OTOinsights

The Plusses Of GoogleClick

Dave Morgan of Tacoda just posted a rather decent optimism piece in MediaPost's OnlineSpin here, guy makes some pretty decent points, but essentially just points out the attention the deal brings to the online channel itself is pretty powerful, as alone the deal and resulting services could act as a catalyst for a larger share of the total marketing budget pie (sounds horribly unappetizing) being spent online.

The one major concern Dave misses in his piece is that to do everything GoogleClick is going to want to do -- and at first it's all going to sound pretty damn rosy when they start pushing their new features -- GoogleClick is going to just casually start asking to put tracking pixels on every client's landing and conversion pages, as they're already doing heavily with Google Analytics.

This step is going to have two very important consequences:

(1) The tagging will allow them to provide a wealth of new behavioral targeting information and optimization that is going to be hard for most companies to resist. "Triple the scope of my already-successful online marketing campaigns and only continue to gain efficiency? You had me at 'triple'."

(2) The information about customer behavior -- and, more importantly, the budget limits which GoogleClick's clients are willing to pay for each visit and/or action across the board -- is going to provide GooCli with an understanding of every product's highest acceptable market CPA in a way no third-party has ever had. The concern is that they do not continue to use this vast knowledge to simply offer better targeting and results, but instead begin sacrificing each client's individual profits to drive more overall demand for their services.

Should they start to use the acceptable maximum CPA data to inform every client of what every other client is paying down to the level of actual conversions and revenue, Google could very well destroy the competitive advantages any client has for simply advertising with better ideas and lower margins.

"Hey, ah, Lowe's? Yeah, it's Google calling, what's up. Hey, did you know that Home Depot is willing to pay a max of $98 for every John Deere hedge trimmer they sell? Yeah, maybe you might think about raising your bid to $100. Wouldn't want you to get lost in the shuffle. Go for it? Cool."

"Hey, ah Home Depot? Yeah, it's Google. Did you know Home Depot just told us they're willing to go up to $100? Yeah, maybe you should go to $102. Think it over."

Clearly Google is in it to grow the market and not destroy it. But until it's proven that this is a game everyone can win with perfect knowledge, at least a modicrum of distrust is probably not a bad thing.

One to One Interactive Acquires Quantemo

On Monday, April 16th, One to One Interactive formally completed its acquisition of the Quantemo Usability Lab.  The Quantemo lab, its brand and technology platform will be incorporated as the foundation for a new neuromarketing research offering that is currently under development at One to One's professional services division OTOi. 

The Quantemo acquisition is One to One's latest step in marrying science and marketing.  This past year One to One has engaged in a number of bio-measures studies (see: Bio-Measures Able to Predict with 77% Accuracy an Online Communities Rating of Viral Video Content) that have sought to analyze the physical responses test subjects experience when exposed to certain media stimuli.  This data has in turn been used to predict, with high levels of accuracy, consumer behaviors across a variety of media channels and platforms. 

"We're excited to evolve the Quantemo technology to measure engagement across a number of emerging digital platforms, including social networks, blogs, podcasts, widgets, online video, rich media advertising, and virtual worlds such as Second Life.  Furthermore, we intend to extend the offering to measuring traditional offline marketing channels, our aim is to harneess the accuracy afforded to us by neuro-research to optimize our clients' marketing programs so that they are as relevant and engaging as possible in this new consumer controlled media landscape." - Jeremi Karnell, President

To date, the field of neuromarketing research has been predominately defined by researchers who use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of test subjects as they look at various products and advertisements.  The information gleaned from neuromarketing research is intended to provide deeper insight into the human brain for purposes such as more effective advertising and brand loyalty campaigns.  A significant barrier to the evolution of this research method has been both the high costs involved in a typical fMRI study as well as the method itself which limits research studies to only take place at the university or medical research facilities that house the large and expensive fMRI hardware.  One to One, through its acquisition of Quantemo, seeks to help expand the field of neuromarketing research by incorporating newer and less costly methods that measure skin conductivity, respiratory rates, heart rates, and EEGs as both an augmentation to and proxy for fMRI studies.

“I am very pleased to see One to One Interactive  taking Quantemo ™ to its full potential , with a state-of-the-art facility  in Boston and increased resources for very scalable study options. The future of digital marketing relies heavily on understanding and improving the user experience, and Quantemo™ has a unique position in the field of online research as the first method to objectively assess user emotions and mental effort. One to One Interactive and Quantemo will provide enormous mutual benefits that will ultimately help clients in terms of availability, scale and methodology.”  Theodore Agranat, Quantemo Founder

OTOi's neuromarketing research facility will be located at its corporate headquarters in Charlestown, MA.  The facility will include state-of-the art eye tracking, neurological and biological feedback platforms  as well as video and click-stream capture and analysis capabilities.  The facility will be used both for client-based studies as well as independent research conducted by OTOi.  OTOi's neuromarketing offering will also boast a mobile lab capability that will allow for research to be conducted at any location.

Virginia Tech

On behalf of everyone at One to One, our thoughts, our prayers and our hearts are all with those affected by yesterday's tragic events at Virginia Tech.

Social Software Building Blocks

I recently came across a wonderful post regarding the building blocs of social software.  Gene Smith, from nForm, has brought to light work done from Matt Webb and Stewart Butterfield that defines seven element of social software.  These include:

• Identity - a way of uniquely identifying people in the system
• Presence - a way of knowing who is online, available or otherwise nearby
• Relationships - a way of describing how two users in the system are related (e.g. in Flickr, people can be contacts, friends of family)
• Conversations - a way of talking to other people through the system
• Groups - a way of forming communities of interest
• Reputation - a way of knowing the status of other people in the system (who's a good citizen? who can be trusted?)
• Sharing - a way of sharing things that are meaningful to participants (like photos or videos)

The above list is a nice filter when exploring how people use Web 2.0 software systems to address there personal and social needs.

Jeremi Karnell-President, One to One Interactive

OTOlabs Wins 13 "Best" Interactive Advertising Awards

OTOlabs' ThinkDesktop platform has been honored with 13 awards from the Internet Advertising Competition.

They are:

• Vail Resorts Snowmate : Best Leisure Interactive Application
• Hawaiian Airlines, Hawaii Anytime: Best Airline Interactive Application
• Cottonelle Puppy: Best Consumer Goods Interactive Application
• Fox Family Guy 4 ScreenMate: Best Entertainment Interactive Application
• Network World iDemand: Best Magazine InteractiveApplication
• Nick.com LaunchPad: Best Media Interactive Application
• Fox Ice Age - The Meltdown ScreenMate: Best Movie Interactive Application
• Blue Cross Desktop Pet: Best Non-Profit Interactive Application
• Scott Common Sense Community Calendar: Best Online Community Interactive Application
• Network World iDemand: Best Publishing Interactive Application
• Webmaster Radio Podcast Communicator: Best Radio Interactive Application
• Moosejaw Communicator: Best Retail Interactive Application
• Comcast Spectacor Philadelphia Flyers Communicator: Best Sports Interactive Application

OTOlabs Wins Marketing Sherpa Award for Nick.com LaunchPad

OTOlabs' ThinkDesktop branded desktop application (BDA) technology platform was awarded the Golden Mouse of the Marketing Sherpa Email Marketing Awards for Nick.com Launchpad  Desktop Application in the Best Non-Email Opt-in Messaging category.

Pictured here are from left to right: Jonathan Sriberg, OTOlabs Director of Account Services, Mitchel Ahern, OTOlabs Director of Product Management, and Anne Holland, Chief Marketing Sherpa.

You can read more about the winning entry here.

OTOi receives Runner-up Agency of the Year by BtoB Magazine

One to One Interactive's professional services company, OTOi, received Runner-up Agency of the Year by BtoB Magazine.  This positions OTOi as #2 in their ranking of the Top 10 Interactive Agencies in the US.  This marks the fifth year in a row that the firm has been ranked in the Top 10 by B2B.

The write up on the agency may be found here: Interactive Agencies—Runner-up: OTOi

Furthermore, we were featured in a side bar article titled "Interactive agencies offer help with increasingly complex online marketing".

I would like to personally thank our staff and our clients for their contribution that led to this prestigious recognition.

Jeremi Karnell-President, One to One Interactive