The Great Compete Against Themselves, Others Compete Against Them

You Should Find Your Fiercest Competitor In The Mirror

By David Miranda

Tiger Woods is the Number One Golfer in the world. Toyota is the most profitable car maker in the world. Google is the most successful search engine in the world. Competitors try and try but Tiger, Toyota, and Google still excel.

The question is why?

The simple answer is that their fiercest competition is themselves, not "the other guy." While their competition is investing time trying to analyze and copy them, they are investing their time on making themselves better than they were yesterday. Interesting approach.

Tiger Woods, even after achieving great success, decided to change his golf coach and his swing. Both his competitors and golf pundits alike were befuddled. Why tamper with success? When asked to explain, Tiger said he needed to improve. Tiger Woods improve? But improve he did! His fiercest competitor is himself.

During a recent interview Ford's new CEO stated that Ford was examining how Toyota was able to make better cars, be profitable, and continue to gain market share. His time might be better spent making better cars. By the time Ford is as good as Toyota is today, Toyota will be better than they are tomorrow. Toyota's fiercest competitor is Toyota.

Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft are all trying to compete with Google and Google continues to gain market share despite their individual and collective efforts. Google competes with itself.

Winners compete against themselves.

The lesson is this - if you want to be great, relentlessly great, compete with yourself.

Be your own fiercest competition. Be a Tiger!

Recognition Marketing - The Rise And (Potential) Fall Of The Holy Google Empire

By David Miranda

Achilles has his heel. Superman has his Kryptonite. The werewolf has his silver bullet. Dracula has his stake through the heart. Google has privacy.

As the search 8000-lb. gorilla enters 2008, it seems indomitable. Search share has increased; it owns YouTube, Blogger, G-Mail, Froogle, AdSense, Feedburner, and it's purchase of DoubleClick just got approved by regulatory authorities. Google fortunes (and stock price) continues on an upward trajectory.

Google's "Achilles Heel" is privacy.

Here is the case. Google (and its wholly-owned subsidiaries) is not really in the search business. It is in the data collection and analysis business. They collect and analyze data from all interactions with many millions of users - all this data is collected without the prior permission of the user. Think about this for a moment. If you search on Google, have a G-Mail account, have a blog on Blogger, visit any site with AdSense, visit any site using DoubleClick, have an RSS feed through Feedburner, or frequent YouTube; the odds are great that Google has been collecting and analyzing your behavior.

Want a scary non-Google example? How about Yahoo!. Yahoo! provided information on a Chinese dissendent to the Chinese government. The dissident was arrested and now sits in prison. Jerry Yang, the founder of Yahoo, was called to testify before Congress and apologized. The Chinese dissident, however, remains in prison.

I use Google in this example because they are the biggest and most powerful, but not the only company on the privacy radar screen.

What happens to Google's fortunes if every person using a Google site or service is asked to opt-in and give their approval before their personal online behavior is shared with third parties for economic benefit to Google and their advertisers, etc.? What happens when privacy advocates take Google to task through litigation? When the government decides to intervene? When Google has to divulge to the public what they collect and how they use the information?

The bottom line is this. Without the prior expressed approval of each use, i.e. opt-in/opt-out, Google's current business model is compromised. It is the elephant in the room in Mountain View.

Stay tuned.

Recognition Marketing - Understanding Pandora's "Bots"

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Search "Bots"

By David Miranda

As we speak, algorithmic "reconnaisance" entities, affectionately known as search bots, are relentless scouring the Internet for information on behalf of their search engine masters - on any subject, anywhere, all the time. Once they find what there looking for, they immediately communicate what they have found to their creators for distribution to millions.

How they do this is shrouded in mystery for if anyone were to figure this out they may rule the lucrative world of organic (natural) search.

There is a good, bad, and ugly of search bots.

The good is easy to understand. Bots search and find good things about a person or company and distributes this favorable info to the connected world which, in turn, will be positive (leads, pr, etc)

The bad is less discussed, but also easily understood, i.e. the bots finding some unflattering information in the public domain from motivated third parties who seek to benefit from misinformation, i..e. competitors, disgruntled former employees, etc.

The ugly occurs when "bad" gets widely distributed, particularly through a credible source that gives it credibility and substance in the connected world. The "ugly" then becomes like a bad stain, i.e. difficult to remove.

The words to the wise, therefore, is this:

1. Be relentless vigilant of your brand on search engine results. Search results with negative references should be dealt with swiftly by contacting the source directly. Do not assume they will have no impact or just go away.


2. Do not try to resolve this issue on your site or blog. It will could aggravate the situation and, perhaps, have the opposite results.


3. Do not think there is a magic solution for removing unfavorable information. Search engine results do not have an "eraser".

In summary, proactively manage your net presence and remember Pandora's bots are watching.

Recognition Marketing - Good Search Engines Can Do Bad Things

Sponsored Links - Bait And Switch?

I love Google (and Yahoo!, Ask, MSN, Lycos, etc). Each provides a quick and friendly tool to find what I am looking for. Google even shows me that my search for whatever produced several hundred thousand results in .02 seconds. Simply amazing!

Ever notice (or click), however, on what these search engines call "sponsored links"? These are the ones that magically (and always) appear at the top or right hand column of search results. These are the ones "sponsored" or paid for by third parties. These third parties successful bid (and pay for) keywords and phrases that guarantee their links appear next to the free (organic) listings. By the way, the search engines make a considerable sum of money from these "sponsored links" known by their better name "paid search".

I, for one, am not against anyone making an honest buck and the search engines have surely done that in recent years.

But there is something amiss here that needs to be corrected (or disclaimered). In other media, mis-direction or misleading ads of this kind all called "bait and switch" , i.e. "I thought I was getting this, but I got this instead." Translation: "I've been bamboozled".

Let's say you did a search for say a specific brand (Delta Air Lines, AT&T Wireless, Citibank, etc.) and in the sponsored links you noted "Delta Air Lines" etc and clicked on it only to find it was not Delta Air Lines, but another firm's web site who had paid the search engine for the keyword phrase "Delta Air Lines" say a travel agency or another competitive airline. Sounds like bait and switch to me. Wouldn't you also wonder why a respected search engine would be a party to re-directing or misleading you?

I am sad to report that this is indeed the case with many sponsored searches. There is not even a clear disclaimer that informs the consumer that "the following links may not be sponsored by the mentioned brand."

I, for one, thinks its high time that search engines respect the integrity of brands on their respective sites. If the link implies it is sponsored by the brand I recognize and I am searching for, I should be linked to that brand and not some company that has hijacked it or a search engine who is aiding and abetting this behavior.

To all the good search engines, I say, stop this bad behavior. Put consumers and brands first.

The Future Of Search - Local And Niche

The Next Generation Of Search Will Be More Localized And Specialized

By David Miranda

As someone once said, "the more things change, the more they remain the same" and such is the case for the burgeoning search environment.

Media uber-fragmentation has given us countless television shows, cable channels, niche magazines, radio stations, web sites, and blogs on just about every subject and interest imaginable. General interest has given way to special interest. Today's most powerful programmer is the consumer each with their own distinct media consumption pattern including the devices they choose to consumer the media on. Getting the news is no longer confined to TV, radio, or print. Watching TV is no longer confined to the TV. Listening to music is no longer confined to terrestial radio or CD's.

With this fragmentation of media and their respective audiences, marketers have been challenged to find new ways and means to reach their targeted audiences. The most popular choice has been the internet and on the internet the most popular choice has been search.

Today, Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL represent over 90% of paid search revenue with Google being the 800 pound gorilla in the sector.

But things are changing in search and time will tell who will exploit this change.

The change is search becoming more locally and niche relevant for the consumer rather than the open-ended search model that dominates today's environment.

If one is searching for travel, for example, is the consumer more likely to go to Google or search Expedia, Travelocity, or Orbitz? A comparable search for "airline tickets" or "cruises" on Google and Expedia will tell the tale. Similarly, if one is searching for a Chicago DUI attorney, is the consumer more likely to go to Yahoo or search "chicago dui attorneys.com"?

Good marketing is relevant and all marketing is local. The future success of search will be premised on existing or new competitors to deliver both. Local and niche are the Achilles Heels of the big guys leaving daylight for aggressive competitors to exploit.

Ad Age Video Report - Web Audience Metrics Get More Complicated

Unique Visitors, Impressions, Page Views, Time On Site Are Just A Few Of The Ways With More To Come

By David Miranda

Ad Age digital editor, Abbey Klaassen provides a comprehensive overview on the complex and complicated world of measuring Web audiences and also what's on the horizon.

The stakes are high in the trying to determine the best metrics for both media buyers and sellers in the growing online advertising world. Unlike more mature media like TV, radio, and print, web metrics have many variables - unique visitors, impressions, page views.

Things get more complicated. Nielsen/NetRatings has recently announced another metric - total minutes. According to AdAge, for example, "the total minutes measurement upends the rankings among the largest web portals -- pushing AOL to No. 1 in a field where it is usually ranked third or lower by other major metric formats."

As some web sites, like AOL and YouTube, argue that the greater minutes to their site means more engagement, others like Google argue their aim is to reduce the amount of time users spend on their site.

How will this play out? Stay tuned.

Consumer Privacy - The Elephant In The Room

How A Consumer Backlash Could Change The Landscape

By David Miranda

Both the public and private sectors have an insatiable appetite for intelligence. Insightful intelligence provides the owner of the intelligence with a strategic (and tactical) competitive advantage, i.e. the better the intelligence, the lower the risks, the better the plan, and the better chance for positive outcomes.

Here lies the ongoing dilemma. At what point does collecting intelligence step over the line - the line of invading someone's privacy? At what point is the end not justified by the means?

We are witnessing this conflict today, both in the public and private sectors.

After 9/11, the government passed The Patriot Act that has expanded the power of government agencies to initiate wiretaps, peruse emails, and analyze internet behavior with the cooperation of telecommunications companies, search engines, and social networking sites. All in the name of national security. The debate over privacy and the government's right to know to protect the country continues.

In the private sector, companies collect intimate personal information on their customers for their own purposes as well as for renting and selling to third parties. Some companies like Equifax and Hyperion collect consumer information from many sources and sell this information to third parties like credit card and mortgage companies. There are numerous web sites that collect consumer information for sale to other consumers as well.

Most, if not all, web sites collect and aggregate information on visitors and can track their visits and navigation using what is known as "cookies" which are loaded onto the visitor's computer indefinitely unless removed or blocked by the user. Google, among others, collects information on the searches people conduct; the web sites they visit and targets paid advertising based on a consumer's imputed keywords. Google is not a search engine or a media company - it is an intelligence-gathering company and it is attracting the attention of regulatory groups.

Those in the marketing arena need to take heed. A consumer backlash could dramatically alter the business landscape. They are already beginning to "techno-barricade" themselves from unsolicited commercial messages. Over 150 million people, for example, have registered with the government's "Do Not Call List". They are rebuking spam, both on their computers and mobile devices. They are concerned about the ever-growing problem of ID theft. There have been countless cases in both the public and private sectors of lost computers and hacking into supposedly secure consumer databases containing sensitive data on millions of consumers.

All this has caused a ground swell of consumer concern over privacy protection. A consumer backlash means the potential for government intervention and the federal government is already dealing with the scope of The Patriot Act.

What is a responsble company to do in these circumstances?

The answer is be pre-emptive. Proactively communicate with both potential and existing customers that their privacy is your top priority - and mean it. Do not wait until there is a fiduciary breach and it makes the evening news or 60 Minutes.

The consumer privacy elephant is in the room and it's time to offer it a seat at the table.