Tag Archives: Conferences

Panel 1 – Digital PR Summit – Creating the Digital PR Dream Team

Panel #1 of the day at the Digital PR Next Practices Summit – IMO, the best part is the questions at the end!

Creating the Digital PR Dream Team – Mary Henige (GM), Lee Mikles (Archer Group), Holly Potter (Kaiser Permanente)

Mary – (yes, this is one of my clients) – she showed their org chart – Communications surrounding by Marketing

From her perspective, on the Communications team, it’s important to hire marketers. Need to think like a marketer. Important that Marketing doesn’t see Communications as the enemy.

Also have graphic designer, who is really important because he/team can create things and talk the talk.

Lee – I think he said they don’t hire interns for community management (“Twitern”) (mic is way down right now) – it’s a temptation b/c they understand social media, and they’re low cost, but they don’t understand your brand intimately. It creates problems.

The A-Team: The Digital Genius, The Content Creators, The Listener, The Law

Difference between social networking and traditional communciations – you don’t have the time to craft a perfect response.

Don’t yell – you have to have a voice that’s consistent with your brand.

Your team is not an island – need to be in tune w/ the brand teams, they need to be aware of the social team.

Have a plan – it’s important to have a plan before the “fire” starts. Make sure people in the company know it. And are comfortable with it.

It’s important to get the social team pushing/looking ahead so they stay relevant. And they need to communicate that knowledge with the other teams.

Report on progress – step back on increase sales b/c that’s obviously what we want to do. But do you want to increase followers

Social isn’t PR – PR isn’t social – customer service, innovation, relationship building. You can’t have a social team sitting on an island away from the rest of “PR.”

Diane – they re-structured a couple of years ago and added a “PR” department where social media teams were just part of it. Teams are: Public Relations, Corp Comm, Issue/Brand Mgt, Mktg/Advertising/Internet Services. They have “Digital Sponsors” group with representatives from each team. They just hired “Digital Media and Syndication Director.” Others in the Digital Sponsors group – Internal Web Capability, Digital Engagement Svcs, Digital Mktg Strategy.

When they re-organized, they changed everyone’s job description (even the traditional PR practitioners) to include social media capabilities – they listen/monitor, pitch bloggers, engage in conversations, correct misinformation, & facilitate service recovery.

Questions – how are you finding talent? Is it better to find someone more experienced in PR strategy or someone with a digital background? Mary – in this field, they don’t have to come from a communications/PR background. Some of this is very much learned. If you find someone who is agile, risk-taking, and willing to learn – we’re willing to bring them on and train them. There’s a whole bunch of people who want to get into this, but they haven’t done anything. It’s about finding the people who have done things.

Holly – It’s nice to find people with strategy experience – how to get your story out overall. Having a silo’d expertise around social media might not have the impact for the brand that you want. Good to have balance – risk takers and nay-sayers. Involving legal team early and often works well for them, too.

Question – What if you’re a team of 1? What are some strategies for building a team? Lee – the best thing you can do is show leadership the conversations that are happening. If you’re not participating in those conversations, then who is?

Holly – listening is really critical. They create monitoring report each week and share w/ team + C-suite. The more you’re in it, the more you see opportunities to engage in it. If you try to address everything in the social space related to your brand, you’re never going to sleep again.

Question – How did you develop the “right” voice? Mary – starting about 2 years ago, they had so many people tweeting on their behalf so it’s going to be a little bit playful/different. A lot of brands make their brands synonymous with 1 person – they don’t agree with this b/c eventually, that 1 person is going to not be there.

Question – 3 key characteristics of a candidate. Holly – 1) skeptical of anyone who tells me they’re a guru or touts themselves like that. We all have a lot to learn and in reality, we’re all making it up as we go along. Anyone who claims otherwise, is wrong. 2) there needs to be a balance between willingness to take risks and challenge the status quo. Have to acknowledge the PR landscape is not the same as it was 10 years ago. 3) pragmatist – it’s not all puppies and kittens when you go out in social media. You need to be aware of what’s out there and be able to approach it from a realistic perspective.

Lee – 1) communications background – need to be able to communicate 2) understand there is a measurement aspect 3) they need to be likeable. They’re going to be conversing with people, they need to be likeable.

Question – does it matter if the staff is in the same building? Holly – I don’t care, but ultimately, news is occurring 24/7, so as long as they’re on it, it doesn’t matter where they are.

Mary – You can coordinate your efforts without being in the same spot, generally speaking.

Question – where things are shifting for your team? Mary – content creation – searchable, working with marketing, web development.

Lee – integrating the social conversations into all forms of communications.

Holly – content creation, overall, is foundational to everything they’re doing. The more content they can create that is shareable, the more it’s going to help them. Video is a critical piece to sharing their story. They will focus on this over the next 3-6 months.

NYC or Bust – for Digital PR Talks & Awards

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I’m headed to New York for the Digital PR Next Practices Summit and Digital PR Awards (brought to you by PR News) tomorrow. I’ve got a special place in my heart for NYC – my wife and I lived there 2001-2005 when she was going to graduate school, we have many friends there, and our daughter was born there – so it’s always nice to go back. I haven’t been back in over a year. Anyway, we’ve (our Dallas office) been selected as a finalist for 4 different awards (Influencer Communications, Social Networking Campaign, Digital Marketing Campaign, and New Website) and I’m the representative to attend.

Awards are a funny thing – they are a tangible piece of recognition for doing great work and for that reason alone, I think they are purposeful. (I believe strongly in recognition! But it doesn’t have to be an award). But if someone/groups/companies are driven by winning awards, then I have questions. In my opinion, awards shouldn’t be the purpose that drives ideas and solutions. It’s not whether or not this idea or that idea is “award-winning,” it’s whether or not this idea or that idea achieves the predetermined goals/objectives and ultimately impacts the client’s business. And sometimes, things just play out in a way that a random judging committee thinks they are “award worthy.” Such is the case here. I’m grateful and excited and I think it would be awesome for our group and our clients to be recognized for all of our work.

More than the awards, I’m excited to attend the conference. I’m new to the “PR” world, but not new to the digital and social strategy/development world. So, it will be interesting to hear perspectives from different PR/communications leaders through my digital experience filter. There is a solid lineup from brands to agencies to entrepreneurs. I like the set-up, too – it’s a 1-day conference filled with 7 different sessions. The only option is whether or not to go.

It’s going to be insightful because these sessions are centered around what I’m faced with every day, much more than what Out-of-Home component makes sense for a particular initiative. It’s crisis management and “emerging” online social tools and measurement and influencers – look at the agenda and you’ll get a snapshot of the issues I think about on a typical day. These are components that impact who, why, and how we communicate on a daily basis. This is the real driver of our solutions, not any particular channel, like OOH or mobile. But this is one of the things that I get so excited about with OOH, especially Interactive Out-of-Home – by touching people where they’re out and about, on the places and things around them, we have an opportunity to be more relevant and effective communicators. Every touch point is a chance to strengthen or weaken a relationship. The goal, though, is to touch the “right” people in the right way at the right time (how many times have you heard that?).

So, tomorrow, I’ll get a chance to peak inside other people’s heads, which is generally a good thing. These are talented practitioners, so by and large, it should be a good thing. We’ll see. I’ll be blogging the entire day – stay tuned in if you’re interested.

My Floor Observations at Kioskcom

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Walking the convention floor at these things is just sensory overload. Or in this case, kiosk overload. Kiosks everywhere. Every kind of kiosk you could want, you could find it here. (It’s funny, I was talking to someone and they said they specifically came to look for a kiosk to replace their old one and they didn’t find one here. I couldn’t believe it.) There were also lots of touch screens. Lots of really slick looking applications. But when you boil it down, it’s basically the same thing. Here’s what I observed – most everyone wants to be in the everything business. They want to be hardware providers. They want to be software providers. They want to be content providers. They want to be advertising providers. They want to be the data house. Enough already. Please. The best solutions I saw were ones that were focused and were trying to solve 1 problem. Three good companies made my short, I-commend-you-for-knowing-your-business-well-enough-to-focus-on-one-thing-list:

Nanonation – these guys are big time. Software providers. They developed the software that runs the Greenopolis (Best of Show, Self Service Excellence Awards) kiosk (more on this solution later). They have software to serve the enterprise level and they just developed software to serve the “lite” level.

DigiKomp – These guys are in the hardware business. But instead of showing up with kiosks or large digital screens like veryone else, they stole the show (in my mind) with these small (320×240) LCD screens that they call “the last nametag that you’ll ever have to get.” They’re sweet. Basically, really small, really sharp looking digital frames. They play .jps, .avis, .mp3s. Battery life of 12 hours. I bought one. But didn’t take it with me because I didn’t have the cash. The ATM was far from the convention center and I never made it back. I’m going to follow through with my purchase. Just to have it.

RFIDeas – I got a little bit of an education on RFID from these guys. My biggest takeaway – there are 3 “levels” of RFID (I really don’t know the right nomenclature): proximity, HF (High Frequency), and UHF (Ultra High Frequency). The Mini key fob/billboards used UHF. These guys deal primarily with proximity – think of the security cards that allow you to go in/out of your workplace/parking garages/etc.. My 2^nd biggest takeaway – they don’t think of anything for marketing/engagement purposes. When I told him why I was interested, he looked at me like I had 3 eyes. All good. He gave me knowledge, which is all I want.

There were others that I heard were good, but really of no interest to me.

I think it would be cool to get creative, developers, software providers, hardware providers at one of these things and over the course of 1 or 2 days, get them to actually make something right in front of our eyes so we can see the true capabilities and something worthwhile come to life. Then, we would really find out the strengths of all of these companies. And to me, that’s the whole point.

Library of Congress Keynote (Day 2)

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Speaker: JoAnn Jenkins (COO, Library of Congress)

These kiosks installed in the Library of Congress are awesome (as shown by initial video): Location-aware, personalized, builds/gets smarter as you go through the experience (barcode on passport), extend experience online, game (Knowledge Quest)

myLOC.gov – check it all out there (this is the online extension)

“Don’t use technology for the sake of using technology – use it to enhance experience.”

3 keys to LCE Program Success

Visitor Engagement was core objective
Interactive Technology engage and sustain a connection
Internal environment conducive to adoption of new tech solutions

Introduce technologies of tomorrow to bring in a new audience, but maintain integrity of library/collection

Installed 60 kiosks – designed to address all users, from kindergarten to older, more experienced users , specifically of touch screen tech

“Remain on the content, not on the technology.”

Unmatched level of access to the collection items – can literally touch history

Now the curators can’t imagine these kiosks/this technology not being here…

WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) was used! Silverlight, too. Sharepoint – this is the largest use to date. This was what we were working towards at my last agency, when building the IOOH software. Great to hear.

Over 105,000 users have registered via myLOC. Over ½ of myLOC users in the library use the experience online – excellent extension of experience!

Knowledge Quest (incorporation of game) – success unlocks content, provides further level of visitor involvement, extends experience

All this required internal changes – past was driven by vision defined by individual department, silos – building the LCE required much more. Created the centralized program management office – cross departmental, etc..”Team” approach including everyone. This evolves every day. For instance – IT research in looking at Barcode vs. RFID – studies by IT revealed that marble floors would interfere with RFID.

Created experience for first time that could greet visitors at front door, immerse them in many ways while inside, and allowed visitors to take experience home with them.

QUESTIONS –

How long did it take to come up with the vision and draft scope and implement?

The LOC celebrated 200^th bday in 2000 and then, they talked about their audience. At that time, they went out and did survey – what came back is that people loved the LOC, had no idea they could use it. Then, they followed up and asked if you could see this, would you? And overwhelmingly, it was yes.

Over 60% of their audience is from K-12. Dramatic shift of audience. This is amazing.

The LCE started in 2008.

Was there any 1 key lesson learned? Anything you would have done differently? Specifically to the tech?

One of the things that they had to do – tech was changing so rapidly as everything evolved. Disney worked with them re: how you move crowds around and how tech is involved in that. Curatorial staff deeply involved, too. Using Microsoft Sharepoint was big discussion. They constantly put together levels of review. Just being mindful that tech is changing so rapidly. Solutions being developed daily.

Some of the lessons when doing research with other institutions – one of the most important things – scalability was extremely important to success. Right now, they only have 1,000 items that you can save/share. The vision is to build your own Library of Congress so you can share/save many more. The most important way to make it scalable was to make a CMS that would manage online & onsite experiences. Completely seamless.

Did you have in-house team to do tech?

We had wonderful team at the library, but brought in 8-10 different companies to work with the team.

Then, they went into some tech speak – WPF wrapper. Some Flash-based. They used Flash & Silverlight both. Interesting.

What project mgt methodology?

Brought in Sapient as primary consultant, served as PM. Above that though, you have to have a person who can make decisions, buck stops there. They have sole responsibility. (this was her)

Session 1: Customer Engagement – Communicating with Your Customers through Integrated Technologies

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Panel: Randy – MGM Grand, Paul Wolff – Greenopolis, Brandon Elliott – Build a Bear

Challenge – how do you effectively communicate and engage customers at right point in time? “Right message, right person, right time” leaves a lot out. It’s starts w/ engagement.

How do you really connect with that customer and create that moment? – moment of Magic

It’s also about integration – both with physical space and all of the other business components. Deliver on the brand promise – no line, no wait (Budget) – they’re using in their TV spots (kiosks)

Randy (MGM) – over in City Center, spent more effort on 9 slot machine toppers than 400 screens.

Everyone is a content critic

Told a story about how an escalator takes 24 seconds – this is important b/c it dictates content and animation.

His vision of the future – smarter content mgt (data + content to the right device)

Very interesting that they create everything in 1280 x 1280 and then they have a hotspot in the center and so they don’t have to resize everything

This dude has a lot to manage – I wouldn’t want his job

Paul (Greenopolis) – in the business of tracking trash

SM angle – corp partners who get involved in site – rewards program – connect people who care about this

People can play with the program wherever they are – mobile, kiosks, computer, etc…

Brandon (Build a Bear) (I will write more about these guys later) – 10^th largest toy retailer in the country

Over 1,600 kiosks in all of their stores. The technology – wanted to enable the experience – you don’t go to Build a Bear to sit in front of the kiosk.

Target: Tech savvy 10 year old girl.

His 3 year old knows how to use iPhone.

If you ask a 10-year old girl what she wants for Christmas – 8 of the top 10 is technology based.

Buildabearville.com – 1.5 m avatars created, 1-2 m unique visitors a month, avg 30 min visit – this extends the in-store experience – this is great – there’s a whole story online

POS – receipt code – for every item you buy, every dollar spent in the real world, you get virtual currency

1 of 3 guests visit them online before making a store purchase – nearly 1 in 2 guess in core demo bring their animals to life online

They have lost bears, they open them up and can return to owner

You’re seeing everything interact with each other – seeing points, games, etc…”fun”/personal

NET –

All this comes down to understanding your customer very well before you actually do anything – or as you refine

You need to be able to look at metrics and what comes out of that

QUESTIONS:

Randy (MGM) – Geolocation integration with MGM/Mirage? – they just released 2^nd iPhone app..they started pulling data back from that, the thing that intrigues them is the SEARCH feature – look at the phrases, words – craziest search group he’s seen is “darts, donkeys, drugs” – the point is that there are so many things out there that people want and how they search

For Randy (MGM) – development of content, how do you start the process? – has all changed in the last 24 months, there was so much cash flow here that you could do whatever….now it is scrutinized. They now pick their spots, where can they have the most impact with the lowest capital risk?

Paul (Greenopolis) – value prop – what’s the experience? – it is reprocessing material…the kiosks are ergonic billboards. Recycle, reprocess, reward (this is good)

BrainJuicer Keynote

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The keynote this morning was centered around creating outstanding engagement and winning customer’s hearts and was brought to us by Bill Ratcliffe from BrainJuicer, a consumer-focused research firm.

While the talk was a little scattered, it was good. They’re all about “feel.” And for me, this is something that really resonates. I’m very much a “feel” person. I decide many things, in and out of work, based on “feel.” So, these guys center their research around emotion and at the end of the day, want the customer to leave with a “little gift,” feeling happy (as we all do.) This was just an interesting way to look at research and then think about how it could be applied to create the best content for the best channel.

In these days, getting attention, much less engagement, is very difficult.

Within the industry, we think of pushing out information (talks to the brain), providing some form of entertainment (talks to the heart), or transactions (talks to both). Consumers really know when you’ve hit the mark. When they feel an emotional reaction, they talk to other people. How do we become part of that conversation?

Where we’re going with this was best summarized by James Brown – “I feel good!” Emotions drive our motivations and our decisions – we think less than we think we think.

We move too quickly (in mkt research), we look too quickly to “evaluating” things, not particularly audience emotions.

People know when it works – they just feel it. But why is it that we never ask people how they’re feeling?

If you win hearts, you’ll make money. Just ask Apple. You can have the same measure of effect and greater efficiency by really tapping into emotional response.

Key message ads – one piece of advertising looks a lot like the other – falling within existing expectations, your content/creative won’t stand out.

How do we know if we are winning hearts?

Paul Ekman – did a lot of work universally recognized facial expressions – ID’d 7 emotions – sadness, fear, disgust, anger, contempt, surprise, happiness. These guys (BrainJuicer) added another expression – neutral – no reaction. They put all of these together in an emotion wheel (actually 12 different types of happiness) . Then, they ask people how they feel. Their formula – “Which of these faces best describes the way you feel?” And “How intensely?” And then “What triggered these emotions?”

He showed a 1:30 ad with a gorilla, playing drums – to Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight” – was by Cadbury – on an emotional scale, this is one of the top performing ads, but from a marketers key message POV, didn’t score high. It was a gift, not a “selling” ad – they went out and bought the product, sales rose and sustained before Kraft bought the company (“of course.”) The thing that really works is not going into something that’s way out there that will put people off – you want to create a little bit of surprise and then leave them happy.

You can go for the “same ol” or you can go for “crazy new” – we’re starting to see more going to “crazy new” – this is good.

Questions:

Any books that you can recommend on topic? Wisdom of the Crowds, Pow – Right Between the Eyes

Real-time facial recognition implementation into these? This would require high powered analytics behind the scene. Could be in the future, we wouldn’t have to ask. But we would have to ask the drivers.

Three Bloggers’ Perspectives

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Was on a panel with Adrian Cotterill from DailyDOOH and Dave Haynes from The Preset Group. This is our perspective.

14 people at beginning, easily doubled in 5 minutes

We all went through intros first. I could have framed myself a little better. Lav mic is weird.

Dave – been around for a really long time, 2006 started blogs, 1,500 posts, much more of an opinion piece – why you should look at this, bit of a filter for the industry

Q1: How digital media can improve customer engagement and increase sales lift?

Adrian: Does digital really need explaining? Surely, we’ve seen sales lift

Dave: Digtal media still a little mysterious to people…when we talk about sales lift, we see in the past year that results that are shared around. Walmart showed up at conference last year and showed results on their smart network – they were getting phenomenal sales lift…industry avg 10 -15 % lift

Mike: I think you have to separate those two objectives. Engagement is very different than conversion – it can certainly play off of each other. Dynamic, moving images have an impact. When talking about OOH, placement is part of the equation. Then, f/u with the most appropriate content so it can achieve that goal – sales lift.

Q2: Examples of successful implementations and their impact on brands?

Adrian: Harrods – amazed at how well they’ve done retail…screens embedded into the fabric of their environment

Dave: Believes that there are more unsuccessful implementations vs. successful…Tim Horton’s (donut shop in Canada) – they see real sales lift on just “digital” amid their menu boards….Microsoft’s retail stores, baked right into it

Mike: Mini/BMW – digital billboards, RFID, AR

Nike – virtual shoecase, matching shoes kiosk, Chalkbot

These brands have a very good understanding of their audience so they’re able to use various mediums really effectively.

Q3: Measurement methodology & ROI?

Adrian: taken from keynote this morning, the emotions

Dave: not so down on the research and analytics, yes it’s imperfect, but it does a good job of showing how long people are looking at screens…typically the viewer engagement on these screens is 3 seconds…wow

Mike: DOOH is passive so measure it like any OOH installation – eyeballs, traffic, etc..

IOOH is active so measure it on actions

This is why I think interaction is so important.

Q4: Successful trends we are seeing?

Adrian: People don’t need an excuse or prompt to touch a screen these days. Mobile interaction is something that is also taking off. Audio/music/sound – this being explored more now, too.

Dave: Mobile & social….extremely early days for that….this industry has to open its eyes a lot wider as to what’s going on around them……the days of “captive” audience is over…no one is really captive anymore

Mike: I think you have to look at social and mobile separately from OOH. Both are gaining traction and both will play a large part in OOH.

Aside from that, people are getting more familiar with expectations that they can interact with their surroundings.

Q5: Who needs to be involved in the process for success?

Adrian: Surely everyone in the company! Merchandisers, marketers, IT, and don’t forget retail staff!

Dave: All about objectives and are you getting return on those?

Mike: Client side – Brand managers – marketing, communications

Agency side – brand teams, advertising teams, media buyers, research, analytics

Implementation side – content creators (developers, designers), system admins (tech)

End user from the standpoint of acceptance

Q6: What makes a project a winner?

Adrian: Microsigns…put them underneath mobile phones in stores

Dave: Most of the really good projects in this space have come from outside the industry…..

Mike: Depends on what the objectives are.

If you want to change perception, can do.

If you want to deepen engagement, you can.

If you want to drive sales/conversion, you can.

It’s all about:

Who are we talking to?

What are we trying to say?

How are we going to say it?

Q7: What brands and venues can do to succeed through the use of digital signage and DOOH?

Adrian: Spend money, don’t try to do anything on the cheap, get good advice, think creatively, don’t forget content, integrate mobile..

Dave: change in business models

Mike: Have to be clear about your objectives. What are they trying to do?

Hope that they have smart people around them.

Agree with cheap and the content.

Q8: What does the future hold?

Adrian: Where you now see cardboard and print, you will now see digital. More installations will be interactive, responsive by touch and gesture, and mobile.

Dave: I don’t know what he said.

Mike: Technology gets better, people get smarter. It’s not about “digital” out of home screens, it’s about interacting with our spaces around us.

And We’re Off at Kioskcom..(Starting with a New Name)

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So far, so good. I’m digging the feel here, particularly around the sessions and the content that they are providing. I’ve been to 3 back-to-back sessions all morning and have not had a chance to recap any of them. (I still don’t understand why we don’t have wireless access in any of the sessions. It sure would make it a lot easier.)

My general takeaway up to this point – this is much more geared to an agency audience. There’s lots of talk about content and audience. In fact, starting in November, this show will be renamed Customer Engagement Technology World. As you can see in the logo, the emphasis is on “Customer Engagement,” which I find very refreshing. I also like the fact that “Technology” is included because although not the primary emphasis, it is a vital element.

I get into conversations all the time of the importance of technology in this industry. From a marketer’s standpoint, these are just “other channels” – the technology doesn’t “really matter.” I can see that point and agree to an extent, but when the technology is so new and evolving rapidly, it can’t be treated as just “another channel.” It has to be mentioned in the conversation and it has to be treated a little differently. At least until marketers start to treat it like like the other channels – TV, radio, print, Internet, and to a lesser extent mobile.

This is a good show. Much more to come soon!

Viva Las Vegas, Baby!

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I’m gearing up to go back out to Vegas next week for Kioskcom/Digital Signage Show. This time, I’m not going out there as press, rather as a speaker. I’m speaking on a panel with Adrian Cotterill from Daily DOOH and Dave Haynes from the Preset Group. Both are extremely smart guys and have lots of industry experience. I’m really looking forward to being a part of the session.

We’re part of a track set up specifically for DOOH, so I’m hoping we get good, focused attendance & interest in the field. Our session is next Wednesday from 1:30 – 2:30:

Say What? Peeking Inside the Minds of Leading DOOH Electronic Media

In this session you will hear directly from leading electronic journalists/bloggers in the DOOH and digital signage space. They will address a myriad of timely and relevant issues, and provide their unique insight into the good, the bad, the ugly and the exciting world of Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) Media industry.

If you’re there, stop on by. If you’re not able to attend the session, ping me and let’s try to get together during the show. I’ll be there Wednesday and Thursday.

And if you want to hear anything specific in the session, let me know.

11th Screen

Technology + Connections

Tag Archives: Conferences

NYC or Bust – for Digital PR Talks & Awards

My Floor Observations at Kioskcom

Library of Congress Keynote (Day 2)

Session 1: Customer Engagement – Communicating with Your Customers through Integrated Technologies

BrainJuicer Keynote

And We’re Off at Kioskcom..(Starting with a New Name)

Viva Las Vegas, Baby!