Interactive Teams Growing 100 Percent Annually

According to Forrester’s Shar VanBoskirk, interactive marketing spend will reach $77 Billion in five years, equaling television spend. Even more daunting, interactive departments are growing at nearly 100% per year to keep pace.  Growing the interactive organization requires a focus on decision rights, performance measures, and reward systems.

Running an organization that is doubling personnel every year requires a strategy and experienced leadership.  My guidance for the best chance of success includes:

• Invest in an interactive strategy leader that is responsible for strategy and execution
• Make Interactive Strategic in the c-suite and form an advisory team
• Motivate the team by allowing them to modify the brand for the interactive audience and make the team own those interactions with the customer
• Allow Interactive to report  at the top of the organization so decision-making is swift
  • Allow the team to test and incorporate key learning across the portfolio
• Have a clue about how to build out an interactive group capable of authoring, editing, approving, and publishing digital media
  • Minimum needs are integrated digital product development, product management, and product marketing
• Don’t go it alone, there are many goods solutions to cobble together solutions in email automation, social media monitoring and engagement, SEM and display platforms, ad networks, content management, e-commerce, and analytics
  • Ensure the data flows into the CRM systems
• Own and staff for brand ownership, retain brand rights for texture, style, and tone, never let this out of your review and approval process, staff as many product/brand  managers as necessary to keep ahead of the curve

Finding experienced leaders to help you grow with 10 or more years of experience of continuous practice is challenging but required.  The investments you make in this break neck growth cycle with technology and partnerships will determine your ability to meet the interactive customers’ expectations over the next five years.  As experienced teams know technology decisions are tightly coupled with interactive product feature capabilities and those features drive sales.

What the BIG BRANDS are spending on Google AdWords.

According to AdAge.com, the top 10 represent less than one percent of Google’s revenue in June.  The big brands are clearly lagging when it comes to online marketing.  Perhaps they are expecting their traditional marketing departments to shift online on their own.   Whatever the reason, the long tail is working for Google and it is helping the SMB segment continue to compete effectively online.   Wonder when the big brands are going to get it….

Google Launches “Google TV” or Smart TV

The convergence of the web and TV has been discussed for years.  Hulu brought us all  one step closer with an amazing secondary market for primary tv content.  I am sure there is much more to come.  Techcrunch indicates Google’s offer is  coming this week.  

Consumer Health at CES, Need An App For That?

The 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas showcased countless consumer-facing health applications, from mobile phone apps to home health monitoring. There were both a Digital Health Summit and a Silvers Summit held at the Show, featuring a mix of hardware, software and — importantly — service.   According to Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, but not all vendors at the show were techno-optimists when it came to actually selling direct-to-consumer. “We can’t invest further in all things required because we don’t see a market,” said the director of technology programs for Sharp Laboratories of America, Deepak Ayyagari, according to MSNBC. What’s the primary barrier to market development? The consumers themselves, Sharp believes. Notwithstanding a growing veritable buffet of apps (e.g., Intel unveiled its app store at the CES), home monitoring hardware, and health games, no one really yet knows what the consumer will pay for such offerings.

Hulu Enters Original Content Space

Accoring to Chloe Albanesius, Hulu is jumping into the original programming space. The video Web site is teaming up with 19 Entertainment, which produces shows such as “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” to produce the show “If I Can Dream.”

Personal Privacy on Social Networks

Sharing those little bits of yourselves that alone seem innocent but taken as data points in very sophisticated statistical models allows for profiling in ways one cringes to imagine.  My advice is similar to the investment community “share only what you can afford to lose.”  Yes, the “wild west” of social networks are fun, exciting, innovative, all of the above but you should recall a conspicuous absence of law and order.  Maybe that is  part of the fun…:)  Be aware……

Adobe Acquires Omniture

It’s simply brilliant. The one thing holding off major adoption of online content is the inability for advertisers to interactively get their products to market. Face it, online advertising is so last generation. Adobe has the opportunity to build an advertising platform capable of creating a standard for measuring the new media consumption. Once this “last mile” is complete the advertisers content will be more engaging and entertaining than the multi-media content we went online to view. Imagine watching Monday night Football online and being able to design you own sports gear, get seats to the next game, or attend the next personal appearance of your favorite Football quarterback all while watching the game. This is a win-win. It’s coming and Adobe may be bringing it to a screen near you….:)