PardonMyFrench

links for 2007-12-29

• FactCheck.org: More Mitt Malarkey
  (tags: romney mccain politics)
• Hotline On Call: Concord Monitor: GOP's Best Choice Is McCain
  (tags: mccain)
• John McCain: Endorsed Ad
  (tags: mccain nh)

links for 2007-12-28

• Romney, McCain, Obama Dominate Presidential Display Ads This Year - ClickZ
  (tags: politics advertising online)

Two Years Out Of Corporate America And Still Going

Sorry about the infrequent posts this week.  My kids like everyone else's are off from school and are staying up late which cuts into my blogging time.  In fact, both are up right now as I write this watching Spongebob Squarepants.  SIGH.

Anyway, I like revisiting some of my older posts especially ones on managing your career.  I get nostalgic especially when I had lunch with some of my Harrisdirect co-workers, Jackie, Megan, and Maggie.  It was fun to catch up on old times and it reminded me that I've come a long way from that person that left/laid off from E*Trade at the end of December 2005. Now before I reprint my last post while being an HD employee, here are a couple of things that stand out for me in the past 2 years...

Eric's Top 10 Quick Hits from the Past 2 Years

1. When you work from home or stay local, you don't need as much cash as you needed before.
2. There are more people than you realize that actually work out of the home office especially with broadband being everywhere; it isn't anything to be ashamed of and if you actually have your own office and get dressed everyday you are just as professional as the schmucks in the suits.
3. You actually won't miss out on watching your kids grow up
4. Most of what you do in Corporate America is completely a waste - from presentations to arbitrary start and end dates to kissing up to the new boss because you are afraid of your job.
5. That's not to say I won't ever go back.  What I do miss is camaraderie, perceived security, and actually being involved in running a business.  One of my favorite things to do at both HD and AT&T is look at the monthly financials to see what I could do to help.  I also enjoyed working with other groups to see how marketing could help them.
6. Speaking of dates, YOU HAVE NEVER DEALT WITH A DEADLINE UNLESS YOU'VE WORKED IN POLITICS.  Seriously, you don't know what it means to make a date.  For example, the Iowa Caucus is 1/3.  With McCain's surge in the polls we made some changes to the advertising campaign.  I had to do it today because it can't wait until tomorrow.  1/8 of the remaining campaign would have been gone.  And when the caucus is over, there is nothing more you can do; the vote is forever and being off by a little costs you a lot.
7. In politics there is no such thing as 9-5.  Sure some days are lighter than others but when a lot of the business world is on vacation and you have to make changes you do.  And you expect your vendors to answer your emails (hat tip to the Google Political team especially Rena, Ben, and Virginia).  You work late because you have to and when the campaign manager asks for volunteers to go to a state, you go.  You don't submit vouchers or call your assistant to book your trip.  You pay for it and book it yourself.  Finally, you move your family vacation because it is too close to Super Tuesday.
8. I never get tired of working with new clients.  I've had my share over the years and wish I had more.  When you no longer work with one, especially when it has nothing to do with your support, you feel sad because you wish there was more you could have done.
9. You always need new clients coming in the door; a lack of a funnel means you should start looking for a new job.
10. When you are disconnected from Corporate America you realize how important friends and family are.  And, how important you really were to your former Corp America friends.

Anyway, that's my top 10 quick hits from the past two years.  I hope you enjoyed them. Hint the continue reading link to see the reprint of the post.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2007-12-25

• Four Pinocchios for Romney on MLK - Fact Checker
  Love the fact checker
  (tags: romney politics)

So What Happened to Political Ads in New Jersey

This article called New Jersey part of big gamble by Giuliani in Sunday's Star Ledger really, really upset me.  No it wasn't because the article was on Rudy.  It was because we had our voice in the election taken away once again and the NJ businesses that were probably counting on some election dollars are not going to see a dime.  Since most of you readers are probably not deep into politics like I am now, let me give you some background before my little rant.

1. The primary schedule is more compressed than ever.  See this screen shot from McCain Path to Victory discussion (see below in a second).
2. As outlined in the McCain Path to Victory (watch the video even if you aren't a McCain fan, it is very interesting as a learning opportunity), there is little time in between the early states and February 5.
3. Rudy Giuliani is employing a late state strategy with his marketing and campaigning.  What this means is that Rudy is trying to "hang on" long enough with his support biding time for February 5th where 45% of the delegates will be selected.
4. NY, NJ, CT, and DE are scheduled for Feb 5th and those 4 states account for 201 delegates.
5. Buying TV media in NJ is very, very expensive because of the NY and Philadelphia MSAs
6. NJ moved its primary date from June to Feb 5th to participate more in the election process and of course reap some benefits in ad dollars.
7. NJ Republicans decided to change the format of how we awarded delegates to a winner take all; the Democrats did not make this change.
8. Rudy has a commanding lead in NJ according to polls at Real Clear Politics; averaging 48% versus McCain at 10%.
9. According to The Star Ledger the change in how our delegates are to be dispersed  are "Thanks to a rule change engineered by his supporters (Giuliani) earlier this year"
10. On the Democrat side where winner take all is against the rules, Obama continues to campaign here even with a big lead by Hillary.

So how are we doing with these rules changes?  Well, again according to The Star Ledger "Which means that despite moving its primary from the doldrums of June to the frenzy of February, New Jersey is, once again, getting very little campaign action.  "Practically speaking, I'm not sure much changed by us moving to February 5," said Tom Wilson, the Republican state chairman".

What this means is that NJ does not have an impact in the Primary Election.  We are not benefiting from Republicans campaigning here.  We are now just one of the states going on Feb 5th and we will see no advertising and no attention from Republicans.  Even with the scenario that unfolds in the McCain Path to Victory occurs, there would be little time between Florida and Feb 5th to spend money and if The Late State Strategy fails to work, it wouldn't matter anyway.  For anything to occur, Rudy would still have to viable by then but then time and the expense of NJ media would work against any major advertising here.

So what did we get as citizens and small business owners for this switch?  Nothing.  No attention.  Just another slap in the face for living in NJ.  No visits.  No mention.  No, oh how are the polls looking in NJ?     We moved our election day up to participate, but now nobody cares because we allowed the way we divided up the delegates to be changed.  Does anyone really think that Rudy in the Oval Office will return some favor to NJ for this?   

That's why there is no attention being spent in NJ from the Republican Candidates and why we need to watch Iowa, New Hampshire, and Florida garner all of the visits and strategists.  Some day, we'll get something right in NJ.  Your only hope is the General Election.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2007-12-23

• eyeon08.com » Rasmussen: Romney as unelectable as Clinton?
  Just have to get McCain to the General Election
  (tags: politics polling)
• race42008.com » Blog Archive » A McCain/Romney Race?
  A superb analysis and interesting read
  (tags: politics)
• race42008.com » Blog Archive » Best of Race 4 2008: Run Mike, Run!
  (tags: politics bloomberg)

links for 2007-12-22

• Election Central | Talking Points Memo | Source: McCain Online Fundraising Up 500 Percent This Week
  Interesting
  (tags: politics mccain)

Why Politics is Not Like Marketing

I normally never make posts over a weekend, but I figured with Monday being Christmas Eve I might as well fire away.  One of my favorite political blogs www.eyeon08.com had a write up on a recent blogger conference call with my Presidential candidate John McCain and before you stop reading, don't worry this is about marketing.  According to Soren when asked about a brokered Republican Convention, Senator McCain said this "You get so much of a bounce out of the early primaries, I just don’t think it is true. … No matter how rich you are, no one can buy enough media. It is done with earned media."  Couple that quote with a leaked comment to Talking Points Memo that McCain's Online Fundraising is up 500% and that my friends got me thinking about this blog post.

After spending 15 years working in telecom, wireless, and financial services I joined Connell Donatelli 2 years ago and now work in political marketing.  When I first joined, I was pretty much like any marketer that thought - "well why don't we market in this manner", but unlike others that have tried to crack this industry from the outside I had some real players in this space like Mike and Becki that could explain how things work.  In the private sector I believed in a simple marketing formula for success which I derived from my direct mail and OTM days at AT&T.  While I still use this formula for arranging programs, it doesn't carry the same weight in the political industry.  The formula goes like this:

Marketing Success = Creatives+Offer+Targeting

What I believed is that you could have a successful program if you got 2 out of the 3 variables correct.  Good creatives and good targeting can save a lousy product or offer and the same goes for a great offer with great targeting.  If you only have one thing right, your campaign is guaranteed to fail.  Later on with online advertising I added in optimization as a secondary variable, but in politics it is much more complicated than that.  Let's take a look at why for you "why don't campaigns do it this way" marketers....

Why Political Marketing Is Not Like Selling Phone Service

1. Earned Media Is An Extremely Important Component - As Senator McCain said "no matter how rich you are, no one can buy enough media" which is definitely a switch from your private sector advertisers.  Marketing budgets are huge in the private sector, but at the end of the day it is advertising, not someone on your local news or national paper promoting your service.
2. Your Product Serves Numerous Purposes - Private Sector Marketers like to boil down an offer or product to maybe 1 or 2 secondary benefits; you know what I'm talking about if you've ever read a marketing brief.  Politicians mean many things to different people and while you hope your candidate plays well with the most important issues, they can never please everyone 100% of the time.
3. When The Elections Are Over, You Are Really Done - It is hard to live to another day. All marketers start fresh in the new year and can potentially make up for a bad one.  In politics once the election is over, your job is done.  Plus, you can't fudge the numbers because you need a certain percentage of votes or Electoral votes to win; there is no room for rounding up.
4. Word of Mouth Marketing Marketers Would Kill For - I read somewhere recently on a marketing blog (can't remember which one) where the writer predicted that blogs would be important in 2008.  The prediction is laughable because political blogs have been around for years and were critical back in 2004.  They are everywhere, good and bad, drumming up stories true or false and sometimes even anonymous.  Imagine 1000s of people waiting to see what you do, say, or when you make a mistake.  You can't hide.
5. You Can't Just Win with Marketing - As Marc Ambinder discovered when he interviewed Senator McCain's national political director Mike Dennehy you need a lot of face to face time with your voters or as they say, retail politics.  I personally discovered this when I gathered 100 signatures in NJ to get Senator McCain on the ballot (btw - #90 was former Governor Tom Kean before he endorsed Senator McCain).  When was the last time you got 100 of your friends together to listen to a pitch from AT&T?  If you can't extend your online support to additional voters outside the internet, you end up as Howard Dean (Ron Paul next?)
6. External Factors That You Can't Forecast - Even when you have everything correct in your marketing, your campaign can still fail.  A new issue may pop up that your candidate is on the wrong side, you just might not have enough buzz to make anything pop, or your opponents may just start hammering your candidate for something they said 10 years ago.
7. Polling Causes Up and Down Swings - Every summer in the financial services sector they get ready for Smart Money's Brokerage Rankings, but after a month or two nobody cares unless you market your rating.  Every day and multiple times per day polling companies publish how your candidate is doing.  While I personally believe polling data is slightly interesting there are so many different ways of polling people and getting results that you can get confused.  My favorite poll data to ignore now is National Presidential Polls; here's a flash Wall Street Journal, we don't elect Presidents in this manner so your poll is interesting but not relevant.

Marketing for a campaign is nothing like what you are doing today.  It never shuts off and you have so many factors that influence your results that it is difficult to apply the same old techniques.  If you think you are a hot shot marketer that wants to enter the space, tread carefully because as my old boss once said to me "we ain't selling phone service here, Eric".

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2007-12-21

• TechCrunch Tech President Primaries
  (tags: techcrunch politics)
• Marc Ambinder (December 20, 2007) - AtlantiCam: McCain's Architect
  for a blog post
  (tags: mccain politics)

links for 2007-12-20

• Official Google Blog: Better flight stats results
  (tags: google search airline flight)

Google Gets FTC Thumbs Up on Deal to Acquire DoubleClick

The Wall Street Journal today reported that the FTC Clears Google-DoubleClick Deal putting a fork in Microsoft's and AT&T's plans for stopping the deal.  Their claims of it being anti-competitive were ludicrous and from impacting consumer privacy, that was a red herring too.  The deal itself does none of those and as I wrote before, it solves a lot of problems.  Here's why...

• From a privacy perspective if you were already worried about it, it really doesn't cause extra pressure.  DoubleClick has been tracking you FOR YEARS, just look at your cookies.
• All those free things you signed up with at Google because they are cool?  Well, you "paid" for access to those with giving up a piece of your privacy.  Putting it together doesn't impact you that much more, because with Google AdSense, Google sees you on about 74% of the internet anyway.  That's more than enough data to build profiles on you.
• While Google is an up and coming competitor and modeler of click stream and web surfing behavior, I personally believe that Yahoo is the market leader in building profiles.  They have been crunching terabytes of data for years.  Based on my own experience they are the best at building response and cloning models, beaconing users, re-marketing, and building behavioral models.  Plus, they just adding Blue Lithium
• Speaking of Behavioral Targeting, where do you think companies like Tacoda (now owned by AOL) and RevenueScience get their data from?
• Finally, I think Microsoft having access to the data they receive from Atlas scares me more than Google and DoubleClick.  Microsoft has access to millions and millions of PCs and Laptops worldwide with countless personal information, files, pictures and that worries me more than some anonymous cookies.

Being anti-competitive is really even funnier.  The ad serving business has hit rock bottom when it comes to prices and differentiation.  Personally, I've canceled 2 deals with DoubleClick over the years mostly due to poor customer service.  DoubleClick is still around as is Atlas so there are plenty of choices.  Microsoft's argument probably assumes that putting an AdWords campaign with a DoubleClick banner buy makes it too convenient for advertisers.  Sadly they are correct. 

Google has a ton of business because a) their search is perceived to be better than MSN b) Microsoft watched Google grow up and ignored the internet c) Google makes it too easy for advertisers to use them d) they provide good prices and free tracking.  Google shouldn't be penalized for providing a better service when there are plenty of choices out there; plus they'll have their work ahead of them whipping the DoubleClick team into shape.

The deal helps advertisers by integrating platforms and doesn't add to consumer privacy woes.  I'm going to stick with Atlas for a while and may give DoubleClick a look when I start seeing them integrated more with Google.  The FTC made the right choice....

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2007-12-19

• Union Leader - Romney's migration: He shouldn't need to lie - Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2007
  (tags: politics romney)

links for 2007-12-18

• The Early Word: McCain Rides a Surge - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog
  The surge continues
  (tags: mccain)
• Second Life Capitol Reflecting Pool Freezes - Now Open for Ice Skating | Clear Night Sky
  Nicely done Steve
  (tags: secondlife)

Google's AdWords Editor Starting to Annoy Me - No Video Ads

Google's AdWords Editor is a must have tool for anyone that is serious about running a Google search campaign.  You can setup campaigns, optimize (using data through yesterday), create text ads, set budget and targeting, and best of all:  copy and paste between campaigns and accounts.  The copy and paste is really, really a time saver.  You can copy everything including text ads, keywords, and banner ads.  The only things I don't user AdWords editor for is building out keywords, looking at "today's" data, uploading display ads, and video ads.

What you say?  No video ads?  Isn't that what Google wants us to use and promotes?  Yes.  You can't use AdWords Editor for anything to do with your video ads and that's what annoys me.  The video ad units in Google are a great  tool for any advertiser including the small ones.  You load up your commercials or ad units, create a front panel ("click here to watch video"), and you only get charged when the video is clicked through to another landing page or website, not for someone watching the video.

You'd think that Google would want to make it easier on using video, but sadly it doesn't yet.  I spoke with my Google Account Team and from what they were told, changing AdWords Editor to accommodate video units isn't on the near term horizon.  So where does that leave us?  Hand loading video units into individual ad groups which takes FOREVER.  One of my co-workers, Jackie, told me it took her 3 hours to load up a new video unit into just a few ad groups in one of our accounts.   And then, I couldn't use the AdWords Editor to set rotations of video and display ads because the video ads aren't even downloaded.  Right now using video takes a longgggg time in Google.

I'm worried that Google doesn't see long term value with their video product.  I can't find any other reason why they wouldn't make it easier for video advertisers.  I'm sure that if there were enough advertisers using their video product there would be more demand for updates to AdWords Editor, but sadly maybe I'm the only one that cares for it.  Perhaps this is the start of a grassroots effort to get Google to update AdWords Editor to include video; my luck I'll still be the only one complaining....

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Hulu.com Is For TV Viewers Like Me

My beta invite finally came through for Hulu.com and I'm really into it.  For the longest time, I really haven't been watching much prime time TV primarily because I didn't like sitting through bad shows, couldn't find the time to figure out what I should watch, and most of the time we watch shows that the entire family could watch.  By the time the munchkins were a sleep, I was well on my way to a DVD for a movie or World of Warcraft.  Now that is changing with Hulu.com.  Here's why I really like Hulu.com

1. The video quality is near TV like; no more grainy videos or sound that is slightly off because the person who recorded the show used a video camera a few feet from their TV.
2. I get full episodes and clips; again no more viewing shows in 10 minute increments
3. There are a lot of premium shows to catch including The Office, The Family Guy, 30 Rock, and many more included WKRP in Cincinnati. 
4. You can share, email, and make comments and while the community isn't as large as YouTube you have all of the tools there for your social networking habit.
5. Did I mention WKRP and a young Loni Anderson?
6. I can watch the TV shows any time I want and any where I am as long as I have access to a laptop or PC.  I haven't tried watching anything on my Treo, but my guess is that I'll have the same trouble I always have when I watch video on Verizon's wireless network - it comes in but every 30 seconds or so the video buffers.
7. I don't need to buy TV shows on DVD to catch up; I still have the Sopranos on my holiday list, but that show is a little special.

Right now, Hulu.com is not bombarded with ads - sure every 5 minutes or so there is a 15 second inserted into the show, but it didn't annoy me, just seeing the same advertiser over and over again (Intel) was annoying.  The site isn't loaded with banner or search ads either so it is nice and clean.

Sure Hulu.com doesn't have the community that YouTube has and it certainly doesn't have user generated content.  However, for me, I like watching professional clips more so than user generated ones and if I want consumer content I know where to go - YouTube.  Hulu differentiates itself from all of the other video sites on the internet with what they all desire - professional, copyrighted material.  I doubt Hulu will eat much into YouTube's viewership, but it sure will help hasten the migration of watching professional shows from the big tube to the little screen.  Plus, I wonder how this impacts copyright lawsuits in progress.  Anyway, nicely done Hulu.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Hoping for A Buttzville NJ Stamp on Christmas Cards

On Friday at lunch time we took a ride to the Buttzville NJ post office in the hopes of having our Christmas cards stamped from there.  The ride took about 20 minutes and of course we stopped at Hot Dog Johnny's for lunch afterwards:  6 hot dogs with toppings, 3 fries, black and white milkshake, sprite, birch beer in a frosted glass mug, and tax came to $17.  We had high hopes  for the stamp until just after filming we saw a giant USPS truck pull up; he didn't empty the mail box so there still is an outside shot for such a marquee post office stamp.

If you were one of the lucky 55 in the pile let me know if you got a stamp; I'm sure it will add to your holiday cheer if it said something else other than "North Jersey".  Here's hoping a little local diversity survives the US Postal Services.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

More Smoke and Mirrors from MySpace on Politics

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of MySpace.  I haven't been from the very beginning.  I believe it is the 2010 version of Geo Cities and that the only advertisers that really shown any results are online dating, soft porn, and entertainment.  Those types of advertisers are fine when you are starting out, but to never grow beyond that it is pathetic.  The CPMs you can get there still cost you less than buying a gum ball at your local diner.  That's right for 25 cents you too can have a banner ad run in the "great" MySpace 1000 times.  I don't really see any significant results that have made me approach them for a deal, let alone in politics.

Of course that won't stop them from trying to get a share of the political advertising budget which of course is expected to be huge.  Webware has a summary of a recent survey that MySpace is releasing to try and make their case.  You should not be fooled into thinking this is a fertile ground for you political marketers.  Here are some highlights from the post called MySpace touts early success with political initiatives:

• banner ads invited a selection of users to participate, meaning that in order to even notice the invitation to participate (MY NOTE: SELECTION BIAS)
• the MySpace user in question would have to proactively click through (MY NOTE: MORE BIAS)
• Responses showed that MySpace users are 139 percent more likely than the population at large "to have visited an online chat room with public officials or political candidates in the last 30 days," according to a release (MY NOTE: THAT'S THE BIAS IN ACTION)
• They were also 29 percent more likely to have searched online for political information the day before the poll was taken, and 16 percent more likely to have read news online. (MY NOTE: THAT'S THE BIAS IN ACTION)
• It's convenient news for MySpace, which has been branding itself as a new-media political hub with its series of candidate dialogues co-sponsored by MTV, and a mock primary scheduled for the beginning of January (MY NOTE:  MORE THAN JUST A CONVENIENCE)

Ok, so let me give you some inside baseball on surveys online.  MySpace runs a survey using a pop-up banner and for a user to participate in the poll they need to click on that banner.  Hmmm, let me tell you that I've participated in similar online surveys, but the big difference was they were conducted as control-exposed to the ad experiments.  Those survey ads typically get a click thru rate of less than 0.01% and when I've run them they were run on reputable sites, not a Geo City clone where click rates for real ads hover just slightly above 0.01%.

What does this mean?  Well for someone to participate in the survey they already have to be pre-disposed to seeing banner ads, seeing political ads and then be willing to take a poll.  These types of people would of course be VERY INTERESTED IN POLITICS.  So of course the numbers look great.  This type of data is self serving for someone in the advertising business.  All it is really trying to do is make it easier on their sales force to sell through to politics.  Usually these ideas get cooked up by a sales team to make their lives better.  The conversation goes like this behind the scenes.

BIG VP OF SALES: Wow Ace Sales Man, I just read a report that says political ad spending is going to approach a Googol Dollars by November 2008.  If we can get 1% of those sales we can make our end of year goal.

ACE SALES MAN:  Ok that sounds great, who do you want to work on this.

BIG VP OF SALES::  Well of course you!  You are my top sales person so we'll make you Head of Political Sales.  How does that sound?

ACE SALES MAN::  Well what about my big client, who gets that?

BIG VP OF SALES:  We'll give it to Molly, she can handle it.  Think of how rich you'll be.  This will be an easy sale for you because we have a huge audience.

ACE SALES MAN: OK, well do you know anyone in politics?

BIG VP OF SALES:  My neighbor is running for the Planning Board in my home town, I'm sure he knows somebody in Mr and Mrs President Campaign.  Better yet, we'll make them come to us because we have such an awesome, engaged audience.  Let's throw a survey together and build this new web page that the candidates will be beating our doors down to advertise on...

The problem with a self-serving survey like this is that it is almost insulting to the community of e-Campaign directors and media consultants (like me).  While some campaigns (obviously not McCain or any clients that work with us) might be playing a little catch up on the internet that doesn't mean they can be fooled with survey data.  Here's a hint MySpace, Political campaigns know more about polling and survey data than you do.

If you have a product that goes well with the content in MySpace, then by all means go for it.  If you are a political campaign and you have a reason to advertise in there, then ummm, email me so we can talk unless of course you are one of the other Presidential campaigns and then spend, spend away in MySpace.  Social networks work best as a CRM tool and not so well for acquisition unless you have R-rated ads.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2007-12-13

• Clemens, Tejada, Pettitte Named In Mitchell's MLB Steroids Report - WSJ.com
  Pettitte - shows you what being a Clemens friend really means
  (tags: baseball)

links for 2007-12-12

• Top 10 Websites - 50 Top 10 Lists of 2007 - TIME
  (tags: funny)
• Status Quo: Romney lead holds in NH, many still undecided - Jonathan Martin's Blog - Politico.com
  (tags: mccain polling)

links for 2007-12-11

• Analysis: How McCain Could Still Win
  Outlines the perfect storm
  (tags: mccain politics)
• Volunteer for John McCain 2008 – McCain Online Volunteering Guide
  Nice site and love the blog comment feed. Nicely done.
  (tags: mccain politics)
• Summary of Findings: Iowa, NH Voters Heavily Courted, Dems Have Edge in Personal Contact
  (tags: politics research)
• TV 2 Goaften - Bruce Springsteen interview
  Nice danish interview
  (tags: springsteen)

Loving Google's New Geo Targeting Capabilities

Just saw this article posted over at the Inside AdWords Blog called New options and new look for location targeting and I have to say I am mighty impressed.  As you can imagine spending some time in the political advertising world, you really need to come up with local targeting techniques and now Google made the options a little better and jazzed up the interface.  For the life of me I don't get why some political campaigns run ads outside their geo-target.  Ryan and I at Connell Donatelli often talk about where a campaign should run and pretty much now in 2007/2008 if you have a Senate Race your are probably running it national, but House and Governor races you are probably running at the state level.  General rules of thumb and not absolutes; plus the House races you are going to a district level.  Well Google just made it easier for you congressional district targeting folks.   Here's what Google allows you to do now:

1. You can use their newly designed platform to search for your region or target
2. Browse through locations by drilling down country, state, MSA, city
3. Bundles that they made (more on that in a second)
4. Create custom targets by drawing on a map or loading in zipcodes

So let's say you want to work on a search campaign for Rodney Frelinghuysen out of NJ District 11.  You could use Google to load in zip codes but then again the minimum radius you can choose is 10 miles.  That's not bad, but maybe you want to be more accurate.  You can try drawing District 11 in Google's Map and get as close as you can.

As you can see from my screen shots below I don't think I did half bad trying to get close to the actual district and it took me 2 minutes to draw it out.  If you really wanted to nail it, you could zoom in even more with Google and try and really match the lines.  It is definitely a useful tool and one that helps you out immensely if you are in politics, local marketing, or just about anything that needs to get specific geo-customers.

The other search engines like Yahoo and MSN don't have a tool like this today and in fact, one of the annoying things about Yahoo is that they opt you into North American targeting and then you need to go in a remove Canada.  Anyway Google's new geo-targeting tools is definitely cutting edge; I haven't tested loading in a ton of zip codes so I'm not sure if Google has a max setting, but we have just the client to test it out on (and no it is not John McCain for President who BTW - will win New Hampshire).  I'm also not sure how useful the bundles will be, but then I'm splitting hairs.  Google once again shows why they are every advertiser's and especially the small advertiser's best friend...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2007-12-10

• How will HD Radio fare in 2008? - GigaOM
  (tags: radio)
• Global Forex Trading :: Leaders in Online Currency Trading
  (tags: finance)

CMO's Fail Because The Rest of the CXO's Don't Respect the M

I just read this article in the December 10th edition of Business Week called "The Short Life of the Chief Marketing Officer" and it really fired me up; it fired me up so much that I'm writing a second post tonight.  Personally I think it was a hatchet job on the CMOs with tidbits like these:

• CMOs last 26 months on average in a job versus 44 months for CEOs (personally I think it is an apples and oranges comparison; CEOs are picked by the board and often the CMO is picked by the CEO)
• New media options are "bewildering"
• CMOs are second guessed and have people looking over their shoulders
• It is a fuzzy assignment (what isn't these days)
• On the heals of former Cingular CMO Marc Lefar talking about  how he needed to get his head around "a geeky marketing tool" called SEO (un-friggin-believable), he was quoted saying "the average 45 year-old chief marketing officer cannot possibly figure out what's cool"

It paints a horrifying picture of the state of CMOs; regrettably I can't find it online for you to read.  However, it neglected one important aspect of the CMO that I've seen make the strongest ones crack.  It is the micro-manager CEO/Chairman that thinks they understand marketing because they read a book, founded a company, or watched Donny Deutsch's The Big Idea (BTW - not a shot on Deutsch or the show which I enjoy).  Here are sure signs if your CEO/Chairman/Founder is a micro managing wanna be CMO:

• Demands that you run useless news paper ads especially in papers that are just good for their ego (ex - The Wall Street Journal)
• Believes marketing is brochure ware
• Won't let you hire a copy writer and insists you do it yourself
• Keeps laying off your staff and has some "wiz kid" in operations/execution write your ads
• Wants you to take creative direction from the head sales guy because he knows what they need in the field
• Insists on proof reading your ads and then offers to re-write your copy or change colors
• Wants to be part of the decision making process in picking your agency or said another way, wants to pick the agency but doesn't respect the process
• Forwards you SPAM solicitation emails about how to get high rankings in search
• Assuming they know something about search, writes your text ads or refuses to let you have landing pages
• Takes sales calls for websites, newspapers, and TV but neglects to include you in the discussion
• Goes around your back to your subordinates to make your life miserable

I could go on and on, but you get the picture.  I'm not saying the CMO is perfect and lord knows if you don't understand SEO you probably shouldn't be a CMO any more.  I hate to write it, but if you are one of these TV and Newspaper first kind of CMO's then I hope you are marketing a product that skews way older or towards non-internet savvy customers.  Otherwise, your days in the CMO chair are over. 

The article makes it seem like blogs, social networking, YouTube are scary things, but how about just plain online advertising which is proven to deliver results through the years.  Why do you think Financial Services Companies pay like $8-$10 million per year for the Yahoo Quotes Results package?  If you aren't advertising online then you couldn't spell ROI if someone spotted you the "R" and the "O".

From what I've seen during my 18 years of marketing, CMOs and other Senior Marketing Execs fails because of

1. micro-managing CEO or founder
2. market forces which the CXO team failed to recognize and the CMO takes it on the chin
3. an over zealous sales exec who doesn't get his way
4. loses a beauty contest to peers or some up and coming manager
5. The CEO changes the direction of the firm
6. Doesn't know a thing about the internet (mentioned in the BW article)

Enough of this rant...PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Wyckoff's Tree Farm - Still The Best Place To Cut Down Your Christmas Tree

(2009 Updated post including another letter from John Wycoff can be found here)

The other day I made one of my favorite posts type - Old School Facelifts.  They are one of my favorites because it usually involves some of my recent experiences in NJ coupled with a new way of advertising for them.  I also always get a lot of positive feedback and often hear from one of the folks that runs the company I profile.  Last week's post chronicled our recent annual tree cutting experience out in Belvidere, NJ with stops at Wyckoff's Tree Farm, Mackey's Orchard with Papa Goes Nuts outside, and of course Hot Dog Johnny's.  One of the other reasons for these posts is to help out these folks with some good search results and I'm happy to report it actually worked for Papa's Gone Nuts.  Up until that post Papa had no search results and today as you can see there are 7 results with mine up at the top.  Ok, so search works, but what does that have to do with today's post?

Well a few days after that post I received a comment in my best post link (some reason doesn't seem to be working) from John C. Wyckoff who also left a post over at Marketing Prof's.  The comment reprinted below almost brought a tear to my eye, but I'm way too manly for that :-).  Here's the comment which I thought you'd enjoy:

Dear Eric,
Your posting from December 4, 2006 regarding our farm, Wyckoff's Christmas Tree Farm, was just brought to my attention today. First and foremost I would like to say "Thank You" to you and your wife Mary for being such faithful customers of our Family Operated Christmas Tree farm. Families, such as your own, help keep the small family farmer in operation.

Regretfully, you are correct, my father was diagnosed in 1995 with Lymphoma. Yes, he is doing fine. Now, the "Big Picture"... during the treatment process for the Lymphoma, trees were not planted as the direction of the farm was in question. Annual planting once again resumed in 1999, the trees looked great, until...drought struck during the summer months. The entire planting was lost. Now, you get the picture as it takes eight to ten years to grow a harvestable Christmas Tree.

I am glad to say however, we have planted every spring since and are on our way back to having, as you put it, "Mountains of Trees to Choose From". We currently have 35,000 trees in production and are planting more come spring. We have been rationing the "cut your own" trees and supplementing with quality, fresh cut trees. We are working hard to maintain the experience for our dedicated customers such as yourself. Eric, if you or any of your readers are ever in the area, or perhaps before this Christmas, please look me up. I would like to give you a tour of the farm and show the "Mountains of Trees" that once again are growing in our fields.

"Thank You" to the faithful customers who have stood by us through this difficult time. The farm has been in our family since 1839 and we hope to continue for at least another 168 years...

Wow, that comment was awesome which was why I wanted you to read it.    Yes we went back this year and yes you can cut down some great trees and I was told next year we can go on top of their hill to get some trees from there too.  Going up their hill was always a special thrill for Mary and I; the kids never made it.  Anyway, here's a picture (I was too lazy to scan it) from our first visit there in 1990 with the mountains of trees.

We pass several tree farms on our way up to Wyckoff's and I'm sure they are all fine; we even have a few in Long Valley, but when a place delivers year after year for you and has brought such good memories, why not keep going there?  Wyckoff's delivers a great tree cutting experience and when you couple it with the rest that the area has to offer, cutting down trees at Wyckoff's is a great family tradition.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2007-12-08

• McCain's New Hampshire Glimmer - WSJ.com
  The surge continues
  (tags: mccain politics)
• Parole officials: Huckabee pushed rapist's release - Los Angeles Times
  Bad news starts pouring in when you look like a viable candidate.
  (tags: huckabee politics)

links for 2007-12-07

• McCain in ‘08. « 38 Pitches
  Curt Schilling pitches in. Maybe he will have some magic for me this time instead of breaking my heart on two world series wins for the Yanks.
  (tags: mccain politics)

links for 2007-12-06

• Defense wins all but one Alterac Valley node - WOW Insider
  (tags: wow)

WSJ Ad Editors Let Deceptive Ballistic Rolls Coin Ad Run

I was flipping through today's paper edition of the Wall Street Journal specifically looking for the McCain article on how well he did on the MTV/MySpace debate from the other day when I stumbled across this shocking ad from these apparent shady characters at the Ballistic Rolls company which redirects to the World Reserve Monetary Exchange.  Now before I hammer these people, the kind that I can't stand let me tell you why I'm so upset with the Journal.

Back towards the end of our run at Harrisdirect we were running print, TV, and online ads for our new advertising campaign.  Much to my chagrin, I wasn't able to prevent the print from running and got myself kicked out of a meeting or two.  After I calmed down, they let me participate again just in time for the Wall Street Journal's ad editorial review to reject one of our print ads for language we used.  Not that the ad was misleading, but they didn't like the use of one of our words, so we had to redo the ad.  However, it was NOTHING compared with these totally misleading ads from Ballistic Rolls aka the World Reserve Monetary Exchange.

You see the Wall Street Journal let through an ad that promotes how you can get your FREE COINS!  FREE COINS in nice big print so even a partially blind person could read it.  However, in order to get your free counts you must cover the $98 vault release fee.  Wow some free offer.  I can't believe they got away with running this ad, let alone trying to promote them as government coins.  Of course they have this great fine print which I typed in by hand to see how awful this "promotion" is:  THE INCREASE IN COLLECTIBLE VALUE OF CERTAIN PRIOR ISSES OF U.S. COUNTS AND CURRENCY DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT CURRENT ISSUES WILL ALSO INCREASE IN VALUE.  THE WORLD RESERVE MONETARY EXCHANGE IS NOT AFFILIATE WITH THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT OR ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCY.  OH RESIDENTS PLEASE ADD SIX PERCENT SALES TAX AND SORRY NO SHIPMENTS TO MA AND VT RESIDENTS.  ALL TRANSACTIONS LESS SHIPPING ARE BACKED BY THE WORLD RESERVE MONETARY EXCHANGE WITH A MONEY BACK GUARANTEE OF THE PURCHASE PRICE UP TO $10,000.

As you can see from that second photo the coins are "free" so it appears to any person that the World Reserve Monetary Exchange is giving you a money back guarantee of a "free" purchase price.  I personally doubt that the $98 vault release fee would be returned.  Clearly the coins are NOT FREE because you need to PAY the $98 vault release fee and then if you aren't satisfied you get nothing back in return, right?  Oh, when I went to www.ballisticrolls.com and put in the claim authorization code shown in the ad SR1949 I got "The access code you have entered is invalid" and if you continue on without a code there is NO MENTION of this "offer" on their website.

Isn't this the type of ad scam that should have never slipped through the WSJ's ad review process?  Perhaps they got rid of that, but this kind of ad should not be in the marketplace.  I wonder what the FTC would say about this?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2007-12-05

• Boy attacked by moose "feigns death," thanks WoW - WOW Insider
  (tags: funny)

Old School Facelift #5 - Papa's Gone Nuts

So as some of you long time readers know the family and I make our annual trek to Belvidere NJ to cut down our Xmas tree at Wycoff's tree farm (BTW - unlike the older post the tree farm is back better than ever).  We stopped going to the GroRite farm because they still haven't reopened the beautiful Poinsettia farm, but we did go to our favorite hot dog stand Hot Dog Johnny's in Buttzville NJ or as I've been telling my wife, the place we will be mailing our holiday cards from this year.  Side note - if you do go to Hot Dog Johnny's do not and I repeat DO NOT order your hot dogs with anything but mustard, onion, pickles, or relish.  Anyway, we also went to Mackey's Orchard where we get their delicious apple cider, their awesome home made pies made by a little old lady every morning at 3AM, and their great tasting cider donuts.

When we pulled into Mackey's parking lot there was a man sitting under a tent with a nice setup of roasted nuts.  Since we've been going to Mackey's for like 13 years we were curious and walked up.  The sign under his tent read Papa's Gone Nuts LLC and he allowed tasting of his roasted almonds, pecans, and walnuts.  I have to tell you - they were awesome and we bought quite a number of bags.  The nuts are coated  - no wrapped by sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and other ingredients so you get your sugar fix as well as protein fix.  Papa told me he lived across the street so I asked him if he had a website and he said '"no".  So, in honor of Papa's nuts (hmmmm)

OLD SCHOOL FACELIFT #5 -Papa's Gone Nuts

1. Papa you need a website.  You can't rely on your customers to show up at Mackey's; that's fine to start but you are limiting yourself especially on repeat business. Papa, you also need eCommerce and for that you need Google Checkout; but, more on that in a second.  The website doesn't have to be flashy, heck the folks at Mackey's have a home grown one.  You should too.
2. Go Google for Your Small Business Needs - As you can see from the Checkout link, you get the following benefits: If you're an AdWords advertiser, you will also be eligible for free credit card processing for some or all of your Google Checkout sales.  You also get a cute little icon for your search campaigns - see this screen shot from a search in Google on roasted nuts, NJ.  That little icon is golden for your search campaigns.
3. Search ads - I know you are not selling expensive products but clearly there is some business for you in search, otherwise you wouldn't have all of those ads.  I'd recommend something small like $5 per day for Google and then the same amount for Yahoo.  Think of that as advertising.  You should also setup two identical groups - one for local NJ for in-person sales and one for national for internet sales.
4. You, Mackey's, Wycoff's Tree Farm, and Hot Dog Johnny's ought to get together and provide links to each other's sites, including comments or articles.  That way you can get some inbound links for each other to help with natural search results.
5. Finally, I'd normally recommend some blogs, but you probably don't have time to blog and besides, not sure how much content you can generate on roasting nuts; however, the four of you together from #4 above could have a great blog to send traffic into each other.  Anyway, besides that I'd turn to Facebook and Myspace to see if you can generate enough nutty friends.  You could have a lot of fun in there and you might actually generate some sales.  BTW - come to think of it, the blog idea from above isn't all that bad.

Well that's enough for Papa's Gone Nuts and besides I need to seal up this bag before I finish it.  If you want a great treat this year for yourself or just a nutty lover, give Papa a call and order some nice stocking stuffers.  You can call Papa at 908-475-8132 and send your order in.  Trust me, you or your giftee won't regret those nuts.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

BTW - on a side note, as I make this post there are no search results for "Papa's Gone Nuts".  I wonder how long till this post shows up in Google (11:31 PM my post showed up).

links for 2007-12-04

• AZAMATTEROFACT: Rudy Numbers versus Real Numbers
  (tags: politics rudy)
• McCain is in on the joke - Jonathan Martin's Blog - Politico.com
  For a post on managing your career?
  (tags: politics mccain)
• Townhall.com::Blog
  527s start the attack
  (tags: politics clinton)

links for 2007-12-03

• Company Directory | Dunder Mifflin Infinity | An Online Division of Dunder Mifflin, Inc. Paper Company
  Perhaps for a future post
  (tags: funny blog)
• Morning Quick Hits | Redstate
  Interesting
  (tags: politics nj)
• Emergency Petition Campaign for Cable Choice
  For a future post?
  (tags: advertising)
• YouTube Continues to Lead U.S. Online Video Market with 28 Percent Market Share, According to comScore Video Metrix
  (tags: statistics internet video)

LowerMyBill Ads - Still The Worst Ads Ever

I really really can't stand LowerMyBills.com's online advertising creative.  They are so awful and unimaginative that they reduce the standards of ads that on a good day 99% of the people ignore.  So it isn't bad enough that their original exceptionally horrible dancing shadow ads were routinely ridiculed with searches in Google and then they followed up that classic ad with truly insensitive ads proclaiming housing payments falling as people started to lose their homes, but now they resurrect dancing ads without benefit of a frequency cap.

Yes every day I log into my Yahoo Instant Messenger (preferred over my AIM account) and unlike AOL which redirects my web browser to an AIM page (helping AOL's pageviews and time spent online, no doubt), Yahoo serves a pop-up called Inside Yahoo!.  Inside Yahoo! has nice tips and of course a standard 300x250 ad unit which the marketing geniuses at Lowermybills.com have commandeered.  So, what do these marketing cretins do?  They load up that space with ads and for the past 2 weeks or so keep serving the same crappy ad over and over again.  The ad unit is flash and when you hover over it (of course by accident only) you can control the dancing ladies.  Of course the women, if you can get over the poor quality, are scantily clad and dance like drunken strippers found in the worst sections of Staten Island. 

Look marketing folks at Lowermybills, please rotate in other ad units.  It is a simple process and any ad server can do it for you (I use Atlas).  Also, please read up on ad frequency if you haven't done so already.  Yahoo IM users login every day and sometimes more than once; this means that at least once per day they see the same crappy ad every day.  I know this ad unit is dirt cheap compared with other ads you might buy, but that's no excuse for not changing the creatives at least twice per month.

Besides that, I sure hope you are measuring your CPA and not just cost per click.  Personally I'd never click on one of these ads for fear that they'll be the only ones I see online for the next 30 days assuming you are smart enough to know about re-targeting. 

And, finally you know what really gets me about your "ads"?  The crappy creatives and low quality probably reach out to the exact same audience of homeowners that are seeing their homes foreclosed because of bad mortgages they picked up a few years ago.  Folks that thought that their adjustable rate mortgage could easily be refinanced when their homes continued to skyrocket in price, only to find out that the housing market bubble crashed and now their homes are worth less than they paid for it.  Why when I see your ads every morning that I think you are reaching out to this audience?  (I have no idea of course who their target is)

I really hope some of my friends at Yahoo ask them to remove the ads or rotate in new creatives.  Seriously, I know I'm not the only one who hates Lowermybills' online ads.  Yahoo, you are the only ones that can stop their insanity at least every two weeks.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Taking A Look A Negative Campaign Direct Mail Piece

Yes unlike one of my recent political posts, this one will focus on marketing even though this one stars the same subject from that other post.  As Jonathan Martin wrote in his blog last week, Romney drops first contract mail piece and it is quite a doozy.   Now before you jump over me, I'm really going to steer completely away of making comments on whether Romney's position has changed or not or what my personal view on the subject is.  What I'm going to focus on is why I think his direct mail piece is in poor taste from a marketing perspective.  Here's why:

1. Here's a copy of the direct mail piece which contrasts Romney's immigration views with McCain, Huckabee, Thompson, and Giuliani.  The contrasts go as far back as 1996.
2. Romney in an interview with National Review's Byron York says this in a responses to questions on pro-life and stem cell,  "I’m not sure what your question is,” Romney said, growing visibly irritated. “I changed my view. Is that so difficult to understand?”
3. As you can see from these two YouTube videos, one which is a TV ad showing Romney's changing pro-life stances since 1994 and and the other is the actual debate click going back to 1994 in case you wanted to see more for yourself and don't want to trust the ad.

Now again steering clear of the issue (can't get more politically charged than that one), this direct mail is in poor taste.  If a politician wants people to believe a view they had has changed, then why is it fair to go after other candidate's who may have had shifting views too?  Negative ads work and have been working in this country since the very beginning (probably excluding Washington's runs for President), but when someone wants to ask for people to understand they have shifting views, shouldn't the same courtesy be extended to others?  At least show a little decorum and focus on recent events instead of going back many many years.  How about just comparing why one candidate's plan for immigration differs from others?  Why not contrast the different plans or recent quotes?

I'm sure the game that is being played out is that the vast majority of people receiving that direct mail piece from the Romney campaign have not read the plea for understanding that was written in The National Review.  Negative campaigns and heavy hitting ads can be done right, but I just think a little integrity can be shown once in a while especially when one candidate wants some of the electorate to show a little understanding. 

So often the 2008 Republican candidates like to compare themselves to Ronald Reagan.  However, based on Romney's plea for forgiveness and follow-up contrast direct mail, he clearly violated Reagan's via Gaylord Parkinson (I think) 11th commandment "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."  We Republicans can do a lot better marketing than this.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2007-12-02

• eyeon08.com » Romney’s IA immigration piece and his strange cynicism
  Deceptive Tactics
  (tags: politics romney)
• Union Leader - NH Presidential Primary
  This is huge news
  (tags: mccain politics)