By Craig Hordlow, Co-Founder and Chief Search Strategist

The Apple iPad, introduced by Steve Jobs in San Francisco on January 27, 2010, is unusual for Apple products in that the media knew most everything about it before Jobs’ presentation, and could only speculate for whom the device is meant and why they would use it.

The iPad is not filling any pressing unmet need, nor is it introducing us to any new technologies.  The iPad is an evolutionary step towards device integration.  If this step had been made by a less significant company, like Sanyo or Casio, it would have received little attention.  But Apple’s brand capital creates media fanfare, and its cultish following provides a forgiving consumer base.

There is speculation that the iPad will compete with e-readers. But the iPad has a computer screen that is hard on the eyes and while its portability may make reading easier, it is simply not an e-reader.

Apple knows that many people use computers primarily for getting on the internet and sending emails, and it streamlined this device for those people. The $700 price tag is welcoming but nothing more than that, especially in this economy. The virtual keyboard, while meant to simplify the device, is unorthodox, meaning it will be met with everything from confusion and frustration to satisfaction and joy. 

The risk that Apple runs with the iPad is cannibalization of its own products.  In his keynote address, Jobs said that “netbooks aren’t better than anything”, which was his inspiration for the iPad.  But having little more functionality than the iPhone, Seth Jayson (Senior Technology Analyst of The Motley Fool) quipped that the device reminded him of pictures in The Onion a year ago with Jobs telling his faithful following, “You must buy a large iPhone.”  The iPad, being something of a cross between a netbook and an iPod Touch, is not positioned to convert any segment of the consumer base to its theocracy.

Despite all of this, marketers and advertisers must be alert because anything Apple introduces to consumers has the potential to be a game-changer or at the very least, another opportunity to market to Apple’s faithful following.  The iPad will host the next generation of Apple-approved applications.  While the iPad has more processing power and memory than the iPhone, one might think that the next wave of apps will consequently be more robust.  The problem with that logic is that iPhone apps are either designed to be streamlined for the very limited capabilities of the iPhone, or for the mobile, location-aware attributes of the device.  Therefore it is difficult to imagine why a new catalog of iPad applications will be a game-changer.

If the iPad doesn’t sell an impressive number of devices, marketers and developers may dutifully build iPad apps for consumers who feel entitled by the explosion of them on the iPhone. The absence of a clear, de facto sense of purpose for the iPad among industry analysts has created confusion where excitement was expected.  Unless Apple can create a large customer base, marketers and advertisers will curb their enthusiasm, waiting for either another evolutionary step (such as a comparable Google product) or mass adoption of the device.

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Under the new Guides, advertisers may no longer use the phrase “results not typical” in their campaigns. Instead, advertisements must disclose the results that consumers may typically experience.

Paid or gifted endorsements must also be disclosed in advertisements, and this extends to bloggers and ‘word-of-mouth’ marketers as well.   This means that bloggers may no longer accept payment or free products in return for promotion without disclosing that fact. If your company is providing material or monetary compensation in exchange for promotion by bloggers or celebrities, this exchange must be communicated to the consumer.

Furthermore, if compensation is provided to a research organization which is cited in an advertisement, this fact must be made public within the advertisement as well.

Interestingly, the FTC Guide now holds endorsers more accountable for their statements. As of December 1^st, endorsers and advertisers may both be held liable for false, unsubstantiated or misleading product statements.

While the FTC Guides are not officially binding laws, they are part of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which is included in federal legislation. For more information, visit:

http://www.ftc.gov/multimedia/video/business/endorsement-guides.shtm.

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By Elliott Easterling, CEO

Many marketers are missing the point with Facebook and social networks. The complexity of managing company profiles, the risks of user-generated content, and the lack of control keep many marketers away from creating a robust social network presence.

Social media represents a sea change in the way that brands project and broadcast themselves. Traditional models of web advertising start from a website that is broadcast out to the public. Historically, advertising was placed to bring people back to this channel.

With the advent of social networks, blogs, and micro-blogging (Twitter), brands have had a whole new spectrum to broadcast their brands through, and in most cases, these are not contained within the safe and controlled confines of their site. These new advancements have required that marketers reinvent their digital marketing efforts to consider the nuances of these new media. Creating and managing a presence on Facebook involves a unique set of considerations that are not native to traditional web publishing.

One of the most interesting considerations is that marketers must not just “project” their brand through their website, but rather must make their brands “converse” through these new forms of media. The way that brands are now fragmented through these new channels and must now become animated and have a voice is completely changing the ground rules for digital marketing. Silent films now have sound, and the brands that do not have a voice in this new media will not reap its vast rewards.

I wrote last month on the opportunities that exist for acquisition marketing in Facebook. Now I’ll address retention marketing on Facebook, which warrants its own discussion (and a lot more beyond this).

The benefits to building a fan base in Facebook are akin to developing an electronic direct mail (EDM) list. Unlike EDM lists, on Facebook you can not only market to your customers but they can interact among themselves and do the marketing for you.

Marketers need to start to treat their social network fan bases as marketing assets and need to measure their effect on their sales. So when a promotion is dropped to an EDM list, a similar message should be dropped to Facebook fans. Ultimately the revenue generated from a Facebook fan base should be uniquely tracked within web analytics systems and reported back to senior marketing management just like every other key marketing channel.

What is amazing about Facebook is that it is an incredible value for the associated costs. Marketers spend significant amounts managing their EDM campaigns, and get much of the similar messaging capabilities and the benefits of an integrated social network “free” from Facebook. Facebook is in essence a Hosted Social Network for corporations, with very low marginal cost to touch consumers. Eventually Facebook may find new ways to charge corporations, and the risk of having your fan base hijacked with high marketing fees are very valid and need to be considered as you make your investments.

Let’s take a quick look at Starbucks. At last check they have over 5MM fans on Facebook. That base of evangelists can be activated through promotion and coupons to drive retail sales, which is likely having a very healthy effect on Starbucks’ bottom line.  Starbucks has a concerted and active paid Facebook fan recruiting program. It has yielded a base of fans that has nearly doubled in the last 4 months.

So when our clients ask us whether they should be advertising on Facebook to build up a fan base or to drive traffic to their site, my answer is usually “try both.” To successfully manage a Facebook fan base and a social media profile, you do need to have a concerted investment of resources within your organization — so that is a prerequisite to a fan building program. Facebook is not for all brands, but it is for more than have given it a real chance to play an integrated role in their digital communications.

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New service offers complex, comprehensive performance assessment and monitoring solutions.

San Francisco, CA – November 3, 2009 – Red Bricks Media, a full-service digital marketing agency, announced its new Analytics & Insights practice. Offerings will help clients better utilize marketing and website data to make more intelligent business decisions.

In order to meet the increasing and varied demands of digital marketers, Analytics & Insights will provide solutions that are both highly customized and platform independent. From defining analytics requirements to ad-hoc report development to generating robust data visualizations, the new service focuses on providing the data needed to make informed marketing decisions on budget and resource allocations.

“While a lot of agencies offer one-size-fits-all reports, our solutions focus on determining exactly what drives the success and failures of our clients’ digital marketing campaigns,” said CEO Elliott Easterling. “Whether we are analyzing the performance of a single channel or pulling together complex information from multiple campaigns, our goal is to provide custom, data-driven recommendations that will improve performance.”

The first offerings within the new practice will address the core elements digital marketers need to get analytics configured and intelligence uncovered:

• Analytics Platform Implementation Consulting
• Customized Reporting Solutions
• Deep Dive Analyses
• Cross-Platform Analysis Tools

For more complete information please visit www.redbricksmedia.com.

About Red Bricks Media:

Red Bricks Media is a full-service global marketing agency headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York and Hong Kong. Since 2003, they have offered services in search engine marketing, interactive media planning, email campaign management, creative, web design, and social media marketing. Their client list includes top brands like Microsoft, Hearst Magazines, THQ and the Los Angeles Times. To learn more about Red Bricks Media’s Web Analytics practice, please contact sales@redbricksmedia.com.

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by Elliott Easterling, CEO

I recall the first day I opened up AdWords almost 6 years ago to test out the self service functions. That feeling of bliss came to me again when I explored Facebook’s self service tool for the first time last December.

Joy came to me with AdWords because I encountered the tool as a data driven marketer. I spent 3.5 years at Digital Impact (now Axciom Digital) learning the ins and outs of database marketing before I started Red Bricks Media. At the time, we were working with algorithms to process large amounts of user behavior and self-profile data to predict the best products to put into individual emails. This behavioral targeting experience is what got me excited about AdWords. I quickly realized that search queries were in fact behaviors that could be used to present targeted ads to potential consumers. I was amazed that I could tap directly into the flow of demand. The combination of powerful targeting and scale is what made Google such a useful tool for marketers.

Excitement came to me with Facebook because I recognized the same opportunity to build marketing programs with amazing targeting capabilities supported by significant scale. Facebook allows marketers to target users based on the content of their profiles. Rather than being fueled by behavioral data, Facebook campaigns are fueled by profile data. This data is incredibly clean and accurate because, in general, people do not lie about their interests on Facebook. They might exaggerate but they won’t likely lie because peer pressure from Facebook friends creates a system of accountability. The profile data in Facebook is especially powerful because it represents the brand of Facebook users. The things you put in your profile represent the things that are most important to you and also the way you see yourself and want to represent yourself to the world. Facebook profiles are the sum of passions, interests, and make up the brand of one. Facebook also provides a separate targeting axis - one that surrounds demographic data. Where you live, where you went to school, and every piece of data collected in the registration process is targetable on Facebook. This matrix of interest data and demographic data make for great user segmentation and targeting. See chart below.

Since users are not actively seeking out information on Facebook as they are doing on search engines, the click-through rates (CTR) tend to be lower. This limitation can be overcome using the sheer scale of available inventory on Facebook, which can yield great click volume even with low CTRs. From our experience, Facebook campaigns can realize good conversion rates because our campaigns heavily segment users into tight interest groups and then present compelling messages to those users. Our background in database marketing has given us an edge in developing and designing successful Facebook campaigns.

Is Facebook right for your business? It is, to the degree to which interests in Facebook correlate to an interest in your product or services. If, for example, you are in the business of selling tissues online, you may not get much out of Facebook’s targeting capabilities. No one is likely to wax poetic on the virtues on a clean nose on their profile. Alternately, if you sell tours of India, you will have access to the more than 2.8MM 18 and older Americans that that show “travel” as an interest in Facebook. Matched with demographic data, a campaign could even target users in San Francisco with customized messaging – “Explore our tours to majestic India, flights leaving from San Francisco daily.”

As performance marketers, we tend to focus more on media that drives conversions. Facebook also has the amazing ability to drive great branding, so let’s not rule out the campaign for the tissue company quite yet. Facebook branding and fan development warrant a separate discussion, which is forthcoming next month.

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By Scott Tieman, Senior Marketing Strategist

Not long ago, seemingly every company rushed into the blogosphere with its home grown corporate blog. The thinking was the company could use this platform as a marketing megaphone to amplify the buzz around its latest products, events, and more. Companies soon realized that the excitement of hosting a blog soon died off and their blogs floundered, never to be touched again. At Red Bricks Media, we often encourage our clients to make the plunge, but not before a serious gut check. Many articles focus on the philosophy of blogging; we’re going to discuss the practicality and logistics of blog ownership, an oft overlooked topic.

Corporate blogs that fail are either conceived from the top down or bottom up, but not both at the same time. They need support from both ends to flourish.

Let’s examine top down first.

Corporate blogs can be excellent marketing tools when they’re aligned with the strategic marketing objectives of the company. Translation: what do I hope to accomplish with my corporate blog? Typically, the response is less than satisfying, something like “engender loyalty” or “proactively offset negative marketplace sentiment” or “inform our customers of new product releases or enhanced feature sets.” These are diffuse goals that are difficult to measure. How will you know if your campaign is succeeding without actionable measurement?

Next, companies need to make an important commitment to the employees who contribute to their corporate blogs. First, contributors shouldn’t feel like blogging is a side gig to be done when all other tasks are complete. On the contrary, you should write this activity into your employees’ job description. This will ensure that the contributors don’t feel like they need to always cut into their free time to write. Also, you should consider offering an attainable performance bonus for consistent, high quality contributions to the corporate blog. This will ensure a high level of contribution even during the times when the hours are demanding at the company.

Finally, a company should embrace the idea that their corporate bloggers are a precious, scarce resource. They will be the company champions and the company’s face to the rest of the world. As such, you should commit to not only promoting the corporate blog to increase audience size, but also recognition for the contributors. Making someone an anonymous contributor will most likely decrease that person’s sense of responsibility to the task.

Now let’s examine bottom up.

Corporate blogs require consistently active, passionate authors. When identifying employees to take on this new role, you should always start with hand-raisers. These are the employees most likely to embrace this new role as contributor. However, they shouldn’t stop there. We all know people that have great intentions when starting a new project, but quickly grow bored over the monotonous routine of completing the project. Corporate blogs have indefinite timelines, so it’s important to make this selection carefully. We typically recommend identifying multiple contributors for the same blog. That way, you can ensure that there will be some coverage when the initial excitement wanes and people get inevitably swamped with work.

Also, look for people that have something fresh to say. There are millions of blogs out there and probably more than you know that cover your own company. You should read some of them first and figure out what will differentiate what the company has to say from what has already been said. If the corporate blog is same old, same old, someone else will probably say it better than your company.

Finally, nothing saps the passion out of contributors more than muting their voice with unnecessary corporate blogging “guidelines.” Blogs are social media. The best blogs enable an authentic dialog between authors and their audience. Marketers LOVE control, but this is the wrong place for too much of it. Two thoughts come to mind. First, make sure to enable comments on blogs. Dialogs are inherently two-way communication. If you want a monologue, post another press release. Second, limit the number of bureaucratic filtering layers. Let the true voice of the author ring through. Anecdotally, I worked at Yahoo! two years ago. Before any article got posted to their corporate blog, two managers and the legal team needed to give their stamp of approval. The result was that all articles sounded the same, corporate, and boring. The author’s true voice had been stripped out. Don’t let this happen to you.

Corporate blogs fail for a host of reasons. Before starting a corporate blog, perform a serious gut check. If not, you’ll sign the death warrant on your own corporate blog before it’s ever launched.

This article is cross-posted from Scott’s blog.

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By Bain Smith, Lead Copywriter

I’ve sequestered myself in the deepest recesses of the Red Bricks Media web laboratory this week, poring over mountains of data, reading exhaustive summaries of research from all over the world, and mixing beakers full of consumer behavior patterns, all in hopes of achieving that perfect alchemy known as Predictions for online marketing in 2008.

So without further ado, let’s get down to brass tacks.

1)    Social networking will continue its meteoric rise and touch more people in more places in 2008.

While “socialnetworkitis”—the fatigue from keeping up with all the social websites we belong to—is a real concern, any rumors of social networking’s demise are greatly exaggerated, and I’ll tell you why.

There are approximately two things that make the web interesting: content and people, especially people you know. So it stands to reason that social networks, whether Myspace, Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, or another as yet undiscovered network, will continue to attract zillions of eyeballs and provide unparalleled levels of “stickiness” to their users.

The difference in 2008? You create the content these social networks profit from, so expect to see new websites that pay users for their participation. I’m not saying it’s going to work, but if Web 1.0 meant paying to use something, and Web 2.0 meant you were free to use something, Web 3.0 may just mean you get paid to use something.

2)    StumbleUpon will become a household name in 2008, as more people will stop googlin’ and start stumblin’.

StumbleUpon uses collaborative filtering, an automated process combining human opinions and machine learning of personal preference, to help you explore a rich, vast variety of content you would never see otherwise, and rate it with a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down via an easily downloadable toolbar.

It leads to unexpected discoveries, and dare I say it: Fun. There are myriad features that make it even stickier, but StumbleUpon has single-handedly rekindled my love of the web.

3)    Twitter, while not for everyone, will continue to influence the influencers and make waves in 2008.

I mean it: Twitter is not for everyone. But for those who crave direct, brain-to-keypad-to-audience interaction with people they like, respect, look up to, or are just plain curious about, Twitter can be an experiential revelation, unearthing information, news and opinions literally as they are happening. Companies and others are catching on to this new info-delivery platform, and people are making a living from it.

4)    Advertising on video sharing sites and mobile devices will increase, but consumer noses will turn toward the sky in response. If you’re still in doubt, read this prescient manifesto for more on why.

Today’s consumers are not a TV generation. Video advertising is interruption marketing, and consumers don’t play that game anymore (TiVo anyone?). The same goes for mobile ads, except it’s an even more personal invasion of privacy and space.

Smart marketers, responding to the challenge, will come up with new, innovative ways to engage and “go steady” with the audience beyond sticking ads in their face. It’s already happening. While motion picture product placement has been going on forever, video and video game product placement is increasing, and mobile apps (widgets) that engage and help the audience will become more of the norm on mobile phones.

5)    A backlash occurs against obsessive, exhaustive communication, connectedness, and the glut of “gadgetry.”

It’s only a matter of time before people stop IM’ing the person two feet to their left, rest those stiff, fatigued Blackberry thumbs, remove the Bluetooths and iPod earbuds, and engage in old-fashioned, face-to-face discourse with other human beings.

Don’t forget that ultimately there is a reason they call it word of mouth marketing, because the real marketing gets going when face-to-face conversation is flowing.

These are my modest marketing-related predictions for 2008. Now back to the lab.

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by Lauren Quan, Associate Marketing Manager

Guests who attended our recent NYC Open House party saw our first mobile marketing campaign in action. We set up a simple text messaging trivia game to test our guests’ knowledge of our New York-based clients for the chance to win an iPhone.

To start the game, guests text messaged the keyword “Applecado” to a predetermined short code. The contest, a series of five questions, was conducted entirely via automated text message. After receiving the first question, guests could text message their answers. They continued on in the game only if they got the previous question right.
Red Bricks Media’s mobile vendor tracked campaign data in real-time, keeping detailed statistics of phone numbers, dates, and times that messages were sent and received.

Red Bricks Media’s CEO Ed Kim predicts mobile marketing will become increasingly popular over the next few years. “Mobile marketing is a trend to watch in 2008,” he says. “A challenge for marketers has always been reaching consumers while they are on the go, and with mobile marketing you can bridge that gap.”

Although mobile is a new service offering for Red Bricks Media, mobile marketing strategy is similar to that of a current service line – email. “People may not realize that mobile marketing and email marketing are actually very similar,” explains Ed. “Both channels can be used to acquire new customers and market to in-house lists. More than half of our senior management team came from a background in email, and our experience will undoubtedly help shape our mobile strategy. ”

In addition to trivia-based campaigns, Red Bricks Media can set up more complicated campaigns including polls, voice and image messaging, and ringtone giveaways. Contact sales@redbricksmedia.com today and learn how you can use mobile to captivate your audience while they are on the go.

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by Kathy Guis, Associate Copywriter

Ever get sick of marketing and yearn for something more glamorous? Neither do we. Just the same, people in the know at Red Bricks Media are alive with excitement about the recent launch of the CW Network and Academy of Art University’s Free to Be Famous contest, for which we designed a microsite, logo and posters.

Our beguiling microsite will serve as the contest’s hub. On the site, short clips from hit CW network shows Smallville, Veronica Mars and Everybody Hates Chris are available for viewing or downloading. Aspiring Bay Area actors are invited to upload video auditions of themselves re-enacting the scene of their choice.Finalists will be selected by a combination of online votes from the general public and expert opinion from contest judges (including Academy of Art University faculty). These three lucky finalists will be provided with teams of Academy of Art University students and faculty to coach them on acting, makeup and wardrobe for their final-round video audition. The experts will score the finalists’tapes, and the lucky winner will appear in a walk-on role on a CW network program, filmed on set in CW’s studios.

Entries will be available for viewing online starting June 8. First-round voting will begin July 1, finalists will be selected on August 11, and the winners will be announced on September 12.

We were also very excited to see our microsite featured in a TV commercial promoting the contest on CW—tune in to the CW network during prime time to catch it. Keep your eye out for our posters, too. They will be popping up all over the city!If you see account manager Jenny Chung, designer Alan Peng, search strategist Johnny Jiang or copywriter Peter Vaughan give them pats on the back for their hard work, creativity and good hair. In related news, Alan Peng recently won first place in the new media category for web/interactive design in Academy of Art University’s Spring Show. We’re glad he works here.

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by Peter Vaughan, Associate Copywriter

Depending on who you talk to, the “Boston Bomb Scare” was either one of the biggest debacles in marketing history or an act of unpredictable genius.

How did a guerilla marketing effort escalate into a full-on bomb scare?

It all started with a campaign idea meant to promote the Cartoon Network’s show called Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens were paid by a guerilla marketing agency to place models of an Aqua Teen Hunger Force character around the city of Boston as a promotion for the show’s upcoming movie. The problem? The characters’ blinking lights and suspicious appearance caused authorities to mistake them for bombs. Soon, panicked news reports began to filter across the nation.

Major media outlets such as CNN and Fox News leaped all over the story using words like “hoax” and “devices” to insinuate that Berdovsky and Stevens planted the character in a premeditated effort to make him look like a bomb. Locally, the city of Boston cited a cost of $500,000 in false-alarm fees.

Turner Broadcasting, the company that helped create the campaign, focused on damage control. They issued a public apology and volunteered to pay one million dollars to the Boston Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security respectively. In the end, Turner Broadcasting paid an estimated two million dollars on top of whatever they originally paid for the campaign, not to mention reputation damage that could affect consumer trust.

Despite the aforementioned consequences, an argument in favor of the outcome of the “Boston Bomb Scare” can easily be supported by the reaction of the target audience; the Aqua Teen Hunger Force cult is already a group of counter-cultural, anti-authority individuals. In other words, the incident could be called one of the most impressive buzz events in history of web 2.0.

Almost immediately after the scare, bloggers began incessant rants and raves, sparking endless commentary threads, mostly poking fun at the stupidity and over-reaction of the Boston Police Department, exclaiming “1/31/07 – Never Forget!” Bloggers also used the popular Digg website to “digg” (or promote) numerous articles, propelling Aqua Teen Hunger Force into the coveted Top 10, with one article getting over 5,000 “support” diggs.

On YouTube, videos showcasing live news footage of the police blowing up one of the “devices,” the night-time video of Berdovsky and Stevens planting the models, and the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie trailer racked up over 100,000 views each. A “24” spin-off, complete with Bauer battling the character, also scored over 100,000 views. An extensive Wikipedia article entitled “2007 Boston Mooninite Scare” appeared almost overnight, and five pages of group listings on Facebook that specifically mention “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” and “Bomb” in the group title were formed.

Those who preach against the unruly nature of guerilla marketing campaigns certainly have their reasons; the outcome of the “Mooninite Bomb Scare,” whether positive or negative, was completely unpredictable. Most corporations are not keen on continuing a relationship with any agency that has no control over consumer reaction. At the same time, it’s just as hard to condemn an agency for this tactic as it is to praise them for it – how can you control human nature? In several other cities the campaign went completely unnoticed, generating little or no reaction.

Furthermore, there is the tendency to equate buzz and guerilla campaigns with the idea of a low-cost marketing solution. In this instance, Turner Broadcasting certainly shelled out the type of money that one would place towards more traditional, safer forms of marketing.

Aside from sparking dialogue around “any press is good press”, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force incident revealed a lot of information about the current direction of online marketing. Social networks, blogs and user-generated media provide effective means to measure the success of buzz campaigns in a way that was never before possible. Direct consumer reaction is available in hard numbers if you know where to find it (e.g. views, searches, postings, diggs, traffic, groups, etc.). By allowing anyone and everyone to directly express their opinions, web 2.0 the equivalent of allowing marketers to see and measure water cooler conversation.

That being said, corporations must realize that consumers are ready for more interaction with their favorite brands – they want to actively participate, they want to be social, they want to be famous. This most definitely makes any attempt to influence the masses very tricky, if not dangerous. However, this does not mean that corporations should stay away from buzz, but rather, approach it with intelligence, creativity and a thicker skin. Providing a place for your “fans” to engage with your product and participate at a level that goes beyond, ahem, simply paying for a service, builds greater awareness, loyalty and excitement.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on buzz marketing, the “Boston Bomb Scare” and, well, anything that interests you. Feel free to email me at pvaughan [at] redbricksmedia.com.

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