It’s SuperBowl Time

Some of the funniest ads from 2009:

Filed under: marketing , ads, commercial, superbowl

Breakthrough Marketing

Have you noticed the strange Facebook Status Updates lately? “Show your support for breast cancer…” or “If you know someone who suffers from prostrate cancer… “ or “Do you care about cancer?” or “Read the first sentence in page 5 and put it in your status message..” Mostly it was status updates about raising awareness around a social issue or people having fun with their pictures (80s week or Doppelganger week).

Last week I noticed another viral status update spreading through Facebook like fire. Some of my friends posted: “Go to urbandictionary.com, type in your first name, copy and paste this as your status, and put the first entry for your name under comments.” And then there were funny banter around what each of their first names meant.

I am confident it was a product of a brilliant marketer, probably someone at urbandictionary.com. I started poking into Alexa and Compete just to see the effect on web traffic to urbandictionary.com. Alexa says traffic has gone up by 25% in the last 3 months starting in November. In November, compete says there were 3.7M unique visitors; that makes it 4.6M unique visitors in February. A whopping increase of a million in the last month itself.

This is the power of viral/social-media marketing. It is no more true that you need to spend a million dollars in order to get your name out there. Another very good case study is mancrunch.com. It is rumored that the company didn’t have the money ($2.5M to $3.0M for a 30 second CBS spot during super bowl) to run the ad but they applied anyway betting that CBS will reject the ad. As a result, they got tons of free press and media coverage without spending a single dime.

This is what I call – Breakthrough Marketing.

Filed under: marketing, technology, web 2.0 , facebook, mancrunch, urbandictionary, viral

Emotional I.Q. & Leadership

Neil Fiske was the CEO of Bath & Body Works. He is an astounding leader who was hired from Boston Consulting Group by the President of Limited Brands to turn around BBW. He had done a remarkable job – making record profits in 2006 and launching a number of innovative, game changing products. He is also the author of “Trading Up: The New American Luxury” which was a BusinessWeek Best Seller.  Currently, he serves as the President, CEO and director of Eddie Bauer.

I had the amazing fortune of shadowing him for a day in early 2006. I remember his office was filled with the fragrance of BBW products. He actually tested all the products himself before he released the products in the market. I sat there in awe as I watched him manage the office politics, make decisions on day-to-day operational needs and motivate people to reach their potential. He also confided in me about who he thought had the potential to excel and who he thought would be leaving soon. Needless to say, it was an incredible insight into the mind of a CEO. Most importantly, it taught me that leadership couldn’t be taught in class.

Yes you may think that you know everything about being a leader but that’s not true. Based on the above experience and my day-to-day experiences with other leaders – the most important component is the Emotional I.Q. or emotional quotient. What to say when? How to put it? How should you change your answer based on the emotional readings of your recipient? How to get people motivated? Etc. etc. You might think that solving a few cases in “Organizational Behavior” have prepped you for it – don’t be fooled. The real world and theoretical world is way different.

Whereas being a manager is very easy. You can be a very good manager but an awful leader. You may get work done on time but have no idea on how to squeeze that extra ounce of performance from your team.  You may be exceptional at barking orders but horrible at making people do more than what their job description entails.  But, this can be taught in school.

The point I am trying to make here is that emotional intelligence has a big role to play in creating exceptional leaders. Unfortunately it is the most ignored in corporate world. If given a choice – most companies go with decent managers rather than superior leaders. On the contrary, good companies nurture managers with good Emotional I.Qs They are the ones that will stand the test of time and become the GE and HPs of the future.

Filed under: leadership , emotional IQ, leader, manager

From Secretary to CEO

Filed under: technology , carly fiorina

Top 10 Predictions for 2010

1. Mobile Smart Phones become ubiquitous
2. Mobile Data Traffic triples or quadruples
3. More and more content moves online
4. More experimentation around Social Media Monetization
5. Consumer Privacy becomes a key concern
6. More startups challenge Facebook
7. Real time search starts revenue generation
8. Commoditization of Hardware Equipment & Primary Differentiation through Applications
9. Web Startups built around businesses and real revenue models
10. Industry consolidation among iPhone/Android application builders

Filed under: technology

Next big thing for Yelp

Yelp has millions of consumers and hundreds of local businesses coming to its site everyday. It has become the de-facto location for connecting businesses with consumers and vice versa. It has done such an incredible job building credibility with the consumer base. But, it has still so much opportunity to exploit.

It has a huge database of local businesses, which wants to connect with customers online. That is the next big big opportunity. Majority of small business surveys show that small businesses are struggling to attract customers using the online medium. Majority has websites but have hardly any traffic. Most of them are struggling with their online strategy. Most importantly, many are not Internet savvy and have predominantly outsourced their techie stuff.

Then, what can Yelp do?

Firstly, Provide an opportunity for local businesses to build websites easily
When I say building a website, I don’t mean it from scratch. You can argue that a Facebook page can be a small business website. Yelp just needs to provide an easily modifiable template such that a non tech-savvy business owner can easily build a site in minutes. It can reside on the current local business page on Yelp as a separate tab. The advantage of building a website on Yelp for a small business owner is that it doesn’t have to invest on Google search or other customer acquisition activities – there are already millions coming to Yelp everyday.

Secondly, Build applications connecting consumers with businesses
Just imagine if I can schedule an appointment with my doctor or book a table at my favorite restaurant on Yelp. You then make Yelp the de-facto location for consumers to interact with small business services online. It’s a win-win for both consumers and businesses. So many times I had to find the telephone number on Yelp and then call that business – it would be so much easier if I can just send them an email or chat with a rep online.

Thirdly, Build your credibility with local businesses
This cannot be done easily. This might take years to build a brand around small businesses. Small businesses need to understand that Yelp cares. Look at Zappos, their business model was primarily around customer service. I cannot think of one single company who can boast a brand around small business or can say they excel in customer service with small businesses. It will require a lot of investment, but it is worth every penny.

And lastly, Cash on it
Yelp can make millions (or even billions) out of this. If Yelp doesn’t do it, Facebook will. If Facebook doesn’t, some other company will. (Some who are already on that track right now is Google, CitySearch, Bing just to name a few). It is as simple as charging a monthly subscription fee for the services you provide. Consumers will never pay, but businesses will. Then why focus so much on making consumers happy but not any on businesses? I am not saying that you lose credibility of your existing review system. You can still keep that as it is, but just invest a little more to make local businesses happy.

And once you make the millions, don’t forget to send me the check.

Filed under: startup, technology , small business, website, yelp

Viral Marketing Part Duex

In the last post I talked about how viral marketing is unpredictable. You never know how a video becomes viral. Most of it is dependent on the following factors:

• Title: Search-ability? Most searched words?
• Snapshot: Attention grabber?
• Description: Sounds Interesting?
• Tags: Search-ability?
• Music: Catchy?
• Related: Will it show up in related videos?
• Payoff: What’s the payoff in the end?

Now look at this video:

We launched this video 10 months back when we launched a new product called the Cisco Spam & Virus Blocker. The video didn’t get much traction. We expected it to get more hits because we thought that the theme was interesting and the video was well executed.

We re-launched the video few days backs:

We changed the title from “Weird things happen in office” to “Strange things happen at the office”. We changed the music. We edited to highlight the product better. And most importantly, the payoff was much better than the previous video.

Suddenly this video has become viral. We are scratching our heads to understand what might have triggered it. The theme is more or less the same. Was it the music? The payoff? Did we touch an influential node (famous blogger, celebrity like Kawasaki) in the social graph? Was it just the timing? What do you think?

Update 11/25:
Cisco Blocker Video on Adage’s Viral Video Chart of the Week in #8:
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=140714

Filed under: marketing, web 2.0 , cisco, video, viral, web marketing

Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing is no easy feat. It’s very hard to predict what’s going to become viral. Actually naming anything “viral” even before it becomes viral is an oxymoron. So, if anyone tells you – I am working on a viral marketing project, do this for me, roll your eyes. “Viral” cannot be created, it happens.

But it’s not just art; it’s science as well. Most importantly, if you are working on a “viral” project, make sure you can track the metrics from the top of the funnel to the bottom so that you can show success or failure. Many marketers forget that and focus too much on the creativity part. Remember, even if you are not successful, it is important that you have some key learning from the campaign or else how will you objectify the investment.

Also, most of the time, marketers don’t think about the end-result. What’s the goal of the viral marketing campaign? Do you want to raise awareness? Generate Leads? Based on your goal, the vehicles you use and the tactics you implement will be different.

Let me walk you through a very successful campaign we did here at Cisco to illustrate that. The power of networking and communications solutions is not necessarily well known among small business (5 – 250 employees) decision makers. They know Cisco, but may not know what we do, and specifically, what we can do for them. The idea of the campaign was to raise awareness among small business customers around Cisco small business solutions and pique their interest to provide contact information so that we can nurture them and entice them to buy our solution in the future.

Our objectives were straightforward:

1. Educate small business decision makers on the power of networking technologies to enable their businesses to succeed using humor

2. Demonstrate that these robust capabilities are well within reach of a small business’ budget and resources

3. Build a scalable marketing program that would enable us and our partners to drive demand, close sales opportunities, and create broader awareness for Cisco as a solution provider for small business.

4. Generate interest and excitement in Cisco’s solutions where you find small businesses—not at conferences once or twice a year, but on-demand, on the web.

We posted the “Peace of Mind” viral video on multiple video syndication sites across the web like MetaCafe and YouTube. It was also posted on internal Cisco sites, Cisco.com and partner sites. The concept of the video was to relay using humor how the Cisco small business portfolio provides peace of mind with reliable and trustworthy networking solutions.

Small Businesses who watched the video were enticed to come to the “Peace of Mind” landing page to watch more such videos. We also used banner ads with the theme “Peace of Mind” and Google paid search to direct traffic to the landing page. In the landing page, we had two offers – one for customers interested to buy the networking solution and one who were still not ready to buy.The customers who were ready to buy Cisco solutions were qualified by a third party telemarketing firm and passed on to partners to be followed up. The customers who were not ready to buy subscribed to our monthly Innovators newsletters to be further nurtured.

The end-results were phenomenal:

• 500,000 video hits on metacafe.com; digged 113 times; 58 comments
• More than 200,000 video hits on Youtube; 33 comments
• More than a million video hits on the internet; syndicated in more than 100 sites and 25 languages
• More than 5000 additional visitors on Cisco.com in 3 months and 88% new traffic
• 5000 new “Innovators” Subscribers
• More than 200 networking solution leads in the US
• Featured on UK and France small business Web sites
• 64% more traffic on Latin America Web site and 27% more online leads

Some key takeaways from this campaign:

• It is very important that you think through the objective of the campaign
• You measure every single touch point with your audience
• The audience has a pay-off at the end of the video as well as the landing page
• The landing page has compelling offers to engage the audience
• You deliver on your promise and experience throughout the customer journey

Filed under: marketing, web 2.0 , cisco, marketing, metrics, video, viral, web marketing

Morgan Stanley sees a recovery

State of the Internet trends 2009 Mary Meeker Morgan Stanley

View more documents from vincent everts.

Filed under: technology , economy, internet trends, morgan stanley

Enterprise Social Media & Monetization

A study by Deloitte says that 94% of enterprises will invest in social media despite recession. A 2009 Forrester study by Jeremiah Owyang concluded that despite recession, more than 50% of marketers will increase their spending on social media. A very recent study by Enterprise Innovation found that 57% of the respondents still regard TV as the most trustworthy and influential media due to its popularity and ability to generate word-of-mouth effectively, however, social media, the youngest media option came in a very close second (55%), leading 14% ahead of print media. So, what?

I see more and more enterprises seeing the value of social media to reach customers, especially businesses catering to consumers. A presence in Facebook, Twitter or Youtube is a must. Dell says that it has earned $3M from Twitter. To quote New York Times: “Dell joins companies like Starbucks, JetBlue and Whole Foods as one of the most active corporate Twitter users. “It’s a great way to fix customer problems and hear what customers have to say, it’s a great feedback forum and it leads to sales — how can you miss?” said Richard Binhammer, who works in Dell’s corporate affairs office and is active on its Twitter accounts.” How much did Twitter made? $0

I fail to understand why can’t Twitter, Facebook or Youtube charge enterprises for an enterprise verified account. It’s as simple as what Yelp is doing with local businesses – give them a platform to talk to consumers, customize their pages and provide valuable statistics. It’s a win-win for both. And consumers have nothing to lose as long as their privacy is not invaded. I see a mutual healthy relationship:

- Youtube, Twitter and Facebook gets a subscription fee and provide valuable communication platform to the enterprises
- Enterprises use the platform to communicate and advertise
- Consumers pay nothing; use the information as necessary and not get spammed by advertisements

I see this as the only possible way for monetization of social media. One of the big three has to lead the way. The question is whom and when?

Or the social media will remain a fad forever. It’s time to act and act now.

Filed under: technology, web 2.0 , enterprise, facebook, monetization, social media, twitter, youtube