Bret Bernhoft » Bret Bernhoft

SocialMention’s Alert Tool

Bret Bernhoft — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:33:46 +0000

Google Alerts was the staple of the Marketing world for a couple of years when it came to finding out what was being said on the internet about certain keywords. However, I am moving slowly away from Google Alerts and becoming more reliant on the SocialMention’s Alert Tool. It wasn’t until this morning that I was convinced that there was a real product difference.

Here are the links that Google Alerts didn’t even send that SocialMention did in my daily report for the vanity search of, “Bret Bernhoft”.

Google Alerts, despite being better organized in the way information is presented in an Alert, only returns you with, at most, 15 results. On the other hand, SocialMention returns EVERYTHING it finds for a specific time period on a specific keyword. Ultimately, SocialMention scans numerous “Social Media” sources for real-time references of your search criteria. This leads to the effectiveness of the tool.

More and more often, news ,media and other files on the internet are being shared through Social Media, thus giving a greater number of people access to this information. Most of these Social Media Platforms, such as Twitter, are public in whole or in part and therefore can be easily searched. I am unaware of whether or not SocialMention is indexing the different relationships between content that is found, but the ability to receive a comprehensive report on activity from across the social web is awesome.

If you are curious about SocialMention here are a number of resources for you to take a look at to help you decide one way or another.

External Resources

group Y Industry Roundtable

Bret Bernhoft — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:32:13 +0000

On August 11th, there will be a group Y Industry Roundtable event at Nemo Headquarters at 1875 SE Belmont in Portland Oregon. It will begin at 6PM and run through 10PM.

The reason why I am promoting this event because, yes, I am attending the event, but most importantly, I am interested in having the larger marketing community of Portland be present to importance of demographics in marketing, especially in Portland with it’s incredibly diverse youth population.

Out of all of the speakers at the event I am most interested in hearing Chris Miller from group Y speak. I believe that the content is going to primarily focus around the issues of brand identity and the goals of continuing to integrate young men into the world of competitive branded sports. Essentially, this will be a conversation about whether or not brands can find a newer and more “authentic” way to cope with the continued degradation of the trust and interest youth have in brands.

Interesting stuff, I am sure, but I don’t believe in the power of brands; they are the marketing tools of the early 1980s. I am more interested in learning how we collectively rid ourselves of the power of brands, marketing campaigns and especially advertising. The goal shouldn’t be to encourage a young adult into believing in the religion of brands, but to have strength and faith in their own crusade. Putting money behind an activity as a sponsor, to me, degrades both the activity and the sponsoring brand.

Scion and Generation Y

Bret Bernhoft — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 17:27:07 +0000

Last night I attended an event put on by NWAV, Northwest AduioVisualists. While I was there I was treated to a performance by Middleman and visual art by AV Artists such as Friispray and Christian Bannister. I was entirely impressed by the variety of original media that was present at this event. From interactive screen work to the manipulation of video through music, awesome. This is a community that is passionate and inventive, therefore early adopters of both lifestyle and professional mediums.

As the night wore on I decided to step outside and take a breather when I noticed something that caught my eye, the venue that we were in, theSlate, had, hanging from their outside wall, a sign that read “theSlate Powered by Scion“. This immediately made my eyes begin to wander, wondering if I would find other representations of the Scion brand. What I found was intriguing.

I immediately noticed a Scion vehicle I had seen parked at Last Thursday earlier in the month of July. I also found, inside of the venue, imagery such as Scion logos and branded car accessories throughout it. I thought to myself, “Was this an example of complete brand integration into a lifestyle demographic?” It occurred to me that I was going to need to do a little research on the subject of the relationship between Scion and Generation Y.

As a result of the incredible plethora of information and sentiment analysis that I have found and will conduct myself, I am going to be releasing a series of articles on the subject of Scion and Generation Y. The goal is to determine whether or not the marketing campaign Toyota Motor Corporation (the owner of Scion) is conducting is actually effective in developing positive sentiment towards the Scion brand by the 18-35 demographic.

Enjoy!

Additional Resources

Web Analytics Platforms

Bret Bernhoft — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 20:56:33 +0000

I thought it was important to go over all of the various Web Analytics Platforms that I have used and researched as there are many, with plenty of diversity in utility. It is important to remember that am, at the time of authoring this article, working at Webtrends as the Marketing Intern, giving me (in all reality) an insider’s view of how one specific tool works. Lets do this.

Webtrends

Tools: I should start off by saying that I have used all of the tool Webtrends provides, working here has its real advantages. Being such, how do I describe Webtrends’ products? Well there are six primary products that are offered by Webtrends; Site Analytics, Visitor Data Mart, Optimize, Social Measurement, Ad Director, and Professional Services. With a diverse set of tools being provided from one Analytics company there is the potential for a broad acceptance of the Webtrends brand by many industry professionals.

Utility: Webtrends is the ideal match for enterprises and their online media and communications efforts. Scaling Webtrends’ tools to a social, core site and traditional advertising campaign isn’t a challenge, especially with one of the greatest differentiators they have; tech support.

Worth It?: Yes, they are worth it. All-in-all Webtrends has a great set of tools and amazing tech support.

Omniture

Tools: Omniture has seven primary tools; Online Business Optimization, Online Marketing Suite, Visitor Acquisition, Conversion, Online Analytics, Multi-Channel Analytics and Open Business Analytics Platform. The major difference between Omniture’s tools and most other major Analytics platforms is the fact that, similar to other Adobe products, they are all sold in a suite thus making them a bundle. It is within this packaging move that distinguishes the Omniture tool set, they are closely interrelated and work off of each other in a dynamic fashion.

Utility: The Omniture tool set is, as a result of being packaged together, appealing to a more specific section of the Analytics market. This does not diminish their effectiveness, only their ability to be utilized by as many people as would use Webtrends or Google. Another important point is the heavy reliance on creating products for the retail (online primarily) industry. Omniture’s tools are most effective for organizations that are looking to conduct e-commerce.

Worth It: Yes, especially after their being purchased and renamed by Adobe.

Google

Tools: Google provides a single Web Analytics tool (at least in the context of this conversation), Google Analytics. The Google Analytics platform is known for its flexibility and user friendliness. As a tool, Google Analytics is incredibly versatile and has the ability to dig deep into the details of a website’s visitors. Google Analytics, unlike the other major Analytics platforms, is free.

Utility: The utility of Google Analytics is actually quite simple, and that’s the point. Similar to the widespread adoption of Apple’s technology based largely on the User Experience, Google Analytics is made for the average user while being geared to being scalable for larger clients. Essentially, Google Analytics makes it incredibly easy for the average blogger to use the platform due to cost (free) and ready for a more in depth look at traffic for larger clients. One last point is that Google Analytics has an incredible ability to segment or parse information by certain criteria.

Worth It?: Yes, but remember, there is essentially zero tech support or a broader base of relevant Analytics tools.

ClickTale

Tools: ClickTale has three primary tools; Behavior Analytics, Conversion Analytics and Marketing Analytics. However, ClickTale’s most important an unique tool is their Behavior Analytics tool, which contains some of the most innovative Analytics I have seen to date. Essentially, ClickTale provides Heat Maps and Visitor Recordings that allow you to literally see where and what was clicked on and when and in what order, like a Screencast.

Utility: ClickTale’s Analytics Tools are not intended to replace any one single major Platform but to add to their core services. As a stand alone Analytics Platform, ClickTale certainly does provide a unique understanding of what is happening on your website, but when combined with another Platform their services become an indispensible accent.

Worth It: Yes, but only in conjunction with another platform.

Coremetrics

Tools: I am very intrigued by the misconceptions I had about Coremetrics, meaning that I was unaware of the diversity of tools that they own. There are a total of 14 Tools that are being sold. But, the tools fall into two different categories, “Resources for Advertising” and “Metrics to Justify Your Campaigns”. This gives me encouragement that Coremetrics is using their unique product line to their advantage through distinguishing themselves to brands.

However, Coremetrics seems to have a bit of an image problem in that their advertised Case Study is of a smaller website or client. This is only an issue if Coremetrics feels it is competing with the larger Platforms.

Utility: The purpose of the Coremetrics tool kit is to help brands effectively create and measure their advertising campaigns across the internet. With a number of partner technologies involved in delivering a broader range of adaptability of core products there is a likelihood that you are a client with a specific need. I will therefore hypothesize that Coremetrics knows exactly who their clients are.

Their products are marketed as part of a system and therefore are holistically more effective at delivering quality. Yet, Coremetrics has products that can be used independent of others. These would include their Web Analytics and their Facebook products.

Worth It: Yes and No – It is good for specific marketing campaigns but might be less effective at delivering quality metrics for larger brands.

Crazy Egg

Additional Resources:

Beyond Web Analytics Podcast Episode 25: Evaluating Web Analytics Vendors with Joe Stanhope

Web Analytics Association

ClickTale

Bret Bernhoft — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 06:04:49 +0000

Today on my way home from downtown Portland I decided to turn on my iPod and listen to the latest episode of Beyond Web Analytics. It just so happened that the guest was Shmuli Goldberg, Director of Marketing and Communications at ClickTale. Essentially, what was brought to my attention was a new Analytics Tool, out of Israel, called ClickTale.

The folks over at ClickTale have put something pretty intriguing together. Essentially, they have developed a tool that allows a website owner to literally watch, in recorded screencast format, the mouse moves, clicks and behavior on a website.

I was pretty impressed to say the least, so I decided to install their free (demo) product on this website to see what I could find. Within the first 5 minutes I had my answer; a capturing of digital behavior via mouse movements and keyboard strokes.

Now, one of the most important pieces of any Analytics Platform is the interface between the actual product and the website owner. In order to best display the online behavior of site visitors, ClickTale uses Heat Maps and Screencast recordings for each visitor. Here is an example of a visit to the homepage of this website as seen by a heat map of mouse movement.

I would agree with Shmuli when, during the Podcast interview, he mentioned that he doesn’t feel as if he is competing with traditional Web Analytics Platforms, but accentuating them. This is a solid service and they have a great track record. So take a look and try them out.

Psychographic Resources

Bret Bernhoft — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:58:32 +0000

As part of my efforts to better understand the world that lay between humanity and our technological creations I have been gathering a list of resources that give you access to a degree of Psychographic Data from across the internet. Remember, using these tools are reliant on your ability to decide what is and what isn’t appropriate best practice, there are many open hearts in the world. With that said, have fun and make sure to explore each tool. With enough practice using each, you will eventually begin to start piecing together a map of the internet; literally.

Websites

We Feel Fine

We Feel Fine is a web based application that, essentially, searches specific public social networks for emotive mentions. When it finds an specific emotion, it sets to finding context about the environment in which it exists. This can include the person’s gender, location and age. It can also include the weather and time which the emotion was expressed. But even more interestingly, if there is an image associated with the emotion, this too is cataloged.

Ultimately, We Feel Fine gives the curious searcher information about the emotive state of the internet, either past or present.

Delicious

The interesting thing about Delicious is that it is neither a new or an underused tool. However, when added to a mix of psychographic tools it becomes a powerful engine for understanding the preferences of hundreds of thousand of technology users. This is accomplished by the voluntary cataloging of interesting content on the internet by people who discover it. It is important to understand that it isn’t the number of bookmarks, alone, that makes something important, it is the kind of content that is being book marked.

TweetPsych

TweetPsych is a tool that creates a profile for a various Twitter account or list based on the keywords contained in their tweets. This information is then presented as a regressive line chart of behavioral patterns. Each different colored bar on the graph showcases the relative value that it’s represented subject. However, the down side to this tool is that there is no collective analysis of the data presented.

Despite the lack of embedded analysis there is plenty utility here.

TouchGraph

TouchGraph Google is an amazing demo product that allows the visitor to see, visualized right before them, the major and minor interconnections between a core search term and the web properties related to it in degrees of separation.

The real value of TouchGraph is the ability to see how a specific subject or term is seen by Google as a search engine. The utility that TouchGraph serves for Psychographic research is how internet user’s behavior might be influenced by the innate relationships between online bodies. That information can then be used try to predict specific paths of viewing content.

Ionz

This is a simple tool that allows you to see how your life relates to that of an unknown number of respondents. The value here is the ability to input a set of criteria and understand how a particular unscientific survey shows reality to be. Besides, they give you a swanky little image to show your friends.

Media

No related posts.

The People’s Republic of Portland

Bret Bernhoft — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:14:56 +0000

As many of you know, Dick Cheney referred to Portland as “Little Beirut”, a nickname that seems to have stuck around. But there is another moniker that seems to be kicking around conversations here locally; The People’s Republic of Portland.The PROP website self describes it’s purpose through work:

“The People’s Republic of Portland (PROP) is the brainchild of local artist Jennifer Forti. Jen wanted to create well-designed, responsibly sourced and stylish clothing with a conscience and a message: Community makes all the difference. Wearing any of Jen’s sleek and cozy designs is a way of affirming and promoting everything that makes Portland a haven for artists, thinkers, nurturers and all who want a better world.

Jen and the people of PROP know that social justice, sustainability, and equitable access to health care and nutrition begin at home; that artistic expression and community-building start here and now, among ourselves. PROP‘s goal for 2010 is to give 5% of all profits to Portland non-profits serving our friends and neighbors. When you wear PROP you are helping to make that happen—and every smile at the “Republic” motif can renew our understanding that we are a community: strong, thriving, beautiful. The seeds of what makes Portland wonderful can be sown around the world.

Free-spirited, expressive, kind and socially responsible: We are the People’s Republic of Portland.

And so are you.”

I am please to announce that I am, as of July 27th, 2010, I am going to be performing the duties of Analytics, Social Media planning and Distribution along the side of Jennifer Forti. I am excited to be a part of the team. From what I can tell, having only met with Jennifer once, I am going to be working closely with the efforts of PROP to bring a movement to Portland through a vision of ethics and message. Besides, I might get some cool swag for helping out. As I continue to work with PROP and the fruits of our labors appear, I will continue to update this post. Wish us luck!

DubFX

Bret Bernhoft — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:33:09 +0000

Originally, I had discovered the artist Reggie Watts via the website “CoilHouse“. It was in an article about his work with audio, vocals and loop technology that prompted me to dig a little deeper. After having witnessed several of Reggie’s videos on YouTub e I noticed that there was a common thread between all of them; Ben Dowden. It turns out that the man behind the camera of the Reggie Watts videos had also filmed a number of other performers, including DubFX. I took notice immediately of DubFX’s use of Audio Loop Technology (ALT), being similar to Reggie’s tech. However there was something very different about the kinds of sounds that were being produced.

DubFX was creating music unlike anything I had heard to date. Here is a sample of that unique sound.

What is truly intriguing about the work that DubFX is doing is what seems to be a story of awakening, something that inspired him to quit living only a portion of his potential. There is something primal about how he puts words together and conveys a message. Simply observe the comments on his YouTube videos and you will understand that there is a common understanding of this fact. DubFX is truly becoming a hero for some and a musical renaissance for many.

DubFX (Ben Stanford) chose, intentionally, to gather himself and his many observations of the world as begin a journey that will ultimately take him to places that only the Fates will be able to foresee.

No related posts.

Google TV

Bret Bernhoft — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 23:22:44 +0000

As I typically do each and every morning, I began browsing through Twitter for interesting news stories (this actually could be said to be my morning Newspaper and cup of coffee routine, how 2010 of me). As I was following a couple of leads I noticed that a couple of friends of mine had mad mention of Google TV and the new technology that is coming from Mountain View California.

After clicking on the Google TV Twitter account I decided to investigate further, so down the rabbit hole I fell. I first visited their website and was greeted with this YouTube video.

From the video one can easily discern that the combination of both the Internet and traditional Broadcast Television is geared towards making viewing content easier and more readily accessible. Google is certainly in a place to put both capital and pressure behind this effort, something that should have been done years ago. Despite being innovative and clearly desired by many who stream content, what is the real significance of Google TV?

From my perspective Google TV is a small step toward Multi-Media integration on a single platform. Meaning, putting different channels together such as YouTube, NetFlix, Cable and even Hulu is not exactly a fundamental change in the way that media is consumed, just an optimization. Google TV is going to make avoiding commercials incredibly easy, at least as things stand now. From my experience, simply hooking my HDTV to my computer is as effective as the proposition Google is making here.

What I am looking for is something that allows for Multi-Media integration through the creation of more flexible mediums and content. I am completely confident that Google can deliver the next generation of content and media. Wave and HTML5 is one step in that direction, but not a finishing place. To truly revolutionize the consumption of media, content producers and Internet providers must think outside of a little black box and more deeply into the actual experience of accessible content, deeply enriched media.

Brand Mascots Suck

Bret Bernhoft — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:41:51 +0000

Every Thursday and Friday I have the privledge of enjoying my lunch on the steps of Pioneer Square in downtown Portland Oregon. And with regular frequency, especially during the summer, there seems to always be something to watch . Whether this be street performers or petitioners, the life of Portland Streets is experienced as a unique kind of poetry. Today, however, there was something that I hadn’t ever seen before; Sand in the City. Yet, despite the amazing sand sculptures something more, well, intriguing caught my attention.

Subman!

At first I was shocked to see a walking sandwich, something I thought was left To Jared, but I stand corrected. As I continued to gaze on in amusement I began to observe more of the context surrounding why this personified deli Happy Meal was even present at this event. This walking delicatessen was trying to take advantage of the spirit of civics surrounding Sand in the City. This brings me to the question at hand, “What is the real value of a brand mascot?” But before we dive too deep into this discussion, lets establish a core metric that will help us clarify any ambiguities, what is a brand mascot?

For the purposes of this post a brand mascot will be anyone wearing a branded costume excluding Sports Teams. These costumes can be any intentional representation of a brand from a logo to an archetype. Most importantly, a brand mascot is a person in a suit. Now, let us dig a little deeper into why I personally think “Brand Mascots Suck”.

It could be easily said that, “Mascots provide an opportunity for our actual and potential customers to interact with our brand personified.” On the flip side it could also be mentioned that, “Brand Mascots appeal to children. Enough said.” It doesn’t really matter which strategy or approach you take to brand mascots, they are essentially clowns in Superman capes. This being said, the greatest difference between the Superheros and brand mascots is message and time period.

Brand mascots are attempting to provide two core messages to the public (primarily children). These would be as follows:

Our brand is real, really.
Come play with us!

During the “Fast Food Renaissance” of the 50′s, the brand mascot was truly invented, at least in the context that we know it today. Here is an example of that.

But there has developed a disconnect between the origin of brand mascots and the present purpose they serve. There is an important point to be made here, “It isn’t the fault of the costumed sandwiches but their puppet masters for this falling from glory.” Subman isn’t to blame for being a poor brand representation, it is the marketers that designed and dispatched him. This is the point. Brand mascots fail to deliver any meaningful message to the public because marketers, in general, have failed to educate themselves on the changes occurring in the outside world.

Here are a couple of lessons that I have learned about brand mascots, having been reinforced in the past month (thank you Old Spice Guy).

Brands don’t need clowns, they need Circus Masters. Instead of relying on a one act performer to sway an audience, put your faith in a conductor of sorts. Brands, if they are to continue using live spectacles, need to be able to summon and fluidly integrate the environment into their efforts. This can take the form of a staged event or the crowd itself.
Children are off limits, period. From the time I was a child to this very day, I have always loathed advertising geared towards any age demo under 14 years old, especially with parental consent. Brands must begin to give children the freedom from coercive messaging. Focus on decision makers directly and stay out of school.

There is little that can be done to salvage the typical brand mascot, that ship has sailed. Let us understand very clearly, marketers need to be more creative than dancing sandwiches.