Marketing Pilgrim

With the success and rapid adoption of online maps services in general it only makes sense that mapping services show up for places that we get lost in most often: airports and malls.

Ever been in a mall and wonder where that stinkin’ directory is? Ever had to race to said directory to find out where the restroom was only to discover in your mad rush you already passed it? Then you or your kid has to do the “bathroom run” (you what that looks like….half hunched over and knees together trying to run which isn’t natural) in hopes you get there in time?

Well, those days are over if you are smart phone smartie and have one of the several mall and airport map services like PointInside, FastMall, Aisle411 and Micello. The New York Times reports

If you like stats and graphics, you’ll go positively mad over a new website by custom research agency TNS. The website is called DiscoverDigitalLife.com and it’s a public repository for the massive amounts of data collected in regard to consumer’s online behavior and attitudes.

The study covers 48,804 people from 46 countries, ranging in age from 16 to 60 and TNS claims they’ve discovered “major changes in online behavior.” They probably have but it will take you awhile to find it if you try to dig it out yourself. To help you, TNS has turned all the facts and figures into pretty graphics and it’s impressive.

When you visit www.discoverdigitallife.com you’ll find a “taster” sampler of data that delivers a lot more than your average appetizer. Right away you can choose from several small pdf presentations including a look at the six lifestyle segments and the drivers of online behavior.

There are many images of walls in history and they are usually not the best things. When they are destroyed, however, there is celebration and progress. There was President Reagan’s famous call at the Brandenburg Gate of the Berlin Wall “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”. From the pop culture side of things, Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” paints a picture of the self-destructive behavior that happens when walls are constructed to keep the outside where it supposedly belongs: outside.

So what’s this have to do with Internet marketing? I contend that it has everything to do with how the industry conducts itself and the damage that it is doing in the process.

Today, I am proud to present to you my interview with the one and only Copyblogger, Brian Clark. If you aren’t familiar with Brian, then welcome to the internet! Since launching his widely popular blog in 2006, Brian has become a force within Internet Marketing. He and his blog have been listed on the top of some of the most prestigious lists in the industry. Brian has developed and marketed several very successful products and continues to be an entrepreneur that is on the cutting edge of both marketing and social media.

So without further ado I present my interview with Mr. Copyblogger himself:

CNN has a nifty new study they call POWNAR which stands for “power of news and recommendation.” For the study they tracked the sharing of news through social networks and they also used eye-tracking and biometrics to study engagement. Told you it was nifty.

First, they took a look at the kinds of news stories that were being shared by the 2300 participants in the study. What they found was that people shared stories in order to “impart knowledge,” which is kind of a given, isn’t it? Only 19% of shared stories were considered breaking news. The 65% majority was ongoing stories with what CNN called “quirky” stories making up the rest. But it’s not crime or politics that is lighting up the virtual airwaves. It’s science, technology, human interest and money-related new stories. Technology is a given seeing as that’s the vehicle we’re using to drive this herd in the first place but I was a little surprised by the others. They also mention “visually spectacular” news, which I take to mean things like fires, floods, snowstorms and UFO’s in the skies around China.

FarmVille now has its own McDonalds. Sing along with me, “Old McDonalds had a farm, EE-I-EE-I Oy!”

It’s a one day only promotion that will probably lead to a long term ad deal, but where’s the hype in that? Today only, Facebook fans can stop by the McDonalds’ farm to help plant tomatoes and mustard seeds. (Mustard seeds?) When you play, you get rewarded with a  FarmVille McCafe Consumable, “a valuable item (virtual good) that makes game-play easier. The McCafe Consumable delivers energy to players to move about their farms at twice the speed.”

How hysterical is it that overly-caffeinated coffee is the prize on FarmVille. Like they couldn’t have taken this opportunity to promote healthy eating by offering a fresh salad as a reward?

Says Manny Anekal, Global Director of Brand Advertising at Zynga;