BlogTraction

Dishymix Interview

2009-06-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

My pal Susan Bratton just published an interview with me on her Dishymix podcast. We talk about all kinds of stuff from marketing integration to new agency models to our work with Livescribe and Alibaba.com to tai chi.

It's about a half hour long, so put it on your iPod and have a listen sometime.

My beef with @stanrapp

2009-06-13T15:08:00.001-07:00

Recently, fellow twitterer @GaryHagestad accused me of being a little harsh toward direct marketing "icon" Stan Rapp in one of my tweets.

I'll admit, I was snarky. But too harsh? I don't think so. And I need more than 140 characters to explain why.

The alleged offense? I called Stan Rapp a dinosaur.

Here's the thread. You be the judge.

After seeing a snippet of conversation in my Twitter stream between @jaffejuice (top advertising blogger) and @stanrapp (famous mega-agency advertising executive):

stanrapp: @jaffejuice Twitter is for the birds.Much tweeting mostly about nothing more than people doing nothing.

jaffejuice: @stanrapp don't give up....perhaps the twits are on break today

So I wrote:

adamkleinberg: @jaffejuice re: @stanrapp "twitter is for the birds" <== spoken like a true dinosaur

And was challenged a short while later.

GaryHagestad: @adamkleinberg @jaffejuice re: @stanrapp "twitter is for the birds" <== spoken like a true dinosaur. Ouch! A little harsh, no?

No, Gary. I don't think so.

First, I'll admit to not being particularly enthralled by Stan the Man. I have great respect for his accomplishments with MRM, Rapp Collins and the rest. A mutual friend has told me he's a great guy. But he called me five years ago because he was looking to buy an interactive agency and he was a condescending ass on the phone. There's no reason to be rude to people.

Second, if you are going to put yourself out there the DM Hall of Famer writing the new book Reinventing DM, you open yourself to criticism. His comment "Much tweeting mostly about nothing more than people doing nothing" is the exact same comment I hear over and over again from people who have absolutely no understanding of the conversation happening on Twitter.

Twitter made the cover of Time magazine this month because Twitter (along with Facebook updates and LinkedIn status and FriendFeed and Tumblr and the list goes on and on...) represents an important new phenomenon that is forever changing the way we communicate. There is a broad conversation happening that is connecting all of us in a new way. We are sharing information, putting opinions out there that define us, building micro-connections that can lead to real relationships in a manner that cannot be dismissed as "nothing more than people doing nothing." And it's very relevant to direct marketing.

Anyone writing a book about Reinventing DM should know that. So I called him a dinosaur.

PRESS RELEASE: Alibaba.com Selects Traction and Mediasmith as Agency Partners for U.S. Brand Campaign

2009-05-11T11:54:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO, May 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Alibaba.com, the world's leading B2B ecommerce company, is expanding its U.S. presence this year and has named Traction (www.tractionco.com), a leading San Francisco-based advertising agency, as its agency of record to develop advertising, brand and interactive communications. The agency will partner with Mediasmith (www.mediasmith.com), a leader in digital media strategy and execution. Alibaba.com enables small businesses and entrepreneurs to enter global markets with its easy-to-use website that connects buyers and sellers around the world.

"Finding the right agency partners that understand our target market and bring unique perspective is important to Alibaba.com's U.S. strategy this year," stated Kelly Sang, General Manager of Alibaba U.S. "We are growing rapidly and want to take this opportunity to make more businesses and entrepreneurs aware of our ability to help them succeed in global trade, and we want to do that in an innovative and effective way."

"The world has changed and everyone knows it. Businesses - even the smallest businesses - can no longer afford to not be part of the global economy. Alibaba.com makes it a snap to connect buyers and sellers anywhere," added Adam Kleinberg, CEO and Founder of Traction. "We feel there is a tremendous opportunity for Alibaba.com in the U.S. to tell its story and show how it hands the power of the import/export business to small businesses and entrepreneurs."

Mediasmith CEO David L. Smith noted, "This is perfect timing to expand Alibaba.com's presence in the U.S. and we are more than excited to develop the media strategy that will create the awareness and user interaction needed for its success. Entrepreneurs are fearful about the current state of the economy. We're confident that they will see the true value of Alibaba.com to assist in growing their companies and their profitability." Smith added, "Working with Alibaba.com is consistent with Mediasmith's strategy of servicing international companies."

Traction has worked with a long list and wide variety of high profile clients including Adobe, Clos du Bois, Walmart.com, Sun Microsystems and Virgin Mobile. Adding Alibaba.com to this list further extends the spectrum of clients Traction has worked with.

About Traction

Traction Corporation was recently named the #1 interactive agency in the U.S. by BtoB Magazine. The agency's leadership maintains that they are a creative agency with a digital core that designs integrated brand experiences, social experiences and strategically driven user experiences engineered to move audiences from awareness through conversion. Founded in 2001, Traction is a full-service agency that develops campaigns from strategy through every consumer touch point, yet views everything they do as interactive. You can learn more about Traction at www.tractionco.com or follow the agency on Twitter at www.twitter.com/traction.

About Mediasmith

Mediasmith is an independent, award-winning digital media agency, with expertise in media strategy, planning, execution and metrics. Servicing clients directly or partnering with creative agencies, Mediasmith architects campaigns integrating traditional advertising, digital media, search, and emerging technologies. With web expertise dating back to 1995 and the introduction of the M3 service suite encompassing emerging technologies, social media and search, Mediasmith continues to be at the forefront of the evolving media landscape. In 2005, Mediasmith was awarded an Effie for its work on Napster, and named to the San Francisco 2006 Business Times Top 100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies. For more information, visit www.mediasmith.com.

About Alibaba.com Limited

Alibaba.com Limited (HKSE: 1688) (HK.1688) is the global leader in business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce and the flagship company of Alibaba Group. Founded in 1999, Alibaba.com makes it easy for millions of buyers and suppliers around the world to do business online through three marketplaces: a global trade marketplace (www.alibaba.com) for importers and exporters, a Chinese marketplace (www.alibaba.com.cn) for domestic trade in China, and, through an associated company, a Japanese marketplace (www.alibaba.co.jp) facilitating trade to and from Japan. Together, its marketplaces form a community of 38 million registered users from over 240 countries and regions. Headquartered in Hangzhou, Alibaba.com has offices in more than 40 cities across Greater China as well as in Europe and the United States.

Tough love for the jobless: Get a clue. Get a personal brand. Get a job.

2009-04-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

"I'm sort of a producer. But I'm great in front of the client. So, I'm kind of an account director. And I'm very strategic. My last job I was the online strategist. I used to be creative director at my old agency."

How many times do I hear this on an interview? A lot.

In these tough times, many unemployed people are feeling desperate and don't want to leave any opportunity on the table. So they try to be everything. And wind up being nothing.

There's no better way to find your resume in the trash than not to tell me you do everything. I suspect other people fortunate enough to be hiring in the advertising industry feel the same.

At Traction, when we do brand positioning for a client, we always tell them that in the mind of the consumer, you can be one thing. Our General Manager, Russell Quinan, refers to branding as the Art of Sacrifice—a moniker that rings true.

Guess what? That applies to your personal brand too.

Here are a few tips on what to do and not to do when looking for a job in this economy.

1. If I'm hiring, I'm looking for someone with specific experience to fill a specific role. Are you an account person or a producer? A writer or a designer. As soon as you tell me you're more than one, you become neither in my eyes.

Could this mean you lose an opportunity because you weren't the right fit? Maybe, but you're losing it anyway by trying to be the jack-of-all-trades. Try to be everything, you become nothing.

2. By all means, share your wonderful other qualities—but show me how they support how you define yourself. A brand position has supporting messages. Same goes for your personal brand. Being "good with clients" is a minimum standard for any senior position in my eyes. It's not a qualification to be an account director position on a multimillion dollar advertising account.

3. Don't be desperate. I often say business is like dating. When you're confident, you get the girls (so I hear). Same goes here. It's hard not to be desperate when you're... well, desperate. But it's not attractive.

Don't overcompensate and act cocky though. That's even worse.

Here's a tidbit that might help. Your interviewer WANTS to like you. They want to love you. They want to go to their boss and say "I found my girl!" and not have to take another huge chunk of time out of their day to schedule more interviews. Give them something to like.

4. Ask questions. Traction once lost a pitch for a hotel chain because the competing agencies called a few of the hotel managers to ask them questions about their needs, while we assumed we could guess what they were. I'll never make that mistake again.

Don't be afraid to email your interviewer about their needs before you meet. They may not answer if their buried, but they won't hold it against you for asking.

5. Feel free to discount this advice. There are exceptions. If you have a real reason to suspect that someone's looking for a jack-of-all-trades (like they told you they are), ignore my advice. But be discerning before you do.

Just like in focus groups, people tell you what they think they want, but that's not often the truth. Even when they're looking for a mutt to fit a couple of roles, they're looking for a specific mutt. Be that mutt, not another.

6. Build your personal brand online. In advertising today, everything is interactive. Even you. If you don't have a LinkedIn profile, a Twitter account and a blog, get one.

Google has just launched Google Profiles. If you don't have one yet, get one. Here's why. When a hiring manager inevitably Googles you, you want to control what they see. Having a Google profile with your photo come up in search results is likely to draw the first click. You want to leave that up to chance?

I sincerely hope this advice is helpful. Feel its something many just need to hear. I wish you luck out there.

Ad Industry Innovator: Traction

2009-04-21T20:52:00.000-07:00

Agency search consultant, David Wiggs, posted an interview with me on his blog at Marketing Hitch. Here's an excerpt:

We’ve all read that the pitch / RFP process is broken. Many agencies aren’t even interested in competing in pitches. Do you see an alternative to this process?

Sure. We have ten active clients right now. I think we only went through a pitch “process” for half of them. I just emailed a potential client a half hour ago to tell them we wouldn’t do spec work.

It really depends what kind of work you want to do. We walked into a capabilities presentation at a major consumer software company a few weeks ago, had a great meeting and got a call from their procurement department in the midst of celebratory margaritas 25 minutes later.

We ordered another round.

What does the agency of the future look like?

Interactive, obviously.

But more so, I think agencies are going to need to move up the value chain and become true strategic partners for their clients.

If agencies make their money producing banner resizes, pretty soon clients are going to ask, “Why don’t I just hire someone to do that?” On the other end of the spectrum, more and more publishers and providing brands with unique content integration opportunities and doing creative on their own.

What we can offer that is unique and invaluable are the abilities to uncover insights, to translate them into strategically relevant creative expressions of a brand, and to uncover opportunities to get those messages in front of the right audiences at the right time with the right vehicle. That will mean giving up some creative control at times, but it will also mean greater value will be placed on the strategic process and brand innovation that the agency of the future will bring.

What do marketers need that agencies are not giving them?

There’s a huge focus on ROI today and there’s good reason for that. But the result has been a slew of agencies that focus solely on performance marketing and are unwilling to take a risk. They’re afraid to fail.

Great ideas always feel like risks. They always make you nervous. Because great ideas challenge conventional notions. That’s what makes them great.

What marketers need and are not getting from agencies are efforts that bridge that gap. That offer breakthrough thinking married with best practices and a measured ROI. That’s the value we strive to bring our clients at Traction. I think we do a pretty good job.

You can read the rest of the post and see the rest of the series of interviews with marketing innovators here.

PRESS RELEASE: Traction named top interactive agency by BtoB Magazine

2009-04-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

We're shouting from the rooftops and cracking the champagne over here at Traction. BtoB Mag just named Traction THE NUMBER ONE INTERACTIVE AGENCY IN AMERICA. Wowsa.

Here's the press release:

Traction Named #1 Interactive Agency for 2009 by BtoB Magazine

SAN FRANCISCO – April 7 - Despite the turbulent economy, San Francisco interactive ad agency, Traction has had a year of new account wins, growth of existing accounts, award-winning marketing innovation and now, has been recognized by BtoB Magazine as the top interactive agency in the United States for 2009.

Traction’s billings soared by over 60% in 2008, fueled by new client wins for business-to-business clients such as Adobe, California Bank & Trust, Message Systems and Egencia (an Expedia company), and consumer brands like Walmart.com, CamelBak, AAA and DriversEd.com. The agency also saw additional revenue from growth of existing accounts, including Sun Microsystems.

Traction also has confidential relationships with one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S. and one of the most celebrated consumer electronic companies in the world.

Each year, BtoB names the top business-to-business agencies in the country. Traction was selected as the winner in the Interactive Agency category. Digitas was the runner-up in the category.

BtoB’s selection criteria include new account wins, growth of existing accounts, quality of campaigns and marketing innovation.

"We are a creative agency with a digital core. We are strategic in everything we do and see every point of contact between brands and their customers as interactive," said Adam Kleinberg, co-founder and CEO of Traction, winner of the interactive agency category, "we’ll use print or television, but view them as part of an interactive experience that always drives consumers online. What we do is design experiences—brand experiences, social experiences and user experiences—that seamlessly move people from awareness through conversion."

Traction’s main areas of focus in 2009 were providing a clear path to ROI for every engagement and developing best practices for emerging media channels. "We knew that for us to be successful, we had to become a metrics powerhouse so we could provide the value they need," said Kleinberg. "For our clients to be successful in a changing media universe, they also need to provide value to their customers. Innovation has been the key to make this happen—for both our agency and the brands we’re privileged to work with."

You can read the special report, 'BtoB' Top Agencies Report: Not all gloom and doom, in its entirety at http://tinyurl.com/btob-topagencies. Traction is featured at http://tinyurl.com/btob-traction.

About Traction
Traction is a creative agency with a digital core. Founded in 2001, the agency has crafted interactive marketing programs for Adobe, CamelBak, Clos du Bois, Sun, Virgin Mobile and Walmart. To view Traction’s work, visit www.tractionco.com or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/traction.

Assessing free social media metrics tools

2009-04-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

After the Social Media Analytics panel got cancelled at the Web 2.0 Expo yesterday, I decided to do a little panel discussion of my own on the various tools out there. Luckily, my pal Dave Smith over at Mediasmith did a presentation at iMedia Breakthrough a few weeks ago on "The Surprising Power of Social Media Metrics." I'm using that as a starting point for an outline along with a few options we've used along the way in this post.

First, the free stuff:

Twitter Search - OK, so this is pretty basic, but it is a useful tool for measuring conversation about your brand. I just ran a search and saw 19 posts in the last 24 hours about my client Alibaba.com. Certainly indicates that we should be thinking about their Twitter strategy.

TweetGrid - Calls itself a Twitter Search dashboard that updates in real time. You can basically monitor several keywords and they all show up in boxes and update dynamically. Useful, I guess if you have all day to sit around staring at an ugly dashboard, but the UX is gross. Not for me.

Twist - This is a nice site because it gives you a chart for 7 or 30 days of conversational activity on Twitter for a keyword. Great to paste into a report. The problem is that it measures in intervals of 100 tweets, so if there's not a ton of conversation going on, your chart looks like a flat line. They have potentially cool drag and drop functionality that let's you zoom in, but it was buggy when I checked it out.

Twilert - This is a great tool for marketers who want to have an effective Twitter conversational marketing strategy. They have advanced search features (all/any/none of these words, by hashtag, sender, receiver, geography, and ATTITUDE) , so you can get alerts of all the people having conversation about a given topic and respond to them. Something every social community manager could use for Twitter.

SamePoint - This is a great tool for monitoring conversations. Rather than just one social tool like Twitter, you can look at all social media or set filters. A quick search on Alibaba.com again gave me one column with results from across the social web (blogs, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Digg, Facebook...) and a second column showed Tweets. They also have a search plug-in for browsers that are OpenSearch compliant. No reporting, unfortunately, but awesome for real-time monitoring.

SocialMention - I like this even better than SamePoint. The level of filtering isn't as great, but it's a nicer UI. They don't offer much in the way of reporting, but do have a "social rank" score and some top level summary of sources of mentions (i.e. 50 from blogsearch.google.com, 20 from technorati.com, 20 from wikio, etc.). What I really like is that they have an open API, the ability to look at trending keywords and you can export a spreadsheet. Bookmarking this one!

Google Alerts - Like everything Google does, it's simple, basic and works great. News and blog posts about specific keywords delivered to your Inbox. Been using this for years. Don't plan on stopping.

PostRank - P"ostRank measures engagement by analyzing the types and frequency of an audience's interaction with online content. " This is a tool that basically tracks the re-sharing based on any original feed. It's great for getting granular on who is sharing what and how (i.e. who Dugg, commented or Twittered about your blog post). They are launching an Analytics tool, but it's still under wraps. Nice UI on this site. Have high hopes for the Analytics tool.

Google Insights for Search - This is a great tool for measuring search volume and I think a very valid way of measuring interest over time and by region. It also allows you to see related searches to dig into those. Great charts to show how many are searching for a term and where. I would say that if I wanted a true measure of brand awareness—or actually brand interest—this is an ideal tool.

Technorati Chart - Technorati allows you to search for blogs on a specific keyword, but what I really think is neat from an analytics perspective is their chart tool that allows you to compare how conversations in the blogosphere measure up across terms. Not exactly robust analytics, but a useful tool that I'll definitely use in the future to make a point.

BlogPulse - These guys have a number of tools for monitoring conversation. First, they have Trend Results, which basically produces the exact same chart as Technorati. It also has a Conversation Tracker tool, but the results were crap. When I searched for 'adam kleinberg' on social mention, I got 10 pages of results. On BlogPulse, just a handful and none of them were any of the dozens of blog posts and articles I've written. Doesn't bode well in my book. Plus, these free tools just seem to be a come-on to upgrade to Nielsen Online's BrandPulse product.

Trendpedia - Again, this is just a repeat of the Technorati compare chart. I'm totally underwhelmed, however. Of the three, I'd go with Technorati because I trust their information.

Trendrr - At first glance, this seems like a more powerful tool than either of the above, because you can specify data sources and customize the reporting you get to a much more robust level. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a confusing interface. After fighting with the log-in panel for five minutes, I gave up. But I might come back. Maybe. We'll see.

Facebook Lexicon - You guessed it. Tracks conversations on Facebook. On Facebook Walls, specifically. Decent enough tool to stick a chart in a report, but not mind-blowing insights by any means either.

That's an assessment of some of the free tools out there. More to come...

Marketing to Millennials link

2009-04-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

I delivered a webinar yesterday for my alumni organization title the World has Changed: Marketing to the Millennial Generation. Someone asked me for some resources or links that I'd recommend to get a better understanding of this generation and emerging marketing tactics. I promised to post some links on my blog, so here are a few suggestions:

Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation This is a few years old now, but was the definitive text that coined the term "millennials" and first examined the fundamental traits that made them unique

Grown Up Digital This was the book I talked quite a bit about during my presentation. I saw the author speak at the Web 2.0 Summit a few years back and basically discuss the outline of this book. It really hones in on the impact of being the first generation to grow up as digital natives.

Wikinomics Same author as Grown Up Digital. This is not about millennials, but about the collaborative economy we live in today and the best book I've read on the underlying trends behind "Web 2.0."

Mavericks at Work Great book about brands who are thriving in the new world and doing things differently from the inside out. I think it's a must-read for all brand marketers.

Buzzmarketing Fantastic book about doing more with less. The best media you can buy is the media you don't pay for.

MIllennials Incorporated Haven't gotten to this one yet, but it's on my reading list.

iMedia Connection Great publication with loads of contributions from thought leaders in the emerging media and marketing space. I blog there and write the occasional feature piece.

Putting your content where it matters An article I wrote about how to reach consumers effectively in the emerging marketing world.

To download the powerpoint slides from my webinar, click here and then scroll to the bottom of the page to: “Attendees: Click Here."

Twitter Twips from SouthWest Air

2009-03-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

If you weren't aware, I'm a complete Twitterholic. It seems, the rest of the crew at Traction is too. So, I was very pleased to be able to check out the session on Twitter at the iMedia Breakthrough Summit in Florida last week. The presentation was from Christi Day, the Online Spokesperson and Emerging Media Specialist from Southwest Airlines and Rodney Rumford (@rumford), the CEO of Gravitational Media and author of "Twitter as a Business Tool." It was a great session and I twittered the whole time.

Thought I'd compile my top 5 tweets here because there were some really great tips:

adamkleinberg: #imediasummit southwest air made sure they learned how to use twitter first... Use twitpic retweet @ msgs to followers

adamkleinberg: #imediasummit sw air says be fun, be real (but don't tweet about ur cat)

adamkleinberg: #imediasummit sw air uses twitter to release news before press release (but admits to twitter filter)

adamkleinberg: #imediasummit headlines help. Report all your good news.

adamkleinberg: #imediasummit sw air uses twiterfon, twitalyzer, 24-7 active, but don't let it control you, don't seek out and respond to gripers, respo ...

Twenjoy these twips.

Original Vision

2009-03-28T21:50:00.001-07:00

I was just playing around with the Wayback Machine and found Traction's first website from back in 2001. Thought it was funny how our original (quite flowery) vision statement still really fits much of what we believe today. Thought I'd share:

We, as media professionals, are in a time of flux. As technology and advertising coincide, and social, political and economic trends shift, the messenger often becomes the message. Or the other way around. As these lines blur in communion, the audience comes into sharp focus: who they are, what they want. Our accuracy must be dead-on.

Messaging must be concise, relevant and compelling. The user experience rises to the forefront of consequence. A clearly defined benefit is imperative - a catchy tagline or jingle will not suffice. Simply put, a unique human insight must be presented to the consumer at all points of contact.

Traction is gripping power. In every aspect of our enterprise, we seek to arrest consumer consciousness. We create work with velocity and motion - a purposeful direction and a means to fulfillment. We use straightforward thinking to forge results through an ever-fluctuating societal landscape. Our clients are our partners. We strive to make their businesses succeed by providing the tools and the voice to ensure that their message is heard.

OPA's new ad formats and my awful quote in the L.A. Times

2009-03-12T21:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was quoted in an article in the Los Angeles Times titled In-your-face Web ad formats popping up all over. The story was on the new "supersize" ad formats launched by the Online Publisher's Association. Reading back my quote almost made my stomach turn:

"A large-scale intrusive format is absolutely necessary in today's market," said Adam Kleinberg, chief executive of Traction, a San Francisco ad agency. "With the economy and the move to digital, the marketers are demanding a return on investment in every campaign."

Not that I was misquoted. I said it. I even meant it. It just sounded evil when I saw it in print.

First, let me state for the record: I’m not evil. (ok, maybe a little evil, but not in this instance). No one wants to be “intrusive” and disrupt someone’s experience—personally, I’m a big champion of user-centered experience design—but people need to get a grip. Here’s some reasons why:

1. This is nothing new. As a digital marketing creative pioneer, I’ve been making interstitials and rich media create ad units that disrupt the user experience for a decade already. Why is OPA standardizing some new formats suddenly so horrible? Even Google is getting in on the game announcing a partnership with Eyeblaster—and we all know Google isn’t evil.

2. Content needs to be paid for. Ads support the creation of good content. This is part of life. So is trying to skip them. When I was a kid and a commercial came on during Different Strokes, I’d go into the kitchen and annoy my mom. Sometimes she’d yell at me and I’d go back and watch the commercials. Digital media is no different. People are empowered so they skip ads when they can. But sometimes ads get through and that’s life.

3. People think they know what they want, but often they don’t. I’ve sat and talked to a lot of young people who’ve grown up in the digital age. To a one Ask anyone and they’ll all tell you they hate advertising. But, you know what? They’re all just as impacted by it as the rest of us… and when an ad is relevant to them, they appreciate it. Consumers can only really provide an honest guess about what they will do in a future situation, but the reality may be materially different.

4. Brands still need awareness and ROI. Audiences skip commercials on TV. 728s are next to invisible. People are spending their time online and brands have to either market to them or wither up and die. Currently, there are lots of publishers with unique ad units that allow us to do this (think MySpace homepage takeovers) but it’s very difficult to achieve positive ROI on a campaign when you have to spend thousands of dollars on one-off creative units. Standards for “intrusive” ad units are necessary. But that doesn't mean they have to turly be intrusive. As marketers, we have a responsibility to both our clients and our audiences to develop marketing that is engaging and "beneficial." Few people complain about advertising that they actually liked. Yes, I know that is a utopian vision of online advertising. And yes, I know marketers will continue to have ad concepts that are more "intrusive" then contextually appropriate. But used wisely, these formats can be at least more interesting and "accepted" then just eye sores. Hooray for OPA.

5. In this economy, marketers need to justify every dime they spend. That means digital. That means awareness being measured, imperfectly or not. That means new metrics like “dwell-time” and indirect measures like impact on search traffic.

My two cents, anyway.

Putting your content where it matters - iMediaConnection.com

2009-02-05T19:58:00.001-08:00

"I just had this cover story published at iMediaConnection.com. Check it out!"

Consumers are empowered with the choice to consume media -- and embrace brands -- on their own terms. Use these techniques to give them a reason to choose yours.

View >>

Traction creative reel

2009-02-05T07:45:00.001-08:00

I just found this on YouTube. Forgot I had posted it there:

Web Fonts

2009-01-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

Tack, Top Nerd in Residence (a term I use with much due respect and deference) here at Traction, let the team in on a really interesting update on the current state of fonts on the web.

I'd like to take the opportunity to go into the current state of fonts on the web. There actually has been a mechanism in CSS for using any font you want, even if it isn't on the user's computer, for a long time. It's called @font-face. The thing is that this is another case where everybody at the party is wearing tuxes and evening gowns, except internet explorer which is wearing a leisure suit and swim flippers. Because fonts are copyrighted, browser vendors have taken 2 approaches to linking to them. All the sane browsers assume we're all adults, will purchase the fonts like we do with stock images and allow you to throw any truetype font you want on your web server and link to it in your code. Microsoft wants to have central repositories of fonts and DRM in cahoots with font vendors. So they've got another completely different font format they are pushing and don't support truetype. Well... your font may not exist in both formats so we end up in the same verdana et al situation. If we want uniform typography across browsers we can only use fonts that are everywhere.

If we ever get a web project where we don't care about IE, go nuts with fonts.

Thanks to Tack for all this blog post fodder. You are the wind beneath these wings.

Dealing with multiple APIs

2009-01-13T08:41:00.000-08:00

I had a conversation with Tack, one of the lead web developers at Traction, last week about APIs. I had this theory that interactive agencies were facing a new problem I was calling "API fatigue." From my vantage point, it seems like there is a new API every week for our engineering team to learn: First there was ActionScript, then Facebook API, now OpenSocial, iPhone, Android, Salesforce.com, YouTube API, Amazon, API, Twitter API... the list goes on and on.

Surprisingly, he was dismissive about my concern. Here's an email he sent me following our conversation:

I was thinking about this a bit more since out discussion the other day. I don't think it [API fatigue] exists, at least in its semantic meaning. Programmers are constantly exposed to new API's throughout their careers. It would be akin to talking about plumbers getting "wrench fatigue." Every time we do something new, which should be constant in a fulfilling career, we learn parts of a new API or learn more about one we're already familiar with.

I think what you may be more wary of is the seeming explosion of new APIs available. And, the work of keeping up with it all that goes along with such growth.

This would have been a big hill to climb before wiki's and blogs. It used to be that in order to evaluate and learn a new API you'd have to take a blind leap into a book on the subject (after doing the work of discovering the subject) hoping the book was decent. And you'd have to go through that cycle every time you wanted to learn some new tricks. Now the work of discovery can be done passively via RSS. Blogs like ajaxian for instance are constantly reporting on developments in AJAX that you can scan via RSS and bookmark for later. And wikis allow people to outline the strengths and weaknesses of a new API along with collectively documenting how to get the most out of it. You buy the book after you've decided it's a worthwhile skill to develop.

As far as how to keep companies and teams abreast of the state of the art, I think that it's important to factor in time for developers to do a little research and share what they've learned with the rest of the team. This could be in the form of making allowances for side projects (like Google's 20% time or just allowing developers to pursue hobby development in slow times) and scheduling time for teams to gather socially. Like a team lunch or happy hour. This encourages developers to research what they're passionate about and think outside of their workaday box. And, share the roadblocks they've faced with each other so that the others can offer suggestions they'd never have thought of on their own.

The surge in innovation in this space is built on the tools you need to keep up with it. Group discovery and the knowledge of crowds. Nurture that and you may get both a great team and great innovations.

There you have it, boys and girls. The cure for API Fatigue Syndrome: the wisdom of crowds and a pint of beer.

UX: it's the little things

2009-01-12T07:29:00.000-08:00

I was just reading an article in the NYT and inadvertently selected a word. A little icon of a question mark popped up and when I clicked it, it launched a new window with search results for the selected term.

It's little human-centered things like this that make for a great user experience. There were no instructions telling me about this, but it was discoverable, it was intuitive and it was helpful. The term 'design thinking' has been latched onto lately and you're sure to see loads of articles in marketing publications featuring it. Here's a great example of it.

One agency guy's New Year resolutions - iMedia Connection Blog

2009-01-06T20:38:00.001-08:00

iMedia Connection Blog: One agency guy's New Year resolutions

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A marketing overhaul for Christmas: 10 Things Santa needs to do to - iMedia Connection Blog

2008-12-23T11:38:00.001-08:00

iMedia Connection Blog: A marketing overhaul for Christmas: 10 Things Santa needs to do to

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Why pulling out of Macworld makes sense for Apple

2008-12-19T19:18:00.000-08:00

Apple's announcement that they're pulling out of Macworld is causing all kinds of speculation. Is this the end of American innovation as we know it? Is Steve cryogenically frozen in a vault in Cupertino?

I can't comment on Steve Jobs health. I can only wish him well. But, I can tell you why I actually think the long-term pullout of MacWorld makes complete strategic good sense for Apple.

Follow the logic train, why dontcha'...

Apple does a lot of marketing.
Every piece of marketing Apple puts out is scrutinized to make sure it lives up to the Apple brand (not that I'd know). So, they need quality talent to produce that marketing. And quality talent is neither unlimited, nor easy to bring up to speed.
Marketing is for selling stuff. When do people buy stuff? Christmas. Lots of work for the Apple elves to do.
MacWorld is for selling stuff. When is MacWorld? A week and a half after Christmas. Lots of work for the Apple elves to do.
Reason #3 + Reason #4 = December must suck in Cupertino
WWDC has been becoming a really popular event over the last few years.
WWDC isn't a week and a half after Christmas.
Apple owns WWDC. They don't own MacWorld.
WWDC stands for Worldwide DEVELOPER Conference.
The world is shifting toward a collaborative economy. This is a major change that means innovation no longer comes from just inside of companies, but from the communities surrounding them. Read Wikinomics if you don't believe me.
Developers have created 13,000 apps for the iPhone since Apple released the API a handful of months ago. This is where the driving force will come from that will maintain Apple's leadership in innovation in the years to come. IMHO, this is a major strategic shift for Apple—and the absolute right one.
WWDC has a stage that will work just fine for announcements.
Regardless of Steve's health (which I hope is fine) he won't live or work forever. The Apple brand (and stock price) then cannot be tied so tightly to "The One" forever either.
If I'm right and this is the first step in a major strategic shift for Apple, it's as good a time as any to start the brand transition from Apple's innovation comes from Steve to Apple's innovation comes from the Appleverse. (I just mentioned to my wife that I was writing this post and she says to me independently "they've got to wean the world off of Steve eventually—the man sneezes and their stock price drops 10 points!")
Last week no one was talking about MacWorld. This week, I am.

My two cents, anyway.

iMedia Agency Summit: Takeaways

2008-12-16T14:42:00.000-08:00

Back a few days now from the iMedia Agency Summit. Numero uno bit of news is that I've been asked to do an occasional article and write a blog on iMediaConnection.com. My first blog post was on my impressions from the Summit. I'm going to double post most of what I write on iMedia here, but in the meantime you can check out my iMedia blog here.

Without further ado, reposted here for your reading pleasure:

Impressions from my first iMedia Agency Summit

Posted by Adam Kleinberg on December 13, 2008 at 01:00 AM PDT

A few months ago, Dave Smith from Mediasmith and I were talking and he told me I “had to” check out the iMedia Agency Summit coming up in Palm Springs. I went. It was the most valuable conference I’ve ever been to—made great connections, learned a lot, even had fun.

Here’s my top five takeaways from the Summit.

1. Optimism.
People were surprisingly optimistic about the economic downturn was going to be a boon to the online marketing industry (to the extent that one morning the event planners put up a slide joking that “Dow up 267 points based on optimism at iMedia Agency Summit”).

Not across the board, of course. One-on-one, I definitely talked to people who’ve been feeling the squeeze. However, as a group we are either incredibly lucky to be in this industry or a bunch of naïve fools.

2. The lines between media and creative are blurring.
There’s so many ways to reach an audience, so many opportunities to make a unique (and measureable) connection that creative and media simply cannot take place in a vacuum.

Publishers and Networks (NBC Universal, for example, showed work for Nissan that included a content integration with the show Heros that spanned) are developing creative on their own in many instances and in some cases, agencies with digital capabilities are starting to act like networks. In his keynote, the CEO of Havas Digital showed how they are developing their own ad targeting technology based on unique user-cookies. So, even the players are blurring.

3. There is a conflict between the need for measurable ROI and the need for big ideas. (Don Draper is not irrelevant, I tell you!)
As the head of a creative-driven agency at a conference primarily focused on media, I found that our approach was very different from others I spoke to. We start with an idea and then think about the best way to deliver (and measure) it. In a world where people see a zillion messages a day (that is an actual statistic), reaching your audience creatively becomes incredibly important.

Media targeting and optimization is tantalizing. Even delicious. But it’s easy to lost site of the facts that people have dreams and fears, aspirations and frustrations. When we lift our heads from our databases, these are the things that make for great advertising.

But no standard metrics apply to reaching your audience in creative ways. This is a challenge in an environment where measurability has become the litmus test for success. (Reminds me of testing in schools being necessary, but being applied so stringently it takes the creativity and adaptability to kids’ needs out of teaching.)

Of course, the agencies that figure out how to bridge this conflict will be the winners when the dust settles.

4. This industry has issues.
I spoke to one peer who told me how great she thought it was to be able to collaborate at this conference with people who are normally her competitors and what a relief it was to see others facing the same challenges. For instance, at a metrics roundtable discussion I was in, everyone was in agreement that 15-20% variances in measurement technologies were the norm. One ad network rep told of a campaign where PointRoll and DART had a 300% difference in reporting!

I’m going to be part of a Client Value team that will be doing research and developing a report this year on how agencies can ensure they maintain client value in a rapidly changing world. (I’ll blog about it here as we make progress, but if you’re a brand marketer and are interested in being part of our survey, email me and I’ll make sure you’re on the list.)

5.This business is still about people.
The people at the Agency Summit all seem to know it. That’s why they come. But this runs deeper than networking.

When Gordon Padisson, the former head of marketing at New Line Cinema, spoke about his experience with agencies, he spoke of frustrations regarding turnover, over-promising resource bandwidth and the bait-and-switch of principles that disappear once they get the account. People, people, people. When he talked about agencies were great, he referenced energy, perspective and publisher relationships. People, people, people. Not a whisper about behavioral targeting or integrated cross-media reporting technologies.

So, remember what’s important folks.

Thanks, iMedia (and Dave) for the invite. I’ll be seeing you next time.

iMedia keynote: Tim Hanlon on the need for Transparency

2008-12-09T10:32:00.001-08:00

Tim Hanlon from Vivaky gave the keynote at the iMedia Agency Summit this morning. Made a very great case for urgent need for change. If you're not measuring and proving value, you're going to be irrelevant and lonely in this economy. Recap at imediaconnection.com later today. Also, someone posted a Twitter search url for tagged comments from the conference here.

Marketing with Twitter

2008-12-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

The big Twit question I keep hearing people asking is "how are brands actually using Twitter?"

Here's a great one.

@nunzi @task is great. Check out Qtask if you need real accountability and online collaboration https://website.qtask.com/t... about 1 hour ago

I tweeted at a guy I know in response to a tweet he had made. This guy is searching for his competitors names in discussion threads on Twitter and hitting people to check out his thing.

That's how.

Don Epperson from Havas DIgital

2008-12-08T09:55:00.000-08:00

On stage at iMedia, the CEO of Havas Digital says budgets are up 15% for interactive their. Told about one client that just shifted huge portion of TV budget to online video. Don's topic is "Evolving toward the agency of the future." A few of the things he's saying"

branding and strategy are more important than ever
optimization is part of what planning is becoming
large agencies will act like the large sophisticated media networks (my 2 cents: why not? seems like the media nets like Platform-A and NBC are doing creative)
tech providers will enable this for small agencies. big ones will create their own technology.
talking about a model where every individual cookie is evaluated and an automated bidding process puts a value on reaching every unique individual
moving from a placement value (your typical CPM) to an impression value (unique person)

Overall, it seems like no one's eyes are closed about the tough times ahead, but a lot of optimism about the potential for innovative companies to thrive.

Makes me feel good about prospects for Traction.

iMedia Agency Summit

2008-12-08T09:33:00.000-08:00

At the main session for the iMedia Agency Summit today—talking about digital media strategies in a down economy. Obviously, the good news is online is still growing (11% in the 3rd quarter). One recent study says still expecting 18% growth in 2009. We've all got these gadgets from a company called myxer that let us vote in real time and they're posting results. According to the folks in this room...

37% expect budgets to remain the same (about the same say it'll go up and down)
43.9% think biz's are projecting growth in 2009
47.2% think digital media will grow 10% in 2009 (plus another 10 or so % who think it'll grow more)
80% of people here have direct access to the c-suite
68.7% think agencies and publishers think there's decent collaboration
87.6% want to wait til the bar opens to have a big group hug

CEO of Havas up next...

iMedia Agency Summit: Why agencies suck.

2008-12-08T07:38:00.000-08:00

10 minutes til breakfast here in lovely Palm Springs. I'm at La Quinta for my first iMedia Summit. Everyone keeps telling me to "pace myself" so I'm a little worried about the libations over the next two days

(Note to future first timers: Just finishing this post 3 days later. Didn't pace myself. It was good advice.)

However, it's been a great event and given me lots to think about. Gordon Patterson, the former CMO of New Line Cinema (and a great guy), was interviewed yesterday about how where he sees agencies providing real value to clients and where he sees agencies screwing up—and why despite that he still loves agencies and sees they have great value to offer.

According to Gordon, the fundamental issues between clients and agencies are on both sides: clients don't communicate to agencies and agencies don't listen. Big fundamental issue on both sides because it leads to clients who feel like they're being nickel-and-dimed by agencies and agencies constantly struggling with scope creep and being squeezed by clients. It leads to a situation where agencies—that are full of smart people trying to be strategic about everything they do—wind up being tactical.

From the client side, Gordon's other issues were really about getting the service you expect:

the old bait and switch: principals pitch and then you never see them again
retention and turnover: as soon as people get up to speed on your business, they move on (from now on, you can be be sure I'll mention that only 2 people have quit at Traction since we started the agency in 2001 every time I pitch)
don't over-promise on bandwidth, dammit
agencies better keep bringing new ideas to the table, because your competitors sure are
turf battles: agencies and publishers need to tag-team to make good ideas a reality, not fight over turf

But Gordon also point out that agencies are incredibly value because of the energy, the outside perspective and the media relationships they bring to the table. He also brought up the value of agencies that "cross-fertilize" across client relationships (something I think Traction needs to do more of).

Great session.