我好奇故我在

對於廣告主來說，官網跟social media到底要怎樣區分經營呢？我覺得這一篇For Moms, Offline Friends Still Wield Heavy Brand Influence 很具有啟發性？怎樣說呢？因為對於行銷目的來說，消費者怎樣得知產品訊息是最重要的，那消費者會在社交網站上得知呢？還是產品官網呢？又或是跟自己offline的朋友詢問呢？或者是其他管道？在這麼多訊息來源中，哪一個又是最有力？

原文是研究媽媽這個族群，美國媽媽最常用facebook，高達81%，但是只有24%使用它來獲取產品訊息。
A whopping 81% of moms use Facebook, but again only 24% use it for product information.

雖然媽媽是很熱衷網路使用者，但是當他們要作購買決定時，仍喜歡先問家人或朋友，不管透過電話、email或是親自面對面詢問。也就是offline消息來源影響力大於online。
while moms are avid web and social-media users, they still turn to family and friends first, whether by phone, e-mail or in-person, when making decisions about product purchases.

如果要用網路找某品牌的訊息時，高達80%的媽媽會去官網查詢，以及65%的媽媽會訂閱電子報服務。也就是說social media的用途是for fun跟社交，不是用來找品牌資訊的。媽媽們會說："I'm not in the mood to have a conversation about a product. But when I am in the mood, I'll go directly to that marketer."

另外一個九月的調查發現只有1%的媽媽認為部落格是溝通品牌的有效工具，比較有效的作法是給予產品samples(47%)或是折價券(40%)。
A September online Prospectiv study found that only 1% of moms surveyed thought blogs were the most effective way to promote a brand, while almost half (47%) cited product samples offered online, and another 40% said coupons were better ways to plug a product.

或許媽媽們會先自己在網路上搜尋資訊，然後再去詢問自己信任的家人或朋友吧！文章末尾說：媽媽們可能在offline的對話中，是聊到online的消息呢！

source:
http://adage.com/digitalnext/post.php?article_id=140166
http://www.revolutionmagazine.com/news/964347/Agency-bosses-old-change-resistant-claims-Sorrell

這篇Why Digital Agencies Aren't Ready to Lead引起很大爭議性，簡單說傳統公司具有「老」「舊的但熟練的marketing知識」，而數位公司是「年輕的」「比較偏向執行面的思考」。而一個客戶需要具有對品牌的深度經營，但是也需要翻新溝通手法。所以，廣告公司需要在傳統知識跟新知識之間求得平衡。

文中也提到一件事情，傳統公司因為瞭解客戶比較久，IMC行銷整體操作面也比較熟練，意味業務就已經要花很多時間處理了，沒有多餘的時間來學習數位。另外，數位公司所執行跟規劃的也是很細的工，也要耗費很多的時間。兩種公司的型態都各自被手上的事務卡死。

<數位公司在美國的現況>

• 在美國，除了R/GA這家公司外，沒有其他數位公司可以坐在客戶的董事會會議室。
  With the exception of R/GA, there is no other digital shop or agency that has or can consistently take a seat, and a leadership role, in the client's boardroom.
• 因為網路變化太快，所以數位公司需要跟上，所以要建立一個固定的工作或思考模式比較難，大部分是鬆散的扁型蟲組織(所以每個人都可以跟CEO共事)。
  Digital Media agencies are young (for the most part). Most importantly, I think, is that digital media agencies HAVE TO keep up with changes. There can be no complacency because the digital world is changing so quickly. Establishing practices and procedures is hard to do when there is a new social networking site every few months. It's a lot to stay on top of.
• WPP集團總裁Sorrell批評儘管網路成長快速，但是品牌只有花約13%的行銷預算於網路上。他說：以後WPP不是廣告公司，而是將科technology技放在發展的中心。
  Delivering the opening keynote session at ad:tech New York, Sorrell criticised brands for investing an average of just 13 per cent of their marketing budget online despite the rapid increase in digital media consumption.... Sorrell claimed that WPP is "certainly not an advertising agency any more" and insisted that "technology is at the centre" of its development. "The companies that win are those that innovate successfully," he said. <04 November 2009>

(source: http://www.physorg.com/news159011833.html)

這一篇解釋雲端運算很清楚明白，雲端運算可以讓公司行號「在需要時」買「想要的服務」，譬如銷售有淡旺季，可以在旺季時買所需要的服務，如以下服務：

• business processing (advertising, e-commerce and payments processing) software-as-a-service

• systems infrastructure (storage and backup services

好處是剛開始的公司不需要在硬體設備花大錢，而是隨使用量花錢就好；也可以說這樣的彈性方式讓跨入經營的門檻降低。

而現代科技的監控技術也可以讓企業放心，如果跟Amazon買服務，如果它的主機當了，技術會自動找另一台主機代替。

Cloud computing refers to a distribution-and-pricing model in which companies can purchase services such as software, bandwidth, server space and web applications over the Internet on an on-demand basis. For example, a retailer needing a little extra computing power during holiday shopping season can rent out additional server space from “clouds” like Amazon Web Services for that period.

One of the important benefits [of cloud computing] is that the resources scale up and down in a flexible manner. If a company has major peaks and valleys in their usage, they are able to accommodate the peaks without paying for full, peak capacity all the time. They only pay for what they use, and they get the benefit of never being out of capacity.
* capacity the maximum amount

<9/30/2009>
The number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years, and only 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks, according to the most recent "Natural Born Clickers" study from ComScore and media agency Starcom.

source:http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=139367

<8/22/2009>

Ad effectiveness depends less on size than it does on shape and placement, according to Dynamic Logic.
最近美國有幾家網路媒體嘗試大版面廣告，也就是一整頁web page都是廣告。但是根據Dynamic Logic的研究，廣告的形狀跟位置比尺寸重要。

The ad-effectiveness measurement firm crunched results from 4,800 campaigns and found the best-performing ad unit, in terms of metrics such as brand awareness, recall and purchase intent, was the humble 180-pixel-by-150-pixel rectangle ad.
這家作廣告效果評估的公司從四千八百個campaign中發現表現最佳的廣告單位，以品牌知名度、回憶度以及購買意圖而言，180-pixel-by-150-pixel 的長方形廣告勝出。

Ads that surround content -- well-worn skyscraper and leaderboard units -- are the least effective, as people have developed "banner blindness," he said.
而最差效果的廣告，是skyscraper 跟728x90 Leaderboard ad，也就是包圍在內容附近的廣告，人們已經自然而然會不看這種類型廣告。因為人們會專注在內容上，會自動過濾掉周圍的廣告。對於會阻礙內容的廣告，如果尺寸愈大，反而會讓人覺得干擾，不一定是好事。"get noticed"跟"being intrusive"的界線很微妙！

此文引起的迴響中，我覺得此君觀察很好？
(source: http://thedarkly.tumblr.com/post/168402496/the-real-reason-why-large-online-ads-dont-work)

The real reason why smaller ads beat out the gigantic ads at the top of the page? Because consumers, especially those from younger generations, don’t want to be blatantly marketed to. While the web’s demographic increasingly gets older, the facts say that the majority of users fall within Gen X and Gen Y. Two generations that generally love creative advertisements, but don’t like when products are pushed upon them. These generations love strategic, subtle marketing and prefer to feel like they discovered brands on their own. Now, huge, flashing online ads don’t really cater to their wants and needs, do they?
小一點廣告會打敗巨大廣告的真正理由是因為網友通常是年輕一點的族群，他們不喜歡明目張膽的廣告，他們喜歡富有創意的廣告l，喜歡低調一點、有策略想法的行銷方式，喜歡自己發現品牌，不喜歡太hard sell。 ...繼續閱讀

(source: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_39/b4148051511340.htm?chan=magazine+channel_in+depth )

Pepsi's Web-Smart Thrust into China
Its promotions have made it the No. 1 cola in the mainland
百事可樂的網路策略讓它在中國市場稱霸

By Bruce Einhorn and Frederik Balfour

Shanghai - On a stage built in a disused Shanghai factory, a young bassist paces nervously, a stainless steel bicycle chain dangling from his belt. As his group prepares to perform for a standing-room-only crowd, a bandmate tilts his hat over one eye, doing his best to look like Justin Timberlake.

Welcome to Pepsi's Battle of the Bands. The American Idol-style television show is a big component of the company's brand-building efforts in China. Some 6,000 bands tried out for 10 spots on the show, which was broadcast nationwide and streamed to Pepsi's Web site. The winner, a five-piece combo from Tianjin called Focus Point, got $30,000, a trip to a Los Angeles recording studio, a car, and a role in a Pepsi TV ad.

百事群音 (http://pepsi.sina.com.cn/index.php)

• 2006~2009年百事slogan: 百事我創
• 活動大使五月天
• 百事群音主題曲《放肆》
• 冠軍隊伍可得：20萬培訓基金、價值22萬人民幣的白金級樂器、好萊塢培訓之旅、926廣州演唱會、POLO sporty在內的百萬巨獎，更將獲得價值百萬的新浪媒體宣傳。
• 長達兩個多月的比賽(暑假期間)

Worldwide, of course, Pepsi (No. 23 on BusinessWeek 's Best Global Brands survey) remains far behind Coca-Cola (KO) (No. 1). But by at least one important measure, Pepsi is beating its archrival in China. It's the No. 1 cola, with 23% of the soda market, vs. Coke's 22%, according to researcher Euromonitor International. The country "represents our single biggest opportunity today outside the U.S.," says CEO Indra K. Nooyi, who spent 12 days in China this summer.

Pepsi thinks the Internet is key to unlocking that opportunity. In August the company launched the "Pepsi Creative Challenge," soliciting online birthday wishes marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic. Last year a promotion called "Go China," before the Beijing Olympics, encouraged people to send in patriotic slogans and pictures of themselves. Pepsi got 28 million submissions and more than 122 million votes to decide the winners, whose photos and slogans were printed on soda cans. And in 2006, some 28,000 Internet users submitted scripts for a Pepsi TV ad. "Pepsi [in China] is one of the best digital marketers anywhere," says Tom Doctoroff, North Asia director for ad agency JWT.

百事我創，共鳴中國

• 在QQ輸入創意， 就能讓你祝福新中國60周年生日的聲音被聽到！

百事我創我要上罐

• “百事我創我要上罐”網路活動， 超過1.4億人投票後產生的21名上罐英雄和中國之隊的體育選手成為罐身主角。
• 上傳照表現"支持中國體育隊參加盛大國際體育運動比賽為主"、為中國隊加油的照片到pepsi.tom.com參加「百事我創 我要上罐」活動，就有機會成為21名登上百事中隊紀念罐的其中一員，出現在全國超過一億個百事可樂罐上並有機會獲得內含5,000元人民幣消費金的招商銀行百事紀念卡。
• 為了讓更多的人“為中國隊加油”的激情得到釋放，共同支持中國，百事突破“藍色”神話，推出以中國紅為底色的“中國隊百事紀念罐”。

The promotions are the brainchild of Harry Hui, Pepsi's chief marketing officer for China. The former head of Greater China for Universal Music, Hui is serving as producer of Battle of the Bands and is one of its three judges. "Consumers in China are bombarded with messages, so merely telling them what they should drink or eat might not resonate," Hui says. "Giving them a platform where they can talk back fosters a deeper relationship with the brand."
TEMPORARY FIZZ?

Web campaigns are growing in importance for most foreign companies in the mainland. With more Chinese than Americans online, social media and blogs are "a must-have component of marketing in China," says Sam Flemming, chief of CIC, a research firm in Shanghai that works with Pepsi.

Coke, meanwhile, is no stranger to the Net, and it's turning up the heat in China, too. Pepsi may be the No. 1 cola, but it's behind Coke's Sprite, the top soda in the country. Coke's Minute Maid leads the juice segment, with 10.3% of the market, vs. just 1.4% for Pepsi's Tropicana. Coke also sponsors an American Idol-style competition of its own, and its iCoke Web site is a popular portal for gamers in China. "Everyone knows about iCoke," says Tony Ip, China managing director for G2, Grey Group's digital-marketing arm. Though Pepsi's big campaigns create a lot of buzz, it's short-lived, he says. "I don't see them building equity," says Ip.

Pepsi executives counter that the efforts will pay off as they move into juices and other noncarbonated drinks. But they acknowledge that marketing can get you only so far in China and that plans to boost distribution are equally important. To really succeed, says Ken Newell, Pepsi's beverage chief for the country, "we must build plants further into China."

(source:http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/8/10/18/n2300634p.htm)

根據OMD浩騰媒體最新的研究，在進行調查的亞洲地區，有79%的受訪者表示，他們的購買興趣是被電視、報紙、雜誌和廣告等傳統大眾媒體的廣告所激發，只有19%是受新興媒體廣告所影響。

BusinessWeek Tries Pay Model Online
(source: http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/broadband/e3i45a4bf33efc179170479cfd1665e3529)

商業雜誌最擅長採訪商業界成功人士或模式，所以看他們本身的經營策略很有趣。這是6/14 MediaWeek的新聞：

In the latest online paid content experiment by a publisher, BusinessWeek will create a special presentation of its print magazine content that will only be available to subscribers. Roger Neal, general manager of BusinessWeek.com, said that while the magazine’s content will be available on the site for all to see, subscribers will get a different experience of the print content online.
BusinessWeek 會針對其紙本訂戶，線上提供一個特別的專屬內容。雖然目前BusinessWeek線上所有的內容是免費，但是紙本訂戶會有一個不一樣的體驗。

Neal said the subscriber-only view would be print-like in presentation. He said the goal is to serve both paying and nonpaying readers by “making all our content available to Internet users but still providing a special privilege for print subscribers.” Users will get other benefits, like instant access to the print content online.
所有的內容雖然所有網路使用者都可以看到，但是針對訂戶會有像「印刷那樣」的內容呈現方式。訂戶還有其他利益，譬如立即可以獲得線上印刷內容。(不知道意思就是說：文字內容一樣，只是排版方式有差異？)

The new paid/free strategy is part of a site relaunch in July which will consolidate its many channels into three focused on breaking news, analysis and community. The last one will include Business Exchange, the site’s recently created business social net. New and more ad units also will be offered. Underlying the changes is a new tech platform designed to enable real-time site updates, Neal said.
在今年七月會上線付費/免費服務，其新站策略會專注於：即時新聞、分析，以及社群這三個方面。最後一個服務包括Business Exchange這個平台，這是最新的商業social net。這一次的改版著重於即時網路更新。

More broadly, the site redesign is part of the McGraw-Hill Cos. weekly’s answer to the question of how to differentiate online from print. While the site emphasizes breaking news and community, the magazine is focusing on stories that are forward looking and actionable, as the title will try to do with its summer double issue, which makes the case for “rational optimism” about the economy.
至於紙本跟網路的BusinessWeek有什麼不同之處？網站是強調即時新聞跟社群，而實體雜誌本身專注於具有前瞻、可以行動的新聞。

我知道Twitter可以及時搜尋，但是不知道實際上google到底時間落後Twitter多久？今天看到答案，所以記錄一下

Twitter’s search engine can show users things that were published just a minute or two ago.  Google Blog Search and Google News operate more in increments of quarter- or half-hours.
Twitter在使用者發表後一兩分鐘之內就可以搜尋到，但是Google需要15或30分鐘的時間，才能搜到。
(source)

Online Newspapers Best Content Publishing Strategy: Free Or Paid?
(source:http://www.jatinmahindra.com/2009/06/03/online-newspapers-best-content-publishing-strategy-free-or-paid/)

In this video interview, Alan Murray, Executive Editor at the Wall Street Journal, reveals quite a different story and vision from the one we have been hearing over the news. Murray reveals a more balanced strategy in which both free and paid content can play a strategically important role in which the two approaches complement each other rather than being opponents of two opposing extremes.
在這個訪談中，華爾街日報執行編輯Alan Murray講了一個不一樣的觀點。他認為「免費」跟「付費」在策略上，是可以互補的，不是一定對立的。

(要看影片內容可以點上述連結，下方有訪談內容全文)

訪談重點如下：

• The best content publishing model is a mix of paid and free content.
  最好的內容策略是兼具「付費」跟「免費」。
• The content you don’t give out for free will be published elsewhere and you will lose traffic.
  如果針對大家很關心的大消息收費，那消費者會找其他免費的管道閱讀，你的讀者就會流失，等於你將顧客送給競爭者。
• Do not charge your audience for the most popular content you have on your site.
  所以針對此塊大家最感興趣的內容，可以吸引traffic，不應該收費。而是可以靠廣告營收。
• Target your paid content to highly-focused niches.
  但是華爾街日報對於商業以及財務報導，具有一定品質，這是我們的核心，也是跟一般general news有區隔的地方。收費的部分可以針對很利基需求，消費者非常希望想要知道，不惜付費觀賞。舉例來說：當地的體育賽事新聞就有人很關心，因為他的小孩有參加比賽。又譬如德州有報導石油業鑽機數量(oil rig counts)的付費服務。
  We’re working on a premium initiative to launch a series of more, as you say, niche or narrower information services that we can sell at a premium to smaller groups of subscribers on subjects that they care most about.
  對於各式各樣很利基的閱讀需求，正在開發這種類型的付費服務。

(source:http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/twitter-quitters-post-roadblock-to-long-term-growth/)
這是今年四月的市調，聽了在美國工作的大學同學才知道有高達60%的人用了twitter之後不再用了！

Currently, more than 60 percent of U.S. Twitter users fail to return the following month, or in other words, Twitter’s audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent. For most of the past 12 months, pre-Oprah, Twitter has languished below 30 percent retention.
因為Oprah有帶動twitter使用，在她宣傳之前的12個月，只有30％的保留率，她宣傳之後有40％的保留率。

To understand why this poses a problem for Twitter, check out the chart below. By plotting the minimum retention rates for different Internet audience sizes, it is clear that a retention rate of 40 percent will limit a site’s growth to about a 10 percent reach figure. To be clear, a high retention rate doesn’t guarantee a massive audience, but it is a prerequisite. There simply aren’t enough new users to make up for defecting ones after a certain point.
這個對於Twitter來說，為什麼是一個問題呢？低的保留率會限制網站的成長，reach只到10。雖然高的保留率不保證有很多群眾，但是這是一個不可或缺的前提條件。

(上圖這個表是跑整體social media的資料，所做的迴歸分析。然後拿twitter的retention rate是比對推估internet reach。如果你跟我一樣，問了一個問題就是：如果有一個新的social media網站只有10人，但是retention rate有90%，比對此表豈不會會出現很奇怪的結論？感謝Sean解釋，喚起我對統計的記憶。所謂的regression model是就現有的data算出一個關係公式，然後用r square去評估那個variable有沒有存在意義。所以我剛剛的例子屬於極端案例，算是outlier。)

Compare it to the two heavily-touted behemoths of social networking when they were just starting out. Doing so below, we found that even when Facebook and MySpace were emerging networks like Twitter is now, their retention rates were twice as high. When they went through their explosive growth phases, that retention only went up, and both sit at nearly 70 percent today.
此數字跟Facebook和MySpace當初剛起步時作比較，這兩個前輩網站的保有率都比Twitter高兩倍。當這兩家經過高速成長時其實，保有率數字只有增加，現在這兩個站大約有70%的保有率。