Lecture given to MBA students at UNC Chapel Hill in 2014. What does it mean to succeed in digital and how to avoid industry traps. Also, why does digital marketing fail even when we think it succeeds. Generously invited by the wonderful Professor JoAnn Sciarrino - http://www.jomc.unc.edu/directory/faculty/joann-sciarrino

1. Success in
Digital
Social, Video, Mobile & Utility
04/17/2014

2. Me
• Digital Producer
• Started in entertainment for MTV / VH1
• Agency side in ‘digital production’
• Pure-play digital, creative agencies and in-house
• Brands like M&M’s, Snickers, Pedigree, GE, Nike, and MAC Cosmetics
• Digital advertising (content, ads, contests, microsites), brand websites,
web software, mobile apps, internal sales systems, web-connected
products, and installations

3. My assumptions
• You will work for brands that are regionally, nationally or globally-
recognized (this is not geared to SMBs)
• Most of you will work on the client-side in some kind of marketing
capacity
• You have some experience actually trying to market in a real-world
setting
• B2C

4. We aren’t covering
• Media planning
• Production dos and don’ts
• Measurement / metrics
• Stuff you already know (eg. the O continuum)
• Storytelling
• Organizational structure and change management
• Branded entertainment

6. Digital is kind of a big deal.

7. strategy for digital…
content
communications
products
services
experiences
…?

8. Current trend…
OMNICHANNEL

9. Facebook
Twitter
Instagram / Tumblr
Youtube
Apps
Websites
Web-connected products
TV Commercials
Brands online
Our digital lives
EXERCISE - INFORMAL POLL
Immediate recall -
Something you enjoyed and/or passed on
1 person = 1 answer = 1 sticky
Use different color stickies for answers

10. Success is upon us

11. Question you
should be asking
Who is really succeeding here?

12. For example:
Brand Awareness

13. –GE President, Olympic Sponsorship and Corporate Sales
“If you can’t find a link to driving company profits—
don’t do it!”

14. An Illustration
Video - keynote only

15. An Illustration
Video - keynote only

16. We did everything right.

17. GE 2012
Olympics
15
responsive
websites
(on NBC, ESPN)
dynamic banners
data viz.
yelp integration
116 videos
celebrities
rich media ads
Facebook app
Sponsored stories
live twitter
visualization

18. –Global executive director of digital advertising at GE
"This is not just a 17-day (social-media) goal. The Olympics
are step one."

21. The problem with ‘success’
• Campaign-centric planning and interruption-based
thinking as foundational for all work
• A complicit industry (metrics can be misleading)
• Marketing as science (feeling of control)

22. Most successful digital
marketing fails for customers.
!
Deliverables are a misdirect.
!
We’ve got to change our foundations.

23. AUTHENTICITY
Not ‘what to do’
!
HOW TO BE
!
‘what to do’ follows

24. How did we get here?
success vs. value

25. SUCCESS

26. Brand manager
SUCCESS

27. Brand manager
Boss(s)
SUCCESS

28. Brand manager
Procurement
Boss(s)
SUCCESS

29. Brand manager
Procurement
Boss(s)
‘Digital’ floater(s)
SUCCESS

30. Brand manager
Procurement
Boss(s)
‘Digital’ floater(s)
SUCCESS
Customers
Eyeballs

31. Brand manager
Procurement
Boss(s)
‘Digital’ floater(s)
SUCCESS
Customers
Eyeballs
Agency Partners

32. Brand manager
Procurement
Boss(s)
‘Digital’ floater(s)
SUCCESS
Customers
Eyeballs
Agency Partners

33. Brand manager
Procurement
Boss(s)
‘Digital’ floater(s)
SUCCESS
Customers
Eyeballs
Agency Partners

34. Brand manager
Procurement
Boss(s)
‘Digital’ floater(s)
SUCCESS
Customers
Eyeballs
Agency Partners

35. Brand manager
Procurement
Boss(s)
‘Digital’ floater(s)
SUCCESS
Customers
Eyeballs
Agency Partners

36. IT / IS
PRODUCT
RETAIL /
CHANNEL
ECOMMERCE
Brand manager
Procurement
Boss(s)
‘Digital’ floater(s)
SUCCESS
Customers
Eyeballs
Agency Partners

37. VALUE

38. VALUE
THE BRAND (YOU)

39. VALUE
THE BRAND (YOU)
Customers

40. VALUE
Silos
BRAND
COMMS
IT / IS
PRODUCT RETAIL
THE BRAND (YOU)
Customers

41. VALUE
Silos
BRAND
COMMS
IT / IS
PRODUCT RETAIL
THE BRAND (YOU)
Customers

42. VALUE
Silos
BRAND
COMMS
IT / IS
PRODUCT RETAIL
THE BRAND (YOU)
Customers
Agency Partners
CREATIVE
SHOPPER
MKTG
SOCIAL RETAIL

43. VALUE
Silos
BRAND
COMMS
IT / IS
PRODUCT RETAIL
THE BRAND (YOU)
Customers
Agency Partners
CREATIVE
SHOPPER
MKTG
SOCIAL RETAIL

44. VALUE
Silos
BRAND
COMMS
IT / IS
PRODUCT RETAIL
THE BRAND (YOU)
Customers
Agency Partners
CREATIVE
SHOPPER
MKTG
SOCIAL RETAIL

45. VALUE
Silos
BRAND
COMMS
IT / IS
PRODUCT RETAIL
THE BRAND (YOU)
Customers
Agency Partners
CREATIVE
SHOPPER
MKTG
SOCIAL RETAIL

46. ‘SUCCESS’ VALUEVS.
Brand-first
Campaigns
Fast
Metrics to prove value
Listening to write a case study
Execution is easier
Marketing department only
Person-first
Commitments (can have campaigns)
Slow
Metrics to learn and change
Listening to listen and act
Execution is harder
Whole organization involvement

47. Obvious right?

48. Obvious right?
Easter / seasons!

49. Obvious right?
Easter / seasons!
New product release

50. Obvious right?
Easter / seasons!
New product release
Earnings are down

51. Obvious right?
Easter / seasons!
New product release
Earnings are down
Industry pressure

52. Obvious right?
Easter / seasons!
New product release
Earnings are down
Industry pressure
KPIs & bonuses

53. Obvious right?
Easter / seasons!
New product release
Earnings are down
Industry pressure
KPIs & bonuses
Bad press

54. Obvious right?
Easter / seasons!
New product release
Earnings are down
Industry pressure
KPIs & bonuses
Bad press
Fiscal year end
Budgets don’t roll over

55. How to avoid shiny objects,
sure things, and rabbit holes

56. Problems vs. symptoms
• Everything is connected
• Question things- metrics are the
opiate of the marketers
• Human psychology is key to
understanding industry-wide failing
at marketing effectiveness
Tactical
Rigor
Strategy
Values

57. Getting to values
• Be honest about your brand
• Who do you serve?
• What matters to them?

58. Be honest about your brand
• Field research
• Fly-on-the-wall observation
• Surveys and cultural probes
• Extreme Interviews
• Existing research, social listening
• Internal performance metrics
(bottom-line figures) and SWOT
• Information radiators

59. Who do you serve?
• Field research
• Walk-a-Mile Immersion
• Interviewing / contextual
inquiry
• Existing consumer research,
social and CRM data
• Stakeholder and Empathy maps
• Personas

60. What matters to them?
• Field research
• Camera journal
• Narration / Contextual Inquiry
• Unfocus group
• Journey Maps
• Affinity diagram / card sort
• Information radiators

61. Make lots of friends
• Strategic Partnerships
• Channels
• IT
• eCommerce
• Retail
• Product

62. Your values become real
• Your baseline for digital marketing is colorful, specific and full of insight:
• A true brand ‘SWOT’ with real life examples and participants for future
test & learns
• A nuanced, deep and wide understanding of your target with data to
inform partners and internal friends
• Specific ideas for the things your audience cares about and the factors
that influence their behavior

63. Transformation is hard
But it is worth it

64. What if you were Walgreens?
• What if I don’t have an authentic place in the channels? (what if I’m
Walgreens?)
• Entertainment as value?

65. Workshop
• Group up
• Review the brief
together
• Do empathy map
• Decide on a few
commitments

66. Things silos are doing
Pharmacy chat
New Point of Sale
New loyalty program w/ fitbit
Order prescriptions from your phone
Developer program (open API)

67. Workshop
• Parents (choose the mother or father; younger or older)
• Situation (examples)
• Child gets burned / has rash for longer than normal / warts in
strange spots …etc - not sure what to do
• At a new doctor; need to select a pharmacy to send prescriptions to
• Spouse wants pictures from the weekend getaway printed for get
together with friends tonight
• GOAL: What can we do with digital marketing to change our image?

68. Some of what happened
• Youtube
• https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=walgreens
• Twitter/Facebook/Instagram
• https://twitter.com/search?q=walgreens&src=typd
• https://www.facebook.com/Walgreens
• http://www.snapsbywalgreens.com/walgreensluv/
• Other
• https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/walgreens/id335364882?mt=8
• http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=walgreens
• https://developer.walgreens.com/
• Mobile
• https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/printicular-print-instagram/id570103834?mt=8

69. Does this mean
• I shouldn’t do [insert deliverable]?
• Classic metrics don’t matter?

70. No
• The problem with failing to succeed isn’t execution or failure to
measure - its strategy and the communications paradigm
• Marketing fails to build the brand and business because it isn’t values-
first. It has no insight and is not primarily concerned with the
customers. We need marketers who will go to the mat for the
customer.
• That will change strategy and its connection to the tactics through the
line. Sometimes it will mean heavy social media and branded
entertainment. Often it won’t.

72. THANK YOU
marceminor@gmail.com

73. Appendix.
My thoughts on…

74. How to use…social
• Use it mostly for listening, learning and responding. Its a customer-
service tool for marketing, not for entertainment.
• Only a few brands have the right to be entertaining socially (eg. use
it as a channel for pushing content). Be honest with yourself.
• Take the ‘O Continuum’ seriously
• Question the marketing science with social as media; have
meaningful metrics

75. How to use…video
• Depending on your brand, entertainment-based content may be your best
bet for serving people. Most brands think it is but its only right for a few. Its
a crowded space. Consider content from other angles.
• If you are a content-brand (eg. CPG), put all your eggs in this basket. Focus
entirely on creating wildly entertaining content that is participating in the
existing dialog online. Ignore utility.
• Don’t start with your brand. Start with what people are enjoying and go
from there. Hire lots of awesome partners and take lots of small bets until
you have clear sight for a big bet.
• Make CSR (corporate social responsibility) your business; align with a cause

76. How to use…mobile/utility
• Be as close as you can to purchase intent - retail and POS is really
wonderful and mostly unexplored
• Find ways to improve customer experience with unexpected small
‘digital’ bets. Mobile is very popular with brands but few use it right.
• Get back to the basics - use ‘digital’ to help grow revenue and that
doesn’t always mean targeting your consumers directly with
promotions or campaigns (eg. consider sales tools)
• Don’t make an app unless your solving a real problem. If you do make
an app, dedicate yourself to it beyond a campaign. Commit to solving
the problem, not to your campaign cycle.

77. How to use…brand sites
• See previous slide on mobile (ex…they are the same thing).
• If you have eCommerce, don’t be scared of them! Its amazing how
often the marketing and store teams have near zero engagement with
each other.
• Reconsider what a ‘brand site’ is. Create a joint task force to serve the
customer. You serve the same person.

78. …knowing what to do doesn’t
make a great marketer
!
Relentlessly focus on values
and the rest follows
Tactical
Rigor
Strategy
Values