WHiBlog | The official blog of WHITTMANHART Interactive.

The Practice of Paying Attention

Oct
13

I remember how my dad would always be reminding me to pay attention – like when I’d miss a tennis ball in practice or misspell the capitol of Honduras – and to be honest, I should have paid more attention to his advice at the time. Paying attention can mean the difference between success and failure in most endeavors. If Woody Allen’s famous line, “80% of life is just showing up” is true, then paying attention accounts for at least 10% of the rest.

Business Intelligence and Analytics is on my mind everyday and a part of every conversation with our clients. As a result, we continue to focus on what the critical role of BI really is, and how it is best employed to enhance business. What a surprise: It’s about paying attention.

I have yet to encounter an organization – large or small – that is completely comfortable with their own ability to understand their customers, measure and attribute success and failure, or reliably predict business outcomes from promotional activities. It’s not for lack of interest or intellect. Some of the smartest and most engaged executives are among those who readily admit to an inability to make sense of all the data their organizations create. They long for clear, actionable information to help them succeed. mediaPlan_small

As we gain ever more ways to interact with customers, the amount of data we can harvest grows; and the challenge of making sense of all the information multiplies. Twenty years ago, it was hard enough to measure the impact of a mail shot when broadcast and print were the only other drivers. With the explosion of new communication channels – online, email, social, mobile – and the shift from outbound to interactive communication, marketers are busier than ever trying to capitalize on all the possibilities. In the process of all this frenetic activity, we aren’t always able to pay attention to how we measure and act upon results. We are awash in an ocean of data, and John Wannamaker’s famous complaint about not knowing which half of his advertising is wasted is still the risk facing most organizations.

The good news is that we marketers now have good tools to harvest data, and the opportunity to note and pay attention to the things that impact success. This is where Business Intelligence adds value. BI allows us to fail or learn fast; but only if we pay attention. By making BI a central component of each campaign, establishing clear connections between business goals and success metrics, and refusing to execute any activity that cannot be measured, we can reduce waste and improve our ability to adjust and improve performance.

Organizations need to help in order for BI to be most effective. How?…by paying attention. BI is not just a stack of incomprehensible charts and graphs that grow like sedimentary rock on the marketers’ shelves or sit heavy in unopened emails. Rather, it is a discipline that converts data into knowledge and knowledge into actionable insights and recommendations. Embracing BI as an integral part of an organization’s growth and operations and working with BI resources to understand and refine what is delivered will ensure everyone is paying attention to the right stuff, and limit the distraction of irrelevant data. Like so many things in life, what you get out of it depends on what you put in. Pay attention to how and what you need to measure and the result will be knowledge worth much more than you’ve paid.

By: ken.cellak at 12:10 pm

My Baby Has More Friends Than Me

Oct
1

More and more I notice that friends of mine are involving their children—even ones yet to make their life debut—in social network sites that they, as adults, frequent. Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter…you name it, if it’s a website and it has social component to it and if you have kids, chances are you are doing it, too.

But that’s okay. Just learn to accept that your children are on the cusp of being more popular (and smarter) than you; and their circle of friends, and friends’ friends, and friends’ friends’ friends will one day destroy—in sheer numbers—your rather tiny group of friends, colleagues and acquaintances. By the way, book club meets at my house this week. Exactly.

So, social media and kids. What does it mean? A lot of things, actually. The ever-evolving presence of children in social media channels has impacted the way we perceive these online channels in various ways. For example, privacy for children. Facebook doesn’t allow children under 13 to have their own profile, period. Which means you cannot create a profile for them anymore—well, you can, but once the privacy cops figure it out, Facebook will delete your child’s profile immediately, with no warning.

But check this out: Circle of Moms. It’s a parenting site that has an application within Facebook where moms can create individual profile pages for each of their children. From there, moms can have fun updating their child’s status, upload photos and start connecting their children with siblings, family members and others. Here’s a look at my son’s profile.

Another way we see the impact of social media on children and their parents is the way moms and dads are scooping up domain names for their young ones. The phrase ‘domain squatting’ comes to mind; however, is it really squatting if your intention is to hand over the URL reigns to your child once he/she is old enough? Chances are you are not banking on profiting from a few domains you have set aside for your children.

Then there’s Flickr, Twitter, YouTube…the list just gets bigger by the day as new social networks spawn and people continue to make babies. I myself am guilty of creating a Flickr and YouTube account for my 4-year old daughter. Really, all I did was name the accounts after her and feature content that involves her romping around our house, saying crazy things like “Daddy, who painted eyes on us?” and tackling an unsuspecting boy at our local Gymboree. Again, this is a great way to aggregate pictures and videos of your children—plus, with the ‘commenting’ functionality on social media sites, you capture sentiments from loved ones regardless of where they live. They do it online, on their time, and it’s real (versus a boilerplate greeting card or something like that).

Of course, though, as parents continue to involve their children in their own social media endeavors, the more we’ll hear the divide over what’s appropriate and when parents are simply going too far. For example, should you have a separate Twitter account for you child, or could you just broadcast to your followers what your son is blurting out via your Twitter account? Is one YouTube account sufficient for the entire family or is it necessary for Junior and little Jane to have their very own pages, all wallpapered out with their favorite colors and patterns?

Personally, I say, “Why not?” If the technology is there and you are using good judgment and your intention is to connect your children with family and friends in an immediate, engaging way, then go for it. It sure beats calling grandma in Phoenix and holding the telephone up to my daughter’s mouth hoping she’ll say something cute on the spot. Instead, grandma can check out YouTube to see a ton of video of my daugher in all her goofy glory. Plus, once you’ve established a social network for your child via Facebook, for example, you begin making more connections with parents who may have things in common with you and have similar parenting philosophies—then, within the parameters of that site, you can exchange parenting tips/advice with other moms and dads, instead of scouring the Internet for sites that may not be credible or interesting.

Finally, as marketers and parents of young children, we are already immersing our children in the world of social media, and there’s no doubt that how they perceive and utilize social media as they maneuver through adolescence and adulthood will be more sophisticated and effective in both their personal and professional lives. Just imageine how they’ll use Facebook and Twitter as a marketing tool as they join the ranks of strategists, interaction designers and technologists of their generation. That is, if Facebook and Twitter are still household names.

So, what do you think? Are you for social media and kids, or do you think it’s just too much too soon for parents to get their kids involved?

We’re Pretty Stoked

Sep
24

Four of our recent digital solutions have been recognized by the fine people at the Web Marketing Association and honored with 2009 WebAwards.

Lots of efforts on so many fronts. From East Coast to West and smack dab in the Midwest; from informed strategy to user insights to creative solutions and proven execution; and from client services to the clients themselves for being part of collaborative-as-hell teams that helped produce this work.

So snatch a few minutes from your day and check out the winners here…

Scion Website

Harley-Davidson V-Rod Muscle Microsite

James Bond: Quantum of Solace Website

Harley-Davidson Ride True Microsite

Congratulations and thank you to all involved.

By: joe.mastrangelo at 7:35 am

The Emerging Impact of Physician Reviews

Sep
23

It hasn’t happened yet but I suspect it will happen soon enough – a physician’s office manager or receptionist will ask me to sign waiver agreeing to NOT review the physician online. This request has been a growing trend in the medical community over the last couple of years.

The American public has shown a willingness to use Web 2.0 tools and functionalities to rate and share everything from the mundane coffee selection to the most serious personal detail. Considering this, it’s not surprising that this nouveau word-of-mouth has touched healthcare. Physician reviews can be found on comprehensive review sites such as Angie’s List and specialty sites such as RateMDs.com.

Angie's List home page

Often the reviews are more about the how the how physician interacted with the patient than the actual treatment decisions made. The physicians themselves do not seem to care to be reviewed. They are concerned about potential negative consequences, either from an inaccurate review or from a patient with an axe to grind. As a result, physicians are fighting back – some are requiring patients to agree not to review them prior to treatment. This trend has even resulted in one company being formed – Medical Justice – to specifically help physicians in this effort.

MedicalJustice.com Anti-Defamation page

So what does this mean? Good question.

To begin with, there are some legal issues that need resolution:

What happens if a patient agrees not to review yet does so anyway? The waivers make it clear to the patient that the physician can pursue litigation in the event the patient violates the agreement, but is that really the answer? Suing ones patients is not the best way to build a practice.

Where does the First Amendment come into play? Legal experts have expressed doubts that these waivers would hold up in court.

There are also some questions consider regarding how this trend may impact healthcare as we know it:

What happens when a patient declines to sign the waiver? Most of the discussions reviewed centered on the impact to a new patient at a physician’s office. In this scenario it wouldn’t be surprising to see the physician and patient part ways before any healthcare takes place. It will be interesting to see what happens when a long-time patient refuses to sign. Will the physician send him/her away? Will the physician relent and not seek the signature? This may also be impacted by the financial situation of the physician.

Where do hospitals fit in this trend? I can just see it now – ER physician says, “um, patient in the ER, would you mind signing this waiver before I fix your broken arm?” Clearly there is a limit to how far physicians can push this issue.

Finally, what will this mean in terms of where and how patients are treated? Will patients only go to those most highly rated? What happens to physicians that are not rated, are they perceived negatively due to the lack of commentary? Will there be standards put into place to help take the subjective nature out of these ratings? Will physicians provide the best care or the care that will result in the best rating? (The last question may seem like heresy but let’s face it, there are dermatologists out there who will see a cosmetic patient immediately while making a medical patient wait a month – NYTimes link: http://bit.ly/4fHtfF)

What can marketers learn from this?

Though I would suggest that physicians, as a group, are not handling this trend in the best manner, there are lessons that can be learned from their behavior – lessons that marketers can likely apply to their own business:

These new technologies are here to stay: I imagine if you were to poll physicians on this trend, they would like to see it just go away. That’s not happening. And the answer isn’t to erect barriers and threaten litigation. All of us, physicians include, need to use this opportunity understand what is of concern to our customers and use this information to better meet customer needs while still providing quality services.

Improved communications are a good thing: Let’s face it, most physicians are not known for having a good bedside manner. In fact, sometimes it seems as if a bad bedside manner is some kind of badge of honor. Well, it is possible for a physician to have a good bedside manner (NYTimes link: http://bit.ly/bNzmq). Ultimately, better communication will lead to better understanding and, consequently, stronger influence – something we are all after as marketers.

Keep the little things from sabotaging you: How many times has a seemingly insignificant product feature or customer service interaction torpedoed the efforts of a brand team to consistently communicate its message and value to user audience? A billing issue, a misplaced test form, a whole host of possibilities can end up leaving the patient with a less than satisfactory experience, thereby contributing to a negative review. Paying attention to and addressing potential issues early can go a long way to creating happy customers.

Through a better overall understanding of their patients, an effort to improve communications and a push to establish review standards, physicians can turn this seemingly negative trend into one provides value to them and their patients.

So what do you think? Where do you think this physician review trend is heading? What do you think we can learn from it? Let me know… post a comment or email me…

By: tara.deville at 10:01 am

Social Media Metrics: Requires a Different Conversation

Sep
21

Marketers are embracing social media and technology to connect with audiences in new and unique ways. Social community participation, smart phone apps, UGC, gaming, blogging, and video are becoming key channels in which the brand plays. Along with this channel extension has emerged the increasing requirement of marketers to demonstrate the value and ROI from social media efforts.

At a recent social media conference, the topic of ROI surfaced early and often. I heard the same things I’ve heard from my own clients. “We feel those Facebook fans are valuable. We know that blog post has been referenced and shared. We see the RTs from our daily posts on Twitter.”

But how much time and energy should we spend on social marketing? How do we justify new resources to manage social initiatives if there is no clear “return”?

For starters, metrics that help us calculate return can no longer be a matter of visitors, engagement and e-commerce sales from our website. Analytics of social media transcend the corporate and brand site to include product conversations, branded asset engagement, social network participation and sentiment levels expressed about products, services and companies.

Start by Monitoring

Monitoring our place in the social space is an essential starting point. As brand managers, we need to expand our touch points and develop a model for understanding the value of those touch points to our customer relationship and purchase cycle. By establishing benchmarks, we can then measure how the integrated mix of social communications impacts those metrics over time. By evaluating pre-campaign attitudes and awareness and tracking changing views and metrics as the brand extends its social message, we can determine the value of the investment.

Some benchmarking questions to ask:

Are we currently part of conversations about our category or industry?
How is our brand perceived compared to our competitors?
How do we enable brand advocates to tell our story?

In my own experience, I have found success in justifying social initiatives by defining baseline analytics, monitoring touch points, measuring their change, and assigning value to those changes. With personas as a core part of our strategy at Whittmanhart, we measure social success in terms of the engagement metrics that drive those personas’ behavior to purchase or influence. Knowing what the conversion rates have been across those personas, we have a sense of what a better relationship with those users will mean to the brand. Specific activities, like social profile fans, forum participation, video views, app downloads, are measured over time. Using referral data and conversion rates, we tie those interactions to purchase intent and behavior, giving the brand a directional sense of how each channel contributes ROI (or doesn’t).

In the absence of defined online personas, it might behoove brands to consider Forrester’s social technographics ladder to identify the value of positively engaging customers in social media.

Don’t Forget About Cost Savings

Furthermore, ROI isn’t a matter of revenue alone. At the recent BDI B2B Social Conference in New York, Pitney Bowes shared how they translated social participation into cost savings to demonstrate ROI. In their low-growth industry, cutting costs is central to the core business strategy. Pitney Bowes developed a customer forum that enables customers to collaborate and share experiences about mailing, postage increases and the company. For Pitney Bowes, the value of time saved and resources reduced by the customer community has been estimated at 3x the development cost of the forum. ROI was reflected in reduced customer service inquiries, not an increase in acquisitions or revenue.

Ultimately, the metrics used to demonstrate value have to work for the specific organization. Until we begin to assess the value of what these engagements mean to our own organizations, we will only have the case for social to be “just because.” The analytics may trail the technology, but that does not mean we should blindly recommend strategy because one channel looks like the next best thing. We should reflect upon the cross-channel objectives and consistently look to recommend strategies, monitor, and measure our performance against those goals.

How do you measure social media? Let us know. Post a comment or email me…

Check back for more posts about the evolving nature of media and metrics.

By: jennifer.harris at 6:39 am

How does an Interactive Agency work with internal IT (or lack of)?

Sep
18

If you’re responsible for your company’s website or other digital marketing initiatives, you likely find yourself in one of the following situations: either your IT group is wholly responsible for maintaining your website / digital initiatives, you’re responsible for the technical and execution aspects yourself with no IT assistance, or some combination of the first two scenarios.

Regardless of the level of internal IT support for your digital initiatives, you can still leverage an interactive agency for your interactive advertising needs. Interactive agencies have the ability to operate in many different technology partnership models, providing flexibility to ensure you’re successful in bringing those creative ideas to life.

A full service technology partnership model may include hosting arrangements, full stack website development, consultation with your internal IT to verify standards / knowledge transfer, quality assurance (QA), and ongoing maintenance services. This type of arrangement works well for an organization that doesn’t have dedicated internal IT resources to develop and/or support external company web applications.

While a full service technology partnership model reduces complexity in cross-team coordination and communication, it is not always in line with a client’s organizational needs. A common alternative model that works for many organizations is to split the responsibilities for development between the agency’s technology team and the internal IT department. In this arrangement, the agency may develop the front end components of the site while the internal IT department focuses their effort on the back end components, such as database design, underlying web and data services, and/or content management system implementation. If the internal IT department is responsible for developing and maintaining the full code stack, then the agency can work in a consulting role to provide technical direction and best practice support for content management and other facets of the implementation.

Beyond defining roles and responsibilities, a partnership model allows for more efficient development cycles by defining methodologies and tools that create efficient synergy amongst developer groups, agency creative groups, and stakeholders. For example, software tools that provide client facing defect and task management allow all parties to work from the same tracking information during and after the development cycle, dramatically increasing the quality of the final product.

The bottom line – a full service interactive agency can be your interactive technology partner, regardless of the level of internal IT involvement in delivering your web initiatives.

Check back for more thoughts on interactive technology and how it can be used to enable rich web experiences that ultimately build and enhance relationships with your consumer.

Contributor: Stan Carrico, Technology Manager

By: Todd Levy at 6:00 am

Not Invented Here Vol. 1: Mega Dropdowns

Sep
16

Welcome to Vol.1 of Not Invented Here, a new semi-regular series on trends and innovations in interaction design (IxD).

A staple of the WIMP interface from day one, the once humble dropdown menu got its start as part of Xerox Park’s Alto, was thrust into the limelight with the Apple Lisa, and then popularized by her legendary little sister the Macintosh.

The dropdown menu (aka pulldown menu) saw little innovation for years, save the nested dropdown (aka cascading menu) and the combo-box, a marriage of the dropdown menu and a text input field.

Then, with the proliferation of rigidly hierarchical websites and widespread adoption of JavaScript compliant browsers over the past decade, the dropdown menu became a natural addition to the standard global nav bar, often handsomely styled to match a site design. Mouse over a section, see its subsections, and jump right to one without ever seeing the parent page.

And of course since websites hierarchies often went deeper than one level, dropdowns came along for the ride, evolving into the ubiquitous and fine-motor-skill-taxing nested dropdowns that are easy to create yet almost impossible to execute well.

Recently however, the dropdown has gotten a steroid injection in the form of the not-so-humbly named mega dropdown.

Big, two-dimensional drop-down panels group navigation options to eliminate scrolling and use typography, icons, and tooltips to explain the user’s choices.
— Jakob Nielsen, Mega Drop-Down Navigation Menus Work Well

Of course writing about mega dropdowns is like dancing about architecture, so here are a few examples you can link to and try yourself:

Mega dropdown on Gateway.com (as of Sept. 10, 2009)

Mega dropdown on EA.com (as of Sept. 10, 2009)

Read on for some analysis of mega dropdowns, a few guidelines on how to use them, and a couple of links to help you get started creating your own.

By: Brett Johnson at 3:56 am

How Open ID Will Shape Your Online Experience

Sep
3

OpenID Will Let You Log-On To Multiple Sites with the Same Digital Identity

Originally developed in 2005, it has taken four years for the OpenID application protocol, even the concept, to take hold in the mainstream. You are probably hearing the buzz about OpenID, Google Friend Connect or Facebook Connect and if you haven’t used one yet, it is only a matter of time. And why not adopt a system which allows you to use the same login and password, or digital identity, for an unlimited number of websites or software systems? Whether it is checking account balances, paying bills or simply commenting on a product or forum, having one master key as your gateway into dozens, if not hundreds of sites, certainly could simplify things. Imagine going between the recently announced OpenID compatible sites of Kmart and Sears, without even logging in twice. It is just around the corner.

What’s Driving OpenID? The Fight for Your Online Friends

One of the reasons we’re seeing a dramatic increase in sites which offer these types of services is the result of a battle to acquire users between Google, Facebook, AIM/Yahoo, Twitter and others. It is easy to understand why the virtual user-grab is taking place. Where there’s a connection, there’s relevance, and where there’s relevance . . . advertising dollars. Relevance between friends can play out any number of ways. With Facebook Connect, a user can login to any equipped site and view the activities of their friends, such as ratings, reviews, wishlists, and recently viewed products. Two-way messaging with friends from within retail or manufacturers’ sites can provide untold word-of-mouth marketing and personal endorsements. Another practical application, where bringing your friends along for the ride enhances the experience, is in the presentation of live media. During NASCAR races, fans can login and watch four on-track video streams while simultaneously chatting with the public, their Facebook friends or people they follow on Twitter.

By: Todd Levy at 3:52 am

Not Invented Here: Trends and Innovations in Interaction Design (IxD)

Sep
3

Welcome to Not Invented Here, a new semi-regular series on trends and innovations in interaction design (IxD).

As the field of interaction design takes shape, practitioners are doing a great job of harnessing the familiar to ensure usability and help people meet their goals on the web.

But familiar isn’t good enough for some interaction designers who are willing to throw caution to the wind and try out something new. They’re taking a risk for sure, but some of their innovative solutions work quite well. And a select few work even better than the traditional alternative — trending from obscurity to familiarity — ultimately becoming standards in their own right.

The Not Invented Here series will salute the work of these pioneers, with an eye towards solutions you can immediately bring to bear on your own projects.

For the first two posts, I’ll turn my attention on two “emerged” trends in modern interaction design – mega-dropdowns and super-footers – both of which sound like they’d fit right in as villains in a Godzilla movie.

After that, I’ll take a look at some newer innovations that are making their way to a website near you. Things like accessible direct-manipulation interfaces and a fresh, space-saving interaction technique called pageSlide.

Beyond that, who knows? Perhaps we’ll collectively stumble upon the next great interaction design innovation… and together we can make it the next big trend.

Come back next Monday for part 1 of the series. And if you’re forgetful like me, you can grab our RSS feed or sign-up for email updates so you won’t miss a thing.

P.S. Have an IxD innovation of your own? Post a comment or email me… I’d love to hear about it.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Cowbell

The Practice of Paying Attention

We’re Pretty Stoked

How does an Interactive Agency work with internal IT (or lack of)?

Not Invented Here Vol. 1: Mega Dropdowns

How Open ID Will Shape Your Online Experience

Not Invented Here: Trends and Innovations in Interaction Design (IxD)

Popular Tags

Tweets

Posts

Comments

Blogroll

Archives