Brands spend more than $450 billion each year to influence us. They wouldn’t spend that kind of money unless they knew something we didn’t know.

The most-successful brands don’t focus on what we need; they focus on what we want. We need a credit card; we want an American Express Black card. We need a cellphone; we want the yet-to-be-released iPhone 4G.

Fortunately for brands, when it comes to identifying what people want, we aren’t particularly complex. The human mind seeks to satisfy 10 primary wants. Direct your actions toward meeting as many as possible, and your brand will grow exponentially.

So what do people want, exactly?

1. To feel safe and secure.
This is reinforced through both the physical structure of the brain and our physical environment, making it one of the strongest motivating forces in our lives. The amygdale is an area of the brain whose primary purpose is to protect us. Whenever we sense fear or danger, or that things are not safe or secure, it fires. This works in conjunction with our long-term memory, which continuously references and longs for the safety and security we received as children. When Allstate tells us we’re in good hands with them, it appeals to this desire for safety and security. Who else? Volvo, OnStar, ADP, Geico, Johnson & Johnson.

2. To feel comfortable.
We all want to feel comfortable. We want to feel good, relaxed, we want it to be easy. Our brains are constantly asking, if I do this, how will I feel? We are attracted to what makes us feel good, and this is often what is most comfortable and easy — brands such as Cracker Barrel, Rockport, Godiva and Dole (what’s easier than bagged lettuce?).

3. To be cared for and connected to others.
It is human nature to want to feel that someone cares for us, that we have friends and that people enjoy our company. Humans are genetically predisposed to want to be together and to be connected. It is one of our evolutionary traits. And by observing, interacting and engaging with others, our mirror neurons allow us to learn from one another and feel what others are feeling. Think about recent communication campaigns from Olive Garden, Budweiser, Pizza Hut and Mitsubishi’s Eclipse. Further, this is one of the key wants social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace meet.

4. To be desired by others.
Some believe that all human motivation comes down to wanting to be desired by others. Freud popularized this concept pitting the id against the superego and ego. And even though brands have been targeting this want since the beginning — and people are aware of brands’ efforts in this area — it has not lost any of its effectiveness. Axe can’t make their message to guys any clearer: use our products and you’ll be irresistible. And how about Michelob Ultra, Viagra, Cadillac, Old Spice and Victoria’s Secret?

5. To be free to do what we want.
The desire to be free has been a guiding principal of humankind for the past 200,000 years. Throughout history, societies have banded together to fight for their freedom, from early civilizations in Greece, through the dark ages and Renaissance, the French and American Revolutions, and the abolition of slavery and both world wars. The desire to be free is such a dominant human want that, time after time, we have given our lives to satisfy it. Financial brands such as Fidelity, Citi and Mastercard were built by focusing on this want, as were brands such as Harley-Davidson, Southwest, Nutrisystem and even Norwegian Cruise Lines.

6. To grow and become more.
Humans, unlike animals, do not come programmed with the skills we need. We begin as blank slates, yet within the first five years of our lives, we learn to perform many of the skills we will use throughout our lifetime. But then what happens? Is there ever another five-year period where we grow as much? Most would say no, and yet our brains are conditioned from childhood to grow and learn. Because of this, our mind is constantly striving to satisfy the function it has been conditioned to perform: to grow and become more. When you think of Monster, Kindle, Bally and Kaplan, don’t they all brilliantly leverage this want to their advantage?

7. To serve others and give back.
More than 60 million people performed more than 8 billion hours of service last year. Why? As children we are fully dependent on our parents. Those early memories of our mothers and fathers serving our every need, unselfishly giving to protect, care and nurture, are deeply ingrained in our minds and condition us to want to serve others and give back. Therefore, we tend to feel good when we are making others feel good, unselfishly focusing on others. This want competes against many of our other more self-focused wants, causing an unsettling feeling when we too frequently focus on ourselves. What comes to mind when you think about Prius, Livestrong, Timberland, Newman’s Own, Make-a-Wish Foundation and Susan G. Komen for the Cure?

8. To be surprised and excited.
The amount of stimuli that our senses can process throughout the course of a day is remarkable. While our perceptual register filters the vast majority of these stimuli, what almost always gets through is what surprises and excites us. Stimuli that could potentially cause ecstasy or anxiety are the first things to grab our attention — Red Bull, Las Vegas tourism, Disney, De Beers.

9. To believe there is a higher purpose.
Most people identify with a particular religion, believe in a god in some form and believe that when we die, there is something more. We deeply want to believe there is a higher purpose. There is not a single more important belief that has such universal acceptance yet completely lacks any form of scientific evidence. But because we so deeply want to believe, anything that can possibly support this belief is powerfully motivating. When the Marines show us a wall of soldiers standing guard over our country and ask us if we have what it takes to be among the few and the proud, they are offering us a higher purpose.

10. To feel that they matter.
This is humankind’s greatest want — that they matter. That they are worthy of attention, affection and love. It is an evolutionary trait. Released in large amounts during labor, oxytocin, a neurotransmitter, bonds the mother to a child, making it nearly impossible not to want to care for the newborn. Infants who do not receive this attention can succumb to failure-to-thrive syndrome, causing premature death. So the fact that we matter is essential to our survival. We have been conditioned from birth to believe that we matter. But as we get older, the oxytocin wears off and we feel less and less that we matter. We then spend the rest of our lives trying to get back this feeling that we once felt in such abundance, and brands such as American Express, Lexus, Rolex and Starbucks help us remember that we matter.

First seen on Advertising Age
by Brian Martin
Published: February 03, 2010

IAB Ads: 'Advertising Is Creepy'

Faced with increasing pressure from Washington, the Interactive Advertising Bureau launched a public service campaign on Thursday aimed at educating consumers about behavioral targeting.

The online campaign, created pro bono by WPP’s Schematic, features rich media banner ads with copy like “Advertising is creepy” and “Hey, this banner can tell where you live. Mind if we come over and sell you stuff?”

More than one dozen publishers — including Microsoft, Google’s YouTube, and AOL — have committed to donate a combined 500 million impressions for the initiative.

The campaign comes as policymakers are questioning whether data collection by marketers violates consumers’ privacy. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) has said he plans to introduce a bill that could require Web companies to notify users about online ad targeting, and in some circumstances, obtain their explicit consent.

In addition, the Federal Trade Commission has criticized the industry for using dense privacy policies to inform people about behavioral targeting, or tracking people online and sending them ads based on sites visited.

In a meeting with reporters Thursday morning, IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg said one goal of the campaign is to address regulators’ concerns that consumers don’t understand behavioral advertising.

The ad units themselves offer information about online ad techniques. For instance, users who mouse over the “creepy” banner can pull down copy stating that companies don’t use “personally identifiable information” to determine which ads to serve.

Users who click through land on the IAB’s Privacy Matters page, which includes a description of various forms of online advertising, information about cookies (including Flash cookies) and links to opt-out pages.

The portion of the landing page devoted to cookies says they “contain data that allow a Web site to customize content and advertising to your interests but generally do not contain personally identifiable information.” A section with information about geotargeting states that an IP address “reveals nothing personal about you to marketers and websites.”

But privacy advocate Jeff Chester immediately raised questions about such statements. “They are ignoring the growing consensus that cookies and IP addresses are personally identifiable,” says Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

Cathy Dwyer, a privacy expert and professor of information systems at Pace University, also questions whether the banners’ headlines are too sophisticated to draw in users. “Even ‘creepy’ itself is a technical term,” she says, adding that it’s mainly industry insiders and observers who use that word in discussions about behavioral advertising.

The FTC said this year in its report about online behavioral targeting that non-personally identifiable information could be used to identify specific users.

In the past, industry groups and observers defined personally identifiable information as names, addresses, phone numbers or other information that could be used to contact an individual directly.

Critics recently moved away from that definition, in part because Web users have been identified based on supposedly anonymous data. The most famous example occurred in 2006, when AOL publicly released search logs showing users’ queries and “anonymized” IP addresses for more than 600,000 users, Within days, one “anonymized” user, Thelma Arnold, was profiled in The New York Times after reporters identified her based on her search queries.

Schematic CEO Trevor Kaufman told reporters Thursday that a test of the campaign in late October and early November yielded a click-through rate of 0.5%. The trial involved 7 million impressions, mainly served on Microsoft’s Hotmail.

Separately, the digital rights group Center for Democracy & Technology also launched a privacy campaign on Thursday — although with a different goal. The CDT is hoping to persuade users to lobby Congress for online privacy legislation. The Web site for the CDT’s “Take Back Your Privacy” campaign enables users to submit concerns directly to the FTC and to send emails to their lawmakers.

first seen on Media Post by Wendy Davis, Yesterday, 6:58 PM

A lot of people still haven’t figured out Facebook Fan Pages yet. They go ahead and make these Fan Pages and expect them to grow by themselves. The thing that most people miss in the equation is that, this is social marketing which means there has to be engagement on both fronts. A Facebook Fan Page needs to be strategically planned out in advance in order to make it work. Here are a few things you can do to make your fan page grow organically and when I say organically it means you aren’t paying to market your fan page.

Feature A Fan – Contest
This is one of the strongest methods of growing your fan base. You originally start off with any fan page by inviting mostly your own friends. Now that some of your friends are fans to this page, how do you get their friends to want to fan the page? You get the fans you already have to become little ambassadors to your page by having a virtual contests. When you “Feature A Fan” you are acknowledging them as the winner by calling them out as a “featured fan” in the post of the day which goes out to all of the other fans. 

This might seem trivial to you but the users can’t get enough.You eventually will get people “liking” the posts, commenting on the posts enough for their friends to take notice and come check out what that page is all about. They then get involved in the conversation that is happening on your page and become fans themselves. Everyone wants to be a featured fan so they keep trying to win whatever contest you are having by posting their answers, commenting and “liking” posts. All of this social interaction eventually leads to more and more people fanning your page. A company that does this well is Crackle a company I just happen to work for ; )

Giveaways
Of course another aspect to a contest is obviously SWAG (stuff worth actually getting). If you have something to give away like a t-shirt, hats, beer mugs, PlayStation 3’s. People love free things, even if its the most mundane objects you would be surprised at what people will do for free SWAG. The better the item the more people who will become a fan of your fan page and participate in the conversation. These users are not nearly as valuable to the conversation because you are incentivising them with a tangible object. As soon as its gone they stop interacting. You need to continue to have these giveaways every month so you don’t lose their interest.

Whats The Best Solution?
Using a combination of both ”Feature A Fan” and product giveaways will net you the most users in the shortest amount of time. Both users act completely different so you need to cater to both in different ways. As long as you have two different approaches planned out to these very different fan bases then you should see your fan page start to grow exponentially.

Adding Twitter Into The Mix
You can also leverage your twitter following to your advantage by using twitter as an extension to your contests. You can extend your reach and push users back to your fan page with twitter or you can hold a completely separate contest via twitter and grow your following base there. In this case we know that twitter users act completely different then Facebook users do so you need to figure out what best works for you and what you’re trying to build and accomplish.

Greater knowledge of the digital space is at the top of marketers’ list of what they want from their advertising and marketing agencies in the next 12 months, according to a Sapient-sponsored national online survey of some 200 CMOs and other senior marketers.  

As it is, more than a quarter of marketers surveyed said from half to all of their marketing is done via digital channels, and nearly 40% foresee that in 12 months from half to all their marketing will be done via digital channels:

The respondents, all of whom are either directly or indirectly responsible for managing digital marketing budget allocation across multiple channels, were asked about the top qualities they sought in their advertising and marketing agencies in the coming year.

Based on the survey results, Sapient Interactive, Sapient’s marketing services group, issued a Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future:

1. Greater knowledge of the digital space

More than one-third of marketers surveyed said they are not confident that their current agency is well-positioned to take their brand through the unchartered waters of online digital marketing and interactive advertising.

Nearly half (45%) of the respondents have switched agencies (or plan to switch in the next 12 months) for one with greater digital knowledge or have hired an additional digital specialist to handle their interactive campaigns.

Regarding an agency’s area of expertise, 79% of respondents rated “interactive/digital” functions as “important/very important.”

2. More use of “pull interactions”

Nine in 10 respondents (90%) agree that to engage consumers with their brand it is increasingly important that their agency uses “pull interactions” such as social media and online communities rather than traditional “push” campaigns.

3. Leverage virtual communities

An overwhelming 94% of respondents expressed interest in leveraging virtual communities (public and private) to understand more about their target audience.

4. Agency executives who use the technology they are recommending

92% of respondents said it was “somewhat” or “very” important that agency employees use the technologies that they are recommending – such as Facebook, Flickr, wikis, blogs, – in their personal social media mix.

5. Chief Digital Officers make agencies more appealing

43% of marketers surveyed said agencies with chief digital officers are more appealing than those without.

6. Web 2.0 and social media savvy

63% of marketers surveyed said an agency’s Web 2.0 and social media capabilities are “important/very important” when it comes to agency selection.

7. Agencies that understand consumer behavior

76% of respondents deemed this as an “important/very important” aspect of their agency’s online digital marketing and interactive advertising area of expertise.

8. Demonstrate strategic thinking

77% of marketers surveyed ranked strategy/brain trust capabilities at the top of their agency wish list.

9. Branding and creative capabilities

67% of respondents ranked branding at the top of their agency wish list while 76% ranked creative capabilities as “important/very important.”

10. Ability to measure success

65% ranked analytics at the top of their agency wish list.

“Marketers want agencies that can deliver on these demands today – not by 2009 and beyond,” said Gaston Legorburu, chief creative officer, Sapient. “As the interactive channel becomes increasingly important, only those agencies that can create, manage and measure multi-channel campaigns will stay relevant and thrive in an uncertain economy.”

About the survey: The Agency of the Future Survey is a national survey designed to provide insight into what marketers want from their agencies in the next 12 months. Sponsored by Sapient, the survey was conducted via email and polled more than 200 respondents, all of whom are either directly or indirectly responsible for managing digital marketing budget allocation across multiple channels.

First appeared on www.marketingcharts.com

What Does Apples to Apples mean?
Simply put “apples to apples” in this case means you are taking multiple creative that look exactly the same in every way, shape and form except one single variable and testing them against each other. This one single variable is the most important part of the testing methodology and could lead to 25-50% improvement in your marketing campaigns (see below).

Control Creative
So as you can see above all your creative remain the same except for that one variable. In this case the background square highlighting the silhouette of the girl changes and everything else stays the same. Although this seems like a simple example, the testing method is simple by nature. As you can see below one creative is the clear winner with an increase click through rate (CTR) of one hundred and thirty percent, not bad for your first test.

 
Statistically Relevant Sample Size
The sample size is the number of impressions you run against your creative. Different creative sizes have different statistical relevant thresholds. Here are the thresholds:

425×600 – 500,000 – 750,000 impressions
300×250 – 750,000 to 1 MM impressions
160×600 – 800,000 – 1 MM impressions
120×600 – 900,000 – 1.1 MM impressions
728×90 – 1 MM – 1.2 MM impressions
468×60 – 1 MM – 1.5 MM impressions

In this case you need to test all of your creative at the same volume of impressions. For example: If you have four different creatives measuring 300×250 in size you would run the control creative at 55% while running the other three at 15% till you reach the statistically relevant number above. The reason you keep the control running at a higher level of 55% is to maintain a successful campaign while you test. Just because your testing doesn’t mean you should sacrifice the already proven success of your control, you might end up finding out the control beats all of your tests in the end anyway (this happens quite often actually). If you can’t afford the amount of impressions it takes to run a 4 creative test then just reduce the amount of test creative you run at one time. This will allow you to garner results at a faster rate which will turn into dollars before you know it.

Call To Action
You need to test your call to action just as much as you test different layouts, background colors and button colors. Think about what you want your customer to do:
“Watch Now”
“Buy Now”
“Register Now”
You need to have your call to action very clear and concise so that the customer doesn’t have a chance to forget what you want them to do. Don’t forget when your testing your call to action, you can’t be testing anything else at the same time. You need to isolate one variable at a time or you will never know if it was that change that made the difference.

Landing Page
When you’re creative testing you should send all of your users to the same landing page which is consistent with your creative’s look and feel. Consistency in your messaging along with the same look and feel can increase your conversions up to 35%. Again don’t forget, you can only isolate one variable at a time. If you test landing pages at the same time you are testing creative you will never know if it was truly your creative that made people perform the action you are asking them to perform or was it the landing page? That’s why isolating this one variable at a time method works so well, you know what you changed and you know if that one thing made a difference.

I hope this simple “Apples to Apples” creative testing explanation helps you and your marketing efforts in the future. feel free to post any questions and happy testing.

So let’s say you have a video online and you want to promote it. You already know your audience lives on Facebook somewhere, but you’re not sure how to reach them and you surely don’t have a ton of money to market this thing. Well, here are 8 ways to effectively promote your video on Facebook for little to no cost, with just the friends you have on Facebook.

1. Event Pages
If you’re on Facebook I’m sure you have received an event reminder to go to a party, bar crawl, or meeting of some kind. Well, you can use these pages to promote your video, as well. Say you’re going to launch a video in a month - first, you set up your event page, and make sure it’s very well done because you’re going to be sending it out to all of your friends (you don’t want to seem like a spammer to your friends so don’t mass message them too often or this won’t work). Next you send your event invite and then follow up with 5 or 10 friends a day to get them on board with the event. Eventually, you will have 30 – 40 people saying they want to be reminded when your video is live. Once the initial users are signed up for the event you can start a simple Facebook ads account and spend as little as $5 a day to promote your event page (although fan pages work better to promote and have people become fans of). $100 later and you have over 300 people wanting to be reminded about your video, not a bad turnout thus far.

2. Fan Pages
Fan pages are the more advanced form of the Events Page. Fan Pages allow you to build a very social community around your video with much less commitment. To say you’re going to an event is much harder for a person to do then it is to push the little Become A Fan button. Because Facebook makes it so easy to become a fan you will find that you will get 10 times the amount of fans than you would find saying yes to your event. You can use your Fan Page to power your Events Page by advertising Become A Fan through Facebook ads and you will garner more fans. So now that you have more fans you start to promote your event on your fan page. The people who start saying yes to your event and who are already fans of your video (even if it’s not yet released) creates a super qualified person who really wants to watch your video, increasing your event page to over 500 within a week (around $200 – $300 spent thus far).

3. Your Friends As Admins
Adding one or two of your friends as admins to your page now increases your reach by 2 or 3 times. Let’s say you have 300 friends and your friend Jack has 500 friends and you add Jack as an admin. You not only have scaled your reach directly to 800 people, but just think of the compounding effect. Jack might have 500 friends, but lets just say 5 of Jacks friends become fans of that page and they each have 500 friends as well. The way Facebook works (you probably already know this) is if those five friends become fans of your page, Facebook tells their friends they became fans, which again compounds on itself. Your chosen admins can make your fan page grow epically, thus creating a built in audience for your video and event page (and you’re still at a total cost of $300).

4. Posting To Other Fan Page Walls
Many self-proclaimed purists won’t like this step, but I’ve found it very effective. Find pages that are very similar to yours (similar type of content) and post your fan page link to their wall. Don’t forget to say something that has some relevance to the wall you are posting on otherwise it doesn’t look authentic enough for it not to be ignored or removed. If you do this a few times to some high fanned pages you can easily pick up another 100 – 200 fans in a few days with minimal effort (also free).

5. Post To Your Friends Walls
Find a few people you know pretty well that have a lot of friends and post the link to your fan page on their wall and mention something relevant in the text field of your post. People will naturally be curious and click to check it out even if they don’t know you or your project, and of course the commitment level is so low they most likely will fan the page if it looks well put together. This might sound like your spamming your friends with these posts, but this is your baby we’re talking about here, they should and will be glad to have a post from you on their wall to help you out. You can easily garner another 100 fans this way in one day, and for free.

6. Smart And Engaging Updates
So now that you have over a 1,000 fans and growing (the compounding effect) to your fan page, you need to chill out on the posts. Only post once a day (twice at most and only if it warrants it). The more you post, the more people will ignore you or un-fan your fan page. Also when you post, make sure it’s not only about your project, post things from around the web that you find interesting (but they have to be really good). You can plan out two posts a week about your project but I would keep it to two max because there’s only so much people will take of the same thing over and over again. You want to ask questions a lot, questions elicit responses and engagement. Once you have trained your fans that your posts are worth reading, and not only worth reading but deserving of a response, they won’t hesitate to take action on your post to go see your video.

7. Holding A Simple Contest On Your Fan Page
You can even hold a contest on your fan page for the price of a t-shirt. Not only do people respond well to contests, they live for them. A small gift of some kind mixed with some fan pics posting to the wall for a contest will put engagement through the roof and get people coming back day after day.

8. “Feature A Fan” strategy
Let’s say you have a contest for the entire month before your video is out. Fans post pictures to the wall everyday to be eligible for the contest prize, which is a nice t-shirt at the end of the month to the winner. Everyday pick one fan who submitted a picture and feature them on your one daily post. This is by far one of the most effective methods of getting your users engaged on the site. On a fan page I was involved in, we saw user interactions grow by 500% over the month we ran the Feature A Fan strategy. Everyone likes to have a little fame and that’s their day to brag to their friends that they made the Featured Friend List on “Video X’s” Fan page.

So to summarize, if you have a video along with a very tight budget there are still some great ways to leverage Facebook in order to make a very meaningful impact on how many people get to see and know about your video for free. One last thing I would like to stress; don’t forget about your fans. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen is people abandoning their fan pages once their video has launched leaving your fans in limbo. Your fans are like a plant, if you don’t feed them with new posts they wither and die. Your fans will be there when your video launches, and they will still be there when it’s been out for a year. Keep that mini-community up to date so when your next video/project is coming out you aren’t scrambling to complete the 8 steps again. Good Luck!