ChaCha. Ask Away.

I subscribe to MediaPost’s Engage: GenY Blog, and this week’s article I found very interesting. Kristine Shine’s wrote about Gen Y Women’s sphere of influence on lifestyle trends, how technology and social media help them expand their sphere of influence and how marketers can target and communicate with this group.

The part that stuck out the most to me was:

While Gen X women tend to seek insight and brand approval from “experts,” Gen Y women rely more heavily on their peers because they believe their advice about brands to be more unbiased and honest.

We see this everyday with our users at ChaCha, and how they respond to the SMS ads on our service.  Our users look at ChaCha as their “Mobile BFF” and they come to us for all types of advice on brands and products.

Read Kristine’s full article here.

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We get millions of questions per day and a new user every 6 seconds. We know a lot about our young audience and one thing is abundantly clear: Our teens and young adults care passionately about the world around them — both globally and locally. They ask us questions about the environment, about health care, about the war in the middle east and about global health. They are also concerned about child abuse, animal welfare, drug abuse and world hunger. They have lots of questions and they want to get involved and shape the world around them.

Marketers looking to reach youth, get this. In fact, C&R Research found in its latest YouthBeat syndicated research report that a brand’s perceived level of social responsibility is an increasingly important consideration when young people open their wallets. In a recent MediaPost article, the author wrote:

“Kids, tweens and teens are all more likely to buy a product if part of the price goes to a cause close to their hearts. Nearly half of the teens in our panels said they had made a cause-related purchase, and more than 20% asked their parents to buy a particular product because it supported a cause. And the younger set is following the pattern. Almost 40% of tweens (ages 9 to 12) and 20% of kids (ages 6 to 10) also have bought an item tied to a social cause.”

“And big money’s at stake. Studies put the annual spending power of young people ages 8 to 14 at $43 billion — and that doesn’t count their influence over billions of dollars in their parents’ purchases, whether it’s cell phones, or cars, or vacations,” says MediaPost.

Kids are becoming more and more concerned about the world they live in. Brands who communicate their concerns and interests and stay true to what they believe, will win the hearts and souls of youth who care about the same issues. And its a good thing for all involved.

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McDonald’s has been experimenting with integrating their Monopoly game into various new engagement channels. This year, they are using Mobile (SMS shortcode 96363) as a participation mechanism — as an optional alternative to the traditional, tangible game board that we’ve used since the game’s inception. Alternatively you can play via a Facebook application or online at playatmcd.com.

I probably won’t win anything this year, because the game’s halfway over and I just “rolled the dice” for the first time last night! But I thought I’d write about my experience playing via SMS, because as cool as the idea is, it wasn’t perfect.

I was reading the packaging and instruction associated with playing the game on my phone. The fries, the sandwich, the drink — they told me the shortcode to text (96363), but it wasn’t clear to me what exactly I was supposed to text to the shortcode. (There are a few codes on those little game pieces.)

I was hoping it was the smaller code — piece number 123, for example, is Reading Railroad. So if you text 123 to 96363, you get an error message that tells you the code is supposed to be 11 digits. I was disappointed because the 11 digit code on the game piece was complete jibberish, seemingly random numbers and letters. How annoying it would be to text that. Not to mention texting 7 different codes of jibberish, for all 7 game pieces (6 were legitimately mine, I stole Park Place off of a cup peeking out of the trash can).

Then, when I did text the 11-digit code for Reading Railroad, it told me that I had landed on “Go to Jail”. My Connecticut Avenue game piece, when texted, gave me the Oriental Avenue property. Etc, etc. Only 2 of my 7 codes were correctly associated with the properties I should have received.

I SO did not deserve to go to jail. I legitimately landed on the Railroad. And I didn’t buy anything that I should have been luxury-taxed.

If you’re playing McDonald’s Monopoly via Mobile or Facebook, how has your experience been? What are your thoughts as, together, we discover new and effective ways of connecting consumers with brands?

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Indianapolis just got Foursquare.  Right now I’m passively vying for the number 1 spot, but there appear to be two people that are more mobile and social than me.  That’s okay though, I’m still the mayor of ChaCha’s HQ, a Starbucks, my neighborhood coffeeshop, and my favorite neighborhood bar.  I’m totally psyched about Foursquare and I’m pushing as many of my friends to join me on it as I can.  More on that in a minute…

Back when Twitter first hit the scene there were a lot of people uttering, “I don’t get it…” to which there was no one right response.  It was a very personal tool; people didn’t know why they liked it yet, they just did.  However, my response was always this: “Imagine if it got to the point where it was omnipresent and automatic. If your thoughts and actions started getting dumped into a database along with everyone else on the planet, we suddenly have a digital matrix of humanity’s ebb and flow.  We can see the interconnectedness of humanity, the ripple effect of our actions, and watch the mitosis of our social virology.” (I’m obviously not talking to you social media marketers right now.)  It was definitely a big-picture and theoretical explanation, but people seemed to get it when I explained it like that.

Foursquare is taking a slightly different approach to an ostensibly similar end.  I check in when I get to work, when I walk to Starbucks, when I crack my books to study at my local café, and when I sit down for a beer at the tavern down the road.  It hasn’t happened yet, but any minute I’ll be getting a message from Foursquare saying someone I may or may not have met before is sitting down the bar from me.  Boom. Instant new friend.

ChaCha is in the process of developing a massively local SMS marketing initiative.  Not marketing for us- but creating marketing abilities for Mom and Pop.  The goal is to bring intelligent SMS marketing to local businesses and tighten the loop between businesses, their neighborhoods, and their customers - especially ones who are on the go.  Being connected to the commercial vein of your little world is just as important as being connected to the social one; especially since (and I don’t have any way to back this up) I’m sensing a growing amount of local pride and neighborhood support for small businesses.

What happens as these three things converge?

Between these three things, our phones are turning us into little glowing dots on a map. Pretend you’re 10,000 feet in the air over a city:  We’re all little dots and we move slowly from work, to lunch, to grab a cup of coffee and a croissant on the way to the dry cleaner’s.  Little dots that bump into each other by chance and glow a little brighter for a moment.  They emit little 140 character messages that get sent to other random dots, some of them chirp back, some of them get annoyed and go black.  Little dots that that start pulsing in unison when big news breaks.  Little dots whose lives are indexed, are more illustrated, and more interconnected with one another.

It’s a new social and participatory ecosystem.  I have huge worries about how marketers will try to exploit this, because it’s got such a massive and imminent potential.  Our phones are becoming pieces of us, and they’re beginning to act like little portals to everyone and everywhere else.  It’s creating a technological, zen-like oneness between everyone and I’m really, really excited about it.

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Happy Friday!  I thought we could have a little fun to celebrate the end of the week, by having a bit of an interactive blog post!

Part of my job at ChaCha is writing ad copy for our National advertisers.  Often times, we are tasked with the goal of writing copy that is relevant to our core demographic of users:  13-24 year olds.  Now, as I’m sure you’re very much aware, this is a tough group to crack.  You’ve gotta speak to them in THEIR language, which is commonly referred to as “Text Speak” or “Txt Spk.”  We’ve learned at ChaCha that if we don’t speak their language, it’s hard for us to get a message across to them.

So here’s the deal:  Below is a sample text message exchange between two typical cell phone loving, texting crazed 13-24 year olds talking about the upcoming holiday, Halloween!  Respond below to see if you can correctly translate the conversation from txt spk to proper English!  Have fun and remember its Friday!!!

(Hint: There are websites that can help you translate txt spk if you need a little help!)

Person A) wot U guna B 4 HallowEn?

Person B) IDK yt. Dpndz on wh@ JRs warin. I <3 him sO mch! <3 <3 <3 CH + JR = 4EVER <3 <3 <3

Person A) OMG hez cute

Person B) I wnt2b Wondr Womn. How hot wud dat be

Person A) SRSLY!  U wud B hot! I wnt 2b Michael Jackson. I <3 MJ. Wud dat B twistD if I dressD ^ like him?

Person B) Nope. Dat wud B swEt! I GTG

Person A) L8tr

Person B) B4N

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Online Media Daily reports stats from Michael Wehrs, president of Mobile Marketing Association, who they interviewed at the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment and International 2009 in San Diego:

Wehrs noted that marketers are beginning to move more of their budgets to mobile, because:

- Mobile results are easily segmentable, by device, age, and location.
- Mobile helps extend marketing campaigns and make them more personal and targeted.
- Campaigns that integrate with mobile can get a 24% click-through rate on a phone versus .2% on a PC
- And, maybe most important to marketers, people have a personal attachment to their device, and stop what they are doing to respond to that buzz, beep, or ring tone.

We know that our teen users have a passionate attachment to their cell phone communication. They also have already told us in a ChaCha survey that, if they had to pick one thing to use on their mobile phone while stuck on a deserted island, they would pick ChaCha 2x more than the Mobile Internet, 16x more than mobile videos, and 16x more than Google text search.

So we’re not surprised that, according to Wehrs, mobile advertising is finally becoming its own line item in advertising budgets. And, said Wehrs:  “When I asked the mobile marketing companies to forecast what their clients will spend, the company projects between two and four times more this coming year, compared with last,” he says.  I know that these advertisers will be pleased with their results!

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I read an article recently in Ad Age Daily from Anne Bologna, CEO of a small advertising agency called Toy. I met her briefly at a conference called “What Teens Want” and we talked about different approaches for a start up like ours, how to effectively talk to teens and how to best serve agencies and brands who want to engage with our audience. It was only a brief interaction, but I immediately knew that she was sharp and was someone I wanted to know. Her article talked about the strengths of different types of agencies and how important it is to find the perfect fit for your brand or strategy. She says:

“When it comes to selecting their marketing partners, clients have become far savvier about their options and the kinds of structures that can help them get the best value for their money. That means a departure from a “one-size-fits-all” model, selecting both large and small agencies for their roster. It’s becoming more the norm for my agency to find itself sharing clients with some of the biggest agencies around.”

Clients that partner with ChaCha are looking for unique ways to engage with teens and see mobile advertising — particularly our brand of mobile advertising - as a compelling choice. They choose us because we have unique insight into the minds of teens and young adults. After all, we’ve answered over 160 million of their questions. They are asking for advice, information on their favorite celebrities and ideas on what to buy, what to wear and what to do when they are bored. We’ve figured out ways to get our partners into those conversations. In some ways, we have become a small service agency within a mobile publishing company. Our goal is to delight and please our clients by building mobile campaigns that perform well and meet their goals. The following quote really resonated with our team here:

“Because the dirty little secret in the agency business is that all agencies, no matter the size, model or location, are passionate pleasers, wired to solve problems creatively. You will get your best value for money not by comparing rate cards, but by finding an agency that’s best for you and treating them like a true partner. If you do, you’ll be “that client.” The one that gets the best people, the best work, and a team that will never want to leave you disappointed.”

While ChaCha is by no means an agency, we too are wired to please and help our clients perform well with our audience — those elusive teens and young adults who are pretty open to engaging with the right brands, products and services.

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Freddie Larker, who blogs over here, wrote a fantastic piece for AdAge about marketers, over time, kill the medium.  Or at least dilute it.  With all its promise, mobile may be next.  Eek!

Simply put, I’m excited about the potential of mobile marketing and particularly the convergence of social networking and mobile. New capabilities on phones are opening doors to limitless new marketing innovations and, simultaneously, developing countries are having entirely new segments of their population enter the digital world. I spend a lot of time in the day dreaming about how to bring entirely new digital experiences to people, but I think we need to proceed with caution. Marketers, the frequently reckless group of individuals we are, are in danger of screwing it up (again).

Consider the lessons from social media. One of the factors that caused so many marketers to fail in this space is they forgot basic web etiquette and lost sight that all successful marketing (on the modern web) is some form of value exchange. Consumers must be approached in a way that is not disruptive or disrespectful of their time. Social media was never free — the buzz created around your brand or people’s willingness to come together as a community was earned. They would tolerate a certain amount of advertising if it was a reasonable value exchange.

Mobile, the ever-present digital touch point, is for many of us not only an essential daily tool, but also a place of great privacy and perceived intimacy. We’re far more sensitive about the “value exchange” in the mobile world. In addition we don’t click ads as often because, in my opinion, we’re frequently trying to get quick digital or social experiences on the mobile device in between other events. We have frequent interaction with our mobile devices, but the sessions might be shorter.

Sometimes I like to talk about the “paradox of marketing.” As marketers we feel obligated to get our clients/brands where the eyeballs are. We then descend on that thing like vultures and in most cases we destroy that thing we originally loved and saw as an opportunity to reach consumers. (Think George from “Of Mice and Men” with the rabbit.) We’re currently in the process of killing Twitter as well.

The next great mobile revolution will be focused on the culmination of social networks, geo-location services, content creation/sharing, augmented reality and the functions that come with rapidly increased bandwidth, such as live streaming video. My fear is that marketers will be irresponsible and will use these technologies to pound consumers with horrible interruptive ads that make consumers revolt against mobile marketing. We’ve already had epic failures with some marketers’ mass SMS broadcasting and then the totally idiotic idea of connecting to discoverable Bluetooth phones when they’re in proximity of a broadcast point.

There’s so much new technology that has the potential to redefine interaction between brands and consumers, but unfortunately too many of us are still using advertising techniques that we’ve used for the last century — and they are primarily disruptive in nature.

The “techies” have done a great job of continuing to innovate and evolve the medium. Now it’s time for marketers to show the same passion for innovation and evolve with the medium, rethink our approaches and be respectful of the most intimate of digital touch points. We’re marching into holy ground with mobile marketing and if we’re not careful a select few of us will ruin it for the rest of us and this time, I don’t think consumers will be as forgiving.

Via

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As I was driving the other day, I saw a car window decal that looked a little like this (I was too late in snapping a photo while driving):

Halve the complexity

As a designer, my selective perception tends to dwell on this sort of thing: Why would it need to say “Hoosier Fan” when the singular act of placing a logo decal on a car window is itself a significant and obvious gesture of Fan-ness? That message could have been entirely conveyed in literally half the space.

Simplicity in design does not equal minimal information; it’s about communicating all the necessary information with the least amount of clutter and effort required of the viewer. Keep it simple and succinct. Away with redundancy and fluff. Be minimal, direct, and straight to the point.

The same can be said in the context of text message advertising:

Design for mobile attention spans.

If you’re not a texter, become one. If you are, you know that texts tend to be short and sweet — right to the point. Simple, by design of the mobile experience.

As you daily text, pay attention to how direct you become with your messages. No fluff, not really even all that many English-teacher-approved sentences. Just cut to the chase; mobile attention spans don’t accommodate anything more.

Don’t think of it as writing an ad. Just think of it as a text message.

When texting friends and family, you typically expect that sending a message will elicit a response. Likewise, adopt a similar approach to messaging your consumers. Relate to them conversationally; if you think “ad” first, it becomes very easy to lose your “what do consumers really care about” focus. The mere fact that it’s from your brand makes it an ad, just as the mere placement of a university logo decal on your car window makes you a Fan.

Next up: The Anatomy of a Text Ad

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When is the message “What are you doing?” not nosy parental intrusion?  When it’s asked via a text message.  This weekend, that message, texted by my husband to our son, got the response “Watching the Bears”.  A phone call at the same time would likely have gone unanswered.

Parents are finding that often the best way (or only way) to share a long-distance moment with their teen children is to text them.  That is even more true when the person you are trying to reach is watching television.

Steve Smith’s recent MediaPost — “SMS + TV = Teachable Moment” — comments specifically on how text messaging is extending media reach by fostering “parallel texting”, and shares his experience sharing a ‘Mad Men’ episode with his daughter, via text.

“…the marriage of TV with SMS is more profound than any one of us would have guessed just a few years ago. Text exchanges form the connective tissue between remote locations during a shared media experience. I know that some cable TV networks have already tried to leverage this phenomenon by creating mobile chat rooms around a TV show. My guess is that like all things mobile, the most important activity is really going on one-to-one.”

Smith predicts that the mobile phone will provide more of a “second screen” role than the PC ever will.  For advertisers, this means that a campaign can really boost its response if a TV ad is coupled with an SMS short code.  Smith cited a recent study by Mobile Common in which a Shedd Aquarium TV ad with an SMS call-to-action generated 325% more contest entries than any other call-to-action.

I predict that ad extension via SMS will continue to grow, as these results are replicated by other advertisers.

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