Momentum

In its latest strategic move on behalf of long-time client Coldwell Banker, Kinesis has partnered the global real estate franchisor with Dash Navigation, Inc. making it the first real estate company to allow drivers to access real-time real estate listings and property details from their vehicle and instantly create a route to them. Consumers can search for homes with the Coldwell Banker “Home Search” button now available on Dash GPS units—the first Web-accessible portable navigation system.

“Identifying, investigating and implementing the most appropriate strategic innovations to help our clients reach their business and marketing goals is what we are passionate and relentless about, “ said Nick Dimitrakiou, Kinesis Partner, Emerging Media. “This latest execution brings our client Coldwell Banker firmly into the Web 2.0 world while providing real value to their Local Sales Offices, Agents and consumers.”

While driving the strategy, Kinesis also worked with Dash Navigation on the user experience of the Home Search capability and managed the project’s process.

With even online budgets suffering in this struggling economy, it’s no wonder that the interest in all things Web 2.0 is peaking. We’ve been getting a lot of requests from clients for a primer on the Web 2.0 and Social Media landscape or what we at Kinesis refer to as Emerging Media. So in good circle-K fashion, we put together just that.

This handy-dandy pocket guide to Social Media lays out the landscape, the guiding principles, and some rules of the road on Social Media and the opportunities that exist for marketers of all kinds. You can download a copy here. Really. You can have it. Free for nothing. See, that’s Social Media. Get it?

By the way, for total context, we highly recommend you take a look at our whole Creative Media approach in general here. It’s definitely enlightening, plus the pinwheel is pretty cool.

Trying to create virality from scratch is a difficult proposition at best. Expectations run very high and often the results don’t meet them. There are so many variables, like timing, content, and target audience, that are out of your control, it’s hard to project success. But we have to say regardless of the outcome of this campaign (we will have to wait and see) we just put together for Coldwell Banker, we are really proud of the work.

A little background: Coldwell Banker has just launched a new market positioning supported by a new TV campaign featuring the founders of the 100 year old company (well, their portraits anyway.) You can see the spots here to see what I mean. To support the TV campaign, Kinesis developed a highly interactive microsite aimed at allowing people to interact with Coldwell and Banker, get to know them and share them (and ideally the brand and its tools and agents) with others.

Users will get to meet Coldwell and Banker in their office, watch the new TV ads, and even challenge them to online ping pong or a staring contest. The blog highlights the curious adventures of the portraits as they travel across the US – so far they’ve taken the time to ride a trolley car in San Francisco, visit the Grand Canyon, attend a rodeo and ride a roller coaster.

Visitors enter the microsite via the reception area of a virtual Coldwell Banker office. From there, they can enter the “Mail Room” to send friends eCards featuring the portraits; the “Theater” to view the portraits’ TV spots; the “Break Room” to challenge the portraits to ping pong and staring contests; “Human Resources” to learn about career opportunities with Coldwell Banker; and the “Conference Room” to use the company’s innovative real estate tracking tools including: Home Tracker, Home Value Estimator, Map Search, Video Library and Personal Retriever.

The site went live late last week and has already had more than 4000 visits a day. It’s a really fun site. Major props must go to Kinesis’ own Trevor Aldinger, Amanda Thiem, Paul Sekerka and Brian Kempf for their hard work and creativity on this.

The Kinesis-designed ColdwellBankerWorks.com, the global Intranet site for Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corporation, has been named one of the World’s Top 10 Intranet sites for 2008 by the Nielsen Norman Group, a user-experience research firm that advises companies on how to succeed through human-centered design of products and services.

Kinesis developed the strategy and interface design for the site last year, working with long time partners Modus Associates and Bootstrap Software. The site aims to improve communication between Coldwell Banker Corporate and its network of more than 100,000 agents and brokers.

This is the second year in a row that Kinesis has had one of its sites make NNG’s annual list. Last year The Comcast Store was honored.

“Intranet Design Annual 2008: The Year’s Ten Best Intranets,” which presents detailed case studies of the 10 winners, is available to download for $198 from the Nielsen Norman Group website.

At Kinesis, we’re all about momentum, moving forward, perpetual motion. But at the end of the year, it’s worth a quick look back to examine what went right and what went not so right in the digital marketing world. And what a year it was.

While many Kinetics met personal milestones like weddings, engagements and babies, (congratulations Paul Sekerka, Kate Rumore, Diane Puma, Katie Babinski and Anthony Vespucci) as a group they lamented the fizzle of Second Life. While we all heralded the release of the iPhone itself, the iPhone campaign left us under whelmed in comparison to the Mac vs. PC ads.

It was the year of Intranets and Web 2.0, as social networking, content-rich, user-driven sites, ajax and flash became tantamount to digital marketing, while mobile marketing still never found its groove.

Windows Vista was perhaps the biggest let down in 2007, although not entirely unexpected, especially to Mac lovers, and re-designs of both Amazon.com and Yahoo.com reaffirmed the status of two of the Internet’s mainstays.

Email marketing continued its decline, while search got local and overall ad spending continued its meteoric rise. TV watched both DVRs and the Writer’s Guild strike claim more advertising casualties, even while all the networks fortified their Web presences.

On the home front, the Kinesis Knights softball team went 10 and 2 in its inaugural season, losing in the last round of the playoffs in a game of questionable integrity, and the annual paintball outing once again left no client or staffer MIA.

It was also the year of User Experience, as a reorganization of Kinesis’ IA practice, led by Brian Kempf, began paying dividends, winning two prestigious Nielsen/Norman Group awards, one for the Comcast Store and one for ColdwellBankerWorks.com.

The circle K saw its creative product jump a few notches with stand-out efforts by newly promoted Design Director Trevor Aldinger for Comcast and Coldwell Banker, Larry Latore for Coldwell Banker and Goodwill and Amanda Thieme on Gain Capital and Coldwell Banker Commercial, and the media team’s Frank Puma made Second Life a real estate reality for client Coldwell Banker as Mike Pierre took the reigns on Web 2.0.

The Program Management team added Katie Babinski and Amanda Sackawicz and also made remarkable strides this year, taking control of the work product and solidifying new relationships, including those with new clients Gain Capital, Equifax, Feedroom, Anbau Enterprises, and Great Freedom, three of which were led by Pam Holland.

On the technical front, it was a very big year. 2007 saw the addition of Derek Grier as a technical lead, the release of the new Comcast Store, the successful integration of Canada into the Coldwell Banker system, and widgets for Siemens, Wyndham and Coldwell Banker, just to name a few.

And with the addition of new clients Deloitte, Rodale and Round Table Brewing, the stage is set for 2008 for Kinesis to continue generating business momentum.

Yes. It was a very good year.

From the Interactive Advertising Bureau, December 5, 2007

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) announced that Internet advertising revenues exceeded $5.2 billion for the third quarter of 2007, representing yet another historic high for a quarter and a $1.1 billion increase, or 25.3 percent, over Q3 2006. The results, published in the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, are nearly 3 percent higher than Q2 2007, itself the last record-setting quarter. All three quarters in 2007 have set new highsQ1 at $4.9 billion, Q2 at $5.1 billion, and now Q3 at $5.2 billon. Revenues for the first nine months of 2007 totaled $15.2 billion, up nearly 26 percent over the $12.1 billion recorded during the first nine months of 2006.

“The continued robust growth of the industry indicates that marketers increasingly understand and appreciate the benefits of interactive advertising,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “Marketers large and small have come to accept digital media as the fulcrum of any marketing strategy.”

“Internet advertising revenues are on an annual run-rate exceeding $20 billion, further demonstrating the industry has truly come into its own,” said Peter Petrusky, director, Entertainment, Media & Communications Practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers. “The emergence of new platforms, including broadband video, rich Internet applications, mobile, and social media promise to deliver new benefits for consumers, and create exciting new venues for marketers to realize value in digital media.”

“The results of the survey continue to underscore the value that interactive advertising brings to the marketplace, as marketers and agencies build on established guidelines and best practices to control costs and maximize returns from their growing interactive budgets,” added David Silverman, partner, Assurance, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Source: PwC/IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report (www.iab.net)

Conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the “IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report” was started by the IAB in 1996, and represents data from all companies that report meaningful online advertising revenues. The results are considered the most accurate measurement of interactive advertising revenues because the data is compiled directly from information supplied by companies selling advertising on the Internet. The survey includes data concerning online advertising revenues from Web sites, commercial online services, free e-mail providers, and all other companies selling online advertising.

First and third quarter revenue reports are estimates, with the actual figures being released along with second and fourth quarter data, respectively. PwC does not audit the information and provides no opinion or other form of assurance with respect to the information.

The IAB sponsors the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, which is conducted independently by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The full report is issued twice yearly for full and half-year data, and top-line quarterly estimates are issued for the first and third quarters.

I have never met a man nor woman who can work at the speed of light. As much as i have tried I can’t even come close to breaking the sound barrier. I can only type somewhere in the range of thirty words a minute, forty if I don’t care about spelling and punctuation. So I have come to the realization that I will never work at the speed of the internet. In fact, no one can.

So maybe we shouldn’t think of approaching the internet as something we need to race through. The internet houses a wealth of information and we can either choose the abridged version or the encyclopedic version. Both versions fit our needs and both versions are readily accessible but there is a barrier with the internet that we do not often experience in the print world.

With abundance comes waste. In the online world that waste often comes in the form of irrelevant information for our business needs. If we could create a website that simply had a button labeled “find what i am thinking” we could be millionaires. But, as of this writing, that button does not exist.

So lesson one in navigating the internet is to slow down. We have quickly become scanners of information rather then readers. When we search for information we are often too quick to deem it irrelevant yet we often base this assumption on the first three to five items that are returned to us. We fail to keep in mind that this golden real estate has been either purchased or influenced by sites with large SEO budgets. Take time to read through more then just the top five hits and maybe even think about looking at page two or three of the results before you jump to another query.

When you first approach a web page don’t forget to slow down and take a few extra seconds to look at the whole thing. It is ok to scan but let’s shoot for some more intelligent scanning. Review the navigation, look at the imagery and by all means read some of the content. More and more sites are becoming user centric entities which means that the navigation has often been designed for the end user. This bodes well for those of you that take the time to look through the navigation to understand the content categorization on a site.

Be at peace. The internet can be your friend and the information you seek is out there. Just be patient.
ED. NOTE: Brian Kempf leads the User Experience practice at Kinesis by day and the internet revolution by night.

We’ve spoken before in this space about how imperative it is now for marketers to start taking part in the internet conversation. We’ve talked about how consumers are discussing your brand or at least your business (whether you know it or not), and that getting in on the discussion, and helping to direct it, can help bring you brand, product or service into the light and delivering straight into the hands of of your consumers.

Our client, Equifax , known to most as one of the three credit reporting agencies, has long been dogged by negative perceptions. Credit reporting agencies are thought to be the people who decide your fate when it comes to credit scoring. Not true. These companies just report the scores, they don’t decide that you can’t afford the car you want. Actually, they are the good guys because they can at least educate people on the credit scoring system and how it all works. Still, perception is reality, and Equifax often causes wrinkles in the brows of consumers when it comes to their credit scores. Kinesis has been working with them to try and change that impression.

As part of a larger Equifax strategy aimed at educating consumers on better understanding their credit, Kinesis helped develop the Equifax Learn Portal, a stand alone Web site dedicated to providing consumers everything they need to know about how to protect and maintain their interests when it comes to personal finances and credit. The site is an important foundation, able to be accessed from anywhere including paid advertising, search, offline ads and of course the main consumer site.

But it’s really just the foundation. Equifax could not sit back and wait for people to realize that they are helpers not hinderers when it comes to thier credit. So Kinesis, working closely with the Equifax team, delved into the internet information boards, places like Yahoo Answers and WikiAnswers.com, to better understand consumer issues with finance, monitor the conversations around the Brand, and listen to the types of questions that are being asked . But listening is not enough.

When appropriate the Brand participates and offers guidance, clarifications and points people to the most relevant sections of the Equifax learn portal. An important fact of this 2.0 campaign is that we never hide that we work for Equifax, in fact, we were very up front. But the campaign has been successful so far because the information is good and useful and is presented in the right context. We are establishing trust and becoming a valuable part of the conversation.

How are you becoming part of the dialogue your customers are having?

As the Internet continues to evolve, so have consumers’ behaviors and their approach to using the medium. Search Marketing specifically has experienced drastic changes in the past couple of years. Once novice, many consumers did not know how to find what they were looking for on the web, let alone which sites would best allow them to do so. The years of doing searches on engines such as Excite, Lycos, Alta Vista, and Netscape are long gone. Most have either been rolled up or put out of business.

The more interesting and somewhat unknown trends are the latest shifts that have taken place in the last couple years. The following are some top line statistics from a 2005 research study compiled by Dr. Deborah Fallows:

• 50% of searchers say they would have no problem no longer utilizing search engines and instead researching information traditionally; 32% say they can’t live without search engines; 17% said they could let them go tomorrow

• 38% of searchers are aware of the distinction between paid and unpaid results; 62% are not

Who could argue that a study done today would be drastically different a mere two years later. Today the number of users that say they could revert to researching information traditionally instead of by search engine is much less. Let’s face it, most of us today are dependent on search engines. Whether it’s trying to figure out the title of the new JJ Abrams movie set to come out in Jan 08 (Working Title: Cloverfield) or the best practices for treating a loved one with Alzheimer’s. When was the last time you went a day without doing a search, whether it be for knowledge or trivia?

The question is “What are consumers doing differently while searching?” The answer: Utilizing search engines to their fullest extent and getting the results they are looking for more quickly. In a study done by iProspect they were able to confirm the following:

• 62% of search engine users click on an entry on the first page of the search results, and 90% click on entries within the first 3 pages.

• In 2002, only 48% of users clicked on entries within the first page of search results.

Now let’s look into why. Granted some of the percent increase from the above statistic can be attributed to the evolution of search engines, but we put the primary focus for this on the user. Users have had years to become acclimated with the various search engines and now have become smarter with their searches.

The biggest finding as to what they are doing differently revolves around the specificity of their search query. In 2000 the average of number search words a user typed in was 1.6. Having the liberty to have worked on several search campaigns over the past few years, we can attest that regretfully some people still do this even today. In one of Google’s most recent search learning documents they quoted the 2007 number being 3.6 (more than double what it was 7 years ago). Two recent studies, one done by rankstat.com and the other by onestat.com came up with similar findings:

• According to a Jan ’07 study by Rankstat.com: 28% use 2 words, 27% use 3 words, 17% use 4 words, and only a mere 16% use 1 word

• OneStat.com did a study in Feb ‘07 confirming that from July 2004 to July 2006 the number of short searches is declining and the number of longer searches are growing

In a recent keynote speech given by John Smart, founder and president of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, he predicted that in the next year or two the average query will be closer to 5 words. He then went on to say that after 5 there would be a likely jump to 11 words. Initially this sounds a bit excessive, but his reasoning had us second guess ourselves almost immediately. The reason for the jump, as he explained was that 11 is the average number of words that people use to ask someone a question.

What he is basically saying is that in the future of search we will eventually interact with search engines just like we do humans (in terms of asking questions). Currently when we want to find information from a search engine, we tailor our question into the most relevant keywords we feel will give us the desired results. If we can get what we are looking for from typing in an average of 3.6 keywords, what’s to stop that from one day in the near future turning into an actual question? It’s not likely that the head programmers for the Big Three are completely thrilled with the state of search engines today and see no room for improvement. It’s safe to say they spend every day trying to figure out ways to improve the user experience with the engine(s) and to bring it to the level where it is identical to how we communicate with one another today.

Search marketing is in its evolution phase and will continue to grow by leaps and bounds over the next few years. This is a testament to the brains behind them as well as the increased savvy of the way users interact with the engines. Even today users can search for not only information, but also multimedia such as pictures and video. The days of people typing in the one word query “home” when what they are interested in is real estate in their area will soon become a thing of the past (although we can speak from experience that believe it or not it still happens today!). All we can do as marketers is make sure we stay on top of the latest trends in our respective space to assure we stay in tune with the audience and continue to provide value to our clients.

My name is Derek A. Grier and I’m a Technical Lead at Kinesis.

I started with Kinesis working on a fantastic project for Comcast as a consultant a little over a year ago. As I got to know the professional talent as well as the list of clients and projects, I decided that this is where I would like to stay. Being in the business for over 15 years in which I was a consultant for more than 8, I have worked with all types and sizes of different companies and I really like the folks here at Kinesis. Plus with their exciting leading edge projects I will never be bored. The thing I like best about Kinesis is the fact that everyone here is a “Trend Setter” not “Trend Follower”.

I enjoy learning about various technologies and how they could benefit me in my field. While my head is not stuck in a Technical Manual I take to the skies in my own airplane, to the sea in my boat, or just go for a ride on my two wheel thinking machine; all of which lets me escape my physical connection of the keyboard and many times solving that tough Application solution that is always in the back of my mind. I also enjoy giving back to the community in which I was raised and live. From being a volunteer fire fighter to being a mentor to those who would like to fly airplanes for a living.

When I grow up I want to be a successful businessman working from my yacht and/or private jet as I travel the world with my family and enjoying life.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Besides being a true technical problem solver, Derek is a calming influence at Kinesis. His perspective is always dead on and for a pilot, he’s incredibly grounded.