Microsoft CEO Nadella wants to help the world 'to achieve more'

Microsoft has a new mission statement that goes straight to the point.

The software maker's new official goal is "to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more," CEO Satya Nadella wrote in an email to employees. The message was first obtained by GeekWire on Thursday, and Microsoft confirmed its authenticity to CNET News.

Former CEO Steve Ballmer revised Microsoft's mission statement in October 2013 so it called on the company to "create a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most." It didn't have quite the same zing as Nadella's does now.

Nadella's philosophy builds on, but doesn't erase, a few other Microsoft marketing mantras he's touted since taking charge in February 2014. For instance, "more personal computing" is still very much alive -- that's Microsoft's way of admitting that people use all sorts of devices connected together over the Internet. Focusing on that phenomenon is one of the core strategies Nadella says will help the company become the major player in the "mobile-first, cloud-first" world. Indeed, "mobile-first, cloud-first" is another favorite for Microsoft executives, who are looking to the company's fast-growing cloud services division to help sell software.

Microsoft is preparing for the July 29 release of the Windows 10 operating system, which powers more than 90 percent of the world's PCs. Most Windows users will be able to upgrade to the new version for free. With Microsoft 10, developers will be able to write "universal" apps once, which can then run on any device running the new operating system. That universality underlies the company's revised mission statement: Helping customers be more productive across all apps and devices.

Nadella has spent much of the last year and a half rebuilding Microsoft. He's emphasized getting the company's flagship software, like its Office application suite, on devices of all sizes and types, including competitors', and has stressed the power of Windows as a cloud-based service. He has also instituted companywide cultural shifts, pushing ambitious research projects like the HoloLens headset out of the lab and turning the development of Windows 10 into a transparent, feedback-driven process that recruited consumers as early testers.

The changes haven't come without some sour notes. Last summer, the company laid off 18,000 employees of its then-125,000-person global workforce A majority of those layoffs were former Nokia employees brought on after Microsoft acquired the Finnish company's handset division in April 2014 for $7.2 billion.

And just last week, Microsoft announced an organizational shakeup that included the exit of former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. Microsoft promoted Terry Myerson, former head of operating systems, to be chief of the new Windows and Devices Group. That division rolls the consumer device businesses, like Xbox, Surface and Lumia, into the company's largest software division. The goal is to make Windows 10 the common thread among every device, product and service.

Nadella also noted the company's ongoing diversity initiatives, a topic that made headlines in October when the CEO implied female employees shouldn't ask for raises but should instead trust karma.

"We will be open to learning our own biases and changing our behaviors so we can tap into the collective power of everyone at Microsoft," Nadella wrote in the new mission statement. "We don't just value differences, we seek them out, we invite them in. And as a result, our ideas are better, our products are better and our customers are better served."

Nadella doesn't mention the word "layoffs" in his memo, but he does flick at the possibility of more employee exits or even products or divisions potentially getting the axe.

"We will need to innovate in new areas, execute against our plans, make some tough choices in areas where things are not working and solve hard problems in ways that drive customer value," Nadella wrote.

Reaching ‘digital natives’ through digital marketing

Today, as more and consumers interact with brands across online channels, digital marketing has gained significant traction. From wearables and big data to personalization and multichanneling — the digital economy is transforming the way consumers communicate with each other and with brands, governments and businesses.

According to the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII), in 2014 Indonesia already has 88.1 million mobile Internet users, the sixth most in the world. 

Furthermore, 95 percent of Internet users access social networking sites with more than 65 million Facebook accounts, 50 million Twitter accounts, 700,000 Path accounts and 10 million Line accounts in the country. 

Mobile phone penetration in Indonesia reached 122 percent in early 2014 and is projected to hit 173.5 percent by 2017 (www.researchandmarkets.com, 2013). These numbers are set to explode in the coming years as more mobile and Internet users are expected to come online, led by Indonesia’s younger population. 

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the specialized UN agency for information and communication technologies, defines digital natives “as the population of networked youth — aged 15 to 24 years — with five or more years of online experience”. They have a generation’s worth of more access to information, especially via the Internet and mobile. 

APJII data shows 49 percent of Indonesian Internet users are digital natives aged between 18 and 25 years old. This number provides brands with an excellent opportunity to create and sustain two-way conversations with their consumers. Innovations in technology have enabled new business and marketing models and companies can’t risk being left behind. 

More and more consumers are now using a combination of channels to consume content. Advertising on mobile devices, linear TV moving online and new, innovative devices offer a wealth of opportunities for using completely new formats. Smartphones, tablets, smart watches, videos and TVs — there are more screens and channels than ever before and their variety is growing as we speak. 

At the same time, consumer behavior is changing. Among those aged 16 to 45, the cell phone has replaced TV as the dominant media consumption format. Consumers now use technology in combination: they check their emails or read messages while the TV is on. 

When we shop online, we use a number of different channels. Not only do we buy cross-channel, but we use different channels to compare products and collect feedback. So marketers need a single view of the consumer and a multichannel strategy.

Companies have to tailor their offerings more closely to their target markets’ needs and wishes. Consumers have also become extremely discerning when it comes to clicks and views. Irrelevant content, especially on the digital medium, not only puts them off, but also decreases chances of future interactions. 

Brands must leverage the wealth of technology and real-time data analysis to understand now what content will grab consumers’ attention tomorrow and be prepared to deliver it. 

This is where predictive analytics can be leveraged by forward-thinking companies to build better real-time customer segments, to allow them to develop and send targeted content to these groups of customers. 

Fewer and fewer shoppers go to the store for advice. Instead, they read reviews on digital medium and trust what their social networks have to say about brands and products. Enter the social customer. 

Before you develop passionate, loyal customers among today’s digital natives, you need a product that generates an emotional connect, content that relates to each consumer personally and does more than meet their expectations. And you need excellent customer service.

In this era of shares and likes and a vast amount of well-developed, intriguing and average content available to consumers at each click, unique, relatable, sharable content has become the holy grail of digital marketing. Well-presented content across different audio-visual mediums, with relevant information and/or extremely high entertainment value instead of empty phrases and one-way promotional pushes boost a company’s credibility and consumer trust. 

Companies focused on e-commerce require tools allowing control of product content from all channels and systems in one place. 

A master taxonomy to classify and categorize products, manage catalog versions and import multiple supplier catalogs will help provide the delivery of unique and rich product content to improve search engine optimization.

Companies collect vast amounts of data on how consumers purchase and use products. Their usage behavior on social media and digital platforms can reveal a lot of information about how to sell and when to sell. There are special algorithms to analyze this data and turn it into useful insights. 

This is the domain of marketing automation. An example of this would be having omni-channel commerce solutions: state-of-the-art master data management for commerce and unified commerce processes that give a business a single view of its customers, products and orders and its customers a single view of the business. 

This can help satisfy the demands of “always-on” consumers as well as of increasingly complex business requirements so as to maximize conversions and revenues by delivering an easy, engaging shopping and cross-channel experience — whether in-store, online, via social networks, or from mobile devices, important as most of the online connection is done via mobile. 

Businesses must understand that this data alone holds the key to successful customer interactions on the digital platforms.

There is also a clear trend toward the digital showroom. One example is Nina, a virtual assistant that offers personalized customer service. 

Users can ask it for their credit card balance, book a flight upgrade or check whether they can catch an earlier plane to their destination. Nina shows how virtual and real worlds are merging, opening up completely new opportunities for marketing.

What are tomorrow’s challenges for marketers? Marketers will rely even more on data. They will need the right tools and software to analyze and use that data. To reach customers, they will have to define target markets more precisely and fine-tune their interactions. 

The customer journey has to become their vision. The marketing of the future will use past data to predict which products customers want and when. This is where predictive analytics and big data play a key role. 

Programmatic buying and automation of digital channels are other major trends expected to become extremely relevant as digital marketing continues to evolve.

New digital marketing company launches in Dayton

Content Sponsored by Cox Digital Marketing

In the Dayton region, research has shown that businesses want a local, one-stop partner to guide them through the ever-changing digital landscape. While there are many national digital companies who offer prepackaged solutions, every individual business is unique and deserves a solution built specifically for them. In addition, success requires continuous review and optimization to make sure businesses are getting the best return on their investment.

The newly formed Cox Digital Marketing offers these services to a full spectrum of clients; from those launching their first website to those implementing multifaceted national marketing campaigns and all needs in between. Their approach is to make the complex simple by asking all the right questions up front about a business and their goals then customizing a solution designed to help meet those challenges.

Cox has a proven track record in helping businesses grow using multi-media marketing solutions, including innovative digital strategies. The next stage of their evolution is the launch of Cox Digital Marketing. "As more companies are recognizing the need to put their messages in front of digital audiences, we decided to focus on creating a full-service digital marketing company to meet those needs," said Tina Rezash, manager of Cox Digital Marketing.

"Our relationships with our clients are long-standing, built on trust," said Rezash. With more than 100 years in print and broadcast media, and over 20 years in digital media, Cox Media Group has been a multi-media pioneer and is a respected industry leader. "Once we partner with a client on their digital solutions, they will experience our world class customer service from idea inception to execution to optimization and analytics."

'We listen. We engage. We deliver results.'

The digital experts at Cox Digital Marketing understand how difficult it can be to find a trusted partner. "The foundation of our company is to truly understand YOUR business and YOUR unique challenges. It's not about negotiating across a desk, it's about sitting side-by-side to form a partnership that lasts." said Cox Digital Marketing's Director, Chip Beale.

Digital Marketing & Analytics: Five Deadly Myths De-mythified!

In a recent set of keynotes and consulting engagements in the US, UK and Canada, I've had an overwhelming feeling that in very fundamental ways some companies make imprecise choices when it comes to their digital strategy. Not because they don't have enough money or opportunity or people. But, simply because their broader framing of what the problem was, and what their chosen solution would deliver.

The heartbreaking part of these, often innocently made, choices is any lack of meaningful progress in digitizing their companies. It saddens me deeply that they are not being able to take full advantage of all the new product, marketing, customer relationship opportunities in front of them. Because, I'm sure like you, I'm humbled by the immense opportunity digital presents.

This post covers five of these heartbreaking misses in the broader framing. My hope is that 1. You'll understand what's wrong in terms of the strategic choice being made and 2. Get an extremely clear sense for what the right choice is in each case. I've suffered enough bruises on the front-lines from trying to re-imagine the current and revolutionize the future across multiple industry verticals, countries, opportunity sizes. Consider this to be a collection of wisdom from those tough lessons – from wins and losses.

Since in almost every case the imprecise framing is strategic, the true consumer of this post is your boss's boss's boss. Sadly, we can't get to them here. But, at least you and I can get on the same page and perhaps I can convince you to take our message to her/him.

You're welcome to jump to the one that is most pressing for your organization, though I recommend reading them sequentially as I've grafted connective tissue from one story to the next which will help you see how each of the five is a part of a grand story. You'll understand better how it all comes together into one piece at the end.

Ready? Let's go!

1. Programmatic platforms are a panacea.

Programmatic advertising is all the rage. Per our friends at Wikipedia, Programmatic encompasses an array of technologies that automate the buying, placement and optimization of media inventory. Instead of ads being placed by human-based methods, machines can do it so much better at scale.

Google's Adwords is perhaps the simplest example of programmatic advertising. You input your keywords, text ads, bids and other elements, and the platform intelligently assesses the best fit user intent and delivers your ad.

Today's primary use of the word programmatic refers to the use of ad exchanges, real-time bidding (RTB), Demand-side Platforms (DSPs) etc. to deliver display ads. Yes, the banner kind (in many ad formats, sizes, and dynamism).

I love this programmatic trend, it is undeniably the future. I love it because of the technological coolness and scale it brings. I love it because of the slow death of demographic and psychographic targeting it is delivering. I love the shift to intent-based targeting (I cannot stress how massively important to the future of advertising and marketing).

But, I'm distressed that programmatic is thought about as panacea by CMOs and other CxOs. "Just buy a programmatic stack, and all our problems will be gone! Our advertising will rain down massive revenues! !"

There is one important, hugely important, foundational element they are not accounting for.

Like you, when I went to MBA school I was told my marketing class that the ultimate nirvana state for a Marketer was to be able to deliver the right message (RM) to the right person (RP) at the right time (RT).

While it made a ton of sense, no sane person would say that we could do anything close to that using the media platforms of the time. Can you do RM+RP+RT using TV? How about magazines? Yes, you can get some weak demographic or, a bit better, psychographic signals from surveys TV channels or magazines did. Then you would just spray and pray (a strategy the continues to date and reduces the glory of TV!). The best we could think about RM+RP+RT is what Direct Marketers (people who sent you all those letters in postal mail!). For their existing customers they could mine the CRM/ERP systems and the letter would switch from Dear Sir/Madam to Dear Stephanie Byrd. The content of the letter could be customized to Stephanie's data/behavior.

The internet today is a fundamental paradigm shift. RM+RP+RT is finally possible. In large measure that is because of the rise of programmatic buying. Fewer guesses. More technology. Leveraging consumer behavior and intent signals.

Fly in the ointment?

Programmatic simply solves for the ability to find the right person (RP) at the right time (RT).

It does not solve the RM problem!

You still have to come up with the right message.

If the platform identifies See intent, do you have the capability to deliver a See message? Or, are you counting on your Do message to do the job? What if the platform tells you that this is the right time to deliver a Care message to the right person, have your fed that into your programmatic system so that the right person can be delighted?

[Bonus read: See-Think-Do-Care: An Audience Intent Centric Business Framework.]

Programmatic platforms are (sadly) sold by vendors with nary a word about RM. Programmatic platforms are bought with nary a thought given by companies to the RM challenge.

Do you know then what happens when these platforms are implemented?

Today you suck at delivering relevant messages to your desirable audiences with our current platform. Tomorrow your programmatic platform's technical savvy just helps you suck at scale, faster.

And, make no mistake. You, your boss's boss, and the boss's boss's boss will blame the platform. But, of course it was not the platform. It was your oversight of the importance of the RM all along.

So, if you want to win with programmatic (and, you SHOULD want to!)… Figure out how to also re-imagine your RM strategy.

Here's a head-start with the questions you'll have to answer to create a fabulous RM strategy: Who is going to create all the See-Think-Do-Care content for your desktop website, mobile website and mobile apps and deliver it on your owned and rented platforms (more on this below)? Is it going to be in-house or out-sourced? [In the long run it has to be all in-house.] Who is going to be responsible for all the creative assets that need to go into your programmatic platform to power your advertising to bring people to all this magnificent See-Think-Do-Care content? How often is it going to be refreshed? Who is going to ensure that the company moves away from years and years of legacy demographic and psychographic limited thinking and move to using your programmatic platform to leverage the hundreds of intent signals thrown off by your See-Think-Do-Care audiences? Who is then going to ensure that S-T-D-C thinking drives content, which drives ads, which are delivered to audiences who, because now you don't stink, deliver brand love and company revenue?

These are non-trivial questions to answer. But, answering them with immense thought and care is absolutely critical.

Programmatic comes down to RM. All that technology and real-time bidding and trading desks and brilliant algorithms and ad exchanges, everything comes down to… right message.

If you don't believe me, go to www.yahoo.com right now. Look at the ads and their massive irrelevance to you right now. This despite the fact that Yahoo! (even if you've never visited the site) has access to tons of intent signals from you right now, tons of third-party cookies that litter your browser right now, and immense Big Data and algorithms. Does Yahoo! suck? A little bit, yes. Most of the blame rests on the advertiser whose ad you are seeing right now. [Scratchers lottery for me. For someone who has never played lottery, has no intention of doing so, and has never visited any site that could remotely signal any interest in partaking in something even slight math savvy would warn against! :)]

Go visit any major website right now (and, please turn off Ad-Block if you are using it). You'll see the same irrelevance and shouting. [Farming tractor on foxnews.com! Cisco UCS Servers on theguardian.com!!]

The RM problem.

Don't let this be you. But programmatic. Create an awesome S-T-D-C RM strategy first.

2. A data-first strategy is a winning formula.

This has to be bizarre coming from an author who's only minor claim to fame is data. Look at the right nav on this blog, two best selling books in 13 languages! As all of my proceeds from the books go to charity, this passion for data has allowed me to donate $350,000 to charity since the first book was published.

All of that to simply say that I think data is really important, and I'm a passionate believer in a data-driven product development, marketing, employee hiring, stocking the pantry at your office, and so much more.

Data. Is. Magnificent.

Yet, I believe that if your company has a "data-first" strategy you are likely doomed. I was heart broken at the number of companies I've met recently that are executing this strategy.

A data-first strategy is defined as data before everything else.

It is the quest to implement systems (usually massive) to collect data of all shapes and manner before all else. It is an investment in numerous report writers or data (puking) automation or hiring a small army in India or Philippines to do that, before investing in any smart Analyst. It is being hyper-conservative when it comes to creativity and experimentation because of quant-issues. It is represented by 90% of the data budget invested in Agencies and Consultants driving implementation and re-implementation and hyper-customization of the code. It is represented by the act of creating crazy data thresholds for any initiative to get off the ground. As in, "You have to prove store sales from a See or a Think strategy before we invest in smart marketing." Put another way, it is the constant judging of fish by their ability to climb trees!

Data is important. I believe it can help drive your business strategy smartly. But, a data-first strategy, defined as above, is nuts. It will only slow down your progress and allow your competitors to crush you like a bug (even if you are a top player in your market today!).

You should reject data-first.

You should accept data-with strategies.

Assuming you have a great product and/or service first, in our context the most important thing to do is to focus on content next. That will quickly be followed by amazing, incredible marketing (owned first, earned next and paid as the final piece of the puzzle). Along the way, rather than over-indexing on a data obsession before everything, use data as an aid to keep getting smarter. For how to go about this, use the wonderful Analytics Ladder of Awesomeness .

From a tools/data collection strategy perspective, you'll invest in a free tool first (and there is a free tool for pretty much everything, and free data is everywhere – for example you don't need any tool to tell you that Esurance's Facebook strategy is a dud, just scroll through their public posts, the average amplification rate is a tiny 20, two and a zero!). Exhaust the free tool, take the initial steps in the ladder of awesomeness, make the organization smarter. Then, move to a paid one as you deal with more complex challenges. Make sure this comes with a commensurate 10/90 investment in smart, really smart analysts (and not report writers). Climb up the ladder some more. Rinse. Repeat.

You are going to drive your organization to use data to make smart quantitative and qualitative decisions along the way. You'll execute a data-with strategy. Perhaps it is best to think of it as a data-with business success first strategy.

Please don't have a data-first strategy. It is the kiss of death. And innovation. And people. And anything amazing.

Oh, and before I forget. Definitely buy my data books! :)

[Bonus: If you want to know the three phases that help you create a great digital strategy: The Complete Digital Analytics Ecosystem: How To Win Big .]

3. All we need is Facebook, forget our website.

Of all of the things on this list, this one is the hardest to understand. It is so wrong, on such a colossal scale, it is hard to believe that it could be real. But, it is.

There are, broadly speaking, two types of digital existences. Those that you own, and those that you rent.

Own existences are usually your desktop and mobile websites and your mobile apps. You own everything about them. You own the domains. You own the content and you can present it exactly the way you want (you can be as weird as you want). You own the relationships with the customers (or, just the visitors to your sites/apps). You own the macro-outcome, you can have as many micro-outcomes as you want. You own the data. You own privacy. You own everything!

Rent existences are usually your Facebook page, your YouTube brand channel, your Twitter presence. You own very little about them. You own the content – you are limited in the creativity you can express, it has to be in the bounds set by the platform. You don't really own the relationships with the customers. You have lots of freedom with Subscribers to your YouTube channels, on Facebook you are limited to what Edgerank determines it will expose to your Like'ers, on Twitter everything's in the timeline – you just have to make sure you are still there when your followers read their timeline. You own very little, if any, of the data about your customers. You don't control the privacy (it is up to each platform). And, you are dependent on the strategy executed at the moment by the companies who own these rented channels – if they zig and you've always zagged, tough beans.

The best digital strategy in the world is an Own + Rent strategy. Own because it is the best destination for Do and Think audiences (it would be silly to dump them on rented channels). Rent because it is where your See, and often Care, audiences already are (YouTube and Facebook each have over a billion active humans on them!). It is very smart to use each, own and rent, for what they are respectively good at.

But.

If you only have money for one, do own.

Why?

Scroll back up slowly. Read the paragraph that starts with "Own existences are usually…"

Convinced about how bizarre it is to invest in rent rather than own?

You have no freedom on creativity, content, data, privacy, relationships, post-platform engagement (email!), ability to execute Think and Do strategies that actually make you money (!), and so much more.

Yet.

There are companies actually executing just rent. They have no own strategy. In fact if you search for the brand by name on Google.com or Bing.com, you'll see links to their site in the first couple organic search results, and if you click on them you get to their site and auto-redirected to their Facebook page!

Where, for these big companies, the average Amplification Rate is under 25. They are taking thousands and thousands of people looking for their brand (easy to check with Google Trends/Keyword Tool) and dumping them on a See channel where on average 25 human beings engage with their limited outcome existence!

Many, many companies are doing this. In the last few weeks for me it has been a massive beverages company, it has been a couple of consumer goods companies, it has been an entertainment company, and it has even been a non-profit. I had to cry myself to sleep every single time.

I implore you. Own first. Then rent. Rock both. If you can only do one. Do own. For the sake of your business, your employees and the almighty (/Jesus/Krishna/Allah/Sun God/your favourite).

First Bonus Recommendation: Your New Facebook Strategy: Facebook's organic reach for brands is now broadly under 5%. If you actually stink, as is the case for most brands because they are executing a Do strategy on a See media channel, it is even lower. You don't have to believe me, just look at the little number at the bottom of your Facebook posts. It is a profound waste of opportunity give your Agency gobs and gobs of money to create non-engaging, not-being-viewed content. Save that money immediately. Facebook does have a massive audience, and you should want it. But, it is important to realize that you'll need to have a paid strategy and not an organic one. 

That is where Facebook shifted when it comes to brands a year ago, you should just catch up. Invest money first in a See right messages strategy for Facebook, because it is a See channel. Then, pay Facebook money, lots of it, to deliver that content, via their advertising options, to audiences in the See intent-cluster. Oh, and don't be silly and replicate your offline demographic and psychographic targeting on Facebook.. If you do that you'll still lose, even with a paid strategy. Use the intent signals Facebook's ad platform provides. The opportunity is there, you get to decide if you want to win big or keep wasting time and money on Facebook.

Second Bonus Recommendation: Thomas Baekdal is my friend. He inspires me. I learn so much from him about digital and marketing. Hence, I'm a paid subscriber to Baekdal Plus. For $9 per month, you get knowledge that will increase your salary by 100x of that every month. It has done that for me. For just one example, pay and read his recent Is it time to rethink social post. If you think the above is eye-opening, just wait until you read Thomas' pov. Go, subscribe!

4. The web is dead. Mobile web is dead. Apps are the past, present, future.

This will definitely get me on the wrong side of many thought leaders in the mobile space, indeed even in the digital space. But, by now I have lots of practice with making career limiting moves so what the heck!

It is an undeniable fact of life that mobile phones have become the platform we use the most when it comes to digital. If you look over the last five years, the change is astounding. Here's a slide from one of my recent presentations where I created a visual to represent data that came from eMarketer…

Amazing, is it not? In such a short time mobile platforms represent greater than 50% of the time we spend with digital. Desktop is shrinking slightly. Other is going up (wearables FTW!). My surprise was that orange box, Video, but that's a story for another day.

A big chunk of the time on mobile is spent on mobile applications. It is also increasing with each year. Hence, the hypothesis goes, that you should only invest in/develop mobile applications. That is where the present and the future is, you should pause all investment in mobile sites or desktop sites.

I buy the first part of it, mobile apps are important. In fact, smart mobile application are a strategic imperative.

But. It is an act of ill-advised bravado to say that mobile apps are all there is to digital, simply because of what people are doing when they are using mobile apps and what intent clusters they are in.

When people use mobile apps they are in two of four intent clusters. See and Care.

People are spending time on social apps, sharing parts of their lives (or their entire lives!), they are playing lots of games, and they are consuming other types of info-snacky content. All, See. You can, as a Marketer, identify your Largest Addressable Q ualified Audience and then engage with them in this See stage. But, that is all.

People are also spending time on individual apps of companies they frequently do business with. For example, for me, the United Airlines, Chase Bank, Amazon apps along with my Toyota EV app. I already know these companies. They already know me. They already have my business. I'm deeply loyal to them. I'm in the Care audience cluster. They have simplified the environment in their apps so that I can do repetitive things easily. If you are a Marketer at these companies, I'm in your Largest Addressable Qualified Audience in the Care cluster. You can do amazing things with me, deepen brand loyalty for example.

But, the thing you'll notice from all of the above mobile behavior is that the all important Think and Do audience clusters don't really exist on mobile apps. If you want to actually grow your business, actually acquire new customers, engage with audiences who are not already deeply loyal, you are going to have to use Think and Do marketing channels (Search, YouTube, Email, Affiliates, Display) and Think and Do audience platforms (desktop sites, mobile sites).

If you abandon the latter, desktop sites, mobile sites, you are deciding to bet your business on See and Care, that is an extremely regretful choice (as you'll discover soon enough when sales and business growth are harmed).

I'm sure you noticed I also mentioned Amazon app above. I'm in the Care audience cluster for Amazon but using the app, I'm most definitely engaging in Do behavior as I buy like crazy from Amazon. I find it extremely convenient to be able to order on the go. This behavior complements my family's purchase behavior with Amazon, which is still primarily desktop based. For an entire segment of your audiences in the Care stage, there will be a lot of Do behavior. 

But, even the simplest report you run, using any analytics platform you have access to, will show you that the mobile app Do behavior is an AND for your deeply loyal customers, along with you rocking your mobile site and desktop site.

Mobile apps will continue to grow in usage. See audience intent will power most of this growth. You should absolutely take advantage of it. At a smaller pace, Care audience intent will power some of this growth. You should invest *a lot* in creating apps that take advantage of this opportunity (after all, they are the people that love you the most).

Mobile sites and desktop sites, will continue to grow in usage, and they will solve for a complex set of Think and Do type intent. It is where almost all of your new customers and lightly-connected current customers growth will come from. They will have a very diverse set of needs and wants. And, their instinct won't be to download your mobile app as the thing number one to do – without knowing what you can solve for! You will continue to find them on desktop and mobile site platforms. Invest in those platforms for marketing and invest in those channels to create amazing experiences.

This AND strategy will drive a global maxima for your business.

At the very minimum if you listen to someone (your boss!) who is driving you down a mobile apps only path, realize that it is simply solving for See and Care. Knowingly abandon most of Think (Largest Addressable Qualified Audiences with some commercial intent) and most of Do (Largest Addressable Qualified Audiences with lots of commercial intent). It is always better to be consciously wrong, than to be unconsciously wrong. Simply because when things most likely go south, the organization will learn important lessons.

Desktop Site + Mobile Site + Mobile Apps = See + Think + Do + Care = #winning #tigerblood

[Bonus: Magnificent Mobile Website And App Analytics: Reports, Metrics, How-to! < /A > ]

5. Cookies! Cookies are all we need!

If you think about items one through four above, the one thing you'll overwhelmingly realize is that they are driving a deep emphasis on two things: A. People. B. Their intent.

You can't have B without A.

Yet, every single day in almost 99.9999% of analytics implementations are cookie based. This is even worse when we shift away from website analytics tools, which, except in flawed implementations, use first-party cookies, to analytics tools that come from advertising vendors (Facebook, DoubleClick, Microsoft Et. Al.). These vendors use the more fragile third-party cookies.

The net result of this cookie business is that data from ad networks does not allow us reliably track a human across multiple digital interactions over time, even if they use the same browser on the same computer for all those interactions. Additionally, even with first-party cookies, which last a bit longer and are more persistent, we can't track the human across multiple devices, across intent clusters.

This is a big problem today, and it is going to become worse with every passing day as the devices humans use multiply, and human behavior on those devices – old behavior, and lots of new behavior – becomes ever more fragmented.

If we rely on just cookies, we are going to make poorer and poorer decisions about our products and our marketing with every single day. Even when we work very hard, and move away from absolutely silly things like last-click attribution modeling , our insights will be harmed and won't be reflective of what is actually happening in the real world with your real customers.

I'm a bit freaked that not enough people are worrying about this problem, and all of us in the space are not making enough of a ruckus about it.

My slogan for you is simple: Pivot On People!

POP your site and ad platforms analytics implementations. Today.

The good news is that you don't have to wait for the technology to be invented. With, to use the technical name, User-ID Override in Universal Analytics from Google, and similar features from other platforms, you can execute a pivot on people strategy today!

The challenge you'll have is entirely marketing/business based. What can you do to do to incentivize people to self-identify, and keep doing it across platforms and digital engagements (and for the very best amongst you, across online and offline!)? We have never thought of a fair exchange where you can ask me to raise my hand and self identify. We never had to, the problem was not that bad. Every disrupted myth in this post suggests that the problem is big, and getting bigger.

So, what content or value exchange can you deliver to your users? Are you solving for just the macro-outcome, that you want? Or, have you also built micro-outcomes tied to See-Think-Care so that you meet user needs, and create an excitement in them to self identify? Higher order bit… Have you invested in understanding each audience intent cluster across See-Think-Do-Care ?

These are important questions you'll have to answer from a business and marketing perspective in order to follow my passionate recommendation that you pivot on people. The technology to actually do this exists already, has for the last couple of years. Perhaps there was a smaller sense of urgency in the past, it is a burning platform now. Obsess about solving the business problem.

Once you do… You'll be so beautifully placed to understand one human's behavior across devices and real-digital world existences. You'll be able to understand their intent a million times better. You'll be able to create right messages for them which you can deliver at the right time to the right person.

And, that my dear reader, as they say in the business, is golden!

Please be more aware of these five digital myths, and do your very best, with the alternative solutions outlined above, to spread the light of wisdom.

As always, it is your turn now.

Do you agree that these are the top five myths when it comes to digital? Are there others that you bump into more often? What is your experience implementing your company's programmatic strategy? Has a Do or an organic only strategy worked for your company/clients on Facebook? Is your company executing a data-first or a data-with digital strategy? Do you agree that apps are going to dominate and everything else needs to get de-prioritized? Are you, in every way possible, pivoting on people?

Please share your feedback, critique, wisdom and war stories via comments below.

Digital marketing

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TiVo tries again with $399 all-inclusive pricing on Roamio OTA DVR

TiVo is again offering reduced pricing on its Roamio OTA but it's uncertain how long the $399 price will last.

After a blink-and-you'll-miss-it $299 deal on the TiVo Roamio OTA recorder several weeks ago the company is trying again with a limited-time offer of $399 with lifetime service.

The Roamio OTA is a DVR that combines over-the-air antenna TV recording with a nice array of online streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant.

Compare the $399 "all-inclusive" cost against the standard Roamio OTA: $50 for the hardware plus $15-a-month for the lifetime of the product. If you plan on keeping the Roamio OTA for at least 24 months, you come out ahead with this new deal.

TiVo representatives have again been unable to confirm how long the latest deal will last and, as the previous offer existed for less than a weekend, if you're interested you best sign up straight away.

Check out TiVo's $399 Roamio OTA deal here.

Digital marketing

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GoPro turns focus to drones, virtual reality

GoPro plans to take extreme videos to new extremes with two new future products that will introduce the company into the drone and virtual reality markets.

The camera-maker for adventure enthusiasts plans to roll out a six-camera product later this year that is capable of capturing spherical content, GoPro CEO Nick Woodman said Wednesday during an onstage interview at the Recode Code conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. The products are part of GoPro's efforts to expand its business beyond simply selling cameras for skiers, race drivers and other sports-adventure enthusiasts.

GoPro's Six-Camera Spherical Array is a mounting accessory that will accommodate six Hero4 cameras, capturing high-resolution images and video from different angles. The content can then be stitched together to create a 360-degree virtual reality environment by using Kolor, technology developed by a French virtual reality software maker that GoPro acquired last month.

Enjoying the content will require users to do virtual reality headsets like Oculus, Google Cardboard, and Microsoft's HoloLens. The content can also be viewed on PCs or smartphones using YouTube 360 or Kolor's app.

GoPro is playing catch up with its camera array. For the past two years, Google has offered free online software to create interactive photo-spheres that can be embedded in Google Maps, and the company has its own virtual reality platform, Google Cardboard, to help developers create more VR experiences. Facebook in March said it would support spherical videos on its News Feed and plans to incorporate them into Oculus.

GoPro is also getting into another burgeoning technology by building a quadcopter, or drone. Woodman did not provide any pricing or design details but did say consumers could expect the drone to hit the market in the first half of next year.

A drone is a natural progression for GoPro: drones equipped with the company's cameras are frequently used to record landscapes for real estate companies and film movie sequences.

Digital marketing

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Mary Meeker's Internet report: User growth slowing, but disruption full speed ahead

Mary Meeker, a partner at venture firm KIeiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), and the Internet's most engaging prophet, reported in her 20th annual Internet trends report, that while the Internet is still growing, its growth rate is declining.

Don't think for one second that the Internet still doesn't dominate the economy. Meeker said when she first started her report in 1995 the top 15 Internet companies by market capitalization were worth only $17 billion. Today, the top 15 are worth a cool $2.4 trillion.

Only one company was on the list in 1995 and 2015. Any guesses? No, not Yahoo, they were around in 1995, but they were still building up.

It's Apple. This just goes to show that you dismiss the value of hardware at your peril.

Still, the number of global Internet users increased by only 8 percent in 2014, compared to 10 percent in 2013 and 11 percent three years ago. Part of that is simply that Internet connectivity has saturated its market. In the United States, 84 percent of citizens are connected.

So, what are we using the net for today that's different from yesterday? Lots of things. For one, as any Netflix user can tell you, we're cutting the cord to conventional TV broadcasting. As important as that change is, another change in video may end up being more important: the rise of user created and curated video content.

Nothing from Snapchat, the video-messaging app; Twitch, the online gaming TV network; or the most popular YouTube channels, may be challenging HBO Now and the Game of Thrones... yet. Give it time. Meeker has found that the young, who drive Internet technology innovation, are creating their own content at an ever increasing rate.

Globally, thanks to the rise of feature phones and smartphones, 73 percent of the population has some Internet access. That's a rather stunning 5.2-billion mobile devices in use today. I wouldn't short Apple, Samsung, or any of the other major smartphone vendors anytime this decade.

With this kind of market penetration, the smartphone growth rate - naturally enough - is also slowing down. That said, with a 23 percent growth rate in smartphones in 2014, there's still room for mobile device growth. The profitability will likely decline more quickly as smartphones look to developing countries, such as China, India, and Brazil for their customers.

We're also using our smartphones for more and more applications. For example, in the US, 84 percent of us use our smartphone in place of dedicated GPS devices when we're driving. We're also turning to Internet news on our smartphones, 84 percent, instead of the radio or television for breaking news. Twitter, in particular, is where people are likely to find out what's really happening right now rather than from a conventional news source.

Internet commerce, which now accounts for 9 percent of all US retail sales, still has room for growth. It's not just Amazon that's benefiting from this trend. Indeed, Alibaba/Taobao, with over $350 billion in sales, nearly tripled Amazon's approximately $120 billion sales in 2014.

The really interesting e-commerce move isn't in old style retail hard goods though. The new e-commerce growth is in "deliver it to me now" products and services such as Airbnb, Thumbtack, and Uber for smartphone-using urban millennials.

In turn, Meeker believes, this is powering the so-called sharing economy. While this drives down the cost of short term rentals and car fares, it simultaneously creates a part-time, freelance workforce. What does this mean for the economy as a whole? Meeker can also say that we're still in the early innings.

Digital marketing

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 review:

ou were on the fence between an entry-level digital SLR and a compact camera with a long zoom lens, the Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 might be all the camera you need.

Digital SLRs deliver high-quality photos and HD video and fast performance, but a dSLR might be too much camera for you in price, size and weight -- and that's without adding a long zoom lens to the equation. You can get smaller, lighter, long-zoom compact cameras at lower prices, but they come with a loss in image quality, features and control, and in most cases, aren't nearly as quick to focus and shoot.

The FZ1000 truly bridges the two using a 1-inch 20-megapixel MOS sensor (four times larger than the 1/2.3-inch sensors you find in most long-zoom cameras like Panasonic's FZ200) and a 16x f2.8-4.0 25-400mm lens (and yes, it's a Leica).

Worthwhile trade-offs

The benefit to a larger image sensor is better image quality, but they also require larger lenses. While its zoom range might not seem impressive compared with the expansive 50x or longer zooms on other bridge cameras, the FZ1000 delivers superior image quality to those small-sensor compacts.

A dSLR or mirrorless interchangeable lens camera would get you better image quality still, but a zoom lens with similar specs for one of those would be large and heavy. It would also be more expensive than this camera alone, which is currently around $800 or £650 in the UK and AU$1,200 in Australia.

Because this is a variable aperture zoom lens, the aperture gets immediately smaller as you zoom out, letting less light reach the sensor. Giving the lens a constant f2.8 aperture through the zoom range, like Sony's RX10, would have been nice, but it also would have made the lens bigger. The FZ1000's variable aperture lens is a compromise, but for me, it's worth it.

The RX10 features a 1-inch sensor as well, but its telephoto end stops at 200mm. The two cameras are roughly the same size and weight, too, so really it comes down to what you value more, the Sony's constant f2.8 aperture or more zoom range.

Video and photo quality

The FZ1000 was the first compact camera to record video at resolutions up to 4K (3,840x2,160) in MP4 at 30/25fps or 24fps (Panasonic's LX100 does it, too). It's something you might shrug off as not necessary and it well might not be -- yet. The fact is this camera does 1080p at 60fps or 120fps in MP4 and 1080p at 60fps in AVCHD, too. And the video at those resolutions looks excellent.

Digital marketing

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Making the Business Case for Digital Marketing in Asia

Andreas Krasser gives these three simple tips for convincing Asia’s C-suites of digital’s true value.

Investment and confidence in digital within the Asia Pacific region is on the rise. Yet marketers find it difficult to actually make a business case for it. This was my key takeaway from reading the latest APAC Digital Directions report published by the CMO Council and Adobe. 

To quote more details of the report, some 93 percent of marketers in the region believe that digital can drive competitive advantages for their brands, while only 21 percent believe that digital can increase transactional volumes, revenues and margins. 

Now, looking at these numbers, I’m getting a bit worried about the future of digital. Because no matter what, the C-level executives who are the ones making the final call on investments and budget allocations will always be looking for an impact on their businesses’ bottom line. 

I believe it’s time for marketers and agencies alike to reframe the conversation and finally make a business case for digital. 

After all, Asia Pacific is not only home to the world’s most socially active country (Singapore) and the world leader in average Internet connection speed (South Korea), it’s also showing tremendous room for digital growth, especially considering the continuous rise in mobile connectivity. 

Based on my experience working in South Korea and Hong Kong, along with the little exposure I have had to China, here are three basic hacks which might help to convince your C-suite of digital’s true value. 

1. (Re)-Introduce the Consumer to Your C-Suite 

If you’ve lived in cities like Hong Kong or Seoul, I’d argue that you don’t need research papers or official statistics to get a sense for how integral digital has become to people’s lives. 

Nevertheless, I’ve encountered quite a few organizations throughout Asia that still insist on primarily enforcing traditional advertising strategies, treating digital merely as an afterthought. 

If you work for a company that fits this description, (re)-introducing your consumers to your management team might prove helpful. 

Two ‘introduction’ methods I found extremely valuable so far are personas and consumer journey maps. 

Personas: I’m not talking about consumer profiles typically provided by research companies. I’m talking about representations of consumer segments that ideally combine quantitative and qualitative data, social insights, and digital behavior patterns to draw holistic pictures of your target audiences. 

Try to get management involved in the creation of your personas – a workshop can do wonders in getting people to think differently and look at things from a consumer’s perspective. 

Consumer Journey Mapping: This is all about understanding how the personas you’ve created (i.e. your consumers) interact with your business directly and indirectly. Whether you use an internal sales funnel framework or create a new one from scratch, it is crucial to comprehend how and why consumers transition from one stage (e.g. awareness) to another (e.g. consideration). 

Again, do this exercise in form of a workshop involving key stakeholders and decision makers and make sure to illustrate that digital plays a significant role throughout the entire consumer journey, from awareness all the way to purchase.

2. Measure and Report What Matters 

Over the last few years, many marketing experts and social media evangelists have argued against the value of vanity metrics such as Facebook likes, Twitter followers, views and site visits. I don't necessarily share this pessimistic point of view – I still believe that vanity metrics can have value, depending on your marketing objectives. 

What I do agree with is that the industry is not doing a good enough job measuring and reporting digital’s actual (and potential) business impact. 

The rule of thumb, I would say, is to focus on metrics that indicate actions such as conversion rates, leads generated, return visits and churn rates. 

The most powerful metrics, of course, are those that show a direct revenue impact. Depending on a brand’s digital presence and channel mix however, it might not always be possible to measure very specific transactional behavior. 

In such cases, it can come in handy to assign monetary values to other online actions and showcase their potential revenue impact. If reported in such terms, even the most cryptic campaign metrics could become a little more tangible to C-level executives. 

The next step would then be to look beyond short-term gains and argue for the long-term benefits of digital solutions. But that’s a whole different story. 

3. Break Digital Marketing Out of the Marketing Department 

The third hack is admittedly, not so simple. It might be in theory, but in practice it has often proved to be tough. 

If we really want to make C-suites look at digital marketing as business solutions, then we have to not only reframe the conversation, but also add more participants. Break down silos and spend more time talking to other departments about your digital ideas, and how these initiatives could make a difference to their challenges. 

If you get other departments behind your cause, executives will clearly see that digital marketing can do so much more than just marketing.

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Orange Wins Conditional Approval From EU for Jazztel Deal

Orange Wins Conditional Approval From EU for Jazztel Deal

Orange SA’s bid for Spanish broadband provider Jazztel Plc won European Union approval after the French telecommunications carrier made concessions that paved the way for a fourth national operator in Spain.

The remedies ensure a new operator “can enter the Spanish market and be able to compete effectively in markets involving fixed Internet access services,” the European Commission said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday. “They address in full the competition concerns raised by the merger.”

Buying Jazztel would give Orange, Spain’s third-largest wireless carrier, about 1.5 million broadband subscribers to help bolster offers of combined broadband, TV and wireless packages. It’s another example of European landline assets being snapped up. Vodafone Group Plc completed the takeover of Spanish cable provider Grupo Corporativo ONO in July.

“A very important thing before agreeing to Orange’s takeover of Jazztel was to make sure that consumers in Spain would not suffer from higher prices for fixed Internet access services,” EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in the statement. “With the remedies in this merger a new player may enter the market and compete as strongly as Orange and Jazztel do today.”

To win approval for the deal, Orange said it pledged to to divest an independent fiber network covering 720,000 building units.

‘Redundant Connections’

These are “largely composed of redundant connections between the existing networks of Orange and Jazztel” and “the conditions of this sale ensure that no redeployment of fiber will be necessary in the areas divested,” Orange said in an e-mailed statement.

Orange committed to grant the purchaser wholesale access to Jazztel’s national ADSL network for up to eight years, the commission said.

The buyer would also get wholesale access to Orange’s mobile network including 4G services, unless the purchaser already has access to a mobile network, according to the commission.

Digital marketing

Digital marketing helps you to find yourself in first place among the other competitors. We help you to strategically plan and execute your,product and services through our online platforms.Pixotri technology is a  creative house developing quality web designs, E-Commerce solution. SEO services and Gaming development .

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