Last week Reuters UK reported that Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) rejected the latest bid from WPP, the world’s second largest ad firm.
Sounds like they’re closer to becoming bedfellows with WPP’s German counterpart, GfK.

I thought WPP chieftain Martin Sorrell covered all the bases as he described his firm’s motivation:

“Growth is being driven by continuous pressure on clients to raise
their like-for-like revenue growth and to optimise their investment
against a backdrop of changing demographics, decreasing product
differentiation, intensifying global competition, the fragmentation of
the media and the impact of digital development.”

The forces at work here are disruptive to say the least. The big agencies are getting pressure from clients to move away from costly print and TV ads and move to more conversational forms of marketing and advertising. It’s not enough to just deploy a microsite and track page views. Customers want real-time information and they’re demanding it on their terms.

If I were a mid-market or large brand, I’d cut down on the one-off microsites and email-based newsletters and move the conversation to more interactive environments. Many companies have figured out that tapping the collective wisdom of their customer base provides huge value. Evidence of this is the large number of customer-driven communities and B2B networks getting sponsorship deals from consumer brands and software companies. It’s likely these communities are where your customers are lurking anyway or they’re building their own versions. Why not engage with them on their terms and in their environments?

I’m not calling for the death of traditional marketing techniques - unless there’s no infusion of 21st Century smarts.

SDL Tridion’s PR firm sent this to me last week and I couldn’t resist.
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Web sites that are attractive but have no real substance – the “bimbos” of the Web world – are the most frustrating on line experience according to research carried out by SDL Tridion.

The top 5 online frustrations, as revealed by the research are:

1. Pop up ads: Like acne or ex-boyfriends – always appear at the wrong time and difficult to get rid of, 78 percent of respondents voted this the most frustrating aspect of the web.

2. Long intros you can’t click out of: Too much irrelevant information that wastes time; 56 percent of respondents were irked the most by this.

3. Hitting ‘back’ and losing all your information: Too much like hard work – 53 percent of people were driven to distraction when they had to repeat inputting their details.

4. Downloading new applications: Web sites are too flashy sometimes. If all you want is information, having to spend minutes downloading the latest version of an application to watch a video or read a document bothers 50 percent of people.

5. Asking for personal details: Why do you need to fill in your life story to get an answer out of some companies? 49 percent of people found this nosy neighbor attitude annoying.

“A company’s Web site is often the first thing visible to people when doing an on line search. First impressions count and all “fluff” and no content drives Web site users mad,” commented Erik Aeyelts Averink, president at SDL Tridion. “Don’t push customers away and annoy them for no reason.”

Also infuriating people are moving graphics that are difficult to click on (40 percent), a site without the usual options like contact us or about us (48 percent) and irrelevant information on overcrowded homepages (39 percent).

“These elements aren’t just annoying; they make up the Web site from hell,” continued Erik Aeyelts Averink. “Companies need to ensure they aren’t alienating Web users.

The Internet is often the first port of call for research and a Web site deserves the same time and effort spent on other marketing materials. If companies continue in this way they will lose not only customers, but their reputation.”

Here, Here.

This one’s spinning around the web, most recently seen in the Twitterverse.
Enjoy.

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Recently I’ve been pretty hard on content management vendors by pointing out some of the mistakes that can drive them out of business. While vendor elitism with customers can be a big problem, I can’t let content management clients completely off the hook. There’s a few mistakes that I’ve seen over and over in every vertical.

Hiring Resources Based On Price
Let’s take marketing, for example; it’s hard to show the clear ROI for a dollar invested. I’ve seen more companies that choose to hire a communications or marketing manager that’s inexperienced in the industry, but fairly cheap. This is the person controlling your content, your message to the outside world. If they don’t understand the dynamics of what it takes to manage a modern-day Web site, your brand will suffer. We can make a similar argument within the IT group — if the collaboration software is handled by a non-collaborator, you’re probably doomed to live out your collaborative existence in the meager confines of Outlook. The end result is the usually powerful combination of content and collaboration is deemed another shiny, new technology failure.

Choosing A Vendor Based On Personal Reasons, Not Technology
Similar to reason No. 1, choosing a vendor based on any reason not related to the ability to ensure you look like your own media company is unacceptable. In the past year, I’ve seen companies hand over their content strategies to the CEO’s brother-in-law, the founder’s nephew, the co-founder’s fraternity buddy, and more. I’m not saying some of those folks aren’t capable of providing value, it’s just that most of the time the expectations are unrealistic. Some of the results are actually really funny, in a sad, "how much did you pay them?" sort of way.

Using Technology That Dates From The Wrong Decade
So maybe your company has avoided the first two pitfalls; you picked a solid vendor that delivers good results, and you’ve got the right team in place. Don’t cripple them by refusing to invest in the right technology. Yes, the market moves fast and it might feel like just yesterday you spent a fortune updating your infrastructure. But the best jockey in the world won’t win the race on an old horse. Listen to the recommendations of your team; chances are they’ve already used other tools that might be complementary to what you’re trying to do.

And you know the routine: Send me your customer experiences and we’ll post them here periodically. Don’t worry, we won’t expose them or you unless you give us permission. All details will be removed to ensure everyone can return to their office without having to worry about the content management walk of shame.

I read this PCWorld story and I couldn’t help but think how indicative it is of of the typical command and control mentality within enterprises. I know there’s a balance between fighting the external social network (SoNet) effect and creating a corporate one of your own. With all the technology horsepower and APIs gone wild, shouldn’t we be able to figure out how to create some harmony between the two? The quote from one of the Gap’s web engineers sums it up pretty well:

“Do you really want Facebook to manage it for you in the outside world, or do you want to do it yourself so you have control?”

Control. It’s a word I hear over and over: How will we maintain control of what’s being said by the community?

I’ve talked to more companies than I can count about social publishing, social media, and setting up communities. The enterprises that typically lead the charge tend to be the ones that want to sell software or services to setup the community. But like communities in the real world, who wants to pay for the roads that others will use? When we talk to the brands in the community cross hairs, well that’s when you see the cold sweat start to break out.

The big brands hire in teams of marketing folk from the best B-schools to manage their content. They pay the most expensive consultants to determine what color has which meaning for their brand; what word has which association in middle America vs. big cities; heck how does this kid think vs. that adult. It’s been done this way for years, decades, and now, that level of tight brand control is showing cracks.

For the last decade or more, people with passion for products are expressing their views over the web - the enterprise fear originates when the views aren’t all that rosy. With all of their collective experience, too many companies still have the fear of shelling out big bucks to develop a social publishing strategy. Do they really want to give the rest of the world a forum to say what they’re really thinking?

The bus has already left the station folks; the negative views are already finding their ways through other sites and locations. I try to encourage brands to embrace both the negative and positive discussions their consumers have, preaching that it’s important to learn from the negative and leverage the positive. 

But for all of those brands who don’t want to build the roads that provide more interaction with their consumers: your consumers are taking other roads already available. Enable them to speak freely with and about you.

That’s social publishing.

Last week I mentioned the danger to companies that disregard trends in the content management space. I’m going horizontal this time and taking a crack at one of my favorites lines of business — marketing.

Here’s some ways content management is changing marketing:

3: Killing direct mail. I learned years ago that a successful direct mail marketing campaign has a 2% response rate. That would mean that 98% of the papers cluttering our mailboxes are meant to be unused. Whether we consider this a junk mail issue, a snail-mail spam issue, or a green issue, does anyone really need to incur the costs associated with stacks of unread fliers anymore? Deliver your content over a more targeted electronic medium, and maybe you’ll have the added benefit of also annoying fewer potential customers.

2: Improving measurement and analytics. People get Ph.D.s studying and trying to generate ROI models for marketing. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to tie back exact dollar amounts to individual marketing campaigns. That said, many of the newer ways to deliver content to target markets allow for immediate and measurable responses. If you have the right content analytics in place to track clickstreams and other behaviors, marketing programs can be tracked immediately, something that helps marketers re-tool strategies in almost real time.

1: Marrying IT and marketing. Marketing always has held the creative types, while technology holds the rest of us geeks. If this split is maintained now, though, the best marketing content won’t be delivered over the latest platforms, and entire market segments may be missed. Mobile applications, targeted e-mails that make it through spam filters, optimized Web sites, and ad widgets weren’t part of marketing history, but are taking over the present and the future. Internal company departments need to work together now more than ever. The marketing types don’t always need to understand exactly how to set up a blog or track feedback, but if no one on the team does, well, what a shame to waste good content.

And BTW, if you like stuff like this, you might want to subscribe my blog at InformationWeek.

Several months ago a content management vendor told me that the oncoming recession was causing it problems with revenue generation. I said perhaps, but it’s also possible its problems were related to the fact that its customers were really angry and really vocal. It’s too easy to blame market conditions without taking a hard look in the mirror sometimes.

For this top 5 list I won’t name any names, but I encourage everyone to try to clean their own closets occasionally. Maybe these items will add up to survival in either a recession or peak market conditions. The top reasons a content management company will go out of business:

No. 5: You forgot to eat your own dog food. I’m amazed at the number of companies that offer content management options while their own Web content and marketing materials haven’t been updated since 1997. If you have the teams that can deliver for your customers, let them practice on your real estate first. Would you buy a suit from a man wearing rags? Maybe, but many people wouldn’t.

No. 4: Your customers hate you. The best technology in the world won’t save you if your own customers tell everyone that you’re a jerk. Please don’t ever tell your customers that it’s their fault if they can’t figure out how to use your products. Yes, content management is not rocket science, and yes, some people are amazingly nontechnical. That doesn’t excuse elitism, and if the words “The customer is just stupid” have ever come out of your mouth, you may deserve to go out of business. It sounds like I’m making this up. I’m not.

No. 3: You try to develop everything in-house. The market is moving fast, your R&D teams can’t always keep up. This isn’t necessarily a weakness — sometimes you need to pick your differentiators and source the other items. If you find that you’re missing release deadlines again and again on items readily available from other vendors or as open source, please evaluate your business model. You’re burning cash for fun, not profit.

No. 2: You disregard trends. I’ll say it again. The market moves fast and what’s on the horizon sometimes seems just plain silly at first. But we’ve all heard the famous miscalculation that the world only has need for about five computers — the smartest people have made mistakes. For those who have told me that “Green is just a fad” and “Blogs are overrated,” (both of those are direct, recent quotes) be careful of what you dismiss. Don’t fall behind your competitors because you personally drive a Hummer and wear polar bear fur earmuffs (that’s a green reference, people). Fads and trends have a way of catching on, becoming important, and filling real business needs. Be open to change, and maybe your revenue will grow.

No. 1: Your employees turn over faster than the toilet paper is changed in the corporate restroom. Whether the job market is tight or technology workers seem a dime a dozen, employees are the face of your company. If they’re leaving in droves, or you’re replacing them quarterly, it’s a morale killer and your customers sense it.

Send me your reasons for part two and we’ll post them next week.

Cross-posted on InformationWeek’s Content Management Blog.

Whether you say “media is the new creative” (like AdWeek) or simply think the marketing landscape has been turned on its head, the message is the same. Adapt or get left behind.

Laurie Petersen, executive editor of MediaPost, had details recently about a new study (”Marketing & Media Ecosystem 2010″) from the Association of National Advertisers and management consultants Booz Allen Hamilton that confirmed just that.

And for the record, I really like the “communications integrator” term. Dissect what you do as a marketer and you’ll find a large portion of your time is spent mapping out how to integrate everything. After all that’s marketing nirvana right? Everyone wants an integrated approach.

What do you think about the five trends below?

Marketing as Conversation:

It’s less about sending a message and more about conversing. More than half the marketers say they plan to increase their PR budgets to help in this regard.

Insight into Foresight:

Technology enhances targeting capability and 80% of marketers surveyed place a high importance on behavioral targeting.

Media is the New Creative:

Distribution and context rivals creative execution in importance. A new role of “communications integrator” is emerging that bridges the gap between media, creative and brand strategy. More than 80% of participants say communications planning capabilities will be critical moving forward.

Marketing + Math + Technology:

Data quality, quantity and accessibility mean that math is everywhere. Leaders are more likely to have the metrics and capabilities to judge the effects of new media.

The Network Effect:

Digital media requires a far higher level of collaboration and coordination across all players. Nearly 60% of survey respondents believe creative, strategic and media capabilities should be rebundled–but there is no consensus as to which type of agency should lead.

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