PBNJ Marketing Blog

A recent article in Advertisers Age about Pepsi’s new campaign targeting Hispanics is laughable. You can read the article by clicking here.

‘Yo Sumo’ which translated means ‘I Add’ and definitely not even close to the ‘I count’ tag line that they were hoping to capture. This campaign is laughable at best. As I read the positive and negative comments regarding this campaign, I wonder if big brands and ad agencies will ever “get it”. ‘Yo Cuento’ in spanish is as a clever as “I add” in English. I wonder if looking at it from that point of view, would Pepsi move forward with this campaign.

Then you stick a personality who is hispanic but gets by when speaking in spanish. There are several well-known personalities that speak spanish. If you are targeting the hispanic population, select someone who can speak both well and fluently. “We felt the Hispanic consumer needs to go beyond simply being counted, and count,” said Martha Bermudez, Pepsi’s senior marketing manager, multicultural marketing. Thank you for thinking of our community but don’t do something ridiculous and screw up the translation Ms. Bermudez. With the high ranking position that you hold, this should have been a big RED FLAG unless you yourself just ‘gets by’ with your spanish language literacy.

One more thing before I get off my soap box, this has nothing to do with not giving Hispanics enough credit or talking “down” to them. This campaign represents how disconnected Pepsi is to their target market. Maybe it’s time to try a new agency?

Yo soy hispano y yo cuento!

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In an article by Christopher Heine, with ClickZ, written on March 29, 2010, Facebook seems to be in the process of changing their ‘Become a Fan’ button to the  word ‘Like’. You can read the entire article below. This is going to be a tremendous change among how you can market your brand on Facebook and how many followers will perceive it.  If I am a Fan of something, I want to follow it and keep informed of any updates.  A sports Fan follows their teams every move and game.  If I like something, that does not necessarily mean, to me, that I am want to keep up constantly abreast of it.  I simply just like it.

But, in the bigger picture, I will tend to like more things than I would become a fan of and, hence, my profile will tend to show a more deeper side of me.  I then become part of a more specific demographic and more specific targeting trends.  Hmmm… interesting!

Read on and let me know what you think.

Facebook is scaling back on the word “Fan” and ramping up usage of “Like” on brand pages. According to a confidential e-mail sent to ad agencies today, the social media site will change the “Become A Fan” button to read “Like” within the next few weeks.

When asked about the change, Annie Ta, spokesperson for the Palo Alto, CA-based company, confirmed via e-mail that the words on the button would be changed. But she wasn’t able to offer other specifics about whether “Like” would replace “Fan” in other places on Facebook. “We’re still working on some of the details, but brand Pages can still be referred to as ‘Fan’ Pages after the change,” Ta replied.

Facebook, in the note to ad agencies, said it wanted to give the agencies advance notice about the change that could affect upcoming advertising campaigns or Facebook strategy.

Part of the confidential e-mail read: “Over time, as users adapt to the language change, we recommend that you invite people to connect to your Page by saying ‘Find us on Facebook’ or ‘Like us on Facebook’. You may also choose to put more emphasis on your custom URL than you used to.”

The e-mail also explained how the new “Like” button will be differentiated from the “Like” feature already seen in user updates.

How it may affect ads was also addressed in the e-mail to ad agencies. “Users will understand the distinction through explicit social context, messaging and aesthetic differences. An Engagement ad unit, capable of making connections, will feature the ‘Like’ button and show social context above it such as, ‘John Doe and 3 of your friends like [Page Name].’ Standard ad units, not capable of making connections, will simply feature the word ‘Like’ by itself, and may show social context above it that says ‘John Doe and 3 of your friends like this ad.’”

Facebook users have been clicking the current “Like” feature nearly twice as often as the “Become A Fan” button, according to the memo. And the social site appears convinced using “Like” more often will increase engagement between consumers and brands.

The e-mail read: “‘Like’ offers a simple, consistent way for people to connect with the things they are interested in. These lighter-weight actions mean people will make more connections across the site, including with your branded Facebook Pages. We believe this will result in brands gaining more connections to pages since our research has shown that some users would be more comfortable with the term ‘Like’. The goal is to get the most user connections so that you can have ongoing conversations in the news feeds of as many users as possible.”

Scott Kleper, CTO for the San Francisco-based social marketing firm Context Optional, suggested that the change could indeed create greater engagement as Facebook intends. “Becoming a fan of a brand is perceived as a large commitment and is an important measurement metric… ‘Liking’ can be another great driver of awareness and an opportunity for users to show an additional form of affinity,” he said.

Scores of brands, such as Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Skittles, have cultivated online communities on Facebook.

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Spending to quadruple as B2B marketers warm to new channels

by Bethan Jones

NEWS

Mobile and social channels will be the fastest growing areas of business-to-business marketing spend, analysts have predicted.

The cash splashed on B2B mobile marketing in the US is set to quadruple over five years – rising from $26m in 2009 to $106m in 2014, according to a report from analyst Forrester.

The rise and rise of the smartphone in the enterprise means marketers are waking up to the mobile channel as a valuable tool for getting their message across, the report said.

Spending on social media marketing in the US is also set to boom, reaching $54m in 2014 – up from $11m this year.

According to the report, businesses must interact with their customers in order to get the most from their social media spend.

“Explore the use of cost-effective social marketing tactics like blogs and Twitter that allow you to connect and converse with your customers, and use display advertising to build excitement around your products and direct customers to these more immersive experiences,” the report said.

Forrester raises a caution flag, however, against businesses diving into social media without a firm strategy in place. The report suggests setting up a social media hub that spans all areas of the business: “We recommend creating a cross-functional social media committee or centre of excellence to develop social media strategy, process and guidelines,” it said.

Marketing spend across all interactive marketing channels – including paid search, display media, SEO, mobile and social – is expected to double from 2009′s figure of $2.3bn, climbing to nearly $4.8bn in 2014, the report added.

Increased spending on digital marketing has been stimulated by the need for marketers to avoid expensive offline campaigns and adopt channels where ROI can be more readily proved, Forrester said.

My comment:

Thank you Bethan for this information.  It is hard to believe that I so much money is going to be available out in the market.  The days of newspaper ads and yellow page deals are pretty much counting their days to extinction.  If your marketing proposal doesn’t come with an application that works on Iphone, has an ad on Facebook, an immediate tweet on Twitter, or any one of the several social marketing techniques, it may go without saying that you have a very good chance of not getting the contract.

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 Ok, I need to disclose a personal part of me so the rest of this blog will make sense. My name is Cynthia and I am an online marketer; I’ve been in this space since 1996. I have lived through the pimentoloaf.com internet bubble, the obvious bubble burst, and the ups and downs that followed. I’m not an expert by any means but my professional career has grown around the internet.

When I moved to Costa Rica six years ago, I entered the internet stone age. I was used to paying all my bills online, doing my Christmas shopping online and even doing my job online. All of a sudden I was surrounded by paper bills, physically going and standing in lines to do my banking and pay my bills. High speed internet was not available outside of San Jose so ISDN was my best bet. Costa Rica has come a long way since then.

In the time I have lived here, doing business on the internet has evolved leaps and bounds. The banking system was the first to take the gigantic step towards gaining the confidence of the Costa Rican community, online marketplaces, blogs and now social media have followed. Businesses large and small realize that an internet presence is crucial so they are thousands of web pages are floating out there without a purpose. (Many haven’t discovered the magic of SEO yet)

My online initiatives have always been US driven buy in the last year I’ve  been turning my attention to Costa Rica. I have had the good fortune to meet many large business owners that are on board with the online initiative but not quite sure how to get it started. Their marketing firms are still green when it comes to online marketing so whatever they have done so far hasn’t produced large returns or no measurement has been achieved. Traditional media is adopting the call to action message to be .com related but those are few and far between.

With that being said, you can imagine my surprise to be going thru my google reader this am and coming across this article in Adage: Costa Rica’s Pilgrimage Goes Viral. The article spoke about Jotabequ’s online initiative to get people to do the pilgrimage to Cartago online. The idea was great, the site was interactive but why the heck did I not know about this site until 7 months after? I live in Costa Rica, I read the local papers; I am online everyday and nothing, nada until today. (By the way, congrats to Jotabequ for winning a local award for this initiative)

So this brings me to the conclusion that Costa Rica is missing the online buzz. The ideas are there but online road maps are not being laid out. Costa Rica is still stuck on traditional forms of media and ignoring the importance on advertising online, viral marketing and SEO. As veterans in this space, it is our responsibility to get this great country online and create a strong online Tico community. Educate businesses on the online potential that is slipping away day by day.

What have your experiences been doing business online in Costa Rica? What are you doing to instill confidence in within the Tico online community?

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If you haven’t heard, Microsoft and Yahoo have been approved on a search and advertising deal announced last year. In a nutshell, Yahoo has agreed to use Microsoft’s algorithm for their search product. What does that mean exactly? Do I still optimize my website for all three search engines or do I just focus on Google and Bing? That seems to be the question of the hour according to many SEO professionals.

The project itself is in its infancy and there are a ton of details that need to be figured out. What elements will Yahoo keep for its search experience? What apps will they keep? Facebook and Flickr are huge apps for them so they will need to be integrated. As all these questions come up, one thing is clear, Yahoo will be powered by Bing but the user experience will be all Yahoo.

Even though we are talking about the “Big 3” en search engines, there are other contenders that are just as important. Did you know that YouTube is ranked number 2 in search? It would probably be a good idea to incorporate a video strategy to your search to capture some of that traffic.

So what other search engines are contenders? I have included a list below according to ComScore but among those listed, you will find Ask.com, AOL search (It is powered by Google but not necessarily provides the same results), craigslist even social media’s MySpace and Facebook.

Search is no longer up to the “Big 3” as people will search from the sites they spend the most time on. A well rounded search strategy needs to be more than just optimizing your website for Google, Yahoo and Bing. Incorporate social media and a video strategy to enhance search traffic to your website.

Do you have a search strategy? If so, who are the players that you optimize for?

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