To click or not to click....

Some hot debate about the importance, or not, of the click has been had this week. We've been mulling over why when no other advertising medium expects consumers to leave what they are happily doing in that moment to interact with a brand, online continues to value the click as the key sign of success. When you watch a TV ad you can still catch the second half of Coronation Street without the media agency or client feeling that the ad spot has been wasted. How then, within what is hailed as the most measurable of media channels, can we make sure we are measuring the right things?

This question and that of a "universal trading currency" are not new. Despite some important steps in the right direction, it seems as an industry we are still some way from agreeing a currency that allows us to trade and evaluate performance across all media channels with consistent definition of audiences and insight into impact.

While this topic inevitably rumbles on, we need to continue to work hard with clients to develop our understanding of digital channels in context - whether that be by using engagement mapping reports through the adservers to better allocate conversions to contributing channels, further integrating analytics data with marketing or ensuring brand studies include digital as a channel rather than an add on.

Alternatively we can follow Pringles lead and focus on clicks for kicks!

Can Amazon learn to stop worrying and love the twitterbomb?

So, Amazon won't pay commission to affiliates who use links within Twitter to drive traffic. Is this fair? Is their policy right?

There are many different ways of looking at this problem. Let's take a look at Amazon's position. They are paying commission to affiliates who drive new customers through to their site. As part of this process, they ask affiliates to agree to their terms & conditions of use and these, at least from a legal perspective state that the traffic is related to "Your Site", referring to where the traffic comes from.

So from a legal standpoint, they would appear to be operating as per these terms but how long ago were these written? Were social media and the likes of Twitter such a big issue when they were last updated? When you consider recent stories about Dell generating $1M of revenue through Twitter alerts, you can certainly see that the medium has grown up but perhaps not everyone has been in tune with this change.

The problem with the wording is that any smart affiliate could simply start redirecting traffic from Twitter (or other community sites) through their own short URL tool, sitting on their site and as such would be sending this traffic to Amazon. From a legal standpoint this would appear to meet their requirements but it still leaves an open question. Is Amazon happy about that type of traffic?

Affiliate marketers are often the folks that are able to spot an opportunity and take advantage of it much quicker than most brands. See a gap, code it, get it live at 2am. If someone on Twitter likes talking about rock music and inserts links to Amazon for the albums they are tweeting about, is that so dissimilar to if they had a blog and these comments were posted there? They seem pretty close to me.

From a brands perspective, they need to ensure that consumers aren't being spammed and that they only pay affiliates for genuine activity rather than having a cookie pool covering everyone in the country. But this is where working with your affiliates is key. Understand what they are doing and you'll be a little less nervous when something new appears.

Lawyers, time to update your affiliate terms and conditions to help your affiliates know exactly what you are happy paying for and what you aren't. Be upfront about it and they'll be a happier bunch, working on your behalf and ultimately driving revenue.

Flogging a dead horse

The last few weeks have seen polar opposites in terms of luck for Phorm, the personalisation technology company. On one hand it appears as though both BT and TalkTalk have put their plans to implement their technology on hold (I say on hold as apparently the contracts are still in place). Yet on the other, they received yet another cash injection of £15M to help support their trials in other markets.

The digital industry has long viewed Phorm with distain following the supposed illegal trials in the UK and it is these events that have tarnished the brand and opened up the discussion to the wider population. When the likes of the BBC and Guardian are talking about it, you know you've got a problem and it is almost certainly having a negative impact on public opinion towards behavioural targeting in general. The interesting element about their plans in other markets, specifically the Korean trial is that they've learnt from their mistakes and consumers are given the opportunity to opt-in from the start. To quote the press release (PDF link), "KT customers opting into the trial will not only benefit from existing features such as enhanced user privacy and more relevant advertising, but will also be invited to experience an innovative new consumer proposition...".

Now you would have expected them to learn from their mistakes in the UK but this change also risks undermining their whole product. With the service being opt-in, is the opportunity for some free software (which is hardly scarce and not particularly exciting) and more relevant ads going to be enough to convince consumers to sign up? Clearly the big telco's have a very strong position and if they put their marketing weight behind the trial then signups might not be an issue but from an advertiser's perspective being opt-in reduces the size of the audience and is also likely to be skewed to a certain demographic. Great if you want to target the naïve first time web user but not so good if you want to target professional consumers, especially those using mobile for a large proportion of their web use.

So, can Phorm survive? In the UK it looks as though they will find it very difficult to change public perception and rightly so, their brand has been tarnished and they are unlikely to now spend the money needed to change this view.  Even with the recent cash injection they need to work on their costs - Brand Republic recently revealed that Phorm have a burn rate of $1.8 million dollars a month, not great when you have no revenue streams whatsoever. However there are still another 194 countries in the world in which to run the service and it is likely to be this fact that has prompted investors to continue to inject money in the company. Why else would you continue to invest in a business that has received so much negative coverage?

Silver Surfers spoiling all the fun on Facebook?

The recent Brand Republic article about the influx of silver surfers signing up to Facebook paired with an exodus of younger users suggests that another platform could be about to follow the likes of MySpace and Friends Reunited onto the list of social media fads.

The main problem Facebook has is that as all the cool young kids (read early adopters) that have been members for so long are starting to jump ship, with their parents' recent arrival potentially being a primary motivation.

When Facebook originally began, one of the main reasons for its success was its exclusive nature - you could only join as a member of a school or college network. At the start, there was no chance of the ‘wrong' people getting hold of information (especially incriminating photos!) as the owner of the profile knew only classmates were on the site. Things have gradually changed however - Facebook opened up to Google and unless the user tweaks their privacy settings their information is available for the whole world to see (and that includes your mum, dad and Auntie Doris - all of whom are rapidly signing up)!

The problem the site has is that for many youngsters it was a form of escapism, where they could post details of their wild weekends and chat up the boy from the year below at school without their parents knowing anything about it. Until now. Now, your mum might be poking your best mate. And that's something you never want to happen. With your parents on your friends list status updates have to expletive-free and photos are de-tagged as soon as they are tagged.

In short, Facebook's open nature has led to many feeling censured and as though they must water-down their opinions. And that is never a good thing - especially on the internet, where all it takes is someone with the ability to write code and have an idea on a unique slant for a social media platform. As a result, the young crowd will leave and find a new haven, where they can speak freely and without worry of the fun-police watching over their shoulder. A perfect example of the challenge that Facebook faces was demonstrated in a group I came across while researching parents on social networks, where one contributor said:

"My daughter is 20 and I *made* her make me a friend this past summer. It has resulted in many arguments over the past 6 months. I made her remove anything that I felt was inappropriate such as sexually suggestive bumper stickers, drinking pictures, inappropriate comments, obscene language."

Another issue for them now is the emergence of other platforms such as Twitter, which effectively offer a simplified version of Facebook, concentrating on the here and now rather than on looking at the photos of what faces people pulled last night in the pub. The only reason many younger people will be staying on Facebook at present is because they have invested a lot of time on collecting both contacts and photos - as Facebook focusing on tearing down its walls in a bid to be more like the barrier free darling that is Twitter it might just end up missing the point.

There has been a lot of talk about how users should be able to own their own information. If someone can find a way of transferring all of that information - the social graph and all those photos - from platform to platform I can't help but wonder if Facebook could soon be on its last chapter.

Spotify: The future of UK music?

Since its beta launch at the end of last year the music streaming service Spotify has quickly become a bit of a "fans" favourite, offering a wide catalogue of music to its users to listen to for free with relatively little interference from advertising. With an interface that ingeniously 'borrows' (robs blind) from iTunes', it begs the question: is Spotify the future of music in the UK?

There seems to be growing evidence to suggest this could be the case - take a walk through the LBi offices in London and you are unlikely to have to move far to find someone inflicting their 'Friday mix' Spotify playlist on their colleagues. As Spotify focus on rapidly sourcing additional record labels and content for their library and growing their revenue streams through a variety of non / low invasive techniques they look set to become a major player in music distribution in the UK moving forward.

Obviously the real money comes from users actually paying for a service, but based on a recent presentation they gave at the LBi office in London it is clear that Spotify are not foolish enough to make these users the entire foundation of their business model, instead ensuring they also develop a robust ad platform that takes the advantages and disadvantages of the medium into account.

Brands are being encouraged to go beyond thinking about pure display / audio creative combinations and to actually utilise the product - creating associated playlists and advertising that links into "Spotifyed" branded landing pages and back out again, encouraging a certain level of engagement from the user that should actually enrich their experience.  Best of all they have engineered their ad delivery system so that free users are a) not bombarded with ads and b) only served ads when they will be seen and heard by their users. They do this by restricting adverts to times when a user is active in the Spotify application. Planner Buyers - I hear you breath a sigh of relieve, your buy will not be served to a user that is working on their spreadsheets - your ads will be seen!

The flip side of this is the premium part of the model and the ways the business plans to drive take-up for this.  This is where things gets interesting - rather than just getting rid of the ads, premium subscribers will shortly get access to an iPod touch, iPhone and smart phone application that will allow them to not only stream music wirelessly on their mobile device when they have access to wifi but also store music locally in the app to access when they are somewhere without wifi, for example on the tube on the way home from work.

I love the sound of this and I believe a lot of people will certainly take Spotify up on this offer BUT I can't help feeling that UK users are getting a poor deal compared to our friends over the pool. Microsoft's Zune Marketplace has given what is essentially the same functionality but in addition to being able to store music locally it allows you to download a number of tracks each month to keep, even after you end your subscription - plus you can wirelessly share tracks to a friend's Zune player for a limited number of plays so you can sell them on the wonders of whatever new track you have just found!

I guess to summarise: well done to Spotify for giving UK users a great service - this is something the music industry needs to monitor closely if it is to save its quickly diminishing revenues.  Ultimately the proof is in the pudding however... Will these innovative commercial models add up to enough to keep the music industry in the black?