’08 forecast – more biz-based social networks

British-based vnunet.com thinks 2008 will mark several milestones as social networking becomes increasingly integrated into the consumer business model, a shift predicted for ’07 that wasn’t as widespread as imagined.

Feedback and influence from social networks will ultimately become more significant factors in the purchasing decision cycle.

Our view is that print will remain the media of record even as consumers make the wholesale move to web-driven info for purchase-related decisions.

Social nets – for better or worse – will get more and more use as endorsement gateways offering peer-to-peer near-realtime dialogues. In practical terms, if as seems likely, I’ll now have to replace a perfectly decent HD DVD player with a Blu-ray DVD player to go with all my other DVD dammit players that have become useful as kickstand supports. Sorting out the pluses and minuses will take place on a social net somewhere, as opposed to waiting for the latest “Electronics Monthly” to show up on Border’s magazine rack.

Conclusion? If you’re not blogging your product, and/or watching what’s being blogged about your product, your competitor is. Which means their widget will come up, and your widget won’t.

hot rods in hi def – oh wow!

Got hi-def? Discovery Channel’s new ‘Rides’ series is a good reason to run right out and cable yourself into 1080 bliss if you haven’t done so already. Specifically, the segment titled ‘Rat Rods’, in rotation and airing next on January 7th.

Ever wonder what life would be like without reality show buffoonery and billet ad nauseum? Then you’ve found a new home. The almost hour-long episode focuses on the chopping of “bad news”, a resurrected T-model by a bunch of cats, the Burbank Choppers Car Club to be specific, whose idea of rods and customs doesn’t depend on a Black AmEx, just desire, imagination, skill – and a healthy respect for tradition.

Their site’s a piece of work to be admired for form and function as much as content. The same goes for snap-shooter Laurent Bagnard whose coffee table book about the club “The Electroline Diaries” sold out within weeks of publication.

Tag along on this respectful look at car culture the way it’s meant to be – without anybody ever mentioning “old skool” once.

like a snowball in a blizzard

In my time I’ve made my share of photo mistakes, and they’ve usually been the result of bad lighting decisions. So I couldn’t help but notice this manufacturer’s attempt to illustrate the product in a natural setting, the usual goal of product publicity. Unless the product features camouflage and the setting is the deep woods.

Photographers like to complain about the difficulty of certain setups as “being like” taking a picure of a lump of coal in a mineshaft. Or a snowball in a blizzard. Or, more common, of that newly polished piece of billet. In this case the result isn’t fatal, but for one obvious reason it falls short of being an eyestopper.

The lack of separation of product from background directs the eye to the model, not the product. Next time try some portable location lighting or prepare to spend a few hours in Photoshop to knock the background down a bit and open up the product.

dakar fallout circles the globe

Team Rally Pan Am issued a press release that, apart from regret, wondered if perhaps the Portugal and Morroco legs couldn’t have been salvaged before cancelling outright the entire event. The privateers from San Fran had hoped this would be their breakout year with Jonah Street again seeking a podium.

“It’s unfortunate that so many people’s livelihoods are affected by a few people’s attitudes. I was looking forward to the race this year, and my whole team and I are extremely disappointed. This would
have been a great race for us,” said Street.

Charlie Rauseo, team manager, said that “It is a huge blow to our team. This is the race we look forward to and spend all year preparing for.”

“After having spent many months training and preparing for this rally, the team regrets not having the chance to prove itself on this international stage. It is unfortunate that the race was not run at least in Morocco so that sponsors could receive some of the exposure from this great race, and supporters and fans could cheer on Jonah as he raced for the win.”

dakar rally falls victim to terrorists

A.S.O. condemns the terrorist menace that annihilates a year of hard work, engagement and passion for all the participants and the different actors of the world’s biggest off-road rally.

Today’s announcement from Lisbon and here and here on the eve of the 2008 Dakar (January 5-20) that the event’s been cancelled has rocked the off-road rally community. Organizers list the Christmas Eve murders in Mauritania of four French citizens by terrorists, coupled with continuing threats by reported terrorist organizations aimed at the event and a French government advisory against all travel in the region as reasons for the cancellation.

here’s the forecast – online gets more traction

The Economist reports that London based ZenithOptiMedia is predicting internet ads, at a forecast 8% of all global advertising, will surpass the bucks now spent on radio in 2008. And by 2012, another research firm is estimating nearly 18% of European advertising will be online. This in the context of a domestic recession many think inevitable.

Where is print in this outlook? Weeeeeelll…newspaper profits are predicted to improve as a result of subscription increases and more ad revenue, even as many (see Herald, Miami) continue to cut circ and staff. Often refered to as eating the seed corn.

Big news, though, is the consensus that nearly 90% of marketing departments will or have already launched “social content” campaigns, and that by ’09 marketers will be targeting 25% of their budget for social media. What’s it all mean? At this point it seems that for all but a handful at the very top, online media’s a must-have of don’t have a clue how to.

‘busa blastoff

It’s not news that 40% of Suzuki Hyabusa buyers are black or Latino. What is news is Adweek’s confirmation of an emerging strategy that sucks more resources from traditional – read print – outlays and retargets budget to digital using a combination of focused local media driving new online content.

In this case, the manufacturer’s latest moves can be interpreted as a thorough reseeding of the urban source of those sales, in an effort crafted by their digital agency Questus to capitalize on established brand id by using localized rappers to hype the bike in eleven selected markets.

Local media will then link back to an online music and graffiti site, as this hybrid rolls out over the months ahead. It’s an interesting concept which brings to mind the reopening of underproducing oil wells as the per barrel price perpares to leave our galaxy. It’s not so much mining new market as it is refining the old. At $12K for an ’08, it’s worth it to dig a little deeper in those markets that already produce 30% of sales.

branding done right

Target (sometimes referred to by it’s chic id as tahr-jay) rose to the top of the retail marketing heap in the ’90’s in large measure by rewriting it’s brand management strategy. In the process it smoked the once dominant Sears mark, torpedo’d K-Mart, and attended the funerals of several like competitors.

Target’s approach is simple. If you don’t have a successful brand strategy, don’t come knocking. Like many other consumer channels, powersports marketers have largely ignored the basics — and the necessity — of branding. Depending for the past decade-plus on growth as a result of consumer generated demand — like counting on spontaneous combustion to heat your house — a softening market is now revealing the inherent weakness of products without proper identity papers.

Target understands how and why consumers shop, and many of the lessons are easily observed. Just go shopping — pay attention to the brands they’ve chosen to market, and how they’ve chosen to display and promote them. Just don’t blame us if you end up buying something you didn’t know you needed.

(Read more about branding here.)

valvoline’s promo blowout

Sweet! Valvoline’s summer promotion offering a pair of Mechanix gloves – MSRP $23.95 – in exchange for 6 proofs of purchase was a thumbs-up winner in the create a new customer sweepstakes. Valvoline’s always been my oil of choice and this just cemented the deal. I stripped off the plastic rings from the 60-weight already on my shelves and 4-6 weeks later the gloves were on my workbench.

This marketing promotion worked well on a number of levels. Actual retail value of the premium was easily compared by visiting any chain store and checking out the pricing. The gloves themselves have a known brand cache. The fact that the product was practical as well completed the reward expectations loop, justifying the effort to collect, fill out, insert and mail the qualifying bits and pieces. And this promo created a fair amount of blog and forum buzz, which never hurts.

Not every marketer can devote the resources needed to lay out a promo like this one. (Adobe just ran a buy two get an iPod shuffle to hype their stock art biz. I didn’t need another iPod but couldn’t resist taking the bait.) But if the audience is big enough, the rewards on both sides of the mailbox can be considerable.

why circuit city sucks

First some background. One of the essential Marketing Customer Commandments that’s emerged in the era of the internet has been a total focus on customer retention. My recent experiences with vendors ranging from Valvoline motor oil to Garden of Eatin’s line of organic chips convinces me that it’s not just a throwaway line. But then there are retailers like Circuit City, and this goes to the reason why Best Buy is clobbering The Other Big Red Box.
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