Starbucks Shows Up in the Social Scene

Last week, the McDonald's of coffee retailers announced the launch of their web 2.0 program called My Starbucks Idea. It's basically a social networking site for Starbucks consumers to comment and suggest ideas for the company on its services as well as vote for other commenters' ideas. Every idea gets points based on votes. Consumers can keep score of the votes online and then can visit Starbuck's new blog Ideas in Action to check and see if the company is actually doing something about them.

It's actually a pretty smart move on Starbucks behalf since it has never really listened to online conversations before according to John Moore, a former Starbucks marketer. Some have criticized that it may be a little too late for Starbucks to rebrand itself while others debate the value of branded blogs and social networks for company advocacy.

Regardless of how late Starbucks may be to the social networking game, their attempt is noteworthy and is already on the track to making positive changes towards its services and customer satisfaction. Just yesterday, Brad Stevens wrote about implementing a frequency discount as part of the Starbucks Card Rewards program which includes free refills on brewed coffee, complimentary customization and two hours of complimentary wi-fi.

Here's a side observation. Since last week Tuesday, March 18th during the time My Starbucks Idea launched, which is exactly one week from today, the "top all-time voted idea" about a punch card system received 388 total comments and 30590 points. The idea is currently **Under Review** by the Starbucks corporate staff. How exciting it is to see a corporate giant give personal and reinforcing daily feedback to the people who matter most: its customers and employees. They're engaging in the space where their demographic spends most of their time and what better opportunity than to welcome them into your store with free limited wi-fi access! If Starbucks wasn't listening before, they're certainly listening now. Cheers, Starbucks!

Graffiti Is Good

After a one month hiatus, I'm back with a new gig and post. These have been transitional times. I've recently left my beloved agency, Icrossing, and now work for the mover and shaker, Telligent. For those who may know little about me, I'm an avid writer and blog enthusiast; I'm all about creation, customization and personalization. So it seems like divine intervention that my career path has crossed with Graffiti CMS which is one of the showcase products I will be marketing and promoting for Telligent.

It's only beeen week #2 for me and so far I'm very impressed with what Graffiti can do. I've been playing with the software and currently in the process of moving my blogs and site over (sorry Blogger). I can't wait to see the results.

Yahoo's Up to Serve

For a while now, I've been holding my breath around the discussion of Microsoft and Yahoo's tiff. But with Microsoft's announcement today of its proxy battle authorization for the company that snubbed its bid last week (a move that will prove cheaper than raising its original bid), my curiosity grows and the drama just keeps getting better. The ball's in Yahoo's court now.

Many people wonder, did Yahoo make a mistake by rejecting the Microsoft offer? It is said in other reports that Yahoo's board could be vulnerable in this proxy fight since all of its directors are up for nomination this year, and in accordance with its bylaws they're elected by a plurality of votes cast in a contested election. Supposedly the senior executives at News Corporation don't expect anything to happen with their discussions with Yahoo over a possible merger and Time Warner seems to be skeptical.

With Google somewhat rooting for Yahoo from the stands, it would still prove to be hard times for Yahoo if they announced a deal with the internet Giant. It's unlikely the shareholders would believe that the money from search alone would be enough to back Yahoo's reasoning for turning down Microsoft.

My two cents is Yahoo's putting up a fight it won't win. Either Microsoft is going to get its way or Yahoo will have to settle for less which would be less than ideal to the prior. I'm grateful everyday I didn't get that job offer from Yahoo back in 2007 and wish the best for its employees in the coming months.

The Amazon of the Web

Women have always been known to be mysterious and complex. "What women want" has been the topic of endless talk shows, relationship books and politics since the dawn of time. It's no different in the marketing world. According to a new interactive Ad Age article, women ruled over 50% of online users in 2007. What were the highest traffic spots? No surprise, they were women's communities (35% unique visits increase) and political categories. Not to mention, there's a larger pool of women bloggers and readers out there in the social web space.

YouTube women visitors comprised of more than 43% last year. The research shows that women are most drawn to news, music and movie clips.

Don't forget shopping! An interesting statistic shows that 68% of women from household incomes of $100,000 or more purchased online versus 49% of those from $35,000 or less household incomes. That's not a tremendous difference.

Another fact that might surprise some is that the casual gaming audience is equally split between men and women. In fact, women are more likely to pay for their casual games.

Healthcare is always a significant source of search and women come out on top as the primary investigators. 90% of women ages between 25 and 34 comprise of the 84% who sought healthcare information via the web. Interestingly, 75% of women ages 65 and up use the internet for their healtcare source as well.

The last two subjects make up "the birds and the bees" factor. Romance and parenthood finish up the online activity of women according to the article. As long as there's these type of informational sources around, women will always be actively looking for subjects on love and family.

Short and Sweet Sells Your Stuff

Smith Magazine came up with a great project to engage an audience and promote their product at the same time. Isn't this what advertisers do all the time?

Ad Intelligence is Advantageous

As a PPC manager and strategist, I am very pleased and excited about the possibilities of Microsoft's adCenter add-in beta for Excel 2007 called Ad Intelligence. Just by going through the basic steps of this program, I realize how efficient of a tool this can be to my keyword building. It includes keyword suggestions, categorizations and extractions as well as monthly and daily traffic estimators. Some interesting organizers include the Geographic and Demographic tabs that breakdown the data of your keywords right into the spreadsheet. Ad Intelligence even drops in a easy-to-read color coded chart with the Monetization option which in my opinion is a nice change of pace compared to Google's Adwords templates. I highly reccommend this tool as an addition to marketers' resources for search-related campaigns. Especially with the highly-likely merge of MSN and Yahoo close at hand, you can bet this instrument will become a common and significant accessory to paid search.

Super? Not So Much

I know, I know. There's a million other people out there who have already written their reviews on last night's Superbowl commercials. There were winners and there were duds. However, I would like to dedicate this post to the top 10 that deserve kudos based on their effectiveness and creativity from a marketer's perspective. If you missed them last night, you can catch them all on Ad Age.

1. Audi's Offer You Can't Refuse
As the first few split seconds flashed on my screen, I instantly recognized the setup from my memories of The Godfather. As the camera closes in on the old man waking up to the horror in his bed, my interest peaked and I was dying to know who was responsible for this spoof. When the culprit turned out to be the Audi R8, I was awe-struck with its beauty, design and delivery. That ad left me stunned for 10 minutes and searching online for a price tag. Imagine how many other people all over the world did the same thing.

2. Myspace on My Time
I don't know how much Myspace paid for its Superbowl advertisement to Fox, but it went the different route by flashing its microsite url "myspace.com/superbowlads" across the screen every once in awhile during the game. This was a unique and interesting strategy where it compelled the audience to go online, whether it be right then and there or suffice as a mental reminder for surfing during work the next day.

3. Tide's Take on Interviews
Procter & Gamble's Tide To Go got me LOL with its "Silence the Stain" slogan. They even have a great tie-in campaign online at http://www.mytalkingstain.com/ where you can create your own talking stain for a chance to win their instant daily prizes. Good clean fun.

4. That Crafty Kraft
This ad shows men going NUTS over a neanderthal-looking woman. What's so irresistible about her? Why, it's the peanut perfume from Planters she's wearing, silly! I salute this one because it caters to both sexes of all ages and pokes fun at our society's obsession with dating and attraction. Now, if only it were this easy.

5. Suck One
For all the Bud Light lovers, Old School fans, frat boys and movie buffs, you can't go wrong with sexy Will Ferrell in short shorts. The tagline "(Bud Light) refreshes the palate and the loins" is memorable and gets you curious about Will's new movie coming out called "Semi-Pro". Two for one, not a bad combo.

6. Jiminy Firefly!
Careerbuilder went all out this year but their best ad by far had to be this one. It has all the elements of a great ad: cheesy theme song, cartoons and violence. Also, out of all one-line shooters they came up with, I think they said it great with "Wishing won't get you a better job".

7. Scary Simmons
This ad hits close to home; it was made by The Richards Group based in Dallas, TX. Hearing Richard Simmons scream is priceless.

8. Diet Pepsi Max: New Drug?
Here's another one that showcases celebrities and artists alike. I laughed and cringed at the same time when I heard the iconic song made famous by SNL's own Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan (who makes a cameo appearance at the end) in Night at the Roxbury. Even though the original idea is played out and already past its shelf-life, it's still relevant enough in the market to get a few chuckles. Does it compell people enough to buy and drink Diet Pepsi Max? TBD.

9. Pepsi's bringing sexyback
It's always fun to see some annoying celebrity or pop culture pimp get tossed around like a little doll. Hence the popularity of this other Pepsi Co ad. Sophomoric humor, crossdressing and adult benefits of signing up at pepsistuff.com is what makes this one a winner with the crowd.

10. I'm Renting A Clown
As creepy as this may have been, there's something mesmerizing about a real baby talking about trades and stock. Both ads were great. You're never too young to invest. Check it and click.

Anomaly Makes Jaws Sexy

What do you think of when someone says "bluetooth"? I bet it's nothing like this ad campaign the agency Anomaly put out for Jawbone.

The iPhone Inevitable

Why does it come as a surprise to some that about one million iPhones out of the 3.7 million sold have been unlocked? *Unlocked meaning the phone's settings are disabled to allow the use of any carrier's SIM card.

A new report by Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi traces the gaps between Apple's shipments, AT&T iPhone subscribers and European projections to estimate 1.4 million out there which are unlocked and/or still sitting on store shelves still packaged.

He also brings up the point of concern that there is excess stock of Apple's iPhone inventory. He claims that"if 10% were sold unlocked in the last quarter, it would leave more than one million iPhones unexplained and as many as 238 iPhones unsold per store". The Berstein report suggests that the iPhone's demand is waning and "end-user demand for iPhone is lower than many investors may think based on Apple's $4 million sales figure... and it points to slower iPhone sales in the current quarter, since much of this inventory is likely to be drawn down".

According to The Register, "unlocked phones represent a significant drag on the profitablility of the device. With Apple receving $300 to $400 in carrier payments for each iPhone sold, they generate 50% less revenue and up to 75% less profit than normal. The 1 million phones translates into as much as $400 million in lost revenue".

Coming from a consumer's perspective, I've always found a way to buy the latest mobile devices as soon as they come out. When Motorola's original MOTORAZR V3 showed itself for the first time in market in 2004, it was exclusive to Cingular's (now AT&T) network. I already had a T-Mobile contract and didn't want to break it so I went in search of an unlocked V3 on Ebay. In 2 weeks, I had a brand new unlocked RAZR at my door, popped in my SIM chip and escaped the costs and fees of changing carriers.

That was four years ago. You'd think by now the corporations would realize there's a huge demographic out there of tech-rebels like me. Supposedly, Apple has gone to great lengths to make it hard to unlock iPhones where updates to patch security bugs typically re-lock the handsets. However, hackers always prevail and found a work-around. Less than a week after the most recent version of the firmware was released, so-called jailbreaks that unlock the phone were circulating online.

Whether it's due to its retail pricetag, contractual and expensive service plans with AT&T or the disadvantage of being the first generation of its kind, the iPhone doesn't seem to be worth its weight to many consumers. Especially in our recent economic recession, people are planning to spend less in general. This in turn would probably cause Apple to lower the iPhone's selling price. Many are waiting for a more sophisticated and fine-tuned version. The rest are patiently waiting for the iPhone to go the way of the MOTORAZR and become available across all network carriers.

Now You CD, Now You Don't

Last month one sunny morning, I walked down the steps of my apartment to find a big Christmas surprise. Someone had broken into my car and stolen a boxed serving tray my sweet mum had given me. It was only worth about $30 for the $800 worth of damages ensued. The interesting thing I noticed was that through all the scattered glove-box items and rummaging of my art supplies, the intruder didn't think to take my music case of 300 CDs. They certainly found it, but thought them worthless. Is my taste in music really all that bad? I doubt it since there were plenty to choose from. Rather, I think it's a sign of the times which brings me to an article that was released today in the New York Times.

People are spending less money on CDs due to the growth of digital music sales. CDs are going the way of eight tracks and cassette tapes. This trend is causing the music industry to look elsewhere in the likes of internet providers and lawmakers. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry reported that overall sales of recorded music fell about 10 % in 2007 ($17.6 billion) however, worldwide digital music sales rose to $2.9 billion from $2.1 billion a year earlier which makes up 15 % of overall sales. CD sales were more than 20% down last year.

With the trend of everything going digital, security and legal rights have always been an ongoing battle. Piracy has record labels going to Internet service providers demanding strict rules and discipline. Remember what happened with Napster? That case really didn't deter too many copyright violators.

As an avid fan for all things Apple, I am guilty of being a contributing factor to the compact disc's slow dissapearance from technology. I purchase and download about 20 songs a month from iTunes. Think about it. It's easier to sit in the comfort of your home or office and with a click of a mouse, have instant access to your new and favorite music. Much more convenient compared to the old days where you had to drive to the nearest music store to pay for the same music which would have cost more (new album releases on iTunes go for $9.99 while in-store can range from $11.99 on up).

CD's that house music aren't the only ones losing their cool. Little by little, DVD sales are soon to follow suit. People are downloading movies and videos online now. Netflix and Apple have smartly picked up on this digital trend. A related playing component is the fact that within the next 5 years all television screens and cable networks will be streaming in HDTV. Everything you could ever want in terms of entertainment, news and information is literally at your fingertips. The way of wireless has brought a new meaning to the term "high tech".

Very soon, we will see the latest cars with built-in wireless transmitters for your iPods and bluetooth headsets; no need to buy these accessories separately. The 6-disc CD changer will no longer be a luxury to car owners. Maybe one day, we'll find the technology to command our car to play our favorite track and to allow the internal computer to automatically compile a DJ list based on our playback history. How cool would that be?

For now, I'll have to find a good use for my 300 CDs.