Bluetooth. Used massively by kids who don't have the mobile phone contracts to go spraying data, mms and email willy nilly from their phones. Dr Ian Wood talked about the way his kids use it at yesterday's MIPS.
My observations of kids - and many adults for that matter - backs that up. They get together in physical proximity and share pictures, music etc via bluetooth.
Which raises questions about how we monetise this. The usual 'stick ads all over it' kind of solutions get chucked around. They lead to the inevitable "But how do you measure it?"
Here's my solution: Don't.
We are getting increasingly hung up on trying to measure how 'engaged' users are, or the pass-on rate of virals (which at least make an effort to understand that the ad is the content and the content is the ad - rather than plastering interruptive ads over 'the content').
The only measure that's real is; does more of what you're selling get sold?
The rest is observing information flows.
Maybe where this leads us is to a place where the creator of the ad message (the viral, the content that carries the message in some form or other) gets paid an agreed sum for the research and the resulting creative that the payee approves and then a % cut of the uplift in sales (if any!) over the next 12 months (that's an arbitrary number of course - meant to indicate over a longer scale than the blitzkrieg of most 'campaigns'. DIY distribution follows a much less explosive, much more organic, pattern).
Imagine if that 'creator of the ad' is a 'user'. There's a disruption. Where everyone is a content creator now, so everyone is also a marketer.
Advertising paid on results? Advertising that anyone can do? Is this a model already being offered or adopted (and I'm thinking a little beyond straightforward affiliate marketing)? Tell us why it's never going to work - or where it has already?
The further ahead you look - the faster you go | davidpcushman AT gmail.com | These are my views and my views only.
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The rate of change is so rapid it's difficult for one person to keep up to speed. Let's pool our thoughts, share our reactions and, who knows, even reach some shared conclusions worth arriving at?
If the only thing that's being measured is sales, without any kind of even rough guide as to where they come from, how do you then justify spending more time on Twitter than Facebook, or more time on community over PPC etc?
ReplyDeleteIf you can't measure Bluetooth, how do you know the sales don't then come in via net/phonecall etc, but were seen and discussed via Bluetooth?
Did warn you might hate me! I'm thinking from the result end (the output, not the process). How do I justify? I did X. I cannot track the process through which it resulted in Y but Y has certainly resulted. Pay me a chunk of Y please.
ReplyDeleteWhere data cannot be tracked (ie why two users choose to share something on bluetooth, who they share that something with subsequently) the one thing we can still measure is sales.
I appreciate that for most advertisers they are using multiple channels so want to distinguish what is working from what isn't and all at the same time. Which bit made the sales rise? One answer: the people bit did.
Won't claim I have the answers here - I'm just stumbling towards a 'best fit' evolutionary approach to ad message creation.
Where everyone is a content creator now, so everyone is a marketer.
How might we enable and enhance that potential among users?
And thank you for keeping this idea open.
Marketers will hate me even more David. We've never been able to measure the real return on advertising. Yes on the the Internet you do get "a" measure, and you can see how it's changing. Which might tell you if you're heading in the right direction or not. But whatever the count might be, it's the wrong number for calculating your advertising spend. There are too many variables operating. Back the numbers you have with experience and intuition. Leave the calculator in it's box.
ReplyDelete@John,
ReplyDeleteThat works unless you happen to work for a large business, and have to justify such expenditure.
Measurement is never about the real return - as you say it's about getting an idea of the right direction, and general trends.