Digital’s introduction to retail, be it a slow one, will accelerate as the understanding of the width of web and mobile broadens from being all about destinations, to integration into every aspect of business:

Find the presentation below or at slideshare.net/helgetenno.

As always find the individual slides under CC-license here: flickr.com/everythingnewisdangerous

I’ve included the part of the script describing the three areas of retail I’ve concentrated on; product, in-store and business opportunities:

Product opportunities
The product is not just a “brand” living on a shelf or being consumed by a member of the public. It is a character, which within the framework of a strong identity changes its characteristics to fit different roles through the stages of its own lifecycle; from the initial idea, the spark, to its realization (design), its distribution, shelf life, shared product experience and recycling (sustainability). Digital amplifies the characteristics, and helps the identity adapt at each stage.

In-store opportunities
The retail outlet is the most important arena for public choice. It is intense in its range of decisions, and numbing in its range of (similar) products. Inside this arena there are limited opportunities within frameworks. Frameworks put in place by the non-digital, non-organic world of cardboard and floor space. Digital transcends the limitations of the shop infrastructure, serving communication through personal devices controlled by a digital brain in “the cloud”.

In the advertising mindset the retail communication belongs to the “call-to-action” category. But this limits itself both in its expense on resources (financial and labor), scarcity of real estate and limited time span. In the design mindset the goal is rather strength through identity, creating a long lasting top-of-mind preference through establishing an interesting story, sharing values, creating memberships and avoiding the retail rock concerts of advertising.

Business opportunities
There are new business opportunities to be explored and discovered through the extension of digital and organic platforms. From engaging the crowds to taking the store to the world – not limiting access to it by physical destination. In categories where products follow patterns and become remarkably similar, it is digital and organic platforms that not only invite customers to explore and discover new, unique experiences. But also develop more layered identities, establishing thicker product relationships, and unwrap new business opportunities.

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A special thanks to PSFK which as with a stroke of coincidence launched their brilliant PSFK Future of Retail Report just last week, adding a whole section to my presentation – I’ve been extensively referencing the source.

PSFK Future of Retail Report

I would also ad these brilliant people and publications as they all helped in filtering the cases and surfacing the best ones:

springwise.com
popsop.com
mashable.com
rubbishcorp.com
adverblog.com
Ingmar de Lange
mobilemarketer.com
digitalbuzzblog.com
Zeus Jones
storefrontbacktalk.com
cpbgroup.com
techcrunch.com
Seth Godin
Richard Murray (for giving us the best insight on retail)
and for his brilliant and extensive posts, *Supercollider at geoffnorthcott.com.

Mobile is at the forefront of representing a completely new way of thinking about marketing.

But in order to understand this we need to look beyond the SMS and the text voting, and start exploring the real potential of the platform.

Since the Mobile Abilities Map pdf, published two weeks ago, has received a great deal of interest. I thought it would be a good resource to readers if I collected and published my inspiration and ideas to each topic. Hopefully getting some inspirational juice flowing.

- I’ve added links to each resource on slides where this was possible.

I hope people appreciate the presentation, and continue sharing great links on their own blogs (and link back here) or in the comments section on this blog.

What are the challenges for FMCG brands in today’s post digital landscape? Especially, how does Digital Media facilitate good marketing opportunities in the Every Day Life?

The five ideas / suggestions presented are the following:

1. Marketing online has to impact how people feel about the brand. (it’s about ideas, not technology).
2. Build direct relations.
3. Be a conscious and active part of the every day life ecosystem – from at home, and out there, to in store.
4. It’s about them, not you – create contextual value.
5. Confusing social media with media.

…

It’s title and content is strongly influenced by the Brand Building in a Recession lecture by Richard Murray at D&AD earlier this year. A much recommended video.

Brand building in a recession: Richard Murray from D&AD on Vimeo.

Studying referring site traffic to some of our online campaigns from 2007 to 2009 a very interesting shift not only seems to be emerging, but is already well under way.

Back in 2007 almost every visitor was either sent via direct traffic, search or paid media. Today this picture has shifted dramatically. Today, earned media is becoming the main source of traffic to our sites. This presents some exhilarating consequences.

There are especially two interesting things about this:

- The first being the fact that it is not necessarily social media that is earned media. In 2008 most of the traffic to one of our biggest campaigns came from earned media sites with no social media components.

- The second is a point similar to one I tried to argue in the presentation Changing the Currency. That attention is becoming less important than value (or worth according to Jenkins). Because in the new marketing economy, where marketing moves from existing inside media channels to becoming an integrated part of our everyday lives. Our activities start relying more and more on people sharing our stuff with others, rather than noticing a display advert inside some form of media.

“Value transports much better in everyday life compared to attention. Nobody spreads stuff because they noticed it, They spread it because it’s meaningful and adoptable.”

The bottom line is this: If the stuff we are seeing with our campaigns is becoming the norm, not an inconsistency. If this isn’t just a social media thing, but a larger media thing. Then strategy and creativity in marketing should be more concerned with creating something of shareable worth, rather than stories that interrupt and generate attention. Because these stories wont spread, and if it doesn’t spread, then Jenkins might be completely right: it’s dead…

Graham Brown over at Mobile Youth just published a video sharing his ideas regarding Earned Media in a bigger context. A good format and a very recommended watch:

Storytelling is packaging, a vehicle designed around an idea in order to increase its effectiveness in communication.

According to Al Ries, advertising is storytelling:

“Without a story, no advertising, no matter how brilliant, is going to work.”

Is Al Ries still right, or does this mindset belong inside the limitations of the message based advertising landscape?

It raises two questions:

1. Is advertising to focused on stories? On the brand representing an idea cocooned in a narrative?

2. In a wide interpretation of the word “story” a lot of things could fit in, but does the limitations of the terminology limit us from exploring opportunities outside the mechanics and dynamics of “the story”? Which is vital in the every day life mindset.

In the case where there is no need for advertising to interrupt, engage or entertain. Is there a need for story? Does a utility serve the purpose of the story or the idea?

The message based media model is changing from THE way to advertise to A way to advertise, alternative opportunities are surfacing. Where the story produces some great qualities, these are there to convey a meaning inside a given format, as this format changes the qualities change as well.

As transmedia on the one hand is doing a great job in exploring stories in a new converged participatory culture, is there also emerging a new form of “story-less” advertising?

This last year has seen logarithmic changes in marketing, fueled by different concepts like Utilities, AR, The Collective Exchange of Ideas, Transmedia, Digital becoming ubiquitous, Mobility and more.

I have tried to be a part of some of these discussions online, and have as a result of other peoples shared and collective wisdom published a range of posts, presentations and tweets on the subject.

What I wanted to do before leaving on a short summer vacation was recombine all the best ideas, into ONE Post Digital Marketing 2009 presentation. Summarizing all the major thoughts finding its way to my “ideas”-folder this last year.

View presentation below or here.

Hopefully it will both be interesting and inspiring to some, and the format introduce what Erin McKean defines as Serendipity:

“Finding something you weren’t looking for because finding what you are looking for is so damn difficult.”
- link

Please enjoy, and have a nice summer (winter).

Best Regards
Helge

The first ten years of digital was (to a large extent) the same siloed ideas that we’d already been exploiting for decades on other content and messaging transportation infrastructures (media). It was a carbon copy.

It is only in the last 2-4 years something interesting and revolutionary has surfaced through the emergence of social media (the collective exchange of ideas) and digital utilities.

This creates a new currency for marketing online, not replacing traditional advertising / messaging but competing for the same budget and offering a completely different set of returns.

Since posting this presentation two days ago, I’ve added some ideas to it, relating to Time and Direct Relationships.

Apologies for re-posting, but this is the conclusion to my series on the new currency online, with special focus on opportunities for media companies.

- What is value in Everyday Life marketing
- A New Business Model, for content that Grows, Connects and Augments
- The Direct relationship Business

Find the Slideshow below, or here.
(If you have already seen the first version the second one might not cache, there should be a yellow ribbon in the upper left corner if you are watching the updated version).

Jeff Jarvis in this video, from the Nokia Ideas Project, states that since the Internet is a connection machine, anything creating artificial middle men, preventing companies from connecting directly with their participants, will become problematic.

All that is true for the old Attention Web, but the whole problem seems to be turned into an opportunity when we change to the Everyday Life mindset: In which digital media companies become partners with their clients in order to supply a direct relationship with the readers and participants.

As Geoff Northcott of *supercollider pointed out very clearly in his post “visualizing the decline of the destination web, the rise of the social web”, the destination web is on the decline. And if Jaap Favier of Forrester is correct, then the Media Companies that will survive are the ones that create and facilitate arenas for brands to connect with their customers on.

This would give, that in the new perspective of digital media, what Jarvis points out is not a problem, it’s an opportunity. In the Every Day Life mindset, digital media is in the “Creating Direct Relations” business, not in the “messaging” or “middle men” business.

Our new digital abilities has opened up a whole new kind of marketing. I’ve previously called this both content marketing, situation marketing and even activity based advertising. But have after a rummage through my mac dictionary ended up with the slightly inexplanatory term Context marketing.

Context marketing is two directions of marketing: Collaboration and Utilities, and the convergence of them – which is where all the really juicy stuff happens :o)

I want to try to explain this by adding this slideshow, I find it incredibly difficult to not go into this mumbo jumbo kind of merry go round, so I kept it as short and precise as I could.

To sum it up in one sentence:

“it’s about earning ownership of the experience where your products are used and brands are shaped.”

Hopefully it it presents some valuable ideas, and inspire some new ones. Please let me know.

Digital is by some perceived as “marketing on sale”, maybe due to it’s lack of tangibility, “newness” or failing ability to show it’s potential as the common way of perceiving new stuff is through the lens of old stuff.

But online marketing seems to finally be outgrowing the display/message based advertising frame- and mindset. Starting to see an increased focus on deliberate, value adding services, accessibility and social interaction. In this context digital will and should become the most important interface between brands and participants and ergo the willingness to increase investment should hopefully be inevitable.

Digital marketing and advertising, and by that I mean EVERYTHING digital, should be your most expensive endeavor, and the reason is it’s abilities.

This is a short “Only in Digital” abilities list:

In the traditional brand and communication mindset brands have been thought that they are unwanted and intrusive, but this is not true. Brands and products create immense value in peoples lives, with digital they have been given the opportunity to add to this value through meaningful and deliberate action.

This is an invitation to start believing in your brand communications again…