Attract

I thought my business partner Kraig was just messing with me and trying to keep me from blogging. Just turns out that I had an entirely different login this whole time. You see, his office is on the waaaay other side of the Ciceron offices, so there just isn’t a lot of time to communicate with one another.
So, in honor of my newly found blog, I give you the initial installment of “Bagelz N’ Brainz” our weekly digest of what’s happening in online, social media, analytics, and so on. Enjoy!

Head on over to Ciceron.tv to view episode 1 of Mass Exodus: The People’s Move Toward New Media. This is an ambitious project for us — to create a new episode every few weeks based upon feedback from other consumers. In this first episode, we head to the skyways to talk to people about their changing media habits, then get a peek into the reinvention of Paul Douglas.

Enjoy and bring on the ideas for episode 2!

Since the last blog post in, oh…November 2007, we’ve been up to a lot, including solidifying our position as a top dog in the travel market. Next week, Rob Silas, our president, will be speaking at the E-Tourism Summit in Philadelphia on online video and social media. I’ve spoken at the West Coast version of this event for several years as well.

We’re also pleased to be working with the Nevada Commission on Tourism based in Carson City, NV. It’s a beautiful part of the country if you’ve never been there, by the way. Perhaps you heard of that ginormous snow storm there in January? Yup, drove through it. Made Minnesota look like Scottsdale.

Finally, we launched the new MeetMinneapolis web site. It was a HUGE undertaking, and we’re pleased with the results. The metrics are in, and we’re hitting our new engagement and conversion targets.

We’re on the verge of several other new travel clients, mostly on the West Coast. So stay tuned.

Microsoft announced it has purchased 1.6% of Facebook for $240 Million.

Let’s say that again.

Microsoft announced it has purchased 1.6% of Facebook for $240 Million.

Oh my.

This morning, AdAge continues its “canary in a coalmine” evaluation of media spending trends, saying that “If your bread is buttered by some form of media or marketing activity depicted on the TV program “Mad Men,” you might want to pour yourself another Manhattan. And make it extra stiff.”

To those of us in the Internet channel, the quote “Expect that internet growth to continue, even in a recession” should come as a challenge, not as an opportunity to rest on our laurels. Internet spending — and not just paid media or search but “conversational marketing” and WOM — is expected to continue to grow at 17% or better for the foreseeable future. I know this is pithy, but we have a tremendous responsibility to bring the dream of customer intimacy from the Net to our clients considering this new flow of investment to the channel.

Due to the flurry of wonderful activity here at Ciceron Central, I bring you a digest of news.

- This weekend we’re sponsoring The Pajama Party from Mixed Blood Theater. Go!
- Chuck Olsen and I were shooting video footage of last night’s Bill Blass Fashion Show at the Chambers Hotel. Wait. Strike that. Chuck was filming; I was buying him Passion Chili cocktails (Maker’s Mark with chili and “passion.”) We fit right in alongside the supermodels and fashionistas. I should also point out that we’re working with the Chambers on some excellent new web enhancements…including faster loading — or no loading — home page.
- We’re sponsoring MiMA this year. It’s about time. Great organization.
- Be on the lookout for a significant announcement here on Ciceron’s venture into online video. It’ll be real. And honest. And uncompromising.

Video blog, you ask? Yes, it is forthcoming.

Andrew Eklund's Video Blog

Today, I take on the Super Bowl ads, and why they were boring and not funny.

So, there was summer. Just like that. Although today is gorgeous, and tomorrow’s going to feel like July. Add to it all that the Twins are going to win the World Series, and hey, seems like there must be months until winter!

Another reason summer flew by is that we here at Ciceron have been swamped. Here’s what we’ve been up too…

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The New MSN Search launched today. Some at Microsoft have essentially declared war on Google. Bill Gates has called it “hypercompetition.”

So where do we at Ciceron stand? I have a couple of thoughts. First, we were in the beta test group and think quite highly of the backend ad management toolsuite Microsoft has offered agencies. But like most things Microsoft, we’re in the ugly post-launch stage where they’re notorious for launching buggy products in the e-ecosystem essentially to have us find the flaws in the real world.

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Surkdyk’s web site was recognized today by the wine columnists at the Wall Street Journal as one of the top 8 web sites for online wine buying. Way to go!

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For the first time in 15 years, I just took a two week vacation. Thank you to Mike Keyes for keeping some blogging going! Good stuff.

I often use vacations to catch up on reading, and I’m just about done with Freakanomics. I’m convinced there’s a new style of authorship going on with people such as Steven Levitt and The Tipping Point’s Malcolm Gladwell.

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Imagine one day that, as you step into your morning shower and turn the spigot, no water comes out of the faucet. What would you do? You’d go be-freaking ballistic! You’d call 911, the water utility, your Congressperson, your energy company (even though they probably have nothing to do with it), and your siblings, just to see if they’re standing naked in their bedroom too, as desperate for water as any character on Lost.

As brands, you may not realize it, but as consumers go mobile, you need to be “on like water.”

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Imagine the shakeup in the print advertising world if Google started an AdWords bid-style network for print ads.

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I just checked. It’s been nearly a year to the day when I first wrote to you all about the concept of S.A.G. As a reminder (and if you don’t want to click the link), SAG stands for Speculation, Anecdotes, and Guesswork – and it’s what many marketing decisions are based upon.

So, now it’s a year later. Are we SAGless? Has the marketing pendulum swung quickly towards total and complete measured success? Dare I say no.

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Yesterday’s Shadow Market seminar went off with few hitches (got a little hot in the room…you know, with all that hot air being spouted off) and to a packed house. Over the jammed packed day of blogging, online community building exercises, and metrics discussions, lots of great ideas were shared among everyone.

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Some of us here at Ciceron have taken up running again. As inspiration, we are one of the sponsors for this weekend’s “Minnesota Distance Invitational” at Macalester College in St. Paul. I’m fairly certain that the Olympians from TeamUSA Minnesota would be duly impressed with my 3.5 mile run yesterday where I clocked in a whopping 11:30 minute mile. Look out, Beijing. Here I come! (See some of the great regional runners this Saturday. Visit the TeamUSA Minnesota web site for details.)

In a few hours, I’m heading to Chicago to participate as a panelist at the CMO Council’s MPM Forum. If you’re in the area, I would recommend attending. We’ll be discussing the challenges CEOs and CMOs are having in pulling together their marketing performance measurement models and the teams to execute them. We had a conference call the other day to talk through our presentation, and I’m very impressed with my panel colleagues. I’ll recap it here when I return.

In the 1960s if you wanted to reach the majority of American people, you advertised your product on the evening news. You were guaranteed exposure to millions of Americans each and every day. Ask the Johnson & Johnsons or Proctor & Gambles of the world how it worked, and they’ll tell you it wasn’t all that difficult.

Today, ask advertisers about television and they’ll ask in return, “Where are all the people?” We live in weird times clearly.

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Today we welcome Jeff Nordeen to Ciceron. Not only is Jeff a seasoned performance marketing expert, he’s a volunteer firefighter! Could come in handy in this 100 year old Warehouse District office building of ours. Welcome, Jeff!

Earlier this year, numerous prominent Internet research firms, including Forrester and eMarketer, issued their annual projections for online advertising spending. Not surprisingly, paid search was — and continues — to be one of the fastest growing areas in all of advertising. In almost a dead heat race, dollars are also flowing to the ill-named “rich media” (or as one advertising executive bubbles forth: “Finally, we can give our clients what they want — television commercials on the web!”).

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(Before we get into this month’s commentary… take the Quick Search Challenge to see how paid search stacks up against natural search.)

You can cut corners for a while, but at some point, all advertising and marketing will be metrics and performance driven. And that, dear friends, is what’s really new. Just watch. It’s gonna be fun. Read on…

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If you pulled a Rip Van Winkle this quarter, you might want to read on and learn just what’s happened in the world of the search engines. It’s been months of mergers, acquisitions, and positioning.

Here are just a few of the major events:

Overture buys AltaVista
Yahoo buys Inktomi
Overture buys FAST
Google Launches Huge Ad Program
Google Acquires Blogger.Com

What’s going on here?

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