The Adelaide Crows Inner Circle

Fanatical Adelaide Crows supporter, Rebecca, had a real MCB (Money Can't Buy) experience on Saturday when she belted out the Crows team song arm in arm with the players after a nail biting win against the Western Bulldogs.

Rebecca was one of more than a thousand punters who risked the life of their mobile phones in a deluge of biblical proportions when she texted her entry in the Carlton Draught Text'n'Sing promotion at AAMI Stadium.

Via Media was engaged by the Crows and Fosters to manage the interactive side of a test campaign that looks like running through to season 2009 after positive feedback from club, sponsor and fans alike. With co-operation from partner 2moro Mobile, Via Media set up an inbound mobile number to capture entries, before bouncing back an unexpected voice message from superstar Crow Nathan Bock, thanking fans for their support and asking for help to get the Crows over the line in what was a tense final quarter.

Not quite the Big Ad, but targeted, relevant, timely, contextual, engaging communication. Maybe just what Fosters was after?

Marketing Week Goes Digital. Finally.

Last week saw the Marketing Week roadshow hit town, and refreshingly, 'Digital' got it's fair (i.e. dominant) share of the speaker calendar. Themed The Marketing Revolution, 'non-traditional' communication was collectively endorsed as the future of marketing, effectively giving advertising agencies as we know them the life expectancy of a needle-sharing Baghdad mortorcyclist.

Our own CEO Anthony Coles had two speaking spots, IdeaGarden's Jenny Williams painted the big picture in her inimitable way, and industry leaders like Matt Baxter (of Naked fame) and ex Singo's MD Phil Smith underlined the opportunities available to marketers who embrace the changes we're seeing (and thanks also to Phil for adding a guest spot at our ADMA Digital Certificate course to his list of presentations - a rare opportunity for an appreciative audience).

I'd like to think that Marketing Week has galvanised a few people who've been meaning to 'join the revolution', so it will be interesting to see who in Adelaide steps up, and who falls back into the comfort zone of yesterday. Telling times ahead...

Google Adwords Makes a Few Changes

You might have seen some news on changes to Google's Adwords service.

In a post on the company blog, Google has advised that changes to the Quality Score metric means that ads will no longer be tagged 'inactive for search' if they don't meet a minimum bid value. What does this mean? Every ad will now remain live regardless of their maximum bid settings, but it's unlikely to have much/any positive effect on your campaign given the ad is still unlikely to rank on the first page or two. Google will also introduce a metric that indicates the minimum bid value required to be on the first page of paid listings, effectively aligning their metric to a marketing objective, rather than a nominal active/inactive setting. Quality Score will also now be applied dynamically at the time of each search, rather than in batch on setup, to enhance the user experience and ad relevance for people using the search engine.

In a nutshell, be aware of the changes but don't expect any revolutionary difference in the way you use Adwords. You still need a high Quality Score (relevance) to keep bid values low, and still need competitive bids if you want those valuable rankings near the top of the list. Pretty simple, eh?

Read more on the detail here.

Inside AdWords: Quality Score improvements

ADMA Digital Certificate Kicks Off

Last night was something of a watershed moment for digital media education in Adelaide - the intro session to ADMA's certificate in digital marketing.

Part of Via Media's charter, and the reason for our involvement with the course, is using education to bridge the disconnect in SA between companies "knowing we need to do digital" and them actually doing it.

There's belief in the potential of the media, but - without the baseline knowledge required to develop a strategy - uncertainty about where to start. And that translated with the group last night. The key takeout was that digital marketing IS direct marketing, and while I expected a few eyes glazing over with the statistical analysis that comes with 'DM', it was evident that Digital offered these marketers accountability and clarity, as well as the chance to be creative.

A marketing campaign with looks AND brains? Maybe not such a rare creature after all...

Certificate in Digital Marketing in Adelaide at last

The Australian Direct Marketing Association announced today that they would be offering their Certificate in Digital Marketing in Adelaide, facilitated by Via Media.

The nationally accredited 14 week course will be run in the evenings, and starts on August 13.

Throughout the course students will work together to learn the key concepts and principles of digital marketing and how they apply across the myriad of media channels available, from simple email campaigns, to website project management, to leveraging social networking tools and online advertising.

Via Media has been pushing to bring courses in this space - that run regularly in the Eastern States - to the SA market. The recent cancellation of the B&T Digital Bootcamp program was the latest disappointment.

“Too many of these courses don’t head West of the Blue Mountains” says Jason Neave, ADMA State Councillor and facilitator of the digital course in SA. “Access to a recognised certificate course in SA is imperative for local organisations if they want to remain competitive nationally, and internationally. The program is standardised across the country, and students get to mix with other local practitioners and learn from case studies from Australia’s biggest brands”.

“There is a huge need for this in the local market”, says ADMA Education manager Alex Pye, “and ADMA’s role as the premier industry association in this space is to help SA companies re-skill in order to participate.”

More information is available on the course from the ADMA site.

Digital media makes The Advertisers Round Table

The Adelaide Advertiser hosts regular Round Table's with industry heavyweights to bring expertise on different topics to their readers. Today they just happened to invite 5 internet & media industry-related people (including yours truly, Via Media CEO Anthony Coles) to the table under the multi-media gaze of their AdelaideNow audio and video production team, (and a couple of work experience bods to boot).

After happy snaps and card swapping, discussions opened on the topic of "will the Internet have any impact on business in SA".

Biting my lip I glanced over to catch newly appointed SA Tourism GM of Marketing, Steve Kernaghan, ease back in his seat and break into a grin.

"The Internet is ALREADY having an impact on business in SA", we all chimed in unison to exclaim.

Steve gave space to a few local lads to lead the charge in response.

Adam Internet CEO Scott Hicks lamented the challenges to their considerable investments in Internet-related infrastructure here in SA in the face of the huge Telstra/ Australian Government conflict-of-interest.

"How can business benefit from our infrastructure (ie - better content), if our playing field isn't world-competitive", cried Scott. "We have the demand. How can we move beyond the infrastructure constraints of a poorly advised Government and cross-ownership confilct?"

My thoughts raced ahead to a Facebook Group, "Help Raise $400M to fund Adam Internet's fibre-optic roll out". More on that later...

SATC's Steve K finally added his weight to the debate with his international perspective, (Steve's new to SA from a Tourism Australia gig in the US).

His experience with mobile internet, Tivo, and direct-to-consumer transaction opportunities presented by the internet were refreshing in this market.

"The internet is the single most important channel in our marketing planning for the year ahead" says Steve.

"Don't jump up and hug him here", says the little guy in my head who stops me doing silly things!!

"But where is all this content going to come from?", asked Business Editor Cameron England insightfully. "Do we have the talent here to produce it?"

"Absolutely", states OMD CEO Gary Jaffer, "we have some of the best talent in the world here in SA".

Er, then why can't I find an experienced digital Account Director or gun Creative Director with web 2.0 campaign experience for my business, I thought?

As conversation progressed, we weaved from technical Internet issues to consumenr and Media issues.

"The role of the media with any advertising campaign is the same", noted KWP! Media Manager Matt Rawnsley. "Each needs to be considered within the context of what it is the client is trying to achieve, and its value evaluated against those objectives".

Quite right I thought, couldn't have put it better myself if I was a media manager with and Ad Agency.

But what if your 'media' is someones Facebook profile, and your ad is a "Had a Top Stay Here" widget promoting some local B&B you stayed at, offering a 'free bowl of soup' to any of your friends if they click on the widget?

Then Me becomes the Media.

Word-Of-Mouth blurs with Direct (Marketing) via the mass media of the Internet. Facebook currently has a Gazzillion* page views per day. (*note - Nielsen NetRatings does not recognise gazzillion as a media planning term).

Creative (Content) has just become a Transaction (Customer).

Where does 'the Media Agency' and the evaluation of relevant 'Paid Media' channels fit into this model?

Lucky I never let that mind rant leak out publicly amongst the group, or I'd have been shipped off in a tight white jacket with long sleeves!

And so on it went for an hour or so. More reality checks from Scott (Hicks) (not the Film director), more international tourism-industry perspective from Steve (Kernaghan) (not the former Carlton and Glenelg great), and more ad-land fundamentals from Gary (Jaffer) and Matt (Rawnsley).

And more Blue Sky from me.

Overall, hosts Meredith (Booth), Cameron (England) and Chris (Russell) were all on-topic and enthusistic with the industry participants at today's Round Table.

Did we find a solution to the growing gap between the have's and the have-nots?

Maybe not.

Did we contribute to combating Climate Change?

Well Rupert's building is very Green, and I did walk to the meeting.

But was I excited to have this topic, (one that I've been beeting my head against a brick wall over for 15 years now), finally reach the Business Section of The Adelaide Advertiser, and have an opportunity to participate in the discourse?

You bet.

Can't wait until it appears in the paper next week.

Oh, but now you already know what happened because of this blog. Doh!

What was that again about the impact that the Internet was going to have on business in SA?

Oh well....let's go to the video...

2.0 the go in Enterprise Knowledge Management-land

There were more cliche's and acronyms than a orthodontists convention at the KM (knowledge management) Australia Conference in Melbourne today.

It seems enterprises (ie - organisations, private and Government), far and wide are looking for ways to integrate these new user-generated tools into their communications.

The KM Australia Conference has been going for 5 years now, and is the largest of its type in the Southern Hemisphere (their speal).

Some good insights from 'the Vignette dude' (Carl Jones) today about the way forward with the big guys. Funny to hear though that 90% of their clients (Fortune 500's), don't start with the simple question of what business are we in?, and what do our clients want from us?.

Just as we try to say to our clients, let's get the strategy right first, then the tools (ie - 2.0 technologies), can be selected on their merit in meeting the organisations goals.

Can't wait till tomorrows talk from those Via Media guys on their 2.0 work for DEFEEST...;-)