Yahoo rewamps its search logic.

Yahoo is trying to catch up with Google on lost ground related to “SEARCH”, and is using innovative methods to re-design its search logic and is calling it the biggest "consumer experience improvement" ever. The new methods will have an impact on SEO to a large extent and SEM to some extent.

Lets see if this works for them and if they are able to recover. Will review & research the impact on a regular basis and update it on this blog.

Watch this report here.

Consumer & the Brand : The break up

I thought this was a classic interpretation of the relationship (or lack of it) between the consumer and the brand. While I think it is entirely applicable to any one sided brand communication, it is also applicable to the patchy and ill-conceived 1-on-1 marketing campaigns.

Interesting that it had to come to us from Microsoft!!

Watch the video here.

Here more on the BTL trend.

In a recent meeting in Hong Kong, about 10 days back, my friend and colleague Conrad Chiu, floored me with some of the charts which he shared with us, in his trademark simplistic manner. Conrad has years of experience on the Asian market not only from a BTL prespective, but he runs a hugely successful 360 offering of BatesAsia in Hong Kong. I thought it would a sensible thing to share the information in its original format with all the readers of this blog.

While it reinforced the fact that BTL spends were increasing, the interesting part was to look at the where the growth is coming from. While the source of data here was different (refer to earlier posts), the trend was unmistakable.

While the difference in the rate of growth of ATL vs BTL is a known and understood fact, I think the next two charts which indicate that the ATL growth is way below the average A&P growth rate while BTL growth rates are higher is a new and an interesting finding.

While the trend looks at spends in the US, it highlights the direction in which the marcom managers in Asia will tend to move / or are moving.

1010-asia.com - a peep into the Digital Wonderland

OK, the site is live now. No more videos to look at, but it's time to explore the wonderland and of course its alter ego, the real land.

The trip, will remind you of the Alice in Wonderland, but thats what we as an agency are doing. We are evolving, discovering, learning and playing in the digital space.

www.1010-asia.com is a unique digital adaptation of self discovery and has been inspired by the famous fable Alice in Wonderland. It is a fantasy trail that allows one to wander down the Rabbit Hole, explore the hidden facts and unravel the myths underneath. Treated through animated characters, the portal demonstrates the agency’s strong combination of creative and strategic capabilities and expertise in an unanticipated manner.

The new site, corporate identity and the logo created by in-house power idea creators. The logo is symbolic of the aggregated thoughts that transform to leverage peoples’ passion for great ideas.

While in wonderland, do remember to attend the beer party! Over to the wonderland.

Await your reactions.

Direct (esp. electronic), where is it headed?

We have all watched the changing response rates on emails for a while now, but have we reacted to what we see happening? And are we ready for what is to happen in the future in the short term?

SPAM has done a lot of damage to this reach-out method and is continuing to take a heavy toll. Very few agencies or marketers have been proactive about permission marketing and are in fact pushing too hard on merely trying to reach out to without understanding the long term damage to the brand caused by way of un-clustered, unsolicited, unimaginative and unintelligent bombardment of mails.

The recent survey findings of eROI, yet again highlight the need of relevance of content and delivery of message as two of the most important factors effecting the edirect trade. While the survey predominantly looks at US, the Asia story is no different.

Relevance of content: The ease and low cost of this reach out technology does not warrant a barrage of email. The age old logic of communicating only when the content is hot holds true now more than ever before. The prospect needs to love what he gets, period. Linked and exclusive knowledge / white papers are a must. Don’t do it for the sake of completing a task on the marcom chart.

Also a number of passive formats could be used like a blog with an RSS or email subscriber feed to ensure people who wish to receive content, do so. You will end up creating a more loyal and interested community.

Everyone on the Db is not interested in everything you want to say. The best of Db cannot yield results if it is not used diligently. Segmentation of your installed databases to depths which might appear silly is the way forward. Segmentation restricted to designations, product purchase information, and geographies is passé. Look at interest areas, responses to previous communications by way of click thru, time spend on the communication etc. to ensure relevant communication in the future.

Need to have a “call to action” in the communication! Measure the ROI. This is not about brand awareness, this is about conversions. Do not send out a communication which does not have a measurable call to action. And do operate with a pre-decided success measurement matrix.

Delivery of content: Focus on this. Your best designed and targeted communication is of no use if it is not designed for delivery. Your email needs to be coded to deliver across various email clients. Spend time to understand and master filters. This is going to get more and more serious an issue with organizations and mail portals increasing the security levels and with sender verification system coming into fray.

To me, delivery is above everything else and will tend to separate the successful agency / marketer from the novice.

And go back in time: Go back to an exposure on printed direct mailers. Suddenly the prospect is taking the printed document very seriously. The communication stays on the table longer and gets passed around much more than the perceived cheap spam email.