Best (and worst) example of this I recently came across was an FMCG client that wanted us to develop a website for their new 'water' beverage ... when asked 'Why?' (the Objectives) ... she said, 'To be 360'.

The technologies and strategies have evolved, been honed and become more complex. But everyone on the battlefield is using them. This raises the bar for all concerned and makes big results much harder to achieve. No excuse for pursuing glory rather than results. No excuse for not learning from glorious failures. Tom.

Unfortunately, many senior "strategists" get left behind by technology, through lack of knowledge/time or whatever, they pluck out "key words" from some article they have read and push them as strategy without truly understanding the implications for the foot soldiers and consumers. But then again..the world is not perfect, and egos abound in our industry.

Nick unfortunately reveals a sad truth here. Strategists and planners need to be genuine strategists and planners, and "not a few of them" aren't the real thing. If they are only part of a sales operation and don't think about implications, long term objectives and infrastructure, they only succeed by luck and client gullibility. Their days will be numbered. On the other hand, convincing clients to invest in long term data strategies is really challenging because it costs, and needs simplified "painting of pictures" of a rosy future. We still have to sell our best good! I don't care about the gloss, as long as everyone understand that hard work needs to be done to get real results. Everyone also needs to understand that the quant/tech/data side is only part of the story. An integrated story... Tom - sometime "Data Strategist".

Sometimes we are so enamoured by our strategy that we take the outcome for granted – or, God forbid, lose sight of it. Although the outcome is sacrosanct, and therefore to be determined before everything else, sometimes we are unsure if the strategy determines the outcome or the outcome determines which strategy to deploy. I’m reminded of a dialogue between Alice and the Cheshire Cat from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland’: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where…” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

Apparently nobody wants to comment on Celebs or privacy. Privacy for celebs is a lot different from customer privacy. I'll ignore the celeb side too. For customers or prospects, our intended use of their information is about customising an offer, or targeting within a population more appropriately. We marketers are producing "mini-pictures" of customers to make this work better - ideally for the clients and the customers. The "mini-picture" could come from research or analysis of databases, or even both at once. Problem is that the "mini-pictures" may be wrong or distorted, leading to missing good prospects or hitting on bad ones. Other problems are that some cohorts choose to remain private, unknowable, or uncontactable, or that clients want to push the limits of a working relationship and over-reach. Deep down, we're using technology to do what good local store owners and good waiters have done for centuries - personalised interaction. For a consumer, "opting out" has a serious downside of not getting good offers, and having to do your own research. "Opting in" has a downside of getting hit on when they want to be left alone. Sleazy operators should (and do) get whacked at every opportunity. This works in different ways in traditional markets. Consumer backlash, fines, weak campaigns, etc. [But PT Barnum was right, too, as was Churchill]. Observation: the economics of being ethical in marketing works most of the time. It doesn't stop some unethical exploitation of customer information, but most clients put a lot of effort into avoiding it. Tom (rose coloured glasses???).

and here I was hoping that Britney would win the day for me -- Oh well....to yoru point good store owners never spammed -- at least not teh succesful ones. They remembered that you liked blue; never wore a tie and bought suits twice a year. Its really simple. Technology, though, has erased teh insight -- way too often

I think there is a difference between privacy and piracy. Technology certainly makes our personal information accessible. Perhaps it is Moore's law of information access as well. I believe rummaging through my garbage or looking over my shoulder is equally as sinister as hacking a database of social security numbers. The difference today is the amount of information we are required to keep is greater, thus the amount to protect equally as large. What I find interesting is the cottage industry that feeds on privacy fears. Identity theft protection insurance, Key FOB's, WAP encryption, cookies, etc. Access codes and account numbers I didn't even know I needed now need protecting. The wolves are at the gate, and we'd best be armed. I see the issue of privacy as it pertains to personalization more one of preference. We all know the proverb "it has been said that someone's name is the sweetest word that person ever hears, so do whatever it takes to make that sound. You'll do more than impress them. You'll make them feel memorable." The convenience of a FreshDirect shopping list compiled by my previous shopping habits, recommended new Jazz CD's prompted by my purchase of Kind Of Blue even the Gerber baby food coupon handed to me by the cashier with my receipt because I bought diapers for my twins all make my life better, faster and cheaper. Perhaps, it's not what life is all about, but it feels pretty slick. When I was interviewed on 20/20 in their year in review episode, John Stossel shot right to the point- "Stephanie, is there such a thing as too much information?" My reply then, as it is now, "Probably, but not for me."

How do the good store owners get that way? Training? Rewards? Maybe it is the presence of human in the loop, at the point of sale rather than tied to comms and the offer. Maybe the human-ness of the human. Technology as an aid to memory? Tom

How about Humanity at the core of all we do -- Technology is an enhancer -- not a replacement

To me, it's about Cost Per Positive Interaction with the brand.

Oh, I don't know... Why discount the value of non-targeted communications? In order to have a meaningful one-to-one dialogue, you need to identify your participants. Non-targeted communications are the very top of the funnel. You can learn a great deal about your marketing by exposing it to broad audiences. You can identify people you didn't know would be interested in your marketing, get baseline information about an unknown audience, and start trending behavioral patterns of sites and other online properties. All necessary intelligence for doing a proper targeted marketing campaign. Like anything else, non-targeted, CPM model advertising is critical to what we do. Where I believe we come in is where we say "If you're going to run out there with a broad campaign, let us find out as much as we can about whom you hit, the audience to whom you're addressing, and something about the media/place in which you're engaging...so that way we can properly (and effectively) address the people who show interest." People shouldn't confuse proper targeted marketing with broadreach marketing...and you might argue that the CPM model doesn't apply to targeted marketing...but there's a place in the toolbox for each technique, provided you know when to use each of your tools.

I think that is the point -- CPM is for broad based targeting where the ineraction is not diretc but part of a cumulative effect. It is a very importnat and useful metric for what it does and yes is part of eh tool box

CPM is like high school SAT results. They’re both easy to measure and compare, but not necessarily connected to whether the student will actually fulfill his real-world potential. However, basing advertising fees solely on transactions (CPA) has its own serious flaws. You’ve placed the guarantee of payment for the use of your resources into the hands of a third party. Now, the advertiser may WANT to sell his product, but that doesn’t mean he CAN sell his product. Ultimately, a happy client will come back for more (OK, admittedly and presumably based on reaching some predefined expectations on transactions). Nevertheless, with affiliate marketing models the brokers and sites take all the risk on what is ultimately the advertiser’s ability to close, and not necessarily related to your own performance - assuming you’re bringing them the appropriate audiences in the first place. Now, if transaction measurements were used to lock in advertisers to additional campaigns and campaign extensions - that would be an interesting and effective use of that tool.

"CPM because" that's how the campaign objectives were set up. Marketing Directors mostly do set up objectives this way, and it's a valid way to compare similar kinds of campaigns (especially with "day to day" thinking). My favorite strategic metrics include increments from activity: eg, inferring ROI using changes to NPV, brand equity changes (selling more for same $s because the brand can do it now) and brand(s) value changes, but these happen too slowly to attribute to a single campaign. As metrics they are also hard to do with accuracy (with good data) and impossible with crap data. But, for tactical metrics, cost per ('000) response and cost per ('000) conversion are immediately telling you a valid story. They also let you know where the roadbumps are. However, client need to keep awareness beyond the immediate and do something systematic to measure brand dimensions, to know where any new sales are coming from (competitor, cannibalisation, or new consumer), and to understand reach by channel (and interactions between channels, etc) so the client doesn't narrow their "conversation" to the cheap, narrow and loyal niches. Tom.