The hospital used computer-guided lasers that stacked/fused plastic layers into more than a hundred tiny tubes. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave the hospital special permission to implant one of the tubes in the baby, who’s now doing just fine.

In addition to healthcare, 3D printing is fast making significant inroads in a wide variety of vertical markets.

“It’s the wave of the future,” said Dr. Robert Weatherly, a pediatric specialist at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.

Elizabeth Royte, writing in this month’s Smithsonian Magazine, reported that even the printing of organs – and cartilage and skin and tissue – “holds great promise for transforming healthcare and extending longevity. Transplanted organs from a patient’s own tissues won’t be rejected. Waiting times for kidneys and other donor organs will decrease, and organ traffickers could be put out of business.”

One of Royte’s sources, Anthony Atala, who heads up the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, says in a few years hospitals will have 3D printers that can print skin – “from subcutaneous fat up through keratinocytes to hair follicles, oil glands and melanocytes – directly into a patient’s body.”

3D printing, like most other technologies, may have a dark side. Earlier this month Defense Distributed, a Texas-based company, posted details online on how to make a plastic gun (called the ‘Liberator’) using a 3D printer (see Fox News photo). The U.S. Department of State ordered the company to take the blueprints offline because they may contain data controlled by the federal government – Defense Distributed has now complied. Before the firm did so, there were more than 100,000 downloads worldwide.

Forbes also reported that 15 of the gun’s 16 pieces were made on an $8,000 Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer. “The final piece is a common nail, used as a firing pin that can be found in a hardware store,” noted Forbes.

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security intelligence bulletin issued on May 21 highlighted the U.S. government’s chief concerns:

“Significant advances in 3D printing capabilities, availability of free digital 3D printer files for firearms components, and difficulty regulating file sharing may present public safety risks from unqualified gun seekers who obtain or manufacture 3D printed guns…magnetometers may fail to detect the Liberator, depending on device sensitivity. Future designs could further reduce or eliminate metal entirely…unqualified gun seekers may be able to acquire or manufacture their own Liberators with no background checks.”

But as the technology continues to evolve, hopefully 3D printing will be an agent of good.

Peter Friedman, who publishes the Innovation Investment Journal, said car dealers, for instance, might eventually include free 3D printers with vehicles so owners can manufacture their own parts.

“3D printing is not just the future of making things you don’t have…it’s the future of making things that you do have immortal,” he said.

However, to use some British vernacular, this may result in a sticky wicket. Royte pointed out a number of legal issues that will pop up:

“Who is liable if a home-printed design fails to perform? Who owns the intellectual property of codes and the objects they produce? 3D printing is bound to encourage counterfeiting, with serious consequences for brand owners,” Royte said.

In addition to the plastic gun example mentioned earlier, Royte said hackers have already stolen personal banking information after creating a widget on a 3D printer that fits inside an ATM.

Nonetheless, 3D printing could jump-start certain industries.

One of these is the solar energy industry.

John J. Licata, chief energy strategist of Blue Phoenix, a consultancy focusing on next generation energy, believes 3D printing will revolutionize solar panel and photovoltaic (PV) cell manufacturing.

Licata said a lack of energy storage, coupled with manufacturing inefficiencies, have had a negative impact on the industry – future production of solar cells need to be more sustainable.

“3D solar cells, despite advances in energy storage, can capture more sunlight than conventional PV models because they are more precise (using copper, indium, gallium, selenide), less complex and weigh less,” said Licata.

He also pointed out that researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) believe 3D solar panels could be about 20 percent more efficient than flat solar panels – 3D printing can extend the amount of solar absorbed into cells.

Licata added that 3D printing may also drop production costs by half by eliminating various inefficiencies associated with the waste of costly materials like glass or polysilicon.

“The ability to control material inputs of your finished solar product would further turn traditional manufacturing of PV on its head by creating more of an on-demand model that doesn’t require fabrication at distant warehouses,” he said.

Lastly, Licata believes that 3D printing can generate very thin solar cells that can be printed on untreated paper, plastic or fabric rather than expensive glass.

“Creating lighter weight flexible solar panels could have bigger positive implications for wearable hi-tech clothing, radios and future electronics,” he said.

Assuming, like all relatively new technologies, that the costs of 3D printers will start to decrease, 3D printing could lead to a new wave of customization for businesses.

Eric Savitz of Forbes reported that this customization potential will compel “leaders to adjust their sales, distribution and marketing channels to take advantage of their capability to provide customization direct to the consumer.”

And from the consumer’s perspective, noted Carine Carmy, director of marketing for Shapeways, a 3D printing marketplace and community, 3D printing helps extend the conversation with brands opened by digital and social media to possibly co-creating products. She also succinctly summed up the technology’s potential:

“As previously occurred with social media, brands early to adopt 3D printing will be in a position to define the market and develop their way to innovation.”

Sky’s the limit. Stay tuned.

In the beginning, there was creative. Then came reach and frequency. Much later, programmatic buying.

I've been having fascinating state-of-the-industry lunches over the past few months with Rodney Mayers, the CRO of Proximic. We've been trying to figure out how to tell the ad industry that although programmatic buying does bring efficiency to the process, it doesn't necessarily bring effectiveness. Efficiency is a work flow problem that can be solved by programmatic buying. But solving it will not necessarily move product unless it is combined with effectiveness -- what makes people act.

Effectiveness, the be-all and end-all of advertising, is a totally different story.

In the race to prove themselves up to the task of working with the CIO, CMOs have forgotten what Steve Jobs knew well: we are human and therefore emotional. We make decisions mostly on emotions. Where are our customers and what makes them buy? How do we query data to arrive at effective media buys? Effective advertising provokes decisions, but efficient advertising simply reaches people.

You have to ask the right questions of the data produced by programmatic platforms in order to combine your increased efficiency with effectiveness. CMOs need to go back to the drawing board and spend time on how people actually make decisions. Because most decisions are made emotionally, the CMO actually may need less data.  However, as data storage and cloud computing have drastically reduced the cost of storage, there is a contest to see who has Bigger Data, though most of it might be worthless.

This is especially true in brand marketing, where online advertising should work best. Tweaking the last little metrics to squeeze out some more 0.001 improvement might be okay for direct response marketers, but as online advertising matures, more and more agencies are becoming aware that branding initiatives work very well online, especially in cross-platform campaigns.  Brand advertisers just need metrics to be in the right range,  and then it’s more important to be able to scale the campaign -- to reach the right people with the right messages. The question  is "did this ad move the revenue needle?"

We should be measuring effectiveness -- not efficiency. If we are efficient in getting the wrong message to the right people, what good does that do? In ad tech, we sometimes forget how important it is for the media buyer in an agency to actually get things done, and to execute  easily  in a way that can be communicated (and understood) by clients.  The media buyer needs to be able to say “ I bought this because...” and back up the decision with metrics that can be understood, not metrics that obfuscate.

These quotes from Ad Age's latest CMO study tell it well:

..."A lot of them use metrics that don't measure finance at all. Some said, "That's a good question.' Others said, "If my boss is happy, that works for me." Another: -As one respondent colorfully put it, his company's marketing ROI measurement is like "pissing in the wind."

That's why to measure and reinforce effectiveness.

Historically, digital measured what it could and declared it a standard - first hits, then pageviews, then it was visitors, then unique visitors, then  CTR, then CPA for early direct response deals in display, then CPC when search exploded, then viewability. It's now CPW (Cost Per Whatever.) We've measured what we are able to measure, not what should be measured.

Effectiveness and efficiency are the two sides of advertising; they always have been and always will be.  We’ve measured efficiency up the wazoo lately, but we are less skilled at measuring effectiveness, because it means different things to different brands. We’re right back to the “half of my ad dollars are wasted” problem of John Wanamaker’s day.

A measure of how efficient a buy is can be tracked with big data. Effectiveness is far more complex.

One thing we can count on is by the time you have finished reading this buying behavior may have been altered one again.  Changes in buyer behaviors continue unabated.  This is making it difficult for marketing and sales leaders to plan the right mix of strategies and tactics resulting in a winning formula.

5 Buyer Behaviors B2B Marketing Must Keep An Eye On

New buying behaviors means B2B marketers have to become more responsive today.  Creating nimble organizations and improving knowledge in buyer understanding.  Here are ways buyer behavior will continue to reshape marketing:

Buyers Embrace Collaboration

Social and digital technologies has allowed for progress in the area of collaboration.  Meaning the sphere of influence and interaction not only has widened but increased.  Old ideas about roles on buying teams are being shattered as we speak.  The era of collaborative buyer networks has arrived.  We now have to consider internal as well as external members of collaborative networks impacting decision-making.

Buyers Want Co-Creation

Collaborative networks are fostering a new environment for co-creating products, services, and for solving problems.  This new development will put pressure on B2B organizations to get in line with flexible products and services which allow buyers to play an active role in co-creating.  Buyers and their collaborative networks will demand it.  For B2B marketers, this means a broader view on how you deliver messaging.

Buyers Want Less Content

I am sure some will do a double take on the above sub-header.  The fact is buyers are overwhelmed with content.  Here is how one buyer put it to me: “Look, I think twice now about putting my name in a form - not because I am not willing - but I know this just means I am going to get a flood of emails to download more information.” Buyers want less content – yet desire smart content.

Buyers Want 1-to-1

A funny thing happened on the way to marketing automation.  Marketing may be inadvertently dripping back into the mode of 1-to-many as opposed to the coveted 1-to-1.  I came upon this thought after conducting two reviews of lead generation and nurturing campaigns.  Buyers can see right through this screen.  They can smell automation.  A buyer’s voice on an email she received: “What is this?  I really don’t know because it doesn't say anything to me.”

Buyers Want More Than Insight

There is the old adage “too much of a good thing.”  I think we may have such a situation happening.  We have embraced the idea of the Challenger Sale and you see organizations racing to offer insight.  An issue here is too many items are being classified as insight.  This can actually counter-balance the act of contributing insight.   What this means for B2B marketing and sales is they will have to be more judicious in what they label insight.  Why dilute a good thing?

Adaptive and Agile Marketing

With rapidly changing buying behaviors, B2B marketing will need to be more adaptive and agile.  I foresee buyer behaviors shifting in waves.  This means marketing must be able to see these waves and make adaptive shifts in how they connect with buyers.  This will certainly not be easy to do.

Predictability will become even more important as we look ahead.  While Big Data holds promise, it will equally take developing the qualitative ability to anticipate where the new buyers of today are heading.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer 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
• The Art of Buying
• 7 Big Questions for B2B Marketers in 2013

AdTruth, the global leader in securing digital relationships, is teaming up with Adform, a provider of digital media trading technology and campaign management solutions, for a live webinar on May 30^th to discuss how the entire online advertising ecosystem can benefit from improving audience recognition across desktop and mobile.

The two companies will delve into how Adform is using AdTruth’s universal device recognition technology to reach both desktop and mobile audiences efficiently and at scale.

During this session, attendees will benefit from:

• Discussing the principles of universality: The ability to work on all device types and in all use cases
• Programmatic-level performance: The ability to support billions of impressions at millisecond speeds
• Privacy-by-design: The approach that is at the core of device recognition technology empowering marketers and agencies to execute online campaigns while respecting consumer privacy and choice

Attendees will learn from Adform on how they’re utilizing AdTruth’s device recognition technology to support its platform’s desktop and mobile real-time bidding (RTB) capabilities to increase campaign reach and audience engagement.

Join the conversation May 30^th, 2013 at 6 a.m. PST/9a.m. EST.  Register Now

Location-based mobile advertising, and its typical application of geo-fencing, is one of today’s hottest mobile marketing’s topics. However, the true power of location is often misunderstood. When it comes to driving ROI through mobile advertising, location often doesn’t matter – at least not in the way you think it does. Instead of simply geo-fencing a static location, the more effective use of mobile location technology considers historical location data and the consumer behavior it reveals.

Smart marketers are implementing “location for lifestyle” targeting strategies as opposed to zeroing in on “location right now tactics.” Sending an ad to a consumer based on their current location often isn’t as powerful as sending mobile ads based on the user’s lifestyle and behavior that analysis of historical location data reveals. In fact, our research has shown that there is no correlation between distance-to-store and mobile ad clicks for retailer brands.

Also, consider that most consumers have their day planned out. They may be walking past a retail location and receive an ad, but they are unlikely to stop what they are doing and immediately head into the retailer to make a purchase – especially if the deal isn’t relevant to them.

Studies show that 80 percent of purchases are planned. Therefore, marketers should deliver ads to consumers about relevant topics beforehand to influence purchasing decisions. By analyzing historical location data, marketers can tell more about a consumer’s lifestyle choices and preferences – fast food junkies, shoe-shopping addict, loyal WalMart customer, etc. – and send them ads based on those preferences.

This reinforces the notion that simple geo-fencing is not an optimal targeting practice on its own. Instead, it is critical to target users based on what location tells us about their behavior. Especially for national brands that have many well-known locations in a metro area, consumers’ historical shopping patterns, demographics and lifestyle will have a greater impact on driving store visit rates (SVRs) and ultimately purchases, than the fact that they are one mile from a retail outlet.

Critics of location-based technology are quick to blame the data, claiming it to be unreliable or inaccurate. While the industry still largely struggles with the quality of location data, the lack of a relationship between a mobile user’s real-time distance to a store and CTRs cannot be explained by “bad location data.” Location data is of varying quality, but even the best location data doesn’t prove valuable in this situation.

Marketers should keep in mind that targeting power comes from understanding what location reveals about the user, not just the location point itself. It is who, not where, that more strongly impacts CTRs and SVRs. The power of mobile location data lies in extracting context and meaning from historical location patterns to interpret meaningful insights about users; not the fleeting, real-time moment that a consumer enters a geo-fence.

With the release of Firefox 22, Mozilla joins Apple’s Safari browser in blocking third-party cookies. This will likely impact 40% of unique browsers (actual, not downloads), and advertisers and agencies will see significant measurement distortions (except those solely using click metrics) and data management impact. (Note because measurement is census-based, the distortion will be exponentially larger than 40%.)

First order of the day is to take an inventory of the near-term impacts to the eco-system. Typically advertisers use 8-12 different technologies to plan, decision, deliver and manage digital advertising. The eco-system has historically bounced data from partner to partner via tags, broadcast synch or stitched it together. ALL THESE WILL BE IMPACTED: attribution, analytics, data management, available cookie pooling, ad measurement, site conversion measurement, etc. etc. In tests just on the Apple browsers, we’ve seen this distortion create significant impacts and distortions up to seven times, so we will expect to see this rise rapidly after Firefox 22 goes into wide release.

With the increased volatility in the measurement framework, we will also see the collateral power shift to sell-side groups with well-architected data models. These include the usual suspects—Google, Yahoo!, Facebook—. These companies are being joined by eBay and Amazon. As these companies also enjoy a direct consumer relationship, they are well-insulated from the volatility that besets others in the market such as third-party networks, publishers using third-party networks as an inventory model, retargeters (though one could argue that Criteo is better-placed than most as it relies on click model) and data pools that use third party tags that do not have a direct client relationship. Expect to see the balance of power shift to the majors.

What is less clear will be how the DMP folks will fare as, on the one hand, they are organizing data in a first-party model to support programmatic buying, while on the other hand, they need to effect good linkage currently. Companies such as Blue Kai could be very well placed as they also have strong data and publisher links while more standalone DMPs may struggle.

Clearly the uber-players are seeing big potential gains.  Weakness in the third-party middle of the market may drive better quality inventory to them as they develop significant data on-boarding frameworks. Of course, the sting in the tail here could be that privacy concerns are escalated. Last year Senator Markey et al. in Washington and others in the market pushed hard for change in different data practices and fair and adequate notice, choice, consent and derivative works.

The uber-publishers also need to be sensitive to the fact the advertiser and agencies need to able to measure the efficacy of their investments and also have the tools and technologies to determine where to invest in media. This may be antithetical to the model of “We know what’s best” but advertisers and agencies have significant concerns that, with the two largest ad delivery technologies owned by the majors, there will be a dumbing down or restriction on things like data exports, etc.

As the Barclay’s Renaissance of Ad Technology report (published just before the Firefox announcement) showed, there is still a need for better validation of spend as the industry investment still lags significantly behind the volume of eyeballs consuming content. Measurement and targeting are key staples of driving effective media investments and there is need to ensure that there is adequate availability of these on the buy-side as well as the sell-side. Judging by the volume of new business calls our team is getting for our first-party model, this is understood in the market. I’m actually excited by the change as it will force the market to innovate with renewed energy as a disruption in the eco-system creates opportunity to get creative. We may be able to eliminate much of the non-working media costs in the model, which currently is probably the biggest limiting factor in the equation. When 63% of the cost of media is not on media, then there is a problem.

Evolution or revolution is being forced on the market. The power shift has created better visibility into who is buy-side and who is sell-side – the LUMAscape can be re-drawn with more clarity – you are buyer or a seller or you help the buyer or the seller, ambiguity resolved. Simplifying and redrawing the eco-system will maximize efficiency of spend and improve ROI across the board. Display marketing will be stronger and serve all parties better, once the growing pains have been overcome.

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.

A recent blog post by David, highlights the perils of relying on so-called “accepted wisdom.”  Similar to relying on conventional intuition, “accepted wisdom” is indicative of a failure to question assumptions and support conclusions with facts.  It is, as the author notes, the “number one enemy” of marketing success.  Edelman cites an example in which Google realized they were using two similar – but different – shades of blue in the hyperlinked calls to action in their ad products.  Rather than simply go with the intended shade as most companies would have done, Google tested both blues, only to learn that one delivered dramatically higher results than the other.  Similar situations occur every single day in marketing departments:  The designer who designed the landing page wants to see the page aligned with his original vision.  The marketer instead opts for the less aesthetically appealing version that delivered a higher conversion rate in multivariate tests.  “Accepted wisdom” would have us choose the prettier page; data drives us to choose the one that works best, pretty or not.

Analytics make it easy for us to make those decisions.  While data can seem overwhelming for some, when distilled and properly analyzed, it becomes actionable, a roadmap to successful marketing.  A good analytics or data management platform can tell you everything you need to know about your audience – what they click on or engage with, what they’re buying or not buying, where they are, how old they are, what they like or don’t like.  With that information at your fingertips, it’s harder to make a bad decision than a good one.  But you have to have a thirst for data - you can’t just go with the pretty design.

Below, David shares why intuition is still important, and how to make data work for the marketing process.

Does Big Data Mean the End of Intuition?

Simple answer: No way.

Marketers need intuition more than ever before.  The masses of data that they can analyze, and the tools available, can certainly find interesting patterns on their own, but that is just one ingredient in the value creation recipe.  Since there’s so much data out there, good intuition (and by that, I’m including judgment as well) is necessary to set priorities for what to look for, what matters to the customer, what the competitive landscape looks like and how behaviors are changing over time.  That intuition and judgment comes from a deep understanding of customers—ethnographic research, shop-alongs, discussions—to know what to do with the data.

Excavating insights from data fuels the design of experiences and products, which still cannot be automated.  So many of our interactions with customers are not all digital and automated.  People still shop in stores, call phone reps and send tweets expecting a human interaction.  We need intuition to think ahead about how to deliver the experiences and products to the front lines where people are interacting with customers.  From data discovery through design and then delivery, great "intuition" will still drive the winners, who shape the customer decision journey to their own advantage.  Yes, you can optimize search terms, display ad placements and personalized interactions, but that is no substitute for intuition, judgment and innovation.

To make data work, you have to envision the people who will be using it:

·      Align everything against the Customer Decision Journey.

Think "next interaction to cultivate,” not just "next product to buy.”  Think about measures of interim performance across the decision journey, not just conversions.

·      Make the data easy to understand for your employees on the front lines.

Whether they are reps who handle customer interactions or managers who are evaluating the next program to create, new visualization tools can highlight what is important and why it is happening.

·      Use data to help the customer.

Enable them to see how the information they provide you helps them, so they are comfortable with increasing the sharing involved.  Help them track their activities, find new ideas, set goals or connect with others.  Make that data exchange part of the value proposition itself.

·      Don't lock the analysts in a separate room.

Mix it up.  Seat integrated teams together, who can analyze and act on the data, but keep the analysts connected as a community.  They need to share ideas and grow, but they also need to deeply understand the context of the business.

We are working with many clients right now, who are re-engineering their marketing processes to integrate new data tools, and we learn a ton from seeing what it really takes to make things happen at the rock-face of execution.  That takes people, which means you need judgment and intuition.  At least, that’s my intuition.

To learn more about how data science is changing the role of intuition, watch presentations from the recent Advertising + Data Science Congress (ADS-CON).

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ernest Hemmingway
The concept of buyer personas, as a means for understanding buyers, has been around now for over a decade.  It is an understatement to say many things have changed in the world of buying and selling since their beginning.

We have witnessed the changing dynamics of the buyer-seller relationship. The dynamics I refer to are buying behaviors and buyer goals.  On the other side of the coin, we see marketing and sales making attempts to adapt.  The concepts of content marketing, lead nurturing, insight-based selling, customer experience, and brand management emphasized.  These practices have been introduced as gateways to connecting with buyers in the new digital age.

Adapting to New Realities

Personas, at their core, were introduced as a tool to communicate the goals and behaviors of users and buyers.  Specifically for informing strategies related to product design and marketing to buyers.  For B2B Marketing and Sales, a clearer picture has begun to emerge around the goals and behaviors of buyers.  Yet, there are many more miles to go.  My endeavor and work with organizations over the past decade lead me to this conclusion:

Personas, specifically in B2B, need to be adaptive to new goals and behaviors of buyers throughout their buyer’s journey.  In addition, personas need to be designed for the new practices, which are developing in marketing and sales.

The term buyer persona has been used universally to an extreme level. The term worked well when buyers relied on sales for their buying cycle for upwards to eighty percent.  We are seeing the inverse today.  Here is where I believe buyer trends as well as qualitative evidence is telling us to go:

B2B personas need to be researched, understood, and designed to meet robust goals and behaviors of buyers throughout the end-to-end buying cycle and brand experience.  In addition, personas need to be designed to enable as well as make more effective new practices, functions, and roles.

Persona Buying Cycle™

As new operational models for marketing and sales develop, there are 5 buying behavior phases of the buying cycle personas must now address:

1. Audience Behavior: the concept of content marketing reaching audiences is more prevalent.  Audience goals and behaviors are distinctly different when not in the market for products or services.  Yet, awareness, insight, and intelligence are an important component of connecting with existing customers and future buyers today.  Content marketing effectiveness is enabled when it can reach many different types of audiences.  Audience personas must now include the likes of industry influences and more.
2. Lead Behavior: one of the fastest growing areas, in terms of emerging practices, is the rise in lead nurturing and lead development.  Buyers have distinct goals and behaviors when they convert from being a part of a wider audience to an interested party.   New forms of lead research and lead personas can create more effective conversions from an interested party to an active buyer.
3. Buyer Behavior: the core persona when buyers have become actually engaged in the process of buying.  Buying behaviors, and buying goals, operate on a different level when buyers are actively engaged in the buying process.  Buyer personas, true their original intent, are designed to enable the buying process between buyer and seller.
4. Customer Behavior: when a buyer becomes a customer, there is a trial period underway.  This trial period consists of a different set of goals and behaviors meaningful to confirmation and customer experience.  Specific customer personas can enable understanding and capabilities to meet customer goals post-sale.  Implementation and customer support teams can benefit immensely from personas designed specifically for their roles.
5. Brand Behavior: brand management is emerging out of the shadows, as a competency B2B companies have to get right today.  Fulfilling the brand promise consistently is one of the hardest jobs of marketing and an organization as a whole.  Customers and buyers have different goals, behaviors, and beliefs, which surround brands.  The goal here is to convert customer personas into brand persona advocates.

A recommendation for forward-thinking marketing and sales leaders is to begin thinking in terms of the Persona Buying Cycle™ versus a singular focus on a buyer persona.  One certainty is the buyer’s journey not only begins before buyers think of themselves as a buyer, but also extends beyond the purchase.  Having a common visual and story of how buyer’s goals and behaviors change throughout the buying cycle is compelling.   We are also seeing activities, functions, and roles widen in marketing and sales in response to changing buying behaviors.  The Persona Buying Cycle™ is a natural extension to address both of these developments.

Positive Outcomes

Creating B2B personas through the lenses of a Persona Buying Cycle™ help bring these positive outcomes:

• • Make personas relevant throughout the major touchpoints of the end-to-end buyer’s journey
  • Make personas more practical to each functional team interacting with audiences, buyers, and customers
  • Make demand generation, lead generation, opportunity management, and customer experience more effective
  • Provide a common communications platform for understanding buyers
  • Foster alignment between marketing and sales by mapping to specific buyer goals and behaviors

In a dozen years, we have seen the then straightforward buyer-seller dynamics become more complex.  How B2B views the use of personas, from a pragmatic standpoint, now must adapt.

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

Related articles

• Marketing is in the Throes of a Buyer Revolution
• The Art of Buying

• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle (tonyzambito.com)

The quest to uncover how and why people and businesses engage in the act of buying is becoming an endurance race.  Spurred on by increasing social technologies advances.  The result is many organizations, whether academia or business, have focused on the science of buying.  What we may be losing is critical understanding of the art of buying.

What we are witnessing in the new digital age is the old rules of near total dependency on understanding processes and rules associated with buying is no longer the sole winning ticket.  Buying processes and rules have been dissected and analyzed many times over throughout the past few decades.  We clung to the belief of knowing the how will lead us to systematic knowledge of how to close more business with buyers.   The problem marketing and selling organizations face today is the how – processes and rules – are not as easily defined or structured as in the past.  Social technologies have made it possible for new networks and collaboration amongst buyers – causing plenty of flex in processes and rules.

The Why of Buying

If the science of buying has focused on the how of buying, the art of buying is a heightened quest for understanding the Why of Buying™.  The focus on how businesses buy in B2B marketing and sales has led to many different spin offs of stages, processes, cycles, and funnel shapes.  These exercises do have value.  However, here is a way of looking at what is missing:

A pure focus on process and stages, for example, creates a focus on what buyers are doing rather than what they are thinking and why it is important.

My point of view goes something like this:

Despite all the hype and efforts made in demand generation and content marketing, organizations are still struggling in these areas.  This is due to campaigns and programs designed to fit into established ideas of how businesses buy.  We have even believed automating processes to fit into our view of how we believe buyers buy will speed up purchase cycles.  This is happening at the expense of innovating marketing and sales to get at the core why of buying.

In the recent B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey 2012 sponsored by Eloqua, CMO, and Software Advice, I was struck by how 45 to 60% of the 155 marketer respondents believed demand generation performance were below expectations.  Those using marketing automation believing performances were better than those not using marketing automation.   In recent CMI as well as eConsultancy surveys, 40 to 50% of marketers surveyed believed their content marketing efforts were not effective.

Effectiveness a Continuing Struggle

Effectiveness and performance continue to be ongoing issues when it comes to demand generation and content marketing.  While organizations may be getting more productive and efficient at automating processes related to demand generation and content marketing, the missing link is an understanding of why buyers behave, think, and decide as they do.  How buyers behave, think, and decide do not always fit squarely into boxes we have defined to go with processes, rules, or stages.

To become more effective at helping buyers, marketing and sales organizations will need to do this:

Put more investment and energy into understanding the why of buying as opposed to an over abundance on the science of marketing and sales.  We cannot understand how to help buyers unless we are grounded in knowing the why.

Competitive advantage will be determined by knowledge of the motivations, beliefs, thinking, perceptions, goals, behaviors, and responses on the part of buyers.  Marketing today must fulfill the role of understanding how buyers behave and think.   Sales must become the enablers of buyers helping themselves.

The Stories of Buyers

The art of buying is represented through the stories of buyers.  For every industry, there are compelling stories about buyers, which can be told.  It is through these stories we can learn the motivations and goals of buyers, which open the door to understand the why of buying.  For marketing and sales, the key to future success will be in understanding what stories are unfolding, why these stories are important, and how to become part of stories. To mold this key, it will take more art than science to achieve.

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

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• The Art of Buying (tonyzambito.com)

You think ads in mobile apps are annoying, don’t you?

I believe that the popular backlash against digital advertising stems from poor targeting practices. Bad targeting usually means bad advertising; good targeting means matching people with messages that are actually relevant to them. In fact, Adblock Plus found in a survey that 75% of its users were willing to see responsibly-targeted, unobtrusive ads.

That’s why it’s high time mobile apps take advantage of data to make their ads more relevant.

Most app developers are gathering mountains of data about users’ interests that could be combined with “interest graph” data from Facebook, Twitter and other interlinked social networks to target ads based on what a user actually likes. By doing this, app developers could dramatically boost engagement with their ads and charge a premium for their audiences… not to mention make mobile ads a little less bothersome.

To demonstrate this concept in action, I’ve looked at four popular apps that are not already targeting based on interest data, with a few ideas on how they can get started. Some may disagree with my suggestions for changing their most beloved apps, but I believe that ad targeting done well will enhance user experience, not detract from it.

1. Pandora

Pandora users have become accustomed to irrelevant ads; as one reviewer said, “the app was great, but the ads were ‘completely useless’.” Most of Pandora’s in-app advertising revolves around intermittent audio ads based on a user’s location, but few ads take into account a user’s tastes or preferences. Obviously, just because two users live the same town doesn’t mean they’re interested in the same thing… so why doesn’t Pandora move away from geo-targeting to much more nuanced interest graph targeting?

For Pandora, this means analyzing first-party data (playlist seeds and music ratings) and combining it with third-party data (other interest graph data, such as what a user likes and who they follow). By integrating a user’s thumbs-up and thumbs-down ratings with interests identified from her Facebook and Twitter data, Pandora could easily present ads for products and services she would find relevant.

2. Flixster

Many ads on Flixster promote current movies playing at nearby cinemas, or special offers from advertisers such as LivingSocial. Users get interstitial screen takeovers based on location, and lots of ads for Flixster features and content. Other ads seem completely untargeted, such as LivingSocial pop-ups and Rotten Tomatoes banners.

Flixster has a ton of valuable data about its users (location, types of movies they like, movies they’ve seen and rated etc.) that they could be using to target ads – and they aren’t even doing this simple type of targeting. The app could also go above and beyond targeting based on its own data to include third-party interest graph data from Facebook and Twitter. Combining Flixster’s own interest data with information like which celebrities its users follow on major social platforms could help advertisers reach people who might be interested in TV premieres featuring their favorite movie stars.

3. Yelp

Yelp is one of the most popular local apps around today. Millions of users launch Yelp every day to look up reviews for restaurants, stores, attractions and more. And guess what? Yelp doesn’t serve mobile ads at all! To be fair, Yelp’s monetization strategy focuses mostly on getting local businesses to pony up for “enhanced” listings, but the world’s most popular local reviews app could be doing so much more to monetize its mobile traffic. On the Yelp website, users see relevant promoted events and businesses on the right side of the screen, as well as some targeted advertising – but on the mobile app, nothing.

The thing is, Yelp knows what type of restaurants, shops, events, and attractions you frequent, as well as your location, places you’ve reviewed and more. For its mobile app, Yelp could combine a user’s location, searches, and review history to deliver highly relevant ads. What’s more, Yelp could integrate third-party interest graph data to identify users as “moms” or “sports fans” to create even more relevant ad experiences.

4. OkCupid

OkCupid is another mobile app that serves no ads. This is a company that uses sophisticated data mining to make sophisticated dating matches. It asks users dozens of questions to create their unique profiles, and has data on age, interests, location, preferences for a date, opinions, chats, messages etc. Yet OKCupid does not use this data to serve targeted ads on mobile. I’m sure the daters on OkCupid would be an outstanding audience for ads for relevant local restaurants, bars, comedy clubs, theatres, and other outings, not to mention ads for clothes, makeup, accessories, and other must-have items for actively-dating singles.

OkCupid could start by mining the rich dataset it has on all the singles using its service to create targeted ads based on location, interests and age. It could also combine this information with third-party interest graph data to attract a wider range of advertisers, beyond those that fit the “dater” profile. For example, they could help auto brands find in-market auto shoppers, or help airlines find frequent travelers.

These advertisers could even gear their creative towards this audience to make the ads relevant to the app experience, with ad copy such as “Don’t take her out in your old clunker. Check out the new Jeep!”

THE MYTH: Higher value offers drive better results.

“If I offer you more for less, you’ll accept and become a devoted customer.”

It’s an easy assumption to make, regardless of what product or service you’re marketing.  But consumers have figured out the ins and outs of dangling carrots, and marketers are realizing that long-term success requires more than offering ‘the most’ or ‘the greatest’.

Offers based on value alone tend to fall into a few categories:

“Too good to be true”: We’ve all had the pleasure of answering that dreaded phone call – the one that inevitably comes right at dinner time with someone offering us a free trip to an exotic resort. Most hang up the phone before the offer is fully revealed, but for those who choose to wait it out, that ‘too good to be true’ offer is eventually followed up with a long list of blackout dates, less than appealing air travel, and a forceful requirement to ‘act now’ or lose the opportunity.

“It’s great and I’ll wait": I can’t say that I’m much of a couponer, but it’s amazing to see how shoppers have figured out the constantly rotating catalogs of discounts issued by their local stores.  And what’s even more amazing is how they’ve altered their shopping behaviors to ensure they always receive the best deal.  Back in the day, a marketing offer was a ‘treat’ – something that was rare enough to catch someone’s attention and more importantly, change someone’s behaviors.  In today’s age of so many event or calendar triggered offers, consumers assume that an offer will arrive – with some predicting the timing down to the hour or day – and therefore, do not act until it arrives.

“Missed the mark": I was shocked a few months back when my wife received a pamphlet of coupons and an educational booklet highlighting a ‘how-to’ guide for baby gear. I quickly asked if there was something she needed to fill me in on – given the fact that our two children are half grown and I was pretty sure we didn’t have plans for more.  Looks like someone “missed the mark” she said, as she headed to the door to take it to our more than gracious, seven-month pregnant neighbor.  There must have been over $100 worth of coupons – a great value for someone, but not for us.

THE REALITY: Offers with the right value drive better results.

Back to my earlier comment about a marketing offer being a ‘treat’ – the beauty of the mobile channel is its ability to help marketers engage with customers at an individual level. This takes customer engagement to an entirely new level – marketing can finally be personalized, relevant, and most importantly, valuable to your customers.  And that’s the key to mobile marketing success – defining what’s valuable for each customer and just as important, what’s valuable for your business.

It all goes back to understanding your customers’ behaviors – what services they use, how they act, who they’re connected to, what their buying preferences are, etc. – and aligning offers to your higher order marketing objective.   For example, if the goal is to increase usage consumption, the development of personalized marketing treatments should stem from the insight you have on each individual’s usage (past, current, and predicted consumption), and how this compares to how  you would like them to use your service.

A ‘marketing treatment’ doesn’t always contain an offer – sometimes a simple reminder or an educational FYI is all it takes for someone to act.  In fact, although one may assume that a higher dollar discount will result in a more positive response, it can actually do quite the opposite by decreasing the brands’ perceived value – and cannibalizing your potential revenue.

WHY IT MATTERS: Successful marketing is all about building long-term, profitable relationships – not achieving incremental gains with one-hit wonders.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day tracking of click-throughs and opt-ins but those aren’t the KPIs that truly matter.  Revenues, retention rates, brand loyalty – these should be the driving forces behind each and every offer delivered.  Marketing is not about driving a single response, but having a long-lasting, sustainable positive impact on customer behavior.

So the real challenge is altering – and most importantly, scaling – your marketing approach to deliver the right offers to each customer over time.   Using a pre-determined set of marketing treatments doesn’t cut it when the behavioral contexts of your mobile customers are continually changing, and in turn, so are their definitions of what’s valuable.   So what’s needed?  Marketing capabilities that offer the ultimate flexibility – allowing you to create and test an infinite number of marketing treatments to then determine what’s best for whom.

Luckily for marketers, marketing technologies rich with automation and machine learning are coming to the rescue and doing a lot of the thinking behind the scenes.  Think of it like a baker and his recipes.  You provide all of the ingredients – the data, the offers, the contexts, the messaging, the call to action, etc. – and he determines what works best.  Voila!

A good example is the recently concluded Linley Tech Mobile Conference, held last week in Santa Clara, CA and organized by Mountain View, CA-based The Linley Group, a market research firm providing independent technology analyses of semiconductors for networking, communications, mobile, and wireless applications. The company also produces a trade publication, Microprocessor Report.

This was the fourth year the event was held; according to company founder and Principal Analyst Linley Gwennap, the conference attracted about 200 people, including those from mobile IP and chip companies, handset and other device vendors, carriers and software vendors, as well as the financial community and press. Attendees represented a broad range of companies, including Broadcom, China Mobile, Cisco, Dell, Ericsson, HP, Huawei, Imagination Technologies, Marvel, Samsung and Sony, as well as financial analysts from Bank of America, Credit Suisse, UBS, and Wells Fargo.

The conference focused on a wide array of topics; here’s a snapshot:

• Heterogeneous processing
• Licensable CPUs for mobile devices
• Licensable GPU and DSP cores
• Mobile semiconductors
• Mobile SoC design issues
• Mobile software trends
• Multicore application processors
• Other low-power IP cores

The presentations addressed design issues for mobile devices -- tablet computers, smartphones, navigation devices, media players, handheld games, and e-book readers.

One of the conference highlights, noted Gwennap, was a panel on the growing China mobile market, featuring executives from China Mobile, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek and Spreadtrum. The panel addressed key challenges and opportunities for mobile products in China, the diverging demands of Chinese consumers and the different tiering in that enormous market. One interesting takeaway: the total available market for mobile handsets in China is larger than the entire population of the United States!

Another session on mobile CPUs talked about major issues for mobile product development. One of the panelists, Mark Throndson, serves as Director of Processor Technology Marketing for UK-based Imagination Technologies.

One of Throndson’s conclusions was that industry trends are forcing more efficiency in how companies build products, and to enable this, new technologies are abstracting software development away from the underlying hardware/instruction sets.

“At the end of the day, even though software is becoming less dependent on the hardware it runs on, good underlying architectures are still important as they affect the user experience through delivering high performance, longer battery life, and lower costs,” said Throndson.

Another interesting session focused on power-optimized design. This is an increasing challenge as today’s mobile devices integrate ever-more features and functionality, yet battery technology hasn’t kept pace. A couple of session participants proposed that the answer lies in adding a bit more complexity in hardware to handle power management. While this additional logic may consume some power, the end result, according to these panelists, is increased efficiency and longer battery life.

I’ve been to gobs of analyst-driven events that focused too much on promoting the market research firm and its offerings; the buzz on the Linley gathering from attendees is that it was two days well-spent.

Marketers have started to tackle their social media needs, similar to how they have historically approached every other marketing tactic - by isolating and siloing their strategic parameters, success metrics, and analytics. We’ve seen this time and time again. This is how marketers dealt with banner advertising in the ‘90s, SEM and email in the early ‘00s, and mobile and in-game advertising in the late ‘00s. Over a decade later and the same mistakes are being made. Next it will be real-time-bidding and then most likely video; especially as digital convergence really takes form and everything (i.e. TV, radio, print, etc.) is technically “digital”. Agencies and media providers are always ready to reposition themselves based on the flavor of the month. Social is the new black. Or is it the new pink? Most trends are just that – “trendy”.

Don’t get me wrong, social marketing is extremely important. In fact, it is too important to think you can just silo it out and hire a specialized social media agency to manage it on your company’s behalf. The most successful marketers are not experts in analog media, digital media, social media, search marketing, or real-time-bidding; they are efficient in communication and understanding how to serve people’s needs. Once you understand what your audience/customers’ needs are and their communication requirements, you can determine the most effective channels and tactics to satisfy those needs - just like establishing any human relationship.

I realize most marketing disciplines these days require specialists to deploy and manage specific tactics. However, we must not confuse strategy with execution. You must have an integrated communication strategy that puts your customers and target prospects at the core. Through the communication planning process you should determine how much social marketing support is required and how it should be managed. Additionally, we should stop referring to social as a tactic and think of it more as the fabric that weaves throughout your entire marketing program. There’s no such thing as a social media campaign. You don’t make friends with someone and then decide to abruptly end that friendship because he/she had plans on the same night you wanted to go out.

A strong relationship is cultivated over time and this means you need to be willing to allocate the necessary resources to building those high value relationships and plan on managing them indefinitely. The only way to assure this can be done is by centralizing your customer relationship management internally. Yes, social is a component of CRM. Only now, it is a multi-dimensional dialogue and your refer-a-friend programs have exponential potential. Those that are positioning themselves as “social media experts” are less concerned about the long term value of the relationships between you and your customers, and really trying to capitalize on the ignorance that exists in the marketplace to, once again, provide false value – kind of like that “friend” who is always there to console you during a really bad time. They appear to be genuine, but we all know there is an ulterior motive which is driven by taking advantage of your vulnerability.

Be less concerned about the new, bright, shiny objects and focus on better understanding your audience and customers. The more you learn about what people want, the better you can serve their needs. Marketing channels and tactics are just the delivery mechanisms to serving those needs. With all that being said, I do recommend partnering with those that are proficient at managing the execution of each tactic. Many tactics are extremely labor-intensive and require a deep understanding of the market and the various technology platforms used to effectively manage these programs. However, when it comes to building your strategy, focus on the communication needs of your audience, then determine the channels and tactics that will help facilitate how you address those needs.

Remember this, there is no such thing as a category called “social media”. All media is social. It always has been and always will be. Only now, you can actually see what people are saying behind your back. You just need to determine what value you can contribute to the conversation – more importantly, make sure it is a reciprocal dialogue. Leave your “push, push” mentality back in the 20th century. And if you plan on playing in the social sandbox, make sure you are welcoming, respectful, appreciative, and provide value. Treat those the way you would like to be treated.

Sometimes I think marketers forget what it means to be human. In the words of Robert Fulghum, “all you really need to know, you learned in kindergarten”. Play fair. Share everything. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Don’t hit people. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Clean up your own mess. Now, stop your wining and go make some friends!

We enabled the system to identify web pages referencing each of the teams specifically in the context of basketball. These pages were automatically analyzed  on a deep semantic level across three dimensions: safety, quality and topic. These massive amounts of analyzed traffic also provide us with a unique opportunity to glean insights and intelligence on current internet trends at large.

The graph below shows the request volume we received for each of the teams, as a fraction of the total number of March-Madness requests. The percentages are the relative share of each team in the total requests.

To further analyze this data, we sampled several tens of thousands of random webpages referencing Michigan and Louisville, the two teams of the original thirteen that actually made it to the Final Four. One point of interest was to see how geography differed for users interested in each of the teams. Generally, our analysis is on the page-level only, i.e. we have no data regarding specific users (cookies or other). However, to analyze geography, we looked up pages from domains which clearly indicated a specific geography (e.g. http://sanantonionews.com/) for local news and sports sites. Then, we tried pointing out areas in which one of the teams clearly had more page view volume than the other, which indicated significant inclination towards one of the teams, rather than the other.

The interesting results can be seen in the map below,  Louisville in red and Michigan in blue.

Louisville won the NCAA basketball tournament this year but based on request volume, Michigan was the big winner.  We’ll be following other big upcoming events, creating specific categories, which should yield some insights like we’ve seen in the past. For example, we created "Obama" and "Romney" categories before the elections and that resulted in some rather interesting findings.

But what many buyers tend to forget is that even basic targeting in mobile, using the kind of contextual information you can easily acquire from the most standard of mobile traffic, is still far better than the PC equivalent.

Let's take a quick look at the most basic of them all: device type (OS) and connection type (e.g., mobile vs. Wi-Fi). Knowing what kind of mobile device a user possesses and where they are using it (on the go vs. at home/work) is far more valuable than identifying what kind of PC or browser someone is using, and who provides their Internet service. I don't know about you, but I don't identify myself as by my ISP. iPhone user? Yes. Constantly on the go? Yes. Comcast customer? Not so much.

More importantly, advertisers are finding that simple additions to these first two criteria, such as time of day, day of week, or a carefully chosen frequency-capping regime, provides even deeper improvement of CTR performance.

Called intelligent prioritization, it can mean the difference between good results and great:

And that's just the click-through rate. In the Q1 State of Mobile Advertising report that our parent company, Opera Mediaworks, released this week, they found that conversion rate performance is similarly affected by intelligent prioritization from basic-level targeting.

For example, in this mobile ad campaign for a financial services company, Android was recognized as the top performer among all of the OS options. They then found that within that group, honing in on those accessing data from Wi-Fi (vs. any carrier) yielded different results based on the Android version they had. Version 2.2 and 2.3 were clear leaders, while Versions 3.1 and 3.2 surprisingly underperformed. Adjusting the campaign based on those insights dramatically enhanced overall campaign performance.

But a browser company that owns 30 percent of the browser market has a greater responsibility to the industry they operate in than to just the user. Mozilla is ignoring a huge portion of these parties. I really believe that the company feels that they are working on behalf of their users, but I also don’t think Mozilla realizes all of the touch points that they are operating within. The user is the main party they interface with, but the Firefox browser interfaces with the web, and there are a number of parties involved beyond just the User. Let’s take a look at those parties.

Meet the surfer: The surfer, or “the user,” as many like to call this constituent, is the innocent person who traverses the web, day in and day out, reading this and purchasing that, watching that video and looking at this friend’s latest pictures or update. The surfer is the consumer of content and experiences offered by the internet, and the best part is that the majority of content online is free. Sure, there are some pieces so good that they’re worth paying for, but the majority of online content and activity is free of charge.

Meet the publisher: The publisher produces content and information for surfers and users to consume. In some cases they do this for free, or what would appear to be free, and in other cases there may be a payment collected in the form of a subscription. In all cases, there is value created by those who publish, produce, and distribute content online.

Meet the advertiser: Thank goodness for the advertisers, for without them, there would be no one to pay for all this great stuff online. Advertisers are typically companies that are looking to connect surfers with their brands, inspire them to buy their products or services, or consume their information.  Many advertisers also produce sites or catalogs of all sorts of things that surfers want. Think of Amazon or J. Crew, where a surfer can browse thousands of items and see what others have bought or looked at.

All three of these parties enable the online experience to develop, mature, grow, and produce wonderful experiences.  You cannot remove one of them and continue to grow and evolve in the same way. It’s just not possible.

Hurting Multiple Parties to “Protect” One
Unfortunately, that’s what Mozilla is attempting. By blocking third party cookies in the Firefox browser, the company is essentially eliminating the appeal of online advertising. Without cookies, it’s impossible to track ad placements and measure the reach of ads to a relevant audience – advertisers would be better off investing in print or direct mail, as those channels would offer better audience control. If the advertiser goes away, this strips a publisher of the ability to make money and recover costs of maintaining its site, thereby affecting the publisher’s ability to deliver free content.
The damage to two parties is supposedly all in the name of protecting the surfer, but the situation is comparable to a three-legged stool were two legs are being removed. In the larger context of how the internet operates, it just doesn’t make sense.

Mozilla recently published a post where an executive evaluated his daily ritual of surfing, both with the blocking and without. Of course, this demonstrated a drastic reduction in the number of cookies from third parties that were set on his computer. In the eyes of the surfer, this may seem preferable, as no company can track their movement online[A1] .

But this point is made without proper context, ignoring the fact that surfers rely on cookies to maintain their internet experience. A surfer visits his favorite publisher – maybe themorningnews.com -- to check out the day’s weather and what is happening locally. Without cookies, the surfer sees the same ad with every impression, on every page, in every size possible. Unfortunately for that surfer, it’s an annoying, irrelevant ad. And they see it over and over, all day, on their favorite site. Why? Because this publisher is not big enough to maintain an in-house sales force, and relies on third parties to generate ad revenue. Mozilla has removed this publisher’s ability to use these third parties to maximize revenue.

The Affects on advertising
Let’s turn back to the advertiser for a minute. Frequency capping is a mechanism that ensures users aren’t bombarded with the same ad on every page. High-frequency ads annoy users, and advertisers don’t like sending repeat ads either, as it’s a waste of impressions. Killing frequency capping makes an advertiser’s buys less effective (or, even more concerning, annoying to their customers), which makes them angry, and that ineffectiveness (and anger) eliminates the publisher’s means of monetizing content. Content which, keep in mind, is free to the surfer because advertisers pay for it.

Blocking third party cookies not only eliminates the ability to buy reach or frequency, but it kills attribution for conversions or sales as well, making it impossible for advertisers to measure whether or not ads are effective and how much they should pay the publishers and partners who drove the sales.

Advertisers have invested in services and technology to buy measurable, efficient and effective advertising. These strategies are not limited to targeting users based on behaviors or preferences, but also include the simple act of putting an ad in front of a user at the right time, or in the right context. If publishers can’t help, and technology has no real use, then advertisers have no incentive to buy online media.

This change will effect large publishers very little, as they will maintain their understanding of their visitors and remain in a good position to target that base. Small and medium sized publishers that rely heavily on third parties will not fare so well, and neither will their partners. Networks, exchanges, and other technology companies that provide value to the publisher will be most affected at first, but the effects will ripple throughout the internet economy. Advertisers will soon lose efficiency with their advertising, publishers will lose significant revenue, and surfers will be left with the bill at the end of the evening.

Considering that chain of events, it’s difficult to understand how Mozilla feels this decision even helps the user. Industry self-regulation efforts has made it easy for consumers to educate themselves on how their data is used and opt out of first- or third-party cookies. Mozilla was formerly in favor of this self-regulation effort, but now seems to have reversed its stance. Rather than empower users to make their own decisions around cookies, Mozilla is saying that browsers should dictate cookie policy on users’ behalf.

Cookies and third parties are not the enemy. They are not something to be scared of and block. Companies have made tremendous progress in using them more responsibly, and they are vital to the continued expansion and prosperity of the internet. Cookies are the current standard distinguishing one user from another, for everything from website personalization to making sure that advertising is more effective for all parties. Including the user. The user is important, and we should ensure they are educated and can easily make choices on this topic, but by no means are they the only player in this game. Without publishers and advertisers, there would be no online environment for the surfer to consume.

It wasn’t about story-boarding or scripting, it was about asking questions, getting answers, and weaving content together to produce an interesting and useful story. The benefits of combining the approaches of traditional journalism and brand storytelling seemed obvious. It’s something we’ve called “brand journalism” since day one, and it’s picking up speed as the new-media world continues to evolve, along with consumers’ habits.

Businesses are using social media, web video, and digital publishing to speak directly to consumers. It’s a way for brands, big and small, to use the approach of professional journalists to create, curate and share expert content in the form of blogs, articles and video. Brand journalism is obviously not as impartial as journalism, but it’s a way for a brand to engage an audience with relevant and interesting material. The content must be factual, and keep “relevance to the viewer” top of mind.

Marketing strategist David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, says “brand journalism is winning over direct marketing and PR attention-getting techniques.

“I'm convinced that those with the traditional skills of marketing, public relations, and copywriting are not the right people to create brand journalism content. Instead you need the skills of a journalist.”

Brand journalism is about facts and balance. It’s about telling an engaging story, and the goal is to educate rather than blatantly market. This way, readers or viewers are informed, and they become engaged with your business and it’s mission.

Home Depot is one major brand that has been creating expert content and useful do-it-yourself advice for a while, and it’s reaping the benefits. The content, whether it’s in the form of blog posts or web video, generally doesn’t try to sell anything directly. Instead, it keeps the focus on education.

Cisco is another example. On its blog, most of the articles and videos don’t mention the company at all. Its plan is to create a conversation and to position itself as a leader in the industry it represents. The company’s digital lead, Karen Snell, has said: “The goal was to generate engaging content to spark a conversation ... If we can make people understand what Cisco is doing, then we’ve been successful.”

Boeing is often mentioned as a successful adopter of brand journalism. “When brand journalists think of what’s interesting to their audiences and create engaging content, they generate stories that can really take off,” writes communications director Todd Blecher. “This story is about testing the brakes on our new 747. It involves speeding an airplane down a runway, hitting the brakes just before takeoff. It ends with the brakes on fire, which is eye catching, to say the least.

“We’ve had millions of views, and our key messages about safety and durability reached more people through our website, YouTube channel, and Facebook than we would’ve ever reached with a traditional news release.”

There are huge benefits to providing content that educates and informs, and it’s easy to measure the return on investment. How many hits did it get? Was it shared? Did it spark conversation? As the public and businesses become increasingly “social,” brand journalism can make communicating with consumers more interesting, while setting a company apart from outdated "push" marketing approaches.

Businesses that do it properly can create a huge competitive advantage, while increasing their credibility and relevancy in the marketplace.

Lisa Ostrikoff is a TV Journalist & Anchor turned creator of BizBOXTV -- a Canadian Online Video Production/Advertising + Social Media Marketing Agency. You can find her on Twitter and Facebook.