Today, we live in a “Google world” where everything is searchable via the touch of a few buttons.  As such, understanding what your target market is searching for and then developing an online strategy based around that is essential to your brand’s success.  Google currently offers key tools that give companies insight into content and keywords related to their brands, and is constantly looking for ways to update those tools to make them more effective for its clients.  In fact, just yesterday (12/1/11), Google changed how it indexes content in order to place greater emphasis on the ‘freshness’ of content in web searches.  Our very own Director of Digital, Dustin Ruoff, stresses that, “fresh content delivered through social media channels and ‘owned’ sources, such as corporate blogs and RSS feeds from content updates, all contribute to an increased ‘relevance’ of a brand’s keyword based content.”

More and more brands and public figures are cleverly aligning their strategic marketing campaigns with popular keyword searches that are relative to their target market. Most recently, brands like State Farm, Progressive, Safeway and The BBQ Guys all created YouTube marketing campaigns that were focused on proven-to-be-popular Thanksgiving keywords like “fried turkey” and “deep-fried turkey.” This year from October 11 to November 23, searches for “fried turkey” in the U.S. were up 615 percent, amounting to over 3,900 fried turkey-related YouTube searches alone.  Though some of the campaigns promoted and others opposed “fried turkey,” each uniquely placed their brand in front of thousands of internet users and positioned their products/services in a way that made them relevant to this particular turkey-frying audience.

Public figures, including Presidential candidates like Herman Cain, also use keyword strategies to help shape/control the conversations about them online.  Cain’s campaign successfully cashed in on the sexual harassment allegations against him by buying Google ads triggered by keywords like “Herman Cain and harassment” and “Herman Cain and allegations.”  Once those and similar keywords were searched, one of the first sites pulled up was “caintruth.com:” a site that addressed the allegations and encouraged supporters to donate to the campaign.  During the height of the scandal, Cain’s campaign was able to raise $9 million in only six weeks, some of which could be attributed to their online keyword strategy.

What other unique keyword strategies have you discovered or deployed?

Jenaleigh Landers is an Account Coordinator at Griffin York & Krause.

Facebook and the social space in general are channels that the financial industry has been slow to embrace.  Now, however, banks are starting to transfer traditional marketing dollars to non-traditional channels like social media.  Javelin Strategy & Research, a financial research group, predicts that, “[consumers] will start to interact through their bank the same way they interact through social media, totally online.” After a recent survey, it found that 12% of the 5,102 consumers questioned would review accounts via social media if it became available.  In addition to being a benefit and more convenient for consumers, driving them online and to social media will help banks gather insights on consumer spending habits through transaction tracking and consumer self-reporting.

Chase, for example, clearly believes in transferring marketing dollars to social media to start engaging and developing dialogues with its consumer base. Its latest Chase Freedom Credit Card Campaign encouraged Facebook users to “like” its page in order to be eligible to win $500 (given away each hour for three weeks) or the ultimate grand prize of $1 million. What an incentive! Despite the giveaway expense, Chase was able to grow its Facebook fan base and has said, “The opportunities for new customers and data’s value exceeds the $1.25 million [we are] giving away in total,” allowing the bank to push more information to those users in the future. Since the campaign, Chase has continued the two-way conversation by having fans vote on charities to receive donations, posting humorous “takes” from recent commercial shoots and providing resources for veterans searching for jobs.

Other financial companies are also using alternative strategies to reach consumers, establish a presence and gather data on Facebook outside of cash giveaways.  American Express, for example, has developed a Facebook application (“Link, Like, Love”) that makes it possible to drive offers that are unique to each user based on their Facebook “likes” and their friends’ “likes.” At one point, American Express was even running commercials with the tagline “The Social Currency” at the end of them, which complements the Link, Like Love app and campaign.  Capital One on the other hand has merged social gaming and advertising by integrating its brand into the popular Zynga Inc. Facebook games. The iconic Capitol One-branded goat seen in FarmVille has even found its way into the bank’s TV commercials and social media sites.

Unlike traditional mediums, Facebook opens the door for banks to establish stronger, more personal relationships with consumers and dive deeper into their spending habits and preferences.  Banks and any other companies, for that matter, have the opportunity to further their “reach” by offering unique social promotions and meaningful brand encounters  (like the ones listed in this Random Acts of Kindness article), all of which help to generate more fans and encourage them to share their positive brand experiences within their social networks.

Jenaleigh Landers is an Account Coordinator at Griffin York & Krause.

Main Source:  WSJ.com

by Ben Peirce

As summer 2011 drew to a close (and before we skipped over fall and moved right into winter) I had the opportunity to travel to Sweden with one of our newest clients, Bauer Hockey. The trip included a full-day photo shoot with New York Rangers goaltender, Henrik Lundqvist for Bauer’s new line of goalie equipment. Being a life-long hockey fan and a goalie myself, the shoot was pretty cool – but believe it or not, it wasn’t the highlight of the trip for me.

Prior to joining the GY&K team I worked in professional sports, producing events for the Manchester Monarchs, Los Angeles Kings and AEG Sports. I’ve interacted with the likes of Jeremy Roenick, Ray Bourque and Serena Williams, and I’ve somewhat conditioned myself to not “geek out” around professional athletes. But when day two of our Scandinavian adventure took us to Vrigstad to visit the studio of world-renowned mask artist, David Gunnarsson, my professional facade gave way to a geyser of geekdom. Gunnarsson is the artistic force behind DaveArt Designs and his work adorns the faces of many of the NHL’s top netminders. Since goalies began painting their masks in the 1970’s the goalie mask has become a symbol of individual expression unlike anything else in sports. You can’t be a fan of hockey and of art without being enamored with the elaborately-airbrushed symbols of identity that goalies wear into battle. So to say I’m a fan of Dave Gunnarsson’s work would be an understatement.

Gunnarsson began painting goalie masks in the early 90’s and has since become one of the premier artists in the world working for pro and elite-level goalies. His studio, DaveArt Designs is dedicated solely to the creation of goalie mask art and they’ve refined the production and delivery of mask art to a science.  DaveArt produces about 175 masks per year and Gunnarsson personally designs and paints every single one of them.  There is a 4-month opening in the DaveArt calendar (January-April) in which they will accept commissions from non-professionals.  The rest of the year is dedicated to pro goalies in the NHL and European Elite Leagues.  Gunnarsson’s designs are seen by millions of people in arenas and on television and he’s helped to craft the identities of goalies around the world. Johan Hedberg, now of the New Jeyser Devils, was DaveArt’s first professional client.  The moose design that Gunnarson created for him while playing for the AHL’s Manitoba Moose became synonymous with Hedberg and he’s carried it with him throughout his NHL career.

During our visit to Vrigstad, we saw about a dozen NHL masks in production including Lundqvist and Hedberg’s new designs, Thomas Vokoun’s new lid (my favorite), and one for LA King and former Manchester Monarch, Jonathan Bernier, which NHL.com recently named the best mask of 2011.  It was a trip to think, while watching the Buffalo Sabres’ Jhonas Enroth of TV last night, that I’d seen his just-completed mask before he did.

Despite his relative celebrity among mask-admirers worldwide, David Gunnarsson is one of the most humble and appreciative people I’ve ever met. He was happy to show off his studio and seemed as excited for our visit as we were … though I don’t think anyone was as excited to be there as me.  Traveling halfway around the world to rub elbows with NHL stars was certainly a nice change from my typical work day here at GY&K. But meeting this unassuming family man in his one-man art studio was something I’ll never forget!

For more pictures of the DaveArt studio, visit the gallery on our Facebook page.

This is the saying our partners at Dyn live by. Dyn is a company powering DNS and email for enterprise, small businesses and personal users. You may remember them from our GY&K Field Trip earlier this summer. At Dyn, they understand the need for websites to function properly and load as quickly as possible. The longer customers are forced to wait for a website to load, the more revenue companies lose. Ryan O’Hara, a member of the Business Development team at Dyn, helped put this into perspective in a recent blog post.

In addition to lost revenue, companies are also losing customers to competitors with quicker functioning sites, especially those that are optimized for mobile. A Compuware survey found, “74% [of mobile users] are only willing to wait five seconds or less for a single web page to load before leaving the site… only 50% are willing to wait five seconds or less for an application to load before exiting and about a third will go to a competitor’s site.” One way to prevent customers from leaving your site is to utilize one of the many products in the market that help make sites faster such as the “Mobile Site Optimizer” product, improving loading speed by up to 60%.

eMarketer has projected a 50% increase in mobile commerce (m-commerce) for 2011 and with the holidays right around the corner, it’s even more crucial that companies’ websites are up and running, mobile-friendly and that their products are in-stock.  More shoppers are starting to avoid the masses and purchase their gifts online via their computers, smartphones or tablets—I know I am! Google predicts at least, “33% of both smarphone and tablet shoppers will plan to start their holiday shopping before Thanksgiving this year… and 44% of total searches for last minute gifts and store locator terms will be from mobile devices this holiday season.” Recognizing this, Amazon has positioned its newest tablet, Kindle Fire, as having a quicker mobile browser than the iPad in hopes that consumers will choose its product over Apple’s iPad due to the latest m-commerce trends.

What steps does your company take to ensure that your website is always running quickly, especially during the busiest buying seasons?

Jenaleigh Landers is an Account Coordinator at Griffin York & Krause.

Main Source: Marketingvox.com

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Last week, the world lost one of the most influential people of our generation. As a business man, an innovator and a visionary, Steve Jobs made an everlasting mark on the world through the products he helped develop and their influence on our culture.

In a very special episode of The Theater of Public Influence, our podcast team sits down to remember Steve Jobs. Join us as we reflect on the impact of his life, the reactions to his death and the incredible legacy he leaves behind. Whether you’re a Mac or a PC, you won’t want to miss this episode as we put our own “ding in the universe” in honor of Steve Jobs.

Editors Note: Please excuse the audio quality of this episode. We’re working out the kinks on a new recording setup and the recording suffered a bit as a result. This is not a reflection of what you can expect from past or future episodes of The Theater of Public Influence.

Establishing an effective presence on social media can sometimes be challenging for companies. At GY&K, we have found that banks are especially hesitant to jump head first in the space given its uncertainty and their unfamiliarity with the platforms and their benefits.

However, trailblazers in the space like Union First Market Bank, a community bank based out of Virginia, has found that establishing a social media presence has only helped grow and strengthen their relationships within their community. For instance, their social media content focuses on pushing products/offers and sharing industry news, as well as giving shout outs to local sports teams (from Little League to Professional teams).

Bank of Ann Arbor in Michigan was also an early adopter of social media, and is a great model for other community banks to follow. Most recently, Bank of Ann Arbor launched their “$75,000 Sweet 15 Local Charity Drive” in an effort to increase their Facebook fan base while raising money for organizations within their community. The campaign encouraged people to “like” their Facebook page in order to vote for their charity to receive a donation from the bank. Over 100,000 votes were received during this campaign and more than 15,000 people “liked” their page.

Below are some key strategic guidelines that banks and companies from all industries can consider when exploring social media, especially Facebook:

1. Create and establish an internal culture that is on board with social media. Encourage employees to “Like” the page and even ask for contributions from members from different areas of the company.
2. Create a fun, engaging promotion for your users and fans (one that appeals to both existing fans, but one that also targets friends-of-fans to help increase your fan base)
3. Utilize the Facebook ad features to hyper-target customers based on the information they have shared on Facebook (For example, you can geo-target potential customers in the surrounding areas based on the zip code information they have supplied to Facebook).
4. Bring your brand to life by applying personality traits that best describe your brand and highlighting the team that makes up your brand. Share photos of your employees at events where they’re giving back to the community and inform your Facebook fans of your philanthropic efforts/contributions. (Check out a GY&K client, Claremont Savings Bank’s page where they work to raise money for the Vermont Irene Disaster Relief Fund as well as other important local organizations within their community).
5. Engage/reach out to customers without being overly aggressive and promotional. Mascoma Savings Bank features a custom Facebook tab to house all of its Mortgage information. So, instead of flooding the wall with promotional posts/information about Mortgages, users can just look under that tab if they’re interested in more information.
6. Learn about your fans and what they’re interested in through Facebook’s ‘Questions’ tool and by testing different content topics to gauge how receptive your audience is to them. Based on the feedback and level of engagement, you can tweak your content strategy accordingly.
7. Respond to questions/concerns/comments quickly to let consumers know you are actively listening to them. Don’t remove negative posts unless they are inappropriate, derogatory or profane comments. This allows for all voices and opinions to be heard equally.

Overall, it is important to develop content that is true to your brand, relevant, engaging and beneficial to your fans. You are trying to create a two-way conversation that helps you understand your audience, too.

What types of posts and updates do your customers like receiving from your bank’s Facebook page?

Jenaleigh Landers is an Account Coordinator at Griffin York & Krause.

Main Source: BAI.org

I recently attended the Ad Club’s annual Innovations in Media conference and the “Media Maven Awards” at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.

While the day was jam-packed with some cool and innovative media campaigns, I left with a renewed belief in something that I’ve been evangelizing internally for awhile: Traditional media is definitely not dead.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite, and the most successful brand campaigns will continue to utilize traditional media in a very definitive way.  The key to success is how they will integrate digital to create audience participation via social media efforts and report on these results to help inform future campaigns.

From a pure strategic perspective, the most comprehensive and integrated campaign featured was for Barnes & Noble Nook. Imagine the challenge faced by B&N to promote a digital reader when their entire business model has been based in selling paper products.

The campaign was brilliant and utilized a very old school approach of (:60) TV spots to launch.  In a world where most media channels are pushing clients to move to (:15) TV and online pre-roll videos, this decision went against main-stream media, but proved unbelievably successful.

Sales of the Nook group of devices, rose 140 percent to $277 million in the quarter, comprising nearly 20 percent of the company’s total sales.

 Click here to see :30 adaption of Nook spots

Michelle Marshall is the Director of Integrated Media for GY&K.

Back in July Netflix customers were notified of upcoming changes to the structure of the company and its pricing model. These changes, which resulted in a 60% price increase for many customers, have since cost Netflix one million of its 25 million customers and caused a wave of negative backlash that is clearly noticeable on the company blog and social media channels.  On the heels of that initial announcement, the GY&K Podcast team discussed this very topic from all angles. Click here to listen to the team’s initial thoughts on the Netflix announcement.

There are a couple of trends that have contributed to the Netflix predicament, which may also affect many other companies soon.  The first trend is the shift from analog to digital (or trying to accommodate both, like Netflix is doing with its mail orders and online downloads). Eventually most services will move completely to digital; however, the shift is challenging because many times loyal customers are not ready for the change.

The second trend is the growing impact that customer feedback is having on companies due to the internet and social media. Social media can be a blessing or a curse for companies, either enhancing or tarnishing their reputations. Unfortunately for Netflix, dissatisfied customers turned to social media to express their outrage, which spread like fire across the internet.  The negative backlash prompted a “social” apology this past week from Reed Hastings, Netflix’s Chief Executive, and another change to the service/pricing structure, all of which were published on the company blog and the Facebook and Twitter pages.

Here are a few basic things companies can do to confront some of the challenges Neflix is facing:

- Consider customer surveys and polls before making any major changes to an existing pricing structure that impacts the majority of your clients.
- Adjust your approach based on customer research and be sure to communicate the changes clearly.
- Prepare and post a new tutorial or FAQ to coincide with the announcement. Consider an ‘explainer’ video that makes it fun and easy to understand the changes.
- Once the change has been announced, pay attention to a variety of social channels and respond quickly to questions or concerns (both positive and negative).

Are you considering a big change that may impact a large number of your customers? Do you have any additional tips that will help with a smooth transition?

Main Source: NYTimes.com

Jenaleigh Landers is an Account Coordinator at Griffin York & Krause.

Technology and consumers’ fast-paced lifestyles go hand-in-hand and as technology has advanced, people have been able to live and stay connected while on-the-go. As a result, stores and products have had to evolve and adapt to the newest technology to meet consumers’ “quick” demands, all centered around convenience.

As such, mobile technology has grown significantly and has changed the way consumers interact with brands and has impacted the traditional shopping experience.  In previous posts, I have touched upon the mobile evolution by talking about Square, a mobile payment device, smartphones embedded with radio microchips that function as a payment tool and self-checkout mobile apps.  This evolution has only continued with the introduction of QR codes.  Now that consumers are aware of QR codes, they are scanning them with their smartphones, and for the first time ever, are scanning them to purchase products at virtual stores.

The world’s first virtual store opened a few weeks ago in Korea at the Seolleung subway station (a hub for 200,000 daily commuters). After downloading the Homeplus app, consumers can purchase products while they wait for the subway (or the “T” as we call it) and have their products delivered to wherever they specify – home, the office, etc. How’s that for convenience? Why make the extra trip to the store, spend an hour filling up your cart and then wait in the checkout line when you could just purchase everything while on-the-go and have it delivered for a small fee?

Even if you’re not near a virtual store in Korea, you can still use a product’s QR code to order more of that product. For instance, if you just finished all of your laundry detergent, you could scan the bottle’s QR code and have more delivered right to your house.  Through the Homeplus app, consumers are able to purchase 35,000 products including milk, eggs, pasta sauce, tissues, water and digital cameras.

Ocado, a UK online-only supermarket, recently assembled a temporary pop-up store featuring its most popular products. Using the ‘Ocado On The Go’ app, consumers could purchase products by scanning the code with their smartphones and then booking a time for the items to be delivered.  Currently, according to a recent Bizreport.com article, “about 15% of Ocado transactions take place on a mobile, but the online retailer is banking on the pop-up stores driving more consumers to use their phones while out shopping.”  Watch this video to learn more about these virtual storefronts.

With over 82 million smartphone users in the US, it’s only a matter of time before these virtual stores make their way to the US in the places consumers use their cell phones the most.

If a virtual store popped up near you, would you try it out? If so, what types of products would you and wouldn’t you purchase?

Jenaleigh Landers is an Account Coordinator at Griffin York & Krause.

Main Source: koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com

Look at how far we’ve come since the days of Myspace.  In an attempt to generate new life, it has gone through many transformations and most recently, after Justin Timberlake’s contribution, plans to relaunch later this summer.  While Myspace has steadily declined in popularity, it has paved the way for other social networking sites to change the way we interact with each other and brands.  As each and every one of us have witnessed, social networking platforms are constantly evolving in an effort to become more engaging for consumers and more attractive to advertisers.

One of the newest social networking sites, Google+, has reached over 25 million users after only about a month of its launch. To put it in perspective, this milestone was not accomplished by Myspace, Facebook or Twitter until at least two years after their launch. Google+ hopes to continue their quick adoption by adding a gaming component to the platform, with many of the games being created by the same developers that have created “hit” games for Facebook.  Google+ is clearly evolving and adapting to the social space, and as mentioned in a previous post, will inevitably have an advertising component at some point.

On the other hand, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are much more mature social networking sites that are getting to a point in their evolution where they are aggressively innovating to remain relevant and to drive advertising revenue. Both Facebook and Twitter are free for users, rich with data and have raised significant money from investors who expect them to return a profit (either by selling or going public like LinkedIn just did).  Facebook is constantly introducing new updates to its site including more opportunities for marketers: sponsored stories, premium and marketplace ads, custom apps, and highly targeted advertising options.   Aside from being able to target based on likes, interest, gender, etc., advertisers are now able to narrowly geo-target ads and sponsored stories by zip code, as we recently learned on our call with the Facebook sales team last week. Another specific ad unit discussed was the ‘Comment’ Sponsored Story, which according to Facebook, has been performing well since it launched in June.

Unlike its competitors, LinkedIn is the only one that offers a premium user account, which drives revenue directly from users. LinkedIn also recently went public, so now more than ever the company must show financial growth.  This past June it attempted to do so by rolling out “social ads” (similar to Facebook’s Sponsored Stories) featuring actual faces of LinkedIn users and their public actions.  While this move was shared with users in advance via the LinkedIn blog and banner ads throughout the site, many did not approve and considered it to be a violation of privacy.  As a result, these ads still exist, but do not feature users’ photos and information.

We’ll be paying close attention as these sites work to attract more marketing dollars without turning off users. Tough balancing act!

As a marketer, have you had success leveraging any of these new social networking features or advertising units?

Jenaleigh Landers is an Account Coordinator at Griffin York & Krause.