Taking the leap abroad.

"The world's next generation of leaders must have transcultural skills. They need to have an appreciation and understanding of cultures, and know, for instance, how to relate and behave when they walk off a plane. "-Frank Brown, INSTEAD

When marketers talk about search engine marketing, they think Google. That's because Google is the search engine in North America with 81% of dominance of the search market. If you know Google's algorithm, you're in the game. But this sort of North American thinking will leave you aimlessly hoping for the best, especially if you're a company dealing mainly with international markets. Leap above the competition by knowing where the target searches and you'll be connecting and relating much better.

Large markets like China, Japan, Korea are searching elsewhere. Better said, 41.2% of the world internet users are predominantly using search engines other than Google. China- Baidu.com (70% market share in China), Japan-Yahoo, Korea- Naver.com (70% of market share in Korea).
Know the characteristics/uniqueness of each search engine and you'll be connecting more intimately with your target. For example, Baidu, with its simplicity in design and ad pages is remarkably similar to Google, but with different algorithms. A search on Naver for "hair-style" results in a page categorized by links, blogs, communities and tips by users- a reflection of Korea's strong culture of community and connection.


There are very few North American companies, or even agencies who are taking advantage of these search engines. That's an opportunity for you if you can figure out how to communicate and approach in their language.

A Picture is Worth $5.75 Million

It's here folks! Adsense for Images. Visual commerce enabling on celebrity photos and much much more.

The Silicon Valley startup, Pixazza, is utilizing non abrasive ways to sell products by embedding photos with marketing messages and shopping vendor links such as Macy's and Zappos.com. When a reader casually browses over items in photos, a message such as "Get Angelina's gladiator heels at shopbop.com!" will appear, making the process a three way engagement, between vendors, publishers and "product experts"- regular folks at home with particular knowledge on that pair of burgundy Jimmy Choos. Much like Facebook's photo tagging abilities, each image is tagged by real people who match the items.

It is gaining lots of buzz in the media, due to this unique crowdsourcing platform techonology.
Even ad giant, Google, invested, $5.75 million hoping that Pixazza "will do for images what Google’s AdSense did for web pages,” reads a statement from CEO Bob Lisbonne.

I think this is a great start to a subtle way of connecting brands with engaged consumers. Besides, who wouldn't want to know the latest cocktail number that Blake Lively was wearing on Rodeo Drive?

I guess Minority Report-like ad saturated world is not such a distant future.


Read More about it on Cnet.

Leaner & Meaner: The Marketers of the Future

The state of the economy is making everyone nervous, especially recent grads. I hear you. As part of nature's balance, organizations are leaning out its organization. Google is laying off 200 people in its Marketing and Sales Department and several projects, while for the newspaper industry, online and print advertising is down by 16.6%, and at a increasingly rapid pace, leaving hundreds of writers and media planners out of work (Click Z Network March 2009).
Elsewhere in the industry, marketing and sales budgets are being the first to go, leaving marketers to be the all in one, multi-player.

So what does this mean for marketers and new grads?

Well good news is, companies prefer to hire recent grads, as they tend to be eager, flexible and willing to work longer hours. (yes, true). However, expectations are far greater than 4 years ago. A marketing professional must now be a media and PR savant, strategist, social media guru, event manager, market researcher, while having the know-how of basics of SEO, e-mail marketing, web and graphic design and the ability to speak at all levels- to marketing, agencies, operations, to web designers, to contractors, in their "language".

Bottom Line: Show that you can market smart (and for less). "When a door of happiness closes, another opens. Often we look at the closed door, we do not see the one that’s been opened." -Helen Keller

Yes it will be a difficult start amidst the weak labor market. But recognize that it is between these down periods that business can weed out competitors and reach its peak when the economy picks up again, so communicate these opportunities to the B and through networking. The same rings true, for your own personal brand. Keep your focus sharp, disciplined and focused on the desired outcome. As my professor would say, continuously learn and build on knowledge that is growing -web and mobile marketing, and be nice to people, and you will be noticed.

The Spotlight is on Skittles

The well known colorful coated candy brand, Skittles, launched a new website that is generating a lot of oohs and aahs... and ohhs in the social media sphere.

In an attempt to fully embrace the social media movement, Skittles has completely defaced its corporate website to a Twitter (micro blogging site) search or a Wikipedia (user contributed online encyclopedia) search of Skittles. Visitors are redirected to a floating menu where they would be able to taste a snapshot of what people are saying about the candy- through various high traffic social points such as YouTube, Flickr and Facebook. It's a campaign that is generating a lot of buzz in the blogosphere, but is it for the long run? It is great that they are letting consumers know that they are "listening" but the question is, how much control are they going to give to the consumers and are they going to be actively engaging in these conversations? Also, is this having any effect on their brand building?

Last time I checked, people on Twitter weren't talking about their favorite Skittles flavors, but were writing profanity and unrelated comments around Skittles- may partly be a reason why the current redirection lands only on Wikipedia. And there was no sign of Skittles responding to theses chatters.

In my opinion, unless you're a candy fanatic, people aren't likely to be actively browsing the web for information. Perhaps a better campaign to drive traffic to the web for an impulse purchase item such as candy, would have been to offer printable coupons for a special edition Skittles or discounts redeemable at the store. What are your thoughts?

Here's an article by Stan Schroeder on Mashable: Skittles Site Receives an Extreme Makeover

Lessons From a Wise Old Bird

"A wise old owl sat on an oak. The more he saw, the less he spoke, the less he spoke, the more he heard...Lessons from a wise old bird"

People are talking about your brand, are you tapping in when they are conversing?

Listening can do many wonders for your company: Gauging sentiments, learning from customers, harnessing new ideas, finding out about what they like/dislike about your brand and competitors, establishing a personal relationship between the brand and customers, improving the corporate reputation, differentiating your brand, managing a potentially disastrous PR crisis to name a few.

Conversations (either negative or positive) around your brand means they care about your brand, and to ignore it will prompt a question from your boss two years from now- why didn't we jump onto the social media bandwagon in 09'? If you haven't heard, social media monitoring is essential for your company's competitive intelligence.

To stay sharp and to take advantage of this movement, there are a variety of free online social media monitoring tools available to keep things in your radar. For the manager, finding out where to listen to, engage, and speak in social media and what to listen for should be part of the overall social strategy.

When things get complex, ask yourself, what would the wise old owl do? And take the next step- record and respond accordingly.

Social Media Monitoring Tools to keep handy:

Recommended Free tools:

Twitter Search or Tweet Beep (sends free Twitter alerts about your product/brand by e-mail)

Google Alerts

Blog Pulse

Paid tools but offers free trial (Measurement and Analysis of the monitored content):

Radian6

Mightybrands

filtrbox

SM2

Attentio

Andiamo

There are many other tools available online. Here's a list of tools offered by Smashing Magazine.