Posts
Inside AdWords: Conversion Rates Don't Vary Much with Ad Position
SEM experts, would you agree?
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Aardvark - A New Site That Lets Friends Answer Your Questions
Aardvark
Interesting concept and probably very useful but isn't this an incredibly impersonal way to interact with your friends? What happens when you bug your friends too much and you all of a sudden don't have any friends, in cyberspace and maybe even in real life.
Interesting concept and probably very useful but isn't this an incredibly impersonal way to interact with your friends? What happens when you bug your friends too much and you all of a sudden don't have any friends, in cyberspace and maybe even in real life.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Bing Commercial Are Great, But...
YouTube - Bing Commercial-Best Commercial I've seen in a LONG time!
The new Bing campaign from Microsoft is great, except for one small thing... It doesn't make any sense.
The early results are in, people seem to really enjoy the campaign. And more importantly Bing (Microsoft's new shinny search engine) has seen a 9% increase in traffic in the last month. However, as the newness wears off, the looky-loo's will return to their regular search engine of choice and this ad campaign will prove to be too weak to help Microsoft win search share away from Google and Yahoo.
Yes, the ads are somewhat entertaining so it's no surprise that they've been affective at peaking peoples interest enough to drive traffic to Bing.com for a test drive. But when users find a search engine, that doesn't work as well as Google, rather than the "Decision Engine" that they were promised in the commercial, they will return to Google or Yahoo.
It's probably easier to blame the product rather than the advertising. Creating a better search experience than Google is no easy task. Without doing so it's going to be very difficult to get users to stop using Google. However, since no one outside of Microsoft had even heard of Bing before we saw the commercials last month and began to read the press releases, I think it's fair to hold the advertising accountable.
Here is exactly where the marketing department went wrong. They are selling a problem that doesn't exist. They have hyped up Bing as the cure for Search Overload Syndrome. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as Search Overload. Google doesn't come find you when you're at lunch and begin delivering search results to questions that you not interested in answering. Successful products tend to solve real problems, not fake ones. This entire ad campaign addresses a made up problem which makes it impossible for users to relate to. As a result, they are driving unqualified traffic to Bing.com. They are sending the curious population to the website who are very likely to enter a search query or two but are unlikely to switch search engines permanently or even visit Bing again.
Why not make ads that address a real problem users have with Google? Wouldn't that be a better way to connect with people who are actually looking for a new search engine?
The new Bing campaign from Microsoft is great, except for one small thing... It doesn't make any sense.
The early results are in, people seem to really enjoy the campaign. And more importantly Bing (Microsoft's new shinny search engine) has seen a 9% increase in traffic in the last month. However, as the newness wears off, the looky-loo's will return to their regular search engine of choice and this ad campaign will prove to be too weak to help Microsoft win search share away from Google and Yahoo.
Yes, the ads are somewhat entertaining so it's no surprise that they've been affective at peaking peoples interest enough to drive traffic to Bing.com for a test drive. But when users find a search engine, that doesn't work as well as Google, rather than the "Decision Engine" that they were promised in the commercial, they will return to Google or Yahoo.
It's probably easier to blame the product rather than the advertising. Creating a better search experience than Google is no easy task. Without doing so it's going to be very difficult to get users to stop using Google. However, since no one outside of Microsoft had even heard of Bing before we saw the commercials last month and began to read the press releases, I think it's fair to hold the advertising accountable.
Here is exactly where the marketing department went wrong. They are selling a problem that doesn't exist. They have hyped up Bing as the cure for Search Overload Syndrome. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as Search Overload. Google doesn't come find you when you're at lunch and begin delivering search results to questions that you not interested in answering. Successful products tend to solve real problems, not fake ones. This entire ad campaign addresses a made up problem which makes it impossible for users to relate to. As a result, they are driving unqualified traffic to Bing.com. They are sending the curious population to the website who are very likely to enter a search query or two but are unlikely to switch search engines permanently or even visit Bing again.
Why not make ads that address a real problem users have with Google? Wouldn't that be a better way to connect with people who are actually looking for a new search engine?
Friday, July 3, 2009
Palm Pre's Message Is Loud and Clear -- I'm a Bust!
YouTube - Palm Pre Flow Commercial
The new 60 second Palm Pre commercial only shows the device for 9 seconds, which is HUGE cause for concern. If I was a shareholder, employee, business partner, or general fan of Palm, I would be extremely worried. This is the new PDA that is supposed to compete with the iPhone and the Blackberry, and put Palm back on the path to relevancy with consumers. This is a very important product for Palm as it will either put them back on the map or seal their fate as technology "has been". No pressure at all. So, how did Palm choose to share their savior with the rest of the world? By spending 85% of their airtime showing a massive human flower patterned dance ensemble in a grassy field at the base of majestic mountains. This would be the perfect ad for Malaysian tourism or a new outdoor performance of Cirque du Soleil but unfortunately it is not going to inspire many people to run out and buy the new Palm Pre, especially those users who are already loyal to their iPhone or Blackberry.
My only question is... Did the advertising agency miss the mark or does the product itself come up so short that they could only show it for 9 seconds throughout the commercial? Time will tell. However if I was a betting man, it would be very difficult to push my chips toward Palm.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Malcolm Gladwell on learning from spaghetti sauce (TEDTalks)
Malcolm Gladwell on learning from spaghetti sauce (TEDTalks)
Malcolm Gladwell has the unique talent of making you feel smarter by listening to him speak.
What have we learned from spaghetti sauce? According to Malcolm Gladwell, we learned the following...
1. Focus groups tend not to work because people can not always explain what they want.
2. Horizontal segmentation lead us to the conclusion that there is no such thing as good or bad or big or small when it comes to peoples' tastes, it's just different.
3. One universal solution for each problem is not a good way to make people happy.
4. Embrace diversity to find true happiness
Malcolm Gladwell has the unique talent of making you feel smarter by listening to him speak.
What have we learned from spaghetti sauce? According to Malcolm Gladwell, we learned the following...
1. Focus groups tend not to work because people can not always explain what they want.
2. Horizontal segmentation lead us to the conclusion that there is no such thing as good or bad or big or small when it comes to peoples' tastes, it's just different.
3. One universal solution for each problem is not a good way to make people happy.
4. Embrace diversity to find true happiness
Friday, April 17, 2009
Twitter's Rapid Growth
I am relatively new to Twitter and still trying to figure out whether the site is incredibly useful or a complete waste of time. I don't think that I am in the minority, in that I joined Twitter mostly for business purposes. I thought it would be a great way to discover new insights about digital media and also distribute content to people in my field who I don't know personally. So far, I have really enjoyed reading random updates from celebrities like Shaquille O'Neil and Kevin Pollak, who I would not otherwise be able to connect with in "real life". However, I could really do without the random posts from people who take the Twitter mantra a bit TOO literal and constantly try to answer the question... "What are you doing?". If the purpose of Twitter is really to tell a bunch of strangers that you "just got out of the shower" or you "can't wait to go to dinner", I do not think it's going to be able to sustain it's rapid pace of growth. With such a high percentage of Tweets skewing toward utterly useless to anyone outside of the users close group of friend and perhaps his/her mom, it got me thinking about how and why Twitter has grown so quickly over the last couple of month.
This may be a bit off the wall but I think there is a decent chance that Twitter is paying celebrities and media outlets to use the site. In the last couple of weeks I have heard several radio stations telling their audience to drop them a tweet rather than send an e-mail or pick up the phone. How is that more convenient or useful? It's a harder url to remember, not everyone has access to Twitter (unless they are a registered user), listeners are limited to a 140 character message and it's no more useful than sending an e-mail.
If Twitter is paying celebrities and media outlets to use the site in order to boost their user base, do you care? Or is it just very smart marketing on their part?
This may be a bit off the wall but I think there is a decent chance that Twitter is paying celebrities and media outlets to use the site. In the last couple of weeks I have heard several radio stations telling their audience to drop them a tweet rather than send an e-mail or pick up the phone. How is that more convenient or useful? It's a harder url to remember, not everyone has access to Twitter (unless they are a registered user), listeners are limited to a 140 character message and it's no more useful than sending an e-mail.
If Twitter is paying celebrities and media outlets to use the site in order to boost their user base, do you care? Or is it just very smart marketing on their part?
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