CEO talk!

Today morning, all of us at Tribal DDB got this mail from Tribal DDB Worldwide's CEO Paul Gunning. A must read...

This week I’m sending you a slightly different version of my weekly letter. I won’t focus on office openings or creative awards…I will return to that next week.

This week I want us to ask ourselves questions. How much do we really know about our clients’ customers? And what are we doing to learn more? Technorati just issued their “State of the Blogosphere 2008” report and cited the existence of 133 million blogs. They also noted that 90% of them write at least once a month about a Brand, Book, Music or Product. That is over 100 million postings, many of them about our clients. Are we listening? More importantly, are we listening and bringing that knowledge into our messages and experiences?

Google released their earnings last week and again, we saw explosive growth in search. Consumers, for the most part, are screaming their interest when they type in search queries. They are often indicating serious intent to buy. Do we know the top search terms that drive our clients’ businesses? Should we use those terms as copy points in our advertising? What can that search behavior tell us about the consumer and their relationship with our brands? What does it tell us about our clients’ competitors?

Often clients hand us their target profiles. Sometimes it comes with deep rooted research and segmentation data, but have we matched that up with who visits their web sites? Is it the same person, or someone a little different? Have we developed Personas that reflect the face(s) of the site visitors? Have we examined site behavior to see which piece of what our consumers tell us is the most valuable content (by visits and time spent) and which is not important at all (exit pages)? Have we looked at site side search queries to see if we are missing something substantial? Is there a consumer site path analysis that would challenge the current wisdom of which products are supported the most and which are left to fend for themselves? Do we impart that knowledge to our clients? I am optimistic with the changes that Google Analytics has made to their tool set. It may not be perfect but their attention to the product indicates they too believe site side analysis can reveal many hidden insights.

Finally, do we know where most of the linked and unlinked traffic comes from? Is there a particular social network that is becoming a rising driver to our site? And do we know why it is that way? Hitwise, Compete and other intelligence gathering tools can show us these facts. And from them, we can garner more knowledge about the consumer, what they care about and what they are thinking about as they interact with our clients’ brands.

There are hundreds of tools and resources we use to be the experts on the digital behavior. Ask yourselves if you are using the right ones. But most importantly, ask yourselves if you are using them to better our product in service to our clients. I guess the shortest question is; Are we listening?

Have a safe week. More office and awards celebrations next week…and a few surprises in store!

PG

'Jo bola wohi Sikandar'

In India where about 2.4 million people are suffering from AIDS, the awareness about the preventive measures is dismally low.

This is a subject which makes even the dudest of the dude blush in public, parents hate to talk about it and teachers try to ignore this topic. Overall, talking about this issue is still an uphill task.

In the first ever, BBC World Services launched 'Condom Condom' ringtone to increase the awareness about AIDS. The idea was simple; to create an interesting, engaging and yet unoffending way of communication. The campaign 'Jo bola wohi Sikandar' was launched with the 'condom, condom' ringtone at the core. The website http://www.condomcondom.org/ , where the ringtone can be heard, has till now received more than 2.5 million hits and the ringtone has attracted 270 thousand downloads in just 2 months.

Last year Tribal DDB India had launched a campaign on World AIDS Day called as 'Protected Entry'. Before entering into the website, the visitor was asked to choose a condom to protect the cursor before entering into the website. The idea was simple, 'no protection, no entry'.

We already have 270 thousand 'Sikandar' ready to fight against AIDS. Come, join the battle.

Finally, KILB stops teasing!

K.I.L.B : Kill interest, loose (eye) balls
- My colleague

O My God.... somebody please help these innocent clients. Somebody explain me the logic behind this. Mr. client, if you have excess money, give it to me but please don’t waste it like this.

I am talking about the new Aegon Religare Life Insurance campaign titled K.I.L.B (it was meant to be a teaser but turned out to be big dud). Why Mr. Client? Why? How could you approve such a disasterous execution. Ideally, a teaser campaign increases the curiosity levels of the people and when the teaser ends, it gives a 'wow' feeling. Alas! it gave me 'What the hell' feeling.

'kam insurance lene ki bimaari' aka K.I.L.B- sucks. Another culprit in the entire story is our very own Mr.Irrfan khan. Mr Khan, please stop playing yourself again and again. We have seen enough of you in Vodafone ads. Remember what happened to Nana Patekar.

Mr. Client, next time when you try a teaser, please come to Tribal DDB India. I assure you double impact in half the budget ,and Mr. Advertiser, start looking for fresh talent.