However, how does he suggest accomplishing any of the measurement buckets in his model? He doesn't provide any details, so I took a stab at it.

It's all well and good to say “determine efficiency of Reach & Frequency,” "Engagement” or “Commerce Performance”, but in a branding campaign, how do you accomplish this?

If I may, I would suggest that you must first set up the campaign to best reach your target audience. Identify where they live and work to determine the volume of Impressions needed to saturate the market. Test your way into select markets with media tailored to their specific behaviors. Then gauge brand lift of awareness…]]> 2012-02-15T15:43:51+00:00 http://blog.makebuzz.com/p-and-g-media-attribution-model http://blog.makebuzz.com/p-and-g-media-attribution-model#When:15:40:07Z This quote caught my eye in a recent article about P&G ad spending behavior: "[CEO Robert McDonald] increased P&G's ad spend by a staggering 24 percent over the two years through October 2011, even though sales rose only 6 percent in the same period."

Clearly Mr. McDonald did not have an attribution framework in place for testing media and evaluating performance. If he had, he would have seen a natural degradation of his secondary KPIs, as media was reaching out to a less and less qualified audience.

I have seen the Old Spice ad and I'm not buying. I would venture that a lot of media dollars were wasted on married men, aged 45+.

In addition, by defining ad spend as a percentage of total sales volume instead of profits, he's mismanaging media dollars for those products with higher or lower than average margins. 

P&G…]]> 2012-02-10T15:40:07+00:00 http://blog.makebuzz.com/lane-bryant-online-marketing-strategy http://blog.makebuzz.com/lane-bryant-online-marketing-strategy#When:17:07:07Z It seems to me that having a store, especially in a mall or downtown area gives a brand a leg up in terms of sales. A storefront in-and-of-itself is a billboard. It's "free marketing". But what if you don't have a store in an area, but you still want ecommerce sales? What's the best way to approach these places?

Let's look at an example. With the plus-sized market finally catching up to demand, specialty retail outlets like Lane Bryant seem perfectly positioned to cash in on this trend of fashionable clothing for plus sized women.

As I look at their store distribution, I can see how well situated they are across many cities:



But I'm curious about the way the company approaches…]]> 2012-01-31T17:07:07+00:00 http://blog.makebuzz.com/urban-outfitters-anthropologie-customer-segments http://blog.makebuzz.com/urban-outfitters-anthropologie-customer-segments#When:17:36:03Z No doubt Urban Outfitters Inc. (parent company to trendy retail brands Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie and Free People) has a firm grasp on who their customers are. But I wonder how well they're prioritizing their segments, based on profitability.

For example, is Anthropologie targeting the older fashionable women demographic with the same frequency as the younger (but less cash solvent) fashionista? Do they know how much it takes to convert these two groups, or do they normalize their Cost Per Acquisition? Have they segmented their media (and messaging) by zip clusters to make sure they're getting the most bang for their media buck?

I wonder…Especially with the recent news of falling stock prices and lost profits from management and merchandise bungles. Customer Priority Mapping and optimizing CPAs on a Customer Segment basis could help them not only seek out maximum profit…]]> 2012-01-30T17:36:03+00:00 http://blog.makebuzz.com/business-innovation-school http://blog.makebuzz.com/business-innovation-school#When:16:45:43Z I just read an article in Business Insider that asked the question, "Do Business Schools Actively Kill Passion And Creativity?" by forcing conformity and focusing on theory.

My answer: not really. I think that, as with everything, balance is key.

Ideally, business school students can learn concepts and theory, and absorb case studies to understand how things have been applied in the real world. And then they can go out in the world, and discover how they themselves interpret what they've learned through the filter of their own creativity and ambition. That's the whole point.

There will always be those who lack imagination and they will be the ones who turn into clones. The idea that business school will kill the spirit of those passionately inclined seems an overstatement— people with any real passion or vision can't be so easily stifled.

That…]]> 2012-01-18T16:45:43+00:00 http://blog.makebuzz.com/lifestyle-targeting-and-local-online-advertising http://blog.makebuzz.com/lifestyle-targeting-and-local-online-advertising#When:14:53:18Z I was catching up on my magazine subscriptions the other evening when I found myself staring at the following page in Forbes:

Looks like a standard page of ads, right? But what caught my attention was how unaccustomed I was to seeing a whole page of such diverse advertisement. I spend so much time consuming content online, all I really ever see by way of display ads are banners for big brands, one, maybe two at a time.

This is important because it brings up two major issues:

One, it puts a fine point on how online marketers are still thinking narrowly. If I go to Forbes.com, the ads I see look like they were triggered by the keyword "business". They all promote business products or solutions. As if the average Forbes reader is only a business…]]> 2012-01-11T14:53:18+00:00 http://blog.makebuzz.com/are-business-innovation-fundamentally-at-odds http://blog.makebuzz.com/are-business-innovation-fundamentally-at-odds#When:15:18:29Z I recently watched a keynote address by Roger Martin, speaking to designers and business leaders about how they could work together more effectively. What occurred to me was that the word 'design' (or 'designers') could be replaced with 'innovation'. When you do so, you discover one big reason why innovation in business can be so difficult and why so few companies innovate consistently or successfully.

The basic premise is that businesses, from their day-to-day process to long-term planning, are rooted in "reliability' thinking. Reliability thinking in this context means a reliance on precise past data to make future decisions or determinations. It carries with it inherent characteristics -  few variables, quantifiable measurement, and minimal bias. Martin uses the IQ test as an example of reliability thinking.

Designers on the other hand, are driven by validity. They would argue that the IQ test has little validity because…]]> 2012-01-03T15:18:29+00:00 http://blog.makebuzz.com/customer-segmentation-profit-analysis http://blog.makebuzz.com/customer-segmentation-profit-analysis#When:15:00:29Z For today's post, I'd like to do something a little different: an exercise to illustrate potential market share growth.

I think it could be a valuable exercise for many businesses, to look at the volume of their potential customer across geographic areas and evaluate whether their media and sales revenues are aligned with those potentials.

So let's get started. I'm giving you the somewhat abbreviated version, but you'll get the idea.

First, we consider the customer. Who are they? What are their demographic and behavioral characteristics? Are they older retired folks or young couples with children? Do they live in cities, have disposable incomes or take ski vacations?



Where can we find them, not only in volume but…]]> 2011-12-28T15:00:29+00:00 http://blog.makebuzz.com/social-commerce-strategy-support http://blog.makebuzz.com/social-commerce-strategy-support#When:12:45:54Z A paper on Social Commerce by Dr. Natalie Pethouhoff got me thinking about the real potential for retailers on social media sites. Beyond 'likes' or positive brand sentiment, or even customer service, can brands eke out serious direct revenue from sites like Facebook?