Monthly Archives: April 2010
Adam Bracegirdle | Critical Mass Calgary
Timeliness is of benefit in this industry, and although Facebook’s announcement of the open graph protocol happened an eternity ago by web standards, I feel in this case the ramifications of such an event demand a step back. To say that the open graph protocol is ‘revolutionary’ is in my opinion an understatement. Many will say “Facebook is late to the game. Google, Yahoo and MySpace all have a shared standard for OpenID through OpenSocial, ergo, this is a non-event”. My reply to that is simply, not really. Nothing has been done at this level. Not to mention none of those services come near Facebook in terms of user-engagement. I don’t think we’ll fully realize how profound this moment is for a number of years. And I don’t just mean in terms of the internet. This has the potential to change the way we buy products, how we react to world events, what music we listen to and how we find it, among many other things. I won’t say it’s a ‘good thing’ as that is, and will remain, a point surrounded in a great deal of debate. I will however say that I believe this is certainly a moment worth looking at.
On the surface it seems as though Facebook is attempting in this moment to centralize the internet around it’s own service. Of course they don’t word it that way, “The open graph puts people at the center of the web.” says CEO Mark Zuckerberg “It means the web can become a series of personally and semantically meaningful connections.” Sounds vaguely positive to me, and if the new Facebook graph protocol seemed slightly confusing to you at first, you’re not alone. I was scratching my head a little too, so I’ll start by explaining it’s core functionality and then I’ll expand on the merits of each point.
It all starts with social plug-ins; these allow Facebook to be ported pretty much anywhere. When you visit a site that’s using social plug-ins, you’ll be able to see all the people in your network who have visited before, what they did there and if they recommend or ‘liked’ anything on the page. This to me represents the nail in the coffin when it comes to digital channel convergence. Once Facebook roots itself in the online experience with social plug-ins we can no longer consider social a channel at all. It becomes the experience, and instant personalization is the result. Of course user-engagement and the ubiquity of the plug-in will effect how personal your experience can be. Facebook has addressed this by using cookies and iFrames to remember a user no matter where they are in addition to providing developers with a far simpler, robust API and an open authentication protocol called OAuth.
The site level component, Facebook’s ‘like’ button, adds further functionality using the open graph protocol. If I decide I ‘like’ something while I’m online (it could be anything; music, images, videos, books, products, you name it) I can use Facebook’s universal ‘like’ button and the site will create a connection between me and that object. Best of all, the connection can include semantic data (like type, color, genre, location, etc.) and appears as an object in Facebook with it’s own set of functionality. The communication is not one way either, sites can correspond directly with the subset of users who’ve decided to hit the ‘like’ button.
Inspiration often comes from strange places.
†Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, author Scott McCloud examines how we receive different types of information and that process relates directly to design, information architecture, copywriting and content strategy.
Image compliments of Scott McCloud.
“Pictures are received information. We need no formal education to ‘get the message.’ The message is instantaneous.
Writing is perceived information. It takes time and specialized knowledge to decode the abstract symbols of language.” (page 49)
Anyone who’s ever sat through a client review will understand this. It’s not that images or art are less important; in fact, it’s the art that usually solicits “ohhs” and “ahhs” from the clients, right?
McCloud is speaking more about our intrinsic speed of understanding. We get a feeling from a picture right away.
But we need to process words – to piece together abstract ideas. With words, it’s incumbent that we create the images ourselves, in our own consciousness; we ponder meaning, ideas and symbols. Anyone who has read Roland Barthes’ Mythologies knows that this process ain’t easy.
What’s This Got To Do With Agency Life?
Comics and literary theory? Why should marketers care?
In the same way that images are understood before words in the human brain, so too has the planning and creative process developed in marketing agencies. The halcyon days of 1997 were critical for information architecture. IAs became a staple of the creative agency, a bridge between the client’s objectives and the designer’s creative vision.
The same thing didn’t happen for words. It was easy to understand why you’d want to plot out images. But it took another decade for us to plot out what was written on the page and why. (True, maybe astute IAs and copywriters filled this role until content strategy bloomed in recent years.)
So what’s changed? Well, SEO (based on keyWORDS) has blossomed into the main way we find content online. Search engines are ever more refining the way they surface the most relevant content. Our tastes have matured: the internet is no longer the shiny new object – it helps us complete tasks in everyday life. We now use many, many channels to access information and communicate with brands. Findable, useful, contextual, and consistent across channels…online content is more important to our lives than ever before!
It then makes sense that content strategy – a plan for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable, relevant content – would guide many important choices we make as digital marketers.
By Nicole Armstrong | Critical Mass Calgary
With the rise in consumer-generated content – an increase in people willing to create it and wanting to consume it – we are going to see the creation of something called the “Semantic Web”. This means the web isn’t going to be based solely on set content like it is now, but rather around people’s sentiment around topics, ideas, organizations, people, etc.
We already can begin to see the rise of the semantic web through things like Twitter, where we can search real-time sentiment on a topic. For instance, I didn’t learn about Michael Jackson’s death on a news site, but on Twitter! We even see Twitter being integrated into Bing’s search results.
This is a real-time search on Twitter for Manchester United.
Even sites like GoodGuide, which help consumers find healthy, socially responsible products, are establishing the semantic web by having people rate products they feel are the best.
Or who needs to research a product, when they can use Facebook Connect to message all their friends who have the same product and ask them how they like it and would they recommend buying it!
This is a very interesting concept to take into consideration by brands as the web and how we use it continues to evolve!
So, what does this mean for brands?
Read more for the answer
Pulling directly from Shaina’s CMVP nomination last October,
“She’s done an amazing job of juggling multiple client demands, team demands and office demands over the past couple of months. Marketing Science thinking is a key component of our new business wins and a growing component of day-to-day client deliverables. She delivers great insights, is a strong team leader, and continually reinforces her delivery with an attitude that clients and team members really appreciate.”
So it’s no question she is the Critical Mass CMVP of the Year for 2009. But let’s spend some time getting to know her a little better. Here are 10 Qs with Shaina.
1. What is your role at CM? How do you spend your days?
I am the Group Marketing Science Director, running the line of business for all offices. CM was in need of a more advanced analytics practice, so I wrote a business plan from my experience and research and executed against it. The vision was to ensure our clients get the most for their money working with us, our consumer gets the best experience, the product is the best we can deliver and our analysts have a highly engaging/challenging career at CM. Those were the 4 key components to drive the whole line of business. To date, we have 65% of CM accounts covered, a team of 15 people (and 6 more open positions).
I spend my days talking to people on the team [management] and selling during the day, planning operations and bigger picture analysis/strategy at night. 75% of the time I am travelling. I even have my own apartment in Calgary because I spent 6.5 months there last year. (Plus1 month in Amsterdam. Only 4 month at home here in Chicago!)
In a nutshell, it’s like I get to run my own business inside of a massive business and it’s very motivating.
2. Why do you think you were you nominated as a CMVP?
I suppose it’s because I built a successful line of business. Or maybe that’s why I was picked as CMVP of the Year. I think I was originally nominated because I had a very challenging month last fall. Sometimes, survival is extraordinary. That was when I was taking over solitary ownership of the entire group. It was challenging, but it helps that I love what I do so much.
3. What is the greatest thing about CM culture?
The people, themselves. I couldn’t work this much if I didn’t really like everyone who works here. I’ve worked at many agencies and with hundreds of people over the years and no one is like this collective group. The executives are so supportive and friendly. The Canadian heritage is rare and wonderful. Great work. Amazing roster of clients. All in all, it’s just a unique and ideal environment.
4. What drives you? What are you inspired by?
Finding the answer to “why?” and proving that what we’re doing is actually bringing value. Showing that everything we do at this company is actually worth something and can always be improved. That’s very compelling. Another big one is getting people to think–stop them and get them to think before they take action.
We all debate 
the true value of industry awards. We consider the cost. We lament the politics. We ponder the return. One consistent benefit that everyone seems to understand is the effect on employee morale. Winning an award is the ultimate satisfaction–justifying the greatness of your ideas, your abilities and your effort. That boost can solidify the bonds of a team and motivate them in their future work. But most importantly, that designation acts as a public celebration.
At Critical Mass, we love to celebrate. We celebrate our appreciation of one another through peer-nominated spot bonuses every month. We celebrate our appreciation of Fridays with bagels in the morning and beers in the afternoon. We celebrate our appreciation of our clients through crazy breakdancing videos sent as Christmas cards. Hell, we even celebrate our appreciation of bacon. But more than any of those, we know how important it is to celebrate our work. We even have our own award competition. We call them the CMMYs and we’re giving you a peek into the CMMY events of the past two weeks.
Here’s how it works:
Throughout the year, our executives are constantly evaluating our work. We hold ourselves to a standard of “extraordinary” and we don’t let ourselves slack. Then in March, our execs: Di, Chris, Neil, Lee, Darren, Scott, Antonio, Cam and John regroup and consider those pieces of work from the past year in accordance with our CMMY categories and select the winners–secretly. Each office proceeds to plan a kick-ass party, each aligned with the unique cultures of their location. All remote CMers far and wide are shipped into their “home” offices; this is not an optional event and no one is left out.
These parties are always epic and–with the help of the open bar–the anticipation rises to a fever pitch before our winners are announced. Each office has their own special way of delivering the news and celebrating, but there are a few common threads:
Beer
Shenanigans
Excitement
Pride
Team Bonding
…and, oh yes, more beer.
That excitement, pride and bonding is what makes it all so worthwhile. We boost each other up, celebrating the time we’ve spent and goals we’ve accomplished together. We’re so proud, we’d actually like to share our winning work with you too. So without further ado, here they are.
Best Brand Experience: Infiniti Global
Best Product Launch: Nissan Leaf
Best Site Redesign: Moen.com
Best Campaign: Rolex Reference Watches Media Campaign
Best New Biz Pitch: Harley Davidson eCommerce (a pitch we won, I might add!)
Best Distributed Experience: Vegas Bound Campaign
Best Mobile Experience: Gucci iPhone application
Best Return on Insight: Budweiser American Ale, Get Offline Campaign
Best Thought Leadership: i5 Summit for at&t
Best Internal Project: Chicago’s Prom (on a budget)
Best Community Building: Ella Nutella
Best Innovation: Nissan Leaf and Twitter Integration
Best in Show: Nissan Leaf
And very importantly, there are also two honors awarded to people.
The Rich Wilkins Award honors the late Rich Wilkins who truly embodies the spirit of Critical Mass. As the award outlines, “Richard had just the right combination of professionalism and lunacy to be a highly respected and greatly cherished leader, team member and friend.” For 2009, the CMer selected to receive this award was our universally liked, respected and appreciated…
Rebecca Bloom Geddes, Human Resources Director.
Secondly, the CMVP of the Year (we select one of these rock stars each month) was…
Shaina Boone, Group Marketing Science Director.
We have a whole post to share about how amazing Shaina is next week.
For now, we hope you enjoy the work we’ve shared as much as we’ve enjoyed creating it. There are some incredible products, services and even movements behind each and every one of these pieces of work and we are all humbled by the opportunity our clients give us everyday. With that, we’ll close because we are already off and running in 2010, motivated by the celebrations of last week to continue creating Extraordinary Experiences that make us all proud to be a part of Critical Mass.
Here are a few pictures we can share from these celebrations in Calgary, Chicago, Toronto and London. More will be coming soon!
By Anna Mer | Critical Mass Chicago
How many of your banners are running on x-rated sites?
How many are running below the fold?
Or running in countries outside the US?
Now the moment of truth: Does the network you’re partnering with even know the answer to these questions?
As networks and exchanges continue to expand, it becomes more difficult for them to provide the 100% transparency they promise. Recently we’ve seen companies, such as Double Verify, step into the vendor space and try to police it. Double Verify uses their detection technology to find: hidden iframes within network properties that lead to x-rated sites, banners running below the fold beyond what you were promised, or impressions that have been incorrectly geo-targeted. But can these ad verification companies really stop the corruption happening behind the scenes? The answer… Not really. As Brian Morrissey points out, “Misplaced ads aren’t a problem unique to the Internet, but the digital medium, with its millions of sites, magnifies the risk.”
These protection tools do a great job of crawling the web and finding fraud. Once fraud is discovered, the agency verifying tool and the network vendor discuss where the error occurred and what to provide in added-value to cover the mistake. But that’s really only solving the problem one brand at a time. Will this monitoring insert enough fear into the hearts of networks to begin their own process of weeding out bad site partners and poorly monitored targeting techniques? I think that’s something we’ll have to wait and see. As Morrissey reported from a source at Media Math, “The future is in the prevention technologies.”
In the meantime, tools like Double Verify can help regain impressions lost to banner fraud while keeping networks in check. But that is still one site negotiation at a time and it happens after the fact. For brand-driven clients, they need to demand more of networks and hold them accountable. To implement these crawlers (without a fee to the advertiser), verifying partners need to be alerted and fees need to be negotiated into each partnership insertion order to ensure that campaigns are tracked correctly. Or as a co-worker of mine put it, “It seems like agencies have to do double the work just to get an honest view of a campaign. Shouldn’t the networks do this for us?”
I suspect in time the advertising networks will start to feel the pressure of someone watching their every move and begin to implement more defenses on their own exchanges to prevent this type of fraud… or they might just sit at their desks with their doors closed and hope this whole verifying thing just blows over.
What should smart marketers do in the meantime? While the fraud tools aren’t perfect, they’re still a step in the right direction. Ensure that Double Verify (or a similar vendor like Cyveillance, Adsafe, or Collective Networks) is part of every network buy. If not for any of the reasons listed above, it will help show which networks are committing a higher level of fraud and help guide you to choosing correct network partnerships for future campaigns.
Anna Mer is a Media Manager out of the Chicago office.
