It’s quite astonishing when you think about it that the British people have not known where PM Gordon Brown stands on the issue of the War in Iraq. We have had his implicit support for the War but the PM has generally maintained a very low profile on the unpopular issue.
Until this week.
On Friday, during the Chilcott inquiry, Brown described the decision to go to war in Iraq as “the right decision for the right reasons”.
As chief cheque signer, he probably didn’t have much choice.
The outdoor advertising industry in Australia today announced Move, the world’s first outdoor advertising measurement system. The system takes Government data sources relating to traffic flow and consumer movements and compares this with a visibility rating for the outdoor media site, whether it be a billboard, bus stop or railway station.
Each media site has its own visibility rating based on a combination of data points, the site’s physical characteristics (i.e. location, lumination etc.) and eye tracking data, which is charted on Move’s Opportunity To See (OTS) and Likelihood To See (LTS) metric.
Could such a system be applied to PR measurement online? What is the Likelihood To See (LTS) of a blog post (a product review for example) or a recommendation on Twitter? The PR industry is hamstrung by the Advertising Value Equivalence measurement model, which serves it poorly.
There is a need for the PR industry to develop an industry standard for measurement, which isn’t related to advertising spend. Every campaign has its own set of objectives but there should be some foundation metrics in place for measuring the impact of PR campaigns that result in online coverage and social media activity.
Recent data from Compete and comScore shows that Facebook has passed Google to become the top source of traffic to major portals. The announcement and the resulting discussion prompted this post by Facebook, which includes the following section:
According to comScore, Google still has nearly two-thirds of the U.S. search market, but dropped a fraction of a percent from 65.7% in Dec 2009 to 65.4% in Jan 2010 [source: Information Week]. While Google is still the leader in the search space, and Facebook only accounted for just under 400 million searches in January, that is a gain of 13% over December. If this trend continues, Google may have ample reason to fear Facebook.
The Compete data shows that Facebook is the second most popular site in the US with 134m unique visiter in January 2010, ahead of Yahoo! and just behind Google.
Facebook is in the ascendancy but the company must make changes to its own Search engine if it is to become a genuine rival to Google, the vastly dominant player in the space.
Facebook, like other social networks, represents opportunity for brands because of the simple fact that this is where a lot of the action is taking place online, as demonstrated by slews and rising traffic. Switched on brands are already tapping into the Facebook community. But Facebook Search serves marketers poorly today as a place of discovery. Check out my search results for ‘mobile handset’:
Not particularly useful. Three users groups with 210 members between them.
No sign of the brand sponsored pages where Facebook Users can learn about new products, participate in competitions and promotions, chat with other users and potential customers, communicate directly with the company and link through to relevant pages on the Web.
The Sony Ericsson WorldPage has more than 445,ooo Fans (Sony Ericsson is a client) but the way that Facebook Search works prevents this page, which is clearly relevant to the search term, from appearing.
This is an issue for Facebook.
We see the same issue if we run a search for ’sneakers’:
The retailer Sole Provider Sneakers comes out on top here, simply by virtue of having the search term embedded in its company name (also the name of the Page). Yet Sole Provider Sneakers sells a lot of Nike trainers and a search for ‘Nike’ would not have produced their Page in its results.
Facebook has to play a delicate balancing act here. Ultimately, user activity, personal profiles, user content, sharing and discussion are the currency of social networks such as Facebook. The company needs to avoid giving users the impression that they are being marketed to via the network, failure to do this could well become its undoing.
One way around this could be for Facebook to adopt a model similar to Google’s Universal Search, which would allow users to chose and filter the types of results that are presented to them via Facebook Search. This could be built into the privacy settings that Facebook has been so keen to promote recently.
Interestingly, Google listed Facebook as a formal competitor for the first time in a recent 10K filing, as reported by SearchEngineLand:
Our business is characterized by rapid change and converging, as well as new and disruptive, technologies. We face formidable competition in every aspect of our business, particularly from companies that seek to connect people with information on the web and provide them with relevant advertising. We face competition from:
Some subtle and simple changes to Facebook Search would accelerate the trend towards Facebook and other social networks as a primary channel for Search.
The challenge for marketers will (continue to be) to resist the tempation to sell via social networks and to engage with social networking users in a way that adds value, build relationships, earns trust and facilitates creativity and connectivity. Facebook will have to manage the sensitivities of its users delicately but if managed well Facebook could become a natural home to Search, delivering value to users and marketers alike.
I have just finished reading one of the best history books that I have ever read: ‘The American Future: A History‘ by Simon Schama.
The book charts the development of the military in the America from Lincoln up to the present day, pretty much, starting with the establishment of the West Point, the famous military academy.
The book explains that many of the Founding Fathers resisted the idea of a military force for the purposes of expansion, empire building and control believing that democracy rightfully implemented would not require enforcement via military powers.
The first graduates of West Point were trained in civil engineering as much as they were in military strategy. The books focuses on Montgomery C. Meigs (1816 to 1892), a total legend by all accounts who built monuments, public works (aqueducts, bridges etc.) and served as Quartermaster General of the US Army during and after the American Civil War. Montgomery C. Meigs was by all accounts a very civilised, progressive, noble and talented individual.
The great thing about Schama’s writing in this book (the first that I have read) is the way he identifies individuals and uses them to convey the events of the day. It makes reading history very engaging.
The book deals in detail with the abolitionist movement and the multi-culturalisation of North America, covering the experience of Mexicans, the native Americans, Chinese immigrants, the Irish and African Americans.
I thought Schama sat on the fence somewhat in his analysis of the American military machine while acknowledging that the military basically exists to fulfil the nation’s desire to consume, conquer, extend its borders and enslave. In other words to look after its own.
He takes the view that anything can happen in America and leaves us on a hopeful note in relation to the likely use of its power (diminishing as it is). On finishing this book, I immediately purchased ‘A History of Britain – At the Edge of the World?‘ by the same author. If you’ve read it please don’t tell me what happens.
Lets hope that sane people remain at the helm in the United States for the foreseeable future.
The International Advertising Association (IAA) has announced the second IAA-Dentsu Global Student Poster Competition.
The challenge for this year’s competition, which is supported by the United Nations, is biodiversity. The challenge for entrants is to communicate that our lifestyle and consumption habits have to change if we want to stop the destruction of our ecosystems and keep our planet alive.
The brief is wide open for creative interpretation. Students must respond to the following criteria:
Full details for the second IAA-Dentsu Global Student Poster Competition are available here.
The Global Winner will receive a trophy, cash prize of US$1,000 and the opportunity to present their work at the United Nations.
Regional Finalists will receive trophies and all entrants will receive an IAA-Dentsu Global Student Poster Competition certificates.
The Global Winner will be announced on May 1st 2010. And, the top three winning entries will be exhibited at the 2010 IAA World Congress May 12th-14th 2010 in Moscow, and at the 2010 Cannes Lions. The competition provides a great opportunity for aspiring talent to show off their creativity, insights and art work on a global industry stage.
The first Global Poster Competition focused on the issue of climate change. The first prize (World Champion) went to Matias Fernandez, Universidad Argentina de la in Buenos Aires for a piece of work entitled Thermometer.
I am a Board Member for the Australian Chapter of the International Advertising Association.
Welcome to Just Another 24 Hours. Daniel Young's irregular look at what's happening in the world of social media and the Web, amongst other things.
