Micro Persuasion

Three Emerging Digital Careers to Watch

About a month ago, I wrote about three career tracks that won't exist in a few years - at least as I see it. Now let's take a look at three emerging digital jobs that will become increasingly important in the years ahead.

The Chief Customer Experience Officer (and those who work for her)

Want to know if a company is a good witch or a bad witch? It's easy. The web knows. Google, the media and online communities are littered with tales of companies that have exemplary products and customer service. However, it's often easier to find those that have been vilified for the opposite. That's the thesis of Pete Blackshaw's forthcoming book - Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000.

Here's an experiment. For fun, enter any company into this special Google search engine I set up and let me know what you find.

Brands are increasingly recognizing that customer experience is everything. They will follow the model that Zappos and others set in optimizing online and offline channels. Digital touch points, for many companies, will be the most critical. Since August 2006, customer experience job listings increased 57%, according to simplyhired. (User experience is directly related and equally important and I believe will increasingly become more integrated with the total customer experience.)

"customer Experience" trends

"customer experience" jobs

Digital Storytellers

Harvard Business Review last month noted that most executives cannot articulate the objective, scope, and advantage of their business in a simple statement. "If they can’t, neither can anyone else," HBR posits. That's not good.

Remember, much of the developed world is coping with The Attention Crash. If a company can't tell pithy, authentic stories in the right places at the right time to the right people, someone else will. For more on this, I highly recommend the book Made to Stick.

Search may change that. Google is downplaying SEO and increasingly rewarding those who create quality content. This includes the pros/media, amateurs and brands. Blended Search - which integrates noteworthy videos, news and images with web results - is winning over users, according to Jupiter Research.

Net, as Jason Calacanis notes, there is a big market for people who know how to create or cultivate compelling content that pulls in people. To that end my employer is starting up Edelman Studios - a virtual content house that will identify online talent and pair them with brands. Many in the Hollywood community, ex-journalists and advertising/PR creatives will orient their careers in such a direction. Don't be left behind. There's plenty of need here.

Super Crunchers

Here's another book recommendation for your summer reading list (sorry, I read a lot so my clients don't have to). It's called Super Crunchers. In the book, the authors explain through case studies how companies that are able to mine through mountains of data and make it work for them usually win. Another great book on this topic is Moneyball, which I have written about before.

The digital space is the most addressable media and marketing platform ever. However, most marketers are not “quants” and data is largely under utilized by many companies.

Data mining and visualization tools reduce risk, make business more efficient and measurable. Great rewards will come to those who know how to dig into data and make sense of it all and can parse that into insights that help companies optimize the dollars they put online. Be that guy or gal.

Those are three emerging careers on my list. What's on yours? The one topic I did not cover is developers, who I suspect will continue to remain in high demand for years to come.

A Few Tips for Managing Information Overload

Last week I appeared on the Brian Lehrer show talking about my role with Edelman Digital and how I track trends. We cover marketing pollution and tips on how to manage information overload with desktop search, RSS, simplified GTD and the Gmail Personal Nerve Center.

This topic of "Information trapping" is one I plan to write about more. This is becoming the most critical skill that information workers need to survive overload and The Attention Crash. This is especially true for all of us who are addicted to the social web. Enjoy. If you're scanning this in a feed reader, the video is here.

Marketing Guru Steve Rubel Talks with Brian About Info Overload from Brian Lehrer Live on Vimeo.

Ad Trade Associations to Set Digital Measurement Guidelines

The following is also my column in this week's AdAge.

Every conversation about digital marketing invariably raises the "M word" -- measurement. Everyone knows the Internet is the most addressable medium. However, there is no single standard that clients and agencies can use to benchmark their programs against each other.

The industry is crying out for a standard, but don't wait around for a single number. It's not coming anytime soon. The current alternative is chaos as every agency and marketer scrambles to concoct its own recipe. Some of those -- like page views and uniques -- are based on outdated models.

The lack of a standard is a big problem. It's creating confusion and an aversion to spending. According to Booz Allen Hamilton, 98% of media executives say this deficiency is inhibiting marketers from spending more on digital.

The American Association of Advertising Agencies (e.g. the 4 A's) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) are about to try to change that. The leaders of the two trade organizations announced at last week's Forbes Online Brand Forum in St. Maarten that they are working together on an initiative to identify the "metrics that matter." Four A's President-CEO Nancy Hill said their intent is "to develop a common language" for digital-marketing metrics.

"We are further than nowhere, less than somewhere (on measurement)," said Randall Rothenberg, president-CEO of the IAB. "Everyone is hoping for a magic metric -- a [gross-rating point] equivalent. That's not going to happen."

During a panel that also included ANA CEO Bob Liodice, all three execs stressed the need for uniformity. Rothenberg and Hill said they have convened a small working group that will take the first step in establishing a set of metrics that aims to be relevant 80% of the time for 80% of marketers. The ANA has not joined the initiative yet but may at some point.

The Four A's and IAB plan to open up the process to a larger group for input as the plans progress. Ultimately, however, for this initiative to be successful, it's entirely up to the agencies to embrace their recommendations. Hopefully they will, because standards that span both reach and engagement are the quickest path to getting clients more comfortable in investing more.

Study: A Billion Dollars in Internet Advertising is Wasted

Advertisers continue to plow a ton of money into Internet advertising, even in the face of an recessionary environment. At the Forbes Online Brand Summit this weekend, Citi projected 20% year over year growth. eMarketer is calling for a 23% increase.

Search remains the big daddy. According to eMakreter it will account for 40% of the $25 billion that marketers will spend online this year. Right behind it at 21% (or $5.1 billion) is display advertising. However, according to a new study, a giant percentage of these ads are wasted because they fall below "the fold"

The Eyetools/MarketingSherpa eye tracking study, released last week, found that about 60% of web site visitors see the ads that are 100% visible and "above the fold." Below the fold - e.g. the part of a web page where users are required to scroll - the situation is grim. These ads are visible to roughly 70% of web users, but only about 25% actually see those ads.

Let's do some back of the envelope math here. Assuming that all of the above data is accurate and that 50% of display ad impressions fall below the fold (this is a conservative guess - it might be significantly higher) that means that nearly a billion dollars in online advertising - $937M based on these calculations - is below the fold and ignored by 75% of web users.

The situation is actually be a lot worse when you factor in trust. A Nielsen study released late last year found that only 26% of consumers trust banner ads. So even if your display ads are visible and seen, they're not trusted by the vast majority of the public. That aint good news.

The conventional wisdom is that online display ads are good for branding. Well, this appears to be a myth for lots of impressions. Now factor in that they also continue to be a disaster when it comes to direct response.

This is a train wreck waiting to happen. Scoble called it back in 2006. And it further illustrates that marketers are polluting the web.

What this means - especially in this climate - is that at least $1B of what's spent on online advertising is completely wasted and is unsustainable. Advertisers are going to eventually wake up and recognize that unless it's a highly visible placement, banners get you largely nowhere.

An All Too Convenient Truth: Many Marketers Pollute the Web

Photo credit: Copenhagen Industry Pollution #1 by Miguel A. Lopes "Migufu"

Earth Day is around the corner and a lot of marketers are thinking about the sustainability of our planet. Some are recognizing that doing good also helps business. Edelman's Good Purpose study found that 73% of consumers are prepared to pay more for environmentally friendly products.

However, it's not just the environment that is endangered by toxins. The atmosphere we breathe online is too is being threatened by pollution - from marketers. The all too convenient truth is that it's very easy for advertisers to pollute the web with their garbage. Most often, that's not their intent. But it's the end result and it's reaching an epidemic proportion. Now business needs to take the same approach online as it has done offline through corporate social responsibility (Jason Calacanis echoed a similar theme recently.)

First let's look at the the obvious ways marketers poison the web. These all intend to game the system ...

• Spam: 94% of all email is spam (Postini)
• Splogs: 53% of all blog pings is spam, including 64% of those in English (UMBC)
• Click Fraud: Increased last year by 15% (Click Forensis)

Still, there's more. In subtle ways marketers are contaminating the Internet without even knowing it by spewing millions of meaningless messages across thousands of sites. This may be contributing to the slow down. They're not adding value to your experience or working to help you meet your goals in a very meaningful way.

Consider these popular techniques ...

• Banner Ads: A lot of money is going here but click-through rates remain abysmal and their overall branding value is being questioned. Many of them just litter the web and get in the way of what you want to do. Eye-tracking studies in the past have revealed "banner blindness."
• Social Network Advertising: eMarketer predicts advertising on social networks will reach $2.2 billion this year. However, traditional display approaches to date have not performed. As Ian Schaffer from from Deep Focus noted, marketers need to dig in and figure out how to make the experience better. This means what does work is creating authentic content, widgets/applications and more that people pull because they add value to the community. (Note: MySpace, a major social network, is an Edelman client.)
• Social Media Optimization: This needs to be watched like a hawk. As I have said before, if you participate and add value you are rewarded with Google Juice - and so much more. If you just set up sites and spam social nets to get links, then I am sorry, you're bad.

Despite all the money that's flowing online, most marketers completely miss the boat on what the web really can do for them. As I have talked about before, the Internet isn't just a communications medium. It works best when it's used as a platform for open collaboration. This means taking a PR-centric approach.

This means companies and consumers need to partner toward shared outcomes. This can be as simple as "we want to be entertained" to "we want to find the best world-changing idea." The latter is what American Express will unleash again later this year with its Members Project.

The web is facing it's own global warming crisis as marketers continue to pollute it. Consumers are voting with their clicks and eyeballs by engaging with authentic content that adds value, while ignoring the rest. That's good news that shows maybe we'll solve this crisis, even as business continues to tackle the larger issues that impact our planet.

Later:: Bryan Person asks if clueless PR pitches are part of the problem. Heck ya.

Trust in Peers Trumps the "A-List," Study Finds

There's an ongoing debate online and in marketing circles as well over who "matters": the super node influencers or basically anyone that a particular peer group looks to for information, entertainment, inspiration and more.

This meme got kicked around in the 'sphere a few weeks back when Duncan Watts released some research that contradicts Malcolm Gladwell's theory outlined in The Tipping Point. Today, however, there's new data that to me may just reveal that Watts is right. The key factor, once again, all comes down to trust. This comes as more of the action shifts to micro communities like Twitter or Friendfed and the quality of blog content, some say, slides downhill.

Mediapost reports that a new study from Pollara found that people who engage in social networks and communities put far more trust in friends and family who are online than in popular bloggers, or strangers with 10,000 MySpace "friends." Nearly 80% said they were very or somewhat more likely to consider buying products recommended by real-world friends and family, while only 23% reported being very or somewhat likely to consider a product pushed by "well-known bloggers."

This new batch of data largely backs up what my employer's Edelman Trust Barometer found earlier this year. Some 58% of opinion elites 35-64 in 18 countries said they trust "a person like me." Meanwhile, only 14% trust bloggers - a figure that has largely remained flat since 2006. (See chart below from our latest study.)

Source: 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer

On a similar thread, Louis Gray, who's blog by the way is amazing, crunched some numbers and he found that the top tech blogs extended their reach in feed subscribers as well as on the TechMeme leaderboard. That may be true, but who cares?

The question of targeting super nodes vs. smaller groups is all coming down to trust. While the marketplace - both marketers and publishers - continue to focus on reach, they are missing the big picture. Trust is by far a more important metric, one that clearly rules when it comes to influence.

Three Internet Careers That Soon Won't Exist

Earlier this year the New York Times detailed how careers in medicine and law - formerly bankable lifetime gigs - have lost their luster. College grads instead are pouring their resources into trying to create (or join) the next Facebook or MySpace. Maybe it's time to rethink those plans. Digital is going to become part of almost everyone's job.

After climbing to the stratosphere, jobs in Web 2.0 are way off their peak. The following Indeed.com chart shows a steep decline in listings that mention social networking, Web 2.0, Ajax and blogs. Naturally, the macroeconomic climate has a lot to do with this. However, when you look at other jobs that are historically sensitive - such as shipping, advertising or public relations - the slide isn't as dramatic. This (arguably) indicates that perhaps there's still a lot of air in the Internet specialist job market.

"social networking," ajax, "web 2.0," blogs Job Trends

"social networking jobs - " ajax jobs - "web 2.0 jobs - " blogs jobs

The web has finally become the dominant marketing and media platform and where everyone is largely focusing their resources. It's "the new normal." To me, this means that there will be less of a need for digital specialists across many industries. Some of these jobs won't exist in their current form within a couple of years. They will be integrated into broader roles. Everyone will be expected to know how to navigate the online landscape if they want to have a thriving career.

Here are three such jobs that will soon be integrated into other roles...

Social Media Consultant, Social Media Manager, etc.

Things don't fit into tidy little boxes they way they used to. My friend Dave Armano wisely calls this the Fuzzy Tail. He does a good job reminding us of specialist jobs that were big once - like blacksmithing - and are now no more.

On that note, let's take a look at social media. It doesn't have hard edges. For example, is a site like Engadget social media or just media? The New York Times has dozens of blogs. Does that mean it's no longer media? Beats me. Corporate HR will have an even harder time discerning.

This naturally leads to the next question - who should "manage" these sites? Is it the social media specialist or someone in PR with specific vertical sector expertise who also gets digital? My strong feeling is that it's the latter. (Then again, I work for a big PR firm so I should advise you to take this with a grain of salt.)

Net I believe that hiring someone just to "manage" social media is a luxury that companies will integrate into broader marketing communication roles.

Internet Advertising Sales, Online Advertising Sales, etc.

There's no doubt that the Internet is the future of advertising. Last week Advertising Age even dedicated its entire issue to digital marketing. Their coverage included a big section on careers.

Despite the recession (if we're in one), online ad sales jobs continue to climb . However, soon all advertising will be managed via digital technology and platforms, even if they end up running in terrestrial media. This means it will become very difficult to discern selling digital ads from just plain old ads. Clients will want to manage and measure their integrated campaigns through a single point of contact or channel and figure out how offline/online work together.

Just as onlne/print newsrooms have been integrated, so will ad sales. This means that media companies will want people who are cross-trained and thus the need for "online sales" specialists as they are known now will wane.

Digital Talent Agents

During the AdAge Digital Conference last week, a Digital Agent with a major talent agency talked about how they have a group of people who crawl the web in search of undiscovered musicians, artists, etc. These agents then pair promising amateurs with Hollywood or branded entertainment projects. I last wrote about this three years ago. Then it was emerging business. Now, however, it is becoming the norm.

Just as with social media consultants and online ad sales, the need for such specialists will soon fade. Every agent will need to know how to identify and talent from the web. The line between digital and traditional will be obliterated as more amateurs recognize that they can market themselves using the web and will forgo going on auditions.

Next up I will cover three emerging digital career tracks that I think will be hot in the years ahead; jobs that at least I think will have staying power and may remain specialist gigs.

If Everything Else Asks for Feedback, Why Not Ads?

Asking for feedback is in.

Virtually every journalist solicits feedback by posting their email addresses. Some even ask overtly.

As Forrester's Jeremiah Owyang recently noted, companies are inviting comments - yet far more slowly. Notably, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer invited everyone at Mix 08 to email him directly. (Microsoft is an Edelman client.)

So what about for advertisers?

Advertising is not exactly known as a two-way paradigm. However, the web changes that. Digital creative can and should be able to not only solicit feedback but to adjust in real-time like mood rings to what people say back.

CNET and AOL Networks both invite consumers to give feedback on their banner ads. Above is one from American Express I found on AOL's site. The surveys ask respondents to rate ads for relevancy, emotive content and ability to move the user to purchase. However, that's as far as they go. The scant data I assume they collect somehow goes back to the advertiser.

Weblogs Inc. - before it was owned by AOL - took an even bolder approach with their Focus Ads. They allowed advertisers to solicit reader comments on ads. However, the program seems to have been abandoned.

There's a lot of room for innovation here. Advertisers can and should be opening themselves up for input. Further, the media companies should help them do so. Will they? I would be surprised to see it happens. Advertising is the last safe haven for one-way communication. Marketers won't rock the boat. Plus, it has a place in an emerging mix of strategies.

Media's Rising Digital Acuity Puts Agencies at Risk

The following is also my column in next week's issue of Advertising Age...

It wasn't the most talked about session at the IAB Annual Meeting this week in Phoenix, but it should have been.

In a series of fascinating frames peppered with statistics, Christopher Vollmer from Booz Allen Hamilton laid out how media companies have increased their digital skills, added new services and are winning over marketers. In the process, they're disintermediating agencies - even as they all downplay it.

Three data points from the joint IAB/Booz Allen Hamilton study are particularly noteworthy:

* By 2010, 53% of media companies surveyed expect to do more business directly with marketers. The majority of marketers (52%) feel the same about publishers

* Only 27% of marketers expect to be doing more business with agencies two years from now

* Today nearly every media company (91%) offers some kind of "agency-like" services. This includes former untouchables like idea generation (88%) and creative development (79%)

The image of media companies as lumbering dinosaurs lingering toward extinction in a world of infinite content is downright wrong. They are more in sync with consumers than any other contingency in the marketing ecosystem. Their entire DNA is digital.

Consider too the bubbling innovation taking place across the Chinese Wall on the editorial side. Almost every single media brand has embraced a spirit of openness and collaboration that was unheard of a few years ago. New York Times Tech section editors curate and link to relevant posts from the blogosphere. Reporters at BusinessWeek are re-writing three-year-old cover stories with the help of readers. CNN's new iReport.com site solicits contributions from around the world, all without filters.

The digital rallying cry that started in the executive suite is being executed flawlessly across almost every media business. Digital editors and salespeople are fully integrated with their print/broadcast counterparts. However, the same cannot be said for agencies. During his keynote at IAB, Group M CEO Rob Norman outlined how the company just recently became more digitally integrated. (Note this related story on agency Web 2.0 skills that ran in AdWeek)

Still, Group M can't be blamed for starting late since the clients too are behind. The Booz Allen Hamilton study found that only 26% of marketers believe their organizations are "digitally savvy." Nevertheless, as the media remain in the vanguard and closest to the ever-changing habits of consumers, it's clear that as they get smarter the risk to agencies has never been greater.

Spring Conference Line-Up

Spring is around the corner and so is the peak conference season. Here's a run down of events at which I will be speaking. Here's hoping that I get to meet some of you at these.

Euroblog 2008 (March 13-15 in Brussels)

This symposium features communication academics and professionals for a discussion of social media and the future of public relations. Edelman is co-sponsoring the event. I will be participating on a few panels. You can register here.

AdAge Digital Conference (March 18-19 in New York)

Great line up of speakers and case studies. This includes a keynote by Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC Universal. I will be moderating a panel on "the next new thing."

PSFK Conference (March 27 in New York)

A day-long event dedicated to trends, ideas and inspiration. This includes a In a 'new guns' versus 'marketing gurus' debate on how the social web will change in 2008 and how companies can best leverage digital.

Next08 (May 15 in Hamburg)

Features entrepreneurs, marketing professionals, consultants, founders, bloggers and venture capitalists and 1,000 participants talking about the future of the web. I will be a keynote speaker.

Mediabistro Circus (May 20-21 in New York)

A two-day summit about the digital platforms and trends that are changing media.

The IABC International Conference (June 22-25 in New York)

Features a great line up of speakers, including Nicholas Negroponte and Seth Godin.

Book Excerpt: Online Marketing Heroes

On March 10 WIley & Sons is going to publish a new book by Michael Miller called Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus. The book features interviews with a host of digital marketing experts, including yours truly.

Wiley has graciously approved the posting of the chapter that features an interview with me. It covers my background, thoughts on blogging, PR, digital marketing and my work at Edelman. You can download it here as a PDF.

Sound bites...

* Technology works best when it takes on a do-it-yourself character—and when it becomes free

• Google’s free search has replaced the PR professional’s traditional paid research tools.

• Generation Y is abandoning earlier technology, such as email, in favor of text messaging, instant messaging, and social network communication

• To take advantage of social networking, figure out where you andyour community overlap and how they want to communicate

• Going forward, the concept of community is the common element running through all online media and technologies

Media Jobs Sink as Marketing Services Jobs Rise

Adage:

U.S. media employment in December fell to a 15-year low (886,900), slammed by the slumping newspaper industry. But employment in advertising/marketing-services -- agencies and other firms that provide marketing and communications services to marketers -- broke a record in November (769,000). Marketing consulting powered that growth.

Is there a disconnect in the data here (PDF)? Yes, on the surface. However, it's also possible that more advertising and marketing programs are going direct-to-consumer, bypassing the media altogether. The upshot is to watch as pros who spent their entire careers in media start landing jobs at digital, PR and ad agencies. The need for content specialists is rising, not abating. Many of the jobs are still around but they may simply be migrating industries.

Also noteworthy, AdAge also reports that the local business sections of many newspapers are drying up.

Three Digital Business Models That Could Rock Your World

The following is also my column in next week's AdAge.

During a recent exchange with one of my colleagues he posed a thought-provoking question that I hadn't quite pondered. "What new digital business models might take hold over the next four to five years," he asked.

This question should be on every marketing and media executive's mind. As we've seen, the Net is so disruptive that big ideas can come out of nowhere and reinvent advertising overnight - even in a recessionary climate. Google, for example, commercialized pay-per-click ads just after the dot-com crash in 2000.

Here are three models that might evolve over the next few years.

Advertiser-Supported Advertising: Brands are increasingly launching their own content platforms. Some, like Budweiser's BudTV, go it alone. Others partner with online media properties. P&G, for example, embedded Capessa inside Yahoo Health.

In the future some of the more successful marketer-sponsored content sites will accept advertising. The retail space is especially ripe here. Barnes & Noble's media site, in theory, could partially support itself by allowing publishers who they already co-market with to buy ads. Under such a scenario, transparency is critical.

Advertiser-Subsidized Devices: Content is a commodity. The barriers to entry are obliterated. Still, this means we all need to make choices - human attention doesn't scale. So how do you get consumers to choose your stuff? Simple. Use incentives.

Marketers will partner with consumer electronic companies to co-brand white-label gadgets. For example, a Gap-branded set-top box could come with exclusive video podcast subscriptions. Upstart device manufacturers that are looking to enter markets with entrenched players will be the first to dabble with this approach.

Just-in-Time Advertising: Digital advertising creative and planning, like any marketing discipline, follows an arc. It's planned, placed, measured and eventually evaluated, tweaked or tossed. However, in the digital world, brands need to be more nimble.

With the help of new technology, marketers will rely on "just-in-time" campaigns that adapt to conditions. Basically, this takes the Dell manufacturing model and applies it to advertising. Ad creative will morph based on certain triggers. This will include sales/ERP data, blog chatter/consumer feedback, weather/external conditions and more.

2008 Digital Trends Part I: Media Battle Advertisers for Eyeballs

Over the next two weeks (like in years past) I am going to post a series of essays on what I see as the big digital trends to watch in 2008. All of these are less about individual sites and technologies. Instead, what I hope to do is connect dots and start a dialogue with you about how technology will impact the media, marketers and consumers in the coming year.

In addition, to be quite honest, this is also my way of getting more disciplined about blogging more often. I really miss posting here regularly (beyond just the links). Further, as much as I love Twitter, it's not a medium that permits thoughtful analysis. As always, I am eager for your feedback. Your input makes me smarter and keeps me motivated.

Here's the first piece in the series...

# # #

For decades media and advertisers have thrived as two peas in a pod; a symbiotic ecosystem that benefits both equally. However, this is all starting to change.

Today, thanks to the web, every brand can become a media company if they put resources behind it. This means that the media and advertisers are increasingly battling each other for your constricting field of attention. In 2008 and beyond this will threaten to undermine the entire notion of ad-supported content and perhaps change the economics of both industries dramatically.

There are several forces at work here that are coming together to form a perfect storm.

For starters, there's the trust picture. Traditional advertising - especially online banners - are not trusted. Recent data from Nielsen shows that consumers put far more weight into individuals. This validates what the Edelman Trust Barometer has revealed over the last several years.

Second, we are seeing a critical mass of consumers using new technologies that let them bypass ads or even ad-supported content altogether. These include blogs, RSS, TiVo, DVRs, iPods, satellite radio and browser ad blockers.

Last but not least, the biggest story is that marketers are becoming a lot more confident online. They are starting to plow a significant portion of their budgets into digital media. As they do, they are investing in creating their own content. These properties leverage the same distribution channels that we, as individual publishers, use - most notably informal word of mouth networks, structured social networks and search engines.

If advertisers start creating their own online content in droves and find they can distribute it efficently, they may elect to bypass the media middleman. And why not? After all, they can build a direct relationship with their customers and achieve greater efficiencies in the process.

Already some of the biggest global brands, including several of our clients, are investing in creating their own content. Wal-Mart for example recently launched the Checkout blog. Dove has seen a lot of success in 2006 and this year with their series of striking videos. (Note: I am a consultant to Unilever but did not work on these videos.)

They aren't alone. Others like Sony and JC Penney are taking a different approach by aggregating content.

The media's challenge is to figure out how to thrive in transition as their big advertisers recognize they can use the web to bypass them. The key for the media is to use their reach to help marketers quickly build scale for their own content. This is no easy feat for businesses that have long fulfilled the producer role. However, they may increasingly need to find a way to balance their own content with advertiser-created offerings they host.

Should the media fail to transition in 2008, it's conceivable that more marketers will go it alone and the media will see their audience and dollars erode.

Study: 25% of Entertainment Will Be Created by Peer Groups

A fascinating new study from Nokia predicts that by 2012 a quarter of all entertainment will be created, edited and shared within peer groups rather than coming out of traditional media.

What's unclear in my mind is where the boundaries are. In other words, what constitute peer content vs. pro content when the lines increasingly blur. Still, this is a big number and there's a lot of money at stake here to those who can create sustainable platforms that enable it all while monetizing.

To that point, TV Week conducted an analysis and found that while it's easy to get attention for your work, making money is a tougher climb. This might keep the figure from going higher than 25%.

Dell, WPP Form Project Da Vinci Marcom Agency to Serve Dell

Dell and WPP are getting together to form a specialized marketing communications firm that does one and only one thing - serve Dell. The computer maker will invest invest $4.5 billion in billings in the agency over the next three years, PR Week reports via John Battelle. Note - several WPP agencies compete with Edelman, my employer. Andy Lark has a bit more.

On the surface, this seems like a good deal. Dell gets to drive efficiencies - something it does well - by consolidating their business with one shop that they own. If the agency performs then one assumes Dell benefits in multiple ways. Further, WPP gets a big piece of client business exclusively for at least three years, perhaps longer.

The real proof point is going to be Dell sales. The dirty little secret of the marketing community is that competition for business and talent is what keeps many agencies sharp. It's very easy to move an entire account from one agency to another across town and then again until you find the next big idea to replace the last one. So Dell will have to make sure this newco stays fresh and continues to pump out creative ideas.

Mending cultures will be interesting too. Which personality will this new company adopt - that of its very efficient, practical mother or very creative father or both? Some kids don't show their personality until age three so let's hope that Project Da Vinci establishes this early on.

The Moneyball Marketing Era

The conventional wisdom on Madison Avenue is that reach rules. In other words, in the digital realm you can't go wrong making a buy or launching a campaign on a site or social network that has scale. However, that's all going to change as money flows online, competition rises and marketers find they need to pay more to drive sales.

To cope, advertisers should adopt new digital media planning model. This one ignores common metrics like unique visitors, pageviews or even time spent in favor of more esoteric statistics like cost per action. We're entering the Moneyball Marketing Era - an age where some big online properties will suffer a slow death by a thousand cuts from tiny niche sites that deliver greater ROI.

Moneyball Marketing liberally borrows the concepts outlined in Michael Lewis' 2003 bestselling baseball book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. In the book, Lewis chronicles how the Oakland A's and its general manager Billy Beane were able to build a successful team in a rather unconventional way, all with a significantly smaller budget than rivals like the Yankees have.

Beane and his team eschewed conventional wisdom that dominated baseball for decades. Rather than selecting and evaluating players based on common statistics like home runs and runs batted in, the A's switched to a model that favors on-base percentage (how often a batter makes it to first) and slugging percentage (a way to measure a hitter's power). The end result is an elegant, efficient model that enabled the A's to get better players for less money. The methodologies described in Moneyball have since been adopted by dozens of contending teams and in some industries as well.

Here are three ways you can apply Moneyball Marketer in your organization today:

1) Become a Super Cruncher - Look beyond the common methods for evaluating media and identify more meaningful, perhaps esoteric statistics. For example, make a buy based on a site's ability to drive consumers to complete high value tasks.

2) Skip Reach, Go Niche - As hard as it is, try forgoing some of the larger sites in favor of emerging niche ones that deliver a higher percentage of your target. Work with them to create measurable, outside-the-box programs. For example, consider Takkle - an emerging social network focusing on high school sports.

3) Think Relationships, Not Impressions - The most successful companies in business today recognize that relationships rule. Consider launching programs that allow you to hone your relationships with narrow segments of your audience. Go beyond impressions.

Advertisers, Only You Can Save Web 2.0

The following is my Advertising Age column for next week. It builds on what I wrote earlier this week - to which many of you added lots of great thoughts. If you're a web start-up now is the time to consider your revenue streams. Advertising will not save all, I am afraid. Remember - as much as budgets are going digital, advertising is still cyclical.

Only You Can Save Web 2.0

Years ago the Advertising Council started a landmark campaign with Smokey the Bear that had a rather ominous tagline. It reads: "only you can prevent forest fires." (They still use it today.) The subtext, which the recent fires in California clearly reminded us, was that the word "only" implies that the "you" here is singular. In other words, if you're not out there preventing forest fires, then no one will.

While not quite as dramatic, a similar burden is starting to fall on digital marketers. Are your shoulders feeling heavier yet? They should because, you see, "only you" can save Web 2.0.

Nearly every online start-up you can think of is basing their business model on advertising. It's as if your digital budgets are a bottomless pot of money with more than enough to go around for everyone. Ask any of them how they plan to stay solvent and they all fire off the "a-word" - advertising.

The conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley is that as all advertising goes digital, there will be plenty of money for every business. Further, they argue that it doesn't take much to make a start-up profitable. The cost of starting, scaling and operating a Web 2.0 site is a fraction of what it was during the Web 1.0 era.

However, just like Social Security won't allow every baby born this year to retire in 2072, the harsh reality is that there will not be enough ad dollars to go around for everyone. For starters, advertisers have infinitely more choices on where and how to allocate the spend. More importantly, you're wisely looking for ROI - scale, quality and performance. These are three qualities that many start-ups lack.

The only remaining exit strategy for the gaggle of Web 2.0 sites that are depending on you is to sell themselves to a larger player, such as Google, Yahoo, AOL or Microsoft. Some certainly will. Many won't.

If you feel you saw this movie before, you did - in 2000. The sequel ends the same way, but not with as much carnage. That might change. But remember, only you can save Web 2.0.

"Do Not Track List" is the First Shot in the Behavioral Targeting Wars

Advertising Age reports that several big privacy groups, including the EFF, tomorrow will rally to get the "Do Not Track" list off the ground. As proposed, it's similar to the Do Not Call list. The bigger story, however, is that this is probably the opening salvo in what is a brewing war over behavioral targeting.

The targeting of web ads based on the deep data mining of online behaviors is the fascination du jour of many online marketers these days - particularly as they focus on ROI. While it's not new, what is different now is that a) people are sharing more information about themselves online so there's more information to use and b) marketers are increasing their spend on digital marketing as TV wanes in effectiveness.

Behavioral targeting is perhaps most top of mind within companies that have been able to successfully integrate the more cerebral CRM discipline into creative, brand marketing side of the house. That's one reason why marketing inside soc nets is so attractive - data.

Right now, the marketers can really dabble a lot and perhaps even blur the line with what's ethical. I am not saying they are nor am I condoning it. However, since this level of behavioral targeting is relatively new, the unwritten ethics rules - in theory - could be bent since a lot of consumers aren't paying a lot of attention - yet. Plus, of course, they benefit from more relevant ads.

That's all about to change. It's clear the FTC is concerned about user privacy. That's why they're hosting hearings next week.

Regardless of where the Feds decide to weigh in, the noise around mining behavioral data and patterns and the potential privacy implications is only going to get louder in the coming months. All of this is going to make consumers even more aware of just how much is being tracked. Some will begin to ask serious questions. It will be particularly interesting to see how Gen Yers react since at times they seem to not care much about their privacy. Other times, they do.

All of this will spur lots of debate in the coming months and will impact the so-called social graph and other innovations in Web 2.0. Get yer popcorn. It's going to be fun to watch.

Schmidt Hints Adsense Maybe Coming to Facebook Apps

Google Adsense may be coming to Facebook applications. Google CEO Eric Schmidt told AdAge ...

"How will those developers get paid for those services? We would like to have our ads in those applications."

This makes a ton of sense. However, as Facebook starts to look like Times Square with ads on top of ads - some they control, others they don't -  it will turn the community off. Already I can't stand it when I see ads in my news feed. That's the problem with open platforms. Also, how long before these applications start to appear outside Facebook on places like iGoogle. Me thinks soon.

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