Harebrained Idea #2: Make Words from your Phone Number

Recently I went through the rigamarole of buying a cell phone for the first time. Yes, there was pain. But now I like my handy little connected toy.

In the sales process I had the opportunity to choose my phone number. The sales rep turned the screen on her terminal to show me the search function for the system and we scrolled through numbers looking for one that we thought would be easy to remember. We settled on the one I now have listed on my contact page: 604-788-1502. I like the phonetics and dialing pattern of it best. Then I thought a little more about it.

What if I could have seen some words that my phone number might have created. By using the letters on the keypad - a practice becoming more common all the time with increased usage of text messaging - almost every number spells something. A friend who I fish with used to have FISH as the last 4 digits of his phone number, which made it fantastically easy to remember anytime I needed to call him.

So how about buiding a software application that takes your phone number (or potential phone number, in my case when I was in the store choosing) and translates the numbers to letters, then runs those letters through a matching dictionary to produce a list of real-word results. In an ideal world those results would also be ranked for relevance, or popularity of the words or word combinations. Then when someone asks your number you have an expression to pass on instead of a semi-random string of numbers. (Semi-random because the area code and first three digits (NPA-NXX) are traditionally set by geography.)

So, any coders out there want to give it a shot? Or, tell me why I’m loony.

Dah! Someone’s already invented it: PhoneSpell!

How Steriod Use is like Search-Engine Spam

One of the hazards of working from a home office is receiving telephone marketing.

For instance, Jacob Krause from ReMax called today to tell me all about the hot real estate market in my (nameless) area. Except, he didn’t. I mean he didn’t call and he didn’t tell me anything. When I picked up the phone a recording of his voice played from an automatic phone dialler. Oh my this is crap, I thought to myself, except I probably didn’t think ‘crap’ and I probably didn’t put things so politely or succinctly.

But Jacob’s call piqued my curiosity. I did a Google search for ‘jacob remax vancouver’ and up came his website (link removed at Mr. Krause’s request) as the first and second listing. I had a quick look at the site and recognized the mode he was operating in. This was an extremely over-optimized website, a website built for discovery and indexing in search engines, a website built only secondarily for humans. From the domain name (vancouver-realestate-condo-and-home.com) to the, ahem, blog, the site is designed to game search engines, to trick them into listing the site highly for specific key search terms.

So? Who cares.

Well, I care. As someone who tries to help clients understand how they should conduct their web marketing, I care. This is the type of website that gives web marketing a bad reputation. The tactics employed by Jacob and/or his web marketeer are dishonest. They also make it harder for legitimate websites to compete. My two touchpoints with Jacob - the recorded voice message and his spammy website - both left me with a greasy taste in my mouth.

Competing against over-optimized websites is kind of like playing a professional sport where some of the athletes use steriods. They have a short-term positive impact by boosting their users’ performance. But overall, beyond the short-term boost, they hurt everyone. The users rationalize their use by saying things like ‘everyone else is doing it’ or ‘who can argue with the results.’ But people lose faith in the system, people can see through the dishonesty.

So, if you’re looking for a real estate agent to buy or sell a home in Vancouver, I advise against using Jacob Krause. I’m actively trying to discourage his marketing tactics. His use of them tells me that he does not respect people and he will do whatever it takes to achieve questionable results. Is that who you want to trust, advising you on your single largest investment?

It’s also likely, and here I’m just guessing, that since the real estate business is largely driven through word-of-mouth referrals, Jacob has to resort to grey-zone tactics (telemarketing spam, search engine spam) because he can’t generate business through word-of-mouth. But there I’m just speculating. Any real-world experiences out there say otherwise?

Living Rivers Trust Announced

Yesterday I attended the announcement of the Living Rivers Trust Fund, where BC Premier Gordon Campbell announced a tripling of the fund to $14-million. The story seems to have totally missed all local news outlets, with the except of the lamentable paywall at the Vancouver Sun, so here’s the story and some photos I took of the event.

The Fraser River Park played host to the event held on a day when wind gusts topped out at 80 km/h. The north arm of the Fraser River provided the backdrop to a podium and speakers. Whitecaps rolled along the river in great undulating waves. A throng of handlers, reporters and interested folks had formed when I arrived. The Premier arrived a few moments later with Dianne Ramage of the Pacific Salmon Foundation, both sporting rubber boots.

BC Environment Minister Barry Penner kicked off the speaking and said a few words before introducing the Premier. Gordon Campbell spoke well about the importance of rivers to BC, how they provide the lifeblood of our province, and how salmon are the key species for the health of both the people and land. He announced an increase in the funding of the Living Rivers Trust Fund to the tune of $14-million. (I expect a press release with the details of the funding will appear one day. When it does I’ll update this post.)

John Woodward, the Chair of Living Rivers Trust, followed the Premier. Then came George Hungerford, Chairman of Pacific Salmon Foundation and Patrick Reid, Chair of the Fraser Basin Council. All of them talked about what the announcement of more funds meant to the rivers of BC, how they had worked long and hard to achieve the recognition of the importance of rivers, and how the money would bolster conservation and rehabilitation efforts. Barry Penner wrapped up the event.

Everyone then followed the Premier and Dianne Ramage down a path along the riverbank. Bystanders stood on a raised wooden platform while a ceremonial tree was planted by the Premier, Minister Penner and Dianne Ramage. This was the photo opportunity and it felt surreal to see all the cameras focused on this singular event while so much more happened outside the focus of the event. An eagle flew overhead and landed in a tall fir tree.

The Premier did a few television interviews. People milled about and chatted. Gradually they dispersed. As I left I walked past reporters sitting in their cars, writing their stories on notepads and filling in the details they remembers. This, I thought, is how the news gets made.

Work Industries Testimonial #3: Omnicom Media

The Work Industries testimonials keep rolling in. First Alexandre Brabant of e-Marketing 101 let loose with some kind words. Then Jill Smith of Intrawest made me smile and tell people about her wonderful style.

The latest comes from Paul Jeszenszky, the Director, Search Strategies at Omnicom Group Digital (OMD).

I worked with Paul every day for about a year at Teligence Communications. We built e-marketing campaigns, websites, content and product positioning for their brands and kick started their lackluster web marketing efforts. Working with Paul was always a treat; he was very smart, capable and direct. He worked hard on the things that mattered for success. But now, this isn’t a testimonial about Paul, Dr. J.

On to the kindness! Paul says:

James has a broad understanding of online marketing and always manages to keep up with the quickly shifting marketplace trends. His insights, in my opinion, are especially strong in his understanding of the social aspects of the web and optimizing its usability for actual people.

In all instances where we have worked together, he has shown a determination for conceiving creative solutions and directing their implementation to completion.

He also knows the best fish & chips place in Vancouver.

Paul Jeszenszky
Director, Search Strategies
Omnicom Group Digital (OMD)

Contact me and we’ll talk - about the web or about fish and chips.

Canadian e-Commerce Grew 80 percent in 2005

Via Traffick, Statscan has announced that year-over-year Internet sales have grown by 80 percent from 2004 to 2005.

Retailers reported online sales of $5.4 billion in 2005, up 80% from $3 billion in 2004, according to the report. Retail sales accounted for 14% of total online sales of $39.2 billion in Canada last year. That compares with 10.6% of total online sales of $28.3 billion in 2004.

The percentage of retailers with web sites rose to 42% in 2005, up 10.5% from 38% in 2004. Overall, 38% of private retailers reported having a web site last year, up from 37% in 2004, according to Statistics Canada.

Here at Work Industries, we’re tickled to hear StatsCan validate what we’ve known for years: the web works as a direct sales channel for Canadian retailers. Canadians have some of the highest adoption of the Internet anywhere in the world and they’re starting to use it in increasing numbers and increasing volume to do their shopping.

What the retail numbers don’t account for is the huge volume of purchases made where the web plays a key roles in influencing and facilitating the sale.

A friend of mine is searching for a used car right now. I’ve shown her how to use the web to notify her of cars for sale that meet her criteria, the right model, model year, geographic location, even colour. Now matches are delivered to her and she can see the tons of cars available out there for sale that meet her criteria, along with the asking price. She can check the service record of that make, model and year. What do people say about their experience owning it? Now she knows her marketplace much better. She’s more confident. She’s increased her chances of getting the right car for the right price.

I bought a pair of eco friendly shoes this week. I had been meaning to buy a new pair of shoes but hadn’t seen the right pair. I wanted to make a good, natural-world friendly purchase and would have never known about the shoes I ended up buying (on sale to boot!) without the web.

So what can your business do to capitalize on shoppers using the web in their purchase process? Here’s some starting thoughts:

• Do you have a website? Is it well-constructed, easy to use and easy to find? Does it appeal to your clients?
• Does your website have a purpose that’s clearly articulated, with specific goals and performance indicators?
• Do you track your website performance on a regular basis? Do you use the information from your performance indicators to make decisions on the tactics you use?
• Do you know your market beyond the boundaries of your own website?
• Are you engaged in the online conversation that’s going on out there on the web?
• Do you know what your clients know and don’t know about you, your products and your company?

If you answered ‘no’ to any of the questions above, we should talk. Contact us. Leave a comment and we’ll contact you. Learning is the first step to doing. If an 80 percent increase in sales is any indicator, this Internet thing isn’t going away any time soon.

The Economist Discovers Peer-Produced Media

A friend and I have an ongoing discussion about technology and change. It goes like this: change opportunities in the organization she works for only really exist once The Economist writes about them. Before that, as far as her boss is concerned, nothing noteworthy has happened. From my experience, this kind of follow-the-established-follower mentality pervades many organizations. So I want to let you know that you (yes, all of you out there with tremendous frustration at not being able to sell your innovative ideas internally without some random external article) are not alone.

The best stories I get from my friend (because they provoke the most outrage in her) are when she tells me about her boss bringing copies of The Economist to her desk to show her articles. Topics like podcasting, blogs and wikipedia have recently appeared in The Economist, and dutifully, they have then appeared in her boss’ outstretched hand at the corner of her desk.

‘Look at this,’ he’ll say (as my paraphrase of her paraphrase). ‘Isn’t this interesting. Do you know about this? We should think about doing this.’ Then he’ll dawdle off to take a conference call, completely missing the fact, my friend assures me, that she had sent him an article on the exact same subject 6 to 10 months prior. A week later the boss will knock at her desk again to inquire how the new, new thing he’d pointed out was coming along.

At this point in her story my friend will make choking noise, squeals of derision and, if in dire straights, will violently shake her hands. I love it. This is the source of Dilbert resonance. I ask her to tell me more. I snort in agreement. I provoke her by calling to her attention the indifference with which her boss received the aforementioned article, 6 to 10 months prior. She indulges me and raises her rancour another level. It eats away at her like an unfilled cavity in a sensitive molar.

This story comes to mind because today I was pointed to an article in The Economist about new media entitled Among the Audience. The article introduces a broad survey that ropes in some of the bright lights of the current web vogueness. Its topic?

The era of mass media is giving way to one of personal and participatory media… that will profoundly change both the media industry and society as a whole.

Interesting and well written. I recommend it. Andreas Kluth does a nice job of laying the current cultural effects of digital technologies into a common and simple historical context, from Gutenberg’s movable type to MovableType, the blogging software. There’s also someone calling a big, brand-name media honcho an ‘ignoramus!’ which is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Unfortunately, most of the components of the survey require me to sign up as an Economist subscriber to read, so I’ll never know what it says. Audio files from some of the luminaries are also available, to anyone, though I have not listened to them.

I guess I should go warn my friend that her boss is due to come knocking.

Advertising’s Current Growing Pains

This past week I’ve come across some very good thinking and writing on the current state of the advertising business. It’s heartening to see, since so much of the current practice of advertising is simple tricks and tactics, hamfistedly imported from existing media. I’m thinking here of people talking about email as if it were just electric version of direct mail, of Google partnering with Sony to show The DaVinci Code banners and a million other forgetable efforts to get people to buy stuff.

The first article I’ll point to comes from Ron Bloom writing on the iMedia Connection website. Bloom’s article, Advertising 2.0: One brand, many voices does a great job of describing how the rise of ‘consumer-generated content’ totally shifts the rules of the game for advertising. The article is written for those in the advertising industry, hence the mealy term, ‘consumer-generated content,’ but let’s overlook that and get to the guts of the argument.

User-generated content and social networks are the modern media phrases du jour. As an executive with business line and brand responsibility, why should you care? Is this a fad? What is really happening here? Well, let me make a few predictions:

• 1. We are in the midst of a Big Shift: within five years, over 50 percent of the media consumed will be created by other consumers
• 2. This entire movement will not be driven by technology, but rather by consumer demand
• 3. The nature of the content that people will consume will change dramatically
• 4. Advertising and marketing as we know it will have to change dramatically as well in order to succeed in this new media world

...

With the advent of pervasive broadband and inexpensive tools, users are now making their own content from bits and bytes scattered across the net. Much of this content originally came from traditional media channels, and the media has done everything that they can to limit that access and control that flow. Well, the audience has turned elsewhere, and are discovering that they can make equally appealing entertainment by mixing their own content with others’.

Today, audiences are deserting traditional media channels for the new media frontier. They are not doing it for the technology, which is barely functional at best. They are doing it for the fresh appeal of this new form of content, the new arena of entertainment and a new community of relationships. The real question you may want to ask is, what should brands do to succeed in a world where they can not control their image or their voice?

The second article comes from the eloquent and always interesting Douglas Rushkoff. Rushkoff focuses on TV advertising and makes some timely arguments about what he sees coming: TV after advertising.

Next month at an annual media and marketing bluff session known as the “upfronts,” TV executives will once again try to sell thirty-second spots of their airtime to advertisers for even more ludicrous sums than last year. Amazing, all concerned are remaining remarkably sanguine in the face of growing evidence that TV ads just don’t (and maybe never did) what they’re supposed to.

...

... as Marshall McLuhan taught us, the medium really is the message. TV sells TV, Paris Hilton sells Paris Hilton, and sneakers sell sneakers. TV’s liberation from advertisers shouldn’t have sent brands running to find a new unrelated medium on which to promote themselves; their panicked migration to the Internet, cell phones, or movie product placements only bespeaks a lack of faith in the selling power of the products, themselves.

These days, consumer goods are their own best media. Just as the Starbucks coffee cup and cafe experience sells more coffee than any TV or billboard advertising campaign, the shape of a automobile chassis or placement of its cupholders sells more cars than all that indistinguishable footage of cars taking turns on desert lakebeds. Great products are their own billboards, and satisfied customers (not to mention passionate employees) are their best spokespeople.

The “word of mouth” that today’s hippest marketers covet - whether they call it viral marketing or cult branding - only really happens when people actually like a product enough to share their experiences with other people. And we consumers don’t do this because we care so much about the brand we’re promoting. We do it because our recommendation earns us a certain kind of respect from our friends - our expertise is a form of “social currency.”

Being involved in a number of the movements online that are currently shifting the ground of advertising - web marketing, including advertising, and web community building, in particular -, the staff here at Work Industries take a keen interest in any article that cuts through the buzzword clutter of writing about advertising.

Okay, using the human voice: I, James, take a keen interest in the thinking and conversations going on out there in media and technology and advertising. I love that these changes are happening, I want to be part of them, and, to let you in on a secret, in the next few days I’ll be softly launching a Work Industries Harebrained Idea ^TM called AdHack that fits perfectly with the big shift in advertising. Stay tuned!