But this is not something that everyone currently enjoys. While most in urban areas have access to a good standard of broadband provision, the government acknowledged in 2009 that there are two areas which struggle: rural regions which are far from a telephone exchange, and suburban areas on the cusp between two neighbouring exchanges, that also lie far from the familiar green telecoms cabinets found on pavements.

The government pledged to address these issues in its Universal Service Commitment. This was initially proposed as bringing speeds of at least 2Mbps to ‘virtually’ all homes by 2012, but the target is now 2015. Culture Secretary Maria Miller recently affirmed that the government would meet its broadband targets – including a commitment to having the ‘best’ superfast network in Europe by 2015 – with a further 10 million homes and businesses achieving the 2Mbps level by the end of the current parliament.

Meanwhile, communications watchdog Ofcom recently declared that the UK broadband market had reached a new milestone in competitiveness, saying that nine million homes now receive their broadband through unbundled lines – meaning rival service providers can use the existing BT telephone network. Effectively increasing price competition, the level of unbundled lines has risen 70-fold since its just 123,000 in 2005, according to Ofcom.

So, there are many options out there now and plenty of opportunities to compare broadband packages looking for cheap internet deals. ISPs like TalkTalk now offer fast and cheap broadband as part of a standard package. But the question remains; exactly how fast does your broadband connection need to be?

Enough is enough?

The government said it reached its magic number of 2Mbps through broad consensus with internet providers, balancing the need for serviceable speeds with the cost of rolling it all out. This level, the government said, would be enough to stream TV (such as iPlayer), browse the web at high speed and download an album in five minutes. Importantly, it would be able to handle MP4 media and video conferencing via the TV – things that wouldn’t be possible with a 1Mbps connection. In short, it should be ‘enough’ to handle anything you would want to do online.

But while a 2Mbps connection is probably enough to do anything you need to do, it may not do it as quickly, or in as high quality as you would like in an ideal world – especially if you have more than one person in your household trying to get online at the same time. So let’s look at a few examples:

Downloading - If you want to download music, photos, or even video files, the truth is that any speed is likely to be sufficient. With a typical MP3 album weighing in at around 100MB, downloading may take five or ten minutes at 2Mbps – or just seconds if you have a really good superfast connection. But once it is downloaded, that’s it, so it’s purely an issue of momentary patience while you get the files onto your laptop or MP3 player.

Streaming – According to the popular online TV and film service Netflix, a download speed of just 0.5Mbps is ‘required’ to use the service, but 1.5Mbps is ‘recommended’. If you want a DVD quality picture, you need 3Mbps, while for HD it recommends 5Mbps. Super HD requires 7Mbps, while 3D needs 12Mbps. In other words, even a very meagre connection is enough to use the service – but if the quality of the picture is important to you, then you need the faster download speeds.

Gaming – If you are a keen gamer who wants to compete online in live environments, this is an area where you may need to weigh up the importance of a faster connection. While 2Mbps in theory could work, a speed of around 8Mbps is recommended. This is because the real-time live experience is crucial and if your connection slows you down against rivals – or causes you to lose connection to the game altogether – you will soon find it an unrewarding experience.

Max out your speed

Of course, there are some simple steps you can take to get the most out of your home broadband – wherever you live, and whatever the basic speed of your connection.

•                  Think about when you do your heavy lifting: Try to avoid downloading or streaming content at peak times – typically this means during the evening.

•                  Don’t stray too far: You may be able to get WiFi access from the darkest recesses of your garden, but staying closer to your broadband router will ensure the best possible connection.

•                  Block passengers: From a security point of view, you should always ensure that your connection is password-protected – but another benefit is that you will avoid any unwanted leaches from using your bandwidth.

•                  Cut out black apps: Applications running in the background can be a real drain on your connection. Close anything you are not using on your device – for example, video players – to keep everything as streamlined as possible.

Conducted for the second year in a row with Nielsen, the 2013 Mobile Path-to-Purchase Study covers what more than 2,000 U.S. smartphone and tablet users report they are doing via their mobile devices and captures their actual preferences and behaviors in specific categories. This year’s categories include Retail, Gas/Convenience, Insurance and Banking/Finance. As with last year’s results, it is evident that mobile preferences, behaviors and purchase timing vary by category. We’ll be releasing a deep dive for each category in the coming months.

As far as overall results, marketers should take the time to understand and develop ad campaigns that align with consumers’ mobile purchase habits, including preferred research tools, activities, timing and purchase influencers. This is a critical opportunity as only half of all mobile consumers reported knowing exactly what they were searching for, thus indicating that many mobile consumers can be influenced during their purchase cycle. This is underscored by findings showing half of all mobile users depend on their device at the start of the research process and 1 out of 3 report using their smartphone or tablet throughout their entire purchase cycle.

The findings show that mobile now rivals desktop as consumers’ primary media resource, with 45 percent tapping mobile devices first. Along with this increased mobile focus, local offers and promotions are the top reasons for making a purchase, and nearly 1 out of 3 smartphone users and 1 out of 4 tablet users use their devices to find business contact information such as phone number, address, maps or driving directions. Further, the majority of those surveyed expected business locations to be within walking or nearby driving distance. Marketers must take this local mindset into account when planning mobile ad programs, including featuring local information prominently within ads.

Ultimately, mobile users are showing high conversion rates, with 60 percent of smartphone users and 53 percent of tablet users making purchases related to their mobile activity. Interestingly, 53 percent of mobile users—including 74 percent of smartphone users—reported completing their transactions offline. This trend emphasizes the need for marketers to bridge the attribution gap between mobile marketing initiatives with offline sales.

To fully leverage mobile consumers’ significant purchasing power, marketers must incorporate their mobile preferences for local and promotion-related information into mobile ad strategies, as well as be mindful of reaching mobile consumers throughout their purchase cycle. They must also consider the large number of mobile users who convert offline and use this information not only to develop tailored mobile ad strategies but ensure there are effective performance and attribution models in place as well.

Want to be the go-to guy or gal on your team with the flashiest new apps? The one dressing Instagram photos with never-before-seen filters and stamps, using emoticons our Japanese counterparts only released yesterday?

It can be time-consuming to stay current in social and digital media, so here are some effective ways to quickly surface and assess the hottest toys.

1. Assign yourself playtime. My playtime is Sunday evening after “Mad Men.” I pull out my iPad and iPhone and I furiously start downloading new apps. I jump over to the Featured and Top Charts sections of iTunes to see if there are any new additions. I download them, bring them to the forefront, launch them, create a new account, follow the top accounts (if applicable), invite a few friends and make time to revisit them later in the week. If it’s a photo app, I try out some photos and push them out to Facebook to see how they look. If it’s a news app, I load it up with my interested topics and see how it populates.

Interaction with apps is important. You need to understand the functionality before you make a recommendation. And don’t just bury your new downloads in the graveyard, i.e., the last page of apps.

2. Subscribe to folks who do the research for you. Having been part of the tech PR community, I am (somewhat) responsible for having jammed reporters’ inboxes with pitches about startups. The good folks at TechCrunch, Mashable, The Next Web, ReadWrite and countless other online publications filter through all that noise to help uncover the next big thing. So listen to them, they’ve done their homework.

A few worth noting: I closely follow my buddy Ryan Lawler, who is responsible for introducing Uber and BlackJet to my vocabulary. And Mashable’s Emily Price posts a weekly app roundup of top mobile apps.

Determine what you like to follow on the medium that’s easiest for you to use, and stay on top of it.

3. Identify a network to discuss and share your latest finds. New York Tech Meetup holds monthly events where tech companies demo their products to a large group of tech enthusiasts. Digital LA holds events for “Silicon Beach” startups to showcase their products. These are two examples of larger organizations, but you can replicate the experience with a close group of friends or coworkers. Identify networks both online and offline where you can share exciting discoveries with others. Pass around your phone or pull up the site on your desktop. Don’t just chat about it – do it together.

Yuna Park is Associate Director of Social & Digital Innovation at 22squared. Follow her @yunapark, and follow the agency @22squared.

1. Premium pricing – top of the market
2. Bargain pricing – bottom of the market
3. Prime + 2 pricing – prebuilt-in margin
4. Total cost of ownership pricing – the cost plus overhead
5. Competitive pricing – based on competitors and customer needs

Determining which of these to use depends on a variety of variables including the company’s business model, industry standards and what competitors are doing—to name a few. However, when we were determining the pricing model for ChoiceStream’s advanced targeting optimization technology, we carefully weighed the pros and cons of each of the above pricing options and came to the following conclusions.

Premium Pricing: Higher than your costs? No – As a startup, ChoiceStream has not yet reached scale, so our current costs do not reflect what the market will bear for pricing. This is important because our product is very sensitive to scale due to the fact that many of our costs are fixed. Additionally, our competitors, who have been in market longer, are offering scale-based prices, which we must match.

Bargain Pricing: Lower than competitors? Not necessarily – As a startup you may want to beat your competitors on price, but must be careful not to establish a race to the bottom in the industry. At ChoiceStream we do not try to beat our competitors on price, but we do strive to be the best value. In reality we need to compete on more than just price, so that is a tactic we’ve avoided. Furthermore, we offer a premium solution supported by a full range of premium services that more than justify our prices.

Prime + 2 Pricing: Higher than your planned costs at scale? Not always – You should establish a price list that will eventually allow you a reasonable margin, but you may want to drop below that to win some key customers. We’ve established our price list to allow an equitable margin, but we cut straight to the bone to win some key customers. First, because these customers either commit to volumes that make their business worthwhile or they have the potential to do so once we prove ourselves.  Second, because well-known and respected brands are worth their weight in marketing gold.  We consider their non-cash value when determining their discount.

Total Cost of Ownership Pricing: Determine pricing in the context of TCO? Absolutely – The purchase price of some products represents nearly 100% of the total cost of ownership (that is the cost to purchase, maintain, insure, and operate a product). On the other hand, the price of some products may be 5% or less of the total cost of ownership. The lower the percentage, the less effect your pricing has on the purchase decision. In these cases, you may find that very low prices don’t help sales and very high prices don’t hinder them.  If this is true, mark it up. When we establish pricing at ChoiceStream for our advertising solution, we consider all ancillary costs that the buyer must incur when we deliver; including such things as building ads, ad serving fees, and ad safety fees.

Competitive Pricing: Research price points? Absolutely – It is always a good idea to ask as many potential customers as you can what they would pay for your product or service.  When asking, try to simulate as closely as possible the conditions under which your customers will see your actual offers. We’ve made it a common practice asking clients and prospects what they normally pay for solutions like ours.  We also check out competitors to determine the range of prices in the market, but we are careful to account for differences in quality, bundles and features.

In reality, different pricing models will work better for different companies. There is no single easy solution, but typically creating your own hybrid of these five types will be the end solution.

JCPenney baffles me. It is the Prometheus of department stores. The audience can't tell if we're too smart for it or it's too smart for us. Here's what I mean.

The Dumb

We begin our story in November of 2011, with a young lad named Ron Johnson. Johnson was hired to lead JCPenney as CEO, replacing Mike Ullman who ran the company for seven years prior. The board of directors was apparently upset at Ullman for turning JCPenney into a department store that only old people wanted to shop at. Johnson, the young, former Apple SVP of retail operations was to come in and "cool" it up. Ullman was eventually fired.

In late January 2012, riding high on his Apple ego, Mr. Johnson announced a bold new vision for JCPenney. He proclaimed that the company was eliminating "sales" and replacing them with "everyday low pricing." According to Johnson "Pricing is actually a pretty simple and straightforward thing. Customers will not pay literally a penny more than the true value of the product."

JCPenney executives cheered the words of their new CEO Jesus and enacted the plan on February 1, 2012.

Here's what makes everyone here a bunch of disconnected idiots. It turns out old people love sales. Nothing gets their false teeth chattering more than flipping through the Sunday ValuePack and seeing something they don't need for 30 percent off. Guess who makes up most of JCPenney's customers? Grandma. Johnson was noted by colleagues to have a "disdain" for this traditional consumer base. He was given full reign to implement tactics meant specifically to drive out the old and bring in the new. Nothing wrong with that idea except Johnson wasn't exactly subtle about it.

In a matter of months, JCPenney went from this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

To... this.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The result? Old people stopped shopping at JCPenney. Younger people didn't show up as expected. The rest stayed far away.

Nothing makes customers happier than a "take it or leave it" sales approach.

JCPenney saw a 15 percent drop in sales in the first quarter, confusion from shoppers, and an alienated customer base. Johnson continued to commute to Plano, Texas from California on the company private jet, all while blaming the sales drop on the stupid, confused customers.

Overall, Johnson led a 25 percent sales drop and the lowest stock price in 12 years. One month ago, JCPenney finally fired Johnson. Who was chose to replace him? Former JCPenney CEO Mike Ullman. You know you screwed up big time when they rehire the guy you replaced 14 months ago.

The Smart

I say all of that makes JCPenney the dumbest company ever because it hired a guy who right off the bat said he hated the customer base. That's like inviting a guy to a party who says he hates the host. Your night's probably not going to end well.

So where's JCPenney's redemption story here? What makes the company so smart?

They apologized.

I'll preface my point with the following. If you work in business, marketing, or advertising, you live in a bubble where you see the moves companies make through the lens of your particular expertise. This is why no brands ever apologize. From a business, marketing, and PR perspective, it comes off as desperate, risky, and an admission of guilt. No Bueno.

However, if you're an average Joe consumer and your life does not revolve around your career, you live your life through a series of emotions.

This is what makes JCPenney's move so brilliant.

I have a feeling that after he was fired, Mike Ullman became one of the humans again. When he went back to the company, he held on to his humanity and valued it over his initial business instincts. That's what led to this move.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Instead of pretending the last year never happened, JCPenney decided to get real with consumers. By simply apologizing, they showed that the brand is vulnerable. Vulnerability is a human trait, and is easy to sympathize with. It shed the cold, corporate image people had in mind. Everyone makes mistakes, and it’s very hard to apologize. But the people in your life who apologize are the ones who you’ll probably end up forgiving.

JCPenney realized this and took a post-Johnson stand which is very raw and honest, with a real admission of guilt. They want you back, and they know they screwed up.

More brands should act like this.

The Aftermath

JCPenney has since re-introduced sales. After the "We're Listening" campaign started, #jcpListens became a trending twitter topic. The "We're Listening" Facebook post has almost 60,000 likes and 20,000 comments. JCPenney has become more socially active than ever. JCPenny would have probably died by now if the company hadn't apologized. But it did, and customers are slowly coming back.

The brand still has a long way to go, but JCPenney couldn't be more on the right track. It performed an unbelievably fascinating year-long soap opera which should serve as an example of what not to do, and then what you should do as an established company in trouble.

Now that everything is behind it, JCPenney can begin focus on it's real problem; selling clothes that people actually want to wear.

These numbers provide vital insights into the campaign elements that worked (and those that didn’t). Yet when it comes to determining attribution, we all know there’s a wide margin of ambiguity.

Regardless of how much the online ad industry has evolved over the past 15 years or so, we’re still challenged by the lack of an indisputable, clear-cut method to determine attribution.

For example, many advertisers today still rely on a last-click attribution model, which overlooks the reality that, most likely, multiple touch points influence each sale. An improved method others have adopted is a hybrid model that credits the various channels involved in the sale. While this is certainly a huge improvement, it doesn’t paint the most accurate picture or give insight into which marketing channel is performing best.

This is why the industry needs greater transparency across every marketing channel. When presented with a more comprehensive view of performance across the board, you can see overlap, more accurately assess ROI and attribute proper credit for a sale.

As the industry continues to evolve, here are five performance indicators to consider in the quest for a more comprehensive attribution model.

1. Consider Every Path to Conversion

If you’re like most advertisers, you find that as you uncover more ways to reach consumers online through various marketing channels and devices, it becomes even more challenging to get a single version of the truth.

As you break down attribution, consider every path to conversion. This includes online influences such as a branding campaign, high traffic volume from an affiliate publisher, or activities in social media. But the metrics used to measure these campaigns are not at all parallel – clicks vs. impressions vs. followers. Having transparency into where and when these channels touched the consumer will increase your understanding of how channels work together so you can better weigh the influence of each.

2. Track the ROI from Each Channel

With a better understanding of how each channel contributes to the sale, you will gain a better understanding of ROI, helping you make strategic decisions about how to allocate budgets for future campaigns. A key component of this is understanding the value of the consumers each channel is driving. Does one channel drive more new to file while another drives users with great lifetime value? Answering these questions will help you determine which channels should get a greater share of your overall marketing budget.

3. Measure Engagement

Ah, there’s that ambiguous “engagement” word. In this context, engagement should be measured in such a way that marketers can determine that the user did in fact see the ad and even responded to it. 

Tracking engagement also enables a post-engagement conversion model that gives advertisers a more accurate view of campaign influence, and more confidence in attributing sales to display.

4. Focus on ROI First, Payments Second

To create more transparent attribution models, advertisers should focus on the ROI first and the payments second.  

An ideal attribution formula goes something like this: X, Y and Z were involved in the sale and all will be credited. If you consider that one of those channels may be delivering a stronger ROI over the course of a campaign, you’ll want to reward them accordingly. This way, you can continue to increase the return from your most lucrative marketing channels.

5. Apply Journalism’s Five W’s and an H

Every journalism student or passing fan of newsroom dramas understands the five W’s and one H to get to the heart of any story. It comes down to the who, what, where, when, why, and how, and attribution is no different. If you want to refine attribution by gaining greater visibility into your campaign performance, take a closer look at:

• Who: The vendor that’s involved in the sale and the extent of their contributions.
• What: The sales assets provided for the ad (e.g., free shipping, discount code, video, user reviews)
• When: The time lapse between a consumer seeing an ad and making a purchase (e.g., an impulse sale purchase vs. a high-cost electronic with a longer lead time and more layers of influence).
• Where: The marketing channel(s) used to attract the consumer (e.g., display, email, social, search).
• Why: The campaign objective (new user acquisition vs. lifetime value)
• How: The campaign strategies (e.g., prospecting, retargeting, loyalty, etc.).

Incorporating these five performance indicators into our attribution models will improve transparency and shed cloaked metrics from our marketing partners. It also adds in the much-needed dimensions of engagement and branding, which are critical to understanding online advertising performance.

What other media channel can compare with this?

Consumers are rapidly adopting mobile devices and behaviors and spending an average of 2 hours per day on smartphone devices. We are rarely separated from them, and we check our phones every 6.5 minutes (or 150 times daily). 

MOBILE advertising grew by 88% in 2012

While MOBILE ad/media spending is only 1% of total media (vs. 10% share of consumer media time), MOBILE advertising grew by 88% in 2012 (from $2.4B to $4.5B). MOBILE ad spending growth to-date has been limited by marketers/agencies challenges in creating MOBILE ads designed specifically to take advantage of MOBILE devices. Chia Chen, SVP Mobile Practice Leader at Digitas indicated their client's mobile ad spending grew by 400% (4X more rapidly) because their ads for Amex, Taco Bell, M&Ms and other clients treated smart phones as "small TVs" and incorporated richer media, and more native creative palettes.

Global Tablet Advertising Study - Results Presented

Beth Doyle, Innovation Director at Vivaki, revealed the results of a 14-month global industry study of 20 million global tablet users (sponsored by 12 advertisers including P&G and Coke and 12 media companies) titled The Pool: The Tablet Lane - TABLETS RISING. This study tested 35-40 tablet advertising formats and yielded 3 STD Tablet ad formats being proven as meeting consumers' needs: (1) let me drive; (2) more for me; (3) "tablet-ize" the user experience; (4) no guessing games - keep it intuitive and simple. Clearly, with MOBILE (smartphone and tablet) ad standards emerging, marketers are well on their way to utilizing this new medium in unique ways not available through other previous media channels.

MOBILE's Big Differentiators

MOBILE is a one-to-one media channel and LOCATION is MOBILE's big differentiator. These devices give consumers the ability to find anything they need in real-time and for marketers (with opt-in permission) to find their best customers and prospects when they are in active shopping/buying mode. 40% of consumers already utilize MOBILE devices as their primary (exclusive) online research channel and 60% of mobile shopping converts to purchase (with 75% of sales take place in-store).

Todd Morris, EVP of Mobile & Marketing at Catalina indicated mobile-assisted grocery shoppers buy 8%+ more and over 1M+ consumers are already spending over $1B+ in mobile grocery shopping where items are scanned, store discounts/coupons are applied, and orders are delivered or picked up without waiting in checkout lines.

Trish Mueller, CMO at Home Depot indicated mCommerce grew 129% in 2012 and sales from MOBILE are projected to exceed $650M by 2016. Home Depot has developed a MOBILE web and apps which make it one of the top 10 retail sites creating "an endless aisle" where consumers can access 400,000 SKUs as well as product information and peer reviews at the point of purchase. One of the most innovative apps is "Find A Pro" where consumers can take a video of a problem, send it to Home Depot, and they will connect consumers with "Pros" who can bid the job.

Winston Wang, Global Director - Strategic Innovation at AB Bev, demonstrated "beer and MOBILE go hand-in-hand" indicating beer is the original social network and MOBILE is helping Sales & Marketing along the entire purchase funnel as well as in the loyalty/advocacy areas after purchase. Winston shared MOBILE apps for Stella Artois (9 step pouring ritual, LeBar finder), Beck's and Bud Light.

Announcement: A New MMA Initiative To Address The Mobile Talent Gap

MMA-NA has launched a NEW Mobile Talent Task Force (Jeff Gundersen - Co-Chair) and the first open Committee meeting was held at the MMA-NY 2013 Forum. All parties (marketers, agencies, media companies, technology providers, educators, training & development companies, and other interested parties) are invited to reach out to Jeff Gundersen for a copy of the "Strategic Framework" and related mobile talent research studies pertaining to this new Committee.

Portrait ads make it easier for brands to tell those stories. The oversized, three-module units create rich-media canvases for brands to share HD video, audio, images, social media and other interactive elements. Many leading publishers are successfully creating native opportunities for advertisers by incorporating their own site content into one of the modules. The adjacency of premium publisher content to the advertiser’s own content is mutually beneficial and creates an effective, engaging ad unit that feels as if it’s part of the website. While the publisher content within the unit does not truly constitute an editorial endorsement of the advertiser’s product, it does serve to instill the consumer with a sense of trust for the brand advertised.

We know that the Portrait ad works, particularly for luxury brands. While the IAB’s Rising Stars are slower to catch on than the industry hoped, they are steadily gaining traction. As viewability issues and low engagement rates with banners and other less dynamic formats continue to frustrate publishers and advertisers, the Rising Stars become more and more appealing. However, one issue that’s hindering broader adoption is cost. Portrait ads definitely cost more to produce than banners and buttons, and they cost more to place, as well. The oversized units take more space on the page and tend to only appear on premium publishers sites. That means advertising with Rising Stars is going to require a much more significant investment than a typical media buy.

However, there’s a change emerging in the marketplace. Since the Rising Stars are IAB Standard ad units, they can be sold programmatically. With that in mind, there is no reason why these ads couldn’t be sold via networks and exchanges.  And that is what is beginning to happen: Forward-thinking companies that see the potential for this kind of premium marketplace are joining together to make it a reality.

This is good news for luxury brands, which have historically shied away from programmatic buying.  A premium programmatic exchange will allow brands to invest in rich media advertising at scale, while addressing many of the concerns that previously kept them at bay. Exchanges of this nature are invitation-only, so only inventory from the most exclusive publishers will be available. That can allay most concerns around brand safety and fraud. Leading technology partners would ensure data-driven targeting and analytics, so advertisers can ensure that they’re reaching the right audience and engaging them, and then optimize as necessary. And use of the Rising Stars in these exchanges supports viewability, since the ad units were designed with this metric in mind.

Shenan Reed, founder of Morpheus Media, was recently quoted in an article by Skip Brand in MediaPost.  She referenced a recent study by Undertone Networks that revealed that awareness of the IAB Rising Stars was shockingly low. “If less than a third of brand marketers in the online advertising industry don’t know what these units are, it just means we’ve continued to force ourselves into mediocrity,” she said. “Helping build industry awareness and move the industry forward by doing away with banner blindness through use of the Rising Star units -- that makes me feel like I’m doing something right.”

I feel the same way. Rising Stars are a powerful vehicle for brand advertisers, particularly in the luxury space. They represent a tremendous opportunity for brands to tell their story in an eloquent and impactful way. An introduction of premium exchanges will allow brand advertisers to begin to do this at scale, reaching larger, targeted audiences with brilliant rich media ads. It’s a shift in the right direction for the industry, and if we really want to see more brands advertising online, it’s an effort we should all get behind. Then we’ll all be doing something right.

A key component of understanding buying decisions is gaining a reality check on how buyers perceive you and whether you match to their criteria.  How well organizations are perceived will serve as one of the primary influences shaping buying behaviors and purchase decisions.

Buyer research can reveal many aspects of what comprises buyer perception.  Buyer experience is now becoming one of the most important factors contributing to and influencing perceptions.  The new digital age is introducing new types of criterion buyers place a value on, which can directly affect their perceptions:

Buyer Experience: previous as well as current experiences can have an enormous impact on how buyers perceive you. Do you think waiting an extra day to return a call was no big deal?  Think again.

Engagement: evidence is building on engagement being a factor in shaping buyer perceptions when making purchase decisions.  What the "engagement experience" tells buyers can make a big difference.  This differs from buyer experience in this way: when you ask customers and prospects to engage - meaning interact - it better not be painful.

Knowledge: the sharing of knowledge and insight is fast emerging as a one area shaping how buyers perceive companies.  Content marketers need to watch for information fatigue setting in with their buyers.  Suffocating buyers with content is not the answer.  On the other hand, if buyers feel like they have to perform a tooth extraction tor pry information from your organizations, then they will move on.

Community: buyers today are getting tuned into joining various communities specific to their industry.  Are your efforts tuned into the communities buyers are at?  Are you contributing to this community - or "selling" and annoying the community?

These are just four factors affecting how buyers can perceive you and your organization.  Based on hundreds of buyer interviews I have done to date - I can say the above directly impact the why and how of purchase decisions.

Now What?

Getting to understand how buyers perceive you can be challenging.  Two ways you can get a handle on buyer perception is:

• Have buyer research performed specifically for perception
• Have mystery shopping performed to get insight on how buyers experience their interactions with your organization

Understanding how buyers perceive you can often be a surprise.  When I have provided insight into buyer perception, I often get the "I had no idea" response.  Given the hyper-competitive digital world of today, this might be one area you should have an idea about.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to theBuyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• The Art of Buying

• 4 New Values Affecting How Buyers Perceive You (tonyzambito.com)
• 5 Buyer Behaviors Reshaping B2B Marketing (tonyzambito.com)
• Is Your Lead Generation Off-Target? (blogs.imediaconnection.com)

The wonderful movie was about a 13-year-old boy named Josh Baskin who made a wish to Zoltar, a creepy, fortune telling carnival game that fulfilled his wish to become Big.

I am not sure what exactly Penny Marshall was hoping to portray when she directed this memorable story, but the lessons woven into its narrative are timeless and applicable to any industry, especially ours. Marshall helped us remember what life is like through the lens of a curious and playful 13-year-old. More importantly, she helped us remember how much fun it is to behave like no one is watching.

My favorite scene takes place at the fabled FAO Schwarz toy store. Josh (played by Tom Hanks) is running through the aisles playing laser tag with another teenager. Josh gets shot by his young, worthy opponent and falls to the ground twitching like he has been zapped by a cattle prod. While Josh is full twitch on the floor, the CEO of the McMillan Toy Company walks by and asks, “Don’t you work for me?” Josh sheepishly answers “Yes,” quickly gets to his feet, and removes his laser tag equipment. The CEO states, “I come here every weekend to see what is really happening in the toy business … the kind of stuff you cannot see in a marketing report.” Joshnaively replies, “What’s a marketing report?” The CEO nods, smiles, and says “Exactly.” End scene.

The next scene shows Josh rewarded for his honest answer and his obvious passion for toys. It posits Josh in his palatial New York City office as the new Vice President of Product Development for the McMillan Toy Company. He joyfully explains to his best friend Billy that his new job actually requires him to play with toys… seriously… play with toys! His friend Billy marvels, “They pay you for this? “Suckers!” Josh nods, smiles, and punches himself in the face with a pugilistic hand puppet.

Why am I writing about a movie about toys? Simple, it has everything to do with business. Josh’s naïveté IS the lesson. His pure joy in playing with toys IS the lesson. His childlike approach to his job IS the lesson. Allow me to elaborate here on the wisdom of Josh:

Lesson One: Be nice
How many executives at a major company, smile, and say “Hi” to everyone as they pass by their desks? How may executives genuinely appreciate all the people who work with them, and remember to let them know so? It makes a difference in your attitude and everyone around you.

Lesson Two: Be honest
During an internal pitch meeting about a new toy, Josh raises his hand to complain, “I don’t get it? What is fun about playing with a building?” By the end of the meeting, the entire executive team agrees with Josh, and they decide to manufacture a new bug toy instead. How many of us challenge authority with such honest questions? As counterintuitive as it sounds, being honest (at the risk of being a lone voice)  can lead to very productive conversations.

Lesson Three: Be passionate
If you are not passionate about our industry, please, for everyone’s sake, find another industry! We’ve all worked with people who do not enjoy the work, and none of us enjoy their presence. Conversely, we have all worked with people who are passionate about what they do… and we all enjoy simply being near them. Passion is contagious. Plus it’s fun as well as fruitful.

Lesson Four: Be grateful!
Remember the excitement of your first day in your ad agency or ad-tech firm? Good. Now, remember the little things that used to bring you so much joy and remember that we are all “playing” in our industry of choice. We too are getting paid to do what we love. A sense of gratitude and remembering why you choose to be here will help you get through the less pleasant tasks required.

Lesson Five: Be collaborative
Do NOT hold your own ideas close to the vest in hopes of being “noticed” by your boss. Be like Josh, raise your hand, and share all of your thoughts and ideas freely… with a smile on your face. If someone steals your idea… do what any other 13-year-old kid would do… punch them in the stomach, and pedal home to your Mommy with tears in your eyes.

Lesson Six: Be respectful
No matter which side of the table you sit on, whether it’s Buy or Sell, remember that RFP stands for: Request for People, not just a Proposal. It means that you are asking many people to work long, thoughtful hours, with very short timelines. And remember, ALL of these people answering your RFP are hopeful that you will select them.

Lesson Seven: Be naïve
Naïveté is not always a pejorative term; it can be applied to those in our industry who choose to work without the ego with which our industry is associated. A childlike approach to business is not only highly productive; it is welcomed by teammates, bosses, and clients.

In conclusion: Be nice, honest, passionate, grateful, collaborative, respectful, and intentionally naïve. Be a little kid again and marvel at things like mini corn on the cob, your limo service, cool apartments, bunk beds, and trampolines. And remember… Josh got the Girl too.

Be like Josh!

When Wal-Mart announced plans to use its retail locations to fulfill online orders last week, the media and business community broke into a collective game of word association. The word? Amazon.

Prior to breaking the news, Wal-Mart was already one of the few companies that could compete with Amazon online. But after unveiling how it plans to do so—by fulfilling online orders in its own stores—Wal-Mart became Amazon’s first serious threat.

The irony is that Wal-Mart will fulfill these orders using Amazon's own in-store locker strategy. Wal-Mart has the significant advantage of already having 10,000 retail locations—something Amazon can't currently compete with. For Amazon, staying competitive will either require rolling out a slew of its own physical locations (which is a possibility considering its test store concept last year) or establishing partnerships with 3rd-party brick-and-mortar retailers (something it is very much in the process of doing). In the meantime, however, all Wal-Mart has to do is boost its online game. Well, and install the lockers.

Clearly Amazon and Wal-Mart have different product sets. They also don’t overlap 100% in target customer bases, and there are a bunch of other things that are fundamentally different about their models… But for the sake of oversimplification, let’s say that all Wal-Mart has to do to rise to ecommerce supremacy is up the online ante. What exactly would that take? A lot. But Wal-Mart’s two most crucial priorities will be helping online customers navigate its extensive product list easily and quickly, and streamlining online and offline operations to create a turnkey overall experience.

Priority #1: Wal-Mart must transform itself into an invisible (and psychic) personal shopper to help customers navigate its vast inventory.

Like Amazon, Wal-Mart has a massive product offering. This isn’t a new problem for either of them, but as the race to fulfill orders guarantees quicker turnaround times and more convenience after placing the order, Wal-Mart must control every thing it can before the order is placed to ensure it’s actually placed through them. In this case, that means making sure customers can find what they’re looking for, quickly and easily. Or, in the case that customers don’t know exactly what that is, helping them figure it out with a fairly high degree of accuracy.

The good news is that this isn’t Wal-Mart’s first rodeo; they’re not exactly starting from scratch. They know who their customers are and they’ve got tons of data from past purchases and online behavior to inform their efforts.

They’ve also got enough content to appeal to every person in the US if they want to – it’s just a question of surfacing the right content to the right people. Therefore there is no extra work involved in getting more products or content; the challenge is simply using it better.

To act as an invisible personal shopper, Wal-Mart must master what they do with this powerful combination of content and data—and when they do it. The goal is to use it in real-time, as customers are browsing their online store.  This is different from standard product recommendations—things like “people who liked this, also like that”--which online shoppers have become accustomed to. Retailers now have the technology to go far beyond these persona/segment-based tools.

They can make use of both historical data (what this particular individual has looked at and/or purchased in the past) and current data (what this particular individual is looking at right now) to make predictions that will shape a particular customer’s experience in context and real-time.

Priority #2: Create a streamlined and turnkey experience across all touch points between online and offline visits.

With this new model comes the potential for far more room for error than ever before. Online customers who will now be traveling to Wal-Mart’s physical locations to pick up their orders will no doubt expect a consistent experience from the moment they order all the way to fulfillment. Along the way, there are a number of touch points, including email, direct marketing, advertising, customer service, and so on.

Building on the idea of personalizing each individual’s online experience, Wal-Mart can easily improve each subsequent experience—something that may seem like it involves a significant level of complexity. But with the right infrastructure, it can be completely automated and dynamic.

The key to accomplishing this is putting visitor profiles at the heart of each cross channel experience. In other words, Wal-Mart can use the same model of targeting used online to inform which content each customer sees across all other channels. In the end, the digital channels match email marketing matches advertising matches direct mail matches messaging at the point of pick-up (a phrase I just coined, mind you), and so on.

At the end of the day, Wal-Mart’s rise to online dominance really just revolves around turning an otherwise complicated shopping experience into one that feels quaint and easy. It can accomplish this by setting up a strong behind-the-scenes infrastructure that puts the customer experience at the forefront. And isn’t that what their new strategy is all about—giving the customer what they want where they want it?

Structure is particularly useful when defining roles for a partnership or specific project. It can help to focus individual goals and create helpful boundaries. A good culture can help open the lines of communication among people with different roles and levels of experience, but a sound structure can help the team to be more efficient. Structure fails, however, when it creates a rigid hierarchy that prevents people from performing at their full potential.

Take the Grateful Dead, for example. The Dead were famous for having a flat organizational structure. Yes, Jerry Garcia was the leader, but every employee had a say in making decisions. At the group’s request, in 1981 Alan Trist, an employee, wrote a document on band organization entitled “A Balanced Objective.” The words he, and later, the band, used may be different from what I use, but many of the principles are the same. What I refer to as iteration, they called “strategic improvisation,” according to the book Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead by Barry Barnes, PhD. While I talk about the limits of structure, they talked about the need “to minimize structure while maximizing flexibility” (167). At the core of their message is the notion that there must be a “balance between the structural requirements of taking care of [the] business and the fluid needs of [the] overall creative process” (166).

The following passage from Barnes’s book summarizes one of the main points I make about structure: “And this, really, is the balance that all organizations must strike—between the need for structure to get things done and the danger that such structure will stifle creativity” (166).

One of the reasons I recommend that analytics practitioners wishing to adopt a new idea operate from a top-down perspective is precisely because moving up through the hierarchy of an organization can often be inefficient. This is particularly true if the idea is related to analytics. Traditional analytics methods can be so entrenched in the hierarchy of an organizational structure that the idea of doing things another way can be quite off-putting to many members. While I actually think that a more horizontal organizational structure like the Grateful Dead’s is more conducive for better, faster iteration of ideas and communication, I recognize that the roles of analytics practitioners cannot include completely revamping a company’s organizational structure when they want to introduce a new analytics program. So, often what happens in these situations is that when more logical, thoughtful considerations of proposals are cast aside, initial resistance and politics take center stage. As you probably know, ideal situations don’t always present themselves, and the best route for the analytics practitioner is not to try change the dynamics of an organization’s culture and politics. Rather, it is to work with people who are receptive to the new idea and can communicate and share it with the rest of the organization with minimal friction. Hence, I often use the top-down approach.

So, what about these folks at the top? How can they use structure for the benefit of the organization and their own effectiveness as leaders on their current and subsequent projects?

Well, consider the main points I have discussed so far: culture, structure, and the reinforcement of roles. Often good leadership can advance a positive culture while reinforcing a sound structure that supports individual roles. Take, for example, an article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) called “Strategic Leadership: The Essential Skills” by Paul J.H. Shoemaker, Steve Krupp, and Samantha Howland. The graphic on the front page speaks to me. It shows parts of a tool set with the words anticipate, challenge, interpret, decide, align, and learn. This is what everyone – not just leaders – should be using when developing or adopting new ideas – whether in strategy, as this article discusses, or other areas.

As you might expect, what I especially enjoy about the strategy discussion in HBR is its focus on all of the thinking and cultural parts of devising strategy. Nowhere in the toolset the authors outline do I see “big data” or “structure,” and that’s good. Too often big data in the context of analytics overshadows the thinking and attitudes that can make the use of any kind of data useful. The most basic question that seems to arise after collecting data is, “Now, what do we do with it?” I bet you can relate. This is the type of question answered in the article and the type that analytics practitioners wrestle with often.

With that, I would like to discuss certain guidelines for approaching strategy development that I find particularly useful:

1. Reach for the unexpected. As the HBR article referenced, Nathan Rothschild pointed out that “great fortunes are made when cannonballs fall in the harbor, not when violins play in the ballroom.” Take the expected approach, and you should not expect anything but the… expected. Go for something different, and you may be on to something. Release yourself from structure that stifles.
2. Think critically. That said, do not fall victim to the idea that you should always do the opposite of what everyone else is doing simply because it’s different. As the Shoemaker, Krupp, Howland article points out, being able to anticipate the next opportunity or threat at the right time is key.
3. Constantly iterate, learn, and iterate your strategy. Ideas are one thing, but seeing how they play out in the “real world” is another. Make sure you adjust your strategy if it could be better. The benefit of simulation is that you are able to test multiple scenarios in a risk-free environment. Make sure that frequent iteration of ideas and learning do not stop with the closing of the software system at the end of a long day. Carry them through the implementation stages.
4. Remember to align your strategy with the goals and culture of your team. As Shoemaker, Krupp, and Howland mention in their HBR article, not doing so can make it difficult if not impossible for you to implement a strategy. This perceived alienation can then affect the success of other projects you work on with your team.

What are some of the ways your team struggles to achieve the right balance of open culture and sound structure?

A problem facing organizations today is generating more leads.  Making this issue even more challenging is changes in buying behavior.  Depending on which study to reference, buyers are performing different activities for up to 70% of their buying evaluation before sales intervention.

A recent report by the Aberdeen Group on sales performance shows there is a fair degree of dissatisfaction among sales leaders.  56% saying they were not seeing sufficient growth in top line revenue.  Nearly 30% expressed dissatisfaction with lead conversion to sales.  A recent CSO Insights report indicated that only 20% of organizations understood their buyer’s buying process.  These two perspectives combined point to one of the key issues – targeting the wrong buyer.

Looking back on over 12 years of qualitative buyer research and buyer persona development work, I found in 6 out of every 10 organization– a different buyer was identified than the organization had been targeting!  If you are off-target with the buyer – you will be off-target on your demand generation and lead generation.

Getting On Target

Marketing and sales leaders today are looking to increase their percentage of being on target when it comes to lead generation.  There are four steps you can take to resolve targeting issues:

Do Lead Research:  It all starts here.  You can no longer assume the buyers you've been targeting are the correct ones.  A level of lead research is needed to outfit your lead generation and nurturing team with knowledge about ideal prospects.  For example - it may not always be the CIO but the IT Director.

Develop Lead Personas:  Lead and buyer personas are useful in understanding consideration and purchasing behaviors.  Organizations, through personas, can determine how a prospect behaves when moving from a lead persona to a buyer persona.   One of the main benefits of this approach is the ability to tailor lead and buyer personas to fit the needs of dedicated lead nurturing teams as well as sales team.

Buyer-Centered Design: Designing your lead generation strategies, systems, and processes should revolve around buyers.  The key is in modeling their behaviors when in lead nurturing and when they enter the buying cycle.  Better results will happen when you meet buyer expectations and goals – which can be distinctly different when in lead nurturing versus buying cycle.  Conversion rates at the point of when a lead persona converts to a buyer persona (becomes a sales-ready lead) will rise.

Conversation Enablement Training:  What is needed is making conversation enablement a staple of training for lead generation and nurturing teams.  The long ramp-up time it takes for lead generation teams to understand prospects is out of synch with the pace of change in buying behavior.  As the CSO Insights report pointed out, barely 20% of organizations understand their buyer’s behaviors and buying processes!  In my qualitative research, I often hear of the frustration prospective buyers have in the lack of productive conversations.

Targeting the right prospect is becoming the lifeblood of organizations today.  For many companies, tackling this issue means discovering who represents their ideal target buyer.  In addition, gaining greater clarity on how buyers differ in behavior when they are being nurtured versus actively engaged in a buying cycle.  Combining these can be a winning ticket and get your lead generation results on target.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to theBuyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle
• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle

• One Way to Know the Ideal Buying Scenarios for Lead Nurturing (tonyzambito.com)

Traditionally a time when people take stock of personal and professional successes and set goals for the next year, I found myself singing along to: ‘I love you, You love me …’.

At this point you might be thinking, ‘Is this blog now getting into what Barney, that ghastly purple dinosaur, can teach me about marketing or marketing research?’

No dear reader, I wouldn’t do that to you … I give you more credit than that. But you’re close!

What could parenting and marketing research possibly have in common?

Outside of work, much of my free time is spent figuring out how to be the best possible father, raise an adjusted child and a good citizen of the world. And that’s how I found myself enjoying the book Erik Erikson’s ‘Eight Stages of Life’, essentially about the development of personality from birth through death.

In reading about these stages, my mind naturally turns to my chosen field of marketing research, specifically as it relates to the role that research plays within an organization, and its stages of acceptance within that organization. As mentioned, Erikson’s eight stages go from birth to death, but I will focus on those stages from infancy to adolescence.

I’ve taken the liberty of modifying this work to make it more meaningful and relevant to this audience, and am providing my own thoughts and reflections as they loosely relate to each ’stage of development’.

Stage 1 : Infants learn to trust, researchers gain credibility

Infancy (birth to 18 months)

Marketers and others within an organization often doubt research. Maybe that’s because the data doesn’t agree with the story they want to convey, or worse, the data itself has quality issues.

It’s critical to get buy-in on the integrity of the data provided. It should be designed, organised, labelled and structured the way you like to see it.

Stage 2 : Toddlers crave autonomy, researchers seek control over data

Early childhood (2 to 3 years)

Having access to research data can be empowering. Some people within an organization may be data-savvy enough to really dig in and mine the data with one of the powerful data investigation tools around.

However, sometimes guardrails are appropriate and users won’t want full flexibility, so use a more appropriate option. Actually, being able to physically view the data is critical and provides a sense of autonomy.

This often frees up resources of the research function and can reduce costs to vendors for ad hoc data requests.

Stage 3 : Preschoolers take the initiative, researchers reduce silos

Preschool (3 to 5 years)

Often data sits in various places, rendering the information useless.

Being able to bring multiple data sources together to make informed decisions is invaluable, as is the ability to share information across different business functions.

Stage 4 : Young school children navigate social demands, researchers engage in group decision making

School age (6 to 11 years)

Providing access to data, either through an analysis or data visualization tool, provides users with an opportunity to interact more and share information, making collective decisions.

The more people who have access to information, the better the end decisions.

Stage 5 : Adolescents become competent, researchers take action

Adolescence (12 to 18 years)

The propensity to act on business decisions based on research findings, varies by company. Research is expensive and the decisions that stem from the research and value received, is constantly under review. It takes courage to stand by research and act on its findings, to help move an organization forward with its business objectives.

Find inspiration - it's out there!

Inspiration for drawing insights regarding research can come from the oddest places. In thinking about the child development process, parallels can be drawn to understand how to better achieve success with research, within an organization.

Giving credibility to research data and providing people access to research data, sets an organizational culture that values and welcomes research. Further, access to data helps reduce silos and encourages group decision-making

Once consensus is researched, organizations must have the courage to act.

I’ve been thinking about this concept and started realizing how many of my friends, business partners, clients, and relationships in general have come through some form of introduction. This is something that many are either uncomfortable doing or simply don’t think about as part of their daily activity. The reality is that anyone you’re speaking with most likely knows someone else you SHOULD meet. And they are usually fairly willing and able to make the introduction as well. What ends up happening when you internalize this way of thinking is that doors start opening left and right.

I figured I’d try to put together a few rules that would help people get better at this skill in order to unlock the network you don’t even realize you currently have.

Rule #1 – Don’t be scared. When you start to realize that the worst possible thing that could happen is that the person you are asking will simply say “no sorry I don’t know anyone there,” it will make things easier. Fear of rejection is another topic and we’ll save that for another time.

Rule #2 – Think about all the angles as they say in pool. I was recently on my way to a city for a business trip and was speaking with a client at an agency. The normal way of thinking would prompt me to ask him who at his agency we should meet while in town. Instead of that I figured I’ll try something different and asked him if he knows anyone at OTHER agencies of brands in his city we should meet while there. Low and behold he connected me with one amazing agency and one of the largest brands in the country (two friends he grew up with) but he never in a million years would have thought about those two connections if I hadn’t come out and asked.

Rule #3 – Be clear in your value proposition. Whether its in a friend capacity such as “do you know anyone who loves to golf,” where you clearly are interested in that sport, to business where you’re an expert in a space and want to share your knowledge. The key to referrals is making sure the person you’re asking believes you have some value that you can offer to their connection otherwise you’re just wasting their time. For example if someone asked me, “Do you know anyone who needs a great graphic designer who has expertise in front end design?” I may see the clear value they offer and be able to properly direct them to someone they could be a value to.

Rule #4 – Be confident but no one likes a nudge. The trick is here believing you have some value to offer and that you won’t “make them look bad” if they so oblige with an intro. The balance is you never want to come off as annoying or a hassle so finding the balance between politely asking and reading the signals when someone is not interested in helping.

Rule #5 – Follow up is key. You may leave a meeting and have someone say “yeah I’m happy to introduce you to Scott” and then you go back to your office and never hear from them again. Many people take this as a sign the person didn’t “really” want to make the introduction when it’s more likely due to the fact they got busy and have a million more important things to do. It’s your job to delicately follow up with them and make it easy for the hand off. If they don’t come through after that then you may assume they’re not actually interested in helping.

Make this way of thinking part of your daily life and you’ll start to be amazed at the doors that open up for you.

Another great read on this topic from HBR.com: 5 Steps to Building Your Network

Here Infotools provide five quick tips for insight departments. Use them to make sure your data gets used by the marketing team.

1. Data organisation

Consumers are messy. Researchers and data scientists love to put them in boxes, but human beings don’t always fit neatly. Preparing data by checking, categorising, labelling and recoding into logical categories can make a database many times more useful.

Collating all sources of consumer and marketing data in one place not only means data can be cross-analysed, but also removes a massive headache for the data custodian. Even when staff move on, data can always be found.

2. Speedy turnaround

Relevance is key to keeping the attention of busy stakeholders. Involve the marketing department in the planning stages, and then show them the results of their input as quickly as possible.

A good way to save time is to decide what you want to see in advance of having the data. When deciding what questions to ask or what data to include, think about what business questions it will answer, and how you’ll need to see the data in order to answer those questions. For example, a recommendation score out of 10 might generate these questions:

• Are people more likely to recommend us in branches where we introduced a customer service initiative?

• Are there differences in likelihood to recommend us by region?

• If so, what are the unique beliefs people hold about us in our most successful regions?

To answer the first question, you could view the percentage who recommend in branches where the customer service initiative was introduced, and those where it wasn't introduced. You’d want statistically significant difference between the bars to be shown.

Above : A simple chart with significance testing can show us if customers are more likely to recommend in branches with our customer service initiative.

For the second question, you might want to see a shaded map where the colour represents the strength of recommendation in different regions.

Above : A shaded map helps us see where recommendation is strongest.

For the third question, you might want to see a correspondence map of our image attributes and our regions.

Nothing is stopping you from planning out these views in advance, ready to be populated with data when it arrives.

3. Engaging presentation which encourages interaction

Just as good branding enhances the value we feel we get from a product, good presentation enhances the credibility of insight. Of course the data is more important than aesthetics, but why make people work hard to understand it? We need to get the insight right, sure, but just as important is getting it used.

This is where data visualization comes in. Data visualization in a nutshell means 'well-thought-out charts.'

The latest platforms for data visualization not only present data flexibly, clearly and attractively, but they also encourage your audience to interact with the information.

This is important because when we manipulate data for ourselves, our attention levels increase. We begin to ask questions and engage with the subject. We’re more likely to remember and act on the insight, because we’ve taken part in discovering it.

4. Showing the right info to the right people

'This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read,' said Winston Churchill.

The best way to ensure consumer insights are not read is to bury them in a fifty-slide PowerPoint deck. Marketers in particular are used to effective communication, and so they have little patience for irrelevant information.

Prepare your story, using just the information relevant to the point you’re making. Structure it around marketing questions, not research questions. Make your point clearly and don’t expect your audience to have to go looking for the data.

Of course, people in your organisation who are data explorers should be given the ability to interact and delve deeper into the data. Ideally, we want to give different levels of functionality to different people.

Examples of simple interactivity include demographic filters and switching between charts and tables. More advanced interactivity would be changing the metrics charted, ranking, changing the default significance testing, etc.

5. Capability to collaborate and exchange ideas

So you’ve got your marketing department’s attention. Now to get some action.

The best ideas don’t happen in a vacuum, and neither do ideas for responding to consumer insights. By making it easy for your audience to share charts, add notes, and reply to each other’s comments, you can generate momentum around the findings.

Social sharing functionality is a common feature of newer data visualization platforms. These are often cloud-based, so you can share a link to a chart or view you’ve created and someone else can comment on it. If you update the chart, they see the updated version too – avoiding multiple versions of reports floating around or stored in Outlook inboxes.

In summary …

The best consumer insight in the world is nothing unless it inspires in marketers the confidence to act. We can make this happen by …

• Preparing our database so it’s easy to use

• Planning our reporting so it’s quick to deliver

• Using data  visualization to engage our audience

• Giving relevant insight – and nothing but relevant insight – to the right people

• Making it easy for our audience to exchange thoughts and plans based on our insight.

I have a confession to make: Networking is both the scariest and most enjoyable part of my job. There is a small part of me that panics about the uncertainty of meeting new people in a professional setting: Who will I talk to? What will we talk about? What if I say something that makes me look like a total idiot?

Thank you for your open letter yesterday praising the presentations, programming, productivity, and outcomes of the Digital Content NewFronts 2013. Fifteen top media companies presented more than one hundred original digital video shows that will soon bring laughter to the lips and stimulate the minds of men, women and children around the world, distributed across laptops, PCs, smartphones, tablets, and connected TVs everywhere. I think I speak on behalf of all NewFronts presenters - indeed, for the entire digital publishing industry – when I say we agree with you: This is a revolution in marketing, advertising, and media… and a transformation in consumer engagement.

We particularly welcome and appreciate the way you positioned the next stage of this revolution: as an activity in which agencies, marketers, publishers, and technology companies must work together to develop consensus solutions that will elevate opportunities for all of us. Sure, we will negotiate hard with each other, and compete fiercely to win business, publisher against publisher and agency against agency. But that should never stop us from collaborating for the greater good of our conjoined industries, our customers, and our consumers.

We also agree that for this revolution to truly alter the way we do business, we've got to commit ourselves to practices that benefit consumers, bolster transparency, build revenues, and boost profits for marketers, agencies, and publishers. So we dedicate ourselves, as individual publishers and collectively through the IAB, to work with you and your clients to, as you put it in your letter, “change the narrative, and leverage measurement—across the now and next screens—that elevates digital video beyond an extension of TV. To disrupt the commodities-like pricing for broad segments of audiences, to new currencies based on the response and reactions of the people we want to reach… [and to] give digital video (and its consumers) the attention, the brands, and yes, the dollars that it deserves.”

To accomplish this, we pledge to collaborate with you on the three items you enumerate in your “call to arms”: program promotion and discovery (including digital and social promotion), processes for audience-delivery guarantees, and measurement solutions that tell the true story of digital content’s reach and influence.

But we cannot stop there. Because even if we collaborate on all the actions you outlined in your open letter, we will not achieve our mutual goals. If we are truly to revolutionize marketing, advertising and consumer engagement, we must work together - unendingly - to embed other principles in our daily activities. Accordingly, speaking for all digital publishers, we ask you and the agencies you represent, as well as all other agencies, to commit to the following.

• Make cross-screen programming, marketing, and consumption a reality. Perhaps the biggest message emerging from the 2013 NewFronts is that everyone – consumers, advertisers, and publishers - wants seamless cross-screen experiences. Yet despite our violent agreement, it’s hard to pull off. Agencies remain fragmented in the ways they develop strategies, craft creative, plan, and buy different media, reflecting equivalent organizational and process fragmentation inside client companies. Publishers and technology companies, in turn, pursue their own products and services for cross-screen distribution, measurement, and analytics. All of this threatens to take a remarkable opportunity and shred it into a thousand expensive, proprietary solutions. Let’s collaborate on the essential technologies and standards that will make it easy for consumers to discover programs, start watching shows and ads on one screen, pick them up on another screen, and complete their experience on yet another screen.

• Simplify the marketing-media supply chain. We’ve all heard the same complaint: “Television is so simple; I can place a multi-million dollar buy with a handshake. Why is digital so complicated and expensive to transact?” One answer, unfortunately, is an interactive advertising supply chain that’s been put together piece by piece, year by year, with chicken wire bytes and spit bits. While that’s been great for innovation and competition, it’s been a nightmare for operational efficiency, and has added untold millions in costs to our collective businesses. And with the rise of programmatic buying, it only threatens to get worse, as exchanges, real-time bidding solutions, new forms of creativity, social sharing opportunities, and mobile consumers multiply. Let’s commit to cross-industry solutions that aim to take complexity and cost out of the digital advertising supply chain, and make low-cost “handshake buying” a reality in interactive advertising.

• Be as creative as possible. We’ve got to be honest with each other: We face a clutter crisis. Ads are or soon will be everywhere – and with the rise of programmatic buying and other forms of automation, will be everywhere-squared before too long. The result is common conversation in our industry: “banner blindness,” consumer disengagement, and rebellion against the fact and craft of advertising. The history of advertising tells us there is only one way to cut through the clutter and generate affinity for advertising and for the brands that advertising builds – creativity. Simply put, great results require great advertising. Great creativity can work so much harder in interactive media than in other environments, because it allows consumers to dive in, ask for more, pull things out, share their experiences, and participate in the story-building. Some of that creative advertising will be “native” – unique to the site or the individual publisher. But scale economics dictate that much of that creative advertising will have to cross sites and cross screens. Let’s work together to venerate the big ideas and great creatives behind them, as we have done in other media, and also to find standards and processes that will enable the best advertising to flourish in digital environments.

• Make measurement make sense. In your open letter to us, you asked for “metrics that value the true power of digital –engagement and interactivity” and for “the bridge-metrics that paint a portrait of a single piece of content or programming within the broader, non-linear, web of viewing and engagement.” To which we answer: absolutely! We have to get not just reach and frequency right, but demographics, social sharing, and more. But we have an ask in turn: Please commit yourselves, your agencies, and all other agencies you can influence to participate in the cross-industry “Making Measurement Make Sense” initiative. 3MS is the largest digital measurement standardization project in history; already, marketers, agencies, and publishers, working through the ANA, the 4As, and the IAB, have committed almost $6 million to this initiative, which is forging consensus around the metrics and currencies that matter. While many of you have been deeply involved with 3MS, some agencies and clients remain distant from the process, and continue to call for special metrics and one-off currencies that add complexity and cost to the industry as a whole. However flawed conventional television metrics may have been, they have worked for more than 60 years because all parties stuck with a consistent understanding of shared risk and reward. Let’s get the entire ecosystem and all its major players committed to the 3MS process, and to making the Media Rating Council the neutral body for setting, evolving, and policing industry measurement standards.

• Protect consumer privacy. The uniqueness of the Internet is that it is the only medium that allows media and marketers to go globally broad and minutely targeted at the same time, while respecting consumer anonymity, privacy, and choice. Yet regulatory constraints – proposed and in some cases already imposed by government bodies or large technology companies – threaten the ability of consumers to receive and companies to deliver targeted programming and advertising. These proposals may even undermine our ability to offer cross-screen consumption and measurement. The entire media and marketing industry is under threat – from both activist groups that seek to inflame consumer privacy fears to eliminate advertising from digital environments, and from our own relative silence about consumers’ legitimate concerns for the security of their data and the privacy of their interests and activities. Working through the cross-industry Digital Advertising Alliance, our industry has done a good job creating a self-regulatory program and mechanism with real teeth; our “AdChoices” program is distributing 1 trillion notifications to consumers each month about how to opt out of or into targeted advertising, and millions of consumers have exercised their choice. But here again, while many agencies and clients have been involved in self-regulation, some still remain distant. Let’s commit to even more consumer education, and to getting industry leaders to speak more openly about both the value of targeted advertising and programming, and about the harm to consumers and economies that will result from bad regulation or poorly imposed technology constraints.

• Protect intellectual property. Unique, proprietary content is the life’s blood of media and advertising. Original content is the magnet that attracts consumers to media, thus creating the audiences that advertisers need. But the ubiquity and porousness of the Internet long have threatened the creators of content; it’s far too easy for pirates to steal their IP and distribute it freely and widely. In some cases, the pirates make their money not from reselling the stolen IP, but from advertising on the sites where the stolen goods are offered. Let’s find consensus solutions that limit the use of advertising to support the piracy of intellectual property, but without destructively re-architecting the Internet or hindering the distribution of legitimate content and advertising.

We’d like to close with an offer. IAB has planned for several years to launch a Digital Video Center of Excellence – a group of people within our organization dedicated solely to initiatives that will grow the marketplace for original digital video programming. The Digital Content NewFronts provided some seed money that will allow us to get this started, at least in a small way. Why not help us get it going? At the very least, let’s plan a meeting – soon – among key companies representing the most important components of the burgeoning digital video ecosystem, to brainstorm our collective priorities, the ways we can most productively pursue them, and how we can work together to build a mutually vibrant video future.

On behalf of the NewFronts presenters – on behalf of all publishers – we’ll gladly buy the pizza and beer.

Seriously, on behalf of the industry, we welcome your call to arms, and pledge our collaboration.

Regards,

Randall Rothenberg
President & CEO
IAB

1. Filter Information

One of the most revolutionary aspects of the computer age is the amount of information that's online. It can help us with our homework, trivia questions, or simply give us something interesting to do when we're bored. But for every well-written Wikipedia article, there is a website that hosts outdated, inaccurate or even dangerous information. A good trick to have in the bag is to understand and discern what sources are legitimate and valid, and which are questionable and dubious.

This will not only keep you in good company, but help you separate fact from fiction and information from propaganda when doing research or learning about a current event. You don't want to be the person spouting off poorly-researched drivel from some unheard-of website when everyone around you knows which websites to turn to for accurate and reliable data.

2. Basic Science

We've become so dependent on technology without really understanding how it works. People say their "computer crashed" without knowing the science behind what constitutes a crash. Your devices will eventually fail you, and you will save yourself a lot of time, money and headache if you know enough about how they work to get by until an expert can help.

In many ways, it's analogous to owning a car. You need to know the basics of how to take care of it - changing a tire, checking the oil, keeping it clean, etc. - without having to become a mechanic. Similarly, you don't have to know the intricacies of your device or learn to develop software, but it helps to become familiar with how to solve common problems, instead of going offline for a few days or spending hundreds of dollars to buy a new toy.

3. Email Etiquette

One of the great things the Internet does is put us in communication with complete strangers living on the other side of the globe. We may not speak their language or know their culture, but in the digital age, there are still rules to follow. If you're in email correspondence with a new friend, or your boss at a your old job, don't use caps lock or multiple punctuation marks. Be aware that cracking a joke in an e-mail is very, very different to cracking a joke in person, and wit and sarcasm can be impossible to communicate in a written medium.

4. Tech Skills

One of the biggest obstacles faced by today’s recent graduates and youths is finding gainful, meaningful, and long-term employment. Skills like software development, computer programming, and online marketing are in high demand - but few kids today are taking those classes so getting a learning to develop software or other tech training is a great way to alleviate this issue. These jobs also tend to be high paying so graduates who have racked up steep student loan debt should be able to stay out of default.

image source: socialmediagroup.com

Corporate America has long since relegated social media to the post of the intern or sole staffer, which in many organizations is tantamount to servitude. These people work 24 hours a day. Market leaders like Ford, Dell, and Coke, have moved beyond this model of social, yet still, we run into companies that apply this outdated methodology. Their expectation that this system will attain the same performance level displayed by fellow department peers, with fewer resources, no less, is mind-boggling.

However, this has all been said before. What’s changed is that there are now several trends within smart organizations that are moving social media out of this model. This paradigm shift can be harnessed by every brand, at an appropriate level. How you build the case for this, is part of understanding the value that social media delivers.
Three years ago, there was a Social Media ‘checkbox’ placed at the bottom of every marketing plan that was checked off simply by creating a Facebook page. Today the CEO asks the CMO what his Social Media strategy is. Times have changed. The job has also changed drastically, where Facebook pages have expanded, and Twitter is mandatory. Companies must now determine the need for Pinterest, Google+, Instagram and Tumblr, as well.

PR, Marketing, and Advertising for the most part are push mediums; create a message and send it out. Not so for Social Media. A two-way communication is required, and messages need to convey brand strategy and community desires to reap not only paid, but owned and earned media value. This is the job of the Community Manager; and he loves it. He performs the same full-time job as his peers, and all are rightfully expected to contribute equally. The Community Manager, however, gets the short straw, because Social Media is, well, social. The social element drives conversation and feedback from the community. These conversations happen 24/7, regardless of locale, and the Community Manager then has to serve the other master and do what he loves most: work with the community. This is a job that is time consuming, but rewarding.

Social Media budgets have increased, but are still, on average, far less than the budgets given to Marketing or PR; and still the same output is required. This doesn't include the hours spent providing the community interaction that defines the role as Social. While the Community Manager in the short run may be very capable of handling 16-hour days for short periods, the level of quality or longevity of this activity just isn't sustainable. Something will give, either on the brand side or with community attention. Neither is acceptable.

Like all digital mediums, one of our greatest opportunities in Social is our ability to analyze in real-time the effect of brand efforts on consumer perception. There are many reporting and listening packages on the market today for the social media community manager to utilize, but these are data platforms that generate graphs. Many people outside of Social Media call this a report. It’s not. It’s a set of data represented in an abbreviated and graphical format. A report includes analysis, actionable insights, and recommendations based on a set of data. This process takes time from the Community Manager. Fortunately, we still have the remaining 17 to 24 hours of each day to get that done.

We don’t all have the budget of the largest market leaders, but we do have smart people working in all departments who understand the importance of efficiently staffing each department, including Social Media, in order to get the job done. There is tremendous opportunity for real-time insights based on what people are saying about campaigns and products. If acted upon quickly, these insights can save money and drive revenue. I've seen it happen. Give these brilliant Community Mangers the resources they need, and they will help you make better marketing campaigns and ultimately better products.