Marketing Pilgrim

Google has been the talk of many for its push in local Internet marketing. That has been happening for good reason since it seems that’s where the innovation is occurring for the search leader.

Now, some of the same attention is being turned to the mobile environment which, for the most part, plays hand-in-hand with local. From events discussing the mobile environment that feature the likes of Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins (February 10 at 1 pm EST and are being livestreamed) to more Google videos (see below), Google is firing up the mobile ad machine in earnest.

The mantra that is guiding the efforts is stated on the Google Mobile Ads blog in the following three points.

Starting on February 15, mobile Last FM listeners will have to pay $3.00 a month to continue their service. That’s less than most people spend on coffee or soda in a day so no big deal, right? Wrong. As expected, the response to the company’s blog post announcement has been mostly about people ready to jump to a competitor rather than pony up the bucks.

The refusal to pay for what they once got free is pretty common in the internet space and it’s becoming more and more of an issue as news outlets and video sites switch over to the paid subscription model. But what’s really interesting here is a line from Last FM’s post:

Probably not.

Nielsen has turned in the numbers on this year’s Super Bowl ads and what was popular and what was memorable were two very different things.

Little Darth Vader attempting to use the Force on everything from baby dolls to the dryer took the top spot as the most popular Super Bowl ad, but it didn’t even make the top ten for brand recall.

Doritos was the winner across the board with ads that were both popular and had high brand recognition. The Pug attack got the top spot for the most recalled brand ad while the licking cheese fingers and grandpa’s ashes came in fourth and fifth for popularity.

I guess when you’re in a war, resorting to guerilla tactics is something that, while ugly, gets the job done.

Take, for example, the kerfuffle over whether Bing copied Google’s search results–or not. If the Microsoft search engine has in fact been copying Google, then it should just keep on keepin’ on! According to Hitwise, Bing saw a 21% increase in searches at its own web site and another 6% growth spurt across all Bing-powered search sites.

Even better news for Bing? Its users are having an easier time finding what they are looking for, with almost 82% of searchers finding what they were looking for–or at least visiting a relevant web site. By comparison, Google’s “success rate” was just over 65%.

I’m going to keep this post simple.

We are looking at the whole Groupon / Tibet / Insensitivity / Non-Apology / You Just Don’t Get Us, back and forth that is taking up some online space after their Super Bowl ads from Sunday’s big game.

From a pure reputation management perspective chime in with a comment whether you think the whole Groupon ‘thing’ is

1. Harmful to Groupon’s reputation
2. A reputation ‘non-issue’
3. Much ado about nothing
4. One for the advertising and reputation Hall of Fame of Blunders
5. Something else not mentioned

Some may already be saying “Well, what else would you use as a measure of social media success?” but it appears that the C-suite marketers are getting on board as well.

The early stages of determining social media success have been dominated by questionable metrics such as number of followers and other variables that are considered soft measurements. Some information provided in January from Bazaarvoice and The CMO Club via eMarketer tells the story of C-level marketers applying the same hard measurements to social media as they have been moving to in all other areas of marketing, mainly conversions and revenue generation.