Marketing Thoughts by Domus, Inc.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations just relased its numbers for the circulations of the top 25 newspapers in the U.S. Every paper except the Wall Street Journal had a decrease. The WSJ had a very minor increase, but that's still significant compared to double-digit decreases of many of the others. Moreover, the WSJ's increase combined with USA Today's decrease moved the WSJ into the number 1 spot as the largest circulating newspaper in the country (2,024,269).

This has been reported in a number of places, but the one question not asked elsewhere is "why?" Why is the WSJ bucking the trend? From a marketing perspective, for an industry that is severely ill, this seems to be the critical question. Is it the respective biases in the different newspapers given today's economic and political climate? Is it the editorial content? The price? Something else?

Whatever the reason, it behooves the other papers to take note and emulate some of the Wall Street Journal's product, pricing, and/or distribution models. Time is running out for many in the industry.

Domus is a full-service marketing consulting agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

10/27/2009 08:36:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Every time I see Cadillac's commercial for their 2010 SRX crossover, I wince. They come so close with this one, but they still can't seem to clearly stake out their brand position.

First, the commercial starts with a picture of the SRX - a nice car, but it's a crossover. If Cadillac is trying to reclaim the luxury automobile market top brand position, it's hard to do so with a car segment that evokes imagery of sport, utility, and fun. These are areas that fit more with Chevy's brand position (or GMC's) than Cadillac's. (That's not to say that a luxury brand can't have a crossover - Lexus has one - but it's easier when you're at the top.)

Next, the music, imagery, and wording (re-envisioned, reorganized, reactivated, reignite) are all more evocative of upbeat fun and styling. This would seem to be a brand position that Buick should occupy.

Finally, the ad ends with the line, "The Cadillac of crossovers." So, at the end of the ad, GM finally tries to position the car at the top of the luxury market. But by this point, it has spread its message across three brand positions.

GM has a great opportunity to turn itself around. It finally has an excellent line-up of cars. It just needs to solidify its brands in their correct positions in consumers' minds.

Domus is a full-service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

10/26/2009 09:16:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Or rather, good, relentless attack ads work. Everyone has seen how effective attack ads are in political campaigns. In fact, they're so effective that they are the dominant form of advertising during election cycles.

But even outside of the political realm, good attack ads that consistently hammer the opposition often succeed, as long as the attacking brand has a solid position, a valid attack angle, and a long-term plan. (Long term is essential because in the real world, even lies, if told often enough, forcefully enough, eventually become accepted as truths by many people.)

Note that we're not categorizing comparison advertising as attack advertising. We're referring here to full frontal assaults on a brand's position, status, and even good name.

And also note that a successful attack advertising campaign works best if the ads do not present and easy opening for counter-attack and if the target company does not aggressively and effectively fight back. Following are two examples.

This first one from Audi was blatant in calling out BMW, but didn't really have any meat behind it. Moreover, not only did it leave an opening for BMW, they responded aggressively and brilliantly. Look at billboard that BMW put up next to the original Audi billboard within days of Audi's. One word destroyed Audi's attack.

On the other hand, Apple has been relentless in its campaign, attacking vulnerable Microsoft positions. Moreover, Microsoft has chosen not to respond forcefully and relentlessly itself, thereby eroding its own position and leading to increasingly successful Apple sales and profits. Below is yet another in a series of Mac vs. PC Apple ads.

Domus is a full-service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information about us, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

10/23/2009 10:51:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Google Insights for Search is another great tool that can help marketers plan and refine their campaigns. It lets you compare search volume patterns by category and geography over time. You can explore seasonality, geographic, and product trends. As an example, by analyzing geographic trends over time of search patterns for your brand and your category, you might identify a high ROI metropolitan area to focus a concerted marketing effort.

I would be surprised if any brand manager who spent a half hour or so with this tool didn't find at least one useful insight - about yourself or your competition. Or, at a minimum, it should raise some interesting questions.

Domus is a full-service marketing consulting agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

10/20/2009 09:23:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

There have been a number of studies that show that online display advertising has a multiplicative effect on conversion rates of sponsored search listings - as high as 22% improvement. (See Microsoft Advertising Institute.) But it's still hard to tell exactly how much impact your specific display ads have on your specific search campaigns.

That should be changing soon, though. As Advertising Age is reporting, Google is beta-testing their Campaign Insights tool, which will give you an indication of how effective your campaign is. As they explain:

With Campaign Insights, Google takes data from the advertiser's server logs to determine who was shown an ad and when. Then compares that to web searches and site visits culled from data from the millions of Google toolbars on computer desktops. Those results are compared to a comparable group that didn't see the ad.

Then Google measures the difference between the number of brand searches and site visits between the two groups. To filter out the impact of other media or influences, such as a TV campaign, Google compares the data to the two groups' behavior before the campaign began. The incremental difference is attributable to the display-ad campaign.

This should be a win-win for both Google and marketers. Marketers will be able to refine display advertising campaigns for better effectiveness and Google will gain more of the display advertising business (because they will be able to objectively show the ROI of campaigns).

Domus is a full-service advertising, PR, and social media marketing agency based in Philadelphia. Please visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

10/19/2009 08:52:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Google just announced its quarterly financial information, and its profit hit its highest ever (Associated Press. Does this mean that the advertising industry is making a comeback? Maybe, but maybe not. Although Google's numbers were all good, they were at much lower rates of increase than before. Moreover, given that they increased market share, some of their gains came at the expense of their competitors - not at the addition of more advertising into the market. Moreover, some of whatever new advertising did come into the market came from other online and offline advertising dollars - companies are still shifting budgets to shorter term strategies such as Search Marketing vs. old media advertising.

But optimism is good. This might be another of several recent signs that the worst of the recession is behind us. There are still some rough roads ahead for marketers, but hopefully we'll continue to see positive signs.

Domus is a full service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

10/16/2009 11:45:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

How many people over 40 can still remember the great brand taglines, jingles, and slogans from their youth? On the other hand, how many current ones does anyone remember? The era of great jingles and mottos seems to have passed us; however, something has been lost in the process. The fact that so many of us remember so many of them shows how powerful they can be. They keep the brand front and center in our minds - when we're thinking of the brand category and often when we're not. Their impact lasts years and decades. It's hard to calculate the ROI on that.

Domus is a full-service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more.

10/14/2009 10:32:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

It's amazing to me that in 2009 there are still so many large company web sites that have HTML or JavaScript errors on them. Most people don't notice them, but if your browser's configuration is set to show errors you will be bombarded with pop-ups complaining about many sites. Moreover, from my experience, it seems like it's often the display ads placed on sites that cause the errors.

If an error-showing browser visits a web site with errors, that site can be more than confusing - it can be unusable because of all of the pop-ups. As such, people with those browser settings tend to avoid these sites, which costs marketers impressions and clicks. It doesn't take much to verify that a site is clean, and the advantage of doing such can be the difference between achieving or not achieving a desired ROI.

Domus is a Philadelphia-based marketing communications agency with strong interactive capabilities. Part of our standard checklist when publishing new content is verifying the pages for errors, as well as viewing the pages in different browsers and at different resolutions. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

10/13/2009 09:46:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Marketing research data shows that store brands have been making inroads against branded consumer packaged goods items. (E.g., see Progressive Grocer.) But statistics don't always tell the whole story. One thing reports like this don't show, though, is why consumers are switching. It would be interesting to find out how many consumers are deliberately choosing store brands vs. no longer having a choice.

From my own personal experiences, I've noticed that several of my preferred name brand items are harder or impossible to find at many supermarkets - their shelf space has been taken over by store brands. Therefore, although I might have preferred a name brand in some cases, I had little or no choice (barring shopping elsewhere).

This is a question name brand manufacturers might want to consider. Their future marketing strategies might need to be adjusted if they are losing sales because of consumer choices or because of retailer decisions.

Domus is a full-service advertising, public relations, and social media marketing agency based in Philadelphia. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more.

10/12/2009 12:38:00 PM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Google just recently introduced their new Google Toolbar-based Sidewiki feature. This allows anyone with the Google Toolbar installed (which is a large percentage of internet users) to add his own side comments to ANY web site on the internet. And those comments are then visible to any other Sidewiki users who later visit that site.

Prior to Google Sidewiki, marketers at least had a little control over their own web site, even if they had effectively lost control over references to them on social networking sites, blogs, etc. Now, however, even your home page is an accessible target for web surfers, whether or not their comments are accurate or even relevant. And you have little or not control over what is written, other than adding your own comments to the mix.

Moreover, as of right now, those comments are not visible outside of Sidewiki - they don't show up in any search engine searches - so unless you have Sidewiki yourself, you'll never know what people are writing about you on your own web site. Therefore, like it or not, as of today, marketers should have at least one machine on which they have installed Sidewiki, and should regularly visit their own site to see if any side notes are added by others.

Domus is a Philadelphia advertising, public relations, and internet marketing agency. We're a dynamic agency, different than most you've probably experienced. In fact, maybe we should be called the "un-agency." Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more.

10/09/2009 09:58:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

After Microsoft announced Bing a few months ago, it began increasing market share. However, its string of increases halted in September. Microsoft now has its work cut out for it to get more share.

One of Microsoft's biggest challenges will be what turns out to be one of Google's smartest moves - the Google search toolbar. More and more people today don't bother going to Google's home page to begin their searches. Rather, they just type their search request into the Google search toolbar from whatever page they are on. Virtually nobody who searches this way is interested in going back to the old procedure of jumping to an explicit search page - it's wasted navigation. So, the share of the market who uses the toolbar is not even in play for Microsoft to win over. Unless Microsoft comes up with a strategy to address these people, they will be fighting an increasingly difficult war.

Domus, Inc. is a full service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more information.

10/08/2009 08:09:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Everyone knows the value of split-testing (A-B testing), and just about anyone who uses Google AdWords split-tests their paid search ads. But if split-testing is so useful, why do so few people split-test landing pages? Obviously, there is more work (and hence money) involved in designing two landing pages than there is in writing two paid search ads. However, the value of achieving a higher click-through rate from a landing page is arguably more important than at any other previous stage in the sales cycle. People who have reached a landing page have self-qualified their interest.

I just finished doing a small test in Google. I randomly selected about a dozen different search phrases off the top of my head - some that I knew would bring up large corporations and some that I thought would return smaller companies. For each search, I then clicked on each of the top 5 paid search ads, 10 times each. If a company was doing true split testing, the landing page would randomly redirect me sometimes to one page and sometimes to another. Split-tested landing pages usually have code like the following in them:

<?php if (rand(0, 1) == 0)
  {
  header("Location: http://www.MySite.com/SplitTest_1");
  }
else
  {
  header("Location: http://www.MySite.com/SplitTest_2");
  }
?>

However, in 100% of my admittedly small sampling, I found no evidence of split-testing. Interestingly, two of the search terms I tested were "split testing landing pages" and "a-b testing landing pages". Even the companies who placed paid search ads for those terms didn't bother split-testing their landing pages.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the state-of-the-art in landing page design has reached its pinnacle of effectiveness such that marketers no longer need to split test their designs. Kudos to them! I don't know how I missed that conference! Now where can I find that whitepaper to tell me how to design landing pages with perfect effectiveness each time so I don't have to split-test either?

Domus is a Philadelphia-based marketing communications agency that effectively combines classic marketing principles with modern execution techniques. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more information.

10/07/2009 09:50:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

As everyone knows, social media is an absolute must for any marketer today. It's more important than measured media advertising, traditional customer service, and just about every classic marketing technique.

Everyone also knows that Starbucks is a case study example of how to do social media well. It has almost 200,000 Twitter followers, nearly 1.5 million Facebook fans, and a large, active blog. It regularly tweets, posts, and comments.

Except year-over-years same-store sales at Starbucks continue to decline. They've declined each quarter this year, even as their social media program has shined. On the other hand, social media wannabes like McDonald's have continued to see sales increases based principally on good classic advertising and other marketing techniques.

The point here is not that social media marketing does not work; rather, the point is that it is just a tool in a company's marketing bag, not an end in and of itself. Starbucks sells the experience of hand-made premium coffee at its many coffee houses. Just because they get a lot of people communicating with them online does not necessarily sell more coffee. (And, in fact, it hasn't.)

Domus is a Philadelphia-based marketing communications agency. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more information.

10/06/2009 02:13:00 PM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Microsoft's Silverlight platform has been gaining ground as a rich internet platform. The installed base of Silverlight has been consistently growing, reaching over 30% of computers this summer. Moreover, Microsoft recently released version 3.0, which adds many new features for developers and media providers. For example, Silverlight 3 (and Microsoft's Media Services 3.0) supports streaming video in high definition (1080p). And in 2010, Microsoft will enhance digital rights management (DRM) capabilities, making it easy for content providers to distribute their media digitally. Moreover, Microsoft is pushing Silverlight along many other fronts. It is now supported on the Xbox and on a number of Nokia phones. It will also be supported on all Windows 7.0 mobile phones (2010).

Silverlight is fast becoming a great cross-platform development platform. And Microsoft is making it easier for legions of individuals and small businesses to develop Silverlight applications by giving away development tools under its WebSpark program.

The next 18 months should prove very interesting in the number and type of applications being developed and delivered using Silverlight. The possibilities available to marketers should be just as interesting.

Domus, Inc. is a marketing communications company based in Philadelphia, with a development network that includes expertise in a number of areas, including Silverlight. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

10/05/2009 08:40:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Social Media consultants regularly point out that the metrics used for traditional or online advertising campaigns don't apply to social media because they don't take into account the more "social" component of "social media". Metrics like "conversations started", "comments generated", etc. are often more appropriate even if they don't directly correlate (at least in the short run) to sales. However, the same holds true for "measured media" (whether traditional or online). Just because certain metrics are available does not mean that they are effective metrics.

The purpose of display advertising is not always to induce people to action (e.g., to make a purchase). Rather, it is often just to implant or reinforce a brand position in people's minds so that WHEN they are inclined to make a purchase, your brand is foremost (positively) in their mind. Therefore, there is not an immediate, direct relationship between metrics such as impressions and short-term results such as new leads or sales. The effect might happen at various future points in time. Moreover, they might seem to be correlated to other events or programs, but actually still be affected by the longer term display advertising campaign.

Consider Unilever. Unlike some of its other large consumer packaged goods rivals, Unilever did not cut back on its traditional advertising budget over the last couple of years; in fact, they increased their spending. As a result, they've seen sales and market share increases.

Also consider a recent ComScore study. In the online world, it found that only 16% of web users click on online ads (and that number has been dropping every year). Moreover, half of those users (8% of the total web users) account for 85% of all clicks. So, how valuable is display advertising when the metrics clearly show that most people ignore them? Well, digging deeper into the study, it turns out that when companies run both display advertising and paid search campaigns, although the number of people who click on the display ads is small, the number of people who later on search for the brand increases. In fact, not only is paid search more effective, but consumers who were exposed to both paid search and online ads were twice as likely to buy from a retailer's online site. The result of the two tactics together was greater than the sum of each tactic individually.

So how does one effectively measure online and traditional "measured media"? Ultimately, tests have to be run over long periods of time, because the effects of advertising are long term. But in the meantime, marketers should understand that there is an inherent long-term value to display advertising if it properly communicates an effective brand message, regardless of whether or not it can be measured in the short run.

Domus, Inc. has its roots in strong, classic marketing principles. Combining that with a pulse on the changing technological and social environment, we consistently deliver effective results for our clients. For more information on a dynamic marketing communications agency, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

10/02/2009 07:16:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

The Conference Board reported today that the Consumer Confidence Index fell to 53.1 percent in September, down from 54.5 in August. For marketers hoping to see a turnaround starting this holiday season, this is not good news. Consumer purses might not be as open as hoped. As such, marketing strategies should be adjusted accordingly. That doesn't necessarily mean cutting back, but rather positioning one's brand for the longer term.

Domus is a full-service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia.

9/30/2009 01:51:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Starbucks is launching a major marketing campaign for its new instant coffee, Via. A major part of the roll out is a huge taste test throughout their 7,500 cafes in the US and Canada.

One possible problem with this introduction, though, is how it impacts the Starbucks brand position. Starbucks became successful by selling an experience and an image. Otherwise, why pay so much money for a product that can be gotten elsewhere for much less? Now, though, Starbucks is starting a huge campaign to convince people that they can't taste the difference between a fresh-brewed coffee in one of their cafes and some powder added to hot water. The more successful the campaign, the more Starbucks will convince people that there is no need to return to their cafes.

Domus, Inc. is a marketing consulting firm based in Philadelphia. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more.

9/29/2009 09:00:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

GM recently launched its new advertising campaign for Buick with the slogan, "The New Class of World Class". Moreover, Buick ads now prominently feature comparisons against Lexus. (And, in fact, people who are test-driving the 2010 Buick LaCrosse do say that it bests the Lexus ES.)

But how do these ads affect GM's overall brand mix? Cadillac was always the brand the was positioned at the high end. (Cadillac's advertising tagline use to be "The standard of the world.") Over the years, though, Cadillac's luster faded and Toyota seized the high end market position with the Lexus. So, by constantly comparing Buick to Lexus, is GM blurring the brand positions between Buck and Cadillac? If GM is successful in its Buick ads, how does Cadillac position itself?

Cadillac recently did come up with a great ad - for their SRX crossover. The tag line for this ad was "SRX - the Cadillac of crossovers." So Cadillac is finally standing tall and proclaiming its former place at as the world standard. But will they limit this tag line to the SRX or will they make a full frontal assault to regain their status across all models? And will they be fighting a war on two fronts - against Lexus and against their sister brand, Buick?

Domus, Inc. is a full service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

9/25/2009 09:12:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Over the years, various studies have shown that the standard QWERTY keyboard layout that we all use is not the most efficient for typing. (In fact, it was originally designed in part to slow down typists.) However, various attempts over the years to introduce more efficient layouts all failed. The QWERTY layout was too ingrained into our typing habits to be supplanted.

Similarly, over these last few years we've seen a number of new search engines, all touted as Google-killers. There were Wolfram-Alpha, Hakia, Cuil, and others. All promised innovations in visual displays, in the structure of the input queries, and the organization of the output. But none have really made an impact. In fact, the only engines other than Google that still have some significant market share are those that use the same basic keyword requests returning relatively simple results pages - Microsoft's Bing, Yahoo!, Ask, etc. Obviously, one reason is that these other companies have enough marketing capital and existing user bases to be successful.

However, another reason might be that people are comfortable with how search engines work today and are not interested in any change other than the relevancy of the results. This is just a thought, but it's also one to be considered by any marketer introducing a better mouse trap of any kind.

Domus, Inc. is a Philadelphia-based marketing consulting agency. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

9/24/2009 01:16:00 PM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting

Mobile internet usage today is exploding. The year-over-year numbers from January, 2008 to January 2009 showed over a doubling of usage. Since then, the introduction of new generations of "smartphones" such as the iPhone have stressed the mobile networks almost more than AT&T's and Verizon's combined $35 billion per year in mobile infrastructure investments can handle. And the trend looks to only point up, with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter being increasingly accessed by mobile devices.

So, as a marketer, what are you doing? At a minimum, this is the time to revisit all of your web properies and ensure that they are mobile-friendly. Other avenues of mobile marketing, including mobile ads, text messages, etc. will all be drastically less effective if you don't have a mobile-friendly web site. Would you ever invest in wired web banner ads without a web site or at least a landing page for users to click through to? The same is true for the mobile web.

So, if you wish to position yourself to take advantage of the mobile web as it explodes throughout 2010 and beyond, your first step should start now - make your web site mobile-friendly.

Domus, Inc. is a full service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. One of our priorities for the remainder of this year is to position ourselves and our clients to take advantage of existing and growing mobile marketing opportunities. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more.

9/22/2009 09:48:00 AM
Categories: Strategic Consulting. Author: Marc - Strategic Consulting