely rely on people knowing how to use were the back button and the scroll bar. And, in fact, users have always had the option to switch things like javascript off if they are concerned about privacy and security, but the reality has been that very few people actually do, despite most research saying that we all care deeply about it.

This was quantified last year by a developer at Yahoo who analysed their visitor traffic to identify the percentage who actually bothered to switch javascript off.  Here's a graph of his findings, you can read his full analysis here.

And how will marketers respond?

We will  begin to see notices on entrance to sites, stating their use of cookies, data collected and providing a button to "accept" and add to your tracking preference list. Less scrupulous sites will probably start to incentivise the accept option, rolling it into an entry for a competition etc. The more technically minded will start to look for work-arounds.

However, the politicians are already beginning to back-peddle as the complexity and difficulty of enforcing any of this become apparent. There seems to be a good deal of  "wait and see". The introduction of the browser functions appears to be appeasing many.

So, in short, the answer to the debate is to give people more of the same options, deeply hidden in their browser configuration, which the majority of us will ignore.

My favourite comment so far on developments comes from Calc Yolatah, a member of the BetaNews Community

"Microsoft benchmark of innovation: Ignore Rugby; Invent American Football; Hide the rulebook."

Harnessing the fear factor

I was very touched that Andrew Buffrey from the DMA invited me back to speak at their 20/20 Vision event at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham, UK.

This time round I'll be talking about how to overcome the fear of change in order to create innovation - personally, organisationally and creatively.

A copy of the presentation "Harnessing the fear factor" is available for download here:

http://slidesha.re/ftmY9E

Marketing Automation Adoption in Europe

Some quotes from me in this B2B marketing magazine article.

http://www.b2bmarketing.net/knowledgebank/marketing-automation/features/marketing-automation-technology-adoption-european-market

Last week's TFM&A show in London showed a lot more presence for marketing automation which was encouraging, and a sign of the times.

My main tack in this article is as follows:

“We believe that the future will fall into two camps...those who buy into one proprietary ecosystem platform and those who deploy interoperable modules glued together with common strands and protocols. Many vendors are developing proprietary ecosystems to manage the entire marketing process. Each module – content management, email broadcast and data processing–  is inter-dependant. However, most clients already have many of these components [and will prefer] a plug-in solution.”

You pay your money, you take your choice. Read the full B2B Marketing Magazine Article here....

The Future of Now

Back then...

It's 1995. The internet is populated by less than 20,000 websites. Each one takes a couple of minutes to access through a crackling, wheezing dial up connection. This, ladies and gentlemen is what we are trumpeting as the "information superhighway". Netscape is pre-IPO. There is no Google.

We've just launched Marks & Spencer's first ever website. Tomi Davies, Bryan Wright, Mark Henderson and I are now playing buzzword bingo at a conference on the future of the internet. I have the high score, of course. Here's the list of things the visionaries are assuring us will be a commonplace in the future:

The market of one
Mass marketing will be a thing of the past. Mass customisation and one to one marketing will be the thing. One day, technology will know all of your preferences and deliver relevent offers to you, wherever you are. Your newspaper will be digital, delivering news stories on subjects you like.

E-commerce
You'll be able to order through online shops which have your shopping lists stored and can make recommendations to you based on your likes and dislikes. Your goods will delivered to your doorstep and you'll sign for them on a digital hand-held devise. We've seen Peapod and it's the future.

Video on Demand
Time Warner are ploughing millions into trying to deliver video online when and where you ask for it. We don't think it'll ever happen.

Virtual reality
You will conduct your life in a digital counter-existence. The internet will become a three dimensional multi-media experience

Push technologies
The internet will connect with you and not only allow you to call up information, but push things to your desktop based on your preferences.

Convergence
Digital technologies will be accessed by a multitude of devices including mobile phones, TV and even your fridge!

Disintermediation
The internet will radically disrupt business by cutting out middlemen, connecting customers directly with the provider of goods and services.

Now.

Fast forward to today. Our marketing campaigns have tracked the product you browsed on our website and are delivering banners to you with more information as you surf onwards.

At home, we've downloaded the Iphone app from Tesco and are busy barcode scanning the contents of our fridge up to our shopping list, making the most of our digital coupons and loyalty points. I can watch any program, any film, listen to any piece of music and read any book I can possibly think of through my TV, on a games consul, through a digital slate or on my phone.

The games industry is now bigger than the movies. Millions of us spend our time in three dimensional gaming worlds living out our fantasies.

It's been a terrible time for intermediary businesses like publishing and travel, but a great time for the content and service originators. Brands are exploiting and pushing these opportunities at a rapatious rate. They no longer need to pay the publishing gatekeepers of audience segments. They can target individual customers through the network based on behaviour and preference.

Brands are generating their own content and nurturing their own audiences. They are becoming media companies in their own right , disintermediating the publishers from their audiences. Agencies are trying to figure out where they can add value in this landscape.

Ladies and gentlemen, the future just happened!

What next?

The future is quantum. It's the new new thing.

Nobel prize winning Physicist Gerard 't Hooft has a theory which he calls the Holographic Principle. In short, today's quantum mechanics think that our every day reality is just a hologram, generated by binary data stored on the event horizons of black holes. There is no reality - it's just an illusion. So there's virtual reality - the one we used our computers to imagine up and, well, another virtual reality really, the one we were born into.

That's why the Cern Project is such a big deal. It's a very expensive, hugely ambitious way of proving or disproving Gerard's theory. They're looking for one particle in particular - matter. The God particle. Every other particle they've found, labelled and understood. But not this one. The one that proves that our every day existance is real, not virtual. If they don't find it. Well, then maybe Gerard is right.

In other parts of the world, the scientists who are exploring quantum computing are the latest nudists on the late shift. They're putting together the first, faltering, shaky quantum computers. They think that by using revolving particles rather than silicon and transistors, our computing power will accelerate incredibly.

To give you an idea of how dramatic this may be, they predict a time when a quantum computer will give us an amount of computing crunch that we would need a silicon based computer the size of the universe to achieve today.

So. Are we looking at a future where we can use quantum computers to alter the quantum building blocks of our every day reality? How many other realities will we be able to create? Which realities will we choose to live our lives in?

I don't know. None of us knows. What I do know is that sometimes you have to be careful for what you wish for. Sometimes it comes true.

Pen Portraits of the UK Middle Classes

"The Middle Class Handbook" is a lovely blog originally started by London based agency Not Actual Size.

"The idea behind the blog was that as Britain's middle classes were expanding, they were evolving into sub-tribes that defined themselves by collective tastes rather than income."

It presents the index to these tribes in the format of a periodic table. As entertaining as it is useful.

http://www.middleclasshandbook.co.uk/the-periodic-table-of-the-midd/

Rise of the Silver Surfer

We've recently been doing some digital planning and strategy for a financial services company with a silver surfing audience base. I thought I'd share some found data from the process with you. Comments welcome with links if you have any data yourself. Especially interested if you have overlays of socio-demographic info.

Research Highlights:

CARAT CCS

• 55-75 year olds make up 28% of the total UK population, which translates to 12,868,000 people
• Of those, three quarters of 55-64 year olds and 55% of 65-75 year olds use the internet at least occasionally (5,306 million and 3,158 million users respectively)
• Although over half of the 55-75 age group are light users (under 15 hours per week,) a quarter can be considered to be ‘heavy users’ (30+ hours a week) and 45% medium users (15-30 hours per week).
• 83% of 55-64s and 61% of 65-75s access the internet at least once a week on their home PC or laptop.

"They aim to make life easier for themselves, with personal banking and emails being one of the most frequent activities, undertaken at least once a week, while 38% look for the best products by using online reviews, and the same amount look to get them as cheaply as possible with price comparison sites."

WAVE 5

"40% of frequent internet users over the age of 55 manage a social network."

"As a demographic, the over 55s are now more likely than their 16-54 year-old peers to bookmark pages, sign-up to email bulletins and register with websites - clearly wanting to stay connected with news, brands and no doubt a whole range of other information."

NIELSON

"Internet surfers over 50 accounted for 53 per cent of the overall increase in UK users."

"Men over 50 were responsible for 38 per cent of this growth numbering 722,000 while women over 50 accounted for 284,000, or 15 per cent, of the increase."

Links to good recent articles with reviews of surveys/studies:

Generation 62.0: Digital planning for an aging population (CARAT)
Silver surfers get social (WAVE 5)
Silver surfers increase by one million over the last year (NIELSON)

UK Office for National Statistics data:

Shabinet : an ineffectual opposition

Shab-i-net

[Shab-ee-net]
-noun
A collection of representatives in opposition to the ruling party, demonstrably unable to coherently voice the concerns of their consituents against the prevailing political dynamic.

Quantum Computing for Dummies

I was blown away by last nights' edition of Horizon on the BBC - "What is Reality?". I wont even try to describe what it was about in the confines of this blog, you'll have to watch it for yourself. However, a section of the program covering quantum computing really caught my imagination, so I decided to find out more.

This video from the University of New South Wales was the best, easiest to understand overview I found on the subject. I love the opening quote from Richard Feynham:

"You don't understand quantum mechanics, you just get used to it"

Without a doubt, this is the next frontier in computing which, once matured, will see a massive step change in computing capabilities. Watch this space.

Music for Shuffle

Here's a lovely thing. Created by Irvine Brown, an interaction designer in London, it's "a series of short, interlocking phrases (each formatted as an individual MP3) that can be played in any order and still (sort of) make musical sense."

Hear it here.....

ASA ruling: remove claim to solve all problems, break black magic & banish all evil.

I've never thought that working at the Advertising Standards Authority could possibly be a barrel of laughs. However, reading this adjudication on Mr Latif, I think I would have enjoyed working on this case.

ACTION

"The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Mr Latif to remove the claims "Your entire problem will be fulfilled in SEVEN DAYS", "No matter what your problems are I can help you to solve them in seven days" and "Latif's work is 100% guaranteed", and also to remove the references to "depression" and "sexual impotency". We told him not to claim he could solve all problems, break black magic, banish evil spirits or improve the health, wealth, love life, happiness or other circumstances of readers. We asked CAP to advise its members of the problem with Mr Latif."

Read Mr Latifs' advertising copy and the full ruling by the UK Advertising Standards Authority here.

Not getting it: An insult.

Maybe I'm getting old, but it used to be the case that accusing someone of "not getting it" was the ultimate insult in the marketing community. It was an accusation slung at the ad agencies by the upstart digital pioneers to set themselves apart and portray their competitors as dinosaurs.

So I was a little puzzled when I read that Joe Payne, CEO of Eloqua, said at the firm’s user conference  earlier this year that the CMO was the primary barrier to marketing automation because they "didn’t get it". This didn't strike me as a comment geared to ingratiate  marketeers to the idea of marketing automation, or his company's offering. 

So for the sake of balance, I'd like to offer an alternative view.

CMOs do get it - at least the ones we work with do. There are, however a number of challenges that they - and we - face:

1. Access to experience and skills to achieve success – the biggest impact marketing automation has is on internal processes which often need considerable re-engineering  
2. The relationship between the IT department and Marketing can be strained sometimes. You need someone in the mix to successfully bridge the gap 
3. Marketing automation creates complete transparency on the process and results.  For most, this is a blessing, as they are able to prove ROI attributable to marketing. However, for the few this can be an unwelcome spotlight

It's pretty important to understand these challenges and equip yourself to help if you're working with clients to introduce marketing automation into their workflow.

Marketing in the age of distraction

For my sins, I used to be a teacher. Every day the challenge was to inspire and engage a bunch of minds, all of whom had different starting points, different aptitudes, and wildly differing attention spans. There’s some interesting research coming out of Stanford on attention and cognition in the classroom which I’d like to share with you. I think the teacher’s dilemma in the classroom reflects well our challenge as customer experience architects. We are marketing in an age of distraction.

Our task used to be easy: Interrupt someone’s attention for a short while to get our point across. We used basic psychology to create a persuasive message, and data to find the right people to get the message to.

Educationalists would recognise this as the “managed attention” approach. Get everyone together, reduce all external influences and distractions and burn the point into the memory of the recipient in one or two hits.

However, over the last few decades, the centre of gravity in education has moved to a student centric model, using techniques to tailor learning experiences to the needs and learning speeds of the individual. Information has been “chunked” into smaller units for consumption in flexible timescales, across multiple media.

Likewise, marketing has transformed from a mass model, to a customer-centric market of one. We can no longer rely on managing our customer’s attention through interruptive techniques. We have to chunk our messages up into small packages for our customers to find wherever they are in their media journey – on or off-line. We need to make sure they make the connections which form the basis of our narrative throughout their journey. We can only do this by making sure that the DNA strands of our brand are strong as they run through our messages and the context they are found in.

N. Katherine Hayles, a professor emerita of English at the University of California at Los Angeles has observed that in a media rich environment, “students are getting better at making conceptual connections across a wide variety of domains”. She describes how this behaviour of skimming and surfing through a world of multimedia generates a condition which she calls “hyper attention”

"One of the basic tenets of good teaching is that you have to start where the students are," Hayles says. "And once you find out where they are, a good teacher can lead them almost anywhere. Students today don't start in deep attention. They start in hyper attention.”

When I look at our marketing arc – the map we at Proctors use to construct our customer experiences – I see an entry point where we welcome visitors from the media meta-verse into our universe of influence. This is where we start our lead nurturing process with a program of in-bound marketing content and touch-points. 

Our challenge as marketers in this age of distraction is to make sure that at that entry point we can identify where they are in their decision process and how we sit in their perception in order to guide them from hyper attention to deep attention and consideration.

IT Professionals fall victim to fashion

Here's a breakdown of email clients identified through a recent B2B broadcast. 

The audience is IT Manager and upwards – lots of Directors and plenty of Managing Directors (in fact 20% of those whose title is given).

The mailshot went to 1,350 prospects, 25% Enterprise, 75% medium sized organisations.

The various versions of Outlook etc are as expected but note the 6.2% using iPhone.

Looks like IT folks are becoming fashion victims with the rest of us......

Soap Creative - 10 Facebook Myths Busted

Love this take on Facebook from Australian agency Soap.

Soap Creative - 10 Facebook Myths Busted

View more presentations from Soap Creative.

Don't discount the multichannel

In September 2009, the UK became the first European market in which online advertising spend overtook television. 

Traditional ad formats have suffered badly during the economic downturn as advertisers turn to digital formats that are both less costly and measurable.

However, online does not automatically signal lower marketing expenditure and increased revenue and an intelligent combination of online and offline techniques is often the best way to lift sales. The Web has shifted the dynamic of the relationship between brands and customers, and the ability to reach prospects in a more relevant and personal way is one of the unique advantages offered by online. However, marketers need to be realistic about what can be achieved. Consumer campaigns are still best served by incorporating off-line components due to the practicalities of maintaining up to date mailing lists.



While targeted B2B marketing efforts are much better suited to online these will still not meet their full potential if used in isolation and marketers should not be seduced by any Silver Bullet solutions. It’s very easy and tempting to follow the herd after the latest buzz techniques, tools and channels and hang your strategy on them.

The first key to success is a mindset that tests and optimises a mix of online and offline techniques that are right for that business and its customers, and to remember that every one is different. The best analogy for this approach is that of creating a “balanced portfolio” of marketing initiatives. Some are established and bear solid, stable returns. Others you take small stakes in, creating a spread-bet pool of new, higher risk campaigns and techniques with potentially higher returns. It’s a balance of being conservative and steady with your core activity and open minded on the new and smaller stake opportunities that will offer the best returns and crucially to continue to test to find the optimal mix.

Therefore, the key to a successful campaign, especially those using a variety of marketing approaches, is to be able track results and to focus on those elements that generate the best results. Tracking allows the marketer to optimise both online and offline campaigns and thus generate far higher conversions. However, given the controversy surrounding Phorm which raised questions about behavioural targeting and pre-empted EU legislation imposing limits on how data can be used and the use of cookies, it is unsurprising that targeting has not been embraced for lead generation by UK marketers to date. If introduced successfully through a multi-channel strategy, targeting is still a viable and very powerful option.

A call to action based around a Personal URL, a URL address tailored to an individual which is tracked when activated, can be integrated into any combination of DM, email, telephony or SMS. This directs campaign response to your website, this can be personalised within the browser if desired without recourse to multiple micro-sites, which can be expensive and unwieldy for tracking purposes. The user’s interaction (solely) within that site can be tracked, this provides the meta-data and context on the customer lead that allows warm prospects to be identified in real time and scored for follow up with sales teams and/or marketing activities based on the nature and level of their actions.

By targeting only those customers that have clearly demonstrated a clear interest through their interactions it’s a simple process to rationalise sales and marketing spend to drive ROI. In real terms this can offer call centre cost savings of over 70 percent and an additional benefit is the preservation of brand equity since sales need only contact those who actually want to be called.

The freedom to track customer engagement within a website through the customer’s opt-in (via the Personal URL) when coupled with the option to personalise the campaign’s messaging offers all the advantages of targeting without the sinister overtones of all pervasive web tracking.


One of the most dramatic examples using these principles we have seen recently is a campaign for Intimis client Auto Europe, the world's largest car-hire broker. The additional units sold over the first six months of their campaign amounted to an average weekly uplift of 65% with the figure being in excess of 100% some weeks and a maximum weekly uplift achieved of 133%.

Ultimately a successful cross platform campaign can be reduced to 'Three Ts' – Test, Track, Target – by finding the optimal marketing mix and approaching only those prospects likely to convert, it’s possible to save a lot of time and money.

However this approach is wholly dependent on a sufficient number of users inputting the Personal URL in the first place. Therefore the success or failure of the campaign comes down to the initial call to action and although the technology may impact the results, there’s (as yet) no option to upgrade the marketer.

This posting appeared in the DM Weekly News – 03/09/10