Seven87.com

This is the REAL shock and awe.
As marketers are called upon for more accountability in their programs, the compensation packages for executives are flying into the stratosphere. In Forbes’ “Paying for Failure” article, these stories here are just shocking… I think these companies should get all the PR they deserve for these outrageous wastes of shareholder and company funds.

Forbes.com has a full section devoted to CEO Compensation, it’s a very interesting read.

Are you a shareholder or customer of any of these companies?
Sprint, Marriot, Black and Decker, Eli Lilly, Home Depot, Citigroup, Ford Motor, General Motors, Countrywide Financial, Toll Brothers, Washington Mutual, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Caremark/CVS, Chevron, Deere & Co., Alcoa and ExxonMobil.

Scientific American has a great article “Why things cost $19.95″, focused on pricing of products and more specifically, our brain’s negotiations mechanisms.

University of Florida marketing professors Chris Janiszewski and Dan Uy suspected that something fundamental might be going on, that some characteristic of the opening bid itself might influence the way the brain thinks about value and shapes bidding behavior. In particular, they wanted to see if the degree of precision of the opening bid might be important to how the brain acts at an auction. Or, to put it in more familiar terms: Are we really fooled when storekeepers price something at $19.95 instead of a round 20 bucks?

They present some interesting data from home sales, initial pricing points vs. actual negotiated sale prices… and found that rounded initial prices such as $500,000 flexed more to sell, while more specific prices such as $494,500, had sales closer to that number.

What I got out of the article is “the more specific the price is the less flexible it seems to a buyer.” By “specific” I mean not rounded, but precise… I think it looks more “computed” and calculated, vs. someone “ballparking” it and making up a price. To me, it says they’ve spent time reasoning through the price, and there may be less flexibility in it.

The other side of “$19.95″ though is the experienced and critical consumer… ask someone how much something costs, and they’ll never say $19.95, they’ll always round to $20. Maybe we’ve just seen that “trick” to make it seem like a lower price too often. 8-)

Do you consciously make an effort to have your pricing be “precise” versus rounded? Why or why not?

According to a new Forrester survey:

“In a recession, marketers typically cut interactive spending. But our survey of 333 interactive marketers revealed strong support for maintaining or increasing budgets in categories including social networking, email, blogging, and search optimization. Among 12 major categories only online displays ads looked soft. Professional services, financial services, and media marketers are most likely to plan increases in interactive marketing. In a recession like this, marketers should focus on the measurability of their online and social applications and think in terms of building long-term assets, not one-off campaigns to boost quarterly sales.”

Forrester’s Groundswell Blog shows a nice graphic of the results too.

I certainly have seen an increase in activity and interest around social media/online conversations, such as clients asking about blogging, site comments/reviews and either participating in online communities or even starting their own. I think the sometimes immediate results and very measurable nature of online campaigns give these a permanent place in marketer’s toolboxes.

I was a little surprised about online video and mobile marketing showing only 20-30% growth optimism. But I suppose the survey was at large to medium sized companies/agencies, and not all of their client’s business may have mobile or video content needs. I do think that many companies could give much more personal impressions if they used video more… for example, why not have the CEO introduce the company via video on the main “About” page of your site? Why not have the VP of HR tell you why you should come work for that company in a quick video? These are quick, contextual and very rich interactions that would benefit greatly from online video.

Email, the old standby is still working quite well and marketers are optimistic about in in the future. Although most of the emails and landing pages I’ve seen lately could certainly use some work, email is still producing results.

I was not super surprised about the only online marketing area not producing much growth (10ish%) is display ads. I know many websites depend on those types of ads, but between crap creative, poor targeting and obnoxious execution, as well as general “banner blindness” fewer customers are finding them interesting and relevant.

Are these results reflective of your plans for the next year?

I just realized this blog, Seven87.com has been ranked on the Ad Age Power 150 for Marketing Blogs! Of course the Power 150 isn’t limited to 150 for some reason, as I’m currently in the 500’s, but it’s nice to see that I’m even on the list! Thanks to Ad Age and Todd Andrlik.

See the full list here.

Of course, to me the list is a great way to find new blogs and people that are putting out some effort and great ideas.

Just read a pretty good interview with Cordell Ratzlaff, ex-Apple and ex-frogdesign and the new head of product design at Cisco.

Having just built a UX team at my former job, and now looking for new opportunities, I’ve seen first hand the specialization and fragmentation of roles in UX groups. I certainly understand specialization and a very focused approach to a career, but I agree with Cordell’s point about too narrow a focus by many people in the field. I have a heck of a time describing what some of these folks do… to some extent my own skills are a bit hard to define to someone not experienced in this field. That, I’ll have to work on. 8-)

One of my pet peeves is with the specialized labels that have evolved within our profession. We have user interface designers, usability engineers, user experience specialists, visual designers, interaction designers, etc. The distinction between these many roles is fuzzy and confusing to those both inside and outside the design profession. Personally, I blame the information architects for this — they think they need to classify everything.

Funny! Blame the IA’s, nice…. 8-)

He also talks about the competitive advantage many companies gain from focusing not just on technology (what’s technically possible) but design as well (what’s desirable, efficient and productive). As I’ve been in sales/biz dev conversations with customers over the last few years, this topic is coming up again and again… technology is cheap, the experience and context will be the way a product gets sold and successful.

More and more companies appreciate the strategic value of design and see design as a way to solve business problems. This is a great direction for designers, but it means we all have to get more business savvy. There are a few things driving this trend. First, technology is a commodity. The cost of technology and the time to bring it to market are both decreasing. Technology leads are fleeting. Google launches a new feature. A few weeks later, you’ll see it on Yahoo. When technology and time-to-market are no longer competitive advantages, design — and the experience it provides to customers — can be a strong differentiator.

All emphasis is mine.

He makes a few other good points… on how to drive UX awareness in a large company that has a technology background. It’s worth a read, enjoy!

My favorite business networking tool LinkedIn.com, anounced recently that they’ll have pages/profiles for companies launching this week. Here’s a blog post that demos the pages and components, with video.

Here are some sample companies that have already launched: Google, Oracle, LinkedIn, Yahoo, eBay, even the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

I think it’s a great evolution of the featureset that LinkedIn has, including some basic corporate info (like Hoover’s) as well as links to research, “previous” and “after” careers of employees, your connections at the company, recent promotions and hires.

It’s yet to be determined if the company has direct access to edit the page, or how frequently they could update it. I could see daily updates pushing the “status update” of the company high on individual’s “dashboard” pages and getting out of hand quickly. Overall, it can make a very positive impact on:

• PR for the company
• Recruiting efforts
• Moral/Recognition of the employees
• Natural Search/SEO

I’m sure there is a downside in making it even easier to poach employees from targeted companies, but that’s really a fair price don’t you think? 8-)

Will your company post/make available and keep your Company LinkedIn Profile up to date?

A little levity on Monday… a pal sent me this (thanks Jay) the SEO Rapper. He riffs on CSS, SEO and other “best practices”… he’s pretty good, if not exactly expressive. 8-)