Perspectives, News & Opinions From The Researchers At Edison
The First Step In A Social Media Campaign
There are lots of ways to measure the effectiveness of social media campaign, but only one right way to start. Before you start a Facebook Fan Page, or open a corporate Twitter account, the one mandatory step you need to take to be sure any of it is worth your time is to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) of your business, and measure them first. You might use the data, you might not--but if at any point down the road you need to measure exactly how much social media engagement has added to your bottom line, you'll want to know exactly where you were when you started. A small additional expense, perhaps, but you'll thank me later, trust me.
Take this recent survey for a Houston-based bakery/cafe chain called Dessert Gallery covered recently by Harvard Business Review. The company wanted to measure the business impact of maintaining a Facebook Fan page, so they first surveyed their email database to collect baseline information, and then began their engagement. After three months of constantly updating their Fan Page with promotions, reviews and other content, they resurveyed their list to measure a variety of key metrics, including Net Promoter Score, average price per ticket, and average visits per month--three of their KPIs.
Almost all of the results reported in this survey can be tossed into the "correlation does not imply causation" bin. The chartjunk-y graphic on the page highlights differences in the Net Promoter scores between Facebook Fans and others, but this can easily be explained by the fact that becoming a restaurant's Facebook Fan probably meant that you were already a Real Life Fan--in other words, whether or not you are a Facebook Fan is little more than a trailing variable, and recording that datapoint merely provides another way to segment out the most passionate members of your existing database.
Similarly, Facebook Fans reported a greater level of emotional attachment to Dessert Gallery than did others, and were more likely to choose it over other establishments whenever possible. Again, none of this proves much besides the fact that people who sign up for your company's fan page are probably already fans. And, if all they had done was survey customers at the end of the process, that's what they'd be left with--an expensive way to segment an existing user base.
Except...there is one other data point in this survey, one that should have been the focal point of the accompanying graphic, and one that is impossible to dismiss as easily. By surveying customers before the campaign, and after the campaign, they had measurements from customers who had completed both survey instruments (easily trackable through cookies or email analytics). Those customers who had completed both surveys (and I do wish the article's authors had included the sample size there) and became fans reported an increase in store visits per month. That's apples-to-apples, friends--and and the clearest indicator in the whole article that the social media engagement may have actually moved the needle on a KPI, and not merely been associated with a needle-move.
Are there still possible explanations for this behavior change that don't rely on Facebook as a causal variable? Sure--there is the Heisenberg effect of simply being surveyed, which heightens your awareness of being an important customer, especially if those customers were made aware after Survey 1 that there would be a Survey 2. That's just one of several possible confounding variables. But in this study, you do have a very clear sense of a way forward in measuring social media ROI. If you can measure a population pre- and post-engagement, and show changes in the same sample based upon the variable of social media engagement, you've come a long way in proving or disproving the case for continued expenditure of resources.
And none of it would have been possible without the initial survey. Is it an additional commitment of your talent and treasure to measure before and after your social media initiatives? You betcha. Do you think Dessert Gallery questions that expense? Or questions the time and effort they put into their Facebook Fan page now? Not a chance.
The First Step In A Social Media Campaign originally appeared on BrandSavant.
When Does Marketing Cross the Privacy Line?
Did you ever get that feeling that you were being watched? I think we all have at one time or another, but it's usually after you've watched a suspenseful movie or when you are walking alone and feeling "unsettled." Most of us wouldn't get that sensation at a grocery store, but depending on where you shop that could be exactly what's happening, and you don't even realize it.
Advances to modern technology have made it possible for companies to capture your key demographic information and hone in on it with ads specific to you. Social networking sites, online retailers and even brick and mortar stores are taking advantage of this capability "to better serve you," or so they say.
You could argue that this specialized marketing, which is quickly becoming almost standard practice for online sites, is just doing a more efficient job of giving you the ads you want and sparing you the ones you don't. But what if you don't want your info mined? Should you have a say in what gets collected?
Opponents of this practive would say that yes, privacy is your right and consumers should at least be told that their data was being "mined" in this fashion. The World Privacy Forum has argued that as this practice continues to move to offline avenues with more digital signage, the creation of a "One Way Mirror Society" is being set up, where the unassuming consumer has no idea that they are being monitored for their behavior and shopping habits.
Take, for example, cameras that are installed in grocery stores that are not there for security, but instead to analyze shoppers through sophisticated facial recognition software. Unbeknownst to the consumer, these cameras are capturing data on what they are noticing and how long they are engaged with ads, as well as their basic demographics.
Another potentially intrusive example is a technology that attaches radio frequency devices to shopping carts to provide a "heat map" of the store for marketers to review that shows which areas of the store receive the most traffic and which the least.
Some predict that this covert data capturing will become a major point of discussion as technology continues to make it possible (and easy) to track consumer behavior however and whenever they can. I do believe that this will heat up and cause some valid debate, but whether any laws or disclosure requirements stem from it remains to be seen. Who would get involved? The ACLU? EFF? Or another organization created specifically to be a watchdog to these sorts of potential privacy issues?
So, the next time you are at the market and are annoyed because your favorite brand is sold out, watch what you say and do, because you never know who is watching. Even when you think you are all alone in the aisle, you most likely are not.
When Everyone Is A Pollster, What Happens To The Polls?
Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal posted an article on the National Journal about two new ventures bringing "professional" polling to the masses. Essentially, these new ventures (Pulse Opinion Research and Precision Polling) allow any one with a credit card to inexpensively commission and field a telephone survey (either a robo-call or a recording of the purchaser's own voice) on the topic of their choosing.
The fact that these ventures are being run by "professional pollsters" is irrelevant: once you plop down your fee, you are the pollster, and there won't be any professional guidance--or oversight--on how your questions are formulated or how these polls are used. Want to run a push-poll? Go for it. Circumvent the "do not call" rules with a thinly-veiled attempt to "gauge interest" in a new product or service? Be our guest. Blumenthal wisely notes that should we become flooded by a plethora of these self-serve robo polls, three changes will need to take place in order to safeguard the integrity of our industry: better measures of quality, better disclosure, and safeguards against abuse. Yes, please.
I'll add a fourth: better outreach by AAPOR, CASRO and enlightened advocates in the press to educate journalists on how to read data, and the questions they should be asking. I've commented numerous times on the sad state of survey reporting, and the fact that so many journalists merely pass on the results of study after study without once questioning the sample composition, the claims of representation, who paid for the survey or even what the exact questions were. I am sure there will be good studies done under the aegis of these two enterprises; I am equally sure there will be poor ones as well. The fourth estate has a responsibility to do more than "pass along" the results indiscriminately. As data reporting quickly gets shortened to 140 characters, online reporting has an even greater responsibility to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Often, the survey itself does a fine job disclosing its limitations, but the press (and the tech press, especially, which is woeful in this regard) confounds "respondents" with "all Americans" or "Households." With thousands of non-representative convenience samples on various topics, journalists will inevitably be confronted with surveys that offer differing and sometimes contradictory results. The responsibility of the journalist should be to first ask and answer why those surveys might differ before blindly passing them along to the public. In survey reporting, it's often the sins of omission, not commission, that do the most harm to readers.
Career Women Make Bad Mothers?
Last week, the Outdoor Advertising Association in the UK began a campaign with the intent of showing the relevance of billboard advertising. However, their choice of slogan, "Career Women Make Bad Mothers", proved to be too controversial and had to be removed. Not surprisingly, the outcry from working mothers was intense and the negative publicity from online parenting web sites could not be ignored.
The ad campaign, which ran on the side of buses and thousands of billboard sites, was supposed to continue for a total of two weeks. With the parenting site Mumsnet.com leading the charge, the OAA ordered the ads to be removed. Although the organization maintains that the slogan doesn't represent their opinion and that the bold statement was chosen purposely to spark debate on the Britainthinks.com web site, critics are not buying it. The posts on Mumsnet.com were angry, defensive and more importantly massive in number.
"It takes a village," as the old saying goes, or in this case an online community to get action. I have no doubt that if it weren't for sites like Mumsnet.com which give a voice to everyday people, those ads would have run their full two week course. The ads would have sparked anger and working women would still have been as equally appalled, but I don't think the attack on the campaign would have been so pointed or successful without the means to organize and circulate that negative reaction. The online forum provided the platform for the women to mobilize and to put pressure on the OAA to get those ads taken down.
The offending billboards have been replaced with other slogans that are also geared toward healthy debate: "Educashun Isn't Working" and "1966: It Won't Happen This Year." The latter refers to England's chances in the World Cup, hardly a hot button issue. Neither seems to be hitting a nerve the way the original one did, but is that because these are less of an issue to society or because there isn't a group of defenders closely banded together? Much can be said about that motherhood bond--when it comes together, it is a force to be reckoned with.
Even though the ads were cut short early, the agency can view their campaign thus far a success. If the intent of the ads was to prove that billboards are still in fact relevant, what better way to show that? The attention and publicity was so overwhelming they had to pull the ads. Even when the publicity was negative (and they had to have some idea that would be the case), it was still publicity. That means that people were paying attention and people were reading it, which is precisely what they wanted to prove. This happened in the UK, but I wonder if anyone would dare to post that kind of billboard here in the States? Would we have had the same reaction and end result?
If someone was brave enough to launch that type of campaign here, I absolutely think we'd see that same fighting spirit from the working moms, and the parenting web sites would be in high gear to seek and destroy. The same would be true for any passionate large group of people. The Internet has made it so easy for people to stay connected and spread information that it is the best weapon in one's arsenal. Yet in this case it also shows that a traditional advertising medium is far from dead. Isn't it ironic?
Some Surprise No Shows for Super Bowl Commercials
The Super Bowl is one of the biggest events in American culture, even if you are not a football fan. The reason for the big draw has to do less with the actual sport and more to do with the social and entertainment factors associated with it. With a big halftime show and entertainment pre- and post- broadcast, it is the cornerstone of countless parties and catered gatherings. However, nothing generates as much talk or anticipation as the commercials that are aired during the big event. At least, that's how it has been, but this year's big game will be missing two advertisers that have been prominent in the past: Pepsi and FedEx.
With the recent announcements from Pepsi and FedEx that they will not advertise during Super Bowl XLIV, one has to wonder if other big names will follow. Currently, a spot on the Super Bowl broadcast (February 7th, on CBS) fetches between $2.5 and $3 million for a 30 second spot. Commercials for this, the biggest marketing event of the year, have always been pricey, but current economic conditions have forced some changes. So far, a little more than a month out, the usual big names like Anheuser Busch and E-Trade are on board, as are first timers Dr. Pepper and Pop Secret. It is interesting to note that although Pepsi will be missing, its sister product Doritos will air at least three spots.
While FedEx has attributed their absence to cost cutting measures, Pepsi is said to be taking their marketing in a different direction with their "Pepsi Refresh Project." The campaign will focus more on digital media, and the company is said to be planning a presence at the Super Bowl, just not with pricey TV ads. It will be interesting to see what their creative teams can come up with, especially since rival Coke will have spots and no doubt be looking to capitalize on Pepsi's marketing re-think. This will be the first time in 23 years that Pepsi will not have commercials.
Is pulling out of the Super Bowl a smart, strategic move or a marketing disaster? Can't say for sure until the success of the "Refresh Project" can be measured. I'm sure it will be analyzed extensively throughout 2010, but the clear indicator will be the buys for the Super Bowl in 2011. Look for Pepsi to come back with spots if the "Refresh Project" doesn't live up. Until then, we'll have to see what will get us talking around the water cooler on February 8th, 2010, and I bet it won't be who scored the most touchdowns.
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