Selling online as if it were TV? HERESY! Let's do it anyway.

Yet another article asks if we should measure online the same way we measure TV. Meaning, should we package online impressions and present them as Gross Rating Points, the way TV and radio people have been doing it for decades? This kind of thing usually causes the hipster crowd to spit their triple venti sugar free no foam skinny extra caramel macchiato all over their Macs before collapsing into paroxysms of rage at the thought of degrading the integrity of online accountability with such an old-school measure.

Problem is, accountability is online advertising's own worst enemy. There, I said it. Don't get me wrong; accountability is a great thing, but as I pointed out in my first entry to this blog, the rush to accountability has caused the industry and those who support it with advertising to focus only on direct responses and on conversions at the bottom of the marketing funnel. There are other measures of accountability, equally as valid and valuable under many circumstances, such as brand preference, purchase intent, search term volume, social chatter, and so on. But they don't focus on clicks and conversions, so they are dismissed out of hand as the purview of old school hacks intent on wasting clients' money before hitting the links for the 3rd time that week.

This focus on clicks and conversions actually, and paradoxically, works against the movement of money from offline to online media, because:

It keeps the people who have that money from seeing online as a viable top-of-funnel medium.

Embrace the paradox. If we want to accelerate the movement of TV dollars to online, then for the time being we have to get it from those that control the TV money. That means selling it them on a basis their processes and systems are built around: Points.

The benefit is four-fold: 1) We will accelerate the growth of online ad dollars 2) We will decelerate or reverse the decline of the inventory's value 3) We will start to free online activity from the unfair and often misdirected chains of Direct Response Accountability, and 4) With the increase in money will come even higher-quality productions...and with those will come viewers. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Online is capable of helping fill the top of the marketing funnel the same way TV does, but not when the industry continues to insist on measuring it and pricing it based only on the conversions it generates.

One respondent to that article asked "Must we really dumb-down digital marketing to meet the old model of GRPs in order for us to succeed? We can keep rolling our eyes and asking that until the cows come home, and the answer is "yes, little Fauntleroy, we must".

I am not suggesting online and all the things that make up that space be packaged and sold this way. Far, far from it. But the sooner the industry gets over its collective distaste for "old school" metrics, and packages some opportunities (particularly video) using metrics and terms familiar to those who hold the old-school purse strings, the sooner the industry will get a bigger and well-deserved chunk of old school money.

Ice, Ice Baby...now ANOTHER recall for Toyota

OK, this has nothing really to do with marketing, but it's relevant to my last post about the damage to Toyota's brand that will be caused by all its recent recalls.

This time, MSNBC reports that on top of the massive gas-pedal recall which was on top of the massive floormat recall, which was on top of the rusting-truck recall, Toyota is recalling 270,000 of its Prius model due to "allegations of momentary loss of braking capability while traveling over uneven road surfaces, potholes or bumps."

I'm here to tell you, this is VERY common among cars with Anti-Lock Brake systems (ABS) and unless the Prius is really, really bad for it, I submit that it's unfair to single out Toyota. I've had it happen to me in several cars with ABS, across a wide variety of manufacturers, and I guarantee the problem people are experiencing is due to what's called "Ice Mode" in the ABS calibration.

You see, ABS works by monitoring the speed of each wheel on the car, and when it detects that any of them is decelerating much faster than the rest, it interprets that as the wheel being in a skid, and momentarily releases the brakes on those wheels. Skidding tires don't slow the car as well as rolling tires do, and they don't provide any steering capability at all, and ABS is there to ensure that the tires stay rolling. That's its job.

But there's a darker side to this: The ABS system doesn't just compare the speeds of the wheels to each other. The ABS is programmed to know what rate of wheel deceleration is even possible under the highest-deceleration conditions possible for the car. If the deceleration of all the wheels exceeds the rate the ABS thinks is possible, then it assumes the car is on a very slippery surface, and that all the tires are locking up. So what does it do? It pretty much takes your brakes away for a second or two. On ice, this is not a bad thing. It'll make sure you have whatever traction ice will afford so you can still kinda steer the car.

But there's something else that can trigger the same kind of wheel deceleration, and put the ABS into Ice Mode: Going over a bumpy surface while braking...such as approaching a stoplight on a poorly maintained city street. Every time a wheel hits a bump, it very briefly bounces up and loses traction, and if the brakes are applied at the time, the wheel will decelerate briefly and quickly. Behold, the ABS thinks it's on a slippery surface, and pretty much takes the brakes away from every wheel exhibiting the same behavior. If all of the wheels are doing it, it takes the brakes away from ALL of the wheels. You could Fred Flintstone the pedal right through the floor of the car, but the ABS thinks it's smarter than you are, and you're not asking nicely, so...NO BRAKES FOR YOU!

At a minimum, this is maddening to experience when you're by yourself on the road or track. It's downright frightening, and frankly dangerous, to experience it when you're faced with a stopped car 15 feet in front of you and you're still going 20 mph, with no brakes.

I hope this issue is found to not be unique to the Prius or to Toyota, so that it exposes the issue as the practically industry-wide problem that it is.

Ice Mode. Mark my words. You heard it here first.

Whoa, what a feeling...Toyota! or: Unintended Brand Deceleration

The folks at Toyota HQ must be busier than a two-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs over this unintended-acceleration problem. They tried to sweep it under the proverbial floormat, until it happened to a guy who had the wherewithal to use neutral to enable him to drive his car to a dealership so they could see for themselves, the gas pedal was not being held down by anybody or anything. Take THAT, every service writer who's written "cannot duplicate problem".

Now, they’re pulling their painfully ironic ads about quality, and furiously getting busy with PR.

Good thing, too, because one TV ad in the "Portfolio" campaign smugly claims "Toyota has won more Total Quality Awards than any other automaker and we can all use little more quality these days”.



It took the better part of a decade for Audi to recover from the unintended-acceleration smear campaign against them started by 60 Minutes under the guise of “news”, and Toyota has had more than their share of recalls lately in the first place, including a 2009 recall of 100,000 Tundra pickups for premature rust problems that led to spare tires falling out of their mounts and onto roadways.

At the risk of being a candidate for the 2010 Duh! Awards, this is going to be really damaging, but just how damaging will depend on how forgiving the public will be, and on how far and how fast Toyota's management gets out in front of it. They're doing mostly the right things now about getting the mechanical problem fixed, but my sense is they're flubbing it in the court of public opinion. We're talking about a brand with equity worth at least $29 BILLION. That's a long way to fall and a long road back up.

Auto blog Jalopnik posted a nifty graphic showing the timeline of response to this issue, and it's kind of funny if you're into dark comedy.



This is Toyota we're talking about! Ask the average Joe or Jane about Toyota and they're likely to tell you the vehicles are unbreakable, they start every time, they help old ladies cross the street, and they spontaneously pull children out of house fires. This kind of thing is not supposed to come from Toyota.

Now, I’m a firm believer that floormats can be evil; in fact I still vividly recall having one hold the throttle wide open at the top of 2nd gear in my dad's mustang when I was a lad. I've been suspicious of them ever since, which is why you won't find them in the mustang I still drive today. So, toyota was right to be suspicious of them too. But was it that easy to blame the mats and call it a day?

Floor mats or throttle mechanism, it's egg on the face, and in a world where a car company can lose a lawsuit because it made a vehicle that failed to protect its occupants after they failed to wear seatbelts, Toyota may be dealing with more than just brand damage. After all, one man and his family died when the throttle on their Toyota-made Lexus stuck, and he didn't have the presence of mind to put the dang car in neutral. And you can bet the bushes are being beaten to find other terrified motorists who can attest to how their cars tried to kill them.

The defect is inexcusable, but here's the rub: Cars can't really overpower their own brakes. In fact, Car and Driver recently tested a Camry, an Infinity G37, and a 540-hp Roush Mustang to see how much longer it would take to stop a Toyota Camry when it was held at full throttle. The answer is: Not that much longer. In fact...the Camry only took 16 more feet to stop from 70 mph with the throttle wide open...and still stopped shorter than a Taurus can without a throttle problem.

Y'hear that? If this happens to you, stand on the brakes! Don't have the strength? Put it in neutral! Got the time? Turn the engine off! Just don't turn the ignition so far that the steering wheel locks. In any case, for God's sake, don't call 911 hoping they can help you with divine intervention as you hurtle through traffic.

And Toyota? For God's sake, put a credible executive up in front of the world and start managing this story before it manages your brand equity down a very large drain. The motoring public might actually forgive you, and fairly soon…but only if this is the very last recall of a Toyota product for a quality or safety problem in a very long time.

Taco Bell, a legitimate part of a healthy diet? Rally the lynch mob!

Everybody who doesn't live under a rock knows the story of Jared, the dude who lost 240 lbs on a diet consisting of exercise, and of eating nothing for lunch and dinner but Subway turkey and Subway veggie sandwiches. This guy sparked a ubiquitous TV campaign for Subway that's been largely heralded as a great success which helped propel Subway's image as a healthy, fresh place to eat fast food. Never mind the fact that not a single ingredient except the bread is actually prepared in-store.

Now, Taco Bell is trying to do a similar thing based on fan mail they've received about their "Fresco" menu. Just to clarify, customers who select an item "Fresco Style" are substituting Salsa for sour creams, creamy sauces, and cheeses. I discovered this nifty option myself when I was on a Weight Watchers program (lost 23 lbs in 10 weeks), and it really does make a difference. For instance, I happen to really like their Grilled Steak Soft Tacos, and I found that ordering them Fresco style eliminated 36% of their calories, 70% of their fat, and two of them left me with a yummy, quick, inexpensive meal. Each one was only 3 "points" in the Weight Watchers system, so two of them was only 6 points, which was less than 1/5th of my daily allowance of points. Anybody who's been on Weight Watchers will tell you, a meal that only costs 6 points is a big damn deal.

Now...would I make a diet around Taco Bell the way Jared did around Subway? No! But Taco Bell had flavorful, nutritious options that didn't cost me any guilt or lost dietary momentum.

Is Taco Bell trying to make a diet around Taco Bell? No! They're just trying to point out that they have a significant number of good menu items that are not counter to a reduced-calorie, reduced-fat diet. What's wrong with that?

Plenty, according to the red-eyed spittle-flinging Nutrition Nazis and Dietary Diatribers in the blogosphere, who are vilifying Taco Bell with claims that make it sound like the campaign, and indeed the very idea, are nothing less than preposterous, possibly illegal, most definitely immoral, and possibly terroristic.

So, OK. The ads don't represent ground-breaking creative, but I don't think that's why the backlash is happening. Make no mistake, Taco Bell may have a public relations challenge in the making. Is it a disconnect between the reality and the image of the brand? Reality being, yes, you can eat healthy there (and not just as a well-hidden single asterisk of an item on the menu) and the image being Mounds of Gooey Nachos When You're Drunk at 2 am?

What do you think?

And what do you think they should do about it?

Pizza Hut sells $1 million in pizza with apps...wait...what?

Pizza Hut has gotten a lot of press lately about how they've "generated" $1 million worth of pizza sales with their iPhone and Touch apps in the first 3 months they were available.

Sounds great! Sign me up, right? Well...hang on a second. Read the fine print, and you'll find that Pizza Hut grants its app users a 20% discount on every order. And I don't know for sure, but I'd hazard a guess that people motivated enough to download and use a pizza-ordering app were already in the brand fold. In other words, they were likely to be buying from Pizza Hut already. Only now, they're doing it for 20% less every time. I bet I could convince people to shackle a cannonball to their ankles if I promised them 20% off every one of their pizza orders, but do I have to cannibalize existing customers and throw my margin at them at the same time?

So my "Marketing, Directly" questions about this initiative are:

- How much of the $1 million in sales was incremental?
- How loyal are the users compared to those who purchase in other ways?
- Does this app improve profitability, and is it therefore a harbinger of operational shift to lower order-cost in the future?

If the answers to those questions are something along the lines of "lots", "more", and "yes", then I'd be willing to call it a success, but until then, maybe the success is tied more to the exposure it got just for doing the program.

Yes, it's another blog about marketing and advertising

Why? Because I wanted a place to occasionally capture and share my thoughts on the world of marketing and marketing communications. I call it "Marketing, Directly" because apparently I have a tendency to speak and write rather directly. I can hardly help it, I just think it's more efficient than being oblique all the time, and I figured, why stop now? So, I have a few postings I've been mulling over that I'll post up in fairly quick succession, and after that, hopefully achieve some sort of posting regularity.

So, if you stop by, read what you care to, and feel free to start a dialogue. Conversation is a 2-way street.

Measurability and last-click attribution

Raise your hand if you've ever heard, or read, somebody say that offline advertising is not measurable, and that its practitioners only get by on wishful thinking, and that online and direct response are so perfectly measurable there's no reason to be wasting money on un-targeted media like traditional mass media.

I thought so. Those statements demonstrate an unfortunate but pervasive ignorance about the level of professionalism and accountability that most offline and non-direct-response practitioners, and those who enlist their services, achieve as a regular part of doing business.

So let me break it down for the wet-behind-the ears types:

Just because you don't know how to measure the ROI of a broader media mix doesn't mean it isn't there. Just because you keep assigning all the credit for the efforts of every other dollar spent in the mix to your last response, doesn't mean the rest of it isn't contributing to the end result. To keep insisting otherwise, as is so often and vocally done, is to undermine the validity of your own position to the extent that it spills outside the search, online and direct response echo-chambers. Outside the echo chambers of newsletters, blogs, and conventions, a lot of people know better, and the last thing you want to do when you're trying to sell your capability is insult the CMO's intelligence and experience by overplaying your hand about what you think is measurable and what isn't.

Marketers have been measuring the effect of their offline efforts for as long as there have been offline efforts. It's been a long road since "half my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half", and the improvements in measurement efforts are fairly stunning, especially in the last few years.

At the very least, marketers will select the brand attributes they're trying to measure, then isolate a subset of the audience they're trying to impact, either by selecting a set of test markets to measure against a control, or A/B copy testing, A/B media mix testing, what have you. The ROI can be "did sales improve" or "did brand attributes X Y and Z improve", or whatever metrics were decided upon at the outset, and to what degree did they change, and if the test was robust enough, it can be measured into specific segments of the tested audience.

The ROI is often, but not always, a dollars-and-cents measure. Marketing communications have lingering and measurable effects that can impact the effectiveness of subsequent contacts. The good analysts will have set up the test to try to isolate external, uncontrolled factors such as operations, weather, traffic, consumer confidence and so on, in an attempt to narrow the read down to just the effects that the marketing communications had, and many use econometric modeling, where media, creative, and environmental/economic factors are studied and their contributions to sales (or the metrics their choice) are calculated.

As for hard dollars-and-cents: Recently I was involved in a campaign for a billion dollar brick and mortar operation, where the goal of all activity was to drive sales, and since the sales involved a subscription of sorts, ROI would be calculated based a pre-established lifetime value per subscriber.

The markets where offline media were used in conjunction with online generated a nearly 2:1 ROI over the markets using just online and search alone. e.g. for every $1 we spent in advertising, the multimedia markets got $2 more in subscriber lifetime value than where only online and search were used, and this was a controlled-market test, so it wasn't like the lowest hanging fruit was cherry-picked to be a multi-market test.

Some companies are able to measure the effects of offline on the results of online very well, but it requires a hefty research budget. Millward Brown, Dynamic Logic, Jupiter and others have all conducted studies showing the ability of offline media to drive search and even conversion, not to mention online sales. And, it works both ways; certain research and measurement tools also show the effects of online and search on offline sales.

BOTTOM LINE: as Andrew Martin of the Atlas Institute said, "Evaluating only a single point of advertising contact oversimplifies the delivery and performance of any media channel."

So be careful about trying to attribute all communications success to the last click or the direct response of your choice. I see it happen all the time, and some of us know better.