Month: February 2012

Here we have a giant CPG (consumer-packaged-goods) company, P&G making the E-Marketing efforts to investigate the effectiveness of their digital ads on different online sites such as search engines (Yahoo) and social media (Facebook). Known as the worlds biggest advertiser, P&G has invested heavily into their optimization of digital marketing advertisements! Rather than alter the shape and size of their traditional advertisements from other medians such as over the Television or print ads, companies such as P&G are creating specific digital ads based on their research findings from their digital optimization system.

This digital optimization system is also known as Smart Media where it analyzes not only click-through rates but also flash surveys on actual purchase intent over various ads and their placements. The program also takes into consideration of the headline, hair visual and background color of the digital ads. Depending on the performance of these elements and actual click-through plus purchase intentions, the program reveals data that can greatly assist in future digital ad placements! For instance, white background ads have not worked as well on Yahoo Ads, the ads with orange backgrounds received the highest click-through rates and blonde hair tends to receive better response than brunettes on some websites.

I believe this to be an incredibly smart method of online optimization as P&G has successfully developed a method to measure the success of their online ads without the need of Google Ad-words for instance. Additionally, all the data generated from this Smart Media program is also shared with the company’s agency of record (an advertising agency that works closely with a company). Whether or not the program is exclusive to P&G only may still be debatable as other competitors may wish to also invest in such a helpful tool in calculating the effectiveness of their digital ads!

Here is a link to the actual article >>> http://adage.com/article/digital/p-g-finds-orange-ads-work-facebook/232931/ <<< 

The move towards measuring the success of their digital advertisements has now become a trend as companies such as P&G invest for a more promising online marketing strategy!

Yep, that is the title of this post. Some of us may be more familiar with this term, fiber optic, perhaps from gaming or just being a science whiz! The term more or less is a highly flexible and transparent fiber made of glass close to the size of a strand of hair. This fiber functions as a means of connecting two ends together like a wave length. Without getting into all this scientific and technical jargon, in relation to communication, fiber optic cables enables the transmission of data over longer distances at a faster rate than any other means of communication. In other words, you get super fast connection speeds!

Here in this BBC article, Google has selected Kansas City in the United States of America for their Fiber Optic Initiative. This business opportunity consists of installing fiber optic internet service throughout the entire city! This will enable internet speeds of one gigabit-per-second! In case some of you aren’t able to grasp the magnitude of such an installment, think of internet speed 100 times faster than what most of us have! Yeah, I know, WOW! Here’s the BBC short video on this matter.

Just think about it! Download and upload speeds will be lightning fast! At this point, I don’t believe citizens of Kansas City are able to comprehend how fast fiber optic fast is! Simply because they and we or I have yet to experience this type of luxury internet service! When watching videos online such as the short clip I posted, you wouldn’t even have to WAIT for it to buffer like what you are most likely doing at this point! Streaming speeds will be instantaneous! Skype sessions will be so smooth users will be bewildered!  Webpage loading will literally be a mouse click away!

From a business standpoint, video conferencing will be in high definition non-stop streaming! Database management will be operating at phenomenal rates! The transfer of large data files will be take less time! This will ultimately change the digitally-reliant industries such as MRI/Hologram scans used in the Medical industry or even photograph in the photographic industries!

This initiative is no doubt the first step in the advancement of America’s telecommunication infrastructure! However, though every individual’s lives will be significantly impacted by such a drastic change, Kansas City is essentially the guinea pig of the future of fiber optic communication! On a slightly negative note, the global trend has been a shift from internet browsing from a desktop computer to more mobile devices such as a laptop or smartphone. The new infrastructure could work and continue to generate hype over internet browsing with a cable connected to a computer thereby, establishing a market leader position in Kansas City. On the other hand, it could fail terribly as consumers continue to resort to mobile devices that utilize wifi for data and consequently, be the face of a futile attempt in internet history!

 Regardless, Google’s planning on launching the residential service in 2012 as they have begun hanging fiber optic wires in selected neighbors in Kansas City. The success of such a breakthrough initiative is still in its infancy stages and yet to be determined!

Thanks to the prevalence of social media, we all know how fast word of mouth spreads with progressively popular trends. From hashtags or following on twitter to Facebook shares, likes and status updates there really is no limit in how quickly the world can catch on with what the new hype is all about. Recently, what epitomized this was Jeremy Lin!

Once upon a time, in the midst of a cold stormy winter, a Canadian born sports coach and innovator invented the sport where two teams were competing to toss a ball into a 10 foot tall basket, in other words it is what we now know as basketball! The sport grew to become increasingly popular and after decades of changes and improvements, it is now one of the most watched sport globally. Arguably the most watched basketball league worldwide is the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States. Racially, the league is generally dominated by African-Americans and Caucasians, until perhaps the entrance of a Chinese player, Yao Ming! Sadly, he is retired now.

Regardless, it has not been over a month since Jeremy Lin’s opening career high game on February 5th where this New York Knicks (a NBA basketball team) bench player finally demonstrated his valuable basketball skills and wow-ed not just the entire league but the entire world. From nowhere to now everywhere, in just two victorious games, Jeremy Lin has become the top 10 most searched names on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter known as Sina Weibo, overnight his Twitter account has increased by 300,000 followers, t-shirt and jersey sales are off the charts, he has appeared on covers of Sports Illustrated for the past two weeks (only the 2nd athlete to achieve this distinction) and many more record-breaking stories.

Within three weeks of his opening game, Jeremy Lin has become a global basketball sensation! Internet domains under his name have all been bought, reputable magazines and newspapers are writing about him such as Times and Forbes, seven e-books have been published on him, the Global Language Monitor (GLM, a company that tracks trends of new English words) has even declared Linsanity as a official English world. There are countless fan sites created to honor his highlights and achievements. All of this success of Jeremy Lin comes to illustrate the incredible speed at which our world can adapt to emerging trends that can virtually dominate the world. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg (creator of Facebook) and other creators of social media services, the world now knows how viral marketing and word of mouth can spread across the internet. With Jeremy Lin’s Social Media Rise, the entire world can now relate to the epitome of successful E-Marketing!

Regardless of whether you follow basketball or not, Jeremy Lin (Linsanity) is a worthwhile story of  how fast word can spread over today’s social media and E-Marketing methods in what some dub as the Linternet!

Yes it is true. This is yet another post about the social networking service and website launched by a Harvard student. HOWEVER, unlike typical Facebook blog post that offers information you can essentially learn from watching The Social Network, I wish to shed light on how a company has effectively utilized the capabilities of Facebook in augmenting the company’s brand image!

This brings me to Adidas! For those whom aren’t into basketball, the hip-hop culture, dancing, Porsche cars, sportswear, football (soccer in N. America), tennis, hockey or essentially aware of sports brands; Adidas is a German-based sports apparel manufacturing company!

Now that is out of the way, I’m sure everyone is aware of the new Facebook layout with a more heavily visual-oriented page consisting of  not just a profile picture but also a humongous background cover picture! In case, somebody still doesn’t know what I’m talking about please look below ~

Your Facebook profiles might look something similar to this and now with the help of Adidas Originals, there is link to a alternate Adidas Originals landing page here >>> http://www.adidas.com/campaigns/originalscover/content/default.asp <<< that enables users to personalize an Adidas themed cover picture! Some sample cover pictures can be seen below ~

This release of Adidas Originals Cover Tool is a incredibly smart way to generate more buzz and awareness of the brand as avid Adidas consumers can flaunt off their personalized cover pictures over the #1 social media website that can be viewed by virtually all friends and Facebook users. Available free of charge, this tool is believed to be updated on a seasonal basis to reflect the new styling trends and points of interest. A variety of items will be added to each update such as illustrations, icons, backgrounds, fonts, colors and more.

An extremely worthwhile investment of Adidas Originals in an effort to establish simple yet effective social media presence. Don’t forget to visit the tool if you haven’t done so! 

Here I go, plunging myself into a world of online journalism, a world of HTML, word press, tumblr, a world of everything-related to posting on a virtual intangible network that I now dub as a blog new world! Some may refer to it as the blogosphere but here in E-Frankie land, this platform of user-generated information in the form of a online personal journal that consists of entries (or posts, such as this) is the progressive emergence of  A BLOG NEW WORLD! 

Ever since the explosion of internet blogging beginning in the late 1990s, this has not only completely altered the way users interact with their online presence but also ultimately opening new doors to the way businesses are run! The need to shift marketing needs online have resulted in the coinage of terms such as viral marketing or in other words online word of mouth!

What used to be (and still is at times) individual blog posts of users spending the time voicing their concerns and thoughts on the world wide web has now turned into companies and brands posting on their blogs in an effort to reach out to their customers!

Now it’s not only Uncle Jimmy blogging about his life at a barn or Little Johnny blogging about his drama with girls at school, it’s corporate companies blogging about their company and consumer experiences to generate hype and buzz in an marketing technique to produce brand awareness and inevitably prompt purchase through what we all know as viral marketing!

Check out the maker of the voice – over – internet service Skype’s big blog efforts to boost user membership >>> http://blogs.skype.com/en/ <<<

 Take a look at how the American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services, Home Depot educate consumers on gardening and product usage advice through their community blog >>> http://ext.homedepot.com/community/blog/ <<< 

Peruse through giant German sports apparel manufacturer, Adidas Group’s blog about employees career experiences at Adidas offices around the world >>> http://blog.adidas-group.com/ <<<

Of course there are many more companies that do similar things but the Frankie Fact remains that companies are beginning to jump on this blogging wagon into the midst of a blog new world in efforts to establish viral marketing goals among consumers!