Marketers are a shrewd lot, some have customers in mind, but most have their own hides at the top of the food chain, then their company’s. This is not a criticism. This is the premise upon which the most successful and productive societies are built. Humans act in their own self interest, it’s OK no need for apologies.

This is why gift cards have expiration dates, fees are hidden, and introductory pricing are used as gateway drugs.

Marketers are certainly aware of the time pressures on “average” consumers and as such, we consume mostly with the “easy” button. When was the last time you read a “terms and conditions” agreement? Sign here, here, and here, and you’re done.

It is the same with privacy policies. Google’s new privacy policies that have met some criticism. As a consumer of online websites, we think about privacy policies in general as whether your email will be sold and, among the more sophisticated users of technology, will a cookie be placed on your computer that impedes the machine’s performance.

Today’s Google policy, similar to Facebook’s failed Beacon tracker, calls attention to a user’s every digital action and whether it will be shared in some way. The primary question to ask is whether your actions will be shared publicly. For example, if a consumer is looking for another job will their searches and website visits show up in their Google profile visible to their current employer. For now, most of the complaints are about collecting data and sharing it with advertisers, not with public exposure, but, the burden for privacy policies is on the consumer. It is getting more complicated and that’s what marketers understand and are taking advantage of, keep it simple, click here and don’t worry about the details. Today it is more evident that a consumer’s habits, their every digital and physical move (now that Google apps are used on mobile devices) are of interest to marketers and they will get it.

Time 31:55

Any new technology has its advocates, people that push the envelope on what can be done. The magic, however is when the tech advocates’ perspective meets those practical enough to ask the question why will this new technology help us solve X. Today we are talking about the technology of QR codes.

You see the challenge of solving for X is not a exclusive to mathematics. This X can be a practical business challenge such as selling more products. We’ll hear in this special Marketing Edge Podcast how an independent band was able to breakthrough the musical cacophony of hundreds of other bands and sell more songs by using QR codes. John C Havens @johnchavens Executive Vice President of Social Media at Porter Novelli shares that story.

I chose the letter X because it also is used in geographical references, such as X marks the spot. QR codes also can transport the user to other destinations. Take print advertising, a QR code can morph a staid stock photo into a multimedia experience in an exotic destination. That’s part of our conversation with Sarah Evans aka PR Sarah Evans. @prsarahevans on Twitter

A brilliant line from Evans in this podcast is “marketing gets people in the door and PR keeps them coming back.” She speaks to using QR codes as a way to enhance a customer experience, and that can be anywhere, in-store, through a billing statement, anywhere. The manta being how do we keep them coming back.

Havens, co-author of Tactical Transparency has dived deep into mobile tagging and scanning technologies as well as augmented reality. He makes the case for using QR code technology as a way to give early adopters of QR code readers access to your brand. It’s also more than brand, it’s capturing an immediate moment. Those moments can be transaction moments, excitement moments, information moments.

Let’s take community action. Say there is an intersection with a long traffic light. Petition commuters stuck in traffic by posting a QR code at the intersection, or someone with a poster of the QR code on an easel that launches an email to legislators saying, “I’m stuck at this incredibly long light at 3rd and Elm and I want to get out!”

Window shopping, literally, QR Codes in front of displays in retail windows take shoppers to a website where they can buy what’s in the window. With QR codes not only can you find out how much that dress is in the window, but what other colors it comes in and accessories can be purchased. QR codes make store hours your hours.

QR codes may well save some printers, imagine talking Christmas gift catalogues? Now you get the picture. Enjoy the podcast with John C Havens and Sarah Evans, along with a cameo soundtrack from Sarah’s dog. Which of course led to a good idea about a QR application.

• Effective way to integrate media (print, web, multimedia)
• Great way to understand mobile audience (more smartphones were sold than PCs in 4Q, 2010 – that’s a game changer)
• Point of Sale enhancement (it’s like an in-store kiosk for any product you want to promote)
• Point of excitement selling moment (QR Codes printed on concert program allows audience to leave with music they purchase in their pocket)

Cautions When Using QR Codes

• QR Reader quality not consistent, making user experience a larger variable than some would like. (a potential workaround is using Jagtag where you snap a picture of a jagtag and text it to a number. You will then receive a text with the detailed content. Another popular method is Microsoft tag. )
• Simplistic use of QR Code, e.g. a QR Code is not a good replacement for a web address because it is likely not to meet heightened user expectation )
• Give user time to understand it’s a QR code and to read it e.g. QR code on highway billboard, not good, on billboard at tourist venue or at baseball park, better.

So tell me did you scan the QR Code above? Sorry I just had to for old time, early adopters sake. Please let me know in the comments if you successfully scanned a QR Code this year? thanks

Time 25:03

Groupon is getting plenty of press regarding their growth, currently valued at $4.75 billion, or Groupon’s current round of funding raising, $950 million, or turning down a $6 billion offer from Google.

Groupon’s CEO Andrew Mason will tell you, and Charlie Rose in a recent interview, that those numbers are possible because of the company’s laser like focus on their customer’s experience. Groupon gives a stage to local businesses who offer daily deals of 50% or more. Reading the deal of the day Groupon email is now as much a routine for some as reading the daily newspaper for others. (That’s ironic) Mason, who started Groupon in November 2008 is passionate about individuals discovering something new about their city, and if they can share that experience with others, even better.

In late December, I interviewed Julie Mossler, a spokesperson with Groupon, about the benefits to businesses that use the group buying, deep discounting, pay for performance service. Groupon works like this. Businesses offer Groupon users significant discounts, for example a $50 dinner for two is offered at $25. The deal is on only when an agreed upon minimum number of people purchase the offer. Win – Win right? business gets people through the door at some minimum price point or else there is no cash expense by the business. It is a pay for performance advertising model.

Learn How Groupon Works! from The Point on Vimeo.

Groupon features a deal a day in an email to their local subscribers, in addition they have other deals on their local city websites. They recently started a self-service option for merchants and professional service providers. The key criteria for businesses considering Group are in the answers to these four questions:

1. 1) Are you attempting to gain new customers for repeat business?
2. 2) Are you attempting to gain customers who will more than likely purchase additional items during the Groupon redemption visit?
3. 3) Are you reallocating advertising dollars toward the Groupon program?
4. 4) How will you convert Groupon subscribers to your customers?

While you may see many restaurants, hotels, and spas, Groupon clearly is a model that can be beneficial for many types of businesses. It’s a question of creativity and thinking through the buying behaviors and advertising models to determine whether Groupon is a good fit for your product or service.

The Groupon site is a good resource for merchants to learn about this category of online marketing. I recommend Groupon’s web-based ROI calculator to help project estimated returns, costs, and repeat business potential. There are likely more detailed spreadsheets available as you engage with a Groupon representative to do deeper calculations that will help refine your costs and potential revenue the Groupon program may generate.

As a small business you should claim a presence on Groupon Stores, a new feature of Groupon’s page that allows businesses to essentially self-serve a Groupon offer even though they will not be the featured deal of the day.

2011 will see rapid change in business marketing. A strategy session on the long term impact on your business of Groupon and the general concept of social network buying and marketing may be a good use of resources.

We’ll have more coverage on this topic and feature other network buying platforms. Please suggest some that you have used or think are newsworthy.

Marketing Edge Listeners Win!

Ann McGinn is the winner of Julio Ojeda-Zapata’s book Ipad Means Business. Congratulations Ann and thanks to all the Marketing Edge listeners who submitted their name for the drawing. Stay tuned for our next book drawing and good luck.

Don’t you hate it when rollover ads on websites become an “in your face” mosquito that’s hard to shake? It’s the kind of thing that can reflect poorly on the advertiser, rather than the media property. Take a look at this web page on Seeking Alpha. As I completed a comment I had to log-in, you can see that log in screen under the Charles Schwab ad. But the rollover advertisement is right on top of the log-in field. What’s worse every time I tried to close the ad it expanded. What you are looking at is as small as the Charles Schwab ad will get.

My initial frustration was directed toward Schwab, but really that was misguided, the cause and remedy to the problem lies with the web developer of Seeking Alpha I suspect. Sure this is a minor event, but it’s a detail that can be either overlooked by advertisers and media properties or intentionally designed as a mischievous way to get your attention.

It’s one thing to rise within a small Midwestern company to international recognition, it’s another to return to the Midwest and create a new dynamic environment for others to thrive. Mary Ann O’Brien’s midwest roots grew with the success of Gateway computers during her marketing career with the PC giant where she became Executive Vice President for Marketing. She left Gateway to grow as an entrepreneur as one of the individuals who started Hotpaper.com, a B2B Application Service Provider (ASP),that was innovative for its time at the turn of the century allowing for the instantaneous creation, delivery, archiving, and re-use of customized documents in a mobile environment. Hotpaper was purchased and O’Brien returned to the Midwest setting up OBI Creative in Omaha.

Mary Ann O’Brien A Social Media Innovator from the Midwest from Albert Maruggi on Vimeo.

O’Brien weaves a marketing and advertising background with social media and mobile marketing to lead this transformation of the communications profession. In this conversation we highlight the integration of platforms and message formats and the changes in how the audience is defined. It must also be noted that O’Brien gives of her time back to the community. It’s a reoccurring theme of the innovators in the Midwest we met along the way during our SxSw roadtrip. Whether it’s being Chair of the Small Business Council or contributing as a member of the Executive Council of the Omaha Chamber of Commerce, or being a sought after community leader for a number of innovation projects, somehow there is enough O’Brien energy to go around.

In this interview I found O’Brien’s description of a campaign her agency created for Gateway to have the elements that successful integrated campaigns must have today. A connection between customer and company, online and offline touch points, and a means for customers to engage on a social platform. The lives of consumers are seamless and so too must be the way we approach them.

This series featuring social media innovators of the Midwest is brought to you by Verizon Wireless. In our next segment Danny Schreiber of Silicon Prairie News in Omaha.

In 2010 Marketers and PR professionals must resolve their personality crisis. It is an issue that Age Ad editor Ad Age Editor Jonah Bloom highlighted at the ANA Conference this week in this 3 minute Ad Age video The issue is whether marketers are media organizations. Bloom highlights how companies including Red Bull have created so much content that they license it to others, they have also become the destination for that content like what can best be described as Red Bull TV

No they are not jibber jabbing about Red Bull this or that, they are covering the things their Fans, Friends, Followers, oh yeah, customers are into. It’s about your universe.

The same is true for public relations. Look, half of us in PR either were or wanted to be journalists. We either didn’t want to travel every two years, (that was my reason), or the pay stunk, or the hours stunk and the list goes on. But the idea of covering issues that impact people, industries, governments, are still all there.

Companies will struggle on how to deal with declining traditional media and still worse, changing viewing habits of those traditional media customers. Nielsen is in the middle of a heated debate over how they are counting viewers for local stations that don’t watch the real-time content.

I contend that 1) social community participants reward candor, 2) the web rewards fresh content that others find relevant as measured in one regard by links, with better search results and 3) we live in an on demand, go direct environment.

It is a huge mistake to interpret this as a green light to pummel the public with heretofore defined advertising dribble wrapped inside user generated content, however, it is an opportunity to reconsider what advertising and PR look like in your company. The world is dying for you to engage them, support them, be associated with something that enriches them; Help them do something that makes them better, makes their lives easier.

The interuption ad is moving from a blur you tuned out to an annoyance consumers will hate. Really, have you ever seen one of those pop-up ads that is over part of a website you want to click on? Not cool. From an advertising perspective, participate in what the audience is participating in, support its delivery not as a trojan horse where ads pop out, but as a guest coming to dinner bringing something they enjoy so much they wanted to share it with others they enjoy being with.

On the PR side consider this different perspective on PR, It would give you greater freedom to engage you audiences, more opportunities to be heard, and perhaps the greatest benefit of all, new digital information assets that are relevant for sales.

1. 1) Tarnished trust – too much nefarious attempts to game the system. (Don’t worry though the government is looking into the matter.
2. 2) Too much stupidity, yes my good social sympathizers I realize stupidity exists everywhere and my stupidity may be another’s genius, however when you are presenting Twitter to a company or a group and the Twitter Trend gets into less than appropriate topics for the audience, (watching out for my personal brand here, let’s just call it R-Rated an then some) it diminishes the attractiveness of the medium – I’m just saying.
3. 3) False expectations unrealized. Companies looking to cut costs rather than understand the social culture that jumped on social media in the Fall of 08 spawn a ton of negative press
4. 4) Societal issue of $$ and influence. Isn’t it ironic how social media has picked up the term influencers and is now facing an issue of ethics related to influence peddling. We need to get to a place in our culture where supporting a family, which includes making money, can be done in a perceived ethical manner online. So why are we getting hung up on disclosure? Oh, that’s right item number 1.

This blog’s headline is Four Things That Can Kill Social Media, not Social Media will Die. Social media is at a plateau. We’ll spend some time at this level of usage until companies and consumers sort out issues like trust, reliability, and whether spending time with social media is a good use of their time and business investment.

My take is in the near term those that jumped on for quick profits and low cost marketing may well drift away as the medium assimilates regular users. Those that value the communities in which they participate will out the social hucksters. The purists may need to compromise on the way corporations realign resources to adopt their own brand culture with that of their social communities. By this I mean, paid blogging is not necessarily a sell out, the economy is changing, and the blogging community should allow its own members to pursue a living out condemnation.

If Society Wants Candor, It Must Change

I would hope that society recognizes companies that own up to mistakes, without undue punishment. If society wants a different relationship with companies in a capitalistic economy, then it and the media need to alter their part in this relationship. The “gotcha” style of journalism or a quick to criticize and/or generalize public may have a different reaction to a company’s candid behavior. That’s right, this includes investor communities as well. If new candor and transparency is not reflected in the stock price, then all this happy transparency talk may be for nothing.

Companies that make an attempt to play by the social web’s culture with a more transparent face to the consumer should also be received in a different light. This new relationship then will feed on itself. Candor becomes recognized in its culture and others will follow. This is how the social web can bring about change and become as much a movement as it is a marketplace. This is the promise of social media as a movement and not a marketplace. It strips the 20th century illusion of brand “perfection” and reveals the people behind the curtain which ultimately is who we interact with in any brand relationship.

I jumped into the fray on how will advertising morph in social media when I commented on one of my favorite thinkers, Stowe Boyd’s blog post on syntax for advertising or sponsored tweets. I’ll just pick up here from that post and subsequent comments. The issue is should Tweets that are paid for have an AD or #ad in each of them. Brian Solis continued this conversation in a Tech Crunch called Full Disclosure to which I commented.

I hope that revenue generation and market awareness/demand morphs from interruption and manipulation into support and association. An example is this, interruption – my blog post about toys is paid for by Mattel and is about Mattel. This Mattel toy is terrific, my kids use it all the time, yada, yada, yada. Clearly something I’d label AD (advertisement).

An example of support – my blog editorial content is about kids and learning. I am able to focus on kids and learning because Mattel gives me a portion of what I need to pay my mortgage every month. I don’t say good or bad things about Mattel based on their check. I just focus on my editorial content and my readers. Something I’d label SP (sponsor)

Another wonderful example of support and association is the SETEPS program in St. Paul, MN at the University of St. Thomas. STEPS stands for the Science Technology, and Engineering Preview Summer camp. My daughter benefited from this experience just last week by learning about aerodynamics, building a model plane and flying it, all for free, because these companies funded the STEPS program. Will I buy from them or invest in them? Yes. Is this form of product/company awareness better than a commercial that attempts to convince me I’m lacking something in my life?

Social media is about having a stake in each other. That doesn’t mean social media is not a place to market. It’s a place to make an investment in, a place to unify across a like-minded community. This concept is not new, organizations do this all the time today in giving back to the community. Social media allows this “feel good” form of marketing to have greater impact and be a more accountable source of direct revenue and other measurable business objectives for a company that fully embraces the concept, the technologies and the communities.

Ok perhaps I’m a protective parent, with 5 kids, however, you’d be hard pressed to make that label stick on me. That’s why I don’t think I’m overreacting when I say “What were they thinking?” when this print ad was produced for the Citi American Airlines Advantage card. What gives me this reaction is the combination of the picture they used, and the potential thousands of similar images they could have used. Take a look below. It appeared in the February 1, 2009 issue of the American Airlines in-flight magazine American Way.

Isn’t that kid on what looks to be a ledge? My reaction was dumb parent, dumber ad. As you can see I wrote that on the ad. OK OK let’s just say it’s all photoshop right? Why use it when there must be others with the same captivating beauty of nature? Perhaps it is the shock value they were going for, and I’m the dumb one that is too protective.

As a little million to one shot, I was sitting in 26F on flight 557, an MD-80 from MSP to ORD when I wrote my missive in the magazine. It’s my physical way of sharing social media. If you find it, let me know.

Meanwhile what do you think -dumb ad or overly protective dad that’s afraid of heights?

Edgy advertising can sometimes cut the wrong way. Motrin is finding that out the social media way as mommy bloggers, Twitter Moms, and even a few dads are chiming in regarding an ad about fashionable baby carrying techniques.

It’s not like this is a new trend — baby slings have been around for a long time. The latest fashion, combined with the ability to comment on it, is what is giving Motrin a migraine. What are your thoughts about baby slings and social media-savvy moms giving Motrin a piece of their mind?

Use this nifty opinion tool to view the ad by clicking on the image, then share your thoughts by using words expressed by others in the list and rating them, or add a new sentiment to rate. You can also provide more details than a word in the text box. At least those moms using slings can get something off their chest without dumping the kid.

I have five children, personally I used the on the shoulders technique. Not with all five, mind you — if I did, we’d be in the circus.

Disclosure: we help Quick Comments with some strategy consulting. It just happens to be perfect for this blog post. If you want to use the widget for this Motrin ad question here is the code:
<iframe width="225" height="602" frameborder="0" src="http://qcwidget.com/widgets/3ee5981b3bd3" ></iframe>